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the world to ensure model predictions are fulfilled, where these predictions rest upon (prior) beliefs about future states. In this section, we motivate the imperative to maximize log-evidence from the basic principles of self-organization. We go on to show that prior beliefs about future states have a relatively simple form; namely, we believe that our future states will minimize uncertainty about our current beliefs. If perception corresponds to hypothesis testing (Gregory, 1980); then sensory sampling might be correspond to experiments that generate sensory data. In the next three sections, we explore the idea that eye movements are optimal experiments, in which data are gathered to test hypotheses or beliefs about how those data are caused. This provides a plausible model of visual search that can be motivated from the basic tenets of self-organized behavior: namely, the imperative to minimize the entropy of hidden states of the world and their sensory consequences. Simulations of the resulting active inference scheme reproduce sequential eye movements that are reminiscent of empirically observed saccades and provide some counterintuitive insights into the way that sensory evidence is accumulated or assimilated into beliefs about the world. If variational free energy minimization is applied to both action and perception, action will fulfill predictions based upon conditional beliefs about the state of the world. However, the uncertainty associated with those conditional beliefs depends upon the way data are sampled: for example, where we direct our gaze or how we palpate a surface. The deployment of sensory epithelia is itself a hidden state that has to be inferred. However, these hidden states can be changed by action, which means there is a subset of hidden states over which we have control. These are the hidden control states of the previous section. Prior beliefs about these hidden control states dictate how we engage actively with the environment and lead to the notion of fictive or counterfactual representations; in other words, what we would infer about the world, if we sampled it in a particularly way. This leads naturally to the internal representation of prior beliefs about future sampling and the emergence of things like agency, intention, and salience. We will illustrate these points using visual search and the optimal control of saccadic eye movements (Grossberg et al., 1997; Itti and Baldi, 2009; Srihasam et al., 2009); noting that similar principles should apply to other sensory modalities. For example, they should apply to motor control when making inferences about objects causing somatosensory sensations (Gibson, 1979). Active inference—a continuous time formulation This section establishes the nature of Bayes-optimal inference in the context of controlled sensory searches. It starts with the basic premise that underlies free energy minimization; namely, the imperative to minimize the dispersion of sensory states and their hidden causes to ensure a homoeostasis of the external and internal milieu (Ashby, 1947). It rehearses briefly how action and perception follow from this imperative and highlights the important role of prior beliefs about the sampling of sensory states. At this point, we move away from the discrete formulations of MDPs and turned to continuous formulations, where probability distributions become densities and discrete time becomes continuous. This shift is deliberate and allows the discrete formulations of the previous sections to be compared and contrasted with the equivalent continuous time formulations that predominate in biologically realistic simulations. Notation and set up: Here we use X:Ω × … → ℝ for real valued random variables and x ∈ X for particular values. A probability density will be denoted by p(x) = Pr{X = x} using the usual conventions and its entropy H[p(x)] by H(X). From now on, the tilde notation x ˜ = ( x, x ′, x ″, … ) denotes variables in generalized coordinates of motion (Friston, 2008), where each prime denotes a temporal derivative (using Lagrange's notation). For simplicity, constant terms will be omitted from equalities. Definition: Active inference rests on the tuple (Ω, Ψ, S, A, R, q, p) that comprises the following: A sample space Ω or non-empty set from which random fluctuations or outcomes ω ∈ Ω are drawn
Hidden states Ψ:Ψ × A × Ω → ℝ—states of the world that cause sensory states and depend on action
Sensory states S:Ψ × A × Ω → ℝ—the agent's sensations that constitute a probabilistic mapping from action and hidden states
Action A:S × R → ℝ—an agent's action that depends on its sensory and internal states
Internal states R:R × S × Ω → ℝ—the states of the agent that cause action and depend on sensory states
Generative density p ( s ˜, ψ ˜ | m ) —a probability density function over sensory and hidden states under a generative model denoted by m
Conditional density q ( ψ ˜ ) : = q ( ψ ˜ | μ ˜ ) —an arbitrary probability density function over hidden states ψ ˜ ∈ Ψ that is parameterized by internal states μ ˜ ∈ R We assume that the imperative for any biological system is to minimize the dispersion of its sensory and hidden states, with respect to action (Ashby, 1947; Nicolis and Prigogine, 1977; Friston and Ao, 2012). We will refer to the sensory and hidden states collectively as external states S × Ψ. As noted above, the dispersion of external states corresponds to the (Shannon) entropy of their probability density that, under ergodic assumptions, equals (almost surely) the long-term time average of a Gibbs energy: H ( S, Ψ ) = E t [ G ( s ˜ ( t ), ψ ˜ ( t ) ) ] G = − ln p ( s ˜ ( t ), ψ ˜ ( t ) | m ) (16) Gibbs energy G ( s ˜, ψ ˜ ) is defined in terms of the generative density or model. Clearly, agents cannot minimize this energy directly because the hidden states are unknown. However, we can decompose the entropy into the entropy of the sensory states (to which the system has access) and the conditional entropy of hidden states (to which the system does not have access). This second term is also called the equivocation of the hidden states about the sensory states: H ( S, Ψ ) = H ( S ) + H ( Ψ | S ) = E t [ − ln p ( s ˜ ( t ) | m ) + H ( Ψ | S = s ˜ ( t ) ) ] (17) This decomposition means that the entropy of the external states can be minimized through action to minimize sensory surprise − ln p ( s ˜ ( t ) | m ), under the assumption that the consequences of action minimize the equivocation or average uncertainty about hidden states: a ( t ) = arg min a ∈ A { − ln p ( s ˜ ( t ) | m ) } u ˜ ( t ) = arg min u ˜ ∈ U { H ( Ψ | S = s ˜ ( t ) ) } (18) The consequences of action are expressed by changes in a subset of hidden states U ⊂ Ψ—the hidden control states or hidden controls. When Equation (18) is satisfied, the variation of entropy in Equation (16) with respect to action and its consequences are zero, which means the entropy has been minimized (at least locally). However, the hidden controls cannot be optimized explicitly because they are hidden from the agent. To resolve this problem, we first consider action and then return to optimizing hidden control states. Action and perception Action cannot minimize sensory surprise directly because this would involve an intractable marginalization over hidden states, so—as in the discrete formulation—surprise is replaced with an upper bound called variational free energy (Feynman, 1972). However, replacing surprise with free energy means that internal states also have to minimize free energy, because free energy is a function of internal states: a ( t ) = arg min a ∈ A { F ( s ˜ ( t ), μ ˜ ( t ) ) } μ ˜ ( t ) = arg min μ ˜ ∈ R { F ( s ˜ ( t ), μ ˜ ) } F = E q [ G ( s ˜, ψ ˜ ) ] − H [ q ( ψ ˜ | μ ˜ ) ] = − ln p ( s ˜ | m ) + D [ q ( ψ ˜ ) | | p ( ψ ˜ | s ˜, m ) ] ≥ − ln p ( s ˜ | m ) (19) This induces a dual minimization with respect to action and the internal states that parameterize the conditional density. These minimizations correspond to action and perception, respectively. In brief, the need for perception is induced by introducing free energy to finesse the evaluation of surprise; where free energy can be evaluated by an agent fairly easily, given a generative model. The last equality says that free energy is always greater than surprise because the second (Kullback–Leibler divergence) term is non-negative. As in the discrete formulation, when free energy is minimized with respect to the internal states, free energy approximates surprise and the conditional density approximates the posterior density over external states: D [ q ( ψ ˜ ) | | p ( ψ ˜ | s ˜, m ) ] ≈ 0 ⇒ { q ( ψ ˜ ) ≈ p ( ψ ˜ | s ˜, m ) H [ q ( ψ ˜ ) ] ≈ H ( Ψ | S = s ˜ ) (20) Minimizing free energy also means that the entropy of the conditional density approximates the equivocation of the hidden states. This allows us to revisit the optimization of hidden controls, provided we know how they affect the conditional density. The maximum entropy principle and the Laplace assumption If we admit an encoding of the conditional density up to second order moments, then the maximum entropy principle (Jaynes, 1957) implicit in the definition of free energy (Equation 19) requires q ( ψ ˜ | μ ˜ ) = N ( μ ˜, Σ ) to be Gaussian. This is because a Gaussian density has the maximum entropy of all forms that can be specified with two moments. Adopting a Gaussian form is known as the Laplace assumption and enables us to express the entropy of the conditional density in terms of its first moment or expectation. This follows because we can minimize free energy with respect to the conditional covariance as follows: F = G ( s ˜, μ ˜ ) + 1 2 t r ( Σ · ∂ μ ˜ μ ˜ G ) − 1 2 ln | Σ | ⇒ ∂ Σ F = 1 2 ∂ μ ˜ μ ˜ G − 1 2 Π ∂ Σ F = 0 ⇒ Π = ∂ μ ˜ μ ˜ G ⇒ H ( Ψ | S = s ˜ ) ≈ H [ q ( ψ ˜ ) ] = − 1 2 ln | ∂ μ ˜ μ ˜ G | (21) Here, the conditional precision Π ( s ˜, μ ˜ ) is the inverse of the conditional covariance Σ ( s ˜, μ ˜ ). In short, the entropy of the conditional density and free energy are functions of the conditional expectations and sensory states. Now that we have (an approximation to) the equivocation, we can return to its minimization through prior beliefs. Bayes-optimal control We can now optimize the hidden controls vicariously through prior expectations that are fulfilled by action. This can be expressed in terms of prior expectations about hidden controls. η ˜ u ( t ) = arg min η ˜ u ∈ U { H [ q ( ψ ˜ | μ ˜ x ( t + τ ), η ˜ u ) ] } (22) This equation means the agent expects hidden control states to minimize uncertainty about hidden states in the future—this is the entropy of the conditional density in the future, which we will call a counterfactual density. Interestingly, Equations (19) and (22) say that conditional expectations (about hidden states) maximize conditional uncertainty, while prior expectations (about hidden controls) minimize conditional uncertainty. This means the posterior and prior beliefs are in opposition, trying to maximize and minimize uncertainty about hidden states, respectively. The latter represent prior beliefs that hidden states are sampled to maximize conditional confidence, while the former minimizes conditional confidence to ensure the explanation for sensory data does not depend on particular hidden states—in accord with the maximum entropy principle (or Laplace's principle of indifference). In what follows, we will refer to the negative entropy of the counterfactual density as salience; noting that salience is a measure of confidence about hidden states that depends on how they are sampled. This means that the agent believes, a priori, that salient features will be sampled. Summary and related principles To recap, we started with the assumption that biological systems minimize the dispersion or entropy of states in their external milieu to ensure a sustainable and homoeostatic exchange with their environment (Ashby, 1947). Clearly, these states are hidden and therefore cannot be measured or changed directly. However, if agents know how their action changes sensations (for example, if they know contracting certain muscles will necessarily excite primary sensory afferents from stretch receptors), then they can minimize the dispersion of their sensory states by countering surprising deviations from expected values. However, reducing the dispersion of sensory states will only reduce the dispersion of hidden states, if the sensory states report the underlying hidden states faithfully. This faithful reporting requires agents to minimize their conditional uncertainty about hidden states, through prior beliefs about the way sensory organs are deployed. This imperative—to minimize conditional uncertainty—is remarkably consistent with a number of other constructs, such as Bayesian surprise (Itti and Baldi, 2009). It is fairly easy to show that maximizing salience is the same as maximizing Bayesian surprise (Friston et al., 2012a). This is important because it links salience in the context of active inference with salience in the theoretical (Humphreys et al., 2009) and empirical literature (Shen et al., 2011; Wardak et al., 2011). Here, we will focus on the principle of maximum mutual information. Priors about hidden controls express the belief that conditional uncertainty will be minimal. The long-term average of this conditional uncertainty is the conditional entropy of hidden states, which can be expressed as the entropy over hidden states minus the mutual information between hidden and sensory states: H ( Ψ | S ) = E t [ H ( Ψ | S = s ˜ ( t ) ) ] = H ( Ψ ) − I ( Ψ ; S ) (23) In other words, minimizing conditional uncertainty is equivalent to maximizing the mutual information between external states and their sensory consequences. This is one instance of the Infomax principle (Linsker, 1990). Previously, we have considered the relationship between free energy minimization and the principle of maximum mutual information, or minimum redundancy (Barlow, 1961, 1974; Optican and Richmond, 1987; Oja, 1989; Olshausen and Field, 1996; Bialek et al., 2001) in terms of the mapping between hidden and internal states (Friston, 2010). In this setting, one can show that “the infomax principle is a special case of the free-energy principle that obtains when we discount uncertainty and represent sensory data with point estimates of their causes.” Here, we consider the mapping between external and sensory states and find that prior beliefs about how sensory states are sampled further endorse the Infomax principle. In what follows, we consider the neurobiological implementation of these principles.
Neurobiological implementations of active inference In this section, we take the general principles above and consider how they might be implemented in a (simulated) brain. The equations in this section may appear a bit complicated; however, they are based on just four assumptions. The brain minimizes the free energy of sensory inputs defined by a generative model.
This model includes prior expectations about hidden controls that maximize salience.
The generative model used by the brain is hierarchical, non-linear, and dynamic.
Neuronal firing rates encode the expected state of the world, under this model. The first assumption is the free energy principle, which leads to active inference in the embodied context of action. The second assumption follows from the arguments of the previous section. The third assumption is motivated easily by noting that the world is both dynamic and non-linear and that hierarchical causal structure emerges inevitably from a separation of temporal scales (Ginzburg and Landau, 1950; Haken, 1983). Finally, the fourth assumption is the Laplace assumption that, in terms of neural codes, leads to the Laplace code that is arguably the simplest and most flexible of all neural codes (Friston, 2009). Given these assumptions, one can simulate a whole variety of neuronal processes by specifying the particular equations that constitute the brain's generative model. The resulting perception and action are specified completely by the above assumptions and can be implemented in a biologically plausible way as described below (see Table for a list of previous applications of this scheme). In brief, these simulations use differential equations that minimize the free energy of sensory input using a generalized gradient descent (Friston et al., 2010a). Table 1 Domain Process or paradigm Perception Perceptual categorization (bird songs) (Friston and Kiebel, 2009a,b) Novelty and omission-related responses (Friston and Kiebel, 2009a,b) Perceptual inference (speech) (Kiebel et al., 2009) Sensory learning Perceptual learning (mismatch negativity) (Friston and Kiebel, 2009a,b) Attention Attention and the Posner paradigm (Feldman and Friston, 2010) Attention and biased competition (Feldman and Friston, 2010) Motor control Retinal stabilization and oculomotor reflexes (Friston et al., 2010b) Saccadic eye movements and cued reaching (Friston et al., 2010b) Motor trajectories and place cells (Friston et al., 2011) Sensorimotor integration Bayes-optimal sensorimotor integration (Friston et al., 2010b) Behavior Heuristics and dynamical systems theory (Friston and Ao, 2012) Goal-directed behavior (Friston et al., 2009) Action observation Action observation and mirror neurons (Friston et al., 2011) Open in a separate window μ ˜ ˙ ( t ) = D μ ˜ ( t ) − ∂ μ ˜ F ( s ˜, μ ˜ ) a ˙ ( t ) = − ∂ a F ( s ˜, μ ˜ ) (24) These coupled differential equations describe perception and action, respectively, and just say that internal brain states and action change in the direction that reduces free energy. The first is known as generalized predictive coding and has the same form as Bayesian (e.g., Kalman–Bucy) filters used in time series analysis; see also Rao and Ballard (1999). The first term in Equation (24) is a prediction based upon a differential matrix operator 𝒟 that returns the generalized motion of the expectation, such that D μ ˜ = [ μ ′, μ ″, μ ‴, … ] T. The second term is usually expressed as a mixture of prediction errors that ensures the changes in conditional expectations are Bayes-optimal predictions about hidden states of the world. The second differential equation says that action also minimizes free energy. The differential equations above are coupled because sensory input depends upon action, which depends upon perception through the conditional expectations. This circular dependency leads to a sampling of sensory input that is both predicted and predictable, thereby minimizing free energy and surprise. To perform neuronal simulations under this scheme, it is only necessary to integrate or solve Equation (24) to simulate the neuronal dynamics that encode conditional expectations and ensuing action. Conditional expectations depend upon the brain's generative model of the world, which we assume has the following hierarchical form. s = g ( 1 ) ( x ( 1 ), v ( 1 ), u ( i ) ) + ω v ( 1 ) x ˙ ( 1 ) = f ( 1 ) ( x ( 1 ), v ( 1 ), u ( i ) ) + ω x ( 1 ) ⋮ v ( i − 1 ) = g ( i ) ( x ( i ), v ( i ), u ( i ) ) + ω v ( i ) x ˙ ( i ) = f ( i ) ( x ( i ), v ( i ), u ( i ) ) + ω x ( i ) ⋮ (25) This equation is just a way of writing down a model that specifies a probability density over the sensory and hidden states, where the hidden states Ψ = X × V × U have been divided into hidden dynamic, causal, and control states. Here, (g(i), f(i)) are non-linear functions of hidden states that generate sensory inputs at the first level. Hidden causes V ⊂ Ψ can be regarded as functions of hidden dynamic states; hereafter, hidden states X ⊂ Ψ. Random fluctuations (ω(i) x, ω(i) v ) on the motion of hidden states and causes are conditionally independent and enter each level of the hierarchy. It is these that make the model probabilistic: they play the role of sensory noise at the first level and induce uncertainty about states at higher levels. The inverse amplitudes of these random fluctuations are quantified by their precisions (Π(i) x, Π(i) v ). Hidden causes link hierarchical levels, whereas hidden states link dynamics over time. Hidden states and causes are abstract quantities (like the motion of an object in the field of view) that the brain uses to explain or predict sensations. In hierarchical models of this sort, the output of one level acts as an input to the next. This input can produce complicated (generalized) convolutions with deep (hierarchical) structure. Perception and predictive coding Given the form of the generative model (Equation 25) we can now write down the differential equations (Equation 24) describing neuronal dynamics in terms of (precision-weighted) prediction errors on the hidden causes and states. These errors represent the difference between conditional expectations and predicted values, under the generative model (using A · B: = AT B and omitting higher-order terms): μ ˜ ˙ x ( i ) = D μ ˜ x ( i ) + ∂ g ˜ ( i ) ∂ μ ˜ x ( i ) · ξ v ( i ) + ∂ f ˜ ( i ) ∂ μ ˜ x ( i ) · ξ x ( i ) − D T ξ x ( i ) μ ˜ ˙ v ( i ) = D μ ˜ v ( i ) + ∂ g ˜ ( i ) ∂ μ ˜ v ( i ) · ξ v ( i ) + ∂ f ˜ ( i ) ∂ μ ˜ v ( i ) T · ξ x ( i ) − ξ v ( i + 1 ) μ ˜ ˙ u ( i ) = D μ ˜ u ( i ) + ∂ g ˜ ( i ) ∂ μ ˜ u ( i ) · ξ v ( i ) + ∂ f ˜ ( i ) ∂ μ ˜ u ( i ) · ξ x ( i ) − ξ u ( i + 1 ) ξ x ( i ) = Π x ( i ) ( D μ ˜ x ( i ) − f ˜ ( i ) ( μ ˜ x ( i ), μ ˜ v ( i ), μ ˜ u ( i ) ) ) ξ v ( i ) = Π v ( i ) ( μ ˜ v ( i − 1 ) − g ˜ ( i ) ( μ ˜ x ( i ), μ ˜ v ( i ), μ ˜ u ( i ) ) ) ξ u ( i ) = Π u ( i ) ( μ ˜ u ( i − 1 ) − η ˜ u ( i ) ) (26) Equation (26) can be derived fairly easily by computing the free energy for the hierarchical model in Equation (25) and inserting its gradients into Equation (24). This produces a relatively simple update scheme, in which conditional expectations are driven by a mixture of prediction errors, where prediction errors are defined by the equations of the generative model. It is difficult to overstate the generality and importance of Equation (26): its solutions grandfather nearly every known statistical estimation scheme, under parametric assumptions about additive or multiplicative noise (Friston, 2008). These range from ordinary least squares to advanced variational deconvolution schemes. The resulting scheme is called generalized filtering or predictive coding (Friston et al., 2010a). In neural network terms, Equation (26) says that error-units receive predictions from the same level and the level above. Conversely, conditional expectations (encoded by the activity of state units) are driven by prediction errors from the same level and the level below. These constitute bottom–up and lateral messages that drive conditional expectations toward a better prediction to reduce the prediction error in the level below. This is the essence of recurrent message passing between hierarchical levels to optimize free energy or suppress prediction error: see Friston and Kiebel (2009a) for a more detailed discussion. In neurobiological implementations of this scheme, the sources of bottom–up prediction errors are thought to be superficial pyramidal cells that send forward connections to higher cortical areas. Conversely, predictions are conveyed from deep pyramidal cells, by backward connections, to target (polysynaptically) the superficial pyramidal cells encoding prediction error (Mumford, 1992; Friston and Kiebel, 2009a). Figure provides a schematic of the proposed message passing among hierarchically deployed cortical areas. Open in a separate window Action In active inference, conditional expectations elicit behavior by sending top–down predictions down the hierarchy that are unpacked into proprioceptive predictions at the level of the cranial nerve nuclei and spinal-cord. These engage classical reflex arcs to suppress proprioceptive prediction errors and produce the predicted motor trajectory. a ˙ = − ∂ ∂ a F = − ∂ s ˜ ∂ a · ξ v ( 1 ) (27) The reduction of action to classical reflexes follows because the only way that action can minimize free energy is to change sensory (proprioceptive) prediction errors by changing sensory signals; cf., the equilibrium point formulation of motor control (Feldman and Levin, 1995). In short, active inference can be regarded as equipping a generalized predictive coding scheme with classical reflex arcs: see Friston et al. (2009, 2010b) for details. The actual movements produced clearly depend upon top–down predictions that can have a rich and complex structure. Counterfactual processing To optimize prior expectations about hidden controls it is necessary to identify those that maximize the salience. We will focus on visual searches and assume that competing (counterfactual) prior expectations are represented explicitly in a saliency map. In other words, we assume that salience is encoded on a grid corresponding to discrete values of competing prior expectations associated with different hidden control states. The maximum of this map defines the prior expectation with the greatest salience. This prior expectation enters the predictive coding in Equation (25). The salience of the j-th counterfactual prior expectation is, from Equations (21) and (22), η ˜ u ( t ) = arg max η ˜ j S ( η ˜ j ) S ( η ˜ j ) = 1 2 ln | ∂ μ ˜ μ ˜ G ( μ ˜ x ( t + τ ), μ ˜ v ( t + τ ), η ˜ j ) | (28) Given that we will be simulating visual searches with saccadic eye movements, we will consider the prior expectations to be updated at discrete times to simulate successive saccades, where the hidden control states correspond to locations in the visual scene that attract visual fixation. Summary In summary, we have derived equations for the dynamics of perception and action using a free energy formulation of adaptive (Bayes-optimal) exchanges with the world and a generative model that is generic and biologically plausible. In what follows, we use Equations (26), (27), and (28) to simulate neuronal and behavioral responses. A technical treatment of the material above can be found in Friston et al. (2010a), which provides the details of the generalized Bayesian filtering scheme used to produce the simulations in the next section. The only addition to previous illustrations of this scheme is Equation (28), which maps conditional expectations about hidden states to prior expectations about hidden controls: it is this mapping that underwrites the sampling of salient features and appeals to the existence of hidden control states that action can change. Put simply, this formulation says that action fulfills predictions and we predict that the consequences of action (hidden control states) minimize our uncertainty about predictions.
Modeling saccadic eye movements This section illustrates the theory of the previous section, using simulations of sequential eye movements. Saccadic eye movements are a useful vehicle to illustrate active inference because they speak directly to visual search strategies and a wealth of psychophysical, neurobiological, and theoretical study (e.g., Grossberg et al., 1997; Ferreira et al., 2008; Srihasam et al., 2009; Bisley and Goldberg, 2010; Shires et al., 2010; Tatler et al., 2011; Wurtz et al., 2011). We will focus on a fairly simple paradigm—the categorization of faces—and therefore sidestep many of the deeper challenges of understanding visual searches. The generative process That first thing that we need to do is to define the processes generating sensory signals as a function of (hidden) states and action: s p = x p + ω v, p s q = g ( I, x p ) + ω v, q g i = I ( d i, 1 + x p, 1, d i, 2 + x p, 2 ) · h i x. p = a − 1 16 x p + ω x, p (29) Note that these hidden states are true states that actually produce sensory signals. These have been written in boldface to distinguish them from the hidden states assumed by the generative model (see below). In these simulations, the world is actually very simple: sensory signals are generated in two modalities—proprioception and vision. Proprioception, s p ∈ ℝ2 reports the center of gaze or foveation as a displacement from the origin of some extrinsic frame of reference. Inputs in the visual modality comprise a list s q ∈ ℝ256 of values over an array of sensory channels sampling a two-dimensional image or visual scene I : ℝ2 → ℝ. This sampling uses a grid of 16 × 16 channels that samples a small part the image—representing a local high-resolution (foveal) sampling that constitutes an attentional focus. To make this sampling more biologically realistic, each channel was equipped with a center-surround receptive field that samples a local weighted average of the image. This provides an on-off center-surround sampling. Furthermore, the signals are modulated by a two-dimensional Hamming function—to model the loss of precise visual information from the periphery of the visual field. The only hidden states in this generative process x p ∈ ℝ2 are the center of oculomotor fixation, whose motion is driven by action and decays with a suitably long time constant of 16 time bins (were a time bin corresponds to 12 ms). In practice, the visual scene corresponds to a large grayscale image, where the i-th visual channel is sampled at location d i + x p ∈ ℝ2. Here, d i ∈ ℝ2 specifies the displacement of the i-th channel from the center of the sampling grid. The proprioceptive and visual signals were effectively noiseless, where there random fluctuations had a log-precision of 16. The motion of the fixation point was subject to low amplitude fluctuations with a log-precision of eight. This completes our description of the process generating proprioceptive and visual signals for any given action. We now turn to the model of this process that generates predictions and action. The generative model The model of sensory signals used to specify variational free energy and consequent action (visual sampling) is slightly more complicated than the actual process generating data: s p = x p + ω v, p s q = ∑ i exp ( x q, i ) g ( I i, x p ) + ω v, q x ˙ p = 1 4 ( u − x p ) + ω x, p x ˙ q = 1 − ∑ i exp ( x q, i ) − 1 1024 x q + ω x, p (30) As above, proprioceptive signals are just a noisy mapping from hidden proprioceptive states encoding the direction of gaze. The visual input is modeled as a mixture of images sampled at a location specified by the proprioceptive hidden state. This hidden state decays with a time constant of four time bins (48 ms) toward a hidden control state. In other words, the hidden control determines the location that attracts gaze. The visual input depends on a number of hypotheses or internal images I i : ℝ2 → ℝ : i ∈ {1, … N} that constitute the agent's prior beliefs about what could cause its visual input. In this paper, we use N = 3 hypotheses. The input encountered at any particular time is a weighted mixture of these internal images, where the weights correspond to hidden perceptual states. The dynamics of these perceptual states (last equality above) implement a form of dynamic softmax—in the sense that the solution of their equations of motion ensures the weights sum (approximately) to one: x ˙ q = 0 ⇒ ∑ i exp ( x q, i ) ≈ 1 (31) This means we can interpret exp(x q, i ) as the (softmax) probability that the i-th internal image or hypothesis is the cause of visual input. The decay term (with a time constant of 512 time bins) just ensures that perceptual states decay slowly to the same value, in the absence of perceptual fluctuations. In summary, given hidden proprioceptive and perceptual states the agent can predict its proprioceptive and visual input. The generative model is specified by Equation (17) and the precision of the random fluctuations that determine the agent's prior certainty about sensory inputs and the motion of hidden states. In the examples below, we used a log-precision of eight for proprioceptive sensations and the motion of hidden states. We let the agent believe its visual input was fairly noisy, with a log-precision of four. In practice, this means it is more likely to change its (less precise) posterior beliefs about the causes of visual input to reduce prediction error, as opposing to adjusting its (precise) posterior beliefs about where it is looking. Priors and saliency To simulate saccadic eye movements, we integrated the active inference scheme for 16 time bins (196 ms) and then computed a map of salience to reset the prior expectations about the hidden control states that attract the center of gaze. Salience was computed for 1024 = 32 × 32 locations distributed uniformly over the visual image or scene. The prior expectation of the hidden control state was the location that maximized salience, according to Equation (28). The ensuing salience over the 32 × 32 locations constitutes a salience map that drives the next saccade. Notice that salience is a function of, and only of, fictive beliefs about the state of the world and essentially tells the agent where to look next. Figure provides a simple illustration of salience based upon the posterior beliefs or hypothesis that local (foveal) visual inputs are caused by an image of Nefertiti. The left panels summaries the classic results of the Yarbus (1967); in terms of a stimulus and the eye movements it elicits. The right panels depict visual input after sampling the image on the right with center-surround receptive fields and the associated saliency map based on a local sampling of 16 × 16 pixels, using Equation (21). Note how the receptive fields suppress absolute levels of luminance contrast and highlight edges. It is these edges that inform posterior beliefs about the content of the visual scene and where it is being sampled. This information reduces conditional uncertainty and is therefore salient. The salient features of the image include the ear, eye, and mouth. The location of these features and a number of other salient locations appear to be consistent with the locations that attract saccadic eye movements (as shown on the right). Crucially, the map of salience extends well beyond the field of view (circle on the picture). This reflects the fact that salience is not an attribute of what is seen, but what might be seen under a particular hypothesis about the causes of sensations. Open in a separate window To make the simulations a bit more realistic, we added a further prior implementing inhibition of return (Itti and Koch, 2001; Wang and Klein, 2010). This involved suppressing the salience of locations that have been recently foveated, using the following scheme: S k = S k − ( S k × R k − 1 ) R k = ρ ( S k ) + 1 2 R k − 1 (32) Here, S k = S ( η ˜ j ) − min ( S ( η ˜ j ) ) is the differential salience for the k-th saccade and R k is an inhibition of return map that remembers recently foveated locations. This map reduces the salience of previous locations if they were visited recently. The function ρ(S k ) ∈ [0, 1] is a Gaussian function (with a standard deviation of 1/16 of the image size) of the distance from the location of maximum salience that attracts the k-th saccade. The addition of inhibition of return ensures that a new location is selected by each saccade and can be motivated ethologically by prior beliefs that the visual scene will change and that previous locations should be |
twice) West Asia and Saharan Africa 3 Algeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE West Africa 2 Nigeria (twice) Central and Southern Africa 3 Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa (twice) East Africa 4 Mauritius (thrice), Tanzania, Zambia Eastern Europe 8 Bulgaria, Poland, Yugoslavia (twice), USSR/Russia (4 times) Western Europe and North America 17 Belgium, Denmark, France (5 times), Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom (5 times), USA Latin America and Caribbean 2 Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago South America 4 Argentina, Brazil (twice), Peru Oceania 1 Australia
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References [ edit ]Trump University and Electoral College Announce Merger
The chancellor of Trump University today announced that it had successfully completed negotiations to acquire the Electoral College. "No other University has an Electoral College. It's much better than a college of, say, physical sciences," he said.
"Trump University is intent on improving its offerings in any way that can enrich Donald Trump and his family," Chancellor Don Novello told reporters. "So that they can then better the lives of our students," he quickly added.
Spokespeople for the Electoral College said that the merger with Trump University would help the College in its mission to give more sparsely populated states undue influence in American elections. "It's very important that we allow swing states to determine the outcome of elections as opposed to more populous states," Dean Reince Priebus said. "We want to do everything we can to contravene the will of the majority of Americans."HP has been suffering lately since the decline of computers, both laptop and desktop, obviously affects one of the oldest computer manufacturers, but they have made efforts in the tablet realm. They have been known for their Slate family of tablets, offering a basic design and moderate power for the people that don't need the absolute best or want to pay for it, for that matter. But the latest developments and leaks from HP were graciously shared by MobileGooks.de, a German tech site known for accurate leaks of various types as well as great updates about those leaks. Today, they showed off something from HP that is quite surprising: three tablets instead of the expected two.
HP previously let us know that there would be two new additions to the Slate family, an 8 Plus and a 10 Plus, with some interesting internals and specifications. Our previous coverage of these devices, as well as outside sources, showed that these two 'new' tablets from HP are likely just re-branded with re-skinned Android Huawei tablets, but sold to similar markets (parts of Asia and France) but we knew nothing more than their specifications inside and some possible launch locales. Today, we may have a price for these tablets, as well as yet another tablet bearing the HP branding the HP 10 Plus (not Slate, interestingly).
The Slate 8 Plus is known to have an 8-inch IPS LCD panel up front, but with a comparatively low resolution of 1280 by 800, that 1.6 Ghz quad-core HiSilicon processor that hinted at the tablet just being renamed and rebranded, 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, and a Micro SD card slot. Let loose today though is the connectivity of this tablet. It will reportedly have the standard Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connection, as well as a 3G connection inside. Finally a price also came with all of this, and it sits around 300 euros, but it is currently unknown if that is a region-specific price. That will likely be clarified as launch may be happen by the end of July or first week or two of August.
Next we have the Slate 10 Plus, with a similar rundown of specifications and even a possible battery capacity. The Slate 10 Plus has the same resolution as the Slat 8 Plus, at 1280 by 800 pixels (which seems rather bad for a tablet this size, especially for this year, the year of the pixel) within an IPS LCD panel at 10.1 inches. The processor is likely a HiSilicon again, running at 1.5 Ghz with a single GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage, again, with an SD card slot. What's disappointing about this tablet is the price, at 320 euros reportedly, you get all this from a tablet that might have sold well in early 2013 or late 2012, but the battery is the big interest here. It's a beastly (and this is going off the leak, so expect changes or possible inaccuracies) a 6,280 mAh battery, which is reportedly good for six hours of use (which seems rather low, but who knows with these tablets nowadays). This one however, will reportedly have LTE capabilities so that justifies the price slightly.
Lastly, we have the surprise tablet from HP, the HP 10 Plus with no 'Slate' anywhere to be found. The 10 Plus is a device with better specs, having a 1920 by 1200 pixel IPS, but having reportedly only a 1 Ghz quad-core processor and, for some reason 2 GB of RAM. The device will also sport the same 16 GB with expandable storage as the two other tablets, but this one reportedly has an anti-glare screen, for a less reflective view, not that it will have a matte-finished screen. The device will house a nice-sized 7700 mAh battery, good for six hours of use. What will this interesting tablet cost you? Well, this one will put you back about 240 euros. Availability is reportedly due out in a few weeks' time, so keep your eyes peeled for developments on this one. Would you consider any of these three tablets, given their possible spec sheets?
The Slate 8 Plus in a few different poses:
The Slate 10 Plus posing up:
And finally the HP 10 Plus showing its stuff:Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann WarrenSanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' House to push back at Trump on border GOP Sen. Tillis to vote for resolution blocking Trump's emergency declaration MORE (D-Mass.) on Tuesday pledged to oppose President Trump's nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
"Based on the long and well-established record of Judge Gorsuch, I will oppose his nomination," Warren said in a statement published on her Facebook page.
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"Before even joining the bench, he advocated to make it easier for public companies to defraud investors. As a judge, he has twisted himself into a pretzel to make sure the rules favor giant companies over workers and individual Americans," Warren argued.
"He has sided with employers who deny wages, improperly fire workers, or retaliate against whistleblowers for misconduct. He has ruled against workers in all manner of discrimination cases. And he has demonstrated hostility toward women’s access to basic health care," she added.
Warren also blasted Trump for his failing to "select a consensus nominee" to the high court. The Democratic lawmaker justified her position by pointing to Gorsuch's views on corporations, civil rights, women's rights and other social issues."Before even joining the bench, he advocated to make it easier for public companies to defraud investors. As a judge, he has twisted himself into a pretzel to make sure the rules favor giant companies over workers and individual Americans," Warren argued."He has sided with employers who deny wages, improperly fire workers, or retaliate against whistleblowers for misconduct. He has ruled against workers in all manner of discrimination cases. And he has demonstrated hostility toward women’s access to basic health care," she added.Warren also blasted Trump for his failing to "select a consensus nominee" to the high court.
"President Trump had the chance to select a consensus nominee to the Supreme Court. To the surprise of absolutely nobody, he failed that test," Warren argued.
"Now more than ever, America needs Supreme Court justices with a proven record of standing up for the rights of all Americans – civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, and all other protections guaranteed by our laws. We don’t need another justice who spends his time looking out for those with money and influence."Photo by Timothy Hursley
Rural Studio, the celebrated undergraduate program of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University, has been educating citizen architects since it was founded in 1993 by D.K. Ruth and the late Samuel Mockbee. Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County, Alabama by Andrew Freear and Elena Barthel with Andrea Oppenheimer Dean will be released tomorrow by Princeton Architectural Press. Here at the Eye, the authors share an excerpt of the book that centers on the 20K House project, an academic design-and-build program that delivers affordable housing for locals and is currently being developed as a commercial product.
Rural Studio launched its affordable housing program in 2005. We were eager to make our work more relevant to the needs of west Alabama, the Southeast, and possibly the entire country. We looked at the omnipresent American trailer park, where homes, counterintuitively, depreciate each year they are occupied. We wanted to create an attractive small house that would appreciate in value while accommodating residents who are unable to qualify for credit.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Our goal was to design a market-rate model house that could be built by a contractor for $20,000 ($12,000 for materials and $8,000 for labor and profit)—the 20K House, a house for everybody and everyone. We chose $20,000 because it would be the most expensive mortgage a person receiving today’s median Social Security check of $758 a month can realistically repay. A $108 monthly mortgage payment is doable if you consider other monthly expenditures. Our calculations are based on a single house owner, because 43 percent of below-poverty households in Hale County are made up of people living alone. That translates to a potential market of 800 people in our county.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Photo by Timothy Hursley
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A contractor building 20K Houses for 800 people under a rural development grant would put $16 million into the local economy. Financing would come from a commercial mortgage or a Department of Agriculture rural loan program. We figure that since we design 20K Houses so that they can be built in three weeks, a contractor could build 16 houses a year. Assuming a workforce consisting of a contractor and three workers for each house. The contractor would earn $61,000 a year and the workers $22,200 (based on a wage of $11.57 per hour, well above the current minimum wage of $7.25). Our expectation is that commercial success will create a new cottage industry, bringing new economic growth to the region.
With the exception of the Bryant (Hay Bale) House (1994) and Rose Lee’s House (2009), the studio’s client houses have tended to be about experimentation and have lacked long-term big-picture goals. The 20K House program evolved out of frustration at starting from scratch each year on each client house. The new program’s current instructional model is to test typologies, rather than producing idiosyncratic individual houses, which allows us to build iteratively on previous and concurrent work. In fact, each year’s 20K House outreach team passes on a book of information for the following class, exemplifying Rural Studio’s founding premise of learning both by practice and from reflection.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
We consider ourselves privileged to have the resources and opportunity to develop such a project and feel a moral responsibility to do so. The 20K House program also represents our attempt to bring an interest in social housing—well-designed houses for everyone—back into the academic world.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Because the annual budget for each house is precise and without wiggle room, the 20K House projects are the studio’s most difficult. We task our outreach students with these focused missions in which each team has to be especially efficient in design and use of materials, weighing priorities and deciding where the design’s “big hit” will be. Is it a dynamically angled porch? Ten-foot ceilings? After all, we still want to make compelling architecture.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Photo by Timothy Hursley
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The most controversial aspect of the 20K House is its small size. It is a design challenge to make a small house feel big. Although many homebuyers are attracted to the reduced operating costs of small spaces, most people want “Big!” Ironically, we often found our prospective homeowners in large tumbledown houses where they were hunkered down in a single room, unable to afford heat for the others.
Nevertheless, living small takes getting used to. One question people often ask is what to do with all the baggage they have accumulated over the years. They also worry about where visiting family will stay. This year we are developing a two-bedroom 20K House, testing larger and expandable models.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Lessons from vernacular houses, and from the nature of local clay soil, which does not absorb heavy rains, prompted us to raise most of our 20K Houses on piers to avoid trapping moisture under the slabs. The local dirt is also very expansive and moves so much that any concrete slab has to be highly engineered. However, we realized that raising the house created accessibility problems, especially for older clients. We tested an accessible 20K House, which added a ramp to a gallery house type, and in 2013 we experimented with a slab-on-grade house. If the raised accessible residence increased the budget too much, the slab-on-grade proved to be a good way to proceed with future models.
Photo by Timothy Hursley
Client concerns about house size lead us to consider what is essential and important when it comes to rural housing. Experience with our client houses has dictated that all 20K Houses have a front porch for social space and nine- to 10-foot ceilings. High ceilings make the rooms more spacious and allow air to rise and be vented by a combination of ceiling fans and cross ventilation. Another essential for a house in this region is a “big hat” roof with a fully vented attic to help cool the house. Finally, the walls must be of lumber no smaller than two-by-six inches to provide insulation and to make the house feel solid.
Photo by Timothy HursleyHe didn't want to do it out of fear of what people might think of him, but after finally overcoming that notion, Dominic Walker decommitted from Nebraska to pledge his newfound allegiance to Auburn on Friday.
The relief could be heard in his voice as he talked about finally making the decision that had been tugging at him for nearly a week.
In the end, however, Walker weighed all of the pros and cons of choosing either Nebraska or Auburn and it was Auburn that came out on top.
"There's more opportunity for my family to see me play because it's closer to home and there's a better chance for me to go in and play right away, which is what I was looking for all along," Walker said Friday night after making the announcement that he would be joining teammate and fellow wide receiver Tony Stevens as newly committed Tigers. "Plus, I get to play another four years with my teammate Tony and that's great... everything is just great."
He had said the same thing about Nebraska two months ago after an official visit to Lincoln. That's when he decommitted from a Vanderbilt pledge. He finally committed to Nebraska on Dec. 30, and the overwhelming support he'd seen from Nebraska fans seemed to have him locked in to Big Red Nation.
It was hard for Walker to make that call to Nebraska on Friday, but he knew he had to do it. He said he didn't handle the Vanderbilt situation as well as he could have back when he decommitted from the Commodores in October and he wanted to make sure and do the right thing this time.
Even his mom was afraid for him when he made the call to head coach Bo Pelini and his staff on Friday.
"It was a very tough decision. They were [mad]. They were very mad. But I thought I had to call them like a real man should," Walker said. "But yeah, they were mad. Coach Pelini said, 'Best of luck, you're going to need it.' "
Wide receivers coach Rich Fisher also was in on the call.
"Coach Fisher said, 'I can’t believe you,' " Walker said. "It was really awkward."
He had prepared himself for the conversation but nothing really got him ready to face the music. But he did what he felt he had to do.
"At first I was scared to decommit because of what people might think about me since I decommitted from Vandy and then I'd be decommitting from Nebraska," Walker said. "But I just gotta do what I gotta do and not worry about what people have to say. It's my future."
Indeed it is and his future will be spent in Auburn, Ala., for the next four seasons, most likely.
Walker said Stevens committing to Auburn last week did not have much to do with his choice to join the Tigers. He and Stevens both took official visits to Auburn last weekend.
"Not really. I just felt I had to do what’s best for me," Walker said. "He made his decision, but it didn’t really affect my decision. In the end, it might have affected it a little bit, but overall not really."
Being six hours away from Orlando seems to be the most important factor in the equation, as well as a relentless push from new Auburn co-offensive coordinator Dameyune Craig. The former Auburn quarterback was hired away from Florida State last month by new Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn.
"He said me and Tony can be just like we were in high school.... Tony on one side and me on the other. We're two different types of receivers, so he said we won't be competing against each other," Walker said. "Coach Craig, they let him kind of go out and recruit his guys since he knows Florida and he really handpicked us. He saw the receivers he wanted to go out and get and he recruited us hard.
"I've gotten to know him real well these past few weeks. We've been talking like three or four times every day. I like how he talks about things and he has a good way of phrasing stuff. He came to my house for the in-home visit and let my mom know what things would be like for me at Auburn and she fell in love with his words, too."
Walker and Stevens were a formidable duo at Evans the past two seasons, during which the Trojans won two straight Class 7A district titles and were 19-5. Stevens was the go-to target and the deep threat, while Walker did most of the dirty work. Over the course of their junior and senior seasons, the pair combined for 141 catches, 2,600 yards and 36 touchdowns
Stevens had 43 catches for 803 yards and 14 touchdowns this past season, and as a junior he had 37 catches for 781 yards and 10 touchdowns, averaging almost 20 yards per catch over the two seasons.
Walker, who got off to a slow start this past season, which was somewhat due to some sloppy conditions in a rainy September and the Trojans ran the ball a lot. He had 25 catches for 398 yards as a senior, and as a junior he caught 36 balls for 618 yards and six touchdowns. He averaged 16 yards per catch over two seasons.
Chris Hays is the Sentinel's recruiting coverage coordinator and can be reached at chays@tribune.com. Follow us on Twitter at @Os_Recruiting and Facebook at Orlando Sentinel Recruiting and now on Pinterest at Orlando Recruiting.I gave a talk on Virginia Woolf a few years ago. During the question-and-answer period that followed it, the subject that seemed to most interest a number of people was whether Woolf should have had children. I answered the question dutifully, noting that Woolf apparently considered having children early in her marriage, after seeing the delight that her sister, Vanessa Bell, took in her own. But over time Woolf came to see reproduction as unwise, perhaps because of her own psychological instability. Or maybe, I suggested, she wanted to be a writer and to give her life over to her art, which she did with extraordinary success. In the talk I had quoted with approval her description of murdering “the angel of the house,” the inner voice that tells many women to be self-sacrificing handmaidens to domesticity and male vanity. I was surprised that advocating for throttling the spirit of conventional femininity should lead to this conversation.
What I should have said to that crowd was that our interrogation of Woolf’s reproductive status was a soporific and pointless detour from the magnificent questions her work poses. (I think at some point I said, “Fuck this shit,” which carried the same general message and moved everyone on from the discussion.) After all, many people have children; only one made To the Lighthouse and The Waves, and we were discussing Woolf because of the books, not the babies.
The line of questioning was familiar enough to me. A decade ago, during a conversation that was supposed to be about a book I had written on politics, the British man interviewing me insisted that instead of talking about the products of my mind, we should talk about the fruit of my loins, or the lack thereof. Onstage, he hounded me about why I didn’t have children. No answer I gave could satisfy him. His position seemed to be that I must have children, that it was incomprehensible that I did not, and so we had to talk about why I didn’t, rather than about the books I did have.
As it happens, there are many reasons why I don’t have children: I am very good at birth control; though I love children and adore aunthood, I also love solitude; I was raised by unhappy, unkind people, and I wanted neither to replicate their form of parenting nor to create human beings who might feel about me the way that I felt about my begetters; I really wanted to write books, which as I’ve done it is a fairly consuming vocation. I’m not dogmatic about not having kids. I might have had them under other circumstances and been fine — as I am now.
But just because the question can be answered doesn’t mean that I ought to answer it, or that it ought to be asked. The interviewer’s question was indecent, because it presumed that women should have children, and that a woman’s reproductive activities were naturally public business. More fundamentally, the question assumed that there was only one proper way for a woman to live.
But even to say that there’s one proper way may be putting the case too optimistically, given that mothers are consistently found wanting, too. A mother may be treated like a criminal for leaving her child alone for five minutes, even a child whose father has left it alone for several years. Some mothers have told me that having children caused them to be treated as bovine non-intellects who should be disregarded. Other women have been told that they cannot be taken seriously professionally because they will go off and reproduce at some point. And many mothers who do succeed professionally are presumed to be neglecting someone. There is no good answer to being a woman; the art may instead lie in how we refuse the question.
We talk about open questions, but there are closed questions, too, questions to which there is only one right answer, at least as far as the interrogator is concerned. These are questions that push you into the herd or nip at you for diverging from it, questions that contain their own answers and whose aim is enforcement and punishment. One of my goals in life is to become truly rabbinical, to be able to answer closed questions with open questions, to have the internal authority to be a good gatekeeper when intruders approach, and to at least remember to ask, “Why are you asking that?” This, I’ve found, is always a good answer to an unfriendly question, and closed questions tend to be unfriendly. But on the day of my interrogation about having babies, I was taken by surprise (and severely jet-lagged), and so I was left to wonder — why do such bad questions so predictably get asked?Schaumburg mayor cited for leaving crash scene
hello
Schaumburg police ticketed Village President Al Larson for leaving the scene of a property damage collision and improper lane use after his car struck another vehicle on Schaumburg Road, authorities acknowledged Sunday.
Larson, 78, one of the longest-serving mayors in Chicago's suburbs, said he drove to the nearby Schaumburg post office parking lot after the crash and pulled over to wait for the other driver. When the other car didn't appear after five minutes, Larson said, he went home to call police.
"I was looking for a place to pull over that wasn't congested so we could exchange (insurance) cards," Larson said.
The collision occurred at 6:40 p.m. Thursday, when conditions were dark and rainy at the intersection of Schaumburg Road and Pleasant Drive, north of the Town Square shopping center, Schaumburg Police Chief Jim Lamkin said.
Larson was turning from northbound Pleasant Drive onto westbound Schaumburg Road but cut the turn close and hit a vehicle in an eastbound lane driven by a 42-year-old Schaumburg woman, Lamkin added. There were no injuries. Both vehicles were damaged but could be driven, police said.
Larson said police arrived at his door shortly after he got home and took him to the police station.
Larson told police he'd had a glass of wine at dinner before the crash. A Breathalyzer test he took within 30 minutes of the collision showed a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.048 percent -- below the legal limit of 0.08 percent, Lamkin said.
Larson's court hearing on the two traffic offenses is scheduled for Wednesday, March 8, at the Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows.
He said he intends to take responsibility for the crash and doesn't consider it to have any impact on his role as mayor.
"People have accidents, and I had an accident," he said. "It's a private matter between me and the other driver. It's regrettable that it happened. I guess I should have been more careful of the other drivers."
Larson said he received a nice note from the other driver expressing her wish that everything was OK with him.
Schaumburg's senior village trustee, George Dunham, said he knows of no plans among his fellow trustees to pursue any course of action in regards to the mayor's crash.
"It's pretty simple," Dunham said. "There was an accident, and no one was injured."
Larson, who has been mayor since 1987, has been involved in two previous collisions over the years, both sparking allegations that were never proven that he received preferential treatment.
Hoffman Estates police ticketed him for improper lane use after a February 2003 collision. The 20-year-old Schaumburg woman driving the other car criticized officers for driving him home afterward without conducting a breath test.
Larson blamed the woman's perception that he may have been drinking on a medical condition that occasionally causes fluid to build up in his calves and ankles, as well as creating numbness in his toes. That makes him appear to "shuffle" and move slowly, he said. Hoffman Estates police concluded he was not intoxicated.
Larson said he pleaded guilty to improper lane use and paid a $75 fine and the cost of the other driver's damage.
In October 2000, Larson backed into the car of a Madison, Wisconsin, woman in the parking lot of what is now Schaumburg Boomers Stadium, causing $240 in damage.
That woman said she waved Larson down but he refused to stop at the scene. She accused Schaumburg police of giving him preferential treatment for not ticketing him immediately.
On that occasion, Larson said he did not know he had hit the car, but once police called to notify him he drove to the police station and filled out an accident report.In 2004, before the boom, oil and gas production accounted for about 2 percent of the state's economy. By 2014, it was almost 16 percent.
In a few brief years, however, the Bakken boom has lost a lot of its luster.
As the nation was suffering the worst recession since the depression several years ago, an aggressive move into North Dakota oil exploration transformed remote regions of the state, attracting billions of dollars in investments and attracting workers in search of high pay. Then, global oil prices plummeted to 13-year lows, $30 a barrel, and Dakota drilling slowed.
More than 200 oil rigs were running during the boom; fewer than 50 operated in 2016. Not only did communities suffer sudden shortages in revenue, the state lost 20 percent of its projected revenues for a two-year budget cycle. The governor ordered state budget cuts and drew $497 million from reserves to close a $1 billion budget shortfall in a $14 billion budget.
Still, North Dakota's overall oil production has held up as drillers have cut operational costs. Production has increased after falling to below 1 million barrels per day for part of 2016 and into early 2017.
And unemployment in North Dakota – 2.6 percent – stood among the lowest jobless rates in the nation in 2016. Mining and logging account for fewer than one in five jobs in a state where education, finance, trade and transportation employ far more.
The long country roads coursing through farm lands from one small town to the next, each with its silos, church and tavern – and state-licensed blackjack tables open for business in every bar – testify to the fact that nearly 90 percent of the land in North Dakota is devoted to farming. The state counts nearly 31,000 family farms and ranches averaging 1,260 acres, with 39.2 million acres devoted to farming and ranching. One-fifth of the state's population is employed in agriculture – with North Dakota ranking as the nation's No. 1 producer of dry navy and pinto beans. The state provides more than 90 percent of the nation's canola and flaxseed.
The median household income, $60,656 in 2016, was somewhat above the national average of $57,617.
North Dakotans are resilient: Three of every 10,000 residents were 100 or older in the 2010 Census count. That's the highest share of centenarians of any state; the national average is 0.17 percent. Three-quarters of all adults are Christian, including a quarter who are Catholic.
Native Americans inhabited this land before white settlers – the word Dakota is Sioux for “friend.”
North Dakota also is known for its Badlands, now part of the 70,000-acre Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Roosevelt’s journey to the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison was among his Western ventures that instilled in him a fervor for preservation of natural lands, and ultimately the first national parks.
The land that comprises North Dakota today became U.S. territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. It had been part of the Minnesota and Nebraska territories until it and South Dakota were combined to form the Dakota territory in 1861. It remained largely unsettled until the arrival of railroads. When both North Dakota and South Dakota were admitted to the Union, in November 1889, President Benjamin Harrison didn't reveal which bill he signed first.
The geographic center of North America lies in a slough near the town of Rugby.
The geography of this vast state, its Red River emptying north into Canada, has produced catastrophic natural disasters. In 1897, late spring flooding overran the river’s banks in the worst flood of the century in the Northern Great Plains. They call such events 100-year floods. And true to the model, the Red River again surged in 1997, topping the dikes built along Grand Forks and inundating a community whose downtown also burned in the deluge.
The Grand Forks Herald, its building flooded and burned, maintained daily publication from a schoolhouse up the road, printing a legendary banner headline: “Come Hell or High Water.”
The University of North Dakota, one of several public campuses across the state, is located in Grand Forks.
Despite its recent growth, the state remains third smallest in population, ahead of Vermont and Wyoming. Most of its cities are no larger than 100,000 in population – Fargo is the largest, at 118,000, the capital of Bismarck is second at 72,000, and Grand Forks is third at 57,000. The state is 87.9 percent white, 5.5 percent Native American, 2.9 percent black and 3.6 percent of all groups Hispanic. Its people are 51 percent Protestant, 26 percent Catholic and 20 percent unaffiliated.Alex, let's go with the category, "Things that I Already Knew" for $1,000.
If news headlines about Hollywood were an episode of Jeopardy, the categories might be:
Actresses Harvey Weinstein Didn't Try to Sleep With
Pedophiles and Perverts
Drug addicts and Dope Dealers
Sex On Screen
Who Said What Curse Words?
Who's Your Daddy
Name That Addict
Crimes That Didn't Get Time
The Epicenter of Filth and Perversion
Anyone who doesn't know that Hollywood has been the epicenter of filth, perversion, sex, drugs, and other reprehensible behavior has been living in a cave in Afghanistan. Scratch that. The Taliban gave that as one of their reasons for attacking us. So even cave dwellers in Afghanistan aren't immune to the disease Hollywood has spread.
Can you blame them for their opinion? If my only exposure to the United States came from what spews from Hollywood, I would hate us, too. Unlike the Taliban, I don't find it necessary to kill everyone living where the problem emanates. The situation reminds me of an old Star Trek episode where an alien culture completely mimics a book they read about gangsters from the 1920's. Unlike the aliens in Star Trek, the Taliban wishes to eradicate the outside influence in barbaric ways. As Americans, I hope we can be like Captain Kirk and show that there is a better way than to model ourselves after such a corrupt influence. There are some of us here who hate Hollywood, too, but believe there are better ways to shut them down than by declaring Jihad on their home country.
Rotten To the Core
The feigned shock that Harvey Weinstein allegedly had his way with multiple starlets is laughable. Charlie Sheen's alleged pedophilia should come as no more of a shock than that water is wet and fire is hot.
"By their fruits ye shall know them." The fruit of Hollywood is rotten to the core.
Can anyone name a hit TV series currently running where there isn't swearing, sexual innuendo, a gay character, sex out of wedlock, or any other number of situations that wouldn't have been acceptable thirty years ago? The only one I can think of is "The Curse of Oak Island," but I don't know how big of a hit it is. "Duck Dynasty" also came to mind, but it's now in reruns. There are some home improvement shows and some reality TV shows that are close, but even many of those contain too many bleeps.
Here are some other shortlists, rarely seen among the Hollywood elite:
1. Happily married Hollywood couples who are still married and have only been married once
2. Major studio film or television shows that weren't offensive to people of faith
3. Hollywood men under 50 who served in the military
4. Actors and actresses who are outspoken conservatives
5. Sitcoms where men aren't portrayed as effeminate, slobs, predatory, or stupid
6. Films or television shows where chastity and virtue are promoted
7. Films or television programming where Jews and Christians aren't stereotyped as odd or are lampooned
The Landfill That Is Hollywood
For decades, Hollywood has spurned traditional values, mocked Judeo/Christian ethics, embraced statist views, promoted and produced sexual perversion, pushed the envelope to new extremes on filth and debauchery...and all of a sudden everyone is shocked that it is ostensibly full of perverts and pedophiles?
Like the NFL, I haven't watched a Hollywood awards show for years. I don't care about whose dress somebody wore on the red carpet. I don't care about what some smug actress has to say about politics or what the host blathers on about. These people live in a bubble that needs to be popped. Unfortunately, too many people give them their money, and Hollywood continues to fester like a bad infection. They hit new lows which were unthinkable even a dozen years ago.
In a previous piece, I state that the NFL is just another dirty diaper in the landfill that has become the entertainment industry. That landfill is in Hollywood. It's full. The dirty diapers are being exported to televisions and movie screens near you to be consumed by the primary audience of Hollywood trash, our children.
Think about this: Miley Cyrus moved to Hollywood when she was 13 and worked for Disney. If they did that to her then, imagine what they have in store for your kids.A Muslim woman had said she was spat at and assaulted by a thug during a business trip to London, sparking an anti-racism protest in the capital.
Nahella Ashraf was attending a conference in Hammersmith and during dinner at a nearby fish and chip shop she was approached by a stranger.
The man is said to have grabbed the 46-year-old government researcher by the arm in an attempt to throw her out of the shop while telling her she'shouldn't be here.' Police are now investigating the attack.
Nahella Ashraf was attending a conference in Hammersmith and during dinner at a nearby fish and chip shop she was approached by a stranger who attacked her
Ms Ashraf, from Withington, Manchester, told the M.E.N. she was eating dinner when she was accosted by a stranger.
One of her friends attempted to push the attacker out of the way and a staff member confronted the man.
They claim the attacker said: 'People like her, they kill.' As the staff member began escorting the man out, he spat in Ms Ashraf's face.
He left when staff at the takeaway phoned the police.
Ms Ashraf said: 'I was totally shocked, it all seemed to happen soquickly. I have never had this before.
'It really shook me up. The staff were really nice, they said he had issues.
'I'm really surprised this has happened in London, especially in Hammersmith where it's so multicultural. It just goes to show how serious this situation is. I needed to say something.'
Ms Ashraf is a member of anti-racist campaign group |
safeties coach, the school officially announced Thursday afternoon.
"Coach Phillips and Coach Rushing are tremendous additions to our coaching staff," Andersen said in a release. "Both are very experienced coaches, great recruiters and take great pride in building young men and pushing them to excel at a high level on and off the field. The entire staff is excited to get to work for the upcoming season."
Phillips was most recently the wide receivers coach at Kansas and has also been on the staffs at SMU (2012-15, co-offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach), Houston (2008-11 and 2003-06, co-offensive coordinator/wide receivers coach/cornerbacks coach/recruiting coordinator), Baylor (2007, inside receivers coach) and Texas State (wide receivers, 2002). He had a decorated college playing career at Houston, where he caught passes from Heisman winner Andre Ware and led the nation in receiving yards in 1987 and 1988. He also played in the NFL and CFL following his college career.
"I'm very excited and feel fortunate to have this opportunity to join Coach Andersen, who is one of the greatest leaders in our profession," Phillips said in a release. "I hope to be an asset to his staff and further his vision for Oregon State football."
Rushing spent the 2016 season as a special teams and defensive consultant after seven seasons with the Green Bay Packers in a variety of roles ranging from assisting with wide receivers and special teams to quality control jobs on both sides of the ball. He also spent 2003-08 coaching the secondary at Utah State, where he was the only assistant coach retained by Andersen when he was hired at the school before joining the Packers. He also coached at Montana State (2000-02, secondary) and at Willamette (1996-97, secondary). He played college football at Washington State in the 1990s.
"I feel blessed and excited to join Coach Andersen's staff," Rushing said in a release. "He's a good man, and I believe in his vision and approach to winning."
Phillips and Rushing help fill the staff voids left by Brent Brennan, who left OSU to become the head coach at San Jose State last month, and Derrick Odum, who joined Brennan's staff as the defensive coordinator.
Additionally, other Beavers coaches are changing roles. Offensive line coach T.J. Woods is now the run game coordinator, after sharing offensive coordinator duties with Kevin McGiven last season. McGiven will be the sole offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Dave Baldwin, who was the inside receivers coach last season, will coach tight ends. Chad Kau'ha'aha'a will coach both the outside linebackers and defensive line with help from graduate assistants, meaning Andersen will no longer coach the defensive line.
2017 Oregon State coaching staff
Head coach: Gary Andersen
Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach: Kevin McGiven
Defensive coordinator/inside linebackers coach: Kevin Clune
Offensive line coach/running game coordinator: T.J. Woods
Wide receivers coach/passing game coordinator: Jason Phillips
Running backs coach: Telly Lockette
Tight ends coach: Dave Baldwin
Defensive line coach/outside linebackers coach/associate head coach: Chad Kau'ha'aha'a
Cornerbacks coach: Cory Hall
Safeties coach: John Rushing
-- Gina Mizell | @ginamizellA
Donald Trump presidency would be an unknown on many fronts, but on one issue he has been clear from the moment he announced his candidacy. He aims to stop illegal immigration to the United States once and for all. His plan is to build an impenetrable wall across the border with Mexico and deport the 11 million illegal immigrants currently living here.
Trump says that his wall will cost a mere $8 billion to construct along some 1,000 miles of the approximately 1,900-mile border with Mexico—much of the rest of which, he admits, already has substantial natural barriers. But the U.S. has already built fencing along about a third of the border, and it has positioned vehicles and set up high-tech surveillance in the most heavily trafficked areas. According to the Congressional Research Service, the cost to date has been $7 billion to build and maintain the less lengthy and substantial barriers, which suggests Trump is grossly underestimating the cost of his plan.
It will take a huge engineering feat to build a wall 30- to 40-feet tall, higher than the Great Wall of China and buried deep in the ground to prevent tunneling, along land that stretches from deserts in Arizona to mountains in New Mexico, two-thirds of which includes riverbanks. We know Trump is a fan of eminent domain, but not all those ranchers whose lands would have to be taken to build the wall might feel the same, despite their complaints about trespassers from Mexico. Nor do Trump’s figures likely take into account compensation for the land seized. And of course there are environmental impacts that would have to be considered by agencies and the courts, which would slow down the process by years, perhaps decades.
Several structural engineers have weighed in on social media, estimating the cost of building the Great Mexican Wall; one took the trouble to price materials alone, including cast-in-place concrete, pre-fab concrete slabs, and rebar, which amounted to $17,073,806,000, roughly the size of the annual budget for the National Security Agency. Of course, Trump insists Mexico will pay for it. But who, I wonder, does he think will build it, especially with the construction workforce in the U.S. reduced by some 15 percent once he has deported those construction workers who are illegal immigrants?
Trump has never explained in detail how he will accomplish his task of rounding up illegal immigrants, but he has spoken favorably of “Operation Wetback.” The program instituted during the Eisenhower administration resulted in many deaths, including 88 people in one roundup alone who died from heatstroke in the Mexicali desert where they were dumped. Much has changed from the 1950s for the better, and those changes make unthinkable the kind of dragnets of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’50s that forced out thousands of legal aliens and American citizens along with illegal immigrants. But, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that President Trump could make good on his promise to triple the number of border-enforcement agents, create a “deportation force,” and round up 11 million illegal immigrants and their American-citizen family members. “We’re going to keep them together, but they have to go,” he said. Legality aside, what would all this cost American taxpayers and the U.S. economy if Trump got his way?
The American Action Forum (AAF), a center-right research organization founded by Douglas Holtz-Eakins, former Congressional Budget Office director, estimates that it would cost some $300 billion to remove all 11 million illegal immigrants in two years, as Trump has promised to do. The program would be Big Government writ large, requiring an increase in apprehension personnel from the current 4,844 to some 91,000; increasing the number of detention beds available from today’s 34,000 to nearly 350,000; upping the number of immigration courts to handle cases from 58 to 1,136 and the number of attorneys from 1,430 to 32,445; and adding a minimum of 17,296 chartered flights and 30,701 chartered bus trips each year.
But the real cost of Trump’s proposal is far greater than expanding the federal budget. Illegal immigrants live, work, buy, and rent in our communities, and they pay income, property, and sales taxes. They are deeply imbedded in our society, providing their goods and services while consuming others. AAF estimates that the removal of illegal immigrants over two years would result in a “sudden and deep recession similar to what the United States recently experienced during the Great Recession.” The workforce would shrink by some 6.4 percent in two years, or some 10.3 million workers. As a result, AAF estimates, the economy would be 5.7 percent smaller at the end of Trump’s second year in office than it would have been, and real GDP would be $1 trillion lower, wiping out all gains over the last three years. And these figures do not even take into account the future losses incurred because we will have removed children we paid to educate but who will not repay this investment with future taxes after we’ve sent them packing with their parents.
Trump would also institute a “pause” in legal immigration, one that he says might last two years, while out-of-work Americans supposedly will rush to fill jobs immigrants, legal and illegal, now take. But there is no evidence that Americans would rush to pick fruits and vegetables, de-bone chickens, scrub office floors and toilets, the jobs illegal immigrants currently dominate. Nor will there be enough American engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and other specialists to fill jobs that now go to high-skilled legal immigrants. If he got his way, a President Trump would leave America smaller and poorer. This is not a blueprint to Make America Great Again but very nearly its opposite.Kudos to the good people at FreeThoughProject for finding this hilarious story from the UK which shows a man wearing a pig mask and police costume being arrested for impersonating a police officer.
Steven Peers was arrested in Manchester when trying to bring attention to police corruption. His costume was intended to be a joke, but the police responded by arresting him for impersonating an officer. When asked by reporters his reaction to the incident he replied, “my reaction to being arrested was total disbelief. I was wearing a toy hat and a pig mask and was arrested for impersonating a police officer. It’s ridiculous….If they want to take it to court they will be a laughing stock because there is no substance to it whatsoever. I don’t think it’s antagonistic. It’s just a parody making fun of GMP. I’ve dressed like this at Barton Moss, in front of Swinton police station and in front of the force HQ in Newton Heath. Other officers have laughed it off.”Armageddon here we come: Republican Congressman Clay Higgins is calling for a Christian holy war against “Islamic horror.”
Writing on his Facebook page, Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins declared: that “every single Islamic suspect” should be hunted down and killed, declaring:
Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all.
In his post, Higgins said that “all of Christendom… is at war with Islamic horror”:
The free world… all of Christendom… is at war with Islamic horror. Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals. Not a single radicalized Islamic suspect should be granted any measure of quarter. Their intended entry to the American homeland should be summarily denied. Every conceivable measure should be engaged to hunt them down. Hunt them, identity them, and kill them. Kill them all. For the sake of all that is good and righteous. Kill them all. -Captain Clay Higgins
Note: Rep. Higgins is suggesting that every “suspect” should be executed – no trial, no jury, no due process – nothing but a summary execution for simply being a suspect.
Reporting on the story, Mother Jones reports:
With his declaration that Christendom is “at war with Islamic horror,” Higgins was embracing a theme of the far-right: the fight against extremist jihadists is part of a fundamental clash between Christian society and Islam.
Higgins, a former police captain, was elected to Congress in November. The newly minted congressman has a reputation for controversial and inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric. In January Higgins gave a
speech
defending Trump’s Muslim travel ban while blaming Obama for producing “Radical Islamic Terrorists.”
In his speech, Rep. Higgins said:
Thank God that President Trump has upheld his oath to protect American lives… I’ve watched carefully and prayerfully as terror attack after terror attack has shed American blood on American soil, and I’ve been privy to many Jihadist plots that were stopped because of the dedicated courage of skilled law enforcement investigators, the same cops that have been for years maligned, attacked, and murdered across our nation by Americans incited to violence by dangerously irresponsible rhetoric from the left.
As for Rep. Higgins’s Facebook post calling for a Christian holy war, USA Today reports the post has been reported to the House Ethics Committee.
Bottom line: Christian congressman Clay Higgins is calling for a holy war against “Islamic Horror,” and wants everyone suspected of being radicalized by Islam executed.What is Overcommit? And why is it bad?
There are a lot of misunderstandings of memory management on Linux, leading to a lot of bad software that fails to robustly handle low-memory conditions. This all stems from a basic myth:
On Linux, malloc never fails. It always returns a pointer to allocated memory, but later your application might crash attempting to access that memory if not enough physical memory is available.
Where does this myth come from? Something called overcommit.
When a system such a Linux utilizing virtual memory allocates memory to a userspace process (via brk or mmap ), there is no fixed correspondence between the virtual memory created in the process's virtual address space and the physical memory of the machine. In fact, before the memory is first used, it's likely that there's not any correspondence at all to physical memory; only after the first attempt to access the memory does the kernel have to setup a physical memory corresponding to it.
Overcommit refers to the practice of giving out virtual memory with no guarantee that physical storage for it exists. To make an analogy, it's like using a credit card and not keeping track of your purchases. A system performing overcommit just keeps giving out virtual memory until the debt collector comes calling — that is, until some program touches a previously-untouched page, and the kernel fails to find any physical memory to instantiate it — and then stuff starts crashing down.
What happens when “stuff starts crashing down”? It can vary, but the Linux approach was to design an elaborate heuristic “OOM killer” in the kernel that judges the behavior of each process and decides who’s “guilty” of making the machine run out of memory, then kills the guilty parties. In practice this works fairly well from a standpoint of avoiding killing critical system processes and killing the process that’s “hogging” memory, but the problem is that no process is really “guilty” of using more memory than was available, because everyone was (incorrectly) told that the memory was available.
Suppose you don’t want this kind of uncertainty/danger when it comes to memory allocation? The naive solution would be to immediately and statically allocate physical memory corresponding to all virtual memory. To extend the credit card analogy, this would be like using cash for all your purchases, or like using a debit card. You get the safety from overspending, but you also lose a lot of fluidity. Thankfully, there’s a better way to manage memory.
The approach taken in reality when you want to avoid committing too much memory is to account for all the memory that’s allocated. In our credit card analogy, this corresponds to using a credit card, but keeping track of all the purchases on it, and never purchasing more than you have funds to pay off. This turns out to be the Right Thing when it comes to managing virtual memory, and in fact it’s what Linux does when you set the vm.overcommit_memory sysctl parameter to the value 2. In this mode, all virtual memory that could potentially be modified (i.e. has read-write permissions) or lacks backing (i.e. an original copy on disk or other device that it could be restored from if it needs to be discarded) is accounted for as “commit charge”, the amount of memory the kernel as committed/promised to applications. When a new virtual memory allocation would cause the commit charge to exceed a configurable limit (by default, the size of swap plus half the size of physical ram), the allocation fails.
Unfortunately, a lot of application developers like overcommit, presumably for two reasons:
It allows you to allocate a ridiculous amounts of memory as long as you know you’ll only make sparse use of it. In our credit card analogy, this is like a contractor going to a building supply store and buying twice the amount of materials they expect to need using a credit card, knowing they’ll be safe as long as they go back and return the unused materials for a refund before the credit card bill is due. It gives you an excuse to be lazy handling errors. You can rationalize ignoring the return value of malloc on the basis that, due to overcommit, even if you check the return value you can’t be sure to avoid crashing later when the kernel doesn’t have enough physical memory to instantiate your virtual memory.
The first reason is actually fairly legitimate, but overcommit is not the right solution. Instead, applications which want to use large amounts of virtual memory without getting charged for it should use the right protections to ensure that memory that won’t be written is mapped read-only. This is robust and portable, unlike relying on overcommit.
The second reason is pure laziness and foolishness. The fact that you can’t detect all errors on a system that’s configured in a non-robust way (the Linux default) is not an excuse for failing to detect other errors (like exhausting virtual address space) and crashing on systems that were intentionally configured for maximum robustness. In fact, even in the default configuration, Linux tries to avoid severe overcommit; it just doesn’t do detailed accounting.
Overcommit is harmful because it encourages, and provides a wrong but plausible argument for, writing bad software. While the number of applications that completely ignore the failure of malloc seems to be shrinking, plenty of applications and even libraries intended for use in serious software utilize “xmalloc” wrappers that abort (!!) the caller when malloc returns a null pointer, and the justification is almost always that, since the program could OOM-crash anyway if allocation fails, it’s no worse to abort. And of course this line of reasoning completely neglects systems that were intentionally configured to be robust under memory exhaustion.Alberta RCMP are investigating after a grizzly bear attack on Sunday near the community of Water Valley, which is about 75 kilometres northwest of Calgary.
EMS responded to Highway 579 and Highway 52 at about 12:45 p.m. Sunday where they found a man in his 50s suffering from what is described as "serious soft tissue injuries throughout his body."
Police said the man was geocaching alone in the Harold Creek area when the bear charged and attempted to drag him into the bush. He was able to get away from the animal and drive himself to where paramedics were called.
Geocaching involves using GPS to find a series of locations, or caches, sometimes in remote areas.
The man was transported to Foothills hospital in Calgary by ambulance.
Police said in a release the bear has not been located but due to the remote location of the attack, there is no danger to the public. The investigation has been taken over by Fish and Wildlife.Remember Mercedes Colwin? The managing partner of Gordon & Rees’s New York office who’s a Fox News talking head went on Sean Hannity’s show last week to tell the world that women who speak out about sexual harassment and assault are usually doing so for money and women who are victims of predators are “very few and far between.”
Yes, that really happened.
And when Jordan Weissmann of Slate reached out for comment, she declined to walk back on her assertion that real victims were rare, but claimed to be “sympathetic” to them — whenever they exist.
Now Gordon & Rees has come forward with their statement from Dion Cominos, firmwide managing partner, on the incident. To say they’re trying to distance themselves from one of their partners is an understatement. Here’s the key graph where they call out Colwin’s “very few and far between” claim as inaccurate, turning the phrase against her:
[T]he organization in no way endorses or agrees with any statements which could even remotely be interpreted as minimizing or trivializing the seriousness and gravity of sexual harassment or similarly predatory behaviors, and we renounce them in the strongest possible terms – in fact, contrary to what may have been inferred from what was said during the telecast, the sad reality is that the number of women who likely have not been exposed to such repugnant conduct over the course of their personal or professional lives is, unfortunately, few and far between.
Hope Colwin likes the view from under the bus.
Oh, and she is out of firm management:
The partner in question has voluntarily stepped down from all management roles within the firm and she is committed to rectifying the hurtful impressions created by her remarks.
Well, that’s a pretty strong statement. I’m sure there are some people who’d like to see Colwin removed from the firm entirely — and I feel you on that one — but removing a partner is a lot more complicated than some at-will employee. Cominos’s statement makes clear the firm’s priorities, and serves as a warning for any other Biglaw partners eager to get TV time by spouting unsubstantiated talking points.
Read the firm’s full statement below.
Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).Authorities have ordered three investigations after an elderly woman was trapped for 29 hours in an elevator over the holidays in a nursing home in Mississauga, Ont.
The 87-year-old woman was stuck in the elevator at the Malton Village Long Term Care Centre from the evening of Dec. 23 until about 2 a.m. on Christmas morning, said Emil Kolb, the chair of the Region of Peel in a Wednesday statement.
"The administration advised me about this very distressing occurrence on Christmas Day. It was very unhappy news on what should be one of the most joyous days of the year. But my distress was certainly far less than that of the resident and her family," Kolb said.
"The Region of Peel takes responsibility for the care and safety of the residents of our long-term care centres very seriously. We have apologized to the resident and her family for this gap in our duty."
The woman was dropped off at the front doors of the nursing home near Derry Road East and Highway 427 on the evening of Dec. 23 by her family, but did not arrive on her floor, said Kolb. Staff thought she was still staying with her family.
Staff called the woman's family on the next day, which is when they found out she had been dropped off at the nursing home the previous day.
Trapped between floors
"We believe she became trapped in the elevator between floors on her way to her room and was unable to obtain assistance for the next 24 hours" said Kolb. "This is one of the key areas of focus in our investigations. How could that happen?"
Staff then ordered a search of the home, which was unsuccessful, and then had Peel police search the home without success.
Staff then checked the elevator, which Kolb said was "the only place left to search" and was malfunctioning and had to be shut down on the morning of the 24th.
When staff finally found the woman at 2 a.m. on the 25th, she was treated at the scene and then taken to hospital for evaluation.
She returned to the nursing home later that day. Staff are observing her closely and a doctor conducted a checkup on Dec. 27, Kolb said.
As a result of this "extremely serious failure," staff at the nursing home are conducting an internal investigation.
Carolyn Clubine, the director of Peel Long Term Care, said that "every effort" will be made to ensure that this never happens again.
"Too many things went wrong all at the same time," Clubine told CBC News in an interview on Wednesday. "That's how this particular incident happened."
Ontario's health and long-term care ministry is also investigating, as is the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, a private organization that provides safety services on behalf of the provincial government.By “away” we mean “here.” And by “transport” we mean Exclusive Numenera Boxed Set Edition RELIQUARY box, along with a STRONGBOX version, and even a JUST THE BOX!
OK, to put that in more sensible, less Star-Wars-Day terms: On Thursday we received our first complete, off-the-press samples of all three versions of the Numenera boxed set! And let me tell you: You are not going to be disappointed when this reaches your mailbox! Let’s let some photos do the talking:
Here are two lovely boxes!
A close-up of the spot-varnish title treatment. Look carefully!
So, what's inside this thing?
Well, to start with there's some stuff...
... and some more stuff....
Holy moly, how much can you fit in one of these things??
Wow. Just wow.
Here’s the bonus coolness: Although the MCG staff is normally scattered across the US, we happened to all be here in Kansas for our semi-annual company summit when the boxes arrived—in fact, we were already planning on a game of Numenera Thursday night. (Monte ran what will be the Gen Con Numenera adventure for us!) So we broke out the RELIQUARY box and put it through its paces. We used the pre-generated characters (so now the only existing copy is marked up!), the playmat, the new dice, the GM Intrusion deck, the pencil, and the rulebooks, among other components, in actual play. We can report that they all worked quite nicely! It was, frankly, pretty sweet.
Approvals!
Of course, that’s not the main purpose of getting these boxes. They were actually sent to us by the vendor so that we could do the final approval pass—not just of the individual components (many of which we’d only seen in prototype form), but also of how the boxes were packed.
As is always the case with any approval step, once the thrill of getting your first look at the item fades a bit (and, in this case, you’ve used it in a game!), you settle into the actual work of checking that everything is right. Happily, we were able to approve all of the components, although we did correct a couple of minor issues with how the vendor had packed out the various versions.
With those corrections on board, the vendor is now in the process of assembling the games. The next step: They get loaded onto a ship for transit to our warehouse here in the US, after which they spend a small amount of time (hopefully; it can be random) passing through US Customs. And then we start shipping them to you!
Keep an eye out for our next update, which should be within two weeks. We’ll send it when the boxed sets are loaded onto the ship, and that’s when we’ll give you your code and ask you to log into our store to place your order!
Exciting times!
Weird Discoveries
Speaking of exciting times, have you had a look at Weird Discoveries? Monte wrote ten great adventures for Numenera—but even better, he developed a new format that lets you run these adventures with virtually no GM prep. Seriously: You can run a pick-up RPG—a full-length adventure with all the bells and whistles—with no more setup or forethought than you’d need for a typical board game. On International TableTop Day, before the book was even out, we challenged GMs around the world to run one of these adventures with no more than 10 minutes prep time, and about 100 games were run. The response was phenomenal. Check it out!
No Thank You, Evil!
As an MCG Kickstarter backer, you’re one of our favorite people. So we want to let you know early that we have another Kickstarter campaign in the works—this time for a project that’s a little different! No Thank You, Evil! is an RPG for creative kids and their families, and we’re launching our campaign on Wednesday, May 13th.
No Thank You, Evil! is based on a slimmed-down version of the rules system from Numenera and The Strange, and it’s designed to be fast, easy, and fun for kids as young as 5. But what makes it really cool is that it’s also designed to be easy and fun for kids who are 7, or 9, or 12—and even for adults. It has a rules set that allows children of different ages and abilities to make characters with varying levels of complexity—and then all use those characters together in the same game. In this way it’s truly an RPG for the whole family: The little ones enjoy a simpler version, while the grownups and older kids play with a more sophisticated rules set—but they all play together!
You can read more about it on our web site. And don’t forget: The Kickstarter launches next Wednesday, May 13th!
Getting Your Boxed Set
In the next couple of weeks, as the boxed sets are being loaded onto a ship, we will send you an email with a coupon code. You will then log on to your account on the MCG shop, place your reward into your cart, apply the coupon code we supplied to you (which will make the reward free), enter your shipping address, pay for shipping (if applicable), and then sit back and wait for your beautiful box to arrive! (If you don't have an account, don't worry. It's easy to create an account and we won't share your data with anyone.)
Getting In Touch With Us
Kickstarter messages and comments are a great way to reach us during the campaign, but a horrible way to reach us afterward. If you need to hit us with a question or issue, the absolute best way is to use our Contact Us page. For general conversation, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter!
Iadace!
—CharlesOn 1 March 2016 — Super Tuesday — people in twelve states (as well as Democrats both in the territory of American Samoa and living abroad) cast votes in the Presidential primaries. On the Democratic side, which included eleven of those twelve states, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders came away with Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
Massachusetts quickly emerged as a point of contention among Sanders supporters. While Clinton carried double-digit margins in all other states she won, Massachusetts remained an outlier with a narrow 1.4 point margin:
For some time after the state’s polls closed, pundits and press were reluctant to call Massachusetts for either candidate. The New York Times‘ “Upshot” blog reported:
Massachusetts was distinctive on Super Tuesday for another reason, as well. Former President Bill Clinton was on site at many polling places in the state throughout the day, shaking hands and greeting primary voters who came out to cast ballots. Sanders supporters shared stories on social media in which they claimed Bill Clinton engaged in electioneering, obstructed polling places, suppressed voters by causing a commotion, or otherwise engaged in activities that obstructed or influenced the vote:
Bill was campaigning for #Hillary DIRECTLY OUTSIDE of a MA polling location today! THIS IS ILLEGAL! #Electioneering https://t.co/ahmjn4hlXo — Michigan for Bernie (@Michigan4Bernie) March 1, 2016
#SuperTuesday Even if not illegal, electioneering and blocking parking lots and polling areas is a bad move. https://t.co/7X8MzTgKJK — Casey Ferguson (@caseynsb) March 1, 2016
Here’s a fun video of a former President of The United States electioneering for his wife! https://t.co/RvHrVTtFjc — Tristan Odle (@Tristan_Odle) March 1, 2016
The controversy didn’t live and die just on social media platforms, although it did inspire a hashtag: #MoveBillGetOutTheWay. The Boston Globe reported later that day that the claims caught the attention of election officials, and earned the Clinton campaign a “reminder”:
According to the Election Day Legal Summary on [Secretary of State William F.] Galvin’s website, certain activities on Election Day are prohibited within polling locations and within 150 feet of polling places, including the “solicitation of votes for or against, or any other form of promotion or opposition of, any person or political party.” Bill Clinton had also been inside the Newton Free Library, a polling station in Newton, on Tuesday, after greeting supporters outside. A spokesman from Galvin’s office said Hillary Clinton’s campaign had been “notified” of the state rules. “We have heard about it, and the clerks have been instructed and the campaign has been instructed that 150 feet is the rule,” said Brian McNiff, a spokesman for Galvin’s office.
Galvin reiterated the state’s position in a comment to the New York Times, confirming they had called the Clinton campaign before Bill Clinton’s appearance in New Bedford, after reports began flooding in:
“We had to remind some of our poll workers that even a president can’t go inside and work a polling place,” William F. Galvin, the Massachusetts secretary of state, said in an interview. A pool report from Mr. Clinton’s visit to Boston’s West Roxbury neighborhood on Tuesday morning said that he went inside the polling place with the city’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh … When one woman asked for a photo, Mr. Clinton said, “As long as we’re not violating any election laws,” the pool report said. He then showed up at a library in Newton, Mr. Galvin said, and the poll workers were flummoxed. “We had to remind everybody what the rules are, that there is no campaigning within 150 feet of the voting booths because people are entitled to their privacy,” Mr. Galvin said. “And it’s not just him but his media entourage.” “He can go in, but he can’t approach voters,” Mr. Galvin said. “We just took the extra precaution of telling them because this is not a usual occurrence. You don’t usually get a president doing this.”
In a 1 March 2016 Boston.com piece, Brian McNiff, a spokesman for the Massachusetts secretary of state, reiterated that the Clinton campaign was “reminded” of election rules during the Massachusetts primary:
McNiff was asked if Clinton’s presence would, on its own, constitute a solicitation. “He’s a well known person. And he’s a spouse of a candidate,” McNiff said. “That should answer the question.” He declined to further elaborate.
A video was tweeted out by WCVB reporter Sera Congi, in which Bill Clinton was shown inside a polling place:
A Change.org petition addressed to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey called for Clinton’s arrest, and maintained:
This is a call for the immediate arrest of President Bill Clinton for clear, knowing and egregious violation of the campaign laws to swing an election in a significant way. It could not be any clearer in the Massachusetts General Laws. “Campaigning within 150 feet of a polling station, or in any way interfering with the right to vote”. Choosing the critical battleground state of Massachusetts, Bill Clinton should immediately be subject to arrest and prosecution. Bill Clinton was not only electioneering within the boundary. Although the spokesperson for Bill Clinton denies that he was ever inside a polling place, photos and video show him clearly greeting and talking up election workers inside. After being told to refrain from this activity, which is a 3rd degree Voter Violation Felony, for which Clinton indeed must have known the law and chose to violate it, Bill Clinton does not vote in Massachusetts, and would have no other business in a polling station on election day besides campaigning for his wife.
The Dallas Morning News reported that the activity wasn’t a clear-cut case of breaking election law, and fell into ambiguous territory:
So did Bill Clinton break Massachusetts election laws? Only if he was actively campaigning when he went inside the polling stations, which doesn’t seem to be the case. Did the pack of people traveling with him make things a little inconvenient for voters? Probably. Did it rise to the level of a crime? Probably not.
On 2 March 2016, CNN spoke to Brian McNiff about the controversy. McNiff said the Galvin’s office was not aware of any legally prohibited activity at any of the four polling places involved:
Brian McNiff, spokesman for the secretary of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, says shaking hands alone isn’t prohibited. Explicit campaigning is what’s banned within 150 feet of a polling places. “Just meeting people doesn’t constitute campaigning,” McNiff told CNN. “We received no information that anything like that happened.” His office said it reached out to the Clinton campaign Tuesday “just to remind them about the 150 foot rule.”
It’s true that Bill Clinton’s Super Tuesday activities in Massachusetts caught the attention of state officials, and that between stops, the Clinton campaign was reminded by Galvin’s office of “the 150 foot rule.” However, McNiff told reporters that the office was unaware of any specific violations, and did not indicate that officials believed any laws had been broken.More than ten years after the end of the troubles, filmmaker Alison Millar explores Belfast's Shankill Road and its marching bands to find out how the scars of war have healed.
More than ten years after the end of the troubles, filmmaker Alison Millar explores Belfast's Shankill Road to find out how well the scars of war have healed.
For four months she joined the men of the famous marching bands and in particular, spent time with Jordan, an eleven-year old aspiring drummer from one of the most famous former paramilitary families on the estate. What she found is a mixture of entrenched prejudice, relief that the troubles are over, nostalgia for the days of paramilitary discipline, and a battened-down resistance to talking about the past.
But when Jordan makes a shocking discovery at the end of his road, his father's brittle silence cracks and he decides to take his son on a journey into his own past and through the Maze Prison where he had been inside for several years.At the NYRR RUNCENTER featuring the NB Run Hub, high-quality free events and programs are available to our running community. By offering a variety of free training, education, and entertainment options for runners of all backgrounds, the NYRR RUNCENTER brings to life New York Road Runners’ mission to help and inspire people through running.
NYRR RUNCENTER Services and Programs
The NYRR RUNCENTER is a public space open to all that serves the running community in a variety of ways:
Race number pickup: Registered runners can pick up race numbers during NYRR RUNCENTER hours, saving time and stress on race day.
Free supplementary training classes: From stretching to yoga to strength-training and more, the NYRR RUNCENTER offers a variety of classes and sessions to help runners stay healthy and support their overall fitness. Consider these programs as your gym alternative, completely free! Browse the Events listings and click through for details and registration.
Free events: Check out the Events listings for our year-round schedule of celebrity and elite athlete appearances |
Enhanced Statistics
Season G/60 A/60 FirstA/60 Points/60 Shots/60 iFenwick/60 iCorsi/60 FF% FPDO OZFO% 2009-2010 0.73 1.84 0.73 2.57 4.04 5.27 7.59 50.9 100.3 34.2 2010-2011 0.43 0.59 0.37 1.01 4.42 5.76 6.98 46.5 98 34.1 2011-2012 0.68 0.96 0.57 1.64 4.58 6.73 8.37 45.9 100.1 33.1 2012-2013 0.62 0.89 0.35 1.51 3.72 4.96 6.91 43.7 102.4 28.3 2013-2014 0.65 1.68 1.1 2.32 3.75 4.84 6.2 42 103 25.4 2014-2015 0.37 0.85 0.43 1.23 4.27 5.87 7.36 45.6 98.2 31.5 2015-2016 0.55 1.02 0.71 1.57 5.41 7.37 9.56 49.9 99 38.5
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Tyler Bozak HERO Chart
PollSheesh, it sure is a bad time to be Dave Mustaine. After declaring during a recent interview that “I know [President Barack Obama] was born somewhere else than America,” the Megadeth main man first got an earful from GWAR’s Oderus Urungus; now President Obama himself has spoken out against Mustaine, making some pretty damning accusations of his own.
It’s no secret that Obama is a metalhead; a couple of years ago, he weighed in on the state of The Dillinger Escape Plan, too. Still, the Prez so rarely talks about metal in public, it’s always still kind of surprising when he does.
When asked during a press conference earlier today if he’d heard about Mustaine’s comments, here’s what President Obama had to say:
“Dave Mustaine has a lot of questions about me? Well I have a lot of questions about him! How do we know he really had anything to do with those songs on [Metallica’s] Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning? I didn’t see him write them, did you? I’m not questioning it, I just… I know he didn’t write any of those riffs. How come he was invisible until he became whatever he was in Megadeth?”
Ouch. I guess the good news is, Obama probably has James Hetfield’s vote now?
-AR
[via AP](Newser) – Yep, she went through with it. New York performance artist Marni Kotak gave birth to a healthy baby boy yesterday morning at the Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, in front of a small crowd of family, friends, and select spectators, the AP reports. "The atmosphere in the gallery was magical," writes Katarina Hybenova of the Bushwick Daily, who was one of those spectators. "I believe that all of the participants were deeply moved by this emotional, raw, and true 'piece of art.'"
The Village Voice, meanwhile, just missed the birth; by the time they arrived they saw "Kotak calmly eating a banana, the placenta in a bowl, and the baby's father, Jason, holding his son who was wrapped in a blue towel. The beautiful baby boy was wide-eyed, and as quiet as could be." The baby, previously known only as Baby X, has been named Ajax. Video of his birth—along with remnants from it—will be added to the exhibition, which runs through November 7. (Read more performance art stories.)Before we attempt a print there are a few things that we will want to check to make sure we don't have a disaster.
The first thing that we want to check is that the endstops work. To do this we want to 'home' the printer. Get ready to 'emergency stop' the printer if the endstops don't stop it for you. If the printer is not hitting the endstops, stop the print and adjust them until it does. Now home the printer again and we should nearly be good to go.
The next thing that we want to check before we start printing is that the bed is level. To do this get a small piece of regular paper. We want to get the print head as close to the bed as possible without pushing it into the bed. Start by moving the print head to the front left hand corner of the bed. Get the extruder as close the the bed as possible so that if you push the piece of paper under it you can only just not move it. That way we can ensure that the extruder is only the height of a piece of paper away. Next lift the extruder 10 mm up and move the print head to the front right of the bed. Now try the same trick again with the piece of paper. If the bed is too high tighten the screws on the bed so that the bed is lowered a bit. If the bed is too high loosen it a bit. Now repeat this for the other 2 corners so that our bed is completely level with the extruder.
If your prints don't stick to the bed it might be because the bed is too far away from the extruder.
The extruder will need to be calibrated so that it pushes the filament out at the correct rate. To do this we mark a couple of centimeters on the filament the other side of the extruder, tell the extruder to move by that amount and then calculate if that was correct. If it does not move the desired amount then we will need to adjust the firmware configuration file. Note that you will not be able to upload a sketch to your Arduino if the board is connected in repetier host.
Now you should be ready to print. If you are using a heated bed note that it can take some time to preheat it.
The first thing that you will want to print is not that exciting but unfortunately it is necessary - it is a calibration block. You should be able to find one on Thingiverse - here is one with X-Y directional information: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:298812Yelp reviewers have a knack for making everything about them, and potentially ruining businesses because they woke up on the wrong side of bed. Some places have gotten so cynical about these "critics" that they've even asked people to post bad reviews on purpose.
But what about America's most pristine natural landscapes? Surely Yelp reviewers can unite in their appreciation of such beauty. What about the purple mountain majesties? The friggin' amber waves of grain? What about the flipping fruited plains, America?
Sorry, people will hate on all that, too.
Mashable recently combed Yelp for negative reviews of the national parks by people who clearly don't like nice things and would be much happier on their couch watching reality television. The results are hilarious. And completely depressing.
Via Reddit. Images via Mashable.
I mean, Ranger Wiener really is kind of a dick, apparently?
Yeah, they're just like mall food courts.
God forbid one happens to eat you.
But this Instagram will get you at least 50 likes.
Says the guy with the same IQ as one.Bethlehem, occupied West Bank - The rocky terraces of the Cremisan Valley are mostly overgrown and wild these days, as local landowners say they have lost all hope of keeping control over the more than 300 hectares of olive trees and orchards along the sloping mount, confiscated by the Israeli government earlier this year.
"I haven't been here at all this year. Look how the weeds have grown over, and trash from the street has piled up," Ricardo Jaweejat said, motioning towards the vast olive grove that has belonged to his family for generations.
"What's the point? When we learned the Israelis were taking the land, I avoided doing anything with it. It's a little bit dangerous to be here now."
Beit Jala olives are known by Palestinians around the world for producing the finest olive oil, and the oil from the city's Cremisan Valley is considered to be the best of Beit Jala, a district of the Bethlehem municipality in the southern occupied West Bank. This year is expected to be the last chance to harvest olives from the valley, which will soon be blocked off by an extension of Israel's separation wall.
READ MORE: Palestinian Village 'will be like a prison'
The land, now technically the property of the Israeli government, will be closed off to those who normally depend on the autumn olive harvest for what the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has called an "indispensable source of income".
"My great-great-great-grandfather harvested this land, and every grandfather after that until my father and I," Jaweejat said. "I just can't imagine that this is it; we will lose this land for good."
Jaweejat was one of about a dozen families who went through a nine-year legal battle with the Israeli government in the hope of keeping their land. In April of last year, an Israeli high court ruled in favour of the petition by Beit Jala residents - but nine months later, an appeal was brought forth, and the court reinstated the original route of the separation wall, annexing the valley.
Jaweejat said that he would like to hope that one day his family will be able to return to Cremisan, but he has never heard of a case of confiscated land going back to its Palestinian owners.
"We try of course, but it's hard to hold on to any hope," he said.
Driving back from the valley, through the middle of the Christian-majority city of Beit Jala, cars stopped as an Israeli military Jeep passed through an intersection.
"We can't avoid them," Jaweejat said, motioning to the large green Jeep. "They come and go through our neighbourhoods as they please, and take whatever they want."
The Jeep drove through a part of Beit Jala that is in Area A, which is supposed to be under full Palestinian Authority control. But due to the Israeli military base at the top of the city's mount, which is in Area C - under full Israeli control - the Israeli military presence is normal in both areas of the city.
At the top of Beit Jala's mount, the illegal Israeli settlement of Gilo can be seen clearly on the northwest horizon. To the northeast is Har Gilo, and in between them is the Cremisan Valley.
READ MORE: Israeli occupation stunts Palestinian economy, UN finds
While the Israeli government alleges that the separation wall's route was planned with security in mind, Palestinian residents in the area are convinced that the route was designed to allow for the illegal settlements of Gilo and Har Gilo to be connected via the Cremisan Valley.
In July, the Israeli government approved planning initiatives for 770 new settler units to be built across from the valley, on land from the nearby Palestinian village of al-Walaja, in order to expand the Gilo settlement.
"That settlement will keep expanding until it takes up all the land from Gilo to Har Gilo. This wall has nothing to do with security - it's simply a land grab," Jaweejat said, pointing out that the Cremisan Valley is one of the few places left where residents of the bustling city can be around nature.
Inside Beit Jala's olive press cooperative, dozens of Palestinians waited their turn to use the olive press and bottle this year's fresh oil.
Ilyas Jacshan, the manager at the olive press, told Al Jazeera that at least a fifth of all his customers come to press olives from the Cremisan Valley.
"Next year we will lose all that business," Jacshan said. "Many people who have land in Cremisan already skipped this year's harvest, but next year there will be none."
According to Jacshan, Beit Jala's olive oil sells for twice as much as olive oil from outside the city, and Cremisan oil can sell for even higher.
"It's not a normal grove these people in Cremisan are losing; it's some of the most sought-out oil in Palestine, and from what we hear, Israel will cut down all those trees once the wall goes up," Jacshan said.
This year's olive harvest started later than normal, as the harvest is smaller, and the first rain did not clean away the dust on the trees - the traditional sign of the start of the harvest - until the last Friday in October.
"The mood is different this year, the harvest is bad, and many people have land and trees that are being affected by the wall that the Israelis are building. It isn't just Cremisan; there are several areas affected," Jachsan said.
"It is not a happy time for the harvest. People who still have access to their trees are upset with the small harvest, and for others, the harvest reminds them that something that has been in their family for generations is being taken away from them."Police sought to launch a secret operation to spy on the political activities of students at Cambridge University, a covertly recorded film reveals.
An officer monitoring political campaigners attempted to persuade an activist in his 20s to become an informant and feed him information about students and other protesters in return for money.
But instead the activist wore a hidden camera to record a meeting with the officer and expose the surveillance of undergraduates and others at the 800-year-old institution.
The officer, who is part of a covert unit, is filmed saying the police need informants like him to collect information about student protests as it is "impossible" to infiltrate their own officers into the university.
The Guardian is not disclosing the name of the Cambridgeshire officer and will call him Peter Smith. He asks the man who he is trying to recruit to target "student-union type stuff" and says that would be of interest because "the things they discuss can have an impact on community issues".
Smith wanted the activist to name students who were going on protests, list the vehicles they travelled in to demonstrations, and identify leaders of protests. He also asked the activist to search Facebook for the latest information about protests that were being planned.
The other proposed targets of the surveillance include UK Uncut, the campaign against tax avoidance and government cuts, Unite Against Fascism and environmentalists. The Cambridgeshire police initially insisted that there were implications for "national security" but later dropped this argument when challenged.
At another point, the activist asked whether a group known as Cambridge Defend Education, which has protested against tuition fees and education cuts, would be of interest. Smith replied: "That's the sort of thing that we would be looking for. Again, basic sort of stuff. It's all the internet. When they have meetings and they are discussing what they are going to do, that's when we'll say: 'Will you go along?'"
Cambridge Defend Education describes itself as being "mostly students and academics from Cambridge University".
Rachel Wenstone, deputy president of the National Union of Students, said: "This is yet another example of the questionable tactics that undercover police officers have taken in recent years to infiltrate campaign groups and extract information."
Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, tweeted: "I'm shocked by this – seems wholly inappropriate." Cambridge University did not comment, saying it was a matter for the police.
Cambridgeshire police said: "Officers use covert tactics to gather intelligence, in accordance with the law, to assist in the prevention and detection of criminal activity."
The disclosures follow prolonged criticism of the police over their secret deployment of long-term undercover officers in political groups since 1968. Police chiefs have been accused of unjustifiably infiltrating and disrupting political groups that use non-violent methods to promote their aims.
Another technique for gathering intelligence on campaigners has been to convince activists to become paid informants and pass on details of future protests and prominent campaigners. The number of informants in political groups, according to police sources, runs into the hundreds.
The covert film sheds light on the rarely visible world of informants, illuminating how the police recruit and task them. The activist, who does not want to be named and has been given the pseudonym John Armstrong, was rung on his mobile out of blue at the beginning of October by the police officer.
Smith said he worked for the police and asked him if he was willing to come to a police station in Cambridge to help him with a matter that he did not disclose.
According to Armstrong, Smith had chosen him because he had been active in environmental and anti-nuclear groups and had been arrested three times on demonstrations, although not charged. He has also lived in Cambridge for many years.
Afterwards, Armstrong contacted the Guardian as he did not want to become an informant. He agreed to wear a concealed camera to record the contents of his second meeting with Smith.
During this meeting, Smith suggested that he wanted Armstrong to start by providing information about local groups in Cambridge, before progressing on to national campaigns.
"Let's keep it small, you know little things that go on, little meetings that happen where they are going to discuss different issues in Cambridge, whether it be, such as at the university or those sorts of things," the officer is recorded as saying. When Armstrong said he had been involved in a student-organised occupation of Cambridge University in a protest against tuition fees three years ago and asked if Smith would have been interested in that, Smith said yes. "Again, it's those sorts of things. You know, what is the feeling of people, if you are inside."
The young man then asked if it would have been difficult for the police to send their own officers into the occupation, to which Smith replied: "We can't do it. It's impossible. That's why we need to work with people." Armstrong has not been a student at Cambridge, although many of his friends are at the university.
When contacted by the Guardian, a Cambridgeshire police spokesperson said: "Officers use covert tactics to gather intelligence, in accordance with the law, to assist in the prevention and detection of criminal activity." They declined to give any details of the unit Smith works for.
Smith outlined what information Armstrong would be required to slip him. "It will be a case of you going to meetings, say, I don't know, UK Uncut, student … something like that, how many people were there, who was the main speaker, who was giving the talks, what was your assessment of the talk, was it a case of – were they trying to cause problems or were they trying to help people, you know, those sort of things."
Smith also said he wanted Armstrong to collect information about Cambridge campaigners who were planning to go to protests in other parts of the country. "That's where the names come in. Because what I will want to know is – OK, who's going, do they plan on a peaceful protest which is absolutely fine, how they are going to go, as in what vehicles they are going to use, index numbers."
He goes on to say: "So you will tell me, for example, there's 50 people going from Cambridge University, these are the vehicles they are travelling in and they are going as a peaceful protest?"
Smith outlined how the information gathered by Armstrong would be funnelled to the police officers in charge of policing the demonstration: "The reason I am asking those questions is because it gives the officers or whoever's looking after it on that side of things, as in at the protest, an idea of how many people are going to attend, where they are coming from, how many vehicles are going to turn up, so they can put measures in place to keep them off the road and things. It's not because we want to target people and round them all up and arrest them."
Smith also suggested that Armstrong use Facebook to find information about groups, adding: "It is easier to ask people like yourself to give us updates … It's all about us doing things legally … We don't hack into people's accounts so then we would ask you for updates."
The officer also suggested the man he hoped to recruit would be paid expenses or other sums. "You might go to a UK Uncut or Unite Against Fascism meeting one evening, you might get say £30 just for your time and effort for doing that. That's the sort of thing you are looking at."
As Smith sought to convince Armstrong to sign up, he also advised him not to "think too deeply" about informing on his fellow campaigners as he might "tie himself up in knots".A Virginia man who received a full-face transplant seven months ago eats primarily by mouth, and can taste and smell, the University of Maryland Medical Center announced Tuesday.
Richard Lee Norris of Hillsville, Va., received the transplant during a 36-hour procedure in March, which medical staff said was the most comprehensive yet. The doctor in charge of the surgery said the team had wanted to restore Norris' face "in the most aesthetic manner possible."
The transplant included the replacement of teeth, tongue, skin and both jaws, as well as underlying nerve and muscle tissue from scalp to neck.
"For the past 15 years I lived as a recluse hiding behind a surgical mask and doing most of my shopping at night when less people were around," Norris said in a release from the university.
Landmark Face Transplant Is Most Comprehensive Yet
Dr. Steven Hopping discusses the face transplant performed last week in Maryland, which includes jaws, teeth, tongue, and portions of soft tissue. (Published Friday, March 30, 2012)
He had been injured in a gun accident in 1997.
"I am now able to walk past people and no one even gives me a second look," he said in the release. "My friends have moved on with their lives, starting families and careers. I can now start working on the new life given back to me."
Norris now spends his time fishing and golfing. He was quoted as saying he is regaining his speech, and can smile and show expression. He still attends physical therapy and speech therapy.
Va. Man Undergoes Full Face Transplant
Richard Norris is getting a second chance at a normal life after doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore performed a total facial transplant. (Published Wednesday, March 28, 2012)
His doctors say the motor function on the right side of Norris' face is about 80 percent normal, with the left side at about 40 percent.
The transplant was led by Dr. Eduardo D. Rodriguez, professor of surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and chief of plastic, reconstructive and maxillofacial surgery at Shock Trauma.
"Richard is exceeding my expectations this soon after his surgery, and he deserves great deal of credit for the countless hours spent practicing his speech and strengthening his new facial muscles," Rodriguez said. "He's one of the most courageous and committed individuals I know."
The University of Maryland says it it making efforts to expand its facial transplant program to help more patients, including service members wounded in action.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC4 WashingtonThere’s no in-house beer yet at the newly opened Eastbound Brewing Co., on Queen St. E., near Broadview Ave. That’s because you can’t have it all: a roomy, gorgeous eatery with 80 seats, an open kitchen and a 14-metre bar made of live edge walnut.
David and Tara Lee at in the brewing area of Eastbound Brewing Co. ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star ) The work that began last summer wrapped up this spring and Eastbound Brewing opened on April 23. ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star ) Eastbound Brewing is a roomy, gorgeous eatery with 80 seats, an open kitchen and a 14-metre bar made of live edge walnut. ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star ) The neighbourhood has been supportive, immediately latching on to Tara’s menu. ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star ) The so-called pit, while large enough to hold things like five fermenters, offers a tight fit. Every hose and connector was tough to get in place. ( Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star )
Then, just steps from this “live cooking show” of a restaurant, a sunken brewery with a 100-barrel capacity. (This space was built in the 1930s as a theatre, so it’s got height.) “We just wanted to have a feeling that you just stumbled into this working space,” says one of the owners, Adam Stiles. “We want guests to see the process.” To that end, one row of counter seats overlooks the brew operations below. But the so-called pit, while large enough to hold things like five fermenters, offers a tight fit. Every hose and connector was tough to get in place — it’s taken time to install all the equipment so it’s ready to brew.
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“We wanted to have it born here,” says David Lee, another partner, and the brewer. While it was tempting to put together a batch of Eastbound somewhere else to coincide with launch, they insisted on waiting and selling outside beers until their home brew is ready in the next couple of months. Stiles was working as a meteorologist for CityNews — and still is — when he first started talking with his friend Peter Moscone, manager at the Senator, about the potential in the craft beer market. (Stiles hosts a segment called City Brews, so he knows beer.) The idea stuck and soon they were branching out. They got Dave Watson, who worked at Cott Beverages, interested. The trio connected with Lee, who had trained in Chicago and had worked for brands such as Mill Street Brewery and Grand River Brewing. He was working for Sessions Craft Canning, which offers a mobile canning service, and was keen to launch his own label.
It was about two and a half years ago that the four started talking about the venture seriously. A bonus: Lee’s wife, Tara, is a trained chef who was working at Bar Hop Brewco, and could step in to create a quality menu with homemade ingredients. Last August, they found this space. The 3,200-square-foot storefront wasn’t quite as big as they wanted, but the height was there and so was the location (beside the under-construction Broadview Hotel). The open air basement was ideal, although cramped. After a lot of measuring, they figured a way to jigsaw puzzle the equipment in.
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“It was a pretty big undertaking,” says Lee of the changes to the space, which had been a furniture store in its most recent incarnation. Plumbing and ventilation had to go in, while the brew shop floor had to be evened out and dropped a little. The work that began last summer wrapped up this spring and the space opened on April 23. The two Daves and Tara have been working in the space full time while the other two partners are keeping their day jobs. The neighbourhood has been supportive, immediately latching on to Tara’s menu, which features unique but beer-complementing dishes such as octopus tostados and a cod sandwich. For now, the place is selling local craft brews from the likes of Side Launch and Bench Brewing Company, plus Ontario ciders and wines. When the home brew is done, don’t expect just one signature house flavour. “We’re going to do a wide range of brews,” says Dave Lee. “We’re going to explore all the styles.” The keg lines will run direct from the brewery up to the bar, which has an ample 12 taps (some will always be reserved for outside brands). The team also plans to sell beer in 945 ml cans called crowlers. It’s all just unique enough, and in an emerging part of town, to stay relevant in the busy craft beer pub market in the city. And when the first Eastbound batches are ready, the neighbourhood is likely to agree it was worth the wait.Spring has barely sprung, but this much can already be said for 2017: it’s a bumper year for activism. On April 29, in honor of Donald Trump’s one hundredth day as president, 300,000 Americans marched in support of “jobs, justice, and climate action.” (That’s a quote from the website of the “People’s Climate Movement.” Do not ask me to connect these dots.)
The Climate March is just the latest installment in a seemingly endless string of marches that have been going on from January through the present. With the warm weather upon us, it seems unlikely that they’ll taper off now.
Liberals have always had a taste for political activism. In general, religious conservatives are less keen. We have our annual March for Life, and it’s true that the Tea Party was fairly friendly to the public demonstration. That was a bit different from the protests we’re currently seeing, however. The Tea Party had a central theme. Seeing massive growth of government and irresponsible spending in the early Obama years, conservatives made a sustained, grassroots effort to voice their opposition. Here we see no such cohesion. Clearly liberals are upset about Trump, but their protests are all over the map: women, taxes, the environment, you name it. Oddly, the randomness doesn’t seem to dissuade people from coming.
Or perhaps it isn’t random, after all. Have demonstrations simply become the liberal substitute for church? There must be some connection between the emptying of Protestant pews, and the filling of Washingtonian streets. As God is exchanged for mammon, the rally seems to have become the new devotional. As we might expect, then, it has many elements of a devotional. There may be ceremonial clothing (pink hats, for instance). Creeds are printed on placards, and carried in processions. There is preaching, and usually music.
The rally is meant to give like-minded people a sense of solidarity. In the political demonstration, we see people of faith gathered together for mutual support. These are trying times for liberals, so it’s not greatly surprising that we would see a resurgence of political devotion.
What, on the other side, should we make of these demonstrations? On the one hand, we are grateful that the protests have been, in general, peaceful. The antifa movement has stirred up some ugliness these past few months, mostly on college campuses. This is worrisome. Happily though, these incidents have been fairly small in scale, and not (to this point) of a sort to provoke widespread civil unrest. The monster demonstrations involving thousands have shown no real proclivity towards violence.
This is of course a blessing. Violent protests create fear and enmity, and we should give (the majority of) our liberal compatriots credit for respecting civic order and the rule of law—at least in this limited instance. Truthfully though, peaceful protests are susceptible to a different weakness: they make us want to laugh. This is especially true of this recent spate of exercises, which show strong marks of hysteria and general loopiness. How does an obscene-headwear parade help women? Was it necessary to pick Holy Saturday to protest corruption? Doesn’t this all feel a bit like an ongoing tantrum?
It’s also possible that protests may inspire a more benevolent kind of condescension. In our bleak modern age, it can just be heartwarming to see people caring about something, even a rather foolish thing. The march on Washington, in particular, is something of an American tradition. Thus, there can be something perversely cheering about witnessing a demonstration even for a cause one very definitely does not support. That such things can still happen here seems like an indicator of (at least modest) well-being for society as a whole.
In light of these reflections, we should note this. Non-believers have many of the same reactions to the churchgoing. Some see religion as insidious, and a possible precursor to unhinged zealotry. Others are benevolently tolerant, but make no secret of their mirth when we Christians insist that there is something salutary about assembling in dusty pews to watch men in funny clothes perform strange rituals. At the same time, there are also non-believers who find churchgoing heartwarming. It is traditional, and the continued vitality of churches may appear to be a sign of cultural health, even in the eyes of one who does not believe.
Contemplating these parallels, we may get a better sense for how to view liberal activism. It is an expression of liberal piety, and a major organ of liberal civic life. That means, on the one hand, that we should remain in every way supportive of the of liberals’ right to demonstrate peacefully. Of course it is a Constitutional right in any case, but it is an especially dear freedom for liberals, just as freedom of worship is for Christians. We should expect liberals to fight tooth and nail if their freedom to demonstrate is ever threatened.
It also means that the liberal demonstration, even when snicker-worthy, is important as an indicator of what’s happening on the left. Because they don’t respect religion, liberals often make the mistake of just assuming that the views of religious people are basically incoherent. They rarely bother to investigate. It’s not to their benefit or the nation’s; even if you think people are very wrong, it’s often worthwhile to take the trouble to understand them. Admittedly, there are strong non-parallels here. Christians worship a real God, in fidelity to a tradition honed across millennia. Liberal politics, by contrast, is a murky mess of different influences, easily moved by momentary fads and emotional currents. Even so, protests can be good indicators of where cultural currents are flowing, and it may be worth taking a little trouble to understand the interior logic such as it is.
Finally, looking out over the sad scene of signs and strange garments, we should allow ourselves to feel pity. We might properly feel moved to pray for those unfortunates who have no king but Caesar. If this is how people feed their souls, how desolate must those souls be?
For the godless man, political horizons may represent the only higher cause worth pursuing. It’s unsurprising that liberals quickly grow shrill when their political vision seems to be faltering. Christians have the benefit of a long tradition and, even more importantly, the reassurance that all things are ultimately held in God’s providential care. Unbelievers have no such reassurance, so we can understand why their rhetoric and activism may take on despairing notes. They are hungry for the spiritual food that we ourselves have.
Christ told his Apostles that the harvest was plentiful. Looking out across the throngs of protestors, we see that it is plentiful still.
(Photo credit: Megan Cloherty / WTOP)by
Wall Street is buzzing, and it’s all about bubbles.
In fact, according to Google Trends, interest in the term “stock bubble” was higher in November 2013 than anytime since October 2008.
And that should be expected given that the Dow Jones just broke through the 16,000-mark while the NASDAQ sailed-past the 4,000 milestone for the first time in 13 years. And did I mention that S and P 500 just closed above 1,800 for an all-time high?
While surging stocks are not proof of a bubble, they do draw attention to the condition of the underlying economy which is still in deep distress 5 years after the recession ended. With unemployment at 7.2 percent, GDP barley growing, droopy personal consumption, flagging durable goods, shrinking revenues, flatlining wages, falling incomes, widening inequality, plunging consumer sentiment, 47 million Americans on food stamps, and myriad other signs of persistent economic stagnation; the so called “recovery” is anything but robust. So where are stocks getting the oomph to keep rising?
That’s not a question that bothers the bubble deniers who have started popping up on the business channels like they did prior to the housing and the dot.com busts. These so called “experts” assure the public that all the bubble talk is just scaremongering by disgruntled Cassandras who don’t understand that current valuations are reasonable. They say that soaring prices reflect “strong fundamentals.
Uh huh.
Last week, serial bubblemaker, Alan Greenspan, made an appearance on Bloomberg TV where he scoffed at the idea of a stock bubble saying, “It’s a little on the upside, (But) “This does not have the characteristics, as far as I’m concerned, of a stock market bubble.”
There you have it from Maestro himself. No bubble here. Move along now.
Others, however, are not as confident as Greenspan. They think stock prices have less to do with fundamentals than they do with the Fed’s uber-accommodative policy which has kept short-term rates set below the rate of inflation for 5 years straight, providing a subsidy for risk taking. They also point to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s $85 billion per month asset purchase program, called QE, which has expanded the Fed’s balance sheet by $3 trillion lifting stock and bond prices across the board. Stock prices are based on Central Bank intervention. Fundamentals have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.
As for the bubble; judge for yourself:
Margin debt on the New York Stock Exchange is currently at its highest level ever. It’s even higher than before the crash in 2007. When investors borrow a lot of dough to buy stocks, you’re in a bubble, right? Because that’s what a bubble is, tons of credit pushing up prices. And when something bad happens, like the Lehman Brothers default, then all the over-extended borrowers have to dump their stocks pronto, which causes firesales, panics and financial meltdowns. Been there, done that.
So why is there so much margin debt now, you ask?
Because of zero rates. Because of QE. Because speculators think the Fed will keep prices high by pumping more liquidity into the system. It’s called the Bernanke Put, the belief that the Fed will prevent stocks from falling too fast, too far. Margin debt is a reasonable reaction to the Fed’s policy, which is why the Fed is ultimately responsible for the risky behavior.
Now check this out from the New York Times:
“Since the dark days of 2008, the Nasdaq has risen more than 150 percent, twice as much as the old-school Dow industrials. Money has been pouring into social media stocks. As of Friday, Twitter had risen nearly 60 percent since it went public only a few weeks earlier. Once again, new “metrics” are being applied to justify stratospheric valuations. Twitter is losing money. A price-to-earnings ratio? There is no E in the P/E. But its stock is trading at 20- |
of meticulously researched detail! Musical instruments and procedurally-generated art forms are next. Then tabletop games for your dwarves to play! Then artifacts and magic! I would say that you were being spoiled with all this extra junk, but you come through with generosity every time! All you have to do is trust us, and you will be rewarded with ten-fold-fun!Congratulations to the generous!Thanks to everybody that helped out last month! I'm going to start February out by continuing to plug away at the new generators. Hopefully we'll see them come into use in the tavern and temple activities soon. Then we'll be on to visitors and the other planned features for this time.Reward reminder: If you support us, you can pick either a Story Reward or a Crayon/Colored Pencil Art Reward. A Story Reward is basically a mini-Threetoe story ( examples ) and a Crayon Art Reward is a crudely drawn scene which we sketch, color in, and mail to you, anywhere in the world (assuming your contribution covers postage, which is about a dollar almost wherever you are). We take personal requests for either reward as well, he he he. You can also be listed among the Bay 12 ChampionsDarth Anonymous is BACK! This time he’s built the LDD for the infamous Tron Light Cycle based on Joe Perez’s design and build. This is a sweet machine if you’re a huge fan of the Tron franchise!
If you’re wondering, this is just another LDD? NOPE! Darth Anonymous actually waited for parts to come in and CONFIRM that he’s able to build the bike using the design before releasing it here. So it took some effort and validation, put your hands together for an AFOL that gives back to the community in a different way!
Darth Anonymous took that visual and built the parts in LDD. Thanks to him, you can export the LDD for parts and build your own!
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Link to LDD file by Darth Anonymous:
Further mods to be done that’s not in the LDD
In the LDD there are x8 3mm “hoses” that are required with different lengths. Part 75c36 x 4 pcs can be used instead to replace them by cutting off to the length required - which is more cost effective. Placing the hoses should hold them better together.
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(I’m pretty sure there are some minor variations, but it’s up to you to further MOC it!)
Joe’s Bike is here (This is the original design from which it was referenced from)
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Joe was kind enough to show the breakdown of the build so that others could have a go (and this is the reference that Darth Anonymous used to build the LDD)
P/S: If you missed his last contribution to the community, the Darth Vader Lightsaber. Enjoy!Michael Alen calls his Kickstarter project Hero HoodieZ. The first in what Alen hopes will be a series of superhero-inspired hooded zip-ups spotlights crime-fighting vigilante Nightwing. The hoodie, available in both traditional Black & Blue and new-school Black & Red, and set to ship in September 2012, doesn't come fully-loaded with Nightwing's sedative-tipped dart launcher or Eskrima truncheons, but it does have what I would consider the far more useful capability of warming the bare shoulders of damsels distressed with goosebumps on chilly fall nights. Adds the Don Juan to my Dick Grayson no Spandex suit ever could.
Part one of Alen's Hero HoodieZ Kickstarter project runs through July 18, 2012. A $69 pledge returns one Nightwing Hoodie, shipped free of charge to US residents, in your choice of colors and men's sizes S, M, L, XL, and XXL. Once Hero HoodieZ mass production begins, retail price will increase to $79, plus shipping.
November 2013 Update: Nightwing Hoodie funding was successful. Follow the link below to buy yours now directly from the Hero HoodieZ online store, hosted by Store Envy.Officials with Lone Star Rail District (LSRD) have asked City Council to allocate up to $500,000 in the city’s 2016 fiscal year budget to help fund staffing and consulting services in anticipation of the $2-3 billion passenger rail project.
Lone Star Rail (LSTAR) project supporters see the project as a means for commuters to avoid congested roads between San Antonio and Austin and the potential for economic development and higher educational opportunities in one of the fastest growing regions in the nation.
LSRD officials made their case for initial funding during the Council’s B session on Wednesday. The plan includes improving the existing Union Pacific railroad that runs parallel to Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin for passengers at an estimated cost of $800 million. LSRD would first build a $1.6 billion freight line east of San Antonio that would take on the freight traffic of the exiting line. These one-time capital construction costs would be funded by state and federal grants as well as the private sector. But first, it needs assurances from municipalities along its route from San Antonio to Georgetown, just north of Austin, that they will pay for continued maintenance and operations of each stop.
The idea is to pull 18,000 vehicles, or 20,000 people, off I-35 daily. LSRD proposes 16 station locations, including six in the San Antonio area, one in New Braunfels and one in San Marcos. The inner city locations would be Loop 410 at the San Antonio International Airport, the University of Texas at San Antonio Downtown campus, Port San Antonio, and Texas A&M University-San Antonio.
“It’s a very big, complicated infrastructure project,” said Tullos Wells, vice chairman of the LSRD Board of Directors representing San Antonio. “You can’t solve all of the congestion and the risks it poses to the economic vitality in our region by pouring more concrete alone. Lone Star Rail alone won’t solve all the transportation problems in this region, but it’ll be a very important part of the solution. We’re going to have two million more warm bodies along this corridor in the next 25 years and we need a way to move them.”
At full capacity, there could be up to 32 trains running per day, including midday and evening service in each direction for commuters, students and other regional travelers – depending on demand. The system would support a 75-minute express service from downtown San Antonio to downtown Austin with stops in San Marcos and New Braunfels. LSRD promises modern, safe passenger cars with wireless Internet access, especially beneficial to business travelers and college students.
If all goes well, San Antonio’s $500,000 initial contribution in FY 2016 would consist of funds from the City’s general fund budget and property tax revenue derived from Transportation Infrastructure Zone (TIZ) around the LSR stations.
There would be continual financial commitments each year over the duration of a 36-year funding agreement, which would accompany a 36-year TIZ agreement. LSRD officials pledged not to seek any other funds from San Antonio’s proposed FY 2016 budget. Deputy City Manager Peter Zanoni explained that in 10-year increments, from 2021 to 2051, TIZ funds would cover most of the annual funding commitment with San Antonio.
Financing for the entire system is supposed to be split among San Antonio, Austin, and a coalition of seven “smaller” yet major cities along the LSR route, including Schertz and New Braunfels. LSRD estimates that annual funding for the system could reach $75 million by 2050, split among participating cities and taxing entities.
LSRD is also requesting funds from Bexar County and Alamo Colleges. Zanoni said the system’s current 36-year funding plan has a funding gap of $44 million in 2021, a gap that LSR presently cannot fill. Also, the plan has not identified funding for the maintenance of San Antonio’s stations, totaling $24 million over 30 years, Zanoni told the Council.
In addition to their recommendation of allocating $500,000 in FY16 as San Antonio’s initial contribution and signal of support, City staff recommended setting up a calendar for funding and TIZ agreements, including milestones and benchmark goals, as well as cancellation options if goals cannot be reached.
Wells called the $500,000 request a “placeholder” that allows the organization to work through business modeling for the entire operation. While many expressed support for the LSTAR project, Council members also were concerned with the project’s finances. Wells said it’s natural to build support for the level of public and private monies that could be used over decades to fund the system.
Wells said he and colleagues are presently looking at three finance models, with different formulas, and an independent third-party will verify the numbers in each model.
“There will be benefits from this alternative transit option, but we have to be good fiscal stewards,” Mayor Ivy Taylor said.
Wells addressed the project’s funding gap.
“We’re a bit early in the game to talk more about that. Right now, we need baseline support from the community.”
Council members such as Ray Lopez (D6) and Rey Saldaña (D7) agreed with Wells that public and private investment could lead to a wider variety of opportunities for both businesses and residents. This, they added, would be true especially for lower-income individuals and cash-strapped college students by providing them more employment and higher education opportunities. Wells said ticket prices have not yet been determined.
“This could have a positive generational impact for many future generations, not just now,” Lopez said. “I do believe we’re a mass transit-focused community, we just haven’t figured out yet the level of commitment. We’re just doing our due diligence.”
Councilmember Joe Krier (D9) has been a vocal advocate of building a regional commuter rail system for 20 years. He said there’s still a lot to be worked out, and a lot of improvements that can be applied to existing forms of local mass transit. But he said the LSTAR represents an opportunity to further growth in San Antonio, and help transport future generations of riders.
“In the last century, if you didn’t have a railroad going through your town, you’d literally dry up and blow away,” Krier said. “In this century, railroads are seeing a renaissance of interest because they provide that alternative transportation option.”
Krier, along with Councilmember Shirley Gonzales (D5) said LSR officials should emphasize the system’s potential for improving rail crossings, particularly in older neighborhoods, and how it could improve overall public health and safety in the region.
“If it does nothing else than to reduce the rate of deaths on this stretch of highway, it would have provided much improvement and benefit to the region,” Krier said.
The Council will consider the $500,000 request as it continues discussing the proposed FY16 budget.
*Featured/top image: A map of the proposed Lone Star Rail line. Courtesy image.
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MARTINSVILLE, Ind. (September 23, 2015) – A 10-week-old baby suffered at least 10 broken bones and investigators believe her step-dad is responsible.
William Turner, 23, faces child neglect and battery charges. Investigators say doctors found “suspicious injuries” on the baby when her mom brought her into the office.
The baby was immediately taken to the hospital. She had at least 10 broken bones, mainly to her legs and ribs.
“There are times our kids fall and have fallen and you just accept that kids fall, at 10 weeks (old) that’s a little hard to imagine,” explains Steve Sonnega, Morgan County Prosecutor.
When investigators questioned Turner about the baby girl’s injuries he reportedly admitted to “treating her roughly.”
Within hours, Turner was arrested.
“You start wondering how a child this young could be injured this much if there’s proper care and then that raises the question of who the caregiver was,” said Sonnega.
The baby has been released from Riley Hospital for Children and is recovering at home.
FOX59 talked with the baby’s family. They didn’t want to go on camera but said they are upset but thankful the situation wasn’t worse.
Investigators say Turner and the baby’s mother had just recently gotten married. Investigators aren’t sure if the injuries happened all at once or over a period of time.
“According to our evidence he was a caregiver of the child from the time the child was born up to her 10-week mark,” said Sonnega.
Investigators say Turner was also the caregiver for two other young children, siblings of the 10-week-old girl. Both of those children were checked out and are OK.
Turner is being held on a $10,000 bond and will be in court December 16.(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday put a restrictive Republican-backed Arizona ballot-collection law on hold until after Tuesday’s election, handing Democrats a victory in an intensifying state-by-state legal battle over access to the polls.
Arizona’s legislature earlier this year passed the law prohibiting advocacy groups from collecting completed early ballots from voters and delivering them to election offices as part of get-out-the-vote efforts.
Plaintiffs in the case, including the Democratic National Committee, argued the law is unconstitutional because it unfairly impacted the ability of minorities to vote.
Polls have shown Republican Donald Trump with a small lead in Arizona over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week agreed to revisit a ruling that had refused to block the law and hear the case before an 11-judge panel. That panel voted 6-5 on Friday to prohibit Arizona from enforcing the law now, court records showed.
Arizona filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court later on Friday, asking it to reverse the 9th Circuit’s order.
Democrats have accused Republicans of enacting state laws intended to make it harder for minorities and others who tend to back Democratic candidates to cast ballots. Republicans have called these laws necessary to guard against voting fraud.
Judge Sidney Thomas, the 9th Circuit’s chief judge, wrote that the court’s action would not disrupt Arizona’s ability to conduct the U.S. presidential election.
“It simply would enjoin enforcement of a legislative act that would criminalize the collection, by persons other than the voter, of legitimately cast ballots,” Thomas wrote.
He was joined by five other judges appointed by Democratic presidents. Five dissenting 9th Circuit judges, all Republican appointees, argued that the court should not have interfered with Arizona law so close to Election Day, while early voting is already underway.
The 9th Circuit covers nine Western states, including Arizona.
“We are disappointed in this decision as it will confuse voters and depress turnout,” Arizona Secretary of State Michele Reagan said in a statement.
A representative for the Democratic National Committee could not immediately be reached for comment.
Acting in another voting case on Friday, a U.S. judge in Ohio ordered Trump’s campaign not to verbally harass voters near polling places or take pictures of them in the key battleground state.The Ghost Diaries was created under a fairly simple driving mantra: 96% of the universe is unknown, and that’s pretty cool. As citizens of the free world, most of us have grown up in a consumer vacuum, brainwashed from birth to think monsters aren’t real and the world is largely understood. The news from the front lines paints a different picture: as sure as TV static is leftover noise from the Big Bang, our little cranny of reality here is absurd, and the world is paranormal.
‘Paranormal’ is a term that has been appropriated by people and agencies who have an invested interest in categorizing fringe thinkers as crazy, their theories without merit. To that end, ghosts, demons, UFOs and conspiracy theories are all lumped together as the laughable antithesis to rational thought, science, and democracy.
This is unfortunate.
We don’t know if ghosts are real. Paranormal activity, psychic powers and the like have never been scientifically proven in any kind of clinical environment. But the “margins of reality” have widened, and recent studies suggest consciousness CAN affect the physical universe on a quantum level. Extrapolating further, ghosts could be sentient forces, relics of past information patterns, or nothing at all–fictions of our unconscious.
The Ghost Diaries will soon be conducting our own exclusive ghost hunts and will be reporting our findings without hyperbole. In other words, we won’t regale you with anything even closely approximating the unintentionally farcical mainstream ghost hunting videos you’ve grown accustomed to.
http://youtu.be/WZJRvfCWpYQ
We don’t know if demons are real, or mere representations of information. Religious zeal has never been our forte, but neither has knitting–and that’s very real. The Ghost Diaries would like to launch an independent study of demonology and exorcism, to discover if demons really do represent entities from other dimensions. Perhaps demons are merely visions of extraterrestrials. This is a thesis explored most brilliantly in Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End.
And, while we don’t know if UFOs are aliens, we do know they’re real. Something is happening in our skies and it’s complicated, methodical and likely full of dark truths. GD has always been hesitant to classify extraterrestrials as paranormal. If they exist (and we think they almost certainly do) they would be as real as any of us, as opposed to say a ghost, which would represent a different form of existence.
The Ghost Diaries disagrees with almost all mainstream uses of the word ‘paranormal’. To our minds, the universe generating itself and expanding exponentially into nothingness or an infinite multiverse–all the while creating a hundred billion galaxies–IS paranormal. Especially when you consider that 96% of this universe is fueled by an undetectable dark matter and energy that has no current explanation, we believe such nebulous mechanisms qualify as paranormal. And if the universe is paranormal, that means everything is paranormal–consciousness, language, society, power…truth.
So the next time you hear the word ‘paranormal’ used in relation to a UFO sighting, or ‘fringe’ used to denounce an alternative explanation to a mainstream theory, remember: the universe itself is a conspiracy theory and our every waking moment is fringe.It's been a long time since we battled the undead with offensive plants, but the time has come again to team up with Crazy Dave and save your brains from the zombie hordes. Plants vs. Zombies 2 is live all around the world right this minute. Things are a little different this time, though. Plants vs. Zombies 2 takes you on a trip through time, which also happens to be infested with zombies. They must have skipped over that in the history books.
The gameplay is mostly like it has always been, but with a few new plants and a ton of new zombies. The game is free-to-play, which means a lot of in-app purchases are available to you. However, it looks like most of the content can be obtained through good old-fashioned grinding. The visual style has changed very little from the original, which is probably fine – the wacky zombies have held up pretty well. The Play Store page doesn't currently list it, but there is Google Play Games integration.
Even if you aren't sure about dropping cash on PvZ2, it's probably worth checking out. We've got a full review incoming soon as well.
North America:
International:The much anticipated camera enhancing update for the Moto X that first began rolling out to the T-Mobile variant of the phone a couple of weeks ago is now ready for all AT&T customers. A soak test for the AT&T model actually started popping up on phones earlier in the week, but AT&T has announced that it should be available to the majority of customers today, October 4.
Here is the changelog:
Camera enhancements: Enhanced camera auto-white balance performance and color accuracy. Improved exposure when taking photos outside or backlit, and improved clarity in low light. Faster touch-to-focus time and reduced unnecessary refocusing in low light or scenes with continuous motion.
Faster response and improved accuracy when using Touchless Control and easier set up and training of the “Ok Google Now” trigger.
Enhanced transfer of content from old phone to new phone using Motorola Migrate.
Fine-tuned feature that allows you to find phone when it is lost that sometimes prevented a lost phone from reporting its location.
We’ve already covered this update pretty intensely, with a full gallery of before and after shots for the camera. We also compared the new camera to some of the top phones on the market, including the G2 and Galaxy S4. It’s definitely something you’ll want to update to as soon as possible.
To grab the update, head into Settings>About phone>System updates. The update will like start rolling out slowly today, but will pick up pace and become available to more customers daily.
That gives us updates for T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T variants of the Moto X – Verizon is the only one left.
Via: ATTThe couple who “foreclosed” on Bank of America got The Daily Show treatment last night. John Oliver caught up with the homeowners to find out how they showed up with repo men and sheriff’s deputies at a Bank of America branch office and got the bank to pay them money they were owed. It all began when the bank tried to foreclose on them, even though they had no mortgage at all, and owned their home free and clear.
Like we told you in June, the couple had gotten Bank of America to drop the suit, but the bank wouldn’t pay their fees, despite a court order telling them to. After repeated and fruitless attempts at contact and negotiation, the couple took that court order and got a sheriff’s levy put on Bank of America. Then they saddled up with some sheriff’s deputies and repo men and went knocking on the branch office, ready, and legally empowered, to take everything that wasn’t bolted down and sell it at auction.
“He was visibly shaken,” said the couple’s lawyer of the bank manager.
After wrangling, the bank manager opted to write the couple a check for the $2,534 in attorney’s fees they were owed.
Because their story was so awesome, John Oliver ends the segment by creating the fake trailer for the movie it must inevitably become.
The Forecloser [The Daily Show]
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They will be funny. They will have the facility with the spoken word, with making people feel at ease, that usually manifests itself in lucrative sales jobs. When they talk, you will hang on every word because your whole body seems to shake with a desire for it to be true. When they laugh, you laugh. When they get mad at you, you get mad at yourself. You should have known better — how dare you.
They will be evasive. They will slip in and out of your life with a certain imperviousness; nothing seems to stick to them, not even your love. And the more you try to put them in a stable, consistent, understandable compartment of your life — the more they seem to resent you for it. It will seem that most of their confidence and charm is based on a distinct ability to not care.
They will make you realize that you are not like them, that you are not impervious to anything.
They will be smart. They will use their intelligence in a cunning, ugly way, though. They will use it to run circles around your own convictions, to make you believe that you are losing your mind for wanting them to participate. You will grow to resent their intelligence, as it has generally only been a source of great distress for you. You will wish that they were slower, so that you wouldn’t have to spend so much time trying to outrun them.
They will move quickly. When they sense that someone is on their trail — that they are beginning to put together the pieces that have been intentionally obscured for so long — everything will change. There will be a reason for not coming home, an alibi for the suspicious calls, a different interpretation of what they have been saying behind your back. It will all make sense, and then it won’t.
They will be angry. You will confront them, and they will hate it. They will resent you for wanting more for yourself, for insisting on the truth, for not playing the game they are convinced that they are so good at. The more confidence you find, the more it will seem to erode theirs. You will respond to this anger with a strange, unfamiliar mix of exhaustion and desire. You will crave their approval because you are never quite sure when you are actually getting it.
They will be gone. You will convince yourself that this is going to change, that lying isn’t necessarily the worst thing someone can do, that the million excuses you have chosen to listen to will eventually prove accurate. But it won’t. And it will be over. And then you will realize that you will have simply been lied to — aside from being occasionally lied next to, when the timing was convenient for them.Doctor Who 50th Anniversary on Radio 4 Extra
A reading based on the original 1963 TV serial featuring the First Doctor and narrated by one of the first companions, Ian Chesterton (played by William Russell).Nuclear threat looms large, no more so than on the radiation ravaged world of Skaro. It's there the TARDIS heads for the Doctor's first meeting with the bane of all his travels... the Daleks.In this drama the seventh Doctor (played by Sylvester McCoy) and his young companions Hex and Ace are plunged into the late 80s, where history has gone terrifyingly wrong with the world trembling on the brink of a final terrible war.A four-part drama featuring the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison). The Doctor's young companion Nyssa is unfamiliar with the Earth's musical heritage but in a trip back to 60s the Beatles are nowhere to be seen and their role has been taken by the Common Men...A full cast audio drama in which the seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) arrives in a remote homestead during the period of Kenyan independence in December 1963 and is reunited with an old acquaintance - an ex-Nazi called Klein.Based on an unproduced television script and brought to life through a combination of performance and narration. The original team of the first Doctor and companions Ian, Barbara and Susan step out from the TARDIS into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and meet Alexander the Great.A full cast drama featuring the eighth doctor (played by Paul McGann). The two-part story explains the on-going mystery of Lucie Miller (Sheridan Smith), paired off with the Doctor in a witness protection programme.The remarkable story of pioneering BBC Radiophonic Workshop music composer Delia Derbyshire. Starring Sophie Thompson.A reading by William Russell (Ian Chesterton in the original TV serial on which the story is based). This is one of the classic Doctor Who stories featuring the first Doctor and set in an occupied Britain.Tracy-Ann Oberman is the guide on a journey back to a time before Time Lords. Interviewees include Doctor Who writers Charlie Higson and AL Kennedy and William Hartnell's grand-daughter. Featured programmes include 'The Reunion', which gathers the original 1963 cast and 'Whatever Happened to... Susan Foreman?' which tries to solve the mystery of the The Doctor's original travelling companion, his grand-daughter.An Eighth Doctor adventure starring Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith and Graeme Garden.The Time Lord calls on friends, family and the Monk to help overthrow the Dalek occupation of Earth. Eighth Doctor adventure stars Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith and Graeme Garden.Omnipresent online encyclopedia Wikipedia has received a large gift from the founder of another famous internet institution.
Craig Newmark, the main man behind classifieds portal Craigslist, has donated $1 million to the Wikimedia Endowment, a collective action fund set up this year by the Wikimedia Foundation at the Tides Foundation with a goal of raising $100 million over the next decade.
Founded by Newmark in 1995, Craigslist has changed very little from a design perspective over the past two decades, but it remains a popular portal for individuals buying, selling, and advertising stuff. According to Alexa, Craigslist is the 11th most visited site in the U.S., not far behind Netflix, Reddit, and Twitter, but ahead of Bing, Pinterest, LinkedIn, PayPal, Tumblr, Instagram, and Walmart. eBay once held a stake in Craigslist, but sold it back to Craigslist last year.
Newmark is also the main operator of Craigconnects, a service that publicizes charitable organizations. And now Newmark is looking to plow some of his own cash into helping Wikipedia continue on its quest to provide free knowledge. “Wikipedia is where facts go to live,” said Newmark in a press release. “And everybody can access it for free. That’s really important.”
While $1 million is the largest donation yet specifically to the Wikimedia Endowment, larger sums have been given to Wikipedia’s parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation. Google gave $2 million back in 2010, while the Stanton Foundation coughed up $3.6 million a year later. But the nonprofit organization, which doesn’t run third-party ads anywhere on its site, has come in for criticism for stockpiling money, leading some to question whether the generous public really should be donating tens of millions of dollars each year to support it. Despite that, the Wikimedia Foundation, and now the Wikimedia Endowment, are continuing to rake money in because people view it as a commercial-free fountain of information.
“Wikipedia is a record of what happened and what is happening in the world, and we need that historical record to make good decisions,” added Newmark. “Wikipedia’s democratic process allows everyone to contribute, but requires verifiable sources. That is vital at a changing time in our media culture. Wikipedia has the potential to become the people’s newspaper of record.”For the Anglo-American film director, see Babar Ahmed.
Babar Ahmad (Urdu: بابر احمد; born London, England, May 1974)[1] is a British Muslim of Pakistani descent who spent eight years in prison without trial in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2012 fighting extradition to the United States. The US accused him of providing material support to terrorism via a website that he set up in the UK in 1996 to publish stories about the conflicts in Bosnia and Chechnya, but which in 2000–2001 allowed two articles to be posted on the site offering support to the then Taliban government in Afghanistan.[2] The US accepted that the website was operated from the UK but claimed jurisdiction because one of the servers hosting the website was located in the US.[1] He fought a public eight-year legal battle, from prison, to be tried in Britain but the British Crown Prosecution Service concluded that there was "insufficient evidence to prosecute" him.[3]
In 2009, the High Court in London awarded Ahmad £60,000 compensation after the London Metropolitan Police admitted that its officers had subjected him to "serious gratuitous prolonged unjustified violence" and "religious abuse" during his arrest[4] which led to 73 injuries.[5] It was revealed that the officers, who abused Ahmad were also accused of dozens of other assaults on black and Asian men[6] but the four officers were acquitted by a jury in June 2011.[7] In October 2015, a London High Court of Justice judge ruled that PC Mark Jones, one of the officers acquitted in the Ahmad case, assaulted and racially abused two Arab teenage boys in another case.[8][9]
In 2011, celebrities and senior British lawyers backed a public campaign which led to 140,000 British citizens signing a UK Government e-petition calling for him to be tried in the UK.[10][11] His case was subsequently debated twice in the British Parliament.[12][13] Ahmad was finally extradited to the US in October 2012, having become the longest-serving British prisoner to be detained without trial in the UK.[2] He spent the next two years in solitary confinement at a US Supermax prison.[14][15] In December 2013, after his first year in solitary confinement and after being in prison for over nine years without trial, Ahmad pleaded guilty to two of the charges against him as part of a plea bargain that would allow him to return home within the year.[2] He pleaded guilty to "conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism."
In July 2014, US federal Judge Janet Hall sentenced Ahmad to an unexpectedly lenient sentence of 12-and-a-half years in prison, meaning that with credit for time served he only had another 12 months to serve.[16] Judge Hall concluded that Ahmad was never interested in terrorism, stating, "There was never any aid given by these defendants to effectuate a plot. By plot, I mean a terrorist plot... Neither of these two defendants were interested in what is commonly known as terrorism..."[17] Hall stated that Ahmad "never supported or believed in or associated with Al-Qaida or Osama bin Laden."[18]
Judge Hall described Ahmad as a "good person" who she believed posed no threat to the public and stated she had weighed the seriousness of his crime with his good character after reading thousands of letters of support and hearing from British prison officials who described him as an exemplary inmate.[16] Judge Hall said "It appears to me that he [Babar] is a generous, thoughtful person who is funny and honest. He is well liked and humane and empathetic... This is a good person who does not and will not act in the future to harm other people."[19]
Ahmad was released in July 2015 and returned to the UK where Metropolitan Police officers welcomed him at London Heathrow Airport then dropped him home to his family.[2] Upon his release he stated, "Eleven years of solitary confinement and isolation in ten different prisons has been an experience too profound to sum up in a few words here and now... In October 2012, I was blindfolded, shackled and forcibly stripped naked when I was extradited to the US." He added that "US and UK government officials" had treated him with respect after his release.[17]
In March 2016, he told The Observer in his first press interview since his release that he was "wrong and naive" to advocate support for the Taliban government back in 2001.[2]
Early life and education [ edit ]
Babar Ahmad was born and brought up in Tooting, London.[20][21] His parents emigrated to Britain from Pakistan in 1963. His father worked as a Foreign Office civil servant for 30 years and his mother is a retired science teacher.[1][16]
Ahmad was educated at Emanuel School, where he won academic prizes and obtained outstanding results at both GCSE and A-Level. He then went to university and obtained a master's degree in Engineering from the University of London in 1996.[1][18]
Before imprisonment [ edit ]
Ahmad fought on and off in the Bosnian War from 1992 until 1995.[22] Before his imprisonment in August 2004, Ahmad was working in the IT department at Imperial College, University of London.[23][24][25][26] At the time of his arrest, he lived in Tooting.[27] On 18 March 2009, the London Metropolitan Police agreed to pay Ahmad £60,000 in damages after admitting he was subjected to "violent assault and religious abuse" during the raid.[28][29]
US prosecution of Ahmad and extradition battle [ edit ]
Babar Ahmad was arrested in London on 5 August 2004 on charges of providing material support to terrorism. An affidavit filed with the US court detailed that Ahmad established Azzam.com, a website established in 1996 that later solicited support for Chechen insurgents and the Taliban regime in 2000/01. It further stated that items recovered from a house used by Ahmad included a floppy disk containing a detailed description of the movements of the US Fifth Fleet battlegroup. Ahmad was later indicted by a grand jury of US citizens in October 2004.[30] Another man, Syed Talha Ahsan, was indicted in 2006 of involvement with Ahmad and with the battlegroup information in the document.[31] In 2008, a US former navy seaman, Abu Jihad, was indicted and convicted of disclosing the classified information on the battlegroup but he was cleared of terrorism charges.[32] However, when sentencing Ahmad on 16 July 2014, federal district Judge Janet Hall ruled that "nothing was done with the information" found in Ahmad's possession so, "And that is that the Battle Group Document, besides showing that the Navy enlisted man was a traitor to his country, it also shows that Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Ahsan had absolutely no interest in operational terrorist actions that would harm the United States."[33]
US extradition documents state that "at all times material to the indictment" Babar Ahmad was resident in London. The Crown Prosecution Service declared in July 2004 and December 2006, as did the UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith in September 2006, that there was "insufficient evidence" to charge Ahmad with any criminal offence under UK law.[34]
Having been refused bail, Ahmad was detained in prison until his extradition on 5 October 2012. On 17 May 2005, Senior District Judge Timothy Workman approved his extradition at Bow Street Magistrates' Court, stating: "This is a troubling and difficult case. The defendant is a British citizen who is alleged to have committed offences which, if the evidence were available, could have been prosecuted in this country".[35]
In September 2005, Sadiq Khan, Member of Parliament for Tooting, presented a petition of 18,000 signatures to the Home Secretary Charles Clarke asking for Babar Ahmad to be tried in the UK, instead of being extradited.[36]
On 16 November 2005, Clarke approved his extradition to the United States.[37]
On 28 November 2005, the UK Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee raised serious concerns about the one-sided UK-US extradition arrangements and, in particular, the case of Babar Ahmad.
In a House of Commons emergency debate on 12 July 2006 about UK-US extradition, several MPs from all parties raised concerns at the case of Babar Ahmad. His name has also been mentioned repeatedly in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords in relation to UK-US extradition.[38] Thousands have attended |
of the “best method”. Questions like “what method should I be using?” are destructive for two reasons. Firstly, there is no best method, only the method that works best for you. Secondly, every hour you spend watching language videos on YouTube or reading blog posts about some special method, is an hour not spent actually getting on with the business of learning a language.
It’s your simple, daily language learning routine that will bring you the big results over time
What is your single favourite language learning technique/activity?
Speaking with a native speaker. For me, as someone who enjoys communicating in another language more than anything else, it’s speaking which gets me excited, teaches me new words, lets me experiment with language and, most importantly, makes me want to come back again tomorrow.
It’s your simple, daily language learning routine that will bring you the big results over time
What is one thing you wish you had known/done when you started out learning languages?
The importance of time and routine. Time, because it’s too easy to get frustrated with lack of progress, when all that’s really needed is time (weeks and months) for your brain to process and make sense of new information in the background. Routine, because, more than any special method, it’s your simple, daily language learning routine that will bring you the big results over time.
Olly Richards gives honest advice and practical tips for language learners at I will teach you a language. He speaks seven languages at the moment and has forgotten a couple of others!
Randy Hunt
What’s the biggest myth you would like to dispel in language learning?
This is an excellent question! In my opinion, the biggest myth in language learning is right there in the phrase itself: the word learning. Language is not a fact. It is not some set of information to be taught or memorized. Language is a skill, and as such it must be acquired.
Using a language is a behaviour… It’s constantly “failing forward”
Learning to speak or understand a foreign language is like learning to play a guitar, or learning to throw darts, or learning to be a chef. Sure, there are bits of information to pick up along the way, but they are not things to commit to memory. Language use happens in a completely different part of the brain than memory. Using a language is a behaviour. It’s interaction, repetition and refinement. It’s constantly “failing forward”.
We need to stop trying to learn languages, and start the enjoyable work of acquiring them.
People think they know how to learn. When you see/hear the word learning, your mind instantly fills with images of classrooms, books, and flashcards, because those are the tools that modern society has imposed upon us for learning. But modern society measures the success of learning by way of tests and examinations — usually performed within a short time from when the information is first distributed. So these tools are only refined to give us a fairly good recall of facts from short-term memory; they do not actually impart any skill onto us!
So… the biggest myth in language learning is the word “learning” itself! We need to stop trying to learn languages, and start the enjoyable work of acquiring them.
What is your favourite single language learning technique/activity?
This one is simple. My absolute favorite language learning activity is talking to people! And it turns out, that’s pretty convenient, because that’s the whole reason we learn languages anyway, right? We learn the language in order to use it. And since language is a skill, the best way to learn it is by using it. Interact, refine, repeat.
I couldn’t begin to enumerate all the interesting words I’ve learned from books, web sites, studies, etc., of which I can’t remember any now. But everything I’ve learned in conversation has always stuck with me, because I don’t just have a word memorized, I have a context; I have the memory of where I was, who I was with, and what we were doing at the time when this new part of a language was bestowed upon me. I have a head full of fond memories, rather than boring facts.
What is one thing you wish you had known/done when you started out learning languages?
I first started out learning languages at a very young age, thanks to a very wonderful kindergarten teacher who taught us very little actual Spanish (one new word each day) but who forever implanted the thought into our young minds that foreign languages can be interesting, rather than scary. I can’t think of anything I wish I had known then, because I think the most important thing a person could want to know when they begin is the very thing that an amazing young teacher gave to me at an age early enough for it to do me the most good.
Randy is a traveller, software developer, and foreign language enthusiast who learns one new language every year. You can read more about it at Yearlyglot.
Donovan Nagel
What’s the biggest myth you would like to dispel in language learning?
I’d like to prove to people that it is not at all necessary to do tedious grammar study in order to become a fluent speaker of a foreign language. Many people are turned off language learning because they’re under the impression that it requires lots of memorization of tables and lists before being able to speak. Nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t need to study grammar to learn to speak a foreign language.
What is your favourite single language learning technique/activity?
Interaction with other human beings. Nothing accelerates and motivates my learning more than being surrounded by native speakers who force me to make hundreds of mistakes every day. Each one of those mistakes is a small stepping stone on my path to fluency and no amount of self-study compares to it. It’s usually mentally exhausting but also the most rewarding activity one can do.
Everything we say in our first language is unoriginal – we piece together words, collocations, phrases and so on like linguistic lego blocks.
Nothing accelerates and motivates my learning more than being surrounded by native speakers who force me to make hundreds of mistakes every day
What is one thing you wish you had known/done when you started out learning languages?
That languages are made up of prefabricated chunks which we all naturally acquire by enormous amounts of exposure throughout our lives. Pretty much everything we say in our first language is unoriginal – we piece together words, collocations, phrases and so on like linguistic lego blocks or puzzle pieces and because of the familiarity that comes from long term exposure we know when something fits or doesn’t fit. Second language acquisition should and indeed can be learned in much the same way without having to spend countless hours memorizing grammar rules. If I’d have known this 10 years ago then it would have saved me a lot of time I’m sure and spared me numerous failed attempts at learning other languages.
Donovan runs The Mezzofanti Guild, where he shares his enormous passion for language learning.
A huge thank you to Luca, Sam, Olly, Randy and Donovan for their inspirational advice!
Do you think they missed out on anything? Let us know in the comments below!The Vampire Diaries S05E08: "Dead Man on Campus"
Sometimes the best pizza is one you have to pick certain ingredients off of. Or if you're a fancy lady, maybe you soak up the pizza grease with a napkin first. What I'm trying to say is, we can't always expect the things we love to be 100% perfect but we can still love them 100%. You know? And maybe there's a reason for that: The labor of taking off all those floppy peppers made me even hungrier for that hot slice. Or with people: Your fondness for gross black licorice makes me feel better about MY weird tastes, so I want you around. Or with TV shows: You sometimes have bad, boring plotlines or insufferable characters or very questionable social subtexts, but as long as I can properly state why those things are bad, I appreciate the exercise and, by extension, you, even more. It's about mental engagement, guys. Things that aren't QUITE perfect require us to be vigilant, to care more, to use our slippery brains to process all of the options. So many things in life, both ostensibly "good" things and "terrible" things, are boring and ask nothing of us. That's why it's important to engage with imperfect things. They keep us sharp! They're instructive! They teach us how things can be improved. "This pizza would be better without these floppy gross peppers. NOW I KNOW."
If you want to forward the above paragraph to the Pulitzer Committee, feel free because it was perfect. But the point of it was, I really and deeply enjoyed MOST THINGS about "Dead Man on Campus." It was one of my favorite episodes of the season! But it wasn't perfect, for at least one very frustrating reason. Still though, a very good hour of television. Let's talk about it!
We started in the laboratory of a certain babyfaced shady blond hunk mad scientist who was putting the finishing touches on his newly minted hunkpire. As you might have guessed, this particular species of vampire was different from the others we'd already met, if only because of how long he'd slept in. Fourteen days straight or something? Where I do sign up to become an Augustine vampire, that sounds great to me.
Like most college-age teens with newly manifested vampirism, Jesse was HONGRY. Also he was super strong and broke out of his silver chains like they were made of yogurt or something.
Poor Dr. Maxfield couldn't reach his anti-vampire button fast enough and Jesse bit him up bad. Full disclosure: Now that Dr. Maxfield seems like he's headed for the grave pretty soon he's suddenly one of my favorite characters? First of all, look at him, duh, but also he's so feisty! Anyway, me liking somebody is the kiss of death so he'll probably be committing suicide soon. (YES WE WILL BE TALKING ABOUT THIS SUBJECT LATER.)
Another full disclosure: I like Bonnie now. SORRY IT'S TRUE. Her haircut, her new personality, her new lease on life, her taste in men. All are improvements over past seasons. This is not me saying I've somehow changed my mind about Bonnie. This is actually a matter of the SHOW changing its mind about Bonnie. She seemed so fun and chill and involved in this episode. Very into it. I didn't even mind her dumb new cell phone product placement. Keep sending selfie videos to your weird mom, Bonnie, that's your right!
Also, check out Bonnie's zany roommates!
Bonnie pretended she had to go register for classes but everybody knew she was just going out to the quad in order to mouth-attack Jeremy. But Caroline took it too far:
Haha yeah but anyway, this episode was very college-centric and I loved it. It just felt so fresh, you know? Just three gals kickin' it in their dorm room talking about boys and beer. No doppelganger drama whatsoever! Again, very into it.
So apparently Jeremy drove up to come have tons of sex with Bonnie, which is their right as teens. But of course now that Bonnie was The Anchor to The Other Side, it meant she could get cockblocked at any moment by ghosts. Like this lady:
It was pretty unsettling! If only because WHAT IS AN OLD PERSON EVEN? They exist on this show? Bonnie was definitely rattled.
Whoops! Looks like there was no getting around this: At any given time a ghost will pop up and grab Bonnie and she'll have to scream bloody murder because it hurts super bad. As far as unforeseen consequences go, this is a pretty cool one. Not cool because of the pain and inconvenience, more that it just feels like the first time death has had importance on this show, and Bonnie being the gatekeeper gives her more importance by association. Plus she and Jeremy are now permanently able to speak to ghosts which incorporates ghosts into the story more. Anyway, I just wanted to say I like this element, that's all. Why are you shouting at me, I'm scared now.
Elena made these flyers to pass out on campus. She and Caroline were throwing a dorm party for Bonnie's arrival which was very cool of them to be honest. I was also pretty jealous because my college had a "dry" campus and there was no drinking allowed in the dorms. I mean, we figured out how to drink in our rooms pretty easily, but partying out in the open in the common areas? NOT allowed. Whitmore seems pretty chill overall. Anyway, this was another run-in with Aaron whose main personality traits so far are that he's sad, has a dreamboat for a legal guardian, and gets compelled by Elena to forget stuff all the time. Very dynamic dude, basically.
Meanwhile at the Salvatore Shanty, Stefan was taking a terrifying stroll down memory lane.
He clawed up the recliner! Which is frankly rude, but in this case all he could think about was drowning, so fair enough. Quick question: Do pharmaceutical companies make Xanax for vampires? Think about it, pharmaceutical companies. Immortal customers are the best customers.
Over at Mystic Grill, Matt couldn't stop watching that footage of himself talking in a Dracula accent to his security cameras.
Meanwhile Katherine was HELLA thirsty and also so, so poor. Haha I can't get enough of how this show has really gone out of its way to remind us that Katherine is a hobo. If we're being real, basically EVERY character's financial situation is questionable, but the writers seem to really love making Katherine into a borderline pan-handler. Which is amazing, obviously. More please! Give me a whole episode of Katherine just trying to make ends meet. Like that one episode of My So-Called Life told from the point of view of Brian. Give me that but with Katherine. Second request: Make this whole show about Katherine because seriously.
Anyway, this was a great episode for Katherine (MOSTLY!) because her main thing was helping Matt figure out his gypsy-passenger situation (which was still happening for some reason). I love the idea that Katherine is such a born-schemer that even when she's bored she can't resist scheming on behalf of others. Katherine is the best.
I did not know that Aaron lived with Jesse. I thought Jesse was an R.A. or something? Maybe I dreamed that up. I don't know. Anyway, Jesse bit Aaron.
I don't mean to sound like a creep (impossible) but this episode contained SO MUCH male-on-male feeding and I did NOT mind. So many ladies have been bitten over the years so it's only fair. The metaphor of vampire biting has almost universally been about sex in basically every vampire text, so yeah. That's all, just wanted to point that out.
Then Caroline busted in just in time to break up this bro-feeding frenzy and it seemed like she wasn't as much mad about the part where Jesse had nearly slaughtered someone, she mostly just seemed annoyed that someone had turned Jesse without her knowledge. Priorities!
I did very much like this beat where Elena and Caroline took Jesse under their vampire wings and tried to cheer him up about being an abomination. This Elena that claimed being a vampire was awesome? WHO WAS SHE? Where was SHE for the first three seasons? I like her.
I also loved when Caroline taught Jesse how to heal injured hunks:
It was seriously so touching! Also Caroline suggested that Elena teach Jesse how to compel and Elena smiled so cutely. I liked this scene a lot. College!
Meanwhile at the Grill, Katherine could sense that Stefan wasn't doing great, mostly because he was sitting alone staring into the middle distance and frowning.
He did NOT want company, especially not from her. First of all, get real dude. It's saying something when he's more upset about drowning over and over than he is about remembering being The Ripper and ending the lives of countless innocents. Maybe don't hold Katherine's past against her?
Anyway, Katherine offered to help coach Stefan through his PTSD because, as she astutely pointed out, her life had been very hard also! But in exchange she needed help. He all rolled his eyes and grumbled about her needing a pretty simple favor, but as it turned out her "favor" was actually a favor to help Matt. See what I'm saying? Katherine was kind of a major hero in this episode.
Also this was another cute moment: Katherine now openly introduces Nadia as her daughter. Considering the history Katherine had shared with Stefan you'd assume he'd be more bowled over by this revelation, but Stefan was still dealing with some stuff and did NOT care about anyone else. I still prefer this Stefan to Amnesia Stefan because at least his bad attitude here was motivated by something very serious. Like WHAT reason did Amnesia Stefan have to be all mad at everybody? That's why he was frustrating. PTSD Stefan is definitely an improvement, for the record.
This plotline was kind of amazing. While the ladies threw a dorm party, Damon arrived to torture Dr. Maxfield WITH DISEASES in order to get info out of him. I guess there was no time to re-drain his blood of vervain, so it was injections of rabies, flesh-eating bacteria, and ebola instead? By the way I loved that Dr. Maxfield had a vial of ebola in his mini-fridge. Did the Center for Disease Control know about this? Do they also know about vampirism? Just wondering.
Dr. Maxfield was not feeling well from all the injections. And call me a Dr. Maxfield stan but didn't this seem overly sadistic of Damon? Look at this poor hunk! I was already thinking it, but then Caroline actually brought it up to Elena, but Damon sort of isn't the nicest guy sometimes. Charming, yes, and also is he crazy jacked now this season? But still: Damon has always had sort of a dark cloud and this stuff kind of reminded me of that. Leave this poor doctor alone! (He still looked good though sorry YAY DISEASES)
Meanwhile Katherine lured Matt into the back room where Nadia summoned his "passenger" and he admitted that he was still chillin' in Matt because he hadn't gotten the memo that Silas was dead and so he still intended to kill Katherine. Or whatever? Whatever, something like that. So Katherine got out a be-spangled dagger and did this:
Which, I GUESS did not fatally wound Matt. Or maybe that had to do with the immortality ring. But yeah, the gypsy guy inside of him died. Oh, and by the way we learned that these Travelers are basically just witches that possess people. Which was maybe the kind of magic that Klaus used on Alaric that one time? Does that tie together at all? That's what my brain does, guys, it tries to make sense of this crazy world and also The Vampire Diaries.
Anyway Nadia was NOT happy. That was her boyfriend in there! But honestly Katherine raised a good point: Nadia's boyfriend sucked.
Meanwhile Bonnie was trying to enjoy the party and eat all the jell-o shots but the old lady ghost showed up looking all bummed.
This was a minor beat, but again, very good. We learned that this lady was a witch, just in case you didn't remember that The Other Side is for monsters only. But also we confirmed that Bonnie no longer has magical powers! Which is a pretty major revelation in my opinion. Not that her powers were ever particularly major or reliable, but still. That was a huge part of Bonnie's personality before. No wonder Bonnie 2.0 seems more squared away. Now her only job is to function as a conduit (and maybe therapist?) for those crossing between planes. To me that is interesting but we'll see won't we.
Oh, at this point Dr. Maxfield explained a new and important thing about Augustine vampires: THEY DRINK VAMPIRE BLOOD! So then on the dance floor Jesse bit Caroline.
That is VERY cool! I know this is sort of a retread of Mikael drinking Katherine's blood that one time, but I'd been waiting for a proper plotline about vampires-who-feed-on-vampires and it looks like that is where this is going. Yes!
Then there was more of this guy.
Again they bonded over dead parents and whatnot. But Aaron also explained about how Dr. Maxfield was his only family anymore and suddenly Elena realized that her boyfriend who she'd CLAIMED was not overly violent was probably getting overly violent with Aaron's hunkiest family member.
Then Stefan remembered being so wet and then he crushed a shot glass.
Ouch! Quick question, obviously vampires can heal very easily but do they also carry Wet-Naps around? It's not like blood gets sucked back into their bodies or disappears. How are they cleaning off their newly healed wounds? They must go through so much OxyClean on laundry day.
Out back Stefan was having a bad memory fiesta and Katherine tried to get him to settle down so he choked her and she told him to remember all the people he'd killed and that made him chill out. LOL vampires.
But just when it looked like Katherine had a momentary glimpse of victory, Nadia ran out to confirm that her boyfriend had died (um, didn't that happen immediately?) and she was now so mad at Katherine and was running away from home and get out of my room mom!!
Poor Katherine. All she'd done was murder some creepy gypsy spirit and now she was getting grief about it.
So anyway, yeah, Elena had to call up Damon and ask him politely to not murder her professor.
He was NOT happy about it, but to his credit he agreed to hold off on the murder for now. Unfortunately then Jesse arrived and he was so thirsty for vampire blood, thirsty in the way that you or I might get thirsty for Cactus Cooler. VERY THIRSTY.
Oh another thing about Augustine vampires is they are super strong, stronger even than regular vampires. Which stands to reason since they need to overpower their prey. Also I hate to kick a species while it's useless, but THIS is how the hybrids should have been! Stronger and faster and meaner, but nope, they were just badly dressed teens patiently waiting to have their hearts ripped out. The hybrids were the cast of DeGrassi basically.
Just when it looked like these two dudes would be upright making out in the hallway ALL DAY, Elena ran up and stabbed Jesse through the heart with a piece of wood she'd found somewhere.
And then he died! Right there in Caroline's arms. Seeing as vampires can intentionally graze each other's hearts all the time, it made sense that Caroline was angry with Elena for straight MURDERING him.
And it should go without saying that Elena did not seem very sorry about having done it. I mean, she was sorry that Caroline was sad, but she didn't seem to see that she'd kind of overstepped things with this baby vampire. Apparently a direct hit to the heart was the only thing that could have stopped a vampire who had only just barely overpowered Damon. Neck-snapping? NO WAY.
SPEAKING OF NO WAY.
Like, I don't know. I feel like I ranted about suicide A LOT last week and you can just go re-read that because I stand by it. But I made the mistake of using Katherine's character as a silver lining, a point of contrast, in that she would never commit suicide because she's awesome and knows the value of being alive. So while I'm tempted to say "WHOOPS I WAS WRONG ABOUT KATHERINE," I actually think it's better to complain about how this turn of events was just a very bad piece of writing. Katherine's decision to commit suicide here was totally unsupported by the story, unmotivated by her emotional state, cheap, lazy, and terrible. And again, the suicide thing! Just what in the f*ck is going on in the TVD writers' room these days? Are they okay? Why is suicide at the tip of their fingertips when they're writing these episodes? Are things getting bad in there? Does anybody need someone to talk to? I'm here, guys.
Look, suicide is wrong. We all know this. You knew this even while I was ranting about it. I'm not trying to be King Obvious over here. But the reason we need to openly rail against this stuff is because, and no offense, but the TVD fandom is comprised of a lot of younger viewers with, say, dramatic outlooks on life. One glance at various tumblr tags will prove that maybe this demographic should not be pummeled with suicide plotlines in which suicide is treated as a salvation from angst. I think it's generally fine for this show to treat brutal murder like it's NBD because I frankly don't think it's a risk that susceptible viewers will give murder a whirl. But suicide is different. And we definitely don't all need to compare notes about how suicides have touched us personally, but I'm betting it's touched us all? From junior high school up until now I've been touched by it way too often. When people are in deep, dark places their minds make rash decisions, and these sorts of cheap plotlines make suicide seem common and easy and appealing to people who should NOT be thinking that way. I'm honestly very upset that I have to get into this for a SECOND week in a row. And to see my very favorite character, the most vital, dynamic, clever, and headstrong character in Mystic Falls, resort to this very terrible option just makes me so mad at this show. Like, if this show were a person I'd push it into a mud puddle. How does The Vampire Diaries get so much right but then go and do something as buffoonish as this? I generally try not to be a backseat writer but I'm 100% confident there was a more creative way to give us this Stefan-saves-Katherine's-life moment. In this case it not only cheaply contradicted a lot of what makes Katherine wonderful, it perpetuated suicide as a first-resort option during bad times. It's not. Heroes don't consider it. Neither do anti-heroes. Katherine deserved better.
Stefan politely chided Katherine for attempting suicide and reminded her that Katherine Pierce don't go out like no chump. WHICH WAS CORRECT. But that still did not make the preceding incident worth it. I legitimately love seeing Katherine's path toward humanity unfurl, and I also very much love seeing Stefan and Katherine bond and reconcile, but this was not the way to do it. Sorry, I truly hope I won't have to rant about suicide again in the near future.
So, um. In other news:
Bonnie and Jeremy finally got to shirtless hug! I think they were in a hotel room? Was this room explained? I can't remember, my brain went away two screengrabs earlier.
Anyway, as we all know, ghosts are the ultimate cockblockers.
I have felt bad for Bonnie in previous incidents but never as bad as during this scene. Ugh, Jesse, couldn't you wait in the hallway?
Well, at least Bonnie bounces back from unspeakable torment LIKE A CHAMP. But then again, who wouldn't?
Meanwhile, this episode was NOT finished titillating our faces off:
At this point Damon realized that Dr. Maxfield had been experimenting on AUGUSTINE vampires, which Damon had heard of before, because HE'D BEEN ONE. Whoa, right?
Then Dr. Maxfield scrambled across the lab and hit the anti-vampire button and so much vervain steam went up Damon's nose.
And that's when Damon woke up in a dang DUNGEON!
And not only that, but he started having subliminal flashbacks to a truly unpleasant-looking vacation he'd once had:
And in the final shot we realized that this had been his same dungeon chamber 60 years prior when he was an Augustine vampire lab rat. Uh oh, that could be the first ever flashback episode I'LL ENJOY. Holy moly.
Guys I am so excited about where this plotline is headed. The post-Silas world is a truly glorious place now. I didn't know how much I craved a fun and scary Big Bad plotline until this one got underway. New vampires! Retro sci-fi themed mythology! Jell-o shots! Season 5 just might end up headed in the right direction yet. You know, if the characters don't all commit suicide or anything. Lord.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING OKAY?
Bye.
QUESTIONS
... Now that Matt is passenger-free, will Nadia want to take a ride herself?
... Is Bonnie 2.0 a major upgrade or still buggy and crash-prone? (computers)
... Should Katherine and Stefan become besties again?
... Are Jeremy's shirts the real Big Bad?The decisions come after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington took issue with Comcast and Time Warner Cable’s contributions to the upcoming Walter Kaitz Foundation dinner — an annual fund-raiser for the industry’s efforts to promote diversity. The problem? This year’s soiree will honor FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, one of the federal regulators the cable giants are lobbying to support Comcast’s planned acquisition of TWC. Contributions to lawmakers’ and regulators’ “favored charities to curry favor is one of the more under the radar moves in Comcast’s merger playbook,” the group said.
The solution: The companies told the Foundation today that they will still help to fund its efforts, but not the dinner itself.
Comcast said in a letter that it will make an unrestricted $110,000 contribution to the Kaitz Foundation but is “withdrawing our financial support” for the event asking that “there be no recognition of Comcast at the dinner.” It added: “We do not want either the Commissioner or Kaitz to fall under a shadow as a result of our support for diversity in the cable industry….By the same token, we do not want to punish Kaitz or detract from its important work.” Charges that it is trying to curry favor with the FCC “are insulting and not supported by any evidence.” Last year it paid $140,000 to the Foundation, including $90,000 from NBCUniversal.
TWC delivered a similar message in a phone call. After donating $22,000 in May for the dinner, it is “re-directing” its contributions, and asked not to be listed as a dinner sponsor “to avoid any further misunderstandings…It’s unfortunate that our long-standing sponsorship of this fundraising event dedicated to advancing diversity in cable has been mischaracterized by a few.”
Everyone who’s anyone in cable shows up for the Kaitz dinner, which for decades has been the focal point for the industry’s so-called “hell week” of meetings.
While the cable companies grappled with their PR dustup, Comcast’s chief lobbyist for the deal, EVP David Cohen, was at the FCC making the case. On Monday he and other Comcast execs asked the staffers sorting through the matters to “focus on transaction-specific issues and on protecting competition” instead of “concerns regarding industry consolidation generally,” according to a company filing summarizing the discussion.OTTAWA — Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has headed off a potentially divisive debate by declaring the Liberal government will not privatize military search and rescue.
Sajjan made the comments Tuesday in response to an NDP question, after the Citizen revealed that the government’s defence review included questions about whether there were “alternatives” to having the military conduct search and rescue missions.
“The previous government might have been looking at privatizing search and rescue,” Sajjan told the House of Commons. “But I can assure the member that this government is not, because the Canadian Armed Forces play a critical role in search and rescue.”
Sajjan said last week everything was on the table as he launched consultations with the public, parliamentarians and defence experts on how the military should be structured for the future.
The government released a 36-page document asking for feedback on what the military should — and should not — be doing. One section focuses on the military’s role in search and rescue, and asks if there are “models for alternative service delivery that could be explored.”
“Given the range of other actors engaged in this activity and the small proportion of rescues that require CAF assets,” the document reads, “a valid question is: what role should the CAF have in search and rescue?”
The Liberals have said their goal for the defence review is a “leaner, more agile” military that is better able to respond to the challenges facing Canada, but others fear the review is intended to identify ways the government can cut costs. The review is expected to culminate in a new defence policy in early 2017.
The previous Conservative government raised the idea of privatizing military search and rescue five years ago, before letting it die amid a public outcry. Liberal MP Judy Foote was among those who said she was “appalled” by the idea.
Foote, who hails from Newfoundland and Labrador, is now the minister of public services and procurement, which oversees military equipment purchases. Her department is managing a $3.1-billion project to replace the air force’s ancient search-and-rescue planes.
• Email: lberthiaume@postmedia.com | Twitter: leeberthiaumeBefore we start I should add a caveat to this article: I am a philosopher and a Daoist. As such, I suppose, I am open to accusations of bias and a lack of objectivity. This is unavoidable. However, if one wants to know about racing horses, one does not talk to just those who gamble on horse races. I offer only my own understanding of the form and that is limited. I do not claim to have a “monopoly on the truth” or to being in the business of converting people to Daoism. Any mistakes of fact are all my own.
Introduction.
I am often asked, “Just what is Daoism?”
This is a natural enough question to ask, as since I “came out” as a Daoist many people have been genuinely interested. What the question really asks is, “Please can you encapsulate the concepts of Daoism into a single sentence?” The person then normally looks a little askance as I singularly fail in the attempt:
“Well,” I begin, “it’s, er…”
“Yes?” they ask, waiting on my answer, clearly forming the opinion that I can’t be a very serious Daoist without being able to enunciate at least that.
“It’s complicated…” I manage after a ruminating struggle, made all too plain on my face.
These are not particularly comforting moments in my life. I once attempted to write an answer for a work colleague and accidentally sent him a blank email with the subject, “Daoism is…”
He wrote back, “Are you trying to make a point or did you miss off the text?”
I wasn’t, but I wish I had thought to do so. I could then create an email that reads:
Subject: What is Daoism? (THIS MESSAGE IS LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK)
Some people would perhaps even get it from that. It is possible a new Buddha would be created by the universal satori (enlightenment) brought about by reading my blank message. Stranger things have happened and there are documented examples of people having satori’s while gardening and doing the dishes. If it were always that easy for everyone then we would all be Buddha’s by now. Indeed one of the ideas in Daoism and Buddhism is that you already are a Buddha, but have merely forgotten it.
NOTE: Daoism is the translation into English of a Chinese word. There are two ways of doing this. The old way invented by the English, translates it as Taoism. The newer way, invented by the Chinese themselves, gives us Daoism. Both mean the same thing. That is why the city of Peking is now known as Beijing. The city didn’t change its name, the way we translated it changed. I will always use the Chinese way.
Problems with defining Daoism.
When trying to define Daoism most people first get hold of the most famous book of Daoism “The Laozi”, more commonly known as the Dao De Jing, and start reading. Some of the poetry in that great work rubs off on the reader and, like someone fumbling with a jigsaw puzzle formed of a million blank pieces, they start to catch the edge… of something. At least the DDJ makes it very plain why naming Daoism is so hard. Right on page one, line one:
The Dao that can be named is not the true Dao.
Dao means “way” and it means “way” in every possible, er, way of saying “way”. So it means, “The way (to something)”. It means, “My way (of doing things)”. It also means “The way (of life)” and “The way (the universe works)”. But, as the line suggests, it is mysterious and you cannot simply name the Dao by containing it in a word or phrase. You can point to it by observing a tree, but you cannot extract its mysterious essence by chewing on the bark. You can taste it in the air, but you cannot pick some up down the shops. You can suggest it in 10 thousand words, but you cannot write its definition in 1 sentence. It’s like the family quiz game Taboo in that you can talk about it, around it, but you can’t never simply grasp it “cleanly” using our limited language. That is not to say that language cant “evoke” the sense of it like poetry, stories (particularly stories as we shall see) or music. It’s why you nod your head to good music or dance when hoovering and no-one is watching, It is the blind spot, the blank space between the lines, you can no more nail it down than catch lightning in a bottle. It is the living meaning of the saying:
The map is not the territory.
It is all around you, in you, linking the universal heartbeat and behind your eyes. If I am starting to sound like Master Yoda from Starwars, well now you know where they got the idea of The Force from.
Reading the DDJ raises more questions than answers. The DDJ is a very old collated-series of ancient sayings, it points to no deity and has no single author. It is attributed to Master Lao, but he almost certainly never existed and what remains was already ancient when it was collected into the current form and split into the two parts. The Chinese did exhaustive research into trying to find Master Lao, but eventually gave up. Trying to force these sayings into some sort of fully sensible and coherent form is one of the major hurdles one has to come to terms with when reading the DDJ. Indeed, it has thousands of translations into English and all of them fail to capture the original perfectly. I have 20 copies in formats as diverse as podcasts, Penguin editions, master scholarly works, bowdlerised poetic rewrites and iBooks digital copies. All are different and all are, as the famous saying goes, “Fingers pointing at the moon. Concentrating on the finger means you miss the heavenly glory above”. You miss the point.
The same goes for the other major Daoist work |
the plane is, the video also marks another salvo in an ongoing battle between Pratt and Whitney, who make the F135 engine currently powering the F-35, and General Electric and Rolls-Royce, who make the F136 replacement engine. The contract for F-35 engines is especially juicy, with multiple countries and multiple armed services all set to fly the new plane.
The fight, waged on the floor of Congress by representatives variously in the pocket of one company or the another, has even spilled into cyberspace. The F135 engine has its own Facebook page, as well as its own Twitter feed, both of which spend most of their time touting how the F136 engine is expensive and unnecessary. Not to be outdone, the F136 has ITS own Twitter feed, which lets followers know just how much better the F135 is than the F136.
Personally, I'm just upset that both of them set their status to "in a relationship" just when I thought they were starting to like me.
The RegisterThe construction spree, documented in satellite photographs and informant accounts assembled by South Korea's intelligence services, began as Kim Jong-un was named to succeed his ailing father, Kim Jong-il, last month.
No independent corroboration of the photographs was possible, but two North Korea experts told The Daily Telegraph that the material was credible. North Korea's ruling family has long been known to live in considerable luxury, unlike the vast majority of the population it rules over.
House 15 in Pyongyang's central district, where Kim Jong-un grew up, has been rebuilt from the foundations to standards of luxury deemed appropriate for his new role. The building earlier housed Kim Jong-un's mother, Ko Young Hee, who is thought to have died of breast cancer in 2004.
House 16, next door, houses Kim Jong-il. Both houses are thought to be connected to offices through an underground tunnel.
Kim Jong-un, South Korean intelligence sources believe, is also the likely inhabitant of a new villa that has been built in North Hamgyong province, famous for its hot springs and spas. Local residents were alleged to have been press-ganged into work on a railway line and road that will ease access to the villa.
A massive new hall is coming up at Songdowon, along the sea in Gangwon province -- the site of a family resort complex that includes a dock for a yacht and a private railway station.
The structure of the hall, South Korean intelligence believes, suggests it includes an undersea viewing area similar to that at Seoho Villa, another family property in South Hamkyung province. That is reputed to include a three-level undersea gallery that allows visitors to view aquatic life 100 metres below sea level.
South Korean intelligence says the Kim family's assets include at least 33 villas scattered across North Korea's countryside. It is alleged that 28 of these are connected by railway stations maintained exclusively for the ruling family's use.
In November, the World Food Programme provided a grim assessment of mass poverty in North Korea, saying public food rations provided to 68 per cent of the country's population met less than half their needs. The WFP said that a third of all children were chronically malnourished, as were a quarter of pregnant women and breast-feeding women.
The WFP said that North Korea would have to import 867,000 tons of cereals, but planned to buy just 325,000 tons. Even if 305,000 tons of promised food assistance made its way to the intended beneficiaries, the WFP data showed, North Korea's citizens would still be left short of 237,000 tons.How big of a cluster can you build? With a little math and the speed of light you can find out.
Last week I moderated a webinar entitled Optimizing Performance for HPC: Part 2 – Interconnect with InfiniBand. It was a great presentation with a lot of practical information and good questions. If you missed it, it will be available for a few months, so you still have a chance to check it out. As part of the webinar, Vallard Benincosa of IBM, mentioned that the speed of light was a becoming an issue in network design. In engineering terms, that is refered to as a hard limit.
I started to think about this limit and how it would effect the size of clusters. I did some back of the envelope math to get an estimate of how c (the speed of light) will limit cluster size. I want to preface this discussion with a disclaimer that I thought about this for all of 20 minutes. I welcome variations or refinements on my ciphering.
Let’s first consider the speed of light (SOL) in a fiber cable. The number provided by the Qlogic crew for the webinar was 5 ηs (nanoseconds) to travel one meter in a fiber cable (It takes light 3.3 ηs to travel one meter in a vacuum). How can we translate that into a cluster diameter? Latency is measured in seconds and the SOL is measured in meters per second. Here is one way. First we have to define some terms:
L T is the total end to end latency
L node is the latency of the node (getting the data on/off the wire)
L hop is the latency of the switching chips
N switch is the number of switch chips.
L cable is latency of the cable, which is a function of length
A formula may be written for the total latency as follows;
(1) L T = (L node + L switch *N hop + L cable )
If we take equation 1 and solve for L cable, then divide the right hand side by 5 meters/ηs we get what I call the core-diameter:
(2) d core = L T – (L node + L switch *N hop )
5
The core-diameter is the maximum diameter of a cluster in meters. Let’s use some simple numbers. Suppose I need 2 μs (microseconds) latency for my application to run well (this is L T ) and my nodes contribute 1 μs and I use a total of 6 switch chips with a latency of 140 ηs (nanoseconds). I get a core diameter of 32 meters. This diameter translates to a sphere of 17 thousand cubic meters. If we take an average 1U server and assume it’s volume is 0.011 cubic meters, then we could fit about 1.6 million servers in our core diameter. In practical terms, the the real amount is probably half allowing for human access, cooling, racks etc. So we are at about 780 thousand servers. If we assume 8 cores per server, then we come to a grand total of 6.2 million cores. If we run the numbers with L T of 3 μs the number explodes to almost 600 million servers and we can see why cable distance has not been an issue.
A few things about my analysis. Obviously my numbers could be refined a bit, but as a first pass they seem to work. Scaling an applications to such large numbers may be a bigger challenge than the SOL, but it does put some limits on just how big a cluster can become. Actually, it is a bit more limited than my simple analysis. There is a push-pull effect. Better scalability comes from lower latency, which decreases the diameter. Thus, in order to increase (push) the number of cores, I can use, I need to reduce the latency which due to the SOL reduces the diameter (pull) or actual number of cores I can use. Perhaps some enterprising student could come up with a model that captured this effect. I should also mention that refining the assumptions can change the actual numbers, but the push-pull effect due to the SOL is the same.
I have run out of room on the back of my envelope as I don’t think this analysis can be pushed much farther without some refinements. I’ll leave it as a exercise to the reader to continue the analysis. I will coin the term core-diameter, however, as it sounds cool.
Moving on, I wanted to mention another type of progression in which parallel computers play a roll. There are those that believe we are in a period of accelerating technological change. If you look at the Top500 as one example, in 1993 the the top machine recorded 60 GFLOPS, this past June we hit 1.1 PFLOPS, that is 5 orders of magnitude in 16 years. There are those that are interested in discussing the effect and/or consequences of this types of progress. The main idea is that we are rushing toward a singularity of sorts that will result in a super-intelligence. Advances in Artificial Intelligence, Nano Technology, and Biology may be pushing us closer to a potential singularity. And, behind all of the these technologies, lies an HPC cluster. That would be where we, the cluster geeks, fit into the picture. Each year there is a Singularity Summit where these issues are discussed. This year it is in New York City. I think I’ll head over and see what the visionaries have to say — while there is still time.Following last week's cabinet shuffle in Ottawa, La Presse's editorialist-in-chief François Cardinal complained that Stéphane Dion's departure was a big loss for Quebec. Not because Dion was good at his job as foreign affairs minister. Not because his renown reflected well on Quebec. Rather because, according to him, Dion was one of the few important ministers who could knock at the prime minister's door and pressure him to make a decision favourable to Quebec on various files.
From subsidies to Bombardier to increased health transfers and Ottawa's contribution to Montreal's transport infrastructure, there are several files where more federal money would be welcome in the province. As the editorialist noted, citing historical examples from previous governments, the presence of strong ministers often results in a province or a city being "showered with dollars."
To me, that's not a good reason to have strong ministers -- it's the worst!
Each region can point towards many examples to bolster claims that the way the pot is being divided is unfair.
This is based on the view that the federal government is essentially a big pile of cash and that every region and special interest group should try to grab as much of it as possible for its own benefit.
One of the arguments of those who defend this perspective or say it is inevitable is that we need our share of the loot because others got theirs and the money will be spent anyway. "Manitoba got such and such investment," "Toronto benefited for this program," or "Nova Scotia got that amount of money." If we don't lobby hard enough, the money will again go to them instead of to us.
Since Ottawa has been throwing money in all directions for decades, it is very difficult to argue with that view. Each region can point towards many examples to bolster claims that the way the pot is being divided is unfair.
So, to calm down frustrations and buy support in vote-rich regions, governments double down on the spending. Each passing decade, the federal government spends more and more on equalization, on health transfers, on large regional infrastructure projects, and other programs. They send hordes of ministers and MPs to cut ribbons and make sure local populations are aware of their "generosity."
This is the dynamic that has brought us to today's intolerable situation of having a huge government that spends money it doesn't have on everything. And the Trudeau government is making things even worse.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
It has to stop. We cannot continue to pass our children the bills for all the projects that we cannot afford to pay for ourselves. We cannot continue to distribute ever larger amounts of money to please everyone and buy social peace, while refusing to face the consequences. We cannot ask governments to manage our money in a responsible manner while at the same time constantly demanding more money for ourselves.
To get out of this dead-end, as Conservatives, we should be defending the principle of subsidiarity, which is inherent in our Constitution. This means that issues should be handled by the most local competent authority, the one closest to the people. This way, each province, each region, each community, develops according to its citizens' preferences and priorities, and is forced to act responsibly because it pays for what it wants.
Big government leads to unfairness and irresponsibility.
The federal government has important national functions to fulfill. It would be better able to fulfill them if it stopped trying to solve every problem in the country, especially by violating our Constitution and intruding on provincial jurisdictions.
This is why I have proposed to get Ottawa out of the business of funding health care through transfer payments. Freed from federal conditions and unable to shift the blame to another government, provinces would also be more inclined to experiment in finding better ways to deliver health care services.
For the same reason, Ottawa should stop funding local infrastructure, and leave cities and provinces responsible to deal with their own needs. Apart from infrastructure of national importance, there is no reason for the federal government to get involved.
As the great economist Frédéric Bastiat wrote in 1848, "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else." Big government leads to unfairness and irresponsibility. It's time to reverse that trend.
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Also on HuffPost:For instance, the interest rate on 10-year nominal term Government securities issued in March this year compared to that of the April 2014 Government securities emission decreased from 3.087 percent to 0.766 percent.
The penultimate meeting of the Coordinating Committee on the Euro Adoption in Lithuania has been held recently where it was stated that the adoption of the euro in Lithuania was coordinated and well organised, and a successfully implemented communication strategy enabled to ensure that as many as 92 percent of the Lithuanians felt being well informed on the subject.
The business in Lithuania was actively joining the Memorandum of Good Business Practice during the adoption process: it was signed by 5,023 economic entities (13,639 places of supply of goods and services), i.e. 4 times more than in Latvia and almost 10 times more than in Estonia.
It was emphasized during the meeting that the biggest fear of the public that after adoption of the euro the prices of goods and services would increase has not materialised: in comparison to the same month of the last year, in January 2015, the annual deflation of all consumer goods and services of 1.5 percent (prices of services increased by 2.6 percent, prices of goods decreased by 2.8 percent) was recorded. In February 2015, the deflation was 1.8 percent (prices of services grew by 3.1 percent, prices of goods dropped down by 3.3 percent).
The euro awareness campaign conducted by the Ministry of Finance cost 20 percent less than those conducted in other countries earlier; 50 percent of the incurred costs are to be reimbursed by the European Commission.The UK Defence Secretary said that British pilots will continue airstrikes in Syria without the approval of Parliament.
Despite MPs voting against military action in 2013, it was confirmed by Downing Street today that David Cameron knew British pilots were bombing ISIS targets in Syria.
The Mail Online reports:
Ministers were accused of deceiving the public yesterday after it emerged that at least three Royal Navy pilots have been killing IS fighters in the war-torn country even though MPs have voted against military action there.
Michael Fallon said he had always known ‘a handful’ of UK military personnel were involved in air strikes against jihadists in Syria, but this was acceptable because they were embedded with the US military.
Speaking at the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, the Defence Secretary added: ‘This is quite standard practice. Isil has to be defeated. We don’t have, at the moment, parliamentary authority to carry out military strikes in Syria, but the Americans do… and they have been doing that to keep all of us safe.’
Asked if British pilots would continue their role, he said: ‘Exchanges between allies are absolutely routine – there aren’t a huge number of them, but they help, of course, with interoperability with our key allies.’
Mr Fallon said he would not seek approval from Parliament because this was different from British planes conducting air strikes.
He added that when – not if – British military strikes began in Syria, he would seek approval. ‘When we are going to run British military operations in Syria, including strikes, then of course we’ve said we will go to Parliament for approval, but this is different,’ he said.
‘These are a handful of British pilots embedded with American forces and are part of American military operations for which the Americans have full approval.’ David Cameron was also aware that RAF pilots were taking part in bombing raids over Syria, but did not tell Parliament. Labour accused the Prime Minister of withholding vital information and called for him to make a statement to the Commons on Monday.
Labour defence spokesman Vernon Coaker said the missions should stop, and Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn warned of ‘mission creep’, saying: ‘Our involvement, if we’re bombing now, will lead to deeper involvement and then will lead to pressure for ground forces.’
Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the involvement of RAF pilots in air strikes without parliamentary approval was ‘a breach of trust with the British people’.
Tory MP John Baron said: ‘This is more cock-up than conspiracy, but questions must be answered.’
MPs voted against military action in Syria in 2013 and air strikes there remain a controversial issue.
British fighter jets are dropping bombs on Islamic State militants in Iraq, but they are only allowed to fly spy planes over Syria.
A new vote on the issue is to take place in the autumn.
The US has been conducting bombing raids over Syria since last September. It deployed its aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson shortly afterwards, along with a squadron of Super Hornet fighter jets. It only emerged yesterday, via a Freedom of Information request, that at least three British fighter pilots were flying the aircraft.
Wearing US overalls but with British badges, they would have been flying over Syria from last October until spring, when the carrier returned to the US.
The Ministry of Defence said they are not currently flying US planes.
Mr Salmond, the SNP’s foreign affairs spokesman, said: ‘This action clearly flouts the democratic decision taken by the House of Commons two years ago for the UK not to take part in a bombing campaign in Syria.
‘The Government’s policy in this matter is entirely unacceptable – effectively overseeing a bombing campaign by stealth – and we need to know what the Defence Secretary knew, when he knew it, and when he was proposing to tell the country.
‘The case for bombing in Syria has simply not been made, and the complexity of the situation is such that support for one faction is unlikely to produce a desirable outcome
New Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the involvement of RAF pilots in air strikes without the approval of Parliament was ‘a breach of trust with the British people’.
‘They desperately want the West to attack them and to be seen to attack them. We are utterly playing in to their hands if we do this,’ Mr Farron told Sky News.
While under the foreign forces’ chain of command, they are authorised to take part in those nations’ operations which can include airstrikes.
The Ministry of Defence said that while embedded with allied forces, UK personnel are ‘effectively operating as foreign troops.’
Tory back-bencher John Baron, who voted against military action in Syria in 2013, said the government had been insensitive to allow the pilots to take part.
RAF pilots in particular are expected to spend up to four years with the US Air Force to build up their skill set in top-of-the-range F35 military jets.
When embedded abroad British servicemen are expected to slot into that host nation’s chain of command.
This can also mean British servicemen giving orders to foreign soldiers, the Ministry of Defence said tonight.
Three RAF pilots are currently operating as foreign troops.
He called on the military to withdraw troops from the embedded programme and demanded the government explained the decision.Meet Jill Stein... The Candidate You Can Believe In
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A Stein administration will mandate GMO food labeling
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As Jill says, "It's in our hands!"In Forbes, Daniel Fisher remarks that the possible nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch, a reported frontrunner for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court, “would be good news for libertarians and bad news for members of Congress who like to hand broad powers to administrative agencies to make regulations with the power of law – and insulate themselves from accountability to voters who are directly affected by those rules.” In an op-ed for The Daily Signal, former attorney general Ed Meese refutes criticisms from the right of another reported frontrunner, Judge William Pryor, noting that though “some are claiming Pryor is not an advocate of religious liberty, many of his decisions show that the exact opposite is true.” At Bloomberg BNA, Patrick Gregory reports that a third potential finalist for the vacancy, Judge Thomas Hardiman, “could become the next swing vote at the U.S. Supreme Court if President Donald Trump chooses him to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, one study says, but his opinions demonstrate a solid conservative record.” At Education Week’s School Law Blog, Mark Walsh discusses the key education cases of all three reported frontrunners. And at Constitution Daily, Scott Bomboy looks at “the recent history of nominations,” concluding that “the leading contenders discussed in the media aren’t always the final choices announced by the President.”
Briefly:
At the International Municipal Lawyers Association’s Appellate Practice Blog, Lisa Soronen discusses County of Los Angeles v. Mendez, arguing that the Supreme Court should “reject the ‘provocation’ rule, under which any time a police officer violates the Fourth Amendment and violence ensues, the officer will be personally liable for money damages for the resulting physical injuries.”
Remember, we rely exclusively on our readers to send us links for our round-up. If you have or know of a recent (published in the last two or three days) article, post, or op-ed relating to the Court that you’d like us to consider for inclusion in the round-up, please send it to roundup [at] scotusblog.com.
Recommended Citation: Edith Roberts, Friday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Jan. 27, 2017, 7:14 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2017/01/friday-round-up-354/What is Lagom?
Lagom framework helps in simplifying the development of microservices by providing an integrated development environment. This benefits one by allowing them to focus on solving business problems instead of wiring services together.
Lagom exposes two APIs, Java and Scala, and provides a framework and development environment as a set of libraries and build tool plugins. The supported build tools with Lagom are Maven and sbt. You can use Maven with Java or sbt with Java or Scala.
Message Broker Support in Lagom
If there is a synchronous communication between microservices, it implies that both the sender and the receiver have to be running at the same time. Now this may lead to consistency problems if messages get missed, and can result in a system that is brittle, where a failure in one component can lead to failure of the complete system.
As a solution to this, one can use an infrastructure component to enable services to communicate asynchronously. This component is referred to as a message broker.
To support this, Lagom provides a Message Broker API which makes it very simple for the services to share data asynchronously.
Currently, Lagom supports implementation of the Message Broker API that uses Kafka.
Publishing to a Kafka Topic
To publish data to a Kafka topic, it is needed to be declared the service descriptor. Let us look into its implementation with an example,
public interface HelloService extends Service { String GREETINGS_TOPIC = "greeting"; ServiceCall<NotUsed, String> hello(String id); ServiceCall<GreetingMessage, Done> useGreeting(String id); @Override default Descriptor descriptor() { return named("helloservice").withCalls( pathCall("/api/hello/:id", this::hello), pathCall("/api/hello/:id", this::useGreeting) ).publishing( topic(GREETINGS_TOPIC, this::greetingsTopic) ).withAutoAcl(true); } Topic greetingsTopic(); }
Here, Descriptor.publishing method accepts a sequence of topic calls. Each topic call in the Service.topic static method.
The Service.topic takes a topic name and a reference to a method that returns a Topic instance. Here, the topic Name is “greeting” and method reference is greetingsTopic().
Implementing a Topic
The primary source of messages that Lagom is designed to produce is persistent entity events. Lagom’sTopic Producer API provides the following methods for publishing a persistent entities event stream,
singleStreamWithOffset used for non sharded read side event streams Lagom ensures that topic Producer runs on only one node of your cluster
taggedStreamWithOffset used for sharded read side event streams. Lagom distributes the tags evenly across the cluster to distribute the publishing load.
Example of publishing to a single, non sharded event stream:
public Topic greetingsTopic() { return TopicProducer.singleStreamWithOffset(offset -> persistentEntityRegistry.eventStream(HelloEventTag.INSTANCE, offset).map(this::convertEvent)); }
As soon as the service gets started, the read-side event stream you passed to the topic producer also gets started. That means all events persisted by your services will eventually be published to the connected topic.
Subscribing to a topic
A service needs to a call Topic.subscribe() on the topic of interest to be able to subscribe to it. Let us look into its implementation by subscribing to greetingsTopic that we used in earlier examples.
helloService.greetingsTopic().subscribe().atLeastOnce(Flow.fromFunction(this::displayMessage));
Here you will get a Subscriber instance to greetings Topic using at-least-once semantics. At-least-once means that each message published to greetings topic is received at least once, but possibly more.
For a hands on working example of this blog, please refer to this activator template.
References:Things have escalated in the budding rivalry between Rutgers and Penn State.
The teams have traded subtle jabs in the lead-up to their highly anticipated primetime matchup on Sept. 13 at High Point Solutions Stadium, which will double as Rutgers' Big Ten debut. But Penn State coach James Franklin took things to another level with a haymaker on Wednesday.
Speaking in Baltimore as part of Penn State's annual Coaches Caravan, Franklin made clear that he plans to own the region in recruiting.
"I consider this in-state. I consider New Jersey in-state," Franklin said, according to The Baltimore Sun. Of the schools in those areas, he said, "might as well shut them down because they don't have a chance."
It was a much more direct shot from Franklin, who had described his plan to dominate the region in recruiting during his introductory press conference in January.
Rutgers coach Kyle Flood has started referring to the Nittany Lions simply as "the team from Pennsylvania" and last week he encouraged fans to "make sure you've got a good seat" for the Sept. 13 matchup.
Rutgers players haven't been shy about their feelings toward their new conference rivals located 230 miles to the west, as starting right guard and Perkiomenville, Pa., native Chris Muller said he didn't want to talk about "the team that wears blue and white."
During a conference call Wednesday afternoon to discuss his team's continued academic success, Flood declined to respond to Franklin's comments.
"I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk about that stuff at a later date," Flood said.
Franklin has backed up his boasts about recruiting in his first four months on the job by landing three of the top five prospects from New Jersey in the class of 2015.
Even the recent resurfacing of a rape case involving four players while Franklin was head coach at Vanderbilt last year has had no discernible impact on his recruiting success. Franklin has assembled the second-best 2015 recruiting class in the nation, according to all of the major recruiting websites.
Franklin responded to questions about the Vanderbilt case in his first stop on the Coaches Caravan. He said he cooperated fully with authorities, but declined to get into specifics due to the ongoing legal proceedings.
Perhaps that issue will become an obstacle for Franklin as the case unfolds. But recruits don't seem affected by that or the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal that rocked the university less than three years ago.
"I wasn't bothered by the Penn State scandal because I knew they had rebounded from it really well from it and the school had more to offer me than Rutgers and other schools," Juwan Johnson, a four-star wide receiver from Glassboro who is committed to Penn State, told ESPN.com. "I just don't think Rutgers can compete with Penn State now with all that's going on."After China, globally India has the second largest online population. According to a report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, the Indian healthcare sector is one of the largest service sectors in the country. By 2020, the healthcare industry is expected to grow to a massive US$ 280 billion dollar industry, a growth of over ten times since 2005. In fact, between 2011 and 2020, the healthcare industry is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 17 percent. According to the FICCI report, Healthcare has emerged to become one of the most progressive service sectors in India. It is also believed to be the next big thing after the IT industry.
Unfortunately, despite India being the nation with the world’s second largest population, the public healthcare system leaves much to be desired. According to 2015 report by National Health Profile, the country has only one government physician for 11,000 people and one bed in every government hospital serves 1833. In fact, research by InnAccel found that the majority of startups that were evaluated in 2015 (90% to be exact) were focused on innovative and preventive healthcare solutions.
The trend towards startups focusing on healthcare seems to be a global one according to venture capital database CBinsights, which found that digital health startups across the globe attracted $5.8 billion in funding in 2015. So, how has the healthcare industry in India changed in recent years, and what has led to this change?
Growth in Indian Healthcare
This exponential growth in the Indian healthcare industry has occurred due to several factors including:
Demographics: The Indian population aged above 60 years is expected to grow to around 193 million, as compared with 96 million in 2010. This change in the population will only lead to greater demand for healthcare facilities in India.
Increased awareness: There has been a shift in the way in which healthcare is viewed which has led to a greater demand for healthcare products and services tailored to individuals. Indian consumers not just want proper healthcare. They are also looking for services that can be personalised to suit their needs.
Healthcare, Demographics and the Role of E-commerce
Looking at these trends, it was only a matter of time before digital healthcare services bridged the gap that offline healthcare failed to mend in a rapidly growing nation. Online healthcare has the potential to meet the demands of a rapidly changing demographic landscape whose consumption of technology is also steadily growing. The constant increase in demand for healthcare combined with a lack of quality services in this sector has opened up a vista of opportunities for online health retailers. It is simply because now they can approach a larger consumer base while reducing overall operational costs.
The healthcare industry holds immense potential for both consumers and innovators. With e-commerce having a steady foothold in the Indian market, the online healthcare industry in India is all set for a revolution. There is hope that this wave of change will allow market players to reach millions of Indians that reside in both urban and rural parts of the country. Since healthcare facilities in more remote parts of the country are still developing, they are a source of high demand for technology in the online space.
The change in Indian healthcare industry was inevitable. A steadily increasing population combined with higher life expectancy means a high domestic demand for services which cannot be realistically covered by the offline retail healthcare service providers alone.
Few Players
The online healthcare industry holds immense potential as currently, the market is fragmented and chaotic, and not always consumer friendly. The online space is a huge and a great platform for new entrants and start-ups to grow with the aim of meeting an increasing demand for high-quality services and products. The fact that online healthcare space has a few highly respected names likes of Practo (which has, in the space of just a few years, already left an indelible mark on the industry) makes this space more lucrative for budding startups and new entrants.
Few competitors and increasing demand means the potential for change in the online healthcare space is not limited, and competition is welcome. The rapid adoption of digital technology and evolving consumer behaviour has made the e-commerce space a necessity that cannot be ignored.
Healthcare in India has not traditionally been patient-centric but thanks to Indian startups appearing in the online space, customers are now being provided with the tailor made services, thereby providing plenty of competition for offline channels which are in dire need of change. The future of this growing industry in India looks promising. Few of the features that startups in the near future can explore include video conferencing, online consultancy and palliative care.
Technology and the Future
As far as access to the Web is concerned, research from the desks of the Think Tank Gartner shows that mobiles are set to surpass PCs in terms of usage. Today consumers have greater control over how they access health care options and are using technology to connect with doctors and healthcare brands in a way that was not possible before. Innovation combined with technology is the key to success in this sector.
Since the mid-2000s, digital healthcare startups have been steadily appearing on the horizon. The rise of mobile usage along with a booming e-commerce sector is a powerful combination that is helping to bridge the gap between consumer and health care and between patient and doctor. Today, all it takes is a swipe on the smartphone to access doctors, hospitals and more.
According to startup data tracker Tracxn, India’s highest funded healthcare startups in 2015 were focused mainly on ‘appointment booking, cloud-based healthcare information systems and online pharmacy providers’, with some startups focusing on cutting edge research.
India has seen its healthcare industry being revolutionised in the past few years, and this is just the beginning! At this juncture, the online space is not limited, and the future of this industry certainly looks bright. With great innovation and correct use of technology, the healthcare industry is all set to be a major source of growth for the Indian economy.I know of three variants of the Krumphau, which I will refer to as the Pynenberg version, Knight’s version, and the Other version.
Knight uses a window-wiper motion as shown here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs1fuRl77fQ&list=UUBsDIGcIhlamARsPHYEJkzg&index=1&feature=plcp EDIT: I mistook Knight’s version for a short-edge, window-wiper krump. He uses a long edge window-wiper, which requires changing some of the arguments.
Pynenberg uses a long-edge cut that mutates into a short-edge: http://vimeo.com/49951783
Textual Argument 1
Meyer writes,
This cut is executed thus: stand in the Wrath Guard with your left foot forward; if your opponent cuts at you, then step with your right foot well out from his stroke toward his left side; cut with the long edge and crossed hands against his cut, or across on his hands between his head and blade, and let the blade shoot well over his arm, as can be seen in Image D in the figures on the upper right.
Other’s version is in no way a long edge strike. Pynenberg’s starts as a long edge strike, then mutates. Knight’s version is a long edge strike throughout.
Textual Argument 2
Pynenberg’s seems to draw my arms forward as I perform the wind, which seems to match the phrase “let the blade shoot”.
Knight’s and Other’s version doesn’t really seem to “shoot” over the blade as there is very little forward movement. And what movement there is feels more like an active push.
Visual Argument 1
In the video, Knight aims specifically for the mid-point of the blade. He says that aiming too close to the cross or the point will cause problems. But in Meyer’s plate, the target is the cross. So if Knight says his version doesn’t work there, then we have to question it in the context of Meyer.
Biomechanical Argument 1
Meyer says that the Krumphauw may be “against his cut, or across on his hands between his head and blade”. With Pynenberg’s and Knight’s version this is just a matter of targeting using the arms and maybe the hips.
Other’s version doesn’t lend itself to attacking the hands. He says himself that targeting the cross will be ineffectual, so the hands would likely be even less effective as a defense.
Biomechanical Argument 2
Pynenberg’s gives you two opportunities to succeed at your parry. The long edge first performs a glancing strike to redirect the blade, then the krump with the short edge cements the defense. Failure to perform either correctly still offers some protection via the other.
Textual Argument 4
Meyer refers to the Zornhau as the father stroke. Using Pynenberg’s interpretation, we can employ the father stroke as the starting point for both the crooked and squinting strike.
Tactical Argument 1
Pynenberg’s version delays the decision to perform a Zornhauw, Krumphauw, or Schielhauw until the blades have clashed. Knight’s and Other’s version requires you to dedicate yourself to the Krumphauw right from the beginning.
Textual Argument 4
Meyer stresses that the concept of Indes is not just about the bind. Rather, it |
," and that Sarah's popular math teacher husband who allowed their youngest to be named after the math he would never do is actually the source of Sarah's overwhelming thousand-vote margin of victory in her initial foray into electoral politics that happened three minutes ago. Oh, and also, that Sarah Palin used to have hair extensions. I don't know what to make any of this, but the haikus alone are worth a gander folks! Daily Kos Thread Secret's Out: Palin's Pregnant {Anchorage Daily News] Baby News Strikes A Chord [ADN] Sarah Palin, an Outsider Who Charms [NYT] Related: Dowd thinks she is more like Sandra Bullock. "A zealot, but a fun zealot."
*It would be like 'Saved' meets 'Northern Exposure' meets 'Weeds', duh, with Tina Fey in the lead, playing basically the same "unlikely feminist heroine surrounded by juvenile men constantly screwing everything up" she plays on '30 Rock', only with the added twist of said men threatening to actually screw her little alpha girl daughters, a meme with its obvious basis in the indisputable fact that Palin LOOKS LIKE TINA FEY. **Agreed, that sounds coached by someone, but what CAMPAIGN coaches a 19-year-old to use the words "do not recall" in a repsonse to a reporter's MySpace message? The campaign that realizes it has totally failed to vet the fact that its pretty running mate nomination is COMPLETELY INSANE? No, I feel like that campaign, when it starts its ex post facto vetting process, endeavors not to pull anything that would make the campaign appear actually more incompetent than it already will if said rumor turns out to be true, and coaching a nineteen-year-old vocational school student to respond to a reporter's MySpace query with the Clintonite "do not recall" phrase knowing that if the rumor at hand is true it is only a matter of time before the whole sordid tale including said media coaching effort is exposed, would actually be that. I feel like if anything it was "coached by mom," and in any case it is essentially meaningless, but hey, you know, we take these little tidbits as they come. And yes she probably WAS wearing a coat duh it being Alaska, although I feel like people don't usually wear coats while they're physically driving so it's possible she wasn't, right? Oh who knows. Let God sort it out as they say. ***So to speak, ha ha! Also it might remind everyone how there may still be two Americas but you cannot have two fathers and we still have yet to hear from Rielle Hunter's "real" baby daddy, which would distract people from this.Barnet could become better connected than ever, if ideas for “small changes” to London’s public transport from a travel watchdog are followed through.
A report released by London TravelWatch suggests the city’s existing infrastructure can be repurposed or regenerated in subtle ways to improve service for all travellers.
One of the key suggestions looked at the “significant potential” of an old rail route connecting Mill Hill East and Edgware underground stations, which currently sit on different branches of the Northern line.
This route could be revived to increase Northern line connectivity or repurposed into a specialised cycle route away from busy roads and pedestrians, according to two ideas in the report.
Mill Hill commuters could see improved train services as a results, with trains passing through more frequently as part of an improved, connected Northern line.
It would be a useful change in order to “increase the accessibility of development and regeneration areas of the former Mill Hill barracks site and areas of Colindale,” the report said.
Alongside other small individual tweaks, TravelWatch is hopeful the changes would help in “improving access to jobs and air quality, stimulating the economy, providing better connectivity between businesses, reducing inequality and improving access to healthcare and to open spaces.”
Chair of TravelWatch Stephen Locke said: “With the capital growing rapidly, transport services have a vital role to play, enabling new housing to be built and helping to create new employment opportunities.
“Our infrastructure report contains a number of small scale projects that could be started relatively quickly and can be completed in years rather than decades.
“At this stage, these are ideas, not costed proposals, but we hope they will provide a thoughtful contribution to the fast moving, and extremely important, debate on how London’s future needs can be met.”
Taking the suggestion a step further, they also said the newly-connected stations could be part of a longer route extending from Canary Wharf to Harrow-on-the-Hill.
Other small suggestions would see small changes to Barnet’s transport, including a new station at Junction Road, near Tufnell Park, allowing the borough easier connections to Walthamstow and Barking.
The report also suggests improved pedestrian walkways – such as over and underground bypasses – between retail parks such as the Friern Bridge retail park near Arnos Grove and Oyster ticket barriers being installed at Finchley Central station.
How do you like the sound of these suggestions? Which would you want to see worked on right away? Are they missing anything important? Let us know in the comments below.Dex Torricke-Barton spent the past half-decade writing speeches for two of the tech industry's most prominent CEOs. Now he's headed to SpaceX to run communications for a different one.
Torricke-Barton is taking the head communications job at SpaceX, the rocket and aerospace company run by CEO Elon Musk, the one that is trying to put humans on Mars. Torricke-Barton spent the last four years working at Facebook, primarily writing speeches for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but also the company's other top executives.
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He did the same at Google for then-CEO Eric Schmidt before that, and also spent three years working with the United Nations and its secretary-general.
Now Torricke-Barton will run his own comms team, which entails much more than writing speeches — but we assume he'll probably write a few speeches for Musk along the way, too.The Tea Time Express bakery in Dublin which has been in business since 1938 is to close with the loss of 30 jobs.
The bakery, in Chapelizod Industrial Estate, recently took part in the RTÉ show The Takeover, which aimed to help the business survive the recession, but it will cease operation on December 21st.
Managing director Donal Hogan said he was devastated but claimed it was a logical move.
“The figures just do not add up,” he said. “Sales are down, but the cost of raw ingredients has been increasing significantly over the last three years. It has been particularly bad over the last 12 months.
“We are all just devastated. Some of the staff have worked there for around 30 years. They have dedicated many years of their life into working for the business.”
Mr Hogan said he hoped the bakery would be back in business in time. “There is a strong possibility that it could return... but it is up to someone else who wants to pick it up.”
Tea Time Express distributed to more than 1,000 shops throughout Ireland.Former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak has said it would take him more than 20 minutes to list all the Trump officials he’s had contact with because the “list is so long.” In an interview aired on Russia’s state-run Channel One television station Thursday, Kislyak dismissed accusations of Russian election meddling as “nonsense” concocted by President Trump’s opponents but acknowledged that he’d had extensive contact with members of Trump’s administration. The list of contacts is “so long,” he said, “that I'm not going to be able to go through it in 20 minutes.” Kislyak, who has been a central figure in the U.S. investigation into the Kremlin’s alleged election interference, declined to give further details on what was discussed with Trump officials but said it was all part of normal diplomatic discourse. Kislyak was recalled as Russia's ambassador to the U.S. in June. His comments came just a few days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was grilled by the House Judiciary Committee on his interactions with the Russian ambassador.Having won a franchise most 26 event titles in 2015, is there anything that can slow down Don Schumacher Racing?
2015 was a landmark year for DSR on the track. Having won 11 Top Fuel events with Schumacher, Langdon and their fourth straight Mello Yello Top Fuel championship with Antron Brown, their dominance in the Top Fuel class is undeniable. What is going a little unnoticed is the dominance in the Funny Car level long owned by John Force Racing. DSR teams won 14 Wally’s last season around the country, finishing 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in the points standings.
Wherever the DRS teams unload all three TopFuel teams are expected to be at the top of the speed charts. The talent in the cockpit and in the trailer that Don Schumacher has put together is second to none. When internal issues led to the dismissal of Spencer Massey, Don tapped Shawn Langdon to fill the seat. All Shawn did is win rounds and wins his first Wally in Pomona for DSR in the season finally. Now signed for 2016 all three drivers should contend for a fifth straight Mello Yello Top Fuel Championship.
In Funny Car DSR has quietly put together a team that has taken over for John Force as the most dominant team in the class. Having won 3 of the last 5 championships and the most class wins over that span, the once Force owned Funny Car in now more competitive than ever. Even thought the Force cars still get the most fans at the track, cancer survivor Fast Jack Beckman has become a fan favorite. The 2013 champion finished second last season leading the DSR Funny Car teams with seven Wally’s as many as Johnson, Capps and Hagen combined
With all the success does come pressure, after 26 event wins in 2015 what realistic goals do you set? Not winning the Funny Car championship is something that will drive Schumacher to improve. The remarkable feat of having only not brought home a Wally in just four weekends last season can make for some complacency. The fact that DSR has been on a decade roll where the fewest event wins in 14 in 2009 does make me think they can keep this rolling. With the chase format there is always a chance, as in 2015 Funny Car, being the best team all season does not pay off. So keeping the pressure on is a must.
What is hard to believe is that with the dominance in Top Fuel that DSR has had, you can clearly see room to improve. Shawn Langdon is a clear step up from Massey and The Sarge with just three wins is working hard to get back on top. Antron Brown is not going to sit back on his seven win season capped off with his second title. Richie Crampton should provide the push the DSR Top Fuel side needs to keep on their game in 2016.
On the Funny Car side the disappointment of not winning the title after such a dominant season has to sit hard at the DSR shop. The incredible run Jack Beckman has had since returning to the series after his cancer battle will not be complete until it is topped off with a return to the top spot at the end of the season. Teammate Matt Hagen does stand in his way along with the improving Force teams. Capps and Johnson are contenders most weeks but really need to step up to be title contenders.
2016 is looking to be another standout year for Don Schumacher Racing and its stable of drivers. The dynasty Don has built is comparable to just about any in NHRA history.The Backstreets Pub & Deli in Clemson, S.C. recently posted a sign telling gun owners to keep out.
The sign reads, "No Concealed Weapons Allowed" and in smaller print, states, "If you are such a loser that you feel a need to carry a gun when you go out, I do not want your business, douchebag."
Second Amendment supporters have attacked the bar owner on Facebook and on the review site Yelp for exercising his First Amendment rights, notes The Washington Times.
Gawker.com reports that one Yelper wrote:
Food sucks, over priced. Owners a blatant liberal idiot that uses the eatablishment as a cover for his meth lab in the back. I hope this business fails and the owner commits suicide.
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One commenter wrote on Facebook:
Hey dumb f---, way to advertise to the criminals that they are guaranteed 0 resistance when they come rob your ass! I hope you get robbed you miserable f---!!
The Huffington Post reported in February that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed a law allowing concealed guns in bars, as long as gun owners don't drink while inside.
However, bars and restaurants can still set their own rules in the state.
The owner of the bar, who goes by "Pete," told The Washington Times that he supports of gun rights, but added, "There are cops everywhere. Cameras everywhere. Guns have no place here in a college town. I’m sorry I used that language. It just came out wrong because I was frustrated.”
Pete has thanked the locals who support him, but says he's been endlessly harassed by gun rights advocates around the country.
“If it wasn’t so sad, it’d be funny,” Pete stated.
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Sources: The Washington Times, Gawker.com, Yelp, Facebook, The Huffington Post
undefinedSo yeah, I've been pretty quiet so I thought i'd update you all on whats been going on.
Schools been keeping me busy with 6th form and school productions so most of the time I have spare I try to work on a few different models and projects at a time (when I'm not burnt out that is)
The current projects that are in the works are:
>Stylised UCN- yup, planning on doing the entire roster and most characters up there are going towards that (OG Freddy, Withered Freddy, Withered Bonnie, Withered Golden Freddy, Nightmare Fredbear and Helpy)
>AE Springpack- This is still in the works as I want to get all if not most of the models for the pack done before starting ports, so far you've seen the finished Springbonnie, Springtrap, Jack-o-trap and now you've seen Fredbear/Springfred and Scraptrap. There's a few others I wanna get done before ports start so yeah, I've got a lot to work on
>Diner pack- This is currently on hiatus due to the other projects being in the main focus, don't worry I haven't forgotten about them as you can see Diner Fredbear in the top, so far only Fredbear, Freddy and Foxy have been done and Bonnie is in the works
>Old gang V2- Yeah I'm doing a V2 pack of the old gang that you all seemed to like, this time a tad bit more accurate, so far only Bonnie is going through the update but when I get the time ill be working on the others too
>Stylised Fnaf 6 pack- This one is canceled for now. I might go back and try again with these but for now the other packs are of higher importance to me. Though im still dabbling with styles and materials for this pack
And that's all of the projects in the works for now, You can see the progress on most of them above so I hope you enjoy what you see and look forward for whats to come!
If there's any models you'd want to see more of whether they're on here or not let me know! It'll help for ideas to showcase some of my works
I'll hopefully be a little more active in posting wips and posters of what not when I can so you should see more of me this year
Till next time!
Edit: After re-reading it I've realised that technically the stylised Fnaf 6 pack isn't canceled. its just been moved over into the Stylised UCN packLooking for news you can trust?
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Update, Friday October 10, 2014: On Thursday, two separate courts blocked restrictive voter ID laws in Texas and Wisconsin.
As candidates across the country are kicking their get-out-the-vote efforts into high gear, many states are feverishly litigating to defend newly implemented voting restrictions that could prevent many voters from casting a ballot. The outcomes of those cases could shape critical races—and even influence which party wins control of the US Senate.
In a way, Barack Obama can be blamed for this. In 2008, his historic campaign inspired record turnout, drawing more people to the polls than the country had seen in 40 years. Almost all of the record increase came from black, Hispanic, and young voters, who tended to vote Democratic. Republican governors and GOP-controlled state legislatures, not surprisingly, saw this as a problem. They responded by throwing up a host of new obstacles to voting that disproportionately affect black, Latino, and low-income voters.
Since the last midterm elections in 2010, 22 states have passed strict new voting restrictions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Some of those measures took effect before the 2012 election, as in Florida, where long lines at polling stations apparently deterred at least 200,000 people from voting that year. Nationally, fewer people cast votes in the presidential race in 2012 than in 2004, even though the country saw the number of eligible voters increase by 8 million. In 15 states, this year’s midterms will mark the first federal election with a host of these new voting restrictions in action.
The most recent wave of laws was enabled by the 2013 US Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder. That decision, in which the court essentially declared racism over, undermined a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. It ended the requirement that some states, particularly in the South, had to seek Justice Department approval for changes in their voting laws. GOP-controlled legislatures in states with large minority populations immediately began passing restrictive voting laws that the VRA had previously blocked. Within months of the decision, six states previously covered by that part of the act advanced new laws that critics claimed would create hurdles for minority voters.
The measures included shorter voting hours, restrictions on voter registration drives, and the requirement that voters present a government ID or proof of citizenship to cast a ballot. All of these laws were passed under the guise of ensuring voting integrity and preventing fraud, but not one of them was backed with empirical evidence that voter fraud was a problem.
Those laws are now poised to take effect in time for the 2014 midterm elections. But most have been challenged in court. With several of these cases not yet decided, there’s no telling what impact these restrictions will have in key races. States—including Texas, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arkansas, and North Carolina—are currently litigating constitutional challenges, even as they mail out absentee ballots or are about to do so. The US Supreme Court has already stepped into the fray in Ohio and has been asked to do so in Wisconsin on an emergency basis.
Here’s a rundown of several voting rights hotspots, where restrictive voting laws are still being challenged and the courts may play a big role in how this year’s elections are run, and thus, determined.
North Carolina: This state’s recent voting law is among the most restrictive in the nation. It’s obviously aimed at keeping black and low-income people from voting. Last summer, Republican legislators took virtually every one of the different individual measures other states have used to obstruct minority voting and packaged them into a single bill. The legislation included a voter ID provision and restrictions on early voting and voter registration drives. It ended same-day voter registration and expanded opportunities for outside “poll watchers” to hassle voters about their eligibility.
More than half of the state’s residents and 70 percent of African American voters in North Carolina used early voting in 2008 and 2012. In the last midterm election, 200,000 people voted during the seven days of early voting that have now been eliminated, and 20,000 used same day registration.
The League of Women Voters and civil rights groups have filed suit against the state to block the law from taking effect before the 2014 election, arguing that its provisions discriminate against African Americans, violate the Voting Rights Act, and create an unconstitutional burden on voting. The Justice Department has intervened on the side of the civil rights groups.
North Carolina is the site of a host of hotly contested political races this year. A state supreme court seat is up for grabs. Former Democratic Rep. Mel Watt’s seat is open for the first time in many years. And there’s a close Senate race between incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan and Republican Thom Tillis, the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives who pushed the voter suppression law in the state legislature last year.
African American voters make up 15 percent of the state’s electorate. As Donna Brazile, the Democratic National Committee’s vice chair of voter registration, told McClatchy recently, even a 1 percent difference in turnout could determine whether Hagan keeps her seat.
In August, a trial court judge ruled the voting law could go forward. But on October 1, a federal appeals court reinstated same-day registration but left standing the restrictions on early voting. The court did, however, suggest the decision wasn’t the end of the case, noting that the League of Women Voters and civil rights groups could still win at a trial that can now proceed.
Wisconsin: Legal fights over a voter suppression law are ongoing and could potentially influence the reelection prospects of embattled GOP Governor Scott Walker. In 2011, the GOP-controlled state legislature passed a measure requiring voters to present a government-issued ID in order to cast a ballot. The US Supreme Court upheld a similar measure in Indiana in 2008, arguing that the plaintiffs hadn’t proved the law would disenfranchise any voters. The decision set off a wave of similar bills in other states.
The ACLU and other voting rights groups sued Wisconsin and challenged the voter ID law in 2011. At trial, they proved that more than 300,000 Wisconsin voters lacked the proper ID, and many of them were likely minority voters. In April this year, a federal district court judge ruled that the law violated the Voting Rights Act and that the number of people disenfranchised vastly overshadowed any potential voter fraud that might be prevented. The judge found no evidence that such fraud existed, and she prevented the law from taking effect before the 2014 elections.
But a federal appeals court lifted the stay in early September, and that court reaffirmed the decision on Monday, officially overturning the trial court, based on the Supreme Court’s decision in the Indiana voter ID case from 2008. The decision has created electoral chaos in the state, as about 12,000 absentee ballots had already been sent out without any mention of the ID requirement. The ACLU has filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to try to block the law’s implementation before November.
Ohio: In 2004, the state became famous for the long lines of voters who stood in the rain for hours waiting to cast a vote. To remedy the problem, the state implemented early voting, expanded absentee voting, and other reforms. By 2008, the voting problems were mostly solved, and that year’s election went smoothly.
But in 2008, a different sort of voter took advantage of the state’s new voting procedures: “Before 2008, early voters were predominately middle class and upper income, people plugged in, who were aware there was early voting,” says Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s voting rights project. “They skewed older, right of center. No one had problems with early voting back then. Then 2008 rolls around and the script got flipped.” This time, young people, minorities, and lower income Ohioans flocked to the polls early. That’s when politicians suddenly decided early voting was a problem, Ho says. *
In 2011, the legislature passed a bill that got rid of what’s known as the “Golden Week,” a period in which citizens could both register and vote early on the same day. Supporters of early voting and same-day registration successfully put a referendum on the ballot that could have overturned the restrictive law, but legislators, apparently chagrined, repealed the law before the referendum could pass. Then in 2012, the Republican secretary of state, Jon Husted, cut three days of early voting before the election for all non-military voters. The Obama campaign sued and forced the state to restore those voting days.
This year, the GOP-controlled state legislature again passed a bill ending the “Golden Week,” and Husted issued a rule severely restricting the early voting that remained. (This rule prevented, for instance, early voting on Sundays.) The ACLU and several civil rights groups filed suit challenging these restrictions. In early September, a trial court reinstated the Golden Week, a decision affirmed by a federal appeals court on September 25. But four days later—the day before early voting was slated to start—the US Supreme Court intervened, effectively ending the week of early voting and same-day registration again, at least until the case is tried.
Where this leaves Ohio for the November election is unclear. But one thing is certain: if these restrictions stand, lots of people won’t vote. More than 150,000 people voted early in 2012. At stake in Ohio in this November election is the degree to which Republicans will control the state legislature: Right now, Republicans hold a veto-proof majority of the state House by a single vote.
The backers of these laws insist there is no partisan design behind them. But that argument rings hollow with Ho. He says when a state like Ohio or North Carolina implement measures to make it easier to vote and then retracts those measures after people actually use them to vote, “that has to make people suspicious.”
Correction: This sentence has been edited for accuracy.WESTBROOK, Maine (NEWS CENTER) — A 66 year-old woman from Westbrook set a world record over the weekend becoming the oldest woman to successfully swim the English Channel.
Pat Gallant-Charette is a retired nurse and Maine native from Westbrook.
On Saturday, June 17, Gallant-Charette swam the 21 cold miles between England and France to set a world record in nothing more than a blue bathing suit from, where else, L.L. Bean and without any professional coaches.
Gallant-Charette wrote of her journey in her blog and told NEWS CENTER about it.
Gallant-Charette picked up swimming later in life, when she was 48 years-old. Her son, Tom Charette, was swimming Peaks to Portland in honor of his uncle, and Pat's brother who had died at age 34 from a heart attack.
Pat told her son that she wished she could swim Peaks to Portland and he said, "why not mom?"
Pat decided to try.
A 66 year-old woman from Westboork became the oldest woman to swim the English Channel on Saturday. https://t.co/M9yjTNZJZD pic.twitter.com/oYYYbKdGqc — WCSH 6 (@WCSH6) June 20, 2017
She said it took a year for her to qualify for the Peaks swim. While swimming from Peaks, Pat recalls it was a magical swim and even though she was afraid of swimming in open ocean because she's "seen Jaws", she decided she was going to continue.
Pat has never had a coach. Over the years, she has relied on the help of teenagers to look at her stroke and tell her how she could improve.
On her solo swim across the English Channel last weekend, she was accompanied by a boat pilot Reg Brickell and her son Tom, who she says never left her side.
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Gallant-Charette faced nausea and vomiting while swimming, cold waters and strong currents that made her swim more difficult.
Pat says at one point she saw a dorsal fin and thought that she was hallucinating. Her son would confirm after the swim, that she had in fact seen a fin, but it was that of a large sunfish.
Pat says by mile 14 she was experiencing dehydration. She also had to stop after getting stung by a jellyfish in the face. Pat says she pulled multiple tentacles out of her face, including her lips but kept going because, "it would have hurt if I was swimming or not."
The last mile of her swim took three hours.
Pat finally reached the shore line after 17 hours and 55 minutes swimming.
She walked up the beach near the white cliffs at Cap Blanc completely excited that at 66 years-old she had just won her fifth world record.
Pat isn't letting this record slow her down any.
She plans to swim Cooks Strait in New Zealand in 2019 as part of her goal to complete marathons swims in all seven major oceans.
Pat says she is hoping she can find a sponsor. If not she will continue to swim until she runs out of money or has a health issue.
"Because you grow older, you don’t have to sit on the couch and watch tv all day long. It is important to stay active and if you feel good go for it."
Copyright 2017 WCSHA few days ago I fired up my Wii U and played through the recent port of Severed, an indie game released earlier this year from the folks behind Guacamelee. Contrary to popular opinion, I really enjoy my Wii U and play it more often than you’d expect. However, there’s no denying that soon the console will be dead. Sooner or later Nintendo will have to reveal the NX, you know, that machine coming out in five months.
This means every time I boot up my Wii U could be the last time. Every new game I play on it could be the last new game. This isn’t a new experience. It happens every time an older console generation dies so a new one can be born. However, this time, I realized something has changed. This time could also be the last time I use a certain console for the last time. Some of the most interesting video games come out near the death of a console. But what will happen if console death itself becomes a thing of the past?
The life and death of a video game console used to be a fairly predictable cycle. A fun cycle to experience, but a predictable one to look back on. New systems would launch at roughly the same time with roughly the same power. Launch games were technical showpieces maybe with some exciting ideas that usually lacked content because they were rushed to market, especially if they were from third parties. As the years went on, the install bases grew, developers became more confident with the hardware, and the games improved. Soon enough it would be time for the next cycle of consoles and players were left with the last vestiges of old-gen software as developers shifted the bulk of their attention to the shiny new hardware.
A lot of fascinating games were released during those twilight periods for waning game consoles, games free from the pressure to be huge tentpoles that could instead let their creativity flourish. I’m talking about games like Drill Dozer for the Game Boy Advance, Wario’s Woods for the NES, Final Fantasy XII for the PlayStation 2, Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the N64, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath for the original Xbox, and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat for the GameCube. I now also include Severed in this quality bunch, but we’ll get to that later.
However, this cycle is breaking down. The last generation was several years longer than past cycles. Eight years passed between the launch of the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One, double the time between the 360 and the original Xbox. The first few years of this last cycle resembled past cycles, but then we entered this strange overtime where even though the games on the consoles had already peaked in terms of quality, developers still had to crank out more of them. This is why we got extraneous sequels like Gears of War: Judgment and God of War: Ascension. I remember in 2008 hearing rumors that Microsoft was about to unveil a 360 successor, and while that’s so untrue it’s almost quaint now, peripherals like the Kinect, Wii MotionPlus, and PlayStation Move did basically turn their respective boxes into new machines.
Eventually, proper new consoles did debut, but the sheer length of the previous cycle and fears about the viability of this cycle kept things from going back to normal. Instead of getting an intriguing crop of twilight games for the 360 and PS3, developers simply created games for old and new consoles alike. AAA games like GTA V, Metal Gear Solid V, Shadow of Mordor, Destiny, and Rise of the Tomb Raider were all cross-generation releases. And every day it seems like another 360/PS3 game is being “remastered” for the new consoles, HD remakes of games that were already in HD.
Now the final destruction of the cycle is almost in sight. Later this year Sony will release the PS4 Pro, not the next PlayStation but an upgraded version of the existing PlayStation. Meanwhile, Project Scorpio arrives next year, a significantly improved console Microsoft still insists is part of the Xbox One family. Together these moves suggest console generations as we knew them are over. Like smartphones or PCs, console manufacturers will now improve and make iterations on existing machines rather than starting over from scratch every five or so years.
There are upsides to this trend. Maintaining continuity between different versions of a console makes it easier to preserve backward compatibility. Developers will also likely appreciate having more power in a console they are familiar with, rather than having to learn how to code for an entirely new device. However, consumers might be confused by this shift, at least initially. It’s easy to understand the difference between a PS4 and PS3. A PS4 vs a PS4 Pro is a little trickier. There’s also the fear of these expensive toys becoming obsolete faster through the power of brutal capitalism. Then again, parents of NES-owning children were also outraged at first after the Super Nintendo launched. They got over it.
This brings us back to the Wii U. Like I said the whole reason I started thinking about all this future was because I realized how Severed might be the last Wii U game I play aside from maybe Paper Mario: Color Splash, which I’m also playing and enjoying. I plan on picking up The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the NX. Unlike the PS4 and Xbox One, the Wii U is definitely going away. What little we know about the NX suggests it will be a clean break, not an incremental upgrade. But if this is the last time that shift happens to a console, that means this is the last set of those twilight games.
Fortunately, Severed fits that tradition in a really great way. In Severed players control a one-armed girl named Sasha slashing her way to recover her family’s corpses in a stylish hellscape that continues Canadian developer DrinkBox Studios’ obsession with all things Latin American. The first-person perspective evokes classic computer RPGs like Ultima but the layered dungeon design and pattern-heavy sword combat are very much Zelda meets Infinity Blade. It’s quite satisfying. The game first launched on the PlayStation Vita (another dead video game machine) and is available on iOS as well. But this is a touch-driven game I can’t imagine not playing with a stylus, and the big screen of the Wii U GamePad makes this superior to the 3DS version also included with the purchase. Regardless of platform, I think Severed is a game worth playing, but it’s even more meaningful to me now as part of the farewell tour for both the Wii U and perhaps the very idea of video game console farewell tours.
Maybe this is all premature. Maybe the NX will also have a traditional console cycle or maybe we will one day see an actual PlayStation 5 or a totally new Xbox. But video games are technology, and when technology changes it tends to keep changing rather than change but then go back to the way things were. So, severed from the past, soon we may all find ourselves in the peculiar position of not commemorating dead consoles but commemorating the dead concept of dead consoles.“There are two races for the Kwaremont; the race to it and the race up it, and of the two the race to it is the nastiest,” says double Tour of Flanders winner Peter Van Petegem.
He continues; “It was the same when I raced. You had to ride so hard, use your elbows to keep position, anything to make the first two rows across the road at the bottom. If you didn’t the Tour of Flanders was over for you.”
This hill always has been crucial in the Tour of Flanders; or Ronde Van Vlaanderen, or simply the Ronde, to give it its Flemish and nowadays international name.
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The Oude-Kwaremont is one of the cobbled hills that make the Tour of Flanders; it’s steep, but so are the others. It’s rough, just like the rest. But now it’s strategic, the first cobbled climb, and the only one the race goes up three times.
It opens the action, and is still there in the final act as the penultimate climb.
Kwaremont is a village on the East-Flanders ridge, where the Tour of Flanders hills are, and it’s been part of the race almost since it began. However, the Oude-Kwaremont we know today didn’t make its race debut until 1974.
This part of the story gets complicated. Kwaremont the village takes its name from a green mound a little to the west of it called Kwaremont, which is the true Kware hill. The pre-1974 Kwaremont climb used by the Tour of Flanders was where the N36 main road from Berchem to Ronse passes west of Kwaremont village and between there and the geographical top of the hill.
It was a cobbled road, like a lot roads were in Flanders before the sixties and seventies. Races didn’t have to seek them out then, they were just there. Well, they were until they started being be cemented over during the 1970s.
Smoothing out the Kwaremont turned what had been a crucial climb into a big ring romp over a concrete lump, so the race organisers started looking around for something to replace it. What they found was the Oude-Kwaremont, which was a back way into the village running parallel to the main road.
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The Oude-Kwaremont climb is 2.2 kilometres long, but it’s not as steep as many other climbs, although the middle part is tough. The cobbles aren’t too bad either, because the |
of hypothalamic CRF. The CRF relaesed has the potential to activate neural circuits responsible for the previously described behavior patterns, i.c., yawning and spontaneous sexual response. Drs Mc Lean, Forsythe and Kaplin reply We wish to express our thanks to Drs Harrison, Stewart, McGrath and Quitkin for their most interesting comments on our observation of unusual side effects of Clomipramine. Initially during the composition stage of our paper, in our literature review, we had noted the existence of a simillar stretching-yawning behaviour (SYB) and spontaneous orgasm in opium withdrawal (1). This parallel observation between Clomipramine side effects and opium withdrawal momentarily tempted us to speculate on a possibility of endorphine connection. However, we decided to leave the explanation to future careful explorations. Reference Mark S. Gold, A. Carter Pottash, Donald R. Sweeney, Herbert D. Kleber. Opiate withdrawal using clonidine (A safe effective and rapid monopiate treatment.) J AMA 1980; 243(4): 343-6.WARNING!! If you attempt to do a similar project understand you have the potential of coming across Asbestos in an old radio, typically but not restricted to some type of heat shield or insulation. Please do your own research and take precautions.
I have seen several different variations of different makers creating some really awesome Pi based radios and jukeboxes. I've also been hauling around my Great-Grandparents tube radio for about a dozen years with the intent of revitalizing it in some fashion. Here's how I took the interesting journey, and hope it will inspire you to to do the same.
This Instructable is part hardware and software, and was a pile of fun to do. If you have any questions please reach out, but I should add I'm not much of a software guy. If you do run into issues Pi side I may not be the best resource - but I'll try! I cannot offer any guidance on Asbestos beyond again, do your own research and take precautions.Google+ Hangouts Will Be Hard For Facebook To Top (GOOG, MSFT)
So far, the most useful feature in Google+ is Hangouts, browser-based video chat with up to 10 people.
It works right in the browser (although you might have to download a plug-in first), there's almost no latency, it's got a great interface, and it's easy to use.
Plus, it's one thing that Facebook doesn't have. Yet.
Tomorrow at 10 am PT, Facebook is holding an event at its Palo Alto headquarters to announce "something awesome" (in the words of Mark Zuckerberg) and Mike Arrington at TechCrunch hears it's going to be Skype integration into Facebook.
This could be a great addition for Facebook users, and could help Skype (and its in-process buyer Microsoft) reach a much bigger audience than the current 100 million or so who use the service.
But Facebook and Skype will have a hard time matching Hangouts.
Skype is built on peer to peer technology. Each Skype call is routed using directories stored on the PCs of other users, and the calls are connected directly from PC to PC. That works fine when you're connecting with one or two other people, and is a big reason why Skype was able to offer more reliable voice-over-IP service than competitors five or six years ago, and has been able to scale massively without a lot of expensive infrastructure.
But as you add more people, that peer-to-peer architecture becomes a stumbling block -- maintaining connections to 10 people requires a lot more bandwidth in and out of each chatter's PC -- and latency starts to become a problem. That's why Skype recommends doing video chat with no more than 5 people at a time, even though it technically supports 10.
Google built Hangouts the old-fashioned way -- all video streams are routed through Google's servers, as explained by Hangouts tech lead Justin Uberti on his blog. This also has disadvantages -- it's expensive to build, and if Google's infrastructure ever goes down, everybody's out of luck. (Although peer-to-peer isn't a perfect solution: witness Skype's cascading failure last December when a bunch of PC-based directories, or "supernodes," failed all at once.)
But when it comes to running large-scale multipoint chat, it's really the best way to do it.
It's also a great example of how Google's massive infrastructure is a huge advantage in beating back competitors. Although Facebook has about 700 million users and a bunch of smart engineers, it's still a baby in terms of infrastructure -- until this year, it leased its data center space, and has only just begun building and operating its own data centers. That's why it has to turn to partners like Skype to provide these kinds of services.
Of course, maybe Facebook and Skype have another trick up their sleeve -- like using Microsoft's massive data centers, which rival Google's, to route video calls.
Join us tomorrow at 10 am PT (1 pm ET) as we live blog the announcement.
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See Also:Spanish daily ABC reported that the Ciudad Real woman had been having sexual relations with a man when the cover on a waterwheel well shaft became dislodged.
She plunged 10 metres into the hole near 'Playa Park' – a waterpark popular with local youths as a venue for romantic liaisons and 'botellón' outdoor drinking parties – before hitting the water.
SEE ALSO: Pooh la la: Women sex up smelly French cheese
It is believed that the couple had inadvertently loosened the boards covering the well while making love and had been too distracted to notice the impending peril.
The young man did not, unfortunately, respond in a manner likely to inspire writers of romantic songs and novels.
Instead of trying to rescue his unfortunate partner, he hitched up his trousers and fled the scene.
Emergency services later received an anonymous call which they believe was made by him but he did not return to the scene of the accident.
When firefighters rescued the woman she was found to be soaking wet and wearing no underwear.
She was taken at midnight to Ciudad Real general hospital to be treated for symptoms of hypothermia before being discharged at 10am the following morning.
Firefighters issued a public statement on Friday asking young people in the area to take care while partying as there are a number of covered waterwheel shafts in the area similar to the one used for the hapless couple's doomed tryst.
Don't miss stories about Spain, join us on Facebook and Twitter.The first place Houston Astros have made a late season blockbuster.
Thursday night, the Astros reportedly acquired Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander for three prospects. The two sides have been talking for weeks, and for a while Thursday it seemed the deal had fallen apart. That, obviously, is not the case. A deal got done.
We've acquired Franklin Perez, Daz Cameron & Jake Rogers from the Astros in exchange for Justin Verlander & a PTBNL or cash considerations. — Detroit Tigers (@tigers) September 1, 2017
Verlander is owed $28 million in both 2018 and 2019, and his contract also includes a vesting option for 2020 based on Cy Young voting. The Tigers are reportedly eating some of that money, which makes sense for them. They certainly have cash to play with, and the more money they eat, the more they should expect in return.
Sources: Tigers are sending significant money to Houston as part of the Verlander deal. Believed to be at least $10 million. — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) September 1, 2017
The 34-year-old Verlander was originally drafted and developed by the Tigers. So far this season he's 10-8 with a 3.82 ERA (116 ERA+) and 176 strikeouts in 172 innings. Much like last season, though, he's heating up as the season goes on. In his last 11 starts, he's pitched to a 2.31 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and 84 strikeouts in 74 innings.
The Astros are currently without Lance McCullers Jr., who is out with a back injury. Dallas Keuchel has had on-and-off injury problems this year, and Collin McHugh missed time with an elbow injury as well. Houston had an obvious need for another starting pitcher. They may have the best record in the AL and a comfortable division lead, but this team is thinking World Series, and Verlander improves their chances of a deep October run considerably.
In return for trading their franchise pitcher, the Tigers received the No. 3 (Franklin Perez), No. 9 (Daz Cameron), and No. 11 (Jake Rogers) prospects in Houston's farm system, per MLB.com. The 19-year-old Perez is one of the fastest rising pitching prospects in baseball. He has a 3.08 ERA with 78 strikeouts in 86 1/3 innings split between Single-A and Double-A this year. Here is a snippet of MLB.com's scouting report on the right-hander:
Though he's just a teenager, Perez already demonstrates feel for four offerings. His most consistent pitch right now is his lively fastball, which sits at 92-94 mph, peaks at 96 and could add more velocity once he physically matures. His downer curveball projects as a future plus pitch, his fading changeup shows similar upside and his slider is developing nicely... He has the upside of a No. 3 starter and is on pace to reach Houston before he turns 22.
Cameron, 20, is the son of longtime big leaguer Mike Cameron and an outfielder like his father. He is hitting a robust.271/.349/.466 with 14 home runs and 32 steals in 120 Single-A games this season. The 22-year-old Rogers is an elite defensive catcher who is hitting.263/.352/.472 at two different Single-A levels in 2017. Make no mistake, the Tigers added three high-end prospects in this trade.
The Astros acquired Verlander before the 11:59pm ET deadline Thursday night for teams to acquire players and have them be eligible for the postseason roster, so he will be able to pitch for them in October. That deadline is a hard deadline. There are no exceptions or loopholes. Had the two teams not been able to complete the trade before 11:59pm ET, Verlander would have been ineligible for the postseason. Here's how Verlander improves their postseason odds, via SportsLine's projections:
Wins Win % Postseason Odds World Series Odds Before Verlander 95.9 59.2% 97.2% 11.5% With Verlander 96.6 59.6% 98.0% 13.1% Change +0.7 +0.4% +0.8% +1.6%
As for the Tigers, they have made it crystal clear they are rebuilding. Not only was Verlander traded away Thursday, but Justin Upton was traded too. He went to the Angels earlier in the day. The Tigers are 58-74 and have the seventh worst record in baseball. The time had come to rebuild. It stands to reason they will look to trade away even more veterans in the offseason, including slugger Miguel Cabrera. His massive contract is an obstacle, however.
Assuming everyone is healthy, the Astros will now be able to go into a postseason series with Keuchel, Verlander, and McCullers set to start the first three games in whatever order. Add in the best offense in baseball -- the Astros are averaging 5.53 runs per game in 2017, easily the most in baseball -- and a deep bullpen, and suddenly this team looks very capable of winning the first World Series in franchise history.A man sitting on a porch got into an argument with another man who came by and chased him around the front and back of the house, shooting him twice in the legs Tuesday afternoon, Jacksonville police said.
The acquaintance approached the victim about 4 p.m. outside a home on Brentwood Avenue, and an argument broke out a short time later, said Sgt. R. Valentine. After being shot in the leg and trying to get away, the victim was shot again.
He was able to get to a nearby used-car dealership in 4500 block of Brentwood to get help. Air and K-9 units were called to search for the shooter.
Police did not provide a description or name of the suspect.
Joe Daraskevich
Mark Evans ID'd as man killed by train
A man hit and killed by a train Monday night has been identified as a 51-year-old transient, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
The Norfolk Southern freight train engineer told police that the victim - Mark Edwin Evans - appeared to be resting on the side of the tracks. As the train approached, he tried to get out of the way but lost his footing and fell onto the tracks, the Sheriff's Office said.
It happened about 8 p.m. in a wooded area about a quarter-mile from Sycamore Street and Sycamore Lane, the Sheriff's Office said.
Jail records show Evans has had 14 arrests in the last two years, mostly for trespassing.
Scott Butler
Georgia man killed in U-turn crash on A1A
A Woodbine, Ga., man was killed in a wreck Monday night on Florida A1A north of Wonderwood Drive, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Troopers said 29-year-old Kevin A. Valerio was a passenger in an Acura sedan being driven north about 11:30 p.m. by 24-year-old Amanda B. Phillmon, also of Woodbine. Joseph P. Riley, 52, of Ponte Vedra Beach was driving a Toyota pickup south on A1A in but didn't see the Acura when Phillmon went to make a U-turn, according to the crash report. The pickup slammed into the right side of the car, killing Valerio.
Everyone was wearing a seat belt.
Bill Bortzfield
Man says he was shot in attack by 5 men
Jacksonville police are investigating an overnight shooting in which the victim said he was attacked by five men on the Southside.
The unidentified victim said he was walking in the 3300 block of University Boulevard North about 2 a.m. when he was approached by five men, including one with a gun. The victim said he grabbed the gun and it went off, with a bullet striking his thumb.
Nothing was said during the encounter, according to police.
Jim Schoettler
ST. JOHNS
Ex-inspector pleads guilty to extortion
A 64-year-old St. Augustine man who worked for St. Johns County pleaded guilty Monday to extortion charges and faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Will Randy Rogers worked as a construction inspector for the county when a businessman reported him to the FBI in August 2013 after paying him $1,500, prosecutors said.
Rogers had been extorting money from him by threatening to report code violations that did not exist.
The man recorded conversations with Rogers over several months from 2013 to 2014 and paid him $6,000 during that time, prosecutors said.
Rogers frequently used his county vehicle when he met with the businessman. FBI agents stopped Rogers in the vehicle in April after he collected $2,000 from the businessman, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Joe Daraskevich
Man accused of killing dog that bit him
A St. Johns County man was charged Saturday with aggravated animal cruelty after being accused of killing his dog with a machete.
Charles Edward Allen, 59, is in the St. Johns County jail on $25,000 bail.
The Sheriff's Office said the incident occurred at Allen's home in the 2600 block of East San Juan Drive.
A witness told deputies he went over to Allen's home and found the dog dead in nearby woods. The witness said that the dog was killed after biting Allen in the hand. A police report about the incident did not give the dog's breed.
Deputies found Allen walking out of a wooded area near his home. He said the dog had bitten him several times. He was taken to Flagler Hospital for treatment of dog bites and then jailed.
Jim Schoettler
Deputy, others in crash identified
Authorities have identified two men, including a St. Johns County deputy, involved in a crash on San Jose Boulevard Monday morning in Jacksonville.
Scott R. Wright, a 30-year-old St. Johns deputy who lives in Jacksonville, and Dylan G. Whalen, 24, of Orange Park are both listed in serious condition, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Whalen was southbound on San Jose in a Mazda RX8 about 7:20 a.m. and Wright was northbound in a Sheriff's Office patrol car when the two collided as Wright tried to turn west onto Loretto Road, the Highway Patrol said.
Whalen hit the patrol car and then drove into a traffic signal box, which caused the lights at the intersection to shut off.
Both men were wearing seat belts.
Joe Daraskevich26 Feb 2014 PASL All-League Teams Announced
PRESS RELEASE – Professional Arena Soccer League (PASL) announced the All-League teams today with five Mustangs being honored. Efrain “Wilo” Martinez was named to the All-PASL First Team after winning the league scoring title with 63 points. Miguel Vaca and Jesus Flores were named All-League Second Team while Bryan Moya and Omar Santillan were Honorable Mention.
PASL All-League First Team
G- Juan Gamboa, La Fiera (14-2 W-L, 3.85 GAA,.730 save%)
D- Alex Caceres, Las Vegas Legends (25 goals, 14 assists)
D- Genoni Martinez, Monterrey Flash (11 goals, 33 assists)
M- Enrique Tovar, Las Vegas Legends (22 goals, 40 assists)
F- Kraig Chiles, San Diego Sockers (38 goals, 22 assists)
F- Efrain “Wilo” Martinez, Chicago Mustangs (40 goals, 23 assists)
PASL All-League Second Team
G- Jesus Flores, Chicago Mustangs (16-0 W-L, 5.19 GAA,.676 save%)
D- Costea Decu, Detroit Waza (19 goals, 12 assists)
D- Josh Grossman, Cleveland Freeze (24 goals, 12 assists)
M- Jamie Lovegrove, Dallas Sidekicks (26 goals, 22 assists)
M- Miguel Vaca, Chicago Mustangs (35 goals, 19 assists)
F- Allen Eller, Cleveland Freeze, (28 goals, 34 assists)
PASL All-League Honorable Mention
G- Chris Toth, San Diego Sockers (12-3 W-L, 4.89 GAA,.735 save%)
D- Evan McNeley, San Diego Sockers (7 goals, 8 assists)
D- Omar Santillan, Chicago Mustangs (14 goals, 6 assists)
F- Bryan Moya, Chicago Mustangs (40 goals, 15 assists)
F- Ivan Campos, Las Vegas Legends, (28 goals, 25 assists)
F- Nestor Hernandez, Dallas Sidekicks (33 goals, 16 assists)“The strip search episode was not a ‘wimpification’ of the Milwaukee Police Department,” Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said. “It cannot be defended or described as anything but a violation of civil rights.” Credit: Calvin Mattheis
SHARE Alderman Mark Borkowski Rick Wood
By of the
The Milwaukee Common Council Tuesday approved a proposed $5 million settlement with 74 African-American residents who say they were subjected to illegal strip searches and body cavity searches by police officers looking for drugs.
The payment is part of a sweeping settlement of more than a dozen federal civil rights lawsuits pending against the city over the search practices. Four Milwaukee police officers were convicted of crimes in connection with the illegal searches and forced to resign.
In two separate actions, Aldermen Mark A. Borkowski and Russell Stamper II voted against settling and paying.
Borkowski said the settlement was evidence of the "wimpification of police" and railed against the plaintiffs and their attorneys, calling them "ambulance chasers."
His comments were quickly condemned by other council members and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who said Borkowski needs to "learn how to separate fact from fiction."
"The strip search episode was not a 'wimpification' of the Milwaukee Police Department," Barrett said. "It cannot be defended or described as anything but a violation of civil rights."
After the meeting, Borkowski added that there are "policies and procedures that need to be abided by" among officers but said that there were only a couple of "bad apples" involved.
He added that the settlement is part of "a disturbing trend," citing it and the city's pursuit policy as examples of the Milwaukee Police Department not being tough enough on crime. He traced such problems to the leadership of Chief Edward Flynn.
"The criminal has the upper hand," Borkowski said. "We know that many of the beneficiaries of the settlement are known drug dealers."
Some fellow aldermen promptly slammed his comments.
Ald. Terry Witkowski called Borkowski's statements "outrageous."
"We don't get to choose whose constitutional rights we decide to respect," Ald. Ashanti Hamilton said. "I also reject that all of the plaintiffs are drug dealers."
And Ald. Nik Kovac said that he agrees that officials need to be tough on crime but added that there are clear procedures that need to be followed when it comes to searching suspects.
"There's a way to do it without raping someone," Kovac said.
Union levels criticisms
Michael Crivello, president of the Milwaukee Police Association, called the strip search situation "unfortunate," but he also criticized the settlement.
"The Common Council decision, while fiscally prudent, was also unfortunate, ultimately doing little more than rewarding criminal behavior," Crivello said.
Like Borkowski, he blamed Flynn and his policies.
The Milwaukee Police Department declined to comment Tuesday.
But attorneys for the plaintiffs bristled at Borkowski's comments.
"To have an elected official make those kinds of comments embarrasses the City of Milwaukee," Chicago-based attorney Flint Taylor said.
He said that the attorneys' investigation showed that far more than 74 people were violated, but that many were too intimidated by the police to join the lawsuit.
"It's outrageous for an elected official to call reining in police for their unconstitutional, racist and criminal conduct a 'wimpification,'" Taylor said.
Attorney Jonathan Safran added that he was "certainly surprised" by Borkowski's comments.
"Despite what he may believe about some of our clients, this is clearly a case, again, where Milwaukee police officers violated constitutional rights that individuals have," Safran said.
Although one of the officers, Michael Vagnini, often did find drugs in suspects' scrotal areas or in their rectal cavity, some suspects claimed he planted the drugs, and other searches did not reveal any drugs.
Stamper and Ald. Milele Coggs raised concerns about the conditions placed on the settlement. Before any of the plaintiffs can collect, they must clear any warrants and pay off a collective $900,000 in government debts, including criminal restitution and back child support.
Such conditions have never been placed on any city settlement before, according to Stamper and Coggs.
"It almost seems punitive to me to include in restitution so many categories that we've never done before," Coggs said.
The city already has methods of recovering funds for tickets or other outside debt and for clearing warrants, she said.
Of the $5 million in the proposed settlement, $2.3 million would go to the plaintiffs' attorneys — the Chicago law firms Loevy & Loevy and The People's Law Office, and Milwaukee lawyers Safran, Alex Flynn and Robin Shellow.
The plaintiffs were grouped into three categories, based on which officers were involved, where the search occurred, the type of search and other factors. Fifteen people would get $60,000 each, 47 would receive $40,000 payments and 12 would receive $15,000.
Of the four officers, Vagnini was convicted of felony offenses and was sentenced to 26 months in prison. The others were convicted of misdemeanors.
Both sides arrived at the settlement after mediation before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who presided over some of the larger lawsuits. A few were settled previously, for about $90,000 each, and in one case that went to trial, a jury awarded $506,000, an amount later reduced to $60,000 by the judge.
Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.I know what you want from me—what we all want—which is some small solace after the events of Election Day. My wife Sue Halpern and I have been talking nonstop for days, trying to cope with the emotions. I fear I may not be able to provide that balm, but I do offer these remarks in the spirit of resistance to that which we know is coming. We need to figure out how to keep the lights on, literally and figuratively, and all kinds of darkness at bay. Ad Policy Adapted from the inaugural Jonathan Schell Memorial Lecture on the Fate of the Earth, created by The Nation Institute and the Gould Family Foundation and presented by The New School.
I am grateful to all those who asked me to deliver this inaugural Jonathan Schell Lecture—grateful most of all because it gave me an excuse for extended and happy recollection of one of the most generous friendships of my early adulthood. I arrived at The New Yorker at the age of 21, two weeks out of college, alone in New York City for the first time. The New Yorker was wonderfully quirky, of course, but one of its less wonderful quirks was that most people didn’t talk to each other very much, and especially to newcomers 50 years their junior. There were exceptions, of course, and the foremost exception was Jonathan. He loved to talk, and we had long colloquies nearly every day, mostly about politics.
Ideas—not abstract ideas, but ideas drawn from the world as it wound around him—fascinated him. He always wanted to dig a layer or two deeper; there was never anything superficial or trendy about his analysis. I understood better what he was up to when I came, at the age of 27, to write The End of Nature. It owes more than a small debt to The Fate of the Earth, which let me feel it was possible and permitted to write about the largest questions in the largest ways.
In the years that followed, having helped push action on his greatest cause—the danger of nuclear weapons—that issue began to seem a little less urgent. That perception, of course, is mistaken: Nuclear weapons remain a constant peril, perhaps more than ever in an increasingly multipolar world. But with the end of the Cold War and the build-down of US and Russian weapon stocks, the question compelled people less feverishly. New perils—climate change perhaps chief among them—emerged. Post-9/11, smaller-bore terrors informed our nightmares. We would have been wise, as the rise of a sinister Vladimir Putin and a sinister and clueless Donald Trump remind us, to pay much sharper attention to this existential issue, but the peace dividend turned out mostly to be a relaxing of emotional vigilance.
However, for the moment, we have not exploded nuclear weapons, notwithstanding Trump’s recent query about what good they are if we don’t use them. Our minds can compass the specter of a few mushroom clouds obliterating all that we know and love; those images have fueled a fitful but real effort to contain the problem, resulting most recently in the agreement with Iran. We have not been able to imagine that the billion tiny explosions of a billion pistons in a billion cylinders every second of every day could wreak the same damage, and hence we’ve done very little to ward off climate change.
We are destroying the earth every bit as thoroughly as Jonathan imagined in the famous first chapter of The Fate of the Earth, just a little more slowly. By burning coal and oil and gas and hence injecting carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, we have materially changed its heat-trapping properties; indeed, those man-made greenhouse gases trap the daily heat equivalent of 400,000 Hiroshima-size explosions. That’s enough extra heat that, in the space of a few decades, we have melted most of the summer sea ice in the Arctic—millennia old, meters thick, across a continent-size stretch of ocean that now, in summer, is blue water. (Blue water that absorbs the sun’s incoming rays instead of bouncing them back to space like the white ice it replaced, thus exacerbating the problem even further.) That’s enough heat to warm the tropical oceans to the point where Sue and I watched with our colleagues in the South Pacific as a wave of record-breaking warm water swept across the region this past spring, killing in a matter of weeks vast swaths of coral that had been there since before the beginning of the human experiment. That’s enough heat to seriously disrupt the planet’s hydrological cycles: Since warm air holds more water vapor than cold, we’ve seen steady increases in drought in arid areas (and with it calamities like wildfire) and steady, even shocking, increases in downpour and flood in wet areas. It’s been enough to raise the levels of the ocean—and the extra carbon in the atmosphere has also changed the chemistry of that seawater, making it more acidic and beginning to threaten the base of the marine food chain. We are, it bears remembering, an ocean planet, and the world’s oceanographers warn that we are very rapidly turning the seven seas “hot, sour, and breathless.” To the “republic of insects and grass” that Jonathan imagined in the opening of The Fate of the Earth, we can add a new vision: a hypoxic undersea kingdom of jellyfish. We are destroying the earth every bit as thoroughly as Jonathan imagined in ‘The Fate of the Earth.’
This is not what will happen if something goes wrong, if some maniac pushes the nuclear button, if some officer turns a key in a silo. This is what has already happened, because all of us normal people have turned the keys to our cars and the thermostat dials on our walls. And we’re still in the relatively early days of climate change, having increased the planet’s temperature not much more than 1 degree Celsius. We’re on a trajectory, even after the conclusion of the Paris climate talks last year, to raise Earth’s temperature by 3.5 degrees Celsius—or more, if the feedback loops we are triggering take full hold. If we do that, then we will not be able to maintain a civilization anything like the one we’ve inherited. Our great cities will be underwater; our fields will not produce the food our bodies require; those bodies will not be able to venture outside in many places to do the work of the world. Already, the World Health Organization estimates, increased heat and humidity have cut the labor a human can perform by 10 percent, a number that will approach 30 percent by midcentury. This July and August were the hottest months in the history of human civilization measured globally; in southern Iraq, very near where scholars situate the Garden of Eden, the mercury in cities like Basra hit 129 degrees—among the highest reliably recorded temperatures in history, temperatures so high that human survival becomes difficult.
Against this crisis, we see sporadic action at best. We know that we could be making huge strides. For instance, engineers have managed to cut the cost of solar panels by 80 percent in the last decade, to the point where they are now among the cheapest methods of generating electricity. A Stanford team headed by Mark Jacobson has shown precisely how all 50 states and virtually every foreign nation could make the switch to renewable energy at an affordable cost in the course of a couple of decades. A few nations have shown that he’s correct: Denmark, for instance, now generates almost half of its power from the wind.
In most places, however, the progress has been slow and fitful at best. In the United States, the Obama administration did more than its predecessors, but far less than physics requires. By reducing our use of coal-fired power, it cut carbon-dioxide emissions by perhaps 10 percent. But because it wouldn’t buck the rest of the fossil-fuel industry, the Obama administration basically substituted fracked natural gas for that coal. This was a mistake: The leakage of methane into the atmosphere means that America’s total greenhouse-gas emissions held relatively steady or perhaps even increased. This willingness to cater to the industry is bipartisan, though in the horror of this past election that was easy to overlook. Here’s President Obama four years ago, speaking to an industry group in Oklahoma: “Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That’s important to know. Over the last three years, I’ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We’re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some.” Hillary Clinton opened an entire new wing at the State Department charged with promoting fracking around the world. So much for the establishment, now repudiated.
Trump, of course, has famously insisted that global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese and has promised to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. His election win is more than just a speed bump in the road to the future—it’s a ditch, and quite likely a crevasse. Even as we gather tonight, international negotiators in Marrakech, stunned by our elections, are doing their best to salvage something of the Paris Agreement, signed just 11 months ago with much fanfare.
* * *
But the real contest here is not between Democrats and Republicans; it’s between human beings and physics. That’s a difficult negotiation, as physics is not prone to compromise. It also imposes a hard time limit on the bargaining; if we don’t move very, very quickly, then any progress will be pointless. And so the question for this lecture, and really the question for the geological future of the planet, becomes: How do we spur much faster and more decisive action from institutions that wish to go slowly, or perhaps don’t wish to act at all? One understands that politicians prize incremental action—but in this case, winning slowly is the same as losing. The planet is clearly outside its comfort zone; how do we get our political institutions out of theirs? The planet is clearly outside its comfort zone. How do we get our political institutions out of theirs?
And it is here that I’d like to turn to one of Jonathan’s later books, one that got less attention than it deserved. The Unconquerable World was published in 2003. In it, Jonathan writes, in his distinctive aphoristic style: “Violence is the method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Nonviolence is a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.” This brings us, I think, to the crux of our moment. Across a wide variety of topics, we see the power of the ruthless few. This is nowhere more evident than in the field of energy, where the ruthless few who lead the fossil-fuel industry have more money at their disposal than any humans in the past. They’ve been willing to deploy this advantage to maintain the status quo, even in the face of clear scientific warnings and now clear scientific proof. They are, for lack of a better word, radicals: If you continue to alter the chemistry of the atmosphere past the point where you’re melting the polar ice caps, then you are engaging in a radicalism unparalleled in human history.
And they’re not doing this unknowingly or out of confusion. Exxon has known all there is to know about climate change for four decades. Its product was carbon, and it had some of the best scientists on earth on its staff; they warned management, in clear and explicit terms, how much and how fast the earth would warm, and management believed them: That’s why, for instance, Exxon’s drilling rigs were built to accommodate the sea-level rise it knew was coming. But Exxon didn’t warn any of the rest of us. Just the opposite: It invested huge sums of money in helping to build an architecture of deceit, denial, and disinformation, which meant humankind wasted a quarter of a century in a ludicrous argument about whether global warming was “real,” a debate that Exxon’s leaders knew was already settled. The company continues to fund politicians who deny climate change and to fight any efforts to hold it accountable. At times, as Steve Coll makes clear in his remarkable book Private Empire, the oil industry has been willing to use explicit violence—those attack dogs in North Dakota have their even more brutal counterparts in distant parts of the planet. More often, the industry has been willing to use the concentrated force of its money. Our largest oil and gas barons, the Koch brothers—two of the richest men on earth, and among the largest leaseholders on Canada’s tar sands—have promised to deploy three-quarters of a billion dollars in this year’s contest. As Jane Mayer put it in a telling phrase, they’ve been able to “weaponize” their money to achieve their ends. So the “ruthless few” are using violence—power in its many forms.
But the other half of that aphorism is hopeful: “Nonviolence is the means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.” When the history of the 20th century is written, I’m hopeful that historians will conclude that the most important technology developed during those bloody hundred years wasn’t the atom bomb, or the ability to manipulate genes, or even the Internet, but instead the technology of nonviolence. (I use the word “technology” advisedly here.) We had intimations of its power long before: In a sense, the most resounding moment in Western history, Jesus’s crucifixion, is a prototype of nonviolent action, one that launched the most successful movement in history. Nineteenth-century America saw Thoreau begin to think more systematically about civil disobedience as a technique. But it really fell to the 20th century, and Gandhi, to develop it as a coherent strategy, a process greatly furthered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates in this country, and by adherents around the world: Otpor in Eastern Europe, various participants in the Arab Spring, Buddhist monks in Burma, Wangari Maathai’s tree-planters, and so on.
We have done very little systematic study of these techniques. We have no West Point or Sandhurst for the teaching of nonviolence; indeed, it’s fair to say that the governments of the world have spent far more time figuring out how to stamp out such efforts |
The Boston Globe. In one case, an anonymous woman told the newspaper she woke up naked to find her mentor, Jeff Galindo, a jazz musician and instructor, groping her. She reported the case and Mr. Galindo was fired. She later found out that he went on to teach at three other institutions, though she said she had been assured by Berklee that he wouldn’t be able to. Berklee told the Globe that it had provided one of the institutions with Mr. Galindo’s termination letter, "which included an explicit statement that explained the reasons for his departure from the college." Mr. Brown said that "if another institution calls for a reference on some one we will tell them that they were terminated for sexual misconduct."
In another case, Berklee recently hired a professor, Steve Kirby, who had retired from the University of Manitoba. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that, as he stepped down, the university was meeting with students reporting concerns about the professor that were "sexual in nature." At the November rally, according to the Globe, Mr. Brown said that Berklee did not know about the students’ allegations until hearing from reporters in Manitoba. After an investigation, Mr. Kirby was fired from Berklee. (Another Steve Kirby who works at Berklee has not been accused of sexual misconduct.)
If no one feels good about those stories, no one is entirely sure what to do about them. Sky Stahlmann, a first-year student and professional-music major, acknowledged that balancing an accused person’s right to privacy with students’ need for more transparency is tricky.
"A lot of people want to see sexual offenders strung up," she said. While she sees the benefits of that approach, she said she plans to focus on making sure victims have support and educating people on campus about sexual harassment. Ms. Stahlmann is president of a newly formed group, Berklee and BoCo Against Sexual Assault, that will work independently of the administration to teach people about the issue and give students a voice as the college mulls changes.
Many victims of sexual misconduct have taken it upon themselves to name abusers. Since the Globe article and the rally, said Jaclyn Chylinski, a senior musical-theater major, more students have been speaking out about their experiences on campus. "I do not think this will be the last of the allegations," she said.
More revelations would bring more soul-searching. But Ms. Chylinski and other student activists say they have been encouraged by their administration’s willingness to listen. That alone won’t change the culture, but they say it’s a start.
Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.
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Correction (11/30/2017, 2:47 p.m.): This article originally stated that more than 1,000 people participated in the walkout and march at Berklee. In fact, the walkout and march participants numbered only in the hundreds. The subsequent forum drew more than 1,000 people.At around 1 p.m. this afternoon 150 years ago (November 2, 1863), President Jefferson Davis arrived by train at the Saint Andrews Parish depot across the Ashley River from Charleston. Davis had visited with the Army of Tennessee in October and was returning to Richmond by way of Savannah, Charleston, and, Wilmington. According to newspaper accounts General P.G.T. Beauregard, Judge A.G. Magrath, and other dignitaries met Davis at the depot and escorted him into Charleston:
One of the most pleasing incidents of the day, was the display which met the President and his cortege as the passed down Rutledge street. At the corner of Bee and Rutledge streets, Maj. Trezevant, commanding the Confederate States Arsenal here, had arranged a pyramid of ten-inch shell manufactured at the Arsenal. This was topped off with a beautiful “Harding” shell, called so after its inventor, Capt. Harding, also an accomplished officer connected with the arsenal. In this was the staff of an elegant battle flag, and the whole surrounded with Yankee trophies of all sizes. On each side of this striking pyramid were the sturdy artisans of the arsenal, with their aprons on, their hats off, their tools in their hands just as they had left their shops but a few moments before….
The streets along the line of procession were thronged with people anxious to get a look at the President. The men cheered and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs in token of recognition.
Arriving at City Hall, Mayor Charles Macbeth offered a greeting the President. Then Davis gave an address to the “large crowd present”:
He commenced by making a graceful allusion to his former visit to Charleston, when he accompanied the remains of the lamented and illustrious statesman, John C. Calhoun, back to his beloved state. If it be that the departed spirit can look down upon the events of life, with what interest can we not believe he views our present struggle, and in our trial watches over us with all a guardian angel’s care. [Davis] came because his feelings drew him here in this trying time. He desired also to confer with our commanding general, and by personal observation acquire some of that knowledge which would enable him to understand more clearly the reports which would be submitted to him….
Charleston was now singled out as a particular point of hatred to the Yankees, as the nest of the rebellion; but just in proportion to that hatred so is the love of every true son of the Confederacy gathered around us. There is no where a generous spirit in the land that does not watch our progress with the most anxious solicitude….
While they had felt this anxiety, they had not been wanting in confidence. They remembered how the Palmetto logs of Moultrie, in former times, resisted the then dreaded British fleet, and we can point to the defense now against the still more formidable attack on Sumter as but the renewal of the deeds of the past. Though crumbling in her ruins, she yet stands, and every one looks with the anxious hope that the Yankee flag will never float over it. Nobly has the little heroic garrison that now holds it responded to every expectation. The commanding officer there is worthy to be the descendant of that heroic band that defended the pass of Thermopylae, and future records will record his name as glorious, for the defense of the approach to your harbor. Whatever may be in the future, which is in the hands of the Supreme Being, we have written a proud page in our country’s history.
He hoped it would not be, as our enemies desire, that they should ever set foot upon the soil of Charleston. But should it ever be otherwise, he trusted ours would be the glory he had desired for his native country-town, Vicksburg, and the whole be left one mass of rubbish…. It is only a question whether you will leave it a heap of ruins or a prey for Yankee spoils. [Cries of “ruins, ruins.”] Such he believed to be the spirit of the land.
But he did not believe Charleston would ever be taken. It was not his expectation. Just in proportion as the enemy advanced upon us, they increase their difficulties – difficulties which they have not yet overcome. They are yet brought under a concentrated fire, and as they approach the inner lines of circumvallation their difficulties will be still further increased as they progress….
When they attempt to attack us upon every side, and beleaguer us at different points, other arms will be released, and other arms will come to your assistance. In any event, therefore, he looked forward to a glorious record of the close of the struggle for Charleston. In any probability he looked forward for her honor to be preserved. On other fields South Carolinians have already added luster to the brilliant victories of the present day and to their glories of the past….
South Carolinians, like the plume of Henry the Fourth, have been a rallying point wherever their banners were borne. We will have more glorious names to record and proud incidents for our descendants. The new has overshadowed the old. Every man has now an opportunity to carve out his own name and fame, and to be the author of his own history. We all like to trace back to the fame of our fathers and to leave some glorious record for our descendants….
He who would now seek to drag down him who is struggling, if not a traitor, is first cousin to it. For he is striking the most deadly blows that can be made in our limits. He who would attempt to promote his own personal ends; he who is not willing to take a musket and fight in the ranks, is not worthy of the Confederate liberty for which we are fighting….Screen shot/New York Times
Update, April 8, 11:00 a.m.: Slager was charged with murder Tuesday and is being held without bail, though he may be able to have a bail hearing before a judge at some point in the future.
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Update, April 7, 8:05 p.m.: The headline of this post originally stated that the video appears to show the officer planting a Taser on the victim. It's unclear whether he's planting it or if he dropped it and picked it up afterward. The headline has been changed to account for this uncertainty. This is a developing story, and we'll continue to update it to reflect the latest.
Original post, April 7, 6:22 p.m.: A white police officer from North Charleston, South Carolina is in custody and will face murder charges after firing upon and killing a 50-year-old black man named Walter Scott as Scott ran away from him after a Saturday traffic stop, the Charleston Post and Courier reports. Video taken by a bystander and obtained by more than one outlet shows the officer, Michael Slager, firing at a retreating Scott.
A previous statement issued by an attorney representing Slager said that Scott took Slager’s stun gun before the officer fired at him; the video may or may not show this taking place, but it also appears to show Slager dropping the stun gun next to Scott's body after the shooting.
The video begins in the vacant lot, apparently moments after Officer Slager fired his Taser. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from Mr. Scott’s body as the two men tussle and Mr. Scott turns to run.
Something — it is not clear whether it is the stun gun — is either tossed or knocked to the ground behind the two men and Officer Slager draws his gun, the video shows. When the officer fires, Mr. Scott appears to be 15 to 20 feet away and fleeing. He falls after the last of eight shots.
Scott was wanted on "a Family Court warrant" at the time of his death, the Post and Courier says.Blackmagic Design announces new Blackmagic MultiView 16
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Blackmagic MultiView 16 includes sixteen multi rate 6G-SDI inputs with separate loop thru that are compatible with existing SD, HD and Ultra HD equipment. All 16 inputs feature automatic frame re-synchronization, so each view is like an independent video monitor, regardless of the input standard. That means customers can mix and match up to 16 different video standards all at the same time!
Blackmagic MultiView 16 is the perfect solution when there are lots of video feeds to monitor and limited space. Customers no longer have to connect multiple monitors, dozens of cables or run extra power. Simply plug in cameras, decks, switchers, routers and feeds into the SDI connections on Blackmagic MultiView 16 and they can see everything with amazing clarity and detail on a single Ultra HD display.
Because it works natively in Ultra HD, customers get four times the number of pixels in each view so the video looks sharper and clearer than ever before. Blackmagic MultiView 16 delivers an incredible 4 full resolution 1920 x 1080 HD video sources when running in 2×2 layout, or 16 half resolution 1080 HD videos sources at an amazing 960 x 540 resolution when running in 4×4 layout!
Blackmagic MultiView 16 is easy to use and includes an elegant machined metal front panel with dedicated buttons for quickly selecting any source. Video can be routed to any position on the grid at the push of a button or with the spin knob control, so it works just like a video router. MultiView 16 can also be controlled remotely over a network using the included Mac and Windows software, as well as from Videohub hardware control panels installed throughout a facility. There is also an SDK for custom broadcast integrations.
“Using MultiView 16 is like having 16 independent broadcast monitors on a single display,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Facilities that don’t even care about working in Ultra HD can still get a huge benefit as when using an Ultra HD monitor connected to it, they get twice the resolution of regular 1080 HD inputs for twice the image clarity. That’s really critical when monitoring camera feeds where you want to check focus. Being able to view up to 16 mixed format sources on a single screen all at the same time, in such amazing quality and with incredible detail is mind blowing!”
Blackmagic MultiView 16 Key Features
Worlds first multi view to allow the use of Ultra HD television for twice the image sharpness.
Display up to 16 SDI sources on a single HD or Ultra HD display via SDI or HDMI.
16 multi rate 6G-SDI inputs with loop thru, compatible with all SD, HD and Ultra HD equipment.
Automatic frame re-synchronization allows simultaneous display of mixed SD, HD and Ultra HD formats.
Choose from solo, 2×2, 3×3 or 4×4 grid views.
Supported output resolutions: 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160.
Easy to use front panel controls with dedicated source buttons, LCD screen and spin knob control.
Durable elegant machined metal portable 1RU design with professional connections for 24/7 reliability.
Built in 90V – 240V AC international power supply for use anywhere in the world.
Remote control via Ethernet using the included Mac and Windows software.
Remote control via Ethernet using Blackmagic Videohub hardware control panels.
SDK available for custom integrations.
Availability and Price
MultiView 16 will be available in November 2014 for US$1,495 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.
Press Photography
Product photos of the Blackmagic MultiView 16, and all other Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com.
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.comChanges were announced to a trio of upcoming UFC cards on Friday, with two newcomers making their first trip to the Octagon while a South African favorite makes his return to fight in Brazil.
On next Saturday’s card in Denver, Wales’ John Phillips has been forced to withdraw from his first UFC bout against Marcos Rogerio de Lima, opening the door for Colorado’s Jeremy “Grizzly” Kimball to make his debut against the veteran Brazilian bomber.
The return of light heavyweight contender Ovince Saint Preux hit a snag when Jan Blachowicz suffered an injury that prompted his removal from the UFC Fight Night card in Houston on Feb. 4. But highly-touted Volkan Oezdemir stepped up to the plate immediately, and when he faces OSP, he will become the first Switzerland native to compete in the UFC.
Finally, the UFC Fight Night event in Fortaleza, Brazil on Mar. 11 got a change to the card in the middleweight division, as South Africa’s Garreth McLellan replaces Alex Nicholson against unbeaten prospect Paulo Henrique Costa.Description
StockBank is a networked piggy bank that displays the current price of ONE share of top tech stocks such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and counts down the current price of one share of the stock depending on the amount of coins inside the bank. As someone drops a coin in the bank, the display shows the amount of the stock share price decreasing until it levels off at zero which means that there is enough coinage inside the bank to buy one share of the stock in the display.When the amount in the bank equals that of the stock, the bank automatically buys a share of the stock from an online broker and the pig blinks on and off to show that it was purchased. When the bank is emptied, the counter resets back to another share price for a top tech stock and starts the process over until the amount matches the price.
Credits
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Justin Blinder
Press
This Piggy Bank is Our Stock Broker, Hackaday, April 20, 2013.
Reddit: StockBank, an Arduino piggy bank that buys stocks when it has enough coins. How to build inside., April 11, 2013.
Adafruit Blog: StockBank – A Networked Piggy Bank, April 11, 2013.
BuzzFeed: StockBank: A Piggy Bank That’s Networked To The Stock Market, April 16, 2013.
Exhibitions / Awards
2nd Prize in the Build A Better Piggy Bank Contest, Future Advisor, 2013
Video documentation:
Image of the construction
Shot of LCD DisplayIn a business-driven culture obsessed with success, Christians are often tempted to apply secular business models to their spiritual faith. With around 40 hours of our week spent working, our minds are trained to think about productivity, consumerism and prosperity. Bestselling books on management techniques, inspirational TED talks, growth models, leadership seminars and self-help guides can quickly become our main source of knowledge and informationbecoming secondary to the words of Christ.
Not all secular business advice is bad; just realize that it comes from an entirely different paradigm
Business vs. Faith:
Hierarchy vs. Equality
Industry Standards vs. Theological Beliefs
Efficiency vs. Holiness
Board of Directors vs. Spiritual Leaders
Risk Management vs. Missions
Loss Prevention vs. Freely Giving
Marketing vs. Evangelism
Publicity vs. Outreach
Customers vs. Communities
Managers vs. Mentors
Graphs, Data and Research vs. Prayer, Meditation and Revelation
Professionalism vs. Love
Networking vs. Relationships
Physical Growth vs. Spiritual Maturity
Salaried Employees vs. Unpaid Volunteers
Profits vs. Tithing
Fine Print vs. Grace
Sales Growth vs. Spiritual Growth
Success vs. Sacrifice
Money vs. Christ
When Christians have a business mindset about their faith, they often mistake efficiency with effectiveness, but not everything is meant to be fast, quick and streamlined. Take prayer for example:
Almost every church and Christian organization has a website, prayer chain or bulletin page dedicated to peoples prayer requests. The idea is to have as many people praying for you as fast as possiblethis is not a bad thing.
But fewer and fewer Christian ministries are offering a platform that offers the very personal and meaningful opportunity to actually pray with another human beingwithin an intimate and one-on-one context. This model is considered too inefficient. Matthew 18:20 (NIV) states that For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
Public prayer chains and websites do serve a valuable purpose, and they are a great way to help those in need, but the next time you attend a church or ministry that has a public prayer request list, carefully look it over and analyze what you seemost likely a long list of physical ailments.
Broken legs, sore throats, allergies, aging grandparents, a disease, sickness, a cold and a litany of other physical problems probably make up about 95% of all public prayer lists. Why? Because nobody wants to publicly admit what their real problems are.
If we werent afraid of being judged or what others thought about us, our prayer lists would look more like this:
Im addicted to porn
I physically abuse my wife
Im being molested
Im being bullied
I struggle with pride
I want to kill myself
I suffer from depression
My spouse and I fight constantly
Im not sure if I still believe in God
Im addicted to drugs
I hate my coworkers
I have anger issues
I want a divorce
Im having an affair
The problem is that nobody wants to put these types of requests within a public venue. Issues like this are best addressed through interpersonal relationshipswhich require time, energy, vulnerability, conflict and love. As Christians, we need to provide environments and foster communities where individuals can pray within a safe environment without feeling judged or looked down upon, a place where people can receive real help. Unfortunately, our effort to efficiently streamline everythingincluding prayeris making it hard for us to be honest and open about our most urgent needs.
Its easy for us to obtain efficiency at the expense of effectiveness. But sometimes there are no quick fixes, and redemption often requires messy work. When in doubt, just look at Jesuss example. He wasnt efficient, but nobody can doubt his effectiveness.
Also by Stephen: Am I a Christian Bigot?
Jesus talks about the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to look for the one that was lostinefficient. Jesus picks twelve bumbling disciples, one who ultimately betrays himinefficient. Jesus flees from the crowdsinefficient. Instead of forgiving the worlds sins through a simple act or word, He dies on the cross through excruciating pain and tortureinefficient. Most importantly, He commands us to go out into the world and make disciples by helping the poor, forgiving our enemies, feeding the hungry, sacrificially serve and love everyone around usinefficient.
By todays standards, Jesus had a horrible business model. So instead of quickly trying to succeed, maybe we should all try to be a little more inefficient.
Stephen Mattson has written for Relevant, Sojourners, and The Burnside Writers Collective. He graduated from the Moody Bible Institute and is currently on staff at in St. Paul, MN. Follow him on Twitter @mikta.
Photo Credit: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty ImagesGet the biggest Chelsea FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Jose Mourinho has warned Romelu Lukaku that Chelsea will decide where the striker plays next season - and not the player himself.
The Blues manager and Lukaku have traded barbs in recent weeks about the background to the forward's season-long loan switch to Everton.
And Mourinho today moved to slap down the Belgium international after Lukaku had suggested last weekend he could extend his stay at Goodison Park.
The Portuguese said: "Maybe there is a new rule in football where, when the season finishes, every player is free to decide his future. Maybe it's a new rule."
Mourinho's side face Sunderland on Wednesday night before a trip to Stoke on Saturday.
The manager admitted out of favour left back Ashley Cole remain on the bench with Cesar Azpilicueta continuing as first choice.
And he said: "I think any player that normally starts matches, and Ashley has started matches through all his career, when they don't start, naturally they're not the happiest guy in the camp.
"But professionally he is always. A team player? Yes. Friend of his friend? Yes.
"He deserves to play, but Azpilicueta is doing really well, so it's a question of Ashley working and waiting for his opportunity. But he's more than ready to play."
Mourinho added: "He could play in one of these two matches, I think he will. Or, if I decide not to, next week against Steaua Bucharest.
"It's a position where Azpilicueta has played a group of consecutive matches so sooner or later I'll have to change, so Ashley will play soon."Watch all of Starc's 24 wickets v Sri Lanka
5) Ryan Harris v England, 2013 (England won 3-0) M: 4 | Wkts: 24 | Ave: 19.58 | BBI: 7-117 | 5wi: 2 | 10w: 0
That Ryan Harris took 24 wickets in the 2013 Ashes series, the second-best haul of any touring Australian quick in England this century, was an admirable return in a series that did not yield a single Test victory for his side.
That he did so having missed the first Test due to injury only enhances his performance.
Recalled for the second Test at Lord's after a narrow loss at Trent Bridge, Harris prised out three of England's top four on the opening day and finished with 5-72, a performance that was overshadowed by two significant Australian batting collapses.
He had to be satisfied with bags of two wickets in six of the seven innings that followed, the exception being a career-best seven-wicket haul in Durham that briefly gave rise to hope of an Australian win.
4) Michael Clarke v South Africa, 2012 (South Africa won 1-0) M: 3 | Runs: 576 | Ave: 144.00 | HS: 259* | 100s: 2 | 50s: 0
During a Test career that spanned 11 mostly successful years, Michael Clarke reached his batting zenith during a golden 12-month period in 2011-12 when he was rightfully regarded as the best batsman in the world.
Starting with a gutsy 151 in Cape Town in late 2011, one of the best performances of his career, Clarke then peeled off an historic 329no against India two months later and another double-century three weeks after that.
But the pinnacle of this golden patch came against the Proteas in November 2012 when he became just the sixth man in history to score a double-century in consecutive Test innings.
That his sublime 259no at the Gabba was surpassed by his 257-ball innings of 230 in Adelaide less than a fortnight later said it all about the aura of invincibility that surrounded the Australian captain during this time.
Even if he couldn't lead his side to a series win.
3) Mitchell Starc v Sri Lanka, 2016 (Sri Lanka won 3-0) M: 3 | Wkts: 24 | Ave: 15.16 | BBI: 6-50 | 5wi: 3 | 10w: 1
Given their carefully-planned preparation and the internal ructions of their opponents heading into the series, Australia's defeat in Sri Lanka must rank as one of their most disappointing campaigns on Asian soil in recent memory.
And if not for their strike bowler Mitchell Starc, playing his first Test series in eight months, the margin of their three defeats would have been considerably greater.
On surfaces designed to assist the home side's spinners, and by extension limit Starc's effectiveness, the left-armer bowled with express pace in draining conditions, and regularly found significant movement with the new ball and reverse swing with the old.
His match-haul off 11 wickets in Galle has already been rated one of the best ever by a paceman in Asia, and his series tally of 24 is the most ever in a three-match series by a visiting paceman to the subcontinent.
In another dark subcontinental tour for the Australians, Starc was a shining light.
2) Matthew Hayden v India, 2001 (India won 2-1) M: 3 | Runs: 549 | Ave: 109.80 | HS: 203 | 100s: 2 | 50s: 2
A performance that grows in stature with every lamentable Australian batting effort on the subcontinent, Hayden's 2001 tour of India was a triumphant transformation.
Brought up on the grass and bounce of the Gabba, and boasting a Test average of just 24 heading into the series, Hayden famously dusted up practice pitches in Brisbane to prepare for the Indian spin assault.
He then swept his way to a brilliant century in a 10-wicket thumping in the first Test in Mumbai, sharing a memorable partnership with Adam Gilchrist after the tourists slumped to 5-99, and added scores of 97 and 67 in a famous loss in Kolkata.
Then came one of the best innings ever by an Australian batsman in Asia, a supreme 203 in Chennai that, while not enough to help Australia avoid a series defeat, is still regarded as a high-water mark for Australians in the subcontinent.
1) Shane Warne v England, 2005 (England won 2-1) M: 5 | Wkts: 40 | Ave: 19.92 | BBI: 6-46 | 5wi: 3 | 10w: 2
What is regarded as the greatest Test series of modern times produced some extraordinary individual performances, arguably none better than Warne's one-man show that almost saved Australia from relinquishing the Ashes for the first time in 16 years.
Having taken a back seat to the Glenn McGrath show in a thumping win at Lord's, Warne stepped up in the final four Tests of the series as nearly all of his teammates flailed against an inspired England side.
Ten wickets at Edgbaston, and a nail-biting innings of 42 that almost stole an unlikely victory, was followed by four more wickets at Old Trafford, including the 600th of his career, as well as scores of 90 and 34 with the bat as the tourists escaped with a draw.
Eight more wickets at Trent Bridge and then another 12 at The Oval capped off a record-breaking series, and even a vital dropped catch on the final day of the final Test couldn't take the gloss of one of the greatest individual displays of all time.KUCHLAK, Pakistan (Reuters) - For 15 years until his sudden disappearance in May, the new leader of the Afghan Taliban insurgency openly taught and preached at the Al Haaj mosque in a dusty town in southwestern Pakistan, associates and students told Reuters.
Hafiz Abdul Majid, administrator of the Al Haaj mosque, gestures to a lectern where Taliban chief Habibullah Akhundzada taught as another cleric sleeps on the ground in Kuchlak outside Quetta, Pakistan September 23, 2016. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed
Details of Haibatullah Akhundzada’s life in Kuchlak, near the city of Quetta, have not previously been reported, and could put further pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on militants openly living there.
The row over how far Islamabad will go to get rid of jihadi fighters and leaders has hurt relations between Pakistan and Washington, in part because nearly 10,000 American soldiers are in Afghanistan supporting the war against insurgents.
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department’s South Asia bureau said it was not “not in a position to confirm Haibatullah Akhundzada’s whereabouts, past or present.”
Akhundzada is now believed to be in hiding after crossing the long and porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but not before going untouched in Kuchlak, located in Baluchistan province, as he rose up the ranks of the Afghan Taliban.
He was promoted to “emir” in May after a U.S. drone killed his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in another part of Pakistan, a strike that infuriated Islamabad but reflected growing impatience over what Washington sees as ambivalence toward its enemies.
Five years earlier, U.S. forces stormed a compound near the Pakistani capital and killed al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden.
“Once he became Emir, he left with his whole family,” said Hafiz Abdul Majeed, who runs the Al Haaj mosque, adding that he himself studied for several years under Akhundzada.
“You can’t teach religion and run (the Taliban’s) government at the same time. And it would of course have been dangerous for us and the students and the mosque if he remained here.”
Pakistan says it does all it can to go after militants. The Interior Ministry did not reply to written questions about Akhundzada’s time in Kuchlak.
A military spokesman said the army would not comment.
Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch-rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard. Pakistan denies this.
“I strongly reject any organized presence of Taliban in Baluchistan,” Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the province, told Reuters.
“MAN OF FAITH”
At the Al Haaj mosque, scores of teenaged boys wearing turbans and traditional “shalwar kameez” robes attended classes at a religious school, typical of remote parts of Pakistan, where they provide education for millions of boys.
On a recent visit, the metal door of the room where Akhundzada is said to have rested between lessons was padlocked and the curtains on the windows almost fully drawn.
But Akhundzada’s name could be seen painted on a wall inside in large calligraphic text.
Colleagues and students described Akhundzada, thought to be in his mid-50s and originally from Kandahar in Afghanistan, as a studious disciplinarian who slipped out of Kuchlak two days before being named Taliban chief.
Majeed, the mosque administrator, said Akhundzada taught students from 8 a.m. to noon every morning at the mosque, and was paid a monthly salary of 10,000 Pakistani rupees ($100).
“We are sad that he is gone because he was a great teacher and a great asset for this mosque,” he said.
Several other people at the mosque confirmed his account, although they did not want to be quoted.
Asked how someone closely associated with the Taliban could live so openly, Majeed replied: “He was just a man of faith. He was a ‘Sheikh-ul-Hadith’ (scholar of Islam’s Hadith texts). And when he became Emir, he left here. That’s all we know.”
Several associates said Akhundzada lost family members in the Afghan war following U.S.-led military intervention to drive the Taliban from power in 2001.
One former pupil at Al Haaj, Pai Khan, says he heard Akhundzada speak at a public rally in Quetta in 2014 commemorating the death of an Afghan Taliban commander.
“He spoke with a lot of force about the U.S. and the war and that we would not give up our jihad, that we would never negotiate with the puppet government in Afghanistan or talk to the U.S.,” said Khan, now an activist for a pro-Taliban party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, in Quetta.
Reuters was unable to confirm this account.
Khan said Akhundzada taught him at the mosque for several years nearly a decade ago.
“If you met him in the street you would never think he would be one of the world’s greatest leaders one day,” Khan told Reuters in a bustling Quetta bazaar.
“DEFENDERS OF ISLAM”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that, after fleeing Afghanistan, Akhundzada lived for years in the Kuchlak mosque and religious school while he was the movement’s shadow chief justice.
However, he disputed the timeline given by Akhundzada’s associates, saying he left Kuchlak soon after being named deputy leader in 2015.
“Do you believe a most wanted figure like... Akhundzada would live in a prominent place like Kuchlak and run a madrassah there when U.S. and Afghan forces and their security agencies are desperately trying to either kill him or capture him?”
There are no known photographs or written records of Akhundzada’s tenure in Kuchlak. Reuters could not independently verify the accounts given of his time there.
Elsewhere in Baluchistan province, supporters of the Afghan Taliban said Akhundzada was well known.
“Akhundzada lived for many years in Kuchlak. I met him many times. He used to come to Quetta often,” said Syed Abdul Sattar Shah Chishti, spokesman for the hardline Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Nazriati political party in Quetta, another pro-Taliban group.
Western diplomats believe some seminaries in the Quetta area have long been fertile ground for Islamist militancy.
In Quetta itself, pro-Taliban jihadi ideology is openly embraced, and Taliban sources say the group’s “Quetta shura”, or council, has met sporadically in recent years to make important decisions including choosing new leaders.
Pakistan, however, denies the Taliban leadership operates openly.
Slideshow (2 Images)
Bugti, Baluchistan home minister, said Pakistan had taken measures to stop militants criss-crossing the frontier, including tougher checks that would stop Taliban fighters using fake Pakistani documents to travel, as Mansour did before he was killed.
He said authorities cannot keep track of up to 4 million |
happened. I’m buying a house now with half of the money,” Alan added.
“It’s in Low Fell and it has two bedrooms. I didn’t want to buy anything too big.
“I just wanted somewhere near the shops, the bank and the church so I can get my independence back and cut down on what I ask my family to do. And I feel safe in this house.
“It was a nasty thing that happened, but it has had a positive effect.
“I have been for a walk round where my sister lives by myself for the first time now and it has been nice to just get back to what I was doing.
“I can use my arm a lot more than I could now as well. It’s not 100% but it’s getting there.”Our members have raised more than £50 million to be reinvested back into their clubs and communities including £6 million through community shares projects. We use our unique position to develop policies and research to help improve sport. We are owned by our supporters trusts and community owned clubs.
Be in the know!
Did you know there is an exclusive area on the website for board members and volunteers of Trusts and clubs where you can ask questions to a team of online experts? Click here to request access.
Supporters Direct has been working since 2000 to help supporters gain influence in the running and ownership of their club. Since our formation we have helped establish over 200 supporters trusts in the UK, with more than 50 now owning and running their club. Many others have meaningful involvement through board representation, structured dialogue or campaigning.Electric Mini Rocketman (mini Mini) Could Be On The Way From BMW
May 2nd, 2016 by Zachary Shahan
Once upon a time, BMW unveiled a “mini Mini” concept that it called the Rocketman. Back then (2011), it wasn’t an electric concept, and it was deemed too difficult to do because getting all of the organs and veins of a gasmobile packed into such a small car (with that design and adequate interior space) was an idea that just wasn’t based in reality. However, with the ongoing development and improvement of electric vehicle technology, the option is actually on the table now, and BMW is excited about it.
As a quick reminder, as well, there was a small pilot program with electrified BMW Minis, as part of BMW’s ActiveE program — which was the predecessor to the BMW i program that famously launched the fun & torquey BMW i3, the hot & sporty BMW i8, and, hopefully soon, will launch the practical + spacious (but still fun & hot) BMW i5.
Anyhow, what spurred on all of this chatter?… Some recent statements by Mini product chief Ralph Mahler (coming to us via Autocar & Green Car Reports). Granted, they weren’t anywhere close to definite, but they indicated that BMW is very seriously considering the option.
From Autocar:
“The Rocketman is inspiring us as of today, especially as an EV in the future,” said Mahler.
“It was something that was ahead of its time but is still inspiring. With a smaller car, it’s a bigger challenge. With Rocketman, and talking EV in the future, as the EV engine gets more portable, it’s give and take [as to whether it is possible to make such a small car].”
In addition to the Mini Cooper, Autocar notes that the Rocketman could take design elements from the MINI Superleggera Vision, a beautiful electric roadster concept that has got to be one of my favorite car designs ever (though, yet again, I’m having a hard time getting over the fake grille now that I’m used to and loving the clean front of the Model 3 and Model X).
Highlighting the popularity of the Superleggera Vision (come on, how could that thing not be popular?!), Autocar writes:
This was a collaboration between Mini’s design team and coachbuilder Touring Superleggera and previewed Mini’s future design language on a two-seat, rear-wheeldrive roadster concept.
However, the concept car has proven such a hit that Mini is investigating ways of putting it into production, although it would seem unlikely at this stage.
Mahler described it as “the second concept that’s inspiring us at the moment”.
There had been “very positive feedback on the car,” he said, but the “roadster segment is small and demand is going down, with new markets opening up. The growth is not there, so it’s always a challenge”.
Mahler added: “It fits perfectly into the brand, but we’re a small [on sales volume] car brand and have to be focused and know what we want to have. The Superleggera is playing a role but no decisions.”
I think the Rocketman is an awesome idea, especially with some more design cues from the Superleggera Vision, and I hope BMW can make it happen with a fully electric drivetrain, decent range (~150 miles), and competitive pricing. But I guess I’m just on a BMW kick today. Related stories published hours ago include:
BMW i3 Gets Up To 114 Miles Of Range In USA
Protonic Blue BMW i3 (h/t Photoshop & BMW) & Midnight Blue i3
What do you think about the electric Rocketman idea?Archos, best known for making cheap (and rather decent) Android electronics, is to launch its first Chromebook later this year.
The 11.6-inch Archos Chromebook will sell for around €250 and feature a quad-core Intel processor, 2GB RAM and a 64GB SSD among the usual features.
The rub? Unlike Archos’ usual fare the new device will only be made available to schools in France.
The clamshell forms part of the company’s effort to get behind France’s “Grand Digital for Schools Project”, an initiative that aims to equip middle and high school students with over a million tablets and computers a year.
Archos is making four new devices as part of the project, all headed to the classroom. These include a 14-inch Windows notebook and a pair of Windows/Android tablets with keyboard cases. The ruggedised 11.6-inch Chromebook will also be offered, with a reinforced design to withstand bumps and scrapes.
Archos say it’s introducing a Chromebook and the 14-inch Windows notebook ‘to meet the increased demand of laptops in the Education sector’. With a price higher than similar spec’d devices from better known brands, it’ll be interesting to see whether schools and colleges snap them up.
Archos Chromebook Specs
11.6-inch screen
Quad-core Intel CPU @ 1.8GHz
2GB RAM
64GB SSD
VGA Webcam
8 hour battery life
You can see more details on the device, and Archos’ involvement in the Grand Digital project, by viewing the following press release.
Archos Press Release (.pdf)In February 1967, a 1953 Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle was stolen from a man's backyard in Omaha, Neb. More than 45 years later, that same bike was found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at a Los Angeles port.
The bike was on its way to Yokohama, Japan, when authorities from customs decided to take a closer look, the Orange County Register reported. Upon seeing that bike's vehicle identification number (VIN) matched a bike that was reported stolen way back when, agents seized the bike.
The bike, estimated to be worth around $9,000, was then sent to the California Highway Patrol, which tracked down the owner, now 72 and still living in Nebraska.
Via the OC Register:
Lou Koven, special agent for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, who was in charge of finding the owner, said the owner was in disbelief and shock when contacted about the motorcycle, which had an estimated value of $9,000. When it was stolen, the bike was worth $300.
"He thought I was scamming him," Koven said. "But then the police contacted him, and then he started believing."
Los Angeles Weekly reports that this type of find isn't as rare as one might think. Todd C. Owen, CBP director of field operations in Los Angeles, said that CBP agents recently intercepted two other vehicles stolen at least 20 years ago.
Via L.A. Weekly:
"CBP officers and their law enforcement counterparts check many outbound vehicles on a regular basis. Their success in recovering stolen vehicles is remarkable. A few have nice stories like this one.
Omaha.com spoke with the bike's owner, Donald R. Devault, who explained that the bike used to look a lot different. "Back then it was baby blue and it looked like a little toy chopper," he said.
He told the paper that he's looking forward to the reunion. “I’m going to ask her, ‘Where have you been?’ I bet there’s a lot (of) stories she could tell me,” he told Omaha.com. “I wish she could talk because a lot’s happened in 46 years.”RIO DE JANEIRO/MOSCOW (Reuters) - A member of the Belarus delegation who carried a Russian flag at the Paralympic opening ceremony to support his country’s near-neighbor that is banned from the competition was stripped of his accreditation, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said on Thursday.
2016 Rio Paralympics - Opening ceremony - Maracana - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - 07/09/2016. Athletes from Belarus take part in the opening ceremony. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes
The man, identified by Russian media as Andrei Fomochkin, director of the Republican Centre of Olympic training for Athletics in Belarus, was hailed as a hero by both Russian and Belarusian officials.
But his action fell foul of the IPC’s ban on political gestures.
“The IPC will be speaking to NPC Belarus this morning to remind them that political protests are forbidden at the Paralympic Games,” the IPC said in a statement, adding that the individual had been identified and his accreditation canceled. The statement did not name the person.
In Russia, where the ban for state-sponsored sports doping has been fiercely contested, there was high praise for Fomochkin.
“A hero has appeared today amongst us,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Interfax news agency.
“(He) showed solidarity with people who were disgracefully treated in an inhumane way in not being allowed to compete at the Paralympics,” Zakharova added.
Russia’s Paralympic Committee head Vladimir Lukin enthused:
“During this difficult period, he remembered us... It’s great that the Belarusians thought about the closest country to them, about Russia. We won’t forget this.”
In Belarus, the Foreign Ministry also commended Fomochkin.
“This was the right thing. Our sportsman acted in a serious, manly and friendly way,” the Ministry’s press secretary Dmitri Mironchik told RIA Novosti. “If we need to answer for these gestures, then we will answer,” he added.The Mark 82 (Mk 82) is an unguided, low- drag general-purpose bomb, part of the United States Mark 80 series. The explosive filling is usually tritonal, though other compositions have sometimes been used.
With a nominal weight of 500 lb (227 kg), it is the one of the smallest in current service, and one of the most common air-dropped weapons in the world. Although the Mk 82's nominal weight is 500 lb (227 kg), its actual weight varies depending on its configuration, from 510 lb (232 kg) to 570 lb (259 kg). It is a streamlined steel casing containing 192 lb (89 kg) of Tritonal high explosive. The Mk 82 is offered with a variety of fin kits, fuzes, and retarders for different purposes.
The Mk 82 is the warhead for the GBU-12 laser-guided bombs and for the GBU-38 JDAM.
Currently only the General Dynamics plant in Garland, Texas is Department Of Defense-certified to manufacture bombs for the US Armed Forces.
The Mk 82 is currently undergoing a minor redesign to allow it to meet the insensitive munitions requirements set by Congress.
According to a test report conducted by the United States Navy's Weapon System Explosives Safety Review Board (WSESRB) established in the wake of the 1967 USS Forrestal fire, the cooking off time for a Mk 82 is approximately 2 minutes 30 seconds.
More than 4,500 GBU-12/Mk 82 laser-guided bombs were dropped on Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.[2] France requested 1,200 Mk 82s in 2010 to Société des Ateliers Mécaniques de Pont-sur-Sambre (SAMP) which builds Mk 82s under licence.[3] Saudi Arabia requested 8,000 Mk 82s in 2015, along with guidance kits and other weapons.[4]
In August, 2018, a Mark 82 bomb was used for the Dahyan air strike. Munitions experts confirmed that the numbers on it identified Lockheed Martin as its maker and that this particular Mk 82 was a Paveway, a laser-guided bomb. It killed at least 51 people, mostly children.[5]LFR 1881 takes on rivals for charity this Sat. Donate to Wounded Warrior Project & cheer on LFR 1881 in 1st Desert Derby! LFR 1881 made noise in the stands during the 2013 USL PRO season. And now it's time to do it on the field.
La Furia Roja 1881 / The Red Fury 1881 will play soccer supporters group rivals The Cactus Pricks (independent supporters group of FC Tucson) this Saturday at Grande Sports Academy in Casa Grande (the unofficial halfway point between the two groups) in the first annual "Desert Derby."
Bragging rights aren't the only thing on the line. The Desert Derby is an official fundraising event for the Wounded Warrior Project, which raises awareness and enlist the public's aid for the needs of injured service members, helps injured service members aid and assist each other and provides unique, direct programs and services to meet the needs of injured service members.
Because Dec. 7 is Pearl Harbor Day, the two supporters groups wanted to support a charity that helps U.S. veterans. Our initial fundraising goal was $1,000. Even though we have doubled that number with just days left until the match, we would still love more donations at the official fundraising page, here: http://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/individual-fundraising/8KRUN2013/DesertDerby
Cash donations will also be accepted before, during and after the match ON SITE on Saturday.
Come out, support and help us make a difference.
WHAT: Desert Derby 2013: LFR 1881 vs. Cactus Pricks for Wounded Warrior Project charity.
WHEN: Saturday, Dec. 7. 11:45 a.m. (First kick at noon.)
WHERE: Grande Sports World. 12684 West Gila Bend Highway in Casa Grande. Field No. 7.
MATCH TICKETS: FREE.
POST-MATCH PARTY: Following the conclusion of the Desert Derby, there will be a MLS CUP Final viewing party with LFR 1881 and Cactus Pricks members at Duke's (which is at Grand Sports World facility) at 2 p.m.
RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/461537210621813/ Or just show up and be awesome.
DONATE TO WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT: The 2013 Desert Derby is an official fundraising event for the Wounded Warrior Project. Donate to the cause here: http://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/individual-fundraising/8KRUN2013/DesertDerby
SPONSORS: We would like to thank the LFR 1881's match sponsors: Austin Center for Exceptional Students, Film Bar and Soccerloco of Arizona.
These companies will donate money to WWP for every goal LFR 1881 scores.
Thank you for being you.
#WEareLFR #WEareHERE #WEarePHXThe second phase of a five-year trial-operation of thorium based nuclear fuels is now under way. The consortium established* in 2011 and led by Thor Energy is undertaking a sophisticated test-irradiation campaign in order to quantify the performance of the fuel and to qualify it for commercial use. The first thorium fuel specimens were loaded into the Norwegian fuel-testing reactor operated by the Institute for Energy Technology in Halden in April 2013, and the second round, loaded right before Christmas 2015, is intended to verify test results and is a further step towards commercializing thorium as a supplement fuel in conventional nuclear reactors.
– With this second rig loaded in Halden, we have reached a major milestone and an important stepping stone towards commercial approval for thorium in existing light water reactors (LWRs),” said Øystein Asphjell, CEO of Thor Energy. – This rig represents a further step in the thorium evolution which will contribute towards the long-term sustainability of nuclear power in general and specifically for thorium as an additive and improvement to the uranium fuel cycle, Mr. Asphjell said.
This second phase of the thorium irradiation consists of 12 fuel pins in a new, fully instrumented test fuel rig. It consists of three variants of ThAdd fuel, which are uranium-based pins with small fractions of thorium, four reference pins as well as two pins with Accident Tolerant Fuel from Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, KAERI. The irradiation will produce a great deal of unique data from a number of parameters that describes how the fuel ceramic behaves as it operates for long periods in a reactor core in various conditions. The Halden test reactor allows for continuous data collection while the fuel operates in the reactor. The data acquired are necessary to confirm that the fuel could be implemented safely and productively in a commercial reactor and will support computer modeling efforts and the planning for follow-on testing in a commercial power reactor.
Three countries, China, India and Turkey, have so far declared thorium as part of their national power policy and the OECD-NEA has recently published a paper which concludes that implementation of thorium is sensible and reasonable in the long run, and that this evolution starts with combined uranium and thorium cycles in the near term.
Thorium oxide based fuels can provide advantageous material properties such as higher thermal conductivity and higher melting point – properties that lend safety margin benefits. Thorium fuels can produce less long-lived waste and they generate no new plutonium. Furthermore, they will help diversify the feedstock availability of the nuclear sector.
* The Thorium Irradiation Consortium is initiated and led by Thor Energy and has the Institute for Energy Technology (IFE), Norway, Westinghouse, Fortum (Finland), the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory, Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU), and the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) as consortium partners.
See also:
NucNet
Teknisk Ukeblad (Norwegian only)It was "appalling", "vile", "hateful". It was "incredibly offensive". It was "rude, bigoted and downright insulting". In the 24 hours following the publication of Julie Burchill's Observer piece headlined "Transsexuals should cut it out", more than 1,000 emails arrived in my inbox and 2,952 comments were posted online, most of them highly critical of the decision to publish what one correspondent called "her bullying nonsense".
The piece in question was a defence of her friend, the columnist Suzanne Moore, who claims she has been driven off Twitter by a vociferous campaign from transsexual people. Moore had contributed an essay on women's anger to an anthology of polemical writing. Women were angry, she wrote, at the effect of government policy on the weakest members of society, many of whom happened to be women, and they were angry, among other things, at "not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual".
This, wrote Burchill, led to Moore being "monstered" by a lobby that Burchill said would rather silence Moore than decry the idea "that every broad should look like an oven-ready porn star". She said the lobby was now saying it was Moore's refusal to apologise that "made" them drive her from Twitter, presumably in the name of solidarity. Some of the language was gratuitously offensive; to repeat it here would be to add insult to injury.
The ensuing storm was notable both for its vociferous nature and for its individuality. A controversial issue will often bring a blizzard of identikit protest of apparently confected anger but while clearly this lobby was organised most of the emails and letters we received were personal and heartfelt. And they were not only from trans people. Concerned readers with no connection to the trans lobby felt hurt that a minority that could expect to be protected by a liberal publication was being attacked in an extremely insulting manner.
"Would you have run the article if it had contained similar slurs regarding people of colour or people with disabilities?" was a typical question.
Many correspondents pointed out that our own editorial code states "... we should not casually use words that are likely to offend" and cited clause 12 of the national Editors' Code: "The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability." But note, this is a safeguard for individuals; it offers no protection for groups or "communities".
The problem for the editor, and the reason why he took the decision to take the piece off theguardian.com, is that he did not feel he could defend it in that form. It also breached the standards that the paper expects others to uphold when they submit comments to the website. They state: "We will not tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia or other forms of hate-speech or contributions that could be interpreted as such. We recognise the difference between criticising a particular government, organisation, community or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age."
The editor told me: "This clearly fell outside what we might consider reasonable. The piece should not have been published in that form. I don't want the Observer to be conducting debates on those terms or with that language. It was offensive, needlessly. We made a misjudgment and we apologise for that."
He said he had "no doubts whatsoever" about his decision to remove the piece from the site. "It was a mistake to publish it. I could not let the mistake stand. I didn't want that legacy for the Observer. The idea that I would compound a mistake by continuing to publish the piece online is absurd. It follows that if you make a mistake, you try to correct it. I had to do what I could to address this error. Protestations about censorship were irrelevant. It was not a complicated decision to make. The responsibility I had was to try to make amends to a group of people we had needlessly and mistakenly offended. I had no responsibility for, or interest in, the sanctimony of other news organisations. It wasn't about free speech, or Leveson or Lynne Featherstone [the Liberal Democrat MP who called for Burchill's sacking]. It was about a personal desire – and decision – by me to address the offence caused to a group of people. The rest was noise."
He made his apology in the following statement on the website, which appeared last Monday: "The piece was an attempt to explore contentious issues within what had become a highly charged debate. The Observer is a paper that prides itself on ventilating difficult debates and airing challenging views. On this occasion, we got it wrong and, in light of the hurt and offence caused, I apologise and have made the decision to withdraw the piece."
It's worth noting that because the piece appeared on theguardian.com, many readers felt it had emanated from the Guardian. Let's be clear: while both papers share the same digital platform they are edited separately.
A collective failure of editing led to this piece appearing in the form that it did. "We will scrutinise further the manner in which this process needs improving," said the editor.
Anyone commissioning Burchill can expect to receive some high-flown polemic, something her regular readers have come to expect; a Burchill column is rarely uncontroversial. Several senior staffers saw the piece before it appeared and could have urged wider discussion on the impact of the piece. I include myself in this; I saw the piece when it arrived on Saturday morning but hesitated to suggest changes (my role as readers' editor is not to intervene in advance of publication). That's something I now regret.
Philip Pullman once said: "No one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this… Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it."
Which, of course, is correct, but freedom of expression means nothing if gratuitous insults mask the very message that is being conveyed. In publishing those insults, the Observer fell below the standards it expects others to uphold. There was no other option but to withdraw the piece and apologise.
So how does the Observer move on from here? The editor says that discussions with representatives from the trans community will take place over the coming weeks. These discussions will be an opportunity to listen and also to debate the issues raised by this incident. A lesson has been learned.
reader@observer.co.ukGame of Thrones recap: season seven finale – The Dragon and the Wolf Read more
Warning: this article contains spoilers from Game of Thrones season seven, episode seven. Do not read on if you have not watched.
As season seven of Game Of Thrones has worn on, it has become a commonplace to note that the show’s hitherto subtle manoeuvres have been replaced with something more abrupt. Principals are brought together with clanging expedience; deaths that would once have been show-stopping, or at least episode-ending, instead simply herald an ad break; time flies, and so do ravens, at such speed and with such internet-era reliability that I keep expecting someone to set up an out-of-castle auto-bird before they hit the road. The story is getting bigger, yes. But it is not at all clear that it is getting better.
In feature-length finale The Dragon and the Wolf that tendency reached its apotheosis. At Westeros’ version of the Yalta conference in King’s Landing, we were allowed the deep satisfaction of seeing Cersei and Daenerys meet, and the pleasure of a dizzying number of smaller reunions on the sidelines – Bronn and Podrick, Bronn and Tyrion, Theon and Euron, Jaime and Brienne, Brienne and the Hound, and the Hound and the Mountain. I’m probably forgetting tons. These little, dopamine-providing pairings, each slightly recalling the witless fancy-that of Batman vs Superman or a moderately successful pop act getting back together, mostly feel like they bring resolutions rather than new possibilities. And most of the conversations they entail are expository synonyms for, ‘so, we meet again’. Still, it’s hard to complain: there is a lot of ground to be cleared before this story comes to an end, and I would prefer Pod and his gonzo mentor to have the chance for a quick pint than not.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest We saw a dizzying number of small reunions on the sidelines, from Bronn and Tyrion to Jamie and Brienne. Photograph: HBO/2017 Home Box Office, Inc. All
What about Cersei, though? The queen might be mad, but she’s surely not a moron. One important feature of Machiavellianism is that sometimes the expedient thing also happens to be the right thing; unhinged dictators tend to retain their grip on the logic of self-preservation, a lesson that this show has relentlessly hammered home. And yet here she is, the mother of (dead) Lannisters, even as she caresses her pregnant belly and shows an otherworldly awareness of the dangers of fetal alcohol syndrome, concluding that she would rather stick one on her enemies than survive. Family First, that’s Cersei’s motto – except when the risk to her family is posed by an army of the dead who would turn her last and unborn child into an infant zombie.
And so, instead of heading north, she will enlist the support of the show’s own mercenaries and masters of the universe at the Iron Bank to bankroll her bonkers betrayal. For me, this decision was the moment that Game Of Thrones stretched disbelief past all possible suspension – and yet, here I still am, perplexingly enthralled; here, if you are reading this, you still are, too. We are invested now, and there is no backing out. Like the Iron Bank’s real world analogues, something deeply unhealthy but oddly sustaining has happened to this story: it has become too big to fail.
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This isn’t even anyone’s fault, really. It’s mostly a symptom of vaulting ambition, and Game Of Thrones still goes wrong better than most TV shows succeed. And so we must prop it up, and take our returns where we can get them. When another pair of poster-children for incest consummate what looks like being a tragic love, or when a dead dragon spectacularly brings down the border wall (if it gets rebuilt, will Jon declare that he intends to make the White Walkers pay for it?), the merits of the show’s sweeping grandeur reassert themselves. As the first snows fall in the south, and those icy bastards trudge towards Winterfell, I cannot claim that I am willing to toss it all away – or that I don’t still love it. But as it stands, I fear that the last series will stand not as the multiplication of the story’s greatness, but its echo.Qilai Shen/European Pressphoto Agency
HONG KONG — There’s mercury in the baby formula. Cabbages are sprayed with formaldehyde. Gelatin capsules for pills, tens of millions of them, are laced with chromium. Used cooking oil is scooped out of gutters for recycling, right along with the sewage.
Accounts of dubious or unsafe food in China are as mesmerizing as they are disturbing — “artificial green peas,” grilled kebabs made from cat meat, contaminated chives, chlorine showing up in soft drinks.
There have been stories of imitation soy sauce made from hair clippings, ink and paraffin being used to dress up cheap noodles, and pork buns so loaded with bacteria that they glow in the dark.
A new investigation by the Chinese magazine Caixin has found that “these publicized food safety scandals represent only a fraction of unsafe food production practices. Hundreds of chemical food additives are pumped into products that Chinese people consume every day.”
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Wednesday that Chinese authorities have discovered 15,000 cases of substandard food so far this year while shutting down 5,700 unlicensed food businesses.
Things are so bad that a new iPhone app was recently launched to track food scandals nationwide. The app, which sends out daily updates on the latest outrages, was reportedly downloaded more than 200,000 times in the first week.
In 2008, infant formula and other milk products were found to be contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make fertilizer and plastic pipe. Six children died and some 300,000 fell sick.
The melamine scandal caused a nationwide panic among parents of young children, and there was a worldwide recall of Chinese products ranging from biscuits to baby formula. Two Chinese milk producers were executed for selling more than 3 million pounds of contaminated milk powder.
There were unsettling echoes of that scandal last week when China’s largest dairy, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group, found elevated levels of mercury in its infant formula and was forced to recall six months’ worth of production. Yili was one of the dairies involved in the 2008 scandal.
Milk and dairy safety has become such a sensitive topic in China that some Internet searches about the scandal were reportedly blocked by government censors.
Another major milk producer, China Mengniu Dairy, had to destroy large batches of milk in December when government spot checks turned up evidence of aflatoxin, a cancer-causing fungus. Within a day of the news, my colleague Edward Wong reported, people on the Internet “had posted or copied posts on the bad milk nearly four million times.”
The string of food-safety scandals, especially in the dairy sector, has led to falling share prices — and significant buying opportunities for foreign investors, according to a Reuters report published in the International Herald Tribune. The Danish-Swedish dairy group Arla, for example, said last week that it plans to buy a 6 percent stake in Mengniu.
China is already the world’s largest formula market, Reuters reported, noting that the country is “expected to overtake the United States as the largest dairy market by 2020.” That timeline could be hastened by a possible relaxation of China’s so-called one-child policy in 2015.
From the Reuters report:
“To be a minority shareholder in a food company in China, regardless of the quality of your partner, you’re still exposed to the supply chain,” said David Mahon, a dairy consultant and head of Mahon China Investment Management, referring to the Arla-Mengniu deal. “The lesson from melamine would not have been learned, and that would be a pity.” The private equity firms Hopu, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Carlyle Group all took stakes in Chinese dairy companies in 2008 and 2009. Hopu is winding down its fund and got out as soon as it could, but K.K.R. and Carlyle have invested in technology and production systems to bring Western-style milk production to Chinese dairies, including imported cows.
“China woke up to its food safety problems with the entrance of multinational companies,” the Caixin report says. “Fast-food giants McDonald’s and KFC were among the first violators caught by media in 2005, when ‘tony red,’ a toxic chemical was found in fried chicken.”
Wal-Mart is another company that has recently had its share of food-quality problems in China.
“A scandal over mislabeled pork led to the closure of stores and the resignation of the country head,” the BBC reported, and the Food Safety Administration in Beijing said in March that a Wal-Mart store in the capital had “sold sesame oil and squid with dangerous amounts of cancer-causing chemicals.”
In April, the police in China arrested nine people, shut down 80 production lines and seized more than 77 million pill capsules contaminated with chromium.
In March, “artificial green peas” were discovered in Hunan Province. Shriveled peas were being reconstituted by soaking them in food coloring and bleach-like chemical additives.
“The peas were an unnatural color and had a penetrating odor,” said a local newspaper report cited by China Daily. “After 20 minutes of cooking, the peas did not turn soft but the water turned green.”
In 2010, the government issued health alerts about recycled cooking oil. It seems used oil was being scooped from gutters outside hot-pot restaurants and then reprocessed — right along with bits of sewage. My colleague David Barboza reported from Shanghai that investigators began hunting down illegal oil-recycling factories and naming found to be using the iffy oil.
China recently issued a new five-year food-safety plan that intends to simplify a welter of overlapping and contradictory regulations. The plan acknowledges that China is “still suffering from the absence of several major food safety regulations.”
Meanwhile, as the Caixin report concludes, “Regulatory standards have not been able to keep up with the ingenuity of food manufacturers.”SINGAPORE - The Budget will probably focus on businesses this year, and one area it could relook are foreign worker levies, said Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Chua Hak Bin.
While Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat has inherited a sluggish economy with weak job growth from his predecessor, Dr Chua noted: "Budget 2016 cannot be as generous as SG50 Budget 2015, which ran a basic deficit of $9.6 billion (2.4 per cent of GDP), the widest on record, with $11.7 billion worth of special transfers.
"There are fiscal constraints in the first year (of the new term of Government). The Government cannot draw upon the accumulated fiscal surpluses of the previous term, limiting the room for an expansionary policy, while revenue growth is slowing."
Dr Chua added that he does not have high expectations for Budget 2016 to have a material impact on growth or markets, and that the Government is unlikely to relax property cooling measures this round.
There is also chance that foreign worker levy hikes scheduled to kick in this year and next will be scrapped altogether.
"We believe these levy increases will be abolished altogether, given worsening economic conditions. Businesses are hoping for more help, after being somewhat neglected over the past few years in favour of social goals," wrote Dr Chua in a research note on Wednesday.
Last year, former Finance Minister Tharman deferred the planned levy increases in his Budget speech.Trayon Christian Image via Facebook
At the end of last month, luxury department store Barneys found itself facing the wrong kind of publicity, when a black teenager named Trayon Christian said he’d been racially profiled there, detained after buying a belt that someone decided looked too expensive for him. Christian sued the store and the New York Police Department; then 21-year-old Kayla Phillips came forward, shared her own experience of being profiled after buying an expensive handbag, and announced her own plans to sue.
In response, Barneys met with the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Brooklyn chapter of his anti-racist National Action Network and promised to bring in a civil-rights expert, Michael Yaki, who Barneys CEO Mark Lee said would be provided with “with unrestricted access to all aspects of our store operations.”
Now Yaki has completed his preliminary report about the Christian and Phillips incidents. And — surprise! — it concludes that Barneys “did not request, require, nor initiate” the detainment of either Christian or Phillips. Instead it places the blame on the NYPD.
– See also: As Racism Charges Mount, Barneys Agrees to Meet With Civil Rights Group & Jay Z Defends His Work with the Store
Several news outlets, including the AP and the Daily News, have reported in the past day that they obtained copies of Yaki’s report. So we did we, by emailing Yaki and asking for it. Yaki didn’t respond to our email. Instead, Joele Frank, a public relations firm with a long relationship with Barneys, sent it over, along with a helpful summary authored by Yaki.
In his executive summary, Yaki writes:
No Barneys employees determined that either Kayla Phillips or Trayon Christian should be questioned |
it, but the Knicks didn’t want him and shouldn’t have wanted him. Anderson’s hefty contract starts at more than $19 million and totals more than $61 million over three years. The Knicks did not want to swallow that massive deal, and without Anderson in the deal, a straight-up trade was impossible.
A third team needed to be necessary to make this trade work, but they would have wanted at least one asset, whether it be a first-round pick and/or young player, as a reward for taking on Anderson’s bad contract.
The biggest problem for Houston is that it didn’t have many desirable assets left. The team dealt away its 2018 first-round pick and gave up young prospects in Sam Dekker and Montrezl Harrell to the Clippers as part of the Paul trade.
The bottom line is there weren’t enough young assets to go around to please everyone involved in this trade. That’s why the Knicks instead jumped at the chance to take Oklahoma City’s package of Enes Kanter, Doug McDermott, and a second-round pick once Melo allowed them to do so.
The Anderson dilemma ultimately killed the deal
To shed salary, Anderson and his $19.5 million salary next season would have needed to be moved to make room for Anthony in Houston. But finding a team willing to take on the 29-year-old’s pricy contract over next three years was ultimately impossible. His stock isn’t so high as an aging one-dimensional player, though he shot 40 percent from three-point range last season.
Houston needed to find assets from somewhere else to sweeten an Anderson deal and make his contract digestible for the receiving team. The best it could offer was a 2020 first-round pick, and that wasn’t close to enough.
Trading Anderson wasn’t the only way to acquire Anthony, but the alternative would have meant losing Eric Gordon and Trevor Ariza, who the Rockets need to compete next season. (Houston has a collection of non-guaranteed contracts to include in a trade as well, but they add up to less than $10 million.)
Thus, Houston was backed into a tight corner, relying on other teams to come through with the draft picks and young assets necessary to convince everyone involved.
That’s why the trade never happened.
Which teams could have gotten in?
The Phoenix Suns may have been a team that would have made sense. Since pulling out of a Paul Millsap offer, it’s obvious they’re in rebuild mode, and Woj has reported their interest in a salary dump for picks. But the Rockets couldn’t engage them on a deal.
The Brooklyn Nets are already eating Timofey Mozgov’s contract via the D’Angelo Russell trade and DeMarre Carroll’s deal via a cap-clearing trade with Toronto. That pushed them out of the running for another salary dump.
The Portland Trail Blazers have the league’s second-highest payroll, yet they are far from NBA Finals contention. They could have looked to offload money to lessen their luxury-tax bill in exchange for the Rockets’ stockpile of non-guaranteed contracts.
Instead, they moved Allen Crabbe to the Nets for Andrew Nicholson, who they immediately waived. That removed the need to trim more salary to help the Rockets.
Once Anthony expanded his list, a deal with Houston was doomed
Houston was always the front-runner, but the Rockets’ only leverage was that they were Anthony’s only preferred destination. Anthony wanted a buyout, because that path would clear a much easier route to Houston for him and the Rockets. The Knicks wanted to gain something for the guy they traded Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, draft picks, and more to get six years ago.
If Houston remained Anthony’s only destination, the Knicks might have been forced to swallow Anderson’s deal or simply waive Anthony. But due to no fault but their own, Anthony had the supreme control over this trade.
That’s why everything changed once he added the Thunder and Cavaliers to his list. That created a real market.
Houston’s lack of assets was ultimately its biggest downfall as it tried to work its second blockbuster trade of the summer. Meanwhile, Anthony’s no-trade clause haunted New York the entire way through negotiations, but at least Anthony’s decision to expand his list allowed them to get a slightly better return than Houston could have offered.
That’s why a Carmelo Anthony to the Rockets trade never happened despite every side being motivated to swing a deal.
This article was originally published on July 12 and later updated on Sept. 20 and Sept. 23.New deadline: Monday, July 17, at 9am CT
The NFB’s North West Studio is announcing the launch of Doc Lab Saskatchewan, a 10-week intensive program for emerging documentary filmmakers, taking place from September 4 – November 17, 2017. Over the course of the program, three participants will each complete a short (5-7 min) documentary, going from concept to post-production.
During this time, participants will work with an experienced production team, led by NFB producer Jon Montes, director mentors (TBA), and professional crew. It’s an incredible opportunity to develop visual storytelling skills and gain insight into what it takes to produce a documentary.
Who Can Apply?
The Doc Lab is open to Saskatchewan-based filmmakers who have completed no more than 3 productions (not including film school or training projects), or other artists/creators/storytellers who have the equivalent experience in their own field and are interested in exploring the form of documentary.
We are seeking proposals from across the province. No relocation is required, but there will be some travel.
Participants will each be paid about $10,000 through writer and director fees from the NFB.
Eligibility is limited to Canadian citizens and landed immigrants.
What Does the Lab Involve?
The doc lab is an opportunity to immerse yourself in a creative environment with two other participants and a production team. The first few weeks will be reserved for orientation and pre-production, and then we will shoot, edit (picture and sound), and do post-production.
What are the Criteria?
We’re looking for stories with strong points of view; films that make us see the world differently, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Think about people or places that you find extraordinary and go from there. Pay attention to how your story will unfold (i.e.: what we’ll see on screen) and stories you have access to (i.e.: within your community).
We’re also looking for stories that can be told visually, without having to rely on narration, interviews, or music for context. For examples of films like this, watch At the Beach, Hell Runs on Gasoline!, Nippaq, or 19 Days.
Also:
Films are limited to 5 – 7 minutes.
There will be 2 days to shoot your film.
The story should be local – we can afford some local travel, but our budget is very limited.
How Do I Apply?
Submit a short proposal (1 – 2 pages) that:
Describes the story you’re looking to tell. What will we see unfold? Push yourself when it comes to visual storytelling – we’re looking for creative and original ideas.
Include a short bio.
Include links to some of your most recent work.
Deadline to apply is Monday, July 17, 2017 at 9am CT. Send all materials to Jon Montes at j.montes@nfb.ca. Email attachments only, PDF preferred.
The Selection Process
A jury made up of members from the NFB’s North West Studio, along with other industry professionals, will review and make decisions on all proposals.
The proposals will be evaluated based on their creative concept and production potential, i.e.: can this be done within the scope of this project?
We are committed to a diversity of stories and perspectives and are seeking participants from across the province.
Remember!
There is a serious time commitment involved here. This will essentially be your full-time job for 10 weeks.
Even if you’re not a filmmaker, you can still apply. We welcome proposals from creators of all kinds in all media who are interested in exploring documentary. But keep in mind – the learning curve will be steep!
Take the time to explain why your story is important, who’s in it, and who they are. Show us how why your film will resonate with audiences.
All costs related to the production of the film will be assumed by the NFB. As producer, the NFB retains all rights around distribution and copyright.
Need More?
To see the full call for proposals, click here.
If you require any more information, please contact Jon Montes at j.montes@nfb.ca.
Doc Lab Saskatchewan is produced through the National Film Board of Canada’s North West Studio, in partnership with Creative Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative, and Paved Arts.A few years ago I wrote a comic about a machine that could tell you how you were going to die. Five years later, thanks to the tireless efforts of David Malki and Matt Bennardo, a collection of short stories based on the premise is FINALLY HERE. It took a long time, but the book is terrific: we had over 700 submissions and we got them down to 30 excellent stories, and then we said, you know what, let's make this even better and add illustrations for each of the stories too. So now we've got an anthology of stories by the likes of Randall Munroe and Yahtzee Croshaw and tons more great writers and also ME, with illustrations by people like Kate Beaton and KC Green and so many more. It may seem like I'm just pulling awesome people out of a hat, but in reality, they're all in this book.
Anyway, while you can order the book today, we're asking you to hold off till Tuesday, the 26th of October. If we all buy it on that day, we can probably make it Amazon's best-selling book that day. That's what we're shooting for. It should only take a hundred of us.
Malki said it better than I can, so you should go here and read these words!
GUESS WHAT JUST CAME OUT: IT'S MY NEW BOOK!! If you've ever wondered what you'd do if you were stranded in the past, wonder no longer! With HOW TO INVENT EVERYTHING, you'll reinvent civilization from scratch, no matter what time period you're in. You'll become the single most influential, decisive, and important person ever born. You'll make history...
...better.
Here's the trailer!
One year ago today: i kinda disagree with t-rex here, but sometimes, man, he just don't listen
– RyanToday, only a handful of companies account for most of the world’s commercial breeding and seed sales. Increasingly, patenting and restrictive contracts are used to enhance the power and control of these companies over the seeds and the farmers that feed the world.
Patented and protected seeds cannot be saved, replanted, or shared by farmers and gardeners. And because there is no research exemption for patented material, plant breeders at universities and small seed companies cannot use patented seed to create the new crop varieties that should be the foundation of a just and sustainable agriculture.
Inspired by the free and open source software movement that has provided alternatives to proprietary software, OSSI was created to free the seed – to make sure that the genes in at least some seed can never be locked away from use by intellectual property rights.The images were posted after Mr Trkulja was shot in the back by an unknown gunman while eating with his elderly mother at a St Albans restaurant in June 2004. When Mr Trkulja’s name was typed into Google’s image search, photos had appeared of him alongside gangland figure Tony Mokbel. Google search results also linked to a page on a now defunct website, Melbourne Crime, which had published photos labelled with his name. Mr Trkulja said he had never initially intended to sue Google but had been galvanised into action after his request for the content to be removed from its searches in 2009 was not granted. Supreme Court Justice David Beach this morning said in awarding the damages that the case was about ‘‘vindication and ‘nailing the lie’’’.
Mr Trkulja, an elder at a Serbian Orthodox Church in Springvale, also won $225,000 in damages from Yahoo earlier this year over the same matter. Google’s lawyers argued the search engine was not the publisher of the material and was only indexing the link to the website and the images in its results. The company used the ‘‘innocent dissemination’’ defence, arguing it was providing links to the content without knowing that the material was defamatory. However, the jury found Google’s defence of the images broke down because it did not take any steps to remove the images from its searches once Mr Trkulja’s lawyers contacted the company. The jury found the search engine was not liable for the search results themselves, as Mr Trkulja had incorrectly filled out a form for reporting offensive material by not including the URL of the content to which he objected. Loading
The website that hosted the image has since been taken down and the images or the article are no longer indexed by Google’s search engine. A Google spokesman said in response to the ruling: ‘‘Google’s search results are a reflection of the content and information that is available on the web. The sites in Google’s search results are controlled by those sites’ webmasters, not by Google.”If you are looking for fine living on the water, you simply can’t go wrong with the 55 wallypower luxury motor yacht. This new model completes the wallypower range and is an worthy addition to the 47 wallypower and the 64 wallypower.
The motor yacht design boasts an aggressive, super sporty look complete with a huge windscreen in keeping with the full open design concept of the range. The windscreen is the ideal replacement for the traditional hard top and surrounds the cockpit area. The cockpit has been designed with the same kind of plush interior as the rest of the luxury motor yacht and has two symmetrical seating and relaxing areas that epitomize comfort. The seating areas are strategically placed one on each side so that they are sheltered by the windscreen.
The cockpit can be customized by covering it with a hardtop or a bimini to offer protection from the sun in the open areas. The luxury motor yacht also features a 108 square feet sprawling aft “beach” which gives you the feeling of being on your own terrace on the sea and this area makes a wonderful place to sip champagne while getting that perfect sun kissed look.
The propulsion system is as innovative and amazing as the design of this yacht, powered by four Volvo DG engines each offering a thrust of 435 Hp. This coupled with the IPS 600 offers mind blowing maneuverability. Of course, the advanced propulsion system also guarantees a 20% increase in the range and a 30% increase in performance. Consequently, no vibrations are felt even when you are running the yacht at 40 knots, close to the maximum speed of 42 knots. This craft has been designed for exceptional stability, high performance and reduced noise.
Another difference from other models in the wallypower series is the innovative aft passerelle which can be retracted hydraulically. Like the 118 wallypower, this 6’11 x 5’3 surface can be used as a swimming ladder or boarding platform depending on the position. The passerelle can also be used to handle and lift a jet ski on board which makes it an ideal powerboat for an afternoon spent frolicking on the water. The 55 WallyPower is the powerboat of choice for people who are water sport enthusiasts and would like a vehicle that meets all their requirements.
The interior layout is also stunning with two to three cabins that can be customized into a single suite, a galley, a salon and a crew cabin also en suite. When the 55 wallypower debuted in Monaco, one look at its spectacular features and its head-turning design proved that this luxury motor yacht was certainly not a run of the mill power boat.
Looking strikingly similar to a toy that a movie moguls or billionaire would own, the all open concept gives the 55 wallypower a futuristic look. Monaco based Wally Yachts offers this model with custom interiors designed to suit the specifications of buyers including a range of hues to choose from. As far as the interiors go, Wally Yachts has stuck to its trademark stealthy look. The yacht has a six place dining table on its port side which offers a stunning view of the sky and the tranquil waters as you dine while the wheel and the navigation system are on the left.
The 55 wallypower is available in different themes to suit the tastes of even the most discerning customers.
* * *
Related links:
Wally Yachts
Foto: wally.comBetween concussions and a stroke, Kris Letang missed 136 games over the past four seasons. Now he’s hoping to help the Penguins reach their true potential. By Ryan Dixon in Toronto
Photograph by KC Armstrong
iven the two men in the conversation, it was the kind of back and forth that begged for eavesdropping. Located about halfway between the ice surface and the dressing-room door at the MasterCard Centre in Toronto, Paul Coffey, a 54-year-old Hall of Fame defenceman who looks like he could still fill in on your top six, stood beside Pittsburgh Penguins blueliner Kris Letang, the latter leaning forward on his upright stick, still sweat-soaked from a peppery practice Coffey had dropped in on. For the better part of 20 minutes, they discussed whatever it is two all-world athletes who share a position talk about. It was fun to hypothesize, from 15 feet away, that what they were saying wouldn’t really be comprehensible to anyone but the handful of people who speak “elite defenceman.” Sure, you can listen to a pair of NASA engineers yak about launching a rocket, but how much can you really soak in? Eventually, the two men went their separate ways and a couple of hours later, Letang revealed that Coffey’s message to him was actually quite basic: “The main thing he wants me to do is shoot more.” It’s only natural the older party would pass on what he could to the junior guy. But had the chat taken place at a dinner table rather than a rink, and had it been about anything in life except hockey, Letang would be the rare 28-year-old who could tell a person nearly 30 years his senior a few things: Here’s what it’s like to enter your bathroom one morning, suddenly have your legs go wobbly and find out a couple of days later you were felled by a stroke. This is what it’s like when you get a phone call in the absolute prime of your life informing you that your cherished friend and fellow aspiring NHLer, Luc Bourdon, has been killed in a motorcycle accident. Letang has also dealt with conventional pro-athlete problems, namely the concussions that have sidelined him for chunks of his career. These days, Letang is doing all he can to quash chatter about his inability to stay healthy, which could help quiet some of the nagging questions about the true potential of his team. The conversation Letang had with Coffey that afternoon in Toronto was one of a few the pair have had in recent years. They first met in Mario Lemieux’s suite when Letang was sidelined long-term during the 2011–12 season. The year prior, the 23-year-old had established himself as a rising star, registering 50 points in 82 games. But in November 2011, in his hometown of Montreal, Letang was struck with a high hit from Canadiens left winger Max Pacioretty while cutting across the top of the offensive zone. The contact earned Pacioretty a three-game suspension and signalled the start of a four-season stretch in which Letang—who sustained his first of several concussions on the play—just hasn’t been able to stick in the lineup. From the fall of 2011 through the end of the 2014–15 campaign, Letang missed a total of 102 games—just over 30 percent of his club’s outings—due to various ailments. When he’s on the ice, Letang is as dangerous as they come, averaging 0.81 points per game during that time period, a mark that trumps every defenceman in the league save for Ottawa Senators whiz Erik Karlsson. But the production, no matter how prolific, tends to be a secondary storyline. “So many people think I’m fragile,” Letang says. On Jan. 29, 2014, the Penguins were scheduled to fly to Los Angeles for a game against the Kings. Letang’s house was a busy place that morning. His son, Alexander, was about 14 months old, and to help his then-girlfriend (now wife) Catherine care for him while Letang was gone, Catherine’s mom, Martine Landry, had come to town. Additionally, Letang’s mom, Christiane Letang, was in Pittsburgh to join the team on its cross-country flight as part of the Pens’ mothers’ trip. Shortly after waking up, Letang went into his bathroom and, out of nowhere, was overcome by a wave of dizziness. Though conscious, he required assistance from Catherine to exit the room. Nobody dialled 911 because Landry is a nurse. She figured Letang had likely experienced some kind of vasovagal episode. Essentially, that’s a fairly benign situation where the heart doesn’t pump at the proper rate for a moment, causing varying degrees of light-headedness before the body corrects itself. And when you’re looking at a 26-year-old pro athlete, even a medical professional is unlikely to think, “I wonder if he just had a stroke?” With the situation seemingly stabilized, Letang refocused on making his plane. The coming days were important to him because, as a child of divorce, he is close to his mom and desperately wanted her to both see him play and have a fun time with the other mothers. Their commute to the airport was a signal that those plans were in jeopardy. “I’m driving all over the highway,” he says. “I’m almost hitting the walls and the cars.” That harrowing experience aside, Letang was still feeling pretty much like himself after landing in L.A. The next day, following a conversation with team doctor Dharmesh Vyas, Letang was allowed to participate in the Penguins’ morning skate. “I let him go on the ice just to see how he skated around, and he was completely normal,” Vyas says.
Still, something wasn’t sitting right with the doc. Typically, the two men have a very relaxed relationship, but Letang seemed a little more stiff than usual. “That day, he was being somewhat formal with me,” says Vyas, “like, ‘Dr. Vyas’ this and ‘Dr. Vyas’ that.” Vyas told Letang he wasn’t going to let him play against the Kings. Then he called ahead to the Phoenix Coyotes—Pittsburgh’s next opponent on the road swing—to arrange an MRI. Vyas took Letang to the clinic then plunked down at a diner in suburban Scottsdale while his player was examined. Shortly thereafter, Vyas got a call from the radiologist, who told him Letang had sustained a stroke. The next conversation Vyas had to have was with a young man who, partially because of a language barrier, had pretty much no idea what the term even meant. “He asked me, ‘Am I going to die?’ and I said, ‘No, you’re not going to die,’” Vyas says. Despite the gravity of his question, it was only after Catherine broke down on the phone that Letang started to understand how much weight the word “stroke” could carry. Upon returning to Pittsburgh, Letang underwent a series of tests and was put on blood thinners. He was ordered to get plenty of rest and be mindful of small things like which type of lighting might agitate his condition. Under the watchful eye of Vyas and his staff, Letang began some light exercise and slowly ramped up from there. While his conversations with Vyas included understandable concern about the future, Letang largely kept a level head. “He had those moments, but I wouldn’t say they were in any way demoralizing for him,” Vyas says. “The whole time, he maintained a really strong perspective on what was going on, but also [remained] extremely optimistic that he was going to continue to play.” With three games remaining in Pittsburgh’s season, Letang—just a little more than two months removed from being helped out of his bathroom—returned to the Penguins lineup, then played 13 more playoff contests. Realizing the stroke easily could have sentenced him to a graver fate—including partial paralysis—Letang made a point to speak publicly about his experience before jumping back on the ice. “A lot of people want to keep their medical history to themselves,” he says. “As a 26-year-old, I was looking at it like, I’m an example of what can happen to a 13-year-old. I’m in a situation where I can actually send a message.” If the spring of 2014 was ultimately defined by healing, the spring of 2015 marked a frightening return to darkness. With just a couple of weeks remaining in the season, Letang caught his skate and was sent crashing to the ice and boards by Coyotes captain Shane Doan. With his previous concussions, Letang hadn’t felt any truly troublesome symptoms. This, however, was different. “That’s the one where I said, ‘This could be an issue, because the only thing I remember is waking up at the hospital,’” he says. Letang missed the rest of the season, including the playoffs. Though he returned this fall with a clean bill of health, an experience of that magnitude is impossible to completely shake off. “It’s always in the back of your mind,” Letang says. “Everybody is fighting for jobs out there. They’re not going to stop hitting you, even if you’ve had 10 concussions.” During Letang’s rookie season in 2007–08, Pittsburgh lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Detroit Red Wings. Twelve months later, the Penguins downed the Red Wings in a rematch to claim what many assumed would be the first of multiple championships. Now, more than six years removed from a title, Pittsburgh continues to search for the right mix. The blueline has been a soft spot for the squad, something that’s certainly less true when an ever-evolving Letang is there to anchor it. “The biggest thing for him is that he’s learned some patience,” says defender Rob Scuderi, now in his second stint with the Penguins. “The toughest thing for a defenceman with that much skill is learning that you can’t make a play every time. He’s gotten so much better at it.” He’s also had to make some off-ice alterations. Because of the stroke, Letang has to be extremely vigilant about getting more rest than the average person. The episode is frequently in his thoughts, especially during the weeks when he feels worn down for no specific reason. “I need to take care of myself more than ever if I want to last,” Letang says. The approach seemed to be paying off: No. 58 was in the lineup for every Penguins game through early December until an upper-body injury sidelined him temporarily. That’s still a good start for somebody who, despite all he’s been through, has never lost track of the big picture. “I don’t see myself as, ‘I went through everything in life,’” he says. “There’s always worse.” True, but he’s certainly entitled to hope for some better luck.The Cyber Monday sale is still going on for a few more hours but we finally finished shipping today’s orders so I figured I would give an update. We shipped both “Black Friday” and “Small Businesss Saturday”and then took a “Leave me alone it’s Sunday” break. Despite shipping Friday and Saturday, we still hit a record high of orders in one day, even higher than Boxing Day 2015, otherwise known as “Day after Christmas – oh crap I need to lose some weight for my New Year resolution”. Here’s how it looked in an 8 foot truck bed:
You may notice the falling snow – we’re getting out first serious snowstorm of the year, luckily it stopped snowing long enough to get over to the post office without anything getting wet. Phew!Have you ever wanted to grow your own microgreens? Then this is the guide for you!
Maybe you want to grow microgreens to sell at your local farmers’ market or restaurant. Or, you are a teacher and think it would be cool to show your students how easily you can plant and grow your own food. Or, you would just like to grow microgreens at home because you enjoy the fresh, BIG flavor these fast-growing baby greens pack!
At RVA Microgreens, we have done all the research and have tested the best methods to grow. Heck, we grow microgreens ourselves! Now, we want to share all of our hard work with you in an easy-to-read guide on how to grow microgreens organically and without pesticides!
This guide will teach you:
What crops are easiest to grow to gain your confidence as a grower!
What type of growing tray should you use for microgreens?
What soil should you use?
How to start your seeds? (Learn the secret to not have spindly greens!)
What grow lights should you use?
How much light do you give your microgreens?
How often should you water microgreens? (THIS will surprise you!)
What is the easiest and fastest way to harvest?
What is the key to ensure your microgreens last after you harvest?
Over 125 hours of research and trials packed into this easy-to-read guide!
What supplies do you need to grow microgreens?
Like we mentioned, there are several ways you can grow microgreens. In this guide, we are going to focus on the easiest method that we found so you are successful with your first crops! See below for a list of everything you need along with some optional items which are marked with an asterisk (*).
Shopping List with links:
One (1) seedling heat mat: Link Pack of five (5) no-hole plastic shallow trays: Link Pack of ten (10) no-hole growing tray: Link One (1) bag of FoxFarm potting soil: Link One (1) high output grow light, fluorescent*: Link One (1) digital time with single outlet*: Link One (1) shelf or shelving system to set your trays*: Link One (1) pack of Red Russian kale microgreen seeds: Link One (1) seed shaker or empty seasoning bottle: Link One (1) spray water bottle: Link
*Optional items:
Grow light: If you have a fluorescent light similar to the size linked in the guide, you should be able to use it for your first grow. Just keep in mind if you want to expand your indoor garden that you may want to invest in a grow light.
Timer: The timer is nice so you don’t have to remember to turn your grow light on and off.
Shelving system: This is not necessary especially if you have a spot that you can set your tray(s) and hang a light.
STEP #1:
Pick your grow space. A nice, sturdy workbench in the garage will do if it is heated. If you purchased the shelving unit, put it together in your designated grow space.
Tip: Store your potting soil in an air tight storage container to retain its moisture. Pick a container that has handles to make it easier to move.
STEP #2:
Plug the heat mat in and place the shallow grow tray on top of it. Scoop the soil into the tray so that it is level with the top or lip of the tray.
Tip: If your soil is a bit dry, add just enough water that you can make a ball of it with your hands.
STEP #3:
Fill your shaker with your seeds. You should be able to seed two 10” x 20” trays with approximately 2.5 ounces of the kale or your preferred microgreen seeds.
Tip: Don’t buy a shaker! Reuse a spice shaker that you might already have in your cupboard. Just make sure the holes on the shaker are similar to the one pictured and you clean it before using! This was an old Chile powder container.
STEP #4:
Shake the seeds onto the soil. Work your way in rows across the tray similar to how you would mow the lawn. This ensures even distribution of seed.
Tip: Mist your soil before you seed! This makes the soil “sticky” so that the seeds don’t bounce off the dry patches of dirt.
STEP #5:
Continue to shake the microgreen kale seeds onto the soil until you see an even distribution similar to the photo.
Tip: Don’t overthink how much seed to put down. It’s almost like an art that takes practice.
STEP #6:
Take one of the growing trays and mist the bottom of it. This will be the cover of your tray that has the soil and seeds.
Tip: Mist the tray lightly. You don’t need a whole lot to create the humid environment seeds love.
STEP #7:
Place the tray you misted on top of the seeded tray so that it encloses your seeds. This creates a dark, humid environment your seeds love!
Tip: When you get comfortable with this process, seed at least two trays at a time to increase production efficiency.
STEP #8:
Leave the seeds covered for 3 days (36 hours). After 36 hours, check to see how your microgreens sprouted! They should look yellow and about 2 to 3 inches tall!
Tip: Check your seeds once per day to ensure the lid on your tray is creating a nice damp environment. If it seems dry, mist the lid/grow tray.
STEP #9:
Place your trays in a spot where your seedlings will receive at least 8 hours of direct sunlight or 12 hours of artificial light (i.e. grow light) and the average temperature is between 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Tip: If you are using a grow light, purchase a timer with an outlet. This way you can program the on and off times of your light so you don’t have to manually turn lights on and off.
STEP #10:
Water your microgreens every 2 to 3 days if needed. Stick your forefinger into the soil about the depth of your nail. If the soil feels damp, you don’t need to water. If the soil feels dry, go ahead and gently water evenly across the entire tray.
After 7 to 10 days, you can harvest your microgreens with scissors or a sharp knife. Cut the greens right above the soil level.
Tip: Using a sharp butcher knife is the fastest way to harvest microgreens. Grab the tops of the microgreens and gently pull them tight. Carefully cut approximately 1/2 inch above the soil to harvest.
STEP #11:
Store your harvested microgreens in an air tight container like Tupperware or clamshell containers similar to what is pictured.
Store the containers of microgreens in a refrigerator. It is best to consume microgreens within 5 to 7 days after harvest. Enjoy!
Tip: Immediately after harvesting your microgreens, put them in a refrigerator to extend their taste and crispness. If you are selling your harvest, we found clamshells present a professional appearance.
We hope you find this guide helpful and it launches your indoor growing career! Please visit RVA Microgreens for more grow guides and tips.The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this striking image of the galaxy NGC 7049, with its dust lanes backlit by the stars in its central halo.
A previously unidentified highway of dust extends across the Milky Way, between the sun and the central bulge of the galaxy, scientists have found.
Called the "Great Dark Lane" by the astronomers who announced it, the dusty road twists in front of the bulge of the galaxy.
"For the first time, we could map this dust lane at large scales, because our new infrared maps cover the whole central region of the Milky Way," Dante Minniti, a researcher at Universidad Andres Bello in Chile and lead author of a study describing the findings, told Space.com by email.
Mapping the Milky Way
The center of a spiral galaxy contains a collection of stars that bulge above and below the flatter spirals, much like an egg yolk. The arms that give the galaxies their classification twist around the bulge, often in a beautiful spiral (although sometimes they are more elongated). Lanes of dust often lie between these arms, which present a particular challenge to map out. [Stunning Photos of Our Milky Way Galaxy (Gallery)]
"It is very difficult to mapthe structure of our galaxy because we are inside, and it is very large and covered with dust clouds that are opaque in the optical," Minniti said.
Images like this one from the VVV survey helped lead author Dante Minniti identify the Milky Way's great dark lane. (Image: © ESO/VVV Survey/D. Minniti, I. Toledo)
Working with a team of astronomers, Minniti used the European Space Observatory's Vista Variables in the Via Lactea Survey (VVV), a project to scan the Milky Way using the VISTA telescope in Chile, to study the galaxy in the near-infrared. At this wavelength, telescopes are able to peer through the clouds of dust to a group of objects known as red clump (RC) stars lying within the bulge.
Red clump stars have helium-burning cores that generate a similar brightness no matter what their age or composition is. This makes them reliable distance indicators for astronomers.
Based on the measurement of 157 million stars, Minniti and his team found that the RC stars of the Milky Way's bulgewere split into two colors — a difference they determined was caused by dust between the stars and the observers. The astronomers could see a sharp transition between the two distinct groups — the dusty Great Dark Lane dividing them.
The Great Dark Lane extends approximately 20 degrees across the sky, reaching both above and below the plane of the galaxy. It sits roughly 15,000 light-yearsfrom the solar system, although the team is still working to refine the distance. It lies outside of the bulge rather than being contained within it, they said.
If the dust passed through the bulge itself, the red clump stars of the center would have a patchier distribution, rather than a clean break, as some of the stars at a certain height above the plane would be in front of the dust and others would be behind it, the researchers said. Instead, all of the red clump stars contained within the bulge lie behind the dust, according to the study.
"Detailed maps and modeling are needed in order to test this important galactic feature," the researchers wrote in their paper, which appeared in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics last year.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.My office continuously trying to take time from CMs of Punjab n Haryana for me to meet the two CMs. Its an emergency — Arvind Kejriwal (@ |
police and say that I'm dissatisfied. He definitely should be charged... I would like to see some justice."
Ottawa police Const. Marc Soucy said although the case has been closed and no charges were laid, it could be reopened.
"Any investigation can be reopened. If new information arises or new witnesses come up, a case can always be reopened."This photo, provided by Erin Clark and her attorney, shows what she says is the rash and blistering that developed after she wore the Fitbit Force wristband. The device has since been recalled.
Erin Clark admits she’s competitive when it comes to sports and recreation. From cycling to running to walking, the South Philadelphian is always trying to best her friends.
So she was thrilled when a gift-wrapped Fitbit Force arrived from mom this past Christmas.
“I wanted one. All of my friends had a previous version of this and really loved it so I really wanted one…and have friendly competition with friends,” she said.
The activity band, developed by the popular California-based fitness technology company, acted as a health tracker. The plastic wristband, which is about three-quarters of an inch wide, features a LED screen and stainless steel case and measures a person’s physical activity and sleep patterns. That data is then reported to an online portal and app where you can compare your fitness level to friends.
Photos House Barnes Built is For Sale
Clark said she wore the band night and day as directed, with the exception of in the shower, and was loving the experience for about a week, when an abrasion began to form on her wrist.
“I got a really little nickel-sized abrasion,” she said. “So I took it off and thought, ‘Oh, I must have scratched myself’ and I put it on my other wrist and only wore it at night just in case the Fitbit had caused something.”
But Clark said the rash grew, got worse and started to blister. To make matters worse, she said a similar rash began on her other wrist, prompting her to immediately stop wearing the device.
“It felt like it was burning and it itched. It was spreading around my wrist,” she said. “This was incredibly gross and embarrassing. It hurt to cover it.”
A 31-year-old administrative professional, who works at a local medical college, Clark said she asked a doctor she worked with for advice. They advised using cortisone cream, she said. However, a week later, the rash persisted, prompting her to go to her doctor who prescribed a prescription steroid cream and antibiotics.
Clark says after a number of doctors’ visits, she learned online other Fitbit Force owners were experiencing similar issues across the country. She says she contacted Fitbit about the rash, asking what the cause might be, but says she only received generic responses.
“They don’t have a phone number. You can’t call them. And every time I would email them it would be 3 to 4 days between emails. So when this initially happened, I was like ‘Did you scar me for life?’ I was getting a form letter,” she said. “I would reply and send them pictures and say this isn’t normal. This reply isn’t any help to me and no one would get back to me about what was going on.”
It wasn’t until March that Clark says she received word that the device was being recalled and was asked to send it back for a full refund.
Instead, the woman says she held onto the device, didn’t cash the check, hired an attorney and filed a lawsuit claiming Fitbit was negligent, failed to properly warn consumers of alleged issues from wearing the device and committed fraud.
“There’s been no clear explanation given as to what might be causing it. It’s just kind of just a generic statement that it could be an allergy to a variety of things. At this stage, we don’t know what’s causing it,” Ian Abovitz, Clark’s attorney with the Yardley-based firm Stark & Stark. “We’re working with a couple of experts who are trying to get to the bottom of the cause of this.”
About 1 million devices were sold in the United States and Canada and there are nearly 10,000 reports of skin irritation from wearing the band and 250 reports of skin blistering, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).
Fitbit stopped selling the Force on February 20 and issued a voluntary recall. The CPSC then announced the recall on March 12. In a statement, a Fitbit spokesperson tells NBC10.com the company has had independent testing conducted and that the results point to contact dermatitis possibly from the materials, like nickel, which are used in the wristband.
“Some users may be reacting to the stainless steel used in the device -- although it is surgical grade and meets the most stringent regulatory standards -- while others are likely experiencing an allergic reaction to the materials in the strap or the adhesives used to assemble the product,” the statement read.
Clark said her doctor believed nickel could be to blame for the rash, but that she’s worn metal watches before without issue. She’s worried that other materials, which may be harmful, could have been used in the product’s construction and wants answers.
A Fitbit spokesperson says they do not comment on individual cases.
Clark says she’s spent about $150 in medical bills and prescription treatments. The rash has since dissipated, but there is still discoloration on her wrist which the doctor believes should go away within a month. The suit does not request a specific amount of money, but asks for compensation regarding medical expenses and emotional distress.
In addition to Clark’s suit, a class-action lawsuit was filed in California on behalf of customers in that state calling for a recall, public awareness campaign and damages related to the alleged issues. In a statement on that case, the company said it already issued a recall and takes issue with the suit.
“Fitbit took initiative long before this complaint was filed, publicly offered refunds, and worked closely with the CPSC on its voluntary recall program. We strongly disagree with the statements about the product and the Company,” a spokesperson wrote.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.OLYMPIA, Wash. - A day ahead of a vote by the Federal Communications Commission on a plan to undo the country's net-neutrality rules, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says he and other state leaders will take steps to protect consumers regardless of the outcome of the vote.
At issue is Wednesday's planned vote on the plan put forth by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last month to gut the Obama-era net neutrality rules, meant to stop broadband companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon from exercising more control over what people watch and see on the internet.
Inslee was joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and Attorney General Bob Ferguson. A few bills have already been introduced seeking to prohibit Internet service providers from violating net neutrality principles such as blocking content or impairing traffic.
Copyright 2017 KING"How's the apartment search going, really?"
"Like trying to pull nevermore teeth, it's not happening." Jaune sighed and took a sip of his coke. They were sitting in the food court, taking a break from their shopping. "It's slim pickings, all the one bedroom places are either too expensive, in bad repair, or don't take Huntsmen." Jaune scowled. It was a long standing issue within The Kingdoms, many landlords didn't rent to lone Huntsmen and huntresses because tenants were often gone for long stretches of time. The profession was just too high risk. "I looked at the markets in Vacuo and Mistral, they aren't much better, and Atlas is well, Atlas."
"It's a system that works for them."
"If you don't mind sharing dormitories with strangers." Atlas had dealt with the Huntsman Housing Crisis by building mass accommodation for Huntsmen and huntresses who agreed to ally with the kingdom.
Ruby sighed. "They aren't that bad you know, I stayed in them a few times. It's almost like a posh hotel."
"Still, I'm not leaving Vale for a place in a dormitory." Jaune scowled. "I don't want to tether myself to any-one kingdom. I considered getting a roommate and going for a two bedroom, that way I eliminate those who wouldn't rent to a lone huntsman. It ends up a bit cheaper for something nicer."
"Good idea."
"But all the roommate listings are skeevy or don't want a huntsman." Jaune continued. "See the problem?"
"Get a hunter for a roommate." Ruby picked at the second half of her burger, pulling out the pickles she had forgotten were in it. "Less complaints, right? I mean they can't really judge."
"Most huntsman are new blood now, and are either sorted with their team, or don't want to settle just yet. Our year and our friends years were unusual remember? And the old generation is almost gone." Jaune said. "So that's how fucked I am for moving out."
"You could go for a more expensive apartment. You do a lot of high risk high reward missions, they pay well right?"
"Most of it goes to medical costs." Jaune tapped the center of his chest, reminding Ruby of the delicate machinery integrated with his organs that kept him alive. Artificial valves and structures supporting his lungs and heart that had been implanted following the war, allowing him to continue with his work as a huntsman. The internal robotics Jaune contained differed from the artificial limbs other Hunters sported. Artificial limbs was a pre-established business for Huntsmen, making them not only cheaper but also better constructed. Internal prosthesis was still new, with only a handful of Hunters currently using them. Ironwood had been one of the first to have them, but many of his organs had been fully replaced whereas Jaune's were only enhanced with machinery. They were intended to last ten years or more without needing repairs or replacement, but the high impact life of a Huntsman (especially Jaune who had the unfortunate propensity for taking hits to the chest) meant that he needed repairs or replacements almost yearly. "Maintaining this stuff isn't cheap, and I need to keep money aside in case something unexpected happens. I mean it would be cheaper if I took easier missions, but the payoff would be the same. I don't take as many missions as I used to remember? Ren and Nora made me agree to spend as much time in Vale as I do on missions."
Ruby nodded, she had been made a similar agreement with Weiss, admittedly with less protest than Jaune had. Both of them had thrown themselves into their work following the war, trying to move past what had happened. Their teams had slowly dragged them back to the more normal schedules they now followed. "Seems like you're up shit creek then."
"Yeah."
Ruby looked up from her plate. "So why do you want to leave? You seem fine with Ren and Nora."
"They need their space." Jaune smiled. "I think Ren is going to propose, and I want to be out of their hair well before then."
"Well if Ren doesn't propose, Nora sure as hell will." Ruby smiled. "I missed them while I was in Atlas, got any other news about them?"
"Not really." Jaune stared wistfully at Ruby's fries, he had long since finished his own meal and was regretting not ordering more. "Have you made any decisions on what you'll do?"
Ruby scowled into her plate. "I was thinking renting in Vale until you told me how bad the market is, I'm still not going to be doing many big missions so money is going to be an issue."
"Why not to the big missions, you're fine most of the time."
"Yeah but that time with the Deathstalker spooked me, and Weiss never had time to hunt, and tagging along with Blake or Yang, as much as I love them both, doesn't work so well as I wished." Ruby sighed. "I'm better off with the easier missions that I don't need someone to watch my left side, Weiss was right about that at least."
"That must be hard to admit."
"It is." Ruby took a drink from her soda. "And if I wanted to back to Yang and Blake's it would be like you living with Ren and Nora, except ten times worse because they have a kid as well. I don't want to go to back to Atlas, at least not to live. Mistral and Vacuo are out, because I don't have strong enough ties to either kingdom to make it worth it." Ruby mused. "Mostly my plan for now is to get my things all in one place, I have no doubt that Weiss has boxed all of them up by now. Or ordered them boxed up." There was a hint of bitterness in Ruby's voice as she mentioned her girlfriend. "That or she'll be waiting for me to return home like nothing happened."
"You'll figure it out." Jaune reached a hand across the table to pat Ruby's shoulder. "I mean if you want to we could try searching for a 2 bedroom together."
"It would solve some of the renting issues, and the money." Ruby said. "I'd need to see what Vale has on offer for apartments and houses for rent though."
"Most of the houses you can rent are derelict or crazy expensive, apartments are more looked after and better priced." Jaune said. "When you have your scroll back I can send you a list of the two bedrooms I like the look of, or you can flick through them on my scroll tonight."
"Thanks, I'll do that." Ruby said as she stood up and stretched. "We better keep on going. I mean you got your shopping done, but I'm still wearing one of your shirts and Nora's skirt. I know I have my dress that's in the wash, but I need to have more than that, and I really can't live out of your wardrobes until I can get my stuff from Atlas."
"Well then I guess we had better get onto that." Jaune stood up. "I guess You're going to drag me to every store in the mall now."
"Hey, I'm no happier about this than you. I only like weapon and food shopping." Ruby scowled. "Let's just get this over with."
"By the way, what do you think about Shag pile carpet?" Ruby didn't look up from Jaune's scroll as she thumbed her way through the listed apartments.
Jaune stared at Ruby helplessly for a moment. She was sprawled over the arm of the couch, her bangs pulled up in a tiny ponytail to stop them from getting in her eye. "We are not having shag pile."
"Oh come on, it looks fun!"
"Absolutely not." Jaune grabbed his scroll out of Ruby's hand, she had been looking through apartments on it since the night before, occasionally asking for his input. "Have you ever tried cleaning it? It's impossible."
"Spoilsport." Ruby pouted. "Fine, no shag pile. Unfurnished is okay right?"
"We'll have to go shopping for furniture no matter what." Jaune replied. "But if it has some furnishings that would be preferable."
"Got it." Ruby gave him a thumbs up.
"Look, I have to go now or I'll miss my airship."
"Say hi to Pyrrha's Mum and Dad for me if you see them."
"Say hi from me and Ren too!" Nora called from the kitchen where she was frying bacon for her breakfast.
"Nora that's not even-"
Jaune held up a hand. "Don't even bother trying to correct her, she knows it's wrong."
"Really?"
"I will." Jaune ignored Ruby as he yelled to the kitchen. "I always do. You know they would love it if either of you visited."
"Ren and I don't take a lot of missions in Mistral." Nora answered at the same time as Ruby replied "I do, just not as often as I would like."
Jaune shook his head. "Well I understood about half of that, which is more than usual I guess. Ruby, tell me about those apartments you have a viewing for. Nora, don't let Ruby do anything too reckless."
"I'm on Breakup patrol, got it oh Great and Fearless Leader." Nora poked her head around the corner. "You keep yourself safe Jaune, I don't want a call that you're In the hospital again."
"I will, I'm not doing anything too hard this time. Couple of Deathstalkers If I'm unlucky, probably just an tribe of Ursai." Jaune took a deep breath. "REN, WAKE UP!"
There was a thud followed by some shuffling in the hallway as a very tired looking Ren made his way into the lounge. "When do you move out again?"
"Your instructions are to keep an eye on both of these two."
"Jaune we're adults, they'll be fine. You're the one we should be worried about. Half the time you come back here covered in cuts and bruises, and the other half you need to be hospitalised." Ren rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the palm of his hands. "I mean that's the same for most lone Huntsmen, but still, look after yourself. Go on your mission, just remember to dodge and not only catch things with your chest."
The next few days passed in a blur of Ruby being shown empty apartments, some of which she liked, and some she hated. And organising with Weiss through Nora a date to collect her things from the Schnee mansion. Yang visited on the third day, bringing her tiny daughter in tow.
Serafina had been delighted to see Nora, who she saw as an aunt regardless of familial status, and Nora had been equally delighted to see the toddler. That was another reason Jaune was eager to move out, Nora was known to be a little baby crazy and he knew it was only a matter of time before his teammates added a new member to their family in his opinion. Not that Jaune disliked kids, he just wanted to be gone before then.
Ruby had absconded early in the visit to sort through her supplies that Yang had brought back to her, and to check the messages on her scroll. She had received a surprising amount from Weiss, panicked about her apparently going missing.
"So you're hiding in here huh?" Yang leaned against the kitchen counter opposite her sister. "You should at least say hi to Serafina."
"I did." Ruby said, not looking up from her newly returned scroll.
"You know what I mean."
"I will, I'm just checking my messages." Ruby slid her scroll shut and slid it into the pocket of the shorts she had bought while shopping with Jaune. "Did you field many from Weiss for me?"
Yang looked at her sister carefully while tapping her metallic fingers against the Formica countertop. "Did she call me panicking about you? Yeah she did, she was worried. You stormed out in a snowstorm, and then you went missing with no way of being contacted. Are you doing okay?"
"As well as I can be." Ruby sighed. "I had a massive fight with my girlfriend, one that I don't want to recover from because it'll just happen again like it did before, and I'm not sure what I'm doing next. I'm probably going to be renting an apartment with Jaune, seeing as he wants to move out of here and it'll just be easier that way."
"My little sis moves on quickly!" Yang joked before catching Ruby's death glare. "I'm sorry, that was tasteless, even for me. You sure you want to do that? I mean you and weiss could still-"
"We are not."
"Okay then."
"And I've known Jaune for years, if I can't trust him, I can't trust anyone." Ruby smiled, thinking about how during the war she and Jaune had frequently worked together as team leaders. "So yeah, I do. I was just looking at some apartments I like."
"And?"
"And some of them look pretty good, Jaune said it was okay if I went and checked them out without him and we'll make decisions from there." Ruby smiled. "That's something that's going well right? Finding a new place to live."
"You would always be welcome back home." Yang reached across to place her hand over her sisters. "Blake and I would love to have you, and Dad would love having you around more." Taiyang still lived on Patch, he had just moved to a smaller house that he found easier to manage.
"I know sis." Ruby sighed and stretched her arms in front of herself. "But I can't burden you guys again."
"When are you going to collect your stuff from Weiss's?"
"In a few weeks I hope." Ruby said. "After I've moved out of here."
"Do you know where you're going to move into?" Yang asked.
"I have a few places I really like the look of, one is in an area mostly populated by Hunters too so that's good. I'm only looking at the ones that are trying to get vacancies filled ASAP." Ruby explained. "Jaune is going to look at my shortlist when he gets back, then we'll make decisions and sign onto a place."
"I can help with getting your stuff from Weiss's. Blake will be back by them to watch Serafina."
"I already asked Nora." Ruby shot down her sister's request. "She's agreed to stop me doing anything I might regret."
"Like going back to Weiss?"
"Yeah." Ruby stared into space for a minute. "I still love her you know."
"Well you had a long term relationship, it's to be expected." Yang said, watching her sister carefully. It wasn't like her sister to open up too much.
"But it just doesn't work." There was a choking sob in Ruby's voice as she spoke. "I'm so stupid."
"No you're not, we all want to be happy, and sometimes it doesn't work like we want it to. You were chasing the moments of happiness you shared." Yang watched her sister. "It just doesn't work so much now."
"No." Ruby agreed. "It doesn't." She stood up from her counter stool. "I had better go see the niece, gotta hype her up on sugar before sending her home with you like the awesome auntie I am."
"Do that and you'll be worrying about more than just finding a new place to stay."
"Love you too sis."
Truthfully, Ruby was not the sort of Aunt who gave her niece too much candy, that was Nora's job (who had spent the morning making cupcakes for the visitors). Ruby prefered to spoil her niece with small gifts, often tiny versions of weapons. Her niece had made it clear she wanted to be a huntress many times, and Ruby loved to indulge her by buying toy weapons and having mock fights with the child. The latest of these 'weapons' she had bought while shopping with Jaune. Which Yang had attempted confiscate on sight.
"Absolutely not." Yang had swiped the toy from Ruby's hand. She had just walked back into the lounge after a long catch up with Nora. "She is four, too young."
"Oh come off it that's mine, do you really think I would give a four year old a rubber band gun to play with?" Ruby smiled at her sister. "I'm just showing Sera how it works, all the mechanics in it. I actually got her a toy sword because I stepped on her old one when I visited last. It's fine."
Yang regarded the toy weapon Sera had shoved through her belt with suspicion. "It's wood."
"She's old enough. Uncle Qrow gave us blunt edge weapons when we were that age." Ruby reasoned. "If I remember rightly, you tried to stab Dad with mine."
Yang thought for a moment, kneeling down in front of her daughter. "You know what you do with that right?"
"I don't hit people, only pillows." Serafina met her mum's eyes. "Auntie Ruby already told me this. She says she's feeling better now, that she's not sick like when she saw us last."
"I'm just making sure you're safe. And yeah, Auntie Ruby seems to be doing much better now. Now go annoy Nora, I need to have another chat with your aunt." Yang watched as her daughter ran off to find Nora who would undoubtedly give her more candy. "Just because Qrow did something doesn't make it a good idea." She turned on her sister. "I know you had some kind of hero worship with him-"
"It's not about trying to be Qrow, fuck I know it's not good to be like him. I try very hard not to be too much like him."
"And a bang up job you're doing of that!"
"It's about making sure your daughter can handle a weapon." Ruby finished, meeting her sister's violet eyes with her silver one.
"Why to protect herself from Salem? Newsflash, she's gone, you got rid of her. Sera doesn't live in a world where she will have to be like you."
"And what if she does." Ruby hissed. "What if she has to fight too young? I wouldn't have survived if Qrow hadn't taught me so young. Salem would have wrecked me, Cinder would have. I'd have lost more than just an eye against her." Ruby reminded her sister. "I'm paranoid, I know, I try not to be. But I'm paranoid for good reason."
"You think I'm not paranoid too?" Yang sat beside her sister. "I'm scared to leave her alone. I'm scared when Blake is gone. I'm scared that something worse is going to come for us. I'm scared for when the Grimm really come back, not what they are now. I'm scared that my daughter is going to end up like us, hurt and scared because she had to take on something bigger than herself before she was ready. I wake up in cold sweats some nights when all I can see is the waves of Grimm like they were during the war. Or I see people like Adam, or I think Blake is really gone."
"She won't -"
"Exactly, it's irrational. It's not going to happen." Yang stood up. "I know it's hard to let go of it, but please try not to introduce my daughter to fighting too early. I want her to actually be a kid. That's why I freaked out over this." Yang shook the rubber band gun.
"Relax, I got that so I can shoot Jaune with it. Ages 6 and up see?" Ruby pointed at the label. "Not for Sera."
"I know I just I-"
"You worried, and you were right to." Ruby wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulders. "But she's determined to be like you, and you can't protect her forever."
"I can damn well try." Yang growled before catching Ruby's look. "The sword is fine, she'll stab a few stuffed Ursa when she gets home and she'll forget it for a week, you know that right?"
"Yeah, but at least she stabbed the Ursa and not you." Ruby smiled and checked the time on her scroll. "It's almost 5, don't you have to get on an airship at 5:30?"
Yang scowled as she looked at the time. "I wish they had a later ship."
"So do I, it was good to see you both again. You know, when I'm not all weirded out." Ruby stood up and stretched her arms over her head. "Thank you."
"Anytime sis." Yang pulled her sister in for a hug then let her go. "Good luck on the apartment search. And getting your stuff from Atlas. And the rebound." Yang wiggled her eyebrows slightly. "If you know what I mean."
"I know." Ruby nodded. "And I have no intention of fucking Jaune. And you really should be going. I don't want you to be late."
"Yeah." Yang walked to the kitchen island and poked her head over it to speak to her daughter "Pack your stuff kiddo, we have to go now."
"But we only just got here! I wanna stay with Auntie Nora!" Serafina protested.
"My word is law kiddo, you only have a few things right? Go grab them and bring them to me."
"Fine."
"You're good at that." Nora commented.
"I have to be, I'm a Mum." Yang smiled. "Look after yourselves, both of you. And Ren." She spotted the man standing by the kitchen entrance. "You're really quiet you know that?"
Ren's response was only to smile.
"I've got my stuff Mum." Serafina pulled at the hem of her mother's coat before slipping her hand into her Mum's.
"All of it?"
"Yup."
"Awesome." Yang looked back to the adults. "Well, this is us. See you all next time we visit."
"See ya." Ruby said at the same time as Nora sung. "Goodbyeee!" Ren just waved.
When Yang had left Nora slumped against the kitchen counter. "Children are exhausting."
"They have more energy than you." Ren commented.
"You need to speak around Sera, she's going to think you're mute." Nora nit-picked at her boyfriend.
"I'm just quiet! And that kid is so hyper, I don't think I could keep up with a conversation with her." He rebutted.
"Ren you literally sat there for half an hour and nodded while she showed you her dolls once. It wouldn't kill you to speak."
Ren sighed and rolled his eyes. "What do you want for dinner? Pancakes is not an answer."
Ruby smiled as she returned to the couch and started thumbing through her scroll. The dinner debate was one she was familiar with, and had learned to never involve herself.
And once again, a massive thank you to my awesome Beta reader, reddit user /u/BryceWilliam. The next chapter or two might be a bit faster than the first three, but no real promises.Posted on 01 March 2014
“Just because they have a genetic tendency to be asexual does not mean we should condone it.”
Reader contribution
Dear New Nation,
I read with concern your latest article about the benefits of asexuality. As a concerned parent, it is critical that there is no change to the existing policy of encouraging heterosexual married couples to have healthy relationships and to build a stable family unit.
There are many asexual people in Singapore. Many have done well in their careers in the private sector and in the government. Quite a few of them do creative work for the government. No one has been persecuted for their celibacy/ asexual lifestyle. In fact, thousands come out openly to celebrate Friendship Day and Singles Day every year on February 14. By and large, Singaporeans accept that they choose their own asexual lifestyle and no one interferes with them.
I have friends who are asexual. I do not hate them, condemn them or call them names. These friends are reasonable people and I have no issue meeting them socially. But I do not agree with the practice of asexuality. It is my personal belief and that would not change regardless of the hate mail I have received. My friends who are asexual know my belief. They accept that they won’t change me. We remain friends.
Asexuality is wrong because it threatens the basic family unit. Many people will say that asexuality is genetic. Just because they have a genetic tendency to be asexual does not mean we should condone it. I hear the same from wife beaters, gamblers, kleptomaniacs, pedophiles, homosexuals, lesbians and so on. Now, in putting them on a linear list like this, I risk being misunderstood as comparing the asexuals, for example, with drug addicts, wife beaters and so forth. In no way am I saying that. Not at all. This is the deception I see occurring around the world with regards to morality.
I hope they will be counselled to act against their own dispassions. The difference between man and animal is this: As human beings, we don’t have to yield to our primal instincts. We cannot just avoid whatever we feel like avoiding, however we please. We have the freedom of choice and the capacity to do what is best for humanity, for our nation and for civilisation.
Sexuality programmes in schools are so yesterday:
Pro-asexuality guide making the rounds online in S’poreSimpich writes: "A recent ruling in a San Diego election integrity lawsuit should set a new trend in fighting voter suppression. Many citizens are concerned about the accuracy of voting machines, but feel powerless to challenge their findings. The court’s ruling upholds the viability of the '1% manual tally,' a method for citizens to test the machine results by comparing them to the paper ballot tally."
Southern California Shredding truck. (photo: Andrea Beth Damsky)
California Court Upholds a Method to Detect Election Fraud
By Bill Simpich, Reader Supported News
recent ruling in a San Diego election integrity lawsuit should set a new trend in fighting voter suppression. Many citizens are concerned about the accuracy of voting machines, but feel powerless to challenge their findings. The court’s ruling upholds the viability of the “1% manual tally,” a method for citizens to test the machine results by comparing them to the paper ballot tally.
Ray Lutz is the director of Citizens Oversight, a nonprofit “dedicated to enabling citizens to provide needed oversight to our democracy.” When he hasn’t been leading the fight to decommission the San Onofre nuclear power plant, Lutz has put significant time into tracking the disastrous 2016 primary election in California.
Lutz noticed that the California election code required that 1% of “all ballots cast” must undergo a random audit comparing the ballots to the electronic tally.
He then noticed something else – that the San Diego registrar, Michael Vu, was not including the provisional ballots or the late-arriving VBMs (votes by mail) in his tally. This was about 37% of the entire vote – a discrepency of 285,000 votes that were not audited.
Lutz and Citizens Oversight filed suit days after the primary due to Vu’s failure to randomly sample the votes to check for fraud. Lutz’s attorney, Alan Geraci, emphasized that “the intention of the elections code is obviously to create an audit so that the people can know that the election has been done properly.” The county argued that seven other California counties were doing it the same way as Vu.
Michael Vu has a bad track record for election integrity. In 2004 Vu was the registrar in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, a swing state in the George W. Bush/John Kerry presidential race. Official vote counts gave the state – and thus the presidency – to George W. Bush by about 118,000 votes out of 5.5 million counted. A statewide recount, paid for by the Green and Libertarian parties, was marred in 87 of the state’s 88 counties by illegalities that led to felony convictions for two of Vu’s staff. During that election two female employees working under Vu illegally chose sample precincts for recounting ballots where they knew the count would yield a predetermined result.
This rendered the recount meaningless, according to Bob Fikrakis, an attorney, political science professor, and expert in election voting controversies. The workers were fired, indicted, and convicted. In 2007, shortly after the convictions, Vu was forced to resign by Cuyahoga County. Vu immediately moved to California and landed a job in San Diego weeks later.
Judge Joel Wohlfeil wasn’t impressed by Vu’s performance this time around either. The judge ruled that although his ruling was “moot” as the primary had been certified by the secretary of state, he would address the issues raised in the suit. He held that the registrar had the duty to follow the law and that no excuses were available.
Citizens Oversight will continue to execute legal remedies to get San Diego to either complete the rest of the audit encompassing the 37% of the ballots cast that were left out, restart the 1% manual tally audit from the start, or seek a complete 100% audit of the election. Similar action may take place in other parts of the state.
The group is also looking for volunteers to assist in oversight teams in the largest California counties. It is important to ensure that the 1% tally is properly conducted throughout California in the general election – and to make sure that the rights of election observers to view every aspect of the count is zealously protected. Throughout the state, hundreds of observers were denied the right to watch the count – they were separated by glass barriers from seeing what was going on and were frequently barred from taking photographs. This practice of suppression of observers resulted in the nullification of Austria’s general election on July 1.
In San Diego, the observers were able to see that election officials were modifying ballots with the use of white-out, with no checks or balances to the procedure. This YouTube video shows that Bernie Sanders’ name was whited-out in this process, with no good explanation as to why.
During one press conference on June 28, this video shows a giant shredding truck that was parked right in front of the registrar’s office, and which drove away when citizens started taking photographs.
Raymond Lutz. (photo: Reader Supported News)
Vu said no materials were removed from the registrar’s office. But why in the world would any registrar allow a shredding truck to come to the elections office in the midst of a count?
These concerns with electronic voting equipment are not theoretical. but extend throughout the United States. A research paper on the subject of possible election fraud has been recently released. One of the collaborators was Fritz Schueren, former president of the American Statistical Association and a statistics professor at George Washington University. Schueren said, “As a statistician, I find the results of the 2016 primary election unusual. In fact, I found the patterns unexpected [and possibly even] suspicious.”
Ray Lutz and Citizens Oversight have provided to all of us an invaluable tool to ensure election integrity.
Bill Simpich is an attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area who knows it doesn’t have to be like this.Walking through the door’s of Vancouver’s Imperial, Ian MacLachlan expected to be greeted with a chorus of “SURPRISE” for his 50th Birthday. Instead he was met by his adorable children who each handed him a card. As he read the word’s “Will you” from first card, his heart skipped a beat. He instinctively knew that the words “Marry Mommy” was on the second and as he raised his gaze from the card, his partner Karley Seabrook approached wearing a stunning wedding gown.
This story began 10 years earlier when Karley and Ian first met on a dating website. Soon they were living together and expecting their first child. The idea of marriage emerged in the early years of their relationship, however Karley admits there was something that “freaked” her out about it. Ian on the other hand was much more enthusiastic but understood Karley’s reservations.
Everything changed for Karley in December 2012 when she discovered she had a rare and aggressive form of cancer. After undergoing surgery and having |
episode "Shut the Pup Up", he was taken in by the Girls when he became the sole witness to a mystery crime. When he stays with the girls he is shown to be blunt, abrasive and insulting, though his demeanor remains straightforward and earnest. He is frequently abused in almost every appearance he makes; as a running gag, no one ever seems to regard his pain and simply ignore him.
Mitch Mitchelson [ edit ]
Mitch Mitchelson (voiced by Tom Kenny in the series and Rob Rackstraw in the British dub): The bully at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. Mitch has brownish hair, and wears a black T-shirt with the words "MITCH ROCKS" on the front. Usually talks in a gruff voice; he torments the kids in the class in a few episodes, though he is not a major threat. He is Buttercup's close friend, according to Buttercup in her interview in the DVD features of The Powerpuff Girls Movie. For a brief time he hosted a short segment on Cartoon Network called "Mitch Rocks", where he looked at or watched various things and said whether they "rock" or not.
Villains [ edit ]
Mojo Jojo [ edit ]
Mojo Jojo (voiced by Roger L. Jackson) is a mad scientist anthropomorphic chimpanzee with great intelligence, who speaks with a Japanese accent poking fun at the poor dubbing of Speed Racer, although it was never stated whether or not he was from Japan. As the main antagonist of the series and the Powerpuff Girls' arch-enemy, Mojo Jojo was Professor Utonium's reckless laboratory assistant, Jojo, before Professor Utonium created the Powerpuff Girls, the same accident that created the Girls giving Jojo super-intelligence.[1] He has green skin, pink scleras, and wears a white metal dome-shaped helmet that covers his oversized, protruding brain. The helmet is often broken in fights with the Girls, partially exposing his enlarged brain. He wears white gloves and boots, a blue suit with a white belt, and a flowing purple cape. Despite his high intelligence, his plans often contain flaws that he overlooks because of his ego, and he rarely has much success against the girls, as their superpowers are too much for his inventions. However, he is a master at manipulation and trickery, often fooling the girls into thinking he has changed despite their constant encounters.
Him [ edit ]
Him (voiced by Tom Kane in the series and Jimmy Hibbert in the British dub) is a mysterious, supernatural, effeminate, immortal, androgynous, and demonic monster. His physical appearance is an amalgamation of sorts with lobster-like claws, red skin, pointed ears, a hooked nose, yellow/green eyes and a long curled beard, wearing makeup, a woman's red jacket and skirt with pink tulle at the collar and hemline, and black, thigh-high, spike-heeled boots. His voice ranges from a high-pitched falsetto to a deep, booming basso profondo. According to the narrator in Him's first appearance, he is "so evil, so sinister, so horribly vile, that even the utterance of his name strikes fear into the hearts of men". He is shown to feed off the negative emotions of human beings. Him's plans are usually psychological in nature, and often consist of manipulating events to either drive the Powerpuff Girls insane, or simply drive wedges between them. Craig McCracken has stated that the character "Him" was inspired by the mannerisms of the Chief Blue Meanie in the 1968 film, Yellow Submarine. Most episodes Him is featured in are single-story episodes. Craig McCracken stated Him is his favorite villain.[2]
Fuzzy Lumpkins [ edit ]
Fuzzy Lumpkins[3] (voiced by Jim Cummings) is a large, husky, furry pink Bigfoot-like hillbilly monster with a wide jaw, a green nose, two antennae on his head, big blue overalls, and brown boots, who commonly plays a banjo which he calls "Jo." He was the first villain introduced in the series, appearing in the pilot "Meat Fuzzy Lumkins," in which he turned the people of Townsville into meat after he lost in a jam contest. He speaks in a southern accent, and lives in the woods next to the city of Townsville. Fuzzy is of extremely limited intellectual capacity, and is not nearly so active and ambitious as most of the villains in the series. He usually limits himself to shooting anyone whom he finds trespassing on his property, though also prone to destructive fits of rage, particularly when others touch his belongings; in these fits he gains enough physical strength to overpower (and sometimes intimidate) the girls. When angry, Fuzzy turns dark red, grows claws, and his teeth (usually square and blunt) become sharp fangs. Fuzzy (according to Professor Utonium's research) belongs to a race of "Lum(p)kins"; he has three siblings (Furry, Fluffy, and Hairy), three nephews (Buzzy, Wuzzy, and Scuzzy), and several dozen cousins who closely resemble him.
Princess Morbucks [ edit ]
Princess Morbucks (voiced by Jennifer Hale in the series and Teresa Gallagher in the British dub) is a spoiled, rich, and bratty little girl, whose partially unseen and mostly mute father allows her to finance various evil plots to destroy the Powerpuff Girls. Her supervillain outfit consists of a yellow, Powerpuff-style dress, black gloves and boots, and a tiara. Her hatred of the girls stems from her rebuffed attempt to become one of them. Her father is "Daddy" Morbucks, a large, rotund man whose face and head are always hidden from the viewer. He dotes on his daughter and usually indulges in her whim, but it is hinted that his patience is limited and Princess fears truly angering him. Thanks to him, Princess has access to virtually unlimited financial resources. Her last name,"Morbucks", is a reference to Daddy Warbucks from the musical, Annie.
The Ganggreen Gang [ edit ]
The Ganggreen Gang are a gang of five teenage hoodlums who are green-skinned and unhealthy-looking, as though infected top-to-bottom by gangrene. They originally appeared alongside The Amoeba Boys in McCracken's original short, Whoopass Stew, as the villains the girls are shown fighting in the introduction (rather than every major recurring villain on the show). According to Craig McCracken, the Ganggreen Gang are a cross between the characters from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and Rat Fink. Not possessing any powers or exceptional abilities, the Gang is normally not too much of a threat to the girls, but have shown themselves to be very dangerous when motivated, such as when they received training from Sedusa to help her steal a series of magical artifacts. They each have unique characteristics, and they did temporarily obtain powers in the episode "Power Lunch". They also delight in tormenting those weaker than themselves, especially children and the elderly, giving them more of a role of bullies rather than evil villains.
Ace D. Copular (voiced by Jeff Bennett in the series and Jimmy Hibbert in the British dub): The Gang's leader, Ace Copular is a mean-spirited, opportunistic rogue. He sports a slick-back hairdo, a colored vest-jacket, a peach-fuzz mustache, a pair of shades, and also has fangs. As the Gang's smartest member, he is the instigator of most of their antisocial activities, and he does possess a certain charismatic charm that allows him to sweet-talk people who ought to know better, such as Ms. Keane in episode "School House Rocked" and even Buttercup in episode "Buttercrush". He speaks in a nasally Italian/New Yorker accent. In 2018, Ace temporarily became the replacement bassist of the virtual band Gorillaz while Murdoc Niccals was in prison. [4]
(voiced by Jeff Bennett in the series and Jimmy Hibbert in the British dub): The Gang's leader, Ace Copular is a mean-spirited, opportunistic rogue. He sports a slick-back hairdo, a colored vest-jacket, a peach-fuzz mustache, a pair of shades, and also has fangs. As the Gang's smartest member, he is the instigator of most of their antisocial activities, and he does possess a certain charismatic charm that allows him to sweet-talk people who ought to know better, such as Ms. Keane in episode "School House Rocked" and even Buttercup in episode "Buttercrush". He speaks in a nasally Italian/New Yorker accent. In 2018, Ace temporarily became the replacement bassist of the virtual band Gorillaz while Murdoc Niccals was in prison. Snake (voiced by Tom Kenny in the series and Rob Rackstraw in the British dub): A slippery character with a forked tongue, skinny body, and a hissing voice, Snake is the Gang's second-in-command, but this mostly makes him a yes-man to Ace. He does have a personality of his own, but it is usually silenced due to Ace punching him when he speaks out of line (or asks a foolish question). This could imply that Snake is more loyal to his friend Ace than he is independently evil. It is revealed in episode "School House Rocked" that his real name is Sanford D. Ingleberry.
(voiced by Tom Kenny in the series and Rob Rackstraw in the British dub): A slippery character with a forked tongue, skinny body, and a hissing voice, Snake is the Gang's second-in-command, but this mostly makes him a yes-man to Ace. He does have a personality of his own, but it is usually silenced due to Ace punching him when he speaks out of line (or asks a foolish question). This could imply that Snake is more loyal to his friend Ace than he is independently evil. It is revealed in episode "School House Rocked" that his real name is. Lil' Arturo (voiced by Tom Kenny and by Carlos Alazraqui in his first appearance and David Holt in the British dub): A malevolent Mexican midget boy, Lil' Arturo seems to take the most amusement from the Gang's activities. In episode "School House Rocked" he carries around a switchblade-styled comb he calls "Maria", a treasured gift from his incarcerated father. He has a rather prominent underbite. His full name is Arturo de la Guerra, which is Spanish for "Arthur from the War". His small size allows him to sneak through cramped spaces and passages that the rest of the gang cannot reach.
(voiced by Tom Kenny and by Carlos Alazraqui in his first appearance and David Holt in the British dub): A malevolent Mexican midget boy, Lil' Arturo seems to take the most amusement from the Gang's activities. In episode "School House Rocked" he carries around a switchblade-styled comb he calls "Maria", a treasured gift from his incarcerated father. He has a rather prominent underbite. His full name is, which is Spanish for "Arthur from the War". His small size allows him to sneak through cramped spaces and passages that the rest of the gang cannot reach. Grubber (voiced by Jeff Bennett): The Gang's most physically grotesque member, Grubber is a barefoot hunchback with untidy hair, grubby clothes, and protruding eyes, resembling the combination of an Ed Roth cartoon, a zombie, a drunk, and Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He also appears to be mostly mute, communicating instead through blowing a raspberry. He does, however, occasionally demonstrate unexpected talents, such as playing the violin, speaking eloquently or performing impersonations. When attending the girls' school for a short time, Grubber showed that he was able to horribly contort his body, making him briefly resemble a well-spoken and handsome-looking young man before snapping back to his normal self. His full name is Grubber J. Gribberish.
(voiced by Jeff Bennett): The Gang's most physically grotesque member, Grubber is a barefoot hunchback with untidy hair, grubby clothes, and protruding eyes, resembling the combination of an Ed Roth cartoon, a zombie, a drunk, and Quasimodo from. He also appears to be mostly mute, communicating instead through blowing a raspberry. He does, however, occasionally demonstrate unexpected talents, such as playing the violin, speaking eloquently or performing impersonations. When attending the girls' school for a short time, Grubber showed that he was able to horribly contort his body, making him briefly resemble a well-spoken and handsome-looking young man before snapping back to his normal self. His full name is. Big Billy (voiced by Jeff Bennett): A hulking colossus who acts as the Gang's muscle. Though he does at times display a childlike innocence, he mostly just does the bidding of his more savvy and vindictive friends. In episode "School House Rocked", it is revealed that his real name is William W. Williams and that he is a Cyclops, with his single eye always hidden beneath his shaggy red hair. Although he rarely fares any better in combat against the girls than the rest of the gang, he has the muscular power to stop a speeding train from running down citizens from the track and tackle 10-story monsters to the ground with his bare hands. He is shown to speak in two different ways: like a normal person, and like a caveman. He is also shown as not very bright. He is fiercely loyal to anyone he considers to be a friend, and briefly tried to help the Powerpuff Girls after they saved him from a train. However, his clumsiness and lack of intelligence made him more destructive as a hero than he was as a villain.
The Amoeba Boys [ edit ]
The Amoeba Boys (voiced by Chuck McCann in the series and the What a Cartoon! episodes and by Lou Romano in Whoopass Stew) are a trio of amoebae who are the villains featured in McCracken's original short, Whoopass Stew in A Sticky Situation. They reappear in the What a Cartoon! short Crime 101. With their gangster affectations, these aspiring criminals would love nothing more than to be regarded as serious villains worthy of fighting, and even getting beaten up and sent to jail by the Powerpuff Girls. Unfortunately, their brains are too primitive to devise a crime above the level of littering or jaywalking. Indeed, they considered stealing an orange to be their greatest crime ever in the episode "Divide and Conquer". They are Townsville's least malicious villains, even having a friendship-of-sorts with the girls. They are generally harmless, but their actions have on occasion endangered both the girls and the town purely by accident. The greatest threat they have posed to Townsville and the girls was in episode "Geshundfight", when they each caught a cold that, when merged with their DNA, created a severe virus that quickly spread through the city, making even the healthiest person fall ill instantaneously.
Bossman (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert in the British dub): The leader and general spokesman of the Amoeba Boys. He wears a gray fedora.
(voiced by Jimmy Hibbert in the British dub): The leader and general spokesman of the Amoeba Boys. He wears a gray fedora. Junior (voiced by David Holt in the British dub): The smallest one of the Amoeba Boys. He wears a black cap and usually repeats whatever Bossman says. In the episode Crime 101, he is named Tiny.
(voiced by David Holt in the British dub): The smallest one of the Amoeba Boys. He wears a black cap and usually repeats whatever Bossman says. In the episode, he is named. Slim (voiced by Rob Rackstraw in the British dub): The tallest one of the Amoeba Boys. He wears a brown fedora and is even more incompetent and slow than the other amoebas. In the episode Crime 101, he is called Skinny Slim.
Sedusa [ edit ]
Sedusa (voiced by Jennifer Hale in the series and Kate Harbour in the British dub) is a young, beautiful Gorgon-like mistress of disguise and seductress who uses her feminine wiles to influence men to do her bidding. When her identity is revealed, she typically doffs down to her leotard battle suit and fights with her whip-like prehensile hair (which she can control). In her introduction episode "Mommy Fearest", she poses as an ordinary woman named "Ima Goodlady" in order to allure Professor Utonium into dating her, thus being able to ground the girls so they couldn’t stop her from committing crimes. She becomes powerless when her hair becomes wet (or cut off). Her eyes also change color depending on her mood. When she is acting benevolent her eye color is green, but when she is angry, revealing her true villainous nature, her eyes turn red. Her name is a combination of the word "seduce" and Medusa from Greek mythology.
The Rowdyruff Boys [ edit ]
The Rowdyruff Boys are the male counterparts of the Powerpuff Girls created by Mojo Jojo using a mixture of "snips, snails, and a puppy dog tail" in the Townsville Prison in the episode called "The Rowdyruff Boys". His replacement for chemical X was in fact prison toilet water as Mojo Jojo believed that would have the same potency as Chemical X. The Rowdyruff Boys are essentially violent bullies who have the same powers as the Powerpuff Girls, with their own techniques as well. They were ultimately destroyed when the girls kissed them. After being resurrected by Him in the episode "The Boys Are Back in Town", the Boys' hairstyles become noticeably spikier. The Boys wear long-sleeved shirts with a black stripe in each, black trousers and black, low-top sneakers with white laces and white soles.
Brick (voiced by Rob Paulsen in the series and Rob Rackstraw in the British dub): Blossom's equivalent, he is the short-tempered self-proclaimed leader of the Rowdyruff Boys. His personality is "puppy dog tail". He has an abrasive and rash attitude, which often causes conflict with his brothers. He wears a backwards red baseball cap compared to Blossom's bow. He also originally had bangs, which were replaced with long spiky hair down his back when he was revived.
(voiced by Rob Paulsen in the series and Rob Rackstraw in the British dub): Blossom's equivalent, he is the short-tempered self-proclaimed leader of the Rowdyruff Boys. His personality is "puppy dog tail". He has an abrasive and rash attitude, which often causes conflict with his brothers. He wears a backwards red baseball cap compared to Blossom's bow. He also originally had bangs, which were replaced with long spiky hair down his back when he was revived. Boomer (also voiced by Paulsen in the series and Rackstraw in the British dub): Bubbles' equivalent, he is a loud-mouthed dimwit, as opposed to Bubbles' naive sweetness and has been known to like disgusting things. His personality is "snips" (armpit hair). After his resurrection, Boomer is implied to be the least intelligent of the boys and he is often the victim of Brick's orders or punishments. Boomer's hair parts in a curved fashion like Bubbles', but is longer and spiky on each end, in a wings haircut.
(also voiced by Paulsen in the series and Rackstraw in the British dub): Bubbles' equivalent, he is a loud-mouthed dimwit, as opposed to Bubbles' naive sweetness and has been known to like disgusting things. His personality is "snips" (armpit hair). After his resurrection, Boomer is implied to be the least intelligent of the boys and he is often the victim of Brick's orders or punishments. Boomer's hair parts in a curved fashion like Bubbles', but is longer and spiky on each end, in a wings haircut. Butch (voiced by Roger L. Jackson in the series and Jimmy Hibbert in the British dub): Buttercup's equivalent, his personality is "snails". After his resurrection, Butch becomes more hyperactive and overly excited. Butch's hair is spiked upwards, abandoning his previous cowlick from his first appearance. He also shares Buttercup's small triangular hair parting.
Notes [ edit ]Melbourne, Florida (CNN) Donald Trump declared himself the unquestionable winner of his first debate against Hillary Clinton during a rally Tuesday night, then relived the entire debate before a Florida crowd of supporters, this time with the help of a teleprompter -- and without Clinton baiting him.
The Republican presidential nominee ticked down a list of issues he failed to sufficiently hammer Clinton on during their 90-minute bout -- from her foreign policy failures to her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. He also insisted on defending two factually incorrect statements he made the previous night.
Trump touted unscientific, online post-debate polls as "things of beauty."
He also again claimed to be "holding back" during the faceoff because he "didn't want to do anything to embarrass" Clinton. That comment came after blaming debate moderator Lester Holt of NBC News for being tough on him earlier in the day,
"For 90 minutes I watched her very carefully and I was also holding back. I didn't want to do anything that embarrassed her," Trump said Tuesday. "For 90 minutes, she argued against change, while I called for dramatic change. We have to have dramatic change."
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Researching the candidates to endorse for political office, and which state propositions and local measures to support, was like studying for back-to-back-to-back SAT tests. You could say it was a welcome distraction from the tabloid-and-reality-TV-smeared presidential race—though that’s where we’ll start:
President of the United States: Hillary Clinton
Four more years of an Obama presidency? Yes, please, and make it a double. Let’s skip the jokes about avoiding having a U.S. president who’s the color of a circus peanut and seems lost or stuck in a world of teenage locker room banter and prep school putdowns of nonwhite males. Besides being the adult in the race with national and international political experience, Clinton represents a chance to move forward in a country that has made small but distinct strides forward on social issues like LGBTQ equality, and stand poised to get across the bridge on immigration, healthcare, gun control and other important topics. She’ll keep abortion legal, will work to bring diverse communities together and considers climate change a legitimate threat that needs to be recognized and dealt with. Undecideds: If you need one visual to force a decision, picture Trump getting ready to meet your sister while he pops Tic Tacs into his O-shaped mouth.
Unites States Senator: Kamala Harris
Would that all Senate races were like the one for the open seat vacated by Barbara Boxer—between two liberal Democrats. Though cautious in public, State Attorney General Harris articulates her ideas better than Orange County congresswoman Loretta Sanchez. Extra points go to Harris for not “dabbing”—as Sanchez did—at the end of their only senatorial debate.
U.S. House of Representatives: Doug Applegate (49th District); Patrick Mallory (50th District); Juan Vargas (51st District); Scott Peters (52nd District); Susan Davis (53rd District)
Col. Applegate is a hard-nosed Democrat who has the first legitimate chance in a decade and a half to boot incumbent Republican Party lapdog Darrell Issa—the wealthiest member of Congress—from office; Mallory would be a welcome relief from vape-smoking and Trump-backing Duncan Hunter; Vargas, Peters and Davis are stalwart Democrats and deserve to be re-elected, despite the backing by Vargas and Peters of San Diego’s Measure C (the hotel tax grab to build a new stadium playpen for Dean Spanos and the Changers).
State Senate, 39th District: Toni Atkins
We’ve been fans of Atkins since her days on the San Diego City Council (2000-2008) and up to her recent time spent as Speaker of the state Assembly. It was a tumultuous path around Marty Block on the way from state assembly to state senate, but Atkins’ career record of standing tall and fighting for social justice issues such as homelessness and LGBTQ equality is spotless.
State Assembly: Todd Gloria (78th District); Shirley Weber (79th District); Lorena Gonzalez (80th District)
Weber and Gonzalez (who asks that you not confuse her with Loretta Sanchez) are incumbents who should slide to reelection wins. Former “iMayor” Gloria is termed out of his San Diego City Council spot and should be a lock to take over the 78th District seat.
San Diego County Supervisor: Dave Roberts (District 3)
Roberts has kept a low profile since beating Encinitas Mayor Kristin Gaspar in the June primary (but not by a wide enough margin to avoid a runoff ). The incumbent Democrat will need every vote he can get to top 50 percent of the vote against his Republican challenger.
San Diego City Attorney: Mara Elliott
Elliott was the surprise top vote getter in a primary chock full of fellow Democrats. The city’s chief deputy city attorney made a good move recently by calling on the San Diego Police Department to analyze all previously untested rape kits they’ve collected from past cases. General election opponent Robert Hickey was the lone Republican who started off in this race and is not likely to build on his primary vote count.
San Diego City Council: Barbara Bry (District 1); Georgette Gomez (District 9)
Business maven Bry nearly got enough votes to avoid a runoff election. Challenger Ray Ellis dropped out after a strong showing by her in the primary—nonetheless, remember to fill in Bry’s bubble.
In District 9, Georgette Gomez, who came in second in June, has stronger street cred and would seemingly represent working people on the city council over runoff opponent Ricardo Flores, the top vote getter in the primary and the hand-picked successor who seems cozier with the status quo.
STATE PROPOSITIONS
PROP 51 (Funding for K-12 school and community college facilities): NO
California’s K-12 schools and community colleges are in dire need of infrastructure improvements, but we don’t think this proposition adequately addresses the financial problem. The money would be delegated to schools on a first-come-first-served basis and likely favor wealthy districts with more staff. Plus, this proposition was written and sponsored by stakeholder construction companies prioritizing their own interests, and it could increase state debt.
PROP 52 (Federal Medi-Cal matching funds): YES
Since 2009, the state has taxed private hospitals everyday through the Hospital Quality Assurance Fee. This increases Medi-Cal payments, which sounds counterproductive, but it allows public and private hospitals to receive more federal funding. Even with the fee, public hospitals are still losing money. Making this fee permanent allows the system to continue and expand its care for the 13 million low-income Californians who rely on Medi-Cal for primary care and emergency room visits.
PROP 53 (Statewide voter approval on revenue bonds): NO
Although it sounds like a legitimate way to slow state spending, this prop is a no-go because all Californians would vote on local projects (like new toll roads or bridges) they probably know next to nothing about. This would be the large-scale version of San Diego County voting down the Barrio Logan Community Plan. Even though the California “WaterFix” project and the bullet train might be affected, few projects meet the $2 billion threshold.
PROP 54 (Online posting of legislation and proceedings): YES
This is a no-brainer. Prop 54 would put to rest the classic gut-and-amend move, where laws are discussed in meetings but then completely reworked to benefit special interests just before being put to a vote. Once rewritten, they often have nothing to do with the original version. Unless you want to encourage governmental corruption, let’s require that laws be posted online 72 hours before a vote for the legislators, public and press to review.
PROP 55 (Tax extension to fund education and healthcare): YES
This prop increases the income tax on the highest-paid individuals and couples, roughly the top 1.5 percent of taxpayers, and directs the money to K-12 schools, community colleges and health-care programs. It already exists thanks to Prop 30, but that expires in 2018. Prop 55 is good for an extension until 2030.
PROP 56 (Cigarette tax): YES
Unless you like yellow teeth, bad breath and black lungs, this is an easy choice. Maybe knowing that tobacco kills about 480,000 Americans every year is enough to convince you to up the tax on cigarettes. E-cigs, cigars and chewing tobacco aren’t exempt, either. Hiking tobacco taxes is a proven way to deter smoking habits, so guess which industry is against it.
PROP 57 (Criminal sentencing and parole proceedings) YES
Although opponents tout this as an “early release” for many criminals, that’s not the case. The prop would put prisoners before a parole board sooner, but that doesn’t mean anything unless they’ve earned it. It also gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reduce sentences by succeeding in rehabilitation programs. Non-violent crimes are not always peaceful; but these people are going to be released one day regardless, and the goal is for them to leave prison a better person than when they entered. The proposition also lets judges (not prosecutors) decide whether juveniles should be tried as adults.
PROP 58 (Multilingual education): YES
Under Prop 227, which was passed in 1998 and is still in effect today, non-native English speaking students must go through an unnecessarily difficult process to enroll in bilingual classes. This means 22 percent of California public school students are told to sink or swim in English-only classes. With growing globalization, it only makes sense to facilitate this process and encourage multilingual programs.
PROP 59 (Overturn Citizens United act advisory): YES
This is a statewide poll assessing California’s stance on Citizens United. The prop doesn’t actually do anything, except indicate whether voters want to overturn the Citizens United decision in the future. But since we don’t support corporations funneling money into campaigns, we stand by the California Democratic Party in voicing opposition to Citizens United in the hope that something is done in the future.
PROP 60 (Condoms in porn): NO
We’re all for safe sex. But this proposition is a front by “activist” Michael Weinstein, who’s trying to drive the pornography business out of California. The porn industry is against Prop 60 because performers already undergo frequent testing—otherwise nobody would hire them. If passed, any Californian could cry wolf if they didn’t see condoms used in an adult video (even though the law wouldn’t require the condoms to be visible). As a result, performers and producers would be called into court where their privacy would be compromised.
PROP 61 (State prescription drug prices): NO
First, matching the Veterans Administration’s lowest-paid prescriptions requires knowing what those prices are, which are sometimes confidential and could be inaccessible. The measure doesn’t require drug manufacturers to comply either, enabling them to refuse to sell certain drugs to the state. And to salvage profits, they could increase VA prescription prices, anyway. Plus, these price cuts only apply to 25 percent of Medi-Cal patients.
PROP 62 (Repealing the death penalty): YES
Capital punishment is broken beyond repair; the state has failed to execute anyone in 10 years. Taxpayers shouldn’t waste tens of millions on this system with the hope that it deters criminals. Keeping them locked up for the rest of their lives is equally effective in keeping them off the streets, but at a fraction of the cost.
PROP 63 (Restrictions on firearm and ammunition possession): YES
This is common sense. Everybody should undergo a background check before buying ammunition, and those purchases should be tracked by the Department of Justice. Nobody should be sold large-capacity ammunition magazines.
And anyone who steals a gun shouldn’t be allowed to have one. While this could be costly, it’s money well spent.
PROP 64 (Legalization of recreational marijuana): YES
State-governed regulation of marijuana will increase safety by decreasing business in the streets. Plus, the state will make more than one billion dollars annually and save tens of millions on criminal justice costs. It’s about time California lit up (if you’re 21 and over).
PROP 65 (Directing bag proceeds to environmental fund): NO
This is a misleading prop put on the ballot by the plastics industry. The environmental fund is a vague proposal that would create a bureaucracy to regulate a small amount of money. Plus, grocers need the 10-cent cost tacked onto paper bag purchases so they can afford to supply the bags.
PROP 66 (Reforming the death penalty): NO
While we would be willing to make valid repairs to the death penalty, this is an expensive, empty promise. Speeding up a complex system should render hesitation, and the proposed timeline is unrealistic. Also, there’s no clear path to obtaining lethal injection drugs right now. These changes aren’t worth the chances of executing an innocent person.
PROP 67 (Plastic bag ban): YES
The City of San Diego, and other cities around the state, have already implemented single-use plastic bag bans on their own, so the measure will have relatively no impact on us. But, eliminating plastic bags in the state will impact California’s environment as a whole. Just don’t listen to the plastics industry, which is trying to tell you otherwise.
COUNTYWIDE PROPOSITIONS
MEASURE A (SANDAG transportation tax): NO
This is a proposal to raise the sales tax by half a cent over the next 40 years and direct that money ($18.2 billion) to transportation and infrastructure (public transit, highway improvements, open-space preservation, pedestrian and biking projects). It’s nearly a good plan—supported by moderates but opposed by leftleaning progressives, including a Quality of Life Coalition of environmentalists and labor groups who believe Measure A doesn’t do enough to sustain the region over the long haul or provide enough guarantees for project laborers. A two-thirds vote is required for passage.
MEASURE B (Lilac Hills development): NO
Developer Accretive Investments has been trying for 10 years to get the permitting required to build a 1,700-home development in Valley Center in a location zoned for 110 houses. The plan was questioned by the county, which had sought to get Accretive Developments to help build a new school and fire station, and improve roads. None of that is tied to Measure B, and its passage would set a bad precedent for developers who want to get around traditional zoning disputes.
CITYWIDE PROPOSITIONS
MEASURE C (Chargers Stadium): NO
The wealthy Spanos family, owners of the San Diego Chargers (valued at over $2 billion), wants the city of San Diego to raise its hotel room tax from 12.5 percent to 16.5 percent to collect more than a billion dollars that would go toward construction of an East Village stadium structure that would include annexed convention center space. Do we know exactly what this stadium would look like or how the financing responsibility would shake out? We do not. It’s time to put an end to corporate welfare for NFL owners, especially one with a long track record of lies and broken promises. Requires a twothirds vote for passage.
MEASURE D (The Citizen’s Plan): NO
This seemingly well-intentioned but somewhat convoluted plan would raise the city’s hotel tax and clear the way for the possibility of a downtown or Mission Valley stadium, while placing roadblocks in the way of a contiguous convention center expansion. The measure aims to allow the city to sell Qualcomm Stadium land to local universities and create parkland in Mission Valley. There are solid ideas here, but a waterfront convention center expansion is a good business move. A two-thirds vote is required for passage, but that threshold may be argued in court.
MEASURE E (Removing city officials): YES
You could call this the Bob Filner Measure. Passage would cause the mayor, city attorney and city councilmembers to lose their posts if convicted of a felony or found liable for fraud. Measure E also includes a new process to remove city officials convicted of misdemeanors; and it requires a city attorney candidate have practiced law in California for 10 years.
MEASURE F (Deputy city attorney probationary term): YES
Not the most pressing issue on this huge ballot. Nonetheless, it makes sense and could eliminate politically based firings by reducing the probationary period for deputy city attorneys from two years to one.
MEASURE G (Citizens’ Review Board on Police Practices): YES
Changes are necessary on police oversight and passage of Measure G should be followed up with even more policy tweaks that add more teeth. As written, this measure changes the group’s name to the Community Review Board on Police Practices and gives the panel the authority to investigate officer-involved shootings, as well as grant the city council oversight of the board, rather than just the mayor having that authority.
MEASURE H (Purchasing and contracting process): NO
Little has been made of this measure, backed by city staff. It calls for public contracts to be awarded according to rules adopted by the city council. However, it eliminates the requirement for the city to advertise some contracts in a local newspaper, at about a $50,000 per year savings. No to less disclosure.
MEASURE I (San Diego High’s Balboa Park lease): YES
Schools aren’t supposed to be built on parkland, but San Diego High School sits within the boundary of Balboa Park. The school’s 50- year lease expires in 2024. A yes vote extends the lease and allows the high school to remain in place. Some park conservationists oppose extending the lease, but a majority of the city council and San Diego Unified School District administrators realize there’s nowhere else in the downtown area where a school could be relocated.
MEASURE J (Mission Bay Park and parks funding): NO
Balboa Park and other regional parks do need monetary support, but Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s plan to pull even more funds from Mission Bay Park commercial leases and spread the money around seems to require more scrutiny.
MEASURE K (General election runoffs): YES
As San Diego election law now stands, any candidate who gets more than 50 percent of the vote in a June primary election wins outright and doesn’t continue on to a November general election. That doesn’t align with state and federal elections, where the top two candidates must compete in a runoff no matter what the vote count. Proponents of Measure K want to get local elections in alignment with state and federal races, and point to the fact that more people vote in November elections than in June elections— and the more citizens that compete in the process the better it is for a democracy.
MEASURE L (Initiatives |
spell of agoraphobia in "Strong Arms of the Ma". Bart hints in one episode that the basement has a problem with radon gas, then lets a homeless man sleep there in "The Day the Violence Died". It is revealed in the episode "Father Knows Worst" that there is a sauna behind the water heater that was covered up by paint and dust, but which Marge accidentally found. So far, only Marge and Homer have been shown to know its location.
The house has two similar red sofas: the one in the sitting room is not seen in as many scenes as the well-known one in front of the TV in the living room, The same TV is also sometimes shown in the front sitting room. The current living room sofa is a replacement of the old one, which was destroyed in season 3. A simple painting of a boat hangs on the wall above this couch. Marge says she painted it for Homer in "The Trouble with Trillions", though in the episode "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", she reads a plaque saying that the painting was based on a scene from Moby Dick. Also, in the Season 27 episode "Barthood", there is a scene in the beginning where young Lisa is seen drawing the sail boat painting. In the episode "Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass", Homer destroys the painting over the couch and Marge retrieves a replica out of a closet. The painting is again destroyed by Lisa's guinea pig in "The War of Art" but it gets replaced with a replica made by a famous art forger. Behind the painting there is a combination safe. A tank full of fish is sometimes seen in the sitting room.
In the "Treehouse of Horror IV" episode, the famous Dogs Playing Poker painting appears above the sofa. In "Treehouse of Horror VI", there is a portal behind the bookcase in the sitting room that leads to the third dimension, a reference to The Twilight Zone episode "Little Girl Lost".[citation needed] However, Treehouse of Horror episodes are not canonical.
Condition [ edit ]
The house is often shown as dilapidated. For example, the walls are painted with lead paint, the roof leaks, and in "All's Fair in Oven War", the kitchen is so badly damaged that it needs to be rebuilt. One running gag shows the interior of the walls and floors filled with dangerous or unusual items when the camera pans between floors or rooms. Some of these unusual items include: asbestos, toxic waste, hidden treasure, recording devices, baby dinosaurs, and dancing mice. Even the family cat, Snowball II, is seen between the walls from time to time. However, the lived-in spaces are usually kept neat by Marge. In one episode Moe Szyslak observes that it contains no silverfish.
Many episodes in which Springfield is hit by extreme heatwaves indicate that there is no conditioning. In a flashback episode, Homer steals Ned Flanders' air conditioner and puts it in the window. The house is shown to have a gas furnace, as well as gas for the stove, water heater, and dryer. In one episode, Homer reroutes the gas line to turn a totem pole into a fire-breathing "God", filling the whole house with gas in the process.
In The Simpsons Movie, the house and all of the family's possessions are completely destroyed by a sinkhole under Maggie's sandbox, which expands after the Simpsons escape through it and the police fire their service weapons into it. At the end of the film, the townsfolk and the family themselves rebuild the house in exactly the same manner as it was before, restoring the "status quo". The opening sequence and the couch gag of "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs" shows the house still under construction, along with the whole town rebuilding after the events of the movie.
Address and phone number [ edit ]
The house's address was inconsistent in earlier seasons, with various house numbers on Evergreen Terrace including 1094, 1092, 59, 94, 430, 723, and 1024, as well as one address on a different street (430 Spalding Way).[6] In "Homer's Triple Bypass", "742 Evergreen Terrace" was assigned to a completely different house, where Snake hides from the police and Rev. Lovejoy lives next door.
The phone number is inconsistent between episodes, though always starting with 555. According to "A Tale of Two Springfields", the area code was 636 before the events of that episode and 939 thereafter.
Real-life version [ edit ]
A replica of the house at 742 Evergreen Terrace, known as "The Simpsons House", was constructed in 1997 by California-based Kaufman and Broad homebuilders at 712 Red Bark Lane in Henderson, Nevada.[3][7] The house was designed to closely mimic the design of the house in the series.[3]
The $120,000 house was constructed for use as the grand prize in a contest known as "The Simpsons House Give Away",[8] sponsored by Pepsi, Fox, and the homebuilder.[7] The contest was announced on July 10, 1997.[8] The rules of the contest stipulated that the winner either accept the house or a $75,000 cash payment. In addition, the winner of the house, if they chose to occupy it, was contractually obligated to repaint the exterior in accordance with local homeowner's association rules.[9] Contest entries were included on various Pepsi products and 15 million were submitted nationally.[3] The winner was Barbara Howard from Richmond, Kentucky.[10] Howard chose not to accept the house, instead taking a cash payment per the contest rules.[10] In 2001, after most of the details relating to the television series were removed, the house was sold by the builder to another owner.[3]
The house, located in a subdivision that was permanently named "Springfield South Valley Ranch",[3] took 49 days to build and was unveiled to the public on August 1, 1997.[9][11] Construction on the house was nearly complete by July 1997,[12] and by September 1997 thousands of people were lining up to see the finished product.[13] During the time it was open to the public in August and September 1997, more than 30,000 people visited the house,[3] including The Simpsons creator Matt Groening.[14]
Design [ edit ]
The Simpsons House was designed by Kaufman and Broad homebuilders. The primary designer was Mike Woodley, senior vice president of architecture at KB Home.[4] Manny Gonzalez was the project's supervising architect.[9] The project was first conceived when designers were working on 3D visualizations at Fox Interactive for the video game Virtual Springfield.[11]
In preparation for the project the design team viewed episodes of The Simpsons to use as a guide for the home's design.[9] Dozens of episodes were viewed so that the design was drawn directly from the animation.[4] Early on it became clear that the cartoon house was not structurally sound; in the show the home has no load bearing walls.[12] The finished replica, however, met all building codes.[12] The architects focused their efforts on Bart's bedroom and the television room, making sure those rooms were as close to the reality of the series as possible. One of the challenges architects faced was the constantly changing nature of the onscreen house. For instance, the bay window has changed shape through the years.[9]
When it was constructed the four-bedroom, two-story house was painted bright yellow and baby blue on its exterior, to resemble the exterior of 742 Evergreen Terrace.[3] The house included exterior details from The Simpsons such as Bart's treehouse, a swing set, and a back yard barbecue.[3] The 2,200-square-foot (200 m2) house also has two bathrooms, and two front bay windows, again mimicking the cartoon house.[10] The supervising architect characterized the house as "90 percent normal".[10] For example, the first floor was concrete and the upstairs floor was sanded-down plywood that had been painted.[10] The lot size necessitated the house be just 40 feet (12 m) wide, compared to the cartoon house, which is at least 50 feet (15 m) wide.[4]
Before it was altered, the interior rooms were designed to mirror those in the series. The television room included Homer's favorite spot: the large sofa. The living room had brightly painted walls, matching those in the series, and a two-tone orange fireplace. The kitchen kept up the motif, featuring a checkered linoleum floor.[3] The house included 1,500 Simpsons-themed props, such as Duff Beer cans and the corn cob curtains in the kitchen.[9] Some of the paint colors used on the interior included "Power Orange", "Generator Green", and "Pink Flamingo".[9]When the 4K Blu-Ray EndoArm Limited Collector’s Edition was announced yesterday for Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D (reported HERE), it generated a lot of excitement among fans. However, it generated a great deal of confusion too, when a 3D disc and 3D logo was notably absent from the United States version. This made a lot of fans upset, and here’s why:
Since the beginning, when the theatrical re-release of T2 was announced back in December 2015, the 3D conversion aspect has always been in the forefront of the film’s identity.
With the addition of “3D” to the title of the classic film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D received its own identity, and a way to differentiate this new version of the film from the old.
So you can imagine some fans’ dismay when they learned the U.S. home video release will not be featuring a 3D logo, nor a 3D disc.
The whole original selling point of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D” first and foremost was its conversion into 3D. It wasn’t the picture or sound remastering, and the title wasn’t changed to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Remastered”. The 3D was the draw.
The 3D added to the title also gave this version clear differentiation, which it needed, because this new version of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” will not only reflect a 3D post conversion and audio/video remastering, but will also reflect alterations to the film… some we have identified just by watching the film’s trailer.
Falling windshields digitally fixed, stuntman’s faces digitally replaced with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face, there has been a lot of changes found in just the film’s trailer alone. Who knows how many digital alterations exist in the entire film? Like the “Special Editions” of the original Star Wars trilogy, having “3D” in the title allows fans to differentiate the old version from the new in conversation, something that is needed with so many changes.
There are a lot of 3D Home Video enthusiasts out there. However, we do realize popularity with 3D televisions has diminished in the United States lately, so much so that there is no longer a market for those televisions. But there is still a future in 3D.
Manufacturers are currently perfecting 3D televisions that do not require 3D glasses, and there are still a great deal of 3D TVs in American homes already. It may be too late, but let’s hope Lionsgate makes “Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D” available in 3D in the U.S… especially in the EndoArm collector’s set… as well as preserving that 3D title (even if all the discs inside aren’t 3D versions.)
We’ll be back.
AdvertisementsFollowing through on the deep constitutional concerns stated in its prior Northwest Austin decision, a majority of the Court seems committed to invalidating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and requiring Congress to revisit the formula for requiring preclearance of voting changes. The vote seems quite likely to be five to four. The more liberal members pressed both the narrow argument that an Alabama county was not a proper plaintiff because it inevitably would be covered and the broader argument that there was a sufficient record to justify the current formula. But the more conservative majority was plainly not persuaded by either point. It is unlikely that the Court will write an opinion forbidding a preclearance regime. But it may be difficult politically for Congress to enact a new measure. More analysis soon.
Recommended Citation: Tom Goldstein, From the Shelby County argument, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 27, 2013, 10:55 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2013/02/from-the-shelby-county-argument/In the crazy world of LA’s restaurant scene, with high stakes investments and celebrity-backed ventures from out-of-town chefs, it’s always hard for the smaller player, the single chef-owner opening a place for the first time. This was the story of Shawn Pham, who decided to quietly close his first-ever solo project Simbal over the weekend after a two year run.
Almost immediately there was an outpouring on social media for the quick, unceremonious restaurant loss. I pondered long about why this kind of place closes after so much fanfare and love. I’ve been thinking about the reasons why it might’ve shuttered after just two short years of operation, from both my conversations with Pham himself to observations I’ve made after visiting the restaurant a few times. Here’s what I’ve come with, and you’re more than welcome to agree or disagree with me in the comments.
1. The location was challenging
Little Tokyo is supposed to be a pretty solid place to open a restaurant. Except that other than Lazy Ox Canteen and Spice Table (along with perhaps Toranoko), there haven’t been too many serious restaurants in the area that aren’t specifically casual or Japanese. All three of those restaurants are now closed, and places like Baldoria aren’t necessarily doing that well either. What’s the problem? Well, the area tends to support casual eateries just fine (and some pricier sushi spots), but most of the dining dollars end up in either Historic Core or Arts District. Little Tokyo has been left in the dust after early action in the late aughts.
It also didn’t help that Simbal was tucked away in an office building/parking garage/shopping plaza about 40 yards from the sidewalk, making it hard to spot from the street. The interior itself was pretty amazing, with a futuristic look that took advantage of the funky space. I’m hoping Pham got a plum deal from the landlord because very few concepts would really work in an address like this. To feel buzzy and filled, the place needed at least 75-80 people at any given moment, which I never really saw it achieve.
2. The food wasn’t amazing at the beginning but it eventually became some of the best in LA
The restaurant world, especially from a media perspective, requires constant change and adaptation. Simbal started out with this idea of a small plates free-for-all with a heavy Southeast Asian accent. The ideas were fun and well-executed, but the flavors weren’t necessarily deep. They weren’t craveworthy. And the pricing wasn’t that friendly, though by the end, costs were pretty digestible for most diners, with an easy-to-assemble coursed menu. But in the competitive restaurant game that is Los Angeles in 2017, you need to hit it out of the ballpark from the get go.
3. Simbal wasn’t built to be a neighborhood restaurant, but it wasn’t buzzy enough to be a destination either
The name of the game right now is to be a highly consistent neighborhood restaurant, or receive the adoration of food-obsessed diners from across the city. The best example of the first is Alimento or Pine & Crane on the Eastside, an eatery like Love & Salt or M.B. Post in the South Bay, or a spot like Tar & Roses on the Westside.
The best kind of destination restaurants in LA are obvious: Republique, Gjelina, Bestia, Spago, and A.O.C. It’s hard to figure out which part of that spectrum you’re going to be on, but Simbal seemed destined to be in the latter category. To get there, the food has to dazzle. Sure, early P.R. effort can help the cause, but in this case, the marketing effort just didn’t hit. Simbal wasn’t known for its signature dishes (the deconstructed banh mi salad or the oxtail congee) until later. Those killer dishes are the things that get the dining public talking, and drawn into a concept place like Simbal.
4. L.A. diners aren’t ready to spend money on fusion-y Asian cuisine
Sang Yoon’s Lukshon could be considered a relative success, Cassia has been a massive hit, and Kris Yenbamroong’s Night + Market has done extremely well. But places like POT, Sambar (to a lesser extent) and Pok Pok have all either closed or admitted to struggling along the way, showing that the bulk of LA’s diners aren’t willing to spend as much money on Asian cuisine, especially when compared to either French, Italian, or “New American” counterparts.
It’s not that it’s impossible to be successful serving new-fangled Asian cuisine, but unless it’s a completely traditional place (like Soban or Jun Won) or upscale Japanese (which Angelenos seem to have no problem shelling money out for), diners are loath to spend. It’s something David Chang even pointed out when he opened Momofuku Nishi in New York, where diners are happy to spend $25 on cacio e pepe at an Italian restaurant, but balk at spending an equal amount on Asian noodles.
I can imagine Simbal in its late form would’ve made waves in New York City. The place even looked like Wildair (actually, I think Wildair looked like Simbal), and the food itself was as dynamic and compelling as places like Olmsted, Estela, or heck even Momofuku Ssam Bar.
5. Parking was tough
When it comes to having a successful restaurant in L.A., you have to remove the biggest barrier of them all: parking. That’s why restaurants have to have valet parking, or access to easy parking somehow, or else they’ll suffer. Sure, ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft make it easier, but having an straightforward parking option in a challenging neighborhood like Little Tokyo is a must-have. Whenever I tried to visit Simbal, the parking situation wasn’t that apparent or intuitive from the street. It’s hard enough driving into Little Tokyo or Downtown if you don’t work or live in the area (especially from the Westside), but the discouragement of parking can be killer for any restaurant in L.A. I think it contributed heavily to Simbal’s difficulties.
6. Too many people cancelled or didn’t show up for their reservations
When I talked to the chef a few months back, Pham said that too many diners were cancelling their reservations or just no-showing completely. This is a major problem for which there’s no easy solution. A lot of diners still aren’t used to services like Tock or Resy, which promise to give restaurants a better way of managing no-shows. But for a place like Simbal, where there are already so many barriers, it’s too much to expect diners to jump through that hoop. Diners need to honor their reservations or else it’ll put one-off restaurants like Simbal in jeopardy.
Ultimately it’s difficult to really pinpoint why a restaurant closes. When I talked to Pham a few months ago, it seemed apparent that there were difficulties. I tried to do my best to highlight how great Pham’s cooking was, but it was almost too little too late. What he really needed was shot in the arms from more sources. Critics like Besha Rodell and Jonathan Gold could’ve returned and re-reviewed the restaurant. National publications could’ve shed light on Pham’s work. But in the end, Simbal couldn’t hold on. I hope Pham finds it in him to open another restaurant in a better location.AI
16/7/2016
В Иране политзаключённым отказывают в лечении, подвергая их жизни риску
В вышедшем сегодня докладе организация Amnesty International заявила, что власти Ирана бессердечно играют жизнями узников совести и других политзаключённых, отказывая им в надлежащей медицинской помощи, что чревато для них смертельным исходом, пожизненной инвалидностью и иным непоправимым вредом для здоровья.
В докладе под названием Health taken hostage: Cruel denial of medical care in Iran’s prisons [«Здоровье в заложниках: жестокий отказ в медицинской помощи в иранских тюрьмах»] отражена плачевная ситуация со здравоохранением в пенитенциарной системе страны. В документе собраны убедительные доказательства того, что органы юстиции, особенно прокуратура, и администрация тюрем намеренно препятствуют лечению и во многих случаях действуют с умышленной жестокостью, чтобы запугать, наказать и унизить политзаключённых либо вынудить их сделать «признание» или заявление о «раскаянии».
«В Иране власти постоянно берут в заложники здоровье заключённых, грубо игнорируя потребности в лечении тех, кто находится под стражей. Лишать политзаключённых медицинской помощи жестоко, и это ничем нельзя оправдать, — сказал директор программы Amnesty International по Ближнему Востоку и Северной Африке Филип Лютер. — Право заключённых на доступ к здравоохранению закреплено как в международном праве, так и в иранском законодательстве. Когда неоказание медицинской помощи причиняет заключённым сильную боль и страдания и это делается умышленно, чтобы их наказать, запугать или выбить „признание“, подобные действия представляют собой пытку».
В докладе описано 18 шокирующих случаев, когда заключённым в той или иной форме отказывают в лечении, что чревато причинением непоправимого вреда их здоровью.
Возмутительный и разнообразный произвол в отношении заключённых
В докладе воссоздаётся пугающая картина действий прокуратуры, которая в Иране принимает решения об освобождении для прохождения лечения и переводе в больницу. Прокуратура часто отказывается санкционировать перевод заболевших заключённых в больницу даже в тех случаях, когда необходимую им помощь невозможно оказать в условиях тюрьмы. Не слушая рекомендации врачей, прокуратура также отказывает в освобождении для прохождения лечения узникам, находящимся в критическом состоянии.
В ходе исследования Amnesty International установлено, что иногда и администрация тюрем нарушает право заключённых на здоровье либо подвергает их пыткам и жестокому обращению. В ряде случаев администрация не выдавала политзаключённым лекарства или неоправданно применяла к ним средства физического сдерживания (наручники, кандалы), мешая тем самым их лечению, оставляя их с кровоподтёками на руках и ногах, причиняя им неудобства и унижая их.
Опрошенные Amnesty International заключённые также отмечали, что порой тюремные врачи являются соучастниками произвола. По их словам, некоторые тюремные врачи постоянно преуменьшают или даже отметают их проблемы со здоровьем как «плод их воображения» и лечат серьёзные заболевания обезболивающими и транквилизаторами.
В докладе отмечается, что женщины-политзаключённые сталкиваются с дополнительными препятствиями к получению медицинской помощи из-за того, что медперсонал тюремной больницы, по крайней мере в тегеранской тюрьме «Эвин», целиком состоит из мужчин. Несколько раз заболевшим женщинам-заключённым отказывали в экстренном обследовании и других процедурах только потому, что проведение медицинских манипуляций мужчинами-медиками считается неприемлемым. За несоблюдение строгих правил ношения платков женщины также подвергаются сексуальным унижениям и домогательствам.
«Власти Ирана и особенно прокуратура демонстрируют холодную безжалостность в своём отношении к больным заключённым. Они играют жизнями людей, что может иметь разрушительные и далеко идущие последствия для их здоровья, — отметил Филип Лютер. — Власти Ирана должны немедленно прекратить использовать отказ в медицинской помощи в целях наказания и принуждения. Им следует обеспечивать, чтобы все лица, находящиеся под стражей, получали надлежащее лечение без какой-либо дискриминации».
Отказ в лечении с целью получения «признаний»
Зейнаб Джалалян, иранка курдского происхождения, отбывает приговор к пожизненному заключению за предполагаемое членство в курдской оппозиционной организации. Сейчас ей грозит слепота, так как ей не оказывается медицинская помощь. Её родственники считают, что причина в травме, которую она получила, когда следователи на допросах многократно били её головой об стену, что закончилось для неё переломом черепа и, как следствие, кровоизлиянием в мозг и ухудшением зрения. Ей срочно нужна операция на глазу, но власти постоянно отказываются переводить её в больницу. А сотрудники спецслужб сказали ей, что надо сначала «признаться».
Зейнаб Джалалян
«Ей сказали, что если она это сделает, то ей не только сократят срок, но и направят к врачу», — сообщила Amnesty International её сестра Дениз Джалалян. «Ставить „признание“ или „раскаяние“ условием оказания медицинской помощи — это не только позорная эксплуатация болезни заключённого, но и явное нарушение полного запрета на пытки и жестокое обращение», — прокомментировал Филип Лютер.
Отказ в своевременном прохождении специализированного лечения за пределами тюрьмы
Омид Кокаби — 33-летний физик и узник совести, отбывающий приговор к 10 годам лишения свободы за отказ от участия в военных проектах Ирана. Почти пять лет он жаловался на проблемы с почками, но власти игнорировали его многократные просьбы об оказании медицинской помощи. В апреле 2016 года у него диагностировали рак почки на поздней стадии и в экстренном порядке удалили правую почку.
Омид Кокаби, иранский ученый, которого приковывали к кровати
«Он долго ждал перевода в больницу […], а администрация всё отказывала. Тюремные врачи его не осматривали, просто продолжали выписывать болеутоляющие», — сказал его родственник.
В социальных сетях вызвала бурю негодования недавно опубликованная фотография, на которой Омид Кокаби прикован к больничной кровати во время его предыдущей госпитализации в 2015 году.
Политзаключённый курд Афшин Сохрабзаде отбывает приговор к 25 годам лишения свободы. Ему также многократно отказывали в специализированном лечении, срочно необходимом в связи с раком кишечника, из-за которого у него часто случаются обильные желудочно-кишечные кровотечения. Условием его освобождения для прохождения лечения власти выдвинули грабительский залог.
Афшин Сохрабзаде
«Если не можешь предоставить материальное обеспечение, чтобы тебя освободили для прохождения лечения, не проблема. Отправим твой труп в морг, там мама с папой его и заберут», — так, видимо, было сказано Афшину Сохрабзаде.
Наконец, 25 июня 2016 года его временно отпустили на свободу для прохождения лечения. Однако ему нечем его оплатить, потому что спецслужбы отобрали у него паспорт, а без документов он не может обратиться за лечением за государственный счёт.
Ещё один шокирующий случай — дело Афифа Наими, узника совести и одного из семи лишённых свободы лидеров иранских бахаи. Он отбывает приговор к 10 годам заключения. У него нарушена свёртываемость крови, и ему требуется регулярное специализированное лечение, недоступное в тюрьме. Без лечения он может умереть. Согласно заключениям нескольких специалистов-медиков, его нельзя содержать в тюрьме. Однако несмотря на это, прокуратура отказывается освобождать его по состоянию здоровья. Под стражей у него постоянно происходят кровотечения, он теряет сознание, его часто приходится госпитализировать.
Голодовки
Многие заболевшие политзаключённые приходят к выводу, что голодовка — единственное средство заставить власти оказать им медицинскую помощь. Обычно те никак не реагируют на голодовки, хотя в нескольких случаях голодающих в итоге ненадолго отпустили для прохождения лечения. Однако вскоре им приказали вернуться в тюрьму, прекратив лечение, несмотря на рекомендации врачей.
Нескольких заключённых наказали за объявленную голодовку. Узника совести Алирезу Расули, отбывающего три с половиной года лишения свободы, приговорили ещё к трём годам по обвинениям в подрыве национальной безопасности, в частности в «распространении пропаганды против системы», в том числе при помощи голодовки. Вследствие заболевания кости у него поражена нога, и из-за отсутствия лечения ему стало хуже: он страдает от острой боли и с трудом передвигается. Сейчас ему требуется операция за пределами больницы, чтобы предотвратить возможное необратимое повреждение сустава.
Amnesty International призывает власти Ирана выполнять свои международные обязательства и немедленно прекратить неоказание надлежащей медицинской помощи заключённым. Необходимо провести расследование в отношении прокурорских работников и прочих должностных лиц, включая медицинский персонал, которые, предположительно, целенаправленно отказывали заключённым в лечении.
Полный текст доклада
«Здоровье в заложниках: жестокий отказ в медицинской помощи в иранских тюрьмах», на англ. яз.
#новости #публикации #ИранFederal investigators allegedly secretly wiretapped former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort before and after the 2016 election, according to a CNN report Monday.
Manafort first came under surveillance after a secret court order authorized it for investigators who were looking into work he did on behalf of a pro-Russia Ukrainian political party, CNN reported. He came under surveillance again as part of the FBI’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign actively colluded with Russian officials to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
As CNN reported:
Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive.
Manafort, who served as Trump’s campaign manager for several months in the summer of 2016, is one of several allies of the president deemed a “person of interest” by Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the Justice Department’s probe of Russian interference in the presidential campaign. Manafort is also under scrutiny by congressional committees investigating the Trump campaign’s Russia ties.
In July, FBI agents raided Manafort’s home as part of their investigation. A New York Times story also published Monday detailed that raid, as well as other aspects of Mueller’s probe. Among the revelation by the Times is that Mueller’s prosecutors reportedly told Manafort after the raid that they would indict him.
Manafort has faced intense scrutiny for his business dealings with Russia and Ukraine. In June, he retroactively registered as a foreign agent roughly 10 months after his undisclosed lobbying work in Ukraine was first revealed.
In addition to the lobbying work, federal investigators are reportedly interested in Manafort’s real estate deals as well as his ties to Russian oligarchs.
Earlier this month, Manafort’s spokesman, Jason Maloni, testified before the federal grand jury that Mueller has impaneled as part of his investigation. Maloni met with the grand jury for more than two hours.
And in July, the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Manafort after he declined to testify about a meeting he and other Trump officials had with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information about presidential rival Hillary Clinton to offer the Trump campaign. The committee withdrew its subpoena after Manafort agreed to continue talking to investigators and turn over documents.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Sunday that the committee would again invite Manafort to testify and is “likely” to subpoena him if he refuses to comply.
Maloni responded to the CNN report later Tuesday and called on the Justice Department to “release any intercepts” that may have been recorded.
NEW - Manafort spokesperson releases statement about wire tap reports - says "if true" calls on DOJ to release "any intercepts" pic.twitter.com/QtbzbvT7YD — John Santucci (@JTSantucci) September 19, 2017Juhl Energy Inc. has announced a partnership with a Florida entrepreneur to develop community wind in Minnesota that will seek of the financial support of residents in the area where the projects will be located.
Daniel Lemberg, who created WindShare LLC to give small investors a chance to buy shares in community wind projects, has chosen to work with Juhl and the company’s new wind hybrid configuration.
Similar to a community solar garden, WindShare projects will allow subscribers to buy one or more $100 shares in community wind projects, with a likely annual return of around 3 percent, Lemberg said.
“We wanted to make it easy for the public to invest in a way that doesn’t require developers to adjust how they structure a project,” he said. “We can bring the same innovation that’s in the solar industry into wind as well.”
Dan Juhl, principal executive officer of Juhl Energy, is a fan. “I think it’s a great idea, we’ve always struggled with community projects to find adequate financing,” Juhl said. “Most of the players in the financing game aren’t interested in community developments – they’re interested in making money.”
Juhl has been looking for new options for supporting community wind for some time.
“The value of WindShare is that if it turns into a stable financing source for community projects then the projects that we build will be in the best interests of the communities and create economic development… rather than just pure money deals,” he said.
“We think we can leverage low-cost energy as an economic development tool for rural communities. In order to do that you have to have the financing that has the same mentality.”
Investors buy shares through 20-year contracts and will receive a return receive a return competitive with other investments such as annuities and Treasury bonds. The electricity would ideally be sold to local utilities.
One of WindShare’s advisory board members is Tom Mahowald, director of business development at Navigant Research. While Lemberg, who has a background in health care, may not have fully understood the market when he started, he’s gained an expertise quickly, Mahowald said.
“It’s an incredibly creative way of putting things together and he’s (Lemberg) a bright bulb,” he said. “I’ve seen him put startups together before. If this weren’t Dan I wouldn’t put time into it. But I think this will be successful.”
Advantages to community financing
The WindShare approach has the added of advantage of reducing the “friction” in communities where wind installations are being constructed, Lemberg said.
A study in Canada revealed that if community members had an opportunity to invest they were much more agreeable to new projects, he noted.
“We’ll always give priority to local community members,” Lemberg said, with the first option to buy shares going to community members before a net is cast to attract the wider investment market.
Small investors will be finding out about WindShare nationally through an aggressive digital marketing and public relations campaign.
For community wind projects there’s long been a struggle for financing. Local banks do not have the expertise to finance community wind, Mahowald said, and benefits tend to accrue to larger investors rather than communities.
WindShare is looking for projects of at least $1 million because fees associated with smaller projects tend to minimize potential profits.
Lemberg conceived his plan after several visits to the Caribbean, where he witnessed how residents used renewable energy to avoid expensive electricity bills.
Yet he found there wasn’t financing available for larger utility scale installations that could have served entire communities.
“There’s a lot of opportunity |
UploadFileHandler subclass which inherits the base handler and writes the chunked output to file, cumulatively appending to the same file:
public class plUploadFileHandler : plUploadBaseHandler { /// <summary> /// Physical folder location where the file will be uploaded. /// /// Note that you can assign an IIS virtual path (~/path) /// to this property, which automatically translates to a /// physical path. /// </summary> public string FileUploadPhysicalPath { get { if (_FileUploadPhysicalPath.StartsWith( "~" )) _FileUploadPhysicalPath = Context.Server.MapPath(_FileUploadPhysicalPath); return _FileUploadPhysicalPath; } set { _FileUploadPhysicalPath = value ; } } private string _FileUploadPhysicalPath; public plUploadFileHandler() { FileUploadPhysicalPath = "~/temp/" ; } /// <summary> /// Stream each chunk to a file and effectively append it. /// </summary> protected override bool OnUploadChunk( Stream chunkStream, int chunk, int chunks, string uploadedFilename) { var path = FileUploadPhysicalPath; // try to create the path if (! Directory.Exists(path)) { try { Directory.CreateDirectory(path); } catch ( Exception ex) { WriteErrorResponse( Resources.UploadDirectoryDoesnTExistAndCouldnTCreate); return false ; } } string uploadFilePath = Path.Combine(path, uploadedFilename); if (chunk == 0) { if ( File.Exists(uploadFilePath)) File.Delete(uploadFilePath); } Stream stream = null ; try { stream = new FileStream (uploadFilePath, (chunk == 0)? FileMode.CreateNew : FileMode.Append); chunkStream.CopyTo(stream, 16384); } catch { WriteErrorResponse( Resources.UnableToWriteOutFile); return false ; } finally { if (stream!= null ) stream.Dispose(); } return true ; } }
This class adds a property for the upload path where files uploaded are stored and overrides the OnUploadChunk() method to write the received chunk to disk which effectively appends the chunk to the existing file.
If all you want to do is fire and forget file uploads into a specified folder you can use this handler directly. But typically - as in the ImageUploadHandler.ashx application implementation - you'll want to do something with the data once it arrives. In our example, I subclassed from plUploadBaseHandler and implemented the OnUploadCompleted method to handle the resizing and storing of the image in a separate folder. I suspect most applications will want to do that sort of thing.
The application level ImageUploadHandler then simply inherits from the plUploadFileHandler class and only implements the OnUploadCompleted() method which simply receives the finished file to do something with - resize and copy in this case.
In summary, implementation of custom plUpload handlers is easy with this class. I've used this uploader on quite a few applications of reasonably large volume and it's been solid. At this point I have an easy framework for plugging uploads into any ASP.NET application. Hopefully you some of you find this useful as well.
ResourcesWe do know that adoption levels vary by age, income, education and race. Perhaps the F.C.C.’s survey of nonadopters will show that low income is the main barrier to access. In that case, means-tested subsidies could remove that obstacle.
But age is clearly another factor. Survey data supplied by the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that just 30 percent of Americans who are 65 or older use broadband, compared with 77 percent of the 18-to-29 age group. (Which raises an interesting question itself: only 77 percent?)
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The F.C.C.’s own survey of nonadopters is likely to confirm that many older people are simply not as comfortable with newer technology. But it may also reveal that there is an irreducible core of people, spanning ages and income levels, who simply do not want to use the Internet.
And maybe that won’t change, no matter how many social workers knock at their doors, and no matter how many years pass after Internet service has come to be accepted by their neighbors as a utility as essential as water and electricity. South Korea’s experience as a broadband pioneer is suggestive. The task force looked at 22 countries with broadband plans, seeking best practices that were well suited to the United States, and South Korea’s broadband initiative was of particular interest.
In 1999, South Korea began to help low-income and elderly households get PCs and become connected, and the outcome could be described as quite successful: “Today, 83 percent of households in Korea have adopted broadband access,” the report says. But one can also look at the remaining 17 percent and wonder what has prevented those households from getting online, despite the strenuous efforts of a government that has been a world leader in the broadband race.
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The F.C.C. has invited comments and suggestions for its broadband initiative and has received about 41,000 pages in response, from individuals and businesses. Google proposes that every American have access by 2012 to a connections of 5 megabits a second (Mbps) — in both directions. It also suggests that several cities be selected to test the installation in every household of 1-gigabit-a-second connections — or more than a thousand times faster than the speed that the F.C.C. uses to define downstream “broadband.”
What exactly one could do with such a gloriously fast connection is not detailed. Then again, even the recent F.C.C. report, which does its best to list exciting possibilities that come into view with each increment of broadband speed, struggles to come up with many examples beyond 5 Mbps. Streamed classroom lectures, for example, require 1 to 5 Mbps; with 10 Mbps, the lectures come in high definition.
The estimated costs for universally upgrading the minimum speed of the nation’s broadband connections to 3 Mbps would be about $20 billion, according to the report. Getting to 10 Mbps would be $50 billion. To play in the same league as Finland, with its 100 Mbps service promised to every citizen by 2015, would require $350 billion.
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FINLAND occupies a compact 130,558 square miles, versus more than 3.5 million for the United States. The economics of broadband deployment are greatly affected by physical distances. With some understatement, the F.C.C. report says, “the economics of providing broadband to the rural U.S. are challenging.”
In a news release introducing the task force report, the F.C.C. calls broadband “the infrastructure challenge of our time,” which seems a wee bit overstated, given the decrepit state of our bridges, highways, railroads and schools. It also blithely overlooks the fact that the infrastructure is already in place to provide speeds of 3 to 10 Mbps to 94 percent of American households.
We’ve built it, but not all have come. Some may never come.
Let’s not assume that their and their nation’s future will be hopelessly blighted if they don’t.Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints joined community and civic officials to break ground for Utah’s newest temple in Cedar City in the southern part of the state.
Rendering of the Cedar City Utah Temple. ©2015 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.1 / 11 A choir of Latter-day Saints from within the new Cedar City Utah Temple district provided inspirational music for the groundbreaking ceremony. ©All rights reserved.2 / 11 Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy reflected on the pioneer families that settled Cedar City, Utah. "As we break ground, symbolically today, we remember the founders of Cedar City 167 years ago and remember the broken picks and broken shovels." Ground was broken today, August 8, 2015, for Utah's newest temple. ©All rights reserved.3 / 11 Shovels are lined up ready to be used to break ground for the Cedar City Utah Temple. ©All rights reserved.4 / 11 The congregation was filled with hundreds of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excited to see construction start on the Cedar City Utah Temple. ©All rights reserved.5 / 11 Church and community leaders break ground for the Cedar City Utah Temple. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy presided at the ceremony. ©All rights reserved.6 / 11 Young Latter-day Saints became part of history Saturday, August 8, 2015, as they, too, turned a shovel of dirt to signal the start of construction of the Cedar City Utah Temple. ©All rights reserved.7 / 11 Ground was broken for the Cedar City Utah Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints. Young members of the Church were able to participate in the ceremony as well. ©All rights reserved.8 / 11 After breaking ground for the Cedar City Utah Temple, Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy takes charge of heavy equipment to finish the job. ©All rights reserved.9 / 11 Latter-day Saints from many southern Utah cities gather in Cedar City to witness the ground breaking for the newest temple in the Beehive state. The ceremony was held Saturday, August 8, 2015. ©All rights reserved.10 / 11 Elder Kent F. Richards of the Seventy and executive director of the Church’s Temple Department (left) and Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy participated in the ground breaking ceremony of the new Cedar City Utah Temple. ©All rights reserved.11 / 11 Download Photos
Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the Seventy presided at the ceremony. He was joined by Elder Kent F. Richards of the Seventy and executive director of the Church’s Temple Department and Elder Dane Leavitt of the Seventy.
Elder Clayton reflected on the pioneer families that settled this area of southern Utah. “As we break ground, symbolically today, we remember the founders of Cedar City 167 years ago and remember the broken picks and broken shovels. We stand on their shoulders. They endured much to prepare the area's foundation for a city they would never see.”
One 87 year old Latter-day Saint is excited to have a historical connection to the property on which the new temple will be built. Madelon J. Payne’s parents homesteaded more than 1,200 acres in Cedar City in 1917, and 7.3 acres of that will be used for the temple. “It is so wonderful to be here for the groundbreaking,” she said. "The Lord worked the whole thing out, so it [the property] would be ready for the temple almost a century after my parents homesteaded."
Latter-day Saints were able to watch the groundbreaking ceremony from meetinghouses in the area.
“His spirit will be here,” said Elder Richards. “His spirit will emanate from this edifice throughout this community.”
Elder Dane Leavitt of the Seventy said looking ahead to the construction is the time for Latter-day Saints to prepare for the temple’s completion. “Across the months ahead may we prepare ourselves as the temple is being built. We will witness walls being put up; may we build walls ourselves to resist evil.”
The temple was announced at the Church’s April 2013 general conference.
The temple will be located at 300 South Cove Drive in Cedar City.
After completion, open house dates will be announced so the public can tour the temple before it is dedicated. A date for dedication will also be announced.
There are currently 173 temples throughout the world either in operation, under construction or announced. Five are being renovated.
For more information about temples, visit www.mormontemples.org. The site includes general information on temples, the history of the Church and the purpose of temples. This site will also provide specific information about the Cedar City Utah Temple as it becomes available.Depending on what part of the world you reside in, Spyro 2 may carry the subhead "Ripto's Rage," "Gateway to Glimmer," or "Tondemo Tours." Regardless of the name, this sequel delivers excellent platforming action. Taking place a few years after the defeat of Gnasty Gnork, Spyro is slightly older in this follow-up – his horns are longer, his fire spray a little more dynamic, and he's added a flutter ability to flight skills.
We dive into the opening moments of this game, which give us a look at the gameplay improvements, and Spyro's nemesis, Ripto, an evil dictator who was invaded the kingdom of Avalar. Per usual, Tim Turi is on the sticks for this extensive journey into Spyro's world. This week's interlude segment dives deep into Ben Hanson's weird appreciation of old things, and our final segment is a competition with a strict set of easily followable rules.
Sit back and enjoy the ride and we'll see you again in seven days with another episode!
For more episodes of Replay, visit our HUB, or click the banner below to view episodes on YouTube.What's it like to fly the A350? Only a handful of pilots know for sure, but Jean-Michel Roy has a pretty good idea. The Airbus test pilot has flown a variety of yet-to-be-certified aircraft over the years, and he'll soon step behind the controls of the company's answer to Boeing's Dreamliner, the A350. While the first batch of pilots are back at the aviation giant's Toulouse HQ preparing for the next test flight, Roy is schmoozing with customers a few hundred miles to the north, at the Paris Air Show. It's an arguably safer task for the industry vet, but something tells us he's itching to climb aboard this latest wide-body aircraft. We were hoping for such an opportunity here in Paris, but a delayed rollout means attendees will be lucky just to see the A350 perform an unscheduled flyover sometime over the next few days, with a cockpit mockup serving to satisfy airline execs for now.
As deep-pocketed buyers queued up for a first look at the A350 flight deck, we managed to sneak a quick peek, with Jean-Michel Roy on hand to answer questions and provide a video tour. As you might expect, the cockpit is as modern as they come, with large LCDs taking the place of traditional avionics. In fact, the layout looks more like something you'd find on a stock broker's desk -- it's quite a contrast to the aging panels many commercial pilots still use today. The overhead system controls are presented in a layout similar to what you'll find on an A320 or A330, as is the flight control unit just below the windshield. The screens below, however, are much more accessible, offering up aircraft manuals, charts, checklists, camera feeds, weather information -- you name it. A trackball and keyboard make it easy to enter info, while side-mounted joysticks let the pilots control orientation while also serving to create a cleaner look and feel. Fly past the break for a first-hand look at this state-of-the-art demo deck.Winston, the winner of the 2013 Heisman Trophy, had two years of eligibility remaining at Florida State. He is projected by most draft analysts to be either the first or second quarterback chosen — the other being this season’s Heisman winner, Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota — and he could be picked No. 1 or No. 2 over all.
“I reached this very difficult decision after careful consideration and long thought, realizing how difficult it would be to say goodbye to my family at Florida State,” Winston said in a statement released through his representative, the Legacy Agency. “I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to wear the garnet and gold and have greatly enjoyed my time as a Seminole, both as an athlete and a student in the classroom.”
Winston had a stellar two-year career for the Seminoles. He won the Heisman as a redshirt freshman, becoming the youngest player to do so, and led Florida State to an undefeated season and the Football Bowl Subdivision title. He was 26-1 as the team’s starting quarterback, his only loss coming last week in a College Football Playoff semifinal, a 59-20 trouncing by Oregon in the Rose Bowl.
Winston slumped somewhat this season, throwing for 3,907 yards and 25 touchdowns, with 18 interceptions, but his draft status is not expected to be affected much. Gil Brandt, a vice president for player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1988, who is now an analyst for NFL.com and Sirius XM radio, said he thought Winston had “a very bright football mind” and would be the first or second player drafted.
“F.S.U. coaches have been friends of mine for a long time,” Brandt said. “I think they feel that he is a good person but lacks maturity. I know personally that the head coach, who I have a great deal of faith in, thinks he’s a great person.”“You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made,” Mr. Bush said. “But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make tough decisions.”
If Mr. Bush is emotional at the thought of leaving office, he did not show it, perhaps because he was surrounded by people who admire him and with whom he feels comfortable. Some of his predecessors delivered their farewell addresses from the Oval Office. But his counselor, Ed Gillespie, said Mr. Bush “wanted to be with people” for his final moment in the spotlight.
Along with his wife, Laura, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top members of his administration, the East Room was filled with ordinary Americans whose lives have touched Mr. Bush’s — people like Arlene Howard, who gave the president her son’s police badge after he was killed in the World Trade Center attacks, and Judea Pearl, the father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was killed by terrorists in Pakistan.
Describing himself as “filled with gratitude,” Mr. Bush touched briefly on a handful of policy matters that he regards as achievements: his No Child Left Behind education measure, legislation giving Medicare beneficiaries access to prescription drugs and his campaign to combat AIDS around the world. But his main theme was the moment that defined his presidency, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
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“As the years passed,” Mr. Bush said, “most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before 9/11. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.”
He went on to recount some of the decisions that flowed out of that vow: the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the creation of “new tools to monitor terrorists” movements — tools that civil liberties advocates argue are unconstitutional. He did not mention his authorization of harsh interrogation techniques, another decision that has been among the most controversial and divisive of his presidency.
“There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions,” Mr. Bush said. “But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil.”
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In giving the speech, Mr. Bush carried on a tradition of farewell addresses that dates to George Washington and continued, most recently, with Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. (Mr. Bush’s father, the first President Bush, did not give a farewell address.) Mr. Reagan’s address, especially, was deeply personal, laden with wistful references and reflections of America as a “shining city on a hill,” the phrase coined by John Winthrop, a colonial-era governor of Massachusetts.
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But unlike Mr. Reagan, who left office with his popularity ratings high, Mr. Bush leaves as one of the most unpopular presidents in modern times. Perhaps reflecting that, he kept his talk relatively short and to the point, with few rhetorical flourishes.
Instead, the president spoke somberly of the challenges that the nation faces in the years to come, as he warned Americans to resist the temptation to look inward and not to abandon his signature foreign initiative, the so-called freedom agenda, intended to promote democracy around the world.
“If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led,” Mr. Bush said, adding: “I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise.”
Mr. Bush will leave Friday for Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland. He will spend the weekend there with his family and a handful of aides, including Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state; Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff; and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser.
Shortly before Mr. Bush spoke Thursday, the White House published his schedule for Tuesday, Mr. Obama’s Inauguration Day. In the peculiarly stilted language of White House scheduling documents, it captured perfectly Mr. Bush’s transition from President Bush to Citizen Bush, as follows:
11:30 a.m. THE PRESIDENT and Mrs. Bush participate in the swearing-in ceremony for the 44th president of the United States of America.
1:25 p.m. THE FORMER PRESIDENT makes remarks at departure ceremony, Andrews Air Force Base — Hangar 6.Rosemarie Aquilina: Lawsuits on Detroit's bankruptcy filing
Ingham County Judge Rosemarie Aquilina held a hearing on lawsuits attempting to block Detroit's bankruptcy filing.
(Fritz Klug | MLive.com)
LANSING, MI -- State and city officials have been given the go-ahead to continue work on Detroit's bankruptcy filing while a legal challenge works its way through court.
The Michigan Court of Appeals on Tuesday granted Attorney General Bill Schuette's request to stay orders issued last week by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina.
Aquilina said the bankruptcy filing violated the state constitution by jeopardizing pensions of Detroit retirees. She directed Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr to withdraw the application and issued temporary restraining orders preventing Orr, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Treasurer Andy Dillon from proceeding with the bankruptcy process.
A three-judge appeals court panel put those orders on hold as they consider whether to hear Schuette's full appeal. Unanimous orders were issued by Judge Patrick Meter, Judge Michael Kelly and Judge Stephen Borrello. They directed attorneys to file formal answers to the state's request for appeal by 5 p.m. on Friday.
Michigan's constitution says that public pensions "shall not be diminished or impaired." Three separate suits before Aquilina -- filed on behalf of two Detroit pensioners and city pension funds -- argue that municipal bankruptcy will lead to that outcome.
Separately, the federal bankruptcy judge working the Detroit case is expected to hold his first hearing on the matter Wednesday. The city has asked him to halt the pension cases, arguing that federal bankruptcy law imposes an "automatic stay" against related litigation.
Jonathan Oosting is a Capitol reporter for MLive Media Group. Email him, find him on Google+ or follow him on Twitter.Girls do much better than boys in GCSEs and A-Levels. Across UK higher education, female students outnumber men, 57% to 43%. But at top levels – in exams, professorial roles and university leadership – men are still ahead.
More than 100 people are signed up to attend Women Making Waves in Education, a panel discussion to explore progress on women’s access to and experience of top universities as students and academics, as well as challenges that remain and ideas to overcome those.
Whether you are at school and considering your future, a prospective university student, an undergraduate, early career researcher or senior academic, this event will offer thought-provoking debate.
The organisers, Trinity College and University of Cambridge Equality and Diversity, are aiming for ’40 bright ideas’ to help women realise their potential at all stages of education. Come and joint the debate on 12 May and continue the discussion online – #40brightideas #womenmakingwaves #40YrsTrinWomen
A key event in the programme to mark 40 years of women at Trinity College, the panel features:
Professor Catherine Barnard, Professor of European Union Law and Employment Law at Cambridge, and Senior Tutor at Trinity.
Helena Eccles, Cambridge undergraduate and founder of the Think Future Study.
Kate Evans, CEO of Anglia Learning Multi-Academy Trust.
Professor Valerie Gibson, Head of the High Energy Physics Research Group at the Cavendish Laboratory and Fellow of Trinity.
Professor Sucheta Nadkarni, Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at Cambridge Judge Business School and Professorial Fellow of Newnham College.
Dr Rob Wallach, Director of Postdoctoral Affairs at the University of Cambridge and Life Fellow of King’s College.
Bridget Kendall, Master of Peterhouse, will chair the event.
Professor Barnard encouraged women at all stages of their academic career to come to the event and join the debate. She said:
Cambridge is a great place for women wanting to study the whole range of disciplines and we want to encourage more women to apply and take advantage of the world-class teaching, facilities and research provision available here. We also need to consider how to break down barriers to women pursuing academic roles and how best to support them to secure senior positions.
Women Making Waves in Education takes place 6-8pm on Friday 12 May in the Main Lecture Theatre, the Old Divinity School, All Saints’ Passage, Cambridge. The panel discussion and Q&A will be followed by a drinks reception.
To reserve your free place: https://trinitywomen.eventbrite.co.ukHeavy CruiserCarries a sqadron of 116 fighters, 48 bombers, dozens of RADs (Robotic Attack Drone), Reconnaissance Probes, and 2 Dragon class Dropships.Length: 760mCrew: ~3000 officers + pilotsCruisers are versatile warships, larger than Destroyers but smaller than Battleships or Carriers.They can fulfill a number of roles: patrol, escort... but they shine as a rapid response unit.Armed with huge anti-capital projectile cannons you would expect to see mounted on much larger capital ships,together with their impressive propulsion system, taking up about a quarter of the ship, and onboard fighter/bomber supportthey are very capable and efficient if used correctly.Modelled in Solidworks, textured and rendered in C4D. Part of a project to create a fleet of spaceships, and feature them in an animation.If you like it, check out my gallery.Credits to svenniemannie for his hull texture [link] some other textures i used: [link] and [link] model of turrets inspired by [link] background from [link]Updated at 10:45 p.m. EST, Jan. 20, 2008
At least 43 Iraqis were killed and 41 more were wounded in the latest attacks. No Coalition deaths were reported, but two Czech soldiers were wounded during a rocket attack in Basra.
Five people were killed and 20 wounded during an Ashuraa celebration in Balad yesterday.
In Baghdad, a bomb killed a civilian and wounded three policemen in Zayouna. Near an Amusement park in Saidiya, a mortar hit and home and injured two people. No casualites were reported after a roadside bomb blew up near an American patrol in Amil. Also, two dumped bodies were discovered.
In Fallujah, six people were killed and 10 others wounded when a teenage suicide bomber struck at a celebration for an Awakening Council leader just released from U.S. custody.
Mosul police shot dead a suicide truck bomber. He managed to detonate his explosives but only two people were injured.
Clashes erupted in central Samarra, when gunmen attacked a local Awakening Council; three of the gunmen were killed. In a separate incident, a former Baath Party member was gunned down.
A senior Nassiriya police officer died of wounds sustained in Friday’s clashes.
No casualties were reported in Basra after small clashes between police and Soldiers of Heaven members were renewed. Twenty suspects were arrested.
Four hostages were freed in al-Uzayr.
A roadside bomb near Saad Camp killed two people and injured one other.
In Muqdadiyah, gunmen killed one person.
An Awakening Council member was killed during clashes in Baquba.
An attack at a Hawija checkpoint left an Awakening Council member dead and three others wounded.
The Iraqi army killed 14 suspects and detained 60 across Iraq. Iraqi security forces arrested 45 sect members in several southern Iraq cities. A senior al-Qaeda suspect and two aides were killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation. Also, ten al-Qaeda suspects were arrested in al-Ali village. Meanwhile, 204 detainees were freed.
Also, the U.S. military released a final death toll of 796 in the bombings that targeted the Yazidi tribe near Sinjar last year. This figure is much higher than previous estimates.
Compiled by Margaret Griffis
Read more by Margaret GriffisOwain Fon Williams is heading for Euro 2016 with a new contract secured
Goalkeeper Owain Fon Williams has signed a new three-year deal with Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
The 29-year-old was a regular in the Caley side in his first season in the Highlands and also made his senior international debut for Wales in their 3-2 friendly defeat against Holland in November.
Fon Williams is in Chris Coleman's provisional squad for Euro 2016 along with two other 'keepers in Wayne Hennessey of Crystal Palace and Liverpool's Danny Ward.
He told the club's website: "Delighted to have extended my contract. As I've always said since arriving at ICT, it's a great place to play football and a beautiful part of the world to live.
"The people that I work with every day at the football club have made my decision to stay a lot easier.
"Now I'm looking forward to the summer and meeting up with the Welsh squad ahead of the European Championship 2016 in France. The coming season looks to be exciting and I'm sure the fans and the rest of the players are equally looking forward to it."
Chairman Kenny Cameron added: "It's great to have got this finalised before Owain heads to meet up with the Wales squad in the next couple of days.
"He has been a fantastic addition to our squad here in Inverness and to have him commit to the club and the Highlands for a further three years is brilliant for everyone."
"We're also very proud to have a Caley Thistle player in strong contention for a place at Euro 2016 this summer; we wish Owain and the Wales squad all the best and look forward to seeing them in action."Davis told a packed crowd at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin that she’s been in tough fights before, most notably beating back Republican efforts to gerrymander her state Senate district so she couldn’t win.“I’ve leathered up a little bit over that, for sure,” she said. “I’m capable of withstanding all kinds of heat, all kinds of nastiness in order to try and deliver an important message for people who feel like they haven’t been heard.”The theme – Wendy Davis the fighter – is a major part of the political blueprint that Davis will begin rolling out this week as she formally enters the race. The campaign is a long shot. No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994. Experts say the progressive Democrat doesn’t stand much of a chance in a Republican state where Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by 16 points. But the GOP isn't taking her for granted. Already some Davis opponents have been quietly raising questions about her divorce from a Fort Worth attorney and her up-from-the-bootstraps story of rising from teenage single mother living in a trailer park to Harvard Law School graduate. As we reported today, Davis on Sunday fielded some of the questions she’ll face in the governor’s race. She said she opposed – and would veto – a sales or property tax increase. She says there's enough money, but we're spending it in the wrong way. She said the GOP leadership has bragged about how great the Texas economy is but consistently underfunded public schools.She distanced herself from the Obama administration on the proposed merger of American Airlines and US Airways -- she supports it, the Justice Department and Abbott oppose it -- and she dodged a question about whether she would support re-regulating college tuition by saying it’s a possibility, but we shouldn't hurt universities. She supports providing driver's licenses to undocumented residents so long as the documents clearly distinguish between citizens and noncitizens. And she denounced the partisanship and gridlock in Washington.“People are tired of the acrimony. I know I’m tired of watching what I see is so broken in Washington right now. I don’t want that to be Texas.”One thing her GOP opponent will try to do is tie her to President Obama, who is not popular in Texas. Asked whether would want the president to campaign in Texas next year, she said any campaign would be about her, not Obama.“I don’t know. I’m so proud of having the opportunity talking about the future of the state of Texas," she said. "I’m really proud of that. Hopefully, we’ll have a platform to be able to do that.”ISLAMABAD: The media could play a vibrant role in sensitizing the concerned quarters about the hazards of population explosion, especially the law makers and decision makers by helping them to set their priorities regarding this critical issue related to future of the country.
This was said by speakers during consultative meeting on the topic of ‘The Role of Media to Make Governance Elite Socially Responsive’, held here on Sunday by Contech Consortium under Apna Pakistan campaign.
They said that the rapid and imbalanced population growth devours the economic growth and development and thus, makes all the positive interventions in social sector ineffective.
The speakers said that as a result of unchecked population growth, a large portion of the population have to live below poverty line besides continued insufficient delivery of public services including health, education and social safety nets for the downtrodden segments of society.
Earlier, the key experts from social sector presented the facts about various services, quality of life as well as state of governance and other social indicators having converse relationship with the rate of population growth in different societies.
Dr. Mian Naeem-ud-Din from Apna Pakistan explained the issue under discussion by presenting practical impacts of the over population. He said that media has an instrumental role to play to make population an area of prime concern of the decision makers.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
Warm, humid weather in London has sparked a spate of snake sightings on the capital's streets.
The RSPCA said the reptiles could "become active" in warm weather, meaning any that had recently escaped or been abandoned would be more likely to come out in the open.
Two royal pythons were found in Twickenham on Sunday, followed by a five-foot carpet python in Wandsworth on Monday that needed three police officers to capture it.
A striped orange corn snake was found in Kensington on Wednesday, followed by a second corn snake captured by police in Peckham yesterday and a third found in Hackney last night.
RSPCA workers were called out to assist the Shomrim in capturing the animal, which was taken to a vet.
Unusual sight of #Snake on the loose in #Hackney last night. Thanks @RSPCA_official for rescuing the injured snake pic.twitter.com/p66ixp8yxK — Shomrim N.E. London (@ShomrimOfficial) August 14, 2015
Yesterday's finds bring the total number of serpents seen on London's streets in the last week to six.
Now the charity has appealed for information about how the snakes came to be on the loose - and issued a warning to would-be reptile owners.
"Sadly the RSPCA is experiencing widespread neglect and abandonment of reptiles," a spokeswoman said, "as for many people an exotic animal represents too much of a commitment.
"Caring for reptiles can be challenging and expensive; the animal may grow very large, live for a long time, become aggressive or require a licence or paperwork to be legally kept or sold. They have the same needs as in the wild."
Yesterday's find in Peckham was made while Southwark officers hunted for weapons in Goldsmith Road. Following its capture three policemen were pictured posing with the snake, which was passed on to the RSPCA.
And the latest discovery was made in Craven Walk, Hackney.
"Local residents called Shomrim to Craven Walk in Hackney as they were concerned and slightly alarmed at the unusual sight of a snake on a quiet residential street," said Shomrim volunteer Meir Taub. "Volunteers attended and alerted the RSPCA, who rescued the injured snake."
The RSPCA added: "It is an offence to release a non-native animal into the wild under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
"Anyone with any information about these snakes is urged to call the RSPCA inspectors’ appeal line in confidence on 0300 123 8018."Last year for April Fools day I decided to play a prank on my girlfriend. She always leaves for work much earlier in the morning than I did at the time. I got my prank idea from a picture of an air horn duct taped under a computer chair. The idea here is that the air horn would go off when the target sat in his or her chair.
Of course I got this idea at 1 AM that night. I got up out of bed, and went to the store. I tried to go to a Walmart that stated it was 24 hours. Their hours were marked wrong online (and I am sure they still are). I tried to go to a CVS, and a Walgreen’s, they didn’t have any air horns. So I traveled 20 minutes north to the nearest Meijer. They had mini air horns! These were perfect to hide. I bought three. I also bought some funny duct tape (mustache) and some cream cheese (we will get to that later).
I secured my traps all around the house in a way that forced her |
That article featured him at a fundraiser he and his brother hosted for their non-profit group Marine Assist, which provides dental work and plastic surgery to wounded veterans. In 2006 The New York Post listed Theodorou as one of the “25 sexiest New Yorkers.”
Two people close to him during those years confirmed his identity after viewing a video of Servan. Neither was surprised to learn he had joined the fight in Syria. Theodorou had enlisted in the Marines not long after leaving dental school, they said. He had served in Kosovo and Iraq.
Fighters in Syria said the 223 remains active. The father of a Briton killed in the fighting posted a Facebook message from Servan in February, publicly announcing that he had named the group after Johnston. “I am commanding that unit and we have done well in the past two operations.”
Speaking in fluent Kurdish, Servan said in a video recorded last year that he was from New York City and that the American people “love freedom a lot.” Switching to English, he praised the YPG as a small but fierce and effective fighting force.
“This is my new family,” he said.
—
After a falling out with Servan, Krsnik arrived back in Toronto in early March. RCMP officers spent more than two hours interviewing him at Pearson airport, he said. A Canadian Security Intelligence Service officer later contacted him and they met at a Tim Hortons.
He said he was open about what he had done and he had no regrets. Like the Jabarah brothers, the ISIL fighters he saw through the scope of his sniper rifle were on the wrong side. “Those people chose their path and I chose mine,” he said. “I have a pretty clear conscience about it.” His sister Anita said the family was proud. “Do I think he did the right thing? Absolutely,” she said.
Reflecting on the 223’s disastrous first operation, Krsnik didn’t blame Gallagher, but said he had been out of the military for a decade and had never taken part in a gun battle. “I don’t think he was ready to be put into that situation, to be thrown right into the firefight.”
Giddings also took issue with the way the operation was conducted. He said taking only half the unit to clear the village went against a commitment they had made to always fight as a group. Asked what went wrong, he responded: “Basically, I would say eagerness to fight. Working with a tabor of Kurds who we never worked alongside, lack of language skills. Leadership was poor.”
He agreed that Gallagher should have shot the suicide bomber who approached him instead of trying to speak to him. “I think John shouldn’t have gone that evening, personally, but that is retrospective,” he said. “John was a good soldier but his command of basic Kurdish was poor and he found it hard distinguishing between Kurdish and Arabic. I believe he shouldn’t have been at that firefight.”
In Carder’s living room, the cards that school children sent her on Remembrance Day were bundled in a box on the floor beside the piano, with the condolence letters from politicians and strangers. Out the window the lake glimmered under the bright spring sun.
The parents of other volunteer fighters killed in the conflict have written to her, she said, as well as those who served with her son. She said had a long visit with Krsnik and that others from the 223 wanted to come see her. “I find it really touching that they want to pay their respects to their fallen comrade’s mother,” she said. “It seems like part of an old fashioned code of honor.”
Sitting at her computer, she called up the Facebook messages her son sent from Syria, updating her on what he was doing, telling her not to worry, that no news was good news and if anything happened, she would hear from someone.
“Well guess what,” she said, “we did.”In 1982, a group of offenders began striking the Brussels area of Belgium. It began with a series of small robberies, but - by the end of the year - had progressed to full-blown murder.
Though their criminal career was still in its apparent infancy, the Brabant Killers - also known as the Brabant Gang and the Gang Of Nivelles - would go on to become Belgium's most violent and mysterious criminals. Over thirty years later, their identities and motives are still unknown.
Part one of five.
Written, hosted, and produced by Micheal Whelan
Music and production by T. Nordgren
Additional editing by Elias at e-Audio Productions
Learn more about the podcast at unresolved.me
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Dee Yan-Kee - "Andante - Vivace"By Kari Molvar | January 14, 2013 | Lifestyle
The word “casino” doesn’t typically bring to mind thoughts of delicate white florals and leafy green notes, but step inside Venetian and Palazzo and that’s exactly what you’ll smell—if you have a keen enough nose. Walking through Venetian’s grand lobby used to mean taking in what was once the most distinct scent on the Strip (for better or worse, depending on who you ask), but now it has been replaced using the very latest in laboratory experimentation and social analysis. It is not alone: Up and down the country’s most famous line-up of resort casinos, top hotel executives are discovering that redoing their scent profiles can have a huge impact on brand recognition—and the all-important length of time that gamblers last at the tables.
Lacing the air with fragrance has long been a strategy for appealing to casino visitors, but it’s within the past few years that the process of coming up with that perfect bouquet started to involve CSI-like analysis. Casinos are more than willing to take the extra effort: Research shows that odors have an enormous impact on gambling habits. In a study conducted by Dr. Alan Hirsch, the director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, spending at Vegas slot machines odorized with a fruity, floral mixture saw a whopping 45 percent increase over ones without a sweet scent. “The odor might have given people a more optimistic perception of being successful,” he says. “Or it could have made them more relaxed and less anxious.”
That study was completed back in 1995, four years after the gaming industry’s leading scent marketer and provider, Brandaroma and its US division, AromaSys, was founded. “Back when we started, the idea of bringing scent into a resort sounded crazy,” says Neal Harris, president of the LA-based company. “But we figured out that with the right aroma, you can neutralize smoke and any unpleasant odors to create a fresh, clean experience that invites people to spend more time and relax.”
Since then, the technology and testing methods have grown into a remarkably concise endeavor. “It took us six months to develop the fragrance we’re currently using,” says Kim Cooper, assistant director of destination marketing for Venetian and Palazzo, who conducted their redolent research between February and August 2010. “Our previous one was very polarizing; people either loved it or hated it, so that lead us to a more scientific method for choosing a new fragrance.”
Three different rounds of testing were conducted with more than 800 testers. In the first cycle, 160 people were asked to rate seven different scents, ranging from light florals to heavy musks, which were atomized into separate suites. The top four were then dispersed into the Palazzo lobby and rated by another 200 people. “This phase took a month, because we had to pump in one scent for a few days and then pump it out before moving onto the next,” Cooper says. Two contenders rose to the top: surprisingly, the controversial original scent, and another that Cooper described as “welcoming, fresh, and not overpowering.” Finally, the two front-runners were pumped into the Venetian casino and lobby, and 500 people were asked to sniff and give comments. The new scent became the clear winner—a blend of white jasmine flowers, rose, Italian mandarin, and sandalwood layered with musk and amber, which the hotel named Arancia (Italian for “orange”). Since its debut, the scent has been so popular among guests that it’s been spun into candles that are for sale in the gift shop. Of its appeal, Cooper says, “It was my favorite from the first time I smelled it on the litmus paper.”
The scents inside the various Strip properties are as varied as the casinos themselves—ranging from tropical and beachy to spicy and gourmand. As a snapshot of how the process works, AromaSys’s Harris says clients meet with his team to discuss their fragrance desires and then choose one from the thousands in their library or design a customized “bespoke” creation. “About 75 percent of our clients go for the bespoke option,” he says. That list includes the Mirage, which wanted a tropical experience, “like you’ve stepped into paradise with sun-tan lotion and piña coladas all around you.” The result: a gentle mango and coconut-spiked scent. Down the street at Wynn, Harris and his team concocted a “fresh, rainforest-y” accord, while for Bellagio he’s created an array of scents that changes with the seasons and ranges from pumpkin and apple spice during the holidays to Japanese garden florals in the spring. After a recent trip there, Connecticut native Paul Citarella says he was impressed. “The air reminded me of a summer day, with a light and clean smell,” he says. “It’s subtle but sticks in your memory.”
That subtlety can be a powerful tool in garnering repeat business. The strength of olfactory senses as a memory trigger allows us to associate a scent or a note of fragrance in the air to a place, which can be a powerful and primal draw. “Odors can absolutely work in a subliminal way,” Dr. Hirsch says. “When you want to re-experience a nostalgic moment, a scent could make you want to return to the same spot.”
What do casinos pay for such nicely perfumed air? Depending on the size of the property and the type of systems used to deploy the scent—be it through the air conditioning vents or plug-in applicators—clients typically pay AromaSys between $200 to more than $5,000 a month to diffuse a scent. The preciousness of the ingredients is also a factor. “Something like rose or jasmine oil absolute are extremely expensive to produce and only used in very small quantities, since both cost about $10,000 per kilo,” Harris says. But the payoff could be well worth it. “In my experience, casinos are run by some of the smartest financially-minded people around, and when it comes to the numbers, they wouldn’t spend a penny on something if it didn’t generate that, and much more, in revenue.”
Hotels seem to agree with this perspective, even when gaming is not the objective. Vdara, for example, has piped two scents into the air since opening in 2009. “Over the years, we’ve discovered how important fragrance is to creating ambience,” says Vdara General Manager Mary Giuliano. “We really wanted to go with scents that were more exotic and unexpected, since that’s how we view the hotel.” A blend of green fig with a touch of cassis is used in the lobby while pink grapefruit notes swirl about in the spa. Devotees can purchase both as Scent Sticks in the gift shop, and in keeping with the property’s eco-conscious ethos, the fragrances are composed of natural essential oils and filtered through the interior without the use of aerosol. “Guests always tell us it smells amazing here,” Giuliano says. “They don’t know what the scents are exactly, but I can see how they transform people from the moment they walk in the door—there is this sense of calm, and you notice their shoulders relax.”
Designing more intimate “scent moments” like that is what Harris views as the next frontier in fragrance marketing. “It’s really exciting to think about how you can scent a moment, even a minute,” he says. His secondary company, Scentevents, recently mixed up an olfactory “wow” moment for Katy Perry’s California Dreams tour. “We scented all 127 of her concert venues with a cotton candy aroma since she’s surrounded by a cloud of it on her album cover,” Harris says. “It was a theatrical, multisensory experience.” (Not surprisingly, sales of Perry’s pink confection-scented perfume went through the roof.) “Scent is such a powerful thing,” Harris says. “It’s one of the strongest senses we have, and Vegas has been the perfect place to bring that magic.”On the West Coast, we have more of those reluctantly released enrollment numbers for Obamacare. The Weekly Standard‘s John McCormack weighed the numbers and found them wanting despite WonkBlog’s assertion that this constitutes success. The short story is 900,000 lost insurance because of Obamacare’s new regulations and 500,000 have signed up via the exchange. About 300,000 of those who’ve signed up would have been those who were previously insured and now eligible for subsidies, which makes the best-case scenario number for newly insured in the giant state of California…about 200,000.
McCormack explains:
But even if all or most of the 500,000 people who signed up for Obamacare by December 31 end up paying their bills, is that really a success? Leaving aside important questions about the quality and cost of Obamacare plans, the enrollment numbers are not impressive. The California exchange is doing very little to achieve the goal of insuring the uninsured.
Recall that California did not allow insurers the opportunity to re-offer plans canceled by Obamacare. Anne Gonzales of Covered California confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD in a phone call that all 900,000 non-grandfathered plans in California “had to be discontinued by January 1.” So how many of the 500,000 people who signed up for Obamacare before January 1 previously had insurance? “I don’t think we have those [numbers],” Gonzales said.
But it’s easy to infer that the majority of people who signed up for Obamacare already had insurance. “Of those 900,000 [who lost plans], 310,000 of those would have been subsidy eligible if they came to the exchange,” Gonzales said. Another 20,000 subsidy-eligible Californians lost plans because their insurance carriers were dropping out of the market.
Health care industry expert Bob Laszewski points out that that means at least 330,000 of the 500,000 people who signed up for Obamacare already had health insurance. “If you want to know how many uninsured bought it, subtract by at least” 330,000, Laszewski told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “The only place they can get the subsidy is in the exchange. So if they’re going to replace their policy, unless they’re really stupid, they’re going to replace it in the exchange.”Potential: unlocked.
The defensive front seven of the New England Patriots is loaded with talent. On Sunday, that talent showed itself on the field.
Against a mobile quarterback like Tyrod Taylor, a fierce pass rush could be a bad thing. That wasn’t the case on Sunday in the Patriots’ 40-32 win over the Buffalo Bills.
Taylor made the Patriots pay on a couple of occasions by scrambling to buy extra time in the pocket and by running through gaps in the line to gain yards on the ground, but the Patriots finished with eight sacks, the most they’ve had in a game since 2003 against Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.
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Well, that’s one way to make everyone forget about the wholesale changes in the secondary.
The Patriots didn’t even have to turn up the heat to put Taylor’s feet to the fire. According to stats website Pro Football Focus, the Patriots only sent a blitz after Taylor on 10 of the Bills’ 42 pass plays, but were able to generate pressure 21 times.
They only achieved two of their eight sacks when sending a blitz after Taylor, while the other six sacks were a result of a four-man rush.
Five defenders rushed Taylor on the first sack. Both Chandler Jones and Geneo Grissom lined up with their hand on the ground as defensive tackles; Jamie Collins lined up over the center as the middle linebacker, but was pressed up against the line of scrimmage; Rob Ninkovich and Jabaal Sheard lined up in a two-point stance (standing on their feet) on the outside.
Initially, it looked as if Taylor could escape the pocket up the middle on the run, but Sheard came around from the end and forced Taylor to run to his right. Ninkovich did a great job in space, kept Taylor in front of him, and forced the quarterback out of bounds.
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The second sack was a four-man rush, with Jamie Collins coming up the gut on a rush against center Eric Wood. Chandler Jones lined up at the one-technique, in between the guard and center, and angled his rush in such a way that he occupied both men for a brief time. That was long enough for Collins to breeze past the center, and with the pocket collapsing around him from the edges, Taylor had no choice but to eat the sack.
The third sack of Taylor was a result of a heavy rush. Six defenders started off on the rush before Dont’a Hightower bailed out and dropped into coverage.
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With six blockers and five rushers, the Bills had the numbers advantage, but Chandler Jones and Jabaal Sheard won their one-on-one matchups — Jones to collapse the pocket from the outside and Sheard to contain the middle of the pocket and prevent Taylor from running into the secondary. Jones continued to pursue, and his hard work eventually paid off.
The next sack was another example of Jones’ motor, coupled with a nifty counter move by the fourth-year defensive end. Jones got past offensive tackle Cordy Glenn by starting his rush to the outside and then cutting to the inside to get through the gap between the tackle and the guard.
Ordinarily, this would be the perfect opportunity for Taylor to scramble to his left, but by the time he reacted and began spinning to evade the rush, it was already too late.
Another four-man rush came after Taylor on the fifth sack, the first and only sack that was logged by a defensive tackle. Alan Branch charged hard up the field to get after Taylor, and may have evacuated his gap to do so.
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The quickness with which he was able to get into the backfield negated Taylor’s ability to evade the rush, though. Taylor hadn’t even gone to his second read in the progression before he was already looking for the football on the ground after it had been knocked out by Branch.
The sixth sack is an interesting example of a four-man rush meeting an exotic pressure package. Jamie Collins rushed hard up the middle, in between defensive linemen Malcom Brown and Chandler Jones. Brown rushed against left guard Richie Incognito, Jones against left tackle Cordy Glenn and Collins against…well, no one.
As a result, a four-man rush — which is usually easily picked up by the offensive line — resulted in a numbers advantage for the Patriots defense. Once again, the rush got home too quickly for Taylor to do anything about it. The Bills were lucky that running back LeSean McCoy was there to pick up the fumble, but that’s only because he wasn’t in position to pick up the blitz.
There were no tricks or exotic rush packages on the seventh sack, it was just four defensive linemen against five offensive linemen. Jones did a great job of setting the edge and pushing Glenn into the backfield. Once he got there, though, it was what he did next that was most impressive. Taylor began to rush to his left to get away from Jones, but the defensive end stacked and shed Glenn to ensure that he could close off the edge. Taylor tried to react, but he slipped and fell. Jones wrapped him up, and Ninkovich came flying off the other edge to bring him down.
The eighth and final sack was a result of a four-man rush and a swarm mentality. Malcom Brown occupied two blockers on the offense’s left, and Sealver Siliga did the same on the right. Safety Patrick Chung rushed, which freed up linebacker Dont’a Hightower, who nearly lost his footing. Jamie Collins was pushed out of the way initially, but kept his motor running until the play was over. Basically, with the exception of Brown and Siliga, there was no thought of gap integrity.
Of course, that lack of gap integrity is what led to the Bills’ comeback efforts.
“We had our moments,’’ Bill Belichick said of his team’s pass rush after the game. “We let them run around a lot too. Taylor ran around and he scrambled and threw for big yardage. I didn’t think it was all great. We made some plays and we gave up some plays. It wasn’t very consistent. We’ve got to coach better, be more disciplined and play better. We’ll see it again this upcoming week. We’re going to have to do a better job than we did today.’’
It would be hard to imagine the Patriots doing better than eight sacks, but against mobile quarterbacks, it’s about more than sack totals. Gap containment is key if the Patriots want to prevent Blake Bortles from having a surprising performance against their defense.
Photos: Bill Belichick’s best draft picksLuis Suarez will be available to make his Barcelona debut in the first La Liga clasico of the 2014-15 season at Real Madrid on Oct. 25, the Catalan club has confirmed.
- Ledwith: Time for Neymar to step up at Barcelona
Suarez is serving a four-month ban imposed for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini when playing for Uruguay at the 2014 World Cup.
That game took place on June 24, with FIFA announcing the punishment two days later. That led to reports that the ban would be enforced until Oct. 26, thereby ruling the player out of the first clasico of the season.
However, Barca say the subsequent ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which lessened the punishment by allowing Suarez to train and play in friendly games during his timeout, mandated that the ban was to run from the day of the Italy vs. Uruguay game -- and therefore end on Oct. 24.
A club statement released soon after La Liga authorities had set the kickoff times for that weekend's action said there was no doubt over the availability of the 80 million euro summer signing from Liverpool.
"Luis Suarez can play the clasico which will be played at the [Estadio] Santiago Bernabeu on Oct. 25 at 18:00," the statement said.
"The Court of Arbitration for Sport [CAS] confirmed to FC Barcelona that the Uruguay forward's ban ends the day before, at midnight on Friday Oct. 24. Therefore Suarez can make his official debut as a Blaugrana player in the game against Real Madrid, should Luis Enrique decide to do so."
Barca also said on Wednesday that new centre-back Jeremy Mathieu had missed training with an ankle injury, making the France international doubtful for Saturday's La Liga game at home vs. Athletic Bilbao.
Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique and Andres Iniesta, who missed matches for Argentina and Spain during the recent international break, are all expected to be fit for the game at the Camp Nou.With rage surging over claims of price gouging, EpiPen manufacturer Mylan took a page from Turing’s playbook today. CEO Heather Bresch told CNBC that the company is taking “immediate action” to make the life-saving auto-injectors available to any patients that need one. The company will expand discounts and eligibility of its customer assistance program.
However, Mylan gave no sign that it will lower the EpiPen’s list price, which the company has hiked up more than 400 percent in recent years. Though an EpiPen only costs a few dollars to make and can reverse deadly allergic reactions, they now can cost more than $600.
Bresch, seen as the mastermind of the price hike and currently one of the highest paid executives in the industry, tried instead to shift the conversation to problems in the American healthcare system.
In what can only be described as a perplexing interview with CNBC, Bresch said:
No one's more frustrated than me… My frustration is, the list price is $608. There is a system. I laid out that there are four or five hands that the product touches, and companies that it goes through before it ever gets to that patient at the counter. Everyone should be frustrated. I'm hoping that this is an inflection point for this country.
She added:
All involved must also take steps to help meaningfully address the US health care crisis… and we are committed to do our part to drive change in collaboration with policymakers, payers, patients, and health care professionals.
It may appear bold to dodge calls to lower the list price—particularly as the company faces claims that it is a "vulture" guilty of limitless greed—and instead deflect blame to broader problems. However, Bresch’s response echoes that of Turing Pharmaceutical’s in the wake of its own price gouging allegations. Turing faced intense backlash after it raised the price of a life-saving drug, Daraprim, by more than 5,000 percent last fall. Though Turing initially hinted that it would indeed scale back the drug's list price, it instead unveiled discount plans and deals for hospitals.
"We pledge that no patient needing Daraprim will ever be denied access," Nancy Retzlaff, Turing's chief commercial officer, said in a news release at the time. Like Bresch, she hinted at broader, system-wide problems, adding, "Drug pricing is one of the most complex parts of the healthcare industry. A drug's list price is not the primary factor in determining patient affordability and access.”
Despite Turing's discounts and deals, documents released in a Congressional hearing a few months later revealed that some patients faced $16,000 co-pays while Turing executives were handed six-figure bonuses.Arun Jaitley has filed a defamation suit against Arvind Kejriwal and other AAP leaders (File)
Union Minister Arun Jaitley has opposed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's plea in the Delhi High Court seeking summoning of the minutes of meetings of the Delhi and District Cricket Association or DDCA held from 1999 to 2014. Mr Kejriwal moved the fresh plea in a defamation suit filed by Mr Jaitley against him and five other Aam Aadmi Party leaders, seeking Rs 10 crore damages for alleged "defamatory" allegations against the union minister during his tenure as president of the DDCA.Mr Jaitley, 64, replying to Registrar Pankaj Gupta of the Delhi High Court, said Mr Kejriwal's application should be dismissed as he has been trying to delay the proceedings in the lawsuit by filing "frivolous" pleas, including the current one.Mr Jaitley has said the fresh plea was "not only a dilatory tactic but clearly a roving and fishing expedition".Mr Kejriwal has sought summoning of the minutes of the meetings held by the general body and the executive committee or board of directors of the DDCA between 1999 and 2014. Mr Jaitley was the DDCA president from 2000 to 2013.Mr Kejriwal in his application filed through advocate Anupam Srivastava has said he wished to cross-examine Mr Jaitley in the suit, whose hearing saw high drama when his former counsel Ram Jethmalani used some "objectionable and scandalous" words against the senior BJP leader.Mr Jethmalani, who has now stopped representing Mr Kejriwal in the case, recently wrote letters alleging that those words were spoken at the instruction of the chief minister and his former client had hurled worse abuses against Mr Jaitely in their meetings.Mr Jaitley, in his reply filed through advocate Manik Dogra, and said the law provided that if Mr Kejriwal wanted to summon a witness or the records, he must mention them in his list of witnesses.The list of witnesses was required to be filed within 15 days after the court framed issues to be decided in the suit. Besides Mr Kejriwal, the five other accused are AAP leaders Raghav Chadha, Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh and Deepak Bajpai.When he moved to Vermont for school, Kulsic landed in one of the most progressive states in the country in terms of employee wage-and-hour laws. Vermont’s current minimum wage, at $8.73 an hour, is one of the highest in the country, nearly $1.50 above the federal minimum wage. It will rise to $9.60 in 2016, $10 in 2017, and $10.50 in 2018. The state approved these increases this summer, well before voters in states across the country, including Arkansas and South Dakota, passed minimum-wage increases at the ballot box.
Vermont was also the first state in the country to pass a “Right to Request” law, which allows any worker to ask for scheduling changes for any reason without fear of employer retaliation. The law requires an employer to consider such requests at least twice a year. In 2013, Vermont strengthened a law that requires men and women be paid equally for equal work. The state also allows workers to disclose their own wages and inquire about others' wages without their employers' permission.
Though these laws surely helped some Vermonters, interviews with Kulsic and other low-wage workers in the state indicate that minimum-wage-and-scheduling laws barely begin to solve the problems that poverty creates in states across the country. That’s because the nature of low-wage work has changed dramatically in the last decade, as companies shift to more part-time workers who have little control over their schedules, and because the cost of living has been growing much faster than wages have.
Kulsic would love more control over his schedule, so he can take a few classes or get a second job. But he’d never heard of the "Right to Request" law, and says people at his workplace get let go if they ask for anything at work–whether it be more hours or day shifts.
His bosses “have been known to ignore time-off requests, and usually folks are too afraid of severance to request anything,” Kulsic said.
A study released this summer by researchers at the University of Chicago indicates that the problems that Kulsic faces are widespread. Looking at the schedules of adults 26 to 32 in the labor market, it found that 75 percent of workers in hourly jobs reported fluctuations in the number of hours they worked per week, sometimes by more than eight hours. In the food service industry, 90 percent of workers said their hours fluctuated, on average, by 68 percent. Only one-third of hourly workers were allowed any input into their work schedule, according to the report.
“There’s been a real shift in what proportion of workers are full-time versus part time,” said Susan Lambert, a University of Chicago professor and one of the authors of the study. “Some workers get full or stable hours, but everyone else is fighting for more hours, scrambling for more hours.”
It’s the nature of the post-recession economy: Fewer workers are getting as many hours as they need. Last month, there were 7 million Americans working part-time for economic reasons—either because they could only find part-time work, or because business was slow—up from 4.3 million in October 2007. Often, low-wage workers need to be employed for a few months or years before their bosses give them full-time work. So workers know that quitting a low-paying, part-time job to find another will rarely yield a better situation."The immediate goal is still to get 15 percent [in the polls] and then beyond," says Ron Nielson, campaign manager for the Gary Johnson/William Weld Libertarian Party presidential campaign, in a telephone interview yesterday (before the CNN Town Hall) about current campaign strategy and tactics. (The 15 percent in five national polls is key to getting in the presidential debates, which Johnson has always said is key to success.)
The key to that is going to continue to be what it has been in the two months since the team won the L.P. nomination: earned media, in the campaigners' parlance, which means: getting on TV and in the papers and news sites.
However, the campaign is also beginning to roll out rallies as a tactic, started with one in Reno on Friday and then Salt Lake City on Saturday, with others planned soon in other targeted states. "The rallies will involve coalitions of groups, getting support from other organizations interested in helping," he says. "That is very important to us."
Nielson says they are getting in more polls, which he says is "a direct result of Gary showing well in the polls" he's already in. "Anyone who wants to have a scientific poll really needs to include Johnson and Weld," he says, noting their occasional 10 percents and above in polls they are included in.
The campaign will continue to use social networking as a prime communication strategy to supporters and likely supporters, though he says they are going to be rolling out a national radio buy as well. (Previous internet campaign videos, Nielson says, have all spread organically, not through paid placement.) The campaign now has 42 paid staff, Nielson says, around 35 fulltime volunteers "and probably hundreds if not thousands" of part-time volunteers.
Most of them are concentrated in running ground game out of state offices. In an interview earlier this week with Deseret News, Nielson listed the states where they think they can have the most impact as:
On the Democratic side, that means Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, with Oregon, Minnesota and Iowa as more possibilities. On the Republican side, it's Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska and both Dakotas.
While some have wondered how a "concentrate on certain winnable states" strategy matches with the immediate-term need for 15 percent in polls nationally, Nielson says they are pursuing both goals simultaneously.
I ran a couple of observations/theories I or people in my communications network had about how the candidates themselves seem to be strategizing based on their own words and actions: that they are either deliberately trying to appeal to disaffected Democrats far more than Republicans, and/or that they mostly want to just sell themselves as non-ideological decent experienced successful politicians without the overwhelming personal negatives of Clinton and Trump.
Nielson didn't agree with either idea, believing that his candidates are in different ways trying to "pull from Clinton supporters, and in other parts trying to pull from Trump, but the truth is there is a big section of independents, a lot of voters forming allegiances to neither Clinton nor Trump" who he thinks his guys can capture.
As to the second point, while he mentions "we had a little fun with the slogan 'Make America Sane Again,'" he thinks it's less about the flaws of their competitors as "pushing the message that these two governors were both successful, developed great leadership skills, were respected by the people who elected them and liked" and those qualities might "provide some security to voters."
On the fundraising tip, although William Weld said last night on CNN's Libertarian Town Hall that he was having million-dollar days working the phones for the campaign, Nielson only spoke proudly of a $360,000 haul over just the two days prior to our conversation. A "money comet" promotion they did last month pulled in around a quarter million.
I asked Nielson about a rather wide variety of complaints I'd heard directly from activists and which can be found all over Reddit about disappointment over a lack of a working store for merch on the website and lack of response to those who signed up on the site as volunteers, among other complaints.
"We launched a new store tonight," Nielson says, hoping any problems with ability to obtain campaign swag will fade moving forward.
"As far as people contacting the campaign to volunteer, that is wonderful and we thank them for doing it," Nielson says. "But I ask that they be patient. We weren't expecting quite the magnitude of support, it's been kind of overwhelming and we have been having a tough time responding to every person. But we don't want people to go away, and we hope they keep coming and we will find places and things for everyone to do." He says they and volunteers have been and will continue to organize phone banks to promote Johnson/Weld.
Nielson does anticipate as fundraising proceeds that there will be some "paid media, which will be different for the Libertarian Party, and we'll see how that affects the support base. When doing advertising, we will stand by our opinion that a majority of Americans support the same ideological orientation of Team Gov."Walking barefoot on glass. Walking barefoot through hot coals. Bending iron poles with your neck. These are the things Olimar Tesser, Portuguesa's newly-hired team hypnotist, believes are the keys to dragging the Brazilian club out of the relegation zone.
Portuguesa turned to Tesser after only mustering 21 points from their first 27 matches of the season, a tally that has them firmly in the relegation zone of Brazil's second division. The hypnotist has more than a little experience in fiddling around inside the minds of the country's athletes. He's been hired by Atibaia, Jundiaí, Marilia, and individual players from some of the country's biggest teams. The above video shows footage of Atibaia players going through some of his go-to confidence-boosting exercises.
Here's Tesser explaining his methods, which he repeatedly says are "not magic" and instead meant to improve concentration, confidence, and self-esteem:
I work on the human being, the man, and this is reflected on the pitch. He thinks that if he can bend iron and walk on glass, he can do anything in the game. The brain can not distinguish what is true or not. Two minutes of training in hypnosis have the same effect as 20 minutes without.
That actually doesn't sound all that different that the more familiar sports psychologist. There might be more efficient ways than traipsing through glass, though.
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[Globo Esporte]And there's more. The Leave campaign had advised concerned citizens not to listen to the ‘experts’ and ‘the scaremongers’ and that the economy would be just fine. And yet, in the first day of trading following the result, two trillion US dollars were wiped off the world’s share prices. UK markets lost more money in one day than the country paid into the EU over 15 years (most of which came back in grants, anyway). These losses affect everyone's pensions, jobs, salaries, and government income, and they will push Britain towards a recession that will |
at New York-based think tank Brighter Green explained in their 2011 report, "Given that nearly every fifth person in the world is Chinese, even small increases in individual meat or dairy consumption will have broad, collective environmental as well as climate impacts."
There are also concerns that China's rising meat consumption will not only drive up its own greenhouse gas emissions but also emissions elsewhere. Already, China in recent years has signed multibillion-dollar deals to buy feed crops worldwide. If Chinese citizens want to eat more beef, it will likely also come from abroad because of limited land resources at home, said Mia MacDonald, executive director of Brighter Green.
Since audits on the international trade and associated emissions barely exist so far, countries like Brazil and Paraguay stand a chance of being accused of causing huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, even though part of their emissions are linked to producing feed crops and livestock products for Chinese customers, MacDonald said.
She added that the dispute is similar to one that is already happening between China and Western nations, which first outsourced their climate pollution to China by relocating factories there—and then blaming China for speeding up global warming.
Underestimated greenhouse gas
Still, livestock-related emissions and associated issues are not in the spotlight of international climate negotiations, partly because of the difficulty of measuring the emissions accurately, MacDonald said. The result, she said, is a lack of awareness on the subject among global policymakers and China may hardly be an exception (See related story).
"When I was invited by Chinese scholars to Shanghai and Beijing in 2010, my colleagues and I gave presentations about emissions from livestock production. There were a few people from the government attending the meetings. Our talks were well-received by Chinese officials but surprised them," MacDonald recalled. "My sense is that this was not very well-known in China."
Three years later, things may not have changed much here. Although the Chinese government has announced ambitious targets for emission cuts and poured billions of dollars annually to promote low-carbon technologies, energy-intensive industrial sectors such as power generation and transportation are the main focus, said Wanqing Zhou, a Brighter Green associate who researches China's climate action. She added that detailed policies on low-carbon animal production are still a blank in the nation.
"As far as I know, the connection between meat consumption and greenhouse gas emission has not become the mainstream among policymakers," Zhou said. "It's hard to say whether the inaction is due to lack of interest. It's possible that the (Chinese) government is looking into this issue, while capacity limitations and management difficulties undermine the ambition."
A recent call to a leading Chinese organization then shed some light on how industry players think about their carbon footprints.
"We do follow news on emissions reduction, but no one in the association is studying this," said a staffer who answered the phone at the Beijing office of the China Animal Agriculture Association. "The association presents the need of Chinese livestock industry. So far, no livestock producers have asked us about lowering greenhouse gas emissions," the staff member said.
Carbon trading, waste management may help
To be sure, although China has yet to issue regulations specifically targeting livestock-related emissions, emissions reduction can be a byproduct of other activities. For instance, in order to curb pollution, Chinese policymakers have banned direct release of animal waste, a major source of methane and nitrous oxide.
Chinese policymakers have also encouraged domestic livestock producers to take advantage of international carbon trading. The country's poultry giant Shandong Minhe Animal Husbandry Co. Ltd., for one, has built biogas plants running on chicken manure, producing clean energy while harvesting carbon credits worth millions of dollars.
But with current carbon prices at historic lows and sluggish progress on the United Nations climate negotiations, doubts run high on whether Chinese livestock producers will continue developing emissions reduction projects in exchange for carbon credits. While China has ramped up its own financial assistance, some experts wonder whether the country's livestock industry—dominated by small producers—will be able to generate enough wastes to sustain an economic biogas plant's operation.
Dong Renjie, an expert in waste management at the China Agricultural University in Beijing, acknowledged that the challenge is to persuade Chinese livestock producers to treat and reuse their animal waste. But he insisted the government is working hard to make a positive change.
"Last year, China's environmental protection ministry issued a new regulation, which allows subsidizing the practice of turning animal wastes into organic fertilizers," Dong said. "The government is also taking notes on countries that have succeeded in promoting biogas technology. I believe we will soon come up with more practical policies and popularize the use of manure-based biogas."
Chinese scientists, too, are trying to help. Already, a team in central China's Anhui province has developed a new strain of cattle that emits 60 percent less methane for each kilogram of beef production compared with the original variety in the region. There are also ongoing research efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through providing animals higher-quality feeds.
Will Chinese customers also get involved in livestock-related emissions reduction and host events like "meat-free Mondays"? Zhan, who was preparing the fish, pork and duck soup meal for her family here, seemed to be surprised by the question. "I don't think we are eating too much meat," she said while continuing to cook in her kitchen.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500Cody Atkinson is the co-editor of HurlingPeopleNow, an excellent sports website that focuses mostly on the AFL and AFLW. A tweet following Nick Riewoldt’s retirement announcement yesterday set his mind racing: sure, there’s only one Nick Riewoldt, but is there only one Nick Riewoldt?
On the 31st of July 2017, on the day of the announcement Nick Riewoldt’s retirement, the official Twitter account of the AFL sent this missive.
There's only one Nick Riewoldt 🙌 pic.twitter.com/EZ3EB7Zt8Y — AFL (@AFL) July 31, 2017
The sentiment is noble, and subjectively accurate, at face level. The soon-to-be-former Saint has been a transformational talent for St Kilda, leading them to three Grand Finals, including one that they didn’t lose. He has a fair claim to the mantle of best key position forward so far this century, and to being the best number one draft pick ever. As Ken Sakata showed us a few weeks back, Riewoldt is a truly unique football specimen.
Possibly the closest player to Nick Riewoldt is Jack Watts – a deceptively quick tall blond former number one draft pick who can play around the ground but is best up forward. But comparing Riewoldt to Watts is like comparing the Venus de Milo to the Gummi Venus de Milo.
But what about objectively? How many Nick Riewoldts are there? Let’s find out.
First Stop: Wikipedia
For most famous people, Wikipedia is often the death of uniqueness. For people with names like Joshua Smith, Samuel Reid or Nathan Brown, clear and concise evidence exists that there are more than one of each person.
As far as the name “Riewoldt” is concerned, only two have current Wikipedia pages – Nick and his cousin Jack. However, on Nick Riewoldt’s Wikipedia page there is a clue hidden; one stating that he is of German descent. This is potentially the breaking point of the entire caper.
The next logical step is German Wikipedia, which has several unique articles amongst its archives. Unfortunately, only one further Riewoldt is added to the mix – Otto, a man for which we are sure is not named Nick.
Second Stop: Ancestry.com
Long the haunt of wistful uncles and aunties trying to find out where they are really from, Ancestry.com is a haven of old official government records from across the world. For full access, Ancestry requires you to either sign up for a trial or pay a fee of $29.99 a month, which is basically extortion. Instead, we will (out of protest) only rely on their free records, which provides for any relevant matches but omits more detailed biographical information.
Which is fine; we are just looking for blokes named Nick Riewoldt.
Unlike the fruitless Wikipedia searches of before, there are a plethora of Riewoldt’s in Ancestry’s records, mostly centred in Germany. None are named Nick. Or Nicholas. Or Niko, Nikolas, Nikolaus…Nada.
Excitement levels rise when one match is found, in Texas marriage records, with a “Nicholas F Riewoldt” marrying to “Catherine C Heard”, in McLennan, Texas. However, a quick Google confirmation reveals that this is the AFL playing Nick Riewoldt, and Catherine Heard is the wife of said AFL player.
Stop 3: Social Media
Ancestry does a great job of searching public records of largely dead people, but how about largely alive people? Surely there has to be a few Nick Riewoldts on Facebook?
Turns out there are, but none of them are actually really named Nick Riewoldt. Seventeen results appear for “Nick Riewoldt” on Facebook, but almost all of them appear to be fake accounts. The biggest question here is why would someone create a multitude of fake Nick Riewoldt Facebook profiles, but it isn’t the question at hand unfortunately.
A search of Linkedin, home of the multitasking footy player, also shows up nothing significant. Twitter is more interesting, but only barely so. An ill-fated “Dull Nick Riewoldt” account stands out amongst the eggs and spambots, but only barely so.
Other than Nick Riewoldt, Nick Riewoldt isn’t on on social media.
Stop 4: Trove
For those uninitiated souls, Trove is a literal treasure trove of information relating to Australia and Australians, both in physical and digital forms.
But even according to Trove, there is only one Nick/Nicholas Riewoldt – they guy who lived in a sharehouse with Justin Koschitzke and Leigh Montagna, and failed to collect their $121.40 each in returned bond for a year or so.
Unfortunately, Trove is unable to tell us what portion of the original bond that represents (my guess, considering they lived in Brighton is that it is a mere fraction) or who chased up the eventual collection. Gut feel: it was probably Leigh Montagna. No real reason, he just seems like he’d be on the ball with that.
Stop 5: Random Googling
As a last resort, I set off on a wild search of all possible places, via the magic of Google. FamilySearch.Org provided nothing but a Nell N Riewoldt, White Pages only had four hits for the last name Riewoldt in Australia. The few publicly available, online electoral rolls turn up no signs of Riewoldts, and the incoming passenger records show merely three Riewoldts, with no first name.
Even the German online phone book, entitled DasTelefonbuch or “the telephone book” in English, turns up only 17 mentions of people named “Riewoldt” in Germany. In the US, there are 34, including a “Crickett R Riewoldt”. None are named Nick.
Verdict
This article started with the intention of making a cheap joke at the expense of those who run the AFL twitter account – an intention that has gone unfulfilled. Riewoldt is a relatively rare name, with origins harking back to northern Germany, according to the internet. The presence of Riewoldts is strongest in Australia and the USA – two countries that accepted a number of post-WWII migrants.
Specifically, Nick Riewoldt’s family emigrated to Australia to work on the Snowy Hydro Scheme – an origin story for many second, third and fourth generation Australians alike. It is a story similar to my own grandparents, who also migrated to Australia post-war, looking for a new place to live.
Even with 24.6 million Australians, and around 7 billion people around the world, the merging of cultures, and naming conventions, has created “one-offs” – unique names and people, pursuing constantly evolving careers. It must have been unfathomable for Nick’s grandfather that two of his grandsons would eventually play professional Australian Football, which wouldn’t have been an available profession when he was growing up, let alone one he would have known about in Germany.
So, the AFL was right, even though I’m pretty sure they didn’t mean to be. There is only one Nick Riewoldt.[F Eh Q is a feature where we answer your questions about Canadian topics. In this installment: BOOZE!]
Dear Plaidspin,
On a recent business trip to Toronto, I couldn't get over how weird Canadian liquor laws were.
I wanted to pick up some beer, only to be told that it was illegal to sell alcohol in grocery or convenience stores. There weren't even any regular liquor stores - I was told to either go to something called an LCBO, the government-owned liquor distribution store, or a place called The Beer Store where they roll the beer out for you on a conveyer belt - except it was after 5 PM on a Sunday, so both were closed, making it impossible to buy beer anywhere in the city. When I tried to buy beer again the next day, the prices were also much higher than I'm used to in the States - even swill like Bud Light was $13 for a 6-pack, and the good local beer was nearly twice that.
What's the deal, Canada? I thought you were a liberal, beer-loving democracy, and here you are with the strictest liquor laws this side of Saudi Arabia.
Sincerely,
Liquor Lover in Louisiana
Dear Liquor Lover in Louisiana,
I know this is going to sound very Canadian of me, but it's really all that I can say:
Sorry.
You've hit upon something that's fairly embarrassing for us as a country. We know, we know - our liquor laws are bizarre, unnecessarily restrictive and designed as a monopolistic government scam. It's not our fault! We still like booze a lot in Canada - just in most provinces, we make it very hard for ourselves to acquire it.
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Whenever I hear people complain about how restrictive the liquor-buying laws are in their home state of Pennsylvania or Kentucky or New Jersey, I just scoff a hearty scoff. Oh, you can only buy certain types of beer in your grocery stores? If I want beer I can only buy it from either a highly-taxed government-controlled monopoly, or from an antiquated result of collusion between foreign-owned brewing conglomerates.
Laws regarding retail liquor sales are left up to the jurisdiction of individual provinces, and as you might have seen last week, I made a map breaking down liquor laws by province. Here it is one more time. Hit "Expand" to embiggen.
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A few quick takeaways: Alberta, considered the Texas of Canada both politically and economically, is the only province to have fully embraced free-market economics. Everywhere else, the main source of alcohol is at government-owned retail chains, where, benefiting from a monopoly-like lack of competition, governments can jack up the retail price of booze at will and pocket the extra taxes as government revenue.
When Americans talk about Canadian healthcare being free, they never mention that the beer costs twice as much. Sure, when I inevitably need a liver transplant in my 60s I won't end up paying a nickel, but on the other hand, I've already paid enough into the province's coffers through a lifetime of liquor sales to pay for that surgery. Consider it an installment-based down-payment system.
For now, since a full discussion of liquor laws across Canada would take up a lot of your valuable time, let's focus on Canada's largest province, the one in which I'm most familiar with getting shitfaced: Ontario.
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Where Did The LCBO Come From?
Ontario is fairly representative of a lot of provinces, in that liquor sales are regulated by a provincial liquor control board. In Ontario, that's the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO, pronounced by college-aged kids as the lick-bow - as in, "hey Gordie, wanna grab a two-sixer o' rye from the lick-bow and a two-liter ginger ale before the World Juniors game, bud?")
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In Ontario, the government-owned LCBO operates retail outlets throughout the province, and they're the only legal place for 13-million odd Ontarians to buy liquor.
Nowadays the LCBO is more of a brandname than an actual abbreviation (in fact, they recently paid an upmarket advertising firm $500,000 to redesign their logo - an unnecessary expense, you'd think, for a company with no legal competition), but back when it was founded under the Ontario Liquor Control Act of 1927, they took the "C" for "Control" part of their name seriously.
The LCBO was created as a measured response to the temperance movement of the 1920s. Canada experimented with prohibition in a regional, off-and-on way throughout the 1920s, with powerful religious temperance movements leading the charge. (Far from the free-wheeling cosmopolitan city it is today, Toronto in the early 20th century was so buttoned-up and pious it earned the nickname "Methodist Rome.") Still, Canada's flirtations with prohibition were nowhere near as severe as the US, where the taps were turned off from 1920 until 1933.
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The LCBO, then, was created as a compromise. Since total prohibition proved to be unpopular (and not very lucrative for the Canadian economy, as Canadian distillers like Seagram's, Wiser's and Canadian Club were reaping in huge profits bootlegging bottles to the States), it was repealed in favour of a centralized government monopoly that would distribute, regulate and tax all sales of alcohol in the province. The LCBO would sell beer, wine and spirits, while a separate operating body also set up in 1927, the Brewer's Retail coalition, would sell only beer.
Early on, through the 30s, 40s and 50s, the LCBO took their temperance responsibilities seriously. If you wanted to get your buzz on, you'd have to be a card-carrying LCBO member, with a passport-sized permit allowing you to purchase liquor. You'd walk into this government office-type establishment, and ask for a bottle of rum. You'd fill out your order form and they'd fetch you a bottle from the back. If they checked your membership log and you'd already had two bottles of rum that week, though, they might just stamp a big red "DRUNKARD" label on your record and refuse to serve you.
By the 60s and 70s, things had loosened up a little bit, but you still needed to sign your name each time you made a liquor purchase. That's because up until 1975, the LCBO administered its own list of known drunks that they distributed to each store. For that reason, people often signed a phony name when they bought liquor. Rumour has it that for a while in the 70s, the single biggest liquor buyer in Ontario was the head of the United Church of Canada - as a bit of a prank, people had been conspiring to use his name whenever they made an LCBO purchase.
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Today, despite what seems like government promises every single year to introduce reforms, the LCBO continues to operate as a retailing behemoth across the province. Restaurants and bars can't buy booze directly from manufacturers, either - everything has to go through the LCBO, with the taxes per bottle usually costing more than the contents of the bottle.
Consider this: today, the LCBO is the largest purchaser of alcoholic beverages in the world.
Where Did The Beer Store Come From?
In the early 20th century, brewing in Canada was more of a cottage industry. Temperance advocates were on the brewers' case as prohibition in Ontario was repealed in 1927, arguing that beers shouldn't be sold in grocery stores. The government, realizing that their own Liquor Control Board stores wouldn't be able to meet the demands of a thirsty, beer-loving public, made a concession to the brewers: you can start your own store, as long as you own it.
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In 1927 there were 36 brewers in Ontario, mostly small regional brands forgotten to history. In an unlikely alliance between rivals, they formed the Brewers Warehousing Ltd. (later renamed Brewers Retail Inc.), better known today as The Beer Store.
Eventually, these breweries started amalgamating as a handful of tycoons bought up smaller breweries, and by 1960, the emergent "big three" of Molson, Labatt and Carling-O'Keefe controlled 94% of beer sales in Canada. (Carling-O'Keefe is mostly a ghost these days, save for the sold-off Carling Black Label brandname still popular in foreign markets.)
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As the brewing industry become more consolidated, so too did ownership shares over the Beer Store. And if you were Molson or Labatt, this was great news - not only could you control the entire supply chain from production to retail, but you could also aggressively promote your own products at the retail store, putting up big eye-catching displays for Molson Canadian and Labatt Blue while bullying small craft breweries out of shelf space. Or rather, conveyer belt space.
The conveyer belt part might be the weirdest thing about the Beer Store for Americans. If you've ever seen Strange Brew, the scene where they walk into a place just called "Beer Store" and have cases of beer sliding out from a conveyer belt isn't a joke - it's how we buy beer.
Today, ownership of the Beer Store is split between the three largest brewers in Canada - 49% owned by Molson, 49% by Labatt, and 2% by Sleeman. The Beer Store accounts for around 85% of the beer sales in Ontario, largely owing to the fact that they're the only store that can legally sell 12-packs or 24-packs (or, as every single person in Canada calls them, "two-fours") while the LCBO can only sell in 6-packs.
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Practically all beer in Ontario is sold by a monopoly owned by three massive brewing companies. Already, if you're a fan of craft or foreign beer, you can see how this is a problem.
Now, it would be one thing if this were a protectionist scheme to prop up Canadian breweries, but the owners of the Beer Store aren't even Canadian-owned anymore.
Labatt is owned by the Belgian/Brazilian mega-conglomerate Anheuser-Busch-InBev. Molson merged with Coors in 2005. And in 2006, Sleeman was bought out by Japanese brand Sapporo.
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And that's where we stand today. Beer for 13 million Ontarians is controlled by a restrictive monopoly that bullies small Canadian-owned breweries for shelf space, all while being owned by a cartel of Belgian/Brazilian/American/Japanese interests.
In Short, The Whole System's Fucked.
Unless you're lucky enough to live close to an actual winery or brewery where you can buy products on-site (although prices are still subject to government regulation), you've got 3 places to buy booze in Ontario.
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1. The LCBO, which is fucked. It's one thing to be a government monopoly, but here we have a government monopoly that does its best to screw small local breweries and wineries. A common complaint from manufacturers is that the LCBO asks for massive quantities of products at a rock-bottom prices - since they're expected to sell a fairly uniform selection with uniform prices everywhere from Ottawa on one side of the province to Dryden on the other (just for a sense of scale, it would be shorter to drive from New York City to Memphis, TN than it would be from Dryden to Ottawa), they can squeeze a winery for a shipment of 50,000 bottles at $8 a pop, only to retail them for $15 across the province and pocket the difference.
That's one of the reasons why things have been very slow to change - even though we all agree the LCBO's an antiquated relic of a bygone era, it's also a cash cow, reaping in $2.5 billion per year for the province's coffers. Even still, economists say that the government could reap in even more money if they kept taxing bottles but let private retailers sell booze.
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Not to mention the fact that LCBOs close at 9 PM (or in some cases 10 PM) every day, except on Sunday, where they close at 5. (In fact, it was only in 1985 that the Lord's Day Act of 1906 was fully revoked in Canada, which had previously banned all commerce on Sundays.) All LCBOs are also closed on provincial holidays. If you need some liquor and it's 5:01 PM on a Sunday, or, say, the third Monday in February, your options are to either drive 3 hours to Buffalo or get fucked up on Listerine.
Calling the LCBO "socialist" would do a disservice to the very liberal liquor retailing laws of Cuba and China.
2. The Wine Rack/Wine Shop, which aren't great. A couple Canadian winery conglomerates are allowed to run their own retail chains. The Wine Rack is owned by Constellation Brands (distributors of Jackson-Triggs, Iniskillin, and a few other Canadian wines) and the Wine Shop is owned by Peller winery, and both chains were given an exemption from the LCBO monopoly as long as they only sell their own wines. The selection isn't great, the prices are still higher than in the US, and the stores still close at 10. Still, if you just want to drink shitty Ontario red wine, at least there's a backup option.
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3. The Beer Store, which is super fucked. At least the LCBO is, at the end of the day, only evil in a benign-government-bureaucracy sort of way. The Beer Store is evil in a way that only a cold-blooded multinational syndicate can be.
A lot of people hate the Beer Store, but even more people would hate it if they knew who owned it. (In a survey, only around 10% of Ontarians knew that Molson/Labatt/Sleeman owned the Beer Store, and even less know that all 3 are now foreign-owned.) In response to increasing demands to loosen beer laws, either by letting convenience stores sell beer or letting the LCBO sell 12/24-packs, the Beer Store's dug their heels so far into the ground that they've just started flinging around cartoonish, crazy accusations.
Last year they formed something called "Ontario Beer Facts", a lobbying group funded by the Beer Store to brainwash people into thinking that convenience stores are evil and suspicious. Here's a TV ad that Ontario Beer Facts put out:
Look at that evil convenience store clerk! "Have fun tonight, boys!" [OMINOUS MUSICAL STING.] Thank God the Beer Store's out here, thinking of The Children.
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Alright, how else can we loosen the laws a bit? Recently, the province discussed a new law that would allow the LCBO to compete directly with the Beer Store by selling 12-packs. The Beer Store's response?
That's right - the Beer Store would respond to increased competition by raising their prices. This is not how basic economics work! This is an entitled, monopolistic line of thinking, designed as a scare tactic.
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If the LCBO wanted to sell 12-packs, the Beer Store, if they are as efficient and privatized as they claim, should be able to compete by lowering prices. If Taco Bell decided they wanted to start selling hamburgers, the response from McDonald's wouldn't be to cry poor and warn customers that the price of a Big Mac would go up.
Fuck the Beer Store. Fuck the fact that the myriad of great craft brewers in Ontario can't legally retail their products without going through a supply chain owned by their largest direct competitors.
Again, this is all I can say to you, visitors to Ontario:
Sorry.Liberals and libertarians finally break up.
One mini-saga of the past decade in American politics has been the flirtation—with talk of a deeper partnership—between progressives and libertarians. These two groups were driven together, in the main, by common hostility to huge chunks of the Bush administration's agenda: endless, pointless wars; assaults on civil liberties; cynical vote-buying with federal dollars; and statist panders to the Christian right.
This cooperation reached its height during the 2006 election, in which, according to a new study by David Kirby and David Boaz, nearly half of libertarian voters supported Democratic congressional candidates—more than doubling the support levels from the previous midterm election in 2002. (As Jonathan Chait noted after the first Kirby/Boaz study of libertarian voting, their definition is overly broad, encompassing 14 percent of the electorate.) At the time, left-wing blogger Markos Moulitsas hailed the influx of "libertarian democrats" into the Democratic coalition. Soon, even the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey was proposing a permanent alliance of what he called "liberaltarians."
Well, you can say goodbye to all that. The new Kirby/Boaz study reports that libertarian support for Democrats collapsed in 2008, despite many early favorable assessments of Barack Obama by libertarian commentators. Meanwhile, the economic crisis has raised the salience of issues on which libertarians and Dems most disagree. And there's no question that during Obama's first year—with the rise of the Tea Party movement and national debate over bailouts, deficits, and health care—libertarian hostility to the new administration has grown adamant and virtually universal. But what progressives need to understand is that the end of this affair is actually a good thing.
The progressive-libertarian alliance may have provided tactical benefits in 2006, augmenting the Democratic “wave” election of that year. But 2008 showed that libertarian support is hardly crucial: Obama still won "libertarian" states such as Colorado and New Hampshire handily, even without their backing, and he generally performed better in the “libertarian West” than any Democratic nominee since LBJ.Digital Rights Group And ISPs Bring Legal Challenge Against New French Surveillance Law
from the just-the-beginning dept
As we've been reporting, seemingly hopeless legal challenges to UK surveillance have already notched up two wins, and revealed previously secret details about what has been going on. Now the French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) is taking the same approach in France: Together with FFDN, a federation of community-driven non-profit ISPs, La Quadrature du Net is bringing a legal action before the French Council of State against a decree on administrative access to online communications metadata. Through this decree, it is a whole pillar of the legal basis for Internet surveillance that is being challenged. This appeal, which builds on the European Union Court of Justice's recent decision on data retention, comes as the French government is instrumentalizing last month's tragic events to further its securitarian agenda, with an upcoming bill on intelligence services. LQDN is referring to the fact that in December 2014, the French government quietly passed an executive decree bringing in controversial surveillance measures that were passed by the French parliament a year before -- more details are given in LQDN's post. This is the first legal challenge carried out directly by La Quadrature du Net, but is unlikely to be the last: Eventually, this legal challenge will make it possible not only to formally refer the issue to the Constitutional Council, since the [new surveillance law] never underwent a constitutionality check, but also to confront existing French Law with the [Court of Justice of the EU] and the [European Court of Human Rights]'s case laws. In other words, even if the present challenge before the French Council of State fails, there are further legal avenues that can be explored afterwards, which makes the likelihood that at least one of them will be successful much higher.
Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+
Filed Under: france, lawsuit, surveillance
Companies: ffdn, la quadrature du net, lqdnMedia playback is not supported on this device Romain Grosjean criticised after crash in Japanese Grand Prix
Romain Grosjean has taken a lot of stick after the Japanese Grand Prix for getting tangled up in yet another first-corner incident.
There was so much pressure on Grosjean not to crash after his ban that he ended up crashing
Suzuka was only the second race back since the Lotus driver served a one-race ban for causing a first-corner shunt in Belgium, and a lot of people were critical of him on Sunday, including Red Bull's Mark Webber, who was the innocent victim this time.
Yes, it was the eighth early-race incident in which Grosjean has been involved in 14 races. But I think we need to take a step back. Grosjean's wasn't the only incident on the first lap at Suzuka.
His team-mate Kimi Raikkonen took out Fernando Alonso's Ferrari by clipping his rear wheel.
I think there was so much pressure on Grosjean not to crash after his ban that he ended up crashing.
I'm not defending him, but it's very easy to jump on a driver's back in this situation.
Sometimes you can try too hard to avoid things. He's not free and relaxed.
If drivers are not in their normal "racing driver" state at the start of the race, they are in another mindset that they're not used to.
His team boss, Eric Boullier, clearly does need to have a word with him, but I've worked with drivers before who have got themselves into that state.
In that position I would be trying to calm him down, pull him back and say: "Just go and do your job and it'll be OK."
As far as I'm concerned, he's served his penalty for this one and that should be it.
Obviously, if it does keep happening, you've got to do something, but I suspect he just needs a solid result and it should come OK for him.
VETTEL LOOKING GOOD
Sebastian Vettel's dominant victory in Japan came after what appears to be a big step forward in performance from his Red Bull team in the last two races.
This focuses around a new front wing, which was introduced for the first time in Singapore, the race before Japan, where Vettel also won.
The front wing is arguably the key component in the design of a Formula 1 car.
Because it is at the front, it is what defines the airflow over the rest of the car.
Media playback is not supported on this device Vettel takes dominant win at Suzuka
The new wing and front airflow package on the Red Bull is about getting better airflow to the underfloor and if you can achieve that then you are making the whole car work better.
That is a fairly major step.
Beyond that, it also emerged in Japan that Red Bull were running their own version of a "double DRS" rear wing.
Mercedes pioneered this idea at the start of the season, with a system that uses the DRS overtaking aid on the rear wing to stall the front wing as well. I've explained why I think this is not a good idea previously.
Red Bull were one of the teams who initially objected most vociferously to the Mercedes "double DRS", but once it was declared legal they have gone away and come up with their own version.
They have gone down a very logical and simple route. When the DRS opens, it reveals a hole in the endplates through which air is directed into the lower beam wing.
It then comes out of a slot in the central section of the underside of the beam wing, where there is a 150mm width with which teams are free to do what they want.
That air reduces the performance of the beam wing. It will also "stall" the diffuser at a lot higher ride-height than normal, giving a further aerodynamic benefit.
It's a win-win situation.
In qualifying, you can run with more downforce on the car in the corners but still have good straight-line speed because the DRS takes the drag off the car on the straights.
Then in the race you have the extra grip and the lap times are faster. That's very important on a track like Suzuka, where downforce is very important through fast corners such as the Esses.
It will be an advantage at any track. It only works if you qualify at the front of the grid, however, because if you don't, overtaking would be difficult.
But there is no reason to think that won't happen in a Red Bull with Vettel in it when the car is half decent.
I said in my last column that Suzuka would be a defining race, in that whoever was quick there would be quick for the rest of the season. So I think Red Bull now have a package they can take anywhere and be competitive.
WORRYING TIMES FOR FERRARI
It was a disastrous race for Alonso.
The Ferrari was quicker than it looked to be through practice and qualifying and you have to say Alonso would have been on the podium if he had been in the race.
But, as they always say, "if" is F1 spelt backwards, and he lost 25 points to Vettel and is now only four points in front.
It is emergency time for Ferrari now - they have to do something to improve the car and, on the evidence of the last few races, you have to fear for Alonso.
Ferrari took a new rear wing to Singapore, which was not used there. There was a new Suzuka-spec rear wing for Japan, but that was also abandoned and they ended up using the wing they'd dropped in Singapore but with slight modifications.
Their percentage hit rate with developments is reasonably poor and there are only five races to go. So you would have to put your money on Vettel winning the title.
MCLAREN MYSTERY
One hope Alonso does have is of someone apart from him taking points off Vettel, and that should be McLaren.
But after a strong four races from Hungary to Singapore, they fell off the pace a bit in Japan.
They had a good package when they got to Japan, they looked strong on Friday, but it sort of slipped away from them, and they don't really know why.
On Friday, they had two different floors on the two cars and two different rear wing set-ups. Often, when you separate two cars like that and don't focus on one package, you end up doing half a job.
It's far better to get 95% out of an all right car than 80% out of a potentially faster car.
Then in the race, I can't help feeling they could have done more on strategy.
Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi came in for his final stop on lap 31 and fitted a new set of "hard" |
As a result of, paradoxically, one very successful early track with a strong melodic hook that appeared on Big Loada, Jenkinson embarked on a challenging, counter‑intuitive journey with regards to melody. He recalls: "I made 'Journey To Reedham' in 1996, and I remember the first time I played it during a rave: the crowd went bananas! I concluded from that kind of experience that if you have a knack for writing catchy melodies you can immediately appeal to people. I appear to have that knack, and I could go into the studio now and take an hour to create another barnstorming rave track that everyone will love. But certainly at the time I felt that that was too easy. I really did not want to become a one‑trick pony. It appeared that an overtly catchy melody line allows a piece of music to communicate with people, and I started to experiment to see whether, if I took that melody line away, I could get the other instrument to make up for the lack of overt melody. I tried to create quasi‑melodies in the interactions between the rhythm section and the other instruments, for example.
"I never ruled out melody completely, but I did go to great lengths to take away the element on which people normally hang their hats, and to see if I could recreate it in other ways. I wondered, would it be possible to create a sequence of low‑register sounds with sharp transients that would be catchy? Could I make bass lines that were catchy? Is it possible to make beats that are catchy? Are there other ways than overt melodies to make people latch onto a track in an instantaneous way? So in a way I was doing research. I was using a lot of foggy, jazz‑influenced harmony and electro‑acoustic sounds, thinking that this maybe offered a different way of doing things. On Go Plastic, I approached the question from the angle of digital processing, and wondered whether there was a way of making that so visceral, so aggressive, so exciting, of injecting so much adrenaline into the music that it was possible to do away with melody. Could the music still communicate, and if not in the same way, could it at least offer a parallel way of doing things?”
Eventually, Jenkinson came to the conclusion that there was no definitive answer to his question. He now regards himself as "quite naive” in his "admittedly imperfect phase of ruling out melody”, and eventually returned to using more traditional and overt melody and harmony. It's a development that echoes the development of 20th Century classical music, though Jenkinson admits that "I don't think my knowledge of Western classical music at that time was sufficient to know that I was making a parallel transition. And of course, all that difficult, austere post‑war music is now finding its way into more popular music forms, albeit in a watered‑down form. People use Stockhausen in electronic dance music, and someone like Tod Dockstader, who was totally obscure, is now a name that people in certain circles are aware of. So all that difficult music has become part of a palette that people dip into. As for my own development, at some stage I started getting the impression that my music was beginning to be seen as an academic effort and was increasingly appropriated by musical academia. That was a compliment, and it reflected my commitment to make what, at least at the time, I felt were bold experimental moves in electronic music. But at the same time I felt that it was a sign of me entering my own zone of scholasticism, of academic self‑referentiality. Basically I was beginning to stare up my own ass. Plus there was again the danger of preaching only to the converted. So I wanted to shake things up and make music in a more spontaneous, almost flippant way, and less like I was in a laboratory.”
Jenkinson's development is not quite as linear as his words here suggest. 'My Red Hot Car', from one of his supposedly more difficult and experimental albums, Go Plastic, features an early instance of the bassist singing through a vocoder, is extremely catchy, and came close to being a Top 40 hit. The more recent general direction of Jenkinson's music towards more immediacy, fun and spontaneity and away from wilful contrariness is nonetheless obvious, beginning with Ultravisitor, which swung wildly from one extreme to another, and culminating last year in Shobaleader One and d'Demonstrator, much of which sounds like a direct extension of 'My Red Hot Car'.
Jenkinson: "The track '50 Cycles' on Ultravisitor is a monster that took me a month to make. I used the Vegas software, made by Sonic Foundry at the time, to assemble literally thousands of edited pieces of audio, and it became something of monstrous complexity. I wanted cutting‑edge digital signal processing and I wanted the most awkward, difficult, angular sounds. Then the next day it was like: 'I can't stand this any more, I need something simple, something enriching.' I wanted music that immediately made me feel good. That's how the acoustic guitar track 'Andrei' came about. On that album, the dialogue between these two directions started to get really tense. Since the album after that, Hello Everything, I've been making music that's been more accessible, more joyous, and less hard work.”
There certainly is a more immediately melodic thread running through Hello Everything, Just A Souvenir and d'Demonstrator, but that's not to say that there's not much on these three albums that isn't weird and pretty far out by most people's standards. All these albums, as well as Go Plastic and Do You Know Squarepusher (2002) were recorded at the Essex location Jenkinson moved to in 2001, after living in London for over a decade. Ten years on, Jenkinson is still in the same rural location, where he spends as much of his time programming his beloved Eventide Orville box in a his slightly dilapidated living room, complete with what looks like an old '80s stereo tower as his only playback system.
One result of the boundary‑pushing attitude to gear that Jenkinson developed early in his life is that he's not interested in shiny surfaces and collecting state‑of‑the‑art stuff. He likes to get under the bonnet of whatever he stumbles upon and operates with a "jumble sale mentality”, not caring whether something is unglamorous or cheap. His studio is on the ground floor, and consists of a live room, at the moment filled mostly with his regular live drummer Alex Thomas's kit, and the actual studio, where pride of place goes to a huge, almost wall‑to‑wall Euphonix CS3000 desk. Both rooms are linked by a corridor that's full with flightcases and the computing bits for the Euphonix as well as a Lexicon 480L reverb.
The Euphonix comes as a bit of a surprise, as it is a piece of kit that ticks all the wrong boxes, from Jenkinson's point of view at least, in that it's shiny and expensive and most likely was not bought at a jumble sale. Also expensive and arguably shiny are two Eventide Orvilles and one Eventide DSP4000, arguably Jenkinson's most important boxes. The rest of the gear conforms more to his slightly Luddite, avoid‑glamorous‑kit perspective. It's a ragtag collection of stuff, and there's no discernible overall 'vintage' rationale behind the collection as a whole. The most significant pieces are a Roland TR909, TB303, SH101, V‑Synth XT and V‑Bass 99, Neve 1073 mic pre, AKG BX15 spring reverb, TC Electronics D2 delay, DBX 1066, a self‑made mechanical reverb, Axon AX100 MIDI bass module, MOTU 24I/O audio interface, Dynaudio Acoustics M1 monitors, Yamaha CS80, TX81Z and FS1R synths and QY700 sequencer. A huge amount of gear has also been and gone, like the Yamaha VSS80 8‑bit toy keyboard sampler shown in some late '90s television footage of Jenkinson.
"I made my first records using the Boss DR660, which was a bit of a non‑event in the history of drum machines. It just happened to be the one I could afford at the time and that had a reasonable range of sounds on it and that could do MIDI sequencing. But it was phenomenally limited. To this day, nobody believes that the tracks on Big Loada were a single pass of me sequencing my Akai S950 from my DR660. Yeah, at some stage I had that cheap Yamaha keyboard, which was pushing the limit. It cost 20p in a jumble sale, and it had keys and an output, so I reckoned that it should have at least one song in it. All that kind of stuff is gone now. I used to be very hard‑headed and said: 'You use your brain to make music, not your wallet, so I can make music with anything. If you're using your wallet exclusively, you're fucked!' I still love it when people realise great musical ideas on extremely limited equipment. I personally didn't make much of it in the press at the time, because I thought: 'Who cares what I make music with? If my music doesn't stand up on its own, I don't want to prop it up with talking about any technological innovation that may have occurred during the making of it.'”
Regarding the sound sources that are currently in his studio, Jenkinson remarks, "I have used the Roland VB99 on my records in the past, but it's a cheesy, idiot‑proof piece of gear, and it's hard to get into the nuts and bolts of it. These days I really object to being locked out of the key parameters of a piece of gear, but the VB99 was quite useful for a while. I did use the TB303 on the Shobaleader album, the very deep bass synth comes from that, and the drums on that album were programmed in the TR909. I unearthed the 909 and was surprised by how good the straight‑out‑of‑the‑box sounds sounded on my monitors. Their sonic muscularity reminds me of heavy metal and R&B, and those are two of the main influences that exist on the Shobaleader record.
"I've had the 101 forever, but didn't use it on the record, though it is on some of the stuff I'm currently working on. The old monosynths are very charming, but I have used them to such a degree that there's not much more in them for me. From a philosophical standpoint I'd like to say that there's no limit, but in practical terms I do get bored with things. My current synths are all stuff that I've built myself in software, augmented with the FS1R and the TX81Z, which is a rackmounted version of a lower‑spec DX7. I recently bought the Yamaha CS80, and in doing so went completely against my own principles, because it is extremely expensive and extremely limited. It's the sort of synth that collectors are into, ie. people who traffic instruments and don't play them. I never wanted to spend thousands of pounds on an analogue synth that can do stuff that I can write in a computer in a day. But I like to sometimes go against my principles, to stretch myself.”
The core instruments in Jenkinson's studios are, in addition to his basses — the most frequently used being his Zoot and Warwick six‑strings and his Westone fretless — his Yamaha QY700 sequencer and, of course, his collection of Eventide Harmonizer boxes. "I started using Eventide equipment in 1999, when I bought the DSP4000, and I'm still finding new things to do with that and with the Orville. I write my own algorithms, mostly in a PC‑based editor. The vocoder sound on my vocals on the Shobaleader record was done with the Orville, in which I programmed a 24‑band patch, which had a reasonable coherence. I also used the Orville for the bass distortion on the record. I wanted to have unified tone for the album, so I developed some specific software patches to do the processing on the bass. The bass distortion on the track 'Megazine' was done with an old‑school 110V Morley Wah pedal and an Orville distortion patch based on a curve, X/Y‑mapping module. On the track 'Abstract Lover', I created a bass effect patch doing pitch‑shifting in the Orville and then going into a frequency divider/distortion patch in [Native Instruments'] Reaktor software. The QY700 is my main sequencer. I much prefer it to using software‑based sequencers. The latter just make my brain shut down. When the graphical information is too vivid, it makes it harder to retain the information in my memory, and one critical thing about making music is to have a real‑time virtual image of the studio operating in your head, so you can make your choices very quickly. Looking at the gear all the time and every time having to work out how you're going to do something slows you down and shuts down your imagination.”
Jenkinson seems reluctant to make any recording medium indispensable to his studio, especially a DAW, and in addition to his large desk, he also still uses a tape recorder. He says, "I got the Euphonix just before starting the Shobaleader record. Before that I had a Mackie 28:8, which was getting a little worn out. The Euphonix is digitally controlled analogue, so it gives me the best of both worlds, and does add some character to the sound, in the summing and EQs. As for recording, I used tape recorders exclusively until 2001. I first had a Fostex M80 quarter‑inch eight‑track, and in the late '90s I obtained a half‑inch Tascam MSR16. I still use that, though it's being repaired at the moment. I have to say that I'm not obsessive about it. Recording to tape, or to a computer‑based multitrack, is a means to an end. I mix and match now. I've used Sonic Foundry's Vegas, and more recently Nuendo, but I don't endorse or recommend them. There's no love in it for me, they really are just tools.
"Having said that, it's still more convenient to use multitracking software, and the reality is that my tape recorder is not here. The majority of the Shobaleader record was done in Nuendo, but I try to do as little in a computer‑based multitrack as possible. I just use it to record and organise the music. '50 Cycles' was me pushing digital multitracks to the limit, but in what I'm doing of late, it's just a tape recorder with no personality. There's always the issue of latency when you record into the computer. If my signal goes through the Eventide and then into the soundcard and then into Reaktor, and back out again, I doubt that I get less than 15ms latency. So you're playing ahead, and then the software will account for latency, but it may be shifting things too much. It's endless. Another deliberate restriction is that I try to use the software with a tape‑recorder mentality. I don't do hundreds of takes and then compile. You may get something technically perfect, but it won't have any soul. I'm old school, I don't mind mistakes.”
To hear Jenkinson call himself "old school” may come as a surprise to those that view him as the epitome of 21st Century experimental music. But the whole point of Squarepusher is, of course, the creative tension that comes from the juxtaposition of old and new, of serious bass chops and musical sensibility with the latest developments in electronics and composition. Squarepusher's most recent effort, d'Demonstrator, which sounds like a delirious American R&B band pushing the boundaries so far as to be in danger of being dropped by their label's'squares', is a point in case.
On the Squarepusher web site, Jenkinson states that the album's "basic premise at the outset was'space pop' — a utopian pop music hallucination”. Jenkinson also claims that the album's "overall aim is to articulate my music through the medium of a band.” And so Shobaleader One ostensibly features two guitarists, a keyboard player and a drummer, in addition to Jenkinson on bass and vocals. The band members hide behind obscure pseudonyms such as Strobe Nazard and Sten t'Mech, and a number of commentators have inferred that it really is just all Jenkinson himself. When asked, he's not saying much, other than stating that he has indeed assembled a band and plans to tour with it in the near future. He also hints that the new smaterial he's working on at the moment will be "rather less accessible again”, thereby once again wrong‑footing any attempt to categorise or predict his musical direction.
He concludes, aptly: "I don't want people to get bogged down in one‑dimensional interpretations of my music. To me, if music has any value, it should survive various interpretations. It's one reason why I have avoided using lyrics in the past, and when I do use them, as on d'Demonstrator, I obscure their meanings. Lyrics tend to nail down the song, and I don't see that as a good place for my music to be. I want it to live beyond a time and a place.”
What's In A Name? While other electronic music acts tend to use obscure, abstract and/or unintelligible song titles, Squarepusher's titles are often evocative. Tom Jenkinson explains that "usually the titles are oblique references to associations that the music evokes in me, such as places or colours or concepts or, rarely, people”. And he gives a few examples: 'Greenways Trajectory' (Go Plastic): "Greenways is a walkway near Stratford in East London.”
'Orient Orange' (Hello Everything): "This piece evoked a strong sense of... orange.”
'Kronecker King' (Hello Everything): "A Kronecker delta is the name for a hypothetical infinitely short sound, approximations of which are used to generate impulse‑responses of filters and so on. The track had snare sounds cut really short by tape editing — so it's a matter of concept association, I suppose.”
'Andrei' (Ultravisitor): "A reference to the great Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky.”Audits by the Fair Work Ombudsman have found up to 40 per cent of foreign workers employed under 457 visas were underpaid, not performing the jobs they were supposed to do or no longer employed by the person who sponsored their entry into Australia.
Fairfax Media has obtained monthly 457 visa monitoring reports prepared by the Fair Work Ombudsman which identify hundreds of cases of reported underpayment of foreign workers and other problems with the temporary skilled migration system.
The reports appear to conflict with the clean bill of health given to the 457 program by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
The reports appear to conflict with the clean bill of health given to the 457 program by Immigration Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday as he unveiled changes that would make it easier for employers to import labour.
A government report, Robust New Foundations, proposes a "fast-track" approvals process for larger companies with good records, relaxed English-language requirements and consideration of a 10 per cent reduction in the $53,900 maximum income threshold.A similar trend of unattractive meals is forming, I even put a filter on this one but still, no gravy. It tastes nice, I promise!
“The Mediocre Massalla Massacre”
The kinda curry you’d want to take home to meet your parents. The smart, quick thinking curry that would definitely succeed academically, just not on the cover of an internationally renowned fashion magazine. A cracking Tikka Massalla dish, sowwwsy and ricey. Can feed 2 people if followed explicitly.
Ingredients -
Diced Tikka Marinated Chicken 600g, we know from an earlier blog that ‘diced’ means cut up, this'marinated’ is an unknown foe to me but I presume it means soaked. If you can master the pretentious art of Marination then feel free to marinate your own chicken and face in your own time, maybe whilst in the shower? The possibilities remain endless.
Coconut Basmalti rice pack
Tikka Massalla curry sauce, I used Pataks
Peas and any other vegetables you wanna throw in
Butter
Tools -
Frying Pan
Stirring Device
Cooker Hob
A little spoon (codename 'Teaspoon’)
How long it should take to prepare and cook - 25 minutes
How long it took me to prepare and cook - 40 minutes
My difficulty rating -
10/10
Instructions -
Grab your little spoon (codename 'Teaspoon’) and thrust it into your chunk of butter, remove; from the body of butter a little spoons worth and throw it down onto your frying pan. Make it known to the rest of the butter that eventually its time will come.
Turn on your cooker hob to a high temperature level, watch as the red ring of heat appears. Cast aside your fears and dive straight in. Lay your frying pan on this fiery circle and watch as the butter melts to lubricate the impending cooking of your deceased, curry soaked bird.
Place the before mentioned cut up bird into the frying pan and begin to cook it.
Cook it until it starts to go a white colour, I found this very difficult because of the marination changing the colour of it but you can just about tell when its going.
Give Peas A Chance and add your peas to the mix or any other vegetables you planned on putting in.
The chicken should hopefully cook eventually, this is indicated by a brownish colour and a clear, white center once cut open. It’s important to cook your chicken so its thoroughly white through and hot unless you enjoy spending time looking at food eaten earlier coming out of your mouth and into the toilet.
Add in your curry sowwwsssss and stir.
Now is the classic cooking demi-god moment where your pan looks like a volcano of flavour. Invite over any colleagues, housemates or future wives and enjoy the glory as they marvel in your heat driven food mixture.
The peas really stick out, don’t they?
Let this simmer in the pan for up to 10 minutes, simultaneously; cut the top off of your rice packet, and stick it in the microwave for 2 minutes.
Once the rice is done, put it on a plate, pour your curry mix on top and voila, The Mediocre Massalla Massacre is yours and your audiences to enjoy.
Not suitable for -
Vegetarians / Vegans
People with nut allergies (sauce dependent)
Chickens
Enjoy.
Jamie xIn October 2007, at a rare appearance at a packed Carnegie Hall, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling casually tossed off one of the biggest announcements in the history of her landmark fantasy phenomenon: Dumbledore, Harry’s mentor and the greatest wizard in the world until his dramatic death in book six, was gay.
The audience immediately leapt to its feet and roared its approval. Rowling seemed surprised. "If I had known this would have made you this happy," she said, "I would have announced it years ago."
In the year 2016, however, nearly a decade after the outing of Dumbledore and almost 20 years after the publication of the very first Harry Potter book, the world of Harry Potter still looks and feels exactly like it did when Harry first entered Hogwarts: nearly all white and rigidly heteronormative. With the most recent installment in the HP franchise, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, fans have buckled down on their criticism that Rowling and her collaborators haven’t done enough to bring modern progressive representation to Harry’s vast magical world.
Harry Potter and the fans who grew up without him
The Harry Potter universe has spawned an international legacy of fans across three generations: adult fans who enjoyed the books and movies as they came out, the children who grew into adults alongside Harry and his friends, and newer fans who are just discovering the series today.
But to many of these fans, the stagnation of the HP world has become harder and harder to ignore. The millions of children who grew up with the books, learning a doctrine of love, kindness, and tolerance from its pages, are now adults trying to apply that doctrine to an increasingly complicated world: A recent study found that Harry Potter fans are far less likely to vote for Trump in the US presidential election. Teenage fans, meanwhile, thrive in a tech-infused, diverse reality that increasingly diverges from the one Rowling wrote.
Meanwhile, over the past several years, Rowling has begun actively and regularly expanding the HP universe through factoids on her Twitter account, new stories on the Pottermore website, the Fantastic Beasts films, and the new play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (written by Jack Thorne and directed by John Tiffany, who collaborated on the story). But this joyful return to the wizarding world doesn’t seem to have actually diversified or complicated it all that much — and the result is a growing gap between Rowling’s fans and her writing.
The latest rumble in this schism is the central relationship in The Cursed Child. The friendship between Harry’s son, Albus, and Draco Malfoy’s son, Scorpius, in the play has drawn much media commentary that’s minced few words in criticizing the way the script spends its time building evidence for a canonically queer relationship between the two boys, only to brutally yank it away at the end with a flimsy "No Homo" excuse. Daily Dot reporter Gavia Baker-Whitelaw used this logic to reject comparisons of the play to fanfiction, pointing out that if actual members of the Harry Potter fandom had written this story, Albus and Scorpius would have been queer and in love.
The fandom’s anger over Albus/Scorpius is especially potent right now because many fans have already spent years being angry at Rowling for her treatment of other queer characters in her books. At this point, the abundant straightness of the wizarding world is the most damning evidence of the Harry Potter universe’s failure to evolve.
Harry Potter fandom and the never-changing wizarding world
The recent focus on the queerness of Albus/Scorpius is part of a larger cultural shift in fandom toward nuanced representation and a desire for diverse characters and worldbuilding.
The online Harry Potter fandom — the transformative, critical, markedly progressive branch of the fandom — has spent years adapting Harry’s reality to be more like our own. This has taken many forms, including queering certain characters, expanding the universe through fanfiction and fan films, and, especially within the last two years, a fandom-wide shift among fan artists toward interpreting Harry and Hermione as people of color. This last reading has become so pervasive in fan art on Tumblr that in some communities, depictions of Harry as a person of color are almost as frequent as depictions of him as written in canon.
@ajaromano I fucking love that Desi Harry Potter and black Hermione are just...real now. — lurrel (@lurrel) August 8, 2016
By contrast, in the last year alone, Rowling has endured backlash for her tone-deaf treatment of Native Americans in her new history of American magical society; for the notably all-white main cast of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (the casting of a black woman as head of the American ministry of magic was announced and emphasized only after controversy arose within the fandom); and for attempting to, as many fans saw it, "take credit" for writing a black Hermione into canon despite explicitly describing Hermione as a white character multiple times in the books.
@jk_rowling @upmeli Canon: You're on record approving the casting of Emma Watson, and you do in fact describe her skin tone, twice. — ☄rca (@orcahz) December 22, 2015
The thread linked above is a revealing one. Though there are plenty of unquestioning fans celebrating Rowling’s embrace of the concept of black Hermione, there are many more fans challenging her for what they view as a mix of hypocrisy and failed intentions. Again and again, HP fans aggressively reject Rowling’s attempts to position herself and her view of the HP world as a progressive one.
True, in 2014, Rowling revealed that at least one character — a minor, barely present Hogwarts student — was Jewish, and Fantastic Beasts promises at least one more. And true, we have gotten a black Hermione onstage in Cursed Child. But these gestures, independent of any indication that the wizarding world is diversifying as a whole, feel increasingly like tokenism.
What’s puzzling about all this is that Rowling has shown a willingness to deploy sharp and pointed social consciousness in her other fiction work, specifically the overlooked Cormoran Strike mystery novels written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, along with her novel The Casual Vacancy. Those books, which are written for adults, all contain diverse casts and scathing social commentary on everything from class issues to homelessness and homophobia.
Even more baffling on the subject of queer identity is that in a 2007 interview, Rowling herself made it clear she doesn’t think it’s a major issue to be gay in the wizarding world:
If we’re talking about prejudiced people within the wizarding world, what they care most about is your blood status. So I think you could be gay, pureblood, and totally without any kind of criticism from the Lucius Malfoys of the world. I don’t think that would be something that would interest him in the slightest. But, I can’t answer for all witches and wizards, because I think in matters of the heart, it would be directly parallel to our world.
To queer HP fans and allies, this logic is paradoxical: Rowling has paved the way for more queer characters and already knows it would make us happy. So why, almost a decade after the outing of Dumbledore, is the world of Harry Potter still, for all intents and purposes, 100 percent straight?
Albus/Scorpius and the heteronormative wheel of time
The central relationship of Cursed Child’s time-travel-heavy plot is the deep intimacy between Harry’s son Albus and his best friend Scorpius, the son of Harry’s rival, Draco Malfoy.
Albus/Scorpius has been a major fandom "ship," or theoretical romantic relationship, since Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows was released, and Thorne and Tiffany have filled their play’s script with references to their potentially queer relationship. In the play, the two boys are utterly devoted to each other. They exchange long, sensual hugs. They’re jealous of competing relationships and unwilling to be separated from one another.
When Scorpius sees Albus talking to a girl, the script informs us, "part of him likes it and part of him doesn’t." At one point, a character notably compares Scorpius’ love for Albus to the canonically romantic feelings that Snape had for Harry’s mother Lily, and Scorpius is emotionally informed, "You two belong together." It’s hard to read any of that as an endorsement of their platonic relationship.
Yet that’s exactly what we’re told all these moments mean. Throughout Cursed Child, sexual subtext hovers at the edges of Albus and Scorpius’ interactions, as they make awkward overtures into exploring their sexuality with girls. Again and again, the poorly written women of the play are used as shameless props for the giant, flashing "NO HOMO!" sign that the play hangs over the two boys’ heads. Albus and Scorpius’ interest in girls seems to be added as an afterthought, wedged in throughout the play in underdeveloped, unconvincing moments.
Rose Granger-Weasley, the daughter of Hermione and Ron, shows up throughout Cursed Child to deliver plot exposition and serve as a target for Scorpius’s romantic overtures. At the end, without any development of their relationship whatsoever, she finally responds semipositively to his failed attempts to ask her out. By itself, this is a troubling version of the "wear the girl down" trope; coupled with the play’s homoerotic subtext, it’s a train wreck.
In fandom, there’s a well-known term for this mechanism of dangling subtext in front of the audience and then withholding it in the text: queerbaiting. As a concept and in practice, queerbaiting is universally loathed by fans who want meaningful, well-developed, and happy queer relationships in their storytelling.
Queerbaiting is seen as an exploitative tactic used to draw in fans ("baiting" them), and then further marginalize them through textual denials of the subtext the narrative deliberately cultivated. This process usually plays out through serial media over time, rather than in a very long two-part play. But fans haven’t shrunk away from expressing their anger at what they viewed as deliberate queerbaiting within The Cursed Child.
Recently, the Guardian — which, ironically, argued in 2007 that Dumbledore’s outing was shoddy lip-service to the issue of queer representation — took the polar opposite view toward Cursed Child. In response to fandom complaints of queerbaiting, Ilana Masad argued that fans’ anger was misplaced, and that allowing Albus and Scorpius to be straight male friends who shared deep, unrestrained intimacy was still a form of progress.
But Rowling’s wizarding world is already rife with intimate straight male friendships: Again and again, her plots turn on male camaraderie, male rivalry, and, often, betrayal among male friends. Harry and Ron have a deep and intimate friendship for seven books. What they don’t have is queer subtext: no repeated moments of charged physical contact, no repeated speeches of how much they love each other and can’t live without one another’s friendship, no instances where seeing their friend’s romantic interest in a girl inspires a rush of jealousy. In short, they have none of the specific homoerotic hallmarks of Albus and Scorpius’s relationship.
That’s not to say, however, that the Harry Potter series has no queer subtext at all. On the contrary, it has plenty.
Dumbledore and the curse of offscreen homosexuality
Though the outing of Dumbledore made many fans happy, plenty of criticism followed Rowling’s choice to out Dumbledore after the fact. (The seventh and, as far as we knew at the time, final installment of the series had been released several months before.)
Many fans felt that Rowling’s choice to wait until the series was over was too little, too late. By outing him after his death, Rowling effectively placed Dumbledore within the longstanding, problematic "dead gays" trope, instead of showing him living out his queer identity — or, even better, giving kids examples of queer characters Harry’s own age that they might be able to more effectively relate to than a 150-year-old sock-loving school principal.
Not only that, but outing Dumbledore outside of the books meant that there would be fans without access to the immediate news cycle who might never get the memo. To those fans, Dumbledore would never actually be representative of anything.
But to other fans, this not-quite-representation was nothing new. By the time Rowling outed Dumbledore in 2007, queer Harry Potter fans had already spent many years critiquing the books' queer subtext and lack thereof. In a 2007 documentary called J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life, Rowling responded in the negative to a fan’s question about whether Charlie Weasley was gay: "It’s just, he's more interested in dragons than women." Other subtextual readings of queer characters in the books throughout the years have included Percy and Ginny Weasley, Dean and Seamus, and, of course, Harry himself.
In general, fans who were already frustrated by the general lack of textual representation in the Potter books were also likely to be frustrated by Rowling’s treatment of Dumbledore. Fans have spent years noticing and calling out this absence. "If approximately 5-8% of people are LGBTQ, and there are approximately 900 characters in the series over all, that’s 45-72 characters," wrote one frustrated fan in 2012, "where are they?"
Remus, Tonks, and the erasure of queer subtext
By far, the most focal characters in these interrogations by queer fans have been Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Tonks the shapeshifter. In the books, Rowling used Lupin’s werewolf condition as a very deliberate metaphor for the HIV virus and the pervasive social stigma around AIDS in the 1980s and early 1990s when she was writing the books. Many fans extrapolated from what was an obvious allegory in the books that Remus himself was a queer character.
The nature of Remus’s relationship with his longtime best friend Sirius seemed to lend itself to that reading. Fans famously celebrated the news that the pair had given Harry a joint Christmas present in the fourth book; what could be more symbolic of a gay partnership than giving their surrogate kid a present together?
For many years, the widespread assumption within the Harry Potter fandom was that Remus was a canonically queer character. (So pervasive was this belief that one early fanfiction archive that otherwise rejected a wide range of pairings allowed Remus/Sirius on the site because the moderators viewed it as canonical — that is, as a textually established element within the series.)
But this assumption wasn’t shared by Rowling herself. With the advent of book five, a complication came along in the form of Nymphadora Tonks, a shapeshifter whose spiky pink hair and punk aesthetic caused her to present as a butch lesbian to many fans. Add in her insistence on being called by her gender-neutral last name and her ability to change genders and appearance at will, and many fans saw her as a canonically genderqueer or genderfluid character.
Admittedly, these queer readings of Tonks and Remus were never made explicit anywhere in the text of the Harry Potter books. But queer fans have spent decades culling clues from the appearances, contexts, and subtexts of characters and stories in order to glean queer icons wherever they can get them. These intentional clues on the part of writers and actors arose within the context of Hollywood’s homophobic "celluloid closet," and became a subterranean practice of "coding" characters as queer.
It’s this decoding of plot and aesthetic clues that has allowed queer fans to read the intentionally deployed homoerotic subtext that makes up films like Ben Hur and Rebel Without a Cause. To queer fans familiar with this practice, it made complete sense that a clever writer like Rowling would insert subtextual clues to queer her kid-friendly books while avoiding outright controversy. And to those fans’ credit, that |
seem to re-appear quite often. Bicycle disc brakes are one such item. Like a Phoenix, they’ve risen from the ashes a 3rd time in just the last 40 years. Since their acceptance as
Article Overview
In our industry, products from the past seem to re-appear quite often. Bicycle disc brakes are one such item. Like a Phoenix, they’ve risen from the ashes a 3rd time in just the last 40 years. Since their acceptance as a superior brake for the mountain bike, it seems that more and more people are asking about them for their road bikes. Most manufacturers are happy to just slap them on, but is there more to consider? Are they better for every type of bike and every type of riding? Let’s follow the history a bit, and see.
This article is for those who want to learn more about bicycle disc brakes. It’s not to convince the reader that disc brakes are good or bad. My purpose is to let you all know that disc brakes have been around a long time in our industry, and there are upsides and downsides to them. We’ve built hundreds of frames over the last 40 years that are designed for disc brakes (over 100 in 2012 alone). We also run one of the largest bicycle facilities in Seattle (since 1973) and we service disc brakes of all types on a daily basis. We have more history and experience than most to draw from. So, if you’re ready to separate the fact from the fiction, put on your dancin’ shoes and boogie, this is the article for you.
Disco Fever
November, 2012
It was the 1970’s! The BeeGees were ‘Jive Talkin’ all over the music charts, and all the kids wanted to be Vinnie Barbarino (Welcome Back Kotter). I was the resident bicycle kid in my Junior High class, and I rode my Raleigh Rampar all over the area all of the time. So, imagine my surprise when my buddy Barrett showed up at school on a new ride…..one with all the candy! He was excited to show me his new bike, but class was about to start and we didn’t have time to go back outside and look at it. I got a quick verbal description (including hand motions) painting a vivid picture of this futuristic 10-speed. “It has numbers on the gear shifters to tell you which gear it’s in….like a car!” he said as he motioned the international ‘stick shift’ hand signal that all boys of my generation understood. “But, that’s not all! My bike has disc brakes like a car!” Could it be? I thought. Disc brakes on a bicycle? Wow! How cool is that?
What Barrett had purchased was a Western Flyer 10-speed at the local auto parts store (Western Auto) in our small town. After school, we looked at his bike together, and he did indeed have a bike with all of those features.
As it turned out, in 1975, Shimano actually had just released 2 versions of disc brakes for bicycles. One hydraulic, and one cable-actuated. Here’s the page from the 1975 Shimano catalog showing both types of Shimano bicycle disc brakes.
Note:
I know a lot of people, even people in the bicycle industry, think that bicycle disc brakes weren’t even invented until the 1990’s. There are probably older versions of bicycle disc brakes, but from my historical perspective, life began in the 1970’s shortly after the invention of the wheel, so that’s as far back as I’m going to reach in this article.
Back to the story
Now, finding out that he had a Western Flyer eased my jealousy quite a bit (Western Flyers were just Huffies by another name). I proudly rode a Raleigh from a bike shop in a neighboring town (our small town had no bicycle shops).
As the 1970’s disco’ed on, so did the introduction of more and more bicycle disc brakes. Bridgestone, Japan’s largest bicycle company, introduced their new cable actuated disc brake, and Phil Wood came up with a super high-tech disc brake that we here at Rodriguez used on tandem bicycles.
Just a quick note: Some people think that we at Rodriguez bicycles are anti-disc brake. As you can see, we’ve used disc brakes on our bikes since the 1970’s. Most of our customers choose cantilever brakes for touring and tandem bikes because they like them better, not because we don’t offer them with disc brakes.
Good Money Gone Bad!
All that money spent on R&D, but the bicycle disc brake would die in the early 1980’s along with disco. Now, everyone knows that disco burned itself out, but why didn’t the disc brake stick as a bicycle component through the 1980’s?
A lot of people will say “Well, those old disc brakes didn’t work well” but those people would be wrong. They may not work well by comparison to disc brakes of today, but comparing them to rim brakes at that time, they worked great! The industry was behind them, and they spent tons of R&D cash to develop, manufacture and promote them. So, why didn’t they catch on? Eventually, the disc brake was sent to the scrap heap of ideas gone bad.
The ‘Road’ to Failure
In the 1970’s, every bike was a road bike. The fact was, even though disc brakes worked well, they were a lot heavier, and a bit noisy. Add to that the fact that they were harder to adjust, and parts (like pads) were hard to find at your local bike shop. For road bikes, rim brakes worked fine and they were lighter as well as less expensive, and any bike shop or sporting goods shop had pads in stock for them. In short, the benefits of the disc brake were outweighed by sacrifices….at least as far as road bikes and tandems of the 1970’s were concerned. The need for a disc brake really didn’t exist until the introduction of the mountain bike a decade later. Besides, we all needed to save our money for some new dancin’ threads.
The Metal Years
Fast forward to the late 1980’s. Disco is dead, Poison, Motley Crue, and other bad boys (that looked like girls) topped the charts, and a few high-end mountain bike companies are looking for brakes that will work even if the rims are bent and covered in mud! I know! How about disc brakes? Yes, the disc brake is resurrected in the late 1980’s by a few high-end mountain bike companies.
Now, one would expect to see the Bridgestone, Shimano and Phil Wood discs simply re-appear…..right? Well that’s not how we do things in the bike industry. Even though these would’ve been great starting points, we started again, re-inventing the same designs that used to exist. Here’s an example of a 1980’s mountain bike with a set of Suspenders hydraulic/cable disc brakes. There were a few different high-end disc brakes in the late 80’s. Most of them were expensive and difficult to adjust. Some of them worked alright, but some didn’t really cut the mustard. Shimano put out the V-brake (yuck!) somewhere in the early 1990’s, and that really became the brake of choice for most mainstream mountain bike customers. Only the really high-end specialty mountain bike ran disc brakes…
A quick deviation into the 1990’s tandem world
As is custom in the bicycle industry, tandem builders tend to think that something made for a mountain bike will work great on a tandem. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason there are people that see a correlation between a 180 pound guy trying to stop while riding through a muddy stream at 20mph, and a 350 pound tandem team trying to stop while screaming down a mountain pass at over 60mph on asphalt. I fail to see the similarities, but none-the-less, as high-end mountain bikes started using disc brakes in the 1990’s, tandem people requested them on a regular basis. Here at Rodriguez, we used a lot of the Hope disc brakes in the 1990’s on tandems. We only used them as an auxiliary brake, and never as a primary brake. As a matter of fact, I still have 2 of these brakes sitting here beside my desk as I type this. I can tell you many stories of mythical tandem disc brakes (sometimes resulting in very aggravated customers), but suffice it to say that this brake was not at all capable of stopping a tandem, just slowing it down.
The point of this deviation is: Mountain bikes use disc brakes not because they work better, but because they work better on mountain bikes.
..So, as a high-end mountain bike brake, the disc brake limped along through the 1990’s, but never took off as a standard to be used as primary brakes on tandems or touring bikes. Really, that’s not what they were designed for, so that makes sense right?
Home Sweet Home
The disc brake finds its home in the new millennium
Benefits Galore! To the mountain biker, the disc brake is a gift from above. Now the off-road rider could bash his/her rims completely out of true and their brakes don’t rub. They can ride through a muddy stream and their brakes don’t clog up. They don’t have to worry about sand and grime all over their rims getting trapped in their brake pads and damaging their rims. The mountain biker is willing to trade the noise and extra weight for these benefits. Noise doesn’t matter much because off road riding is pretty noisy anyway.
As companies embraced the disc brake, lower cost versions of cable actuated disc brakes developed and the V-brake could finally all but disappear from the industry. Not soon enough I say…the V-brake was the worst of both worlds really, but that’s a whole different article.
Now we see almost all mountain bikes with disc brakes (as we should) and we see the tandem and road bike companies offering them as well. We offer disc brakes on any bike we make. The question often asked of us is “why not use disc brakes on all bikes?” Believe me, it would be easier for us to just use disc brakes on all bikes and tell people the same thing that are reading in the magazines…..ie. that disc brakes solve all your problems and are the perfect solution for every type of riding. We do have an obligation to the truth though, and the truth is that there are certain applications where a disc brake is preferable, and certain applications where they are not the best choice.
The theory goes “If they work better on a mountain bike, won’t they work better on a road bike or tandem as well?” Gee…where have I heard that logic before?
One size does NOT fit all
In reality, there are applications that are better suited for disc brakes and there are applications that call for traditional brakes. When you think about it, all bicycle brakes are disc brakes. A disc brake uses a disc brake caliper attached to the frame to grasp a spinning disc (rotor) attached to the hub. A traditional brake is a caliper that uses the rim (also a spinning disc attached to the hub) in place of the rotor. This eliminates the need for the second spinning disc (rotor). I’ve got an anecdote about this theory if you want to take a break from this article. There are benefits and drawbacks to disc or traditional depending on your riding conditions and desires.
It’s Important to Be Careful
Improper assumptions by you, a bicycle manufacturer, or a bike shop can result in serious injury or even death. Want some proof? Here it is.
What should I do?
We’ve come full circle with the disc design, and they look a lot like those 1975 Shimano brakes don’t they? There are very good cable actuated and hydraulic disc brakes. Even so, the benefits and drawbacks remain the same as they did in the 1970’s. Nothing’s changed in terms of road bike uses. The mountain bike brought on a whole new style of riding and with it, many innovations that wouldn’t have come around otherwise. The disc brake is proof of that. The mountain bike brought the disc brake back from the dead, and it’s the perfect application for it.
Controversy where there should be none
I had some reservations about even writing this article, and I’ve put it off for a couple of years. I’ve actually had some people get mad at the fact that we see any downside at all to the road bike disc brake. It seems that over the last few years, magazines and blogs have been buzzing with glowing reviews about road bike disc brakes and one who dares to suggest that there is anything but perfection in the design is labeled a ‘retro-grouch’ and shunned. Well, maybe shunned is too strong of a word, but there have been occasions when I’ve had discussions with folks who seem to get angry at the fact that most of our road bike customers prefer a rim brake.
Here’s a quick story about one such occasion.
As it turns out, paper doesn’t refuse ink, keyboards don’t refuse fingers, and the internet doesn’t refuse opinions of those who have vested interets. Its up to those who have decades of experience building and servicing bicycles to bring the facts to the surface (facts are stubborn things).
I decided to go ahead and write the article though, and I hope I’ve done so in such a way as to not offend the true believers. Being the kind of shop we are, we won’t try to push you into one style of brake or another. Instead, we’ll just put together a list of the benefits and compromises attached to each type of brake and you can decide yourself which brake suits your style of riding and budget. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen: Behold…The List!
The Upside of disc brakes:
Work the same if your rim is straight or if it’s bent
Shops with very young mechanics know how to work on disc brakes (not so much with rim brakes)
Work better if you’re riding through a stream
People will say “Cool! Disc brakes!” The Downside of disc brakes: Disc brakes can be noisy. Not a problem off road, but on a quiet road ride the constant scraping sound drives me nuts.
. The bike equipped with disc brakes will weigh 1 ~ 2.25 pounds more than rim brake version of the same bike
Hard to find brake pads or rotors if you’re touring in remote areas (make sure to carry spare pads and rotors)
Hard to tell what brake pad wear is
Can suffer from ‘hard to diagnose’ inconsistent performance
If your bike is a travel-bike, the disc brakes make packing and un-packing much more difficult The Upside of rim brakes: Quiet
Lighter weight frame, fork and wheels can be used (save up to 2.25 pounds)
Lower cost. ($200 ~ $500 less)
Longer pad wear and lots of pad options available
Replacement pads are cheap, available everywhere, and last longer than disc pads
Pads are relatively easy to replace The Downside of rim brakes Younger, inexperienced mechanics may get ‘creative’ while adjusting your brakes.
Rub the wheel if you break a spoke or bend your rim
Poorly maintained, can wear out your rim prematurely
Don’t work if you’re riding through a stream
People will say “Why didn’t you get disc brakes?”
Thanks for reading,
– DanWeren’t we just here? It feels like only yesterday that I came to this spot to discuss Fate Reforged and its potential impact on Pauper. While I may have missed one very important card in Temur Battle Rage, both Jeskai Sage and Gurmag Angler have made their presence felt. Mardu Scout and Goblin Heelcutter are seeing fringe play so it seems that the pivot set for Khans of Tarkir block had quite a bit to offer.
Dragons of Tarkir won’t be giving Pauper any dragons. Sad, I know. Instead what the set offers is an abundance of tools. While every new set offers plenty of options those in Dragons of Tarkir have the hallmarks of cards that are poised to see play.
The threshold for entry into the pool of played cards is high. The effect needs to be dramatic for the cost while also finding home in the metagame. Creatures are measured against Delver of Secrets and spells have to contest with some of the most powerful and iconic ones to ever grace kitchen tables. However as the list of available cards grows so to does the number of potential interactions and as such every new set requires a review of the past as well as the present. Seems appropriate for a block with a hefty component of time travel.
This review is going to be fairly optimistic as Dragons of Tarkir provides more opportunities to look to Pauper’s past then recent sets have prompted. Perhaps this is due to the desire to push the set for limited, or maybe it has to do with the new Two-Set Paradigm. I could care less as long as it means an increase in strong commons.
Starting off are a pair of cards that on their own seem fairly mediocre, but when looked at in a larger context could make an impact. Artful Maneuver and Center Soul are slightly expensive instants with rebound, meaning they can target two things over two turns. While fine for limited, these cards are a hair above the cost line for constructed. Then why list them here? Simply put - heroic. Lagonna-Band Trailblazer, Akroan Skyguard, and Wingsteed Rider are unexciting on their own but when combined with their +1/+1 counters they can approach a downright scary level. offense. Operating on a similar principle to Stompy (low cost, high power, backed up with pump), these spells can help to turn a heroic strategy on with Center Soul pulling double duty as removal resilience. Couple this with Jeskai Student who likes spells without necessarily needing to directly benefit from them and the core of a deck begins to emerge.
White provides a number of cards that work in a similar shell as the green deck. Stompy has the ability to play a protect-the-castle form of aggro-control with Gather Courage and Vines of Vastwood the double as increased sources of damage. While white lacks a true Gather Courage it does have access to Gods Willing and now Center Soul which can protect a creature while also growing it (if it has heroic). White also has the advantage of being able to play Mana Tithe, pushing it further towards an aggro-control deck. While such a build may still be a few cards away from being viable it might be able to make some noise.
Glaring Aegis may not look impressive and the truth is it is not. Even for an aura it has a relatively minor effect that is nominally useful in combat. However unlike many other auras that see play the Aegis comes with an enters-the-battlefield trigger. This may not seem like much (and it may not be) but format has been trending away from board stalls and towards fewer creatures. For a hexproof deck featuring Heliod’s Pilgrim, Glaring Aegis then becomes an opportunity to force through what could be lethal damage. The next Ethereal Armor this is now but it is simply another tool in the arsenal.
Sandcrafter Mage is my kind of card. I am a firm believer in lingering +1/+1 effects as a way to not only win combats but to also gain an incremental advantage against decks that want to block. I supported Qasali Pridemage in Hexproof and Akrasan Squire in certain builds of White Weenie for similar reasons. Sandcrafter Mage fits into this mold, letting the 2/2 come with a potential power’s worth of haste. Alone it becomes a 3/3 which is fine in a Firebolt heavy format. Sandcrafter Mage will never be the best card in a deck but becomes a potential inclusion in traditional White Weenie, a deck based around incremental advantages and Kor Skyfisher.
The next card on my radar is Student of Ojutai. My distaste for Cloud of Faeries combo is well known and this is simply another weapon in that arsenal. Until now Cloud of Faeries combo could blunt offenses by spending cycles of Ghostly Flicker on Lone Missionary to gain life in chunks of four. Student of Ojutai, while slower, lets the deck gain an unbounded amount of life without having to spend iterations of Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker to do so. While expensive at four mana the Student is better at blocking and surviving against the typical offensive threats from rush decks. Student of Ojutai is definitely a card to watch out for - save a kill spell to deal with this guy.
While Anticipate is not a card likely to make waves in Pauper - a format with access to Impulse- I want to take a moment to recognize this card as something that portents well for the format. Anticipate is a quality card and shows that Wizards is willing to push the power level on commons. The sequence of Gray Merchant of Asphodel to Treasure Cruise to Temur Battle Rage demonstrates simple effects that can be quite strong. Pauper may never have access to crazy effects but if we continue to get strong execution of core abilities then the format should be interesting for some time to come.
It is hard to disagree with the power level of Contradict. Stopping their spell and drawing a card is huge game - just ask Exclude. The problem is paying five to stop threats. The number of dangerous spells that Contradict can trade with evenly is fairly low. The investment of five mana into a spell that can easily be halted by Dispel is very dangerous. Simply put, Contradict is an incredibly powerful effect in decks that can afford to cast it, which are various forms of Draw-Go. These decks do exist in Pauper so Contradict should see play, but I do not envy the person who has this in their grip and is facing down a turn one Delver of Secrets.
Elusive Spellfist is a hell of a card. As with Jeskai Sage before it the Spellfist is able to turn cheap spells into extra damage. It is not beyond the realm of reason to image a deck featuring Sage, Student, and Delver of Secrets turning Ponders into damage at a worse rate than Nivix Cyclops but with much better mana. Elusive Spellfist comes with built in evasion and can be a sideboard sniper for Cloud of Faeries combo. The ability to get through on the ground without the investment of an additional spell could open up other Nivix Cyclops style decks as well, letting Elusive Spellfist cast free copies of Artful Dodge. This may be the best possible card for a Simic deck as it turns Rancor into Lava Spike and Giant Growths into Fireblasts. Seems pretty good.
Another four drop, Gurmag Drowner is an expensive Forbidden Alchemy. Me? I love any excuse to find ways to get cards into my graveyard and Drowner is quite good at that. Exploit also helps upgrade otherwise dead creatures into decent effects while also turning on morbid (which may matter). Gurmag Drowner is not guaranteed to see play but the ability to sacrifice a creature and upgrade a previous investment is strong.
Sidisi’s Faithful is another way to upgrade otherwise dead cards. Bounce is becoming more important than ever thanks to Gurmag Angler. With an increase in the number of Dispels and Negates seeing play Sidisi’s Faithul becomes an Unsummon that is much harder to counter. It also can come down on turn one and attack, helping to enable a turn two Ninja of the Deep Hours. Man-o’-War is already a card that sees fringe play and the opportunity to cast a similar card for a scant one mana and then play another potential threat is a powerful sequence. Sidisi’s Faithful is subtle but it has the ability to make waves.
Zephyr Scribe is expensive. Zephyr Scribe has the same ability as Merfolk Looter only it costs an additional mana. Zephyr Scribe also can untap itself for any noncreature spell cast, meaning that any deck that casts a ton of spells and generates a ton of mana, like Cloud of Faeries combo, can use the Scribe to dig through their deck. In concert with a creature with Prowess, Retraction Helix, and Lotus Petal, it can create an infinitely large creature. Zephyr Scribe is a card with so many moving pieces that it is bound to find a home somewhere.
Butcher’s Glee and Coat with Venom are not great cards but they represent more potential includes in aggressive black decks. Coat with Venom allows any creature to trade up while Butcher’s Glee helps to protect creatures while doubling as a pump spell, similar to Boon of Erebos. Much like the duo of white spells earlier these cards could see play if the right deck emerges.
I have been on a Harsh Sustenance driven token deck recently and Foul-Tongue Shriek slots very nicely into that archetype. Foul-Tongue Shriek lacks the flexibility of Harsh Sustenance but the price cannot be beat. When paired with Battle Screech this can represent an eight point life swing before damage ends up resolving. Foul-Tongue Shriek is yet another card helping to increase the viability of token decks in Pauper.
Qarsi Sadist is not a creature that I would normally be exciting enough to see play. Trading a creature for a small Drain Life is nice but not really above the curve. The fact that it can block in the early game while again, enabling death trigger shenanigans, makes it at least worthy of consideration.
I am a huge fan of 2/3 creatures in Pauper. They block the average 2/2 and can come out ahead. Vulturous Aven has flying as well, making it a prime piece of defense against Delver of Secrets and Mulldrifter. Now at four mana it is rather expensive - Alabaster Kirin isn’t winning any contests on rate. The ability to upgrade a creature into a Sign in Blood, however, is rather nice. Black decks are adept at making use of dead things, so Chittering Rats into Vulturous Aven into an Unearth is a fairly advantageous sequence. Moving over to other colors the Aven provides a nice top end for the same Orzhov token strategy I’ve been stumping, turning a Doomed Traveler into a 1/1 flyer and two cards. Vulturous Aven is not a card that is going to make a huge impact but it may find a home in multiple strategies helping decks refuel at the cost of a sacrifice.
Effects that reduce the cost of spells are often good. Hardened Berserker is a reasonable body that can make spells cheaper. The fact that it can make creatures cheaper, when normally we see this with a spell only rider, piques my interest. Pairing this with Goblin Electromancer or other Familiar style creatures makes it far easier to deploy multiple threats after attacks. Cheating on mana is always a good thing and this may be enough to get Hardened Berserker onto battlefields.
Impact Tremors looks like a card for token decks or maybe Goblins. In actuality it is another spout for Cloud of Faeries combo. While those decks are already incredibly resilient Impact Tremors represents a kill that is even less interactive than others. Where this may be best is actually out of the sideboard in Grixis and Jeskai variants of the deck, which tend to kill with Kaervek’s Torch, as a harder to stop kill mechanism. Prismatic Strands might work for a turn, but without a dedicated Disenchant Impact Tremors can end the game thanks to the Mnemonic Wall/Ghostly Flicker/Cloud of Faeries engine.
Haste is an underappreciated ability in Pauper. Much of the time it acts as a free Shock pointed at an opponent’s life total. For this reason I believe Kolaghan Stormsinger may see play. As a 1/1 for a single red it wouldn’t see play. As a 2/2 haste for 3R that grants haste to another creature, now it starts looking interesting, especially when it can be paid in installments. Aggressive red decks have been trending away from Goblins recently and may be in the market for slightly larger bodies. This may not come to pass, but the Stormsinger does intrigue me nonetheless.
Screamreach Brawler and to a lesser extent Reckless Imp are interesting options due to their dash cost. The ability to push these two creatures into the red zone at haste speed is enticing because they match up well with other creatures in the format. As a two power flyer, Reckless Imp is approaching a Shock while Screamreach Brawler is difficult to trade with early thanks to its three toughness.
Twin Bolt. I’m not sure what else needs to be said. Arc Lightning sees play from time to time and tends to be a blowout. Twin Bolt is almost always going to be a two-for-one at instant speed. The ability to take out a Delver of Secrets in both forms or to attack a Spellstutter Sprite and Cloud of Faeries is a feather in this bolt’s cap. I was talking with my friend about Pauper before the spoiler came out and he asked me what card I wanted to see. I replied with Forked Bolt. Twin Bolt isn’t that card, but it’s darn close.
And so we come to green. With so many cards making the first cut in other colors, it is sad to see the lone green offering in Servant of the Scale. With mock modular, the Servant may be able to find a home in Stompy decks that are biased towards cards like Earthbrawn and Hunger of the Howlpack. Skarrgan Pit-Skulk becomes best friends with the Servant in these decks. The new addition to the verdant force may also help fuel decks that don’t mind their creatures dying early and often.
So there you have it - my review of cards that could see play from Dragons of Tarkir. Longer than usual, there are fewer clear standouts. Rather the set includes well over a dozen cards that can slot into existing archetypes and make them stronger. Now this may all change in the wake of a banned list update, but that’s a bridge we can cross when appropriate. Until then,
Keep slingin’ commons-
-Alex
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Discuss Pauper on twitter using #mtgpauperThis month marks 50 years since Lego began making tires. Now it is the largest maker of tires in the world, even if you wouldnt want to drive on any of them. Lego
(CBS News) A 6-year-old boy is breathing easier after doctors found the cause of his sinus problems.
The culprit? It's quite possibly a Lego piece that he shoved up there, probably when he was three years old, his father claims.
"I felt so bad," said Craig Lasson, Issak's father, told KSL. "He was sleeping with his mouth open, trying to breathe."
The Salt Lake City boy has had sinus problems since the age of three and has been on multiple courses of antibiotics. Finally, a doctor who gave the boy a checkup said he thought he saw a foreign body in his nose. When asked about it, Issak said he thought he put a piece of spaghetti up there, but that was long ago.
A specialist removed the offending object, which turned out to be a flexible Lego tire covered in fungus.
"I asked him, 'Dude, how did that even get in there?'" Craig said to KSL. "We think he bent it in half - it's pretty flexible - and that it opened up once it got into his sinuses."
Since the appointment, Issak's appetite has improved, he has more energy and he sleeps better than before, according to Craig. He doesn't remember putting the Lego there.
"It's just one of those weird things," Craig explained to KSL. "Isaak thinks it's pretty cool. He said, 'I didn't even know... this is weird.'"
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford said that any foreign bodies placed in the ear, nose or mouth that is not intended to be there can cause harm and needs immediate medical attention. Children often put soft toys in their nostrils, according to the hospital, and parents should look out for nasal drainage with a bad odor or a bloody nose on the side that has the blockage. Normally a physician can remove the object either through a suction machine or with an instrument.Influential Tory former minister Nick Boles has condemned the idea of a universal basic income to cushion workers against the rise of robots as “dangerous nonsense”.
Nick Boles: ‘Mankind is hard-wired to work.’ Photograph: Rex Features
Universal basic income, or UBI, has sparked the attention of people ranging from Silicon Valley to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party, as a way of guaranteeing workers a minimum income and ensuring they are not left behind by automation.
The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has promised to examine the idea, which would replace means-tested benefits with a single payment to every adult.
But in an extract from his forthcoming book, Square Deal, Boles – the MP for Grantham and a former skills minister – said Conservatives should have “moral” objections to UBI.
“The main objection to the idea of a universal basic income is not practical but moral,” he writes.
“Its enthusiasts suggest that when intelligent machines make most of us redundant, we will all dispense with the idea of earning a living and find true fulfilment in writing poetry, playing music and nurturing plants. That is dangerous nonsense.
“Mankind is hard-wired to work. We gain satisfaction from it. It gives us a sense of identity, purpose and belonging … we should not be trying to create a world in which most people do not feel the need to work.”
Boles also argues the idea would also be prohibitively expensive.
“Currently, the government is able to target help on those who need it most and can therefore afford to be modestly generous. If, in future, everyone were to receive the same basic income, the poorest would suffer a big drop in their income while average earners’ taxes would go up.”
Boles is widely viewed by his colleagues as one of the more thoughtful backbenchers in a party hungry for a convincing riposte to Corbyn’s radical socialism.
Rather than seeking to compensate workers for losing their roles in a more automated economy, he argues that the government should invest heavily in equipping them with the new skills they will need – including the creation of new two-year technical qualifications.
His intervention comes after the IPPR thinktank warned that up to 44% of jobs in the UK economy could potentially be open to automation in the coming decades, with lower-paid workers the most likely to be displaced.
Corbyn used his party conference speech in September to suggest a Labour government would use the tax system to ensure that the benefits of automation are widely shared across the economy: an idea quickly dubbed the “robot tax”.
But Boles warned that taxing firms that benefit from automation would simply discourage them from investing. “The only sure result of a robot tax would be lower investment, lower productivity and lower wages.”Not exclusive to lesbians, but common among them.
What they say: “I’m not ready for a relationship right now.”
What they mean: You’re not who I see myself adopting three cats and moving into a cold-water walk-up in Greenpoint with. Sorry.
Alternate meaning: I like you but under no circumstances will I be known as your girlfriend. I’m just not ready for that type of commitment. I still expect you to hang out with me/ text me/ hold my hand/ buy me shots, though.
What they say: “What? Nothing’s wrong.”
What they mean: You just f-cked up. Bad. Don’t talk to me.
Alternate meaning: Absolutely everything in my life is wrong! Try and get it out of me. Come on, you’re not trying. God, do you even care? Try harder. Ask more questions!
What they say: “Do you think she’s hot? I mean, it’s cool if you do…”
What they mean: Omg, you are mentally banging her right now. I can just see it. Just try to lie to me and say no, I dare you. Don’t think I won’t remember this when we go home tonight.
Alternate meaning: How do you think she would feel about a threesome?
What they say: “What are you talking about, I love your friends!”
What they mean: I would rather drink a pint of antifreeze than be forced to fake-laugh at any more of those corduroy-wearing d-bags’ lame stories.
Alternate meaning: I wish you would hang out with them more.
What they say: “I don’t want to talk about it.”
What they mean: If you even think about bringing this up again, we are over. I’m not kidding.
Alternate meaning: We need to talk about it. Extensively. You start.
What they say: “Why are you being distant?”
What they mean: Who are you thinking about right now?
Alternate meaning: If you’re going to break up with me just do it already! I’m not going to sit here patiently while you choose what words you’re going to break my heart with!
What they say: “What do you mean, what do I mean?!”
What they mean: Are you even listening to me? I just told you everything that’s wrong with my life in under two minutes and you ask me what I mean?? You really don’t get it? Ugh, I’m not telling you again. Why are we even together.
Alternate meaning: I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore, I was kind of hoping you did.
What they say: “Babe, we need to talk. About us.”
What they mean: I hope you don’t have anything important to do within the next fourteen hours, because that’s how long it will take to get through everything.
Alternate meaning: I don’t know how to say this without admitting I went through your phone, but you’re in trouble.
What they say: “I was basically sober all night, I only had three beers!”
What they mean: I got completely sh-thoused and may or may not have groped the DJ, the bouncer and your best friend.
Alternate meaning: I got completely sh-thoused and may or may not have groped the DJ, the bouncer and your best friend. And I accidentally hit your credit limit. Oops.Share
So you spiked your hair up and died it a bright red. You got a sweet pair of new Skullcandy headphones that modded out the wazoo, and made about 300 custom buttons. You’ve been taking martial arts classes and practicing coating your hand in a variety of chemicals so you can safely set it on fire. You’ve covered your dog in a variety of colorful cardboard prosthetics and forced him to chase you. You’ve started ending sentences with “yo |
fact that ‘Russia did it’ stories have been consistently debunked, the Catalonian independence referendum seems to have been the latest target, according to the MSM.
In the face of a brutal state crackdown by Spanish forces, Catalans voted overwhelmingly to leave Spain.
But, of course, this was not an action taken by the Catalan people (who have been seeking independence for 650 years) but a result of Russian meddling...
“Russian propagandists scored a victory in Spain this weekend after ‘boldly injecting fake news and disinformation’ into the debate over Catalonian independence and seemingly influencing the election results,” the Washington Post’s Dan Boylan wrote, citing “U.S. information warfare experts.”
So, that's 'fact' now, and yet another example of the mainstream media adopting Assange's strategy.This beautiful new composite image of two colliding galaxies was released by NASA's Great Observatories. The collision between the Antennae galaxies, which are located about 62 million light-years from Earth, began more than 100 million years ago and is still occurring.
Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter is also host of Ask a Spaceman, RealSpace, and COSI Science Now. Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Two galaxies are drawn together by forces they can't see but they can feel. It's a mutual gravitational attraction. It's inevitable: Inch by inch, light-year by light-year, as the cosmic clock ticks on through the eons, the galaxies grow closer.
They can't help it; their motion was set by tiny instabilities billions of years ago that have only grown stronger in the eons since. As they near each other, the galaxies begin to embrace as thin tendrils of gas and stars reaching out through the tenuous medium between them.
Then, they collide. These two massive structures, each 100,000 light-years across, host hundreds of billions of stars. During the merger, 100 trillion suns' worth of material collide, mix and ignite. [When Galaxies Collide: Photos of Great Galactic Crashes]
And what's left after the fireworks? A broken, dim, dying galaxy — one that will never shine as brightly or as fully as it could in the era before the great disaster.
It's a tragic dance, a story told over hundreds of millions of years. And it's one that we only recently began to understand.
Arp 148 is the staggering aftermath of an encounter between two galaxies, resulting in a ring-shaped galaxy and a long-tailed companion. (Image: © NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University))
The first simulation
As soon as astronomers realized that there are objects that are separate from our own Milky Way, they observed some galaxies that appeared to be much messier than normal. But it wasn't immediately obvious that galaxies actually do anything as interesting as merge.
After all, this fantastic physical process takes hundreds of millions of years to play out, so the few short decades that we've been observing them simply isn't enough time to watch the drama unfold in real time. For quite a while, astronomers didn't know if galaxies were actively merging or if a fraction of galaxies just looked all weird and gangly and that's the way the universe worked.
Simulations ultimately unraveled the mystery of tangled galaxies. But surprisingly, it was not digital simulations that did so; these simulations didn't use a computer.
The year was 1941, and proto-computational-scientist Erik Holmberg wanted to examine the behavior of merging clusters of stars. But he couldn't just manufacture a bunch of stars in the lab and watch them interact gravitationally over millions of years.
So Holmberg got clever. To represent a galaxy, he arranged a couple dozen lamps. Each lamp stood in for trillions of solar masses of stars, gas, dust and other assorted members of the galactic milieu. Then, he related the brightness of each lamp to the gravitational attraction of that galaxy chunk; the more massive the chunk, the brighter the lamp.
Holmberg proceeded to measure the total amount of light falling on each lamp from all of the others. This was proportional to the gravitational force from the other parts of the galaxy. This trick worked because both light and gravity follow the same inverse-square relationship: If the distance from a source doubles, both the strength of gravity and the intensity of light drop to a quarter of the original. Holmberg could then rearrange each lamp step-by-step based on the measured "gravitational pull" of the surrounding lamps.
A tale of tidal tails
In this very crude and simplistic way, Holmberg could step through the eons, watching the interplay of two galaxies as they mixed and mingled via gravity. And he saw an interesting feature: An "arm" of stars reached out between the galaxies as they drew near, with a "counterarm" appearing on the opposite side of each galaxy. While the results were intriguing, he didn't have the computational horsepower to investigate further.
It wasn't until the 1970s that two brothers, Alar and Juri Toomre, revisited the issue. Using actual computers to simulate the behavior of merging galaxies, they found the smoking gun: When two galaxies merge, the gravitational interactions raise "tidal tails" of gas and stars — long, thin ropes of material flung outward from the tight embrace of the spiral arms over the course of the merger event. These simulated tails looked almost exactly like pictures of intriguing objects such as the Antennae galaxies.
The picture was clear: Galaxies merge, collide and mingle. And when they do, they get ripped apart.
The fireworks
The force of gravity is enough to distort the shapes of galaxies as they encounter one another. But galaxies themselves are mostly (relatively) empty space. Stars are just tiny little dots compared to the enormous volumes of space within a galaxy. When you think of these beasts colliding, don't imagine a car crash. Instead, think of two swarms of bees mixing together.
But even though the stars will generally miss each other, there can still be fireworks. Galaxies contain untold tons of gas and dust that are floating around, doing no harm, living uneventfully as nebulas.
Those nebulas can persist for ages, but if given a kick — say, from a nearby supernova shock wave or, in a more relevant example, the complex gravitational interactions as two galaxies fly through each other — they can start to collapse in on themselves, fragmenting and condensing to form a new batch of stars.
When two galaxies are merging, the star formation rate ramps up to 10 times its normal pace. In a cosmic flash, billions of new stars are born. For a brief moment, astronomically speaking, the merged galaxy will be brighter than ever before.
But all that dazzle comes at a cost. If left alone, the galaxies could keep on quietly churning out new stars year after year, sipping on their precious gaseous reserves. But the chaos of the collision forces them to use up precious supplies too quickly. Billions of new stars are born, most of them massive, only to die off shortly after the merger.
And the final result of these mergers? Grand design spiral patterns ripped to shreds. Simple flat disk tangled into a misshapen lump. A vibrant mix of old and young stars burned up with only the faint embers — dying, cool, red dwarfs — left.
Irregular galaxies, full of nothing but dim, red stars, are the leftovers of these great cosmic collisions. It's the price paid for a moment of intergalactic glory.
Learn more by listening to the episode "What happens when galaxies collide?" on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to Jamal and Danny N. for the questions that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Details about the 2015 Costume Institute Gala have been released and boy will this be a precarious one. Jennifer Lawrence will co-chair the event, which is fun—keeping things young! Lawrence is joined by Anna Wintour, obviously, Gong Li, Marissa Mayer and Wendi Murdoch. At first glance, I'm happy with those names. Diversity in the building y'all! However, all my optimism comes to a screeching halt with the gala's theme: "Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film and Fashion."
The Met's Department of Asian Art is celebrating its 100th anniversary and the ball will partially take place in the Chinese Galleries. I'm excited by the idea of Chinese fashion designers getting some shine on a huge platform, but I have little to no faith that this won't turn into one big appropriation and cultural insensitivity parade.
Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton explains the story behind the theme to Women's Wear Daily:
"The basic idea is the influence of Chinese aesthetics on designers, but I also wanted to convey how costumes and decorative arts crystallize centuries of cultural interchanges between the East and the West. They speak to an ongoing fascination of enigmatic objects and motifs. They are infused with fantasy and nostalgia and romance, and what often is created is a virtual China, a mixing of these anachronistic styles, which results in this pastiche. What is interesting is how complicit China has been in forming those fantasies."
Eeesch. The fact that the core idea behind the theme is how Chinese aesthetics have influenced other designers is troubling because that influence is often culturally insensitive or downright racist. There is, of course, a way to honor other cultures without appropriating them, but many people Hollywood—or really, any world rooted in elitism—have already proven that they don't know how to do that very well.
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Also, all this talk about the "East" is bullshit. Do they mean China or do they mean all of Asia? Obviously they just mean China, but boiling down an entire region to one just country—albeit a massive one— is dismissive.
Guys, I just see a whole lot of celebrities fucking this one up. The Met Gala has a theme every year and a lot of guests don't even bother addressing it, which is what I assume the smart ones will do in 2015. The other smart ones will likely honor the theme by wearing Chinese designers while resisting the urge to put chopsticks in their hair.
But I'm sure more than one person will roll up in a Japanese kimono and you already know someone is going to cite Mulan as their creative inspiration.
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Then there will be those who make a living off of cultural appropriation. I would bet the whole farm that Katy Perry is going to do something stupid, again. Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Lily Allen worry me as well. And while I doubt she would ever be invited, we must keep Avril Lavigne as far away from this event as possible.
I simply do not trust the majority of Met Gala attendees to handle this theme with tact and respect, but I really do hope they prove me wrong. For the love of God please prove me wrong.Call it street justice. A trio of Lansing judges Thursday were responsible for the arrest of a couple of young theft suspects. And the evidence was the property of one of the judges.
54-A District Court Judge Frank DeLuca's bicycle was stolen from in front of his house Monday evening. He had taken a break from his ride to authorize a search warrant for the Lansing Police Department. When he went back outside the bicycle was gone.
Thursday he was driving down Michigan Avenue with fellow judges Patrick Cherry and Charles Felice on their way to lunch.
Judge DeLuca spotted his bike being ridden by a juvenile along the sidewalk with another young bike rider.
Judge Patrick Cherry says they immediately contacted 911 and continued to follow the two bike riders until three police cruisers converged on them.
The second bike had also been reported stolen, so both juveniles were taken into custody.
Lansing Police Public Information Officer Robert Merritt says the department doesn't recommend civilians confront suspects, but in this case it was "well done and kudos to the judge."
Judge DeLuca was allowed to take his bicycle home.Wired has a story about a possible GPS spoofing attack by Russia:
After trawling through AIS data from recent years, evidence of spoofing becomes clear. Goward says GPS data has placed ships at three different airports and there have been other interesting anomalies. "We would find very large oil tankers who could travel at the maximum speed at 15 knots," says Goward, who was formerly director for Marine Transportation Systems at the US Coast Guard. "Their AIS, which is powered by GPS, would be saying they had sped up to 60 to 65 knots for an hour and then suddenly stopped. They had done that several times."
All of the evidence from the Black Sea points towards a co-ordinated attempt to disrupt GPS. A recently published report from NRK found that 24 vessels appeared at Gelendzhik airport around the same time as the Atria. When contacted, a US Coast Guard representative refused to comment on the incident, saying any GPS disruption that warranted further investigation would be passed onto the Department of Defence.
"It looks like a sophisticated attack, by somebody who knew what they were doing and were just testing the system," Bonenberg says. Humphreys told NRK it "strongly" looks like a spoofing incident. Fire Eye's Brubaker, agreed, saying the activity looked intentional. Goward is also confident that GPS were purposely disrupted. "What this case shows us is there are entities out there that are willing and eager to disrupt satellite navigation systems for whatever reason and they can do it over a fairly large area and in a sophisticated way," he says. "They're not just broadcasting a stronger signal and denying service this is worse they're providing hazardously misleading information."The most striking thing about Amazon’s (s amzn) fourth-quarter and year-end numbers was that the company’s head count was up a whopping 67 percent to 56,200 employees, compared with 33,700 a year ago, according to Amazon’s new 8-K filing. Sixty-seven percent is a very big number — even for Amazon.
While most of the questions on Amazon’s earnings call on Tuesday night focused on the Kindle Fire business, Justin Post, an analyst with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, tried to get Amazon to drill down into that 67 percent head count growth, which — he pointed out — was “quite a bit higher than units or revenue growth.” But Amazon CFO Thomas Szkutak didn’t bite. “The majority of those increases are in our operations and customer service area... it’s in support of the growth,” Szkutak said.
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Given Amazon Web Services’ push into enterprise computing, smart money is that a good chunk of those workers are supporting AWS users, not selling or otherwise dealing with Kindles or book sales.
Earlier this week, Amazon announced new premium support options for EC2. The company added Amazon-fielded support for third-party software including Windows (s msft) and Red Hat (s rht) Linux operating systems and Apache and IIS web servers running on Amazon infrastructure.
According to the AWS blog post by AWS evangelist Jeff Barr:
If you have Gold or Platinum Premium Support, you can now ask questions related to a number of popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Ubuntu, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, and the Amazon Linux AMI. You can ask us about system software including the Apache and IIS web servers, the Amazon SDKs, Sendmail, Postfix, and FTP. A team of AWS support engineers is ready to help with setup, configuration, and troubleshooting of these important infrastructure components.
As most in the enterprise IT world can attest, support engineers do not come cheap. And with a customer base as large as Amazon’s, it will need quite a few. The margins may be higher on sales of such enterprise services, but they also require a greater deal of customer support. And customer expectations for that support are much higher. Enterprise IT companies like EMC(s emc), Oracle (s orcl) and IBM (s ibm) know this. They typically offer a range of support options, including on-site hand-holding if needed. It is unclear to some whether Amazon does.
Currently, Amazon Platinum tier service costs either $15,000 per month or 10 percent of total AWS usage for that period, whichever is higher. (The Amazon support pricing is posted here).
There is a healthy debate about whether Amazon, which built its empire on the razor-thin margins of bookselling (and some would say Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings) really wants to enter the world of higher-margin enterprise software and services, which require a higher level of hand-holding and support than Amazon has offered in the past. This news about bulked up support for AWS is a sign that it does intend to go there.I am not a beer fan; honestly, I am not really an alcohol fan in general, but I particularly loathe beer. I get loopy when I drink, yep loopy and sick, so it’s just better for everyone that I stay far away from the stuff!
Although I do not like to drink beer, I do like to cook with it, especially when it’s Guinness. There is something about this dark, thick stout beer that enhances some dishes and really imparts a fabulous flavor. Up until recently, I have only used Guinness in savory dishes, so when I came across a recipe for Guinness cupcakes, I was all over it!
I had faith that these would just have a hint of Guinness and be heavy on the chocolate flavor due to all the cocoa powder. This recipe is very easy to whip together and although the batter reeks of Guinness, the finished product is a moist, light cupcake full of chocolaty goodness. I topped these with a nice dollop of vanilla bean frosting and a quick sprinkling of chocolate jimmies. Brian rated these an A and my co-worker Adam said, “This may be the best thing I have ever put in my mouth.” Now if that statement doesn’t make you want to rush into your kitchen and make these, I don’t know what will.
Thanks for checking out my newest post. In case you didn’t know, I have 2 giveaways running right now, one for a fabulous apron and one for a entire set of Wilton UltraGold Bakeware! Check them out and enter!
Guinness Cupcakes Ingredients: For the Cupcakes 1 (12-ounce) bottle Guinness Stout
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (I used Scharffen Berger Cocoa)
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda For the Vanilla Bean Buttercream 1 stick salted butter – room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter – room temperature
1/2 cup shortening
1 tablespoon Clear Vanilla extract
1 1/2 pounds confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar, 10x)
4 tablespoons very cold milk Directions: For the Cupcakes 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. 2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the Guinness, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the sour cream. 3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, sugar, flour, and baking soda. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet Guinness mixture. 4. Butter 24 muffin tins and divide the batter among the muffin tins. 5. Bake 25 minutes, until risen and set in the middle but still soft and tender. Cool before turning out of the tins. For the Vanilla Bean Buttercream 1. Cream the butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric or stand mixer. 2. Add the clear vanilla extract and combine well. Begin adding in the sugar and mixing thoroughly after each addition. 3. After all of the sugar has been added and mixed thoroughly, begin adding the very cold milk one tablespoon at a time, combining very well after each addition (mixer on medium-high to high speed) until you reach the desired consistency. adapted from Dave Lieberman on Chow.com All images and text © for My Baking Addiction All images and text ©
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[pinit]June 28, 2012
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The Center for Inquiry (CFI) has adopted a policy on hostile conduct/harassment at conferences. CFI’s policy will apply to “any educational meeting or gathering organized or sponsored by CFI or its affiliates to which nonemployees are invited.” The policy applies not only to CFI, but also its two operating affiliates, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH).
CFI has already had in place a policy prohibiting harassment or other inappropriate conduct by its employees, which governs employee conduct both on and off CFI premises. CFI had also previously implemented a policy regarding disruptions at meetings, which authorizes staff to remove or bar disruptive individuals. However, there was no prior policy specifically addressing harassment by attendees or speakers.
“CFI wants all its conferences and meetings to take place in an atmosphere that promotes productive discussion and cordial interaction among conference participants. Intimidation and harassment interfere with these objectives, in addition to having other harmful consequences,” explained CFI President & CEO Ronald A. Lindsay in issuing the policy.
The policy is effective immediately. Staff will receive training on administering the policy.
The policy will be posted on the websites for CFI, CSI, and CSH, as well as the websites for all national conferences. An abridged version will be also printed in conference brochures.Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles would like you to know that they are still around and still have some plans and they would still like a "grand bargain." The best friends forever were granted space on the Washington Post editorial page to make their case for common-sense deficit reduction achieved through a series of politically impossible compromises.
Simpson and Bowles have been speaking to the people, and the people agree with them!
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No matter our audience, those we spoke with shared two things: a thirst for the truth about what it will take to right our fiscal ship and a willingness to be part of the solution so long as everyone is in it together.
Basically these two are nostalgic for December when it seemed like a "grand bargain" might actually happen:
In December, the two parties were as close as they’ve ever been on a plan to put our fiscal house in order. Although they did not reach agreement, we continue to believe that broader compromise is possible. In particular, President Obama deserves a lot of credit for his budget, which lays the foundation for constructive bipartisan discussions by incorporating the tough choices and politically difficult compromises contained in the last offer he made during negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner in December. While the president’s budget represents a significant step forward, it does not go as far as necessary to keep our debt declining as a percent of our economy. There are significant, substantive differences between the parties on key issues. But we hope that instead of retreating to their respective partisan corners, leaders in both parties will work to bridge the divide.
I don't know what's different about their new plan and don't care. If it's anything like their second plan, it's a "compromise" that is further to the right than their initial plan, which called for massive tax increases. According to their Op-Ed, their new plan still raises the Medicare eligibility age and also, hilariously, cuts taxes. ("Our plan raises revenue through comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates....") The Op-Ed is titled "A grand bargain is still possible. Here's how." Oddly, nothing in the Op-Ed actually explains how a "grand bargain" would actually pass either the House or the Senate. Thankfully, it seems extremely unlikely that one will.
Since the president idiotically appointed them to his deficit-reduction panel, Simpson and Bowles have become the most respected human beings in all of Washington. It was necessary, for two years, for every serious politician to announce that he supported "the Simpson-Bowles plan," even though in reality almost no one actually did. Recently, though, their brand has lost some luster. The economy is barely growing and joblessness is still a major crisis. The longer that is the case (and it has already been the case for the entirety of the Obama administration) the less urgent deficit-reduction seems.
Simpson and Bowles, amusingly, released their newest plan on Friday, April 19 -- which you may remember as the day everyone in the country was following the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. This deprived the roll-out of a bit of the publicity that attended their previous plans. Also, since their initial plan, British and European austerity measures have caused massive suffering with no economic benefit. The famous Reinhart-Rogoff paper arguing that high debt led to economic contraction was found to be massively flawed.
In other words, the bipartisan "sound serious about the debt" consensus is suddenly in danger. Minutes after the Simpson-Bowles Op-Ed went up, the Post published an Op-Ed by Washington Post moderate liberal E.J. Dionne denouncing the debt obsession and calling for expansionary fiscal policy. (Madness!)
Politico reports that, crazily, some moderate Democrats -- not "wild-eyed liberals" but sensible centrists -- now accept basic Keynsian economics. This being Politico, a voice of the Beltway elite consensus, this acceptance of mainstream economic opinion is still treated as exotic and bizarre.
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"This group could make it even harder for President Barack Obama to strike a grand bargain because they increasingly see no immediate need for either new spending cuts or significantly more revenue, both of which they say could further slow the economy," Politico says of these crazy whack jobs who believe that the unemployment crisis is more real and significant than long-term federal debt. Oh, no! (What is actually making it "hard" for the president to fix the deficit by lowering tax rates and making social insurance plans less generous is, weirdly, Republicans, who rhetorically support all of those things but who in practice prefer top-down class warfare to deficit reduction. And those Republicans have saved us all from a grand bargain.)
So it suddenly seems like a bit of cautious optimism about the elite conversation might be justified. Simpson and Bowles are being ignored. Deficit hysteria is a bit less fashionable than it has been. Congress, as we all know, is only responsive to rich people. But rich people are honestly better off if non-rich people can afford to pay rent and buy things. And some rich people seem to have begun to realize this. And we all owe Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan our thanks for killing Simpson and Bowles' dream.Mark Tuesday in your calendar. All the political parties have done so for it is the point when there will be exactly 100 days to go before the election. This will consume some people with dread, but it gives me a tingle of excitement. Even if the campaign proves to be soporific, the results are going to be worth staying up for.
That is not usually the case. By this stage before most of our elections, we already know who is going to be the next prime minister. Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Tony Blair in 1997, Harold Macmillan in 1959, and too many other past elections to mention were not really contests. They were coronations. All the sound and fury of the campaign signified little. The people had already settled on who was going to be crowned prime minister some time before they cast their ballots. The last election was a bit different, but not that different. Many expressed themselves surprised when they found we had a hung parliament. They shouldn’t have been. The polls had been indicating that Labour would lose, the Tories would be ahead, and that David Cameron was very likely to be prime minister but without a majority. Which is exactly what happened.
The election of 2015 is one of those extremely rare ones where it is genuinely dicey to make a confident forecast about what will happen. The rise of the insurgent parties has broken the traditional red-blue swingometer. The tightness of the race between the big two, which are currently within a point or two of each other in most polls, makes it extremely hard to say who will have a nose ahead at the finishing post. Which makes past exceptions to the usual coronation rule worth considering when we try to imagine what could happen in May. In relatively recent history, there have been two elections that have upset expectations, two elections when the underdog beat the favourite. One of them was 1992. Labour went into that election with a substantial lead in the opinion polls and a widespread expectation that Neil Kinnock was bound for Downing Street.
Yet when the votes were counted, John Major was back in Number 10 as Tory prime minister. People subsequently said that this was not so surprising after all and attributed the Conservative victory to their ferocious assault on Labour’s economic credibility and the ruthlessly personal targeting of Mr Kinnock by painting him as a candidate not fit to be prime minister. But that post-hoc analysis comes from Professor Harry Hindsight at the Faculty of Wise After the Event. At the time, most people thought Labour was going to win. I remember attending the last Conservative press conference of that campaign. All the big Tory beasts of the time were lined up on the platform. While Mr Major expressed a quiet confidence that he might yet prevail, there was defeat written in the eyes of all of his senior colleagues.
That election has a special relevance today because David Cameron was one of the “brat pack” of young Tory apparatchiks working for Mr Major. The current Tory leader cut his campaign teeth then. This has influenced his belief, one shared by George Osborne, that they can turn this election into a remake of that one. Their early moves of this campaign have been straight out of the ’92 Tory playbook. Labour, they charge, will wreck the economy with more borrowing and higher taxes – the same “double whammy” they hit Labour with in ’92. Ed Miliband, they cry, is not up to being prime minister – exactly the same script the Tories used about Neil Kinnock. When trying to reassure Tory MPs twitchy about defeat, Mr Cameron soothes them with the thought that they were behind Labour in the polls in 1992 only to triumph on election day.
Yet if there are some superficial similarities between now and then, there are also some stark differences. The electorate has changed quite a lot in the two decades since. There was no Ukip around then to eat into the Tories’ right flank. And David Cameron is no John Major. The latter had only recently replaced Margaret Thatcher and ditched her hated poll tax, creating the impression in the minds of some voters that they had already had a change of government. Mr Major had been prime minister for less than 18 months. By May, David Cameron will have been prime minister for five years and Tory leader for nearly 10. With his unassuming manner and modest background, John Major could attractively cast himself as the underdog when he went round the country speaking at street corners from a soapbox. The Tories put up campaign posters bearing his face and the slogan: “What does the Conservative party offer a working-class kid from Brixton?” I don’t think it would work quite so well for the Tories if they put up posters with a mugshot of David Cameron and the slogan: “What has the Conservative party ever done for a kid from Eton?”
David Cameron does not present himself as the underdog of this contest and no one would take it seriously if he did. Though their poll rating has bumped around the low 30s, the Tories are behaving like they are the top dogs. In interviews and at their campaign events, David Cameron and George Osborne swagger with confidence that they will still be running the government on 8 May. They radiate a belief that they not only expect to win, they are entitled to win.
Of course, Tories are bound to hope that this will be another 1992 when the incumbent came from behind. But what if it turns out that this is a case of an unfancied challenger upsetting expectations? That is what happened in 1970. Harold Wilson had been prime minister for six years. After a lot of economic misery, the skies at last seemed to be brightening. His party, often badly split, had got its act together for the election. A lot of people found the prime minister tricksy and questioned whether he really believed in anything, but he looked assured and presidential in the role. Not so unlike David Cameron then.
The challenger to Wilson was widely mocked. Ted Heath struggled to capture the imagination of the country. He had a poor public image. A lot of his party secretly – and not so secretly – reckoned that they were led by a loser. Some similarities with Ed Miliband then. So confident were Buckingham Palace officials that there wouldn’t be a change of prime minister that the Queen planned to spend the day after the election at Ascot. On election night, Heath grabbed some sleep at his flat near the Commons. When he got up, his housekeeper greeted him with news of a transatlantic phone call he had missed: “Mr Nixon rang during the night to congratulate you.” The underdog had won.
Ed Miliband is, in quite a lot of ways, the underdog of this year’s contest. When he ran for the Labour leadership, very few of his senior colleagues backed him to win, most of them preferring his brother. At various points over the past four and a half years, he has been mercilessly scorned and written off. Even when Labour has had a headline lead in the opinion polls, many people have not really believed it meant anything. Not even senior Labour people. Especially not senior Labour people. Historically, it has always taken Labour more than one election to recover from defeat and its last defeat was its second worst since the First World War. Labour is behind the Tories when voters are asked which party is the more credible on the economy and which party has the best leader. An opposition party has never previously won when it lags on both those questions. The majority of the newspapers are very hostile to the Labour leader. Money is also against him. The Tories will outspend Labour by a ratio of three to one or worse.
Could Mr Miliband turn these handicaps to his advantage? The British are supposed to love an underdog. So there’s a potential campaign narrative available to the Labour leader as the plucky challenger battling against some formidable odds. There’s also a dilemma. On the one hand, Labour wants to present itself as a party of government that is confident of winning. On the other hand, the rise of the minor parties suggests that underdoggery is in fashion. And the way the economy has left people feeling beaten up means there are a lot of voters out there who might have instinctive sympathy with underdogs.
The Labour leader has sometimes embraced the role by casting himself as the challenger to the status quo, taking on the big battalions in the media, finance and business on behalf of the little man. He has occasionally acknowledged that he must “defy history” if Labour is to win. The Tories have not wanted TV debates because they fear that Mr Miliband could flip his poor ratings in the polls to his advantage by beating expectations.
Could this be one of those elections in which, when the votes are counted, the underdog turns out to be the top dog? I can’t tell you for sure. But finding out is another good reason to stay awake on the night of 7 May.Fifteen years ago, when I was a freshman in high school, my English teacher gave my class a homework assignment entitled, “Advice for a Younger Generation.” The concept of the assignment was simple: Each student had to interview a person who was over the age of 25, gather enough information to write a basic biography of their life and find out what their top tips are for a younger generation. I chose to interview my dad. He was 53 at the time and he gave me 18 pieces of advice.
I had completely forgotten about all this until last week when I was visiting my parents. My mom had me clean out a few old boxes she had stored in the attic. In one of these boxes I found the original “Advice for a Younger Generation” assignment dated April 22nd, 1996. I read through it and was totally blown away.
Even though my dad’s advice is relevant to a person of any age, my 29-year-old self can relate to it in a way my 14-year-old self didn’t quite grasp at the time. In fact, the first thought that went through my head was, “My dad was right.”
Here are his 18 pieces of advice for a younger generation, transcribed with his permission.
Your 30’s, 40’s and 50’s won’t feel like your 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. – Adults are just older children. When you get older you won’t feel as old as you imagine you will. For the most part, you still feel exactly the way you feel right now, just a little wiser and more confident. You’ve had time to establish your place in the world and figure out what’s important to you. Don’t fear growing up. Look forward to it. It’s awesome. Bad things will happen to you and your friends. – Part of living and growing up is experiencing unexpected troubles in life. People lose jobs, get in car accidents and sometimes die. When you are younger, and things are going pretty well, this harsh reality can be hard to visualize. The smartest, and oftentimes hardest, thing we can do in these kinds of situations is to be tempered in our reactions. To want to scream obscenities, but to wiser and more disciplined than that. To remember that emotional rage only makes matters worse. And to remember that tragedies are rarely as bad as they seem, and even when they are, they give us an opportunity to grow stronger. Everyone can make a huge difference. – Making one person smile can change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So start small and start now. First impressions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. – Everyone and everything seems normal from a distance, or at a glance. The 10th, 20th, or even the 50th impression is when you start to truly understand someone else for who they truly are. Big results come when you narrow your |
like an exception than the rule.Theis an enchanted map of Hogwarts, one that shows every inch of the castle and surrounding grounds. If that sounds just like a regular map, the magical part is that you can see where everyone is at all times, since all the people on campus are marked with black footprints with their name under them.It's a hugely valuable object for a young hero who doesn't play by anyone's rules (the main purpose of the map was to let Harry run around on school grounds while avoiding teachers or bad guys). And some of the potential for abuse was mentioned in the movies -- a teacher does angrily ask Harry if he's considered what the villains could do with such a map, since it would tell them where all of the security is.The possessor of the map can see their crush sitting too close to a member of the opposite sex, or they can see their professors sneaking around with each other and so many other things. Then they could just kind of walk in on them for fun, if they were so inclined. Either way, they'd know everything.In the Wizard World, nothing is private and no one is safe.In, Harry receives an ominous letter from someone at the Ministry of Magic:Harry, as an underage wizard, is not supposed to be using magic outside of his school, and so the Ministry of Magic wanted to make sure he knew that they had their eye on him, thanks to their ability to invisibly monitor everything he does, 24 hours a day.The magic that lets them spy on you, invisibly and completely undetected, is available to everyone, at all times. A read through the series reveals at least one new way to go undercover per book: Invisibility cloaks, Polyjuice potions that will let a stranger perfectly imitate your friend or family, Disillusionment Charms and the Imperius Curse which when cast successfully, places the victim completely under the caster's control.A 13-year-old girl is seen here casually making one of the most dangerous potions in the world:And all of these techniques are being used by children, and used with resounding success against the finest minds of the magical government. The Imperius Curse is illegal, sure, but bya teenage Harry and the gang are using it to break into a bank. In other words, they have rules against using these spells, but no magical protection against them -- and the rules only matter if you get caught.And you won't get caught, because a simple spell will wipe their memory of the event or, far more terrifying, create false memories. Hermione Granger uses one of these to convince her own parents that she never existed, instantly rewriting 17 years of memories in their minds with a wave of her wand.Even worse than her was Gilderoy Lockhart. He never actually did any of the heroic acts he claimed he had done, but instead used his considerable talent in Memory Charms to force the actual people who had done them into forgetting what they did.Think about that. Imagine living in a world where anybody, from con artist to salesman to spiteful co-worker, can do that to you without your knowledge. Further, they may not even be who you think they are. Inan impostor takes the place of Mad-Eye Moody for the whole year with no one the wiser,including the greatest wizard of all time Albus Dumbledore.It's amazing to consider that there may be a wizard in the Wizarding world who is still capable of trusting another living creature.Sources :Britain faces a shortfall of 66,800 construction workers and 36,800 qualified engineers by 2050 due to skills shortages, an ageing workforce and restrictive migration policy, according to Randstad CPE.
Recruitment specialist Randstad CPE said the UK workforce as a whole will have a deficit of 3.1 million by 2050, a figure that represents nine per cent of the required workforce.
Using employment rates from the most recent European population analysis from Eurostat — the statistical office of the European Union — as a measure of demand, Randstad analysed the projected changes in UK population and working age rate for 2050 to establish the gap between employment demand and workforce supply.
The analysis showed that with a population of 74.5 million, in 2050 the UK will require a workforce of 35.4 million to meet demand. However, with a pool of 45.1 million people (60.5 per cent of the population) forecast to be eligible to work in 2050, even if the employment rate matches pre-downturn levels of 71.6 per cent, an ageing population will leave the UK with only 32.3 million people in employment — 3.1 million short of the 35.4 million required to meet demand.
Randstad also forecast the workforce shortfall across some key professions. Qualified engineers represent 1.2 per cent of the UK workforce while construction staff represent two per cent, assuming this proportion remains constant, by 2050, the UK will have a deficit of 36,800 engineers and 66,800 construction workers.
The education sector will be the worst affected with a projected shortfall of 128,000 teachers.
In a statement, Owen Goodhead, managing director of Randstad CPE, said: ‘Our projections for the size of the engineering workforce are conservative, yet they paint a very grim picture for the UK’s economic prospects. Unless we can plug the employment gap, the engineering and construction sectors will be unable to perform efficiently and this will have serious consequences for the prosperity of the country.’
Migration is said to be one of the key drivers behind the skills shortage in the engineering and construction sectors.
Since 2007, overall work-related migration from the UK has risen 16 per cent while work-related immigration has fallen 24 per cent over the same period (see chart below). The combination of poor economic performance and changes to immigration policy have made the UK a less attractive place to work among the world’s most talented professionals and trades people.
However, the UK engineering and construction sectors have also had to deal with significant demand for talent from overseas. Huge infrastructure projects in preparation for the World Cup and Olympics in Brazil are providing a huge draw for international talent, as is demand in locations such as Nigeria for its oil industry, Australia for mining and New Zealand for earthquake reconstruction.
An ageing workforce is also a threat to the future of the engineering sector with the industry facing huge levels of retirement over the coming decades. This presents a particular problem for the large-scale energy projects planned in UK over the coming years. EDF plans to invest £20bn in low-carbon nuclear generation over next 15 years, however, 70 per cent of current nuclear workforce will be retired by 2025.The Aristocamp! Hello Aristocrats Fans We are pleased to announce The Aristocamp! A three-day music camp for guitarists, bassists, drummers and fans which will take place from June 18th to 21st 2019 in upstate New York. The Aristocamp will also feature the world premiere of our new material currently being recorded. This is our very first music camp and we can assure you it will be packed full of activities to educate, inspire and entertain. Musicians and music fans of all ages, abilities and musical tastes are welcome at The Aristocamp. Attendees will be able to fully immerse themselves in the world of music, learning from us, special guests and each other at a wide variety of workshops, jams, Q&As and instrument specific breakout sessions. Of course there will also be opportunities to see us playing as a band on stage, debuting some brand new material alongside old favourites. The event will be organized by Music Masters Camps, who are well known for facilitating a highly interactive experience between artists and audience. The camp will be held at Full Moon Resort, located a half hour west of Woodstock, NY. It’s a year-round mountain resort in the heart of the idyllic Catskill Forest Preserve and includes comfortable country inn accommodations plus camping and commuter options. As you might imagine, we’re very excited to provide this unique experience. We’ve each been involved in music camps in the past and the highlight has always been interacting with the passionate musicians and music fans in attendance. Between us we have a lifetime of performing, touring and recording experience to pass on and this is the perfect environment to do that. Also, this time we’ll have the additional luxury of being able to zoom in on how we create our own music, and what happens when we interact as a band and play it live. We might even say it’s ok to break the rules now and then. We will be joined at The Aristocamp by some special guest musicians, to be announced soon. Full details are available at www.aristocamp.com and tickets will go on sale at 12pm EST on February 28th. Register before March 12th for an early bird discount. See you there! Cheers to all, The Aristocrats
Aristocrats Europe Tour 2018 Shirt – Now Available Online Due To Blowout Demand! Hello everyone! We want to thank everyone who came out to see us on our all-too-brief Europe 2018 Tour. We had a blast and it was great to see you all again. More news about the future below, but for now…it turns out we didn’t print nearly enough tour shirts with the exclusive “Aristo-Saints” design (by Brigitte Roka). We sold out halfway through the tour! We apologize to those who wanted one and didn’t get one. So, to make it right, we printed another run and now you can get it online. Just click here – it’s our temporary online store and it ships worldwide. PayPal is the payment machine but you do NOT need a PayPal account to pay with a credit card. Thanks to Hostile City Distro for stepping up during our webstore transition to help make this happen. Some news items: * The Aristocrats will return to the studio in 2019 to record our fourth studio album * You can see lots of great tour photos by checking out our social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. * For those outside Europe, worry not: We’ll come play for you on the next world tour. Thanks again to all for making our return to the stage a most enjoyable one. ;-) Cheers to all,
The Aristocrats
The Aristocrats’ Europe Tour Starts In 10 Days! Hello Aristocrats Fans, We’re less than 10 days away from kicking off our tour of Europe! We’ve got a new t-shirt to mark the occasion, and we have some additional news (like, why does this e-mail look different?) to share with you. First of all, if you’re in Europe and anywhere near any of these locations, and you haven’t bought tickets yet, now’s the time: THE ARISTOCRATS
EUROPE TOUR 2018 September 9th – Sliema (Malta) – Teatru Salesjan
September 11th – Nicosia (Cyprus) – Downtown Live
September 13th – Munich (Germany) – Strom
September 14th – Zurich (Switzerland) – Kaufleuten
September 15th – Esch Sur Alzette (Luxembourg) – Rockhal
September 16th – Zoetermeer (Netherlands) – De Boerderij
September 18th – London (UK) – Islington Assembly
September 19th – Paris (France) – Trabendo
September 21st – Madrid (Spain) – Sala Mon
September 22nd – Barcelona (Spain) – Salamandra 1
September 24th – Helsinki (Finland) – The Circus
September 26th – Eskilstuna (Sweden) – Lokomotivet
September 28th – Isola del Liri/Frosinone (Italy) – Teatro Mangoni
September 29th – Ancona (Italy) – Cinema Teatro Italia
September 30th – Milano (Italy) – Magazzini Generali Click here for ticket links and full details on each show. ******** Meanwhile, we have a special limited edition t-shirt to commemorate the occasion, available exclusively at our upcoming shows. Check it out! Perhaps you’ve seen this amazing drawing before – we actually posted it on our socials when it was first done by the extremely talented Brigitte Roka. We thought, this would make a pretty cool shirt…and now: Boing, here it is. :-) But wait, there’s more. We want to show our genuine appreciation for Brigitte’s artistic generosity by shining an Aristocratic spotlight on her bluesy stoner metal band from Southern California, Aboleth. Signed and produced by multi-platinum/Grammy-nominated producer Ulrich Wild (Dethklok, Pantera, Deftones, Static-X), Aboleth just dropped their debut album, “Benthos” – and it features none other than Marco Minnemann on drums from start to finish. This material is heavy AF, and Brigitte’s lead vocals are like pouring whiskey on a fire. You can check Aboleth (and Brigitte herself) out at these links below. And our European tour dates are below that. \m/ Band Website: https://www.abolethband.com
Band Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abolethband
Band Instagram: @abolethband
Band Bandcamp: https://abolethband.bandcamp.com/
Brigitte Roka Art Website: https://www.brigitteroka.com/
Brigitte Roka Instagram: @brigitteroka ******** Now for the other news. Many of you have contacted us wanting to buy the “exclusive tour shirt” at our online store, and one could hardly blame you. However, many of those same people discovered that our online store is down for maintenance at the moment. Sad but true, and out of our control. We are in the process of rebuilding it with a different host. We hope to have it back up and running by the time the tour is over, so that any leftover tour shirts can be snapped up by the folks around the world who couldn’t get to the shows. We’ll keep you posted. As you can probably see, we also needed to move our e-mail list host due to the unexpected change, and we appreciate you staying with us! ******** That’s all for now. Europe: We’ll see you soon! Cheers to all,
The Aristocrats
Last New Date (Italy!) Added For September Europe Tour – Final Dates Below We’ve finally added the last new date for our September tour of Europe – in Ancona, Italy! All of the confirmed dates are listed below on the snazzy official poster: As always, the most recent info on each show, including links for ticket sales, can be found on our Tours page. We’re really looking forward to this and hope to see you in a fine European concert venue soon! Cheers to all,
The Aristocrats
The Aristocrats Europe Tour 2018: Latest Dates A friendly reminder for our friends in EUROPE: We’ll be there in September! The official tour dates are below, and even though it’s still just under four months away, some of these venues are selling tickets more quickly than we anticipated. Thank you to everyone out there who’s making that happen – we’re grateful! You’re setting a fine example for others to follow. And for the “tour-curious”: May this humble social media post inspire similar deeds. ;-) ************ THE ARISTOCRATS
2018 Europe Tour September 9th – Sliema (Malta) – Teatru Salesjan
September 11th – Nicosia (Cyprus) – Downtown Live
September 13th – Munich (Germany) – Strom
September 14th – Zurich (Switzerland) – Kaufleuten
September 15th – Esch Sur Alzette (Luxembourg) – Rockhal
September 16th – Zoetermeer (Netherlands) – De Boerderij
September 18th – London (UK) – Islington Assembly
September 19th – Paris (France) – Trabendo
September 21st – Madrid (Spain) – Sala Mon
September 22nd – Barcelona (Spain) – Salamandra 1
September 24th – Helsinki (Finland) – The Circus
September 26th – Eskilstuna (Sweden) – Lokomotivet
September 28th – Isola del Liri/Frosinone (Italy) – Teatro Mangoni
September 30th – Milano (Italy) – Magazzini Generali All info and ticket links: http://the-aristocrats-band.com/shows/More speculation on whether Donald Trump really wants the job of President or just the title.
Donald Trump doesn't want the job of President. He wants to win the election, but he doesn't want the actual job and the actual work that comes with it. We've talked about this before and it's starting to look closer to the truth.
Back in April, I wrote a post titled, "Donald Trump Is Beginning His Exit Strategy," that appeared on Liberals Unite and on The Huffington Post. Tony Trupiano and I have talked about this very theory on the T&Z Talk podcast numerous times.
In the post, I wrote, "Donald Trump does not want to be president. In fact, he never wanted to be president. His entire campaign has been a long con and a ruse to strengthen his brand and feed his ego."
That was back in April when Trump was talking about getting rid of the Geneva Convention, punishing women who have abortions, giving nukes to South Korea and Japan, and dissolving NATO and the United Nations.
He made all of these ludicrous suggestions and promises in the span of a week and because of that I speculated that Trump really didn't want the White House - Ever. He was just doing this to get attention and pump up the Trump brand. Somewhere along the way things got out of hand and he found himself in over his head.
I wrote:
Donald Trump can't just quit. After all, he's Donald Trump. The next logical step would be to take a fall -- possibly losing the nomination by a small margin. But again, if you're Donald Trump you don't lose. If you're Donald Trump and want to get out while still maintaining your brand and your dignity, you play the long game and come out looking like a victim. In a sense, you spin it so that your supporters think you're so accurate in your assessment of the world that it frightens the establishment into shutting you down - you're that powerful.
The theory, still an apparent work in progress, goes a little like this: Donald Trump is a narcissistic, self-absorbed, ego maniac who has no desire to work for a living. He likes to win and hates losers. He actually thinks that everyone who is voting for him is a loser. He will win at all cost. It doesn't matter whether what he says is true, accurate, or completely devoid of reality. Trump is about winning and once he wins, he's done.
On Thursday, in the New York Times Jason Horowitz wrote a piece titled, "Would Donald Trump Quit if He Wins the Election? He Doesn't Rule It Out."
Interesting, ain't it?
Horowitz writes:
Presented in a recent interview with a scenario, floating around the political ether, in which the presumptive Republican nominee proves all the naysayers wrong, beats Hillary Clinton and wins the presidency, only to forgo the office as the ultimate walk-off winner, Mr. Trump flashed a mischievous smile.
That's right, Trump may just quit after he wins.
Horowitz again:
But the notion of the intensely competitive Mr. Trump's being more interested in winning the presidency than serving as president is not exactly a foreign concept to close observers of this presidential race.
According to Horowitz, Stuart Stevens, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney in 2012 who is one of Trump's most vocal critics said, "[Trump] is a con man who is shocked his con hasn't been called" and that he was looking for an emergency exit.
"He has no sense of how to govern," Stevens said. "He can't even put together a campaign."
Of course his campaign, when asked for a comment about whether Trump would walk away from the job once there, denied it. Of course they denied it. Lucy denied that she was going to pull the football away and Charlie Brown still ended up on his back, every time.
It should come as no surprise that the campaign would deny such a notion. It should come as no surprise, but to Horowitz it apparently does. He seems genuinely perplexed that the campaign and Trump wouldn't let him in on the secret. He proceeds to waste another 800 words and internet real estate quoting campaign workers, strategist, college professors and close friends of the ferret headed orange wonder, all of whom must be laughing hysterically that someone is calling to ask, "Hey, you're going to hold that football so I can kick it this time, right?
Trump won't tell, but time will and there's still a pretty good chance that the bombastic candidate who is as surprised as the rest of us that he got this far could one day soon announce, "Nah, never mind."
Hopefully we won't have to wait until November 8th.As promised, Sean and I have recorded a long, spoiler-filled discussion of Marvel’s “The Avengers.” Both us loved the movie, and we chat about our thoughts on each of the characters, their relationships, the action scenes, the story, the filmmaking itself, what the box office numbers mean, and where “The Avengers” stands in movie history. It’s one of our best podcasts ever, and if you love “The Avengers,” it’s one you absolutely won’t want to miss. It does contain heavy spoilers, so don’t listen until you’ve seen the movie. We also talk about the new movie trailers for "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Dark Knight Rises." And if you’re not interested in any of that, we’ll be back on or around May 15th with this month’s official podcast, the topic of which is announced at the end of today’s show.
You can now stream the podcast right from this page! Listen here:
Enjoy the show!!WASHINGTON — Richard Holbrooke, a brilliant and feisty U.S. diplomat who wrote part of the Pentagon Papers, was the architect of the 1995 Bosnia peace plan and served as President Barack Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, died Monday, the State Department said. He was 69.
Calling Holbrooke "a true giant of American foreign policy," Obama paid homage to the veteran diplomat as "a truly unique figure who will be remembered for his tireless diplomacy, love of country, and pursuit of peace." Holbrooke deserves credit for much of the progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the president said.
Holbrooke, whose forceful style earned him nicknames such as "The Bulldozer" and "Raging Bull," was admitted to the hospital on Friday after becoming ill at the State Department. The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. had surgery Saturday to repair a tear in his aorta, the body's principal artery.
The Washington Post reports that Holbrooke's last words came just before the 21-hour operation:
As Holbrooke was sedated for surgery, his final words were to his Pakistani surgeon, family members said: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Holbrooke one of America's "fiercest champions and most dedicated public servants."
"Richard Holbrooke served the country he loved for nearly half a century, representing the United States in far-flung war zones and high-level peace talks, always with distinctive brilliance and unmatched determination," Clinton said.
Holbrooke served under every Democratic president from John F. Kennedy to Obama in a lengthy career that began with a foreign service posting in Vietnam in 1962 after graduating from Brown University, and included time as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., called the loss of Holbrooke "almost incomprehensible," adding that his "tough-as-nails, never-quit diplomacy" saved tens of thousands of lives. Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, who will chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee next year, called Holbrooke "a dynamic force in American diplomacy" whose "stellar service is deeply appreciated and held in the highest esteem."
Holbrooke's sizable ego, tenacity and willingness to push hard for diplomatic results won him both admiration and animosity.
"If Richard calls you and asks you for something, just say yes," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said. "If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful."
He learned to become extremely informed about whatever country he was in, push for an exit strategy and look for ways to get those who live in a country to take increasing responsibility for their own security.
"He's a bulldog for the globe," Tim Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, once said.
The bearish Holbrooke said he has no qualms about "negotiating with people who do immoral things."
"If you can prevent the deaths of people still alive, you're not doing a disservice to those already killed by trying to do so," he said in 1999.
Born in New York City on April 24, 1941, Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke had an interest in public service from his early years. He was good friends in high school with a son of Dean Rusk and he grew close to the family of the man who would become a secretary of state for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
Holbrooke was a young provincial representative for the U.S. Agency for International Development in South Vietnam and then an aide to two U.S. ambassadors in Saigon. At the Johnson White House, he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers, an internal government study of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that was completed in 1967.
The study, leaked in 1971 by a former Defense Department aide, had many damaging revelations, including a memo that stated the reason for fighting in Vietnam was based far more on preserving U.S. prestige than preventing communism or helping the Vietnamese.
After stints in and out of government – including as Peace Corps director in Morocco, editing positions at Foreign Policy and Newsweek magazines and adviser to Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign – Holbrooke became assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs from 1977-81. He then shifted back to private life – and the financial world, at Lehman Brothers.
A lifelong Democrat, he returned to public service when Bill Clinton took the White House in 1993. Holbrooke was U.S. ambassador to Germany from 1993 to 1994 and then assistant secretary of state for European affairs.
One of his signature achievements was brokering the Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia. He detailed the experience of negotiating the deal at an Air Force base near the Ohio city in his 1998 memoir, "To End a War."
James Dobbins, former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan who worked closely with Holbrooke early in their careers, called him a brilliant diplomat and said his success at the Dayton peace talks "was the turning point in the Clinton administration's foreign policy."
Holbrooke's efforts surrounding Dayton would later lead to controversy when wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told a war crimes tribunal in 2009 that Holbrooke had promised him immunity in return for leaving politics. Holbrooke denied the claim.
Holbrooke left the State Department in 1996 to take a Wall Street job with Credit Suisse First Boston, but was never far from the international diplomatic fray, serving as a private citizen as a special envoy to Cyprus and then the Balkans.
In 1998, he negotiated an agreement with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw Yugoslav forces from Kosovo where they were accused of conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign and allow international observers into the province.
"I make no apologies for negotiating with Milosevic and even worse people, provided one doesn't lose one's point of view," he said later.
When the deal fell apart, Holbrooke went to Belgrade to deliver the final ultimatum to Milosevic to leave Kosovo or face NATO airstrikes, which ultimately rained down on the capital.
"This isn't fun," he said of his Kosovo experience. "This isn't bridge or tennis. This is tough slogging."
Holbrooke returned to public service in 1999, when he became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after a lengthy confirmation battle, stalled at first by ethics investigations into his business dealings and then unrelated Republican objections.
At the U.N., Holbrooke tried to broker peace in wartorn African nations. He led efforts to help refugees and fight AIDS in Africa. He also confronted U.N. anger over unpaid U.S. dues to the world body and persuaded 188 countries to overhaul the United Nations' financing and reduce U.S. payments.
"What's the point of being in the government if you don't try to make things better, which means trying to change things," Holbrooke told The Associated Press in a 2001 interview, reflecting on his time at the United Nations.
Holbrooke, with his long-standing ties to Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a strong supporter of her 2008 bid for the White House. He had been considered a favorite to become secretary of state if she had won. When she dropped out, he began reaching out to the campaign of Obama.
Reflecting on his role as Obama's special envoy, Holbrooke wrote in The Washington Post in March 2008 that "the conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize. This war, already in its seventh year, will eventually become the longest in American history, surpassing even Vietnam."
Holbrooke's relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai was strained after their heated meeting in 2009 over the fraud-tainted Afghan presidential election. Karzai brushed it off, saying he had "no problem at all with Mr. Holbrooke." But the U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan, not Holbrooke, were the ones who ended up developed the closest relations with the mercurial Afghan leader. The State Department said Sunday that Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were among those calling to wish Holbrooke well.
Holbrooke rejected direct comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam, but acknowledged similarities and repeatedly pressed the administration to do more to win the hearts and minds of both the Afghan and Pakistani people.
He was fully engaged in that effort until his unexpected death.
A torn aorta – the condition that cost Holbrooke's life – is a rip in the inner wall of the body's largest artery. The result is serious internal bleeding, a loss of normal blood flow and possible complications in organs affected by the resulting lack of blood, according to medical experts. Without surgery it generally leads to rapid death.
"True to form, Richard was a fighter to the end," said Clinton. "His doctors marveled at his strength and his willpower, but to his friends, that was just Richard being Richard."
Holbrooke is survived by his wife, author Kati Marton, and two sons from an earlier marriage, David Holbrooke and Anthony Holbrooke.(Image: Fernando Moleres/Panos Pictures)
IN CHINA, if you are a kid who spends a long time online, you had better watch out. Your parents may send you off for “treatment”.
At the Internet Addiction Treatment Centre in Beijing, children must take part in military-style activities, including exercise drills and the singing of patriotic songs. They are denied access to the internet. One of the first experiences internees undergo is brain monitoring through electroencephalography (EEG). The programme is run by psychologist Tao Ran, who claims the brains of internet and heroin addicts display similarities.
The rise of such centres has, in some cases, been coupled with reports of brutality. One camp in Henan province was recently criticised after it was alleged that a 19-year-old girl died following corporal punishment doled out by officers.
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(Image: Fernando Moleres/Panos Pictures)
These photographs were taken by Fernando Morales during a four-day visit to the Beijing centre in June with journalist Zigor Aldama.
“We had heard stories about electroshocks, physical torture and confinement, but we found none of those,” says Aldama.
“The children usually get angry when they know that they’ll be locked in the centre, where parents put them without prior notice. They deny suffering an addiction. But as time goes by, I believe they are more sociable and calm. They get in better physical shape thanks to the sports training,” Aldama says.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Hooked on the web”Attributes, Races and Class Features
Attributes
Strength
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Races
Feats
Attributes
don't
Level Adjustment
only if you are allowed to buy it off
Size
Humans
Elves
Artic
Desert
Gnomes
if you are allowed to use level adjustment buyoff
Strongheart Halflings
Sharakim
Tieflings
if retraining is allowed
Dragonborn of Bahamut
Warforged
and
Class Features
Wizard Features:
Low base attack bonus.
Good will save progression.
2+intelligence modifier skill points.
Proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow and the quarterstaff.
Not proficient with any kind of armor or shield.
Summon Familiar : Familiars can be a huge boon to their masters. They are intelligent, so they can use items, essentially increasing the number of available item slots you have; they can use the aid another action to aid you (since you share skill ranks) and add +2 (or higher, if you spend some gold to get some items) to most of your skills checks. You can find the familiar handbook in this blog, by using the search feature.
Scribe Scroll PHB: Wizards receive this item creation feat at first level for free. It is especially useful at the start of your carreer, where you can use it to craft some cheap scrolls to use on your daily encounters (a great spell for this is Symbol of Pain, from Races of the Dragon). Later, you can use it to create some utility scrolls, that are situationally useful and good to carry around, but not good enough to memorize them daily.
Bonus Feats : Wizards get some bonus feats at 5th and every five levels thereafter. The feat must be a metamagic, item creation feat or spell mastery.
Spells : Wizard's greatest asset is their spells. They will be discussed extensively in a later section.
Schools of Magic:
An interesting wizard feature is the ability to specialize in a certain school of magic by giving up access to others. By doing so you gain a mild bonus to spellcraft checks to learn a spell from his speciality and an extra spell per spell level, but they can only be used to store spells of your chosen school. In addition, you must spent one of your two free spells known per level on a spell from your speciality school. So, is this worth it or no? Consider that by specializing you gain an extra 45 spell levels, which is a significant amount. The main problem to this however, is which schools to give up.
The best choice if your spell selection isn't limited (as in, you have access to spells outside the SRD, like spell compendium) is to be a diviner. What is great about diviners, is that they only give up one school to specialize, while all other specialties require to give up two. The other specialities that are worth it are conjurers and transmuters, with a slight personal preference towards conjurers. The other schools are usually not worth it as specializations, because they either lack utility and answers to different threats, or because they are very good candidates for banning. In certain cases specialization in another school might work (for example getting illusion as a Shadowcraft Mage), however in general they won't work as conjuration, transmutation and divination will.
Abjuration: This school is all about protect, block and banish. Some of the most useful spells are contained in this school, especially defensive ones. It is considered a poor choice to give it up, because you lose the extremely useful Dispel Magic spell. Another good line of spells is the Protection from X and Magic Circle versus X, which protect you from mind control and summoned monsters.
Conjuration: Another useful school that contains spells you cannot give up. Dimension Door, Teleport, Summon Monster and Gate spells are considered top quality.
Divination: This is the only school you are not allowed to give up.
Enchantment: This is the first option of your potential banned schools. It has a series of spells that are useful and probably irreplaceable, like Dominate and Charm spells. However, other spells in this school, which includes mainly buffs and disabling spells, are easily replaced by other schools.
Evocation: This school includes mainly direct damage spells. Although it isn't worth it, it is generally popular to new players. Even if you need evocation spells, Shadow Evocation/Greater can help emulating them. The most useful spell of this school is probably Contingency and while it has other good spells, this is the best choice of a prohibited school probably.
Illusion: This is usually suggested as a prohibited school, but you lose great spells like Invisibility/Greater, Shadow Conjuration and Shadow Evocation. I think it's a poor choice to give that up.
Necromancy: This is a school, that although it has spells that are useful, providing you with a variety of tactics (Fear, Enervation, Ray of Exhaustion), buffing you (False Life), outright killing people (Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee) or being the base of some potentially broken stuff (Clone, Magic Jar), you can actually drop.
Transmutation: There is absolute no way to substitute this school's spells. It contains a wide selection of utility, combat and social spells you just can't pass: Enlarge Person, Alter Self, Spider Climb, Blink/Greater, Fly, Haste, Polymorph, Polymorph any Object and Shapechange.
Thus your best choices to dump, in order of easier-to-drop to harder-to-drop:
Evocation
Enchantment
Necromancy
Illusion = Abjuration
Alternative Class Features:
Immediate Magic PHB II: This ability is ranked as a very good trade, but that is true under a certain condition: you being a conjurer. The conjuration ability is immediate action teleport, which is nearly broken; you can evade attacks, get out of the range of sneak attackers or area-of-effect spells, get into position and that's only a few of the possibilities this ability can be used for. You can easily regain your familiar by spending a feat on Obtain Familiar. The other abilities gained by this alternative class feature are either lacking in power or their assosiated speciality is too weak to justify the trade of your familiar.
Focused Specialist CM: This has its applications, but isn't |
something has been lost in the translation of it, but it remains beautifully melancholy and, love it or hate it, it will definitely linger.
Do you have a little known gem you think more people should read? Leave a comment and let me know.DONETSK, Ukraine -- Having rejected Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's offer of autonomy within Ukraine, the self-declared governments of the country's breakaway eastern regions are focusing on coming up with workable political and economic structures for their envisioned independent future.
And both politically and economically, the regions are looking toward Russia, says a senior official with the so-called Donetsk People's Republic.
"At present, we think the optimal model is a transitional one that preserves economic ties with Ukraine while moving in the direction of Russia," Donetsk First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Purgin said in an exclusive interview.
Purgin said the two breakaway regions of Luhansk and Donetsk do not have any ambitions "to expand beyond their present borders." In addition, the two regions most likely will not fully unite into a single structure such as "Novorossia."
"Most likely there will be a mixed system," Purgin said, "with a majority of the ministries run jointly and only a few, separately. But it is too early to tell. Some of the territory has not been liberated -- there's a war going on."
He said every effort will be made "to preserve mutually beneficial economic ties with Ukraine and, maybe, some elements of a common sociocultural space."
Purgin spoke to RFE/RL in his office in Donetsk, a city that has seen some of the worst, most prolonged fighting since the conflict broke out in eastern Ukraine. Purgin is on the list of individuals facing targeted sanctions by the United States and the European Union.
'Colossal Damage'
The Luhansk and Donetsk regions do not plan to apply for formal inclusion in the Russian Federation, although "we are striving to unite with the maternal civilization," Purgin said. He described Ukraine's policies during its 23 years of independence as "ethnocide" against ethnic Russians. Nonetheless, he says a "subethnic community" has emerged in eastern Ukraine that feels tied to Russia but also has "a powerful regional patriotism." But "the desire to move in [Russia's] direction will only get stronger," he added.
Kyiv has insisted that Ukraine will retain its territorial integrity -- including the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in March -- and will not discuss independence for the eastern regions. On September 10, Poroshenko said he would offer the regions "special status" within Ukraine, a proposal separatist leaders have said is insufficient.
Politically, the regions are considering electing legislatures exclusively by single-mandate districts. Candidates would only be allowed to run from the districts where they live, Purgin said.
"In this way, the system we envision will be freer than what we had before," he said.
Economically, Purgin conceded, the regions have a lot of work to do. He said the separatists agreed to the September 5 Minsk cease-fire primarily because of the damage the war has done to the region's economic infrastructure.
"Winter is just around the corner," Purgin said. "There is a humanitarian catastrophe and colossal damage." He said not a single rail line to Donetsk is operating and dozens of bridges and pipelines are out of commission. He accused Ukrainian forces of deliberately targeting electricity substations "in order to deprive civilians of water and electricity."
The Donetsk authorities say they are using the cease-fire to repair some of the damage.
"We have replaced kilometers of wiring," Purgin said. "We have extended electricity supplies to dozens of major populated areas and hundreds of smaller ones. We are reestablishing gas and water provision."
"Very few enterprises or mines are still working," Purgin said. "Very few. Many mines are idle, although several continue surface work. Some are pumping out water -- three mines in Donetsk are flooded. The situation is extremely serious.
"That is why it is irresponsible to say that we should fight to a victorious end. The price is desolation."
Written in Prague by Robert Coalson on the basis of reporting from Donetsk by Andrei Babitsky with contributions from Luke Johnson in WashingtonCLOSE Classmates, teachers and friends are remembering Tyler Brown, who was killed late Friday night in a crash near Middletown that left four other people injured. 3/14/16
Salesianum School senior killed in crash; four others injured
Tyler Ritchie Brown (Photo: Salesianum School) Story Highlights Five people were involved in a crash late Friday near U.S. 301 in southern New Castle County.
Authorities have identified one killed as Tyler Brown, 17, a student at Salesianum School.
The incident involved a pickup and a tractor-trailer and is under investigation.
Classmates, teachers and friends are remembering Tyler Brown, a senior at the Salesianum School in Wilmington, as an outstanding student, athlete, artist and dedicated friend.
Brown was killed late Friday night in a crash near Middletown that left four others injured.
“He always had a big grin on his face,” said Christopher Wells, who coached Brown on the rugby team.
The team was set to play in a rugby match Saturday in Maryland, but after hearing about Brown’s death, they decided not to play.
“He always was fun-loving and always seemed to bring a smile to the faces of those around him,” Wells said.
Brown, from Woolwich Township, New Jersey, across the river from Wilmington, had plans to attend Syracuse University in New York this fall and study architectural design. In addition to rugby, Brown was a wrestler, played lacrosse and participated in Model United Nations.
Brown’s art teacher, Brian Magargal, said Brown had worked so hard to get into Syracuse, his number one choice.
“He had never picked up a paintbrush before last fall, but he wanted to go in for architecture. The good architecture schools ask for an art portfolio, so he came to me and asked for help,” said Magargal.
Visitors gather at Salesianum School in Wilmington on Saturday, where a service was held for Tyler Brown, a 17-year-old student killed in a crash late Friday in southern New Castle County. Four others were injured. (Photo: Doug Curran, DOUG CURRAN/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS)
Magargal soon found Brown had a natural talent. Brown was working on a very large painting, a streetscape he was painting from a photo he took of a town in New Jersey, which is about three-quarters of the way finished, Magargal said.
“I think the students want to have their hands at completing the painting for Tyler,” Magargal said.
Salesianum School held a Mass Saturday evening and more than 600 people prayed together for Brown and for the recovery of John W. Kirsch and Kelley Muschiatti, who were injured in the crash and are in critical condition.
Magargal said Brown’s artwork was displayed in the gymnasium.
"We will turn to God in our grief and sadness," Beretta wrote. "Although faith offers no easy answers at a time like this, we believe that Christ will never abandon us."
Attendees of the service walked up stairs to the brick entrance of the school to the gymnasium. One mother walked with her son, who was visibly upset. Her son and the teen killed were teammates on the wrestling team, she said.
Girls from Padua Academy attended the service as well, and people continued to arrive for about 40 minutes after the Mass started.
Visitors gather at Salesianum School in Wilmington on Saturday, where a service was held for Tyler Brown, a 17-year-old student killed in a crash late Friday in southern New Castle County. Four others were injured. (Photo: Doug Curran, DOUG CURRAN/SPECIAL TO THE NEWS)
“It really kind of just showed the diverse kind of interests he had,” said Brendan Kennealey, president of the school. “I think everybody, at least everybody here today, likes to talk about the memories of him and the little things he’d do make you smile, or make you laugh in class or in the halls. Just listening to those guys line up and say to Tyler’s mom that ‘your son did something every day to make me smile and laugh at least once,’ you just hope that that’s a great consolation to his family to know that although this is way too soon to be saying goodbye that he made a difference in the lives of a lot of people.”
Those antics are what Brown’s wrestling teammate Logan Montgomery will miss the most, he said.
Montgomery remembered Brown’s accomplishment in January, when he grew a mustache for “Manuary” during the season. Motgomery said Brown brought a humor and passion to his life that is rare.
Riley Montgomery, a fellow senior who wrestled with Brown all four years of high school, said his teammate was one of the nicest, down-to-earth people he ever met.
“He was pretty shy when I first met him,” Riley Montgomery said, “but once you started talking to him, he really opened up.”
Colin Filliben, who said his brother knew Brown, said the scene was solemn.
"It was pretty emotional inside," he said after the Mass.
"He was a great guy," Filliben said. "He was nice and funny."
The crash that killed Brown occurred along U.S. Route 301 near Strawberry Lane just after 11:30 p.m., said State Police Sgt. Richard Bratz. The rural street connects the suburbs near Middletown and Townsend to the small town of Warwick, Maryland.
Brown was in the passenger seat of a 2005 Dodge Dakota, driven by John, W. Kirsch, who is also a senior at Salesianum. Kelly Muschiatti, 17, was in the rear passenger seat of the truck during the crash. Both are in critical condition at Christiana Hospital, Bratz said.
Muschiatti, a senior at Padua Academy in Wilmington, participates in track and field, Cindy Mann, the head of school, said in a statement.
“Kelly is a very beloved student and a gifted Padua athlete,” said Mann. “Our students are sisters and as sisters we will remain strong for Kelly and her family. She is precious to all of us.”
Muschiatti's track coach Marnie Giunta said she and the entire track team is praying for Muschiatti.
"I know Kelly is a fighter," Giunta said in an email. "She is strong. Her strength is displayed every day in how she practices and her sheer toughness is demonstrated in every competition. I only wish I could put on her uniform top as she fights to come back to us because there is something about wearing that 'P' that brings out the best in these girls."
Padua Academy is also gathering in prayer for Muschiatti and the others. The school chapel will be open Sunday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. for students and alumnae wishing to join the school in prayer. A prayer service will be held on Monday morning at the school for Muschiatti, Brown and Kirsch.
Bratz said the pickup truck drove from the stop sign on Strawberry Lane and attempted to cross all of the lanes of U.S. 301 when the truck collided with a Kenworth tractor-trailer driven by Julio Gallegos, 52, of New Jersey.
STORY: One injured in motorcycle crash in Claymont
STORY: Woman critically hurt in New Castle-area crash
The tractor-trailer hit the right passenger side of the truck in the intersection, sending the truck spinning, Bratz said. The tractor-trailer came to a rest turned over on its left side, he said.
Both Gallegos and his passenger, Carolina Garcia, 30, of Middletown, had serious injuries and were transported to Christiana Hospital. Their conditions are unknown.
Kirsch was treated at the scene by New Castle County paramedics for a chest injury and a possible head injury before being transported to Christiana Hospital.
Muschiatti was treated at the scene for head and facial injuries and was airlifted to Christiana Hospital with life-threatening injuries.
State Police continue to investigate the accident.
A number of accidents have occurred along U.S. Route 301 in recent years including some that left drivers injured and vehicles destroyed. Many of those crashes involved tractor-trailers as the road sees frequent truck traffic.
The roadway is slated to begin a $70 million makeover in the coming months as it is transformed into a multi-lane toll road. Transportation officials with the state have said the new route will provide an express connection between Del. 1 and the Maryland boarder and move heavy truck traffic onto the new road.
Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2837. Follow her on Twitter @JennaPizzi.
Tyler was an outstanding student, athlete, and friend in the Salesianum community. Please pray for him and his family today. RIP Tyler — Salesians In Action (@SalsInAction) March 12, 2016
A screenshot of a letter written by Fr. Chris Beretta, Principal of Salesianum School, about the death of on of its students. (Photo: Salesianum School)
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1pmdxmTLast Thursday was a difficult day for Susumu Kotani, president of Pioneer Corp. He’d only taken over as president in October. And now he had the unenviable job of announcing that the Japnese electronics giant was pulling out of the flatscreen TV market. “It hurts that we have to give up on a business we were leaders in,” he said. “But market conditions changed too suddenly and we couldn’t stay profitable.”
There’s a certain irony in this. Pioneer was not only one of the very first firms to sell flatscreen TVs, but its top-tier Kuro plasma models have been acclaimed as having the deepest black levels of any flatscreen TV. The company’s recent foray into LCD sets also brought it deserved praise.
Besides the global financial recession, the main problem was that Pioneer simply couldn’t close the gap on its competitors. Panasonic has 37 per cent of the flatscreen TV market, Samsung 23 per cent and LG 16 per cent. For the first nine months of 2008, Pioneer was hanging on to a measly 6 per cent and it simply wasn’t enough. So Pioneer called an immediate halt to in-house research and development of flatscreen TVs and said it would close its television manufacturing business altogether by March 2010. The company is to focus on its lucrative car audio business, plus home audio and professional DJ equipment.
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In recent weeks, another electrical giant, Panasonic, also announced the downsizing of its TV production by delaying the opening of a state-of-the-art plasma panel plant near Osaka in Japan – all in a bid to reduce costs. And, with other flatscreen TV makers such as Sony and Toshiba warning of losses, it’s clear that the TV market is far from a sure-fire enterprise.
Yet, only a short while ago, it looked like flatscreen manufacturers couldn’t fail. The boom began in the lead-up to the 2006 Football World Cup, with a flat-panel TV selling every 1.7 seconds in the UK. And when the tournament ended, there was no drop in demand. Sir Stuart Hampson, then the chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, said: “People are turning increasingly to flatscreens and then realising that their second TV in the bedroom looks big and ugly by comparison, so they come back to us and get another one.”
In January 2008, John Lewis reported that flatscreen sales were up 50 per cent on the year – with one 50-inch Samsung digital TV selling every six minutes, for £899.
Despite the downturn, demand is still high. Responding to the mantra that “staying in is the new going out”, many people are investing in home entertainment as the cheaper option to going to the pub or the cinema. The difference now, compared to 18 months ago, is that people want cheap flatscreen TVs. And this may in part be why Pioneer, which had long focused on high-end models, pulled out of the market. It knew it was beaten – especially now that low-cost flatscreens are flooding the market. Asda, for example, is selling a 28in LCD TV for £125 (although the word is that this model has “technical difficulties”). Argos and Tesco are both selling 15in flatscreen LCDs for around £100.
The question is: are cheap flatscreens a false economy? Not according to Sheffield-based Justin Smith of AerialsAndTV.com, who has been in the TV maintenance business for many years. “In my experience, the more expensive makes of TV aren’t that much more reliable, certainly not by a huge amount,” he says. “It’s also worth remembering that flatscreen TVs are far more expensive to repair than the old cathode ray tube sets. So it could even be argued that cheap flatscreens make more sense because they can be written off less painfully.”
Many consumers, however, believe that it’s wiser to spend more. Happy customer Mike Charters invested in a Pioneer Kuro last year, which set him back well over £1,000. “Pioneer makes some of the best TVs in the world,” he says. “Very expensive, but you get what you pay for.” Jim Hill, reviews editor at T3 Magazine, echoes this point. “The problem with going for low-cost flatscreens is that you could run into reliability issues,” he says. “The best bet is to go for a known brand and make sure that it is HD-ready, has a built-in Freeview tuner, and ideally is 1080p [definition rating] if you’re looking at a 40in or above screen size, ready to receive full high-definition signals."
To meet these specifications, you would need to pay about £500 for an LCD model and about £700 for a plasma – perhaps less if you can find a good deal online.
Although Pioneer had turned recently to making LCD sets, it mainly focused on making plasma TVs, which tend to be more expensive. The jury is out as to which is best. Some swear by plasma, others by LCD – which technology you choose is down to personal preference. LCDs are typically no larger than 52in (bigger sets are in development), and usually give a slightly clearer picture in smaller models. Plasma sets tend to be bigger than LCDs, with screens ranging up to about 71in, and typically have better contrast.
The real differences lie in how the two TVs work. LCD (liquid crystal display) sets use a network of hundreds of thousands of tiny LCD pixels to create the picture you see, while plasma TVs create images from plasma (xenon and neon gas), which is housed between two plates of glass.
Until the first flatscreens hit the market in 1997, TV sets had long used one system to produce the picture – the cathode ray tube (CRT), which was invented in 1897. The Scottish inventor John Logie Baird is credited with the first demonstration of television technology in 1925. CRTs reigned supreme up to the 21st century, but now they are going the way of the dinosaurs.
The problem is that CRT televisions are weighty and bulky. They can never be truly slimline. Flatscreens are lighter and are getting ever slimmer. Sony has just announced its latest Bravia LCD flatscreen – the ZX1, which is 9.9mm thick, one-sixtieth the depth of a typical 1950s CRT set.
But, as a Sony spokeswoman points out: “It’s not just worth having because it’s the thinnest. In terms of innovation and the technology used, it’s fantastic.” This is no exaggeration; the ZX1 is certainly cutting-edge. Not only does its image blur reduction technology provide a strikingly crisp, sharp picture, but it’s fully wireless so that you can forget about ugly cables and images can be streamed to the screen remotely from a set-top box. With a price tag of just under three grand, though, it’s hardly a budget buy. So if you’re planning on staying in over the coming months, follow our guide to get the most from your money when buying a flatscreen.
Picture this: A buyer’s guide
How big?
To work out the best size set for your room, you need to take your viewing distance into account. |If you sit too close to a large TV, the picture can appear fuzzy or grainy. Sit too far away and you’ll miss the fine details and won’t be able to read small text.
The general rule is that your TV should be one-third to |one-half the length of your viewing distance (don’t forget that TV screens are measured diagonally). Therefore, if you sit eight feet away from your TV, the ideal screen size is between 32in and 48in.
Full-screen or widescreen?
Most TVs today are widescreen, but some cheaper models still come as full-screen, a squarer shape more like CRT sets used to be.
These are fine for kitchen or bedroom use. Full-screen TVs have a width-to-height ratio of 4:3, or four inches of width for every three inches of height. Wide-screen TVs have a 16:9 ratio, which is the preferred size for super-sharp HDTV (high-definition television).
LCD or plasma?
The most popular types of TV today are LCD and plasma. The jury is out on which is best. But the simplest way to decide which to go for is by the size of TV set you need. Few plasmas are made smaller than 42in, while LCDs don’t usually come much bigger than 52in.
Other factors to consider
* In a darkened room, plasma TVs have better contrast and brightness than LCD screens. So if you plan |on watching movies regularly with family or friends, plasma might be your best bet. LCD TVs, on the other hand, generally reflect less light and glare, so they fare better in more normal light conditions.
* Plasma TVs are better for wider viewing angles. With LCDs, some brightness can be lost if you are sitting to the side of the screen.
* Plasma TVs are considered better for definition of movement – a key benefit for sports and |action-movie fans. Early LCDs suffered from motion-response lag, where individual pixels are slightly out of synchronisation with the image on screen, causing ghosting and trailing movement. But LCD technology has advanced greatly and now any difference is negligible.
* If you plan to use your TV with gaming consoles or as a computer monitor, LCD may be the best option. Plasma is not great with static images, whereas LCD displays them perfectly, with full colour detail, no flicker, and no risk of screen burn-in. But, again, technological improvements are making these differences far less pronounced.
* LCD TVs typically use less power than plasma screens – and use about 60 per cent less juice than traditional CRT televisions.
* If in doubt which technology to go for, get a TV store to run an LCD and plasma side by side, if possible in different lighting conditions, and then make your judgement.When Hiroshi Hoketsu first competed in the Olympics, a postage stamp in the United States cost 5 cents, the Beatles had just made their debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show," and a Japanese company called Hayakawa Electric (now Sharp) had unveiled a newfangled instrument: an all-transistor electronic calculator. It cost as much as a car.
The year was 1964. Today, almost a half century later, Mr. Hoketsu is going back to the Olympics – as the second-oldest athlete in the history of the Games. By his mere appearance, the 71-year-old dressage competitor from Japan seems to exemplify everything that the Olympics are and aren't.
He decidedly isn't the archetype of a modern Olympian – young, hip, gym chiseled, the kind of person who'd star in an energy drink commercial in spandex. But he does embody many of the best attributes of the Games – stamina, discipline, consistent athletic excellence, and, most important, an uncanny ability to defy the perceived limits of age.
While many people Hoketsu's age would be settling into a retirement home, he is competing against world-class athletes 30 to 40 years his junior. No wonder that, in Japan, they call him the "hope of old men."
When a grinning Hoketsu, whose thick black hair has barely begun to show flecks of gray, showed up at a packed news conference in Tokyo in early April, the Japanese media, which usually celebrate youth, treated him like a Hollywood celebrity.
"I think it's good that I'm old. Otherwise, sports like equestrian games would not get much media attention," says Hoketsu, who trains in Aachen, Germany.
Hoketsu clinched an individual dressage slot for the London Games after he topped the International Equestrian Federation's rankings for the Asia-Oceania region following his victory in March at an international competition in Vidauban, France. It will be his third Olympic appearance, including two after his retirement from work. He was the oldest competitor at the 2008 Beijing Games and finished ninth in the team and 34th in the individual dressage events.
"He has a strong will to improve himself and is never self-satisfied," says Hideki Yamauchi, executive director of the Japan Equestrian Federation (JEF).
In the past, to keep himself in top competitive form, Hoketsu maintained a disciplined and ascetic life while living in Japan. He would get up at 5 every morning to go riding for one to two hours before work. He continued the regimen for three decades.
In Germany, he rises at 7:30 a.m., does general exercise for about an hour, and then gets on his horse. "It's a lot easier now," he says. "I try not to exercise too much."
The routine seems to be working. The diminutive Hoketsu (5 feet, 6 inches tall; 137 pounds) is as thin as a whip. "I think I have the same build as I did at the Tokyo Olympics," he says.
That was in 1964 when Hoketsu was a mere 23 years old. He placed 40th in the individual and 12th in the team jumping events at his home-country Games.
In London, Hoketsu will just miss being the oldest Olympian ever. That distinction goes to Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn, who competed at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium, at age 72.
While age doesn't play as much of a factor in equestrian events as in other sports – the US team, for instance, will feature one rider who is 52 and another who is 18 – Hoketsu does seem to be a singular athlete. One reason for his prolonged competitiveness is his chemistry with Whisper, a 15-year-old mare. "He treats Whisper as a partner," says JEF's Mr. Yamauchi.
In fact, Hoketsu almost missed this year's Olympics, not because of his own health but because of Whisper's. But the horse suddenly recovered. "
It was like a miracle that took place, says Hoketsu. Now the rider will be trying for a fairy-tale ending to the story: winning a medal as a septuagenarian.
Sunday:
Gladys Tejeda: Getting to the Olympics on borrowed shoes
Monday:
Hiroshi Hoketsu: A Japanese Olympian defies the age barrier
Kayla Harrison: An American Olympian rebuilds a life through judo and friends
Tuesday:
Mohamed Hassan Mohamed: Training for the Olympics in the shadow of war
Behdad Salimi: An Iranian Olympian carries the weight of a nation
Wednesday:
Yamilé Aldama: A British track star jumps through a tough decade
Geeta Phogat: How an Indian wrestler defied gender taboos
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Thursday:
Tahmina Kohistani: Afghan sprinter tries to beat the clock - and pollutionCalifornia Code of Civil Procedure Section 203
CA Civ Pro Code § 203 (2017)
(a) All persons are eligible and qualified to be prospective trial jurors, except the following:
(1) Persons who are not citizens of the United States.
(2) Persons who are less than 18 years of age.
(3) Persons who are not domiciliaries of the State of California, as determined pursuant to Article 2 (commencing with Section 2020) of Chapter 1 of Division 2 of the Elections Code.
(4) Persons who are not residents of the jurisdiction wherein they are summoned to serve.
(5) Persons who have been convicted of malfeasance in office or a felony, and whose civil rights have not been restored.
(6) Persons who are not possessed of sufficient knowledge of the English language, provided that no person shall be deemed incompetent solely because of the loss of sight or hearing in any degree or other disability which impedes the person’s ability to communicate or which impairs or interferes with the person’s mobility.
(7) Persons who are serving as grand or trial jurors in any court of this state.
(8) Persons who are the subject of conservatorship.
(b) No person shall be excluded from eligibility for jury service in the State of California, for any reason other than those reasons provided by this section.
(Amended by Stats. 1994, Ch. 923, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 1995.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018A few days ago Bjarne Stroustrup has published a proposal paper (N4174) to the C++ standard committee called Call syntax: x.f(y) vs. f(x,y). The following excerpt from the paper summarizes the proposal:
The basic suggestion is to define x.f(y) and f(x,y) to be equivalent. In addition, to increase compatibility and modularity, I suggest we explore the possibility of ignoring uncallable and inaccessible members when looking for a member function (or function object) to call. x.f(y) means First try x.f(y) –does x’s class have a member f? If so try to use it Then try f(x,y) – is there a function f? If so, try to use it otherwise error f(x,y) means First try x.f(y) – does x’s class have a member f? If so try to use it First try f(x,y) – is there a function f? If so, try to use it otherwise error
This may sound a bit crazy, but to me this immediately shouted EXTENSION METHODS, which is something that I’ve been wondering for a while how could be added to the language. I find this one of the most important proposals (I am aware of) for the evolution of the C++ language.
UPDATE: Recently I have discovered that a second paper on the same topic exists. The N4165 paper, called Unified Call Syntax, is authored by Herb Sutter. Unlike the first paper, Sutter’s paper proposes only making x.f(y) equivalent to f(x,y) and not the other way around. Here is a quote from the paper:
This single proposal aims to address two major issues: Enable more-generic code: Today, generic code cannot invoke a function on a T object without knowing whether the function is a member or nonmember, and must commit to one. This is long-standing known issue in C++.
Enable “extension methods” without a separate one-off language feature: The proposed generalization enables calling nonmember functions (and function pointers, function objects, etc.) symmetrically with member functions, but without a separate and more limited “extension methods” language feature. Further, unlike “extension methods” in other languages which are a special-purpose feature that adds only the ability to add member functions to an existing class, this pro-posal would immediately work with calling existing library code without any change. (See also following points.)
Herb Sutter argues that the unified call syntax would achieve major benefits including consistency, simplicity, and teachability, improve of discoverability and usability of existing code and improve C++ tool support. However, he also explains why why making f(x) equivalent to x.f() is not possible since it would break existing code.
Extension Methods in C#
I’ll take a step back for a short paragraph on extension methods in C#.
An extension method allows you to add functionality to an existing type without modifying the original type or creating a derived type (and without needing to recompile the code containing the type that is extended.)
Let’s assume you want to write a method that counts words in a text. You could write a method called WordCount that looks like this (for simplicity we’ll only consider space as a delimiter):
static class StringUtilities { public static int WordCount(string text) { return text.Split(new char[] {'' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Length; } } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 static class StringUtilities { public static int WordCount ( string text ) { return text. Split ( new char [ ] {'' }, StringSplitOptions. RemoveEmptyEntries ). Length ; } }
You can use it like this:
var text = "This is an example"; var count = WordCount(text); 1 2 var text = "This is an example" ; var count = WordCount ( text ) ;
Just by changing the syntax a bit and adding the this keyword in front of the type of first argument (always the type you want to extend), the compiler treats the method as part of the type.
static class StringUtilities { public static int WordCount(this string text) { return text.Split(new char[] {'' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Length; } } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 static class StringUtilities { public static int WordCount ( this string text ) { return text. Split ( new char [ ] {'' }, StringSplitOptions. RemoveEmptyEntries ). Length ; } }
With this change we can now write:
var text = "This is an example"; var count = text.WordCount(); 1 2 var text = "This is an example" ; var count = text. WordCount ( ) ;
WordCount(text) vs. text.WordCount() is exactly what the Stroustrup’s N4174 paper is proposing.
Notice the extension methods in C# have several requirements including the following:
the extension method is always a public static member of a static class
the extension method has access only to the public interface of the extended type
Extension Methods in C++
The question that one may ask is how would this equivalence of x.f(y) and f(x,y) be beneficial to the language. My immediate answer is that it defines extension methods and enable developers to extend functionality without touching exiting code.
Let’s take a real case example. The C++ standard containers provide methods like find() to find an element in the container. There are also generic algorithms for the same purpose (that work in a generic way for various ranges defined by iterators). But this find() methods return an iterator and you have to check the value against the end() to interpret the result. Using std::map for instance, many times you just need to know whether it contains a key or not. std::map does not have a contains() method, but you can easily write a helper function:
template<typename TKey, typename TValue> bool contains(std::map<TKey, TValue> const & c, TKey const key) { return c.find(key)!= c.end(); } 1 2 3 4 5 template < typename TKey, typename TValue > bool contains ( std :: map < TKey, TValue > const & c, TKey const key ) { return c. find ( key )!= c. end ( ) ; }
And with that in place you can write:
auto m = std::map<int, char> {{1, 'a'}, {2, 'b'}, {3,'c'}}; if(contains(m, 1)) { std::cout << "key exists" << std::endl; } 1 2 3 4 5 auto m = std :: map < int, char > { { 1, 'a' }, { 2, 'b' }, { 3, 'c' } } ; if ( contains ( m, 1 ) ) { std :: cout << "key exists" << std :: endl ; }
However, I would very much like to be able to say (because in an object oriented world this seems much more natural to me):
if(m.contains(1)) { } 1 2 3 if ( m. contains ( 1 ) ) { }
If x.f(y) and f(x,y) were equivalent this later code would be perfectly legal (and beautiful).
Here is a second example. Suppose you want to define some query operators like the ones available in LINQ in.NET. Below is a dummy implementation of several such operators for std::vector.
template<typename T, typename UnaryPredicate> std::vector<T> where(std::vector<T> const & c, UnaryPredicate predicate) { std::vector<T> v; std::copy_if(std::begin(c), std::end(c), std::back_inserter(v), predicate); return v; } template <typename T, typename F, typename R = typename std::result_of<F(T)>::type> std::vector<R> select(std::vector<T> const & c, F s) { std::vector<R> v; std::transform(std::begin(c), std::end(c), std::back_inserter(v), s); return v; } template<typename T> T sum(std::vector<T> const & c) { return std::accumulate(std::begin(c), std::end(c), 0); } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 template < typename T, typename UnaryPredicate > std :: vector < T > where ( std :: vector < T > const & c, UnaryPredicate predicate ) { std :: vector < T > v ; std :: copy_if ( std :: begin ( c ), std :: end ( c ), std :: back_inserter ( v ), predicate ) ; return v ; } template < typename T, typename F, typename R = typename std :: result_of < F ( T ) > :: type > std :: vector < R > select ( std :: vector < T > const & c, F s ) { std :: vector < R > v ; std :: transform ( std :: begin ( c ), std :: end ( c ), std :: back_in |
cites in the clips above have been of that nature, focusing more on beating Hillary Clinton than on the virtues of Trump himself. As a member of party leadership — which the Speaker is ex officio — this reluctance could come across as sour grapes after the party’s own primaries and caucuses.
Going #NeverTrump won’t “preserve a Republican Party that can be viable in future national elections”; it will create all sorts of grudges and divisions that will complicate matters in 2020 and beyond (and probably in 2018 as well). That problem comes from a disconnect from voters profound enough that the GOP’s loyal voters chose Trump over the more reliable expression of those core principles. As I wrote yesterday at The Fiscal Times, the solution to that won’t come from a refusal to recognize that feedback, but from long, patient work to make the kind of connections to communities that addresses it:
People in swing counties see Republicans, and especially the conservative factions within it, as the party of no, not the party of solutions. Opposition parties and movements have to say no, but to succeed they have to find ways to get voters to say yes as well. Fortunately, conservatism is not destined for irrelevance. Some conservative organizations – Americans for Prosperity chief among them – have eschewed electoral politics and philosophical rhetoric in favor of community engagement. They make themselves part of their communities, offer real assistance to people while contextualizing free-market economics as the solution for the lives of those who live there. An explosion of regulatory activity at the federal level now has Washington encroaching on the businesses and lives of more Americans than ever, the cost for which the Competitive Enterprise Institute estimates as $15,000 a year for every US household. That gives even greater opportunities for small-government conservatives to offer specific solutions that will improve the lives of people in a direct and concrete manner. Conservatism has to be more than a debating society. It has to offer practical improvements, and in order to do that it has to engage people where they live. For too long, the conservative movement has mainly argued philosophy and employed obstructionism while assuming the rest of country understood the stakes. As this primary has demonstrated, even many self-identified conservatives have tired of ideology and all-or-nothing politics.
Most of the present contretemps between Trump and his doubters/opponents comes from voices urging an immediate demand for loyalty to the nominee. The convention is more than two months away; perhaps everyone can take a deep breath and allow others to come to terms with reality at their own pace. Roger Simon urges everyone to do just that, including the #NeverTrump contingent:
When I read this afternoon that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announced (on CNN!) his reluctance to support Donald Trump, his party’s assumed presidential nominee, I knew it was time for the Republicans to take a time out, to shut up for, say, a week and let things cool off. Furthermore, hard as it may be, they should not for that period give any press interviews and they should refrain from making any public pronouncements. (Ryan, generally a smart guy, was absolutely a sucker for Jake Tapper.) And that includes Mr. Trump, who won the primary election far more quickly than even he thought he would. He needs to take a breather to figure things out. Anybody would. Naturally the #NeverTrump crowd needs to go silent for a few days as well. All branches should stop and think, not do anything definitive. It won’t hurt. They can come out and be just as mean to each other in another week, destroy the party, start a third party, move to Canada, invade the Balkans, whatever they want to do. But maybe they won’t. Maybe they have more in common than they think. They should at least try to find out.
It’s good advice, and perhaps the strident voices on both sides should listen to it.Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
No wonder the people of Great Britain are itching to rid themselves of this miserable, idiotic union.
TechDirt reports:
We’ve written plenty of times about ridiculous European plans to create a so-called “snippet tax” which is more officially referred to as “ancillary rights” (and is really just about creating a tax on Google).
The basic concept is that some old school newspapers are so lazy and have so failed to adapt to the internet — and so want to blame Google for their own failures — that they want to tax any aggregator (e.g., Google) that links to their works with a snippet, that doesn’t pay for the privilege of sending those publishers traffic. As you may remember, Germany has been pushing for such a thing for many, many years, and Austria has been exploring it as well. But perhaps the most attention grabbing move was the one in Spain, which not only included a snippet tax, but made it mandatory. That is, even if you wanted Google News to link to you for free, you couldn’t get that. In response, Google took the nuclear option and shut down Google News in Spain. A study showed that this law has actually done much to harm Spanish publishers, but the EU pushes on, ridiculously.
As discussed a year ago, some in the EU Commission are all for creating an EU-wide snippet tax, and as ridiculous and counterproductive as that is, the Commission is about to make a decision on it, and the public consultation on the issue is about to close (it ends tomorrow). Thankfully, many, many different groups have set up nice and easy systems to understand and respond to the consultation — which you should do. Here are just a few options:I have some hours before work so I’ll use them to actually detail why I’ve found CSPaint to be so efficient for bastard-aligned painters who like to take shortcuts.
This will seem familiar to most of you guys, but this functions a little bit different from Photoshop. It turns everything you draw on the layer into editable curves, but retains the aliased smoothness of an ordinary raster layer. Practically a cheat to access the whole suite of amazing tools CS offers for lineart. Such as:
The vector eraser is The Best™. You can be as messy as possible and this tool erases the excess. One pen-flick and it’s done. Much faster than cleaning it up by hand. You can also tweak the settings of this brush to encapsulate more/less lines as you erase but that’s getting a little more involved. Anyway, last thing:
Maybe the only thing better than the vector eraser. There are multiple settings, but these three are the most handy. You can smooth wiggly edges, connect broken strokes, and tweak the width/weight to exactly how you want it. This also has a ton of settings you can play around with. It’s great!
There’s a lot more tools you can use, but you get the point! It’s a really good drawing program. I recommend it!The following are excerpts from a lecture on “Mormonism and the American West” that I will be delivering at the Chautauqua Institution this Thursday, July 24, as part of their week-long series on “The American West: Religious Evolution and Innovations.”
Happy Pioneer Day! Today [July 24] is the day we celebrate the Mormon pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Pioneer Day is actually more of a cultural holiday than a religious one. There are no special religious rites or rituals performed, and many if not most Mormons outside the intermountain West forget the day altogether. But if you’re in Utah, or southeastern Idaho, or certain places in Arizona, chances are you’re celebrating Pioneer Day today.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing this holiday, let me describe what it’s like. Think of it as a little like St. Patrick’s Day in Boston or Chicago, minus the alcohol and plus a lot of jello and ice cream. So let’s say you’re in Utah today, my home state. Because Pioneer Day is a state holiday, you probably will have the day off work. That will free you up to take your family to a subpar pancake breakfast provided by the Boy Scouts at your local church or park. Either that, or you’ll watch the Days of ’47 Parade, which is like any other parade but with more cowboy hats and bonnets. Then, if you haven’t done so already, you’ll drive an hour or so to the Wyoming border, where you can buy illegal fireworks. Utahans tell a lot of jokes about Wyoming, but come firework season, they respect that Wyoming’s third largest export after oil and natural gas is gunpowder-based products.
Now that you have your patriotic explosive devices in hand, you’ll head back home and get ready for your family barbecue, at which there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to have both jello and ice cream. Then, while you’re waiting for it to get dark so that you can break the law in true pioneer spirit by setting off your illegal fireworks, you’ll go to a rodeo, where you will witness and cheer the demonstration of skills that haven’t actually been useful anywhere in the West for about a century.
It’s dark now, and finally time for the reason for the season: fireworks. Since Utah has been in extreme drought roughly since the end of the last Ice Age, there’s about a 1 in 3 chance that your illegal incendiary devices will light something on fire—preferably your neighbor’s lawn, not roof. I believe it’s also mandated by state law that in commemoration of 1847 there will be at least 47 fires set in the mountains by teenagers and others drunk with the spirit of the pioneers’ bringing of light and civilization to the region. All of this contributes to a layer of smoke that will hover over the valleys for at least a week, meaning the air quality will plummet to the point that every cough and stinging eye will remind you of the heroic struggles of the pioneers as they trekked across the plains.
* * *
Following that lighthearted introduction, I’ll narrate the story of a remarkable pioneer, Louisa Barnes Pratt. After converting to Mormonism with her husband Addison in 1838, the Pratts moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1841. Addison was called on a mission to the Society Islands (Tahiti) in 1843, leaving Louisa alone with her four young daughters. All quotes taken from her published autobiography, The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt, ed. S. George Ellsworth (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1998).
When the time came for the Saints to leave Nauvoo in spring 1846, Louisa asked a church leader what she should do. “Sister Pratt,” he answered, “[we] expect you to be smart enough to go yourself without help, and even to assist others.” The plucky Louisa thought to herself, “Well, I will show them what I can do.” Almost singlehandedly, she prepared a wagon team and left the city as part of the mass exodus of the Saints, her four daughters, ages 5 to 14, in tow. The journey across Iowa was far more difficult than the Saints had expected. They were forced to stop on the western edge of the Missouri River, just beyond Iowa Territory in Nebraska, and hunker down, appropriately naming their makeshift settlement Winter Quarters.
Like many others, Louisa arrived in Winter Quarters sick, and remained sick for most of the year-and-a-half she lived there. With a dearth of lumber, the Mormon refugees were forced to construct shelter out of whatever they could. Louisa paid a man a five dollar gold piece to construct for her what she called “a sod cave.” As she reported, “He took the turf from the earth, laid it up, covered it with willow brush and sod. Built a chimney of the same. I hung up a blanket for a door.” Unfortunately, a cow belonging to a neighbor kept knocking down her chimney, oftentimes just as she was preparing a meal. Finally, the chimney failed entirely, and she was forced to move with her daughters into a “dugout,” five feet underground. The cold and damp, compounded by the lack of nutrition, only meant more illness, including a long bout of scurvy which led to the loss of her front teeth. “I pined for vegetables till I could feel my flesh waste away from off my bones,” she remembered. “I would have given a yoke of oxen for a cheese, had one been brought to my door.”
Mormonism was nothing if not a community, however, and Louisa was cheered by other women, many of whom were not much better off than she was. Together they would pool whatever resources they had, including their spiritual power, to survive. At one point, Louisa wrote, “I shook till it appeared to me my very bones were pulverized! I wept, and I prayed. I besought the Lord to have mercy on me. The sisters were moved with sympathy. They assembled at my tent, prayed, anointed me with oil, and laid their hands upon me. Although I was not wholly restored, I was comforted, and enabled to bear more patiently my distress.” Camp leaders did what they could to relieve the suffering of the poor and “to keep life and spirit among the people,” including organizing occasional picnics, music, and dances. But the suffering continued—at least 300 people died at Winter Quarters, many buried in unmarked graves.
Finally, Louisa was well enough to join Brigham Young on his second, return trip to the Salt Lake Valley, departing in spring 1848. She was assigned to Young’s own company, as part of the larger train of 600 wagons traveling the lonely trail westward to the Great Basin. As anyone who has ever driven across the midsection of the country can attest, the pioneers “traveled hundreds of miles without seeing a single tree.” When at last they did spy a lone cedar tree far off the trail, a number of them walked to it simply for the pleasure of standing for a few moments under its shade. Finally, on August 20, the company crested the Wasatch Mountains and looked down upon the Salt Lake Valley. Louisa wrote exultantly in her daybook, “Our hearts leap for joy!”
One does not have to be Mormon to celebrate the achievements of the Mormon pioneers. Indeed, as we reflect on the indomitable Louisa Barnes Pratt and her pioneer brothers and sisters, no one put it better than the great (non-Mormon) Western writer Wallace Stegner: “That I do not accept the faith that possessed them does not mean I doubt their frequent devotion and heroism in its service. Especially their women. Their women were incredible.”[i]This article is about the fictional propulsion system. For the actual model of spacetime, see Alcubierre drive. For the street in Virginia, see Warp Drive
Wormhole travel as envisioned by Les Bossinas for NASA
A warp drive is a fictitious superluminal spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at speeds greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude. In contrast to some other fictitious FTL technologies such as a jump drive, the warp drive does not permit instantaneous travel between two points, but rather involves a measurable passage of time which is pertinent to the concept. In contrast to hyperdrive, spacecraft at warp velocity would continue to interact with objects in "normal space." The general concept of "warp drive" was introduced by John W. Campbell in his 1931 novel Islands of Space.[1]
Einstein's theory of special relativity states that energy and mass are interchangeable, and speed of light travel is impossible for material objects that weigh more than photons. The problem of a material object exceeding light speed is that an infinite amount of kinetic energy would be required to travel at exactly the speed of light. This can theoretically be solved by warping space to move an object instead of increasing the kinetic energy of the object to do so.[2] Such a solution to the faster than light travel problem leads to two directly opposite approaches to light-speed travel in science fiction: in the first, spaceships themselves are brought to light speed and beyond; in the second, not-yet-local space itself is made to come to the ship while the ship moves at sub-light speeds.
Star Trek [ edit ]
Original warp scale – The Original Series, The Animated Series, Enterprise, and Discovery [ edit ]
Warp drive is one of the fundamental features of the Star Trek franchise; in the first pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, "The Cage", it is referred to as a "hyperdrive", with Captain Pike stating the speed to reach planet Talos IV as "time warp, factor 7". When beginning to explain travel times to the illusion survivors (before being interrupted by the sight of Vena), crewmember Jose stated that "the time barrier's been broken", allowing a group of interstellar travelers to return to Earth far sooner than would have otherwise been possible. Later in the pilot, when Spock is faced with the only action of escaping, he announces to the crew they have no choice but to leave, stating "Our time warp factor..." before the ship's systems start failing. In the second pilot for the original series, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", time was dropped from the speed setting with Kirk ordering speeds in simple "Ahead Warp Factor One", etc. that became so familiar from then on.
The Warp drive velocity in Star Trek is generally expressed in "warp factor" units, which—according to Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual—corresponds to the magnitude of the warp field. Achieving warp factor 1 is equal to breaking the light barrier, while the actual velocity corresponding to higher factors is determined using an ambiguous formula. According to the Star Trek episode writer's guide for The Original Series, warp factors are converted to multiples of the speed of light by multiplication with the cubic function of the warp factor itself. Accordingly, "Warp 1" is equivalent to the speed of light, "Warp 2" is 8 times the speed of light, "Warp 3" is 27 times the speed of light, etc. Several episodes of the original series placed the Enterprise in peril by having it travel at high warp factors. However, the velocity (in present dimensional units) of any given warp factor is rarely the subject of explicit expression, and travel times for specific interstellar distances are not consistent through the various series. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual it was written that the real warp speed depends on external factors such as particle density or electromagnetic fields and only roughly corresponds with the calculated speed of current warp factor. The reference work Star Trek Maps established the theory of subspace (or warp) highways. In certain regions, a spaceship can fly at a multiple of the speed that corresponds to the current warp factor.
In the original series, warp factor 6 was established as the common speed of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. In some cases, the starship traveled at Warp 7 or above, but with risk of damaging the ship or the engines. Warp 9 in the original series was the "Never Exceed" speed for the hulls and engines of Constitution-class starships, equivalent to the aircraft V NE V-speed. Warp 6 was the V NO "Normal Operation" maximum safe cruising speed for that vessel class.[3] Only five stories in the original Star Trek series involved the Enterprise traveling beyond Warp 9. In any instance, it was a result of the influence of alien beings or foreign technology. The Warp 14.1 incident in That Which Survives was the result of runaway engines which brought the hull within seconds of structural failure before power was disengaged.[4]
Later on, a prequel series titled Star Trek: Enterprise describes the warp engine technology as a "Gravimetric Field Displacement Manifold" (Commander Tucker's tour, "Cold Front"), and describes the device as being powered by a matter/anti-matter reaction which powers the two separate nacelles (one on each side of the ship) to create a displacement field. Enterprise, set in 2151 and onwards, follows the voyages of the first human ship capable of traveling at warp factor 5.2, which under the old warp table formula (the cube of the warp factor times the speed of light), is about 140 times the speed of light (i.e., 5.2 cubed). In the series pilot episode "Broken Bow", Capt. Archer equates Warp 4.5 to "Neptune and back [from Earth] in six minutes" (which would correspond to a distance of 547 light-minutes or 66 au, consistent with Neptune being a minimum of 29 au distant from Earth).
Modified warp scale – The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager [ edit ]
Michael Okuda's new warp scale
For Star Trek: The Next Generation and the subsequent series, Star Trek artist Michael Okuda drew up a new warp scale and devised a formula based on the original one but with an important difference: In the half-open interval from 9 to 10, the exponent of w increases toward infinity. Thus, in the Okuda scale, warp velocities approach Warp 10 asymptotically. According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual there is no exact formula for this interval because the quoted velocities are based on a hand-drawn curve; what can be said is that at velocities greater than warp 9, the form of the warp function changes because of an increase in the exponent of the warp factor w. Due to the resultant increase in the derivative, even minor changes in the warp factor eventually correspond to a greater than exponential change in velocity. Warp Factor 10 was set as an unattainable maximum (according to the new scale, reaching or exceeding Warp 10 required an infinite amount of energy). This is described in Star Trek Technical Manuals as "Eugene's limit", in homage to creator/producer Gene Roddenberry.
In Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual it was established that the normal operating speed of the Enterprise-D (Galaxy class) was Warp 6 (new scale), the maximum rated cruise was Warp 9.2 and the maximum design speed of warp factor 9.6. In two episodes, the Enterprise-D could travel at warp 9.8 at "extreme risk", while fleeing from an enemy. According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual the Galaxy-class starships and some other starfleet vessels like Nebula class or Excelsior class were refitted during the Dominion War with newer technology including modifications which increased their maximum speed to Warp 9.9.
According to the reference book USS Enterprise Owners' Workshop Manual the Enterprise-E can reach a maximum velocity of Warp 9.95. The Star Trek: Starship Spotter reference book states that the Intrepid-class starship Voyager has a maximum sustainable cruising speed of Warp 9.975, while the Prometheus-class can reach a maximum of Warp 9.99, with maximum cruising speed of Warp 9.9.
As stated in the collection Star Trek Fact Files no ship, including highly developed ships like the Borg cube, may exceed warp factor 9.99 with her normal warp drive. To achieve higher speeds, the use of Transwarp technology is required.
Warp velocities [ edit ]
In the book Star Trek Encyclopedia, some warp velocities are given directly. For comparison, the following table shows these values and also the calculated speeds of the original warp scale, the calculated speeds of a simplified Okuda scale and some canonical reference values for warp speeds from onscreen sources.
Transwarp [ edit ]
Transwarp generally refers to speeds and technologies that are beyond conventional warp drives. The warp drive has a natural physical or economical limit beyond which higher speeds are no longer possible. The reference work Star Trek Fact Files indicates this limit at warp factor 9.99. This is the highest conventional warp speed mentioned for a spaceship (Borg cube). Also in the episode Threshold (Star Trek Voyager) the warp factor 9.99 is suggested as the limit. This is the last warp factor mentioned before the leap takes place in the transwarp state.
In the book Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual the authors describes the idea of Transwarp:
Finally, we had to create a back door for various powerful aliens like Q who got the knack of hurling the ship through the room for millions of light years during a commercial break.
The Transwarp concept itself is not tied to any particular technology or speed limit.
The first mention of a transwarp drive took place in the movie Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. There, the Starfleet developed a new spaceship type, the USS Excelsior (NX-2000), which should have a superior engine. The Excelsior captain plans to break the speed record of the USS Enterprise (Warp 14.1 cubic scale). The principle of this drive is not explained. Later, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the USS Excelsior had a normal warp drive. In Star Trek Fact Files it is stated that the experiment was a failure and the spaceship was converted to a normal warp drive.
The entire episode Threshold from Star Trek Voyager is about a transwarp experiment by the USS Voyager crew. To get home faster, a shuttle is modified with novel dilithium crystals. The crew is trying to break the transwarp threshold. This threshold is between warp factor 9.99 and Warp 10 and transwarp itself represented the infinite speed. The shuttle allegedly found itself at all points in the universe at the same time during the flight. However, the pilot suffers genetic mutations after the flight, so it is not repeated. Due to the shuttle's limited memory, only a small portion of the sensor data was recorded. The entire experiment is described in the reference work Star Trek Fact Files.
Some episodes later, fictionalized a few months later, the crew of USS Voyager encounters a species called the Voth. This species has spaceships with transwarp drive. However, this drive does not work on the basis of transwarp conduits, as the transwarp drive of the Borg, but is a further development of the conventional warp drive.
The mention of a second Transwarp technology took place in the episode Descent of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation. A group of renegade Borg used transwarp conduits. These are wormhole-like tunnels through subspace. It was said in the dialogue that the flight through these tunnels was 20 times faster than the flight with maximum warp speed of the Enterprise. The flight itself was described as follows: "falling into a fast-moving river and getting swept away by the current." In the episode Endgame it is explained that the origin of these corridors was in six transwarp hubs spread across the galaxy. There were two ways to use these conduits outside these hubs. In TNG, the Enterprise was able to open such a channel with a precisely modulated tachyon impulse, traveling 65 light-years. However, when the USS Voyager tried the same thing in Day of Honor, the attempt failed and almost destroyed the ship. The second possibility is the use of the transwarp coil. In episode Dark Frontier the crew of Voyager steals such a coil from the Borg and is able to shorten their journey home by 15 years, before the coil burns out.
Quantum Slipstream [ edit ]
Another form of Transwarp used in Star Trek is called Quantum Slipstream.
Similar to the Borg transwarp conduits, the slipstream is a narrowly focused, directed field that is initiated by manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum using the starship's navigational deflector array. This creates a subspace tunnel, which is projected ahead of the vessel. Once a ship has entered this tunnel, the forces inside propel it at incredible speed. To maintain the slipstream, a ship has to constantly modify the quantum field with its deflector dish. The speed of the drive is inversely proportional to the time and distance. When the crew enters the Dauntless in the episode Hope and Fear for the first time and accidentally activates the propulsion system, the spaceship flies a flight of 15 light-years over a period of about 10 seconds. That is equivalent to approximately 50 million times the speed of light. After realizing that they would have to leave Voyager forever to get home with the Dauntless, the crew tries to match the drive of the USS Voyager to the parameters of the Dauntless. The modified Voyager is able to cover a distance of 300 light years with the slipstream modification before the system becomes unstable. The way back to Earth is stated in a fake message, created by Arturis, with 7 months aboard the Dauntless. For this period, the stocks are filled. At a residual distance of 60,000 light years at this time, this would correspond to a speed of about 100,000 times the speed of light or 500 times slower than a short slipstream jump.
However, in the episode "Timeless", the technology proved to be dangerously unstable, resulting in the loss of all hands of the Voyager in an alternate timeline. Due to a phase variance, the slipstream tunnel, produced by a replica slipstream drive of the Voyager, collapsed during the flight and the ship crashed on a planet near the border on the edge of the Delta Quadrant. Harry Kim and Chakotay survived, because they used the Delta Flyer, which flew ahead of the Voyager, and reached the Earth safely. They used, some years after this event, a temporal communication device to change the timeline and rescue the ship and the crew.
Folding space [ edit ]
In addition to the possibility to let a spaceship glide through space in a warp field, there is also space folding in Star Trek. Spatial folding means that two points of space-time are directly connected and an instantaneous change takes place. The space between is simply folded into a higher-dimensional hyperspace or subspace.
In the episode That Which Survives of the original series, the Enterprise encountered the remains of people called Kalandans. These are able to instantaneously teleport spaceships as well as people over long distances.
In the episode Contagion of the series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise-D discovered the former homeworld of the Iconians. These people were able to instantaneously teleport people over long distances with the help of Iconian Gateways. To ensure the gateway did not fall into the wrong hands, Captain Picard destroyed it.
A year later, in The High Ground, terrorists on the planet Rutia IV used a space folding teleporter called an Inverter. However, this caused progressive physical harm to people during transport; multiple use almost always ended in death.
The USS Voyager came in touch with this technology several times on their way home. In the episode Prime Factors the crew tried to buy a Spatial Trajector from the Sikarians. This wraps an object in a kind of subspace bubble, and teleports it to another location using spatial folding. The range was 40,000 light-years. However, the technology was not compatible with the warp core and almost destroyed Voyager when it was used.
Three years later, in the episode Vis à Vis, Voyager discovered a stranded spaceship with a Coaxial Warp Drive. This also used spatial folding for locomotion. But the system was very unstable and if there is a fault in the drive it could cause a tear in the space-time continuum. A replica of the drive was only tested in a shuttle and never used for the Voyager.
Last but not least, spatial folding appeared as a Geodesic Fold in the episode Inside Man. A geodesic fold occurs when a Verteron beam is fired at the atmosphere of a giant star at two different locations. This connects both points in space and creates a short lived passage. However, this was not usable because of deadly radiation that occurred during flight. A Ferengi ship's faked message from the Alpha Quadrant made the crew believe there was a safe passage. However, the Ferengi only wanted to get the Borg technology aboard Voyager and would have let the crew die. At the last moment, travel through the passage was aborted.
Fictional history [ edit ]
The episode "Metamorphosis", from The Original Series, establishes a backstory for the invention of warp drive on Earth, in which Zefram Cochrane discovered the "space warp". Cochrane is repeatedly referred to afterwards, but the exact details of the first warp trials were not shown until the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact. The movie depicts Cochrane as having first operated a warp drive on Earth in 2063. This successful first trial led directly to first contact with the Vulcans.
It was also established that many other civilizations had warp drive before humans; First Contact co-writer Ronald D. Moore suggested Cochrane's drive was in some way superior to forms which existed beforehand, and was gradually adopted by the galaxy at large.[8]
Slingshot effect [ edit ]
The "slingshot effect" is first depicted in "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" (1967) as a method of time travel. The procedure involves traveling at a high warp velocity in the proximity to a star, on a precisely calculated "slingshot" path; if successful, it causes a ship to enter a time warp, leading to the past or future. The same technique is used in the episode "Assignment: Earth" (1968) for historic research. The term "time warp" was first used in "The Naked Time" (1966) when a previously untried cold-start intermix of matter and antimatter threw the Enterprise back three days in time. The term was later used in Star Trek IV in describing the slingshot effect. The technique was mentioned as a viable method of time travel in the TNG episode "Time Squared" (1989).
This "slingshot" effect has been explored in theoretical physics: it is hypothetically possible to slingshot oneself "around" the event horizon of a black hole. As a result of the black hole's extreme gravitation, time would pass at a slower rate near the event horizon, relative to the outside universe; the traveler would experience the passage of only several minutes or hours, while hundreds of years would pass in 'normal' space.
Warp core [ edit ]
A primary component of the warp drive method of propulsion in the Star Trek universe is the "gravimetric field displacement manifold", more commonly referred to as a warp core. It is a fictional reactor that taps the energy released in a matter-antimatter annihilation to provide the energy necessary to power a starship's warp drive, allowing faster-than-light travel. Starship warp cores generally also serve as powerplants for other primary ship systems.
When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate—both matter and antimatter are converted directly and entirely into enormous quantities of energy, in the form of subnuclear particles and electromagnetic radiation (specifically, mesons and gamma rays). In the Star Trek universe, fictional "dilithium crystals" are used to regulate this reaction. These crystals are described as being non-reactive to anti-matter when bombarded with high levels of radiation.
Usually, the reactants are deuterium, which is an isotope of hydrogen, and antideuterium (its antimatter counterpart). In The Original Series and in-universe chronologically subsequent series, the warp core reaction chamber is often referred to as the "dilithium intermix chamber" or the "matter/antimatter reaction chamber", depending upon the ship's intermix type. The reaction chamber is surrounded by powerful magnetic fields to contain the anti-matter. If the containment fields ever fail, the subsequent interaction of the antimatter fuel with the container walls would result in a catastrophic release of energy, with the resultant explosion capable of utterly destroying the ship. Such "warp core breaches" are used as plot devices in many Star Trek episodes. An intentional warp core breach can also be deliberately created, as one of the methods by which a starship can be made to self-destruct.
The mechanisms that provide a starship's propulsive force are the "warp nacelles", one (or more) cylindrical pods that are offset from the hull of the ship by large pylons; the nacelles generate the actual 'warp bubble' that surrounds the ship, and destruction of one or both nacelles will cripple the ship, and possibly cause a warp-core breach.
Warp requirements for 10m OD sphere.
Real-world theories and science [ edit ]
In 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre formulated a theoretical solution, called the Alcubierre drive, for faster-than-light travel which models the warp drive concept. Calculations found that such a model would require prohibitive amounts of negative energy or mass.[9]
In 2018, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency made public a 2010 report that surveyed multiple different approaches to faster-than-light travel. One physicist who reviewed the report explained, that, while the theories were legitimate, they did not represent "something that's going to connect with engineering anytime soon, probably anytime ever."[10]
In 2012, NASA researcher Harold White hypothesized that by changing the shape of the warp drive, much less negative mass and energy could be used, though the energy required ranges from the mass of Voyager 1 to the mass of the observable universe, or many orders of magnitude greater than anything currently possible by modern technology. NASA engineers have begun preliminary research into such technology.[11]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
When Stephen Hawking guest starred on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Descent", he was taken on a guided tour of the set. Pausing in front of the warp core set piece, he remarked: "I'm working on that."[12]Beer pong is a drinking game in which players throw ping pong balls across a table, attempting to land each ball in a cup of beer on the other end
Drinking games are games which involve the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Evidence of the existence of drinking games dates back to antiquity. Drinking games have been banned at some institutions, particularly colleges and universities.[1]
History [ edit ]
Ancient Greece [ edit ]
Kottabos is one of the earliest known drinking games from ancient Greece, dated to the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Players would use dregs (remnants of what was left in their cup) to hit targets across the room with their wine. Often, there were special prizes and penalties for one's performance in the game.[3]
Ancient China [ edit ]
Drinking games were enjoyed in ancient China, usually incorporating the use of dice or verbal exchange of riddles.[4]:145 During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the Chinese used a silver canister where written lots could be drawn that designated which player had to drink and specifically how much; for example, from 1, 5, 7, or 10 measures of drink that the youngest player, or the last player to join the game, or the most talkative player, or the host, or the player with the greatest alcohol tolerance, etc. had to drink.[4]:145–146 There were even drinking game referee officials, including a'registrar of the rules' who knew all the rules to the game, a'registrar of the horn |
to join Barry Bonds, Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Roberto Clemente and Paul Waner as the sixth Pittsburgh outfielder to win the award (shortstop Dick Groat also snagged one in 1960). He leads the league with a wins above replacement of 7.2, and provides a hitting-defense-speed package that makes him valuable in a multitude of ways. McCutchen's.384 batting average in August was the highest by a Pittsburgh player since Jason Kendall hit.413 in 1996, so he entered the final leg of the season with a mother lode of momentum.
Although good citizenship points count for only so much in an MVP race, McCutchen also grades out well on the leadership-professionalism scale that MVP voters traditionally hold dear.
"He's got my vote," said Washington first baseman Adam LaRoche, who played with McCutchen in Pittsburgh in 2009. "I've always loved being around him. I don't know that he's changed at all since he first came up, which says a lot for a star. He's really humble, respects the game and plays it right. He knows he's good, but he lets his actions speak for him rather than pop off. He's one of those guys who's hard to root against."
Why he could lose: With 18 homers and 27 stolen bases, McCutchen is on track to join Barry Bonds and Andy Van Slyke as the third 20-30 player in Pirates history. But his power numbers are underwhelming by traditional MVP standards, so a rough September could bring him back to the pack.
One person's view: "I just love his attitude," said former Pirates catcher Mike LaValliere. "Obviously, he's a great talent. But the kid comes to play every night. You don't see him ever jog to first base. He's 100 percent every single night. He's prepared. He takes care of himself. He busts his ass. He's worked hard and now he's reaping the benefits."
The outlook: It's McCutchen's award to lose.
2. Yadier Molina, Cardinals
Yadier Molina is widely considered baseball's best all-around catcher. AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
Why he should win it: The more you dig down into the game's subtleties, the stronger the case for Molina. He's one of baseball's elite pitch framers. He's 16-for-38 throwing out base stealers, and most runners not named Billy Hamilton simply choose to stay planted on the first-base bag. Molina is also adept at getting the best out of pitchers, whether they're seasoned veterans or callow youths. When it comes to reading pitchers' emotions and unspoken cues, he's baseball's answer to trainer Cesar Millan -- aka the "Dog Whisperer."
Molina's home run total has dipped from 22 to 10 this season, but he's compensated with an increase in doubles, from 28 to 37. His overall offensive numbers are eerily similar to Buster Posey's, which isn't a bad place to be for a catcher whose hallmark is defense. Molina also wins valor points for continuing to grind it out through nagging knee and wrist injuries.
Why he may not: Molina is the most indispensable Cardinal. But even when he went on the DL for two weeks in August, manager Mike Matheny still posted a lineup card with Matt Carpenter, Allen Craig, Matt Holliday and Carlos Beltran on it. That's the sixth-leading hitter in the National League, the league's No. 3 RBI man and a pair of outfielders who've combined for 14 All-Star Game appearances. Molina is just one of several prominent bats in the St. Louis order.
One person's view: "I like to ask managers, 'If you could have any player on a given team, who would you choose?'" said a National League broadcaster. "When I ask about St. Louis, they all give me a look like, 'Are you kidding me?' Everybody knows what Molina means to that team."
The outlook: If Molina goes on a tear in September and the Cardinals pass the Pirates and win the Central, this thing could get interesting in a hurry. But Molina is banged up, and the Cardinals are 18-23 since July 25.
3. Paul Goldschmidt, Diamondbacks
Why he should win it: He's been the one true constant for an Arizona team that's suffered a slew of disappointing performances (from Ian Kennedy, Miguel Montero, Jason Kubel and David Hernandez, to name a few) and injuries (Cody Ross, Aaron Hill, Adam Eaton). Through it all the Diamondbacks have consistently leaned on Goldschmidt, who has appeared in all but two of the team's 139 games.
Paul Goldschmidt has had a monster year in just his second full season in the majors. Brad Mangin/Getty Images
Goldschmidt leads the NL with 106 RBIs and ranks second to Pedro Alvarez with 31 homers, but he's more than just a slugger. He ranks first among MLB first basemen with 13 steals, and is third in the league in walks (90) and tied for second in pitches per plate appearance (4.20). Goldschmidt's defense has also prompted some Diamondbacks people to compare him with Mark Teixeira around the bag. Bill James' Fielding Bible gives Goldschmidt a defensive runs saved ranking of plus-14, second best in the league behind the Cubs' Anthony Rizzo.
"He keeps doing it over and over and over again," said Diamondbacks pitcher Brandon McCarthy. "He has MVP numbers by any measure, but he's also done it in high-leverage situations. It's walk-off, walk-off, extra-inning hits. I don't know if it's more meaningful, but it feels more meaningful. And he keeps doing it without any other downside to his game. You never have to take him out of the game for defense or baserunning. To me, that's as MVP as you get."
Chase Field has been known to inflate a hitter's numbers, but Goldschmidt has been slightly more productive on the road (a.554 slugging percentage) than at home (.512). Although his numbers against the NL West aren't good, he's hitting.365 (19-for-52) with a 1.046 OPS against the first-place Dodgers.
Why he won't: The Diamondbacks are barely above.500 and a major long shot for the playoffs. That does not bode well for Goldschmidt's chances. Since the advent of the wild card in 1994, 30 of baseball's 36 MVP winners have played for postseason teams. Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds (twice) and Larry Walker are the only players to have bucked the trend.
From the manager: "If you're going to do it by the numbers, certainly he measures up there," said Arizona manager Kirk Gibson. "I know what he's done for this team. The late-inning stuff. The big RBIs. The great plays he's made. He can run the bases, and he'll steal a base when it counts. And just his impact on the team and his leadership -- just being Goldy. He would almost be shy if he knew I was talking about this."
The outlook: A noble effort will land Goldschmidt somewhere in the top four or five.
4. Freddie Freeman, Braves
Why he's in the mix: Someone needs to be in the conversation for the team with baseball's best record. It might as well be Freeman, who has gained some traction of late as an offensive pillar for an Atlanta club that's overcome a slew of setbacks.
While Brian McCann, Dan Uggla, Jason Heyward and Evan Gattis have spent time on the disabled list, Justin Upton has been up-and-down and B.J. Upton has been mostly awful, Freeman has been a monument to consistency since his return from a strained oblique in April. He posted an.857 OPS in May, followed by.858 in June,.918 in July and.834 in August. Freeman has been especially productive at Turner Field, hitting 15 of his 19 homers to help the Braves to a major league-best 51-20 record at home.
Freddie Freeman is fourth in the National League with 94 RBIs. Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports
Why he'll fall short: Freeman simply hasn't done enough to distinguish himself from some other leading candidates. He's hitting.435 with runners in scoring position, but Allen Craig has been even better at.454. And it's hard to argue that Freeman's all-around game makes him more valuable to Atlanta than McCutchen's overall package makes him to the Pirates. They have similar power numbers, and McCutchen plays a premium defensive position in center field. Freeman is one of several first basemen in the discussion, along with Goldschmidt, Craig and Joey Votto.
From a scout: "I think he's the best defensive first baseman in the league, because of his height and his feet around the bag," said an NL talent evaluator. "It's amazing how many balls he picks to save Uggla and [Chris] Johnson from getting errors. The more you watch him, the more you see."
The outlook: He's an intriguing dark-horse candidate. But it will take a major plot twist for Freeman to crack the top three.
5. Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers
Why he could win it: Every time ESPN or another media outlet posts a photo of Kershaw side by side with Sandy Koufax, it can only help his cause. Kershaw leads major league starters in ERA (1.89), WAR (6.6) and WHIP (0.92), and is tied for first with James Shields with 23 quality starts.
Major League Baseball's ballot instructions specify that "all players are eligible for MVP, including pitchers and designated hitters," so voters have no reason to exclude Kershaw from consideration other than their own personal biases. Justin Verlander pulled off a Cy Young-MVP double in 2011, so there's recent evidence that the electorate will be open-minded about a pitcher who goes above and beyond the call of duty.
Clayton Kershaw leads the majors in ERA (1.89), innings pitched (209) and WHIP (0.92). AP Photo/Reed Saxon
Why he won't: Voters have become less swayed by win-loss records in recent years, so Kershaw's 14-8 record shouldn't affect his candidacy much one way or another. His biggest obstacle is history: Since Bob Gibson and Denny McLain captured MVP awards in 1968, baseball has had 89 MVP winners (including co-winners Willie Stargell and Keith Hernandez in 1979). Only six of those 89 recipients were pitchers, and Verlander, Roger Clemens and Vida Blue were the only starters.
The Kershaw-for-MVP bandwagon also lost a little steam this week when the Dodgers' ace went into Coors Field and got cuffed around by the Rockies to inflate his ERA from 1.72 to 1.89. Given the odds against him, Kershaw has very little margin for error.
The skipper's view: "He goes out there 30 times, 35 times," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly told the LA Daily News. "But then as a manager you see how important that is every fifth day. He goes deep into games, saves your bullpen, stops losing streaks, extends winning streaks … it's just big."
The outlook: Enjoy that Cy Young Award and start preparing for that Game 1 start in the National League Division Series, Clayton.
Others who'll receive support
Joey Votto, Reds: Votto, the league leader with 111 walks and a.424 on-base percentage, should win an award as the most polarizing figure among the 2013 NL MVP contenders. He's an icon in the statistical community for staying true to his disciplined approach and refusing to expand his zone and give away outs. But he's simply too meticulous in the eyes of some observers, who think his 64 RBIs fail to meet the traditional standards required of a No. 3 hitter with a $225 million contract. Stats buffs may not like it, but that's the reality.
Phillips
Brandon Phillips, Reds: He leads the National League with 18 game-winning RBIs and is the first Reds second baseman to drive in 100 runs since Joe Morgan achieved the feat in 1976. Phillips' defense is always going to work in his favor. But that.316 OBP and 1.7 WAR won't help his cause.
Adrian Gonzalez, Dodgers: He quietly helped keep the Dodgers afloat early in the year, when Zack Greinke was injured and the lineup couldn't produce a hit with runners in scoring position. In early August, Mattingly told reporters that Gonzalez -- not Kershaw, Yasiel Puig or Hanley Ramirez -- is the Dodgers' team MVP.
Matt Carpenter, Cardinals: He's been a huge unsung hero for the Cardinals, filling dual voids at second base and the leadoff spot. Carpenter is on track to become the first St. Louis hitter with 50 doubles in a season since Albert Pujols in 2004.
Hanley Ramirez, Dodgers: Ramirez has given the Dodgers monster production at shortstop and has been every bit as important as Yasiel Puig to the team's resurgence. But it's tough to rank him among the elite candidates given that he played four games and logged a total of 11 at-bats in April and May.
Craig
Allen Craig, Cardinals: Craig, third in the league with 97 RBIs, is going to miss a significant amount of time after suffering a sprained foot Wednesday against the Reds.
Yasiel Puig, Dodgers: Yes, we know a lot of folks are suffering from Puig fatigue. But it's hard to deny that the Dodgers were going nowhere when Puig arrived in early June, and he immediately energized the city and the clubhouse and altered the mindset surrounding the team. The more pressing question is: How will Puig fare against a stacked array of young pitchers in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting?
Carlos Gomez, Brewers: He's having a fine all-around season and ranks second to McCutchen in the NL with a 6.6 WAR. But he's hitting only.250 with a.747 OPS since the All-Star break, and Milwaukee has been a nonfactor in the NL Central since May.
Craig Kimbrel, Braves: Kimbrel is putting up ridiculous numbers again, with 83 strikeouts in 57 2/3 innings, a.159 batting average against and a 0.85 WHIP. He's been pitching on a different planet since June.And that turned out to be more than enough to see off the Winnipeg Jets.
On opening night, we saw half of one of those nights.
Of making magic from the mundane. Of moving both heaven and ice.
There are nights, special nights, when he seems capable of virtually anything.
"Sometimes those little changes get a team going," reasoned Johnny Gaudreau, of his personal, and the Flames' collective, second-half resurgence in Saturday evening's Scotiabank Saddledome 6-3 curtain-raising victory,
"You never know whether it's going to stay that way but when you're not getting offence, you've got to change things.
"We changed things up, the line started clicking a little bit more, we found the net a couple of times and it was a great comeback."
When Gaudreau starts feeling it, the Flames usually do, too. Funny how that works.
Those all-seeing Avatar eyes. The stealthy cheek of a Times Square pickpocket. As smooth as a snifter of XO cognac on a cold winter's night.
Shifted away by coach Glen Gulutzan from usual compadres Sean Monahan and Michael Ferland to be partnered with Sam Bennett and Curtis Lazar, Gaudreau began to warm to the opening-night occasion.
"The reason I did it, I didn't think we were very good the first 30,'' explained Gulutzan. "I didn't see a lot happening. What went through my mind is that sometimes guys get a little excited playing with Johnny.
"You put him with Curtis and Benny and right away, first shift, they had a little spark."
Crazy thing is, as sublime as Gaudreau was through the closing 30 Saturday, defenceman T.J. Brodie was that good all evening.
Both men - Brodie with two goals and two assists, Gaudreau with one snipe and three helpers - finished with four points.
"You can feel it when things aren't going your way,'' said Gaudreau. "You're getting pucks in deep and they're breaking out on you and you're in the defensive zone right away.
"The next thing you know, guys are getting off at the right time, we were hemming them in for two or three changes, getting pucks to the point and bodies in front."
Video: Gaudreau on Flames' turnaround after slow start
Lazar, making his season debut, also shone, particularly when matched up beside Gaudreau and Bennett.
"He's a world class-player,'' praised Lazar of No. 13. "I'll try and do the heavy-lifting out there. Just establish a forecheck there. We were just feeding off each other and that's a great feeling.
"I know for myself, my game doesn't change whoever I'm playing with. It's nice to get rewarded out there. I probably could've had a couple of goals.
"My mindset hasn't changed at all throughout pre-season. I started slow out of the gates but I think you guys were more concerned than I was."
Gaudreau had his handprints on both of Brodie's goals before Brodie returned the favour at 17:02 of the middle frame, cooly dipping inside a corkscrewing Jet before spotting the Lady Byng Trophy winner lurking undetected and slinging over an absolutely filthy pass to the far face-off circle.
Video: WPG@CGY: Gaudreau finds twine on Brodie's slick feed
Significantly, Lazar made the whole thing happen, rooting around for the puck with the single-mindedness of a Tuscan truffle hound, keeping the offensive pressure alive while on his knees.
"Lazer made a great play in the corner, got the puck up to me on the wall,'' recalled Gaudreau. "I saw Brodes, sent it to him and he did his magic. Walked the defenceman and sends me backdoor for a wide-open tap-in. Easy for me.
"Great vision. Great play by him."
The Flames exploded out of their offensive doldrums to torch Jets' goaltender Steve Mason for a second-period four-spot - via Brodie, Michael Ferland, Gaudreau and Kris Versteeg - transforming a two-goal deficit into a 5-3 lead.
Mikael Backlund's nimble deflection 16 seconds into the third well and truly put the Manitobans to bed.
"We needed to be better,'' said Gaudreau. "Costly powerplay goal we gave up there. Gave one up on the PK and then a face-off goal. In the second, we played most of the time in their offensive zone and did a great job cycling pucks, getting pucks to the point and guys in front. It's easy that way."
For the Flames, a vital 30 minutes of improvement on the heels of a disappointing 3-0 season-opener in Edmonton and before embarking on an always tricky two-game California swing, through Anaheim and L.A.
"Between our speciality teams and (goaltender Mike Smith)'s key saves when they could've closed the door on us was the difference,'' said Gulutzan.
"We just challenged our guys inbetween the first and the second about what our identity is, what our game is. We've talked about this for so long. We want to get back to our game as quickly as we can.
"Maybe they forgot about it for 90 minutes.
"I think we were 40 and 23 to end last season and I was waiting for that game to come out.
"The last 30 (Saturday) is kinda getting back on the horse the way we're going to play."On Wednesday, November 2… actually, you know what? This is no time for preambles. By RICHARD POPLAK.
How did the looniest day in post-postmodern South African history dawn?
The earth rotated on its axis, and in an ancient, ever-persuasive visual gag, the sun appeared to rise.
It rose over dry fields and dusty dales, over ragged townships and Tuscan townhouses, over empty dams and bony cattle. Mostly, though, it rose over St Albans Cathedral, which is located in the centre of Executive Mayor Solly Msimanga’s Tshwane, and was at the time of the sun’s theatrics filling up with the country’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens. Specifically, in a hall off to the side of the church, the sun shone in its full glory upon those attending the launch of the much-ballyhooed, widely discussed Save South Africa campaign.
The initiative was initially set up to support Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. Famously, the minister has of late been hounded by the National Prosecuting Authority, the head of which has charged him on counts of fraud and theft – charges so thin that lawyers in North Korea were chuckling at their spuriousness. Today, along with two former colleagues, Gordhan was scheduled to make an appearance in the Pretoria High Court. Instead, the NPA’s Shaun Abrahams performed a humiliating back flip and dropped the charges, so… damp squib.
But no!
Save South Africa was, we were told, bigger than one mission; it was not a reprise of the unloved Zuma Must Fall movement of last year, which was notable for how many yoga mats featured at its marches. Challenges we face aplenty: don’t forget, on Wednesday Jacob Zuma was also fighting to interdict the release of the former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s State of Capture report, a matter that would be heard later that morning, and on which the president’s future was almost entirely dependent.
Save South Africa’s logo depicts a proud young black woman in profile, her hair wrapped in an elaborate doek. (This has caused some controversy, considering the lack of same in the movement’s upper echelons.) The campaign, according to the website, is comprised of “organisations, civil society groups, business leaders, prominent individuals, South African citizens and supporters of the founding principles of our democracy.” That’s quite the cabal, and the courage on display was indeed heartwarming, which slowly progressed to heart-burning as more defendants – I mean participants – arrived in their sinister Uber Blacks. The proceedings started late, spin-meister-in-chief Chris Vick informed us, because we were “waiting for business”, a jocular reference to Big Money’s reticence when it comes to weighing in on matters of national interest. We would nonetheless spirit through the presser, because the great and the powerful had “organisations to run”, and they didn’t really have time for a long drawn-out lip-flap with the media.
Well, thank St Alban for small mercies.
While there are indubitably really amazing human beings among the campaign’s members – for instance, there are only minor theological points differentiating Section 27’s Mark Heywood from Jesus Christ – not everyone among Save SA’s number counts as a mensch. Much of the campaign’s momentum has been generated from the fact that it is backed by 81 – count em! – 81 CEOs, some of whom run the country’s biggest, baddest corporates. Alongside people who fight for the most vulnerable citizens on this Earth, you have the likes of Colin Coleman, head of the local branch of Goldman Sachs, who in 2013 released a report called “Two Decades of Freedom: A 20-year Review of South Africa”, a document that effectively inspired the ANCs Good Story to Tell campaign, erased all the insanely corrupt shenanigans perpetrated by the Zuma administration, and informed us – or, rather, informed its base of emerging market investor suckers – that everything down south was just A-okay.
According to Goldman Sachs, there was nothing wrong with JZ back in 2013. So what has he done to rouse the mighty and the powerful? How have the president’s former enablers become his big-brand accusers? How did it all devolve to this point, where CEOs are forced to team up with ANC stalwarts, Aids activists, rabbis, priests, imams, diviners, sangomas, astrologers, graphic designers, web developers, opposition politicians, and Johnny Clegg, in order to take down one man and save us from destruction?
Answer: Zuma fucked with the national piggy bank.
And so Save SA is undergirded by something called The CEO Initiative Pledge. It’s a sort of double-sided samizdat that informs us that the country’s richest citizens have drawn a line in the gold-dusted sand, and will accept no more silly buggers from Number One. In South Africa, where we worship celebrity and power uber alles, CEOs have become superstars. They pantomime being homeless at CEO Sleep Outs; they build our future at conferences and R10,000-a-head banquets.
“We stand in support of the rule of law,” thundered Jabu Mabuza, leader of the CEO Initiative, Chairman of Business Leadership South Africa, Chairman of the Casino Association of South Africa, and Chairman of a bunch of other stuff.
Also present were former ANC deputy secretary general Cheryl Carolus, ANC stalwart and serial board member Sipho Pityana, Treatment Action Campaign’s Anele Yawa, and Warren Goldstein, South Africa’s chief rabbi, AKA CEO of the Jews. During, the latter’s short speech, he quoted Deuteronomy: “Justice, justice thou shalt pursue.”
Ja sure. But why speak out now, and not, say, following the Marikana Massacre?
Mabuza: “We have been engaging with the government since Marikana. Just yesterday, the mining industry managed to settle within a strike that in previous years took five months” – a reference to the recent settlement between the platinum mining sector and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).
But if it’s all been soooo secretive up ‘til now, why all of a sudden the fireworks and grandstanding and media hype? Why not just keep being clandestine and, well, business-like?
Pityana, wearing a Save SA T-shirt and a jaunty ANC ascot type thing: “This is a culmination point. In 2010, we made a submission to the president regarding corruption, saying we had the institutional capacities to deal with all this. But he refused to see us. I think that we have taken very systematic measures. But Marikana was a highlight of the securitisation of the state, the move from a police service to a police force. And we sought to engage.”
I dunno. Because the question still remained: Save South Africa for what?
Shortly after the presser, in the courtyard leading to the cathedral itself, I bumped into Maria Ramos, former struggle hero and current Chief Executive Officer of Barclays Africa Group Limited. “Look, this isn’t one event,” she said. “There’s been a programme of engagement with government for a while now. Things have just built up. In particular, the actions taken by Shaun Abrahams required some response. Ultimately, you need to take a stand. The Constitution is the embodiment of what the country is about, and the Constitution is to be defended. It’s time to reflect whether we are beginning to impinge on the cornerstones of this society.”
Did I mention that there was a cappuccino machine at this thing? No?
There was a cappuccino machine at this thing.
***
Inside St Albans, glorious stained glass windows streamed in stained sunshine, and the picket signs read: “Mr Gordhan you are our hero”. God and Money; Money and God. Drummers moved down the aisles, summoning South Africa’s snoozing deities. They sang no struggle songs here, but instead engaged in a soccer anthem.
Famous faces rolled in. Barbara Hogan was here. Bantu Holomisa was here. Terror Lekota was here. People who nearly died liberating this country were here.
But by far the most significant stir was caused by the arrival of ANC Gauteng Chairman, Paul Mashatile. This was a big move, a middle finger extended at JZ, who was at that moment cowering in Zimbabwe, trying to secure Robert Mugabe, and – I’m speculating here – another tank of virgin’s blood for his third liver. I cornered Mashatile by some religious iconography, and we had a quick chat.
“We decided as Gauteng ANC to support Gordhan and his colleagues,” he told me. “We were going to come to court, but when that didn’t happen, we thought we’d join the South Africans supporting Comrade Gordhan. At Luthuli House, the Secretary General [Gwede Mantashe] knows that we are here, but unfortunately he couldn’t come, because he’s in the Eastern Cape. There might be other members of the ANC NEC joining us.”
Wouldn’t you just love to be at the ANC National Executive Committee’s Shabbas table?
The main programme kicked off at around 09:15. Churches, it must be said, are once again playing a role in the righteousness of South Africa’s political soul. Religious leaders, formerly silent or complicit, are now steadily lining up against president Zuma, himself an ordained bishop of a sub-breakaway Pentecostal sect, a man of dark and murky beliefs, a spirit-stirrer, a sinister dark lord of… you get the point.
A statement from Gordhan was read out to the Save South Africans. Religious leaders from a baffling array of confessionals spoke up against corruption and state capture.
St Albans, it must be said, was no place for an atheist.
Then Mark Heywood got up, and stood resolutely at the pulpit:
“When we have overthrown state capture,” he said, “my appeal, especially to the people with power, is that we will not be done taking this country back to the constitutional principles on which it was founded. Our country is a nightmare of poverty.”
Heywood mentioned Michael Komape, a little boy who died in a pit latrine. He mentioned the 37 psychiatric patients who earlier this year died after being farmed out by the Gauteng health systems to useless NGOs. He mentioned a lot of bad shit.
“Some people mistrust this movement,” said Heywood. “They say it’s just the middle class. We have to prove them wrong.”
Now, we were getting somewhere.
Meanwhile, we learnt, across town at the High Court, Zuma’s lawyers withdrew his bullshit application. The crowd erupted. Political leaders, minus a certain Julius Malema, stood up and gave addresses. Even Paul Mashatile spoke, casting suspicions on the motives of the NPA.
“We want comrade Pravin now to focus on his job. We want him to lead us on growing the economy.
“We say today in the loudest voice, hands off, Pravin Gordhan, hands off. We will walk with the people of South Africa,” promised Paul. “There are lots of good men and women in the leadership of the ANC.”
As Rabbi Goldstein would say: Gay kaken ofn yahm! Loose translation: gimme a freaking break.
***
If thoughts of unity and fraternity are on your mind, trust an angry crowd to come along and dispel them. The Economic Freedom Fighters, a contingent of which was making its way along Francis Baard Street, tried to rip down the vast South African flag on the gates of the church. They used sticks, they used their hands, until they were shooed away by older Fighters. “It’s the flag, man,” yelled one. “Leave it!”
And so we began the street protest chapter of this chaotic, insane, crack binge of a news day. Through apocalyptically cleared streets, populated only by the occasional armoured vehicle, we walked and sang and set rubbish bins on fire. A chopper circled overhead. And the roar of a motorcycle slammed off the Brutalist concrete canyons, echoing – if you’ll allow me a moment of poetry – the rage and frustration of the angry masses.
The vibe was, shall we say, different from the Save SA thing, a little less celebratory, a tad more pissed off. The EFF fanned out through the CBD. There, they met the heat-crazed dude waving a palm frond, the clown bearing a sign that said, “Zuma’s no clown, clowns are good people”; the kids with cardboard AKs, rows of relaxed SAPS drinking bottled water, a rangy fighter waving a five iron, a wannabe Cassper waving his music saying: “disc umlungu?”, a stall serving mutant chicken legs and boeries sizzling in fat – and then the rubbish-strewn expanse of Church Square, pigeons roosting on the top hats of bronzed apartheid gods.
Eventually Julius Malema arrived. He’d boycotted the Save SA event because white monopoly capital, and reminded his Fighters to keep Pretoria’s shops shut. He offered a gobsmacking spoiler: according to a High Court ruling, the State Capture report was to be released by 5pm, and we’d all be able to read it. But not before going to the Union Buildings and demanding Jacob Zuma’s resignation.
Off the Fighters tramped, only to find the Union Buildings locked, the cops lined up and ready. But really, who cared about this spectacle for spectacle’s sake? Around the country, the State of Capture report was being downloaded from a groaning website, its contents beamed into our mitochondria via blinking routers. Already, it was becoming a part of us, of our narrative, of our national body. And what did it say?
Summary: Jacob Zuma, Des Van Rooyen, Brian Molefe and the Guptas are big fat scumbags.
You will read much about Thuli Madonsela’s masterpiece today and in the days to come. But the real fight, it must be said, is just beginning. Allies will soon find themselves in different corners, wondering how once they danced together so intimately. We will be forced to ask, in louder and louder registers:
Save South Africa for what?
If we don’t come up with an appropriate answer, this insane cocaine-and-cough-syrup-binge of a historically unprecedented day will have dawned for no good reason. DM
Photo: Supporters of the Save South Africa movement listen to speeches in St Albans Church in Tshwane. (Shaun Swingler/Daily Maverick Chronicle)
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Please or create an account to view the comments. To join the conversation, sign up as a Maverick Insider.By Farah Britto
What do you see when you watch TV? A movie? Do you perceive staring into a screen that when not lit up is simply a dark, flat abyss? Or, when deeply absorbed in a film you are watching, do you believe that you are a part of the story- there with the characters on their adventure?
When you take a step back from the act of watching television or films, the materiality of it becomes clear. When dark, the television is a fixture in the home. When it turns on, it becomes a cultural narrative that changes depending on the household in which it lives. The unique thing about watching television in an American home or films in an American theater is that even with many other people in the room, it is still a personal experience- between you, your eyes, and your brain.
The Current Debate
Scholars studying vision focus on two kinds of experiences: visual awareness (O’Regan and Noë 2001) and the neurological mechanisms and processes that make vision possible (Marr 1982). The latter approach focuses primarily on the neural, wherein, “the central aim of all research was a functional analysis of the structure of the central nervous system” (Marr 1982:14). The former perspective puts less of an emphasis on what is happening in the brain, as it does not provide any meaningful information relating to lived experience, since “the experience of seeing itself cannot be equated with the simultaneous occurrence of any neural activity” (O’Regan and Noë 2001:968).
Will knowing the mechanisms of vision change the way you see or experience the world? Probably not. Although understanding the biology of the brain and the idiosyncrasies of firing neurons are interesting, what kind of knowledge can it provide? How can it help answer questions about humans’ experiences with vision and what vision can do for us culturally?
Moving Beyond the Body and the Brain
I ask these questions because I’m interested in a very particular kind of visual experience. Watching films and television programming is unique in that the visual awareness that occurs during this activity does not result in any particular action by a person, and yet the practice of watching a film is not merely passive, either. Take a look at the following video clip. While you’re watching, think closely about what you are doing while the video is playing. Are you sitting still? Standing, moving? Wearing headphones?
Now, after watching the video, can you recall, in detailed terms, what you saw? Did you understand what you were seeing?
This example shows that although you were not physically involved in an action, you were engaged in an action happening onscreen. You were conscious of what was happening and can now recall with detail what you’ve just witnessed. To understand how visual understanding is perceived cross |
one: the enemy that sowed them is the devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels (or servants.) As therefore the tares are gathered
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and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world, &c." * From this we discover that the universal destruction of the wicked, will be the end of the world, which the prophets and apostles, agree will take place at the second appearance of Christ.
Now the matter stands thus, it would be unjust for the Lord to bring an overwhelming destruction upon the world without first giving them a timely warning of it, that all may if they will, prepare for it by turning to the Lord; therefore, previous to the end, He will renew the gospel dispensation by restoring the holy priesthood, with which He will commission efficient men, and send them to preach the gospel of the kingdom to all nations as above. Some individuals however, infer from the following, that all this was fulfilled, at or before the destruction of Jerusalem: "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." In order to understand this, the reader should keep in mind the questions that the apostles propounded to Christ; the first of which as I before observed, relates to the destruction of Jerusalem. After He had dispensed with this, He informed them what shall be the signs at His second coming, when He shall appear in great glory with His angels, and destroy the wicked. The signs of this latter event, are the preaching of the gospel as before mentioned, wars and rumors of wars, pestilence, famine, signs in the sun, moon and stars, also on the earth, distress of nations, and men's hearts failing them for fear while looking for those things which are coming upon the earth, and said He, "This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." This declaration is governed by the parable of "the fig-tree," that immediately precedes it; hence, it alludes to the generation in which these signs shall begin to appear: or to read the passage thus: "The generation
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* Mat. xiii chap.
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in which these signs shall begin to appear shall not pass," &c., explains the whole matter.
Our Saviour's parable of "Labourers and the vineyard," is plain upon this subject: in which He compares the kingdom of heaven to a man that went out in the morning, and also at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours of the day, and hired labourers to work in his vineyard. * It is evident that the term hour, here stands for a noted epoch of the world, or the commencement of an important dispensation; and the day, stands for the world: for instance, in the morning of the creation, the Lord sent labourers into the vineyard; in the days of Noah and Abraham, He sent others into it; and also at the commencement of the Mosaic dispensation. At the opening of the Christian, which was the ninth hour, He had a great work to do; therefore, He sent many into the vineyard; but in the latter-days, which is the eleventh hour He will call many, and commission them to go to the nations, and preach the gospel of the kingdom. This eleventh hour, must certainly apply to an age, as late as the nineteenth century, from the fact, it is but one hour before the evening or time of recompense; or in other words, the elapse of the time from the eleventh hour to the time of the recompense, is very short in comparison to that of the others. Again It will be remembered, that three hours of time passed away between each time of calling except the latter. This does not a little favour the idea, that the Lord's work of the latter-days, will be a short one. All admit, that the time of reckoning and reward, will take place at the end of the day or the world, when Christ shall come and make an end of the present state of things, and put the saints in possession of the kingdom, and the greatness of it under the whole heavens. Therefore, I regard this parable as conclusive evidence, to sustain my position.
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* See Mat. xx chap.
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But I will now call the attention of the reader to the testimony of John the Revelator. -- He first saw the rise of the beasts, the saints overcome, and the prevalence of Babylon the Great; but as the prophetic vision rolled before his mind, and he penetrated futurity, he saw the time when the Lamb of God shall stand upon Mount Zion with an hundred and forty-four thousand of His saints. After this, he saw the manner in which this glorious event shall be brought about, which is as follows. "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, (or firmament) having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to Him, for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him, that made heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." * It is not the business of an angel to act the part of a priest on earth; therefore, the idea conveyed in the above, is that an angel was to appear with a commission to preach the gospel to all the world as a witness that the end or hour of God's judgment is at hand. I have not been a little amused at the various opinions of modern divines with regard to the meaning of this prophetic vision. -- Some suppose that it alludes to the foreign missionaries, others to the bible societies, or the translation of the bible into the languages of the heathen nations; but another celebrated writer contends that it will be fulfilled by the aerial flight of the missionaries under an advanced state of balloon navigation; but all I have to say about these opinions, is that they carry their own refutation with them, and that the writers should be commended for their fruitful imaginations. But I will venture to say, that the only sensible interpretation of this vision, is that the Lord made known to John, that at some future period, He would send an angel with the holy priesthood to commission His
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* Re. xiv, 6, 7.
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servants to go to all nations, and people, and preach the gospel to them in its original purity, and gather the honest in heart and good among men from the midst of Babylon, and thus prepare the way for the second advent of the Messiah. Again, if there was no other evidence in the scriptures, that there was to be an apostacy after the days of the apostles, this alone would be sufficient to convince any rational person of this fact: for this reason, the angel was to have the everlasting gospel to preach to all nations, tongues and people, consequently to every society, sect or denomination. But the strength of the evidence is seen in the following: if all Christendom, have legal authority to preach the gospel, and administer the ordinances of it, and are not in a state of apostacy, it would be superfluous for God to send an angel with it to preach to them after they had even legally obeyed it. It would be nonsense for the Lord to undertake to reveal a thing or principle, that the human family are already acquainted with, or to give authority to them that they already possess. To be plain, the Lord knew there would be a great falling away, and that the church would become so corrupt, that He would not acknowledge its authority; therefore, He disclosed to John that in His own due time, He would restore the priesthood in order that His great work may be accomplished. And mark, this gospel is for all people or every society; therefore, all the priests and ministers of the Christian world are to have the gospel preached to them, as a witness that the hour of God's judgment is at hand.
The reader can satisfy himself, that this prophetic vision alludes to the latter-day work, by an examination of the whole chapter from which it is extracted, and from which it will be seen, that the events that are to immediately follow after the appearance of the angel, have not yet transpired: for instance, first, it is said, that when the gospel shall be proclaimed, it shall be said, that the hour of God's judgment or the
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time of recompense is at hand. Paul speaking of the future, says; "Christ shall judge the world at His appearing and kingdom." Secondly, the destruction of Babylon the Great: this was not fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem, nor in the first century; for it is a settled point, that this Babylon did not rise or exist until several hundred years after Christ. Thirdly, the harvest of the earth or universal destruction of the wicked: it will be remembered that Christ said, "the harvest is the end of the world." Paul applies the term "end of the world," to the end of the Jewish or Mosaic economy; but I am certain that neither Christ, nor John, allude to this; for John was banished to the Island of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelation, more than twenty years after the destruction of Jerusalem; and the harvest of the earth was one of the things that the angel showed him, which was in the future, and which at once excludes the possibility of its being accomplished at the above destruction; hence, as we know, that it has been fulfilled at no time since, we must look for it in the future. Fourthly, about the time of the down fall of Babylon, and the harvest of the earth, those that have died in the faith of the Lord, are to be resurrected and rewarded; therefore, John was commanded to write thus: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours: and their works do follow them." Certainly, every rational person will admit that these events are in the future; consequently, it must be admitted that the appearance of the angel is a latterday work.
The following is illustrative of this subject: "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a
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loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth neither the sea, nor, the trees, till we have sealed the servants of God in their foreheads." *This is certainly most sublime and exquisite, yet directly to the point. John frequently mentions that he saw angels that had power to trouble the earth, and its inhabitants with plagues and destructions; and the four angels mentioned in the above, are represented as having a work of this description to perform. But just at the time they were ready to commence their work of plagues and destruction, the angel with the seal of God appeared, and cried with a loud voice, and commanded them to hold still, or to stay their work until the servants of God were sealed. Now it is evident, that this angel with the seal, and the one that was seen flying in the midst of heaven "having the everlasting gospel to preach," &c., is the same one; and the seal of God, is evidently the holy priesthood, and the gospel connected together. By the authority of the priesthood, as I have before explained, individuals are adopted into the family of God, and thus become fit temples for the reception of the Holy Spirit, by which the apostle says, "We are sealed unto the day of redemption." But by the means of the priesthood, in one sense of the word, the blessings of the gospel of peace are received; therefore, it is plain that the seal, which the angel had, that John saw, is the priesthood; for it is the power to preach the gospel, administer its ordinances, and by which the servants of God are sealed; or in other words, it is the sealing power. Again, if we regard it as a figure, it is a very good one; for the priesthood is conferred by the imposition of hands, and the members of the church are confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost in the same way.
Most certainly the foregoing scripture, is a prediction of
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* Re. vii, 1-3.
Ep. iv, 30.
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the restoration of the priesthood just in time for the honest in heart, and those who love the truth to be sealed, and prepared to meet Christ when He comes. John first enumerates a hundred and forty-four thousand that are to be sealed; after this, he saw another company which no man could number, which he says, "are to pass through great tribulation, and wash their robes, and make them pure in the blood of the Lamb." These are the church or people, the Lord will raise up to meet Him when He appears the second time.
The following corroborates the above: "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her, (that is, Babylon, which is mentioned in the preceding verses,) my people, that ye be not partakers' of her sins, and that ye receive not her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. * From this and the context, we learn that just previous, or at the time of the destruction or downfall of Babylon, the Lord is to raise up a people; or in other words, to call His people out from the sects and parties that compose Babylon the Great, and prepare them to receive Him as follows: "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and so the voice of' any waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying; Alleluia; for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, write, blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, these are the true sayings of God." This harmonizes with Christ's parable of the "marriage of the kings son," in which it is said, that servants were sent to bid men to come to the wedding feast.
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* Re. xviii, 4, 5.
Re. xix, 6-9.
See Mat. xxii, 1-14.
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It must be admitted, that the "marriage supper of the Lamb," is yet in the future; therefore, the sending of servants to bid guests to come to it, must be a latter-day work.
Now reader, I opine that no unprejudiced person can read the foregoing investigation without being convinced, that the most sanguine expectation of Christ and the apostles, was that there would first be a great "falling away" from the ancient order of the church; but that in the latter-times, the Lord would restore the priesthood, and cause His church to be reorganized, that the before mentioned work may be accomplished. Indeed, is not the evidence incontrovertible, that God made a firm decree that He would do this latter work? -- But we will now see what the prophets have to say about this important transaction.
Nothing could he more plain upon this subject, than the prophetic testimony of Daniel, which is recorded in the second chapter of his "Book." -- The reader will do well to examine the whole chapter; -- I allude to the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and Daniel's interpretation of it. -- The prophet opens the subject by saying to the king "There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter-days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these." "Thou, O king, sawest, and, behold, a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer
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thrashing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth." It will be seen from Daniel's interpretation of this, that the different metals of the image stand for noted kingdoms; and it is agreed upon by Daniel, and the learned, that the first which is represented by the gold was the Babylonian empire; the second, by the silver, was the Medo-Persian; the third, by the brass, the Greek or Macedonian; the fourth by the iron, the Roman. It is also agreed upon, that the feet and toes, which are a mixture of iron and clay, represent the various kingdoms that arose upon the ruins of Roman empire, or within the bounds of its dominion. Daniel in the seventh chapter of his "Book," settles this point in a very conclusive way. -- He describes the fourth universal empire, which every modern historian admits to be the Roman, by the figure of a beast which he saw that had ten horns. In the explanation, he says that the, ten horns are ten kings, and it will be remembered that in both Daniel's and John's writings, kings stand for kingdoms; therefore, I set it down as a settled point, that the Roman empire was to be divided into ten different kingdoms, and which are most certainly represented by the toes of the image.
Daniel explains the "stone which was cut out of the mountain without hands," to be a symbolical representation of the kingdom of God, which he says shall destroy all the above kingdoms, fill the whole earth, and stand forever. But now the question to be decided is, at what point of time, was this kingdom to be sat up; or in other words, at what time was this stone of the mountain to commence rolling? The majority of the Christian world hold forth that it commenced at the opening of the Christian dispensation; but the idea is so vague, so far-fetched, and in such direct hostility to what the prophet says, that certainly, no impartial person will for
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a moment receive it: for mark, it is said, the stone was to strike the feet or toes of the image first, or as Daniel explains it: "And in the days of these kings shall, the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." In the days of what kings, I ask, does this allude to? I reply, the ten kingdoms represented by the toes of the image; but they were not in existence as independent kingdoms, at the birth of Christ; or in other words, the feet and toes of the image were not formed at this period: for at this time the Roman empire was at the zenith of its glory, and was not broken up or divided, as above, until more than three hundred years after it; hence, if the stone smote the image in this age, the stroke must have been upon the legs, and not upon the feet as Daniel says.
These ten kingdoms have experienced several revolutions and changes; but the principal part, if not all of them, now exist as the modern kingdoms of Europe. The Government of the United States in one sense of the word, is the offspring of one, of these kingdoms. Indeed, the greatest portion of the emigrants to the New World emigrated from them; consequently, the toes of the image, to a certain extent, reach to this continent; therefore, I see no impropriety in the idea, that the kingdoms which the prophet says, the stone shall smite, are now in existence; and that if God should set the stone in motion, in this our day, it would not conflict with any scripture; but be in exact fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy.
But we will admit for a moment, that the stone commenced rolling at the onset of the Christian era, and see what a curious dilemma we shall place Daniel in, and how senseless our reasoning must necessarily be. First, according to Daniel, this kingdom was to smite the toes and feet of
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the image first; but it could not do this; for as I have already observed, the feet and toes were not formed until more than three hundred years after this date. Secondly, it is said, this kingdom shall not be destroyed or left to other people, but shall stand forever. Here again we are compelled to join issue, with not only Daniel, but many of the prophets, and apostles: for they have positively predicted, as I have before shown, that there would be a general apostacy or "falling away" between the first and second advent of Christ. Indeed, I have before proved to a demonstration, that the Christian world are in a state apostacy and that the kingdom of God has been disorganized; therefore, if we admit that the stone commenced its motion as above, we must also admit that it has been in a manner annihilated. Furthermore, the kingdom that was organized in the days of the apostles, was left to other people; or in other words, a popish hierarchy arose upon its ruins. Thirdly, this stone was to beat fine, or destroy the kingdoms represented by the image, and may I not say, all the kingdoms of the world, so that but one should be left, which is the kingdom of God. And admitting, that it commenced as is before stated, we will now see what progress it has made. The church apparently prospered during the first and second centuries, and the number of its members was greatly increased; after this, the work of apostacy gained ground more rapidly, till at length, the church went into the wilderness, lost its original decorations or gifts and blessings; the Catholic hierarchy arose upon its ruins, which for the time being we will say is the stone of the mountain; but as we trace its course through succeeding ages, we discover that instead of its beating fine all the kingdoms of the world, it took a place in the rank of temporal kingdoms, waged war with some, built up and supported others, and was itself sustained or supported by several of those ten kingdoms; but this is not the only difficulty that
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we are getting the prophet into, -- It continued its course for a while; but contrary to what he says or expected, a barrier happened to be in the way which rent it in twain, (I here allude to the separation of the Greek church from the Latin;) but it partially recovered itself from the shock, and although somewhat maimed, it pursued its course; but alas! it was again forced against an obstacle, which concussion split or rent it into separate parts, and some of these parts were ultimately fractured and torn into atoms; or to be plain, after the famous reformation, the Protestant societies were divided into scores of conflicting sects or factions, and in several instances with them, and also with the Catholics, church and state have been, and are now united, and that too, with the very kingdoms that Daniel says shall be destroyed; and what is still more singular, John the Revelator speaking of those ten kingdoms, says they shall make war with Christ when He comes in Power and in His glory. And it certainly, would be almost an impossibility for them to wage war, without the churches being more or less concerned in it. Indeed, I might enumerate many more difficulties, that we would plunge the prophet into, if we should fix the time for the stone to be set in motion at the commencement of the Christian dispensation; but I will forbear, lest I weary the patience of the reader.
Now the only idea that will in every respect harmonize with what the prophet says, is that the kingdoms, which the toes of the image represent, are now in existence, and that the kingdom of God indicated by the stone of the mountain, is a latter-day work. -- But now for the particular application.
The church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, contend that God has sent His angel with the priesthood, which has been conferred upon some of the leading men of the society, and by this means the kingdom of God has been legally organized. We also contend, that America is the land upon which this kingdom was to be first established; and from
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whence the servants of God shall go to all the world, and proclaim the fulness of the everlasting gospel. How exactly this corresponds with Nebuchadnezzar's dream. -- The head of this image was located in Asia; but his feet and toes in Europe; and when we consider that the American nations, are the offspring of the European kingdoms, may I not say, that the toes reach even to this land; hence, here is the place for the stone to be set in motion: and remember, the course of the stone, is to be exactly to the reverse from that of the growth of the image from head to feet. But the force and consistency of the above, will be seen from our remarks hereafter upon the xviii. chap. of Isaiah. -- But perhaps a little explanation as to the manner in which this kingdom was to be established, will be serviceable to the reader.
I have before set forth the manner in which the kingdom of God was organized or established in the days of the apostles; but the Lord foresaw, that it would be disorganized; but He also foretold, that in His own due time, He would re-establish it in order that His great work may be carried into effect. But says one, if this kingdom represented by the stone, is only a reorganization of the one that previously existed, wherein is the impropriety of saying that it was set up at the first appearance of Christ? I answer, that God has had a kingdom on earth, at intervals, ever since the beginning of the world; consequently, the one of the apostolic age, was in a great degree, only a reorganization of one that existed before; therefore, Daniel must not be understood to allude to something entirely new; but to a particular, or specified time when God was to permanently establish His kingdom so that it shall never be destroyed or disorganized. The manner in which this stone is to strike the image; or in other words, the affect that the kingdom of God, will have upon the kingdoms of the world, seems to me to be as follows. This kingdom was to be organized according to the
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example set forth in the New Testament, and of course, at first be disconnected with territory; but as it is a time for the people of God to gather together, in order to prepare for the appearance of Christ, the officers of it, or the Lord's ministers, will go to all the nations of the earth, and especially the kingdoms of Europe, to proclaim the gospel; and they will gather out from them the honest in heart, and sincere lovers of the truth; or to use a favourite maxim of Christ, they will gather out the salt or savers of the earth. This will increase the magnitude of the church, and gradually weaken the kingdoms of the world: for there will not be righteousness enough left among them, to move them from destruction; therefore, the Lord will let loose upon them the arrows of His judgements, and in His hot displeasure vex them so that nation after nation, shall feel the force of His avenging power, and tremble, and ultimately fall to ruin. In the meanwhile, the stone of the mountain will increase in magnitude; the Jews will be awakened at this, take the warning, and flee to Jerusalem, and the land of their fathers, to await the awful crisis. The remaining nations will be alarmed at all this, and consequently, will wage war against them, and succeed in rallying their forces around Jerusalem: at this moment, the heavens will be unveiled, the Son of God shall appear, and save His people, and destroy His enemies, or as John says: "These (ten kingdoms) shall make war with the Lamb and the Lamb shall overcome them: for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with Him, are called, and chosen, and faithful." * Thus the stone of the mountain, will beat the image, and make it fine like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, and no place shall be found for it. Then Christ will destroy all the regal power of the political kingdoms of the world, subject the earth to himself, and connect territory with His kingdom, which shall
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* Re. xvii, 14.
116 HISTORY OF THE PRIESTHOOD.
then fill the whole earth; or in other words, the saints shall possess territory, or inherit the earth; at which time it will be said, the kingdoms of this world, have become the kingdom of Christ. Thus the Millennium, the sabbath of creation, or rest for the people of God, will commence.
Daniel beautifully describes this happy period as follows: "I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before him. And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." In the sequel he says: "But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever." "I beheld the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him." * From this we discover that this latter-day kingdom, was not to be set up until near the close of the reign of the little horn, or the kingdom of popes; and it is also evident that the kingdom of God here alluded to, is the same as the one that is represented by the stone of the mountain. Again, all that Daniel, says about the kingdom of God, perfectly agrees with what John says about the angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to all nations, and people; and therefore, it is evident that they both allude to the same thing.
__________
* Da. vii chap.
HISTORY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 117
I will now invite the attention of the reader to the xviii chap. of Isaiah, which certainly contains an account of a most pleasing view that he had, of not only the establishment of the before mentioned kingdom; but of the place or land upon which it was to be commenced, which he thus describes: "Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying go ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to at people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! All the inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when He lifteth up an ensign upon the mountains; and when He bloweth the trumpet hear ye."
Now any person who is acquainted with the Hebrew language, knows that an improvement in the translation of the above can he made with propriety: -- It should read thus: "Ho! to the land shadowing with (or in the symbol of,) wings, that lies beyond the rivers of Cush. This by no means changes the sense; but reduces it to the modern style of phraseology, which I trust will greatly assist the reader in understanding the true meaning of the prophet.
But now the question is, what land does the prophet address these words to? In order to correctly come at this, we must first consider that the prophet resided at Jerusalem, or somewhere near that city; secondly, to find the land that he speaks of, it is necessary to be certain as to the location of the land of Cush or Ethiopia.
The general name that the Jews gave to all the north-part of Africa was, "the land of Cusheam." Ethiopia proper, is situated south, and south-west of, Egypt, and is now called Abbysinia; but according to Herodotus, the Ethiopian nations were very numerous; and it is evident that the Greeks, and Romans, called the most of. the African nations Ethiopians.
118 HISTORY OF THE PRIESTHOOD.
The writer of the celebrated voyage of Hanno, (which is to be found in Mr. H. Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography,) a Carthagenian navigator who attempted to sail round Africa, gives an account of Ethiopians near the Straits of Gibraltar, or Pillars of Hercules; also that he sailed twelve days along the western coast of Africa, which he says, was then inhabited by Ethiopians, who were very numerous. This coast in now called the coast of Morocco; hence, the ancient Moors were called Ethiopians or Cushites. Indeed, after a careful research into the history of this people, I have come to the following conclusion. -- Cush was the son of Ham, and his progeny, soon after the flood, settled somewhere in the neighborhood of the river Euphrates; but at a very early period, some of them emigrated to Africa, and at first, located somewhere about the head waters of the Nile. According to Josephus, these Ethiopians were a powerful nation in the days of Moses; and also, that they inhabited the country that lies south, and south-west of Egypt; but they were a warlike people and had a great desire for conquest; hence, they soon spread over the north part of Africa: and in consequence of their inhabiting the greatest part of this continent, which was then known to the civilized nations, the Jews called it the land of Cush or Cusheam; but the Greeks, and Romans gave it the general name of Ethiopia, and the people they called Ethiopians, the same as we give the inhabitants of all Europe, the general name of Europeans; although, they are divided into many nations; therefore, it is evident that in the days of Isaiah, the north part of Africa was called Cush, and the rivers that the prophet alludes to, are those that flow into the Mediterranean sea along the coast of the Barbary states; and also those that flow into the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of Morocco. Now I presume that from the foregoing, the reader will readily discover that the prophet alludes to a land that lies directly west of Jerusalem, which
HISTORY OF THE PRIESTHOOD. 119
course strikes the Atlantic somewhere on the coast of Morocco; but still beyond this, is the land in the symbol of wings, which must certainly be America; for this reason, no other land will answer the description of the prophet. Indeed, if the prophet does not speak of this land, then he has wrote a mess of incomprehensible nonsense.
But there is also another view, that may be taken of this subject, which perhaps will reflect new light upon it. The word -| |-| _| Nahar not only means river, but has another signification, which is, light or knowledge. In Isaiah's day, the Carthagenians were the greatest navigators of the world, and it is asserted, that they considered as exclusively theirs, all the Mediterranean sea, west of a line stretched across from Carthago to Sicily, and that they captured all the vessels, and put to death the crews, of all other nations that were found navigating within these forbidden precincts. They were also the first that navigated about the Pillars of Hercules, the south western coast of Europe, and the western coast of Africa. In a word, in these ancient times they had the most extensive knowledge of the sea, coasts, and islands, in these parts, of any other nation; therefore, as the word Nahar signifies light or intelligence as well as river, perhaps, the prophet alludes to a land that is beyond the extreme knowledge of the Ethiopian or Cushite navigators. However, either of the above explanations, makes the idea perfectly plain, that the prophet points to America.
Again, North and South America, as will be seen from a miniature drawing of them on a map, in form and shape, very much resemble the wings of a bird; hence, it is a land in the symbol of wings, and in this respect, no other part of the globe will answer this description of the prophet. Some writers however, contend that the prophet alludes to the eagle with outspread wings upon the American ensign or flag;
120 HISTORY OF THE PRIESTHOOD.
but let this be as it may, the case is equally plain if we take it either way.
"That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, go ye swift messengers of the nations," &c. From this it appears, that ambassadors or the servants of the Lord, are to be sent from this land to the nations of the earth; but the idea of their being transported over the sea in "vessels of Bulrushes," is a novel affair indeed; however, it is probable that the prophet did not intend to convey any such idea. The Hebrew word gomey which is here rendered bulrushes |
hold" and to "see into the present more deeply."
During the interview in her small Jerusalem apartment, Smith wore lipstick, a purple dress, encrusted glasses, a large blue necklace and a smaller one with a Star of David. She showed old passport pictures of her bearded former self, before her transition. She declined to discuss her relationship with her children and grandchildren.
Smith still leads a lifestyle of a devout Orthodox Jew, eating only kosher food, refraining from travel on Shabbat and praying at the Western Wall — albeit in the section reserved for women.
In the conservative Middle East, Israel is famously tolerant of gays and transgenders. Gays have openly served in Israel's military and parliament. The Supreme Court grants a variety of family rights to gay couples, and gays, lesbians and a transsexual are among the country's most popular musicians and actors. Last year, the country opened a memorial to gays who died in the Nazi Holocaust.
The challenges of living a transgender life have gained awareness through the popularity of Amazon Prime's series "Transparent." The show, which focuses on a man in the process of transitioning to a woman who comes out to his adult children, won two Golden Globes earlier this month.
Despite this tolerance, the conservative world of Orthodox Judaism is not always so accepting, making Smith's openness about her story even more striking.
Shmuel Pappenhym, an ultra-Orthodox educator and commentator, said there is no mention in Jewish texts of the issue of gender changes "because it's a modern thing." He said that many ultra-Orthodox consider it an "abomination" and prefer not to think about it because it is difficult for them to fathom.
But Rabbi Dalia Marx, an expert of liturgy and biblical literature at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which is affiliated with the liberal Reform movement, said gender stereotypes are not always clear in the Bible.
"The liberal streams (of Judaism) acknowledge the fact that maybe some people are born in the wrong skin, and they have the right and maybe the duty to search for their own identity," she said. "Then the Jewish religion and Jewish leaders have to help them find their way into this new reality that they created for themselves."
Chabad did not immediately return a message from the AP seeking comment.
Smith said she has no regrets about her decision.
"I couldn't change my soul... There is no surgery for your soul like a heart transplant," she said. "But you can get a different body, and thank God today. One-hundred years ago, I don't know what I would have done."Posted: May 6, 2016 by hasherezade
Last updated: October 22, 2016
7ev3n ransomware appeared at the beginning of this year. In addition to typical features of encrypting files, it was blocking access to the system using a fullscreen window, and was difficult to remove. It also became famous for demanding an unrealistic price of 13 bitcoins.
At that time the product looked like in early stage of development, however, the code was showing a potential to evolve into something smarter in the future. Indeed – the authors decided to actively work on making improvements. Currently we are facing an outbreak of a new campaign with an improved version of this ransomware – this time named 7ev3n-HONE$T. Probably the new name refers to the added feature of decrypting test files before the payment – as a proof of the authors’ “honesty” in giving files back.
In this post we will take a look at its evolution.
[UPDATE] See also: decryptors for 7ev3n ransomware
Analyzed samples
7ev3n (old edition):
8434eea972e516a35f4ac59a7f868453 – main executable a3dfd4a7f7c334cb48c35ca8cd431071 – system.exe ce4120c6b29bc399bcd9b735d3130667 – UAC.exe 64 bit (packed with UPX) 18ba27b27881086d2d9f847b078fac84 – UAC.exe (unpacked) 7a681d8650d2c28d18ac630c34b2014e – UAC.exe – 32 bit (packed with UPX) 5370fc9dcb28f7105c3a4aebaae3f250 – UAC.exe (unpacked)
– main executable
7ev3n-HONE$T (new edition):
96a3bb6b10e4c6f614c783a7e42fdbcc – main executable 32a56ca79f17fea432250ee704432dfc – payload <- main focus of this analysis 5b5e2d894cdd5aeeed41cc073b1c0d0f – payload 2 (packed with UPX) d004776ff5f77a2d2cab52232028ddeb – payload 2 (unpacked)
52517f419e78041f8e211428b8820dfb – main executable d3609b3179b164b0af6845226ac05f70 – payload
Behavioral analysis
73v3n – old version
Once executed, 7ev3n ransomware was installing itself, deleting the clicked copy and silently encrypting files. The first symptom that something was wrong was a notification that User Account Control is going to be turned off, and the system needed to be restarted:
The malware was not waiting for the next restart, but executing it by its own. Shortly after another notification the system was going to shut down:
On the next reboot, the attack of that version of 7ev3n ransomware was announced by a big window, covering the entire desktop and blocking access to the system. It was difficult to bypass. In order to regain the control over the system, the user needed to put some special effort (guidance has been provided, i.e. by BleepingComputer).
The ransomware installed itself in %LOCALAPPDATA% – the main file is dropped under the name system.exe:
In addition, it dropped one more executable: uac.exe – for User Account Controll bypass, using a well-known trick with Cabinet files (Akagi) and two bat scripts: del.bat (responsible for deleting the original file) and bcd.bat – responsible for disabling backup. Content of bcd.bat demonstrated below:
bcdedit /set {current} bootems no bcdedit /set {current} advancedoptions off bcdedit /set {current} optionsedit off bcdedit /set {current} bootstatuspolicy IgnoreAllFailures bcdedit /set {current} recoveryenabled off del %0
Encryption process
This ransomware is capable of encrypting files off-line.
Encrypted files had their name changed to <number in directory>.R5A.
Patterns found in the encrypted files (R5A extension) look like two different algorithms have been used for it’s different chunks.
square.bmp : left – original, right encrypted with 7ev3n
Every file was encrypted with a different key.
73v3n – HONE$T
The new edition comes with an improved interface. The most important difference is that the authors gave up the idea of blocking the full desktop of the infected computer. Although the window with ransom demand cannot be closed, it is still possible to access other programs. Moreover, the GUI itself has been enriched with features allowing for navigation and getting more information. Similarly to other ransomware, it provides a possibility to decrypt a few files for the test.
In the new edition the price of decryption is only 1 BTC (in some samples even 0.5) – that is a huge difference in comparison to 13 BTC from the previous campaign. The new ransom note offers various models of payment (i.e possibility to decrypt half of the files for 60% of the original price) and a 20% discount in case of paying full sum at once. As we can see, the authors learned to be more user-friendly and made a step towards “honesty”.
Installation folder and dropped files are different than in the previous version (sample 1 BTC):
However, this feature depends rather on the particular campaign – in some of the new samples the installation path is like in the previous edition (sample 0.5 BTC)
This time, the main executable is dropped either as conlhost.exe or as system.exe (depending on the sample). Also, in the same folder, the ransomware creates 2 files with lists of paths:
files – containing all the encrypted files
– containing all the encrypted files testdecrypt – containing files that have been chosen as testfiles that can be decrypted for free
The dropped executable have some unique ID appended to it’s end. It is an array of 34 random characters, with ‘*’ used as a prefix/suffix – format: ‘*[\x00-\xff]{34}*’. This key is same on every run for a particular machine.
Example: Left – the sample before being run. Right – the sample that was run and installed on the system:
Persistence is based on a Run registry key:
In addition to displaying the GUI with ransom note it also drops a TXT file with contact information, that can be used if – for any reason – the main windows didn’t manage to pop-up:
The victim ID is the same after every execution on the same machine, so we can be sure that it is not random (it may be generated from some local identifiers, i.e. GUID).
Encryption process
The new version also can encrypt files off-line (no key needs to be downloaded from the server).
Encrypted files had their name changed to A<number in directory>.R5A (or, for some of the new samples <number in directory>.R5A –just like in the old version). The new feature is that some randomly selected files are given a different extension:.R4A.
Just like in the to the previous edition, patterns found in the encrypted files (R5A extension) look like two different algorithms have been used for its different chunks.
square.bmp : first – original, second- encrypted with 7ev3n-HONE$T, third – encrypted with old 7ev3n.
Completely different algorithm has been deployed on the files with R4A extension (introduced newly in 7ev3n-HONE$T)
We can see the patterns of the original file reflected in it’s encrypted content. Such an effect depicts, that file could have been encrypted by some block cipher – but as well it can be a custom, XOR-based algorithm.
Also in this version, every file with R5A extension is encrypted with a different key.
Experiment
For the purpose of experiments I prepared set of short TXT files, as given below:
They have been encrypted as following:
1.txt
16A.txt
long_filename.txt
The file 16M.txt has not been encrypted at all.
We can see that each end every encrypted file starts with a character ‘M’. After that, there is an encrypted content – it’s length is the same like the original. However, the same plaintext does not produce the same encrypted content (compare 1.txt and 16A.txt).
The encrypted content is suffixed with a separator ‘**’ and then the encrypted filename is stored (it’s original length is preserved). The last character is always ‘\x0A’. Format of the encrypted file can be defined as:
M<encrypted content>**<encrypted filename>\x0A
Files with content length shorter or equal 8 are excluded from the encryption. Similarly, excluded are files which content begins with ‘M’. More details about why it happens, we will find by analyzing the code.
Network communication
Although the internet connection is not required in the process of encryption, 7even is capable of communicating with C&C for the purpose of collecting information about the attacked machines.
During beaconing, various information about the current infection are sent. As usual, the victim ID (the same that is mentioned in the ransom note), wallet ID (hardcoded in the binary), operating system, etc.
Sending statistics from the encryption:
Inside 7ev3n (the old version)
The techniques used by 7ev3n are not very advanced, but yet it is worth to take a look.
Analyzed files:
system.exe (a3dfd4a7f7c334cb48c35ca8cd431071) – main file
– main file uac.exe (7a681d8650d2c28d18ac630c34b2014e)– upx-packed payload
The main file (system.exe) comes with UAC bypassing tools embedded (32 and 64 bit version – the one that is deployed is chosen appropriately for the system). Among strings we can see list of decimal numbers, that need to be simply converted into ASCII.
Beginning of the new PE in strings of the file:
77 90 144 0 3 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 255 255 0 0 184 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 64 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 [...]
We can convert it easily into a binary (i.e by this script) getting as a result 64 bit version of the same UAC bypassing tool (original is packed by UPX unpacked version available here).
Registry manipulation
Adding a registry key indicating that files are encrypted:
REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion" /v "crypted" /t REG_SZ /d 1 /f
Manipulating registry keys – i.e. in order to block the screen:
REG ADD \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Run\" /v \"System\" /t REG_SZ /d \" REG ADD \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\" /v \"rgd_bcd_condition\" /t REG_SZ /d 1 /f /reg:64 REG ADD \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System\" /v \"EnableLUA\" /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f /reg:64 REG ADD \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\Winlogon\" /v \"Shell\" /t REG_SZ /d \"explorer.exe\" /f /reg:64 REG DELETE \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Keyboard Layout\" /v \"Scancode Map\" /f /reg:64 REG DELETE \"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Run\" /v \"System\" /f /reg:64
Inside 7ev3n-HONE$T
The first layer is a packing: a simple crypter/FUD with an icon added. It’s role is deception: delivering malicious payload in a way unnoticed by antimalware tools, as well as making it’s analysis harder.
After defeating the FUD layer we get the first payload (32a56ca79f17fea432250ee704432dfc). Strings and imported functions are not obfuscated. We can find the path to the project inside the binary – it suggests that we are dealing with the variant without UAC bypass (in contrary to the previous version, that had it implemented):
C:\Users\admin\Desktop
ew version with NO UAC\Release\Win32Project9.pdb
Inside this payload we can find yet another, UPX packed executable: 5b5e2d894cdd5aeeed41cc073b1c0d0f. It is also not very well protected and after unpacking it with standard UPX application we get another executable (d004776ff5f77a2d2cab52232028ddeb) with all the strings and API calls visible.
Execution flow
First execution is used just for the purpose of installation.
When the sample is deployed, it makes it’s copy into the predefined installation folder (destination may vary for various samples). It drops a batch script that is supposed to delete the initial sample
The unique, hardware-based ID is written at the end of the executable that has been copied to the destination path:
Below – the same key – at the end of the installed sample:
In the meanwhile, of the installation, malware sends the beacon to a hardcoded URL.
Then, the new sample is deployed and the initial sample terminates and gets deleted.
The installed sample is supposed to run the second phase – that encrypt the files. Decision which execution path should be deployed (installation, encrypion, or GUI is based on the environment check.
Registry manipulation
Adding a registry key indicating that files are encrypted:
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE" /v "crypted" /t REG_SZ /d "1"
Manipulating other registry keys – related with persistance, status of decrypting etc.
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v "allkeeper" /t REG_SZ /d "" /f REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE" /v "testdecrypt" /t REG_SZ /d 1 REG DELETE "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /v "allkeeper" /f REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE" /v "Decrypt50" /t REG_SZ /d 1
What is attacked?
This ransomware encrypts local drives as well as mapped network shares.
Encrypted extensions are hardcoded in the binary as UNICODE strings:
Summary of all the file extensions that are attacked:
ai arw txt doc docm docx zip rar xlsx xls xlsb xlsm jpg jpe jpeg bmp eql sql adp mdf mdb odb odm odp ods pds pdt pdf dt cf cfu mxl epf kdbx erf vrp grs geo st pff mft efd 3dm 3ds rib ma max lwo lws m3d mb obj x3d c4d fbx dgn dwg 4db 4dl 4mp abs adn a3d aft ahd alf ask awdb azz bdb bib bnd bok btr bak cdb ckp clkw cma crd dad daf db3 dbk dbt dbv dbx dcb dct dcx ddl df1 dmo dnc dp1 dqy dsk dsn dta dtsx dxl eco ecx edb emd fcd fic fid fil fm5 fol fp3 fp4 fp5 fp7 fpt fzb fzv gdb gwi hdb his ib idc ihx itdb itw jtx kdb lgc maq mdn mdt mrg mud mwb s3m myd ndf ns2 ns3 ns4 nsf nv2 nyf oce oqy ora orx owc owg oyx p96 p97 pan pdb pdm phm pnz pth pwa qpx qry qvd rctd rdb rpd rsd sbf sdb sdf spq sqb stp str tcx tdt te tmd trm udb usr v12 vdb vpd wdb wmdb xdb xld xlgc zdb zdc cdr cdr3 ppt pptx abw act aim ans apt asc ase aty awp awt aww bad bbs bdp bdr bean bna boc btd cnm crwl cyi dca dgs diz dne docz dot dotm dotx dsv dvi dx eio eit emlx epp err etf etx euc faq fb2 fbl fcf fdf fdr fds fdt fdx fdxt fes fft flr fodt gtp frt fwdn fxc gdoc gio gpn gsd gthr gv hbk hht hs htc hwp hz idx iil ipf jis joe jp1 jrtf kes klg knt kon kwd lbt lis lit lnt lp2 lrc lst ltr ltx lue luf lwp lyt lyx man map mbox me mell min mnt msg mwp nfo njx now nzb ocr odo odt ofl oft ort ott p7s pfs pfx pjt prt psw pu pvj pvm pwi pwr qdl rad rft ris rng rpt rst rt rtd rtf rtx run rzk rzn saf sam scc scm sct scw sdm sdoc sdw sgm sig sla sls smf sms ssa stw sty sub sxg sxw tab tdf tex text thp tlb tm tmv tmx tpc tvj u3d u3i unx uof uot upd utf8 utxt vct vnt vw wbk wcf wgz wn wp wp4 wp5 wp6 wp7 wpa wpd wpl wps wpt wpw wri wsc wsd wsh wtx xdl xlf xps xwp xy3 xyp xyw ybk yml zabw zw abm afx agif agp aic albm apd apm apng aps apx art asw bay bm2 bmx brk brn brt bss bti c4 cal cals can cd5 cdc cdg cimg cin cit colz cpc cpd cpg cps cpx c2 c2 rdds dg dib djv djvu dm3 dmi vue dpx wire drz dt2 dtw dvl ecw eip exr fal fax fpos fpx gcdp gfb ggr gif gih gim spr scad gpd gro grob hdp hdr hpi i3d icn icon iiq info ipx iwi j2c j2k jas jb2 jbmp jbr jfif jia jng jp2 jpg2 jps jpx tf jwl jxr kdc kdi kdk kic kpg lbm ljp mac mbm mef mnr mos mpf mpo mrxs myl ncr nct nlm nrw oc3 oc4 oc5 oci omf oplc af2 af3 asy cdmm cdmt cdt cgm cmx cnv csy cv5 cvg cvi cvs cvx cwt cxf dcs ded dhs dpp drw dxb dxf egc emf ep eps epsf fh10 fh11 fh3 fh4 fh5 fh6 fh7 fh8 fif fig fmv ft10 ft11 ft7 ft8 ft9 ftn fxg gem glox hpg hpgl hpl idea igt igx imd ink lmk mgcb mgmt mt9 mgmx mmat mat otg ovp ovr pcs pfv pl plt vrml psid rdl scv sk1 sk2 ssk stn svf svgz sxd tlc tne ufr vbr vec vml vsd vsdm vsdx stm vstx wpg vsm xar yal orf ota oti ozb ozj ozt pal pano pap pbm pc1 pc2 pc3 pcd pdd pe4 pef pfi pgf pgm pi1 pi2 pi3 pic pict pix pjpg pm pmg pni pnm pntg pop pp4 pp5 ppm prw psdx pse psp ptg ptx pvr pxr pz3 pza pzp pzs z3d qmg ras rcu rgb rgf ric riff rix rle rli rpf rri rsb rsr rw2 rwl s2mv sci sep sfc sfw skm sld sob spa spe sph spj spp sr2 srw ste sumo sva save t2b tb0 tbn tfc tg4 thm tjp tm2 tn tpi ufo uga vda vff vpe vst wb1 wbc wbd wbm wbmp wbz wdp webp pb wpe wvl x3f ysp zif cdr4 cdr6 ddoc css pptm raw cpt pcx pdn png psd tga tiff tif xpm ps sai wmf ani fl fb3 fli mng smil svg mobi swf html csv xhtm
How does the encryption work?
7ev3n-HONE$T encrypts files in a loop, one by one. It completely changes their names – but at the same time it stores the previous name (as we know, files that are decrypted have their names recovered).
The executable comes with 3 hardcoded strings, that are used in the process of encryption. Their exact role will be described further.
Every encrypted file have it’s content prefixed with ‘M’. This character is also checked in order to distinguish, if the file has been encrypted. If the ‘M’ was found as a first character of the buffer, the file will not be encrypted:
Authors left a log in the code, leaving no doubt about their intentions, that this character is used as an indicator of the encrypted file:
Of course such a check is not giving a precise detection and if it happens that we have a file starting from ‘M’ it will not be encrypted.
This ransomware produce encrypted files by two ways – they can be distinguished by different extensions:.R4A or.R5A.
After deobfuscation we were able to reconstruct both algorithms and notice, that they are custom and not employing any strong cryptography.
R4A algorithm turned out to be an XOR with a hardcoded key:
ANOASudgfjfirtj4k504iojm5io5nm59uh5vob5mho5p6gf2u43i5hojg4mf4i05j6g594cn9mjg6h
R5A algorithm is also XOR-based, but not that simple – It have several execution steps:
A hardcoded string is scrambled and expanded to a predefined length (in analyzed samples it was 0x10C). The algorithm used for scrambling differs from sample to sample. The scrambled key (0x10C byte long) is XOR-ed with the original file path. The key created in the previous step is used to XOR file content The XORed content is divided to 4 parts, that are processed by 2 different XOR-based algorithms. First and Third quarter are processed by algorithm I. Second and fourth – by algorithm II. (That’s why we have seen 4 ‘strips’ on the visualized content).
Full reconstruction of the used algorithms you can see here.
Adding appropriate extension to the file name:
After encrypting the content, some more data is appended to it. At the beginning – the previously mentioned ‘M’ character – as an indicator that file is encrypted. At the end – a string “**” – as a separator after which the encrypted file name of the particular file is stored.
Filename is also encrypted in a very simple way – by XOR with one of the hardcoded keys.
for R4A:
ANOASudgfjfirtj4k504iojm5io5nm59uh5vob5mho5p6gf2u43i5hojg4mf4i05j6g594cn9mjg6h
for R5A:
ASIBVbhciJ5hv6bjyuwetjykok7mbvtbvtiJ5h6jg54ifj0655iJ5hok7mbok7mbvtvtv6bjfib56j45fkmbvtiJ5hv6bokok7mb
The encrypted content is saved first to the original file. After that the file is moved under the new name:
Conclusion
7ev3n ransomware has been around for quite a while, but till now not many details about its internals have been revealed. It turned out to have pretty unexpected features. Although a lot has been told about weakness of solutions that are based on custom encryption, there are still some ransomware authors going for it. That’s why it is worth not making any rushed decisions in paying the ransom. Sometimes the code is obfuscated and finding out how it really works takes some time for analysts – but it doesn’t mean that the encryption is really unbreakable.
Work on the full version of the decryptor is in progress. For now you can see the proof-of-concept script (tested on this variant): https://github.com/hasherezade/malware_analysis/tree/master/7ev3n
AppendixThis was my second time training with Dieselnoi, so it was a continuation of some of the foundations he laid out for me last time. He focused more on strategy and tactics in this session. The first time we met he showed me how to use kicks and teeps in the middle of the ring to cut off space, get your opponent in the ropes, and then grab in the clinch and go nuts with the knees. If you’re a clincher or knee fighter, you want your opponent on the ropes. This time he elaborated on that tactic, still working to cut off the ring and get your opponent into the ropes, but he explained how the first two rounds (which aren’t really scoring rounds in Thai scoring) you just cut off the ring and block, mostly. Let your opponent bring their weapons out and you just chase them down and stymie their attacks. Then, when the scoring rounds start, you’ve already worn them down a little bit and that’s when you bring out your weapons: teep and kick to move them into the ropes, then grab and knee.
You can watch and read notes on my first session with Dieselnoi here
my first 10 minutes with Dieselnoi above, the full 54 minutes is available with audio commentary for my Patreon Supporters, you can watch it here.
2:30 pulling turning in clinch:
Here Dieselnoi shows me how to wait for the knee from your opponent, when they’ll be on one leg, and then pulling them and turning them to a terrific off-balancing and then throwing your own knee. It’s partly anticipating the knee of your opponent based on natural rhythms (as you gain experience you know when someone will throw a knee, which is usually right after you’ve thrown a knee, so you can even bait them into it) and then timing your turn; but it’s also about arm position. He shows how holding the shoulders or the neck is a very solid, stationary position that is meant to lock your opponent into place so you can throw straight knees. If you are clinching with your arms, basically controlling from the insides of your opponent’s elbows, that’s better for turning – you can still have one hand on the neck for better control, but even two arms against two arms is a turning position more than a kneeing position. He keeps his stance wide even when kneeing so that it’s hard to turn him on knees, which is basically a defense against exactly what he’s teaching as offense here.
2:50 leg back for knee: When practicing the Dieselnoi Knees on the corner of the ring, he’s very insistant on the stance being wide and the foot of your striking knee stepping back before being thrown. This is very commonly taught, as it adds power to the knee. What’s unique, in my experience, to Dieselnoi’s approach is how insistant he is on the squared off, bow-legged stance in addition to the foot back. It’s for balance as well as power.
5:30 knees in clinch: Here Dieselnoi is showing how to throw the knees in the clinch off of steps and turns.
6:40 double plum: The double inside lock position isn’t commonly achieved in real Muay Thai fights. Dieselnoi got it, eventually, in a lot of his fights which is partly why he was so devestating. But for most fights where both fighters know how to clinch relatively well, getting the double lock is very difficult. It’s probably the most dominant position possible in clinching. But once you have it, because it may not last very long, you have to really capitalize on it, which is what Dieselnoi is showing here. Just a few of those pulls and knees and you’re done.
7:20 correcting wide stance: Feet can tend to narrow out when throwing knees or trying to get high-lock positions, which is a dangerous foot position that will get you thrown. So Dieselnoi is insistant on the wide stance, for balance and power.
9:17 repeat left knees as set up: This is my favorite. This is when he shows how to throw the left side to open up and then the right side for power. When Dieselnoi gets going on his knees, with his energy and speed, he’s like a goddamn thresher! It’s unreal. Do it like this.
Dieselnoi goes through a variety of techniques in these first 10 minutes. He starts out with the ring strategy, where we’re moving around on the floor. When we get into the ring he shows a bit more of how to position the hands in the clinch, so when your arms are on the shoulders or neck the opponent is really stagnant and you drive straight knees in (he doesn’t do those chicken-wing side knees at all really), but if you have the insides of your opponent’s elbows, which is a kind of longer range grip, you use that position to turn your opponent when they’re trying to score. But since his game plan is to get that lock on the neck/shoulder, you have to bring your foot back before driving the straight knee in. Otherwise you have no room for power. Bringing that leg back is essential for power and keeping your stance wide and even is essential for balance, so your opponent can’t turn you off of your knees when you’re on one leg.
One of the most important, and my favorite, thing that he worked with me on is the strategy of using your left side (or whatever your front side is) to set up and move your opponent to the perfect spot, then throwing your right side (or power side) as the finisher. It makes perfect sense when you apply it to boxing: jab, jab, jab, cross. But for Muay Thai it was something of a revelation to me. Especially because if you’re Orthodox and facing another Orthodox fighter, your opponent’s right side (meaning your left side attack) is open all the time. If you tag that enough they’ll change their position and then their other side opens up to your power side. Double-wham!
This is the first 10 minutes of an hour-long session, the entirety of which is available to my patrons through Patreon, which you can access for only $1 a month.
If you are already a Patreon supporter you can watch the full 54 minutes here.
You can support this content: Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu on PatreonBY Nick Judd | Wednesday, February 16 2011
New York City on Wednesday released a new app that allows visitors to search complaints made to the city's 311 service by date, type, and neighborhood.
The city also plans to start releasing raw complaint data from 311 on the city's data repository, the NYC DataMine, later this year, according to a city spokesman.
[Update: There are 311 sets up already, but some of them haven't been updated since November 2010. The city is proposing to roll out a more inclusive and more frequently updated set of data, but more specifics are not available.
Second update: Responding a comment from OpenPlans' Philip Ashlock, who says that what 311 data needs is API access, a spokesman for the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications says that his agency, at least, feels the same way.
"I can't speak for the whole city," the spokesman, Nicholas Sbordone, wrote to me in an email. "From DoITT’s perspective we want to move in a direction of API access for the [map] application and the DataMine overall, but I don’t have more specifics at the moment."]
The application, built using the city's public city-wide GIS, CityMap, generates maps that show complaints by complaint type as dots on a map of the city. Clicking on an individual location shows more information about each complaint. Some types of data display as heat maps instead of dot maps by default, but Sbordone says the specifics for those reports — like reports of homeless encampments — appear when a user searches by address instead.
And some types of calls, like requests for literature, are not included in the map at all.
Some critics and observers have been asking for years for the city to open up its 311 data beyond the way it previously offered the information, compiled annually and broken down by community board in the Mayor's Management Report.
At a press conference today, Deputy Mayor Stephen P. Goldsmith acknowledged that this addition to the city's open data efforts was a nod to transparency advocates:Ukraine's president-elect, Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire with a political track record of pragmatism, may be Ukraine's last chance to pull back from the brink of economic catastrophe and civil war.
But Mr. Poroshenko faces a near-Herculean task if he hopes to translate his electoral victory into a political vehicle that can begin reunification of his violently fracturing country.
Most experts give him high marks as a capable, determined person, with wide experience in politics and business, and extensive ties in both Russia and the West. As Ukraine's ultra-rich "oligarchs" go, he is reputedly the least corrupt of the lot, having made his basic fortune by building a confectionery empire. His electoral win, though marred by chaos in parts of the east, has been embraced by the West and even accorded "respect" in Moscow.
"Poroshenko has better chances to gain control over this runaway train than any other Ukrainian political figure," says Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director of the independent Center for Political Studies in Kiev. "But he needs solid unity behind him, and it's not even clear members of his own team are in agreement about basic issues like how to pursue the struggle in the east. So far, he can only pretend to be in charge."
Ukraine's economy is plunging; its currency, the hryvnia, has lost 30 percent of its value this year; and commerce with the country's largest trading partner, Russia, is fraying. Moscow has threatened to turn off the gas next week without a substantial down payment on the $2.5 billion it claims Ukraine owes for past supplies, a move that could shut down much of Ukraine's industry.
But most of all, Poroshenko urgently needs to find a way to convince eastern Ukrainians, trapped between armed separatists and an increasingly assertive Ukrainian army, that he can offer a way to national unity that undercuts the rebels by speaking to their concerns. Even as Poroshenko gave his first press conference as leader |
. On-the-fence senators like Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania and Deb Fischer of Nebraska quickly got off that fence, announcing they would support DeVos.
4. There was zero chatter from Republican senators on the Sunday chat shows about the possibility that DeVos might not be confirmed.
McConnell knew he could afford to lose two Republican votes assuming that the vote to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) as attorney general came after the DeVos vote. And he signaled to Collins and Murkowski that they were absolutely fine to break with their conference on DeVos, knowing it would help them politically — and, of course, by helping them politically that he could rely on them for a vote he really needed in the future.
The drama over whether DeVos was going to be confirmed wasn't drama at all. Not really. It was the carefully laid plan of a master vote-counter who knew exactly how much he could give and gave it.Saskatoon's Harold Orr is recognized as a pioneer in 'green' building technology, but his name may be better known in Germany than it is here at home.
Orr is one of the engineers who was contracted by the provincial government back in 1977, at the height of the energy crisis as oil prices skyrocketed.
"Everyone was up in arms," said Orr, "The Provincial government asked the Saskatchewan Research Council to design a solar house appropriate for Saskatchewan."
Orr and his team completed the house in Northwest Regina in 1977; one of the first buildings to combine airtightness, super insulation and a heat recovery system.
The building attracted tens of thousands of people in the first couple of years, Orr recalled, and acted as an incubator and laboratory for the development of many unprecedented building techniques that have now been adopted all over the world.
Saskatchewan ideas migrate to Germany
The Saskatchewan Conservation House, built in 1977. (Photo courtesy Harold Orr)
"Engineers from Germany came to see the building and went back and said 'this is how we need to build homes,'" Orr explained.
A recent visit to Germany brought Orr first-hand evidence of the legacy of the Saskatchewan Conservation House.
Germany created the PassivHaus program which adopted many of the methods of energy conservation introduced by Orr and his team. New buildings are required to meet these standards in energy efficiency.
In April, the Passive House Institute in Germany honoured Orr and his team with a pioneer award.
In a release marking the event, the director of the Passive House Institute, Wolfgang Feist, noted that Harold Orr and his collaborators had realized 40 years ago, "that efficiency is the key to sustainable construction, since energy which is produced in the summer cannot automatically be transferred to the winter."
Saskatchewan 'Conservation House' didn't catch on at home
Despite the early excitement from the public, Orr said the Conservation House was sold privately a couple of years after it was built, and the new owner removed the solar panels.
It only cost $45 a year to heat, but the maintenance costs on the [solar] panels were nearly $10 thousand. - Harold Orr
"It only cost $45 a year to heat, but the maintenance costs on the panels were nearly $10,000," he explained.
Orr said several other design features — such as shutters — were removed because they were hard to maintain and proved to be of little use during Saskatchewan's frigid winters. However, the airtightness and super insulation remained.
R-2000 homes a Conservation House legacy
Robert Besant, another engineer involved in the project, said the biggest legacy of the Conservation House in Canada was to insulation standards.
"The demonstration house influenced thousands of contractors who went on to build R-2000 homes and led to improvements in windows and doors," said Besant.
Orr added that the amount of insulation used in Saskatchewan's Conservation House was five to six times the amount used in typical houses of the day.
Orr said the vast majority of homes built in Canada still do not have adequate insulation or air tightness. He's tried to make his own home in Saskatoon as energy efficient as possible by adding insulation and replacing the windows and furnace.
There are more than 10 million housing units in Canada and 99.9 per cent are totally inadequate. - Harold Orr
Orr said if Canada wants to get serious about energy conservation, all new homes should be built to Passive House standards — concepts that were born right here in Saskatchewan, but were more eagerly adopted abroad than at home.
"There are more than 10 million housing units in Canada and 99.9 per cent are totally inadequate," Orr said.
He admits, however, that the low cost of energy here means Canadians do not have the same incentive to build homes that conserve energy in the same way Europeans do.Despite an early lead with Windows Mobile and Windows CE — and spending billions on Nokia’s mobile business — Microsoft has been on its heels in the mobile device market since the one-two punch of iPhone and Android launching in 2007.
Over the past five years, Microsoft has staked out a strong position in the pro tablet segment with its Surface Pro. Microsoft is aggressively expanding its Surface line into the notebook and desktop segments. The upcoming introduction of x86-compatible ARM chips and the rise of progressive web apps could drive a return to the mobile market for Microsoft.
Microsoft’s foothold in the pro tablet market
Back in 2012, Microsoft entered the tablet market in full force. While the ARM-based Surface RT failed spectacularly in the tablet market due to lack of apps, Microsoft invented a new category of pro tablets that were as powerful as laptops. Microsoft has had a very straightforward play with its pro tablets: set the expectation that a pro tablet can function as a laptop with a powerful processor, keyboard cover, pen support, floating windows and a dock.
It has taken five years for Microsoft to push through here, and it is working. Apple has been chasing Microsoft in the pro tablet category and recently introduced floating windows and a dock for the iPad Pro. The key for Microsoft has been to iterate on its Surface Pro line to maintain a foothold in the mobile device category and slowly gain market share. It’s difficult to compare iPad Pro and Surface Pro sales directly as both Apple and Microsoft don’t break out unit sales by product. In 2014, all iPads outsold Surface Pros 9x. In 2017, that number has dropped to 5x as Surface Pro sales increase and iPad sales decline.
Surface’s expansion into the notebook and desktop market
Over the past 18 months, Microsoft repeated the Surface Pro playbook into every category of Apple’s Mac OS product line. With the Surface Book detachable notebook, Surface Studio desktop and now the Surface Laptop, Microsoft keeps releasing new, innovative features like detachable screens and the innovative Dial input device.
Apple’s Mac OS products have been a low bar to hit for Microsoft, as Apple’s products have been stagnant in recent years. Apple has focused on changing plugs and weird features like the MacBook Pro Touch Bar. Microsoft will keep plugging away with each of these products until it gets to a fifth of Apple’s volume, at which point the products have achieved escape velocity.
Category Apple Microsoft Microsoft Near Future Desktop iMac 27” iMac 21.5” iMac Pro 27” Mac Mini Mac Pro Surface Studio (28”) Pro Laptop MacBook Pro (15”) MacBook Pro (13”) Surface Book (13”) Laptop MacBook Air MacBook Surface Laptop (13”) Surace Laptop (ARM) Pro Tablet 12.9″ iPad Pro 10.5″ iPad Pro Surface Pro 4 (12”) Tablet iPad iPad Mini Surface Tablet (ARM) Phone iPhone 6/7 Plus iPhone 6/7 iPhone SE Surface Phone (ARM) Living Room Apple TV HomePod xBox One Surface TV (ARM) Surface Home (ARM)
Re-entering the light tablet market
Five years after the ill-fated Surface RT flopped, ARM chips are finally powerful enough to run Windows 32-bit x86 apps in emulation. Emulation is a trick Apple has twice used to move customers from Motorola 68K to PowerPC to Intel x86. The apps run a little bit slower, but they run. There are few complaints as vendors recompile popular apps over time into the new processor architecture. It probably took some strong-ARMing from Microsoft to convince Qualcomm to add x86 emulation to ARM chips, but Windows Server ARM support was likely a good trade to enable ARM growth in the data center.
Before re-launching an ARM-based Surface Tablet, Microsoft will likely ship a Surface Book with an ARM chip that runs apps from the Windows Store. Once Surface Laptops and its cheaper kin from Windows OEMs flood the market, Microsoft will have a successful cross-processor apps strategy that encompasses both x86 and ARM chips. At that point, introducing a Surface Tablet will be no surprise. The Surface Tablets will effectively be Pro tablets that run on ARM chips, with Windows S, Microsoft Office and an entire library of Windows Store-vetted 32-bit x86 apps.
Making progressive web apps Windows apps
On mobile, it’s really all about the apps. In previous efforts, Microsoft tried to pay app developers to port to the Windows Phone. It wasn’t a bad strategy considering there is definitely a power law in app usage and there aren’t that many apps needed to reach critical mass. However, it was quite painful to port apps to Windows Mobile 8, which made it hard to entice developers who were battling to get installs on iOS and Android. Microsoft recently finally ended support for Windows Mobile 8.
Google has been pushing progressive web apps that make desktop websites run virtually like native apps on tablets and mobile. Even media-intensive sites such as SoundCloud now provide an HTML experience that is on par with native apps and can downscale to a mobile form factor and include features like ongoing playback through navigation and a clickable sound wave. “Mobile first” apps have fallen by the wayside to what I like to call “mobile also” apps that can be used on desktops, tablets and mobile devices.
Progressive web apps are very easy to turn into Windows 10 Mobile apps, as Windows Universal Apps can simply wrap Microsoft’s new Edge browser. Now Microsoft can get developers to simply wrap their progressive web apps as Windows 10 apps, which is quite easy to do. And Microsoft can easily convince native x86 developers to make sure that their tablet apps can downscale to mobile. What’s the difference, really, between a 6.5” phone and an 8” tablet?
Microsoft can take its time before introducing a Surface Phone. It will take a couple of years to establish Windows 10 S for the ARM-based Surface Laptop, re-introduce an ARM-based Surface Tablet and let OEM’s like the HP x3 be the test ground for the new Windows Mobile. Microsoft knows people aren’t going to rush out and buy a Surface Phone. To Microsoft, it doesn’t matter. They just need a viable toehold that they can grow into market share over time. Don’t think it can happen? They’ve already done it before with the Surface Pro.Advertisement Vandals burn, decapitate, cut feet off Ronald McDonald Burlington Ronald McDonald House looking to replace recognizable mascot Share Shares Copy Link Copy
On three separate nights this month, vandals irreparably damaged the smiling Ronald McDonald statue that sat outside the Ronald McDonald House in Burlington, Vermont."Isn't this sad?" said Kristine Bickford, the house's executive director, as she showed the ruined fiberglass body of the famous clown.Watch this storyFor years, Ronald occupied a bench outside the home, providing a comforting welcome to children and their families who need to be close to the University of Vermont Medical Center for vital care.Bickford said vandals first burned Ronald's face, then took off his head, and next, cut his feet off with a saw. The head was discovered dumped near the city's waterfront, Bickford said."The kids were traumatized," Bickford said, noting volunteers had to move the remains of the statue into storage.Bickford said she filed a police report but acknowledged investigators won't have much to go on, because the house is in a busy part of the city. Furthermore, these crimes happened at night, with no security cameras recording the area near the bench.Bickford said she is now investigating the possibility of installing security cameras. She added that she suspects the vandalism was a prank, speculating the vandals were unaware of the mission of the charity where the clown once sat.The Ronald McDonald House provides a comfortable and home-like setting for out-of-town families receiving vital medical care in Burlington, including cancer treatment. Volunteers were at the house Wednesday, preparing dinner for the families there."I can't believe someone would try to do that," said Joshua Ramirez, 11, who was disappointed to hear about the vandalism.Ramirez is from Indiana. He has a form of epilepsy and is in Vermont for brain activity monitoring. He said his family was glad for a low-cost place to stay."It provides a safe atmosphere," Ramirez said, noting that his appointments have required him to be hooked up to several sensors attached to his head, which he wore around the house at night. "If someone sees me inside here (with the medical devices attached), they're not going to make fun, and they're going to support me.""It's just not funny," said Fannie Hart, who has been staying at the house while her son, Xavier, receives treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma.Hart said she became angry when she woke up one recent morning to see someone had knocked off Ronald's head in the night."It's the last place where you'd want to hurt someone," Hart said of the Ronald McDonald house.Bickford estimated it will cost about $7,500 to buy a new statue. She said the house is waiting on an insurance claim.But, from cruelty comes kindness as GoFundMe donations are now piling up to help buy a new Ronald statue. Bickford said the statue, once it arrives, will stay indoors to keep it safe from vandals."I plead to anybody who did do this act, that they would come down and maybe look and see what we have here and what it really means to come into this house," Bickford said. "And they might have second thoughts about what they did. And maybe they'd even donate some volunteer hours here."Bickford said a common misconception is that customers at McDonald's restaurants fund the Vermont nonprofit and places like it around the country by buying Big Macs and other meals. That is not true, she said. Instead, Bickford explained that the Ronald McDonald House is dependent on private and corporate donations, grants, and the generosity of volunteers.For more information on the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Burlington, click here.A One Nation senator has accused one of Victoria's most Jewish councils of being "anti-Semitic", as the stoush between the far-right party and Glen Eira City Council grows.
The Anti Defamation Commission, one of Victoria's peak Jewish groups, in turn labelled One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts "obscene" for his remarks, and said he was diminishing the memory of six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
Senator Malcolm Roberts during a press conference at Parliament House Canberra on Tuesday. Credit:Andrew Meares
The stoush centres on an invitation by conservative Jewish gym owner Avi Yemini to One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts, to speak to members of the Jewish community in Caufield next month.
The pair was invited to speak about the "dangers" of Muslim migration to Australia, repealing race hate laws, and other controversial topics.HUNTINGTON BEACH – A group of self-professed atheists who denounce all religions, particularly Christianity, and condemn Bible passages they say are immoral and illegal, affirmed their beliefs with a show of symbolism Saturday at the base of the Huntington Beach Pier near Pacific Coast Highway.
About 15 members of the group Backyard Skeptics participated in the demonstration, some displaying posters with phrases such as: “Smile. You’re not alone. Millions are good without God” and “Worship me or I’ll send you to eternal hell … Have a nice day … (signed) God.”
The group’s leader, Bruce Gleason, along with a fellow member, tore up sheets of paper printed with verses from the Bible to make their point.
One paper that was torn to pieces was printed with the verse, Matthew 5:29, which states: “So if your eye – even your good eye – causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.” Another, which was torn, Corinthians 14:34, states “The women are to keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak.”
“We condemn all religious superstations, no matter what religion,” Gleason said. “I just want to tear out pages of the Bible that are illegal.”
While there was not any specific group of counter protesters, several people who saw the demonstration and disagreed with the group engaged in debates with its members.
Isabel Moore of Huntington Beach, a self-professed “born-again Christian,” said the group is taking specific verses out of context.
“Most would have a different meaning if taken in proper context,” Moore said. “We have to read the whole passage and not just one verse.”
Perhaps the most vocal of those disagreeing with the Backyard Skeptics was Greg Allen of Santa Ana.
Allen, a Christian, said he spends most Saturdays preaching at the pier.
“There is a level of frustration when you deal with the type of argument that they bring,” Allen said. “They misrepresent the Christian view and what the Bible is actually presenting.”
Gleason said the Backyard Skeptics are airing their beliefs publicly for other atheists who may be unaware of the group.
The group has been specifically targeting Christianity because it is the prevalent religion in the U.S., Gleason said.
Other billboards are planned, which Gleason has said will be controversial.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3730 or lponsi@ocregister.com
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&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Your browser does not support iframes.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;Craig Hollander, left, and his partner Gary Unger enjoy the Oscars Sunday at Shaw's Tavern, a D.C. gastropub managed by a largely gay staff, which attracts straight and gay patrons alike. (Astrid Riecken/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)
A few salient facts are known about the Americans whose lives might be changed by a Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage expected this summer.
About one in five gay and lesbian couples is raising children under age 18. One in 10 men with a male partner or spouse is a military veteran. As many as 6 million Americans, roughly 2 percent of the population, have a parent who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).
These nuggets of demographic insight into same-sex couples were contained in an amicus brief filed in connection with cases before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of California’s gay marriage ban and the Defense of Marriage Act.
A decade ago, such precise statistics were impossible to come by. Even now, many of the numbers commonly used to shape government policies are, for gays and lesbians, nonexistent.
But as gays become more visible in politics, demographic research into lesbians and gays is emerging from the shadows. Some gay advocates say it’s time for surveys to ask people their sexual orientation point-blank.
“As a political and cultural issue, it’s very important for us to understand how big and visible this population is,” said Gary J. Gates, a prominent demographer of gay statistics who wrote the amicus brief.
However the Supreme Court rules, demographic knowledge about gays and lesbians is poised to expand further.
The National Health Interview Survey of 35,000 Americans has started asking respondents their sexual orientation, aiming to identify health-care needs. Last year, the federal government began putting a sexual orientation question in the annual workforce survey.
A Gallup poll last month found that 3.5 percent of American adults identify themselves as LGBT. That includes 10 percent of District residents, 3.3 percent of Maryland residents and 2.9 percent of Virginians. Gallup did not report percentages below the state level, so it’s not possible to compare the District to other big cities.
Gay activists say more research is needed, just to make the case that they exist.
“When our legislative affairs director goes into congressmen’s offices, they’re often told, ‘I have no gay people in my district,’ ” said Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights group urging protections for gays. “That’s why this demographic information is so incredibly important.”
Yet gay activists have been some of the most vocal critics of Gates, who lives with his husband in Seattle and is affiliated with the Williams Institute, a UCLA School of Law think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity. They say his work showing that 3.8 percent of Americans are LGBT underestimates their numbers and marginalizes their concerns.
Some of the controversy is rooted in a 1940s-era study by sexologist Alfred Kinsey, who estimated 10 percent of men had had same-sex experiences. That figure has been cited often by gay activists, according to Gates, to make the case they could not be ignored.
Some opponents of gay marriage say more demographic research can correct misperceptions of the size of the gay community. Gallup has found that Americans believe, on average, that 25 percent of the population is gay, several times higher than any research estimate.
“I think serious data on this is important to inform the debate,” said Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, which has argued that same-sex marriage is harmful to society. “People have an exaggerated view of how many homosexuals there are in the population. They don’t realize what a relatively small population it is.”
Yet some activists and academics say they suspect the percentage is higher than demographic research shows.
“When people look at demographics, they’re often about white gays living in the ‘gayborhoods.’ ” said Jaime Grant, a feminist researcher at Kalamazoo College who heads the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership. “But in communities of color, there’s already a resistance to filling out census forms, and it’s even more so for gays of color.”
It was long considered career suicide to specialize in research into lesbians and gays. That began changing in 1992, when election-day exit polls asked voters their sexual identity.
“I had some interest, being gay,” said Murray J. Edelman, who ran exit polling for the networks. “If you weren’t on the exit poll, then you didn’t exist.... It was another way of being counted.”
Since then, more lesbians and gays have been willing to identify themselves and demand for gay statistics has grown from public-health agencies, the military and marketers.
Some of the biggest hurdles remain. Gathering data about gay people is much more complex than asking about race or income. Should people be asked about their sexual attractions, behavior or identity? Which of the many synonyms for gays should be used? How do researchers count gay individuals who are not living with a mate?
“We have guesses we’re missing over half the gay and lesbian population if we just focus on partnered individuals,” said Amanda Baumle, a University of Houston sociologist and demographer.
The decennial census now provides hard numbers on the growing number of same-sex couples willing to identify themselves as such. The 2010 census counted 646,000 same-sex couples, including 130,000 who were married.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which waged a Queer the Census campaign urging same-sex couples to identify themselves, wants more government surveys to ask about sexual identity and behavior.
“It makes us visible and helps us identify ways our community needs support,” said Darlene Nipper, deputy executive director of the group.
Gates, 51, a former software engineer and seminarian, sits on advisory committees that help formulate questions on government surveys. He said demographics can only bolster the case for marriage equality.
“If the arguments wind up being anecdotal, the arguments of both sides end up being given equal weight,” he said. “The challenge is, science doesn’t always find everything that fits a particular political agenda.”The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a leading opponent of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, is taking its "Repeal RFRA" campaign to the readers of The New York Times. Its quarter-page advocacy ad, headlined "No hate in any state — or in these United States" is expected to appear in Sunday's Times in the front news section.
The ad points out, "The problem isn't just in Indiana," referring to the national furor erupting over Indiana's RFRA. FFRF points out twenty-some states have passed RFRA, as well as Congress in 1993. View high resolution ad here.
"The Religious Freedom Restoration Act grants religionists an uncivil right — the liberty to break laws, including civil rights protections, they claim offend their religious faith," FFRF's ad asserts.
FFRF notes, "The federal RFRA brought us the Supreme Court's infamous Hobby Lobby ruling last year, setting women's contraceptive rights back half a century." The state/church watchdog, with more than 22,000 members nationwide, warns: "There will be more uncivil rulings like this until RFRA is repealed."
FFRF placed a full-page ad protesting the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling last year, which upheld employee discrimination against women based on the federal RFRA. FFRF's ad urged that it is time to repeal RFRA, and castigated the "all-male, all-Roman Catholic" Supreme Court majority for placing "religious wrongs over women's rights."
"Don't be fooled that Indiana and Arkansas changes to their RFRA laws, to more closely model the federal RFRA, alleviate the problem. The problem is the federal RFRA. The time is ripe. Secularists and those who treasure true religious liberty must now urge Congress, and other RFRA states, to repeal this dangerous law privileging faith over civil rights," said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.
The ad takes readers to a webpage informing citizens of ways to lobby against RFRA, and background material.Each of Henry VIII’s wives chose their own motto and emblem. Anne Boleyn’s motto was ‘Most Happy.” After that Henry’s queens must have chosen their motto with rather a lot of care and not a little dread.
Catherine of Aragon was Henry VIII’s first wife. They married in 1509 with Henry honouring a promise to marry his brother’s widow. Catherine had become a penniless princess after Prince Arthur’s death in 1502 whilst her father-in-law and father argued about her dowry and whether she would marry Prince Henry or Henry VII or be sent home. The death of Henry VII enabled seventeen-year-old Henry to rescue his princess. Thomas More’s collection of poems celebrating the marriage of the royal couple, the so-called Coronation Suite, is liberally decorated with intertwined Tudor roses and pomegranates. The Museum of London houses a badge showing a pomegranate and a Tudor rose combined. Other examples of a rose morphing into a pomegranate have been found elsewhere and help demonstrate the popularity of the marriage between Henry and Catherine. Click on the image at the start of the post to open up a new window. For a while they were a fairy tale couple.
Catherine’s motto was ‘humble and loyal’ and her emblem was a crowned pomegranate. The pomegranate, originally the heraldic symbol for the city of Granada, represents life, fertility and marriage. The representation of marriage comes from the Greek myth featuring Hades and Persephone. Persophone was kidnapped by Hades and while she was in the Underworld she ate six pomegranate seeds. Persophone, as a consequence of eating the seeds and a ruling by Zeus, was required to spend six months of the year with Hades. The pomegranate came, somewhat ironically in Katherine’s case, to represent the insolubility of marriage. Clearly Katherine’s spouse had other ideas given that in May 1533 having failed to acquire a papal annulment he simply severed the insoluble tie by declaring himself to be head of the Church in England and divorcing himself from his wife of twenty-four years in order to marry Anne Boleyn who was a little bit pregnant. It had taken eight years for Henry to get what he wanted but ultimately Catherine, despite her stubbornness and determination, was removed and exiled to Kimbolton Castle where she would die in 1536 little mourned by Henry but revered by her subjects, by her friends and enemies alike – Thomas Cromwell, the agent of her fall, admired her immensely for her intellect and powers of argument.
During that all that time Catherine had indeed been humble and loyal. She’d done everything required of a queen from hand stitching Henry’s shirts, making blackwork popular and giving it its alternate name of Spanishwork, to being regent in his absence. Whilst Henry VIII was off on a jolly in France pretending to have a war in 1513 it was Catherine who oversaw the victory at Flodden which also saw the death of her brother-in-law James IV of Scotland.
In the Bible the pomegranate represents fertility and abundance. Sadly for Katherine the arrival of heirs produced one tragedy after another. One baby boy lived a month before dying. In 1516 the Princess Mary was born but the passage of time and one pregnancy after another was taking its toll on the queen in both her looks and outlook on life. The one thing that was required of a queen was to produce a male heir. Always pious, she turned increasingly to prayer for comfort bringing us to the final meaning of the pomegranate. In medieval art pomegranates are linked to resurrection and eternal life. Henry also turned to the Bible, for an explanation rather than consolation. He reasoned that he had sinned in taking his brother’s widow as his wife.
Katherine’s daughter Mary took her mother’s pomegranate emblem for her own. The British Library houses a book of Mary’s depicting the pomegranate on its cover.Airlines could soon start offering customized fares to travelers based on how regularly they fly, where they live and the kind of trip they are taking.
The world’s largest airlines have agreed to adopt a new standard for distributing airfare information that could significantly compromise the privacy of customers and allow carriers to charge travelers different prices for the same trip. Airlines, of course, already charge different fares based on when a ticket is purchased, whether a Saturday stay is included and so on, but they are now looking to go much further by seeking to differentiate among fliers based on personal characteristics.
The new standard, which was agreed to at a meeting of the International Air Transport Association in October, will allow airlines to ask customers searching for airfares through travel agents or Web sites to first provide their names, frequent flier numbers, contact details and other information before presenting them with prices. A few airlines are expected to test this approach this year, and it could be widely adopted in a few years, according to the trade group. A majority of the group’s 240 members, which include most American airlines though not Southwest, voted for the standard.
Industry officials say the standard, which they call “new distribution capability,” is simply a way for airlines to better tailor their services to the needs of their customers. For instance, an airline might offer a package that includes free checked baggage, an aisle seat and a 10 percent discount to frequent fliers. And customers would be able to compare competing bundles from different airlines. They also say customers will still have the option of shopping anonymously for basic fares if they choose not to provide any information about themselves.Greetings and Salutations,
I am writing this post to formally introduce myself to the Renegade community. I have been listening to Kyle, Sinead, Spero, and Giuliani for well over a year now and I commend you all on your great work. I was introduced first to Kyle and Sinead through Red Ice Radio, a station that I hardly listen to anymore for myriad reasons. They have reduced their station to nothing more than another caboose of the Trump Train along with Duke, Anglin, TRS, and the rest of the Jew shill controlled opposition that are suffocating and snuffing out the potentiality of a mature, reflective, principle based, white nationalist movement that is family friendly and family centered. It’s quite obvious that the conductor of said train is obviously the eternal Jew. I am a frequent poster on the Daily Stormer, but I am looking for a more mature community that is not run by an autistic misogynistic midget.
The way that Andrew, Heimbach, and Duke are handling the latest TRS doxxing is pretty much the last straw for me of many, many, straws. I was so desperate for a forum on which I could express myself that when I stumbled onto the Daily Stormer last year I ended up, regrettably now I must say, staying. I have made quite a few friends on that site but in general I am about 90% sure Anglin is nothing more but a dwarf framed marionette of the jewish puppet masters that control our world. Personally I believe that the only proper way to handle the situation with Enoch, if you are genuine about our movement, is permanent exile from the movement as a whole.
Does it make sense yet? Hopefully any remaining honest people in the #AltRight will hear the alarm bells ringing and wake up to the jew lies pic.twitter.com/QxxtAhvDFz — Renegade Reporting (@RadioRenegades) January 18, 2017
Richard “limp-wrist” Spencer I fear is nothing but another shill as he is and was obviously aware that Enoch had a Jew wife. Spencer and Anglin’s “do as I say not as I do” attitude has never set well with me. It is obvious that they grew up rich and their pretentious demeanor shows that they view themselves above others in his little alt-right scene. I have come to conclude that many of these figureheads are self-serving shills that have no real intentions of doing anything constructive to save our race from the utter annihilation that is just over the horizon.
As for myself, I am a stay at home father right now. My wife is the bread winner for the time being as I have been in college for the past four years gaining a bachelors degree in Industrial Mathematics. I graduated in December 2016 and I am currently trying to find employment in the private sector, which is pretty much leading me nowhere. I blame people like Enoch’s diversity officer wife for the trouble I am having finding any meaningful employment whatsoever.
Anyway, I am seeking to distance myself from people like Anglin and his crew of “gas the kike” “race war now” buffoons and their puerile idiocy. Judging from what I have been hearing in private conversations on the Daily Stormer I may not be the only one migrating to your site.
Lastly, I apologize for calling Kyle insane in that post on Daily Stormer.
Kyle, I was actually trying to plug your website and show but you are despised by Anglin and the crew over there, so anything that is overtly positive nature regarding you or Sinead is strictly taboo. So, when I do compliment you or your wife I have to conceal it within an insult, if that makes any sense to you? I do not think you or Sinead are insane at all and I quite enjoyed Sinead’s exploration of the flat earth theory and the “treespiracy” as exercises in the intellect if nothing else.
You’ll be seeing me around here with an increasing frequency as I distance myself from the putrid Daily Stormer,
Sincerely,
Mathematician
Tweets added by your friendly Renegade Editor.It's no secret it's difficult to grind for credits in Star Wars: Battlefront 2 - it's a big part of why so many players were angry at EA implementing paid loot boxes. But several crafty players have found ways to cheat the system, with one trick involving a simple rubber band.
Reddit user Lowberg threw down the gauntlet when he created a "progression droid" (a robot) to "unskillfully collect credits". The elaborate creation uses what look like lollipop sticks to press buttons and move the character around, allowing them to gain credits from a match without actually taking part and without being kicked from the game for being AFK.
Image credit Lowberg.
But fellow reddit user F0ngen proved there's actually a much simpler way to cheat your way to credits, using a couple of classic rubber bands. F0ngen showed that by attaching a rubber band around each toggle stick and securing its placement to the back of the controller, it actually does the same as Lowberg's robot by keeping the character moving and avoiding being booted as AFK.
Image credit F0ngen.
The rubber band trick is an age-old classic used in games such as Oblivion to quickly improve a character's athletics skill. In Battlefront 2, the practice quickly builds the number of credits players have to make in-game purchases with, without having to even physically compete in any matches.
Even though it's creative, the practice is skill cheating and unfair to your fellow players - so we don't recommend trying this at home.We’ve covered a lot of adult coloring books in the past few years. So much so that the mere sight of a black-and-white mandala is the furthest thing from soothing to us. But when we got a glimpse of an upcoming coloring book celebrating the drag royalty of the South, our faith in the genre was restored.
Illustrator Kasten McClellan Searles is the magical force behind Drag Queens of the South, a coloring book devoted to real-life drag performers who dazzle Southern states.
“I’ve had a love for and fascination with drag queens ever since sneaking out to my first show as a teen,” Searles wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. “Drag shows have always been a welcome escape from my own daily creative work. During graduate school my friends and I would visit The Rose Room in Dallas and I was so inspired by the performances I saw there. Jenna Skyy and Cassie Nova lit up the stage with grace and humor.”
Make 100: Drag Queens of the South: A Coloring Book Jack
Searles began to wonder if there could be a way to combine her passion for drawing with her love of drag culture when the idea hit. As she put it: “The hair, the fashion, the makeup, the nails ― who wouldn’t want to color all that?”
To find her subjects, Searles scoped out local drag and gay clubs and approached kings and queens to be her muses. If they were into the idea ― and everyone was ― Searles snapped some reference photos and watched them perform. She then translated the images into black-and-white line drawings just waiting to be glammed up with a rainbow treatment.
Make 100: Drag Queens of the South: A Coloring Book Anthony
Searles is currently raising funds to produce the book on Kickstarter, and she’s already earned more than double her initial goal of $2,000. Many excited backers have written to her suggesting their favorite |
American and international media is the vehicle for a deluge of distortions, half truths and outright lies designed to poison public opinion.
Yesterday, for instance, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, “US fears Iran’s links to al Qaeda,” based on claims by unnamed American officials that Tehran was about to release five Al Qaeda leaders detained since 2003. Despite the obvious conflict between the Shiite fundamentalist regime in Tehran and the Sunni extremist Al Qaeda, the article reported as good coin that “some officials and experts worry conditions may be ripe for a more direct partnership.”
Likewise, the “inspection game” has begun. At Tehran’s invitation, UN inspectors visited Iran this week for discussions about its nuclear programs. Instead of taking up the offer to tour existing nuclear facilities, including the Fordo plant, the team demanded access to the Parchin military complex to investigate unsubstantiated nuclear allegations. Not surprisingly, given the US and Israeli threats of war, Tehran refused. The refusal was then highlighted in the American media, along with claims of “secret arms programs.” All of this recalls the never-ending demands for greater access to Iraq’s military bases, presidential palaces and “secret” facilities that preceded the US invasion.
This media campaign contributes directly to the intensifying tensions in the Persian Gulf, heightening the risk of war. If Israel does attack Iran, it will not simply be “a surgical strike” that destroys Iran’s key nuclear facilities. Any Iranian retaliation will be used by the US as a pretext for a massive air war aimed at destroying the country’s military and infrastructure. As a result, any conflict carries a real danger of becoming a regional war that could embroil the major powers.With the WikiLeaks email scandal already causing the resignation of Democrat Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party may now face legal risk regarding violations of campaign finance guidelines.
The June 22 WikiLeaks disclosure of 19,252 hacked emails appears to show a pattern of senior officers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) scheming and colluding to favor Hillary Clinton and oppose Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during the 2016 Democrat primaries and caucuses. The emails include DNC plans to commit “dirty tricks,” spread false rumors, and coordinate activities directly with the Clinton campaign.
DNC officers earn annual salaries of $91,000 to $98,000 and staff members earn $29,000 and $96,000 a year, according to the Glassdoor website. Such apparent involvement by DNC employees in direct support of Clinton’s political campaign may have represented hundreds of thousands of dollars of value received.
Hillary Clinton fully understands the acute legal risk, after she had her political start in the summer of 1971 working on a subcommittee for Democrat Senator Walter Mondale in Washington, D.C. Clinton leveraged those contacts to obtain a job in the spring of 1974 as a 26 year-old lawyer who helped draw up President Nixon’s articles of impeachment for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress.
Questions about Nixon’s election activities led to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971,which instituted stringent disclosure requirements for federal candidates, political parties and political action committees.
FECA amendments in 1974, following Nixon’s resignation, set very strict limits on contributions by individuals, political parties and PACs. The amendments also established an “independent agency” called the Federal Election Commission to administer campaign and party disclosures statutes, which include U.S. Code 52 USC 30109, that includes civil fines of “up to 300 percent” of illegal contributions, and criminal penalties of being “imprisoned for not more than 5 years” for knowingly and willfully committing a violation of any provision of the Act.
The FECA was further tightened with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which banned national parties from raising or spending non-federal funds, called “soft money,” which are contributions to a political party that are not described as going to a particular candidate, thus avoiding various legal limitations.
The FEC restricts individuals to contributions of up to $2,700, for each candidate, per election cycle; $5,000 for each Political Action Committee; $33,400 for a national committee per year; and $100,200 for national party committee accounts per year.
The current federal election campaign laws require strict separation between a political party and a candidate. The party cannot 1) coordinate with candidates and 2) use party soft money funds raised for “party building activities,” such as efforts to “get-out-the-vote” and generic “issue advertising” to promote a particular candidate.
The WikiLeaks disclosures suggest a deep “coordination” between the DNC and the Clinton campaign, but there is no direct evidence in the initial dump of hacked emails that there were any “coordinated expenditures” between the DNC and Clinton. It is possible, however, that the use of DNC staff man-hours and equipment to aid one candidate in the context of a primary election could have violated the soft-money expenditure ban.
The DNC and Clinton campaign may also be at risk for violating the campaign finance laws of the 50 states. In the 27 states with Republican Attorneys Generals, the DNC and Clinton probably cannot benefit from political loyalties — but most state campaign finance laws are very lax.
WikiLeaks has stated that its hacker source, “Guccifer 2.0,” will soon release the emails that were not disclosed by Clinton to the State Department. Gussifer 2.0 also promises, “The main part of the [DNC] papers, thousands of files and mails, I gave to WikiLeaks. They will publish them soon.”A decade after the family took over the Premier League club, the hatred from supporters has mostly turned to hope, revenue is rising, Louis van Gaal is free to target virtually any player in world football and there is no talk of selling up
Love United? For some fans, perhaps a little less than before. Hate the Glazers? Not so much, it seems. Not any more. From a high point of insurrection around the green and gold protests of 2010, that discord is now no more than a low-level grumble.
Despite, ironically, a period of relative underperformance on the pitch in the post Sir Alex Ferguson era, the talk among supporters is now of who will follow Memphis Depay into Old Trafford rather than whether the Glazers will sell up.
The visceral chants of “Die Glazer Die” that accompanied protests around Old Trafford 10 years ago, some from fans who may have now turned away from the club altogether, belong to an earlier age. Exactly a decade on from their audacious, divisive takeover Manchester United’s American owners have seen English football morph to resemble them rather than the other way around.
The anniversary coincides with this weekend’s first “United: Live” fan festival in New Delhi, presented by “Manchester United’s official tyre partner in India” and billed as “a must for any United fan”. Culminating in a live screening of the game against Arsenal it will also feature a personal appearance from Mikaël Silvestre and a special airing of The Greatest Story Ever Told, a biopic of the club’s illustrious history designed to cement its romantic allure.
A commercial unit that now employs 140 staff worldwide has delivered a segmented sponsorship model that others are scrambling to copy. Meanwhile, the global growth of the Premier League shows no sign of abating whatever the debate about its relative quality, with a commensurate rise in television income.
Even Andy Green, the financial analyst and Manchester United supporter who assiduously counted the cost in pounds and pence of the Glazers’ leveraged takeover – total in interest and fees: £800m and rising – now says: “Most supporters don’t particularly like the owners but they are resigned to the situation. They got very lucky but when you get lucky in a leveraged buyout this is what happens – you get a fantastic return.”
For the six members of the Glazer clan who since the death of the patriarch, Malcolm, last year now share the club between them, that has meant raising $400m (£256m) through selling a 10% slice on the US stock exchange and seeing their asset double in value to about $1.6bn (£1bn).
Through a mixture of luck and judgment the Glazers survived the 2010 crisis point summed up by David Beckham stringing a green and gold scarf around his neck on his return to Old Trafford with Milan as the stadium rocked with righteous fury.
That period also took in a £500m bond issue that laid bare the financial high-wire act, the mirage of a bid from the so-called Red Knights and the eventual repayment of the Payment in Kind high interest loans that weighed heavily on the balance sheet.
By mixing a savvy global commercial strategy with the genius of Ferguson in eking out continued success on a budget and a large dollop of luck in booming TV-rights income, they made it through their riskiest period unscathed. Despite the on-field shockwaves caused by Ferguson’s departure and the ill-starred David Moyes era, there has also been a shift in the way the club engage with their match-going fans.
In 2010 David Gill, the then chief executive who had initially opposed the takeover but later defended his new employers with the zeal of the converted, said it would be “odd” to have a dialogue with fans he saw as being “at war with the club”.
His successor, Ed Woodward, despite – or perhaps because of – his closeness to the Glazers, has pursued a more conciliatory path. Season ticket prices have been frozen and lines of communication re-established.
The takeover was in many ways a product of its time and the freewheeling nature of the pre-crash, globalised financial markets. As such, the idea of buying England’s most famous club in a highly geared deal at eye-wateringly punishing interest rates did not cause the Glazers to skip a beat.
It was the natural conclusion of a process that began in the 1980s when clubs first floated on the stock market. It also paved the way for a new breed of Premier League owner with the likes of Stan Kroenke at Arsenal drawn by the siren call of international growth, increasing broadcast revenues and financial fair play rules that would limit their exposure. It is telling in all sorts of ways that, within football, the great Old Trafford debt financing experiment is viewed with respect bordering on admiration.
Not that the Glazers have sought to gloat. Or, indeed, say anything. Ever since Joel Glazer gave his first and last interview to the club’s TV channel MUTV immediately after the takeover – in which he explained “debt means different things to different people” – they have been silent.
Behind the scenes, however, Joel in particular is hands-on. They have proved just flexible enough when required, sanctioning that new contract for Wayne Rooney at one pivotal juncture and breaking the club’s vow not to sign ageing players for Robin van Persie after losing out on the title to City on the final day of the 2011-12 season.
With the financial brakes now off and the FFP era having locked in the advantage of those clubs with the biggest revenue streams, they can now afford to compete again for the world’s most expensive players.
Ferguson will argue to this day, even in private, that the Glazers never constrained his spending. Many fans who watched as the club failed to reinvest the proceeds of Cristiano Ronaldo’s transfer or build on their 2008 Champions League triumph find that very hard to believe. Those who opposed the Glazers and all they stand for will always ask what sort of club Manchester United would be if that £800m had been reinvested in the team, facilities and keeping a lid on ticket prices.
They look enviously on how Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich have pulled away on the pitch even as Manchester United have remained in the top three revenue generators.
Manchester United Supporters Trust, who said it was “impossible to imagine worse owners”, might have failed to force the Glazers out but believe its pressure had stopped them taking cash out of the club, seeking a naming rights partner for Old Trafford or raising season ticket prices.
“It’s just a shame we had to go through all the pain and waste of the last decade simply to allow a family with no connection to Manchester United to enrich themselves at the expense of our club and fans,” it added.
Yet with debt down to “just” £380m, less than half of the figure at its height in 2010, and revenues continuing to rise, Louis van Gaal is free to target virtually any player in world football. The signs are the Glazers will enjoy the upside for years to come, with the option of selling further tranches of shares if they want to raise money while sitting on an ever appreciating asset and retaining absolute control. The Glazers have won – but at what cost?Employers can get into legal trouble if they ask interviewees about their religion, sexual preference, or political affiliation. Yet they can use social media to filter out job applicants based on their beliefs, looks, and habits. Laws forbid lenders from discriminating on the basis of race, gender, and sexuality. Yet they can refuse to give a loan to people whose Facebook friends have bad payment histories, if their work histories on LinkedIn don’t match their bios on Facebook, or if a computer algorithm judges them to be socially undesirable.
Vivek Wadhwa
These regulatory gaps exist because laws have not kept up with advances in technology. The gaps are getting wider as technology advances ever more rapidly. And it’s not just in employment and lending—the same is happening in every domain that technology touches.
“That is how it must be, because law is, at its best and most legitimate—in the words of Gandhi—‘codified ethics,’ ” says Preeta Bansal, a former general counsel in the White House. She explains that effective laws and standards of ethics are guidelines accepted by members of a society, and that these require the development of a social consensus.
Take the development of copyright laws, which followed the creation of the printing press. When first introduced in the 1400s, the printing press was disruptive to political and religious elites because it allowed knowledge to spread and experiments to be shared. It helped spur the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, through the spread of Protestant writings; the rise of nationalism and nation-states, due to rising cultural self-awareness; and eventually the Renaissance. Debates about the ownership of ideas raged for about 300 years before the first statutes were enacted by Great Britain.
Similarly, the steam engine, the mass production of steel, and the building of railroads in the 18th and 19th centuries led to the development of intangible property rights and contract law. These were based on cases involving property over track, tort liability for damage to cattle and employees, and eminent domain (the power of the state to forcibly acquire land for public utility).
Our laws and ethical practices have evolved over centuries. Today, technology is on an exponential curve and is touching practically everyone—everywhere. Changes of a magnitude that once took centuries now happen in decades, sometimes in years. Not long ago, Facebook was a dorm-room dating site, mobile phones were for the ultra-rich, drones were multimillion-dollar war machines, and supercomputers were for secret government research. Today, hobbyists can build drones and poor villagers in India access Facebook accounts on smartphones that have more computing power than the Cray 2—a supercomputer that in 1985 cost $17.5 million and weighed 2,500 kilograms. A full human genome sequence, which cost $100 million in 2002, today can be done for $1,000—and might cost less than a cup of coffee by 2020.
We haven’t come to grips with what is ethical, let alone with what the laws should be, in relation to technologies such as social media. Consider the question of privacy. Our laws date back to the late 19th century, when newspapers first started publishing personal information and Boston lawyer Samuel Warren objected to social gossip published about his family. This led his law partner, future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, to write the law review article “The Right of Privacy.” Their idea that there exists a right to be left alone, as there is a right to private property, became, arguably, the most famous law review article ever and laid the foundation of American privacy law.
The gaps in privacy laws have grown exponentially since then.
There is a public outcry today—as there should be—about NSA surveillance, but the breadth of that surveillance pales in comparison to the data that Google, Apple, Facebook, and legions of app developers are collecting. Our smartphones track our movements and habits. Our Web searches reveal our thoughts. With the wearable devices and medical sensors that are being connected to our smartphones, information about our physiology and health is also coming into the public domain. Where do we draw the line on what is legal—and ethical?
Disruptive technology: A 1568 printing press. The technology brought social upheaval.
Then there is our DNA. Genome testing will soon become as common as blood tests, and it won’t be easy to protect our genomic data. The company 23andMe ran afoul of regulators because it was telling people what diseases they might be predisposed to. The issue was the accuracy of the analysis and what people might do with this information. The bigger question, however, is what businesses do with genomic data. Genetic-testing companies have included contractual clauses that let them use and sell their clients’ genetic information to third parties.
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prohibits the use of genetic information in health insurance and employment. But it provides no protection from discrimination in long-term-care, disability, and life insurance. And it places few limits on commercial use. There are no laws to stop companies from using aggregated genomic data in the same way that lending companies and employers use social-media data, or to prevent marketers from targeting ads at people with genetic defects.
Today, technology can read-out your genome from a few stray cells in less than a day. But we have yet to come to a social consensus on how private medical data can be collected and shared. For the most part, we don’t even know who owns an individual’s DNA information. In the U.S., some states have begun passing laws to say that your DNA data is your property.
We will have similar debates about self-driving cars, drones, and robots. These too will record everything we do and will raise new legal and ethical issues. What happens when a self-driving car has a software failure and hits a pedestrian, or a drone’s camera happens to catch someone skinny-dipping in a pool or taking a shower, or a robot kills a human in self-defense?
Thomas Jefferson said in 1816, “Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times.”
The problem is that the human mind itself can’t keep pace with the advances that computers are enabling.
Vivek Wadhwa is a fellow at Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance, Stanford University, and holds appointments with Singularity University and Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering.A week has passed since the upsetting bombshell news that Edgar Wright had left Marvel’s Ant-Man. In that time, speculation and fact have blurred as fans tried to figure out how one of the most successful companies in Hollywood could suddenly go in a different direction from the talented, exciting director who had been working on the film for years.
Eventually, the discussion turned to Wright’s replacement. Though rumors and speculation have also been flying all week, it seems three men are at the top of Marvel’s list. They are Rawson Thurber, Adam McKay and Ruben Fleischer. Read more about the potential Ant Man directors below.
Update: The Wrap claims that Rawson Thurber is now the first choice to direct Ant-Man. The site has no confirmation, and Marvel isn’t commenting, so we’ll have to wait for more official info.
Update 2, June 3: Days after the drama that saw Adam McKay go into talks and then abruptly back out, there’s a report that Rawson Thurber has also passed on the movie. So out of the original shortlist of three replacement directors for Edgar Wright is down to one, Ruben Fleischer, and Ant-Man has become the movie no one seems to want to touch.
The original story follows.
The Hollywood Reporter dropped the news of this potential short list.
Rawson Thurber
Rawson Thurber directed last year’s surprise hit, We’re the Millers. He’s expected to do the sequel to that film as well as a Choose Your Own Adventure adaptation, but if he’s being considered for this, it says neither of those scripts are ready.
Adam McKay
Adam McKay is a man who needs no introduction. The comedic genius helmed Anchorman, its sequel, Step Brothers and so many other hilarious comedies. Like any director of his status, McKay has a ton of irons in the fire including an Uptown Saturday Night remake, a Michael Lewis adaptation and Border Guards to name a few.
Ruben Fleischer
Ruben Fleischer last directed Gangster Squad, but made a name for himself with the action comedies Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less. He’s attached to direct a Spy Hunter film and recently was attached to a sleepover film called Overnight for Disney.
That very last bit leads me to believe Fleischer might be the front runner here. He’s already been working with Disney and has more experience with action comedy than the other two. Even if he doesn’t direct, it’s pretty obvious from this group Marvel wants someone with very mainstream comedic sensibilities. Which is ironic considering the recent Edgar Wright video essay that hit the net suggests his comedic directing skills far outweigh anything mainstream.
What do you think of this list? Do you agree Fleischer sounds like the best fit?It's been a long time since I've done this, but I have my limits! While playing Demon's Souls over the weekend, a player forced me to turn off my PlayStation 3. Screw off, Potato Marshal!
"Screw off" is the polite way of putting it. "Fuck you" is what I actually want to say.
In preparation for Bloodborne, I've been sprinting through Demon's Souls as fast as possible. Dark Souls was my entry way into the series, and I'd been kicking around the idea of going backwards. It's the only Souls game I haven't played all the way through, and before Bloodborne enters my PlayStation 4, I'd like to have a holistic understanding of the series that preceded it.
Here's the thing. Since I streamed my Dark Souls playthrough and people dug it, I wanted to do the same thing with Demon's Souls. Streaming, however, opens you up to stream sniping.
Stream sniping is when people keep track of what you're doing via the stream and try to mess with you. In Souls, it's possible to "invade" another person's game while they're human. You become human after defeating a boss or using an item. The advantage of being human is that you have way more health, but crucially, it opens you up to player invasions. There's nothing wrong with this—it's part of the way Souls games are designed, and I knew it could happen.
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What I didn't account for, however, was the persistence of a player named Potato Marshal.
My first encounter with Potato Marshall happened a few weeks ago. I'd heard rumblings about this player from a former colleague of mine at Giant Bomb, but brushed aside his warnings. How bad could it be? Worst case scenario, I'd get killed and have to play through a few areas again. If you're playing a Souls game, this is nothing new. Dying and repetition is part of life.
It turns out Potato Marshall had a few tricks up his sleeve.
There's a weapon in Demon's Souls called the scraping spear, and it's described this way:
A long spear with countless thorns on the tip. It was forged from the Soul of the Demon "Phalanx." It scrapes away at an opponent's equipment and lowers its durability.
The last bit is really important. This is not a weapon someone uses to defeat the towering monstrosities at the heart of Demon's Souls, this is a weapon equipped for the explicit purpose of trolling other players. You might not kill them, but you'll break all their equipment.
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When Potato Marshall hopped into my game, I quickly learned what the scraping spear does.
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Everything on my character was now busted, and it was going to cost precious souls to repair. But since I died pretty close to a checkpoint and recently accumulated a bunch of 'em, it wasn't that big of a deal. A few minutes later, I was back at it, making my way deeper into the game.
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Like clockwork, whenever I'd return to human form, Potato Marshal wasn't far behind. While he refused to pipe up in the Twitch chat room, he'd send me messages after our encounters. All of this, he told me, was because I decided to play the game as a royal. Remember when I wrote about how I was apparently playing Demon's Souls the "wrong way?" as a magic user? Mmm.
A few Potato Marshal cycles in, I purposely started killing myself whenever he invaded. Poof! Though fighting other users is part of playing Souls, you also don't have to put up with it. Throwing yourself off the nearest cliff is an easy way to remove anyone from your game.
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That said, I refused to play the game offline because I wanted to encounter other players, and several times throughout my playthrough, I've had tense one-one-one battles with folks. I've yet to win a single battle against an invader, but it's thrilling to go back-and-forth with a human in a game otherwise designed to have you butting up against extremely powerful AI enemies.
The end of Demon's Souls third world features a queen at the top of the horrific and seemingly endless Tower of Latria. Rather than a regular boss encounter, another player from the world is pulled in. It's an incredibly cool moment, as the game takes advantage of its passive multiplayer to provide a wholly unique boss. The possibilities are endless! If you die, a new player will be summoned, meaning none of your old techniques will apply to the fight again. It's so great.
Theoretically.
As the summoning cut scene played out, it dawned upon me that Potato Marshal might appear again. Sure enough, the game played the invasion message. Potato Marshal was waiting for me.
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In a previous fight, Potato Marshal conceded his scraping spear was a dick move, and we battled on more reasonable terms. I figured this would carry over, but I was wrong. Not only was he prepared to drag out the spear, he'd brought a brand-new toy with him: the soulsucker spell.
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What does soulsucker do to another player? It de-levels you, one suck at a time. Gaining a level in Demon's Souls doesn't happen all that often, especially once you're deep into the game. Losing a level is a terrifying prospect. In this case, I'd lost several levels before realizing what was really happening. Potato Marshal was knocking me to the ground, forcing my character into a lengthy animation, knocking me down another level, and starting the process over again.
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Worse still, Potato Marshal refused to kill me. He wanted me to suffer over and over. Each one of his attacks would take off a bit of my health, but not enough to end the fight. If I stuck around much longer, it's possible I'd be losing significant amounts of leveling progress all at once.
Everything that's happening is possible because the developers allowed it to happen. Nothing Potato Marshal was doing constitutes cheating. Exploitative? Definitely. Against the spirit of the rules? Maybe. It certainly wasn't fun.
There's no option to quit, either. You stick around and fight, risking equipment and levels in the process, or turn off the PS3 and hope your save file isn't corrupted. I decided to turn it off.
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I feel zero regret over pulling the plug, but it's also a testament to the way From Software designed the Souls games. Players have power.
I disconnected my PS3 from the Internet, and fought the boss again. Rather than an exciting duel against another player, it was a boring NPC. But I slayed the demon, and moved to the next world. Potato Marshal couldn't stop me this time, but like Jason Voorhees, he'll be back.
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If you'd like to watch my playthrough, here's the first episode and a link to the entire playlist.Rami Jarrah (who is widely cited as an authority by mainstream Western media) posted the Arabic leaflet dropped by Syrian government forces and the English translation by Human Rights Watch, which has been widely circulated.
I will provide to you my translation of the original Arabic and you judge how reliable the translation by Human Rights Watch is. [Moreover they have shortened the text of the message]
The Arabic says (in full):
“Read and Repeat. This is the last hope. Save yourselves.
If you don’t evacuate those areas soon, you shall be finished off (or vanquished or destroyed).
WE have provided you with a safe passage to exit. Take your decision fast. Save yourselves.
You know that all have abandoned you and left you by yourselves to face your destiny and they won’t provide you with any help. General Command of the army and armed forces.”
PS The word annihilation is very specific and has an equal Arabic equivalent “Ibadah” which does not appear in the original Arabic.
[The substance of the message is turned upside down in the English translation. It does not mention that the government is providing exit and safe passage to the Al Qaeda rebels.]If you come from an Ionic 1.x or AngularJS background, then you would be used to handling navigation through routing with URLs, states, and so on. In the newer versions of Ionic, it will actually be possible to use this style of navigation with Ionic, but we will be focusing on the “standard” navigation when Ionic is used with Angular in this tutorial.
The focus in Ionic/Angular applications is using a navigation stack, which involves pushing views onto the navigation stack and popping them off. Before we get into the specifics of how to implement this style of navigation in Ionic, let’s try to get a conceptual understanding of how it works first.
Pushing and Popping
Imagine your root page is a piece of paper that has a picture of a cat on it, and you put that piece of paper on a table. It is the only piece of paper currently on the table and you are looking down on it from above. Since it is the only piece of paper on the table right now, of course you can see the picture of the cat:
Now let’s say you want to look at a different piece of paper (i.e. go to a different page), to do that you can push it onto the stack of papers you have. Let’s say this one is a picture of a dog, you take that piece of paper and place it over the top of the picture of the cat:
The cat is still there, but we can’t see it anymore because it is behind the dog. Let’s take it even further and say that now you want to push another piece of paper, a cow, it would now look like this:
Both the cat and the dog are still there, but the cow is on top so that is what we see. Now let’s reverse things a bit. Since all of the pieces of paper are stacked in the order they were added we can easily cycle back through them by popping. If you want to go back to the picture of the dog you can pop the stack of papers, removing the piece of paper that is currently on top (the cow). If you want to go back to the picture of the cat you can pop the stack of papers once more to remove the piece of paper that is now on top (the dog). Now we’re back to where we started.
I’m sure you can see how this style of navigation is convenient for maintaining navigation history and it makes a lot of sense when navigating to child views, but it doesn’t always make sense to push or pop. Sometimes you will want to go to another page without the ability to go directly back to the page that triggered the change (a login screen that leads to the main app for example, or even just different sections of an app available through a menu).
In this case, we could change the root page which, given our pieces of paper on the table analogy, is like disregarding the other stack of papers we have and just focusing on a new piece of paper on the table:
In the example above, I’ve set the cow page as the root page, so rather than being on top of the other pages, it’s all by itself.
A Simple Guide to Navigation in @Ionicframework v2 + Really, REALLY, awful drawings: https://t.co/8doiuszudu #ionic #angular — Josh Morony (@joshuamorony) January 15, 2016 Enjoying learning about navigation in Ionic? Consider retweeting to share with others 😀
When should you push and when should you set the root page?
At first, it may be hard to understand whether you should set the root page to navigate to a different page or push the view. In general, if the view you want to switch to is a child of the current view, or if you want the ability to navigate back to the previous view from the new view, you should push. For example, if I was viewing a list of artists and tapped on one I would want to push the details page for that artist. If I was going through a multi-page form and clicked ‘Next’ to go to page 2 of the form, I would want to push that second page.
If the view you are switching to is not a child of the current view, or it is a different section of the application, then you should instead change the root page. For example, if you have a login screen that leads to the main application you should change the root page to be your main logged in view once the user has successfully authenticated. If you have a side menu with the options Dashboard, Shop, About and Contact you should set the root page to whichever of these the user selects.
Keep in mind that the root page is different to the root component, typically the root component (which is defined in app.component.ts) will declare what the root page is – the root page can be changed throughout the application, the root component can not.
Basic Navigation in Ionic
Ok, so now we’re going to get into a more practical Ionic example and look at how to push, pop, set the root page and even how to pass data between pages. It’s all pretty simple really.
An important part of all this is the NavController. You will often see this imported by default in your Ionic 2 applications:
import { NavController } from 'ionic-angular' ;
and it also needs to be injected into the constructor:
@ Component ( { templateUrl : 'home.html', } ) export class MyPage { constructor ( private navCtrl : NavController ) { } }
A reference to the NavController is created so that we can use it anywhere in the class. So let’s take a look at how to push and pop.
To push a page, that means to make it the current page, you can do something like this:
this. navCtrl. push ( SecondPage ) ;
This uses the reference to the NavController we created before, and all you need to supply to it is a reference to the component that you want to navigate to, which you will need to make sure you also import at the top of the file:
import { SecondPage } from '../second-page/second-page' ;
and that’s it, your app should switch to the new page whenever the push code is triggered. Keep in mind that if you are using lazy loading with @IonicPage you should instead push pages like this:
this. navCtrl. push ( 'SecondPage' ) ;
and there is no need to import the page. If you don’t know what @IonicPage is yet, don’t worry about that for now, just use the first navigation method I mentioned.
When you push a page, a ‘Back’ button will automatically be added to the nav bar, so you often don’t need to worry about using pop to navigate back to the previous page since the ‘Back’ button does this automatically for you.
There may be circumstances where you do want to manually pop a page off of the navigation stack though, in which case you can use this:
this. navCtrl. pop ( ) ;
Easy enough right? As I mentioned before there is still another way to change the page and that is by setting the root page. If you take a look at your app.ts file you will notice the following line:
rootPage : any = MyPage ;
Declaring a member variable rootPage in the root component will set the root page. To change the root page at any point throughout the application, you can use our mate the NavController – all you have to do is call the setRoot function like this:
this. navCtrl. setRoot ( SecondPage ) ;
Passing Data Between Pages in Ionic
A common requirement of mobile applications is to be able to pass data between pages. In Ionic/Angular, this can be done using NavParams. First, you must pass through the data you want within the push call (this can also be done when using setRoot):
this. navCtrl. push ( SecondPage, { thing1 : data1, thing2 : data2 } ) ;
This is exactly the same as what we were doing before, except now there is an extra parameter which is an object that contains the data we want to send through to SecondPage. Then on the receiving page, we need to import NavParams and inject it into our constructor:
import { Component } from '@angular/core' ; import { NavController, NavParams } from 'ionic-angular' ; @ Component ( { templateUrl :'second-page.html' } ) export class SecondPage { constructor ( private navCtrl : NavController, private navParams : NavParams ) { } }
Then you can grab the data that was passed through by doing the following:
this. navParams. get ( 'thing1' ) ;
Summary
It might be a little difficult to get your head around at first, especially if you’re not familiar with the pushing and popping concept, but once you get used to it I think this is a very simple and powerful form of navigation.Based on Korea's longest-running webtoon series, this comedy follows the ridiculous daily lives of a cartoonist, his girlfriend and his subpar family.
1. The Sound of Your Heart / The Way Home 27m Before Cho Seok became a big-name web cartoonist, he was a not-so-average guy with an offbeat family who became the source of his inspiration.
2. I'll Just Stay Here / Reply 2016 28m Seok quarrels with his |
pairs to be hired for big events today and in doing so, they are able to stagger their call times and reduce the workload to a sensible set of matches not usually going past 8 hours and often even less. This allows the talent to deliver an optimum experience, avoid burning themselves out and ensures high quality production and broadcasts. Ultimately, the fan at home benefits with casters no longer tired beyond comprehension after multiple 15+ hour days.
More recently, thanks to ESL and PGL in particular, analysts are now common place among the broadcast team and can rotate in and out of the show. Again, improving the experience for everyone watching and those contributing to the show. No longer do we have the same two people looking like zombies on day 3 of a long tournament having completed 15 hours in consecutive days. Even observers have rotations now often between two or three people at each event. Gone are the days of Josh Nissan or Alexandre “FunKa” Verrier sat in a hot stuffy office for 15 hours on their own.
So I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest we have rotating desk hosts at big events. It’s not very common, though Sheever kindly took over the last game of the night for me at the DAC tournament earlier this year and even saving me a few hours a night made a huge difference to my mental state and sleep pattern such that I believe the show was better for it.
My original tweet about the subject (coming on day one of the major) was, in hindsight, rather ill-timed and I wasn’t looking for sympathy or wanting anyone to give PGL a hard time about it. In fact, it wasn’t even related to the event (other than pointing out the long hours) itself.
Nor was I complaining about the lack of a second host at the event, just that it was a subject I’d been thinking about for a while and that we should discuss it more. Indeed, SirScoots offered to step in for me if I was feeling fatigued, so that wasn’t the issue at the time of the tweet. Nor was the fact that I may have looked a little pale on the first few days (I’m fucking British, of course I’m fucking pale!) related to anything other than some bright lights and some light make up, which we fixed.
I also heard people saying we should be grateful we don’t have to work the hours of the production team and trust me when I say this (having been part of that production team on many occasions) I am. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the work put in by production crews, often finding themselves in the venue an hour or two ahead of talent and staying behind after the show ends for an hour or two. They can easily rack up significant hours during an event. I estimated for example that PGL production staff likely completed more than 120 hours of work in 7 days at the major. And that doesn’t even take in to account all the prep work leading up to the event which they started on months before and worked on continuously leading up to it.
It’s not unreasonable to say we should be looking at their hours too and just because I raised the issue of one host covering the entire event not being enough, doesn’t belittle production staff or make their case any lesser. Ridiculous hours for talent or production lead to mistakes and mistakes cost money, time and reputation. I hope to see a place in the future where there are different teams of people to cover production roles too. Progress.
I don’t expect everyone to understand the host role or be able to empathise as a result. But I will admit, that while I love the job, the hours can be insane, the stress involved in staying focused for long days over an extended period put a lot of pressure on you and there are a lot of moving parts you have to be able to cope with during the show. You’re constantly listening to your panellists, while trying to feed the great questions, following the producer in your ear, wrestling with time and a show rundown with parts to throw to, bringing in videos and interviews, adapting to changes and issues on the fly, introducing graphics you might never have seen and appearing to the viewer that it was totally planned, helping the conversation flow seamlessly from one part to the next and then when you aren’t on camera, taking in the match, watching every round and trying to eat and drink occasionally. Overall, my job is to make sure you are guided through the show seamlessly and without drama (other than that coming from the matches!). It might not sound much and it’s not laying concrete for sure, but it is very stressful and tiring.
And for those saying I get a break during the matches, no. Yes ok, I get to sit and watch the match, so from that point of view I’m sitting down, sure! But I’m not resting, I’m watching, taking notes, building narratives for the analysts to discuss when we come back after the match, discussing the other parts with the producer, updating stats and rundown points, doing signing sessions or photo sessions or press interviews (as part of our job). While there is no doubt that production have to stay focused at all times and mistakes can lead to people being fired, on-screen talent have that threat too and face public backlash at the smallest of mistakes. Some mistakes can (as we have seen in the past) be career ending.
I don’t accept the premise that I am out getting smashed out of my brains on alcohol either. I have a very good work ethic and in the main I avoid any alcohol (or dancing!) until the end of the event. I need to stay sharp and focused and that means getting enough sleep, which usually by the end of the day is the only thing left to do in any case!
I’ll also say that I feel a sense of pride in what I do and that extends to ensuring I do the job I’ve been hired for. If an event has hired me, I want to ensure I host the show for them, not whine on day two about the hours and ask for a replacement to step in, even if, like Scoots, there is one to do so. That’s a personal feeling of responsibility to the role. I’d feel like I was letting people down if I asked for a break.
Then there is ego. Something Scoots said to me rang true when we discussed the idea of two hosts. We all have egos and part of that ego is believing we can do the job better than someone else, so it’s hard to admit for us that actually we should have two hosts for a show. It’s like Scoots said “we entrust our baby to someone else” and that’s hard.
This is absolutely not about money either. In fact a few of us hosts have already discussed lowering our rates should we be able to do a joint hosting event.
Ultimately, we need to persuade the organisers and publishers that having two hosts becomes the norm (much like in Olympic broadcasting for example) and I’d personally welcome the chance to prove this can be a better road for everyone should the opportunity arise, not least that the fans get two hosts for the event!
There is no need to grab the pitchforks and complain to the organisers just yet either, we’ve hardly spoken to them or discussed two host setups, which, yes, will cost more. It won’t however cost more than extending tournaments to extra days which also means additional costs of renting arenas, production kit, people and so on. It seems wholly unreasonable to do so too, especially as players are now happier than they have ever been with schedules of matches. No longer those days of playing 7 back to back matches…
It’s not a big deal having two hosts, it’s just that having one do everything has become the norm and it’s important to challenge norms. That’s down to those who do the job and not (despite the support) a reddit thread demonising organisers.
I firmly believe that the show would benefit from having two hosts and I’ll work with other hosts and organisers to make that a reality.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Nick Higham looks back on Mickey Rooney's life
Mickey Rooney, the child actor who became the world's top box office star, has died aged 93.
Born in Brooklyn, he began his career aged 18 months in his parents' vaudeville act, Yule and Carter, and continued filming right to the end.
In a film and musical career spanning nine decades, Rooney was nominated for four Academy Awards and received two special Oscars for his body of work.
By 1965, Mickey Rooney's 200 films had earned more than $3bn (£1.8bn).
Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern, who was pictured with Rooney at this year's Vanity Fair party after the Oscars ceremony, told the BBC: "Mickey Rooney was everything that's right about Hollywood. He is Hollywood."
Sir Laurence Olivier once referred to him as the greatest film actor America ever produced.
Rooney's death was first reported by US entertainment magazine Variety. The actor is said to have been ill for some time.
Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said Rooney was with his family when he died at his North Hollywood home.
Reckless lifestyle
Smith said police took a death report but added that there was nothing suspicious and it was not a police case.
Star Trek actor William Shatner was one of the first to pay tribute to Rooney on Twitter, describing the actor as "one of the greats!"
Broadway star Carol Channing said: "I loved working with Mickey on Sugar Babies. He was very professional, his stories were priceless and I love them all... each and every one. We laughed all the time."
Rooney was married eight times, including a first marriage to screen beauty Ava Gardner.
He separated from his last wife, Jan, in 2012. They married in 1978.
Image copyright AFP Image caption The actor's motto was to "never retire but inspire"
Image copyright Reuters Image caption True to his word, he continued to work in film, television and theatre up until his death
Asked once if he would marry all his wives again, Rooney replied: "Absolutely. I loved every one of them."
Initially named Joe Yule Junior, he was barely six years old when he had his first film role as a cigar-smoking adult in Orchids and Ermine.
In 1937, the actor took the part of Andy Hardy in the film A Family Affair. Playing the son of a small-town judge proved a huge box-office draw, and spawned a hit series lasting eight years.
At the same time, a series of barnyard musicals - including Babes on Broadway and Strike Up the Band - paired him with another celebrated youth star, Judy Garland.
By 1939, Rooney was established as the film industry's top box office draw and that year, at the age of 19, he became the youngest person to be nominated for a best actor Oscar for his role in Babes on Broadway.
His other Oscar nominations were for The Human Comedy (1943), The Bold and the Brave (1956) and The Black Stallion (1979).
Rooney joined the Army in 1943, spending most of his World War II service entertaining troops.
Mickey Rooney's marriages Ava Gardner: 1942 - 1943
Betty Jane Rase: 1944 - 1949
Martha Vickers: 1949 - 1951
Elaine Devry: 1952 - 1958
Barbara Ann Thomason: 1958 - 1966
Marge Lane: 1966 - 1967
Carolyn Hockett: 1967 - 1975
Jan Chamberlin: 1978 - 2014 (separated 2012)
On his return, he went on to enjoy international triumph alongside Elizabeth Taylor in the 1944 movie National Velvet.
But despite his success, Rooney admitted his fame had forced him to grow up too quickly. By the time he was 30, he said he felt 100 years old.
Rooney appeared in four TV series during his career, including The Mickey Rooney Show in the 1950s.
But his star was on the wane, as he dropped from leading man to second man in films such as Military Policeman with Bob Hope and Korean war drama The Bridges at Toko-Ri alongside William Holden and Grace Kelly the following year.
The show business legend was declared bankrupt by the early 1960s, with much of his money spent on maintenance for his ex-wives and a reckless lifestyle.
However, his career enjoyed a revival with the film Pete's Dragon in 1977, and his show Sugar Babies, which hit Broadway in the late 1970s.
True to his motto to "never retire but inspire", Rooney continued to work in film, television and theatre.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, at the time of his death, Rooney was working on a film called The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And Night at the Museum 3 director Shawn Levy tweeted that Rooney had shot scenes for the film just last month.It ain’t easy being Green, especially if you want to win a seat in the Manitoba Legislature.
But the Green Party is determined to finally break through and win its first one on Tuesday.
"I think the largest challenge is getting voters to commit toward voting for us. If everyone who wanted to vote Green did, we’d win ridings," said Manitoba Green Party leader James Beddome. "This time, take a chance with the Greens, let us show what we can do."
It’s clear Beddome is connecting with many voters. A Mainstreet Research poll of viewers following Tuesday’s televised leaders’ debate found nearly half (49%) had a favourable view of the Green Party leader, while a follow-up poll conducted Thursday night put the party neck-and-neck with the Liberals for third place.
While Greens have yet to be elected, some of their ideas have made it to the legislature. Beddome notes his party called for a cosmetic pesticide ban, which Manitoba’s NDP government later put in place.
"Other parties borrow our ideas and it’s fine. But it’s time we elect the originators, not the imitators," he said.
Translating that support into seats is a much greater challenge. Beddome notes Green candidates aren’t full-time politicians and typically must campaign while holding down full-time jobs.
Experts agree the Greens’ best shots at a seat would come from Beddome’s Fort Garry-Riverview race or from that of Wolseley candidate Dave Nickarz.
Paul Thomas, a University of Manitoba politics professor, said Beddome’s confident debate performance should help.
"For a fledgling party that’s struggling to get off the ground, you need a strong leader upfront," said Thomas.
With very little money and backup staff, Thomas noted the Greens still face an uphill battle they’re unlikely to win.
"I think they have probably gained ground with more experience but voters aren’t convinced yet," said Thomas.
Thomas said strategic voting against the embattled NDP government could also decrease the chance of a Green or even a Liberal breakthrough, as such voters fear "wasting" a vote on a party that stands little chance of getting elected.
Christopher Adams, a Manitoba political author, said their chance is also hindered by the fact environmentalists across the province support the Greens but have yet to be concentrated enough in one riding to earn them a seat.
The Greens have finished in second-place in Wolseley in the last three elections but trailed the NDP by more than 2,800 votes in 2011.
"To make that breakthrough from zero to one seat is a very daunting task," said Adams.
He believes the Greens are much more likely to see some of their platform pledges succeed.
"The measure of Green successes is kind of different than that of other parties. They’re in it for the environment, not so much to be in Hansard," Adams said.
jpursaga@postmedia.com
Twitter: @pursagawpgsun
FEELING GREEN?
Where the Greens stand their best chance on election night:
Fort Garry-Riverview: Area candidate and Manitoba Green Leader James Beddome impressed many viewers during a recent televised leaders’ debate and presented a costed platform this election. But his challenger, incumbent NDP Education Minister James Allum, won 55% of the vote to the Greens’ 4% in 2011, offering a steep hill to climb. Allum may suffer this time around from his close alliance with incumbent Premier Greg Selinger, whose own low approval ratings have been blamed for dragging down his party.
Wolseley: Traditionally the riding that offers the Greens’ best shot at election, federal Green leader Elizabeth May helped doorknock in the area on Friday, attracting more attention just before the vote. Though the NDP has soared to victory in the past, Liberal candidate Shandi Strong, a transgender woman and advocate, could help split the socially progressive vote and assist the Greens in gaining ground.
— PursagaPlanned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, who’ll be on tonight’s show, no doubt expected a contentious hearing today when she appeared before the House Oversight Committee. But what she probably didn’t expect is what Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) had in store for their exchange.
As the accompanying video shows, the Utah Republican put a chart on display, purporting to show that over the last decade, the number of prevention services provided by the health care group has steadily declined, while the number of abortions has steadily increased.
Close video Planned Parenthood president stands up to House GOP grilling Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood Federation of America president, talks with Rachel Maddow about the five hours of testimony she gave in Congress today, and explains the facts (surprisingly unfamiliar to many members of Congress) of what Planned… share tweet email save Embed Part of the problem, as MSNBC’s Zack Roth reported, is that the information in the chart is misleading [Update: this is what the chart would have looked like if it were honest]. But nearly as important is the fact the congressman presenting the image as devastating evidence simply didn’t know what he was talking about
When Richards said she’d never seen it before, Chaffetz replied: “It comes straight from your annual reports.” Moments later, Richards shot back: “My lawyers just informed me that the source of this information is Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group. I would check your source.”
Oops.
The Utah Republican lectured the Planned Parenthood chief, certain that the misleading image had come from Planned Parenthood materials. It apparently didn’t occur to Chaffetz to actually look at the darned thing – it literally says, “Source: Americans United for Life,” in all capital letters, on the chart he was so excited about.
The GOP lawmaker thought he’d use this “proof” to embarrass Planned Parenthood, but it was Chaffetz who looked ridiculous.
Of course, this was just part of a long, multi-part hearing. Perhaps other Republican members of the Oversight Committee were better prepared?
Unfortunately, no. Paul Waldman’s report in the Washington Post highlighted another noteworthy moment.
…Rep. Jim Jordan, one of the most conservative members of the House, used his time shouting at Richards because she admitted at one point that she had originally “apologized for the tone and statements” in the “sting” videos that started this controversy. Apparently Jordan imagined that in making this admission, she had fallen into a trap and would now have to admit that Planned Parenthood had committed some kind of misconduct. Watching his voice get louder and louder, it seemed as though Jordan was thinking, “I’ve really got her now.” But what did he actually prove? Nothing. Nor did any of the other Republicans. All seemed to have some very specific question they had prepared, one that was designed to produce a “gotcha” moment. But Richards didn’t have any trouble answering any of them, because the accusations that drove them aren’t all that controversial unless your starting point is that abortion is evil and so is anything in any way connected to it. That’s a position many people hold, but it isn’t a position most Americans hold, and it doesn’t actually tell you whether we should shut down the government.
Watching much of the proceedings, I was reminded of the congressional committee hearings in early August over the international nuclear agreement with Iran. Republicans had months to prepare their best arguments and sharpest questions, but they fired nothing but blanks. Slate’s William Saletan attended all three hearings and came away flabbergasted : “Over the past several days, congressional hearings on the deal have become a spectacle of dishonesty, incomprehension, and inability to cope with the challenges of a multilateral world…. I came away from the hearings dismayed by what the GOP has become in the Obama era. It seems utterly unprepared to govern.”
It was hard not to draw a similar conclusion today. Republicans on this committee prepared for months to grill the Planned Parenthood president, having ample time to organize their thoughts, coordinate their lines of attack, read their own charts, etc.
But the GOP lawmakers, once again, seemed confused, lost in details they didn’t understand.
Even for the most rabid, far-right opponents of women’s reproductive rights, congressional Republicans are poor allies – not because they’re moderate or overly deferential, but because they don’t seem to do their homework especially well. They create opportunities to advance their interests, but then let those opportunities pass as a result of negligence and incompetence.Xbox One Gamers Want Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Ported to Microsoft’s Console
Giuseppe Nelva August 25, 2014 12:22:26 PM EST
When Microsoft launched the Xbox Feedback page, they opened the floodgates to a whole lot of ideas from the community. There are some rather silly entries like “please clone Phil Spencer” and “more exclusive Xbox One games” (duh), but there also are some quite interesting ones.
Recently a proposal asking for a port of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has been picking up steam, making the first page of the “hot” suggestions for the gaming & achievements category and gaining 442 votes, which is a rather substantial amount considering that Final Fantasy XIV belongs to a rather niche genre on consoles and the vast majority of proposals never get even close to 100 votes.
Apparently the only big barrier to the porting of the game to Microsoft’s new console is the policy against cross-platform gameplay, and Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida told us at Gamescom that he’d be ready to make an Xbox One version right away should Microsoft give the green light, but he doesn’t expect it to happen too soon. Yet, he asked fans to support the demand for the game with Microsoft.
Will Microsoft relent now that a sizable number of users are letting themselves be heard on their feedback page? Only time will tell. One thing is for sure: for any MMORPG more platforms are always a good thing.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is currently available on PC (including Steam), PS3 and PS4.Sensei Irène Kaigetsu Kyojo Bakker discusses Dogen’s radical stance on sexual equality in the sangha in The Essential Dogen.
Join Kaigetsu, Joshin Byrnes, and John D. Dunne for Upaya’s Spring Practice Period: Timeless Spring Apr 6-27, 2016.
…In general and in Zen as well, you know, Buddhist practice has mainly been felt by men, for men in a monastic setting. So monks would live in a monastery and it was, you know a “man thing.” And you could ask what the consequences were and are for both laypeople and women who sincerely wanted to practice the Buddhadharma, who want to study the Buddha Way. And of course there are Buddhist nuns but they’ve always been in a different position and mainly invisible.
Not too long ago the Theragatha was found and if I have time, I can say a little bit about that as well. But we don’t know much about all these women that have been studying and practicing and also been teaching—but not to men. Even today like in Theravada tradition, a ninety-year-old nun would not be able to teach an 18-year-old young man who is a monk for one day. So women were not able and still not able to teach men or to ordain men. And Dhammananda, who made the statue of Mahapajapati that’s in the back there— she is I think the first Buddhist nun that is fully ordained, right? … So it is slowly changing.
And although Dogen lost his mother when he was seven, she greatly influenced his life. And it is said that on her deathbed she asked him to become a monk and to help relieve the suffering in the world…
So Dogen at some point was asked a similar question that Ananda asked the Buddha…. So Dogen was asked, “Should Zazen be practiced by laymen and laywomen or should it be practiced by home-leavers alone?”… So Dogen’s answer was,
“The Ancestors say in understanding Buddhadharma, men and women, noble and common people are not distinguished. “
So for us, this doesn’t sound so new but in 13th century Japan where there was a big difference in … social class, this was revolutionary–that he didn’t make a distinction between laypeople and monks and neither did he make a distinction between men and women.
“…in understanding Buddhadharma men and women, noble and common people are not distinguished. Having wondrous enlightenment is an unsurpassable stage. When women become Buddhas at this stage what in all directions cannot be totally experienced? Who can try to block them and keep them from arriving at this stage?”
That’s a good one, right? Who can try to block them and keep them away from arriving at this stage?
“Through practice, they attain the power of broadly illuminating all the ten directions.”
So in other words, whether you are rich or poor, man or woman, whether you are a monk or a layperson, all have the same capacity to realize the Way to attain the Way, to study, to practice, to sit—the same potential. So he didn’t hide that insight—he was open about it. And in 13th century Japan, that was unheard of, and probably the establishment was very much against him promoting this; that it was not just for this exclusive part of society being monks who would be able to practice and to realize the Buddha Way. So he got quite some resistance for his perspective on this. And then he comes to full steam saying,
“Those who are extremely stupid think that women are the objects of sexual desire and treat women in this way. The Buddha’s children should not be like this. If we discriminate against women because we see them merely as objects of sexual desire, will we also discriminate against men for the same reason? What is the fault of women, what is the virtue of men? There are unwholesome men and there are wholesome women and there are wholesome men and there are unwholesome women. Hoping to hear Dharma and leave the household does not depend on being female or male.”
… A little later he says,
“ Why are men special? Emptiness is emptiness. Four great elements are four great elements. Five skandhas are five skandhas. Women are just like that. Both men and women attain the Way. We should honor attaining of the Way. Do not discriminate between men and women. This is the most wondrous principle of the Buddha Way.”
…So you can see that coming from his deep understanding of oneness, of non separation of the absolute–then how could you make a distinction between having a female body or a male body? We are all one–and there are differences. A man is different than a woman. And in essence we are all one and we all have the same potential and the same capacity to practice the Buddha Way, to study.
And then the quote that has the sentence of the title of this talk, Dogen Zenji is asking,
“ Do you leave out women when you vow to save numberless sentient beings? If you do so, you are not a Bodhisattva. Can you call it the Buddha’s compassion? This is merely nonsense spoken by a drunken Shravaka.”
You can feel his anger in this that he cannot even understand how people are making this distinction.
“ Before becoming free from delusion, both men and women are equally not free from delusion. At the time of becoming free from delusion and realizing the truth there is no difference between men and women. Both women and men attain the Way.”
So for me it is still amazing that Dogen Zenji who was mainly surrounded by men from a fairly young age on, has such a radical… perspective on women. It was, you know, not normal in those days—it was an abnormal view on women. And he knew there would be the resistance to it but yet he didn’t hold back. And I was also wondering like how successful has he been in this, because now we are in the 21st century and of course quite a bit has changed over time but I think still, in Asia especially, the role of women is still quite different than the role and position of men. So there’s work to be done.
This excerpt was transcribed from Sensei Kaigetsu’s talk “Merely Nonsense Spoken by a Drunken Shravaka (Part 5)” from the Dogen Symposum, recorded on July 14, 2012. To listen to the full dharma talk on Upaya Zen Center Dharma Podcasts: https://www.upaya.org/2012/07/irene-kaigetsu-bakker-07-14-2012-dogen-symposium-merely-nonsense-spoken-by-a-drunken-shravaka-part-5/Washington state is just a few months away from testing a new way of paying for its roads by charging for every mile driven.
RELATED: ‘Debate brewing’ around I-405 toll lane benchmarks
It’s called a Road Usage Charge and many believe it’s the future of transportation funding. The state is preparing a pilot program.
But there are plenty of unanswered questions.
About 2,800 Washington drivers will hit the roads in January, testing whether it makes more sense to charge them for every mile instead of the current gas tax. Some drivers will have GPS monitors attached to their cars. Others will simply use their odometer readings to track mileage. They will pay the gas tax at the pump but get reimbursed so that they are taxed for the number of miles driven.
Reema Griffith, executive director of the Washington State Transportation Commission, said the plan is to replace the gas tax if this road usage charge works.
“The full intent is to replace the gas tax,” she said. “How that happens, in terms of the time-frame of transition, is up in the air. Those kinds of things will ultimately be settled by the Legislature.”
That transition could last a decade. Griffith said the state can’t just turn the gas tax off.
“Our gas tax is heavily leveraged,” she said. “We have a lot of debt issued against it to generate all the dollars we have over the years to build all of these projects. We have about a 25-year debt that we have to deal with.”
Oregon is already using the road usage charge on a limited basis, but it has no plans to get rid of the gas tax.
“The gas tax would have to stick around because given the technology for road usage charging there are older vehicles that just aren’t compatible with that, and we’d need some way of having them pay for the roads they are using,” said Michelle Godfrey with the Oregon Department of Transportation.
And it’s not just Oregon and Washington state looking at this. There are 12 western states investigating whether there should be a regional or even a national system set up so that you would pay for every mile you drive, some with a gas tax too, others not.
“A visitor from, say, Washington to Oregon fills up in Oregon and drives in Oregon they’d be paying the Oregon fuel tax,” Godfrey said. “It’s not a perfect system because you could fill up in Washington and then drive in Oregon, and Washington is getting the benefit of that tax dollar.”
RELATED: Transportation official fights Dori’s notion of new road tolls
That’s why Washington’s pilot program will include drivers from Oregon. Griffith said they will use drivers who frequently travel back and forth between the two states to try and find out how a regional system might work.
“How do our two states reconcile that?” Griffith asked. “We’re going to work it through, not just the collection of it, but dealing with our treasuries and our laws.”
So why the big push to change the funding mechanism for roads? Griffith said the gas tax just isn’t a stable funding source going into the future. Cars are getting more fuel efficient which means they are filling up less often. That translates into less gas tax money going forward. She said something needs to replace that dwindling revenue.
“It’s not if, it’s when,” she said, referring to when the gas tax no longer fills the bill. “We’re going to have to make a switch to something, and if it’s not this we just say, then what?” she asked. “The revenue has to come from somewhere for our infrastructure, and we’re talking billion and billions of dollars. It’s not a small amount of money.”
Washington has about 2,800 volunteers signed up for the year-long pilot project, but it is still looking for volunteers. Griffith said they would like to get about 8,000 signed up so the state can make sure it gets a good cross-section of drivers. The pilot needs people from all over the state, with vehicles of all kinds.Here we go again. In March we wrote a blog entitled Accidentally Importing Censorship which described how incorrect DNS answers were returned in response to certain queries to the I-root. The problem was tracked down to a single instance of the I-root located in China. Queries to this server for domains blocked in China, such as Facebook, would return seemingly arbitrary answers. As we noted, countries, and even companies, can impose their own standards on the Internet and block anything they want. This story was only noteworthy because those blocks (via bad DNS answers) became visible outside of China. Well, guess what? We are once again seeing the Beijing I-root from outside of China.
Background
Let’s start with a few disclaimers and some background. First and foremost, the sky is not falling. Getting the wrong DNS answer, even when querying the Chinese I-root instance is an extremely rare event. Go back and read our earlier blog to see the exact alignment of the stars that would be necessary. The fact that it is so rare is what kept the problem from being detected for weeks. However, as we noted in that earlier blog, given the broad swath of the Internet potentially querying the Chinese I-root instance, someone was bound to stumble on a bad DNS answer and, as a result, not be able to friend their pals. This is exactly what happened and is what brought the problem to light.
Second, the fine folks at Netnod, who provide the exceptional and free I-root service, vigorously defended their services in China, asserting they provide the same DNS answers regardless of location. We have no reason to think otherwise.
Third, it’s quite easy to see incorrect answers from DNS servers in China yourself, whether or not you happen to live there. This has nothing to do with any of the root name servers. Just pick your favorite DNS server based in China and ask it about Facebook. Here is an example of repeated queries from the Linux command line from a US-based machine to a China Telecom DNS server.
dig @dns1.chinatelecom.com.cn. www.facebook.com.... www.facebook.com. 11556 IN A 37.61.54.158 www.facebook.com. 24055 IN A 78.16.49.15 www.facebook.com. 38730 IN A 203.98.7.65
None of these IP addresses has anything to do with Facebook. In fact, addresses starting with 37 haven’t even been allocated by IANA as of this writing.
Of course, if you don’t live in China, you probably don’t use a Chinese DNS server directly. The problem is that we all use the root name servers and they are spread throughout the world. Thanks to the vagaries of Internet routing, you may end up querying any of them, regardless of where you live and where they are hosted. Thus, if you live outside of China and just happen to query a root name server hosted in China, your queries will pass through what is known as the The Great Firewall, and hence will be subject to any restrictions it imposes.
Details, Details
While doing some research for next week’s NANOG meeting in San Francisco, we revisited the time line for the March I-root announcements from China and couldn’t help but notice the problem resurfacing on June 3rd. The I-root resolves to 192.36.148.17, which is announced by AS 29216 (which is dedicated to the I-root) as both 192.36.148.0/23 and 192.36.148.0/24. From there, these prefixes travel via Netnod’s AS 8674 and then onto the general Internet. Since Netnod anycasts these prefixes from dozens of locations around the world, we expect to see them via any number of BGP adjacencies to AS 8674 and, in fact, we do. Around 80 different ASes adjacent to Netnod’s AS 8674 see the two I-root prefixes and, in turn, propagate them onward.
What we do not expect to see are mainland Chinese ASes adjacent to AS 8674 propagating these prefixes outside of China. This is what we did see in March 2010 and it implies Internet users outside of China could be directed to the I-root instance inside of China. Unfortunately, this problem has returned. We see AS 8674 passing just 192.36.148.0/24 off to AS 24151 and then AS 7497, both of which are associated with the China Internet Network Information Center. From there, the prefix travels via Pacnet (AS 10026), formerly Asia Netcom, and PCCW (AS 3491) out to the general Internet. This started just before 10:20 UTC on June 3rd and is still ongoing as of the date of this blog.
As we noted last time, to get a bogus DNS response outside of China, you not only have to query the I-root, you have to query the Chinese instance of it. To measure potential impact, we looked at the originating country of all prefixes downstream of any provider selecting the Chinese I-root. We then computed the percentage of these relative to the total number of prefixes in the country. A graph of the top dozen from the March incident is shown below, followed by those from this current (and ongoing) incident.
Not surprisingly, most of the affected countries are in Asia, as before, but there are important differences from the last event. Russia, India and Taiwan all entered the top twelve, while Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh have dropped out. The impact on the countries in both lists is roughly similar, except that US impact went up by a factor of 10. Potentially impacted US states include Florida and |
recalling details about a cornucopia of different topics.
Her memory was, incredibly, back with a vengeance. And just in time for a White House run.
A true miracle.
Someone thank that husky mystery doctor dude who is probably napping in Hillary’s medical van … down by the river.
Uranium scandal heating up. Time to Fire up Hillary's EMT van. I smell medical issues, memory lapses. Hillary's fall back when heat is on. — Thomas Paine (@Thomas1774Paine) October 23, 2017The film XXY was slated to be shown at Russia’s first international LGBT film festival, but St. Petersburg officials shut down the festival on opening day.
A LGBT film festival gets shut down in St. Petersburg, 15 years after homosexuality became legal in post-Soviet Russia
'We have partners, we pay taxes, we are whole people. But most gay Russians don't have a vision of themselves in the future.'
When Irina Sergeeva first ventured outside her native Russia, she was struck by the contrast between gay culture at home and in Western cities like New York.
There aren’t a lot of places for gays in Russia beyond bars and clubs that dot its big cities, she says: “If you don’t want to drink beer or alcohol, there’s nowhere to go.”
For years, Sergeeva, along with Ksenia Zemskaya and Manny de Guerre, tried to think of ways to enrich the lives of gay people in Russia. Finally, in 2007, they decided to organize a film festival – though they had no experience with organizing.
Bok o Bok (or “Side by Side”), Russia’s first international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) film festival, was scheduled for Oct. 2 to 5 in St. Petersburg. Organizers anticipated 3,000 to 4,000 attendees. But on the morning of Oct. 2, the St. Petersburg fire department – citing code violations – closed the venues where the event was to take place.
The festival logo, a sketch of two smiling stick figures, hugging and sharing a single pair of pants, belies the risk festival organizers took in planning the breakthrough event, to say nothing of the risk many LGBT Russians face on a daily basis.
Although it’s no longer illegal to be gay in Russia – after Article 121 of the Soviet Criminal Code was repealed in 1993 – homophobia is still rampant.
“It’s strange,” says Kevin Moss, editor of the anthology Out of the Blue: Russia’s Hidden Gay Literature. “Before, you could almost understand the secrecy, and yet now, even with all the contact Russia has with the West, gay people just aren’t out.”
At least, not publicly.
“We have partners, we pay taxes, we are whole people,” says Zemskaya. “But most gay Russians don’t have a vision of themselves in the future.”
The freedoms that gay Russians began to explore in the ’90s, says Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, all but disappeared under President Vladimir Putin’s regime.
In 2006, riot police thwarted Moscow’s first gay pride parade and, according to news reports, stood by while skinheads and nationalists threw smoke bombs and eggs at LGBT activists.
“Moscow Pride was really important in revealing the depth of hatred and police indifference,” Long says. “But if there’s going to be a real LGBT movement, it has to affect people the other 364 days of the year.”
Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov called such rallies “satanic.”
“As long as I am mayor,” Luzhkov declared, “we will not permit these parades to be conducted.”
In 2007, several activists and European members of parliament demonstrated in support of a pride parade. Again, police offered little or no protection against anti-gay counter-protesters.
In less urban areas – where discrimination and violence against LGBT people often goes unreported – the homophobia is even worse. Although Russian police don’t aggregate statistics on hate crimes, Human Rights Watch’s Long says, “Civil society is about an inch deep outside Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
As for the film festival, Nikolai Burov, chairman of St. Petersburg’s Committee for Culture, told the Russian press he would not interfere with the festival, but would not endorse it either.
And in a sidebar to a January article on St. Petersburg’s news and lifestyle website gazeta.spb, a poll of the site’s readers showed that two-thirds opposed the festival.
Festival organizers say they made an effort to build broad support, citing the encouragement of local and international artists and activists, most notably Russian musician Svetlana Surganova and British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.
The festival was backed not only by activist sponsors like the International Lesbian and Gay Association, but also corporate ones: Absolut Vodka signed on, as did Time Out St. Petersburg.
What’s more, they curated several films – such as the American documentary Freeheld and the French feature Water Lilies – that have won awards at international film festivals, as well as received praise from non-LGBT groups. This was an attempt to block accusations against the festival’s artistic merits.
Nonetheless, PIK Cinema, where the festival was to be held, withdrew as the venue in mid-September, offering no explanation, but promising ticketholders a refund. Organizers called the snafu a mere administrative inconvenience and said films would later be screen at St. Petersburg clubs.
Though it was difficult trying to bring the festival to life, organizers say they had no choice. Says Zemskaya: “We can stay in the closet and be afraid or take a risk.”(Photo: Pavla Zakova/Dreamstime)
Fostering love with a family
Kelly Rosati, vice president of Advocacy for Children at Focus on the Family, spent last weekend fruitfully. “Nearly 75 new families in Minneapolis stepped out today to begin the foster care or foster care adoption journey. Good job Minnesota!” she tweeted.
The movement was part of Focus on the Family’s Wait No More Initiative to get children who are in foster care into loving homes. Today, on National Adoption Day, Rosati talks about foster care, adoption, and what each of us can do to make life better for children waiting to be adopted.
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Kathryn Jean Lopez: How many children are waiting in the foster-care system for a home?
Kelly Rosati: There are more than 400,000 children in foster care in the U.S. Of those, more than 100,000 are waiting for permanent families. For those more than 100,000 children, their birth parents’ rights have been terminated, because their homes aren’t safe even after reunification has been attempted. Those children are living in temporary foster-care homes, group homes, or residential settings with no permanent families to call their own. The kids who are waiting tend to be teenagers, sibling groups, or kids with special needs. Some people describe them as “unadoptable.” We categorically reject that label and believe each one deserves a permanent family.
Lopez: What’s the best way to support families who want to help foster?
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Rosati: The best ways are practical. Pray for the children and the families. Bring meals for foster and adoptive families; offer transportation assistance; babysit; do yardwork, shopping, or laundry. Offer to make life easier. Be persistent, consistent, and faithful. Be sure not to inadvertently add burdens to their very overwhelmed lives.
Lopez: How are these families best vetted to make sure they have good homes for children?
Rosati: All foster and adoptive families are vetted through licensed child-placing agencies. The process includes a background check, home study, and specialized training — and lots of paperwork.
Lopez: When should adoption happen?
Rosati: Adoption should happen whenever a child needs a family. One of the things we ask people to consider is that adoption is not about the desire of adults for a child (however good that desire is) but rather it is about a child’s need for family. God’s design for children is a loving family.
Lopez: What is Wait No More, and how does it work?
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Rosati: Wait No More (WNM) is Focus on the Family’s foster-care adoption program. It began almost ten years ago through the passion and experience of our president, Jim Daly, who himself was orphaned and spent time in foster care. Essentially, we try to use the voice and reach of Focus on the Family on behalf of kids in foster care awaiting adoption — kids who have no voice of their own. Through our WNM events, we recruit adoptive families for those kids waiting in foster care. We do this through half-day, community-based events where we work with local and state governments, adoption agencies, churches, and ministries to recruit desperately needed foster and adoptive families.
Lopez: What difference does this program make?
Rosati: The biggest difference of all. Lonely kids who currently belong nowhere and to no one finally get what they’ve been waiting for: forever adoptive families, a place to belong, people to love them unconditionally. They come home, for good.
Lopez: How do your events work?
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Rosati: We put on half-day events in local churches where attendees start with worship and hearing from the Scripture about God’s heart for orphans. They go on to hear about the kids in their state foster-care system who are waiting for adoptive families. They hear perspectives from an adoptive mom, adoptive dad, and birth siblings already in the home, as well as from two women who were in foster care as children, one who was adopted and one who wasn’t.
They get to hear firsthand what it feels like to be one of the waiting kids and why it’s so important to find adoptive families for them. They also learn from a social worker about the steps in the process and the “why” behind those steps. Finally, they learn the “why” behind some of the difficult behaviors the kids often exhibit when they come from traumatic backgrounds, and they are taught how they can best navigate some of those challenges.
Lopez: What success stories can you share?
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Rosati: We’ve had more than 3,500 families begin the process of foster-care adoption at one of our 35 Wait No More events in 20 states. Each one represents real lives, real children, and families. My two favorite stories are these. A family from our first WNM event adopted a sibling group of four boys in foster care who had been told they would never be placed together but instead would have to be split up. This amazing family, with three teen and young-adult birth kids already in their home said, “No, don’t split them up. We’ll take them all.” And they did. They welcomed them home and gave them a beautiful life, after they’d only known abuse and deprivation in their past. It sure hasn’t been easy or a fairy tale, but they would all tell you each one of their children was worth it.
Another of my favorite stories is of a Wait No More family that adopted a 17-year-old young lady, 30 days before she was to become an adult who would have belonged nowhere and to no one. In both cases, everyone involved would have said it was impossible to find adoptive families for a sibling group of four or for an almost 18-year-old with behavioral challenges. But nothing is impossible with God. He’s a father to the fatherless, and Scripture says He sets the lonely in families. That’s what He has done through Wait No More.
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Lopez: What are the biggest challenges facing foster care and adoption?
Rosati: The biggest challenge is that there are not enough healthy adults willing to enter in and sacrifice for the sake of the children. Entering in, with either foster care or adoption, can be inconvenient, frustrating, demanding, difficult, uncomfortable, fear-inducing, heart-wrenching, and it goes completely against our cultural preferences for ease and comfort. But it’s completely worth it. Having adopted four kids from foster care with significant special needs, I can say that with confidence and certainty.
Once you do enter in, the biggest challenge relates to parenting kids who’ve experienced serious trauma. When the kids come from that background, they will almost always exhibit very challenging behaviors. As a result, parents need to be humble, flexible, seek help, and live with more grace, patience, perseverance, and tolerance than they ever knew they possessed. Thankfully, God gives all those things in abundance, even as the journey is lived out imperfectly.
Lopez: What are the biggest opportunities?
Rosati: To get orphans into families where they belong — nothing like it!
Lopez: What might be your plea — or maybe your challenge — to people of faith, maybe in a particular way with regard to adoption and foster care?
Rosati: Would you simply commit to do this for 30 days? Pray and ask God: Do you want to use me and the blessing of our family on behalf of a child without one? Just ask Him, and take small steps in faith.
Lopez: Are there a few things everyone can do to help foster care and adoption today?
Rosati: Yes! Pray for orphans and foster and adoptive families. Speak out so the needs of orphans and adoptive families are prioritized among the many other things vying for our attention. Ask an adoptive family how you can be a practical and faithful support to them. Become a court-appointed special advocate for children in foster care. Donate to ministries serving orphans and adoptive and foster families. There are countless ways to get involved. Not all Christians are called to foster care or adoption but we are all called to care and act on behalf of orphans, whether locally or globally. Visit our website for more information or resources to get involved.
READ MORE:
Adoption and Republicans
Michigan Tolerates Faith-Based Adoption Agencies, the ACLU Sues
Good News: House Republicans Restore the Adoption Tax Credit to the Tax Reform BillWhat exactly was the moment when Dr. Dre went from being a rap producer to the all-seeing oracle of the hip-hop industry? The crucial transformation in a career of crucial transformations can be traced to Dre’s initial partnership with Eminem. In 1997, Dre was struggling to make Aftermath relevant following the massive cultural significance of his Death Row recordings. Now the papers were reporting that he was determined to break a blonde emcee from Detroit. It at first seemed ludicrous, the early sign of an unavoidable decline. It turned out to be just the opposite.
Dre’s endorsement of Eminem became the most successful bet of the producer’s life, surpassing even Straight Outta Compton and The Chronic, two of the most seminal and individualistic album-length statements in hip-hop history. In discovering, grooming and marketing Eminem (with the help of his industry shaker, Jimmy Iovine) Dre confirmed that he was in possession of powers beyond the musical. His work with Eminem led into the release of 2001, which renewed his creative license for a new generation and segued into his work with 50 Cent and Game.
Since that time, he has continued to make music but at a much slower rate than 10 or 15 years ago. His beats now feel expensive and important, and it’s sometimes easy to long for the days of “Let Me Ride,” when his music felt more organic and unselfconscious. However, his abilities as a beatmaker have long since been superseded by his presence as a tastemaker. Because of this, the expectations for his new music have gone skyward, and Dre has always made it his mission not only to meet but to exceed the public’s expectations of him.
Detox has become a mythically anticipated album not simply because of Dr. Dre’s production legacy but because he is now regarded as much more of a musical artist—he is a visionary, an artist-maestro who has transcended the stature previously occupied by Phil Spector. Even when he’s not doing anything he exerts more influence on rap music than producers who are active week to week. As we look back over a musical portfolio that spans almost 30 years, the predominant question asked by fans, peers, and industry insiders has shifted from “When will Dre drop his latest?” to “What would Dre do?”
Written by Sam Sweet (All Night Menu)
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Overview [ edit ]
The game offers over 40 training games,[1] each being separated into 4 brain training categories:
Calculation — Tests the player's ability to apply mathematics skills. Reflex — Displays problems that mostly require the player to rapidly press buttons. Judgment — Examines how well the player can apply decision-making and thinking skills. Memory — Tests the player's ability to memorize certain numbers, shapes, and the like.
Grading system [ edit ]
Grades in Mind Quiz range from A+ to E,[1] each being associated with a different level of performance.
A+ A B+ B C+ C D+ D E+ E >95.0% 90-94.9% 85-89.9% 80-84.9% 70-79.9% 60-69.9% 50-59.9% 40-49.9% 30-39.9% <29.9%
Game modes [ edit ]
Game modes include[2]
Datafile : measures performance in each of the five areas
: measures performance in each of the five areas Save/Delete : allows the player to save or delete his data
: allows the player to save or delete his data Brain Age Test : tests brain age with four mini-examinations
: tests brain age with four mini-examinations Training
Challenge
Exams [ edit ]
Take any one of five different exams in all four Mind Quiz fields.[2]
Galleries [ edit ]
View two different galleries: one containing animal pictures, and one containing Brain Trainer Awards.[2]
Network [ edit ]
Accessible from the Main Menu, this function requires two PSP systems with the Mind Quiz: Exercise Your Brain UMD inside, and with the WLAN switch on. One player selects "Player Search" and is the host. The other player selects "Participate" and is the recipient. Once a connection is established, the players prepare and start competing. Each player is given a set number of questions. Whoever gets all questions first wins.
The phrase "Super Spastic" is highlighted in red
Gameplay [ edit ]
After entering the Training Mode, the player is asked his first question. When the game is finished, a report card will show time, rate %, and letter grade, along with a comment from the teacher.
UK Recall [ edit ]
On June 29, 2007, Ubisoft, the game's publisher, voluntarily pulled the game from store shelves in the UK upon complaints that the word spastic, a term that is offensive in the UK, was triggered when the player didn't perform well on certain questions.[3] Ubisoft stated "As soon as we were made aware of the issue we stopped distribution of the product and are now working with retailers to pull the game off the market."[4]
The only country where the European English version of the game is sold is Australia since the term is not considered especially offensive there or overly sensitive.
The same incident occurred with the game Mario Party 8, released for the Nintendo Wii, just a month later. The same word caused controversy and was recalled in the UK. However, unlike Mind Quiz, that word was replaced by the word "erratic" and it was finally re-released in the UK on August 3, 2007.
Reception [ edit ]
Reception Review scores Publication Score GameSpot 4.9 out of 10[5] IGN 4.0 out of 10[6]
The title received mixed reviews; garnering 51.20% on GameRankings. GameSpot gave the game 4.9/10 (Poor), stating that "Mind Quiz: Your Brain Coach is a shameless clone of Nintendo's brain-training DS game, Brain Age" and that "This game isn't good enough to serve as a game for Brain Age players who are looking for more of the same because it's too similar yet too shallow to entertain that crowd. If you fall into the group of people who haven't played Brain Age, you should go with that one rather than waste your time on a pretender like Mind Quiz."[7] However, the game averaged 75.3 on Metacritic.[8]
See also [ edit ]JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — A Chinese property developer has a lofty vision for a pokey suburb of Johannesburg.
The plan? To turn Modderfontein, a dull, soulless area of semi-industrial sprawl, into the “New York of Africa,” with a financial district, 10 hotels, 10 shopping centers and an African culture theme park.
Hong Kong-listed Shanghai Zendai Property Ltd. on Tuesday announced it is buying a 1,600-hectare (3,953 acre) tract of land, and will make an investment of 80 billion rand, or $7.8 billion, over the next 15 years to develop the area.
“It will become the future capital of the whole of Africa,” chairman Dai Zhikong told a press conference on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. “This will be on par with cities like New York in America or Hong Kong in the Far East.”
Shanghai Zendai is buying the land from AECI Ltd., a South African explosives and chemical group. The area currently houses an explosives factory, which opened in 1896 in connection with Johannesburg’s gold mining boom.
The Chinese firm views the area as strategic, located some 5 miles east of Sandton, a retail and financial hub in northern Johannesburg, and around the same distance west of OR Tambo International Airport.
“Johannesburg is the political, economic and cultural center of South Africa, hence the property possesses enormous development potential,” the company said in a statement.
According to the plans, this new African capital will include some 35,000 houses, a sports stadium and an educational center, and will create at least 20,000 jobs.
Shanghai Zendai said the development will also provide a base for Chinese companies looking to expand into Africa.
Artists’ impressions show futuristic, beehive-shaped buildings with pools and fountains set amid the veld.
The site also includes wetlands, which are to be protected, creating a sort of "Central Park." The development will be built in line with the Chinese philosophy of living in harmony in nature, the company said at the news conference.
Shanghai Zendai, whose shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange are valued at around $300 million, declined to answer detailed questions about their financing plans. Even if the company decides to pre-sell and build in phases over the 15-year project, reaching nearly $8 billion in financing in that time may be a stretch.
Previous projects by Shanghai Zendai include hotels, offices and residential areas in a dozen Chinese cities including Shanghai, Nanjing and Qingdao, as well as a development underway in New Zealand, its first foray overseas.
Perhaps in recognition that “Modderfontein” isn’t exactly catchy, the company has asked South Africans to submit new name suggestions for the area.
Johannesburg, as the economic hub of South Africa, already bills itself as a “World Class African City,” though this moniker was challenged earlier in the year.
South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled the City of Johannesburg’s claim in a radio commercial to be a world class African city was “misleading,” and ordered the ad withdrawn.
Thabo Rangwaga, spokesman for Johannesburg's mayoral committee responsible for development planning and urban management, said he thought the idea of a "New York of Africa" referred to the kind of buildings the Chinese investors want to construct.
Rangwaga said Johannesburg is currently focusing its development efforts on the downtown core.
"Johannesburg promotes investment in every part of the city," he added. "This is in line with our future city model — our growth and development model."
More from GlobalPost: Is China South Africa's latest role model?It’s tempting right? You could subtly mention how much you enjoyed the fluffy Trump-monogrammed pillows the night before as you make small talk before turning to your request that the president call off a regulator, or veto a bill, or make federal land accessible to your coal mining operation. Surely a stay at the Trump Hotel would be preferable to Washington’s other scandal-ridden hospitality institutions like the Mayflower or the Watergate?
But keep in mind the federal bribery statute, which while frequently enforced against politician-bribees, can also be enforced against businessman-bribers:
Whoever—
(1) directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official or person who has been selected to be a public official, or offers or promises any public official or any person who has been selected to be a public official to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent—
(A) to influence any official act; …
shall be fined under this title or not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years.
18 U.SC. 201.
Yes, the president could be such public official, at least according to the Office of Legal Counsel. One can see an argument that the law should not apply to someone who pays market price even though Trump technically benefits every time a dollar is handed over to the hotel. But then again the market price of a Trump Hotel room may include the demand-driven value of the opportunity to influence a federal official.
Suppose the CEO of Toxic Substances Inc. plans to meet with the head of the EPA, and is told by an EPA official that he “should really stay at the Trump Hotel,” since that is convenient to the meeting place. The Supreme Court has recently held that “setting up a meeting” by itself does not constitute an “official act” under the statute. But here the official act in question would be whatever the CEO wants the EPA to do—say, water down a regulation—and the suggestion could easily be construed as a request for a bribe.
Advice to corporate lobbyists: there is nice Motel 8 in Arlington, Virginia.6 Weeks and Counting… Posted by The Landing School on May 8, 2014 · Leave a Comment
May is the time of year when many students are winding down, thinking about their summer plans and looking forward to finishing their final exams. Our students are a little bit different. They are in high gear as they work to complete their projects in time for graduation – still six weeks away. Although the shops are a flurry of activity, it’s also the time of year when students begin to utilize all of the skills they have learned over the last nine months. This is very true in Composites, where students are working on their personal projects – a highlight of the year.
In past years, students have built violins, snowboards, bikes and a host of other items that used the skills and materials they have come to know so well. This years projects remain a bit of a mystery. It’s difficult to tell at this point what these items will be in a few weeks. But one look at last year’s projects and you can see that the end products are really great!
The goal of personal projects in Composites is not just to test the skills of our students. It also to shows them how the skills they’ve learned apply across disciplines. Many of our past Composite graduates have gone on to work with sporting goods, in aerospace and a host of other industries. One look at this video and you’ll see how the Composites program prepares students to work with a variety of materials in a variety of applications.
43.377564 -70.495265The all English sport of rugby is coming to Dubrovnik. Rugby Club “Gladiator” Dubrovnik is a newly formed club and is on the lookout for new players. The club will hold training for new members this Saturday the 20th of February in Cavtat at 10 o’clock and everyone is welcome.
The founder of the Gladiator Rugby Club is Ante Stojan, who has played the game at a high level since he was 13 years old. Speaking to The Dubrovnik Times he said that “I first saw the game when I was living in Zagreb and fell in love with it.” He then went on to play for clubs in Croatia, including the Croatian National Rugby Team, before spending a year in New Zealand, one of the powerhouses of modern rugby, where he learnt even more about the sport.
“There is plenty of interest in Croatia, with clubs up and down the country. As we are only just starting out we need to judge the interest in Dubrovnik,” added Stojan.
This isn’t the first time that rugby has been played in the Dubrovnik region. A few years ago an exhibition match was organised at the Lapad sports stadium between a team from Croatia and a lower league club from England.
“Rugby is a new Olympic sport, a team sport that has room for everyone, we welcome all those interested, and of course no previous experience is necessary,” concluded Stojan. The first ever training will be held at 10 o’clock in Cavtat this Saturday and anyone interested can contact the club through their Facebook site.
Gladiator Rugby Club has plans to bring international coaches from other Croatian clubs and professional trainers with international experience. Although the first training will be held in Cavtat the club intend to find suitable conditions to move the club to a ground in Dubrovnik in the near future.A Newark woman is facing charges after police say she shot her husband on Sunday. 53-year-old Patricia Lootens is being charged with shooting her husband in the lower torso during a domestic dispute. The suspect's husband is expected to survive the gunshot wound.
A Newark woman is facing charges after police say she shot her husband on Sunday, according to our news partner, News10NBC
Police reported to a call on Sunday around 3:30 p.m. from an unidentified female caller who requested help and reported that a man had been shot. Officers arrived at 304 West Maple Avenue where they were met at the door by the victim’s wife, 53-year-old Patricia Lootens.
According to police, Lootens led police to her husband, 57-year-old Ronald Lootens who had a gunshot wound to the lower torso.
Lootens was taken to Strong Hospital and is expected to survive.
Investigators believe the shooting is a result of a domestic altercation between the couple. Patricia is currently in custody for the shooting and will be arraigned in Newark Village Court.Unlocking
We have talked previously about being able to manipulate the multiplier only if you have an unlocked processor. But what exactly is unlocking and how can you do it? Let's delve into that for just a bit, shall we?
What is Unlocking?
When a processor begins life, it is fabricated out of a piece of silicon. From there, AMD begins the process of creating a usable processor for your system. Depending on how advanced the manufacturing technique, they will then determine how fast the processor can run with 100% stability. Once the maximum speed is determined, they will generally throw these processors into a bin labeled with this maximum speed.
But now things can get interesting. If they have a whole slew of processors that can safely be rated at 1.53GHz (Athlon XP 1800+) but have a need to provide 1.4GHz processors due to customer demand, then they will internally reset the multiplier settings of these processors to allow for the 1.4GHz speeds to meet consumer demand. Once these processors have been locked in at this 1.4GHz speed, they are released for public consumption.
Simply put, unlocking is the act of overriding that factory set multiplier. Intel has removed the ability to unlock their multiplier range, but AMD has made it a relatively simple matter to play and tweak their processors. This act of unlocking is one of the major reasons (besides price) that makes the Athlon range of processors so much fun to play with. Though the Intel Northwood chips are making great leaps in outright overclockability, you just don't have the flexibility to get the most out of the processor since you can't adjust the multiplier.
As to how you actually perform the unlocking, that will depend on which processor you have. The older Thunderbird chips are an absolute breeze to unlock. And while the newer Athlon XP provides a bit more of a challenge to succeed, it is still very possible and the benefits are equally beneficial.
Unlocking the Thunderbird
Final Warning! Proceeding any further in this Guide will effectively VOID YOUR WARRANTY on your processor. While time and experience has proven this to be a relatively safe procedure, there is a risk of damaging or destroying your processor or other system components. Neither TweakTown nor myself will be help liable in the event that you damage your system or components.
When you were a child, you may have had the chance to play book games called Connect The Dots. If so, then you will have no problems unlocking your Thunderbird processor. Of course, even if you didn't play this game it will still be easy. Let's start off by having a look at the beginning product.
As you look at the above picture, you should notice that the dots labeled "L1" have a space between them. Each pair of dots going up and down are a set. These sets are called "Bridges" and are the means in which the manufacturer has locked your processor to its given multiplier setting. To unlock your processor you simply create a conductive pathway between these bridges. Since the amount of current required for this procedure is so small, even the small graphite content within a pencil tracing can create this conductive pathway.
A popular means to connect the dots is to take a pencil and draw a heavy line between each of the four bridges. Most folks have had good luck using an HB #2 pencil. And before you ask, HB is not the brand name but an indicator as to the hardness rating of the pencil lead. One advantage to using the so-called "Pencil Trick" is that you can just erase the pencil tracings and the processor will revert to its factory condition. Of course, this same concept is a disadvantage as the pencil tracing can wear off over time and you have to redo the work again.
WARNING - Make extra sure that you connect ONLY up and down when making the tracings. If you connect the bridges going from side to side, you'll be in the market for a new processor!
For those who are looking for a more permanent solution (like me for example), you can use solder to connect the bridges. Another popular method is to go to your local auto parts store and get a rear window defogger repair kit. The contents will create a permanent pathway over the bridge. Finally, several enthusiasts have also taken a pen with conductive ink and connected the bridges in that manner. It works in the same manner as the pencil but creates a more permanent pathway.
Since I preferred the solder method, here is a picture of the bridges connected. It should also serve as an example of what you need to do in any of the other methods talked about previously.The crowd also thrashed Moshin Khan. | Photo Credit: Indiatimes, Representative Image
Jodhpur: A 20-year-old Hindu woman refused to marry his Muslim boyfriend until he changes his religion to Hinduism.
Pooja Joshi has eloped with her boyfriend Moshin Khan on Sunday to marry him.
Also read: When a police station turned into a wedding venue for Kannauj couple
Joshi's family members filed a missing complaint about the woman and the couple was detained in Bikaner after a tip-off.
Hindu groups along with the family reached the police station where the couple was detained and raised slogans claiming that it is a 'love jihad' case.
The crowd also thrashed Moshin Khan.
After the girl was taken to magistrate's office to record a statement where she said that she will only marry Moshin Khan when he converts to Hinduism refusing to go home with him.
"The girl is not a minor. hence, she can decide where she wants to live. We let her go after completing the formalities," said ACP Pooja Yadav.For the first time, a team including scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have used neutron beams to create holograms of large solid objects, revealing details about their interiors in ways that ordinary laser light-based visual holograms cannot.
Holograms—flat images that change depending on the viewer’s perspective, giving the sense that they are three-dimensional objects—owe their striking capability to what’s called an interference pattern. All matter, such as neutrons and photons of light, has the ability to act like rippling waves with peaks and valleys. Like a water wave hitting a gap between the two rocks, a wave can split up and then re-combine to create information-rich interference patterns.
An optical hologram is made by shining a laser at an object. Instead of merely photographing the light reflected from the object, a hologram is formed by recording how the reflected laser light waves interfere with each other. The resulting patterns, based on the waves’ phase differences, or relative positions of their peaks and valleys, contain far more information about an object’s appearance than a simple photo does, though they don’t generally tell us much about its hidden interior.
Hidden interiors, however, are just what neutron scientists explore. Neutrons are great at penetrating metals and many other solid things, making neutron beams useful for scientists who create a new substance and want to investigate its properties. But neutrons have limitations, too. They aren’t very good for creating visual images; neutron experiment data is usually expressed as graphs that would look at home in a high school algebra textbook. And this data typically tells them about how a substance is made on average—fine if they want to know broadly about an object built from a bunch of repeating structures like a crystal, but not so good if they want to know the details about one specific bit of it.
But what if we could have the best of both worlds? The research team has found a way.
The team’s previous work, performed at the NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR), involved passing neutrons through a cylinder of aluminum that had a tiny “spiral staircase” carved into one of its circular faces. The cylinder’s shape imparted a twist to the neutron beam, but the team also noticed that the beam’s individual neutrons changed phase depending on what section of the cylinder they passed through: the thicker |
clauses match, the do block is executed, returning its result. Otherwise the chain is aborted and a non-matched value is returned:
opts = %{ width: 10, height: 15 } with { :ok, width} < - Map.fetch(opts, :width ), { :ok, height} < - Map.fetch(opts, :height ), do: { :ok, width * height} #=> {:ok, 150} opts = %{ width: 10 } with { :ok, width} < - Map.fetch(opts, :width ), { :ok, height} < - Map.fetch(opts, :height ), do: { :ok, width * height} #=> :error
The documentation also says: variables bound inside with won’t leak, and also it allows “bare expressions”:
width = nil opts = %{ width: 10, height: 15 } with { :ok, width} < - Map.fetch(opts, :width ), double_width = width * 2, { :ok, height} < - Map.fetch(opts, :height ), do: { :ok, double_width * height} #=> {:ok, 300} width #=> nil
Some usages
This looks cool. But when should we use it? There are some situations where using with is a good idea. I’m going to mention 2 of them.
Replacing nested case statements
Let’s say we have a function to setup a socket that listens on a specific port, accept a connection on this socket, and wait for incoming packets. We could have something like:
def server (port, opts) do case :gen_tcp.listen(port, opts) do { :ok, lsock} -> case :gen_tcp.accept(lsock) do { :ok, sock} -> do_recv(sock) error -> error end error -> error end end def do_recv (sock) do case :gen_tcp.recv(sock, 0 ) do { :ok, packet} -> handle_packet(packet) do_recv(sock) { :error, :closed } -> :ok end end
server/2 has 2 nested case’s. We can rewrite it using with :
def server (port, opts) do with { :ok, lsock} < - :gen_tcp.listen(port, opts), { :ok, sock} < - :gen_tcp.accept(lsock), do: do_recv(sock) end
This new implementation is shorter and more readable.
Validations
with can also be used to validate data before doing something with this data.
Let’s say we want to create a new user in our database by storing it in our database; but in order to do so, we have to run some validations over the data.
If we use with, we could write something like:
def create (user) do with :ok < - validate_name(user), :ok < - validate_email(user), :ok < - validate_token(user), :ok < - validate_location(user), do: persist(user) end
The code looks pretty simple.
We run every validation before calling persist/1. If one of the validations returns something different than :ok, for example, validate_email/1 returns { :error, :invalid_email }, the chain will be aborted and create/1 will return the error tuple.
(We can implement create/1 in a few different ways. Using with is just one more)
What about the ‘Let it crash’ culture?
Ok, with is a nice special form, our code looks simple and readable when we use it. But I’m an Erlang developer, so if something doesn’t return the result that I’m expecting, the process running that code must die and its supervisor might restart it (depending on the restart strategy).
We could say that with hides MatchError crashes. So that, using with is kind of using try/catch statements. Well, I think that’s not really true. Because whatever with returns is going to be an expected result, regardless if it’s a successful response or an error response. For instance, if we call our create/1 function and it returns { :error, reason }, we might want to do something with that error (log it, send a notification, etc) before finishing the process.
case create(user) do { :ok, id} -> { :ok, id} { :error, reason} -> handle_creation_error(user, reason) end
Conclusion
This new special form is a good tool to write simple code when it’s used in the right situation. As any other tool, trying to use it everywhere would be a mistake.
It doesn’t hide MatchError crashes, it simply has different possible returns. So it’s not breaking the 'Let it crash’ rule. For example, we know that our create/1 function returns { :ok, id } or { :error, reason }, if we only want to accept { :ok, id } we simply match the result to it:
{ :ok, id} = create(user)
And as a downside, I would say that I’m starting to get a little “scared” about seeing new special forms, because they provide new ways to do something that we are already doing. And having multiple ways to do the same thing makes me remember Ruby and its “infinite” alternatives to write the same logic, which sometimes makes me feel that I’m not able to choose the right one. Anyway, Elixir doesn’t have that problem (yet). So, all in all, I can say I’m enjoying this new special form.Under a new system announced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel Friday, preschool programs will vie against each other in a highly competitive process to win city and CPS contracts.
Emanuel unveiled the long-awaited process, and announced the city will add at least 2,000 new preschool slots next year and more in future years. Another 4,000 children will receive increased access to wraparound services through existing early childhood programs.
Advocates said that they are hopeful the new system will result in better outcomes.
“If, in fact, this is going to contribute to getting more kids in quality early childhood education. That is what we’re looking for,” said Rosazlia Grillier, a member of the parent organization POWER-PAC. She also said she is happy to see more funding for early childhood programs.
Though the money comes from the federal or state government, the city and Chicago Public Schools administer and dole out contracts to most Head Start and state pre-kindergarten programs.
Chicago Public Schools’ Community Partnership Program already allows charter schools and Catholic schools to compete for state pre-kindergarten funds, but this is the first citywide funding competition that will put different organizations with different funding streams on comparable footing.
“There will be charter schools, the Catholic Church, and neighborhood groups that will be competing,” Emanuel said. “And that is going to be our new way of doing business.”
Students who attend preschool at charter schools will continue to be required to apply by lottery for kindergarten charter school seats; spots will not be reserved for them to continue attending the schools.
Programs will be selected based on quality, as well as neighborhood need.
Maria Whelan, executive director of Illinois Action for Children, said that the plan “has some huge, huge possible upsides” for its emphasis on serving hard-to-reach children and funding programs based on more sophisticated neighborhood-level data on access to preschool seats.
The city and CPS will make their decisions independently, but will coordinate to ensure that program spots get to neighborhoods that need them most. That’s a big change, Emanuel said, adding that in the past “we were very uncoordinated between CPS and the Department of Family and Support Services.”
Now, he said, “we are going to have a single standard…when [students] get to 1st grade, they’ll be ready.”
However, some programs may be at risk of losing their funding altogether. New York City recently adopted a similar funding competition process for its child care programs, and families in programs that lost funding had to look for new places to send students.
At the moment, Emanuel said he is not concerned about that happening.
“The first thing we are going to do is make sure there is quality education throughout the city” and that parents can access it, Emanuel said.
Next year alone, the effort will cost an additional $10 million – a bill that’s being footed by the city, not by CPS. Considering the city is facing a $300 million deficit, it is not clear how Emanuel plans to pay for the expansion.
“There’s a lot of tough decisions you have got to make in public life. But we’re not going to make those decisions on the backs of our children,” Emanuel said. “While other cities and other states are cutting back, we are going in another direction.”
He stressed that parent engagement is a key factor in preschool programs’ success. “If you create a seamless web between the school and the home, there’s nothing our children can’t achieve,” he said.
Quality criteria, which are listed on the city’s website, are different for each program. But on the whole, they show the city will prioritize programs that:
Create “regular, two-way and meaningful” communication between parents and teachers.
Identify and target children who are most in need of services, and reach out proactively to hard-to-find families. For state pre-K programs, this can include a child’s prenatal and current health history; social development; parents’ income level, age and education level; and whether a child’s older brothers and sisters are having trouble in school.
Use research-based curricula, and line up with state early childhood education standards.
Collaborate with other organizations to offer families comprehensive or wrap-around services, and coordinate with any other agencies where a given family may be receiving services.
Have plans for screening students for disabilities, and using assessments to improve instruction.
Have set procedures for helping children transition into kindergarten, or into another program if they leave.
Make detailed plans for teachers’ professional development and have a stable group of staff members, avoiding turnover that can be hard on young children.
Have received two or more stars from the state’s child care Quality Rating System, or are nationally accredited.
For Head Start programs, have many staff who are “exceptionally well-qualified” and hold more than the minimum credential required for their jobs.
Provide a balance of different educational activities (teacher-directed and child-initiated activities; active and quiet ones; independent and guided tasks; and large-group, small-group and individual activities).
Cover language development, motor skills, health and nutrition, emotional and social development, math, science, social studies and fine arts “in an integrated manner and reflecting the holistic nature of learning.”
This story was updated to include additional information about existing preschool programs and the charter school admissions process.The father of Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said black people "need to be educated" about Democrats, so that they will vote Republican. Rafael Cruz, who made the comments at the Western Williamson Republican Club's August meeting, added "the average black does not" understand that the minimum wage is bad.
The Aug. 21 meeting advertised that Rafael would "speak passionately on what can be done to return our nation to the principles that made America exceptional." During the speech, Cruz spoke at length about a recent conversation he said he had with a black pastor in Bakersfield, California.
"I said, as a matter of fact, 'Did you know that Civil Rights legislation was passed by Republicans? It was passed by a Republican Senate under the threat of a filibuster by the Democrats,'" Cruz said. "'Oh, I didn't know that.' And then I said, 'Did you know that every member of the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats from the South?' 'Oh I didn't know that.' You know, they need to be educated."
Cruz cited a book Please Stop Helping Us by Jason Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
"I am going to try to encourage everybody I can to buy a book written by a black journalist. His name is Jason Riley. He wrote a book called Please Stop Helping Us, talking about how all the handouts to blacks have kept blacks in the poorhouse. And I'll tell you what, I am going to make it my task to buy 15 to 20 copies of that book and hand it out to some black leaders to read."
"Jason Riley said in an interview, Did you know before we had minimum wage laws black unemployment and white unemployment were the same? If we increase the minimum wage, black unemployment will skyrocket. See, he understands it, but the average black does not."
The elder Cruz added "every ethnic group" wants "the ability to succeed," saying Democrats "sell this guaranteed utopia" that is "guaranteed mediocrity."
"What we need to sell is the American dream," Cruz said.003: Disparity
Kleinmorg began as a mill town, slumped down between two mountains along the path of the Towerkil. Thousands of workers had operated the roaring machines in the big blocky buildings, carding, spinning, and weaving cotton cloth. Others maintained the canals, the brick railroad-flats, and all the other necessities. But the passage of two centuries had laid waste to the cotton mills, undercut by cheaper labor elsewhere, and Kleinmorg had been left to subside on the slag of its remaining industry: specialty shops for felt and nets and fishing line, a paper mill, a chemical plant, and the foundry. As the twenty-first century approached, however, even this commerce wilted away. The trip hammers grew quiet, and the Towerkil ate away at abandoned foundations.
For three generations, Kleinmorg’s young fled to seek opportunities elsewhere. Blair Felt & Fulling and University of Massachusetts Kleinmorg provided some employment, but for many residents, there was no recourse but welfare. The town hollowed out, blackrotted apartments studding its streets like blighted teeth. The tax base shrank along with the population, and it declined even further when the largest remaining businesses demanded exemptions from a desperate town council.
All of these things might explain, then, why the tech boom was so surprising. There seemed to be no particular reason why Kleinmorg would nurture a brilliant young programmer such as John Rensselaer. But reality doesn’t cater to expectations; the reckless young man found astonishing success in the new frontier of distributed software -- and more than that, also chose to stay and build. Rensselaer’s company, Supersolutions, wasn’t just a miracle for the millions who used their programs, it was also the first glimpse of how Kleinmorg might reverse its long decline. Distrosoft existed only in networks, uncentralized and impossible to control, allowing them to evade the grasp of the captured regulatory agencies that would otherwise have continued to strangle autonomous ikons, ios, and other modern marvels. Especially after the Ramanujan controversy ended most AI research, distrosoft seemed like the future of computing… and perhaps even the future of this former mill town.
Sophia Williams knew none of this. She knew about Blair F&F, of course, the company that owned numerous smaller businesses (including the power company, the town ponder technics
and a dozen Jerrie Joe franchises). And she was old enough to remember when John Rensselaer had gone to prison for tax evasion, leaving his brother in charge of Supersolutions -- a suspenseful time for her family, since her father worked in one of the Supersolutions cafeterias and there had been reason to fear the company might be broken up. But Sophia was seventeen, and not particularly curious or studious.
Sophia just knew that she didn’t want to be hurt any more. She didn’t want to be scared any more.
“What do you mean, revenge?” she asked Magda. But it seemed like a stupid thing to say: Annie had already figured out that Sophia was up to something (not that Sophia had done a stellar job of remaining inconspicuous), and Sophia had already named Mikki as the author of the damage to her face. So she followed up, lamely, by just saying the first true thing that came to mind: “I don’t want to hurt her. I just want it to stop.”
“I wouldn’t quite use that word, myself,” said Annie, gently affixing tape to the gauze on her cheek. “Unfortunately, all the decent words for conflict have a martial air to them. But it seems plain to me that your best recourse against such a powerful member of the bourgeois is going to be extra-legal.”
“Social pressure is more effective and less risky. And you know almost nothing about this young woman or the situation. Don’t rush into something just because a few isolated facts conform to your preconceived ideas about social class and your petey sympathies. Be a fox, not a hedgehog,” retorted Magda, who was pouring hot water into a teapot.
Annie scoffed, the loose flesh under her arms jiggling as she packed away her first-aid kit. “A bruised-up young lady from the north side who lives in one of these printed palaces is complaining about a bullying scion of the local robber barons, and is desperate enough to be fumbling about with some ill-conceived plan involving a shovel, a few ponders, and twelve acres of idiocy. Explain the con.”
Sophia leaned away from the big woman, creating some distance on the couch between them. The conversation was confusing. She wasn’t stupid, she knew, but these women spoke in sentences so dense that they might as well be a foreign language. It felt hostile… as though they were mocking her. Why were they even living here, anyway? They sounded like they belonged on a show, one of those rapid-talking cop shows. Were they professors with the college?
Whoever or whatever they were, it was stupid to involve them. She shouldn’t have said anything. Now she wouldn’t be able to do anything to the Blair ponder; these old women would be able to tattle on her.
Probably for the best
, she thought, wryly,
since it was kind of a stupid plan.
They were right about that much, anyway. If she’d been able to think of something so obvious as just moving the ponder to cause an accident, then there would be some sort of alarm or precaution to stop it.
“I’m going to go,” Sophia said. She forced herself to smile, even though she felt so freaked-out that this all seemed like some strange dream. “Thank you, my face feels better.”
“Start more simply, Annie,” said Magda, as though she hadn’t heard Sophia. “Sophia, have you, perhaps, talked to the principal of your school? Or asked your parents to speak to Cynthia Blair, who will surely have a vested interest in reining in her daughter’s alleged violence, if only for purely pecuniary reasons?”
Sophia stared at her. How could anyone in town know who the Blairs were -- even know the name of Thomas and Mikki’s mother -- and
not
know how the world worked?
“No,” she said. “I can’t prove anything. Mikki is --” she groped for the appropriate word “-- careful. And Mrs. Blair, she… well…”
The first and only time Sophia had tried to say anything to her parents about it was three years ago, at the start of high school. The bullying had been going on for months, but Sophia finally broke down and said something to Momma one afternoon, after Mikki had spit in her hair as she was coming out of gym class. Momma had listened quietly, picking at the ragged edge of a callus on one thumb as Sophia told about how Mikki had gone from being mean to being downright crazy. And when Sophia was done, and was sitting there crying, her hair wild and ruined since she’d had to get it wet at school to get the
spit
out of it, Momma had stared down at her hands and unhappily explained that she thought it was best to just let it go. She told Sophia about Liz Gustaffson and the Heather family and all the other people who’d crossed the Senator or Cynthia Blair and seen their lives ruined -- jobs lost, evicted, or worse. And then Momma had looked up at Sophia, her face drawn and helpless, and asked her quietly if maybe she could just get Thomas to help her.
Thomas Blair likes you,
she’d said.
Just, you know, get him to help. He’d do anything for you, right?
She hadn’t needed to explain what she meant, and Sophia hadn’t been able to do anything but turn away and sob even harder. She’d let it go.
“...it’s not good if Mrs. Blair thinks you’re trying to hurt her family,” Sophia could only say, lamely.
She stood up. She’d already lost a cat to Mikki Blair, and maybe also a tooth -- it was throbbing with ominously sharp pain. All she wanted was a way to make it stop, not to ruin her parents lives because two know-nothing busybodies with overstuffed vocabularies wanted to play hero. Annie had made fun of her for the plan with the ponder -- fine, Sophia would figure something else out. But she would do it by herself. These people… she didn’t know them or anything about them.
“Well, ordinarily we would want to ensure that our revenge is strong and swift, but undetectable, to avoid reprisal by said
mater iratosa
,” said Annie in her rapid and clipped way, looking up at Sophia. Her brown eyes were clear and wide, despite the swaddling bags that lumped up under them. She pursed full lips, then added, thoughtfully, “No, we will want to send a message. And a defensible one, too, in this day and age -- striking at their means of production.”
“Don’t rope the young lady into your class warfare, you lone-star looney,” said Magda. She crossed her arms disapprovingly.
Sophia wasn’t sure what to say, or how to break into the argument. It sounded like a well-chewed disagreement, worked over in many previous fights, and she felt very uncomfortable -- and increasingly nervous. She edged her way to the hall entrance.
“See, you’re frightening her,” said Magda, still speaking to Annie. She was scolding, but with a bright edge of proven-right triumph in her voice.
“Oh, child, I’m sorry,” said Annie. “Here now, just sit for a bit and let’s see if we can come up with some way to help you. We’re your neighbors, after all, and there was a time when that implied some social responsibility.”
“Thank you, but I need to go,” said Sophia, uneasily. She paused, unsure of what else to say, and ended up only saying “Thank you” a second time. She turned and fled down the hall and out of their front door, abandoning the house that was crammed full of carpets and furniture and insane old women.
She ran back to her house. An red ikon with tinted windows was just pulling away from the driveway -- not Mikki’s, Sophia saw with both relief and surprise. Her parents almost never took ikons home. It was always too expensive.
Sophia crossed ragged lawns and approached her house, warily, glancing at the shiny red rear of the disappearing ikon before it vanished around a corner. Had it been someone from her school, coming to see why she’d skipped last period? That would be strange. Or Thomas, unable to leave her alone without going to check on her?
She approached her front door. Something was on the front steps. A big, brownish-black lump. It stank -- she could smell it in the crisp February air, even from ten yards’ distance. A sweet and sickening smell of putrefaction. Propped on top was something metallic and bright.
Sophia’s breath caught in her throat, and she clenched back a gasp. She froze and took a long, shuddering breath.
She recognized the tag of her missing cat, Wendigo.
-----------Ø------------
If you’re looking at a TOYOTA CERTIFIED recipe, then you know that you can trust that the recipe will be three things:
trustworthy, powerful,
and
family-friendly.
Every distro included in the recipe will be individually certified by our skilled technicians to ensure that it will work every time, just the way it’s intended. We also examine how the distros work in combination, just to be certain they get things done the way you expect when you run a recipe on your io. And we block any threat of “hijacking” by running the recipe on our server banks, thousands of copies at a time.
You rely on recipes to do your banking, to find a ride, to keep your children safe, and to provide healthcare. You can’t afford for anything to go wrong -- make sure you always use a TOYOTA CERTIFIED recipe to get where you’re going!
Karl Phuong, proposed ad copy for OFFICIAL TOYOTA CERTIFICATION FOR DISTROSOFT RECIPES program
---Ø---
LIESL POTS: Look, I don’t want to oversimplify, but it’s just a fact: the elites of this country said, basically, that the end was nigh. They were practically out in the streets with sandwich boards in the twenties. Doctor Gardner’s house, his home, was bombed. Firebombed.
LEILA-ANNE GOODWILL: During the San Francisco riots. That was 2028.
POTS: Yes. And then the next year the August Thesis comes out, and it’s this crazy mess of code. And it’s plain to see that wasn’t the end of the world. [LAUGHS] It was just what the skeptics said. It was as if you’d asked a checkers-specific artificial intelligence to play chess, right? Some of it was brilliant, some of it was wrong, and some of it was just nonsense.
JOHN TENTON: But we don’t know how much of that was because the Thesis was cut short. It seems likely that if Gardner hadn’t intervened that Ramanujan -- that it could have done anything. It seems likely that we just got lucky. Actually, we don’t even know that much. Keflavík in Iceland is a Gardner installation, and who knows what is going on there?
GOODWILL: You’re talking about the
Times
investigation in October on the remaining Gardner Foundation properties. How about that, Dr. Pots? Doesn’t Mr. Tenton have a point? Did mankind just get a mulligan on artificial intelligence? Or is there maybe something dangerous over there in Iceland, working on another August Thesis?
POTS: This is just fear-mongering. It’s no coincidence that, that we have these new movements today, peteys and re, uh.
GOODWILL: Remedievalists?
POTS: Yes. They’re both reflections of an underlying discomfort with disruptive new technology. They’re the new Wobblies or teacher’s unions, trying to hold onto entrenched but deprecated advantages.
TENTON: You’re saying that the P.D., uh, movement is fighting for entrenched advantages?
POTS: Well, it’s about economic inequality, which is a terrible problem, of course, but the peteys are also fighting to get back a vision of the past. But it’s 2040. The factories aren’t coming back, and bad-mouthing innovation isn’t going to help anything.
Rush transcript from 1 Dec 2040 episode of NBC’s Meet the Press
---Ø---
Any book like this one must necessarily begin with the following warning: yes, I am realized, and yes, I believe that the clerics of the Realized Church can and do perform genuine miracles. But while I do think that the divine shows itself clearly in such acts, I also think that far too many outsiders (and maybe even some of the faithful!) allow the controversy to distract them. “There’s no such thing as magic!” shouts the attacker, and “We see it with our own eyes!” shouts the defender, and the actual philosophy of the Realized Church gets lost in the shuffle. That’s what this book is about: how becoming realized can improve your life.
Wendell Scott, Make It or Break ItFormer President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaChicago's next mayor will be a black woman Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year With low birth rate, America needs future migrants MORE said Wednesday that many Americans didn't believe him when he spoke about bringing large-scale change to the country until after he left office.
"About 40 percent of the country didn’t believe me — until I was gone, and then they believed me," Obama said during a Q&A at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers event in New York.
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The event, which coincided with the United Nations General Assembly in New York, focused on reviewing the progress of global health initiatives over the past 25 years.
Obama said when faced with addressing a global issue, he received backlash for claiming the United States could not address the problem alone.
"I take great pride in what the U.S. can do. But if we are talking about climate change or global migration spurred on by drought or famine or ethnic conflicts, we are not going to be able to solve those things by ourselves," he told the crowd.
"It doesn't make you less patriotic to believe that. You just have to have some sense and read."
The former president stressed that education is key in order to motivate Congress to tackle global health issues, arguing that public opinion can spur lawmakers into action.
Obama argued that most elected officials are "followers, not leaders," and will respond when they see "what their constituencies want."
"The more we can influence public opinion, the more you'll see politicians respond," Obama said.
Other prominent speakers at the event included Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, education activist Malala Yousafzai, and Bill and Melinda Gates, among others.Update: I should have caveated this post much more strongly. I did not confirm the names and IDs released in the dump are NSA’s hackers. It could be Shadow Brokers added names to cast blame on someone else. So throughout, take this as suspected doxing, with the possibility that it is, instead, disinformation.
In 2014, DOJ indicted five members of China’s People Liberation Army, largely for things America’s own hackers do themselves. Contrary to what you’ve read in other reporting, the overwhelming majority of what those hackers got indicted for was the theft of information on international negotiations, something the US asks its NSA (and military industrial contractor) hackers to do all the time. The one exception to that — the theft of information on nuclear reactors from Westinghouse within the context of a technology transfer agreement — was at least a borderline case of a government stealing private information for the benefit of its private companies, but even there, DOJ did not lay out which private Chinese company received the benefit.
A month ago, DOJ indicted two Russian FSB officers and two criminal hackers (one, Alexey Belan, who was already on FBI’s most wanted list) that also worked for the Russian government. Rather bizarrely, DOJ deemed the theft of Yahoo tools that could be used to collect on Yahoo customers “economic espionage,” even though it’s the kind of thing NSA’s hackers do all the time (and notably did do against Chinese telecom Huawei). The move threatens to undermine the rationalization the US always uses to distinguish its global dragnet from the oppressive spying of others: we don’t engage in economic espionage, US officials always like to claim. Only, according to DOJ’s current definition, we do.
On Friday, along with details about previously unknown, very powerful Microsoft vulnerabilities and details on the 2013 hacking of the SWIFT financial transfer messaging system, ShadowBrokers doxed a number of NSA hackers (I won’t describe how or who it did so — that’s easy enough to find yourself). Significantly, it exposed the name of several of the guys who personally hacked EastNets SWIFT service bureau, targeting (among other things) Kuwait’s Fund for Arab Economic Development and the Palestinian al Quds bank. They also conducted reconnaissance on at least one Belgian-based EastNets employee. These are guys who — assuming they moved on from NSA into the private sector — would travel internationally as part of their job, even aside from any vacations they take overseas.
In other words, ShadowBrokers did something the Snowden releases and even WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 releases have avoided: revealing the people behind America’s state-sponsored hacking.
Significantly, in the context of the SWIFT hack, it did so in an attack where the victims (particularly our ally Kuwait and an apparent European) might have the means and the motive to demand justice. It did so for targets that the US has other, legal access to, via the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program negotiated with the EU and administered by Europol. And it did so for a target that has subsequently been hacked by people who might be ordinary criminals or might be North Korea, using access points (though not the sophisticated techniques) that NSA demonstrated the efficacy of targeting years earlier and which had already been exposed in 2013. Much of the reporting on the SWIFT hack has claimed — based on no apparent evidence and without mentioning the existing, legal TFTP framework — that these hacks were about tracking terrorism finance. But thus far, there’s no reason to believe that’s all that the NSA was doing, particularly with targets like the Kuwait development fund.
Remember, too, that in 2013, just two months after NSA continued to own the infrastructure for a major SWIFT service bureau, the President’s Review Group advised that governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to manipulate financial systems.
Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate the financial systems; [snip] [G]overnments should abstain from penetrating the systems of financial institutions and changing the amounts held in accounts there. The policy of avoiding tampering with account balances in financial institutions is part of a broader US policy of abstaining from manipulation of the financial system. These policies support economic growth by allowing all actors to rely on the accuracy of financial statements without the need for costly re-verification of account balances. This sort of attack could cause damaging uncertainty in financial markets, as well as create a risk of escalating counter-attacks against a nation that began such an effort. The US Government should affirm this policy as an international norm, and incorporate the policy into free trade or other international agreements.
No one has ever explained where the PRG came up with the crazy notion that governments might tamper with the world’s financial system. But since that time, our own spooks continue to raise concerns that it might happen to us, Keith Alexander — the head of NSA for the entire 5-year period we know it to have been pawning SWIFT — is making a killing off of such fears, and the G-20 recently called for establishing norms to prevent it.
A number of the few people who’ve noted this doxing publicly have suggested that it clearly supports the notion that a nation-state — most likely Russia — is behind the Shadow Brokers leak. As such, the release of previously unannounced documents to carry out this doxing would be seen as retaliation for the US’ naming of Russia’s hackers, both in December’s election hacking related sanctions and more recently in the Yahoo indictment, to say nothing of America’s renewed effort to arrest Russian hackers worldwide while they vacation outside of Russia.
While that’s certainly a compelling argument, there may be another motive that could explain it.
In a little noticed statement released between its last two file dumps, Shadow Brokers did a post explaining (and not for the first time) that what gets called its “broken” English is instead operational security (along with more claims about what it’s trying to do). As part of that statement, Shadow Brokers claims it writes (though the tense here may be suspect) documents for the federal government and remains in this country.
The ShadowBrokers is writing TRADOC, Position Pieces, White Papers, Wiki pages, etc for USG. If theshadowbrokers be using own voices, theshadowbrokers be writing peoples from prison or dead. TheShadowBrokers is practicing obfuscation as part of operational security (OPSEC). Is being a spy thing. Is being the difference between a contractor tech support guy posing as a infosec expert but living in exile in Russia (yes @snowden) and subject matter experts in Cyber Intelligence like theshadowbrokers. TheShadowBrokers has being operating in country for many months now and USG is still not having fucking clue.
On the same day and, I believe though am still trying to confirm the timing, before that post, Shadow Brokers had reacted to a Forbes piece asking whether it was about to be unmasked (quoting Snowden), bragging that “9 months still living in homeland USA USA USA our country theshadowbrokers not run, theshadowbrokers stay and fight.” Shadow Brokers then started attacking Jake Williams for having a big mouth for writing this post, claiming to expose him as a former Equation Group member, specifically invoking OddJob (the other file released on Friday that doxed NSA hackers, though not Williams), and raising the “gravity” of talking to Q Group, NSA’s counterintelligence group.
trying so hard so # shadowbrokers helping out…you having big mouth for former # equationgroup member what was name of. leak OddJob? Windows BITS persistence? CCI? Maybe not understand gravity of situation USG investigating members talked to Q group yet theshadowbrokers ISNOT in habit of outing # equationgroup members but had make exception for big mouth, keep talking shit @ msuiche your next
Which is to say that, four days before Shadow Brokers started doxing NSA hackers, Shadow Brokers made threats against those who’ve commented on the released Shadow Brokers files specifically within the context of counterintelligence investigations, even while bragging about having gone unexposed thus far even while remaining in the United States.
Whatever else this doxing may do, it will also make the investigation into how internal NSA files have come to be plastered all over the Internet more difficult, because Shadow Brokers is now threatening to expose members of TAO.
Which is not to say such a motivation, if true, is mutually exclusive of Russia retaliating for having its own hackers exposed.
All of which brings me back to the question of norms. Even as the US has been discussing other norms about hacking in recent years, I’ve seen next to no discussion about how state hackers — and remember, this post discusses NSA hackers, including uniformed members of the Armed Services, government contractors, spies, and criminal hackers working for a state (a practice we do too, though in a different form than what Russia does) — fit into international law and norms about immunities granted to individuals acting on behalf of the state. The US seems to have been proceeding half-blindly, giving belated consideration to how the precedents it sets with its offensive hacking might affect the state, without considering how it is exposing the individuals it relies on to conduct that hacking.
If nothing else, Shadow Brokers’ doxing of NSA’s own hackers needs to change that. Because these folks have just been directly exposed to the kind of international pursuit that the US aggressively conducts against Russians and others.
|
contest venue (the same as the banquet venue) is separate from the main conference venue and internet will not be available at this remote location. Please make note as you begin developing your ideas. Questions: If you have any questions about the contest rules, please contact the contest chairs here.
Innovation comes in many forms, so we've decided to award 1st and 2nd place prizes in the three categories below: Most Creative
Most Useful
People's Choice The "Most Creative" and "Most Useful" category winners will be selected by the judges. The third category of "People's Choice" will be decided by UIST Conference attendees voting for their favorite projects. To celebrate this year's 5th Student Innovation Contest, Microsoft is providing 24 Surface RT tablet computer bundles (including a TouchCover, of course) to be awarded as prizes in this year's Student Innovation Contest! Each member of the 1st and 2nd place winners in each of the three categories will receive a Surface. More importantly, you will have the respect of conference attendees, your peers, and bragging rights. The prizes are made possible through the generous support and donation from our sponsor - Microsoft. We reserve the right to change the award structure based on a number of factors, such as (and not limited to) the number of participating teams.
Registration and Eligibility: Q: I am NOT a student, can I still participate?
A: Unfortunately, no. The contest is limited to students at all levels (High School, Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD).
Q: I'm in high school, can I participate in the contest?
A: All students are welcome. However, you will have to be old enough (at least 18 years old) and able to travel to the UIST Conference in St. Andrews, UK.
Q: I'm an international student, can I participate in the contest?
A: Yes. International students at all levels are encouraged to participate. You will be responsible for your own travel and arrangements.
Q: Are postdocs eligible to participate in the contest?
A: Unfortunately, no. Postdocs are expected to pay the full registration rate at the UIST conference and thus are not considered students. To maintain fairness among all teams, this means they are not eligible to participate.
Q: What happens if I wish to withdraw from the contest?
A: Teams are welcome to withdraw. Please email the contest chairs at least 2 weeks before the conference. Keep in mind you might be asked to return the hardware provided. If you are seeking conference registration reimbursement, your reimbursement will not be processed until you have returned the hardware kit.
Teams: Q: How many teams will be selected to participate in the contest?
A: Based on space and power limitations at the venue, we will be selecting a maximum of 30 teams. We reserve the right to change this number based on a number of factors (including number of teams registered, ideas submitted, team composition, etc.).
Q: Is there a waiting list for team selection?
A: If accepted teams decide to withdraw or do not register for the conference within a week of selection notification, additional teams may be invited to participate. We will only contact additional teams if spots opens up.
Q: Can one person be a member of multiple teams?
A: Unfortunately, no. Please decide to be part of one team for the contest. We also encourage students at same institutions to form full groups of 4 students, instead of smaller teams.
Q: Can teams be composed of students from different schools?
A: Yes, definitely. Simply enter the school name of your team captain at the top of the registration form. Then, enter the school names for your other members in the section for each additional member.
Q: Can student members be removed or added from teams after the registration deadline?
A: Yes, we are allowing for student members to be added or removed up until 2 weeks before the contest. The team captain or student registered for the conference cannot withdraw, otherwise the team will forfeit their participation. Email the contest organizers as soon as possible to make any changes.
Demo Ideas: Q: Are we limited to demos constrained to tabletops/indoors with limited splashing or a closed pump system?
A: Yes. We would have liked to demo outdoors but logistically we won't be able to do that. You are currently limited to tabletop/indoor demos with some splashing or a closed pump system. Each team will receive their own table and power strip, and asked to set up their demo at the assigned location indoors.
Q: Can I publish a paper on what I come up with?
A: Yes.
Q: Do I own the intellectual property (IP)?
A: You own the rights to what you develop.
Q: Will I be able to demo my idea on my own computer?
A: Yes. In fact, it is mandatory, since we will not provide any equipment at the conference.
Q: Can other people help me develop this code?
A: It is permissible to get external help for bugs and other issues. People external to the team cannot contribute large pieces of code (or ideas).
Q: Can my adviser help?
A: Ideas can be discussed with advisers, but core ideas should come from the team members.
PumpSpark Hardware and Software: Q: Can teams receive multiple PumpSpark sets for interactive applications?
A: Unfortunately, no. We can only provide one kit per team and that will also keep the contest fair. Of course you can add any further sensors, servos, lights, materials, tubing, etc. to your prototype.
Q: Do I get to keep the PumpSpark kit after the contest?
A: The PumpSpark kit is a Microsoft Research prototype and is being loaned by Microsoft for the purposes of the contest. Selected teams will be asked to sign an equipment loan agreement form provided by Microsoft. The agreement states that you will be able to keep the entire kit for a period of one year starting at the end of August 2013.
Q: Are the PumpSpark kits available for purchase or can we receive a detailed parts list to reconstruct?
A: Currently, no. The PumpSpark kit is a Microsoft Research prototype and only available to students as part of the UIST contest at this time. We will be sure to post any updates if this changes in the future.
Q: Are we allowed to develop our demos in languages other than the ones used in the provided examples?
A: You are welcome to write your own ports for different languages and develop your demos in any language. Because the communication with the controller board uses a simple protocol via a serial port connection, a port of the code to a different language should be fairly easy. However, we are unable to provide any technical support beyond the sample code we've shared.
Q: Is there a way to use the PumpSpark controller on a different operating system that isn't Windows or Arduino (i.e., Linux, Mac OS X)?
A: Currently, we have only tested the PumpSpark controller with Windows and Arduino using the sample code provided.s It is expected to work with other operating systems (provided they support serial port communication). The USB interface uses an FTDI controller. FTDI provides drivers for a variety of operating systems. More info is available here: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm. However, we are unable to provide any technical support for other operating systems at this time.
Travel Arrangements and Grants: Q: Is it possible to receive funding for travel and registration?
A: Unfortunately, no. We tried to secure additional funds but we will not have any travel grant support available this year.
Q: I will need a visa to attend UIST. Can you provide a visa invitation letter?
A: Contest organizers won't be able to help with visas. There is a section at the bottom of the registration page that details how you can request a visa support letter directly from ACM. Please visit: http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2013/registration.php
Awards: Q: How will you stop people from voting multiple times for "People's Choice"?
A: We encourage you to interact with conference attendees to show off your projects and ask them to vote for you. Student volunteers will be monitoring the voting stations.
Q: What if only a few teams enter?
A: We reserve the right to change the rules at any time. If a small number of people were to enter, we are likely to modify the award structure.
Disclaimer: Q: What if something happens the contest chairs did not foresee?
A: We reserve the right to change the rules at any time. We will inform all registered contestants of any changes.
The UIST 2013 Student Innovation Contest is being organized and co-chaired by: Gabriel Reyes (Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
Nicolai Marquardt (University College London, UK; University of Calgary, Canada)
David Kim (Newcastle University, UK)
Email Facebook TwitterThis morning, I was interviewed by Tom McConnell at radio station CKTB610 in Niagara. The interview addressed various electricity subjects, such as coming rate increases and surplus power. Most of the interview focused my investigation of the government’s plan to employ Tyler Hamilton, then a columnist at the Toronto Star, to counter my negative comments with positive news reports about their electricity policies.
McConnell is one of the leading journalists in Ontario tracking electricity developments, with particular attention to rising rates.
When McConnell invited me on, I recommended: “It would be great to have Tyler Hamilton on too. My preference would be head to head, but he might not go for it. I’m not holding out for perfect.”
Hamilton responded to the request from the station to participate by way of email and put up this post on his web site. (Post Script September 22: At the time this posting was originally published, the linked post on Mr. Hamilton’s site contained significant statements. Hamilton later attempted to erase that record, but as documented in the comments below, we have archived a copy of the original here.)
Most of his posted email to the radio station is included in this CKTB610 posting. Disappointingly, as of this writing, a podcast of my interview is not yet available.
A key element of Hamilton’s response to the invitation to appear is this threat by Hamilton against the radio station:
“I am exploring my legal options against him and any other individual or organization that recklessly spreads his baseless allegations.”
In his anger, Hamilton is careless about some key facts.
He says, “Contrary to what Mr. Adams contends, I did publicly disclose that I had written the IESO report on my blog”. In Part 2 of this series, I posted his blog disclaimer in a highlighted section and contrasted his blog disclaimer with his Star non-disclosure as evidence of Hamilton’s deliberate concealment toward Star readers.
Hamilton acknowledges only two of the four columns I have cited as evidence of his failure to declare his conflict of interest.
The core of Hamilton’s denial is this statement: “I did not write about government smart grid policy”.
Here are two quotations from one of the articles I have cited, written in the midst of his first IESO engagement, called “Ontario a bright light for smart grid innovation”. Next to each is a quotation from the IESO Smart Grid report issued in May 2011.
Toronto Star: “For example, several years ago General Electric chose Markham as the global hub of its transmission and distribution automation business. The company does research, development, manufacturing, training and global technical support out of its Ontario operation, which employs about 400 people — 150 of them development engineers.”
IESO Report: “Evidence of (Ontario’s) leadership came in March, when General Electric announced plans to build a $40-million smart grid innovation centre at its existing site in Markham. The centre, according to the company, will be a ‘destination for companies and countries seeking to upgrade their energy systems.’”
Toronto Star: “This spring, the Ontario government is expected to launch a $50 million fund for smart grid research and demonstration projects.”
IESO report: “In its 2009 Ontario Budget, the government also allocated $50 million for the creation of a Smart Grid Fund to support advancement of smart grid technologies through demonstration projects.”
Hamilton’s Toronto Star article purporting to be news is indistinguishable from the IESO report that Hamilton was retained to support with writing services.
His Toronto Star article bears the hallmarks of a soft-sell government press release.
Hamilton attempts to ascribe motives to my investigation, claiming that my concerns about journalistic ethics arise from ideology. What is the ideological persuasion for folks who don’t think conflicts of interest should be declared by journalists?
Post Script (Sept 5 9:29PM EDT) Since this post was originally published, Tyler Hamilton has removed from his web site, www.cleanbreak.ca, most of the content of the posting linked to above in paragraph 4. The removed content was a letter he wrote to radio station CKTB610 in response to their invitation to appear on their station to address my criticisms. Some of the content from the removed post is still available from the link above in paragraph 6. The missing content included Hamilton complaining about me being discourteous toward him and his suggestion that my income should be investigated. If anyone has an archive copy, please feel free to post it here.
My practice is to leave up my history for anyone who cares to see my work, warts and all. I do make minor edits that don’t change intended meanings (I have a terrible time catching my own typos and grammatical errors) and a few other minor changes. I want my readers to feel confident that they don’t need to fuss with mirror sites and archives to see my historical arguments, judgements, or facts.Cyberspace is the new front in global war – according to NATO.
We agreed that we will recognise cyberspace as an operational domain, just like air, sea and land
The declaration was made after a meeting of defence ministers from the organisation’s member nations.
Cyber-warfare
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says it has become clear that dangerous attacks can be launched on the internet and among computer networks just as easily as they can on the battlefield.
“Most crises and conflicts today have a cyber dimension,” Stoltenberg said, “So treating cyber as an operational domain would enable us to better protect our missions and operations.”
What does this mean in practical terms?
Making cyberspace an official war zone means attacks carried out in this context could trigger an Article 5 response.
This is collective action by the 28-member organisation against the perpetrator of an incident aimed at any NATO-protected state.
#BREAKING: NATO Sec Gen jensstoltenberg : cyberattack can trigger Article V (Act of war against a member) pic.twitter.com/RwYUBA8quw — Amichai Stein (AmichaiStein1) June 14, 2016
Previously, only actions in traditional theatres of war – land, sea or air, had that potential.
The last time an Article 5 response was deployed was after the 9-11 attacks in 2001.
Are cyber attacks becoming more of a threat, then?
Yes, according to intelligence officials.
The US government says it has been the victim of multiple attacks in recent years.
Intelligence officials also think ISIL is developing its cyber attack capabilities.
Did the NATO defence ministers discuss anything else?
Yes.
Leaders say the geopolitical landscape in Europe is evolving.
They have agreed to establish four reinforced battalions in the Baltics and Poland.
There are also plans to boost the organisation’s presence in Romania.
NATO’s rapid response force will be doubled in size.
What they are saying
“Today, we met in the Nuclear Planning Group to consider the safety, security and effectiveness of NATO’s nuclear deterrent. We also turned our attention to cyberspace. We agreed that we will recognise cyberspace as an operational domain, just like air, sea and land,” – NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.(CNN) The apparent online writings of the mother of the man who killed nine people at a community college in Oregon discuss guns and the autism spectrum, painting a partial picture of the environment the family lived in, their beliefs and the challenges they faced.
Online posts linked to Laurel Harper, mother of the gunman, are limited and incomplete, but they seem to indicate two things: that her son, Chris Harper-Mercer, had a developmental disorder, and that the family had a familiarity with firearms and gun laws.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the agencies looking into last week's fatal shooting told CNN that investigators are aware of Harper's alleged social media postings and her son's online writings. Sgt. Jeff Eichenbusch of Roseburg police said that Harper is part of the investigation, just as would be any person who was close to the gunman.
Laurel Harper's apparent online writings come in the form of posts to several websites, usually about health topics. The bulk of the postings were on forums such as Yahoo! Answers and comments on NurseTogether.
Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Community members attend a candlelight vigil at Stewart Park for those killed during a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday, October 1. The massacre left nine people dead and nine wounded. The gunman also died. Hide Caption 1 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college In response to the shooting on October 1, President Barack Obama delivers the 15th statement of his presidency addressing gun violence. "Somehow this has become routine," he said. "The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine, the conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this." Hide Caption 2 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Students and faculty are reunited with friends and family at the county fairgrounds on October 1. Hide Caption 3 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college People wait for information at the fairgrounds on October 1. Hide Caption 4 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Hannah Miles, center, is reunited with her sister Hailey and father, Gary, on October 1. Hide Caption 5 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college A student waits to walk off a school bus at the fairgrounds on October 1. Hide Caption 6 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Friends and family are reunited on October 1. Hide Caption 7 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college A woman is comforted after the deadly shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, on October 1. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin announced at a news conference that the shooter was dead. Hide Caption 8 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Authorities secure the campus after the shooting on October 1. Hide Caption 9 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Students, staff and faculty leave the school on October 1. Hide Caption 10 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college A bullet casing is marked at the scene of the shooting on October 1. Hide Caption 11 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college People gather at a roadblock near the entrance to the college on October 1. Hide Caption 12 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Authorities respond after reports of the shooting on October 1. Hide Caption 13 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college Police search students outside the school on October 1. Hide Caption 14 of 15 Photos: Shooting at Oregon community college A patient is wheeled into the emergency room at Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg on October 1. Hide Caption 15 of 15
Public records link Harper to the same email address used in these posts from a Yahoo! user calling herself "Tweety Bird."
The postings, first reported by The New York Times, make references to Harper having a son who has a disorder on the autism spectrum and of the family having strong pro-gun views.
In response to a question posted on Yahoo! Answers three years ago, the account linked to Harper complains about "lame states" that consider a loaded magazine inside the home the same as having a loaded gun.
"I keep all my mags full. I keep two full mags in my Glock case. And the ARs & AKs all have loaded mags. No one will be 'dropping' by my house uninvited without (acknowledgment)," the user Tweety Bird wrote.
In another post, answering a hypothetical question of how gunmen might be charged and sentenced, Tweety Bird argues which gun laws would apply, citing "my son, who has much knowledge in this field."
That post was from six years ago.
JUST WATCHED Oregon shooter's father: Gun laws have to change Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Oregon shooter's father: Gun laws have to change 05:35
Her apparent views on guns differ largely from her former husband, Ian Mercer, who told CNN the shooting would not have happened if his son, 26, had not had access to 14 guns. All the guns were legally obtained by the shooter or family members over the last three years through a federally licensed firearms dealer, a federal official said last week.
Mercer said he has never held a gun. He doesn't want to, he told CNN. He laid out his personal philosophy on the issue: "I'm a great believer (in) you don't buy guns, don't buy guns, you don't buy guns."
Other nations don't see mass shootings at the same rate the United States does, Mercer said, asserting, "Somebody has to ask the question: How is it so easy to get all these guns?"
Mercer and Harper were married in 1989 and separated after 11 months, according to California court documents. They divorced in 2006 and had joint custody of their son.
Ian Mercer said his son had lived with his mother. They moved to Oregon about two years ago.
Advice on medical issues
The majority of the online posts linked to Harper, however, are not about guns or politics or law. She describes herself as a nurse, and mostly offers advice or expertise on health issues.
State records show that Laurel Harper is a licensed practical nurse in Oregon.
When strangers ask about a sore arm after getting multiple vaccines or taking vital signs or how to fill out nursing forms, Tweety Bird is generous with her responses.
Tweety Bird often shares her email address -- the one public records link to Harper -- in these posts, encouraging those with questions to reach out to her directly for additional guidance.
One area she claims expertise in is autism.
In several posts, she makes references to having Asperger syndrome, considered to be on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. She also makes references to her son having the same developmental disorder.
While dispensing advice on handling anxiety five years ago, Harper purportedly wrote online that "I have Asperger's and I didn't do so bad. Wasn't easy (understatement) but it can be done."
In other online posts, she appears to share that "I also have an Asperger's kid," and that "my son has Asperger's. He's no babbling idiot nor is his life worthless. He's very intelligent and is working on a career in filmmaking. My 18 years worth of experience with and knowledge about Asperger's syndrome is paying off."
The account linked to Harper also makes reference to her son having been "a headbanger" as a kid, as she dispensed advice on how to deal with a child who might injure himself.
Multiple attempts by CNN to reach Harper have been unsuccessful.
JUST WATCHED What stops the mentally ill from buying guns? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH What stops the mentally ill from buying guns? 02:00
Autism spectrum disorders can cause significant social impairments, communication problems and restricted, repetitive behavior patterns. But studies have shown there is no direct link between Asperger's and violence. The question was also raised three years ago, after Adam Lanza, who was said to have Asperger's, killed 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.This post is part of the F# Advent Calendar in English 2016. Please also checkout the other posts or the F# Advent Calendar 2016 eBook.
Pure code intermingled with impure code.
This is not a very good separation of concerns and has many other disadvantages.
Here is an example of how many programs look like:
In Haskell e.g. this would not be possible. But how should we deal with this in an impure programming language that does not enforce side effects to be made explicit, like F# e.g.?
There are a few approaches that will be presented in this post, one of which is the free monad pattern.
We will also examine a proof of concept implementation of a Tic-Tac-Toe backend following the command query responsibility segregation pattern (CQRS) together with event sourcing (ES).
See how you can implement a program in F# that is entirely pure and free from any effects and side effects!
Why should I care about purity?
A pure function is a function, which has only one effect and that is the computation of the return value.
Why do we want our code to be pure?
The reason is simple. When we have an impure expression, it can’t be substituted with its value without changing the semantics of our program.
Here is an example:
printfn "hello world" // evaluates to ()
If we substitute printfn "hello world" with () and run the code again, there won’t be any output on the console, of course.
Whereas if we substitute 1 + 2 + 3 with 6, our program will still work as expected.
1 + 2 + 3 // evaluates to 6
Additionally, we can say that the latter example is referentially transparent. This can be (a little simplistically) defined like this:
An expression e is referentially transparent if, for all programs p, all occurrences of e
in p can be replaced by the result of evaluating e without affecting the meaning of p.
A function f is pure if the expression f(x) is referentially transparent for all referentially transparent x.
This means that every referentially transparent function, when called many times given the same input, will always return the same value. And there won’t be any other observable side effect that would change the meaning of the program.
Such side effects could be e.g:
Printing to the console
Getting the current system time
Throwing an exception
Generating a random number
Reading from a database
I/O in general
…
Programming with referentially transparent functions has many implications. Besides the fact that pure functions can easily be memoized, they are also much easier to reason about.
There is no hidden state, neither implicit inputs nor outputs, that we have to keep in mind. Also there are no exceptions thrown and maybe caught somewhere (or maybe not) which would significantly increase the possible execution paths and therefore the complexity of our program.
For more information on purity and referential transparency refer to these resources:
Can I pretend that logging is not a side effect?
F# is an impure programming language, just like many other languages.
That means that the type system does not enforce purity as e.g. the Haskell type system does.
This definitely makes it easier especially for beginners to get started because the type system is not in the way and we can basically do I/O anywhere we like.
So yes, we can pretend that logging is not a side effect and just add logging statements wherever we like. One could even argue that logging does not change the semantics of our program and that therefore the above definition of referential transparency still holds.
However, letting logging aside for now, doing I/O anywhere in our code will lose all the benefits described above. It will lead to much less reasonable code that cannot be considered functional and will also break the separation of concerns principle.
Dependency injection is not sufficient
Let’s look at an example. Consider the domain of Tic-Tac-Toe that is designed with events and commands. Somewhere there might be a function like this:
let handle (gameId: GameId, cmd: Command): unit = let xToPlayAndXPlays grid pos =... let oToPlayAndOPlays grid pos =... let game = Repo.findBy gameId match game, cmd with | Initial, Start -> Repo.appendEvents [Started] | PlayerXToPlay grid, PlayX pos -> let events = xToPlayAndXPlays grid pos Repo.appendEvents events | PlayerOToPlay grid, PlayO pos -> let events = oToPlayAndOPlays grid pos Repo.appendEvents events | PlayerXToPlay grid, PlayO _ -> raise (Exception "not your turn") | PlayerOToPlay grid, PlayX _ -> raise (Exception "not your turn") | _ -> raise (Exception "game is finished")
Concerns are very intermingled. Almost every other line has a side effect.
There is an implicit input ( let game = Repo.findBy gameId ) and an implicit output ( Repo.appendEvents events ) as well as additional implicit outputs via exceptions.
Let’s look at some ways to improve this code.
Inversion of control
We could inject the dependencies by passing the repository functions as parameters. Following inversion of control will significantly improve the code not only because it will make it testable.
Actually for me this has always been one of the major guidelines when designing programs.
But apparently this is not good functional design. As Mark Seeman describes, this would not be possible in Haskell (which is said to be a language that to some extend enforces good functional design) without also making the handle function impure (see Functional architecture is Ports and Adapters).
Make inputs and outputs explicit
We can do better.
And it’s a simple thing though not always very easy to apply.
We don’t pass in a potentially impure function that is responsible of doing I/O. Instead we will just pass in the actual values as parameters. And instead of writing the result to a database, we will just return it.
This way we will give away the responsibility of doing the impure things completely to the caller.
Inside every function with side effects is a pure function waiting to get out. — from Functional Programming in Scala
Algebraic data types
Finally we have to model the exception cases to be part of the return type of the function. This way we make the failure case explicit.
This technique is also very well described by Scott Wlaschin towards the end of this article.
In the example I used the library Chessie which provides ready made types and functions for decent error handling.
Applying the principles described above, the handle function is now pure and looks like this:
let handle (version: Version, game: Game) (cmd: Command): Result<Version * Event list, Error> = let xToPlayAndXPlays grid pos =... let oToPlayAndOPlays grid pos =... match game, cmd with | Initial, Start -> ok (version, [Started]) | PlayerXToPlay grid, PlayX pos -> xToPlayAndXPlays grid pos | PlayerOToPlay grid, PlayO pos -> oToPlayAndOPlays grid pos | PlayerXToPlay grid, PlayO _ -> fail "not your turn" | PlayerOToPlay grid, PlayX _ -> fail "not your turn" | _ -> fail "game is finished"
Ideally we now have to take a look at the calling function and apply the same refactorings until we get to the top level caller.
This approach has some limitations though.
What do we do when we reach the top level? Are we done?
What if we just cannot manage to pull out any more side effects?
IO Monad: Separating the program definition from the execution
One way to deal with the impure code that is left would be to use an IO monad.
The idea is to separate the concern of defining the program from the concern of running it.
I don’t want to go into too much detail. Refer to this post for a very nice explanation with samples in Scala.
It can be encoded in F# (see this example). It is also possible to stack other effects (e.g. optional values, exceptions, async, … etc.) on top of it. But this has to be hard coded in F# because F# supports neither monad transformers nor type classes (see same example from above for a combination with optional values).
Async as surrogate IO
Mark Seeman has a good point here where he is suggesting to use F#’s asynchronous workflows as a surrogate for the IO monad.
To use Async actually makes a lot of sense in many scenarios anyway, even if we are not concerned about purity, especially when
We expect our application to be under heavy traffic There are a lot of non-blocking I/O operations involved
So this is nice. But can we do better?
Separating program description from interpretation and execution
Taking the separation of concerns even one step further we can use the interpreter pattern to separate the description of a program from the interpretation and the execution.
Description Each concern is modelled by its own (embedded) domain specific language (EDSL).
These different EDSLs can be combined to form larger programs.
Programs built from EDSLs are entirely pure and have no side effects.
EDSLs and programs that are built from them know nothing about any kind of side effects or monad stacks. Interpretation Each EDSL has its own interpreter(s).
Interpreters can be either pure or impure.
Interpreters for programs can be composed together. Execution Interpreting the pure program.
Actually performing side effects.
Should be done last.
In pure programming languages the interpretation is not done within the application code. Instead it is done outside of the actual program by the runtime.
A simplistic example of the interpreter pattern
This is an embedded domain specific language which describes interactions with the terminal:
type Terminal = | Print of string | NewLine
With this EDSL we can now build a small and pure program:
let program = [ Print "Hello" NewLine Print "World!" ]
This is a pure interpreter:
let pureInterpreter prog = prog |> List.fold (fun acc x -> match x with | Print s -> acc + s | NewLine -> acc + "
") ""
We can run this in the console and we will get this result:
> pureInterpreter program;; val it : string = "Hello World!"
Now let’s write an impure interpreter:
let impureInterpreter prog = prog |> List.iter (function | Print s -> printf "%s" s | NewLine -> stdout.WriteLine())
This is the output if we run it:
> impureInterpreter program;; Hello World!val it : unit = ()
We can write multiple interpreters for the same program and choose the one that best fits our needs, e.g. one for testing and another one for production.
This example is very simplistic. And we won’t get very far with this approach if we want to create more complex programs.
The free monad pattern
The free monad pattern is like the interpreter pattern on steroids.
If we combine the interpreter pattern with a monad implementation, we will get a much more flexible construct.
It will allow us to recursively chain operations together and pass on results to subsequent operations.
Additionally we are very flexible with what kind of effects we will use. Things like e.g. error handling, using optional values, or asynchronous operations can be baked in later. I think this is pretty amazing.
Here are two articles that go into more detail on how the free monad pattern can be implemented in F#:
In addition to the examples from these tutorials I made a small PoC to find out how to write interpreters that interpret to other monads.
But how convenient is it to use this pattern in F# for larger and more complex domain?
PoC: Implementation of a fully functional CQRS/ES driven Tic-Tac-Toe backend using the free monad pattern
To find out whether the free monad pattern in F# is an applicable approach for larger programs, I implemented a Tic-Tac-Toe backend using the free monad pattern as a proof of concept.
Here is the complete source code.
The application is divided into five F# scripts:
TicTacToe.fsx Entirely pure Contains the definition of the domain types Contains the implementation of the core domain functions
TicTacToe.Dsls.fsx Entirely pure Contains the definition of the domain specific languages for effects Contains the definition of the free monad
TicTacToe.Instructions.fsx Entirely pure Contains DSL instructions lifted into the free monad Contains programs created by combining the DSLs
TicTacToe.Interpreters.fsx Mainly impure Contains a definition of the effect type Contains interpreters for all DSLs
App.fsx Mainly impure Application layer Provides partly a REST like, partly an RPC like API Responsible for mapping client requests to games and players
TicTacToe.fsx
TicTacToe.fsx is entirely pure (source).
Since the implementation follows a type-first approach the first module contains the types for the Tic-Tac-Toe domain.
It also contains the core domain functions.
replay recreates a state from a list of events:
let replay (events: Event list) : Result<State, Error>
And handle is responsible for handling commands and producing events:
let handle (version: Version, game: Game) (cmd: Command): Result<Version * Event list, Error>
TicTacToe.Dsls.fsx
This file is entirely pure (source).
It contains the definitions of the DSLs for the domain, the read model, the event store and the event bus.
Here is an example of the definition of the DSL for the event store:
type Continuation<'output, 'next> = 'output -> 'next type EventStore<'next> = | GetStream of GameId * Continuation<Event list, 'next> | Append of (GameId * Version * Event list) * Continuation<unit, 'next> let map f x = match x with | GetStream(v, cont) -> GetStream(v, cont >> f) | Append(v, cont) -> Append(v, cont >> f)
Each union case of a DSL type is a tuple. The first part describes the input parameter. The second part describes a continuation from the output type to a generic type 'next.
Also each DSL has to have a definition of map. (It has to be a Functor.)
In the module TicTacToeDsl all DSLs are combined together into one:
module TicTacToeDsl = type TicTacToeDsl<'next> = | Domain of Domain.Domain<'next> | EventStore of EventStore.EventStore<'next> | ReadModel of ReadModel.ReadModel<'next> | EventBus of EventBus.EventBus<'next> let map (f: 'a -> 'b) (dsl : TicTacToeDsl<'a>) : TicTacToeDsl<'b> = match dsl with | Domain d -> Domain.map f d |> Domain | EventStore es -> EventStore.map f es |> EventStore | EventBus bus -> EventBus.map f bus |> EventBus | ReadModel rm -> ReadModel.map f rm |> ReadModel
Finally the free monad is defined like this:
type Free<'a> = | Pure of 'a | Free of TicTacToeDsl<Free<'a>> module FreeMonad = let rec bind (f: 'a -> Free<'b>) (dsl : Free<'a>) : Free<' |
which was made during the first half of the 4th century AD.
The two ewers with geometric decoration form a set with the hand-washing basin: they belong together functionally, they are also linked by their fluted decoration on the upper part of the ewers’ body and the surface of the basin representing waves of water.
The fluting and the beaded rims are similar to those in the Kaiseraugst treasure from Switzerland, which were made some time before 351 AD in a workshop near the ancient silver mines of Naissus (modern Niš in Serbia).
The jug which has an octagonal body, a roll moulding around the neck and star- shaped base has a distinctive form. Similar faceted jugs have been found in the Carpathian Basin, in the major towns of Pannonia, the ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube. This type of jug has also been found in the Rhine region. The straight handle bent in a sharp angle and with a curl at the lower end has its origin in Gaul. So contrary to former attempts to tie this piece to an eastern workshop, I believe that it originated in the West.
The so-called animal jug, which has not yet been acquired by Hungary, has a ten-sided body and a star-shaped base with ten points. It has a similar handle, but is different from the Dionysiac jug in that it is decorated with black inlaid motifs by means of niello-technique. It is important to remember that so far such multi-faceted items with star-shaped feet and niello inlay have been found only in Trier (Germany), a town that served as the capital of the Western Roman Empire during the reign of Valentinian I (364–375 AD) and which is known to have possessed a silversmith’s shop.
During this period gifts were an indispensable instrument of political persuasion. A Roman emperor needed to control workshops working directly for the court in order to acquire these. Emperor Valentinian I, from his election on 25 February 364 AD, until he reached Trier in the winter of 367 AD, spent the first three-and-a-half years of his reign constantly on the move, passing through cities such as Aquileia, Mediolanum (today Milan) and Remi (today Reims). This meant that he could commission the items he needed directly only if the artisans followed his court.
Of course, other state workshops in the administrative centres of the empire also served the purposes of the imperial largesse. In Trier there were workshops as early as 354 AD, but the principal Trier workshop, and the town itself, began to flourish again only when the imperial court moved there under the reign of Valentinian.
The vessels listed above were used as tableware either before or during a banquet. The sixth piece now in Hungary, the cylindrical casket with a domed lid, belonged to a lady’s toiletry. Inside it has a perforated disk with seven holes that once held silver or glass phials (the whereabouts of which are presently unknown).
This casket can be compared to the ones in the Esquiline Treasure, one of which contained five silver phials, made during the mid-4th century AD as a wedding present for a young couple. This is believed to have been buried at the end of the same century or at the beginning of the next. The toilet box of the Sevso Treasure is significant in another respect. On the reverse side of silverware marks scratched by the owner can often be found. On the published objects of the Sevso Treasure there are only a few graffiti, e.g. one personal name on the geometric plate which is among the earliest pieces of the treasure. The other name on the hunting plate is again a personal name, that of Sevso. Since there are no other personal names, we can be confident that Sevso was the last owner of the treasure. The bottom of the toilet box bears a Latin inscription which may be read as TIAON. This word is unparalleled in Antiquit y. The only comparable words I can find are the Old Frisian3 word tian and the Old Icelandic word tio, both meaning “ten”. If this interpretation is correct, the scratching could refer to an inventory carried out by somebody speaking a (non Gothic) Germanic language using Latin characters.LOTS of people are currently trying very hard to figure out what's going to happen within the global economy over the next 1, 2, 5, and 10 years. It seems like the sort of thing one ought to be able to manage if one tries hard enough. It is, however, an impossible task (though some folks do have a talent for sketching out broad trends). I've been reminded of the futility of prognostication in doing a bit of research for a piece that will appear in the next print edition of The Economist. That research has taken me into our archives, to see what we were writing in 1931. It's a look back that has proven to be something of a revelation for me. I'll quote a few examples of what I found.
Our opening editorial in the first edition of 1931 was a rumination on the trials of the 1920s, in which we wish our readers a "Happy New Decade":
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We do not despair. We believe the world to be saner, both politically and economically, than ten years ago...The tasks before us are as formidable as at any time in our history. But our capacity to perform them is undiminished, if we will only use it. Our national advantages remain; the character of our people has not changed; the march of science is playing into our hands...Believing this, it is with good heart and confidence that we wish our readers a "happy new decade."
It is quite depressing to read assessments of the world economy, and the German economy especially, from the early months of 1931. Germany fell into recession a bit earlier than the rest of the Atlantic economies, as inward capital flows reversed, mostly due to investors sending money to America to bet on soaring stocks. By 1931, however, there were some signs of a levelling off of the economy's decline, and we noted in the issue of January 10th that, "It is not apparent yet whether the lowest point has already been reached, but it seems more likely that the decline will come to an end during 1931 at the latest."
At the time, it seemed quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the Nazis had reached the apex of their power. In a note in the issue of February 21, The Economist comments on the failure of a coalition of radical parties to take control of the Reichstag through parliamentary procedure:
The withdrawal of the National Socialists from the Reichstag is patently a sign of weakness...The gesture of withdrawal would only have had point if it could have been followed up by direct revolutionary action, but there is not the remotest question of that. What Herr Hitler failed to do in 1923 cannot even be attempted now. Even apart from the fact that the severest trade depression is less productive of a revolutionary spirit than such catastrophic inflation as Germany experienced in 1923...the strongest protection of the State is the unity which exists among its highest executive organs... All this does not mean that the tide of National Socialism has subsided...Everything, of course, will depend upon the course of business, which seems recently to have shown some signs of improvement.
A note from March 7th read:
Measured in terms of sheer pessimism, December, 1930, was probably the blackest month in German history since 1923. Some time in January, however, a change occurred, and, during the last month or so, it has been possible to observe a growing feeling that the worst is over—at least for the time being. It is yet impossible to speak of a revival of optimisim, although a marked rise on the Stock Exchange from the lowest levels has taken place...
The same issue carries an advertisement for "J.M. Keynes' New Book...A Treatise on Money".
There are fascinating glimpses of the ongoing debate over the nature of the Depression. A note titled, "Mr Keynes and Spending" reads:
While Christmas shopping was at its height we deprecated the idea that deliberate retrenchment of personal expensiture, not dictated by narrowing of the means of the individual, was socially desirable in present economic conditions. Mr Keynes, in a recent broadcast address, has gone further, and has advocated a course which, in our view, might prove the worse of two evils. Every pound saved, according to Mr Keynes, is so much added to the burden of unemployment, and now is the time for everybody, and especially for public authorities, to "spend magnificently." In so far as trade depression is psychological, this might be sound advice if enthusiastic spending in Great Britain were sufficient to revive industrial confidence throughout the world. If it were not, the consequences...would be a brief and glorious boom for the sheltered industries and a rise in the domestic price level which, through its effect on costs, would give their quietus to the export trades... [W]e adhere to our conviction that salvation lies for this country not in visions of "managed insulation" but in the reduction of costs; that retrenchment in many sections of wages and, furthermore, in unproductive State expenditure is essential if this desideratum is to be realised...
On January 24th, we discuss the debate over the importance of monetary policy:
When due weight is given to all the foregoing factors, we agree with Mr Goodenough that there is a danger lest the responsibility of central banks' monetary policy for the present depression be exaggerated. At the same time, reviewing the range and extent of the price decline since 1924, we find it difficult not to detect in the monetary policy of the leading countries a main cause of the downward drift. How much can be done in present circumstances by central banks to put matters right is another matter...
What's needed, we agree is a "steady general level of commodity prices", but the problem, we suggest, is in knowing just what that level ought to be, a remarkable concern given the extent of deflation in the depression.
Moving forward, the paper noted disturbances within the ranks of the Nazi party and commented, "These are, of course, all signs of disintegration in the ranks of the National Socialists. Herr Hitler is no longer master of the extremist sentiments which he himself has bred..."
It is often impossible to recognise the moments on which history hinges when they arrive. Tucked inside the issue of May 16th, in a note titled simply, "The Credit-Anstalt", The Economist writes:
Fortunately, it is already clear that the difficulties of the Credit-Anstalt are already being taken successfully in hand, and the very frank and reassuring statement issued this week should go a long way to dispel doubts... These events inevitably constituted a serious menace to the economic situation in Austria, and all concerned are to be congratulated upon the frank, prompt and energetic manner in which the episode has been dealt with.
Looking through the data included in each issue, one notes a steady decline in the foreign exchange reserves of the German Reichsbank and the Austrian National Bank across 1931. Around this point, the drop in Austrian reserves accelerates. Credit-Anstalt doesn't merit a mention in the issue of May 23rd. By May 30th, we're writing of the bank, "Recent developments unfortunately suggest that the task of overcoming the difficulties under which this institution are labouring are proving more formidable than at one time seemed likely."
That same issue, by the way, includes a note covering a remarkable lecture by economist Gustav Cassel, who is quoted as saying that the world's central banks should "come together and make an end of the depression simply by declaring that they intend, from this moment on, to supply the world so abundantly with means of payment that no further fall in prices will be possible." Our comment is that, "it is no use pouring oil copiously upon the bearings when once they have seized up, and this is one reason why trade fails to revive, even though there is already to-day a superabundance of money and credit."
Events move quite quickly through the summer. As of June 6th, we are still writing of the Credit-Anstalt that "there is good ground for hoping that the corner has been turned". By June 20th, however, the lead editorial is titled, "In The Thick Of The Storm". It discusses the turmoil in financial markets and the clear spread of panic to Germany where, in an effort to fight off gold outflows, the Reichsbank increased its benchmark interest rate from 5% to 7%. The next week, coverage is hopeful despite continued deterioration of the situation in Germany, thanks to President Hoover's proposal for a one-year moratorium on all international debt payments. The news is cheered, though it is immediately noted that the French are not happy with the plan. By July 4th it is back to gloom, as it becomes clear that the French are unlikely to sign on to the plan. And on July 18th, it is reported that Germany has reached the end of its rope. A large bank—the Danatbank—is forced to suspend payments, and a general moratorium on payments across the banking system is imposed. This is the point at which Germany, more or less, leaves the international financial system.
Almost immediately, the run jumps to Britain, and by July 25th, we're discussing the Bank of England's decision to raise interest rates to fend off the crisis. By August 1st, the Bank's rate has gone up another full percentage point. Germany has attempted to reopen its banking system, as a part of which process it raised its benchmark interest rate from 10% to 15%, a development on which the paper comments, "It is beyond any doubt that a discount rate of such abnormal height cannot be long borne without bringing about an economic shrinkage of important extent."
The pressure on Britain continued to develop. On September 19th we report on the emergency austerity budget pushed by Chancellor Philip Snowden in an effort to restore confidence, but in the next issue we cover the suspension of gold payments in Britain. It would later become clear that departure from gold was perhaps the critical milestone in moving from contraction to expansion. America's recovery would begin in earnest in 1933 when it left gold. France's would have to wait until it abandoned gold in 1936. Though economists were feeling their way toward an understanding of these dynamics at the time, however, it would be decades before the full nature of the crisis and its resolution became clear.
This isn't meant as a broader comment on current events, except as to point out that in the thick of a crisis one will struggle to see the full dimensions of the situation.Welcome! The Lovely Project exists to empower all girl-kind with the knowledge of their Value, Voice, and Valor. We're a community of real girls and women sharing our lives and our stories. You are not alone. Together, we are Lovely.
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I Cut Myself… Melissa’s story – trigger warning… In honor of our upcoming Gala (have you gotten your tickets yet?), We are counting down our most popular Lovely Like Me stories of all time that highlight some of the work we do here at TLP. These are real girls, real stories. Here’s #3… The feeling of relief was only temporary and the scars remained like a story on my arm… Through most of my life I hated myself. The mirror was my enemy. I didn’t have many friends and a resounding thought was “There must be something wrong with me. People don’t like me, or want to know me.” I believed that I was worthless and unloved by anyone but my father. I was very close to him. We did everything together. We got up early mornings before anyone else in the house to play video games together. We played basketball in the driveway, threw the football in the street, and went swimming all day every Sunday. I was his little girl and I felt loved when I was with him. I felt happy and appreciated around him like I mattered. I was comforted and I felt a security in him like somehow everything was going to be ok. My house was somewhat divided growing up. My mother was very controlling of the household and over-protective of my older brother. He is bi-polar, ADHD, explosive personality disorder and a few other things. The cops were called often at our house followed by counselor (after counselor) visits. I could tell my mother was frustrated because she couldn’t discipline my brother and had little control over him. My brother was allowed to pretty much do whatever he wanted to avoid setting off another temper tantrum resulting in the cops being called. My mother’s frustration turned to a “power-hunger” to control everything else she could. Much of it fell on my shoulders because I was the “good one” that did what I was told. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house. I was grounded constantly for any little thing like not loading the dishwasher the “precise” way she wanted, which was her way of keeping me grounded. It was rare I was ever not restricted. I would get grounded from my own room and made to stay in the living room with her because she knew my room was my favorite place to escape from the constant arguing, yelling and stress. She took my safe-haven, the little peace I had. My voice was silenced because I felt the counselors didn’t care how I felt in the house, the unfairness, or the verbal abuse I endured constantly. I didn’t destroy property or attack people so I wasn’t a priority in their eyes. My problems didn’t matter to them. I wanted so desperately to have friends to talk to about everything, but anyone I did talk to left because there was too much drama in my life. They didn’t want to deal with it. I became so ashamed of my situation. My dad was the only one who really heard me. He cared. My parents fought a lot because my dad saw the problem and didn’t baby my brother and stood up for me when I was innocent. It caused a rift so it was mom and brother versus me and dad many times. At age 14 my dad went to the hospital for a blood clot in his leg in January 2001. We found out he had Cancer and was in the final stage. In February 2001 the day we got the results of what kind of cancer he had, he passed away. My protector was gone. In that one month everything I knew that was safe had changed. My mind was overwhelmed with thoughts of being alone in the world without him to love me. I felt like no-one understood me or cared to try. They didn’t know what it was like at home. With my mom I didn’t know what to expect, sometimes she was happy and loving and it was great and like a flip of a switch would get hurtful and bitter. I would be told almost daily how useless I was, how disgusted my mother was with me. I was told no-one would ever love me and that I would always be alone. That I deserved to be alone. “Liar,” “whore,” and “bitch” were commons names shouted at me. I remember crying getting on the school bus almost every day because in those short mornings somehow I would do something to set her off and insults flew. I felt conditional love from her. It was times like that I desperately wanted to run into daddy’s arms one more time to make it better, but I couldn’t. I felt no self-confidence or worth. I believed I was better than that, like I didn’t deserve to be treated like that but still hated my personality. My shyness and inability to be happy and outgoing like people around me made me hate who I was. When I looked in the mirror all I could see were imperfections. I became disgusted with myself. On a constant basis I felt emotionally overwhelmed like I was going to explode and other days I felt numb. One day I got cut by something on my arm and the pain and the sight of the blood soothed my mind for a moment. I picked up a pair of scissors and cut my arm again. I can’t explain why… it felt for a moment as though by doing that, it was releasing my emotions. The tears stopped and all was silent in my head. So I began to cut every time I felt overwhelmed emotionally. I cut when I was angry and when I was sad. I cut when I was numb to feel something. I began to feel like I had to cut to make the emotional pain stop. Like there was no other way but cutting to stop it. I got good at making excuses for the marks and hiding them. I wore a facade when I wasn’t alone. I pretended as though there was nothing wrong. I masked my true emotions with a fake smile. At this time in my life I didn’t know anyone else had a problem like mine. I never heard of cutting before. I just did it. The feeling of relief was only temporary and the scars remained like a story on my arm. Shameful if anyone were to find out, afraid of being committed. After awhile just a few cuts weren’t enough to make me feel better. I had to cut deeper, more often, and more. After awhile, even that didn’t make me feel better. The inner pain could not be subsided by the external.
This was from age 14-19. One day my co-worker Grace invited me to a stage production she was going to be in. I went and loved it. The story that was told in the production really spoke to me and also told me that there was hope. Do I dare believe it? I stayed after the production and met some other Lovely girls who invited me to hang out with them. There seemed to be so much love and friendship amongst them, and this was what I sought after. Could I find it there? I DID. After meeting some more girls who offered me their friendship, and actually listened when I talked, and didn’t get scared off when I told them my story- I began to learn so much about my own value. I felt treasured for the first time since my Dad died. I was learning to love myself and cancel out those constant thoughts in my mind that told me otherwise. I can’t say it was an easy process, it was one day at a time. It was learning to accept compliments even if I didn’t believe them about myself…yet. To look in the mirror and tell myself I’m beautiful. Telling myself daily that I am a lovely person. I had to change my mindset of the way I felt about myself and allow those areas to be healed. I don’t know why I decided to give these girls a try- but I’m so glad I did. I can honestly say it was a turning point. That thought that used to tell me to grab the scissors is gone. I’ve forgiven my family and we talked about our past, my mom has acknowledged her mistakes and apologized for them. You can’t change the past but we can change the future. We have moved forward and have a pretty good relationship now which I thought I would never be able to say. She is proud of me overcoming the cutting and low self-esteem. I am also close to my brother too. Not to say my life is perfect, because there is no such thing, but it is much improved. I did find joy and boldness to be me. I used to mutilate my body. Now, I am lovely. Related Posts: I Hated Myself: Melissa’s Story
My dad is a Sex Offender… Stephanie…
The Girl With the Hopeless Family –…
my-dad-is-a-sex-offender-Stephanie’s story (as…
An Ugly Spot on a Perfect Wall – Invisible:… cutting, Lovely Like Me, suicidal, TLP One Day, Value Posted in alcohol/drug useHolidaymakers on the island of Kos said they were told they were unable to swap cash because the European Central Bank did not have an official exchange rate for Sterling.
Matt Rooney, from Nottinghamshire, who is on holiday on the Greek island, tweeted: “It's beginning already! We're in Greece, no cash exchange & no cash machine withdrawals for Brits. Great #brexitfail'.
He posted a picture of the sign at his hotel which read: 'We would like to inform you that we cannot exchange British or Scottish pounds at the moment, as we do not have an official exchange rate from the central bank.”
He later said some cash machines were now working, but that sterling cash exchange was being refused by his hotel.
Alex Smith, from London, experienced problems in Bulgaria, amid confusion in financial markets.
He wrote on Facebook: “Varna airport exchange bureau refused to accept our pounds. Beware to anyone else that's daft enough to travel today.”
Those about to go on holiday also suffered problems, with NatWest admitting to a customer they had suspended exchanges due to “a fluctuation in the market”.
One man wrote on Twitter: “Just been told I can't exchange pound (sic) for euros by natwest as and I quote "the pound is currently dead in the water" I have a holiday.”
NatWest Help responded to him saying: 'Hi Joshua, due to a fluctuation in currency markets, we are directing customers to travelex.co.uk'
The value of the pound plummeted on Friday, after the result of the referendum was announced.
Meanwhile more than £100billion was wiped off the FTSE 100.
Travel firm Thomas Cook suspended its online currency sales on Friday after unprecedented demand. In a statement, it said its priority was getting enough currency in stores to fulfil outstanding orders.
Experts said those planning holidays should “watch currency movements very carefully”.
Andrew Brown of Post Office Travel Money, which accounts for around a quarter of all UK foreign exchange transactions, said: “For those who have not yet booked their holiday but are planning to travel abroad during the summer or later in the year, it will be well worth doing some homework before making a decision.
“Choosing a destination where sterling is strong and also where the local cost of living is low could make a significant difference to how far the holiday budget will stretch.”Community
At approximately 10:52 pm police responded to the area of 247 Church Street to meet with a pizza delivery person that had just been assaulted and robbed. The victim arrived at the address with a delivery and was met by three young African American males between the ages of 16 and 19. The males were said to be wearing bright red and yellow clothing at the time.
Police were informed that the males attempted to pay for the pizza with a counterfeit $100.00 bill. When the delivery person refused to complete the transactions the males demanded the victim turn over his money. One of the male suspects made a statement of getting a gun, although one was never displayed. One of the other suspects then struck the victim in the face. The victim handed the suspects the cash that he had and the three suspects fled on foot. The victim was not injured during the incident.
Anyone that may have information about this incident is asked to contact Detective Tom Nash at 540-2221.This story will get buried by all the other news today. That’s understandable, but I wish it weren’t so. It’s about a long-term government failure.
In 2007 Maxime Bernier created the Science, Technology and Innovation Council to measure Canada’s science and technology performance against that of comparable countries around the world. It’s produced reports every two years. The latest was released this morning while most of us were caught up in some other hilarity on the Hill.
The STIC council, as it’s called, is a big-name panel of advisors both inside government and outside. Its current membership includes the deputy ministers of Industry, Trade and Health; the presidents of Western, Alberta and McGill Universities; and a brochette of CEOs, principally from the energy sector.
Its third biennial report is devastating. Well, maybe I shouldn’t be throwing a word like that around in a week like this one, but it’s full of bad news anyway. Here’s some jargon, which I’ll translate:
State of the Nation 2012 shows that Canada’s gross domestic expenditures on R&D (GERD) declined from their peak in 2008 and, when measured in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), since 2001. In contrast, the GERD and GERD intensity of most other countries have been increasing. Canada’s declining GERD intensity has pushed its rank down from 16th position in 2006 to 17th in 2008 and to 23rd in 2011 (among 41 economies).
That means that by the broadest measure of expenditure on research and development, Canada has fallen from 16th out of 41 comparable countries in the year Stephen Harper became prime minister, to 23rd in 2011.
GERD is a mix of HERD and BERD. Sorry: total research spending is a mix of R&D spending in the higher-education sector, and in the business sector. In 2007, the Harper government’s Science and Technology Strategy called “the need to encourage greater private-sector S&T investment” a “national priority.” And how does this government do on national priorities, given half a decade? “In international rankings related to business innovation, Canada continues to place in the middle of the pack on most measures and, on some indicators, Canada’s rank has declined,” the report says. “BERD intensity (i.e., BERD as a percentage of GDP) has been in almost continuous decline for the past decade. Canada’s rank among comparator countries on BERD-to- GDP fell to 25th in 2011 (of 41 economies).”
Investment in “information and communication technology” — computers, networking and phone tech — has lagged in Canada behind U.S. levels throughout the past decade, so that now the gap of total ICT stock between our country and our most important neighbour is much greater than when the Harper government came to power.
The good news is that on pure science, Canada continues to perform better than most other countries. “With a share of only 0.5 percent of global population, Canada accounted for 4.4 percent of the world’s natural sciences and engineering publications in 2010. This positions Canada eighth after countries with significantly larger populations: the U.S., China, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, France and Italy.”
The bad news is that Canada is letting its science advantage fritter away, as if that could somehow help its private-sector R&D gap close. In 2007 Canada continued to rank first among G7 countries in HERD, or R&D expenditure in the higher-education sector. But as I have argued elsewhere, it’s increasingly useful to consider the G7 as an international losers’ club. It’s the U.S., Japan and Old Europe. When you throw Canada into the larger pool of 41 countries STIC looks at — countries with a bit of mojo, like Brazil, India, China, Poland, Israel and Sweden — Canada has fallen from third in 2006, to 4th in 2008 — to 9th in 2011. “With their significant investments in research and higher education,” this panel writes, “other countries are catching up and overtaking Canada.”
Between 2006 and 2010, the annual number of science PhD graduates in Canada grew by nearly half — a lagging reflection, I suspect, of the formidable growth in science capacity in Canada between 1997 and 2002. A generation of students came of age at a time when Canada was developing an international reputation as a relative science oasis. They had their university careers and came onto the job market. But it’s a shaky market now. This larger cohort of scientists is searching for stagnant or declining grant budgets. Success rates for research grant applications are falling. So Canada has more scientists than ever, and each is able to do less science than she would have been able to do a decade ago.
It’s a peculiar situation. The government has known, since its first year in office, that the private sector is not doing enough applied research. Its response has been to put the brakes on pure research in universities. The result has been that the weakness has continued to aggravate, while the strength has been put in danger. At Davos more than a year ago, Harper said his government would “continue to make the key investments in science and technology necessary to sustain a modern competitive economy.” It’s not clear what he meant by “continue.” It is true that recent changes at the National Research Council are designed to bolster, or accompany, or synergize with, or somehow prop up private-sector applied research. I can only wish the NRC luck. If it manages to push Canada up 7 spots in international rankings of research intensity, the country will be back where it was, compared to peer countries, on the day Stephen Harper became prime minister.
The cheaper thing the government could do is to shut down the STIC council. It’ll stop producing meddlesome reports like this.Overview The Solution Gameflip Token Sale Roadmap Our Team
From the Gameflip Marketplace
Gameflip is dedicated to creating a transparent, safe, and frictionless digital marketplace for video gamers globally.
Gameflip has built a robust marketplace platform for video gamers to buy and sell digital goods. Using blockchain technology, Gameflip continues to be at forefront in reducing trading barriers for video gamers.
Over 2 million gamers buying and selling gaming items safely with Gameflip
Over 10 million Web views and 2 million Mobile App accesses monthly
Millions of USD transacted monthly
The new FLIP token and decentralized ecosystem will further advance Gameflip vision
for a fully transparent and frictionless infrastructure for transacting digital goods.
I. Overview
The digital goods market is large despite the fact that the current ecosystem is far from optimal.
Currently, most digital goods are locked within a single game. Gamers may have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on keys to unlock mystery boxes, plus countless hours of playing time to earn rare digital goods. However, when they eventually stop playing that game, the value of all of their investments will be zero, for they cannot sell any of these digital goods, nor can they transfer their Crypto-token for buying and selling gaming digital goods investments to another game (except with very limited exceptions within a single platform).
The demand to be able to sell digital goods is huge, but so far this demand has been largely unmet.
With respect to a small subset of digital goods (e.g., those from games like CS:GO, Dota 2, and H1Z1, etc.), certain markets do exist where gamers can sell them for cash. These markets include forums, Steam Community Market, and third party trading sites. However, each of these markets present its own challenges, and gamers face significant friction when they transact there:
Forum Markets
Some gamers buy and sell digital goods on forums (e.g., Reddit), which are unofficial marketplaces. A key drawback is that gamers "trade at their own risk" there. These forums do not offer the buyers or sellers any protection. Fraud is prevalent.
Steam Community Market
It is an official marketplace where gamers transact using Steam Wallet. There are fewer problems with fraud than the unofficial forums, but still Steam Community Market has substantial shortcomings:
It does not offer sellers any real cash out at all. After a seller has received payment into his Steam Wallet, he can only use the Steam Wallet for other games on the Steam platform. He cannot convert anything to real cash.
. After a seller has received payment into his Steam Wallet, he can only use the Steam Wallet for other games on the Steam platform. He cannot convert anything to real cash. Steam imposes a high transaction fee, as much as 15%.
Third Party Trading Sites
These sites connect to Steam and facilitate transactions for the same digital goods, except that gamers can sell them for actual cash. As a class, however, many of these third-party trading sites are problematic themselves:
Many of them operate with no transparency into their owners and managers. A number of them were allegedly associated with supporting illegal gambling, and many allegedly operate with questionable tactics.
into their owners and managers. A number of them were allegedly associated with supporting illegal gambling, and many allegedly operate with questionable tactics. They only support Steam digital goods, leaving the problem with much of the gaming digital goods universe unsolved.
II. The Solution
FLIP is a crypto-token of fixed supply
FLIP is fractionally divisible Units of FLIP are fungible and transferable The backbone for FLIP is the Ethereum blockchain
Pricing and Distribution
Base rate
1 FLIP = 0.005 ETH
1 ETH = 200 FLIPs
Bonuses
Bonuses are offered based on the timing and amount of token purchased, up to 340
FLIPs per 1 ETH.
The supply of FLIP will be capped at 100 million
They will be distributed as follows:
Distribution of FLIP Token Sale (Pre-Sale and Main Sale Total) 43,200,000 Network Growth 40,000,000 Gameflip 14,000,000 Advisors and Partners 2,800,000 Total 100,000,000
After all 100 million tokens have been issued, new ones will not be created.
How FLIP will help Gamers and Game Publishers?
FLIP will dramatically expand the overall size of the gaming digital goods market by creating significant benefits for both gamers and game publishers.
Gamers that adopt FLIP will benefit from: The flexibility to securely sell, buy and trade their digital goods
Smart contracts which will help to eliminate fraud Gamers can easily send digital goods and FLIP to each other, as long as both the sender and the recipient have an Ethereum compatible wallet. Game Publishers that adopt FLIP will benefit from: Being able to sell more digital goods at higher prices
Increased longevity of their games
Significant brand new revenue streams. Game publishers can incorporate this function – for gamers to securely transfer digital goods outside of the game – with minimal integration efforts. The blockchain will act as a multi-game database, securely storing all digital goods and FLIP and tracking who owns them.
III. Gameflip Token Sale
PreICO – 13 October 2017 ICO – 28 November 2017
The token pre-sale will take place as follows:
Start: October 13, 2017, at 19:00 (7 p.m.) UTC
End: October 27, 2017, at 19:00 (7 p.m.) UTC
Currency accepted: ETH
Bonuses: Purchase Amount Bonus Final Rate - Number of FLIPs per ETH >= 5,000 ETH 70% 340 >= 3,000 ETH 60% 320 >= 1,000 ETH 50% 300 >= 100 ETH 40% 280 >= 1 ETH 30% 260
Minimum purchase amount: 1 ETH
Any unsold tokens in the pre-sale will go into the main sale pool
Goal for the pre-sale: 3,000 ETH
Hard cap: 7,000 ETH
The token main sale will take place as follows:
Start: November 28, 2017, at 19:00 (7 p.m.) UTC
End: December 30, 2017, at 19:00 ( |
2.4.$1.5 | $4.3 $1.5 5 $4.3 $1.5 5 $4.3 $1.5 | $4.2 $2.2.$1.5 $2.2.$1.5 $4.2 $2.2.$1.5 $2.2.$1.5 $4.2 $1.0.$2.0 | $6.0.$1.0 $2./3 $6.0.$1.0 $2./3 $6.0.$1.0 $2./3 $6.0.$1.0 $6./4 | $5.0 $2.1/2 $6.0.$1.0 2 $4.2 $2.1/2 $6.0.$1.0 $3.2 | $5.0 $1.5 $5.0 $4.4 $1.5 5 $4.4 3 | $1.5 5 $4.3 2 $1.5 $6./4 | Almost a double turnaround to start us off, watch out for the awkward feeling timing of the turnaround riffs.
The ProgressionThe start, the first hurdle… only the qualifiers to gauge your opposition upon. Without doubt today is the day that the action will start to heat up. So let’s take a look at the players and games we will be seeing tonight!
The Games:
MC vs SortOf
Kas vs BlinG
Socke vs ToD
Shuttle vs uzer
Ret vs Bischu
Hydra vs Grubby
Already there are some amazing names and players ready to compete to advance tonight. Each of the games will be played in a best of 3 format which means all the usual strategy and psychology that comes with a series is applicable.
For me, the first game of the night will immediately be incredibly tough. MC, hopefully having recovered from Apollo’s is looking in a good position to take the series. He is currently sitting nicely with a 63% win rate vs Zerg - compared to SortOfs 58% win rate vs Protoss!
Looking forward to game 2, I cannot help but show some support for BlinG being from the UK like me. But needless to say he will be up against a thoroughly tough opponent in Kas. Having said that though, one of BlinG’s best tournament results recently was back in November 2012 where he beat Krass to win the ESET UK Masters 2012 in very convincing fashion.
Socke vs ToD should be fantastic fun if for no other reason that the premier league caster himself will be making a firm impression on the community as a whole in his attempt to gain greater recognition as both a player and caster!
Just going past the half way point of the night, Shuttle vs uzer is probably the match I am most excited about. Personally, I have not seen too much of these two players which always adds to the excitement! Uzer had an amazing run through the qualifier taking out players such as Tefel, XlorD and Welmu!
The penultimate game will see Ret take on Bischu. Both of these two players are currently hovering around the 50% win rate in all match ups, a close game is assured. The big question though is will Ret be able to mimic the success of his teammates in recent weeks?
Finally, we will end the night with some Hydra vs Grubby. This is the point in the night where I am expecting the stream chat to go a little crazy, it is Grubby afterall!
So those are the games along with a little insight into them. See below for all the details about tonight:
Time: 18:00 CEST
Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/wcs_europe2
Casters: Madals & Lyrlian“You’re in a communal living setting that puts a lot of pressure on people,” says Eric Carlson, directing attorney for Justice in Aging. “Imagine how oppressive it is to have to be guarded about who you are or your family and friends.”
Another study documented discrimination by senior housing facilities against prospective residents. The Equal Rights Center sent senior L.G.B.T. and straight couples to apply for housing in 10 states; 48 percent of the gay couples experienced at least one type of discriminatory practice, ranging from differences in availability, pricing, rental incentives, amenities and application requirements.
The discriminatory practices are not limited to senior housing. A larger “pair test” study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 50 metropolitan markets found that rental housing applications by heterosexual couples were frequently favored over those from gay male and lesbian couples.
“The research clearly shows that people in the L.G.B.T. community face discrimination and barriers that others don’t,” said Linda Couch, director of housing policy and priorities at LeadingAge, an association representing 6,000 aging services agencies. Housing providers, she added, need to “make clear to residents that their buildings are places where all are welcome and discrimination won’t be tolerated. We are not quite there yet, but our members are interested in being there.”
The aging of the baby boom generation is already increasing demand for community living options for seniors; the need is expected to be even greater for gays and lesbians. “They are more likely to be poor, and more likely to be living without family members who can support them,” Ms. Couch said.
That is true despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2015 affirming the right of same-sex marriage. It will take time for the ruling to fully provide spousal access to pension and retirement accounts and health benefits — not to mention the spousal and survivor benefits provided to married couples by Social Security.The earnings performance easily surpassed the average estimate by analysts of $2.30 a share, as compiled by FactSet Research.
The company reported revenue of $24.6 billion, an increase of 5 percent, after adjusting for currency gains. The sales figure was above Wall Street’s average estimate of $24 billion. In the year-earlier quarter, I.B.M. had revenue of $22.9 billion.
I.B.M. had strong results in most of its businesses, including hardware, as a new generation of mainframes sold strongly. Revenue from the big computers was up 41 percent from a year ago.
The one question mark, analysts said, was lower than expected new contract signings in the company’s big services business, a possible indication of weakness ahead.
“It was a classic I.B.M. quarter, showing the company’s ability to produce solid earnings,” said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “The only concern is the soft services signings.”
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I.B.M.’s quarterly performance, analysts said, was another nod to the success of a strategy begun long ago. That strategy emphasizes profits ahead of revenue growth, aggressively pursuing high-growth markets overseas, and offering customers a tightly integrated bundle of hardware, software and services. And I.B.M. has an unwavering focus on the corporate and government markets.
For more than a decade, I.B.M. has delivered gains in earnings per share of more than 10 percent, while revenue has increased about 3 percent a year.
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Cost cutting and share buybacks are part of the answer, analysts say, but so is the steady move into higher-margin businesses and new markets. These include applying research and computing to help governments tackle challenges like traffic management, water conservation and energy use. Last week, for example, I.B.M. announced a deal with the California Department of Transportation to build systems for predicting and managing traffic.
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Technology markets are known for rapid, unpredictable turns. Yet I.B.M. issues five-year plans and pretty much sticks to them. The current plan, running to 2015, singles out a few market niches for high growth.
One sector earmarked for growth is cloud computing, the technology industry’s buzz term for tapping into computing resources and information in big data centers remotely over the Internet from anywhere, as if the services were in a cloud. I.B.M forecasts that its cloud business will reach $7 billion by 2015.
Another market singled out for rapid expansion is the business of helping companies mine data for useful information such as using Web traffic and social-network postings to guide marketing, sales, manufacturing and purchasing decisions.
The software for mining vast data troves is called business intelligence or analytics software. In the last five years, I.B.M. has spent $14 billion acquiring 25 specialist companies in analytics. The company’s analytics unit now employs 8,000 consultants and 200 mathematicians.
“The biggest change facing corporations is the explosion of data,” said David Grossman, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. “The best business is in helping customers analyze and manage all that data, and I.B.M. is making a big push there.”
In a conference call, Mark Loughridge, the chief financial officer, described Watson, I.B.M.’s Jeopardy-playing supercomputer, as a triumph of the company’s skills in analytics. In February, Watson beat two human Jeopardy champions. “We didn’t invest just to play Jeopardy,” he said. “We invested to provide leadership applications for our clients.”
I.B.M. said its analytics business grew 20 percent in the quarter. The 2015 goal for that business is $16 billion.
I.B.M. has a large business in Japan, about 11 percent of its total revenue, or more than $10 billion a year. Yet despite the exposure to Japan, I.B.M. had little impact in the first quarter from the tsunami and earthquake on March 11. Three-quarters of I.B.M.’s business in Japan is in services, which are typically sold under contracts lasting a year or more. “Services tend to be more stable in turbulent times,” Mr. Loughridge said.Alcohol Suppresses Brain Response To Fearful Faces
Alcohol makes us somewhat blind to the meaning of facial expressions.
Working with a dozen healthy participants who drink socially, research fellow Jodi Gilman, working with senior author Daniel Hommer, MD, at the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study activity in emotion-processing brain regions during alcohol exposure. Over two 45-minute periods, the study participants received either alcohol or a saline solution intravenously and were shown images of fearful facial expressions. (Previous studies have shown that expressions of fear signal a threatening situation and activate specific brain regions.) The same group of participants received both alcohol and placebo, on two separate days. Comparing brain activity, Gilmans team found that when participants received the placebo infusion, fearful facial expressions spurred greater activity than neutral expressions in the amygdala, insula, and parahippocampal gyrusbrain regions involved in fear and avoidanceas well as in the brains visual system. However, these regions showed no increased brain activity when the participants were intoxicated. In addition, alcohol activated striatal areas of the brain that are important components of the reward system. This confirms previous findings and supports the idea that activation of the brains reward system is a common feature of all drugs of abuse. Gilmans team found that the level of striatal activation was associated with how intoxicated the participants reported feeling. These striatal responses help account for the stimulating and addictive properties of alcohol.
Does alcohol have a similar suppressive effect in reaction to a happy face? Or does it amplify our emotional response to happy smiling people?
A hobbled ability to detect threats can get one into trouble.
The key finding of this study is that after alcohol exposure, threat-detecting brain circuits cant tell the difference between a threatening and non-threatening social stimulus, said Marina Wolf, PhD, at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, who was unaffiliated with the study. At one end of the spectrum, less anxiety might enable us to approach a new person at a party. But at the other end of the spectrum, we may fail to avoid an argument or a fight. By showing that alcohol exerts this effect in normal volunteers by acting on specific brain circuits, these study results make it harder for someone to believe that risky decision-making after alcohol doesnt apply to me, Wolf said.
Do some people have minds that naturally fail to identify threatening or fearful or angry faces? Can one lack this ability yet still have the ability to identify happy faces or faces that communicate other emotional states? My guess is that some of these facial expression reading abilities vary separately from each other.Two-time Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks is a busy man. In addition to his on-screen roles, Hanks has also had a successful career as a voice actor for animated films and documentaries. But what does he do when his schedule gets in the way of a voice gig? He simply passes the job off to his brother, he revealed in a 2011 interview with Graham Norton.
During the interview (below), Norton pulled the string on a Woody doll from the Toy Story movies and Tom Hanks confirmed that the voice coming from the toy was not him. "There are so many computer games and video things, and Jim... he just works on those all year long," he said. Jim Hanks is nearly five years younger than 59-year-old Tom and began his acting career about a decade after his more famous brother. Since then, he has occasionally filled in for Tom and is listed as the voice actor for 25 episodes of the Toy Story Treats shorts series.
A similar tone of voice isn't all the siblings share. Jim Hanks also looks a lot like his older brother, which has helped him land a few jobs as a body double for Tom. According to a 2013 interview with Parade, Jim ran "a few hundred yards in slo-mo" in South Carolina and Montana as Tom's character in Forrest Gump, and he was also Tom's stunt double in 2011's Larry Crowne.
Check out the full interview below.
Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.Role playing games have been popular for years. Myst for the PC, The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo consoles, and Final Fantasy for the PC, Playstation, and Nintendo systems are each a highly acclaimed series of games. Another series of lesser known, but equally important role-playing games in terms of the development of the genre is the Phantasy Star series on Sega consoles. Starting with the Sega Master System and progressing onto the Genesis and now Dreamcast consoles, the Phantasy Star series has (with a single notable exception in the third game of the series) always been developed on the cutting edge of technology. All of the games, in particular Phantasy Star I and the newest, Phantasy Star Online, have pushed the boundaries of their system’s performance. In addition to providing exceptional and innovative game views and game play, the Phantasy Star series has also always provided some of the best, innovative storylines of the genre. The first two games in particular did more with their storyline than any other RPG of their time.
There were many factors that allowed Phantasy Star to be so innovative in every respect. Sega did manage to develop some very capable systems early in console development. That, coupled with great designers, led to very technologically advanced games. However, Sega’s business practices and general corporate attitude toward the game designer teams are what affected the game development most. In fact, Sega’s success (or lack thereof) with each game seems to parallel changes in the company’s business practices. The changing corporate attitude of Sega can be seen in the quality of the stories and the marketing used for each of the Phantasy Star installments.
Developer History
Sega dates back all the way to 1951 when David Rosen, an American living in Japan, founded it. At the time, the company was a Japanese art exporter (and later an art importer as well) and known as Rosen Enterprises (ZDnet). It was not until nearly fifteen years later when Rosen Enterprises merged with a jukebox company that the company’s name was changed to Sega–short for “Service Games” (Sega.com). Before the release of the Master System (or Mark III in Japan) Sega produced a number of great selling and currently well-known arcade games as well as some very crummy games for the first Atari consoles. Frogger and Zaxxon are two of the earliest arcade hits Sega produced.
In 1985 Sega introduced the Mark III to Japan and the next year the company released the American equivalent, the Sega Master System. After many years of poor performance from the console video game market, Sega hoped to capitalize on the new surge in sales generated by the new Nintendo console, the Famicom in Japan, or Nintendo Entertainment System in America. Unfortunately for Sega, Nintendo maintained a stranglehold on the market. Nintendo’s licensing agreements (which were later deemed illegal) prevented third parties from developing games for systems in addition to Nintendo systems. Consequently, very few games were designed for the Master System outside of Sega’s own development teams. By 1988 Sega had only sold two million Master Systems (Sheff 15). While this may be a fairly substantial number, it pales in comparison with Nintendo’s sales. The Famicom sold 500,000 units in its first six months (Sheff 35). Nintendo easily sold more systems than Sega before the Master System was even released. Up until the takeoff of the next generation of video game consoles, Nintendo commanded nearly 85% of the market for home video games (Sheff 6).
Nintendo’s early command of the video game industry can solely be attributed to the man in charge of Nintendo, Hiroshi Yamauchi. His shrewd business decisions did not allow the late-starting Master System to gain very much market share despite the technologically superior system. The Master System beat the Nintendo hands down in nearly every category even with the two systems quite comparable in price (depending on the time of purchase of course). The Master System retailed for $149 for the system with the added light gun (Segaweb.com). The Master System had an 8-bit, 3.6 MHz processor, while the Nintendo’s 8-bit processor only operated at 1.79 MHz. The Master System could display 52 different colors on the screen out of a palette of 256. The NES could only display 16 of 52 total colors. The Master System also had 64Kb of RAM compared to only 2Kb in the NES (Nintendo Data, Master System Data). One web site claims that “Games released on the both the SMS and NES have an obviously better look and feel on the Master System” (Briansemu.com). Considering the huge difference in technology this is not surprising.
One could say that Sega’s foray with Nintendo in the home video game market provided a very important learning experience. Sega did not make the same mistakes when it came to releasing the Mega Drive in Japan in 1988 and the American equivalent, the Genesis, shortly thereafter in 1989. Sega immediately licensed Electronic Arts to produce games for the new 16-bit system. This addition of game titles and the nearly two-year head start on the Nintendo 16-bit system allowed Sega to increase market share. The numbers vary from source to source, but at its pinnacle Sega caught up to if not surpassed Nintendo in market share. According to Segaweb.com, “The Genesis years are often what us Sega fans refer to as the golden age of Sega.” The battle may have been difficult at first–consumers were loath to purchase a new system that had no compatibility with their older games–but Sega’s wonderful new line-up of software titles and impressive graphics slowly enticed consumers away from Nintendo.
Technologically, the Genesis was very impressive. At the time the only existing system boasting similar capabilities was the Turbo Grafx 16 by NEC. This system, while marketed as a 16-bit system, actually had two 8-bit processors instead of a 16-bit processor. While the two processors did make the graphics better than any 8-bit system, it was difficult for the system to compete with the Genesis, especially with the system’s lack of software support. The Genesis had a 16-bit processor and the ability to display 64 colors on the screen out of a palette of 512. Complete with 64KB RAM as well as another 64KB of sound RAM, the system was quite capable (Genesis Data). When Nintendo finally followed with their Super Famicom/Super NES, the system slowly ate into Genesis market share, but never usurped Sega in the 16-bit war. Like the Master System in the 8-bit war, the Super NES was superior to its biggest competitor, Sega’s Genesis. In fact, the Super NES had a 16-bit processor and 1 Mb of RAM plus an additional 0.5 Mb of video RAM. The Super NES could also display up to 256 colors on the screen at a time out of a palette of 32,768 colors (Super NES Data).
In an attempt to support the Genesis, Sega sold a number of unsuccessful peripherals. The Sega CD and 32x were attachments to the Genesis that did not live up to their marketer’s promises. Game titles for these attachments were minimal and the titles created were not considerably better than the standard Genesis games. Consequently, there were not many reasons to purchase these peripherals.
Like Nintendo at the beginning of the 16-bit revolution, Sega had slipped into a slump. New products were not selling. Consumers were anxiously awaiting new games and new systems that typically ended up disappointing. The Saturn, Sega’s 32-bit system, was not able to compete with Sony’s Playstation. In fact, the Saturn quietly faded into obscurity having never developed enough 3rd party support to develop anything resembling an extensive library of games.
Sega’s most recent attempt at success in the console video game market was with the Dreamcast. This cutting edge 3-D system sold 500,000 units in the first two months of production (Sega.com). Beyond amazing graphics, the Dreamcast also offered something no other system did at the time–interactive online gaming capabilities. While the Dreamcast was extremely successful in its first two years of production, Sega announced that the company will cease to produce the system due to intense competition from Sony’s Playstation 2 and the forthcoming X-Box from Microsoft. While the Dreamcast may not have continued its success as long as Sega wished, it did represent a major victory for Sega. After so many failures following the peak of the Genesis, the Dreamcast demonstrated that Sega could still be successful in the console video game market when managed correctly.
The Games
In the middle of Sega’s brief attempt to win the 8-bit console war, Phantasy Star was created. The outlook was grim at the time. No one at Sega could have honestly thought they had a chance to rival Nintendo by its release in late 1987. By the time the game hit American shelves the next year Nintendo had a commanding lead on console and game sales. Nintendo’s stranglehold on third party development further darkened Sega’s future with the Master System. However, Phantasy Star went on to become the gem of the Master System. Most sites credit it as the best game produced for the Master System.
These accolades can largely be attributed to two people: Yuji Naka and Rieko Kodama. Yuji Naka is credited with the “Main Program” while Rieko Kodama is credited with the “Total Design.” Together these two are largely responsible for the two areas in which Phantasy Star excelled: technological advances and storyline (Click here to see a full list of credits).
The technological advances in Phantasy Star are numerous. To start, it should be noted that it was the first console turn-based RPG. While the concept was not new, the game design was new to consoles. Adapting to this style of game play would have made Phantasy Star a notable game, but Yuji Naka took that further. Three separate views, each representing different situations, were added to Phantasy Star. There was an overhead view for traveling, a wide rear view for fighting enemies, and a first person view for navigating tunnels and caves. The graphics for tunnel exploration drew the most attention, and to this day are still very good. The detail is great, and the smoothness of the scrolling is extremely impressive. This quality probably could not have been achieved on the NES due to its inferior capabilities. In addition to these advances, combat animations were also added during the battle scenes. Visible attacks against enemies provided a tangible differentiation between the Phantasy Star and board game RPGs.
While Phantasy Star may have been designed on the cutting edge of technology, it was the storyline that truly captured the hearts of those who played the game. Rieko Kodama wonderfully blended science fiction and myth to create an adcventure that has withstood the test of the ages. Only within the past year was Phantasy Star inducted into the Gamespy.com Hall of Fame.
One of the most striking differences between this game and other RPGs is the gender of the lead character. Alis Landale, the leader of the group, sets out in this game to defeat the evil Lassic after Lassic kills her brother. The only game at the time (and for quite a while longer) with a female lead character was Nintendo’s Metroid. Contrary to today’s average “lead female character,” Alis is not scantily clad, or in any way a sex symbol. She is simply a strong woman on a mission to avenge her brother’s death.
In order to fulfill her mission, Alis is aided by high tech science fiction. At her and her parties disposal over the course of the game there is a hovercraft, a land rover, an ice digger, and a space ship. Each of these vehicles allows Alis and her party to explore more of the Algol star system.
The most amazing aspect of this game is its seamless introduction of myth into the plot. Early on the player finds that Medusa changed Odin to stone. In order to heal Odin, Alis must find Perseus’ shield. “According to our legends, the very shield Perseus used to overcome Medusa is buried on the small island in the middle of a lake.” (Text from Phantasy Star). This reference to Greek mythology is very clear, but does not completely describe the reference. The star system in which the Phantasy Star games are set actually has a real life equivalent. “Algol is an eclipsing binary star located in the Perseus constellation. In fact, the ‘ghoul’ star was thought to represent the eye of Medusa, due to its variable brightness” (Algol).
In addition to the constant references to Medusa and Perseus, there are a number of other myth-like events in Phantasy Star. “When Myau eats the Nuts of Laerma, he becomes clothed in flame and emits a blinding light. When he is visible again, he has been transformed into a beautiful winged beast. Myau flaps his wings proudly” (Text from Phantasy Star I). Events like this gave Phantasy Star a fantastic, mythical feel. It made the game difficult to put down, and easy to spend hours playing at a time.
Shortly after the release of the Genesis in 1989 Sega released Phantasy Star II, the follow-up to their most revered Master System game. With Yuji Naka and Rieko Kodama in charge of programming and design respectively, the sequel worked within the bounds dictated by the original game (Click here to see a full list of credits). Just like Phantasy Star, its first sequel had a captivating storyline and made wonderful use of the new Genesis technology. There was one major change though. Many of the mythical qualities of the first game were not in the second. Instead of fighting mythical beasts, the story describes the enemies as genetic and computer experiments gone wrong. This changes the story for the better. Instead of rehashing the same plot, a new menace has caused problems in Phantasy Star II. Only near the end of the game does the player realize that the evil behind Lassic in the first adventure is also the being behind the problems in Phantasy Star II.
Phantasy Star II‘s major advances are in the technological side of the game design. Yuji Naka programs a great game with the new 16-bit Genesis. The still shots at the beginning and end of the game when a story is being told are wonderful. They clearly demonstrate the Genesis’s superior graphics capabilities. Character detail improved with the better quality system, and so did detail in the fight scenes. In caves or tunnels one can also see a new feature of the Genesis-two independent scrolling backgrounds. The party walks as in the outside view, but in the front of the screen there is a slower scrolling network of pipes that obstruct some of the players view. This feature was certainly brand new to RPGs.
Phantasy Star III was an unfortunate mess. Released in 1991, Sega decided not to have Yuji Naka and Rieko Kodama plan and design this game (Click to see a full list of credits). Consequently the game hardly resembles either of the first two. Many people disliked the game for its departure from the series. Others found it unoriginal and uninspiring. Seeing that it was designed for the Genesis very shortly after the first game, little advancement had been made in the use of the Genesis system. The graphics were not any better, and unfortunately the story was lacking. The only saving grace for Phantasy Star III was its feature that allowed for four different endings. In the game the player plays three different generations of characters. Each generation there is a choice of who to marry. The player’s choice determines the next generation of the game. An intriguing idea, but the result was four different endings to one sub-par game.
Phantasy Star IV, released in 1994, is a return to the original games. Again, Yuji Naka and Rieko Kodama combine to design and program this game. After the failure of Phantasy Star III, Sega desperately wanted another quality game in the series to boost waning sales of Genesis games. Rieko Kodama herself attested to such in the Phantasy Star Compendium:
I was told by the company to make the RPG as soon as possible. They also asked me to try and bring together the original scenario writers, illustrators, and character designers…
Phantasy Star IV was quite a success. The game returned to the general storyline of the first two games and brought with it better designed graphics and a great story. Early in the game the female lead character dies leaving Chaz, an apprentice fighter, to continue the party’s quest. This is sad moment in the game. In order to advance the main character must die. Similar circumstances can be found in Final Fantasy games.
Sega released the newest installment in the series, Phantasy Star Online, for the Dreamcast in late 2000. Designed by Sonic Team (a group headed by Yuji Naka), Phantasy Star Online is the first console game designed to be played with people from across the world. In fact, cooperation is necessary to succeeding in the game. In order to facilitate cooperation, especially with a potential language barrier, many prewritten phrases are available to select from, as well as symbols so that one can communicate with someone who does not speak the same language. This clearly is a huge technological advance over previous video games. It remains to be seen if the future of RPG design will involve cooperation over the Internet.
The Influence of Sega’s Business
Throughout the development of the Phantasy Star games there was one outside factor that influenced game design–Sega’s business. Much can be said about each game when examined in context with the state of the company at the time. As the first Phantasy Star was being designed, the market leader was quite apparent. No one in the world doubted that Nintendo had a stranglehold over the console video game market. Sega also knew that the minimum number of Master System games certainly was not helping their sales. Consequently, Sega had to concentrate on their advantage in the market, technology, and use that to create amazing games. Phantasy Star was one of these amazing games. The designers knew that the game had to be great for it to sell, so they made an absolutely amazing game – arguably the best looking 8-bit game ever made. As Naka and Kodama set forth to begin designing the second Phantasy Star game, they again found themselves in a very similar situation. At the time Phantasy Star II was released, Sega had yet to gain very much market share on Nintendo even with the Genesis being the only true 16-bit machine on the market. Again, Phantasy Star II had to be a very good game. Like the original, the sequel needed to not only capture the attention of those owning a Genesis, but it also needed to cause people to purchase one. The focus on great software is what finally pushed the Genesis ahead of Nintendo. Great games designed within and smart third party licensing drove sales of Genesis systems. However, this mad rush to produce software hurt Sega in Phantasy Star III.
Phantasy Star III may be a departure from the earlier Phantasy Star games, but it still follows Sega’s business decisions. By 1991, when this game was released, Nintendo had released its Super NES. Feeling the heat of competition, Sega needed to maintain its market share in the 16-bit console war. Unfortunately for Sega, Square was still producing its well-known role-playing games for Nintendo. Sega quickly found itself competing with 16-bit Final Fantasy games and other quality role playing games from Nintendo. In response, Sega rushed another Phantasy Star through production in less than two years. It’s quite possible that the timeframe in which Sega wanted the game made it impossible for Naka and Kodama to work on Phantasy Star III because they had other projects in the works (Naka is responsible for Sonic the Hedgehog). Nonetheless, Sega’s haste led to an unsuccessful, less than stellar game. It seems that Sega counted more on reputation than quality to sell this game.
Phantasy Star IV was also rushed into production; however, Sega was quite conscious about the mistakes not to make. This final Phantasy Star for the Genesis was released as Sega began to transition development over to the Saturn. Partially needed to save face for the series, partially needed as one last great RPG for the Genesis, Phantasy Star IV production was created more in line with the first two in the series. Sega knew that sales for this game would not be guaranteed because of its predecessor. Phantasy Star III may have been more of a deterrent than anything else for those deciding whether or not to purchase Phantasy Star IV. Consequently, Sega brought Kodama and Naka together to create this fourth Phantasy Star. Though Sega did express urgency to complete this game because of its market position competing against Nintendo, Sega also learned from the mistakes it made with Phantasy Star III.
Phantasy Star Online‘s creation resembles that of Phantasy Star II most. Poised in the short term as the only system of its kind, the Dreamcast before the release of the Playstation 2 resembled the Genesis before the release of the Super NES/Super Famicom. Similarly to the second game, Phantasy Star Online does an amazing job of taking advantage of its new, available resources on the Dreamcast. From a business perspective, this was quite necessary. The Dreamcast at the time was vying for acceptability in the console market. An amazing game was necessary to woo more consumers over to the Dreamcast. While it may not have saved the Dreamcast, Phantasy Star Online did succeed in selling a lot of consoles. It, like Sega needed, caused many people to invest in a Dreamcast.
Sega’s Phantasy Star Marketing
While some of this analysis may be speculative, examining the marketing employed by Sega enforces many of ideas presented. Sega released a single commercial for each of the first four Phantasy Star games in Japan. While the dialogue may be in Japanese, the message of each commercial is not difficult to discern. In the commercial for the first Phantasy Star, there is a mixture of real acting and screenshots from the actual game. The music in the commercial and quickness of the shots emphasize the action in the game. The opening shot of a wicked beast sneaking up on Alis also piques interest in the story of the game. The closing shot of Alis holding her sword high triumphantly also includes two words under her: “4M” and “FM sound”. This shot carries with it the ultimate message of the commercial- Phantasy Star is a high quality game. In a time of cartridges measured in kilobits, Phantasy Star was a 4 Mega bit game. That of course translates to better graphics, and a longer story with less repetition in characters, enemies, and terrain. FM sound again emphasizes the quality of the sound in the game. Clearly Sega realized that the only angle to attack the market successfully was with technology. It is not a stretch to assume that the game designers, like the rest of the company, knew that better technology was the angle to take when creating this game.
The commercial for Phantasy Star II emphasized game quality even more than the Phantasy Star I commercial. In this commercial only shots from the game are used. Starting with the view while in battle mode, the commercial cycles through all the views in the game and also shows a multitude of enemies before ending the commercial with the phrase “16-Bit RPG” on the screen. Again, Sega differentiates its product from others through technology. There weren’t any other 16-Bit RPGs at this time.
Sega’s commercial for Phantasy Star III displayed exactly what was apparent in their design process–arrogance. Never once in the commercial is there footage from the actual game. Instead all the viewer sees is a choreographed dance with swords, and the phrase “King of RPG.” The ridiculously apparent attempt to sell Phantasy Star III solely on the success of the previous two games cannot be overlooked.
The commercial for Phantasy Star IV is a return to the style of the first commercial. Far more dramatic than that of the others, this commercial starts with the game title screen appearing out of the explosion of a planet and includes lengthy action footage of characters narrowly escaping destruction. Mixed within are great cuts to different views of the actual game mostly highlighting the quality of the graphics. Sega clearly reverts to their old strategy of hyping the game, not the name. Interesting to note, this commercial is twice as long as the other commercials, lasting 30 seconds. Like the first commercial, emphasis is placed equally between the intriguing story and the graphical quality of the game.
Sega influenced role-playing game design with its Phantasy Star series. Attention to graphics in a role-playing game had never been as important before Phantasy Star I and II. The graphics immersed the player in the game, and the storylines were some of the best ever written. In the original Phantasy Star there was also a wonderful mix of myth and science fiction like never before seen in |
a marqué le seul but de la troisième période tandis qu’il ne restait que 3 min 19 s lorsqu’il a saisi le rebond d’un tir de Point pour ensuite tirer la rondelle dans le fond du filet depuis un angle presque impossible.
Fucale n’a pas fait face à beaucoup de défi devant le filet canadien; c’est en deuxième période qu’il a été le plus occupé, lorsqu’il a fait cinq de ses 12 arrêts; il obtient ainsi son premier blanchissage en six matchs au Mondial junior.
Les Canadiens reviennent à l’action samedi soir lorsqu’ils affronteront l’Allemagne; la mise au jeu aura lieu à 20 h HE/17 h HP au Centre Bell.Sugar Land's Imperial Market, the mixed-use development designed to incorporate the historic structures once used to refine sugar at the former Imperial Sugar plant, has snagged Alamo Drafthouse Cinema as its first major tenant.
Geoffrey Jones, one of the project's developers, said the retail portion of the project is nearly one-third preleased. Falling oil prices have not hampered his efforts, he added. Construction will start in March and be completed in the summer of 2017.
"Our project has been unscathed by what has been occurring in the energy industry," Jones said.
While other sectors of the commercial real estate market are slipping, Jones said, Houston-area retail builders are in good shape because there's not a glut of available properties.
Alamo Drafthouse will be part of a newly constructed two-story retail building. The Austin-based entertainment concept, which combines movies and dining, will have nine screens at its Imperial location. Triple Tap Ventures, which will run the theater, owns and operates two other Houston-area Alamo theaters. It's planning another in the Regent Square development slated for near Allen Parkway and Dunlavy.
Off U.S. 90 between Texas 6 and U.S. 59, Imperial Market is expected to have 275,000 square feet of retail space, 106,000-square feet of office space and a 185-room boutique hotel. Apartments are also part of the plan.
The size has been expanded slightly since the developers announced it in July. Otherwise, the character of the project has not changed, said Jones, referring to the historic structures set to be restored and reused, including silos, smokestacks and the eight-story char house. Jones is developing Imperial Market with James Murnane.
On Tuesday, Sugar Land City Council approved plans for the 26-acre development.
The project is the commercial hub of the 720-acre Imperial planned community, which is under construction and will have nearly 2,000 new homes when completed.
Handling the food
Houston has more restaurants per capita than anywhere else in the world, and with new eateries opening here all the time, there's an ever-growing demand for commissary kitchens.
Doug Freedman found this out when he was considering options for a newly acquired cold and freezer-storage warehouse in southwest Houston and he kept hearing about a void in Houston. Restaurants, bakeries, and other food and beverage establishments use commissaries for storing, preparing and processing food.
"It's kind of amazing to see how much demand there is for this kind of product because there's just nothing like this out there," said Freedman of United Equities, a commercial real estate firm.
The company gave the 24,000-square-foot warehouse at 8209 Dunlap a face lift and divided it into four spaces, three of which have been leased to small, but growing, local food businesses.
The tenants are Snap Kitchen, Macaron by Patisse's and Malk, a nut milk manufacturer.
"They're all pretty young owners, young businesses. There's a cool vibe going on," Freedman said.
Based on the strong demand, the company is now looking to convert other area buildings in the same way. "I show this property every week," Freedman said. "There's a lot of demand."
Automated estimates
Seattle-based online real estate brokerage firm Redfin has started offering automated home-value estimates on its website for single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums in Houston and 34 other markets across the U.S.
The tool will mean new competition for Zillow, a national real estate information firm that also publishes property values. The company calls them Zestimates.
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman acknowledged the valuation tool is similar to features on other websites, but he said Redfin has a lower published error rate than its competitors.
"Unlike non-brokerage websites, we have 100 percent access to the MLS," Kelman said during a conference call, referring to the database agents use to list properties. "That gives us access to far more data about each home."
Among comparable sales and other factors, Redfin valuations consider specific attributes of a home, like if it's on a busy street, has waterfront access or includes a finished attic.
"We have hundreds of fields of every property non-brokerage sites don't have," Kelman said. "We have more knowledge about every home."
Homeowners with properties for sale can request the estimate not be shown.
Even though Texas does not require property sales prices to be disclosed, the MLS collects that data from real estate agents. Last year, the National Association of Realtors amended rules making it easier for real estate brokers to use MLS data to create automated valuation models.
"The Houston MLS is one of the most progressive in the entire country," Kelman said. "It's been very forthcoming with data."Rob and Phil are joined by Jeff Salyards, author of the Bloodsounder’s Arc trilogy, and by far one of the most requested authors for the podcast. And for good reason, his novels SCOURGE OF THE BETRAYER, VEIL OF THE DESERTERS, and CHAINS OF THE HERETIC have been hailed by r/Fantasy users as one the most underrated series around, and we happen to agree. Jeff drops by to chat about the series, collaborating with a publisher to create amazing cover art, the challenges of completing the series, authors taking risks professionally, the future of the Bloodsounder’s Arc universe, and what Jeff has coming up next. Find Jeff online at JeffSalyards.com, or on Twitter @JeffSalyards!
This episode is brought to you in part by Locus Magazine, online at LocusMag.com.
Download on iTunes, Stitcher, or Podbean
Online at Facebook.com/TheGrimTidingsPodcast
On Twitter @GrimdarkFiction
Past episodes you should check out:
Interview with Joe Abercromibe
Evil is a Matter of Perspective with Grimdark Magazine
Talking Community with r/FantasyClassified documents provided by former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden, seen here in a videoconference in June with European lawmakers, reveal that the NSA has built a "Google-like" search engine to share intelligence records with nearly two dozen U.S. agencies. (Photo11: Frederick Florin, AFP/Getty Images)
The National Security Agency built its own search engine and shares hundreds of billions of digital records with federal law enforcement and several other U.S. government agencies, The Intercept investigative site reported Monday.
Citing classified documents provided by former NSA insider Edward Snowden, The Intercept wrote that the revelation of the "Google-like" search engine is "the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies," particularly the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration.
The search engine, known as ICREACH, is aimed at "worldwide intelligence targets" but also appears to provide access to "millions of records on American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing," according to The Intercept. The engine apparently does not have a "direct relationship" to a previously disclosed NSA database that stores information on phone calls by millions of Americans, which is allowed under the USA Patriot Act.
The documents show that in all, ICREACH can access more than 850 billion records on phone calls, e-mails, cellphone locations and Internet chats. A 2010 NSA memo states that more than 1,000 analysts at 23 U.S. agencies engaged in intelligence work have access to the search engine.
Responding to the revelations, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed to The Intercept that ICREACH shares data collected under that authorization of Executive Order 12333. The Intercept described it as "a controversial Reagan-era presidential directive that underpins several NSA bulk surveillance operations that target foreign communications networks. The 12333 surveillance takes place with no court oversight and has received minimal congressional scrutiny because it is targeted at foreign, not domestic, communication networks."
A spokesman for the DNI described the sharing of information as "a pillar of the post-9/11 intelligence community."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1tDmRQ2Those that espouse the value of backwards compatibility often claim that backwards compatibility is simply a matter of never removing things. But anyone who has published APIs that involve data structures know that the story is not so simple. I'd like to describe my thought process on a recent BC problem I'm grappling with on the Cabal file format. As usual, I'm always interested in any insights and comments you might have.
The status quo. The build-depends field in a Cabal file is used to declare dependencies on other packages. The format is a comma-separated list of package name and version constraints, e.g., base >= 4.2 && < 4.3. Abstractly, we represent this as a list of Dependency :
data Dependency = Dependency PackageName VersionRange
The effect of an entry in build-depends is twofold: first, it specifies a version constraint which a dependency solver takes into account when picking a version of the package; second, it brings the modules of that package into scope, so that they can be used.
The extension. We added support for "internal libraries" in Cabal, which allow you to specify multiple libraries in a single package. For example, suppose you're writing a library, but there are some internal functions that you want to expose to your test suite but not the general public. You can place these functions in an internal library, which is depended upon by both the public library and the test suite, but not available to external packages.
For more motivation, see the original feature request, but for the purpose of this blog post, we're interested in the question of how to specify a dependency on one of these internal libraries.
Attempt #1: Keep the old syntax. My first idea for a new syntax for internal libraries was to keep the syntax of build-depends unchanged. To refer to an internal library named foo, you simply write build-depends: foo ; an internal library shadows any external package with the same name.
Backwards compatible? Absolutely not. Remember that the original interpretation of entries in build-depends is of package names and version ranges. So if you had code that assumed that there actually is an external package for each entry in build-depends would choke in an unexpected way when a dependency on an internal library was specified. This is exactly what happened with cabal-install's dependency solver, which needed to be updated to filter out dependencies that corresponded to internal libraries.
One might argue that it is acceptable for old code to break if the new feature is used. But there is a larger, philosophical objection to overloading package names in this way: don't call something a package name if it... isn't actually a package name!
Attempt #2: A new syntax. Motivated by this philosophical concern, as well as the problem that you couldn't simultaneously refer to an internal library named foo and an external package named foo, we introduce a new syntactic form: to refer to the internal library foo in the package pkg, we write build-depends: pkg:foo.
Since there's a new syntactic form, our internal AST also has to change to handle this new form. The obvious thing to do is introduce a new type of dependency:
data BuildDependency = BuildDependency PackageName (Maybe UnqualComponentName) VersionRange
and say that the contents of build-depends is a list of BuildDependency.
When it comes to changes to data representation, this is a "best-case scenario", because we can easily write a function BuildDependency -> Dependency. So supposing our data structure for describing library build information looked something like this:
data BuildInfo = BuildInfo { targetBuildDepends :: [Dependency], -- other fields }
We can preserve backwards compatibility by turning targetBuildDepends into a function that reads out the new, extend field, and converts it to the old form:
data BuildInfo = BuildInfo { targetBuildDepends2 :: [BuildDependency], -- other fields } targetBuildDepends :: BuildInfo -> [Dependency] targetBuildDepends = map buildDependencyToDependency. targetBuildDepends2
Critically, this takes advantage of the fact that record selectors in Haskell look like functions, so we can replace a selector with a function without affecting downstream code.
Unfortunately, this is not actually true. Haskell also supports record update, which lets a user overwrite a field as follows: bi { targetBuildDepends = new_deps }. If we look at Hackage, there are actually a dozen or so uses of targetBuildDepends in this way. So, if we want to uphold backwards-compatibility, we can't delete this field. And unfortunately, Haskell doesn't support overloading the meaning of record update (perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that you should never export record selectors: export some lenses instead).
It is possible that, in balance, breaking a dozen packages is a fair price to pay for a change like this. But let's suppose that we are dead-set on maintaining BC.
Attempt #3: Keep both fields. One simple way to keep the old code working is to just keep both fields:
data BuildInfo = BuildInfo { targetBuildDepends :: [Dependency], targetBuildDepends2 :: [BuildDependency], -- other fields }
We introduce a new invariant, which is that targetBuildDepends bi == map buildDependencyToDependency (targetBuildDepends2 bi). See the problem? Any legacy code which updates targetBuildDepends probably won't know to update targetBuildDepends2, breaking the invariant and probably resulting in some very confusing bugs. Ugh.
Attempt #4: Do some math. The problem with the representation above is that it is redundant, which meant that we had to add invariants to "reduce" the space of acceptable values under the type. Generally, we like types which are "tight", so that, as Yaron Minsky puts it, we "make illegal states unrepresentable."
To think a little more carefully about the problem, let's cast it into a mathematical form. We have an Old type (isomorphic to [(PN, VR)] ) and a New type (isomorphic to [(PN, Maybe CN, VR)] ). Old is a subspace of New, so we have a well-known injection inj :: Old -> New.
When a user updates targetBuildDepends, they apply a function f :: Old -> Old. In making our systems backwards compatible, we implicitly define a new function g :: New -> New, which is an extension of f (i.e., inj. f == g. inj ): this function tells us what the semantics of a legacy update in the new system is. Once we have this function, we then seek a decomposition of New into (Old, T), such that applying f to the first component of (Old, T) gives you a new value which is equivalent to the result of having applied g to New.
Because in Haskell, f is an opaque function, we can't actually implement many "common-sense" extensions. For example, we might want it to be the case that if f updates all occurrences of parsec with parsec-new, the corresponding g does the same update. But there is no way to distinguish between an f that updates, and an f that deletes the dependency on parsec, and then adds a new dependency on parsec-new. (In the bidirectional programming world, this is the distinction between state-based and operation-based approaches.)
We really only can do something reasonable if f only ever adds dependencies; in this case, we might write something like this:
data BuildInfo = BuildInfo { targetBuildDepends :: [Dependency], targetSubLibDepends :: [(PackageName, UnqualComponentName)], targetExcludeLibDepends :: [PackageName], -- other fields }
The conversion from this to BuildDependency goes something like:
For each Dependency pn vr in targetBuildDepends, if the package name is not mentioned in targetExcludeLibDepends, we have BuildDependency pn Nothing vr. For each (pn, cn) in targetSubLibDepends where there is a Dependency pn vr (the package names are matching), we have BuildDependency pn (Just cn) vr.
Stepping back for a moment, is this really the code we want to write? If the modification is not monotonic, we'll get into trouble; if someone reads out targetBuildDepends and then writes it into a fresh BuildInfo, we'll get into trouble. Is it really reasonable to go to these lengths to achieve such a small, error-prone slice of backwards compatibility?
Conclusions. I'm still not exactly sure what approach I'm going to take to handle this particular extension, but there seem to be a few lessons:
Records are bad for backwards compatibility, because there is no way to overload a record update with a custom new update. Lenses for updates would be better. Record update is bad for backwards compatibility, because it puts us into the realm of bidirectional programming, requiring us to reflect updates from the old world into the new world. If our records are read-only, life is much easier. On the other hand, if someone ever designs a programming language that is explicitly thinking about backwards compatibility, bidirectional programming better be in your toolbox. Backwards compatibility may be worse in the cure. Would you rather your software break at compile time because, yes, you really do have to think about this new case, or would you rather everything keep compiling, but break in subtle ways if the new functionality is ever used?
What's your take? I won't claim to be a expert on questions of backwards compatibility, and would love to see you weigh in, whether it is about which approach I should take, or general thoughts about the interaction of programming languages with backwards compatibility.Home security systems are a growing field of projects for Makers. A self-built system is not only less expensive than a bulky professional installation, but it also allows for total control and customization to suit your needs.
With the introduction of Microsoft's Project Oxford, facial recognition applications are now more accessible to makers than ever before. This project utilizes a Raspberry Pi, basic Webcam, and an internet connection to create a door that unlocks itself via facial recognition. If the visitor at the door is recognized, the door will unlock!
A brief demo of the Windows IoT Facial Recognition Door
How will you expand the project? What features will you add? Let us know in the comments section below!
Initial Setup
Set up your PC and Raspberry Pi 2 or 3, or MBM according to these instructions.
Next, wire up the doorbell and power relay as shown below. The power relay will be used to lock and unlock the door.
1 / 2 • Raspberry Pi diagram is shown first. MBM Diagram is second.
Now wire up the same power relay to the lock, or electric door strike, as shown below.
1 / 3
Plug in your USB webcam, keyboard, and mouse into your Raspberry Pi 2 or MBM.
Software Setup
Use Command Prompt to navigate to the folder where you want the project:
cd <your folder path>
Run the git clone command to download the project:
git clone https://github.com/ms-iot/Facial-Recognition-Door.git
Open the FacialRecognitionDoor.sln solution file, in the FacialRecognitionDoor folder you just downloaded, using Visual Studio 2015.
On the right panel, under the "FacialRecognitionDoor" project, navigate to the Constants.cs file. You should see a section at the top entitled "General Constants". The first thing you need to do here is enter your Oxford API key. Follow the instructions here to acquire your key.
Replace OXFORD_KEY_HERE with your new key:
ONLY FOR MINNOWBOARD MAX: Switch the DisableLiveCameraFeed variable from true to false:
On the top menu of Visual Studio, select Debug and ARM if you are using a Raspberry Pi. If you're using an MBM, select Debug and x86.
The MBM configuration is shown here. Raspberry Pi users should select ARM instead of x86.
Press Remote Machine. In the "Remote Connections" dialog you will have to enter your Remote Machine IP address and use "Universal (Unencrypted Protocol)" for Authentication Mode.
Use WindowsIoTCoreWatcher to find your IP address.
For more information on how to deploy your application on a Windows IoT device, please see this documentation.
You can now run the code! Press the Remote Machine button with the green "play" arrow.
Software Use
The following screenshots were taken on a PC that was set up to act as a Raspberry Pi would.
When you first run the project, this is the screen you should see. On an MBM you would have set the DisableLiveCameraFeed variable to false in step 6 of Software Setup and instead of seeing the camera icon, you would see a live feed of what the camera is seeing.
Click the "plus" icon.
There are three buttons located on the bottom app bar. The first is a "plus" icon. This is used to add a new user to your "whitelist." Any user on the whitelist is essentially marked as a "friend" and allowed to unlock the door using their face. Try pressing the "plus" button now. You should see this screen:
Position yourself or a friend in front of the webcam and press the Capture ID Photo button. You should see this screen with your newly captured selfie:
If you're happy with the photo, enter the name of the person in the photo and press Confirm. If not, just press Cancel and take another photo.
After pressing Confirm, you will be sent back to the main page, but you will now see a user under the Whitelisted Visitors section:
Click on that user's image in the upper-left corner of the page to navigate to that user's profile page:
On this page, you can use the plus icon to add more photos as we have done. This will improve the overall accuracy of the facial recognition door. You can also press the trashcan icon to delete this user. When you're finished, press the home icon.
You're now ready to unlock the door! Position the registered user in front of the webcam and press either the virtual door icon (located next to the previously used plus icon) or the physical "doorbell" button you wired up. You should hear audio feedback informing you that the door has been unlocked!
Now try pressing the doorbell button when an unregistered user is in front of the door. You should hear audio feedback informing you that the door has detected a stranger and will not unlock!When you go to the gym tomorrow, I want you to head to the squat rack and load it up with twenty 45 pound plates. That's right, put ten on each side. Now just stand back and look at it and try not to pee your pants. Guess what? Ed Coan has squatted about 50 pounds more than that. Over the next week, see how much you can squat for a single rep. Then do the same with the bench press and deadlift. Add those numbers up. If you can squat 500, deadlift 450, and bench 300, well, you're only at about the halfway point to equaling Ed Coan's total. Scary, huh?
There are many legendary names in the world of powerlifting, names that almost stop traffic when they're uttered. Of current competitors in this field, few have the cachet of Ed Coan. Coan holds more than 100 official and unofficial world records in the squat, bench press and deadlift. At a bodyweight of 240 pounds, Coan has totaled nearly 2500 in competition, and plans to break that barrier this year in a meet. Break down 2500 pounds into three lifts and think about it. That's some mind numbing weight getting tossed around.
In real life, Ed Coan proves to be quite a regular guy, with no ego problems, a sense of humor and a real straightforward, shoot-from-the-hip attitude. Ed recently took time to speak to Testosterone.
Testosterone: Are you, pound for pound, the strongest man alive?
Coan: In powerlifting, I'll say yes. But I can't do what Olympic weightlifters do, for example.
T: What do you think about guys like Greg Kovacs? His handlers like to tout him as one of the world's strongest men, yet I don't think he competes in powerlifting or strongman competitions.
Coan: Based on his size the guy has to be pretty damned strong. That's obvious.
T: Yeah, the guy supposedly weighed 240 before he ever picked up a weight.
Coan: A lot of these numbers claimed by some are done while using Smith machines and machines in general. Do the Kovacs claims bother me? Well, the claims are made in the context of advertising. It's mentioned in the ads to sell more products. So it's no big deal; you just take it for what it's worth.
T: Why are you a powerlifter, as opposed to an Olympic lifter or a bodybuilder?
Coan: Probably popularity in my area. When I first started, I entered a bodybuilding contest and did horribly. This was before they even had music. It was pretty bad. I was sixteen years old. Right after that I went into a powerlifting contest as a Class 3 Novice. I won and was awarded the "best lifter" award. I thought, "I don't like to lose weight and get smaller and stuff like that anyway." Not that I was very large at the time, I was very light – in the 165 pound class. At my first meet the squat racks didn't even go low enough. They had to take the weights off and put them on my back!
T: But you're not that short. What are you, five-foot six?
Coan: Yeah, now, but I was four-eleven in high school.
T: How long have you been a competitive powerlifter?
Coan: 21 years.
T: So you continued on as a powerlifter and moved up into the 181 class. What were your lifts there?
Coan: My squat was 782 pounds. I actually did 804 but the judges said I was high. I deadlifted 791 and I benched over 450. I had done 485 in the gym but I tore my pec. Back then, I was benching three days a week, thinking that was better!
T: Many high school kids still do that today. Now, these are pretty unusual weights for anyone, much less a teenager. Did you understand that you were different; did this feel magical to you?
Coan: Every time I touched a weight when I was younger, it would just go up. It didn't matter what it was.
T: Did you know anything about nutrition and proper training then?
Coan: I just had the magazines mostly. We had Ernie France; he was an hour's drive away. We had James Vrouss; he was a great bencher at 165, did a 479 bench without a bench shirt. He managed a Chicago health club I worked out at. I just kept doing what felt good to me, read everything, and tried everything to see what worked.
T: Did you compete in other sports in school?
Coan: The only sport I competed in was wrestling. My first year in high school I was 98 pounds.
T: What notable competitive lifts took place along the way?
Coan: In the 181 weight class it was the 791 deadlift, which actually wasn't hard. At 198 I was totaling over 2200 and actually made my first 500 bench at 198 pounds. This was before bench shirts. I squatted 859, benched 501, deadlifted 791.
T: My shoulder hurts just hearing these numbers! December of '99 you had a 2463 total and you recently attempted 2500. What happened?
Coan: It's actually not a matter of "attempting to do it." If conditions are right I'm strong enough to do it.
T: Have you done it in the gym?
Coan: No, I don't go that heavy in the gym. I always leave the heavy ones for meets. They don't mean shit in the gym and I'll end up overtraining. That's what I used to do when I was younger, but I could get away with it then. Overtraining is really common in powerlifting, just like bodybuilding.
T: Take me through a typical week of your workouts.
Coan: Monday is squat and other leg stuff. Depending on the season, like now in the off season, I don't wear any equipment – no belt, no wraps, nothing. I'll do pause-rest squats. I just stop on the bottom until someone says "up." Then I work up to whatever reps I'm supposed to for the day, take 45 off, then do high-bar, close-stance pause squats, which is more quadriceps work. That's pretty much my weak point, my quads. From mid-thigh up to my mid-back is where all my strength is. Sometimes I rep out on a squat machine or a hack squat machine for some blood movement into the area. Then I do one-legged leg curls.
T: Do you do lunges?
Coan: No.
T: Leg extensions?
Coan: I used to, but as long as I do high-bar squats and pause squats, there's no need for them. They end up screwing up the track of your knee – just as going all the way down screws it up right away.
T: Do you ever do box squats?
Coan: No, I don't need them, though some people get a lot out of them. The only problem with box squats is the majority of people who do them end up squatting high. When you go off the boxes to the regular squat, you'll end up sticking your ass far back, feeling for something, and ending up bending over too far and squatting high.
T: What about chains and bands?
Coan: I've never used them.
T: You're old school, huh?
Coan: Well, I tried floor presses, but they aggravated my shoulders. Next I'm going to try some board presses as an assistance exercise. At least you're still laying on a bench. Take different height boards, set 'em on your chest, and bench like that. But I'll only use these as an assistance exercise. As opposed to a machine, you keep your normal groove.
T: Back to your weekly program. Monday you squat?.
Coan: Tuesdays off. Wednesday I go in and do all chest and triceps, usually two sets of regular bench, two sets of extra-wide grip inclines, a set of high-rep flyes, then I'll go to triceps. Lying dumbbell extensions with a hammer grip, stretch it as far as I can, for three sets. Then I'll do pushdowns for three sets; sometimes I'll throw in some dips, depending upon how my shoulder feels.
T: Low reps?
Coan: No, in most of my assistance work I never go below eight reps. The rest of it is traditional powerlifting type of work, lower reps. There is a time after meets when I'll do some regular bodybuilding stuff. Gotta build some muscle! Thursday is usually off. Friday is deadlifts and all back work. This Friday, since it's off season, with no belt or anything, I'm deadlifting off a 4-inch block. It actually teaches you to push more with your legs since you have to bend over so much farther. It's a lot fucking harder!
Most powerlifters I know who no longer compete, they'll squat and bench, but won't deadlift! It's too difficult. Then I do stiff-legged deads off the blocks, then rows, regular pulldowns, then some type of Hammer pull-down machine, like high rows. Afterward, I'll do chins for reps, then bent-over laterals. I do my rear delts on back day.
T: That's a big workout.
Coan: Yeah, I like working back.
T: Do you do anything for your traps?
Coan: No, if I do too much trap work it seems like everything gets tight up there. I can't lock out and rotate my shoulders back for deadlift.
T: Do you work out over the weekend?
Coan: Saturday I come in, do some close-grip benches, then I work my shoulders, which is usually behind-the-necks or seated militaries. Then I do front and side laterals, maybe a couple sets of curls, then I work my forearms and a little grip. I've been working my forearms and grip more lately.
T: Do you use straps on anything?
Coan: Yes, on my stiff-legs, if I go real heavy;I don't want to use the same grip I deadlift with. I'll go double-overhand and hook it.
T: What's "real heavy" for you?
Coan: This cycle, I'll go up to 600 for five reps, off the floor squat, no belt. Rest-pause at the bottom. Once in a while, while getting ready for a meet, I'll stand on the block, do bent over rows and go up to 551 for three, no belt.
T: Something that really jumps out at me is that you're very much into periodization. Give it to me in a nutshell; why is periodization critical?
Coan: You need to change your intensity; you can base that on reps or the amount of sets. Sometimes I'll even do more sets to change the intensity rather than go heavier. Or I'll change the speed at which I work out. I'll grab a stop watch and go faster. There's a time and a place for everything and if you beat yourself up all the time in the gym, you're not going to last that long.
If it was good enough for some of the guys who came before us, who actually invented periodization, it's good enough for us. We just put our little changes in it here and there. Some assistance exercises help. Louie Simmons has some cool ones, so sometimes we throw something in to keep us from getting stale. But, I think sometimes it's more a matter of getting stale in the mind, because if you switch assistance exercises it changes your whole mind set and you can push it hard for the next few weeks.
T: Is technique important in powerlifting or do you just heave the damn weight up there?
Coan: It is, but it's easier to just muscle your way out of things than it is in something like Olympic weightlifting. But if you put enough weight on your back you're not going to lift it if you're out of form.
T: What do you do on your off days? Do you do any cardio?
Coan: I never do cardio! My off day consists of active resT: stretching, writing routines, some personal training, that's it.
T: Do you have your workouts all planned out ahead of time?
Coan: Sure, I know what I'm going to do that day and for the next so many weeks. The assistance exercises can vary, but I generally have it all written down. In the off season what I like to do is not to wear equipment, deadlift off a block, do pause squats, and change stuff around like that. You want to find out where your weak points are or where you need to get stronger. Just don't wear equipment when you squat or deadlift. You'll find at weak point really fast; you'll find out by how fast you bend over. Some peoples' noses will be touching the ground.
There was a powerlifter by the name of Uri Splinoff from the Ukraine. He had a big gut, but it wasn't fat; it was like a big muscle belly. I saw him squat 947 without a belt and he stood straight up. He didn't even bend forward. He did a squatting type of good morning with over 800 pounds. I asked him about wearing a belt and he just laughed, tapped his belly, and said, "We build our own belt."
T: You're five foot six; what do you weigh these days?
Coan: Anywhere from 230 to 240 pounds. I eat five times per day, try to get a lot of protein in, and when I cheat, I cheat.
T: You're not tracking your calories, grams of this and that, etc?
Coan: I'd go crazy. Working out is tough enough. I think that's why all the bodybuilders I see are so crazy. We have some bodybuilders in the gym who don't compete anymore, but they try to stay on these diets, and they're all crazy. It's one thing to try to eat good, make sure you get this and that, but give it a rest. If you've got a purpose, a contest for example, that's one thing, but come on, you have a regular job, you have to train, have a life!
T: Do you use many supplements?
Coan: Yeah, vitamins, minerals, primrose oil, some stuff for energy, couple of protein drinks per day, liver, aminos, etc.
T: Do you use anabolics?
Coan: I have. I don't think anyone is going to squat over a thousand pounds if they don't use a little something, whether it be for recovery or whatever.
T: I wouldn't think so either, but it's a topic people are fascinated by.
Coan: Everyone already assumes someone is doing something anyway. Louie Simmons caught so much shit on all the powerlifting forums for saying in his T-mag interview that he hadn't been "off" for 28 years. That's the kind of publicity nobody wants, but I'm not going to be hypocritical and say that I haven't done things.
T: Is this type of assistance something you employ in the off season or during the competitive months?
Coan: Vice versa – during the season. Now with the money involved in some meets, up to ten grand a meet for winners, a lot of people are going to do whatever they have to do. You want to be healthy enough to do it. For example, there's one at the end of this year in November where there's supposed to be a $25,000 prize.
T: Are you going into that meet?
Coan: [Laughs] Heck, yeah!
T: Now, you're 38 years old. |
Zedong? Some leftists saw these communists as heroes.
W.E.B. Du Bois, writing in the National Guardian in 1953, said, “Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. … The highest proof of his greatness [was that] he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate.” Walter Duranty called Stalin “the greatest living statesman” and “a quiet, unobtrusive man.”
There was even leftist admiration for Hitler and fellow fascist Benito Mussolini.
When Hitler came to power in January 1933, George Bernard Shaw described him as “a very remarkable man, a very able man.” President Franklin Roosevelt called the fascist Mussolini “admirable,” and said he was “deeply impressed by what he [had] accomplished.”
In 1972, John Kenneth Galbraith visited Communist China and praised Mao and the Chinese economic system. Michel Oksenberg, President Jimmy Carter’s China expert, complained, “America [is] doomed to decay until radical, even revolutionary, change fundamentally alters the institutions and values.” He urged us to “borrow ideas and solutions” from China.
Harvard University professor John K. Fairbank believed that America could learn much from the Cultural Revolution, saying, “Americans may find in China’s collective life today an ingredient of personal moral concern for one’s neighbor that has a lesson for us all.” By the way, an estimated 2 million people died during China’s Cultural Revolution.
More recent praise for murdering tyrants came from Anita Dunn, President Barack Obama’s acting communications director in 2009, who said, “Two of my favorite political philosophers [are] Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa.”
Recall the campus demonstrations of the 1960s, in which campus radicals, often accompanied by their professors, marched around singing the praises of Mao and waving Mao’s “Little Red Book.” That may explain some of the campus mess today. Some of those campus radicals are now tenured professors and administrators at today’s universities and colleges and K-12 schoolteachers and principals indoctrinating our youth.
Now the question: Why are leftists soft on communism? The reason leftists give communists, the world’s most horrible murderers, a pass is that they sympathize with the chief goal of communism: restricting personal liberty.
In the U.S., the call is for government control over our lives through regulations and taxation. Unfortunately, it matters little whether the Democrats or Republicans have the political power. The march toward greater government control is unabated. It just happens at a quicker pace with Democrats in charge.PDO::FETCH_PROPS_LATE: when used with PDO::FETCH_CLASS, the constructor of the class is called before the properties are assigned from the respective column values.
PDO::FETCH_OBJ: returns an anonymous object with property names that correspond to the column names returned in your result set
PDO::FETCH_NUM: returns an array indexed by column number as returned in your result set, starting at column 0
PDO::FETCH_NAMED: returns an array with the same form as PDO::FETCH_ASSOC, except that if there are multiple columns with the same name, the value referred to by that key will be an array of all the values in the row that had that column name
PDO::FETCH_LAZY: combines PDO::FETCH_BOTH and PDO::FETCH_OBJ, creating the object variable names as they are accessed
PDO::FETCH_INTO: updates an existing instance of the requested class, mapping the columns of the result set to named properties in the class
PDO::FETCH_CLASS: returns a new instance of the requested class, mapping the columns of the result set to named properties in the class, and calling the constructor afterwards, unless PDO::FETCH_PROPS_LATE is also given. If fetch_style includes PDO::FETCH_CLASSTYPE (e.g. PDO::FETCH_CLASS | PDO::FETCH_CLASSTYPE) then the name of the class is determined from a value of the first column.
PDO::FETCH_BOUND: returns TRUE and assigns the values of the columns in your result set to the PHP variables to which they were bound with the PDOStatement::bindColumn() method
PDO::FETCH_BOTH (default): returns an array indexed by both column name and 0-indexed column number as returned in your result set
PDO::FETCH_ASSOC: returns an array indexed by column name as returned in your result set
Controls how the next row will be returned to the caller. This value must be one of the PDO::FETCH_* constants, defaulting to value of PDO::ATTR_DEFAULT_FETCH_MODE (which defaults to PDO::FETCH_BOTH).
For a PDOStatement object representing a scrollable cursor, this value determines which row will be returned to the caller. This value must be one of the PDO::FETCH_ORI_* constants, defaulting to PDO::FETCH_ORI_NEXT. To request a scrollable cursor for your PDOStatement object, you must set the PDO::ATTR_CURSOR attribute to PDO::CURSOR_SCROLL when you prepare the SQL statement with PDO::prepare().
For a PDOStatement object representing a scrollable cursor for which the cursor_orientation parameter is set to PDO::FETCH_ORI_ABS, this value specifies the absolute number of the row in the result set that shall be fetched.
For a PDOStatement object representing a scrollable cursor for which the cursor_orientation parameter is set to PDO::FETCH_ORI_REL, this value specifies the row to fetch relative to the cursor position before PDOStatement::fetch() was called.KAMPALA – North Korea has requested Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s support to block efforts to summon Kim Jong Un before the International Criminal Court.
North Korea’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Kung Suk Ung made the request at a meeting on Friday, urging Uganda to reject a United Nations resolution that may seek to prosecute DPRK leaders for human rights abuse at The Hague.
“I would like to suggest that once the resolution on human rights against the DPRK sponsored by the United States and the West comes up for the resolution, our two countries join hands with each other for cooperation against these injustices,” Kung said in a meeting with Uganda Foreign Affairs Minister Okello Oryem.
“Well in the past your country maintained a position of abstention. However in this time I would hope your side would take an opposing stand so that this resolution cannot be passed,” Kung added.
Oyem said he would communicate the request to Ugandan President Museveni.
“I will also advise him (Museveni) that we should stand by our friends (North Korea). We have always stood by our friends in the region on ICC. Go back with assurance that we shall stand by you,” Oryem said at the meeting.
Uganda’s President Museveni, who also also enjoys close ties with the United States, is known for being an outspoken critic of the International Criminal Court, arguing that it selectively prosecutes leaders.
At the beginning of October the European Union and Japan submitted a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly’s human rights committee, pressing for sanctions against the Pyongyang government and for an ICC referral.
“For this resolution, they (USA and its allies) are gathering information and data from those criminals who fled the DPRK after committing crimes suggesting that their human rights were abused,” Kung said at the meeting of the attempt to bring Pyongyang to the ICC.
LONG TERM ALLIES
According to a statement issued by State House in Kampala, President Museveni hailed the long term relationship between Uganda and North Korea, and noted that the latter “have helped us for a long time.”
“Our North Korea friends helped us in a number of areas. The first tank force in Uganda was helped by the DPRK. It trained our first group of army personnel in this field,” he said, adding that there is no problem in bilateral relations between the two countries.
Museveni further indicated that the relations date back to the anti-colonial movement and since them, North Korea has been helping train Ugandan pilots.
President Museveni has previously lashed out at his critics over dealings with North Korea, specifically within the realm of military and security hardware transfers.
Uganda and Tanzania were early this year probed by the UN over arms-related dealings with North Korea, which is under sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council.
Authorities in Kampala hit back at the investigators, saying the international community had no right to dictate on who they relate with.
Besides training with the military, North Korea also trains Ugandan Police officers. Last year North Korea’s People’s Security inspected the Ugandan police and taekwondo forces, both of which were trained by Pyongyang.
Kung is part of a visiting delegation led by North Korean ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam.
Kim, who arrived on Wednesday, is on a four days working visit to Uganda.
Kim indicated that the central aim of his visit to the East African country is to deepen bilateral relations between the two countries.
In 1987, North Korea gave the Ugandan military a $4million loan and also sent 40 military advisors to the country, according to a recent report by the East African.
Also in 1989, President Museveni exchanged coffee and cotton for weapons from DPRK.
Pictures: S. Wandera / NK News
Additional reporting: Chad O’CarrollAction film legend Jackie Chan has today been presented with two Guinness World Records certificates during an event in Shanghai.
GWR Greater China President Rowan Simons made the presentations for Most credits in one movie and Most stunts by a living actor to the star during the official launch of Chan's latest movie Chinese Zodiak.
Chan carried out 15 of the major creative movie-making roles for the film, including Director, Producer, Actor, Fight Choreographer and Composer, breaking the previous record of 11 credits held by Robert Rodriguez.
Speaking about the achievement, Chan said, "Achieving these Guinness World Records titles is recognition of all my life's work".
The highlight of the event was the presentation of a second Guinness World Records title for Most stunts by a living actor, an accomplishment that reflects Chan's amazing career in which he has nearly lost his life several times and broken numerous bones.
Commenting on the achievement, Simons said, "nobody has risked more in the name of entertainment than Jackie Chan and this world record is a tribute both to his creativity and his endurance."
Over a 50-year career, Chan has appeared in over 100 domestic and international movies, including Police Story (Hong Kong, 1985), Around the World in 80 Days (USA/Germany/Ireland/UK, 2004)) and the Rush Hour series (USA, 1998-2007). He made his debut in Big and Little Wong Tin Bar (Hong Kong, 1962) at the age of eight, before focusing on martial arts movies.
No insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, in which he performs all his own stunts. After a number of stuntmen were injured during the making of Police Story, the star formed the Jackie Chan Stuntmen Association, training the stuntmen personally and paying for their medical bills out of his own pocket.Tent City Uptown viaducts cleared View Full Caption
UPTOWN — A group of homeless people who had been living under the Wilson Avenue viaduct in Uptown moved down the street in advance of getting evicted by city crews — but the city confiscated some of their tents and threatened to arrest anyone who stayed after 10 p.m.
At 7 a.m. Monday, 25 tents flanked Wilson Avenue west of the viaduct as city officials arrived for the scheduled eviction after a judge ruled the residents of the tent encampment have no constitutional right to live under the viaducts.
The Monday deadline came as the city plans to repair the Wilson and Lawrence avenue bridges and add a bike lane to the sidewalk.
The homeless moved their tents to a grassy parkway between the street and busy Wilson Avenue.
But police officers and Chicago Department of Transportation officials warned the homeless that the new tents lined up along Wilson would be removed because they were erected on an active construction site.
And by Monday afternoon, Streets and Sanitation crews had removed about a dozen tents from the new site, tossing them in flatbed trucks. A city representative said the owners of the tents will be able to pick up the tents later.
While the Department of Family and Support Services has offered viaduct residents three shelter options, the city told the judge it was only able to guarantee space at Pacific Garden Mission, 1458 S. Canal St.
Tent city residents said they'd prefer going to Cook County Jail rather than go to Pacific Garden Mission, said Ryne Poelker, an organizer for Uptown Tent City Organizers.
"The city's solution is to put people out of sight and out of mind," he said, adding the residents were exercising their First Amendment right by protesting "on the public way."
. @UptownTentCity residents have moved their belongings to the park. But parks close at 10 pm. If they stay they will be arrested. pic.twitter.com/PFWMGbllo0 — UPLC Chicago (@uplcchicago) September 18, 2017
Monday afternoon, about a dozen residents still remained in the park area. The stragglers would likely head to Pacific Garden Mission, said Jesse Tolwinski, who spent time at the shelter before and refused to return.
"It's the worst place they can take you. It's a disgusting place. I spent a lot of time in Pacific Garden and that's not a safe place," he said. He said residents have to wait in line to use the bathroom or eat at the shelter — which isn't always safe.
The Lawrence Avenue viaduct and Wilson Avenue viaduct are both on the list of "most traveled structurally deficient bridges in Illinois."
Both bridges were built in 1933 and are crossed about 100,000 times per day by motorists.
RELATED: Uptown's Tent Cities Preparing To Evacuate Viaducts As 30-Day Notice IssuedPierce Brosnan is “deeply shocked and saddened” about the events following his controversial participation in the endorsement of Pan Bahar breath freshener, which may include ingredients that cause cancer.
Brosnan explained that he has the “greatest love and affection for India and its people,” in an exclusive statement to PEOPLE.
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“As a man who has spent decades championing women’s healthcare and environmental protection, I was distressed to learn of Pan Bahar’s unauthorized and deceptive use of my image to endorse their range of pan masala products,” the statement read. “I would never have entered into an agreement to promote a product in India that is dangerous to one’s health.”
Pan Bahar, known as pan masala in Hindi, is made from a mixture of nuts, seeds, herbs and spices. It’s been associated with bad health and is also blamed for the red-colored spit stains visible in public areas in India.
Brosnan’s contract details that he was to advertise a “breath freshener/tooth whitener,” which wouldn’t include an ingredient that turns saliva red.
Brosnan said he agreed to advertise a single product only, and that it was presented as “all-natural containing neither tobacco, supari, nor any other harmful ingredient.”
“Having endured, in my own personal life, the loss of my first wife and daughter as well as numerous friends to cancer, I am fully committed to supporting women’s healthcare and research programs that improve human health and alleviate suffering,” the statement continued.
The James Bond actor said he demanded that the company remove his image from all their products, and assured that he had no knowledge that he was endorsing items that would have a negative or painful reaction in India.
He added that Pan Bahar “grossly manipulated” media outlets to falsely present him as a brand ambassador for their entire line of products, something he writes is “in violation of my contract.”
“I shall endeavor to rectify this matter,” the statement concluded. “In the meantime, please accept my sincerest and heartfelt apologies to all whom I have offended.”The Setomaa region in South East Estonia, bordering Russia, will be the focal point of the Finno-Ugric world that links 25 million people in 2015, as Wednesday afternoon, the opening ceremony of the Finno-Ugric Culture Capital 2015 takes place in the village of Obinitsa, LETA/Public Broadcasting reports.
Over the Culture Capital Year, over 35 culture events take place in Setomaa, the main idea of which is to transfer the ethnic culture from older to younger, masters to masters and everyone interested.
"The previous Finno-Ugric Culture Capital was Bõgõ village in Udmurtia. Culture Capitals are usually big cities, but the Finno-Ugric Culture Capital could be a village. Since true Finno-Ugric people are mostly rural people and carrying the older tradition is mainly related to village and rural life," said the mayor of Culture Capital Evar Riitsaar.Google announced yesterday the roll out of the new callout extension for Adwords ads. The new extension allows advertisers to display additional information about products and services directly in the Adwords ads, and will be made available to all advertisers progressively over the next few weeks according to Google.
What is the New Adwords Callout Extension?
Like any other ad extension, the new Adwords callout extension is a type of ad format that shows additional information within your Adwords ad in order to improve its visibility and the click-through rate (CTR). The different types of ad extensions display a variety of information, such as the sitelinks one displaying links to key pages of your site, or the call extension displaying your phone number (and enabling the “click to call” feature on mobile). The new callout extension is specifically meant to display additional information about your product/ services, or to “highlight what makes your business different from your competitor” as stated by Google. Below is a preview of the new callout extension.
One of the benefits of the callout extension is that advertisers are able to use it alongside other ad extensions. Google shared the following example to illustrate how several ad extensions can be complimentary:
- “If you’re already using sitelinks for “Women’s Clothing” and “Back to School”, create a callout for “20% off entire site” to encourage people to click through and make a purchase.
- If you’re using call extensions, highlight “24/7 customer support” so your customers know they can call your business for help.”
Why Should You Use the Callout Extension?
The callout ad extension had been made available to some advertisers as a beta test, and based on the testimonials shared it appears that they benefited from an improved click-through rate for the ads using the new extension. Hilton Worldwide was one of the advertisers included in the beta test, here is James Harrower, Senior Search Manager’s feedback on the test:
“The use of callout extensions has meant we’ve been able to let our customers know how much more our hotels have to offer than just rooms. Spas, restaurants and meeting facilities are just a few of the attractive options our hotels have to offer, which may not be seen through a traditional revenue driving campaign. In just one month after implementing callout extensions, we’ve seen a 9% increase in conversion rate.”
Google also announced that the use of callout extensions is a factor in Ad Rank, Google’s system that dictates the ad positions. Originally, the Ad Rank only included factors such as the maximum CPC bid and the quality score, but since October 2013 Google also takes the ad extensions usage and ad format into consideration to prioritize ads. Basically, using ad extensions, including the new callout one, helps you achieve higher ad position within relying uniquely on your CPC bid (visit our SEM page to learn more about how Smartt can help optimize your Adwords campaigns performance without necessarily increasing your ad budget).
Lastly, Google has made the management of the callout extension simple, as explained on its support page. The benefits stated are the following:
- You can use callout extensions with your existing ads, no need to create new ones.
- Callout extensions can be modified at any time
- They can be setup at the account, campaign or ad group level
- You can keep track of the clicks generated by your ads using the callout extension and compare them with other ads
- Editing your callout extensions won’t reset their performance statistics
- You can create mobile-optimized callout extensions
- You have control on the schedule of when your callout extensions are used
When Will the Callout Extension Be Displayed?
Callout extensions can only be used with text ads, which means they will be available in “Search Network only” and “Search Network with Display Select” campaigns. Your extensions are limited to 25 characters in most language, or 12 in double-width languages such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
In order for your callout extensions to be displayed, you will need to create at least 2 different callouts. Google however recommends to always use 4 callouts (the maximum number) to ensure that as many callout extensions as possible will be displayed. Additional factors such as the order of the callouts, their length, and how your ads using them perform will affect how they are displayed.
What Are the Best Practices of Using the Callout Extension?
It is too early to identify the best practices of using the new callout extension based on data, but Google has shared a set of recommendations meant to improve the performance of your Adwords ads:
- Keep the text to 12-15 characters, this allows Google to display more callout extensions (e.g. “Free shipping” instead of “We have free shipping”)
- Be specific with your product or services characteristics (e.g. “4.7in LED display” instead of “Large LED display”)
- Capitalize works sparingly: ads that use sentence case are meant to perform better (e.g. “100% silk: vs. “100% Silk”)
Get in touch with us if you want to learn more about how Smartt can help you optimize the performance of your search advertising campaigns (check out the details on the available search engine marketing activities), or feel free to take a look at our blog and training courses if you want to learn more about digital marketing in general.Liverpool's Luis Suárez broke his silence on Tuesday night, telling the Guardian that he wants to leave the club and that he was promised he could do so if they failed to qualify for the Champions League at the end of last season. The striker, who joined the club in January 2011, says he wants to play in Europe's top competition next season – "I'm 26. I need to be playing in the Champions League. I waited one year and no one can say that I did not give everything possible with my team-mates last season to get us there" – but what are his options now?
Several clubs have already secured their top attacking targets and others would struggle to meet the transfer fee and the players' wage demands. A look at 15 possible destinations makes for depressing reading (for Suárez at least) with only a few clubs – maximum four – in a position to sign the player.
Arsenal
The only club that have made an offer (two actually) for the Uruguayan, the second bid of £40m plus £1 irritating the Liverpool hierarchy, with Brendan Rodgers saying that the Gunners had lacked class over their approach to buy the striker. "My priority is Champions League football. This is about me doing what is right for my career at this moment in time," Suárez said on Monday night and added that he would not mind playing in England "for many more years". Arsenal are the favourites to sign the Uruguayan – although they could still be knocked out of the Champions League in the qualifiers – but will they meet Liverpool's demands? History suggests not and the London club held back when push came to shove in the pursuit of Real Madrid's Gonzalo Higuaín, who joined Napoli for £32m.
Chelsea
José Mourinho has so far – publicly at least – targeted Wayne Rooney but, with United turning down a second bid for the England striker over the weekend, thought to be almost £30m with add-ons included, it is not impossible that the Portuguese could switch his attentions to Suárez. What would be better value, Rooney for £35m or Suárez for £50m? Most people would say the Uruguayan, despite all the baggage. Chelsea are in need of another option up front with Fernando Torres still struggling for form and Romelu Lukaku inexperienced when it comes to leading the line at a top club. Demba Ba is also there, of course, but it would be a surprise if Mourinho did not add to his forward line.
The Manchester clubs
No and no. Manchester City had a clear strategy this summer and their new manager, Manuel Pellegrini, secured the signings he and the club wanted early, learning from last summer's mistakes. They have bought cleverly and the captures of Stevan Jovetic (Fiorentina) and Alvaro Negredo (Sevilla) ensure that Suárez will not be a City player next season. City, in addition, already had Sergio Agüero and Edin Dzeko at the club. United, meanwhile, could potentially go for Suárez if they sold Rooney but signing the Uruguayan would go against their current transfer policy and it is unthinkable that Liverpool would sell to their most bitter rivals.
Real Madrid
Probably the club that can offer Suárez most hope of playing Champions League football next season, together with Arsenal. Everything depends on the Gareth Bale deal, though, and the feeling is that Real and Carlo Ancelotti have decided that the Tottenham Hotspur forward is their man this summer. Real normally get what they want in the transfer market – apart from Neymar – and only if the Bale deal collapses will they turn to Suárez. Liverpool would rather sell to Spain than to Arsenal, though, that is for sure.
Barcelona
Barcelona, too, did their shopping early and brought in Neymar from Santos for a reported €57m (£48.6m) and with Lionel Messi, Pedro Rodríguez and Alexis Sánchez already at the club that means that the road to Catalonia is closed for Suárez (this summer at least). As for Spain's other Champions League participants, Atlético Madrid and Real Sociedad, they cannot afford the Liverpool striker. Atlético could potentially spend most of the Radamel Falcao money on Suárez but that is unlikely as they have already signed David Villa from Barcelona and, although the fee was far from astronomical, his wages are not insignificant.
Bayern Munich
The European champions were linked with a move for Suárez earlier in the summer but the club chairman, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, said this week that they had finished their transfer business for the summer. "We will not make any more signings. The team looks exactly as we want it right now," he told Bild. "We brought in Götze as we believe he is the biggest talent in Germany and Europe in his age group, as well as Thiago [Alcântara]." Bayern appear to be a little short up front, with Mario Gomez having joined Fiorentina, but playing with one forward, or none for that matter, has not been a problem for Pep Guardiola before.
Borussia Dortmund
The second best team in Europe are not going for Suárez either. It is simply not their policy to buy players at the top end of the market. They buy cheap and sell expensively (or don't sell at all as the Robert Lewandowski case shows) with Shinji Kagawa the prime example. He joined for €350,000 in 2010 and joined Manchester United two years later for £17m.
Paris St-Germain
The Parisians certainly have the financial clout to sign Suárez but they, like Manchester City, appear to have finished their shopping for the summer, at least when it comes to attack-minded players. Their forward line is already, arguably, the strongest in Europe – if not the world – with Edinson Cavani having joined Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ezequiel Lavezzi in an expensive and star-studded line-up. Add the fact that Lucas Moura and Javier Pastore will contribute with goals from attacking positions in midfield and it is clear that Suárez is not heading for Paris.
Monaco
The French Ligue 1 newcomers should not even be an option for Suárez as he has stated Champions League football as the reason for leaving Liverpool – and Monaco cannot offer that this coming season (as Tottenham cannot, for example). They have the financial clout to sign him, though, and have already secured the services of Radamel Falcao from Atlético Madrid for a club record £53m. The rest of the strike force is comparatively low-key compared with their marquee signing – who scored a remarkable 52 league goals in 67 games during the past two seasons for Atlético – and it is not wholly implausible that the club's Russian billionaire owner, Dmitry Rybolovlev, opens his wallet again. But it is highly, highly unlikely.
The Milan clubs
No chance. They simply do not have the financial power to compete with the rest of the top clubs at the moment. Milan have been a selling club for a while now – when it comes to the big names – with Zlatan Ibrahimovic's and Thiago Silva's move to PSG last summer a clear indication of where they are at the moment. Inter are arguably in a worse position than their city rivals with the owner, Massimo Moratti, saying this week that investment from the Indonesian tycoon Erick Thohir may be necessary to ensure that the club can continue to compete at the highest level. Juventus, equally, is not an option for Suárez as their budget, too, is restricted and the Italian champions have already brought in Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente.
Napoli
Rafael Benitéz's new club have money to spend after that extraordinary transfer of Edinson Cavani to PSG for a reported £55m but more than half of that (£32m) has been spent on Higuaín while the Spanish manager has also brought in Raúl Albiol (Real Madrid, £10.6m), Dries Martens (PSV, £8.5m) and José María Callejón (Real, £8.4m). There will be no more major signings arriving at the Stadio San Paolo this summer.
Galatasaray
The Turkish club could conceivably have been an option for Suárez as they showed with the signings of Didier Drogba and Wesley Sneijder in January that they are not afraid to make marquee signings. "Big clubs can only reach their goals by signing high-profile players," the club president, Unal Aysal, said at the time. But to think that their budget would stretch to a £50m transfer fee plus the players' wages would be fanciful to say the least.
Anzhi Makhachkala
Only a few weeks ago the Dagestan club would have been on a list of clubs who could afford to sign Suárez but this week the owner, Suleiman Kerimov, seems to have given up on his grand project and they are reportedly willing to off-load most of their high-profile stars, including Samuel Eto'o and Lassana Diarra. In addition the former Manchester United coach René Meulensteen is reportedly about to get the sack, only two weeks after joining the club, and be replaced by Gadzhi Gadzhiyev.There is a little bit of a feeling of ‘hurry up and wait’ about Bitcoin. On the one hand, it’s a revolutionary technology with huge potential as a currency, an asset, and as a decentralized method to do all sorts of different things like contracts and exchanges. And, Bitcoin has had enough meteoric success in its short 5 years of existence that some people have really begun to take notice. On the other hand, projects like Colored Coins, Mastercoin, Ethereum (yeah, I know, not technically Bitcoin) and others are met with massive fanfare when first announced, and then nothing seems to happen with them for what seems to be ages.
There are a number of things that might launch Bitcoin into everyday use for the average Joe, and one of them is when people start finding themselves using Bitcoin for other things than a currency. If I’m an investor and I find that the easiest, cheapest way for me to trade my favorite stocks is through via a decentralized exchange or through a smart contract, then I’m going to learn how to do that. If I’m an author or inventor, I can copyright my work by adding it as information in a transaction. That information will be written into the blockchain so that there will be irrefutable proof of when I came up with that idea. If I start a company, I can incorporate the same way and issue shares using marked Bitcoins as tokens. As soon as some of these additional uses of Bitcoin become easy enough to use for people to start picking them up, then we’ll see the slow creep of adoption build into an avalanche.
One hair salon in Brisbane Australia is helping prove this concept by funding its expansion to four new sites in that city using Colored Coins.
Klippt is a hair salon with three current locations in Brisbane. The founder, Mitch Brownie, actually started out with a small computer repair shop, but when the hair salon next to his store went belly up, he approached the management of the shopping mall with a proposal to take it over. Within a short amount of time, that shop was a successful enough to allow Mitch to open two more locations, both of which paid off their startup costs and began turning a profit in only six months.
With this early success, Mitch has set his sights higher. He wants to expand first across Brisbane, then across Australia, and then go international. He is currently gearing up for what seems to be only the second Colored Coin IPO on record. (The first, Vapetropolis, sells marijuana paraphernalia.)
The way to take part in a Colored Coin IPO is like this: First, the business owner takes Bitcoins and, using a Bitcoin wallet specially designed to ‘mark’ the coins, creates tokens marked as shares in his company. The owner then advertises the IPO and gets investors who can pay in whatever currency the owner accepts. When the investment is received and confirmed, the owner sends the colored tokens back to the investor. Done.
In the old days, those tokens would have been actual slips of paper, stocks. It has been years since anyone really took ownership of the actual paper, though. Most traders trade electronically and it would be impractical to settle with the actual documents. Everything is kept track of through a centralized exchange like the one on Wall Street. With Colored Coins, though, the tracking mechanism is the blockchain. The investor can hold the tokens, sell them back to the owner, or trade them to another investor without the need of a centralized exchange. One note about this is that you have to use a wallet specifically designed to create and accept colored coins. Sending colored coins to a non-colored coin wallet can cause of the loss of the information that marks those coins. They’ll retain their value as Bitcoins, but
they’ll have lost their value as tokens � so be warned! The best wallet to date is CoinPrism, which is a very user-friendly wallet for both colored and regular Bitcoins.
I caught up with Mitch to ask a few questions about his experience with the IPO and Bitcoin. Here’s what he had to say:
What got you guys interested in Bitcoin in the first place?
I first got interest in bitcoin in 2011 when I owned a computer store / Internet cafe. I mined using the Internet cafe at night because I hated the idea of having paid for these computers and having them not making money for 12 hours out of every day. However btc was only worth a few dollars so I didn’t continue or keep the ones I had already mined 😐
Why did you decide to crowdfund with Bitcoin?
Crowdfunding with bitcoin allows us to involve more people. A PTY LTD company in Australia is limited to the amount of shareholders you can have. With bitcoin coloured coins, we can issue ‘shares’ that still attract dividends without the legal issues. We understand that due to the limited audience that can be involved with bitcoin we might not raise the full amount. So after the sale closes, should it not be fully funded, we will be approaching the Australian public via ads in national newspapers to secure the rest of the funding required in a more traditional manner.
Are you accepting Bitcoin at the salon?
Since opening Klippt we rediscovered bitcoin, along with why the technology is so amazing. Klippt stores have always accepted payments in BTC. Unfortunately where we are based is a somewhat rural town (biggest inland city in Australia) where not many people have yet heard of bitcoin. Although we have had the local paper write an article about us accepting it.
What do you think the short and long term prospects are for Bitcoin?
As for the future of bitcoin, I have high expectations. The future has a habit of being very unpredictable, and BTC might become a global currency by default; the place people have to turn to, to store value when their own currency has problems of its own, such as hyperinflation. Bitcoin is here, and it will stay, and be built upon. Much like HTTP.
�Please visit Klippt here.
By Mark Norton. Originally posted on BitcoinWarrior.net 06/21/2014. For inquiries, tips, proposals, please email [email protected].ATHENS — Mark Richt was about to go on the recruiting trail for the next two weeks when on Saturday night he got a call from his boss, Greg McGarity. They needed to meet the following morning. At that point it was probably clear to Richt what was about to happen.
Whatever hard feelings there may or may not be, Richt and McGarity sat next to each other for a half-hour on Monday morning and discussed his removal as head football coach after 15 years. Here are some of the highlights:
– While officially this was called a “mutual decision” in Sunday’s press release, there was little effort to hide that Richt had wanted to continue on and was fired. But Richt also said he understood that “it’s a business.”
“I think 15 years is a long time,” Richt said. “I think the expectations have been built to the point where if you don’t win a championship it’s kinda miserable around here. When we don’t make it to Atlanta I’m miserable too. …
“I think it got to the point where there wasn’t enough confidence that my leadership could get it done. That’s the prerogative of the people in charge, and I understand that.”
Richt spoke to the team on Sunday night and told them that as well.
“I encouraged them to, number one, behave, and we’re gonna keep everyone accountable,” Richt said, meaning on and off the field. “But to also realize that they’re basically making a new impression for their new head coach. Starting, essentially, yesterday.”
– Richt also spoke to five-star quarterback signee Jacob Eason on Sunday night:
“Just be patient. See who the next guy is. You might get really |
among its advocates, the already distorted role of intelligence agencies in the foreign-policy process will be further consolidated. More immediately, Americans will be condemned to live with Russophobic fear more or less indefinitely. I have only one question on this point, and maybe some (more) elderly fellow can answer it: Was the anti-Communist case that haunted the 1950s so impossibly flimsy as this? Hard to believe, given all the damage it did, but maybe we are about to learn something very awful.
Another question, actually. How did it come to be that what we witness daily now is to be cheered? My own answer runs to an old confusion characteristic of Americans. Most of us are entirely taken up with means. This has been so for a long time. We say we have ideals, ends, but in truth these are museum curiosities now. Our only purpose is merely to sustain the present—which by definition is not an ideal. If it takes a CIA operation to get this done—in this case to kneecap Donald Trump—well, one is all for it. Ready to Fight Back? Sign Up For Take Action Now
“Bring on the special prosecutor” was the headline on an editorial in the Times a few days after Flynn resigned. All the banners of liberal outrage were aloft by then. At first Flynn’s sin was talking to Russian officials before Trump’s inauguration. When the idiocy of this position finally dawned, it was, as it is now, that Flynn had lied to Trump and Vice President Pence. Unless Flynn broke a law, and he did not by any untainted judgment, this is a matter strictly between Trump and Pence and Flynn, if I am not mistaken. It is the latest peg for the anti-Trump people to hang their hats on, but as grounds for a special prosecutor, it is ridiculous. The proposal is less for a special investigation than for a fishing expedition, and given how the non-evidence of a mail hack was conjured into the “highest confidence” of Russian meddling, it is impossible to say what “evidence” or “conclusions” would be drawn from it.
One cannot figure, in the case of the Times, what the object of the exercise might be. On the one hand, it is a brimming chalice of liberal anger, and so an expression of the Democratic Party’s elites. Recall, the Times confessed on page one last summer that it had abandoned all efforts to report about Trump objectively. On the other, it is full tilt these days finding Russians under every bed: Having subverted our democracy, they are subverting elections in France. They are subverting elections in Holland. They are subverting something or other in Kosovo, I cannot make out quite what. This is typical CIA stuff. Does the Times carry the agency’s ball, then?
Maybe both. Or, as earlier suggested, between the Democrats and Langley, maybe there is only one ball: It is the same for the two of them. Long ago, New York Times reporter Tom Wicker called the CIA “a Frankenstein monster no one can fully control.”
Long, long ago, Tom Wicker, the much-noted Times reporter and later columnist, called the CIA “a Frankenstein monster no one can fully control.” That was in the edition of April 27, 1966, when the Times published the third in a running series of influential exposés of the CIA’s limitlessly crazy doings. People were outraged, as I suppose it is necessary to explain. This was five years after Arthur Hays Sulzberger stepped down as publisher. Sulzberger served the CIA and had signed a secrecy agreement with the agency, so Wicker could not know of this connection, and it was not in his piece.
To conclude where I began, think for a moment about I.F. Stone during his haunted 1950s. While he was well-regarded by a lot of rank-and-file reporters, few would say so openly. He was PNG among people such as Sulzberger—an outcast. (Among my favorites of Stone’s many good lines: “It’s always fun reading the Washington Post because you never know where you’ll find a page one story.”) Now think of all the good Stone did. “I know that in the fifties,” Arthur Miller wrote in recollection, “to find his Weekly in the mail was to feel a breath of hope for mankind.”
Now think about now.
A few reporters and commentators advise us that the name of the game these days is to sink the single most constructive policy the Trump administration has announced. The rest is subterfuge, rubbish. This is prima facie the case, though you can read it nowhere in the Times or any of the other corporate media. A few have asserted that we may now be witnessing a coup operation against the Trump White House. This is a possibility, in my view. We cannot flick it off the table. With the utmost purpose, I post here one of these pieces. “A Win for the Deep State” came out just after Flynn was forced from office. It is by a writer named Justin Raimondo and appeared in a wholly out-of-bounds web publication called Antiwar.com. I know nothing about either, but it is a thought-provoking piece.
My point here is simple. You have studied the Enlightenment? Good: You know what I mean when I say we are headed into the Endarkenment. The lights upon us are dimming. We have been more or less abandoned by a press that proves incapable of informing us in anything approaching a disinterested fashion. As suggested, either the media are Clintonian liberals before they are newspapers and broadcasters, or they are servants of power before they serve us.
This is the media’s disgrace, but our problem. It imposes a couple of new burdens. We, readers and viewers, must discriminate among all that is put before us so as to make the best judgments we can and, not least, protect our minds. The other side of the coin, what we customarily call “alternative media,” assumes an important responsibility. They must get done, as best they can, what better-endowed media now shirk. To put this simply and briefly, they and we must learn that they are not “alternative” to anything. In the end there is no such thing as “alternative media,” as I often argue. There are only media, and most of ours have turned irretrievably bad.
And now they are doing much to land us in very grave trouble.In case you follow college basketball, this is your yearly reminder that it's really, really hard to win in the Cintas Center, home of the Xavier Musketeers. The Muskies are 13-0 at home in Cincinnati this season, and since the building was finished and opened in 2000, Xavier has gone 185-25 at home.
The latest victim of the black magic that is the Cintas Center? The Georgetown Hoyas.
To the average viewer, this game was put away about 5 minutes into the second half. Georgetown sat on a comfortable lead of 17 points, led by Markel Starks and ex-Xavier commit D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera and an absurd touch from beyond the arc. Georgetown ended the game 10 of 18 from the arc and their ability to run the vaulted Princeton offense looked to put them solidly as the #3 team in the Big East.
And then Cintas Center Magic took over. Xavier chipped away at the lead, using a full court press and a charge to the basket led by potentially NBA-ready guard Semaj (pronounced "Se-mah-jay" for those not in the know) Christon and transfer forward/center Matt Stainbrook, crashing the boards at every opportunity. As Georgetown found themselves in foul trouble and the physicality rose (including a particularly scary sequence which involved Xavier forward Isaiah Philmore seeming to tweak his knee), Xavier pushed forward more and more.
That was until Christon hit the bench with 4 fouls and 9 minutes left in the half. What should have been the nail in the coffin, however, ended up playing into Xavier's favor, as, with under 4:00 to go, Myles Davis dropped a gorgeous 3 pointer, with an assist from Dee Davis (no relation) to give Xavier a one point lead, a lead which they would never surrender for the remainder of play.
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What was the final line of this tremendous comeback? Xavier went on a 44-14 run to end the game, winning by 13 after being down by 17...15 minutes prior.
Yet...this seems oddly familiar.
Like in 2011, when the Xavier Musketeers, then ranked 11th in the nation, were down 19 points to an upstart Purdue squad. In spite of lights out shooting on the part of the Boilermakers, they went completely silent in the second half, and even saw star player Robbie Hummel inexplicably fall to the floor with cramping late in the game. And how would it end? With Tu Holloway sinking two consecutive three pointers to finish yet another absurd comeback.
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And in both games, the Hoyas and Boilermakers didn't make a single field goal for a little over the last 6:00 of the game. Yeah. Zoinks indeed.
It's impressive, but it's scary. Scary that Xavier can seemingly shoot themselves in the foot and then watch as their opponents take the gun and show the Musketeers how they can shoot themselves in the foot even better. And that they can only do this in the confines of their home arena.
The Musketeers sit at 4-1 in conference play, still undefeated at home this season and have both ranked Big East Rivals (Villanova and Creighton) visiting Cincinnati later this season. They might want to bring some shamans or Pete Carroll or something because the Cintas Center is a place of black magic that is not to be trusted.
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(Photo credit: goxavier.com)Image via Flickr user Marcelus_SK (Image: © Marcelus_SK)
I’ve been scouring the world of Dark Souls for hours, now, in search of a single item. I’ve braved the toxic swamps of Blighttown and journeyed to the shores of the Ash Lake at the very bottom of the world. I’ve slayed wyrms, dragons, trolls, and score of my fellow Undead. So far, nothing. But it’s not a massive sword or some rare armor I'm looking for. It's just a damn key. An ordinary key to an ordinary basement, and even though I've played hundreds of hours of Dark Souls over the past five years, this time is different. This time the key isn't where it used to be, and that's what makes it all exciting again.
Five years after it hit Steam, there's a new mod for Dark Souls called Item Randomizer that does exactly what it says: it puts all the shimmering pieces of loot hiding around Lordran in a bag and shakes it up. But it doesn’t just mix up the gleaming broadswords and bulky ore; with the all-important keys in play, the crumbling world of Lordran becomes a maze again, with you scrambling to contrive a new path through as you would in a roguelike.
Modder HotPocketRemix got the idea for the Item Randomizer from a post on the Dark Souls subreddit. They were already playing around with the item values for another project, so it wasn’t much of a reach to jumble them all up. The appeal for long-time fans is simple: in a game as exacting as Dark Souls, where failure always lurks around the next corner, players tend to stick with the same spear, shield, or scroll for the entire adventure, or even across playthroughs. That won't work anymore.
In particular, HPR cites a few fan-favorite weapons—including the hefty greatsword Zweihander and the reap-tastic Great Scythe—that players can easily obtain within minutes of arriving in Lordran, provided they know what stones to unturn. With such formidable equipment available so early in the game, the legendary challenge offered by the series fades to a sizzle, and with it, much of the spark that keeps players coming back.
Thanks to the Randomizer, though, you can no longer rely on your old tricks to carry the day. That Great Scythe is now a Soul of a Fallen Undead, worth a paltry handful of Souls.
The crumbling world of Lordran becomes a maze again, with you scrambling to contrive a new path through.
It's still early days for the mod, which HPR posted as a beta on the subreddit last month, but it's already surprisingly robust. It includes individual unique'seeds' that allow players to share the same scattered item-set in different games; a generated 'cheat-sheet' that reveals the location of every item, presumably for when you’re absolutely stumped; and, most intriguing of all, a set of distinct difficulty settings that determine how punishing the gear distribution will be, as well as whether or not key items—like the Basement Key that so vexed me—will be scrambled along with everything else.
Since I fancy myself a seasoned Soulsman, I decided to go with the penultimate difficulty, Deprived, which the mod describes as "challenging." (I was too intimidated to try the hardest, Hollow, which advertises itself as "suited only to experienced speedrunners.") To further commit to the experience, I decided to eschew the default equipment of my starting class, limiting myself to only what I could find on corpses or enemy drops.
These constraints, however artificial, made Dark Souls mysterious and dangerous again. I faced the twin gargoyles that guard the first Bell of Awakening in a state far beyond my comfort zone, shieldless and nearly naked, save a mace that I belted about with two hands like a madman. I found myself falling to their dual assault—one paralyzing me with flame, the other splatting my Undead against the tiled church roof—again and again. It was exhilarating and humiliating. Surely the higher-geared sword-swinging and demon-bashing of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 hadn’t left me this out of practice.
It wasn't until I finally beat the gargoyles that I started to realize how deeply the Item Randomizer would change my approach to Dark Souls. In my many playthroughs, I had always taken essentially the same route: first the gargoyles, then down through the basement, then to the Depths, then to Blighttown, where the second Bell awaits. Without that key, I was forced to take the other route through Blighttown, through the Valley of the Drakes, where lightning-spitting dragons blackened my hide all the way to the fetid swamp. Worse still, the nearest bonfire lay in the middle of the filth; any errant smashings at the hands of smelly trolls or spry lizardmen resulted in a long run back through the valley of the damned dragons.
It didn’t quite feel like I was playing a different game, but as an experience, it had a flavor distinct from my previous runs. To hear HPR tell it, that’s exactly the emotion they wanted the mod to evoke.
"Obviously, no matter how good a game, people get burnt out on it, especially when it doesn’t change much, like, say, a roguelike would,” HPR says. “So, giving players an excuse to experience Dark Souls again, with some small amount of new discovery, is really why it’s been so well-received."
As he looks to future iterations of the mod, HPR sees a mountain of work ahead. The list of requests is near-endless, and they run the gamut from "probable" (randomizing your starting inventory, or quest rewards) to "totally unfeasible" (randomized enemies or bosses). Though someone might eventually pull off such technically challenging goals, for this developer, it’s all about making the Item Randomizer as robust as it can possibly be—within reason. As far as the next version, HPR says the number-one priority is making the actual installation easier on the user.
The current install process, outlined in this reddit thread, includes unpacking some game files and changing parameters by hand. "Using a hex-editor to modify an executable isn’t exactly something you do every day," HPR says. Thankfully, another redditor made a video walkthrough to hold your hand while you perform.exe surgery.
For now, with the mod so early along, it’s hard to know what’s possible. But with a base this durable, fans wait with baited breath for what might come next. "There’s always unexpected problems, so who knows?" says HPR. "Maybe one of the ‘easy’ suggestions will turn out to be very time-consuming. I’m lucky to be in touch with people in the community who are much faster and more knowledgeable at playing the game, so I can lean on that." And while HPR is mum on when the second version of the mod might be coming out, considering its popularity already and the volume of feedback, you can bet it’ll be worth checking out.When Motorola launched new Moto 360 models earlier this year, it also announced the Moto 360 Sport as an Android Wear watch for the more active among us. The Sport will be available for purchase on January 7 (it's already on sale in the UK and France). With a built-in GPS and heart rate monitor, the watch has the hardware chops to compete with dedicated workout devices, and it works with the Moto Body fitness app to track just as much information as the hardcore Fitbits and Garmins of the world.
The $299 Moto 360 Sport is the only Android Wear watch to really sell itself as an advanced activity tracking device in addition to a Google-powered smartwatch, and in many ways it combines the best of both. But it's not as much a general sport watch as it is a dedicated running watch, and since it is powered by Android Wear, you'll have to deal with those limitations as well.
Design: toy-like, but not necessarily immature
The Moto 360 Sport was designed to be the more durable version of the new Moto 360, resulting in a watch you'd see drawn on the wrist of Charlie Brown. It's round, friendly, and simple, with a silver bezel surrounding the 1.37-inch, 360×325-pixel display and a strong silicone band. The display is always on, like most other Android Wear watches, and it has "any light" technology that uses sunlight instead of the watch's backlight to illuminate the display. This makes it easier to read in direct sunlight for those who often jog outside.
The band really seals in the watch's toy-like character: it's slightly thicker than the silicone used on fitness watches like the Fitbit Surge; it's rounded at both ends; and it features a traditional watch closure. It's easy to put on, and the flexible material makes it comfortable at nearly any tightness level, but the silicone attracts a world of dust, hair, fuzz, and everything else floating in the air around you.
The watch case isn't offensively thick, but the display does have the typical "flat tire" issue that the other Moto 360 models have, where the bottom bit of the screen isn't actually screen. At two o'clock on the side lies the "crown" button, which you can press to wake up the display or long-press to reveal the app drawer. Inside the watch is a built-in GPS for running outside without your phone present, and the optical heart rate monitor shines through the back of the watch with its characteristic green glow.
It may look like a toy watch, but it actually takes the best things about a serious fitness tracker and a serious smartwatch and marries them fairly well: the silicone band is comfortable and sweat-resistant, the display is designed to be visible in sunlight, and it's pretty lightweight at 1.9 ounces. The device is IP67 rated, meaning it will withstand dust and can be submerged in up to one meter of water before any harm will come to it. Unlike the regular Moto 360, though, you cannot interchange bands on the Sport. What you buy is what you get, and it comes in black, white, and orange.
One of the better things it takes from Android Wear watches is its setup. You just download the Android Wear app on your smartphone (iPhones work as well) and follow the short instructions to pair the watch via Bluetooth. This timepiece has wireless charging like the new Moto 360, coming with a matte black stand that the watch sits on to charge. Once in its cradle, it automatically starts charging and turns the watch into a dimly lit clock you could use on your bedside table.
Fitness and Android Wear: Better daily tracking, plus running
The Moto 360 Sport is exactly what its name suggests: a fitness-savvy version of Motorola's smartwatch. Its heart rate monitor, built-in GPS, and enhanced durability are the hardware components that make it stand out as a fitness watch, and Moto Body and Moto Body Running are the software parts of the equation. When you first boot it up, Moto Body Running is waiting for you in the app drawer so you can go for a run immediately if you wish. You need to download Moto Body from the Google Play Store before it will show up on the watch.
Moto Body Running is really straightforward. Open the app, choose if you're running indoors or outdoors, and the app will start tracking you automatically after you press the Start arrow icon that pops up. You can also pick if you want to run with a distance, time, or calorie goal, or if you want to just run freely. With outdoor running, the watch will begin searching for your location using its inboard GPS receiver. You don't need your connected smartphone with you at all for this to work, and each time I tried this, I left my Android phone at home. On average the watch took about two minutes to discover my location, which isn't bad considering the number of tall buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan that could get in the way of the GPS signals.
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The watch performed best outside, since its distance calculations were almost always accurate within.1 miles. During indoor runs on treadmills and ellipticals, the watch was sometimes as much as.5 miles off from the machine-calculated distance. Motorola seems to have anticipated some distance discrepancies, because distance is the only metric you can edit once a run has been saved. As for the heart rate monitor, it's a mixed bag. Sometimes the watch would be on point, measuring my pulse within three BPM of my manual assessment, and other times it would be up to 15 BPM off. I suggest making sure the watch is strapped on tight—as in as tight as you can get it before causing yourself pain—before measuring your heart rate.
The watch has four screens you can scroll through while you run: the main display, which shows the time, distance, and your pace; the heart rate zone screen with your real-time pulse measurement; the laps screen; and the quick controls screen that lets you pause or end the workout. You can swipe to the screen that means the most to you for your training, and the watch will keep it on its display until you change it. Thanks to the ambient light sensor, you can glance down and check your stats at any time. When finished, the watch saves the run locally, and when you sync to the Moto Body app on your smartphone, it will transfer all that information so you can analyze it fully.
Moto Body on the watch provides the Cliff's Notes version of the mobile app. It's essentially a scrollable list of stats, including heart rate, steps, calories, and recorded runs. Tap on any of these to see a pleasant little animation of your total stats for the day, and swipe left from that to see your weekly stats at a glance. You can review almost all of the stats from each recorded run on the watch, including average pace, maximum heart rate, calories burned per minute, and heart rate zone times, but you'll have to open the mobile app to see any GPS maps that go along with outdoor jogs.
The name "Moto 360 Sport" is slightly misleading since the only Motorola companion apps are made just for running: there's no option to track anything other than indoor or outdoor runs with Moto Body or Moto Body Running. The watch can connect to a few other fitness apps, including Fitbit, Under Armour, and Strava—the last app being particularly useful if you're a cyclist. Other devices, like the Fitbit Surge and the Garmin Vivosmart HR or Vivoactive, offer more trackable activities by nature.
The Moto 360 Sport places special focus on heart rate and getting in at least 30 minutes of elevated heart activity each day. On the unique default watch face, there's a bar at the top-left corner that shows you how many minutes of high heart rate activity you've completed, and it's surrounded by similar looking bars that represent step and calorie counts. You can take a heart rate measurement at any time from within Moto Body, but the watch takes your pulse once every five minutes to glean a sense of your average heart rate throughout a regular day as well. Many fitness trackers have added "active time" as a default stat, which is a good supplement to step count when analyzing daily movement. But I appreciate the Moto 360 Sport's heart rate-focused tracking, since exercising to make your heart work harder than it usually does can make it stronger and make you healthier.
As for the Android Wear portion of the watch, it's pretty standard. The Moto 360 is powered by a 1.2GHz Snapdragon CPU, which runs Google's wearable OS smoothly, and it has 512GB of RAM and 4GB of storage so you can save music to the watch. Throughout the day and during workouts, you'll receive all your smartphone's notifications on your wrist as usual. My most-used app was Hangouts, since it's gotten more robust with Android Wear updates. Gestures also come in handy, particularly scrolling on the display by flicking your wrist side to side.
All of the fitness features of the Moto 360 Sport simply build upon the foundations of Android Wear, and there's nothing otherwise revolutionary about the operating system on this model. It is important to note that you can download the Moto Body app from the Google Play Store, but Moto Body Running (the app that actually initiates and tracks runs) is not available for download. Motorola clearly wants fitness-focused users to invest in the Moto 360 Sport rather than just download the necessary program to a different Android Wear watch (since there are others that have heart rate monitors as well as built-in GPS).(Gothamist)
A Correction Officer who ignored the cries of a dying inmate was convicted of violating that inmate's civil rights in federal court today. According to the Times, former Correction Captain Terrence Pendergrass "slammed the table with his fist, and members of his family burst into tears" when the verdict was read.
The inmate, Jason Echevarria, had swallowed a toxic soap ball in his cell in August of 2012. When Echevarria, who suffered from bipolar disorder, pleaded for medical attention as the ammonium chloride corroded his tongue and throat, Pendergrass's subordinate testified that he was told by his superior, “Don’t bother me unless someone is dead."
Pendergrass faces up to 10 years in prison. His conviction comes on the same day that Mayor de Blasio visited Rikers Island for the first time since taking office to formally announce an end to the practice of placing teenagers in solitary confinement.
"I stood on my bed, with a sheet looped around my neck into a noose," one teenager who spent time in punitive segregation testified. "They [the officers] told me to jump. They told me to jump three times."
"There are a lot of people who should not even be here, because their fundamental issue is a mental health problem," de Blasio told reporters after his tour of the facilities today, noting that 40% of inmates on Rikers suffer from some form of mental illness; those inmates are more likely to be the victims of severe beatings at the hands of the Correction officers, a reality which de Blasio and his Correction Commissioner, Joseph Ponte, have pledged to change.
The Correction officers' union is led by Norman Seabrook, who has acted as a "roadblock to reform" thanks to the immense power he wields with those in government and the city's establishment (the mayor has referred to him as "a friend"). Asked how Correction officers would react to the changes, the mayor replied that "change takes time."Summer hiatus is over, I’ve got spare time to do some solid mixing and to start off I’m going to spend the next 3 days doing a mix a day. Stay tuned for round up catch ups, genre features, and electro swing.
This is a catch up mix to pick up on all the lost songs over the last month...not as many as I hoped or at least managed to fit into a mix, but still some crakin’ tunes out there. Hope you guys enjoy this one, really loved... every part of it really but I also forgot how Kaskade can just make you want to dance wherever you are. I take no responsibility if you lisen to this at work and can’t manage itch that dancing feeling by the time you get to the end of this mix. Then again, maybe you should just scratch it, no one will look at you weirdly, I promise.
Next mix should be some time this weekend...I’m in for a busy one.
Reddit Post (With D/L): http://goo.gl/UaIqeVPicking things up and putting them down is a mainstay of any kind of manufacturing, but fingers, human or robotic, are not always best for the task at hand.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are developing a new kind of gripper, motivated by the ability of animals like the gecko to grip and release surfaces, that is perfectly suited for the delicate work involved in semiconductor manufacturing.
Like the gecko, the gripper has “tunable adhesion,” meaning that, despite having no moving parts, its effective stickiness can be tuned from strong to weak. Unlike the gecko and other artificial imitators that rely on structures with complex shapes, the Penn team’s gripper uses a simpler, two-material structure that is easier to mass produce.
At their current millimeter-scale size, the grippers can be used for moving smooth, fragile components, like silicon wafers or glass sheets. Scaled down, they could be used in arrays to grip to a range of rough and smooth surfaces, making them useful for climbing robots and other larger-scale applications.
The research was conducted by Kevin Turner, the Gabel Family Term Associate Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, and Helen Minsky, a graduate student in his lab.
Their study was published in Applied Physics Letters.
“When it comes to tunable adhesion,” Turner said, “everyone is familiar with the gecko, and everyone tries to copy it. The problem is that it’s really hard to manufacture complex structures as well as nature. We’ve come up with a strategy that can achieve similar adhesion behavior but is much easier to make.”
Geckos can stick to sheer surfaces due to complex structures on the pads of their feet. There, what look like ridges to the naked eye are actually a dense array of tiny fibers with flared tips, looking like a collection of long, thin mushrooms jutting out from their footpads at an angle.
These structures are sticky because of a phenomenon known as van der Waals adhesion, which is present any time two surfaces are in close contact; the closer the contact, the stronger is the attraction. Van der Waals forces generally aren’t noticeable in everyday life, as even two seemingly smooth, flat surfaces are rough enough at the microscopic scale to make them ineffective. But with many angled, flared-tip fibers lying flush with this rough terrain, van der Waals forces are strong enough for the gecko to stick to a wall. Changing the angle of their feet is what makes the gecko’s adhesion “tunable” and what allows them to detach from the wall to take each step.
“Other researchers have mimicked these structures to achieve tunable adhesion, but they are tough to make,” Minsky said. “You can make a few of these structures, but, if you want to make larger arrays of them, it becomes much tougher. The angles and the flared tip means you can’t just slip them out of a mold.”
The Penn’s team approach to realizing tunability and to address this manufacturing problem relies on a gripper with a fundamentally different structure. Rather than being angled or flared, they are simple cylindrical posts. The secret is in their composite construction: a hard plastic core surrounded by a softer silicone rubber shell.
“Anytime you have a corner, you have a place that has higher stress,” Minsky said. “The reason the gecko’s fibers stick so well is because the mushroom-shaped tip forces the high stressed region from edge to the center, where it’s hard to start a crack.”
“The composite post geometry,” Turner said, “achieves the same effect as the mushroom shape. The soft rubber conforms to the roughness of the surface, and, by putting a stiff core in the middle, you concentrate the stress in the center when you’re pulling straight up.”
To detach the posts, the researchers apply a lateral force, which shifts the stress back to the edge and allows the crack to easily start from there.
The researchers’ prototype grippers are a few millimeters in diameter and designed to grip smooth surfaces, such as glass. Their experiments and simulations suggest that this structure will remain effective once scaled down to microscopic sizes.
“Our view is that this composite post structure presented in this work is a fundamental building block to realize larger adhesive surfaces with tunable properties,” Turner said.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and a fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education.When Theresa May went to the White House in January, President Trump said he wanted a quick US-UK trade deal. His focus appears to have switched to the EU bRENDAN sMAILOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
The Trump administration has given its strongest indication yet that Britain is sliding back in the queue to strike a free-trade agreement with America, with the US commerce secretary suggesting that a deal is a low priority.
The upcoming general election and the UK’s need to negotiate a post-Brexit trade agreement with the EU were among several complications that made a deal with the US a low priority, Wilbur Ross said. There were also “bandwidth issues” because Britain had not negotiated a trade deal “in a long, long time”, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
The Times revealed on Saturday that senior officials from the US, UK and EU believed that Europe had moved ahead of Britain in the queue for…Blackmoon Crypto partners with Bancor
Blackmoon Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 11, 2017
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Blackmoon Crypto has joined the Bancor network and will become a member of its protocol family. We intend to widely use the Bancor protocol ERC20 smart-token standard within the Blackmoon Crypto infrastructure.
We are delighted to be a part of Bancor’s ecosystem, provide feedback from the market to their core team and help contribute to the future evolution of decentralized exchange. Our aim with this cooperation is to bring liquid, real world assets to the crypto society. We share Bancor’s vision of autonomous markets and strongly believe that this cooperation will open great opportunities to both our communities
“We appreciate that Blackmoon Crypto shares our belief in continuous liquidity and decided to use Bancor protocol as a part of its long-term strategy. We believe that this choice demonstrates the critical role of smart contracts and on-chain settlement in providing increased stability and transparency for a wide variety of blockchain projects,” Eyal Hertzog, Co-founder at Bancor.
Blackmoon Crypto aims to create and maintain the world’s best framework for tokenized funds to deliver investment opportunities in both the real world and crypto economies. Blackmoon brings blockchain flexibility to fiat instruments, and the benefits of accumulated financial wisdom to crypto investments.
For more information, contact: pr@blackmooncrypto.comIn what is something like the 50th survey to show the same thing, a new Bloomberg poll (PDF) found that by far the top issue for Americans is jobs, and that a clear majority want the federal government to be focused on the priority of creating jobs instead of cutting spending.
Which of the following do you see as the most important issue facing the country right
now?
43% Unemployment and jobs
29 The federal deficit and government spending
12 Health care
7 the war in Afghanistan
3 Immigration
N/A The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico
4 Other
2 Not sure
Which of the following do you see as the more important priority for the federal government right now—creating jobs or cutting spending?
56 Creating jobs
42 Cutting spending
2 Not sure
Let me simplify all the recent polling data for the politicians who seem to find it far too complex to understand: With nine percent unemployment, people really want jobs right now–not spending cuts.
Despite the fact that regular Americans overwhelmingly want their government to be focused on creating jobs, and economists from Goldman Sachs, Moody’s and Macroeconomics Advisers project the cuts sought by Republicans would result in hundreds of thousands of fewer jobs, right now, Washington is obsessed with the debate over whether or not Democrats agreeing to $4, $6 or $30 billion in more cuts qualifies as meeting Republicans half way.
If the Democratic party can’t defend their traditional stance of having the government help people get jobs during bad times because it is the right thing to do, you would at least hope they defend it for the crass political reason that it is clearly the popular thing to do.
It seems the party hasn’t just lost touch with its roots, it has lost touch with reality.“Eccomi” di Jonathan Safran Foer, Guanda, 2016 – Recensione di Giacomo Faramelli
Eccomi. O di come Foer sia arrivato molto vicino, incredibilmente illuminato, al nuovo grande romanzo americano.
Eccomi. Dieci anni dopo la storia tenera e terribile di Molto forte, incredibilmente vicino, torna al romanzo Jonathan Safran Foer. In mezzo un saggio sul veganesimo – Eating Animals – e sporadiche apparizioni pubbliche tra gli ooooh e gli aaaah dei fortunati presenti |
Again, it’s worth reiterating here than any manager with a really expensive £XI has almost no scope to overachieve – their aim is to simply not underachieve.
Chelsea, Man City and Man United usually field £XIs so expensive that they’d have to get 100+ points to go beyond what is realistically achievable with their current levels of outlay. (If these clubs ever had a season-long injury crisis, and fielded their least-expensive reserves and youth team graduates, they could of course outperform the model – they would have a much lower £XI. But they usually end up fielding their expensive squad players – i.e. their costly insurance policies – and the £XI never really drops by too much over 38 games. Equally, none of them seem to gamble on youth anymore, beyond one or two players, and that helps ensure that the £XI stays high.)
There is an interesting mix of clubs and managers in the over-performance top 20 – with a 50-50 mix of continental and home-grown over-achievers. Even more interesting is that it covers overachievement in finishing as high as 1st and even as low as 19th.
To help prove that there is zero bias in this (as with all our TPI work), a recent Everton season ranks top, whilst one of my least-favourite managers, Sam Allardyce, also scores well – with three of his Bolton seasons in the top 20, at 10th, 11th and 20th. I may find Allardyce oafish and grinding, but he usually gets good results.
Roberto Martinez posted what I rank as the best Premier League season since 2003 (by these measures) – in 2013/14, when amassing 72 points with an £XI of just £53m, but which was overshadowed at the time by Liverpool and Man City’s fight for the title. David Moyes’ 2004/05 vintage rank 4th-best out of 240 – although perhaps he sipped the champagne on Sky a bit too prematurely with regards to being in the Champions League. Meanwhile, Mark Hughes’ Blackburn (2005/06) sits between, in 3rd place – a hefty 63 points on barely a mid-table budget. Speaking as a neutral, it’s not a team I remember as being particularly special, so it’s nice to see what might be an under-appreciated campaign get some praise.
Ian Holloway is included twice, although in the case of Crystal Palace the points were mostly accrued by Tony Pulis; Holloway’s Palace were nowhere near that kind of level. His Blackpool, however, could be very proud of their 39 points with the cheapest £XI out of the 240 included in this study, even if they were relegated.
Arsene Wenger is the master of upper-table overachievement, in part because he’s kept Arsenal in the top four every year, posting points tallies that range from respectable to very good, on what is often a very limited budget for the upper-reaches (particularly during the early Emirates-financing years). He accounts for five of the top 20 season finishes, with another season just missing out, at 21st. Of course, he has managed the same club for all 12 seasons covered, so he has a greater chance of multiple inclusions than those who have only spent a year or two in England. Even so, his consistency is outstanding, even if the Gunners no longer win league titles.
Whilst on the subject, Arsenal’s £XI, as previously noted, has been getting increasingly more expensive for the past five seasons; meaning that this season, taken as pro-rata, Arsenal’s current Cost Per Point isn’t anything that special; it would rank 75th against the 240 club seasons covered. The key difference, of course, is that the £XI (c.£190m) is edging up towards the Title Zone minimum of £236m, and if that minimum threshold were to be lowered by Arsenal winning the title, then it won’t be by a massive amount: a 19% drop, as opposed to the 40% drop if Liverpool had won it in 2014. Still, it would rank as a great achievement all the same. (And remember, Wenger’s first two titles with Arsenal came with the league’s most expensive £XI each time.)
The much-maligned Rafa Benítez has two seasons in the top 20 – 7th (2008/09, 86 points) and 12th (2005/06, 82 points) – and another just outside (23rd), with the 76 points picked up in 2007/08, when Fernando Torres burst onto the English scene. All of these £XIs were less than half of Chelsea’s at the time.
Another Liverpool manager makes two appearances in the top 20. Brendan Rodgers’ runners-up finish in 2013/14, with 84 points on a budget comparable with Benítez’s Reds, ranks 16th, while Rodgers’ 47 points with a very cheap Swansea side also makes the cut, at number 19.
PART TWO
The Cup Impact
Whilst on the subject, Brendan Rodgers makes for an interesting – nay, startling – starting point with a comparison into the impact cup competitions might make on league form.
To date he has managed four full seasons as a Premier League manager (plus a handful of games this season) – three with Liverpool and one with Swansea. Two of his seasons (one with each club) rank in the top 20 for the best performances since 2003. However, his other two seasons (both with Liverpool) rank in the bottom 30.
Now, all manner of different things may have occurred in those seasons that won’t show up in these numbers (the same goes for this season, when his side played in the Europa League). But in his ‘bad’ league seasons his team faced 16 cup games (2012/13, his 2nd-worst season) and then 20 cup games (2014/15, his worst season).
However, his two best seasons – Liverpool in 2013/14 and Swansea in 2011/12 – saw his sides play just five and three cup games respectively. So his poor league seasons saw an average of 18 cup games played, and his good league seasons saw an average of just four. (Liverpool had already played three when he was sacked.)
Another ex-Swansea manager based on Merseyside makes for another interesting comparison. While Roberto Martinez ranks #1 with his 2013/14 Everton, the following season (when the cost of the £XI rose by c.50%) his side were fairly poor, ranking 205th out of 240. Another difference here is that in his successful season the Toffees played just six cup games; a year later, when things got tougher, they played more than twice as many, at 13. Was this the Europa curse?
Obviously the amount of cup games a club can handle depends on the depth of the squad, and whether or not they are used to the extra demands. And even the biggest squads can come unstuck when tough league games are scheduled around tough cup fixtures, particularly in Europe.
However, only once in the top 80 ranked club league seasons (for over-performance) did a side play more than 21 cup games. And yet you only have to look at the bottom 11 ranked club seasons to find three instances. In the bottom 80 there are no fewer than seven seasons where a club played 22 or more cup games.
Steve McLaren’s worst performance at Middlesbrough was 2005/06, when they played an astonishing 26 games – just one fewer than the Di Matteo/Benítez Chelsea season, that ranks as the highest number of cup fixtures in the Premier League era.
Jose Mourinho’s 2014/15 title-winners played just 16 cup fixtures, which is a fairly low amount for a club guaranteed at least eight matches (six Champions League group games, and one each in the two domestic cups, being the minimum).
There’s not a huge difference in performance between Wenger’s half-dozen seasons when his team played 20 or more games (20-23 games), to the six times when they played fewer (15-18 games). However, those extra games seemed to cost the Gunners an average of one league point, and on average they finished a fraction lower in those more demanding seasons. The Cost Per Point was reasonably better with fewer cup games, and perhaps most interestingly, the only season where the Gunners clearly underperformed in the CPP measure was 2005/06, when they reached the Champions League final – which coincided with their worst league points total of the study: 67.
David Moyes’ best two seasons with Everton involved just six and seven cup matches. His 3rd, 4th and 5th-ranked seasons ranged from 10-16 cup fixtures, while none of his five worst seasons broke into double figures for additional matches. This fits with the cup study I undertook last season, which showed that clubs in a bad way don’t necessarily get out of it by playing fewer cup games; a slump is a slump, poor teams are poor teams, and during bad runs a club can easily slip out of the cups. However, if the team is in good shape, then fewer cup games seems to help, up to a point. At Everton, Moyes averaged less than nine cup matches per season.
Rafa Benítez’s highest-ranked season at Liverpool (2008/09) involved the fewest cup games of any of his six campaigns: 17 (which is still a fair amount, and more than Chelsea were involved in last season). The season when his Reds played the most games – 22 in 2004/05 – resulted in his lowest-ranked league performance. Indeed, Benítez’s time at Liverpool saw him average the highest number of cup games in this entire study, at 19.7 per season (while his partial season at Chelsea saw him oversee an astonishing 20 cup fixtures in just six months. Out of interest, his tenure at Napoli averaged 18 cup games).
Like Benítez, Arsene Wenger seems to guarantee a lot of cup games: 18.8, which is virtually identical to Alex Ferguson’s 10 seasons after 2003 (18.9) and Jose Mourinho’s (19.0). As rank outsiders for the title, but managing clubs steeped in trophy success, Benítez (at Liverpool) and Wenger may feel pressure to compete for the trophies that are a bit more winnable; but my hunch is that they make winning the title – always an outside bet – tougher.
Perhaps Jürgen Klopp is feeling the same at Liverpool, although managers seem to believe that cup success can lead to a winning habit. It can possibly be seen with Man City in 2011, and maybe even Arsenal this season – although their £XIs became more expensive by the time they were challenging for league titles.
At City, Roberto Mancini averaged 16.7 cup games per season (excluding the season where he took charge midway), while in his two full campaigns Manuel Pellegrini’s City have averaged “just” 15.5 – which is fairly low for Champions League perennials. (The average number of cup games for all Premier League clubs is a fraction under 10.)
Mancini’s worst league performance was the season when City played the most cup games (21, in 2010/11, when they racked up 71 league points and won the FA Cup); they played a less demanding 16 cup games in the season he landed the title. However, Pellegrini’s title, secured with 86 points, was won with a reasonably hefty 19 cup fixtures, whereas the disappointing defence of it (2nd, 79 points), involved just 12 additional games.
Neither of Carlo Ancelotti’s two seasons at Chelsea involved a high number of cup games, although the title was won with 86 points when playing 17 additional fixtures, and they racked up only 71 a year later, playing an additional 14 matches.
Harry Redknapp’s worst of three full seasons at Spurs (62 points in 2010/11) involved the highest number of cup games (15), with the others following in descending order, albeit with 14 and 12 cup games respectively – so no major difference, even though his best season saw his side face the fewest extra games.
Surprisingly (to me, at least), Andre Villas-Boas’ Spurs rank higher (14th) than any of Redknapp’s sides, with 72 points from a team (£XI) that cost £102m; even though they only finished 5th. Redknapp’s best season saw them finish 4th, with a more expensive side (£118m), and, at 70, two points short of the Portuguese’s best. Villas-Boas’ season was also one in which Spurs played more cup games – 16, to the 12-15 range under Redknapp. But the following season the young Portuguese manager was having a torrid time, and it needed Tim Sherwood (of all people) to lift the team’s ranking, and even then they limp in at 162nd.
Sam Allardyce, whose three Bolton seasons post-2003 rank in the top 20, performed worst in the campaign where his side played 15 cup games; in the two better seasons his side played just nine and six additional fixtures. His highest number of cup games since leaving Bolton in three full seasons at West Ham and one at Blackburn is just seven.
Mark Hughes, another perennial overachiever with smaller clubs (but who like Allardyce, Hodgson and various others, failed in his biggest Premier League appointment to date), had his best season with Blackburn – the aforementioned 2005/06 campaign, which ranks 3rd out of 240 – with just eight cup matches; compared with the 15 they played the following season, when dropping from 6th with 63 points to 10th with 52. Again, the Europa curse, or just a club regressing to their ‘usual’ level?
Hughes’ one full season with Man City also saw a 10th-place finish, with just 50 points – but with an £XI that should have been gaining a top six finish (as the overseas investment began to take effect); and ranks in the bottom 20 (221st out of 240). However, it did involve 18 cup matches, which was a massive jump from seven, six, six and three in the club’s previous four seasons.
Only twice since 2003 has the league title been won by a team playing more than 21 cup fixtures (Man United both times, in ’07 and ’09), although the average number is 18.8, with Chelsea’s 2005/06 the least tested by extra games, at just 15.
This would suggest that being useless in the cups doesn’t give teams an edge when it comes to becoming champions, although all the champions came from the Champions League regulars (no title since 2003 has been won by a club who didn’t also play in Europe’s premier competition that season), and as mentioned earlier, therefore guaranteed eight games across Europe and the two domestic cups.
It would be wrong to say that a club has to play in 15 cup games to stand a chance to winning the title; but as things stand, cup-regulars always win the title.
And yet the average finishing position for a team playing more than 21 cup games (which has happened 11 times since 2003) is 5th, with 71 points.
Two of these achievements were by clubs well adrift of the Champions League gravy train, who would only be expected to finish mid-table: Boro in 2005/06 (26 games) and Fulham in 2009/10 (25 games). These two clubs finished slightly below where expected in the league (14th and 12th respectively), and it’s not really any surprise, given the extra demands. Indeed, they can count themselves lucky that they weren’t relegated, which was a fate that has befallen a few cup finalists in recent seasons.
Remove Boro and Fulham, and that leaves nine remaining Champions League regulars who played more than 21 cup games (a mixture of Chelsea, Man United, Arsenal and Liverpool). These nine average out at a finishing position of 3rd, with 77 points.
I’ve said it several times when talking about Liverpool, but Benítez teams put so much into cup competitions that it probably harmed the Reds chances in the league; and yet 2005, 2006 and 2007 involved great drama, with two domestic cup finals and two Champions League finals (the first was luckily won, the second unluckily lost). Both he and Wenger were working on smaller budgets (and therefore with smaller squads) than the richer clubs. As noted earlier, it’s not always easy to sacrifice the cup competitions if you’re only outsiders for the title, as finishing trophy-less brings its own pressures. And having fewer cup games doesn’t guarantee anything.
Cup complexity?
Now, if I had a spare year or two I could go through and work out how tough (theoretically) each cup fixture was, but that’s not practical.
Overall, the top 20 ‘over-performing’ seasons in the league saw an average of 11.4 cup games played, whilst the bottom 20 average at 14.6 cup games.
So can we say that cups definitely increase the chances of damaging league health? I would say yes. However, it’s hard to measure the confidence that can be taken from winning trophies, and indeed, going on good cup runs (i.e. momentum, if it really exists).
The Europa League may indeed be the main culprit, although I’d need to look more deeply into this. It’s possibly problematic because it has as many – if not more – games than the Champions League, and as much travelling, and although Thursday-Sunday is the same in terms of recovery time as Wednesday-Saturday, quite a few Champions League clubs play Tuesday-Saturday (one extra day) and also Tuesday-Sunday (two extra days). There’s also the added pressure of regularly playing your game a day after everyone else, which perhaps adds a sense of playing catch-up. And of course, the teams that compete in the Europa League tend to have smaller squads than those who play in the continent’s elite competition.
By contrast, the League Cup can usually end up resembling a quasi-reserve/youth competition, although having the final so early in the season can lead to a sense of anticlimax in the following league games, whether won or lost.
Even so, it’s tough to judge the intensity of the cup games, the timing of those games, and the quality of opposition, just by looking at the number of matches played in any given season. So that, and other factors, need to be taken into account (and will be, if I ever get the time.)#AskStox 4
Stox Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 13, 2017
Stox AMA #4
Today’s #AskStox was divided into categories from Stox Community members who submitted queries via our Telegram group.
Price & Exchanges
Did Stox apply for Binance 3rd monthly community voting?
A. No, we did not. All the relevant info on Binance has been explained (in detail). We applied to the second contest, yet Binance didn’t accept us due to our participation in the first contest. Binance response was the second contest was to add new companies only.
2. What made you guys choose Liqui when you guys started?
A. We didn’t. They chose us. Further to this question — as it is repeated extremely often in varying forms —and the Community may not be aware — but exchanges may add what they want, when they want, how they want, without any notice, information or request. When this occurs, our policy is:
to review the exchange, then
review the cryptocurrency community’s opinion on the exchange, then
decide whether or not we want to promote the listing.
In some extreme cases, we will request to be removed if the exchange does not meet certain criteria.
3. Are there any updates about paid listing Bittrex/crowdfund?
A. This was discussed in our official response here.
4. Can we get a full Medium/Facebook/Twitter post about this new exchange in HK?
A. As policy we post announcements when they are officially recognised on both sides and we extend our counterparts the courtesy to release information in conjunction with us.
It seems many in the Community may not be aware that exchanges in certain markets will list a coin by their own volition (as discussed at length in Answer #2). We cannot control such things, (no one can) which is why we comment on listings where both parties have formally partnered.
5. Will the team complete the purchase today?
A. This is not relevant as the purchase has already been completed and this was done on a daily basis during the specified time frame.
6. Will the Stox team take any of the advice of the community discussed in Telegram next week when they meet with Bancor: pump price back to $1 by buying more STX coins with $ that would have been used for CRR involving ICO price?
A. This is not relevant as the purchase has already been completed and this was done on a daily basis during the specified time frame.
7. The announcement regarding the vested tokens mentions that 22.5% of the tokens need to be vested. This is referring to the 12.5% invest.com 12 month uniform vesting schedule plus the 10% Stox team uniform 24-month vesting schedule tokens, as described in the whitepaper?
A. We have an official post on this issue.
8. Stox team, can you guys please get in touch with Binance if you haven’t already? just initiate conversation to show some interest?
A. See Answers #1, #2 and in addition, Niv Abramovich, our CMO, addressed this on Telegram on October 30th, 2017, after we weren’t eligible for the second round of the contest:
9. Can you please provide an example of how much buy volume in USD or BTC is required to move STX token price by 10 cents?
A. We can’t answer this question — it’s a free market and demand drives the price. Yossi Peretz, our COO, referred to this on Medium with a specific example for Bancor. However, this is not to be taken as a formula rule, as it is impossible, given the basic way the market functions.
10. Do you have any update on adding to Quoinex? Or any exchange in the top 10 on CMC?
A. See Answer #2.
11. Why didn’t Stox respect the engagements they took in the whitepaper and activate the Bancor smart token features at the token sale price of 1 ETH for 200 STX?
A. The AMA on Bancor answers this question.
Mayweather
12. Were Mayweather and Suarez paid in Fiat or STX?
A. We addressed this in AMA #2.
Updates
13. Can you share with us progress of the beta platform for Stox?
A. Our roadmap indicates our progress. We’ll also start publishing on GitHub soon where you can track the code independently. We plan to publish in the next week.
14. With the wallet integration on Stox Alpha it will be possible to store value on it. For our security: Is 2FA for login or/and a password recovery system planned?
A. It’s too early to provide an official answer but this is a highly important aspect from our side for security; yet it will be more relevant outside of the current DEMO environment.
15. Will there be a market to “lend” STX tokens to operators who need them to create events?
A. It’s too early to answer this but the Team has this on our radar.
16. Won’t everyone only want to place their bets at the last possible minute so their STX amount tied up for too long? I wonder how that will work out?
A. This is important, but remember, the functionality has little to no impact in DEMO as we are currently.
17. Why were the supposedly vested tokens sent back to the contract address if we all know the contract is not working? Why were only 22.37% returned to the contract?
A. See Answer #8
Miscellaneous
18. Can we please have a view of the STX purchased by Stox and how much of those are being spent on things like Bounty Program? If it is not being spent very quickly, maybe the rewards can be increased?
A. The current Bounty Program is scheduled to last one year and the budget is set at 200K STX. We heard the demands to increase the bounty rewards, but judging by the avid response thus far, they are a) set at a reasonable value and b) none of the actual bounty hunters who have participated have listed this as a concern. Certain members of the Telegram group have been the only source of dissatisfaction with the bounty rewards. We are happy to note that new/additional bounties will launch in the coming month(s), including suggestions for new predictions, inviting friends and more.
19. Can you add “Instagram” as part of the Bounty Promotion?
A. At a later stage, we’ll have several more social media channels, but for this bounty, we chose the ones with the most impact for us at this moment. In addition, given the consolidation of several social media platforms, we can re-target later on connected platforms like Instagram that we are not currently using. Also, we are considering adding certain local, popular platforms in certain regions.
20. Is there a chance that Stox will have a special area for business predictions in which companies pay for set events chosen by them?
A. Yes, this is in our B2B plan.
Thank you all for submitting your queries to us. We plan to host an #AskStox monthly, and invite you to continue to provide your questions and feedback.
Join us on Telegram to participate in our daily discussions and more!It would not take Saatchi & Saatchi too long to come up with a slogan to sum up Manchester United's torrid season.'David Moyes isn’t working’ would be a remodelling of something they have produced before but, as the home supporters drained out of Old Trafford at the end of a 3-0 humiliation at the hands of Liverpool, enough were raging against their sinking manager to suggest that those four words would perfectly encapsulate the mood.
Whichever way the former Everton manager may attempt to spin the situation he and his team are now in, his methods clearly are not working and neither are his players. Five home defeats in 14 league games this season, drifting among the dead-men in seventh position and now ripped apart by the club’s most bitter rivals – a defeat which could propel Liverpool towards their first title in 24 years – there are no positives on to which Moyes can cling.
A 3-0 victory against Olympiakos on Wednesday, which would put United into the Champions League quarter-finals, is perhaps the only result which can now save Moyes.
But with pessimism and fear now replacing cocksure self-belief at Old Trafford, the prospect of the Manchester City juggernaut inflicting another ninety minutes of pain and suffering next Tuesday is what many suspect, and dread, will lie around the corner.
Had Moyes been employed by any other footballing superpower and presided over such a disastrous run of results, his tenure would have been cut short weeks ago. His survival at United is based on the club’s determination to give the manager time to reshape the squad and team in his image, reduce the average age of the squad and promote from within.
However, too many fingers have been pointed at Sir Alex Ferguson for bequeathing an ageing squad and therefore leaving Moyes with a bad hand. There is no escaping the fact that Ferguson left a squad in need of renewal, but that team was handed over as Premier League champions, one which won the title by an eleven point margin.
With Liverpool emerging from Old Trafford with three goals and three points, the swing from United to Liverpool from last season to this now stands at 43 points.
So what is wrong? How have United become football’s equivalent of Ian Baker-Finch, the Open champion who could not hit a green from the moment he lifted the Claret Jug in 1991? The concern for United’s owners, the Glazer family, is that Moyes himself has no answer.
“It’s difficult to explain it,” Moyes said. “I felt as if the players were in good shape and good fettle going into this game, but we didn’t get to the standards required to beat Liverpool. I just think that Liverpool played well and we didn’t play as well as we can. We’ll work to make that better.”
Failure to beat Liverpool extended United’s record of securing to just one victory against a top-nine team this season – the 1-0 home win against Arsenal in November – but Moyes could also not explain that conundrum. “It tells you that we’re not doing as well as we should be,” Moyes said. “We have to play better and we’re going to have to make ourselves harder to beat, harder to play against and we’re also going to have to make sure we’re creating more and taking more of our opportunities so we’ve got a lot to do to do both of those things. The job was always going to be hard. Is it harder than I imagined? Yes, I would say so. Yes.”
There is an argument to suggest that Moyes has made the job harder than it needed to be, by clearing out Ferguson’s backroom team in favour of an unproven group of coaches from Goodison Park.
His strange omission of Ryan Giggs in recent weeks, a player whose composure on the ball was badly needed against Liverpool, is another issue. There are also question marks over his decision to sign Marouane Fellaini and his inability to get anything approaching the best from Juan Mata, a £37.1 million January signing who hardly arrived with the credentials to solve the team’s most pressing issues.
Moyes, however, has no time to consider regrets or mistakes with Olympiakos bringing the first of three games in six days which could shape Moyes’s fate. The patience of the fans is beginning to wear out and Wednesday might see it evaporate once and for all. “Results will always dictate that,” Moyes said. “But I can only tell you what I’ve seen today and the supporters were terrific.
“Everybody wants to win whatever game they play and we’re all desperate to put things right and make sure we play better and give the supporters something to shout about. They shouted plenty and we hadn’t given them anything on the field.”Five agents of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have filed a lawsuit against management, accusing them of homophobia, racism, and Islamophobia, as well as humiliation and abuse.
The employees are asking for CAN$35 million ($US27.7 million) from the CSIS, saying that the agency is “a workplace rife with discrimination, harassment, bullying and abuse of authority, in which the tone set by management, namely to mock, abuse, humiliate and threaten employees, has permeated the workforce,” the statement of the claim reads.
The document says that CSIS management “has not only allowed this culture to thrive, it has actively inculcated this culture, openly rejecting and mocking respectful workplace norms. This tone and approach has been dictated from the top, and adopted throughout the organization, resulting in an environment in which employees recognize that upward mobility and career success can be achieved through rejecting respectful workplace conduct and visibly aligning with the misconduct of management,” as cited by CTV News.
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Three employees who are suing the agency are Muslim, one is gay, and one is black.
The allegations are contained in a 54-page statement of claim filed in Federal Court on July 13 and obtained by local media.
All the plaintiffs and their bosses and colleagues referenced in the lawsuit are identified only by pseudonyms.
A Toronto intelligence officer who has served for 15 years, identified in the claim as ‘Alex,’ is gay and has a Muslim partner. In the claim, he alleges that his manager had sent him an email in October 2015 that said, “Careful your Muslim in-laws don’t behead you in your sleep for being homo.”
Another boss, indicated as ‘Joe,’ allegedly wrote: “You’re just a fag hiding in your little corner sobbing.”
Alex also pointed out that he was warned by supervisors and colleagues that pursuing a formal complaint would only make it harder on himself. Nevertheless, he complained in 2016 and was told not to come to management meetings anymore, and was also dismissed from a promotional board to which he had been appointed. When Alex took sick leave in June 2016, the agency’s management allegedly started a “whisper campaign” about Alex “losing his marbles.” As a result, Alex claims he suffered from “severe panic attacks, low mood and depression, weight loss, insomnia and symptoms of PTSD.”
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Another employee, identified as Bahira, is a Muslim woman of African descent with 15 years’ service. After starting to wear a hijab, she was allegedly asked about how she could continue with her duties. She had to undergo to a polygraph test and 10-hour interrogation about her Muslim activities and contacts, which was not part of a routine check for intel officers. Since January, Bahira has been on sick leave due to major depressive disorder and major anxiety disorder.
A manager reportedly told a third employee, referred to as ‘Cemal,’ to “complain to Allah.” The man says he heard a supervisor say that he does not hire people with Muslim-sounding names, and was allegedly blocked from promotion. Cemal has been on stress leave since January.
“The culture of CSIS is hostile to Muslims, and this is more than just an unfriendly work environment – it is a deeply ingrained prejudice of distrust for Muslims, which has meant that Muslims are used and managed as needed, but are not part of the team,” he said.
The fourth complainant, a Moroccan-born man, says he was accused of being a Moroccan spy and adds that the toxic environment at work led to the failure of his marriage. He claims he experienced numerous threats and rumor-mongering to “undermine his mental well-being and career.” He has been on sick leave for almost a year.
The fifth complainant is reportedly the first black woman at CSIS and has been working for the agency for 16 years. The woman alleges that she regularly heard “snide remarks that she was only promoted because she is a black woman,” was “isolated and ostracized, ridiculed and shamed, all without foundation.” She, too, has been on sick leave since January, with symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and depression.
The claimants also said that the managers regularly made derogatory comments about the employees, calling Muslims “blood thirsty murderers” or “terrorists.”
An unidentified witness mentioned in the claim that “The public would be shocked about this if they only knew; we keep our own secrets.”
CSIS head David Vigneault responded to the situation, declining, however, to comment on the specific claims.
“The Canadian Security Intelligence Service takes any allegation of inappropriate behaviour very seriously,” he said. “CSIS does not tolerate harassment, discrimination or bullying under any circumstances,” he said in a statement on Friday.
There are 3,300 employees at CSIS, which was created in 1984.By Stephen Lendman
Denigrating Iran is longstanding - taken to a higher level post-Vienna. It has nothing to do with its well-known peaceful nuclear program - with no military component or evidence it intends one.
It has everything to do with its sovereign independence, Washington wanting control of its government and hydrocarbon resources, as well as Israel wanting its main regional rival eliminated.
Expect relentless Iran bashing to continue until the nuclear deal is implemented or Congress rejects it (under heavy Israeli Lobby pressure) by a veto-proof margin.
The battle to undermine what was achieved is on. AIPAC plans a multi-million dollar Iran bashing campaign - intending to proliferate scare-mongering Big Lies to sway public opinion and enlist enough congressional support to undo years of hard work.
It formed a Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran (CNFI) NGO - saying it's "dedicated to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapons capability" it deplores, doesn't want, and urges a world free from their destructive power.
CNFI's advisory board includes four former anti-Iranian US senators and one former House member wanting the nuclear deal undermined (Evan Bayh, Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, Joe Lieberman and Shelly Berkley).
On board are pollster Mark Mellman, media consultant Mark Putnam and the digital firm Trilogy Interactive. Their mission is spreading Big Lies, including five "critical reasons" to kill the agreement.
"This deal has too many loopholes." False! It totally conforms to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) provisions.
"This deal does not allow anytime, anywhere inspections." Nor should it. No nation would give foreign inspectors (especially US-controlled ones) free access to its military bases and other sensitive areas unrelated to its nuclear program.
America and Israel prohibit foreign inspections anywhere for any reason, including their nuclear facilities.
"The deal would fuel a Middle East nuclear arms face, making the world less safe." False! It does the opposite.
"Even if Iran's leaders abide by this agreement, the regime will be dangerously close to having nuclear weapons."
False! No evidence suggests an Iranian nuclear weapons development program. Plenty shows the opposite.
"This deal allows Iran to continue developing and to build intercontinental ballistic missiles."
False! According to IHS Jane's Defence Weekly: "Claims that Iran is preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) are based on incorrect analysis of a satellite image showing the new facility at the Khomeini Space Centre in Semnan province."
The facility still under construction is intended for "the Simorgh satellite launch vehicle (SLV) that Iran needs to lift heavier payloads into orbit." Last year, Tehran's Space Agency announced plans for three satellite launches.
"While the Simorgh is theoretically capable of ICBM ranges, it cannot deliver an effective warhead over such distances," Jane’s explained.
CNFI's so-called "critical reasons" don't wash. They're fear-mongering Big Lies to discredit legitimate Iranian activities.
Tehran sacrificed plenty to have nuclear-related sanctions lifted and regain control of its illegally frozen assets.
CNFI spokesman Patrick Dorton said TV and online campaigning is planned for major US markets. An unnamed person briefed on what's coming indicated 30 - 40 states will be targeted.
Republicans are virtually in lockstep against the nuclear deal. Dorton urged Democrats to join them. AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr told staff members to cancel summer vacation plans. Iran bashing takes precedence.
Expect all stops pulled out in the weeks ahead featuring distortions, misinformation, Big Lies and congressional House and Senate members favoring the agreement threatened |
46. Dallas (To Washington) 47. Utah 48. New York 49. Orlando 50. Denver 51. Boston 52. Atlanta (To Golden State) 53. LA Clippers 54. Memphis (To Philadelphia) 55. LA Lakers (To Dallas) 56. Indiana (To Toronto) 57. Miami (To New Jersey) 58. Oklahoma City (To Minnesota) 59. San Antonio 60. Chicago (To New Jersey via Milwaukee or to LA Lakers via New Jersey and Milwaukee)
* Please note that teams that finished the regular season with identical records will select in the second round in the reverse of the order in which they select in the first round, provided, that if more than two teams are tied, then, as among the tied teams, each tied team will select one position earlier than it selected in the first round, except that the tied team that selected earliest in the first round shall, among the tied teams, select latest in the second round. With respect to the ties between Cleveland and New Orleans (21 and 45); New Jersey and Sacramento (22 and 44); and Golden State and Toronto (23 and 43): since the order of selection in the first round for this set of teams may change based on the results of the Draft Lottery, the order of selection in the second round cannot be determined until after the Draft Lottery is conducted.The retirement of the baby boom cohorts means that the country's labor force is likely to be growing far more slowly in the decades ahead than it did in prior decades. The United States is not alone in facing this situation. The rate of growth of the workforce has slowed or even turned negative in almost every wealthy country. Japan leads the way, with a workforce that has been shrinking in size for more than a decade.
Slower population growth is affecting the developing world as well. Latin America and much of Asia are seeing much slower population growth than in prior decades. In China, the one-child policy adopted in the late 1970s has virtually ended the growth in its labor force.
According to many media pundits, this picture of stagnant or declining labor forces is cause for panic. After all, it means that countries will be seeing an increase in the ratio of retirees to workers. Countries around the world will be suffering from labor shortages. And with even developing countries experiencing slower population growth, there will be nowhere to turn to make up the shortfall.
The only part of this picture that should, in fact, be scary is the failure of people involved in economic policy debates to have even a basic understanding of economics and arithmetic. There is no reason why the prospect of a stagnant or declining workforce should concern the vast majority of people. Rather, from the standpoint of addressing global warming and other environmental problems, this is great news.
First, a bit of arithmetic would be useful. People involved in economic policy-making tend to have problems with arithmetic, which is why they failed to recognize the housing and stock bubbles. Some simple sums can quickly show that the concerns about falling ratios of workers to retirees are ill-founded. In the United States, the social security trustees project that the ratio of workers to retirees will fall from 2.8 in 2013 to 2.0 in 2035.
It's pretty simple to figure out the impact of this decline. Let's assume that an average retiree consumes 85% as much as the average worker. This means that our 2.8 workers must produce enough goods and services to support the equivalent of 3.65 workers. That would imply each worker gets to keep 76.7% (2.8/3.65) of what they produce, with the rest taken away through taxes or other mechanisms to support pesky retirees.
When the ratio of workers to retirees falls to 2.0 then each worker will get to keep 70.2% (2.0/2.85) of what they produce. This implies a drop in the share of output going to workers of 8% over the next 22 years.
While that would depress living standards, we will also be seeing an increase in potential living standards from rising productivity growth. If productivity grows at the rate of 1.5% annually – roughly the rate it has been growing over the last two decades – then productivity in 2035 will be almost 40% higher than it is today. This means that the fall in the ratio of workers to retirees will take back less than a quarter of the potential gains from productivity growth. (It's true that most workers have seen little benefit from productivity growth over the last three decades, but this points again to the importance of intra-generational distribution; it's not a reason to be distracted by demographic nonsense.)
And this story puts the situation in the worst possible light. After 2035, productivity will continue to grow, but the ratio of workers to retirees will be little changed for the rest of the century. Why, exactly, are we supposed to be so scared?
The story is even more ridiculous for China, where productivity per worker has been increasing by more than 5% annually. This translates into an increase in output per worker of more than 160% over two decades. Do we seriously expect workers in China to be terrified if 10-15% of these gains are pulled away to support a larger population of retirees?
Of course, there is a story of labor shortages in this picture – in the sense that it will be difficult to find workers for the lowest-paying and least productive jobs. With a stagnant or declining labor force, workers will have their choice of jobs. It is unlikely that they will want to work as custodians or dishwashers for $7.25 an hour. They will either take jobs that offer higher pay or these jobs will have to substantially increase their pay in order to compete.
This means that the people who hire low-paid workers to clean their houses, serve their meals, or tend their lawns and gardens will likely have to pay higher wages. That prospect may sound like a disaster scenario for this small group of affluent people, but it sounds like great news for the tens of millions of people who hold these sorts of jobs. It should mean rapidly rising living standards for those who have been left behind over the last three decades.
And that is the basic story of fears over stagnant or declining populations. The people who hire help – the very same who also dominate economic policy debates – are terrified over the prospect that they will have to pay workers more in the future.
But the rest of us can sit back and enjoy watching them sweat as ordinary workers may finally start to see their share of the gains of the economic growth of the last three decades.Close
Researchers involved in two separate studies say two types of existing inexpensive generic drugs show promise for reducing deaths from breast cancer.
Postmenopausal women with early breast cancer can see improved survival prospects with either of the two classes of drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors and bisphosphonates, they are reporting.
Using both types together could increase the benefits while lessening some of the side effects of the drugs, they add.
The results of the two trials have been announced by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group, a worldwide collaboration created at the University of Oxford in England to collect, every few years, all the findings of randomized trials on treatments for early breast cancer.
Aromatase inhibitors are a type of hormone-suppressing drugs often prescribed to postmenopausal breast and ovarian cancer patients.
Taking aromatase inhibitors for 5 years reduced the risk of postmenopausal women with breast cancer dying of their disease by 40 percent within 10 years of starting treatment, compared with no hormonal treatment, a study published in the Lancet reported.
"The evidence on aromatase inhibitors has been accumulating for well over a decade, but it has taken this huge and complex study to make sense of all the data, and provide a firm basis for clinical guidelines," said Paul Workman of the Institute of Cancer Research in London. "It tends to be the discovery of new treatments that grabs the headlines, but it is just as important to maximize the benefit patients get from existing treatments through major, practice-changing studies like this."
A separate study looked at bisphosphonates, which are usually prescribed for treating osteoporosis but have been found to also reduce the risk of breast cancer recurring in post-menopausal women.
When breast cancers spread, the most common site for that spread is to bone, researchers at Sheffield University in England point out.
Bisphosphonates alter the microenvironment of bone, making it less hospitable to cancer cells and so reduce the risk of cancer recurrence in the bone and in other organs, they explain.
Their study suggests that, in postmenopausal women, bisphosphonate treatment could reduce bone recurrence by 28 percent and also reduced the risk of death from breast cancer by 18 per cent during the first 10 years following diagnosis.
"These studies provide really good evidence that both of these inexpensive, generic drugs can help to reduce breast cancer mortality in post-menopausal women," said Richard Gray of the University of Oxford, who served as lead statistician for both the aromatase and the biosphosphonate studies.
ⓒ 2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.A state senator in Oklahoma and the former state chair of President Donald Trump's electoral campaign, Ralph Shortey, is facing child prostitution charges and will resign, the Associated Press reported. Shortey was arrested last week when police found him with a 17-year-old boy from at Super 8 Motel.
State prosecutors charged Shortey with engaging in child prostitution, transporting a minor for prostitution and engaging in prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church. He was released on a $100,000 bond.
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The state Senate voted on a resolution last week that stripped Shortey of most of his authority, including his ability to serve on Senate committees and author bills. The Senate also took away his office, executive assistant and parking space.
The 35-year-old Republican was involved with teens regularly through the YMCA Youth in government program, according to KFOR-TV, and was a senior staffer at Boys State.
According to the Moore Police Department's redacted report, when police asked Shortey why he was in the motel room, the state senator said "he was just there to hang out with his friend."
Communications through encrypted text messaging apps revealed that Shortey and the 17-year-old discussed sexual conduct.
The Oklahoma Republican Party immediately called for Shortey to resign.
"The Oklahoma Republican Party takes all accusations against elected officials seriously, especially when the welfare of a minor is involved. We have reached out to Senator Shortey for comment and have not heard back from him at this time. We await the report from law enforcement on whether charges will be filed," Pam Pollard, the chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party told the TV station.
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The day after the motel bust, Shortey posted a photo with Donald Trump Jr. on Facebook, according to The Daily Beast.A new priority of the U.S. Department of Transportation is an age-old idea: Transport freight by ship for as long as possible. The DOT is proposing designated shipping channels known as Marine Highways, and one may be leading to a port near you.
If you've purchased any household goods in the United States recently, they probably took a familiar path from the factory to the store where you bought them: to North America on a massive cargo ship, from the ship to a railway, and finally from the rail yard to your local retailer by truck. In many cases, freight is carried solely by truck along interstate highways.
Unfortunately, such a system is far from efficient. It clogs our highways with multiple trucks headed in the same direction and brings pollution into our cities near freight terminals.
That's why the Maritime Administration (MARAD) has proposed a system of marine highways where ships would transit goods within the United States. Along designated corridors, ships could provide safe, environmentally friendly and reasonably quick freight transit among a network of well-situated ports.
A New Old Idea
According to MARAD Administrator Dave Matsuda, the United States is catching up with the rest of the world when it comes to marine highways. Also known as short sea shipping, coastal trade or coastal shipping, the rivers and seas of Europe and Asia are filled with small container vessels carrying cargo within a continent.
"This is an idea that's been around for awhile," Matsuda said. "The Europeans do it, and other folks do it. For about 10 years now people have been kicking the idea around in the maritime community. It's to the point that it's been joked about that the Marine Highway conference has become a cottage industry."
When we caught up with him, Matsuda had just been sworn in as MARAD administrator. Earlier this month, he announced an initial $7 million (.pdf) in grant funding for marine-highway projects that would primarily strengthen existing projects and proposals.
Some short sea shipping operations are already moving freight in the United States, and Matsuda wants to help them expand. "These are the experts, these are people who have started up new markets in the past," he said. "They know the industry, they know the people and the operations."
Matsuda is clear about engaging existing operators. "The government's role here is really to help promote these and get them up and running," he said. "We can talk to local transportation planners and say, 'Hey, here are some of the federal programs that help.' There's a limited amount of federal dollars to put towards buying cranes or barges or fixing up a port or something that we need to have up and running."
Some projects are economic no-brainers, such as moving overweight or hazardous materials, where the cost of obtaining road permits would be prohibitive for truck shipments. In most cases, however, in order for a project to make sense and for shippers to make money, MARAD must identify corridors with strong two-way traffic so empty ships don't ply the waters.
A good example of such a project is a proposed Green Trade Corridor in California, a project funded by $30 million of TIGER funds that connects the inland agricultural areas and the Port of Oakland by a marine highway.
Currently, goods from Asia come into the port of Oakland and are trucked across the state while agricultural products are trucked in the opposite direction. "It's a tax on commuters, and it adds to the congestion, beats up the bridges and raises the cost of maintaining infrastructure," said Matsuda. "It's not just getting the trucks off the road, but also putting people to work in some of these areas that are really devastated."
A marine highway would move some of that traffic onto barges and guarantee two-way traffic for the company operating the barges.
A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats, Trains and Trucks
A project that promises to put people to work shouldn't put others out of work. Marine highways will change rather than replace rail and truck shipments, so they seem to have gained support from groups that represent competing modes of transit.
"Marine and rail freight have co-existed since the 1830s when the rail industry began, said Holly Arthur, a representative for the Association of American Railroads. "While shipping via water can be seen as competition, it also is a significant customer segment for railroads."
According to Arthur, intermodal transport – the movement of shipping containers by multiple methods, such as from ship to rail – represents 21 percent of rail revenue in the United States, a figure that is continuing to grow. If boat traffic increases, the rail industry stands to benefit.
Boats can't usually pull up to a factory loading dock or back into the parking lot of your local big-box store, so trucks are safe, too. "At the end of the day, your shipment winds up at a port, so it has to go on a truck," said Matsuda. In addition, boats tend to travel more slowly than trucks (though they usually don't have to stop overnight for rest). Often, short sea shipping services run on a weekly schedule and, said Matsuda, "It's hard to sell a weekly service when you're dealing with folks who need things a little more quickly."
In a country where the majority of freight travels along marine highways, Matsuda envisions some long-haul truckers working instead in freight yards or in regional distribution, while others remain on the roads with cargo that can't wait for a slower-moving boat. If estimates of 70 percent growth in the freight industry over the next 10 years are accurate, trucks will always be in high demand.
According to Matsuda, the U.S. DOT chose to refer to the project as Marine Highways rather than short sea shipping because the network of waterways would often be parallel to an existing interstate highway. "We wanted to draw a parallel with the interstate system, if you can draw a highway on a map, that you can draw a waterway along the map – maybe M-95 – and it'll get you to the same place," he said.
One kind of freight that Matsuda thinks is best suited for the water is hazardous material. "With hazardous materials, we only see an upside for getting them out of populated areas," he said. While a lot of bulk hazmat cargo is shipped, that which fits into a container is still largely transported on packed highways. "Anything we can get off the highway is obviously a benefit, if it makes sense to do," he said. "It's less gas per mile, but it also helps the people on the roads."
Better for the Environment
In addition to transporting hazardous materials outside of populated areas, a clear advantage of short sea shipping is the reduced environmental impact of moving freight on ships.
According to Carrie Denning, a researcher at the Environmental Defense Fund who coauthored the report The Good Haul: Freight Innovations for the 21st Century, a shipping company that moves containers by sea between Port Manatee, Florida, and Brownsville, Texas, already saves 70,000 gallons of fuel on each one-way voyage compared to a comparable truck journey.
Those fuel savings translate into fewer emissions in population centers. "One way to reduce pollution emissions in some regions will be to substitute multiple truck trips with single barge trips via coastal shipping routes that meet robust environmental performance standards," she said.
Even with the obvious fuel savings, Denning says that marine routes could still pose serious environmental consequences. Ports themselves are notorious for high levels of emissions from machinery used to move freight. To truly be environmentally responsible, ports along a marine highway would have to implement solutions such as electric forklifts and yard trucks – many of which are already in place at the Port of Los Angeles.
Additionally, highways would have to be designated clear of environmentally sensitive areas. "Coastal shipping is not a panacea," she said. "Depending on the highway route, there could be serious ramifications for marine life if dredging is required, if migratory patterns are disrupted, or if additional infrastructure is needed that interferes with certain marine ecosystems."
RoRo Your Boat
A centerpiece of the European short sea shipping industry is a small freighter known as a RoRo, short for "roll on, roll off." While larger ships require cranes to lift containers onboard, RoRos pull straight up to a dock where trucks can drive onboard and unload freight containers. Because they're smaller, they don't require channels as deep as larger ships, and can minimize the need for dredging.
"The ship literally pulls up, lays down a ramp and the trucks drive on and off it," said Matsuda. "From an operating standpoint, you don't need cranes, you don't need to pay the skilled workers – but you need people to drive the trucks on and off the ship."
Rather than investing in the installation of cranes and other equipment at small ports, Matsuda says that RoRos could follow what he calls the "Southwest Airlines model," after the carrier that started off flying into secondary airports. Smaller RoRos could bypass major ports and travel through shallower waterways to inland cities.
Matsuda just saw such a system in action at the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. "It is just incredible to see these relatively small, long, thin, self-propelled ships that can carry 20 or 30 containers that kind of zip around in this massive port after the giant container ship has been offloaded," he said. "They go up the rivers into Europe or around the coast to other ports."
Would such a system be possible in the United States? There may not be a choice. With roadways in major cities already crammed with freight traffic and the demand for freight ever increasing, putting freight on the water may be the most sensible solution for companies that need to move goods from here to there. Matsuda says a political climate that's focused on creating jobs and helping the environment also will support the cause.
"Where there are corridors, the federal government will help focus attention and investments to get those services up and running," he said. "This is something that we think is going to go a long way."
Photos:
Flickr/wirralwater. A RoRo ship in St. Petersburg
Flickr/electropod. Hazardous cargo in Zeebrugge, Belgium
*Flickr/electropod. A RoRo in Zeebrugge, Belgium
*As I said before, Fluttercord is my favorite shipping of MLP. I tried to imagine their daughter and how she will be. And came to this result! I really like her btw ♥____♥
I choose to name her Dilemmia.
I imagine her as her father. She's kind but loves to sow chaos.
She gets along really well with Angel bunny. And they always make jokes together.
Animals treat her like their princess, and she really loves that.
Fluttershy had some trouble to keep her on track, but Dilemmia listens to her at least all times.
She loves to spend times with Discord and to learn the power of chaos.
And that's all for the time x)
Made with Paint Tool Sai Art by me ♥
Dilemmia belongs to me ♥
Draconequus & MLP belongs to HasbroThis week, the FBI reported 2,197,169 background checks for gun sales in the month of July, breaking last year’s record for the month by nearly 600,000. Incredibly, July marks the 15th consecutive record-breaking month and more good news for gun stocks.
In the month of July, Smith & Wesson Holding Corp (NASDAQ: SWHC) and Sturm, Ruger & Company (NYSE: RGR)’s stocks surged 9.3 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.
According to Mass Shooting Tracker, there were 693 people killed or wounded in mass shootings in the months of June and July, more than any two months in the past four years. The most high-profile tragedy during that two-month span was the killing of 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12.
Gun sales typically spike following news of mass shootings, as gun enthusiast fear potential changes to gun legislation in response to the news. Smith & Wesson shareholders have enjoyed a 21.5 percent gain since June 1.
Related Link: How Do Gun Stocks Respond In The Days And Weeks After Mass Shootings?
This year, fear levels surrounding potential changes to gun laws have been high due to campaign rhetoric from Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, who have made gun violence a central part of their platform.
“Certainly, this is a unique time in our history, because for the first time ever, we have the nominee of a major political party, one with a very reasonable likelihood of winning the presidency… actively campaigning against the lawful commerce in arms,” Sturm, Ruger CEO Michael Fifer said on an earnings call earlier this week.
Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.President Donald Trump on Saturday expressed his sympathies for financial institutions a day after naming his budget director acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Trump said the agency, authorized by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act as a watchdog for consumers in their interactions with large financial institutions, had “devastated” those institutions and made them “unable to properly serve the public.”
“We will bring it back to life!” he said, presumably referring to himself and Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director who Trump said Friday would take over as the CFPB’s acting director. Mulvaney in 2014 said agency was a “sick, sad joke.”
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, has been a total disaster as run by the previous Administrations pick. Financial Institutions have been devastated and unable to properly serve the public. We will bring it back to life! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2017
Check out the recent Editorial in the Wall Street Journal @WSJ about what a complete disaster the @CFPB has been under its leader from previous Administration, who just quit! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2017
But Mulvaney’s ascension, even temporarily, to the head of the consumer agency is contested: After former CFPB Director Richard Cordray announced his resignation Friday, he elevated his chief of staff, Leandra English, to be the agency’s deputy director. Cordray argued that, according to Dodd-Frank, English would become acting director — rather than Mulvaney — upon his resignation, which was effective at midnight.
Though the Washington Post reported Saturday that though the White House had not yet been in touch with the agency, both sides have staked their legal claims.
“We think the clear legal authority is that the president does have this authority. We’ll find out based on how Ms. English decides to act at the appropriate time,” one unnamed official told the Post.
Unnamed senior administration officials said the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel supports the White House’s position that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives Trump the power to install Mulvaney until a permanent director is approved by the Senate, a process that could take months and leave Mulvaney plenty of time to enact a deregulatory agenda.
Cordray himself told the Post: “The law authorized me to appoint a deputy director, and I did so. My understanding of the law is that the deputy director serves as the acting director upon my resignation.”
“If there are disagreements about these issues, the appropriate place to settle them would be in the courts,” he added.
Dodd-Frank’s co-author, former Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) told the Post “it’s obvious” that the Cordray’s interpretation was correct.
“If you look at the CFPB language it is very specific and it was designed to protect an agency that we knew would be under a lot of pressure,” he told the Post. “This is an agency that enforces the rules against some of the most powerful financial interests in the country. Everything was structured for its independence.”Earlier this year, we from Zarafa, have informed our ecosystem about the direction of Zarafa’s future product development. It was one, very long newsletter where we showed how we see the world of communication & sharing. Most people only remembered one thing, though: Zarafa stops Outlook. In some cases, people felt like the world has come to an end. Of course, we understand such emotions. But of course, such a big decision is not made overnight. I would like to take a moment to explain how our discontinuation of the Zarafa MAPI client is only one part of our mission to create an open source communication & sharing platform.
Phasing out Outlook Support via MAPI32.DLL
Why are we phasing out Outlook support in the first place, you may ask? First of all we think, we are not going to be able to deliver high-quality support for Outlook due to various reasons in the future. For instance, Microsoft is changing its client-server communication which fits their cloud-focused model better. This would require us to completely start our development from scratch.
But then, what will be happening in the next two to five years? Microsoft’s Office365 has already integrated parts of the Exchange, SharePoint and Skype product families. When are they going to decide to add the same functionality to Outlook? When this would happen – and let’s be honest they have good reasons for doing this – we would miss a lot of features.
One may argue, not everybody in my organization would need such features today. But we expect things to change rapidly. E-mail communication is a commodity. A lot of people use all kind of mobile devices to organize their meetings and tasks on the go. We believe, the future will be about how, with whom and from where we share data.
Communication & Sharing
In fact: Inviting someone to an appointment is nothing less than sharing it with him, isn’t it? From there on, I would like tools that help me be more efficient in that very same meeting. Some now tend to use different tools like Dropbox and WhatsApp to accomplish this. But every tool introduces another layer of complexity while the user experience also differs from tool to tool.
These are user challenges that we want to solve with our client strategy. A strategy that is focused on the web (WebApp, DeskApp) and mobile (Z-Push compatibility). The WebApp is the client we fully control, and here we bring presence, chat, video meetings and telephony together. For example, with our Zarafa web meetings, we are introducing an open and secure way to start multi-attendee web meetings from your inbox. Without the need for additional browser plugins. Finally, Zarafa Files will help you to share files with individuals and teams.
Future Strategy
To realize our ambitious goals, we have started a transformation. The Zarafa MAPI client will no longer be supported in the future, as it is not 100% in control. At the same time, we do control our compatibility to Z-Push. Z-Push is an open source ActiveSync implementation. The community developers have a server running which enables Outlook 2013/2016 access over ActiveSync. Together with the Z-Push-team, we even identified opportunities to make more than just the own inbox available.
Existing customers who already own a valid subscription are eligible to support for Outlook MAPI clients until May 1, 2017. This is one year more than promised in our first announcement. We have decided to provide extended Outlook support after feedback from partners and customers.
Conclusion
There is no reason for you to switch on panic mode and uninstall your Microsoft Outlook. We are in the same process like other vendors. But our way is the open source way – a way of staying open and compatible. Openness cannot be achieved if your main client depends on closed source services. And as you have read above, the community has already been successful in getting ActiveSync compatible to Outlook.
We are providing monthly updates. Stay tuned by:
Visiting our site.Hot_Bid Profile Blog Joined October 2003 Braavos 36026 Posts Last Edited: 2010-02-11 08:26:56 #1
versus is widely considered the biggest matchup of the TSL Ro8. Both players won easily in the Ro16, and NonY went on to predict victory against IdrA in several interviews. We sat down with IdrA to see what he had to say about the upcoming match.
IdrA[Media] versus Liquid`NonY is widely considered the biggest matchup of the TSL Ro8. Both players won easily in the Ro16, and NonY went on to predict victory against IdrA in several interviews. We sat down with IdrA to see what he had to say about the upcoming match. Ro8 Pre-Interview with IdrA[Media]
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
What is your prediction for this match? Are you going to defeat Nony?
IdrA[Media]:
Of course I will. I actually gained a lot of confidence from our seed match. His only real chance to beat me is cheese, and the Destination game where he cheesed demonstrated just how uncomfortable he is with that style of play. He opened gas rush, which is good, but then went fast nexus which threw away that advantage, and then went blatantly obvious carriers when my fast cc would allow me to timing push freely, even while getting a 3rd cc.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
Were you impressed by Nony's 6-0 against Horror and Tarson?
IdrA[Media]:
If I beat him 3-2 BBS vs double nexus every game it would be more impressive than beating a European Terran 3-0 PvT.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
What do you think about his prediction that he will beat you?
IdrA[Media]:
Only emo or falsely modest Europeans predict that they're going to lose games. Confidence is everything in any kind of competition. If you don't absolutely expect to win, you don't really have much of a chance. So yes of course he says that, but it doesn't mean anything.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
How will you counter double nexus and the unit that kills everything?
IdrA[Media]:
Trick question? Double nexus doesn't have a counter.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
So if Nony goes double nexus every game, you might lose?
IdrA[Media]:
Nah, if he can get a free double nexus diagonal positions on Andromeda and still almost lose, it won't really matter what builds he does.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
Will it be a 3-0 victory for you?
IdrA[Media]:
Yes.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
What are your predictions for the other matchups?
IdrA[Media]
Ret vs Sen I dont really know, I've heard Sen's zvz is really good and theres always the luck factor. I'd imagine it'll be 3-2 either way with Ret more likely to win. White-Ra vs JF I don't know much about either, but Ra is the better player. JF's play wasn't nearly as impressive against Terran as a lot of people seemed to think, and he's up against another Protoss this time. White-Ra should win. Mondragon vs Fenix I think Mondragon will win 3-1, but it's not impossible for Fenix. Mondragon will be much more capable of dealing with unusual strategies than Kolll, and I think Brat's standard TvZ is better than Fenix's.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
Is Nony your biggest threat?
IdrA[Media]
No, I think the Ra vs JF winner will be more dangerous simply because they're more comfortable with cheesy, abusive play. If Nony wants to play to my weaknesses, he takes himself out of his element as well, so while he is the more skilled player, I'm much more comfortable with him style wise.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
Hypothetically, if Nony wins, what would you say to him?
IdrA[Media]:
I don't know, I've never really been a fan of thinking about situations that aren't gonna happen. Seems kinda like a waste of time.
PokerStrategy.com TSL:
Thanks for the interview and we look forward to your games!
IdrA[Media]:
Thanks, I hope they're good.
This TSL is sponsored by PokerStrategy.com, the world's largest poker school and community. With hundreds of Poker VODs and an assortment of learning material in 18 different languages, PokerStrategy.com offers the chance for aspiring Poker players to learn from a beginner to a professional level. @Hot_Bid on Twitter - ESPORTS life since 2010 - http://i.imgur.com/U2psw.pngST. LOUIS -- The NHL Board of Governors voted unanimously to approve the sale of the Blues to a group led by current minority owner Tom Stillman, CEO of Summit Distributing of St. Louis.
Stillman has a group of investors that will purchase the Blues, the team's American Hockey League affiliate, the Peoria Rivermen, the lease to Scottrade Center and a percentage of the Peabody Opera House from outgoing owner Dave Checketts.
The closing of the sale is expected to be finalized Wednesday. The Blues have scheduled a press conference for Thursday.
Stillman's investment group includes the Taylor family, who own St. Louis-based Enterprise Holdings, former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, who is Stillman's father-in-law, Donn Lux, CEO of Luxco, and Steve Maritz, CEO of Maritz, Inc. Also, former Blue Brett Hull, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, is expected to be a part of the new management team.
The sale of the team comes days after the Blues were eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Western Conference Semifinals in a series sweep by the Los Angeles Kings.
Stillman, a passionate hockey fan who is known to lace up the skates often, has been a minority owner since 2007.
"A local guy that's passionate about the game, he's around the rink as much as the players are," captain David Backes said Tuesday as the team cleaned out its lockers after the series loss to Los Angeles. "He's on road trips, he's skating himself with [Blues] alumni.
"A guy that's passionate, from the St. Louis area... what more could you want. It's nice to hopefully have that situation stabilized and stop talking about it and get onto business, which is in the ice and taking care of business there."
Checketts purchased the Blues in 2006 from Bill and Nancy Laurie.Image caption Ms Calitz and Mr Pelizzari were freed on Wednesday night
Two South Africans held hostage by Somali pirates for 20 months have been freed.
Somalia's defence minister said the Somali army and security forces started the rescue of Deborah Calitz and Bruno Pelizzari on Wednesday night.
Ms Calitz and Mr Pelizzari were kidnapped while they were sailing in the Indian Ocean off east Africa in October 2010.
Defence Minister Hussein Arab Isse did not say whether a ransom had been paid.
Long captivity
The pirates had originally demanded $10m (£6m) in return for the release of Ms Calitz and Mr Pelizzari.
We are very happy to get our freedom again. We are so happy today and to join our families again Deborah Calitz
The couple's 20-month captivity is among the longest periods any hostages have been held by Somali pirates.
The couple were working as crew on a yacht on its way from Tanzania to South Africa when they were hijacked.
The ship's captain, Peter Eldridge, refused to leave with the pirates and was rescued by the European Union's anti-piracy force.
The freed hostages appeared alongside Mr Isse at a news conference in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
"We are very happy to get our freedom again. We are so happy today and to join our families again," Ms Calitz said.
A British yachting couple, Paul and Rachel Chandler, were held for more than a year, before being freed in November 2010.
Mr Isse said further rescue raids would take place, referring to a French intelligence agent who was kidnapped in Mogadishu in July 2009.
"We know the whereabouts of the rest of the hostages, including the French agent, and if the kidnappers fail to free them, we will forcefully rescue them," Mr Isse said.
The European Union Naval Force in |
of builders, creates and persists an entity in one transaction and retrieves and compares the result in another one.
@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class) public class PersistabilityTest { List<TestBuilder<Task>> persistentObjectBuilders = Arrays.<TestBuilder<Task>>asList( // Add different Task configurations here aTask().withName("A task").withExpirationDate("2017-03-16"), aTask().withName("A task (with date in the past)").withExpirationDate("2017-01-01") ); @Before public void setUp() throws Exception { [...] // Same as before } @Test public void roundTripsPersistentObjects() { for (TestBuilder builder : persistentObjectBuilders) { assertCanBePersisted(builder); } } private void assertCanBePersisted(TestBuilder<Task> builder) { assertReloadsWithSameStateAs(persistedObjectFrom(builder)); } private void assertReloadsWithSameStateAs(Task original) { Task savedTask = taskRepository.taskWithName(original.getName()); assertThat(savedTask, equalTo(original)); } private Task persistedObjectFrom(TestBuilder<Task> builder) { Task original = builder.build(); taskRepository.persistTask(original); return original; } }
persistedObjectFrom asks its given builder to create an entity and persists it. Then it returns that entity for later comparison.
asks its given builder to create an entity and persists it. Then it returns that entity for later comparison. assertReloadsWithSameStateAs retrieves the given entity from the database using its name and calls a matcher to check if the two copies are the same.
Round-tripping related entities
Things get complicated when there are relationships between entities. Database constraints are violated if you try to save an entity without related existing data.
To fix this you need to make sure that related data exists in the database before saving an entity for a round-trip test.
For example, let’s say you were to add Lists to your model so each Task belongs to a List.
Your Task round-trip tests will need to change to insert a dummy List before inserting tasks in the database. A good way to do that is to delegate the creation of related data to another builder. The builder of the entity under test ( Task ) will use the builder of the other entity it depends on ( List ) to persist the related data (a dummy list) before the entity under test is persisted.
You could change your tests to include a ListBuilder decorated like this:
private TestBuilder<List> persisted(final TestBuilder<List> listBuilder) { return new TestBuilder<List>() { @Override public List build() { List list = listBuilder.build(); listRepository.persistList(list); return list; } }; }
See more about round-tripping related entities in this test.
Conclusion
Persistence tests are more complicated than regular ones. They require more setup and scaffolding making them difficult to read, maintain and evolve.
But don’t let that put you off. There are two main things to remember:
Test whether the find queries return the data they are supposed to return (this will test insertions as well).
queries return the data they are supposed to return (this will test insertions as well). Test whether the data mappings convert the persistence model to the domain model correctly.
Covering those will give you a high level of confidence that your persistence logic is working correctly. You will have unit tests for the individual components, like mappers, and integration tests to make sure the whole abstraction built for persistence is working correctly.
And by following the ideas and principles described in this post, like custom matchers, your tests will stay nice and clean.
A working example can be found here.Jamie Leigh Jones
Jamie Leigh Jones was 20 years old in 2005 when KBR—then a subsidiary of Halliburton—sent her to Baghdad’s Green Zone as a clerical worker. Her contract with Halliburton/KBR provided that “any and all claims that you might have against Employer related to your employment, including your termination, and any and all personal injury claim[s] arising in the workplace … must be submitted to binding arbitration instead of to the court system.” Mandatory arbitration clauses of this sort are hardly unusual. What’s unusual is that KBR is willing to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep Jones from having a day in court.
According to Jones, just four days after she arrived in Baghdad, she joined a small group of Halliburton firefighters outside the KBR barracks. One gave her a drink. She took two sips, after which she can recall nothing. In legal filings and congressional testimony, Jones describes waking up the next morning “still affected by the drug,” and discovering “her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn‚ which would later require reconstructive surgery.”
According to Jones, a rape kit was administered at an Army-run hospital. The rape kit was then handed over to KBR, and since then bits of it have disappeared as it came into the custody of various agencies until reaching its current resting place with the U.S. Department of State. Jones also alleges that after her rape-kit procedure was performed, KBR placed her under armed guard in a shipping container for at least 24 hours and refused to let her eat, drink, or call her family. For reasons that have never been entirely clear, the Department of Justice declined to investigate. Jones eventually refused to arbitrate this case in a private forum in which Halliburton paid for the arbitrator and in which there was no right to appeal.
She sued in federal court in 2007, and in September, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision allowing Jones to press some of her claims in civil court as opposed to private arbitration. Because her assault was not connected to her employment, the court said, it was not subject to the mandatory arbitration clause she had signed.
Last week KBR/Halliburton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse this ruling. In its petition—which accuses Jones of being dishonest as well as a publicity seeker—KBR gives a whole new meaning to the politics of blaming the victim. As Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones pointed out Monday, KBR isn’t above accusing Jamie Leigh Jones of being a liar who has “has gone to great lengths to sensationalize her allegations against the KBR Defendants in the media, before the courts, and before Congress.”
Evidently KBR is still smarting from Sen. Al Franken’s amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which withholds defense contracts from companies that “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” That measure passed the Senate in December, with 30 Republicans voting against it. President Obama signed it into law.
Those same 30 male Republican senators who voted against the Franken amendment learned the hard way that it’s never smart politics to try to lock Jamie Leigh Jones in a closet. They were mystified by the blowback last fall. David Vitter of Louisiana, for example, was confronted at a town hall meeting by a devastated rape victim. (Vitter blamed President Obama and walked away). John Thune of South Dakota tried to say the Franken amendment was a “politically inspired amendment” that aimed to do away with arbitration in labor agreements. Then John Cornyn of Texas whined about how the evil Franken was “trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape—and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues.” It takes a special kind of narcissist to say a victim of gang rape isn’t suffering as much as the embarrassed senators who voted against her.
The 5th Circuit, splitting 2-1, examined KBR’s claim that Jones’ rape was “related to” her employment and conceded that other courts have been split on the issue. The panel concluded, however, that the scope of the arbitration provision at issue “certainly stops at Jones’ bedroom door.” It also ruled that if Halliburton/KBR had considered her gang rape a “distinct risk” of her employment, the company “would have immediately heeded Jones’ request to be placed in a private sleeping facility, instead of a barracks where the ratio of men to women was 20 to one.” The panel agreed with the district court that for purposes of this litigation, “Plaintiff’s bedroom should [not] be considered the workplace, even though her housing was provided by her employer.”
But having lost at the trial court, again at the appeals court and then in the Senate as the Franken amendment was signed into law, KBR/Halliburton, in its petition to the Supreme Court last week, wasted no time at all in trashing her. While advancing its legal theory that Jones’s claim is unquestionably “related to” her employment, it also promises, in a footnote, that “The KBR Defendants intend to vigorously contest Jones’s allegations and show that her claims against the KBR Defendants are factually and legally untenable.” Er, where do they plan to show all that? In the secret underground arbitration lair of KBR?
In addition to going after her truthfulness in its court pleadings, KBR has mounted a zealous public campaign to “correct the facts” about the Jones litigation—urging, for instance, that “Ms. Jones’ allegation of rape remains unsubstantiated” and that she wasn’t locked in a shipping container but rather “provided with a secure living trailer.” Apparently KBR fails to appreciate the irony of demanding that all of its counter-facts come to light despite its love for secret arbitration.
I asked Franken what he thought of KBR’s latest efforts to trash Jones in public for her refusal to be trashed by them in private. Here’s what he had to say: “You know where a great place to try arguments is? In court. But they’ve spent five years fighting against her attempts to have her day there. It seems odd that they wouldn’t want to explain their side in the courtroom, since they’re willing to in the media.”
You’d think Vitter and his buddies would have learned their lesson after their public thumping last fall, even if they didn’t quite understand how wrong they were about the Lilly Ledbetter case: When the White House and 42 Senate Republicans tried to block equal pay legislation in the wake of a crabbed Supreme Court decision, they blamed uppity women and greedy trial lawyers for pay discrimination against women. Blaming the victim isn’t a smart strategy, then or now. That’s why all four GOP women (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) voted in favor of the Franken amendment. (Five GOP men did as well.)
You can holler about trial lawyers all you want, but nobody wants to be told their legal disputes ought to be worked out in secret, off the books, and in dark rooms, just so the justice system can be preserved for other people. And nobody wants to be called out publicly as a liar before they have found a safe place to try to tell their truth. The Supreme Court may have given corporate personhood a great big shot in the arm this past week, but KBR is making a huge mistake if it assumes that actual personhood—as in Jamie Leigh Jones—doesn’t count for anything.Untitled Document
I was recently asked to review some code for a new JavaScript application and thought I might share some of the feedback I provided as it includes a mention of JavaScript fundamentals that are always useful to bear in mind.
Code reviews are possibly the single biggest thing you can do to improve the overall quality of your solutions and if you're not actively taking advantage of them, you're possibly missing out on bugs you haven't noticed being found or suggestions for improvements that could make your code better.
Challenges & Solutions
Code reviews go hand-in-hand with maintaining strong coding standards. That said, standards don't usually prevent logical errors or misunderstandings about the quirks of a programming language. Even the most experienced developers can make these kinds of mistakes and code reviews can greatly assist with catching them.
Often the most challenging part of code reviews is actually finding an experienced developer you trust to complete the review and of course, learning to take on-board criticism of your code.
The first reaction most of us have to criticism is to defend ourselves (or in this case, our code) and possibly lash back. While criticism can be slightly demoralizing, think of it as a learning experience that can spur us to do better and improve ourselves because in many cases, once we've calmed down, it actually does.
It can also be useful to remember that no one is compelled to provide feedback on your work and that if the comments are in fact constructive, you should be grateful for the time spent on the input (regardless of whether you choose to use it or not).
Review Sources For JavaScript Developers
JSMentors is a mailing list that discusses everything to do with JavaScript (including Harmony) but also has a number of experienced developers on their review panel (including JD Dalton, Angus Croll and Nicholas Zakas). These mentors might not always be readily available, but they do their best to provide useful, constructive feedback on code that's been submitted for review.
Code Review Beta - you would be forgiven for confusing Code Review with StackOverflow, but it's actually a very useful, broad-spectrum subjective feedback tool for requesting peer reviews of code you've written. Whilst on StackOverflow you might ask the question 'why isn't my code working?', CR is more suited to questions like 'why is my code so ugly?'. If there's still any doubt at all about what it offers, I strongly recommend checking out their FAQs.
Twitter - it may seem like an odd suggestion, but at least half of the code review requests that I submit are through social networks. This of course works best when your code is open-source, however it never hurts to try. The only thing I would suggest here is to ensure you're following or interacting with experienced developers - a code review completed by a developer with insufficient experience can sometimes be worse than no code review at all, so be careful!.
The Code Review
On to the review - a reader asked me to go through their code and provide them with some suggestions on how they might improve it. Whilst I'm certainly not an expert on code reviews, I believe that reviews should both point out the shortfalls of an implementation but also offer possible solutions and suggestions for further reading material that might be of assistance.
Here are the problems and solutions I proposed for the reader's code:
Problem: Functions and objects are passed as parameters to other functions without any type validation
Feedback: For functions, at minimum 1) test to ensure the parameter passed actually exists and 2) do a typeof check to avoid issues with the app attempting to execute input which may not in fact be a valid function at all.
if (callback && typeof callback === "function"){ /*rest of your logic*/ }else{ /*not a valid function*/ }
As Angus Croll however points out in more detail on his blog, there are a number of issues with typeof checking that you may need to be aware of if using them for anything other than functions.
For example: typeof null returns "object" which is incorrect. In fact, when typeof is applied to any object type which isn't a Function it returns "object" not distinguishing between Array, Date, RegExp or otherwise.
The solution to this is using Object.prototype.toString to call the underlying internal property of JavaScript objects known as [[Class]], the class property of the object. Unfortunately, specialized built-in objects generally overwrite Object.prototype.toString but as demonstrated in my objectClone entry for @140bytes you can force the generic toString function on them:
Object.prototype.toString.call([1,2,3]); //"[object Array]"
You may also find Angus's toType function useful:
var toType = function(obj) { return ({}).toString.call(obj).match(/\s([a-zA-Z]+)/)[1].toLowerCase() }
Problem: There are a number of cases where checks for app specific conditions are repeatedly being made throughout the codebase (eg. feature detection, checks for supported ES5 features).
Feedback: You might benefit from applying the load-time configuration pattern here (also called load-time or init-time branching). The basic idea behind it is that you test a condition only once (when the application loads) and then access the result of that initial test for all future checks.This pattern is commonly found in JavaScript libraries which configure themselves at load time to be optimized for a particular browser.
This pattern could be implemented as follows:
var tools = { addMethod: null, removeMethod: null }; if(/* condition for native support*/){ tools.addMethod = function(/*params*/){ /*method logic*/ } }else{ /*fallback*/ tools.addMethod = function(/**/){ /*method logic*/ } }
The example below demonstrates how this can be used to normalize getting an XMLHttpRequest object.
var utils = { getXHR: null }; if(window.XMLHttpRequest){ utils.getXHR = function(){ return new XMLHttpRequest; } }else if(window.ActiveXObject){ utils.getXHR = function(){ /*this has been simplified for example sakes*/ return new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP'); } }
Stoyan Stefanov also has a great example of applying this to attaching and removing event listeners cross-browser in his book 'JavaScript Patterns':
var utils = { addListener: null, removeListener: null }; // the implementation if (typeof window.addEventListener === 'function') { utils.addListener = function (el, type, fn) { el.addEventListener(type, fn, false); }; utils.removeListener = function (el, type, fn) { el.removeEventListener(type, fn, false); }; } else if (typeof document.attachEvent === 'function') { // IE utils.addListener = function (el, type, fn) { el.attachEvent('on' + type, fn); }; utils.removeListener = function (el, type, fn) { el.detachEvent('on' + type, fn); }; } else { // older browsers utils.addListener = function (el, type, fn) { el['on' + type] = fn; }; utils.removeListener = function (el, type, fn) { el['on' + type] = null; }; }
Problem: Object.prototype is being extended in many cases.
Feedback: Extending native objects is a bad idea - there are few if any majorly used codebases which extend Object.prototype and there's unlikely a situation where you absolutely need to extend it in this way. In addition to breaking the object-as-hash tables in JS and increasing the chance of naming collisions, it's generally considered bad practice and should be modified as a very last resort (this is quite different to extending host objects).
If for some reason you *do* end up extending the object prototype, ensure that the method doesn't already exist and document it so that the rest of the team are aware why it's necessary. The following code sample may be used as a guide:
if(typeof Object.prototype.myMethod!= 'function'){ Object.prototype.myMethod = function(){ //implem }; }
@kangax has a great post that discusses native & host object extension which may be of interest.
Problem: Some of what you're doing is heavily blocking the page as you're either waiting on processes to complete or data to load before executing anything further.
Feedback: You may benefit from using Deferred execution (via promises and futures) to avoid this problem. The basic idea with promises are that rather than issuing blocking calls for resources, you immediately return a promise for a future value that will be eventually be fulfilled. This rather easily allows you to write non-blocking logic which can be run asynchronously. It's common to introduce callbacks into this equation so that the callbacks may be executed once the request completes.
I've written a relatively comprehensive post on this previously with Julian Aubourg if interested in doing this through jQuery, but it can of course be implemented with vanilla JavaScript as well.
Micro-framework Q offers a CommonJS compatible implementation of promises/futures that is relatively comprehensive and can be used as follows:
/*define a promise-only delay function that resolves when a timeout completes*/ function delay(ms) { var deferred = Q.defer(); setTimeout(deferred.resolve, ms); return deferred.promise; } /*usage of Q with the 'when' pattern to execute a callback once delay fulfils the promise*/ Q.when(delay(500), function () { /*do stuff in the callback*/ });
If you're looking for something more basic that can be read through, Douglas Crockford's implementation of promises can be found below:
function make_promise() { var status = 'unresolved', outcome, waiting = [], dreading = []; function vouch(deed, func) { switch (status) { case 'unresolved': (deed === 'fulfilled'? waiting : dreading).push(func); break; case deed: func(outcome); break; } }; function resolve(deed, value) { if (status!== 'unresolved') { throw new Error('The promise has already been resolved:' + status); } status = deed; outcome = value; (deed == 'fulfilled'? waiting : dreading).forEach(function (func) { try { func(outcome); } catch (ignore) {} }); waiting = null; dreading = null; }; return { when: function (func) { vouch('fulfilled', func); }, fail: function (func) { vouch('smashed', func); }, fulfill: function (value) { resolve('fulfilled', value); }, smash: function (string) { resolve('smashed', string); }, status: function () { return status; } }; };
Problem:You're testing for explicit numeric equality of a property using the == operator, but may wish to use === in this case instead
Feedback: As you may or may not know, the identity (==) operator compares for equality after performing any necessary type conversions. The === operator will however not do this conversion so if the two values being compared are not the same type === will just return false.
The reason I recommend considering === for more specific type comparison (in this case) is that == is known to have a number of gotchas. Take for example the following set of boolean checks for equality with it:
3 == "3" // true 3 == "03" // true 3 == "0003" // true 3 == "+3" //true 3 == [3] //true 3 == (true+2) //true'\t\r
' == 0 //true
If you're 100% certain that the values being compared cannot be interfered with by the user, feel free to opt for ==, however === would cover your bases in the event of unexpected input being used.
Problem: An uncached array.length is being used in all for loops. This is particularly bad as you're using it when iterating through 'HTMLCollection's
for(var i=0; i< myArray.length;i++){ /*do stuff*/ }
Feedback: This isn't a great idea as the the array length is unnecessarily re-accessed on each loop iteration. This can be slow, especially if working with HTMLCollections. With the latter, caching the length can be anywhere up to 190 times faster than repeatedly accessing it (as per Zakas' High-performance JavaScript). See below for some options you have for caching the array length.
var len = myArray.length; for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) { } /*cached inside loop*/ for (var i = 0, len = myArray.length; i < len; i++) { } /*cached outside loop using while*/ var len = myArray.length; while (len--) { }
A jsPerf test comparing the performance benefits of caching the array length inside and outside the loop, using prefix increments, counting down and more is also available.
Problem: Variables are declared all over the place
/*example*/ var someData = "testing"; someMethod.apply(someData); var otherData = "data1", moreData = "data2"; moreMethods.call(otherMethods());
Feedback: Within functions, it's significantly more clean to use the single-var pattern to declare variables at the top of a function's scope because of variable hoisting.
var someData = "testing", otherData = "data1", moreData = "data2"; someMethod.apply(someData); moreMethods.call(otherMethods());
This provides a single place to look for all variables, prevents logical errors with a variable being used prior to being defined and is generally less code. I also noticed variables being declared without an initial value. Whilst this is fine, note that initializing variables with a value can help prevent logical errors because uninitialized vars are initialised with a value of undefined.
Problem: I noticed that jQuery's $.each() is being used to iterate over objects and arrays in some cases whilst for is used in others.
Feedback: Whilst the lower level $.each performs better than $.fn.each(), both standard JavaScript for and while loops perform much better as proven by this jsPerf test. Some examples of loop alternatives that perform better can be found below:
/*jQuery $.each*/ $.each(a, function() { e = $(this); }); /*classic for loop*/ var len = a.length; for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) { e = $(a[i]); }; /*classic while loop*/ var i = a.length; while (i--) { e = $(a[i]); }
Given that this is a data-centric application with a potentially large quantity of data in each object or array, it is recommended considering a refactor to use one of these.
Problem: There are a number of aspects to the application which you may wish to make more easily configurable.
Feedback: At the moment such settings as stored in disparate var declarations, but using the configuration object pattern may provide a cleaner way changing configurations later on. This is easier to read, maintain and extend, however you do need to remember there is a chance property names won't be minified.
var config = { dataSource:'myDataSource.json', debugMode: false, langs: ['en','fr','de'] };
Problem: JSON strings are being built in-memory using string concatenation.
Feedback: Rather than opting to do this, why not use JSON.stringify() - a method that accepts a JavaScript object and returns its JSON equivalent. Objects can generally be as complex or as deeply-nested as you wish and this will almost certainly result in a simpler, shorter solution.
var myData = {}; myData.dataA = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']; myData.dataB = { 'animal': 'cat', 'color': 'brown' }; myData.dataC = {'vehicles': [{ 'type': 'ford', 'tint':'silver', 'year': '2015' }, { 'type': 'honda', 'tint': 'black', 'year': '2012' }] }; myData.dataD = { 'buildings': [{ 'houses': [{'streetName':'sycamore close', 'number': '252' }, {'streetName':'slimdon close', 'number': '101' }] }] }; console.log(myData); //object var jsonData = JSON.stringify(myData); console.log(jsonData); /* {"dataA":["a","b","c","d"],"dataB":{"animal":"cat","color":"brown"},"dataC":{"vehicles":[{"type":"ford","tint":"silver","year":"2015"},{"type":"honda","tint":"black","year":"2012"}]},"dataD":{"buildings":[{"houses":[{"streetName":"sycamore close","number":"252"},{"streetName":"slimdon close","number":"101"}]}]}} */
Problem: The namespacing pattern used is technically invalid
Feedback: although namespacing across the rest of the application is implemented correctly, the initial check for namespace existence used is invalid. Here's what you have currently have:
if (!MyNamespace) { MyNamespace = { }; }
The issue here is that!MyNamespace will throw a ReferenceError because the MyNamespace variable was never declared. A better pattern might take advantage of boolean conversion with an inner variable declaration as follows:
if (!MyNamespace) { var MyNamespace = { }; } //or if (typeof MyNamespace == 'undefined') { var MyNamespace = { }; }
@kangax also has a very comprehensive post on namespacing patterns related to this (recommended reading).
And that's it!. If enough readers find this useful I might post more code reviews in future. Until next time, good luck with your own projects and reviews.Canada's Armenian community has launched a campaign to convince the Trudeau government to cancel export permits for the sale of Canadian-made armoured personnel carriers to Azerbaijan.
The campaign started after Radio Canada International and CBC reported in July that Toronto-based manufacturer INKAS Armored Vehicle Manufacturing signed a deal with Azerbaijan's Interior Ministry to supply the country with the vehicles.
A few vehicles have already been delivered to the oil-rich former Soviet republic, according to Roman Shimonov, vice-president of marketing and business development at INKAS.
The privately owned INKAS has also set up a joint venture with an Azerbaijani firm to produce the armoured vehicles in Azerbaijan, which has been embroiled in a simmering armed conflict with neighbouring Armenia since the breakup of the Soviet Union
Chahé Tanachian, the Montreal-based president of the Canadian-Armenian Political Affairs Committee, the lobbying arm of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), one of the oldest and largest Armenian diaspora organizations, sent a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to express the community's concerns.
"Canadians of Armenian descent and human rights activists throughout the country are dismayed by Global Affairs Canada's recent approval of the export of Canadian-made armoured personnel carriers (produced by INKAS Armored Vehicle Manufacturing) to Azerbaijan," Tanachian wrote.
"The decision to furnish arms to a country which regularly threatens peace in the region is one that violates all the principles that we as Canadians stand for, and which Global Affairs Canada seeks to promote in the world."
The controversy comes as the Liberal government continues to face an outcry over the sale of $15 billion worth of light armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia.
Sevag Belian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC), said the news of the exports of armoured personnel carriers to Azerbaijan created "great outrage" in the community.
"We reached out to the concerned governmental departments and agencies, namely Global Affairs Canada," Belian said in an interview with Radio Canada International.
The ANCC has also reached out to more than 50 members of Parliament, asking them to relay the message that the entire Armenian-Canadian community "is absolutely appalled," Belian said.
The ANCC has launched a mass email campaign, targeting the Liberal government with over 1,200 emails and letters, and requesting a meeting with top government officials to discuss the issue, Belian said.
Adam Austen, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland's spokesperson, said parliamentary secretary Matt DeCourcey will be meeting with the representatives of the Armenian community at the earliest possible convenience.
"Armenia is a close friend and ally of Canada," Austen said. "We have strong people-to-people ties and an economic relationship that benefits both countries. We are proud to work closely with the Armenian community in Canada as well as the Armenian government."
Azerbaijan rejects 'hysteria'
Azerbaijan's envoy in Canada dismissed the campaign as "hysteria."
"The illegal presence of Armenian armed forces in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan remains a main cause for the escalation of the situation and continues to pose a threat to regional peace and stability," Azerbaijan's chargé d'affaires in Ottawa, Ramil Huseynli, said in a written statement. "In contrast, the acquisition of armoured personnel carriers from a Canadian company does not pose such a threat, as these vehicles are intended only for law enforcement and civilian transport."
Co-operation between the Canadian company and its Azerbaijani counterpart creates jobs for Canadians, the envoy said.
"In this light, the hysteria of the Armenian community, who should put Canadian interests above the rest, is unintelligible," said Huseynli.
Shown is an interior view of the armoured vehicle made by INKAS. (Levon Sevunts/Radio Canada International)
Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized Azerbaijan's human rights record and accused it of a "thorough crackdown on dissenting voices," as well as persistent reports of torture and other ill-treatment perpetrated by its law enforcement agencies.
In November 2015, Azerbaijani police used Israeli-made armoured personnel carriers similar to those produced by INKAS in a controversial security operation that resulted in the death of six people and dozens of arrests in the town of Nardaran, about 30 kilometres northeast of the capital Baku.
In a statement sent to Radio Canada International earlier, Global Affairs officials said Canada is "concerned with the recurring crackdown on fundamental freedoms in Azerbaijan, particularly with respect to journalists and human rights defenders in the country."3 George’s Star Uranus was originally called George’s Star
When Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he was given the honor of naming it. He chose to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) after his new patron, King George III (Mad King George). This is what he said:
In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, ‘In the reign of King George the Third.’Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered with the use of a telescope..video-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; padding-top: 30px; height: 0; overflow: hidden; }.video-container iframe,.video-container object,.video-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; }
One major problem for Oklahoma last season was its inability to stretch the field at wide receiver. This became readily apparent following the groin injury to Sterling Shepard during the final month of the season.
The Sooners had no answer, and their passing game suffered with mixed results at best as OU couldn’t find a rhythm.
The spring was a breath of fresh air for OU in that regard as young names have stepped up, but still, the one everybody is talking about is junior college transfer Dede Westbrook.
Westbrook quickly grew a bond with Shepard during his official visit last November, and even though Jay Norvell is gone, Westbrook has never doubted being a Sooner.
Fast forward to summer, and Westbrook continues to do all the right things that made him such a talked about name in the spring. Day after day, reports would surface about Westbrook making some amazing play that has the players talking.
“He gives us that dynamic threat we haven’t had here lately,” Shepard said. “Defenses are going to have to pick. They can’t double me and double him. It’s going to open it up for a lot of balls for both of us.”
Westbrook should make a difference in the passing game, especially with his ability to go deep and stretch the field with his speed. But another part to watch is going to be in the return game where Westbrook could be the guy to replace Shepard at punt returner.
A lot of the optimism for OU fans regarding the 2015 season is because it features so much experience and guys who don’t want to suffer through another 2014 disappointment. And then there are additions like Westbrook, one recruit where it’s obvious the Sooners have done something right in getting him to Norman.The Boston Celtics almost never had a chance to hire head coach Brad Stevens because he was heavily recruited a couple of months earlier by the Phoenix Suns.
While Doc Rivers was still technically the coach of the Celtics, the Suns made a run at Stevens to try luring him away from his previous job at Butler University. During an appearance on The Vertical Podcast with Adrian Wojnarowski, Suns general manager Ryan McDonough provided some details about his chase of Stevens and said the discussions advanced far enough to include a visit at the coach's house.
McDonough and the Suns owner, Robert Sarver, both made the trip to Carmel, Ind., to meet with Stevens and his wife Tracy.
"So yeah, we were at his kitchen table," McDonough explained on the podcast. "We were meeting with him about potentially coaching the Suns. Ultimately he decided at that time to stay at Butler, and then a month or two later he chose to go to the Celtics. But as far as how close it was or what his decision-making process was, you'd have to ask him about that. But we were sitting around his kitchen table discussing him potentially coaching the Suns in May of 2013."
Two months later, Rivers had departed to lead the Los Angeles Clippers and the Celtics issued a press release announcing Stevens would be the replacement. Phoenix hired Jeff Hornacek, who enjoyed a great first season before the rest of his tenure with the team grew rocky. He was fired before the All-Star break this season and later given another opportunity with the New York Knicks.
In another interesting layer to the story, McDonough actually worked in the Celtics front office for a decade under team president of basketball operations Danny Ainge before joining the Suns in 2013. The two basketball minds clearly shared a deep respect for Stevens and both recruited the same man.
"We thought we had a chance," McDonough said.
But the Suns couldn't quite close the deal and the Celtics later benefitted.President Trump attempted to rally support for Republican Ed Gillespie ahead of next month's governor's election in Virginia, saying the candidate is "strong on crime" and wouldn't remove Confederate statues and monuments.
"Ed Gillespie will turn the really bad Virginia economy #'s around, and fast. Strong on crime, he might even save our great statues/heritage!" Trump said.
Ed Gillespie will turn the really bad Virginia economy #'s around, and fast. Strong on crime, he might even save our great statues/heritage! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 26, 2017
The president appeared to be referencing efforts to take down Confederate statues. Debate over whether such statues should be removed from public places escalated after white nationalist groups clashed with counter protesters in Charlottesville, Va., in August.
The white nationalists had gathered in the Virginia city to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Gillespie is facing off against Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in the Virginia gubernatorial race.
A poll from the Hampton University Center for Public Policy released Wednesday showed Gillespie leading Northam by eight percentage points.
The poll is only the second showing Gillespie with the lead. A poll from Monmouth University published earlier this month had Gillespie leading by one point.
"Ed Gillespie will be a great Governor of Virginia. His opponent doesn't even show up to meetings/work, and will be VERY weak on crime!" Trump added.
Northram shot back with a jab |
We won’t back down. This election is too important, & he won’t step foot in White House,” Warren tweeted earlier this month, continuing:
Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) We get it, @realDonaldTrump: When a woman stands up to you, you’re going to call her a basket case. Hormonal. Ugly.
Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) Do you think you're going to shut us up, @realDonaldTrump? Think again. It's time to answer for your dangerous ideas.
In reply, Trump has decorated Warren with one of the one-word epithets he has used to attempt to marginalize other opponents, such as “Lyin’” Ted Cruz, “Little” Marco Rubio and “Crooked” Hillary Clinton. In Warren’s case, the epithet is “goofy”.
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Goofy Elizabeth Warren is now using the woman’s card like her friend crooked Hillary. See her dumb tweet “when a woman stands up to you…”
Warren’s style of attack on Trump is notable as well for its use of Trump-style blunt speech – “loser”, “pathetic”, “dangerous”, “reckless”, “embarrassing” – in a way that does not descend into vulgarity, as Rubio did in an attack late in his campaign that suggested Trump had wet himself at a debate.
Warren’s first significant attack against Trump, back in March, after he had clearly emerged as the Republican frontrunner, was typical. “Donald Trump knows he’s a loser,” she began. “His insecurities are on parade: petty bullying, attacks on women, cheap racism, flagrant narcissism.”
Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) Many of history’s worst authoritarians started out as losers – and @realDonaldTrump is a serious threat.
There are good reasons to suspect that Warren may not be in the running for a vice-presidential nod from Clinton, the likely nominee.
Warren has said that Clinton coddled big banks after taking campaign donations from them, a criticism picked up by Sanders. The two women are said not to have great chemistry, though Clinton has sought Warren out to consult with her. Warren remains the only female Democrat in the Senate not to have endorsed Clinton (in March she said: “I’m still cheering Bernie on.”) A Warren pick for Clinton would not square with the conventional wisdom that candidates ought to cater, in selecting their running mates, to general-election independents, instead of the party base.
But as one of the most effective voices to have emerged against Trump, one who can match his defiance and indignation without slipping into coarseness, Warren has elevated her name in this election cycle alongside the candidates themselves – and her biggest role may be yet to come.OPPOSITION Leader Lawrence Springborg has refused to rebuke one of his MPs, after he questioned whether Australian politicians were “guilty of muspandering”.
Cleveland MP Mark Robinson took to Twitter to declare that any “call for Tony Abbott to be silent is an attack on free speech”, after the former PM aired his views on radicalisation.
The LNP MP tweeted: “Are Aussie pollies guilty of #muspandering (pandering to Muslims) as US pollies are of #hispandering (pandering to Hispanic people).”
In a statement, Mr Springborg warned against playing into the hands of extremists with commentary.
Are Aussie pollies guilty of #muspandering (pandering to Muslims) as US pollies are of #hispandering (pandering to Hispanic people) #auspol — Mark Robinson MP (@MarkRobinsonMP) December 11, 2015
“I have no problem with public debate and he’s entitled to his opinion,” he said.
media_camera Cleveland MP Mark Robinson
“But I echo the words of the Prime Minister in saying we have to be careful not to play into the hands of our enemies and tag all with the crimes of a few.”
TONY ABBOTT: The relgion of Islam must reform
Education Minister Kate Jones called on Mr Springborg to consider disendorsing Mr Robinson over the “inflammatory” tweets.
“It’s about time Mr Springborg showed some leadership and disendorsed someone who is clearly not suitable for office,” she said."Tell Mike it was only business," Sal mutters to consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) as he's led away.
The great success of the film and "The Godfather Part II" made his face and voice, if not his name, recognizable to the general public and led to numerous roles, often as hoodlums.
But it was his comic turn in "Barney Miller," which starred Hal Linden and ran from 1975 to 1982, that brought Vigoda's greatest recognition.
He liked to tell the story of how he won the role of Detective Fish. An exercise enthusiast, Vigoda had just returned from a five-mile jog when his agent called and told him to report immediately to the office of Danny Arnold, who was producing a pilot for a police station comedy.
Arnold remarked that Vigoda looked tired, and the actor explained about his jog. "You know, you look like you might have hemorrhoids," Arnold said. "What are you — a doctor or a producer?" Vigoda asked. He was cast on the spot.
"The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows," a reference book, commented that Vigoda was the hit of "Barney Miller." ''Not only did he look incredible, he sounded and acted like every breath might be his last," it said. "Fish was always on the verge of retirement, and his worst day was when the station house toilet broke down."
Vigoda remained a regular on "Barney Miller" until 1977 when he took the character to his own series, "Fish." The storyline dealt with the detective's domestic life and his relations with five street kids that he and his wife took into their home.What is MyRide?
MyRide is a reloadable fare card. The smart card technology inside this cool little card deducts your fare each time you ride. You simply tap the card on a smart card validator to pay your fare and off you go. You don't have to worry about carrying cash or exact change.
Load, Tap & Go!
Load up to $200 cash! When your balance gets low, simply reload value online, in person at select King Soopers and Safeway stores, or at an RTD Sales Outlet.
up to $200 cash! When your balance gets low, simply reload value online, in person at select King Soopers and Safeway stores, or at an RTD Sales Outlet. Tap your card to pay your fare and save up to $0.20 off the cash fare each time you tap
your card to pay your fare and save up to $0.20 off the cash fare each time you tap Go online to manage your account. You can order more cards, add value, view transaction history, and more!
MyRide is valid on all regular bus, FlexRide, SkyRide, and train services. It is not valid on Access-a-Ride, and RTD special services routes, including but not limited to BroncosRide, RunRide and SeniorRide. Another form of fare payment is required to ride these services. Monthly and day passes are not yet available with the MyRide program.
MyRide Online AccountAbout
“Classified: The Edward Snowden Story” is a biopic that will tell the story of Edward Snowden starting from the time he enlisted in the US army. In this 2 hour feature, we will explore the events leading up to the release of classified information on the National Security Agency’s various surveillance programs.
Please Note: We have now switched from our own website www.snowden.sx to kickstarter for our crowdfunding campaign. The URL: www.snowden.sx will now redirect you to our new Kickstarter campaign. The $87,700 raised on our website and the $746,050 raised on bitcoin and via product placement have been deducted from our $1,700,000 goal, as a result the Kickstarter campaign goal is now $866,250.00
Filming will begin January 2014 in Vancouver BC.
During production the entire budget will be made public and available for all to see at: www.snowden.sx
This film will be distributed under the Creative Commons license which allows for anyone to share it freely, whether that be on youtube, vimeo, or via a torrent. When we reach our goal you have already paid for your ticket to “Classified: The Edward Snowden Story” and it will be available for free via The Pirate Bay on September 19 2014, which for those of you who don’t know is international talk like a pirate day.
Over the last decade, Jason has written and directed a wide variety of TV movies, series and documentaries, as well as over 60 commercials, short films and music videos. His resume includes the internationally renowned documentary "Shadow Company" narrated by Gerard Butler and over a dozen Syfy movies.
He is best known for his work as a producer on the pilot for the controversial television series “Hacked”, a half hour reality series which takes you inside the mind of a computer hacker. In addition to producing, Doering has served as a hacking consultant on the Canadian science fiction series “Continuum”, and before that on the bond film “Skyfall”. In 2012 it was revealed by The Vancouver Observer that after cutting ties with Hacker group Anonymous, Doering had served as a penetration tester for multiple Canadian companies. Before producing, Doering worked in the casting department on many film and television projects.
We have a fantastic script that was written by a very well-known writer that our producer has worked with in the past. At this time the writer wishes to remain anonymous. The script is now being revised by various consultants, some of which are currently employed by the US government and others have personal ties to Snowden himself.
At this point we have only cast 3 main roles, as we near production updates on the entire cast will be available at: www.snowden.sx
Please Note: This is a preliminary cast which is still in negotiations and is subject to change.
Edward Snowden | Kevin Zegers
Glenn Greenwald | Michael Shanks
Laura Poitras | Carmen Aguirre
Tweet it, like it on Facebook, embed it on Facebook, embed it on your blog, or promote it any way you can think of.
Classified: The Edward Snowden Story has been featured on:
You can reach us via e-mail at: info@snowden.sx. We will do our very best to respond to every message that we receive. If you would like to secure your message, here is our public PGP Key.
Thank you,
Travis Doering & Jason BourqueMitt Romney has provided reporters with plenty of damning clips of past flip-flops — declaring himself “pro-choice”, calling blind trusts a “ruse”, labeling himself a “progressive”, just to name a few — and his newly-minted running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), seems set to emulate him. More specifically, like Romney, Ryan has done a complete flip on Keynesian economics. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes aired the evidence yesterday:
As Jonathan Chait points out, Ryan also made keynesian arguments in favor of the 2001 Bush tax cuts. Add these bits together with his vote for an alternate GOP stimulus package — which was less than 10 percent smaller than Obama’s stimulus and included increased infrastructure spending — and his pursuit of funds from Obama’s stimulus for his district, and Ryan’s claim to being intractably, ideologically opposed to Keynesian stimulus looks paper-thin at best.
As mentioned at the top, Ryan is only copying Mitt Romney’s flip-flop on the issue. Remember this slip-up?
Mitt Romney said Tuesday that cutting spending slows growth in the economy — a rhetorical slip more akin to an argument a Democrat might make than a Republican.
Speaking in Shelby Township, MI, the former Massachusetts governor took a question about the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission empaneled by President Obama to address the nation’s deficit and debt issues. In his response, he said that addressing taxes and spending issues are essential.
“If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy,” he said in part of his response. “So you have to, at the same time, create pro-growth tax policies.”
In nominating Ryan, we’re told, Romney has injected a clash of ideologies into the race. We’re told that 2012 is now a grand contest between two competing visions of the role of government. But the truth is that on economics, when Romney, Ryan and indeed Republican leaders past and present have had to stop speechifying and start fostering economic growth, they fall back on “big government,” deficit-running Keynesianism because history shows it works. There are many issues on which the two parties differ significantly — health care, for example, and global warming — but as Ryan’s flip-flop shows, no matter which party wins, Keynesian economics will be alive and well at the end of 2012.Sources are telling CNN that a suspect in the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens and 3 others has been captured in Libya.
A man suspected of involvement in the September attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi is being held in Libya, according to two sources who have spoken with CNN.
Both sources confirmed the man's name as Faraj al-Shibli (also spelled Chalabi). One of the sources, who has been briefed on the arrest by Western intelligence officials, said al-Shibli was detained within the past two days and had recently returned from a trip to Pakistan.
A Libyan source also confirmed that al-Shibli was in custody in the north African nation. The FBI was given direct access to him, and it interviewed him recently in the presence of Libyan authorities, according to the Libyan source.
The Libyan government allowed one or more members of the U.S. law enforcement agency to question the man -- something that is not necessarily done when a person is detained in a foreign country -- around the time on Wednesday when its prime minister, Ali Zeidan, met with U.S. President Barack Obama.
The United States has been pressing Libyan authorities on the Benghazi investigation, with FBI Director Robert Mueller traveling to Tripoli in January for talks on the case.
It is unclear exactly what al-Shibli's role might have been or whether he was present at the U.S. compound at the time of the attack. It's also unclear whether his detention is likely to lead to charges in connection with the assault on the compound, which resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican and a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday that "we think there are more than a dozen people involved in this."
"The idea that potentially we have somebody... it's obviously positive news," Chaffetz told CNN. "... This is the most positive development I've seen in the past six months."VR backpacks are officially a thing.
HP, MSI and Zotac all announced VR backpacks, which are basically just battery-powered gaming laptops, with shoulder straps this year. And at IFA 2016, I finally got to try one for myself from XMG.
The difference with the German computer maker's "Walker VR Backpack" is that it's the first one that's actually shipping this year. Everyone else's VR backpacks are still concepts with no concrete pricing or launch dates.
The first thing I noticed before putting the Walker on was how dorky it looked. As if wearing the HTC Vive and holding two wand-like controllers in my hands wasn't silly looking, wearing a VR backpack, which at best is still a mess of dangling wires, makes you look like a "geeky version of RoboCop" according to my colleague, Stan Schroeder.
Image: michael rathmayr/mashable
Once worn, though, I was shocked at how light the entire thing felt. At around seven pounds, I was still able to comfortably walk around in my little booth box as I played Space Pirate Trainer, a VR game for the HTC Vive where you're shooting robotic orbs and dodging laser fire.
The VR backpack is powered by an Intel Core i7-6700 HQ process, NVIDIA GTX 1070 graphics, up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and has room for two solid-state drives. It can beam what's happening to a monitor wirelessly and has several ports including an HDMI, DisplayPort, 6 USB ports and an ethernet port.
The biggest hurdle XMG needed to overcome was power management. The Walker uses two huge block batteries, which are good for up to 60 minutes of continuous VR time. It's not very long, but at least you can swap them out for freshly charged ones.
Image: michael rathmayr/mashable
I still think VR backpacks are too over-the-top, but I like being able to have room-scale VR experiences with the Vive without needing to worry about tripping over a huge cable coming out of the headset.
The XMG Walker's not the most elegant VR backpack (HTC's Omen X looks much cleaner), but it's a decent start for VR enthusiasts who want a high-end VR experience on the go. (Not that anyone should be playing games like Space Pirate Trainers in public, anyway.)
The big kicker is its price: 4,799 Euro, which comes out to around $5,353. That's the price without any VR headsets. Yikes.Haditha killings A picture taken at the scene of the Haditha incident shows several dead Iraqi civilians who were killed by U.S. Marines. Location Haditha, Al Anbar Province, Iraq Coordinates Date November 19, 2005 ( ) Attack type Raids against a vehicle and several nearby houses in response to an IED attack against U.S. Marines Deaths 24 Iraqi civilians Perpetrators Squad from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion 1st Regiment, 1st Marine Division
The Haditha killings (also called the Haditha massacre or the Haditha incident) were a series of killings on November 19, 2005, in which a group of United States Marines murdered 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians.[1][2] The killings occurred in Haditha, a city in Iraq's western province of Al Anbar. Among the dead were men, women, children and elderly people, who were shot multiple times at close range while unarmed. It was alleged that the killings were a retribution for the attack on a convoy of Marines with an improvised explosive device that killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas.
An initial Marine Corps communique reported that 15 civilians were killed by the bomb's blast and eight insurgents were subsequently killed when the Marines returned fire against those attacking the convoy. However, other evidence uncovered by the media contradicted the Marines' account.[1] A Time magazine reporter's questions prompted the United States military to open an investigation into the incident. The investigation found evidence that "supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians", according to an anonymous Pentagon official.[3] Three officers were officially reprimanded for failing to properly initially report and investigate the killings. On December 21, 2006, eight Marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines were charged in connection with the incident.[4][5]
By June 17, 2008, six defendants had their cases dropped and a seventh found not guilty.[6] The exception was former Staff Sergeant, now-Private Frank Wuterich. On October 3, 2007, the Article 32 hearing investigating officer recommended that Wuterich be tried for negligent homicide in the deaths of two women and five children, and that charges of murder be dropped.[7] Further charges of assault and manslaughter were ultimately dropped, and Wuterich was convicted of a single count of negligent dereliction of duty on January 24, 2012.[8][9] Wuterich received a rank reduction and pay cut but avoided jail time.[10][11] Iraqis expressed disbelief and voiced outrage after the six-year US military prosecution ended with none of the Marines sentenced to incarceration. A lawyer for the victims said, "This is an assault on humanity"; he, as well as the Iraqi government, said they might bring the case to international courts.[12]
Events [ edit ]
Background [ edit ]
Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. military forces had been stationed in and around Haditha to control the Haditha Dam, a major hydroelectric installation. The area had seen several clashes between U.S. forces and insurgent groups since the beginning of the Iraq War, with many fatalities on both sides.[13][14][15]
A contemporary Time magazine poll reported that 85% of Iraq's Sunnis opposed coalition forces, as compared to 65% of Iraqis overall.[16] Conditions in Haditha itself were known to have been deteriorating under militant rule, and attacks on U.S. troops as well as executions of suspected informants were common.[17]
Roadside bombing [ edit ]
On November 19, 2005, an improvised explosive device (IED), composed of 155mm artillery shells and explosive-filled propane tanks, was placed along their route some time before 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1) arrived in Haditha. The IED targeted a squad from 3/1 Kilo Company, 3rd Platoon, which was on a resupply convoy. Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas was killed instantly at 7:15 AM. Terrazas was driving the Humvee when it was hit by the bomb. Lance Corporal James Crossan was in the passenger seat and was thrown out of the vehicle and trapped under the rear passenger tire. The Humvee was bisected by the explosion. Private First Class Salvador Guzman was in the back of the vehicle conducting security for the convoy and was thrown from the Humvee. Both Crossan and Guzman were taken to a landing zone to be evacuated for medical attention. Crossan was medically discharged from the United States Marine Corps, due to the wounds he received that day. Guzman returned to active duty after healing and went on a 2nd deployment with 3/1 to Iraq in April 2007.
Killings and immediate aftermath [ edit ]
Deaths and injuries of Iraqis in Haditha House #1—7 killed, 2 injured (but survived), 2 escaped 1. Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali, 76—grandfather, father and husband. Died with nine rounds in the chest and abdomen. 2. Khamisa Tuma Ali, 66—wife of Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali 3. Rashid Abdul Hamid, 30. 4. Walid Abdul Hamid Hassan, 35. 5. Jahid Abdul Hamid Hassan, middle-aged man. 6. Asma Salman Rasif, 32. 7. Abdullah Walid, 4. Injured: Iman, 8, and Abdul Rahman, 5. Escaped: Daughter-in-law, Hiba, escaped with 2-month-old Asia House #2—8 killed, 1 survivor: Shot at close range and attacked with grenades 8. Younis Salim Khafif, 43—husband of Aida Yasin Ahmed, father. 9. Aida Yasin Ahmed, 41—wife of Younis Salim Khafif, killed trying to shield her youngest daughter Aisha. 10. Muhammad Younis Salim, 8—son. 11. Noor Younis Salim, 14—daughter. 12. Sabaa Younis Salim, 10—daughter. 13. Zainab Younis Salim, 5—daughter. 14. Aisha Younis Salim, 3—daughter. 15. A 1-year-old girl staying with the family. Survived: Safa Younis Salim, 13. House #3—4 brothers killed 16. Jamal Ahmed, 41. 17. Marwan Ahmed, 28. 18. Qahtan Ahmed, 24. 19. Chasib Ahmed, 27. Taxi—5 killed: Passengers were students at the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah 20. Ahmed Khidher, taxi driver. 21. Akram Hamid Flayeh. 22. Khalid Ayada al-Zawi. 23. Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi. 24. Mohammed Battal Mahmoud. Source: United for Peace and Justice[18]
Five Iraqi men, a taxi driver and four teenagers, were ordered out of their car and shot dead in the street, principally by Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich. After their deaths, Lt. William T. Kallop, according to his statements to investigators, arrived on the scene. Kallop and others reported taking small-arms fire, which they attributed to a nearby house. Kallop gave the order "to take the house".[19] Nineteen of those killed were in three adjacent houses which U.S. Marines entered, employing grenades and small arms.[20] According to Kallop,
The Marines cleared it the way they had been trained to clear it, which is frags first.... It was clear just by the looks of the room that frags went in and then the house was prepped and sprayed like with a machine gun and then they went in. And by the looks of it, they just... they went in, cleared the room, everybody was down.[19][a]
On November 20, 2005, a Marine press release from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported the deaths of a U.S. Marine and 15 civilians. It said the civilians' deaths resulted from a roadside bomb and Iraqi insurgents. The initial U.S. military statement read:
A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.[1][21]
Eman Waleed, a nine-year-old child who witnessed the incident, described the U.S. Marines entering their house. She said:
I couldn't see their faces very well - only their guns sticking in to the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny.[1]
The director of the local hospital in Haditha, Dr Wahid, said that the 24 bodies were brought in two American humvees to the hospital around midnight on November 19. While the Marines claim that the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb and that the men were saboteurs, Dr Wahid said that there were "no organs slashed by shrapnel in any of the bodies". He further claimed that it appeared that "the victims were shot in the head and chest from close range."[1]
Soon after the killings, the mayor of Haditha, Emad Jawad Hamza, led an angry delegation of elders to the Haditha Dam Marine base reportedly complaining to the base captain.[1]
The Marine Corps paid $38,000 total to the families of 15 of the dead civilians.[22]
Evidence about the killings [ edit ]
Video shot by the co-founder of the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, Taher Thabet, which instigated Tim McGirk's original Time magazine article, and cellphone photos reportedly taken by one of the Marines[23] the day after the killings have been put forth as evidence that the killings were methodical and without resistance.[1][24] The video shot by Thabet showed the bodies of the children and women with gunshot wounds, bullet holes in the interior walls of the house, and bloodstains on the floor. Insufficient evidence has come to light to account for insurgents hiding in the houses that first came under attack.[clarification needed]
the only AK-47 that was discovered that day—apparently a household defensive weapon, of the type that is legal and common in Iraq. No one has claimed that the rifle had been fired. William Langewiesche in "Rules of Engagement", Vanity Fair, November 2006
McGirk's first article online stated that the Hammurabi Human Rights Group "coordinated with Human Rights Watch". A correction was issued when no official links could be confirmed.[1] McGirk, who was based in Jerusalem, declined to testify at the hearings.[25]
Legal proceedings [ edit ]
The intentional killing of noncombatants is prohibited by modern laws of war derived from the UN Charter, the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions, and constitutes a war crime. The Marines and officers were subject to possible courts martial under American military law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Attorney Gary Myers, who worked on the case, was the first lawyer in American history to use DNA evidence in a military trial dating back to the trial stemming from the My Lai Massacre.[26]
Investigations [ edit ]
Upon being told of questions by reporters concerning the Haditha killings, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli instructed his public affairs office to brief them with the results of the military investigation. It was then he learned there had been no investigation.[27] On February 14, 2006, Chiarelli ordered a preliminary investigation, after video evidence which conflicted with the initial U.S. report, was released. On March 9, a criminal investigation was launched, led by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, to determine if the troops deliberately targeted Iraqi civilians.[21]
On March 19, 2006, U.S. military officials confirmed that, contrary to the initial report, U.S. Marines, not Iraqi insurgents, killed 15 civilians.
Several official investigations began. The first, under United States Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, examined how the incident was reported through the chain of command. A second investigation, headed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, examined the criminal aspects of the incident.[28] A third investigation was launched by the Iraqi government. The conduct of Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the squad leader, came under scrutiny.
Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich
On June 2, 2006, news outlets reported that 24 Iraqis had been killed, none as a result of the bomb explosion.[29] This news anticipated the results of the U.S. military investigation, which found that the 24 unarmed Iraqis—including children as young as two years old and women[30]—were killed by 12 members of Kilo Company in the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.[31]
The Times published the result of the first investigation, under U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell, including eyewitness interviews. It noted that the "official investigation has already resulted in the removal of Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, the commanding officer, and Captain Luke McConnell and Captain James Kimber, two company commanders, from their duties. Bargewell's investigation found:
Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get "the job done" no matter what it takes. These comments had the potential to desensitize the Marines to concern for the Iraqi populace and portray them all as the enemy even if they are noncombatants.[32]
On June 1, 2006, the Associated Press reported that the Iraqi government decided to launch its own probe into the alleged killing of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the previous year. Adnan al-Kazimi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said the decision was made during a Cabinet meeting. The probe was to be carried out by a special committee made up of the Justice and Human Rights ministries, along with security officials.
The U.S. Marines investigation avoided public pronouncements about the killings, but on June 17, 2006, the New York Times reported that "Investigators have also concluded that most of the victims in three houses died from well-aimed rifle shots, not shrapnel or random fire, according to military officials familiar with the initial findings."[33] Many of those killed had wounds from close-range fire, and their death certificates record "well-aimed shots to the head and chest" as the cause of death.[33]
Charges leveled [ edit ]
On December 21, 2006, the U.S. military charged eight Marines in connection with the Haditha incident.[5] Four of the eight, Frank Wuterich, Sanick P. Dela Cruz, Justin Sharratt and Stephen Tatum, were accused of unpremeditated murder.[34] Tatum was further charged with negligent homicide and assault, while Dela Cruz was also charged with making a false statement. Squad leader Frank Wuterich was charged with 12 counts of unpremeditated murder against individuals and one count of the murder of six people "while engaged in an act inherently dangerous to others".[35] The battalion commander, Jeffrey Chessani, was charged with one count of violating a lawful order and two counts of dereliction of duty. First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson was charged with obstruction of justice, dereliction of duty, and making a false statement, while Captain Randy Stone and Captain Lucas McConnell were charged with dereliction of duty. Stone also faced an additional count of violating a lawful order.[34] All charges against Stone were later dropped.[36] Grayson was acquitted on all counts.[37]
Pre-trial hearings [ edit ]
Testimony in an Article 32 investigation for Capt. Randy W. Stone, equivalent to a civilian grand jury proceeding, began on May 8, 2007.[38] At the hearing, Marine Lt. William Kallop, the platoon commander who ordered Marines to "clear" four houses, testified that the rules of engagement were followed and that no mistakes had been made. He stated that a Marine on the scene had reported seeing a suspected insurgent in the vicinity. Kallop also believed that small arms fire was being directed from the first house attacked by the Marines.[39]
On May 9, Sergeant Sanick De la Cruz, who received immunity in return for testimony, testified that he watched Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich shoot five Iraqis who were attempting to surrender. Cruz further testified that both he and Wuterich fired into the bodies of the five after they were dead, and that he had urinated on one of the dead Iraqis.[40][41]
Several victims lying on the ground
No weapons were found in the white taxi.[42]
The US military attempted to subpoena material from a 60 Minutes interview with Staff Sergeant Wuterich, specifically material where Wuterich admitted to ordering his men to "shoot first and ask questions later."[43] The interview includes Wuterich insisting he perceived a threat from house 1, but saw no gun fire from that house and that he saw no insurgent enter that house. He suggests he saw the dead family in house 1 and proceeded to assault house 2 based on a guess that the gunman may have entered that house. The Marines knocked on the door of house 2 and when someone came to answer they fired through the door killing what they saw to be an unarmed man. They then assaulted the house and killed the family inside. Wuterich later said he believed there was probably no threat to begin with.[44]
The Article 32 investigation recommended Capt. Randy W. Stone's criminal charge be dismissed, but that he face a new lesser charge that would be handled administratively for failing to investigate the incident properly.[45] The charges against Stone were dropped on August 9.[46]
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani was recommended to face court-martial for having "failed to thoroughly and accurately report and investigate a combat action that clearly needed scrutiny."[47] On June 17, 2008 Military Judge Colonel Steven Folsom dismissed all charges against Lt Colonel Jeffrey Chessani on the grounds that General James Mattis, who approved the filing of charges against Chessani, was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the incident. The ruling was without prejudice, which allows the prosecution to refile.[48]
Lt. Col. Paul Ware, the Investigating Officer for several of the enlisted Marines, recommended on July 11, 2007, that LCpl. Justin Sharratt be cleared of these charges. Ware stated, "[t]he government version is unsupported by independent evidence... To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."[49] The charges against Sharratt were dropped on August 9.[46]
Article 32 hearings for LCpl. Stephen Tatum began July 16, and for SSgt. Frank Wuterich began in August.[50] The investigating officer recommended charges be dropped against Tatum.[51]
Charges dropped [ edit ]
On April 17, 2007, the Marine Corps dropped all charges against Sgt. Sanick P. De la Cruz in exchange for his testimony. Seven other Marines involved in the incident were also granted immunity.[52]
On August 9, 2007, all charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Capt. Randy Stone were dropped.[36] On October 19, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt's commanding officer decided the charges should be lowered to involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.[53]
On September 18, 2007, all charges against Captain Lucas McConnell were dropped in exchange for immunity and his cooperation with the investigation.[54]
On March 28, 2008, all charges against LCpl. Stephen Tatum were dropped.[55]
On June 17, 2008, all charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani were dismissed by the military judge citing unlawful command influence.[56] The Marine Corps appealed that ruling in 2008.[57][not in citation given] On March 17, 2009, a military appeals court upheld the dismissal of the war crimes charges against Chessani.[58] Facing an administrative Board of Inquiry, it also found no misconduct and recommended that Chessani be allowed to retire without loss of rank.[59]
On June 5, 2008, 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson was acquitted of all charges stemming from the Haditha incident. He had been charged with deleting photos of the deceased Iraqis in order to obstruct the investigation. He had also been charged with failing to notify the Marine Corps administrative chain of command of his legal status when his term of service was expired and he was discharged from the Marine Corps.[60]
Trial of Wuterich [ edit ]
The court martial of Wuterich, the only defendant to stand trial for the Haditha killings, took place in January 2012. During the trial Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz testified that he urinated on the skull of one of the dead Iraqis.[61] He also testified, after describing how Wuterich shot the passengers of the car himself from close range, "Sergeant Wuterich approached me and told me if anyone asks, the Iraqis were running away from |
otal justifications for indiscriminate policing of dangerous neighborhoods.
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But these are hopeless pursuits. The incidents they draw attention to fail by definition to underscore the things they believe. They all require projecting motives or details or both into tragic events, to create false dichotomies between shootings perpetrated by whites and blacks. They have the unhealthy effect of creating dueling tallies of white-on-black and black-on-white crime. And ironically they all tend to underscore the argument that more "stand your ground" laws and more racial profiling are off-point responses to these incidents.
The latest conservative cri de coeur is over the tragic shooting death of Chris Lane, a 22-year-old Australian attending East Central University in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship. Two teen boys spotted Lane on a jog last week, trailed him in a car, and allegedly shot him fatally in the back (a third teen reportedly served as their driver). One of the suspects said the boys committed the murder out of boredom.
Word of the shooting spread quickly. And that's when the right clumsily revealed that its obsession with gun violence reflects an obsession with racial score settling rather than with averting further tragedies. The conservative media, including Fox News, repeated the claim that the Oklahoma suspects were all black. But this turned out to be a toxic mix of racial bias and wishful thinking. You almost wonder whether the people whose ulterior motives led them into error like this actually lamented the fact that one of the suspects happened to be white. It would be so much more convenient if that weren't the case.
But let's pretend for a minute that the suspects had all fit the stereotype the hosts at Fox and Friends wanted. Then the idea is that Chris Lane's death should somehow offset Trayvon Martin's, or that the people who sought to turn George Zimmerman's actions into a national referendum on "stand your ground" laws are somehow hypocritical for having little to say when the races of the culprits and innocent victims are reversed. For reactionary Obama foes like former Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., the obvious question is, "Whom will POTUS identify w/this time?"
I'll give West, et al., this: If you ignore motive, circumstance, history and (likely) outcome, then liberals, particularly black liberals, sure seem craven. By that standard, though, Jean Valjean and John, King of England are moral equals -- just a couple of guys with similar names taking other people's property.
So let's review: George Zimmerman wouldn't have shot Trayvon Martin if he hadn't been profiling by race. And even if he had been, the shooting feasibly wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been legally allowed to carry a handgun and didn't think he was empowered by law to take matters into his own hands. The monstrous killing of Chris Lane has no such back story. The killers apparently had no motive whatsoever, were armed illegally, and certainly weren't trailing Lane because they believed, based on his race, that he might be a criminal. They are, however, likely to face serious prison time for their crimes. Zimmerman walked.
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Put that all together, and it turns out these stories aren't counter-parallel at all. And more to the point, the events don't even anecdotally augur for policies the right supports. The kids in Oklahoma weren't "standing their ground," and a "stand your ground" law wouldn't have saved Chris Lane. Neither would a stop-and-frisk regime -- the killers were trailing him in a car. By contrast, a "stand your ground" environment and a stop-and-frisk mentality were instrumental in Trayvon Martin's death. Take either away, and there's a good chance he'd be alive today. Martin in fact personified the statistical folly of stop-and-frisk. If Zimmerman had yielded to real police, they would have, in absence of any suspicious behavior, stopped Martin, frisked him and found only the skittles and iced tea that made his death that much more tragically poignant.
You could twist that into a claim that stop-and-frisk might have saved Martin's life. But that gets the onus backward. Proponents of profiling policies need to do better than argue we have to violate the civil rights of minorities in order to protect them from hair-triggered vigilantes.
What might well have stopped both killings, though, is making it harder for people, legally or illegally, to come into possession of handguns. That's a conversation the right is less obsessed with.Other owners are cashing in on offers from residential developers. Andrew Lazarus, owner of the now-closed Soho nightclub on Victoria Street, confirmed he was exchanging contracts to sell the site to an apartment developer. "The Cross will never be an entertainment area again," he told a parliamentary inquiry on Friday, unless governments deliberately intervene to stop its gentrification. Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm is conducting an inquiry into measures that limit personal choice "for the individual's own good". Friday's hearing focused on Sydney's 1.30am lockout in Kings Cross and the CBD, which business operators believe has contributed to the decline in Kings Cross patronage. Business operators believe the laws were the last straw for the beleaguered Golden Mile, which has struggled for years against gentrification, the inquiry was told. Property valuer Phil Rennie lodged land tax objections on behalf of 12 property owners in May, due to a collapse in commercial rents. Of the eight that were agreed by the LPI, the average reduction in land value was about 14 per cent. Mr Rennie said the owners would consider the LPI's offers within the next 60 days.
Valuer General Simon Gilkes would not comment on the aforementioned 12 properties but said all objections were independently assessed. But it is a different story for commercial properties conducive to residential redevelopment, which has been going gangbusters in the old red light district. Earlier this year, Chinese developer Greenland Group bought the Crest Hotel site, along with a pub in Parramatta, for $170 million. The Crest was sold by Iris Capital, which purchased it for $65 million in 2012. It has development approval for 139 apartments. The nearby Bourbon Hotel was also sold for mixed-use development. Mr Rennie estimated many commercial rents in the Cross were down 30 to 50 per cent since 2008, owing to a number of factors. The financial crisis, small bars, smoking bans and licensing restrictions had all contributed, he said. The Baird government has said the lock-out laws will be subject to a review in February. Malcolm Gunning, president of the Real Estate Institute of NSW, sits on the Land Valuation Advisory Group, a committee of property industry groups and stakeholders that advises the Valuer General.
"The committee has recommended that strip be closely examined and that's taking place," he said. "Today, that strip is a basketcase. In that area, rents have dropped in some cases by more than half." Mr Gunning, whose own real estate agency is active in Kings Cross, said the area's future would rely on higher floor space ratios for residential development. "You'll have expensive apartments with residential frontage and the whole nature of the strip will change." But Mr Rennie argued the recent land value reductions showed the Kings Cross apartment boom did not apply equally, because parts of the strip were still not desirable for residential development. Last month, Fairfax Media reported that developers were urging the state government and the City of Sydney to increase height limits for residential towers in the area. Chief executive of Iris Capital, Sam Arnaout, suggested the strip could become "like a New York Manhattan".
A City of Sydney spokesman said the council was not reviewing floor space ratios for Kings Cross. Friday's inquiry also heard that 30 businesses in the Cross had closed since the lockout was introduced in February last year, including a dozen nightclubs and bars. Alcohol-related violence had declined by 32 per cent, although Bureau of Crime Statistics director Don Weatherburn said it was "entirely possible" this was due to the reduced patronage in the Cross. Mr Leyonhjelm, a supporter of gun rights and opponent of mandatory bicycle helmets, was in favour of retaining the old red light district. "If we're going to have a naughty suburb, Kings Cross ought to be our naughty suburb," he said. Labor Senator Sam Dastyari, who also sits on the inquiry, observed that "no matter what happens in Sydney, the property developers always win".You only live once.
Life is short and there's a lot of tv shows out there.
Maybe too many tv shows. Because when you think about how many tv shows are out there and how short your life is, you'll realize pretty quickly that there's no way you'll possibly have time to watch every single one of them.
Once you've realized that sad fact, you pretty much have two options: you can accept your fate and move on with your normal life or you can dig your heels in, hole yourself up in your house, and watch as much tv as humanly possible.
Are you going to be one of those people who wastes their entire life "doing" things? Or are you going to be someone who spends all their time watching other people do things on tv? The choice is yours.
Back to topA Christmas Story House, now restored to its movie splendor, is open year round to the public for tours and overnight stays. Directly across the street from the house is A Christmas Story Museum, which features original props, costumes and memorabilia from the film, as well as hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes photos. Among the props and costumes are the toys from the Higbee’s window, Randy’s snowsuit, the chalkboard from Miss Shields’ classroom and the family car. After reliving A Christmas Story at Ralphie’s house don’t forget to visit the museum gift shop for your own Major Award Leg Lamp and other great movie memorabilia. You can even shop through our online gift shop here. Proceeds from the gift shop and overnight stays help support and maintain A Christmas Story House & Museum.
See what is happening right now at A Christmas Story House through our live shot streaming video.
We will be closed for February 11th to 22nd.
The Bumpus House is located just to the left of A Christmas Story House. It is the fictional home to Ralphie’s hillbilly neighbors, the Bumpuses, and their 785 smelly hound dogs. The Bumpus Hounds are famous for harassing Ralphie’s Old Man and stealing the Christmas turkey. To make a reservation visit BumpusHouse.comWanna live somewhere wild and cool? Wanna hang a bit, then move on? Wanna make a living? Tax free? Volunteer in US national forests, parks, or other federal lands. Most only ask for a two-month minimum commitment.
Make Tax-Free Income With Volunteer Work
Vanholio’s making a tax-free income right now as a volunteer park host. It’s actually enough for me to live on, a bit over $500 per month. (Van life can be dang cheap – if you do it right.)
The job’s in a US National Forest. And it’s Uncle Sam that pays the bills! (No, I ain’t telling you where. Go find your own honey hole!)
Most days, I do 2-3 hours of grunt work max. Then I just hang out and answer questions. It’s a beautiful spot, too. I mean, you can’t hardly buy real estate like that. Even if you’re a billionaire!
What I GET as a Park Host
$25 tax-free per diem ($540 per month)
Free RV site with hookups
Free propane
Free WiFi internet
Free use of government 4WD
Free use of laundry facilities
Free snazzy uniform
Free “America the Beautiful” park pass
Pride of doing good
What I DO as Park Host
Clean bathrooms
Haul trash
Mow and trim
Answer questions
Yell at kids to behave – BONUS!
Hand out maps and brochures
Remind people to pay
Open and close the gates
Volunteer Jobs Besides Camp Hosting
The national forests, national parks, and other federal agencies have more volunteer jobs than park hosts and camp hosts:
Maintenance
Repair backcountry trails
Plant trees
Garden
Staff information booths and visitor centers
Help out on archaeological digs
More!
Got a volunteer service idea that isn’t posted at Volunteer.gov? Pitch it! Most agencies will consider letting you create your own job, so long as they see the need. Vanholio’s gonna propose cleaning up dispersed campsites along the forest roads. Really, you should see the trash people leave behind!
How to Qualify for a Volunteer Job
As a volunteer, your labor is cheap to free. So naturally, the feds don’t ask too many questions. But they gotta ask a few. Mainly, they need to make sure you’re not sketchy.
When Vanholio applied, he had to provide a resume, valid ID (driver’s license or passport), job application, and three references.
Can Non-Citizens Get Volunteer Jobs?
Foreigners without work visas can volunteer, but they don’t make it worth your while. At least if you care about the benefits.
Non-US citizens need to go through a rigmarole to get a special J-1 visa. It takes months of hoops, including a consulate interview. And after all that, you still won’t even give you so much as a free RV pad! It probably ain’t worth it unless you really, really wanna help out at Yellowstone or something.
Find Paying Jobs on Volunteer.gov
Check through the jobs on Volunteer.gov. You’ll notice that most only give you an RV site with hookups, if that. And maybe propane. But keep looking! Also contact the office that posted a job you like anyway. Maybe all the benefits aren’t listed. Don’t hurt to ask! Find Unlisted Volunteer Jobs
Got somewhere you want to volunteer at? Don’t see a position with benefits posted? Call the local field, park, or district office and talk to the volunteer coordinator. Maybe they got something that’s not posted yet. Maybe they’ll create a job just for you!Desperate Indians flood 'corrupt' cab industry
Updated
Corruption and an influx of Indian students attending international colleges is killing the taxi industry, insiders say.
They say an explosion of racism and corruption in the taxi industry is partly due to dodgy recruiting practices among colleges who are luring Indian students to Australia.
Veteran drivers say the industry can no longer support the huge number of workers, many of them Indian students, who are scrambling to keep afloat.
Drivers who were once able to earn a living from driving now make as little as $5 an hour.
Last month tensions boiled over at Brisbane airport, when an Indian taxi driver was involved in a stoush with a Federal Police officer for parking illegally.
There have also been reports of racist attacks against Indian cab drivers, accusations drivers have been given open licences without background checks, and booking companies are said to have allowed drivers to pass tests without sitting them.
Lee Sims from the Cab Drivers Association Queensland says the tensions are the result of a corrupt industry.
He says a big part of the problem starts when young people are lured into coming to Australia by agents from international TAFE colleges.
"Cab drivers come up with all sorts of stories [but] we've found this proved to be true," he said.
"Agents in the Punjab - and it's largely from the Punjab region - they've suddenly got cashed up from the globalisation and the industrialisation of India and there's a lot of new wealth over there."
Mr Sims says these agents tell people in India they can study and make good money working in Australia.
"They come here under the guise that they'll get to Australia where there are greater opportunities for employment, last here long enough to get residency, then ultimately citizenship, then send back home to bring others over," he said.
"That's the way in and it's been proven around the world the way to do it is through the service industry, such as taxis, cleaning and security."
Mr Sims says once students arrive in Australia they join an already flooded sector, where the number of taxis competing for jobs means the average driver's wage has dropped to just over $20,000 a year.
Camping at ranks
Del Singh bought a cab as part of his retirement plan in Brisbane. He occasionally drives himself, but often hires drivers to use his vehicle.
Mr Singh says in the past few years the wage of cab drivers has halved. He says taxi drivers are camping out at ranks, particularly at the airport, at all hours of the night to try and snag a fare.
He says Australia's international colleges have taken advantage of young people.
"I know some people who are here doing courses and they're paying hefty amounts for TAFE colleges. Even for them now to give up those courses, TAFE colleges want money. So it's a big rip off," he said.
"TAFE colleges, institutes are finding agents who must be raising false hopes that you can [come to Australia], make lots of money, you can study.
"And a lot of those students are coming here and having hardships.
"There used to be a driver who used to work for me and his sister was in Melbourne and they come from India and they were trying to get out of the TAFE colleges and they were saying you have to pay that much before they would let them go."
Mr Singh says many international students tried their hand at cab driving because, up until recently, it was a quick and easy process to get a licence.
"They could do their training within four days and within weeks of coming into this country they could start driving taxis and earning their living," he said.
National Union of Students president Carla Drakeford says it is a problem that has been going on for a long time.
"There are lots of auxiliary costs associated with these colleges that are often not disclosed and a lot of these colleges ask for payments up front. That's one of the biggest problems," she said.
"I've spoken to students who are taxi drivers who say they have to work ridiculous hours to try and pay for this stuff up front because their parents don't necessarily know everything [that's going on] and they're too embarrassed to go home and ask for money from their parents."
She says things are set to get tougher for international students.
"At the moment we're facing a situation where private colleges are collapsing because their providers are dodgy and because new migration laws and changes are coming which will limit students' ability to gain permanent residency," she said.
"So all these concerns are starting to add up for Indian students who are coming out of here."
'Taxi mafia'
Queensland's Workplace Ombudsman Don Brown last month handed down a report into the taxi industry in the state.
He found workers in the industry are at the mercy of taxi booking companies, who in turn have no industry watchdog to answer to.
"The taxi industry investigation was not welcomed by senior and influential elements of the industry," the report said.
Mr Sims agrees and says drivers can be laid off at a moment's notice with no recourse to make a complaint.
Taxi drivers generally do not receive superannuation, sick leave, or holiday leave, and they have to pay GST on their earnings.
Mr Sims says companies often demand 60 per cent of taxi takings and, because they control the booking service, individual drivers have no choice but to comply.
"They often talk about the taxi mafia. I don't want to give them that much respect," he said.
"It's inherent. It's a bit incestuous. They hold up the industry by intimidation and fear."
He says corruption, coupled with the huge influx of overseas workers flooding the roads, makes it impossible to earn a living and survive as a driver.
While he praised the Ombudsman's report, Mr Sims says he expects the Government will continue to turn a blind eye to the problems in the industry.
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, industrial-relations, community-and-society, immigration, race-relations, government-and-politics, states-and-territories, unions, brisbane-4000, qld, india
First postedAbout This Game
In the 19th century, when people had no HTC Vives to play with, they resorted to using primitive stereoscopes to see stereoscopic images in 3D! This free VR experience allows you to view a collection of over 700 such images from that era and enjoy them as people saw them over a century ago, using your VR headset. Stand atop the pyramids, view the battlefields of France in WWI, go alligator hunting, and see the world as people once did from the comfort of their Victorian homes!The VR experience is set in a single room, decorated to look like one you might find in the Victorian era. But the focus of the game is not the room, it is the old photographs, which have been carefully selected for the best 3D effect. Use the trigger of your Vive controllers to move between images, giving your eyes time to adjust and focus between each image. These photos are from the late 19th and early 20th century, when stereographic capture was rather crude and done with bulky cameras, so viewing these images will probably not be as comfortable for your eyes as modern stereo images typically are.This game is being made available free to help promote VR adoption as well as to allow people to learn more about this remarkable art form that led to the development of the virtual reality headsets we enjoy today.With the less-than-graceful exit of former Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE) from the House Republican Conference last year, the moderate wing of that group has pretty much disappeared altogether. But the bitterness and animosity that was once directed at the moderates has not. New political fault lines have emerged between what I would call the “right-wing conservatives” and the “total crazies.”
At the center of the conflict is Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), who by almost anybody’s measure is a right-wing conservative. He is the principal author of “A Roadmap to America’s Future,” a budget plan that among other things would largely turn the Medicare program over to private insurance carriers.
More recently he used the extraordinary powers granted to him by the House Rules Committee—it provided him the authority to unilaterally determine the limits on federal discretionary spending for the remainder of the year giving his personal judgment the same standing as a resolution approved by majorities in both houses of Congress—to direct a cut of as much as 19 percent in the funding levels for 12 of the 15 departments of the federal government and nearly all of its independent agencies.
A partial list of the cuts required by Rep. Ryan’s edict was published yesterday by the Appropriations Committee and drew gasps from most quarters. The list amounted to only 40 percent of the total cuts required, but included about 70 items ranging from elimination of most federal assistance to local law enforcement to a 6 percent cut below last year’s level in research grants at the National Institutes of Health, deep cuts in child nutrition programs, and the elimination of family planning.
But last night it became clear that Mr. Ryan’s proposal would not fly—not because he was too extreme but because he was not extreme enough. In a severe slap at not only Rep. Ryan but Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) as well, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) mustered the forces of the “total crazies” to countermand Rep. Ryan and direct the Appropriations Committee to produce an additional $26 billion in cuts.
In short, the Appropriations Committee will now need to prepare a list three and a half times the size of the one they released yesterday, rather than the cuts mandated by Ryan that would have been only two and a half times that size.
Because the Republicans have insisted on further tax cuts; have left all entitlement spending off the chopping block; and have likewise excluded the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security spending from any cuts; they have only about 12.5 percent or one-eighth of the budget from which to cut. Because the current fiscal year is already almost half over, they actually have less than 7 percent of spending from which cuts may be extracted. (For a more detailed discussion of this point, see “Heading for a Deficit Dustup” and “Just Plain Nuts,” recently posted on this website.)
While that is a tiny share of total spending, it is a huge chunk of what we think of as government, ranging from law enforcement to air traffic control, food safety, the courts, and our diplomatic corps. As a result, the cuts could have two seemingly contradictory consequences. First, they will do little to reduce a $1.5 trillion deficit. And second, they could have an absolutely devastating impact on the nation’s social infrastructure—placing citizens at risk of a variety of dangers ranging from criminality to disease transportation hazards and financial fraud.
Because the cuts that are required have forced choices so extreme that many Republicans will have difficulty swallowing them, the House Appropriations Committee will not be able to file legislation this evening as originally planned. That is actually a good thing. The nation needs a lot more time to examine this proposal and weigh its risks.
Scott Lilly is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.New Crystal Palace coach Roy Hodgson has assembled his players to inform them that they are all considered suspects in his murder investigation.
The grim-faced Hodgson was brought in from the cold by Eagles chairman Steve Parish because of his streetwise attitude and no-nonsense approach to prima donnas – and the man from the mean streets of Croydon has wasted no time in identifying a list of players who each had the means, motive and opportunity to commit murder in the first degree.
“The new gaffer’s spent some time getting to know the lads,” said Palace wideman Patrick van Aanholt. “He offered me a glass of scotch and asked me about my hobbies and interests, and then suddenly his demeanour changed and he wanted to know where I’d been on the afternoon of August 26.
Roy knocked back six or seven tiny coffees, and asked me what I knew about ceremonial Japanese weaponry - Joel Ward
“I said I’d been playing for Crystal Palace against Swansea and he asked if anyone had seen me, and I said probably not. He wrote that down in a notebook and got up to leave, saying he had to go and see a man about a dog.
“Then he paused in the doorway and asked me why my Google search history was all about untraceable poisons. Before I could answer he told me he’d see me at training tomorrow.”
Fellow Palace star Joel Ward said: “Roy asked me to join him in his office. He knocked back six or seven tiny coffees, and asked me what I knew about ceremonial Japanese weaponry. I said I had no idea what he was talking about, and he confronted me with a wakizashi registered in my name that he said had been found at the scene of a robbery in Sutton last week.
“I said I’d never seen it before, but he told me he’d be keeping an eye on me, and that I’d be starting against Southampton unless I had a recurrence of my gam strain. He got Ray Lewington to frisk me before he let me leave.”
Roy is watching
Run-down espresso bars
Hodgson has taken lodgings in the rough part of town, where he spends his days in rundown espresso bars and his nights watching CCTV tapes of Palace’s next opponents.
He has also been spotted down at Churchfields Road Recycling Centre asking security guards if they had seen a suspicious-looking man in a Crystal Palace tracksuit dropping off some bin bags after dark, and is also believed to be making enquiries about getting Jack Wilshere on loan.
A Selhurst Park source said: “If those players think they can get away with putting in less than 100% effort, or with killing a fellow professional and hiding his body where no one will ever find it, then they’re in for a rude awakening.
“Roy is tough, like boots that have been out in the rain too long. And he’s smart, street smart, like an old tomcat that knows when the kitchen window’s left unlocked.
“He may not always play by the rules, especially when it comes to stopping counter-attacks with well-timed tactical fouls, but dammit, he gets results. Especially in the cups.”
At press time, Jason Puncheon had reportedly confessed that every single person at Palace had wanted to kill Steve Mandanda, but they agreed to let him go back to Marseille if he promised never to return.
Please note: This is a satirical story. Like, obviously.
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More Back of the Net • New featuresBingyi Chen, a Chinese immigrant who lives in Concord, has bought at least 16 units at the new Millennium Tower for $15.6 million — all in cash.
For proof that Boston has become a luxury housing mecca for wealthy people from around the world, look no farther than Downtown Crossing.
At the high-end Millennium Tower, buyers have come from Greece, Hong Kong, and the Middle East, scooping up condos two or three apiece. There’s a real estate executive in San Francisco who markets luxury US properties in Asia, and claims on her website that she’s sold 7 percent of the tower — roughly 30 units.
And then there’s the recent immigrant from China, Bingyi Chen, who lives in a modest townhouse in Concord and has bought at least 16 condos on behalf of investors in his native country, according to property records and his real estate agent. He paid $15.6 million in total. All cash.
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Most of those 16 units are directly above each other in a narrow strip running up to the 30th floor of the 60-story building. They are listed for rent, starting at $4,100 a month, with the proceeds heading back to investors in China.
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“It’s all about the investment opportunity,” said Charles Wang Pan, a real estate agent who represents Chen and his wife. “This is a job for them.”
It’s also an example of the global housing market in action.
With its crop of luxury condominium buildings sprouting out of the ground, Boston is an increasingly popular destination for international real estate investors looking to park their cash in an uncertain global economy. The city is a bit cheaper than New York or San Francisco, but boasts a stable economy, world-class universities, and a growing list of international flights.
“Boston’s a very attractive investment market,” Wang said. “The long game is lucrative.”
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That’s creating a market for condo developers to sell their high-end units essentially around the world.
Millennium Partners, which built the tower along with luxury condos in New York and San Francisco, maintains offices in several major Asian cities. For its project here, it launched a website in Mandarin.
To be sure, downtown professionals and empty-nesters from the suburbs are also big buyers of luxury real estate.
Richard Baumert, Millennium’s top sales executive, said three quarters of the new owners in the tower will live in their units. He would not comment on individual buyers such as Chen, but acknowledged that the company does receive offers to purchase condos in bulk.
“We get a lot of inquiries. We’ll look at each one individually, sometimes it depends on the timing,” said Baumert, who expects the number of international buyers to climb as more luxury towers open in Boston.
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“We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg,” Baumert said. “This city is on a world stage right now. People want to be here.”
Foreign buyers spent $102.6 billion on residential properties in the United States in 2015, according to the National Association of Realtors, up more than 50 percent since 2010. And while purchases by buyers from Canada and the United Kingdom have fallen in that time, they have surged from China, nearly tripling to $27.3 billion last year, the real estate group reported in June.
Specialists expect those figures to only increase as the swelling ranks of wealthy Chinese look for ways to diversify their holdings outside of China and gain a foothold here — either for themselves or for their children who are studying in the states. A study by Rosen Consulting Group, a real estate economics firm in Berkeley, Calif., predicted Chinese buyers could spend $50 billion on US homes by 2025.
“A lot of that is for investment purposes,” said Arthur Margon, who coauthored the study. “It’s investing for income, and investing in what appears, to Chinese eyes, to be a more stable environment.”
That intense interest, however, is forcing some luxury developers to strike a delicate balance, said Sue Hawkes, who runs The Collaborative Cos., a marketing firm that works with high-end complexes in Boston.
Investors — especially those who buy in bulk — can take many units off a developer’s hands, fast. That’s cash in the bank. But they’re more likely to rent the units, or even leave them empty. Many developers prefer the stability of owner-occupants, Hawkes said, who make units more attractive for resale than if the building were full of renters. For now, she said, many developers of new condo projects here are trying to limit the number of units they sell to investors.
“It’s a little bit like holding back a tidal wave at this point,” Hawkes said. “There’s a much bigger market out there than anybody has tested.”
Some buildings set a cap on investor purchases. Pierce Boston, a 30-story tower under construction near Fenway Park, will limit investors to 25 percent of the building’s 109 condos, said Leslie Cohen, chief operating officer at developer Samuels & Associates. And no bulk purchases are allowed.
Cohen acknowledged that strategy could potentially slow sales, and might dampen pricing a bit — units in the Pierce start at around $1 million. But Cohen said Samuels believes a building with a lot of owner-occupants is more valuable in the long run.
“A buyer is a buyer. But we don’t entertain people who are inconsistent with what we’re trying to do,” said Cohen, whose firm has developed nine buildings within a few blocks along Boylston Street and Brookline Avenue. “Our goal is activating the entire neighborhood.”
Baumert, the Millennium sales executive, said his company designed the luxury tower to encourage a sense of community among its owners, building an elaborate two-story club and scheduling social events.
“For the lifestyle we’re trying to create to work in the way we hope, it requires there to be local residents,” he said. “That’s an important priority for us.”
Still, Michael Krupa said local developers would be foolish to ignore the global buyers who want a piece of Boston. Krupa is president of Gemdale USA, the New York-based arm of a major Chinese home builder investing in a condo and office tower proposed at South Station.
“There’s a buyer base from around the world that wants to be in Boston,” he said. “It’s a city with extraordinary fundamentals right now.”
Indeed, Gemdale, which sold 45,000 homes in China last year, plans to tap its network of buyers in Asia to help sell condos at South Station. But he, too, acknowledges that too many investor-owners can make for a building where it feels as if no one’s at home.
“You don’t want to have safe-deposit-box condo units that are sitting empty. They don’t add to the vibrancy of the community,” he said. “You want to have a good cross-section.”
Chen, the buyer of the Millennium Tower units, and his wife have bought other condos in Boston in bulk before. In 2013, a shell company linked to Chen and his wife, according to property and corporate records, spent $2.9 million to buy six units at a condo project in East Cambridge. Later that year, they paid $11.3 million for 12 condos at Millennium Place in Downtown Crossing.
Combining that with three other condos scattered around town and their new units at Millennium Tower, the couple has spent at least $31.5 million in Boston over three years.
Through a translator, Chen and his wife declined to comment, citing language barriers and a desire for privacy. But the Chens allowed Wang to discuss their purchases, which were made through two shell companies he manages. Wang said his client worked in commercial real estate in China and taps a network of investors and clients there to bundle money and buy condos here. He described Chen more as a portfolio manager than a real estate mogul.
The Chens moved to Boston several years ago, Wang said, and live here with their small child on an EB-5 visa, which grants a green card in exchange for a $500,000 investment in a company that creates 10 jobs.
Wang himself is based in New York and said 90 percent of his clients are Chinese, mostly investors. Many are aiming to move money to safer havens in the United States, and like to buy new condos as investment properties, for family studying here, or to eventually move here themselves. It’s a highly specialized line of work that the graduate of Boston College, who speaks three languages, tried out as a young agent in Boston, and now makes the bulk of his business.
In a recent interview, Wang noted that Millennium Partners was tentatively selected by Boston officials to build another high-rise, at the site of a the city-owned Winthrop Square garage. He’s looking forward for sales to start.
“If Millennium Partners does another building here,” Wang said, “My clients will be very happy to buy in it.”
Tim Logan can be reached at tim.logan@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @bytimloganThe President is opposed to legalizing marijuana. He's said so himself, and that's not likely to change without a fight. But the fight is on. Amidst mounting evidence that democrats can benefit from warming up to legalization, a new political calculus appears to be taking hold.
Some pollsters and party officials say Democratic candidates in California are benefiting from a surge in enthusiasm among young voters eager to back Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana in certain quantities and permit local governments to regulate and tax it.
Party strategists and marijuana-legalization advocates are discussing whether to push for similar ballot questions in 2012 in Colorado and Nevada—both expected to be crucial to President Barack Obama's re-election—and Washington state, which will have races for governor and seats in both houses of Congress. [Wall Street Journal]
There's a strong case to be made that democrats can mobilize the marijuana vote in their favor. But in order for it to work, President Obama absolutely must shield Prop 19 from federal interference if it passes in November. Think about it: if DEA is busy waging war on the will of voters in California with the President's blessing, it will cast a huge shadow over any subsequent effort to reform marijuana policies in Nevada and Colorado. Legalization initiatives in those states could indeed produce a heavy turnout of young voters, but Obama can't cash in on those votes if he's made himself an enemy of their cause.
In the event that Prop 19 passes, Obama will have no choice but to take a position well in advance |
: Attach objects together in any order, out to any size. Build tiny invaders or huge platforms. Jettison whole chunks and re-combine with others to create new orbital stations; as many as you want, whenever you want.
Attach objects together in any order, out to any size. Build tiny invaders or huge platforms. Jettison whole chunks and re-combine with others to create new orbital stations; as many as you want, whenever you want. Don’t think it can fly? Attach a Rocket to it! Fly your creations big or small by attaching rockets and letting physics do the work. Massive stations can be expertly flown to their destinations or turned into whirling kill-vehicles, all with rocket physics.
Fly your creations big or small by attaching rockets and letting physics do the work. Massive stations can be expertly flown to their destinations or turned into whirling kill-vehicles, all with rocket physics. Salvage wreckage to your gain : Fight enemy habitats with your creations, crack them apart, and harvest their junk pieces to add on to your own habitats.
Fight enemy habitats with your creations, crack them apart, and harvest their junk pieces to add on to your own habitats. Everything is upgradable: Mine asteroid resources and research a full tech tree to upgrade your habitats with stronger materials, beefier rockets and special powers.
Habitat’s game modes will include:
Sandbox mode: A persistent world for building and creating, populated by a procedural engine to give you new fields of junk to explore each time you start a new game.
Campaign mode: A narratively-driven experience that will have you taking on exploration, building, and fighting in a race to save humanity from a nano-machine army consuming Earth.
Step One - Explore, Discover, and Combine Junk
Explore a vast orbital playground : a huge playing field around the earth, from near-earth to the “graveyard” orbits further out.
: a huge playing field around the earth, from near-earth to the “graveyard” orbits further out. Humanity’s history is yours to use : not just satellites and shuttles, you’ll find and use the structures and vehicles from entire civilizations.
: not just satellites and shuttles, you’ll find and use the structures and vehicles from entire civilizations. Combine and recombine: weld junk together any way you want. Merge and split habitats, even while in flight or in combat.
Step Two - Specialize, Upgrade, and Unlock Tech
Special powers, hidden potential: each type of junk has different uses and powers you unlock by attaching and upgrading as part of your habitat.
each type of junk has different uses and powers you unlock by attaching and upgrading as part of your habitat. Life and crisis in orbit: manage oxygen, electricity, food and living space for your citizens; and respond creatively as things go wrong in space.
manage oxygen, electricity, food and living space for your citizens; and respond creatively as things go wrong in space. Advance and evolve: discover advanced technologies with a full tech tree, and specialize your research to evolve into a spacefaring superpower.
Step Three - Fly, Fight, and Expand your Habitats
Just add rockets: every city is a flying city; attach boosters, thrusters, even ICBMs to take your habitats deeper into space with a physics-driven flight simulation.
every city is a flying city; attach boosters, thrusters, even ICBMs to take your habitats deeper into space with a physics-driven flight simulation. Smash and grab: take on enemy habitats with kinetic orbital weapons you build; find weak spots and tear them apart to salvage their pieces for your own habitat.
take on enemy habitats with kinetic orbital weapons you build; find weak spots and tear them apart to salvage their pieces for your own habitat. Your orbital empire: make as many habitats as you want; network them with power transmission, automated defenses, sensor arrays and more to build humanity’s future in orbit.
Habitat is proud to have an original score from veteran composer Alexander Brandon, who has scored an incredible list of titles, including the original Unreal, Deus Ex, Tyrian and many more. Read more about Alex and his studio Funky Rustic here!
Listen to the main theme song of Habitat on SoundCloud:
Why Alex is excited about Habitat, in his own words:
Pledge $35 or Above to Get Your Xbox One Copy!
We are pleased to announce that copies of Habitat for Xbox One are now available as a backer reward! Find the "PLUS XBOX ONE" tier at $35 - pledge this tier or above to get one copy of Habitat for Xbox One when it launches, in addition to all the other rewards listed at that tier.
If you're already pledged at any $35 tier or above, you're already in. For other questions about the tier and pricing, please see this FAQ entry.
As announced at the Game Developers Conference in March, Habitat will be coming to Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft. As an independent title from ID@Xbox, the self-publishing program for independent developers on Xbox One, you’ll be able to build, explore, and go crazy with rockets right from the comfort of your living room.
Habitat’s unique build-fly-and-fight mechanics work smoothly on gamepads as well as the traditional keyboard and mouse; at Habitat’s first showing at the Xbox One event in San Francisco, participants let us know constantly how natural the controls felt with a gamepad. The Xbox One also gives us unique opportunities to explore additional inputs such as Kinect and SmartGlass.
Habitat is currently in development at 4gency’s HQ in Seattle, Washington. The first build was shown at Game Developers Conference in March 2014.
We're well underway. The game is playable, stable, and ready to expand with more junk types, advanced features and a full campaign.
The game is playable, stable, and ready to expand with more junk types, advanced features and a full campaign. We're making this a community effort. This is a game that’s right for early access Alpha and Beta programs, and we're sprinting forward to bring you early builds as soon as possible.
This is a game that’s right for early access Alpha and Beta programs, and we're sprinting forward to bring you early builds as soon as possible. We need your help to cross the finish line. Our target for backers is the minimum amount we forecast it will take to get this game into your hands, where we can continue making improvements based on your feedback.
We want Habitat to be a game that you love, one that you'll want to continue playing because it keeps surprising, inspiring, and exciting you.
Your support as a backer goes directly to our development budget; the code and art that go into the game you'll be playing.
Our schedule looks like this:
March 2014: Development build at GDC (DONE!)
Development build at GDC (DONE!) April 2014: Kickstarter campaign
Kickstarter campaign Summer 2014: Alpha with backers and early adopters
Alpha with backers and early adopters Fall 2014: Beta with wider community support
Beta with wider community support Holiday 2014: v1.0 Release on PC, Mac, Linux, Xbox One
We want to focus on making sure the game has the features you want. As our Alpha and Beta programs go on we'll be dialing in the final release date.
The Team
4gency is an indie game studio in Seattle, Washington. Founded by Charles Cox, a ten-year veteran of the video game industry, 4gency brings experience from Zipper Interactive, Microsoft Game Studios, Amazon, Big Fish Games, Sierra Studios and Pipeworks.
Charles Cox | Founder, CEO
We were founded in 2011 by Charles, who brings a over a decade of experience spanning PC, Xbox, Playstation and Mobile as a designer, programmer and management professional.
Alex Schoner | Creative Director
Alex is a designer, hyper modernist, and avid gamer of the digital age. He brings heavyweight experience from being in-house design for industry titans, as well being a design leader in Seattle.
Elbert Perez | Development Director
Elbert is a one-two punch of technical and creative thinking in a passionate persona and has worked on and self published more than 25 indie and AAA games since 2005.
Chris Chin | 3D Artist
Chris is a 3D specialist with over a decade’s worth of digital media experience and well over a dozen shipped titles across PC, console, handheld and mobile platforms.
Henry Tang | Programmer
Henry is an accomplished game programmer of over seven years, who has worked across multiple platforms and titles, specializing in gameplay and user interface development.The Wide Open AL West Preview; Den of Injuries
With a rotation of Yu Darvish, Derek Holland, Matt Harrison, Martin Perez, (and arguably the best lineup in baseball), the Texas Rangers were my offseason runaway favorite to win the AL West. It seemed the only thing standing in their way were the young and promising starting pitching staff of the Oakland Athletics. Jarrod Parker and Sonny Gray were positioned to be one of the great 1-2 combos in the AL. After a horrendous April in which Parker struggled with mechanics and posted a 7.36 ERA, he rebounded strongly posting a 3.38 ERA and holding opponents to a.220 batting average the rest of the season. Sonny Gray’s 2.67 ERA and 67 strikeouts in 64 innings left A’s fan’s eagerly awaiting what those numbers could look like stretched across a full season. Now after multiple injuries to several Oakland and Texas regulars, up is down, black is white, and The Rangers and Athletics are no longer obvious front-runners to win the division.
Mariners and Angels fans can rejoice! Two teams that were both one dominant starting pitcher away from being in the AL West conversation are now lucky benefactors of addition by subtraction. The Mariners failed to cut a deal for David Price, but The A’s lost A.J Griffin for at least a month, and Jarrod Parker for the entire year to Tommy John surgery. The Angels failed to sign a much-needed #3 starter like Ubaldo Jimenez or Ervin Santana, but Texas lost their catcher, second baseman, short stop, and top-three starters. Who knew the inability of two team’s front offices to make crucial moves could have such a serendipitous outcome. Despite all the injuries between Oakland and Texas, I still see both teams at least 5-10 wins above Seattle. After signing Cano, Seattle looked to be all in as they pursued Price, Nelson Cruz, and Ervin Santana. Instead the Seattle offseason ended with a whimper with the questionable signings of Corey Hart, Logan Morrison, and Fernando Rodney. Seattle has also yet to cash in on top 2B/SS prospect Nick Franklin who was essentially made expendable following the Cano deal. With Injuries to Taijuan Walker and Hisashi Iwakuma, Seattle oddly loaded up on injury prone 1B/DH types, with their real weaknesses being outfield defense and starting pitching depth. With Cano already 31 years old, Seattle needed to do a better job building around him as quickly as possible as he transitions out of his prime.
After releasing Joe Blanton last Wednesday and eating the remainder of the Vernon Wells contract, the Anaheim Angels will spend $27 million this season on two players that aren’t even with the organization. The Angels have become poster boys for bad contracts the last few years, but fortunately for Angel’s fans, Anaheim has the payroll to make mistakes and still be competitive. With all the money coming off the books in 2015 it isn’t farfetched that Anaheim makes a run at James Shields or Max Schrezer next off-season. They might instead decide to put the money into a long-term extension for Mike Trout. To Keep Trout though, The Angels may have to do both… Trout has made it clear that he wants to play for a competitor, and with the Halo’s core of Weaver, Wilson, Pujols and Hamilton quickly approaching their mid-30’s, the window of opportunity to win is closing and Trout’s future could be somewhere else. Winning in 2014 will be incredibly important for the Angel’s future. Without the farm system to make a big in-season trade, free agency remains the Angels best option to acquire talent. It is the Angel’s best interest to double down next off-season and show Mike Trout they are willing to win at all costs. A case can also be made for the Angel’s to not sign Trout to an extension. If the Angel’s decided to move Trout in one of his final arbitration years they could easily persuade a high-payroll team to take on the contract of Hamilton or Pujols and rejuvenate their lackluster farm system in the process. I realize letting go of a once-in-a lifetime player like Trout is easier said than done, but signing a player of Trout’s caliber in today’s market will leave little room for Anaheim to do much else. Unlike basketball, hockey, and football, baseball is not a sport where an elite player can single-handedly lead a team to the playoffs (as the angels have proved the last two seasons).
Shifting Focus to the season at hand, The Angels have several players poised for bounce back years. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projects increased production from David Freese, Albert Pujols, and Josh Hamilton. Kole Calhoun and Hank Conger have major upside going into their age 26 seasons. Taking Mark Trumbo’s -0.8dWAR out of the spacious Anaheim outfield should help improve the Halo’s defense and swapping Trumbo’s.294 OBP with Calhoun’s.347 OBP will help create more runs for the middle of the order. The lineup is well-balanced between righties and lefties and won’t be easily exploited from either side of the pitching rubber. Tyler Skaggs has increased his velocity this spring and is a key component to the Angel’s success in the back-end of their rotation. Pitching Depth remains a big issue as the rotation is in a much more precarious position than a team Like the Athletics with more depth at the minor and major league levels. The greatest advantage I see the Angels having this year is their schedule. In the first 10 weeks of the season Anaheim will play a combined 13 games against the Rangers and A’s, as well as an additional 10 games against the Houston Astros. The Angels need to seize the opportunity to beat up on the injury plagued AL West Rivals before the majority of their players return from the DL. They will also face the Astros sans top prospects Mark Appel, George Springer, Carlos Correa, and Michael Foltynewicz, who will likely be called up later this summer. In the final two months of the season, the revamped Astros will face the A’s and Rangers a combined 16 games, while only facing the Angels for five. I’ll be watching closely in April and May because if the Angels can start strong, it would force Oakland and Texas to play catchup against much tougher competition. Anaheim needs to make the playoffs this season in order to justify past, present, and future front-office spending and thanks to a succession of injuries to rival opponents, I believe they will.
My predictions:
Anaheim 90-72
Texas 89-73
Oakland 85-77
Seattle 80-82
Houston 66-98We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years, says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.
Afridi from the Khyber Agency unit of the party led by former cricketer Imran Khan spoke with IPS near the Governors House in Peshawar, the northern Pakistani city adjacent to the Khyber Agency region in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Party members had brought bodies of 18 local people reported killed by Pakistani security forces in nearby Alamgudar village.
Thousands of local tribal people, including students, civil society members and leaders of political parties joined the bereaved families in the protest against the army.
The military operations have brought lives of the eight million population in FATA to a standstill, Afridi said. The seven tribal agencies have remained under curfew and the population has become completely idle.
Juma Khan Afridi from the family of some of those killed told Inter Press Service (IPS) what happened. We were asleep when security forces scaled the walls of our home. They asked the women to get aside, Khan Afridi, a student of the same family told IPS. He said he survived because he put on a veil and stood with women.
This is not the first time the army has killed innocent people in Khyber Agency, he said. It is because of the growing anger that bereaved families brought the coffins of their dead relatives to protest.
Wazir Muhammad, political analyst at the University of Peshawar, said people of FATA had been bearing the brunt of the U.S.-led war on terror for the past four years, but had remained silent due to fear of reprisals by the army.
The protest by Hazara communities in Quetta in Balochistan over their dead had given strength to local tribal people in FATA, he said. More than 100 people, including 83 Shias were killed in two bomb explosions in Quetta Jan. 11. The relatives there had refuse to bury their dead immediately in protest.
Only after braving three nights in Quettas freezing temperatures next to their slain loved ones did the families of the bombing victims end their protest and bury the bodies amid strict security measures in a Hazara graveyard. They did so after the government imposed governors rule in Balochistan.
Anger is growing over the acts of terrorism everywhere in the country. The people are rightly protesting over the armys killing of the innocent, Muhammad said.
The Khyber Agency incident has opened a new chapter of protests against the army. It is for the first time that people have chanted slogans against law enforcement agencies for their failure to provide protection. It will continue in the future if the army doesnt mend its ways, Umar Farooq, whose younger brother was among the dead, told IPS.
It was not just the brutal killing the army took away the slain bodies from the site of the protests and buried them on their own. Being Muslims, we wanted to give bath and have funerals before lowering them to the graves.
The killings come after a dubious army record. In 2009 the Pakistan army, he said, was shown in a video to be shooting from close range at seven boys in Swat. The army had argued that they were Taliban but they looked innocent and juvenile, he said.
The incident caused international outrage and the U.S. the main sponsor of the Swat Operation briefly withheld aid, Farooq said.
In October 2010 the U.S. sanctioned six units of the Pakistani military operating in the Swat valley under the Leahy Law which requires the U.S. State Department to certify that no military unit receiving U.S. aid is involved in gross human rights abuses. The law requires that when such abuses are found, they must be thoroughly investigated.
Despite pledges, Pakistan did not take any action to hold the perpetrators accountable as required under the law.
In several instances in Swat, Balochistan and the tribal areas, U.S. aid to Pakistan has continued in apparent contravention of the Leahy Law.
Human Right Watch said in its 2012 report that conditions had deteriorated markedly in the mineral-rich Balochistan, with disappearances of civilians, and an upsurge in killings of suspected Baloch militants and opposition activists by the military, intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps.
The government appeared powerless to rein in the militarys abuses, it said. Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 200 Baloch nationalist activists in 2012.
In April 2010, the Pakistan army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, apologised for the deaths of dozens of civilians during air raids near the Afghan border. The civilians were members of a pro-government tribe which had resisted Taliban influence.
On Jan. 17, shortly after the last killings, the army was severely criticised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. Lawmaker Saqibullah Khan said such incidents were bound to create anger against the army among the people, and should immediately be stopped.
The federal government should immediately stop military operations against militants as these have failed to establish peace. They have become the main source of creating problems for the civilians.
Member of the National Assembly from the Awami National Party Bushra Gohar told IPS that the military campaigns have displaced 1.2 million people in FATA and had adversely affected the lives of tribal people. Since 2005, we have started military operations in most of the seven tribal agencies of FATA, but militants are gaining strength while the poor people are suffering.
We demand an end to the military operation in FATA, she said.
(Inter Press Service)
Read more by Ashfaq YusufzaiRichard A. Bloom
What is Rand Paul thinking?
The Kentucky senator is among the Republicans doing their best to discredit Hillary Clinton for the way that she handled the attack in Benghazi. Since she is no longer the secretary of State, there is only one reason to focus attacks on her person: to discredit her as an Election 2016 candidate.
Is that a defensible priority right now? Isn't 2013 a bit early for it even from a purely pragmatic perspective?
If details emerge that tell us something we don't know about Clinton and Benghazi, there is plenty of time to use them. If no details emerge, it is bizarre to think this particular controversy will meaningfully impact her chances at winning the Democratic nomination or the general election. Unless this is a cynical play to the most irrational parts of the Republican base, which could conceivably derive pleasure from seeing Clinton attacked and reward whatever politician does it, there is no case to be made that Paul is making good use of his scarce face time with this message.
Republicans were convinced, prior to Election 2012, that Benghazi was a promising political issue. And despite all the subsequent evidence to the contrary, they seem to be pinning their 2016 hopes on Benghazi too. Is this seriously the best critique of Democratic foreign policy they've got?In the fortieth anniversary year of Philip K Dick's fortieth novel, Eli Lee finds a prescient and poignant work of grief, less concerned with sci-fi predictions of the future than with exorcising the ghosts of the past and confronting the quiet horror of addiction in the present
“Everything in A SCANNER DARKLY I actually saw. I mean, I saw even worse things than I put in A SCANNER DARKLY. I saw people who were reduced to a point where they couldn't complete a sentence…and this was permanent, this was for the rest of their lives. Young people. These were people maybe 18 and 19, and you know, it was like a vision of hell. And I vowed to write a novel about it sometime.” – Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly was Philip K Dick’s fortieth novel, and it’s one of his best-known works. It’s paranoid, disturbing and dystopian, but it wasn’t a vision of the future – it was a memoir.
Its main character, undercover narcotics agent, Bob Arctor, lives in a California that feels straight out of the early ‘70s, although we’re told the novel is set in 1994. When Arctor tries to infiltrate the supply chain of a drug called Substance D, he becomes addicted to it – his own supplier, Donna, is the woman he loves. His friends and housemates are all addicts, too. The plot ramps up when his police colleagues, from whom his identity is protected, ask him to run surveillance on himself, which is no-one’s idea of a good time: whenever he’s not on Substance D, he’s watching videos of himself on it.
Substance D is basically speed. For a long time, this was Dick’s drug of choice (I’ve written before about how you can conjure up an image of him at his desk, furiously typing, blinds drawn to block out the South California sun. He said he could turn out 68 pages of prose a day when he was on speed). Substance D is especially nasty, though. It destroys the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain, so that they first function independently and then compete, destroying any coherent idea of the self. In the case of Bob Arctor, it means that the addict self and the narc self eventually become unrecognisable to one another.
Dick denied that he based Arctor on himself, but their situations are strikingly similar: after his fourth wife Nancy left him, in 1970 – taking their daughter Isa with her – he said, “I got mixed up with a lot of street people, just to have somebody to fill the house. She left me with a four bedroom, two-bathroom house and nobody living in it but me. So I just filled it with street people and I got mixed up with a lot of people who were into drugs.” Arctor, too, had a family, but found himself alone and involved in drugs. “And then I just took amphetamines,” Dick says. “I have never ever taken hard drugs. But I was in a position to see what hard drugs did to people, what drugs did to my friends…” In A Scanner Darkly there's a strong sense of “how did I get here?” – that this isn’t where Arctor is meant to be. It’s likely Dick thought this about himself after the end of his marriage, too. When he was writing it, his then-wife Tessa would find him at his desk in tears.
By the time he wrote A Scanner Darkly, Dick was clean. He also had a horrific rehab experience in Canada which gave him the idea for ‘New Path’, the rehab organisation in the novel. Before, he would knock out up to four novels a year, but he worked on draft after draft of Darkly for four years. It was different; it required him to wrestle with a devastating period in his life and create something that would help him come to terms with it. Perhaps because it was less of a flight of imagination than other novels he’d written, this fidelity to reality forced him to slow down, get it right. Its depth and density reflect this. Also, its timeless truths about drug addiction and perfect evocation of the grotty southern California of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s make it a canonical drugs novel.
Post-war, two ways of writing about drugs emerged: in the early ‘50s, on the one hand there was William Burroughs, unnerving and brazen about heroin addiction in Junkie. On the other, there was Aldous Huxley in The Doors of Perception, recommending a nice afternoon listening to Mozart, staring at some flowers and dropping a soupçon of mescalin. In the early ‘60s the Huxleyian narrative of blissful transcendence dominated – his 1962 novel Island is the ultimate pro-psychedelics story. Alan Watts’ Joyous Cosmology came out the same year; Leary, Alpert and Metzner published The Psychedelic Experience soon after. But by the end of the decade, these beatific ideals had collapsed. There was acid burnout – a move towards heroin, speed and cocaine. In the background, there was Nixon’s war on drugs and the Vietnam War. When Dick wrote A Scanner Darkly, he wasn’t alone in charting the cultural wreckage of the late ‘60s – in Joan Didion’s era-defining The White Album, she writes that when she was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Santa Monica, her symptoms did not seem to her “an inappropriate response to the summer of 1968”.
Even so, the characters in A Scanner Darkly are recognisable today. Dick’s addicts are paranoid, wired and desperate. When they’re high they sit around shooting the shit, which is often very funny. Dick believed it to be both his saddest and most humorous work; a great deal of the novel is just them talking drug-addled rubbish at one another (Dick was also proud of the novel’s “very funny suicide scene”). Some of them have a grimly recognisable entrepreneurial spirit, too. Arctor’s smart-ass housemate Barris says at one point, “I’ve got a temporary lab set up at the house…watch me extract a gram of cocaine from common legal materials purchased openly at the 7-11 food store for under a dollar total cost.” Homespun drug production? Distinct shades of Breaking Bad there.
But it’s not just a novel about drug addiction. Dick was always spilling over with beliefs, questions and epiphanies. A Scanner Darkly races back and forth between depicting the nervy, brutal shape of drug abuse and Bob Arctor slowly losing his grip on his identity, trying to understand why it insists on being elusive and unstable. This instability is, of course, directly linked to the way in which Substance D causes – as Dick says, wonderfully – “organic brain damage producing split-brain dysfunction and a tragic parody of bilateral hemispheric parity”. But it also connects to a far greater set of ideas Dick was exploring, primarily metaphysical, and especially so as he wrote this.
Dick was an enormously wide-ranging reader and thinker – apparently he pored over his giant set of encyclopaedias (he would have loved the internet). But his reading suggests a certain wayward solipsism, which might be necessary, I guess, if – as he was – you’re busy creating your own cosmology. He read especially widely in mysticism, theology and spirituality, and as he tumbled further into this realm, there’s a sense that whilst the outside world deeply informed his work, what really lit him up was the construction of his own metaphysics. As much as he was anchored in the now (and in A Scanner Darkly this is especially true), he was also working out his own fantastically idiosyncratic responses to the kinds of abstractions that have been asked forever, most especially who am I? And is this reality the only reality?
Dick’s novels always pulsate between possible selves and possible realities. He was open-minded and in earnest. But in the case of A Scanner Darkly, in which the other self and the other reality are created by Substance D, all further possibilities are foreclosed. The only self is the disintegrated drug addict, the only reality their collapsed horizon. Everything implodes inside this paranoid subjectivity. It’s fascinating – in this novel alone, Dick shuts down a question he would normally push to the weirdest possible limits; it says an awful lot about the extent to which it stands out from the rest of his work.
In the early months of 1974, whilst writing the novel, Dick had a set of visions which formed the basis for his VALIS trilogy, and are also intricately detailed in his collected journals, ‘The Exegesis of Philip K Dick’. (Robert Crumb also turned them into a comic.) Based on the date, he called them the ‘2-3-74’ visions. These events convinced him – amongst much else – that there was another being within him: a first-century Christian called Thomas. Dick also came to believe, in all seriousness, that Anaheim, where he lived, was very clearly also first-century Rome or Palestine; that they were one and the same, and the two thousand years between them did not exist.
He was pretty confident about being Thomas and about his new interpretation of spacetime. As the PKD scholar Erik Davis remarks, “Dick dived into the deep end of the pool of weird”. He had ruptured reality and there was no looking back. As it stood, aspects of 2-3-74 had also been foreshadowed in his earlier writing, which made it all the more convincing. Through these visions, which refuted the idea of a single reality and a single identity, he barrelled towards a feeling of transcendence; towards something mystical and sacred that could eclipse everything that came before. You can see this play out in his novels – characters enter a process – a difficult struggle (just like Dick’s himself, which went on until he died of a stroke in ‘82) – to break free from the spell, or the entrapment, of their reality and reach something like salvation. It’s almost a Dick dialectic: reality plus rupture equals redemption.
A Scanner Darkly doesn’t do this, though. There’s no redemption, no light in the dark. This means that even as Dick was elaborating an entire metaphysics in his diaries, in Darkly, he was, very simply, writing his grief. “It is a very sad novel and very sad things happen to very good people,” he says. This makes it all the more a historical record, or even more accurately, a novel about drug addiction.
Since A Scanner Darkly then has no investment in predicting 1994, there’s no point asking what it got right about the future. Its few elements of science fiction, such as the ‘scramble suit’ that allows Bob to hide his identity in order to spy on himself (brilliantly depicted in Richard Linklater’s 2006 film adaptation, by the way); and the holographic projections of his house that he also uses to monitor himself, are background notes. Dick’s editor, Judy Del Ray, had to push him to make the novel more convincingly science fictional. “Judy, you know damn well the book is about the ‘60s,” he told her. Even so, he almost can’t help but write prescient novels. Even his novels were uncanny precogs – how meta.
In A Scanner Darkly, legal and governmental forces pretend to rehabilitate addicts, but inevitably, in this pessimistic universe, they enable them. The circulation of Substance D represents the epitome of a corrupt system, and making this point in the ‘70s might have made Dick seem a bit fringe, a bit of a conspiracy nut, but today he’s an anti-authority touchstone – a harbinger for exposing how corruption is at the very centre of things. There’s also, of course, the fact that surveillance is omnipresent in the novel, and that Bob Arctor watches and reports on himself. Dick’s surveillance dreams are the reality of social control today. You could also, if you want, say that Arctor’s split into two is an analogue of the real-life self and the self on the internet; the former watches the latter, and the latter is, of course, enmeshed in a web of monitoring. You could even go further and say that Substance D, causing self-surveillance and self-estrangement, is a symbol of identity dissociation in the same way the internet is.
But this is all conjecture. Really, Dick just wanted to talk about the friends he lost to drug abuse, and the pain it caused. In the Author’s Note at the end of the novel, Dick says, “This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did.” There’s a list of his friends who have either died or been damaged by drug addiction and he says, “I loved them all”. (He puts himself in that list too – to Phil: permanent pancreatic damage.)
Usually, when we think of Philip K Dick we think of his astonishing foresight. He played with simulacra, fractured realities and multiple selves in ways no-one else did and that uncannily anticipated the postmodern condition. The transformation of a novel like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep into the stunning noir of Blade Runner has also made him synonymous with the hypnotic aesthetic of future-dreaming late capitalism, which is, in fact, far removed from his grubby, shambolic novelistic worlds. His prescience and the aesthetic vision we’ve superimposed on him are the reasons why he’s so popular; he dreamed up the myths of the future and we have filled them out, made them real.
Yet I stick to what I’ve always believed about him – that pretty much the driving force of his writing was to make us empathise with others and with their suffering. A Scanner Darkly was, as he says, “from the deepest part of my life and heart” – it is bound up with his own experience of loss, grief and addiction. Yes, Dick was a brilliant thinker, but it’s about time we gave more space to the other aspect of his brilliance – that he was also fully in touch with his own humanity, and able to turn it into such dark, funny and visionary novels.
Thanks to Kiran for her help and to Mark Fisher (RIP) for his essay on A Scanner DarklyEven after the recent signing of veteran lefty J.P. Howell, the Toronto Blue Jays apparently remain active on the free agent front. With obvious holes to plug and, according to Shi Davidi, about 10 million remaining in their budget, the Toronto Blue Jays are still attached to Jerry Blevins and Boone Logan in some capacity. However, the question remains, given the Blue Jays track record of quickly advancing young arms and giving bullpen opportunities to players who have been cast aside, who will make the ascension this year? Who are the possible Spring Training surprise stories this year?
Blue Jays Bullpen Still a Work in Progress
The clear number one on this list, Reid-Foley brings all of the skills to the table necessary to make the jump from minor league prospect to Major League contributor. He features a mid-to-upper 90’s fastball, a decent mix of developing off speed, improving control, and a knack for missing bats. At times, he looks like he can do whatever he wants on the mound. Based off of his recent success and self-belief, Reid-Foley remains the Blue Jays best internal option to turn heads during a Spring Training tryout.
He got an opportunity last year, among the Aaron Loup chaos, to show off his skill set after a successful campaign in the minors. Girodo is a standard lefty who has the chance to succeed at the Major League level, with three pitches that all sit as league average. Furthermore, Girodo has the ability to get outs with deception alone. With Howell and Loup in the mix and they Jays still attached to Blevins and Logan through free agency, Girodo would have to have a perfect Spring Training campaign to have a chance. He has the ability to put himself in the conversation he if executes at a high level.
Being protected from the Rule 5 draft is always a good sign. After being selected in the 15th round, Borucki has never been able to find health. He has a good arm with low 90’s velocity, but an elite change-up. Think a lefty Danny Barnes (who should also be a mainstay in the Blue Jays bullpen this year). Borucki may not have the ability to throw balls through bats, but he can consistently miss them. Look for Borucki to move quickly this year. There is a chance he breaks camp with the Jays.
In every system, there are guys who just never seem |
gent forms, however, racial dehumanization remains the rule from Chicago and Philadelphia to the highlands of Oaxaca and Chiapas and the barrios of Caracas, São Paulo, and elsewhere.
As W.E.B. Du Bois reminds us in Black Reconstruction, when the struggle against the U.S. slave economy exploded, Confederate secessionists gazed southward toward “a great slave empire in the Caribbean.” Even after the Confederates’ defeat, however, the knot binding slavery to colonialism was not fully undone. After an experiment with what Du Bois calls “abolition-democracy,” the brief period of Radical Reconstruction in which Black and white alike participated in politics on an equal footing and the welfare of both improved, Reconstruction was abandoned and Jim Crow gradually imposed. As a result, “The United States was turned into a reactionary force. It became the cornerstone of that new imperialism which is subjecting the labor of yellow, brown and black peoples,” or what Du Bois would call the vast “dark proletariat.” After all, if U.S. citizens had accepted the white dictatorship of Jim Crow at home, why not impose one abroad?
Imperial expansion was swift: within two short decades, U.S. troops would deploy to Argentina, Chile, Haiti, Panama, and Nicaragua, and the U.S. would seize Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam. From that point forward a relentless dialectic unfolded. As the Cold War set in decades later, the specter of communism replaced the vagaries of “U.S. interests,” with suspicion falling anywhere that might serve as a Soviet “beachhead.” The Black community, too, was similarly suspect for the sympathies it harbored. This was not all empty paranoia either: communists Black and white had been among the strongest advocates for racial equality. Black militants—from Malcolm X to the Black Panthers— would adopt a socialist internationalism, and exiles— from Robert F. Williams to Assata Shakur today—would find much-needed refuge in Cuba and China.
All of this is to say, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Chicago: Haymarket, 2016) is a book that matfor Latin America because the struggles of Black and Latin Americans have been tightly intertwined for nearly half a millennium. From the very beginning, with an introduction entitled “Black Awakening in Obama’s America,” Taylor evokes Robert Allen’s classic Black Awakening in Capitalist America, a prescient text in many ways, not least for Allen’s effort to grasp the condition and internal dynamics of Black Americans as a case of “domestic colonialism.” And like Allen’s book, Taylor’s is shot through with a commitment to socialist internationalism and the deepening global resonance of anti-capitalist solidarities.
Black Liberation: A Hemispheric Task Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is a book that matters for racial justice struggles across the Americas. All authors George Ciccariello-Maher https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2017.1298241 LORIE SHAULL / CREATIVE COMMONS Display full size
LORIE SHAULL / CREATIVE COMMONS
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is the best account yet of Black freedom struggles and the many barriers and containment strategies these struggles continue to confront to the present. The argument is rigorously materialist in its assessment of capital’s exploitation of Black labor in particular, but without sacrificing an attentiveness to the ideological. Despite all the talk of historic change—from the Civil Rights Movement to the election of a Black president—Taylor painstakingly shows just how much has stayed the same. Or rather, how change has become part of the same and how freedom was recycled into new forms of oppression.
Cementing continuities is the ideology of American exceptionalism, or what Du Bois called “the American Assumption,”—the myth of “boundless opportunity” against which slavery stood as “its most sinister contradiction.” And at the intersection of freedom and slavery stands that material force—Black rebellion— capable of shaking this ideology to its very foundations. This myth of American opportunity has built for itself many alibis, beginning with biological racism that was tasked with the hard work of reconciling freedom with its opposite. But as Black freedom dawned toward the end of the nineteenth century, the biological slowly gave way to the cultural—in particular, arguments about a “culture of poverty,” which contended that the problem lay not in racist institutions but damaged individuals and weakened families. Taylor’s first chapter, “A Culture of Racism,” is a blunt repudiation of this governing myth of twentieth-century America.
But Taylor also starkly illustrates the historical ebb and flow of such ideological arguments with a brutal counterposition of quotations from Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama in which the Texas cracker in 1965 recognized the structural sources of Black oppression in “ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice” while the nation’s first Black president insisted in 2013 that “we’ve got no time for excuses” and advised Black Americans to forget about slavery. What caused this? Rebellious Black movements in the streets had transformed consciousness—Black and white alike—forcing Johnson’s hand in 1965, as in 2014 they would force Obama’s. Taylor provides a necessary reminder against those facile arguments today that insist riots produce only a conservative backlash: “There was a nuanced public response to the riots in the late 1960s, not just a backlash,” she writes. “The Black struggle,” especially around police brutality, “pushed mainstream politics to the left” by contradicting cherished myths about opportunity and meritocracy, drawing back the veil to reveal a very different and divided reality.
The reality of Black life in the 1960s was not one of individual failings or cultural pathologies but of the systematic, structural oppression of Black Americans—and as Taylor points out, survey data at the height of the rebellions in 1967 shows that even some 40 percent of whites understood the problem as a structural one. But this shift in white consciousness, in Taylor’s unparalleled rendering, only retained its ideological traction so long as the material vehicle of the movements in the streets continued. As the movements receded, the analytic frame of national debate shifted once again from structures to individuals, facilitated by a conscious turn to “colorblind” language that took hold as a recycled version of the American Assumption, in which the absence of overt racism served as proof of equal opportunity.
Nixon himself understood that crushing Black militancy was key to pacifying workers, students, and women as well, but he did so by denouncing a colorblind “criminality” and expanding policing powers as he slashed social welfare budgets—an attack on all poor people disguised as an attack on the undeserving—paving the way for Reagan to do the same. “By the end of the 1970s, there was little talk about institutional racism or the systemic roots of Black oppression. There was even less talk about the kind of movement necessary to challenge it,” Taylor writes. If government officials deployed colorblind ideology to wage a material war on Black America and beyond, this ideology would find a crucial vehicle in the Black political and economic elites that emerged in the wake of the 1960s.
But the emergence of what Taylor calls—following Amiri Baraka—“Black faces in high places” coincided with much Black labor becoming irrelevant to capital accumulation, generating an inevitable clash between these new elites and their increasingly “disposable” constituents. This tension—exacerbated by the emergence of a small but vocal Black economic elite—means that the Black community is “frayed” at best, and that at worst there exist “two Black societies … separate and unequal.” The “unprecedented display of Black political [and economic] power appears to mean very little in the lives of ordinary Black people, who wield almost no power at all,” and even reinforces mythical claims that capitalism works and that the U.S. is indeed the land of opportunity.
All of this helps us to explain an apparent paradox: why did the election of the first Black president give rise to a wave of Black rebellion? For the same reason that the 1965 Watts Rebellion exploded a mere five days after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law: because much was promised and little changed. Not only did police violence continue unabated—beginning with Oscar Grant in the first hours of the first day of 2009—but in many ways, the lives of ordinary Black Americans “have become worse.” Taylor points to median Black income (down 10.9 percent under Obama), a tripling in the racial wealth disparity, and Black unemployment numbers under Obama—39 percent in Wisconsin, 34 percent in Michigan, 46 percent in Minnesota—that burst with resonance after the recent 2016 presidential election.
In this story about change and continuity, the two coexist in the present under the names Ferguson and Baltimore. Ferguson, where the murder of Mike Brown sparked riots in 2014, was so galling because—as a majority Black city governed by rapacious white leadership and police force—it stank of the old Jim Crow. But Baltimore, where the killing of Freddie Gray sparked a mass rebellion less than a year later, is almost entirely Black-run: “When a Black mayor, governing a largely Black city, aids in the mobilization of a military unit led by a Black woman to suppress a Black rebellion, we are in a new period of the Black freedom struggle,” Taylor astutely observes.
At this crossroads of past and present, Taylor skillfully charts out the prehistory, development, and challenges facing #BLM, drawing Hurricane Katrina, the 2011 execution of Troy Davis, and Occupy Wall Street into a shared trajectory of radicalization that has indelibly marked our present. But just as Abolition and the Civil Rights Movement drew others into their radical orbits, so too today: in the words of Donna Murch, “a beautiful black storm against state violence is brewing so dense it has created a gravity of its own.” The movement tends to be young, female, queer, decentralized, and anti-capitalist, and is besieged by some of the same forces of prior generations: the state, foundation funding, the lure of elections.
Taylor’s most important contribution is to return power to its most fundamental source: to grassroots struggles in the streets. These struggles, in their fierce autonomy, forced the state to respond. Obama’s rhetoric eventually shifted, but only as a result of the mass rebellions in Ferguson and Baltimore. As Taylor demonstrates: “Black people’s progress has always been propelled by the strength of the movements of the mass of ordinary Black people.” This shift is not limited to leaders, either. In a repeat of the 1960s, militant Black rebellion shifted white attitudes as well: the percentage of whites who view police killings as isolated incidents dropping from 58 to 36 in a single year. Such suggestions ground the powerful call for solidarity with which Taylor concludes, the kind of solidarity that can only be built through struggle in the streets.
Black Liberation: A Hemispheric Task Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is a book that matters for racial justice struggles across the Americas. All authors George Ciccariello-Maher https://doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2017.1298241 Haymarket Books, 2016 Display full size
Haymarket Books, 2016
Throughout Taylor’s account, the question of the Third World seeps in through the cracks, clamoring for attention. While widely criticized, media references to “refugees” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina spoke to a lived reality, which Danny Glover recognized when he wrote that the hurricane didn’t turn New Orleans into a Third World country but instead “revealed” one. A decade later, Ferguson activist Johnetta Elzie spoke at once of the connection she felt with Gaza during the 2014 bombardment and the shock she experienced at seeing Ferguson “become Gaza.” After Mike Brown was killed, his body was left in the street, prompting one observer to insist that “Dictators leave bodies in the street.” And when protesters confronted a heavily-militarized police force in those same streets, the comparison only rang truer.
Toward the end of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, Taylor returns to the colonial question, suggesting—too quickly, in my view—that the lens doesn’t quite fit, in part because the exploitation of Black labor is no longer the “motor of American capitalism” that it was when cotton was king. The implication, however, is that Blacks were colonial subjects only when they were useful. However, in reality, many colonial regimes are less about exploiting labor than about extracting resources and dispossessing inhabitants of their land— an explanation that accounts in part for the very introduction of slavery to the Americas and the disposability of Indigenous peoples. While it’s true that Black Americans don’t comfortably fit the colonial mold—in part because their position as both internal to and excluded from U.S. democracy has given integrationist strategies priority over separatist ones—following the colonial contour can shed some light.
Frantz Fanon, one of colonialism’s sharpest critics, famously described the colonial order as a system of geographic separation that he termed “Manichaean” for the absoluteness of the ethical division it established between good and evil. In an era marked by deepening residential and educational segregation, in which Black people are routinely judged to be preemptively guilty of their own deaths, such Manichaeism resonates. For Fanon, moreover, it is the police and the military that brutally uphold this geographic segregation in the streets. This is increasingly the case as American police become, in Taylor’s words, “storm-troopers for gentrification,” stopping and frisking entire populations with military-provided tanks and water cannons waiting in the wings.
Moreover, Taylor’s astute analysis of the “pivot” from biological racism to the “culture of poverty” finds a direct analog in what Fanon dissected as the “so-called dependency complex” of the colonized—indeed, Fanon would underline the importance of this “pivot” in his 1956 speech “Racism and Culture.” It’s no surprise that, as Taylor shows, the liberal anthropologist Oscar Lewis, who coined the term “culture of poverty,” believed the phenomenon could be found from “Mexican villages” to “lower class Negroes in the United States.” In both cases, otherwise sympathetic liberal social scientists provided an alibi for white supremacy by locating the “problem” in the individual rather than in the social structure. And just as Taylor returns to structural arguments to pull the rug from under the “culture of poverty,” so too did Fanon chart a return to the structure of colonial domination itself.
In Latin America, geographic segregation has long been the norm. So-called “marginals” have worn it even in their given name, while wealthy white elites ensconce themselves in militarized urban fortresses, with militarized police marking the border between the two. Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro alone have killed an estimated 8,000 people in the past decade—the majority of them Afro-Brazilians. In Venezuela, despite efforts by Chavismo to transform policing, rising violent crime has led to a recent return to deadly hardline policing in the barrios. In Mexico, the number killed and disappeared is wholly unfathomable, as cartels, police, and the federal government all murder dark-skinned forgettables indiscriminately— apparently, it takes 43 student-teachers disappeared in a single 2014 incident in Iguala to spark sustained outcry. And when NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton was invited to export racist policing to Caracas and Rudy Giuliani to Rio and Mexico City, the thin line between internal and external colonies all but disappeared.
While more complicated systems of racialization have meant that Black identity in Latin America has only recently broken into the mainstream, it was way ahead in fostering a “colorblind” postracial myth: mestizaje, or in Brazil “racial democracy,” the insistence that since Latin Americans are mixed and that racism couldn’t possibly exist. As in the U.S., however, this myth was a veil concealing very real structures of discrimination and exclusion. At the same time that Reagan was rolling back social welfare and criminalizing the poor, neoliberal structural adjustments were being imposed across Latin America through the leverage of a debt crisis that Reagan himself had created. Thus, while Black Americans were being pushed out of the economy, up to half of Latin Americans were suffering the same fate, condemned to the underground informal economy.
In the Global South as in the North, the explosion would come from these excluded and written-off sectors, and it would also have much to do with raised expectations. Venezuela, for example, was far from the region’s poorest country, but one in which dire poverty coexisted with extravagant, oil-fueled luxury. As in Taylor’s account, change was only possible through mass action—and indeed, rioting in the streets. The ensuing explosion from those marginalized to the barrios at the intersection of race and class—the 1989 Caracazo rebellion against neoliberal structural adjustment—came as a shock to elites who, like Obama, have struggled to catch up.
Similar explosions in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Argentina helped to propel leftist leaders into power, as these movements themselves have also struggled with the questions Taylor poses so well: how to shift from “moment to movement” and from “protest to politics;” how to return structural explanations to center stage, and how to engage with the dangerous lure of state political power without falling prey to the pitfalls of pragmatism. How, in short, to move from rebellion to refashioning the powers governing our everyday lives? In the Americas North and South, it is radical movements rebelling in the streets that have the power to throw structures of race and class “into chaos.” And with chaos comes great opportunity.“The Turnbull government is at war with the people. This is a government which hates their own constituents. The Liberal Party has lost touch with what it stands for and will be decimated unless it changes tack. Across the next electoral cycle the Liberals will lose power federally and in every state with the exception, perhaps, of Tasmania.”
Those are not the words of the opposition, but of one of the Liberal Party’s leading strategists of the past 20 years.
Geoffrey Greene has worked as Liberal Party state director in both South Australia and Queensland and was one of the architects behind John Howard’s successful election campaigns between 1996 and 2007.
Mr Greene spoke to The New Daily in the hope of shocking his party back from the brink.
Known for his ruthless political savvy, Mr Greene was an old-fashioned, behind-the-scenes political operative. His public declaration of despair follows on from the resignations this month of Liberal federal director Tony Nutt and his deputy John Burston.
“They would not have supported the warfare this government has declared on its citizens,” Mr Greene said.
“The Turnbull government has attacked every core constituency, small business, superannuants, pensioners, families with children, all because they have a budget that is out of control.
“They have not done anything about their own backyard. Public servants still fly at the front of the plane.”
He warns that the crashing political fortunes of his party is being accompanied by administrative collapse at federal, state and branch levels, with membership and donations in freefall.
Mr Greene said a major Liberal Party constituency was small business, yet they had been burdened with excessive regulation.
“This is a government which only listens to big business,” Mr Greene said. “Small business has been annihilated.”
Mr Greene sheets home blame for the Liberal Party debacle to a lack of professionalism.
“Generally speaking, the whole malaise of this government is due to inept advice, ministerial and organisational,” he said. “The Liberal Party once possessed a professional caste of political operatives and campaign staff who helped politicians nuance their messages and understand the voters.
“We knew from our polling how every person voted in every street and why. We understood how to ensure policy platforms met the expectations of the citizenry.”
Mr Greene said Malcolm Turnbull did not represent the traditionally socially conservative Liberal voter.
“The rise of Pauline Hanson is a reflection that the Liberal Party has walked away from their values. It permeates the brand across the country. It is offensive.”
Mr Greene said the party’s drift from its base was compounded by the lack of professional political operatives now working in parliamentary offices.
“I have never seen a set of government ministers more captured by their departments,” he said. “Managers sourced from the department are loyal to their departments, professional advisers are loyal to their parties, and to those who voted for them.
“Turnbull is running the country with a group of 25-year-old political brats. He doesn’t listen.”
From Centrelink robo-calls to the botched implementation of the NBN, government incompetence is at the forefront of public concerns.
“It will be a hard road to win them back,” Mr Greene said.
In recent weeks there have been frantic attempts by Mr Turnbull to seize control of the national narrative, including the “dog-whistling” of citizenship tests and attacks on so-called dole bludgers, many of whom, with the destruction of manufacturing, are simply unable to find a job.
All this activity barely lifted Mr Turnbull’s dismal standing in the polls a single point.
“Turnbull has nothing left,” Mr Greene said. “There are no other constituencies his government can attack.”Posted 13 October 2015 - 05:14 PM
Greetings MechWarriors,
UPDATE: Phase 2 of the Re-Balance PTS has ended! We will be running another phase of the Re-Balance PTS soon!
Starting October 14th at 3:00 PM PDT (10:00 PM UTC) the Public Test Server (PTS) will be activated for a new phase of the 'Mech Re-Balance Public Test session.
This Phase of the Re-Balance PTS is intended for testing a specific set of isolated changes from what is currently present in the Live environment:
Overall increase to the Health value for all Equipment and Weapons.
Reduction in the Maximum Range for all Clan Lasers.
Adjustments to I.S. and Clan Heat Sink values.
Change to fundamental ECM behavior, including effective radius.
Adjustments to Information Warfare mechanics such as Sensor Range, target acquisition rates, information sharing, and reticle/targeting behavior.
For the purposes of this test phase, all 'Mech and Weapon Quirks have been removed.
The exact changes detailed further in this post should not be taken as the entirety of what the final re-balance will entail, nor are the changes listed here necessarily ‘locked in’ for any final release.
The end-goal of these public test sessions are to work toward a complete re-balance of the game’s core combat systems.
This PTS Phase is scheduled to run until further notice, and will be followed up with additional phases to allow for adjustments based on your feedback and new changes.
If you have already participated in a previous PTS session and still have the client installed, you will only need to apply the latest patches. Otherwise, accessing the PTS will require that you download and install a separate instance of the MWO client.
The download link for the PTS installer can be found here.
The Focus of this Test Phase
The first component of this test phase covers the implementation of certain ‘Information Warfare’ technologies and gameplay mechanics, such as how your weaponry and your targeting HUD react to your target state, the range at which you can acquire targeting data from enemy ‘Mechs, how targeting data is shared with your allies, and the overall implementation of ECM.
The most significant change to the Information Warfare components featured in this test phase concerns the implementation of ECM.
On the current Live server environment, ECM provides an ‘always-on’ bubble of protection from enemy target-lock for any ally ‘Mech within its 180m radius. The only way for an opponent to override that protection is to counter it with a TAG laser, NARC beacon, PPC charge, BAP coverage, or with an ECM suite in 'Counter' mode.
The implementation of ECM during this testing phase differs from that current system in two significant ways:
1) The radius of ECM protection has been decreased from 180m to 90m.
2) ECM no longer prevents target-lock altogether; it simply delays the time it takes for an enemy to achieve target-lock on a 'Mech within ECM radius.
TAG, NARC, BAP, PPC's, and an ECM suit in 'Counter' mode can still be used as ECM-counters; they will simply negate the targeting delay enforced by ECM coverage.
The second component of this test phase covers some of the initial steps that we are taking toward bridging the technology gap that exists between Inner Sphere and Clan ‘Mechs. Heat efficiency is one of the biggest disparities between Inner Sphere and Clan tech, and is one of two aspects covered in this test phase. The second concerns the extremely long range of Clan Lasers relative to their Inner Sphere counterparts.
Those changes, detailed below, are just the first of many that will be coming down the line in future PTS sessions.
What we hope to achieve with this test phase is for you to try out the outlined changes and provide constructive feedback regarding how these changes feel in a match and whether they affect your personal play style.
Please keep in mind that all of the changes listed below are a ‘first pass’ set of values, and adjustments can be made as needed in any increment. The changes featured in this PTS phase are not going to end up on the Live production server any time soon!
For now, we simply want you to experience these changes, test the values, and monitor our progress as we work toward our goals of a) re-balancing the ‘Mechs across the board, and b) effectively integrating Information and Role-based Warfare mechanics into MechWarrior Online.
Specific Changes
Quirks
For the purposes of this test phase, all existing Quirks from the Live environment have been removed.
The only Quirks that are in place for this test phase are related to Sensor Range.
Modules
The number and type of Modules in this Phase are the same as what is currently present in the Live environment. The changes made to available Module slots and types that were seen during the first Re-Balance PTS are not present in this phase.
ECM
ECM radius has been decreased to 90m (down from 180m).
ECM no longer prevents lock-on for 'Mechs within the radius. It only delays the amount of time it takes to achieve lock-on by 3 seconds.
The target-lock delay provided from ECM can still be overridden by TAG, NARC, BAP, PPC's, and ECM suites set to 'Counter' mode.
Equipment and Weaponry
Equipment/Weapon Health
The Health of all Equipment and Weapons has been increased to 15 (up from 10).
Inner Sphere Single Heat Sinks
Chassis-equipped Single Heat Sink cooling rate increased to 1.1 (up from 1).
Engine-equipped Single Heat Sink cooling rate increased to 1.1 (up from 1).
Chassis-equipped Single Heat Sink heat capacity increased to 1.1 (up from 1).
Inner Sphere Double Heat Sinks
Chassis-equipped Double Heat Sink heat capacity increased to 1.5 (up from 1.4).
Clan Double Heat Sinks
Chassis-equipped Clan Double Heat Sink cooling rate increased to 0.15 (up from 0.14).
Chassis-equipped Clan Double Heat Sink heat capacity decreased to 1.2 (down from 1.4)
Clan Laser Maximum Ranges
Maximum Ranges for all Clan Lasers have been reduced by 40%.
Targeting Mechanics
Weapon and targeting reticle mechanics when target is not locked
The targeting reticle will no longer flash when a hit is detected on a ‘Mech that is not target-locked.
Lasers will not do full damage when striking a ‘Mech that is not target-locked from a range greater than 60% of the Laser’s Optimal Range.
The original post text here referred to "...60% of the Laser's Maximum Range", which was not correct.
Reticle mechanics when target is locked
The targeting reticle will now change color and shape when a hit is detected on a ‘Mech that is target-locked.
Sensor Range
All ‘Mechs start with a baseline Sensor Range of 500m. Through the application of Sensor Range Quirks on a per-variant basis, individual variants can receive an increase to their baseline Sensor Range.
Post-Quirk Sensor Ranges will generally fall into the value regions listed below, according to weight class:
Light ‘Mechs: ~900m Sensor Range.
Medium ‘Mechs: ~800m Sensor Range.
Heavy ‘Mechs: ~700-750m Sensor Range.
Assault ‘Mechs: ~500-650m Sensor Range.
Target Acquisition Rate
The Target Acquisition Rate for all ‘Mechs during this test phase is 0 seconds.
Target Acquisition Rate can be quirked on a per-variant level, but there are no Target Acquisition Rate Quirks in place for this test phase.
Target Acquisition Rates are affected by ECM.
The Target Acquisition Delay caused by ECM for all ‘Mechs during this test phase is 3 seconds.
Target Information Sharing
Target information sharing is now based on the distance between the target and the first teammate, then from the distance of that teammate to all other teammates.
PTS CLIENT INSTALLATION STEPS
Download and run the PTS installer (if a previous install of the PTS Client is not already present on your system).
Run the MechWarriorOnline.exe, located in your C:\Program Files (x86)\MWO Public Test\MechWarrior Online\Bin32 folder (default install location).
Click the Patch button.
Accept the Terms of Use.
The PTS Client will then proceed to download the MWO install base, which is roughly 7 GB in size.
Once the Install Base has been downloaded and installed the launcher will then download and apply any necessary patches.
Once the patches are downloaded and installed, you should now have access to the Play button.
Click Play!
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This is just a test. The 'Mech Re-Balance is still a work-in-progress.
The core build used for this PTS build was derived from the September 22nd patch. As a result, this PTS build does not include any of the content, fixes, or changes released in the October 6th patch.
There is currently no set end-time for this PTS session.
Attempting to access the PTS session prior to October 14th at 3:00 PM PDT (10:00 PM UTC) will result in a 'Servers Undergoing Maintenance' message.
The sole purpose of this PTS session is to test and experiment the specific aspects of the 'Mech Re-Balance listed in the previous section of this post.
Solo and Group queue match services will be available through the PTS client during this PTS session.
Community Warfare will be available through the PTS client during this PTS session.
The standard Live client will continue to function as normal.
Your login information for the PTS client will be the same as your Live account login information.
Any actions you take inside the PTS client, such as spending MC/C-Bills or customizing your 'Mechs, will not carry over to your Live account.
All PTS accounts will be provided with boosted C-Bill, MC, and GXP values to allow for full testing of any desired builds. Those boosts will be provided in the PTS build only.
The account that is used for your access to the PTS client is a'snapshot' of your standard Live account. Any changes you make to your Live account while we are running the PTS session may not necessarily carry over to your PTS'snapshot' account.
To help prevent any confusion with the Live environment, all general discussion of the Re-Balance PTS session should go into the Re-Balance Feedback sub-forum.
Please direct all chassis-specific discussion of this phase into the associated sub-forum for that chassis.
All previous Feedback posted during Phase 1 has been moved into their associated archive sections (both general and chassis-specific).
We request that you please only use the Re-Balance forum for constructive feedback and discussion of the Re-Balance PTS.
Please do not submit any support tickets regarding issues with the Re-Balance PTS.
Download link for the Public Test Server installer!OTTAWA — A United Nations-sponsored report says Canada remained among the top 10 countries in the world for investment in renewable energy last year.
The annual report released this morning found global investment in renewable energies, not including hydro-electric power, climbed 17% in 2014 to around US$270 billion.
The increase marked a global rebound after two years in which renewable energy investment shrank from its all-time high in 2011.
China was the clear colossus at the top of the renewable energy investment heap, with spending increasing 39% over 2013 to a total of more than US$83-billion.
The United States and Japan rounded out the top three — each investing more than US$350billion — while Canada placed sixth overall for the second year in a row, with investments of about US$8-billion, up 8% over 2013.
The report found that, globally, solar and wind energy projects accounted for 92% of all investment in renewables in 2014.- This 21-year-old University of Minnesota student is from a small town, and he's never watched a sporting event in a bar in his entire life. Before the Vikings take on the San Francisco 49ers Monday night, Reddit user Nickthegreat is asking for some guidance from fellow fans. Specifically, he's looking to ensure Buffalo Wild Wings would be an amicable game-watching environment, and if it's ok to watch alone.
Here's what he wrote:
"Hey all,
I've been a pretty passionate member of /r/minnesotavikings for quite some time, so I thought I'd ask some probably pretty stupid questions here since I figured you all would be understanding. I'm from a very small town and I've always watched games either through online streams or with my friends, so this is a big change for me.
I'm 21 years old, and I've never watched a game at a bar in my life. Hell, I've never even gone to a sit down restaurant alone. Being a college student in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota who wants to watch the game, the idea of getting out and cheering with people while watching the Vikings play appeals to me. I'm normally pretty introverted, but my passion for football is so great, I'm willing to break out of my shell and try something new.
I'm thinking of going to Buffalo Wild Wings (The one near TCF Bank Stadium) since it's within walking distance of my place, and because I think it might be a more tame atmosphere than perhaps a bar. Okay, here are my questions:
1. Is it okay to go to a Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the game alone? Will there be other people there that also went alone?
2. How much money do I need to spend? I could justify getting a burger and a drink, but I hope the waiters don't keep pressing me to buy more food, I don't have a whole lot of money. Would they be cool with me sitting and watching the game for hours? Do most people buy food the entire time they're there?
3. Is it easy to make friends while watching the game? Or does everyone sort of sit at their own tables and stuff to watch the game? Is there a congregation area where you can sit with a throng of people to watch the game?
Edit: Thanks everyone for the great tips. You have no idea how much this helps! I'm really excited for the game tonight and there's no way I'll have a bad time. Skol Vikings!"
Nickthegreat received an array of promising testimonials. Here's one from FlannelBeard:
"No one cares if you go alone. If I go alone, I sit at the bar and chat with the bartender. Much easier to get into conversation. At a table, youre isolated. Plus Bartenders are usually funny shits. Ill likely be at Big Ten Bar on campus for the game tonight.
You can buy one drink and sit there for the rest of the night. Most dont care, although BWWs may as its a bit more of a corporate place. Ill usually get a beer or 4 and some apps just to keep everyone happy.
Yes. Drunk people love to talk. Youll learn this in not too long."
h/t RedditNew York Mayor Bill de Blasio (pictured in Manhattan on Monday) is shaping up for another showdown with Donald Trump
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is shaping up for another showdown with Donald Trump.
De Blasio issued a mayor directive, which was sent around by senior NYPD figures on Tuesday, telling officers not to let ICE agents onto school ground unless they have a 'valid warrant', the New York Post reports.
The order states 'non-local law enforcement officers will not be permitted to proceed' beyond the reception desk at schools in New York City.
The mayoral memo was reportedly authorized by Chief of Department Carlos Gomez, and it demands a senior NYPD official must be contacted: 'if there is a disagreement between a principal and non-local law enforcement officer regarding access to the school or an officer insists/demands access'.
De Blasio issued a mayor directive telling officers not to let ICE agents onto school ground unless the have a 'valid warrant'. Donald Trump is pictured speaking on Tuesday
The move was apparently met with some push-back from NYPD brass, with one source telling the newspaper it was a 'ridiculous' plan.
'We work with law enforcement. That’s our job... we're supposed to work together,' the cop insider said.
The memo was sent just one day after Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a 'dire threat' to sanctuary cities - such as New York.
Sessions warned the cities would no longer receive federal Department of Justice grants which are worth billions.
The mayoral memo was authorized by Chief of Department Carlos Gomez (pictured), and it demands a senior NYPD official must be contacted: 'if there is a disagreement between a principal and non-local law enforcement officer regarding access to the school
President Trump then reiterated his support for Sessions during a listening session with the Fraternal Order of Police on Tuesday, mentioning the Attorney General's 'big day' regarding his comments on sanctuary policies.
'That was a very important thing you did, and frankly, a very popular thing. It's great to have you with us,' Trump said.
Sessions knocked cities and various other jurisdictions for not communicating law-breakers' immigration status to the feds, sometimes releasing illegal immigrants from jail so they can do more damage.
Sessions warned the cities would no longer receive federal Department of Justice grants which are worth billions
'Such policies cannot continue,' Sessions implored on Monday.
'They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on our streets.'
Sessions said he was 'urging states and local jurisdictions to comply with these federal laws.'
He said the Trump Justice Department will require compliance with immigration laws in order for the cities to receive grants through the Office of Justice Programs.GETTY Express.co.uk voters if they would back a different side in the EU referendum
With reports of Leave voters voicing their regret as the reality of Brexit hit home on Friday morning, many are questioning whether the result would be different if Britons were to go to the polls again. Uncertainty and panic set in across the country as the pound and shares plummeted after the shock result. Despite rallying in |
AFL Photos
14. Oh no, Toby
For all the scrutiny GWS star Toby Greene came under in a tumultuous season, it is the 'karate kick' for which he escaped suspension that lingers in the memory. Greene was scrutinised by the Match Review Panel at least six times in 2017, resulting in $3,500 in fines and four matches suspended. His offences included striking Caleb Daniel in a poorly-disguised spoil, jumper-punching Alex Rance, and striking Dan Houston. He was also cleared of headbutting Isaac Heeney, but only because there was insufficient force to maintain a charge. In round 21, in his first match back from a two-week ban, he lifted his right boot into the face of Luke Dahlhaus in a marking contest and was immediately reported for rough conduct. He was ultimately charged with the lesser offence of misconduct and forced to pay a $1500 fine in one of the more bizarre MRP cases of recent years.
Toby Greene was reported following this passage of play. #AFLDogsGiants pic.twitter.com/shNZAuk7y4 — AFL (@AFL) August 11, 2017
13. Young Tigers made for the big stage
Daniel Rioli continued a family legacy when he produced a brilliant four-goal performance in the preliminary final against GWS. With relatives Cyril and the late, great Maurice Rioli both winning Norm Smith Medals, Daniel always appeared destined to perform on the big stage and he delivered on a magical night at the MCG that saw the Tigers progress to their first Grand Final in 35 years. Jack Graham didn't have the same weight of expectation when he ran out for his fifth game in front of 100,021 the following week, but he produced a three-goal performance that at one stage had him in Norm Smith Medal calculations. It was a remarkable recovery for a player who missed the first half of the season with an ankle injury and didn't debut until round 22. Two of the premiers' youngest players through the finals, the efforts of Rioli and Graham will long be remembered by the Tiger Army.
12. Ablett's blockbuster homecoming
A deal 12 months in the making was finally consummated in the final 30 minutes of the NAB AFL Trade Period, with Gold Coast agreeing to send champion midfielder Gary Ablett back to his first football home. The sentimental homecoming, seven years after Ablett left for the Suns on a multi-million dollar deal, reunited Ablett with the club where he won two premierships and his first Brownlow Medal. It came at an emotional time for the eight-time All Australian, who was mourning the death of his sister, Natasha. Watching Ablett in a Geelong jumper will be one of the highlights of the opening round in 2018, with Geelong CEO Brian Cook saying the Cats' decision to bring Ablett home was fueled by both his on-field talents and sentimental reasons. "You don't take all the emotion out of it," Cook said. "Some say you do, but at Geelong we don't."
The Little Master is back. Gary Ablett returns in Geelong colours next year. Picture: AFL Photos
11. Review ends with extension for Bucks
The numbers didn't flatter Nathan Buckley as his coaching future was debated ad nauseam through 2017. Four years without a September appearance and a continual decline in wins under his watch gave significant ammunition to those who believed it was time for a change at the Magpies. Collingwood refused to take such a black and white approach, however, and conducted a thorough review of the entire club including the football department, which would ultimately decide Buckley's fate. Things started to look up for Buckley through August, and his players were clearly committed. It was also hypothesized that the lack of a 'big fish' to replace the 45-year-old would work in his favour. Ultimately Buckley signed a two-year extension after a recommendation from football manager Geoff Walsh was ratified by Eddie McGuire's board. "I think I have grown and developed," Buckley said after a difficult year in which he carried himself with typical class. "I know I am in a better place now to lead this football club and this team better than I ever have before."
Nathan Schmook's top 50 countdown
- 50 things we'll remember: 50-41
- 50 things we'll remember: 40-31
- 50 things we'll remember: 30-21
- 50 things we'll remember: 10-6
- 50 things we'll remember: 5-1Surprisingly, not a mugshot.
JANET MEFFERD: How in the world do you out-left the left anyway? If we go to the left on amnesty, do you think the Democrats are going to sit still and just go ‘oh I guess that they’re more caring than we are’? It’s a zero-sum game. I don’t know how in the world the Republicans expect to get votes when the Democrats are already farther along than we are. STEVE KING: There’s no possible way. Whatever we might say we are going to do, reduce the enforcement of the rule of law, waive the rule of law, Democrats will find a way to hand deliver citizenship papers along with a great big check from money borrowed from the Chinese.
Some of the smarter Republicans are beginning to note that maybe their party can't keep dumping on Latino voters and immigrants and expect to win future elections, but there's been precious little to indicate they'll be able to convince dumber and/or meaner Republicans to go along with the plan. Here Rep. Steve King, prominent in both the Dumber and Meaner factions of the party, demonstrates the other, more popular Republican approach on a wingnut radio show I like this exchange for many reasons. First, because of the implicit assumption that Democrats will always care more about non-white communities anyway so screw it, the Republicans shouldn't bother. Second, because King manages to tie it into the sniffled Republican premise that the Democrats "bought" votes by scandalously giving a damn on issues voters said they cared about, as opposed to the more genteel Republican approach of asking dinner parties full of millionaires what the party platform should be, then promising to do that. Third, because Steve King always seems one little match away from a full-on racist rant. If we give in on letting a bunch of kids who have been in America ever since they first learn to walk stay here, rather than tossing them out on their ears, what's next? We'll be giving them Chinese money, dammit!
No, Steve King is never going to get it. The Republican Party as a whole might, however; if the more race-obsessed elements of the party eventually prove to be incompatible with the more plutocratic portions winning the elections the plutocrats are so handsomely shoveling money towards, I'd place my bets on the party keeping the rich people and selling out the racists. How they make that transition without a full-on party split, however, I have no idea.So, on Saturday mornings in July, most folks like to sleep in a little bit because of their Friday's being full of both work during the day and play in the evenings. Sometimes, though, you get up early and scroll on the computer and such.
So, if you have liked the Nebraska Huskers Facebook page, you may have seen something that was intriguing this morning as you were scrolling. And, considering they haven't taken it down, could be a clue into something that's been a big talking point about the fanbase the last couple of years.
A new walk? A NEW WALK? WHAT DOES IT MEAN??!?
First off, there have been rumors floating around the bunch of fans we are that Sirius, the song that has been the staple for the walk by the Alan Parsons Project, was getting 86'ed this fall.
There have been several in favor of keeping the song, and just as many in favor of getting rid of the song. I asked on my twitter as well as the CN twitter this afternoon. As you could expect, the answers had many layers.
@btbowling If the video is going to last two minutes with the team not exiting until the song is pretty much over, yes. — Matt Burnell (@mdburnell) July 26, 2014
"@CornNation: POLL QUESTION: Should the #Huskers ditch Sirius in the Tunnel Walk? And why or why not?" yes, it's like being stuck in the 90s — Michael A. Rose (@WhoIsMikeRose) July 26, 2014
@CornNation sirius still works when it's at the tail end of something intimidating and badass, but not with any of the goofy CG shit. — Andrew Weldon (@kungfusquirrel) July 26, 2014
"@CornNation: POLL QUESTION: Should the #Huskers ditch Sirius in the Tunnel Walk? And why or why not?" HELL NO. crowd goes wild for that — Miles Anderson (@milesanderson23) July 26, 2014
@CornNation no. But a revamp of the into code is necessary. More highlights. Less cg crap — Paul Troupe (@gamin4HIM) July 26, 2014
Now, to be fair, with the new sound system hitting Memorial Stadium this fall, I would like to hear what Sirius would sound like if 93k could, ya know, hear it together and things like clap and such together as well.
Is Sirius outdated? I don't think it is yet, but it's fair to say that several folks, regardless of what comes off that system at 2:20pm five Saturdays from now will wind you up for the start of the 125th season of Husker Football.
Michael Rose Sr, the father of Husker LB Michael Rose, does bring up a point about the whole thing.
@TheTwanfather @CornNation it doesn't fire me up. the players during the tunnel walk fires me up. Play something to get our boys amped — Michael A. Rose (@WhoIsMikeRose) July 26, 2014
I think that's a fair analogy, in that the song has to both get the fans in the stands going AND a group of 100 or so 18-22 year old kids who are going to knock heads on the field 10 minutes later.
No matter what, though, people will talk about it. And that's a good thing, cause we all care about it enough to discuss it.
@WhoIsMikeRose @CornNation I feel like we have too many blue hairs in the stands to play what the players want w/o them complaining. — Anthony Flores (@TheTwanfather) July 26, 2014
Well then....
@TheTwanfather @CornNation keep Sirius for the Tunnel Walk. Replace "Can You Feel It" with a song from this decade. We gotta be progressive. — Michael A. Rose (@WhoIsMikeRose) July 26, 2014
Hey, I'm down for this. "Can You Feel It" is nothing but a filler for the fans between the coin toss and the end of the TV timeout until kickoff of the game. Replace it... but only if you have something better. I'm sure some think there is nothing better, while some think there's a lot better.
It will definitely be interesting to see what happens in five weeks.Rinat Valiev is the youngest of the Marlies' defensemen at age 21 ("He's younger than Stuart Percy, Viktor Loov, TJ Brennan, Justin Holl, Andrew Campbell, and David Kolomatis," Fulemin reminds us), and arguably the best defensive prospect on the Marlies. He went undrafted in 2013, only to be drafted as an over-ager in 2014, an early sign that the Leafs' front office was aware of this market in efficiency.
Valiev played all but two games in the season after his draft with the Kootenay Ice of the WHL. After the Ice were out of the 2014-2015 playoffs, Valiev joined the Marlies for two games, and was not very noticeable at all -- which is probably what you want out of a young defenseman's first two games as a pro.
In 2015-2016, Valiev spent most of the season with the Marlies, with the exception of the ten games he played with the Leafs when he was called up on March 11. With the Leafs he was once again not very noticeable, playing ten careful games and registering a row of zeros on the scoresheet. Again, for a first-year pro defenseman, not being noticed is better than being noticed for all the wrong things.
When Valiev was asked about his game after being drafted in 2014, he laid out his goals: "I try to play physical and shoot, looking for pucks a lot." Has he carried out this plan? Watching highlights of his play from Leafs and Marlies this past season, what is evident is that Valiev has focused more on the defensive side of his play as a first-year professional. Last season, he scored four goals in 60 games played, which does not indicate a shoot-first mentality quite yet -- but he also tallied 19 assists.
In the words of MLHS's Mark Rackham, who watched Valiev in nearly every game last season, "Valiev is the Leafs' best defensive prospect on the Marlies. He had a strong rookie campaign, which showed steady growth and a body of improving work through the season. This is illustrated by his early season minor penalty infractions, which lessened as the young Russian adapted to the professional game and improved his positional awareness on the ice."
Welcome to the Top 25, Valiev!
The Results
Player Scott 67 Sound B1rky Arvind Elseldo Emily Acha Rinat Valiev 25 21 12 25 24 23 19
JP Nikota Species Burtch Katya Fulemin Mike B Chris H 19 19 20 19 25 25 23
A group of us stuck him firmly into 19th place, undoubtedly giving him leeway for his role as a growing defenseman. Some of us thought he was more a 25th place kind of guy, and B1rky rounded out the curve by placing him 12th. (Explain yourself, B1rky!) We mostly agree that he's a lower-half of the rankings kind of player, but see that there's plenty of time for this young defenseman to improve.
The Player
Valiev made the Top 25 Under 25 after playing his first full season with the Marlies, probably because we all got to watch him grow.
His play is currently marked by two things: the desire to protect the Marlies' net, and the skill to do it by carrying the puck out of the zone. While his shot borders on tentative, his puck handling skills are excellent, and so is his skating. Valiev can take the puck away from a forward deep in his end and use his size (6'2, 208 lbs) and speed to protect the puck. Once he's skated swiftly through the neutral zone, though, Valiev's first instinct is to find the nearest forward and pass.
Is he a good young defenseman? In all the defensive-defenseman ways, he is. He's trusted with top-four minutes on the ice, and has rewarded this trust by enabling the Marlies' forwards to score whenever he's there. Sean Tierney provided us with a breakdown of his play in relation to his team last season (chart below), pointing out that he helped drive plays that lead to scoring. One caveat to reading much into these numbers is that last season, no matter who was on the ice, the Marlies had a tendency to score -- the Marlies had a record-setting number of wins, and did it by scoring a league-leading number of goals.
Still, it shows that Valiev had the skill to retrieve the puck and keep it in the Marlies' zone, and that he can continue to be a reliable top-four defenseman for the Marlies in his second year.
On a lighter note, is he one of Babcock's all-important "good people," though? When Valiev was up with the Leafs, he spent some time playing interpreter for his good friend and 20 questions comrade Nikita Soshnikov. In 20 questions, Valiev showed that he has an excellent sense of humor. His hobby is sleeping, and he wears the number 61 because he's afraid of pissing off Sam Carrick by asking for his old number 16 back. He does a mighty fine Russian-boy rendition of Rihanna's song Work, loves Chipotle (but only on cheat days), and thinks that Boston cream donuts are the best donuts he's ever eaten.
From the perspective of avid Marlies' fan and blogger Sean Boulton, Valiev's speed is what makes him an interesting player. "I like his instincts," Boulton said. "[Valiev] seemed to have a good sense of when to leap into starting a rush and has enough speed to come back and cover when the play turns back quickly. He generally makes a good first pass, although it's tough to say how much that's him and how much is a talented forward corps getting themselves into position. H'es not a banger, but physical enough, and wasn't afraid to step into situations to defend teammates. Pairing with Campbell was effective. With Brennan gone, will be interesting to see how much they look to him for offense from the blue line. Andrew Nielsen and Travis Dermott (if he stays) will fight for that role."
What does Valiev need to do to improve? According to Mark Rakham, he has to stop passing and start working on his shot. "He'll be expected to contribute more offensively this year with Brennan and Percy departed," Mark said, "And with Campbell unlikely to repeat career numbers. More power play time should be afforded [to him] with the aforementioned duo gone, and [he will] likely need to be a mainstay of the special teams should the Marlies be successful in that regard. Surprisingly he was given plenty of opportunities on the penalty kill last year, resulting in four points (1G/3PA) which was second best on the team behind Zach Hyman."
Keep up the good work, young Valiev!
With thanks to Mark Rakham, Sean Boulton, and Sean Tierney for their insight.I love feminism. I need feminism. I am a feminist. Now that that’s clear…
Feminism is going to crucify me for this but dammit if I’m not sometimes driven to madness by the pedantic semiotics of what I’m dubbing Internet feminism. Internet Feminism is not feminism that is on the internet. There is a lot of great feminist thought and discussion on the internet–but none of it is what I’m calling Internet Feminism. What I know about Internet feminism is this: it will never be happy with you, no matter what you do or say. Internet feminism is here to tell you you’re WRONG, even if, OK, maybe you’re a little bit right, here’s why you are definitely still WRONG. You will never be good enough or right enough or FEMINIST ENOUGH for Internet Feminism.
With Internet Feminism, there’s absolutely no grey areas. Only black and white. You can have a liberal, open minded opinion in a matter of interest to women, and yet Internet Feminism will poke holes in it until you sink. It is my belief that not all things need to be poked to death. Yes, we need to call out injustices where we see them. We need to psychoanalyze the cultural signifiers that build up around us to erode the dangerous perceptions they create. And we certainly need to keep challenging the status quo every single day. But we don’t need to needle away with trite academics–all that does it make it impossible for anyone to make a substantive point about anything.
Women are still an “other” in society, especially with race and socioeconomic issues conflating already institutionalized inequalities. But I don’t think that means that women should be immune from, say, comedy, to give just one example. Or even just a simple bit of individuality and airiness. Internet Feminism has lost the ability to have a laugh at the expense of a female trope–I’m not saying rape jokes are funny, nor am I condoning them. But can’t we all just take a load off and giggle about the way a lot of women like lipstick or Taylor Swift? These aren’t insults, they’re not made up either–there are lots of generalizations about women we make that, believe it or not, can be completely innocent, a lot of the time because they’re rooted in an act of the majority.
The one that always seems silly to argue on is PMS. Girl, I PMS like a heroin addict going cold turkey. I make fun of PMS not to bring women down or because it’s some fantasy thing made up by men to trick us into relenting to the patriarchy, but it’s a biological thing that happens to our bodies that we can’t stop. Our hormones go wild, our bodies change, and our emotions and personalities alter to fit these strains that are put on our physicality. It’s OK! It’s not a reason to treat women as LESS, but it’s OK to just accept that this is an absurd thing that happens to women, and acknowledge it as such. Our physiology isn’t a leather purse in a Thai market place next to the plastic knock off male physiology–“same same (but different)”–so there’s no point in trying to convince ourselves that we’re all wired the same way. We’re not.
My point is that Internet Feminism can be really tiring. It’s really exhausting to try and figure out what sort of woman you’re going to piss off by making some totally off-the-cuff comment that doesn’t have an ounce of antagonism behind it. To me, it’s fairly clear what is damaging to women, and what is light-hearted fare. An article calling women fat or slutty–that qualifies as damaging. An article about the gross things women do when they’re in private, or the stupid faces they pull when they’re putting on mascara, or secret things they do with their best friends–the only thing that hurts us about these is when we focus our energy on tearing them to shreds. To Internet Feminism I say, in the words of Katy Perry, “Choose your battles, baby.”Perhaps it’s a form of the Streisand effect, but the more we hear about Jeremy Corbyn – and let’s be honest, most of it has been disparaging - the more people seem to like him. The commentators and politicians highlight his “outdated” socialist values, his flat cap, his supposed unelectability, and instead of turning away, many people (myself included) look at him and think: “yeah.” A YouGov poll for the Times has put Corbyn on course to win the leadership election, with a 17 point lead ahead of the other candidates.
The snobbery around Corbyn has been something to behold. And yet, the more the snobs and the political cardboard cut-outs, the Blairites and the Tories and the brown-nosers slag off and berate Corbynites (and in ways they would decry as "patronising" if they were directed towards shy Tory voters), the more Corbyn steadily gains support. In contrast to the other candidates, who have never taken him seriously and now appear to be panicking, Corbyn comes across as dignified, principled, unconcerned with personal advancement, and passionate about his politics.
Hearing Tristram Hunt on the Today programme yesterday, plumming off on one about how Corbyn supporters want to return to a “comfort zone of Labour politics” and how if Corbyn wins Labour will become little more than a “pressure group” because being an “anti-austerity populist party isn’t going to get us into government” didn’t make me “see sense” as Hunt probably intended. It just made me think, “screw you all, you don’t deserve to be in government.” From what other young new Labour recruits have been telling me, I'm not alone in thinking this.
It’s been reported that a significant portion of the support Corbyn is receiving is coming from new, young Labour members. People like me, who are too young to remember the unelectable eighties, or indeed what “a comfort zone of Labour politics” feels like. This certainly seemed to be the case at the Islington North meeting I attended last week, where people of all ages, but notably young people, stood up in support of Corbyn. And, despite what his opponents might say, it’s clear he has a support base outside of Islington.
Rebecca Chambers is 19 and from Southampton. She joined the Labour party this week to vote for Corbyn. "He is much more relatable than the'suits' that you would ordinarily see in the forefront of a leadership vote like this," she tells me, "which I think is more likely to win over voters (perhaps in a similar way to the 'Everyman' persona of Nigel Farage)." Joe Rivers, from Surrey, is nearly a decade older but feels similarly uninspired by the candidates: "I'm not sure Jeremy Corbyn would make a good PM and I'm not naive enough to think he's going to lead Britain into some kind of socialist utopia," he says, a standard disclaimer that is understandable in the face of the sneering Corbyn supporters are facing. Rivers has "zero trust" in MPs having voted Lib Dem in 2005 and 2010 and seen their U-turn on tuition fees. "It bothers me a lot that nobody in Westminster seems to have an ideology or stand for anything in particular," he says. "In a political climate where everyone is so scared of losing votes that everything they say is endlessly caveated, no-one says anything at all. Jeremy Corbyn stands for something and, faced with the cruellest government since Thatcher, that counts for a lot.”
And that is the crux of what Corbyn supporters in their teens and twenties are telling me again and again: that the current crop of candidates are so uninspiring that you can forget about winning a general election - they’d rather just have someone who represents their views about inequality, for once. Better a passionate and interesting opposition that has moral conviction than a bunch of identikit shysters who will jettison their values as soon as electoral victory looks likely, is how the way of thinking goes. Those of us who are inspired by Corbyn can expect to be called young and idealistic, or be told we need to "do our research", but there it is. It’s obvious that, for some young people at least, Corbyn is scratching a persistent anti-Blairite, anti-establishment itch.
Some of Corbyn’s ideals, such as re-nationalisation of the railways and the need to protect a publicly funded NHS undoubtedly have national appeal. Others, like the abolition of tuition fees and his anti-austerity stance, are policies with the potential to appeal to young people across the country (particularly those in danger of losing their housing benefit). Hunt is not wrong to make comparisons with Syriza and Podemos; some of those I spoke to in their teens and twenties cited the left wing movements on mainland Europe as inspirational. There’s an untapped stream of young people in Britain who feel their politics are not being represented. You see them on the austerity marches, on social media, in the words of Charlotte Church and Owen Jones and Mhairi Black. But the surge in support for Corbyn isn’t just about young people re-engaging with left-wing politics, it’s also to do with the quality Zoe Williams identified earlier this week as being central to Corbyn’s campaign; it’s about hope.
Hope, in fact, is the exact word that many of the Corbyn supporters in their teens and twenties conjure when I ask them “why him?” They feel that we are at a crucial point when it comes to deciding, as a nation and as a society, what our values are, and that only Corbyn offers an optimistic vision for the future. Jamie Scott, 19, from Luton admires Corbyn’s desire to “invest in housing and infrastructure that the country actually needs yet no other candidate is willing to sign up to”.
“All of the successes of the post-war government were based around investing to create a better society rather than not trying to improve peoples lives with the aim to 'get by' which is what I see in the other candidates”, he says.
Corbyn’s background also appeals. “He doesn't come from the Oxbridge, SpAd/Researcher background which all of the other candidates do, an elite which is massively over-represented in Parliament,” says Jamie. “The other three candidates can't connect to me as they do not inspire hope of anything better, simply more of the same.”
Some of the people I spoke to came from traditionally Labour-supporting households and think Corbyn represents a return to those values. “I think that, being from the North, it's the IDEA of the Labour Party that I like,” says Alex McBride, 24, from Manchester, “the idea that my grandparents, and parents voted for them; for ideas like decency, fairness, representation, respect, unity, hope - ideas that transcend the Watford Gap at least!”
Laura Fisher, 24, meanwhile, “used to be pretty Tory” before going to university and becoming interested in feminism and social justice. Then, during the election, she was saddened to see her historically Labour-voting family sway to the right. “My family all live in working class areas in the North (Middlesbrough and York) and many of them were saying they were going to vote for UKIP. These were life-long Labour voters or at least supporters of what I feel are (or definitely were) Labour's values.”
Laura says she knew that her family were not going to feel “any more listened to” by any of the other candidates. “I felt that Labour were looking in all the wrong places for their support and trying to replicate 1997, which was a once in a generation thing,” she says.
These are young Labour supporters who know their politics and their history, and have a clear vision of the sort of society in which they would like to live. They state the importance of fairness and inclusivity. They feel passionately that the generations that came before them have failed to provide for them, or have betrayed them politically, especially over student fees. They also feel that their voices have long gone unheard.
Lucie Spadone, 17, joined the Labour party last September, when she was 16, and as well as being inspired by Corbyn's anti-austerity stance, also thinks that he would “give young people a platform to air their views” because his views are in line with theirs. Abby Tomlinson, the 17 year old activist who founded #milifandom, agrees that he is a vocal supporter of her generation. “I think he represents a voice for change that a lot of young people want to hear,” she says. “A lot of young people feel angry at all of the measures the government seems to be taking to make the lives of young people harder. The contempt David Cameron has for young people I think means that a lot want an alternative who they know will support them, and for a lot of people that person is Jeremy Corbyn.”
There's certainly an excitement around Corbyn that is notable on social media and at demonstrations. Whether or not, as some commentators suggest, his popularity ends up being merely a blip, a symptom of the silly season after which Labour members and supporters will abandon the underdog and resign themselves to the centre ground remains to be seen. But you can't deny that there's a contingent of people in their teens and twenties out there who think he's brilliant while remaining underwhelmed, if not disgusted, by the others and their perceived support for austerity.
***
Now listen to the NS team discussing the Labour leadership race on the podcast:So this was a bit of fun.
It’s a shoe box!
A good friend of mine has been hassling me for at least a year now while I’ve been renovating my garage, trying to get me to build something for him to store his Nike sneakers in. He has a lot of sneakers. His solution at the moment is plastic buckets from Ikea but he wants something more economical, attractive and larger, so all his shoes can be stored together.
We’ve tried a couple of times to put something together but nothing came of it, however when we saw this design on the ‘net a couple of weeks ago, well, the decision was easy.
The idea is that it looks just like a giant shoe box. Then when you open it, you see up to 20 pairs of sneakers stored nice and neatly. There are no plans online for it, however it is essentially just a large chest so it wasn’t incredibly hard to build.
I’m not certain that I built it from the correct material however. I used 16mm MDF. Plywood was my first choice however I can’t transport a full sheet of it. At the time I went, the store couldn’t cut it down for me either. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the integrity of the box using MDF, it’s very strong and the smooth finish makes the paint look nicer, the problem is the weight. It’s very heavy, the lid in particular. I’ve ordered a heavy duty stay for the lid to keep it upright and help slow the closure. With the stay installed in it now, it shuts itself way too fast.
It took probably 10 hours or so to build – however that was with no plans or templates to follow. I’d also just finished a graveyard shift that morning so my brain wasn’t exactly operating on all cylinders. It still went together really well though I think. Another couple of days painting and applying the vinyl decals, and it was all done. A very enjoyable project!
I posted this on my personal facebook wall and it received a lot of attention – so much so that I have orders for 3 more. They are a pretty good looking product I must admit. The vinyl decals really make them pop too.
I built this as I went along so I have no plans to offer at the moment, but I’ll be putting some together soon in SketchUp.
Due to the amount of sheet good used in this project, I really need to sit down and work out the smartest way of going about it, no point turning money into sawdust. I think if I reduce the size a little I can get most of it from a single sheet of ply which would be great.
I’ve also had a couple of orders about making something similar for baseball cap storage. I didn’t realise collecting hats and shoes was so big in Melbourne, but hey, if that’s what people want, that’s what people get!
It’s a bit late now for any woodworking so I might go make a start on those plans right now. Check back in a week and hopefully I’ll have them here for you.Cabinet reshuffle: These are the ministers with the toughest assignments
Updated
The Prime Minister has transformed his Cabinet.
But with less than two weeks before the end of the year, which unresolved issues will test the fresh new ministers in 2018?
We're looking at family violence, inland rail, robodebt, prawns and penalty rates.
Family violence
Outgoing: Senator George Brandis
Outgoing Attorney-General George Brandis, as well as former Minister for Women Michaelia Cash, was responsible for a funding boost and legal reform to tackle the problem of family violence. This included the first comprehensive review of the family law system since the current framework was created in 1976.
Incoming: Christian Porter
In his former role as Social Services Minister, Mr Porter oversaw the 1800RESPECT family violence help line, but this period was marked by the departure of some trauma counsellors from the service.
When will you hear from them?
Alongside new Minister for Women Kelly O'Dwyer, Mr Porter will be pressed on domestic violence leave in the lead-up to the next election, following a pledge from the Labor Party for 10 days of paid leave to become a national standard.
Inland rail
Outgoing: Darren Chester
Construction and community consultation milestones, a dispute over the route and questions about the merits of the $10 billion project highlighted Mr Chester's tenure as the minister responsible for inland rail.
Incoming: Barnaby Joyce
The former Agriculture Minister has been a major supporter of the inland rail project since its inception and will now take a hands-on role.
When will you hear from them?
The massive infrastructure project faces years of engineering challenges and funding stoushes before it's set to be completed in 2025. Mr Joyce will be prominent.
Robodebt
Outgoing: Alan Tudge
The Government's welfare debt recovery effort was "set up to fail", according to a Senate inquiry this year. Mr Tudge has now been moved into a citizenship and multicultural affairs role.
Incoming: Michael Keenan
The former Justice Minister has been a supporter of new automated security measures such as a national picture database.
When will you hear from them?
The so-called "robodebt" saga still hangs over the portfolio, and the rollout of the cashless welfare card — where welfare payments are quarantined so they cannot be used for alcohol or gambling — looms as another political challenge following Labor's decision to oppose further trials of the scheme.
Prawn disease
Outgoing: Barnaby Joyce
Diseases in imported prawns have been spreading to local farms and threatening domestic productivity. The outbreak prompted spending of hundreds of millions of dollars to improve biosecurity under Mr Joyce.
Incoming: David Littleproud
Elected in 2016, the 41-year-old MP has experience in agriculture financing before entering politics and has been vocal as a backbencher.
When will you hear from them?
Mr Littleproud faces the one year anniversary of the suspension of imported uncooked prawns in early January and will continue to pursue stronger biosecurity measures following the release of a critical report in December.
Penalty rates
Outgoing: Michaelia Cash
The reduction of wages for workers in fast food and hospitality positions triggered by a Fair Work Commission decision this year was used by Labor to pressure the Government over worker pay.
Incoming: Craig Laundy
The former publican has been handed responsibility for workplace relations as part of his promotion to the ministry as Minister for Small and Family Business, Workplace and Deregulation.
When will you hear from them?
Labor is expected to continue to pursue the Government over penalty rates and Mr Laundy will be called upon to defend his workplace policies if slow wage growth continues.
Topics: constitution, australia
First postedI’ve been recently interested in Go, a new programming language.
The best way to learn a language is to use it in a small but real project.
I needed a program that generates HTML from textile format. The way of least resistance would be to implement it in Python, as I’ve coded a similar thing in the past. Instead I decided to use this as an opportunity to get more familiar with Go.
The biggest part of the problem was the textile to HTML conversion. There is no existing Go code for that so I decided to port upskirt C library, as it does the job in the |
use migrations correctly, your code and database will always be in sync and interacting with your database will be as simple as querying an IEnumerable.
EF will automatically take note of changes to your Model and such by using the database context so adding our first migration can be done with one command:
dotnet ef migrations add “First Migration”
The final text in quotes a description for the migration, you’ll notice that assuming that command ran fine there should be a Migrations folder in the root of your project.
Migrations work a lot like version control systems, especially Git. Adding a migration is like performing a git commit and whilst this adds a commit into the list of outstanding commits; we need to eventually push the changes. This push equates to an update in EF terminology and can be performed by running the command:
dotnet ef database update
You will now see the generated SQL script that has been used to create your database; all changes visible in the Tomatos.db file which has been added to your debug folder.
SQLite Browser checks everything out alright
Great job! Your API now has a database which is generated based on the same code you’ve written your API in, pretty swish aye? Only problem is we don’t actually have an API endpoint for our database.
The Controller. You know? The Actual API
To get this endpoint we need to create an associated controller for the Tomato model. The structure of this can be generated using the yo asp-net generator; open a command prompt/terminal in your controllers folder and run the following:
yo aspnet:webapicontroller TomatosController
Whilst we do get what is basically a copy and paste of Values controller, all the associated namespaces and naming is taken care of which saves us a bit of meddling around.
The first method we need to account for is also the easiest, the GET method:
// GET api/Tomatos
[HttpGet]
public IEnumerable<Tomato> Get()
{
using (TomatoDb db = new TomatoDb())
{
return db.Tomatos.ToList();
}
}
There a couple of things to note about this:
No need to worry about the return type
Whatever you return from the method will be readable by the client, an IEnumerable/List will be converted to a JSON array, a single object will be serialized as a JSON object and so on.
Whatever you return from the method will be readable by the client, an IEnumerable/List will be converted to a JSON array, a single object will be serialized as a JSON object and so on. Our database query is 2 lines
All that setup was worth it in the end. Using the disposable TomatoDb class, we are returning the contents of the Tomatos table in the database. This table is not queried using SQL, just LINQ.
Ensure your server is running and go to http://localhost:5000/api/Tomatos. You should see the contents of your tomatos table (plot twist: it’s empty):
Whilst there isn’t anything available to query, it would still be worth creating the singular GET endpoint. If you think you know what it would look like, give it a go otherwise here’s what I imagined:
// GET api/Tomatos/5
[HttpGet("{id}")]
public Tomato Get(int id)
{
using (TomatoDb db = new TomatoDb())
{
return db.Tomatos.First(t => t.Id == id);
}
}
LINQ Expressions and Statements are your SQL when it comes to working with EF, this query could’ve been completed using a foreach but why would you want to do that when you have so much power with a lambda.
Now posting to the API is a bit trickier as we receive data in the body of the request. This is in the form of JSON usually and the JSON should be structured similarly to how it would be received in a GET.
Before we write up our post controller however, I found that there was a great deal of problems dealing with WebAPI originally due to Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policies. CORS allows browsers to figure out what requests from which origins are safe and whilst the intentions are good CORS can be a pest to work with, as you may have problems querying your API if it is not configured properly. There are many tutorials online on how to work with CORS in ASP.Net Core but the most reliable snippet of code I found is the following that must be placed in the Configure method of your Startup.cs file:
app.UseCors(options => options.AllowAnyOrigin().AllowAnyHeader().AllowAnyMethod().AllowCredentials());
Assuming you pasted correctly, Configure should look like this:
This snippet should enable CORS for requests from anywhere, this isn’t necessarily secure but for basic learning it will do. For production it is most definitely advised you edit your policies to restrict access for certain requests.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the post endpoint:
// POST api/Tomatos
[HttpPost]
public void Post([FromBody]JObject value)
{
Tomato posted = value.ToObject<Tomato>();
using (TomatoDb db = new TomatoDb())
{
db.Tomatos.Add(posted);
db.SaveChanges();
}
}
Note.
JObject?
Using JObject ensures that however the data is posted, we are able to serialize it to the related class. JObject is basically a JSON Object data type in C# so it is very flexible and can be assigned a specific data type with the ToObject method which requires the datatype to serialize to.
Using JObject ensures that however the data is posted, we are able to serialize it to the related class. JObject is basically a JSON Object data type in C# so it is very flexible and can be assigned a specific data type with the ToObject method which requires the datatype to serialize to. Adding to the database is super easy
We don’t need to supply an id as that is automatically assigned and adding the class to the table utilises the simple Add method.
We don’t need to supply an id as that is automatically assigned and adding the class to the table utilises the simple Add method. Don’t forget to save your changes
EF requires you to commit your changes by default and we will oblige by that for stability and security reasons. Note there does exist an alternate async method for saving changes if the need arises.
Our post endpoint is probably the hardest endpoint to configure as we rely on JSON.Net and JObject for serialization. Please note that for this method we will need to also add…
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
to our references.
To test our post endpoint, I am using Postman although there are that many API testing clients and extensions available for browsers it’s your choice in the end really. Our controller is pretty flexible with what data it receives but note that:
The Id does not need to be defined explicitly as EF will automatically increment it anyway
Enumerations need to be defined using their numeric equivalent
With this in mind, this is fine test data for our POST endpoint:
Reppin’ the 3095 tomatos for days
After posting this data to the site, we will now see that the GET endpoint returns something besides an empty array.
What About Put and Delete?
Put and Delete are more of the same. There are many ways you can approach Put but a really simple way would be to use the built in Update method:
[HttpPut("{id}")]
public void Put(int id, [FromBody]JObject value)
{
Tomato posted = value.ToObject<Tomato>();
posted.Id = id; // Ensure an id is attached
using (TomatoDb db = new TomatoDb())
{
db.Tomatos.Update(posted);
db.SaveChanges();
}
}
The id can be used in many ways for the PUT request. Examples online I’ve found show it being used to compare if the id in the route is the same as the one in the data, others just ignore it.
The update method, like add, will only be applied when SaveChanges is called and basically trys to attach itself to the related record through what I assume is the usage of the primary key.
Delete is very easy, if we are aiming to remove the element from the database entirely we must ensure it exists first and if so then call the Remove function on the Tomatos DbSet:
// DELETE api/Tomatos/5
[HttpDelete("{id}")]
public void Delete(int id)
{
using (TomatoDb db = new TomatoDb())
{
if (db.Tomatos.Where(t => t.Id == id).Count() > 0) // Check if element exists
db.Tomatos.Remove(db.Tomatos.First(t => t.Id == id));
db.SaveChanges();
}
}
We use the Where LINQ function in this instance to check whether the element exists by checking if the Count is greater than nothing.
There we have it, our Tomato API Controller in all its glory
It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
You should now be able to Create, Read, Update and Delete Tomato database entries through your REST API. There is still much to learn, such as returning an ActionResult relating to the method as well as ModelState validation but for a basic API with no corners cut I dare say that this is a good result.
All the source code for this project is available here.
I hope this tutorial has shown you the ease that comes with using ASP.NET and Entity Framework for a task like this as well as the power of.NET Core despite how young it is as a technology.
I’d be beyond thankful if you shared this article with anyone who may be interested in.NET Core technologies, please feel free to let me know about any of the things you liked or disliked about this piece.
~ Alex Billson, Student at Swinburne University and Software DeveloperWhen Joanne Calderwood stepped into her fight against Valerie Letourneau in June it was like walking out into the light after being mired in the shadows for almost her entire UFC career.
Calderwood was 2-1 in the UFC when she accepted the bout against the former title contender, but her record may as well have been 0-0 after getting a fresh start in both her personal and professional life ahead of the showdown with Letourneau.
The Scottish strawweight made a backwards walk away from her former head coach — a relationship that was as much personal as it was professional — and she made the decision to move to Montreal for her training camp where she began working with head coach Firas Zahabi and his team at Tri-Star.
Article continues below...
It took less than three rounds for Calderwood to pick Letourneau apart on the feet and finish her with a vicious striking combination — something strawweight queen Joanna Jedrzejczyk couldn't do just one fight earlier.
With her hand raised in the air, Calderwood was smiling from ear to ear but it wasn't just about the victory over Letourneau. It was as much about finally putting the past behind her and nothing signifies a fresh start for a fighter like an impressive win over a top notch opponent.
“I was in a good place and I enjoyed myself in there. Fighting's so crazy, there's so much that goes into it. It's not just you going in there and putting in all the training hours. A lot of it's mental and I just couldn't get that part right, especially with me not being happy outside of life,” Calderwood told FOX Sports. “I tried to push my whole self and just focus on fighting and I couldn't do it. So I did have to take a step back and say right OK if that's not working, I need to look at what's going on.
“I figured a few things out. It was definitely my mentality and me not being happy. I concentrated on getting back to doing this kind of as a hobby and enjoying it. I started learning again and moving to Tri-Star, I started picking up new techniques and that's what I love to do. I kind of grew back in love with the sport and not my whole life was the sport.”
The victory was therapeutic in some way because with each punch Calderwood landed it was if she was knocking down the wall that stood between potential and reality.
In the aftermath of the win, Calderwood finally understood something a coach of hers had told her while training in Iceland a couple of years ago. It wasn't exactly a Tony Robbins motivational speech, but it was simple advice that made sense when Calderwood finally lived it.
If there was one negative moment that got overblown after the fight was over it was Calderwood taking to Instagram to share her dismay about being passed over for a 'Performance of the Night' bonus that would have netted her an extra $50,000.
She tagged the post with the words “broke as hell” and even had a matching hat on her head while lamenting about not getting the bonus after a jaw dropping performance against a former title contender like Letourneau.
“That whole post kind of got blown out of proportion,” Calderwood explained. “I wasn't having a dig at anyone. I was just a bit annoyed because I had got 'Performance of the Night' in Glasgow and I felt like my performance on that night wasn't as good as what I had done to Valerie (Letourneau) and my technique was perfect.”
Whether she meant to get attention with the post or not, Calderwood heard from UFC president Dana White just days later as he promised to get her a bonus and a brand new contract, which would also pay her a lot more money.
And instantly the smile crept back across her face.
“They did (send me the bonus), I just got it a few weeks ago. I was really thankful for that,” Calderwood said. “I got a new contract and I got my bonus so I'm happy.”
With money in her back account and a win over a top ranked opponent, Calderwood was joyous but far from satisfied. The victory moved her up the strawweight rankings, but not the place where she wanted to be when first signing with the UFC in 2014.
So when matchmaker Sean Shelby came calling to ask her to fight at UFC 203 in Cleveland, Calderwood originally asked for either former champion Carla Esparza or top five ranked strawweight Tecia Torres but instead she was given Jessica Andrade.
The fiery Brazilian had just recently made her debut at 115 pounds where she laid waste to former title contender Jessica Penne with a vicious knockout and a fight with Calderwood had fireworks written all over it.
“Her fight against Jessica Penne was really, really good,” Calderwood explained. “She was very aggressive and she basically punched the (expletive) out of Jessica, but I wouldn't put Jessica (Penne) as a striker. She's more of a jiu-jitsu girl and I watched that fight a few weeks ago and she's definitely not going to have her way with me how she had her way with Jessica.
“I think that Jessica's style, she's more of a bully. As long as I go in and perform and take all my tools with me, she's going to have a tough fight ahead of her. Mentally, I'm thinking about her steam rolling me or trying to take me down, but I'm keeping my options opened and I'm taking all of my tools in there with me and ready for anything.”
Ready for anything.
Those are words Calderwood may have struggled to utter a year ago without a hint of false narrative dripping from her lips but now she says it with confidence and conviction.
Calderwood will now walk into her second straight fight with a clear head and a smile tucked behind the steely glare that will greet Andrade when they finally step into the Octagon together on Saturday night.
“I'm always trying to work hard and this is what I love doing,” Calderwood said. “It's just for that one night and you want to put on a performance and make everybody happy with the fight.”
One of the coaches at Mjolnir in Iceland told me last year — he said you have to happy. Because a happy fighter is a dangerous fighter. I definitely think I'm happy. I know that I'm dangerous. I just need to get the right balance. — Joanne CalderwoodPresident Trump has asked China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to help resolve the case involving three UCLA basketball players being detained at a hotel in Hangzhou for allegedly shoplifting.
Trump made the request while in Beijing last week before departing Friday for Vietnam and the Philippines. He asked for Xi’s help in settling the case quickly and ensuring that the players, all freshmen, were treated fairly, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah told The Times.
LiAngelo Ball, Cody Riley and Jalen Hill emerged publicly for the first time Monday and a school athletics official said they were “doing fine,” though both their legal case and their standing as part of UCLA’s basketball team remained unclear. It has been one week since the trio was first questioned about the alleged theft of designer sunglasses from an upscale store near the team’s hotel.
A UCLA spokesperson declined to address whether the players would face disciplinary action from the school upon their return, nor to say who was paying for the players’ extended stay at the Hyatt Regency, where standard rooms were commanding about $278 per night on the hotel’s website. Athletic director Dan Guerrero was not made available for comment.
The rest of the Bruins returned to Los Angeles on Saturday from a weeklong trip that concluded in Shanghai with a 63-60 victory over Georgia Tech in the Pac-12 China Game.
Ball, Riley and Hill were wearing Bruins workout gear as they exited the hotel health club Monday and lumbered toward the elevators. They were accompanied by Chris Carlson, an associate athletic director who oversees the basketball team.
“We’re doing fine,” Carlson said politely while the players slipped into the elevator behind him. Ball wore brown headphones draped around his neck.
Chinese authorities have permitted them to remain where the team initially stayed, a ritzy hotel featuring evening jazz performances and a glass-enclosed pool.
Ball’s father and younger brother also remained in China to film their Facebook reality show “Ball in the Family,” though they were not staying with LiAngelo. LaVar Ball, the vocal father of the UCLA freshman and Lakers rookie Lonzo Ball, said Monday in a tweet that he and his youngest son LaMelo were in Hong Kong to market his $495 Big Baller Brand shoes.
The UCLA players are suspected of stealing from a Louis Vuitton outlet around the corner from the hotel, where some sunglasses go for $740.
The Bruins visited China to play in a game sponsored by Alibaba, an e-commerce giant based in Hangzhou. Alibaba has assumed that role for the last three years and recently acquired broadcast rights to Pac-12 games including basketball and football.
Alibaba spokesman Robert Christie said the company was satisfied overall with this year’s game. He referred further inquiries to UCLA.
Hangzhou police, whose guarded headquarters is located less than a mile from where the suspected shoplifting occurred, did not answer calls.
Back in Los Angeles, the rest of the Bruins prepared for the team’s home opener Wednesday night at Pauley Pavilion against Central Arkansas. UCLA is ranked No. 23 in the Associated Press media poll.
Bennett reported from Manila; DeButts from Hangzhou, China. Times correspondent Jessica Meyers contributed to this article from Beijing. Staff writer Ben Bolch contributed from Los Angeles.Bridgestone Golf Unveils BFIT Golf Ball Fitting Launch Monitor App
First and Only App Designed to Help Players, Teachers Quickly and Easily Identify Proper Ball for Golfers of All Skill Levels
(COVINGTON, GA) – Bridgestone Golf – innovator and manufacturer of premium golf balls, clubs and accessories – introduces the BFIT golf ball fitting app, designed to help players and instructors quickly and easily identify the Bridgestone ball best suited to benefit the user.
BFIT is now available for iOS devices through the App Store and will be coming to Android in the very near future. In development for more than five years, the technology in modern smartphones has finally reached a point where it can deliver against the original concept. The app records video of the user’s swing and analyzes it to provide swing speed, ball speed, launch angle, carry distance and total distance. Using this information BFIT will recommend the perfect golf ball for the user’s game.
The app was beta tested by attendees of the 2017 CES Show and was overwhelmingly praised. Video of Bryson DeChambeau showing it off in Las Vegas is available here.
“For the past decade we have separated ourselves from all other manufacturers by truly mastering the art of golf ball fitting, as it is an absolutely crucial aspect of optimizing performance,” says Adam Rehberg, Bridgestone Golf Ball Fitting. “With the BFIT app we’re removing any barriers to ball fitting, as players will no longer need to come to special events or spend money on fancy launch monitors, we’re giving everyone all the necessary tools for free.”
The app can be used virtually anywhere, including a driving range or on the course. All that is needed is a partner to record the user’s swing and follow the simple on-screen steps to retrieve launch conditions. Once completed, the app will recommend a specific model of golf ball and players can share their data and findings through social media channels.
“With my technology and physics background, the BFIT app is perfect for me,” says DeChambeau. “The success of Bridgestone’s ball fitting program has benefited many over the past decade, but the masses deserve to experience how valuable this process is and the app allows maximum inclusion for golfers of all skill levels.”
Bridgestone first introduced a proprietary Ball Fitting system in 2007 and uses the data gathered to drive research and development. This real-world understanding of player needs was a catalyst in the creation of the company’s most popular offerings, including the recently launched e6 SOFT and e6 SPEED series ($28.99 per dozen), as well as many more.
Bridgestone’s professional staff features 14-time major championship winner Tiger Woods, FedExCup champion Brandt Snedeker, Olympics bronze medalist Matt Kuchar, Masters winner Fred Couples, three-time major champion Nick Price and rising stars Bryson DeChambeau and Hudson Swafford.
About Bridgestone Golf
Bridgestone Golf USA is based in Covington, GA and manufactures premium golf balls, clubs and accessories under Bridgestone and Precept brands. The company started making golf balls in 1935 and, as the world’s largest tire manufacturer, leverages its 900 rubber polymer science engineers worldwide to produce high-performing products. Customer swing and related data, captured through its popular, nationwide ball-fitting program, advises continuous advancement of ball technology. Bridgestone Golf USA is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bridgestone Sports Co. Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo.Watch the trailer to a film that promises to be "an enjoyable and sometimes hilarious romp through the secret world of men and masculinity"
A new documentary film has been released that celebrates what it is to be a MAMIL – middle aged men in Lycra.
MAMIL explores how cycling has brought together people from a wide range of backgrounds in a shared love of cycling. It features riders from Britain, Australia, the USA, New Zealand, France and Spain talking about what cycling brings to their life.
Several cycling clubs come under focus in the movie, including the Adelaide Fat Boys (Australia), Altoona Road Riders (Des Moines, USA) and MAMIL Sports (Nottingham, UK).
“These are middle-aged, middle-class men with careers, families and mortgages,” says the film’s website.
“They are never going to win the Tour de France – yet they spend a huge amount of time, money and energy on cycling. Why is it so important to own the best bike and all the right gear? What compels them to choose long hours on the road over time with the family?
>>> New study explains why you enjoy riding your bike (if you’re a Mamil)
“This light-hearted, yet insightful, feature length documentary explores the secret lives of MAMILs in their natural habitat through interviews with experts interwoven with MAMIL stories set around the world.”
“MAMIL is an enjoyable and sometimes hilarious romp through the secret world of men and masculinity; that also explores the things that men are reluctant to talk about.”
The 98-minute film was made by Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe from Adelaide, Australia. Well-known cycling commentator Phil Liggett provides the film’s commentary.
MAMIL was screened again at the Adelaide Film Festival on Wednesday, October 11, and is available for screening in cinemas via Demand Film.For a Democratic Party still struggling to rebuild in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s loss, last night represented a remarkable turnaround. For months, Democratic candidates have struggled in special elections, with national fundraising efforts hobbled by self-doubt, mixed messaging, and constant recriminations. Party officials remain consumed with suturing the wounds—many self-inflicted—left by the contentious primary between Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Yet on Tuesday, voters themselves came out to deliver a stunning rebuke of Donald Trump and the G.O.P. in a series of gubernatorial and down-ballot races and referendums. “There is no denying that this was a repudiation of both Trump and Trumpism,” Steve Israel, a former New York congressman who previously served as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told me. “[Republicans] can’t run away from that.”
The party arguably secured its greatest victory in Virginia, where Ralph Northam bested Republican Ed Gillespie by nearly nine percentage points in the race for governor—a greater margin than Clinton’s victory over Trump in the traditionally purple commonwealth last year. Despite keeping Trump at arm’s length, Gillespie latched onto a number of Trumpian issues during his campaign, including immigration and preserving Confederate monuments. But Gillespie’s decision to employ the tactics that propelled Trump into the White House fell flat. “Virginia’s wipeout was almost a perfect laboratory for studying the impact of Trump on the G.O.P.,” Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and vocal Never Trumper, told me. “Ed Gillespie [ran] the ‘Trumpism Without Trump’ playbook... Trumpism wins the base and loses almost everyone else. Trump himself becomes a political anchor tied around the necks of Republican candidates.”
As results rolled in, the president and his right-wing allies scrambled to distance themselves from Gillespie, blaming his loss on his failure to go “full Trump”. But Wilson dismissed the idea that embracing Trump would have shifted the election in the Republican’s favor. “Listening to [Steve] Bannon’s call to ‘be more like Trump’ is like going to an oncologist who tells you, ‘Smoke three packs of unfiltered Camels a day,’” he said. Exit polls bolster Wilson’s argument: Politico reports that half of all voters in Virginia—where Trump’s approval rating is 40 percent—identified the president as the reason for their vote, with 34 percent of voters saying they were casting their ballots to oppose Trump. Meanwhile, Northam won 95 percent of voters who strongly disapproved of the president’s job performance.
Notably, Gillespie bled support among core Republican demographics. While Trump won white college-educated voters in 2016 by four points, Northam carried them by three. Among white women with college degrees, the Republican nominee lost by a staggering 16-point margin. Northam also won two affluent Virginia suburbs, Loudoun County and Prince William County, by double digits—20 and 23 points respectively, improving on Clinton’s margin in both. “It is hard not to stress the things that we have been seeing all over the place, in particular, this sort of suburban revolt against Donald Trump and suburban revolt against the current state of the Republican Party,” Democratic strategist and pollster Jefrey Pollock told me.
Nor was the Democratic Party’s triumph limited to the governor’s race. A slate of Democratic newcomers—including Danica Roem, who will be one of the nation’s first openly transgender elected officials after beating out a 13-term Republican incumbent—potentially robbing the G.O.P. of its majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. “I don’t believe huge national conclusions can be drawn from an individual race, but Virginia wasn’t just one race; it was a total wipeout for Republicans,” Terry Sullivan, the G.O.P. strategist who served as Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign manager, told me. “The top of the ticket isn’t the best indicator for how poorly Republicans did... those losses for down-ballot Republicans are going to be more indicative of voting by party versus for an individual candidate. Democrats clearly had much more energy on their side than anyone thought.”
It seems that energy was catching—in New Jersey, Democrat Phil Murphy easily defeated Republican Kim Guadagno who, after serving as Chris Christie’s_ lieutenant governor, was expected to lose. “Not to take anything away from Phil Murphy—he did a great job,” Pollack said. “But the Republicans nominating the lieutenant of one of the least popular governors in the country doesn’t tend to lead to a competitive race.” And in Maine, voters handily approved a referendum to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, skirting Republican Governor Paul LePage’s veto on the measure. But much of the focus Wednesday morning remained on Virginia, and for good reason, strategists argue. “Virginia is historically the frothing edge of a wave election,” Israel said. “It’s like Cassandra on the Potomac: It forecasts future elections, but its warnings are usually unnoticed.” Israel argues that Virginia state elections have proven to be predictive of which party will gain control of the House of Representatives, highlighting the midterm elections in 1994, 2006, and 2010 as examples of this trend. “Its voters have an ability to reflect a national mood ahead of the national mood,” he said, implying that Tuesday’s results could portend a G.O.P. bloodbath at the ballot boxes next year.
The sweeping Democratic victories are certainly causing some consternation across the aisle. One longtime Republican power texted Axios’s Mike Allen, calling them “the beginning of the end.” Wilson argues that not breaking with the president is “a recipe for disaster for the G.O.P., but they stubbornly refuse to believe that Trump is killing them.”
Of course, Tuesday’s results should be taken with a grain of salt; as Pollack warned, state elections don’t always foreshadow larger trends. However, he added, “It is hard to not be optimistic about what happened... it certainly is a rebuke of the Republican Party as of late.” Steve Schale, a Democratic political consultant based in Florida who worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, said he believes the outcome points to a broader overall pattern in American politics. “Just as some Democrats did after ’08, Trumpians and many Republicans read 2016 as a pure mandate for their brand, and only their brand of politics, which it wasn’t... last night, voters sent a message. And until those in public office figure out that voters want them to work together, I have a feeling that politics will feel like a seesaw.”Alabama Sheriff In Court For Starving Inmates, Paying Critic's Grandson To Install Keylogger On Her Computer
from the just-make-it-out-to-'cash'-and-save-everyone-the-hassle dept
A number of statutes and practices have created perverse incentives for law enforcement, but none are nearly so blatant as this Alabama state law governing the feeding of inmates. The law, passed over 100 years ago, says law enforcement personnel -- mainly sheriffs -- can keep whatever's left over from state and federal inmate food stipends. This doesn't mean the leftover money is routed to a general fund or used to defray law enforcement/jail-related expenses. No, this means the money flows from taxpayers, (mostly) bypasses prisoners, and ends up in sheriffs' personal checking accounts. (via Radley Balko)
This legalized skimming has resulted in the obvious: underfed inmates and sheriffs with overfed bank accounts. The law first received national attention in 2008, when Morgan County sheriff Greg Bartlett found himself in federal court, defending himself against a lawsuit brought by his prisoners. Inmates were dropping weight and going hungry while Bartlett increased his personal income by $212,000 over three years, taking home a great deal of the $1.75 per prisoner per day state funds. (Federal prisoners housed in state jails are allowed $3 per day, which can also be rerouted to sheriffs' checking accounts.)
This resulted in Bartlett spending one night in his own jail. Even then, Sheriff Bartlett was violating an earlier consent decree with the federal government, which ordered his office to use *all* food funds for feeding inmates. The agreement Bartlett reached with the court (after a night in jail) promised his office would do the same thing: spend all the funds on food, rather than diverting them for personal use.
Even with two consent decrees in place and a previous sheriff being hauled into court for personally profiting from inmates' hunger, another Morgan County sheriff (Ana Franklin) has repeated her predecessor's misdeeds.
At that hearing, the sheriff's attorneys are expected to argue that a years-old consent decree in a lawsuit against the county does not apply to Franklin and she shouldn't be held in contempt. The decree says the Morgan County Sheriff must spend all food funds on inmate meals. The decree was issued in 2009 after Franklin's predecessor was jailed for contempt. Former Sheriff Greg Bartlett was dubbed "Sheriff Corndog" because he profited more than $200,000 while inmates ate corndogs twice a day for weeks. The consent decree stemmed from a 2001 lawsuit against the county and then-Sheriff Steve Crabbe by inmates decrying conditions inside the jail. A court hearing was scheduled last month when the Center filed a motion saying Franklin should show cause for why she shouldn't be held in contempt of the decree. The center argued that Franklin should have been held in contempt after removing $160,000 from the inmate food account. The sheriff loaned $150,000 of the money to a now-bankrupt, corrupt used car dealership, Priceville Partners, LLC, that was co-owned by Greg Steenson, a convicted felon.
Franklin is trying to convince the court she should be allowed to continue starving inmates and financing criminal business ventures. While Sheriff Franklin was helping prop up local business corruption, inmates were dealing with this reality:
The [Southern Center for Human Rights] is arguing Franklin should not be allowed to keep any of the food funds and has included in court documents statements from inmates who describe inadequate food portions and unappetizing or hazardous servings. Inmates reported finding rocks, a nail and mold in food served at the jail. "Many grievances note that entire cell blocks were fed reduced or watered-down portions -- a tiny amount of soup, a spoonful of grits, five or six green beans or carrot slices as a vegetable serving, a sandwich with half of a slice of cheese on it, and the like -- because the kitchen lacked enough food to serve everyone the portions listed on the menu," according to court records filed by the Center.
Starving prisoners to fund personal business ventures isn't the only thing Sheriff Franklin's accused of doing, though. A longtime critic of Franklin -- blogger/business owner Glenda Lockhart -- has also filed a lawsuit against the sheriff, alleging a number of constitutional violations.
The lawsuit accuses Franklin of illegally obtaining information to convince a judge to issue a search warrant for Lockhart's home and business. Franklin has said her office seized computers and various other devices during an investigation into fired jail warden Leon Bradley, who has been accused of leaking documents to Lockhart for publication on the blog.
Lockhart's blog was where Sheriff Franklin's payments to the corrupt car dealership first appeared. In apparent retaliation, the sheriff allegedly engaged in some incredibly underhanded -- and illegal -- tactics in her attempt to obtain the blogger's personal communications.
Lockhart claims Franklin illegally gathered information for a search warrant by paying an informant to break-in, hack and steal data from her home and business offices. Lockhart owns Straightline Drywall and Acoustical, LLC in Falkville. The informant, Lockhart's grandson Daniel, said in a sworn statement that he was paid to install keylogger software on his grandmother's computer. The software, he said, was provided by the sheriff's office, according to a transcript from a November 2016 deposition.
Daniel Lockhart's statement also said the sheriff told him she was only interested in going after the former warden who was leaking documents and that Daniel's grandmother wouldn't be targeted. His statement also points out he was paid directly by the sheriff and one of her deputies a total of $500 to perform this "investigative" work for them.
There appears to be corruption all over the place in Morgan County, Alabama. But it all starts with a bad law state lawmakers are in no hurry to take off the books. Despite multiple federal lawsuits stemming from sheriffs' starve-and-skim tactics, the incredibly perverse incentive remains intact. There are probably plenty of taxpayers who don't like the idea of their money being used to food and house convicted criminals, but I doubt any of those taxpayers are happier knowing they're padding sheriffs' bank accounts and investing in shady businesses.
Filed Under: alabama, ana franklin, food, glenda lockhart, prisoners, sheriffsby David Wojick
The “Climate Change Education Act” (S.3074) directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a climate change education program focused on formal and informal learning for all age levels.
When it comes to beating the climate change drum, Sen. Ed Markey is the Energizer Bunny. As a Congressman, Rep. Markey was Chairman of the now defunct House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming from 2007 to 2011. This time he is drumming on the education front. Markey has dropped the “Climate Education Act” into the Senate hopper. While the bill is unlikely to pass at this time, it is still important to object to, lest it be seen to be acceptable.
Sen. Markey’s website summarizes the proposal as follows: “The “Climate Change Education Act” (S.3074) directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to establish a climate change education program focused on formal and informal learning for all age levels. The program would explore solutions to climate change, the dangers we face in a warming world, and relatively small changes in daily routines that can have a profound global impact. The legislation also establishes a grant program to support public outreach programs that improve access to clean energy jobs and research funds so local communities can address climate mitigation and adaptation issues.”
There is a lot not to like here, beginning with the false scientific claims. The first is hyping the supposed dangers we face in a warming world, which simply do not exist. Nor are there small changes in daily routines that can have a profound global impact, because humans do not control the global climate. What is here being called Education is really just scaremongering and propaganda. Ironically, the Bill itself says one goal is to remove the fear of climate change, which it actually promotes.
What is really strange is the focus on so-called clean energy jobs and technology. The term “clean energy” is a misleading euphemism for renewable technologies. Thus the thrust of the Bill is not just on climate science education; rather it is on using the education system to promote renewables. NOAA has no expertise in this regard and no mission. They do things like running the National Weather Service. Promoting renewables and green workforce development is the Energy Department’s job.
On the science side, |
-channel - channel that contains the available workers
- channel that contains the available workers servant/array-buffer-message-standard-reply - A function that defines how the.postMessage function will be called (a.k.a mesage-fn)
- A function that defines how the function will be called (a.k.a mesage-fn) get-first-4bytes-as-str - The servant function we defined earlier
- The servant function we defined earlier arraybuffer - our argument to the function
- our argument to the function [arraybuffer] - a vector of arraybuffers that are going to be transferred
The message-fn can be anything, but I think servant has you covered with:
standard-message : Copies all the data both ways
: Copies all the data both ways array-buffer-message : Can transfer the context both ways
: Can transfer the context both ways array-buffer-message-standard-reply : Can transfer the context when making the call, won’t transfer the context coming back
There is a reason why array-buffer-message isn’t just the standard. You need to explicitly tell the postMessage call that you want to transfer arraybuffers. So to transfer context you need an additional argument, an array of arraybuffers. You also need to make sure the defservantfn returns a vector of results and an array of arraybuffers [result [arraybuffer1]] if you want to transfer the arraybuffer from the worker to the browser context. I figured if you wanted that you could use it and deal with the extra argument, if you didn’t you could write your functions how you normally would.
Examples
I wrote two examples using the servant library:
The first is a simple demo showing several use cases.
The next is more featured demo that can encrypt/decrypt large files efficiently using webworkers.
Last thoughts
I used to curse the name webworkers. They brought gifts of speed at the cost of complexity. Servant is different, it doesn’t sacrifice simplicity or efficiency. I’m pretty excited at the ease of using webworkers with servant, and I hope you have fun making an amazing, multithreaded Clojurescript application!"False friends" in English and Finnish
What "false friends" are?
"False friends" (French faux amis ) are pairs of words in two languages so that the words are written or pronounced identically or similarly but differ in meaning. They cause problems especially when you see or hear a word in a foreign language and you assume that it has the same meaning as a similar word in your native language. Often the words have a common origin but the meanings have become different, perhaps very different. This document lists some "false friends" in English and Finnish. The site English as 2nd Language contains an information about false friends between English and other languages such as Spanish and French.
The expression false cognates is often used instead of false friends. However, it as also used for words that that are similar in two languages but have different origin, and in other meanings, too.
Some examples
In the following table, each row contains
an English word a semantic equivalent in Finnish a Finnish word resembling (in spelling or pronunciation or both) the English word an explanation of the meaning of the Finnish word in English.
English word explanation in Finnish Finnish word explanation in English ale 'olut (eräs tyyppi)' ale'sale (at a reduced price)' angina'sydänkouristus, angina pectoris'angiina 'tonsillitis' bassoon 'fagotti' pasuuna 'trombone' billion (US)'miljardi' biljoona 'trillion (US)' canine 'kulmahammas; koira(eläin)'kaniini 'rabbit' cumin 'juustokumina, jeera' kumina 'caraway' faggot (or fagot) '(risu)kimppu; homo' fagotti 'bassoon, fagotto' grape 'viinirypäle' greippi 'grapefruit' harmonica 'huuliharppu' harmonikka 'accordion' home 'koti’ home'mold (fungus growth)’ lamb 'karitsa’ lammas'sheep’ liquor 'väkevä alkoholijuoma' likööri 'liqueur' motorist 'autoilija' motoristi'motorcyclist' pickles'suola- t. etikkakurkut' pikkelsi'mixed pickles' novel 'romaani; uudenlainen' novelli'short story' petrol (Br.) 'bensiini' petroli 'paraffin oil' risky 'vaarallinen' riski (adj.)'strong (person)' silicon 'pii' silikoni'silicone' tile 'laatta, kaakeli’ tiili 'brick’ undulate 'aaltoilla, lainehtia' undulaatti 'budgerigar, budgie
Special case: specialized meaning
There are some word pairs which could be regarded as "false friends" in the sense that a Finnish word has more restricted meaning than its "friend" in English. For example:
In English, sex can mean 'gender', too, but in Finnish seksi means'sexual activity' or'sexual attractiveness' only (and 'gender' is sukupuoli ).
can mean 'gender', too, but in Finnish means'sexual activity' or'sexual attractiveness' only (and 'gender' is ). In Finnish, sortsit (or shortsit ) means short trousers only, whereas short underpants are called alushousut.
(or ) means short trousers only, whereas short underpants are called. The English word tape occurs as a loanword in Finnish, written teippi, but it has the very restricted meaning 'adhesive tape' (whereas a tape in general is nauha). To add to the confusion, Finnish computer jargon occasionally uses teippi to mean'magnetic tape'!
Being false friends may depend on the context
Some words are false friends in some contexts only:
English positive can usually be translated as positiivinen (and in some contexts it must be translated that way), but translating I'm positive that way would be an error (it must be translated e.g. as olen varma ).
can usually be translated as (and in some contexts it must be translated that way), but translating that way would be an error (it must be translated e.g. as ). invalid can often be translated as invalidi or synonymously vammainen, but not in a context like invalid command (which could be translated as virheellinen komento ).
can often be translated as or synonymously, but not in a context like (which could be translated as ). liberal is often liberaali (or synonymously vapaamielinen, "free-minded"), but liberal education is certainly not liberaali kasvatus (though it is often mistranslated that way) but rather klassillinen koulutus
is often (or synonymously, "free-minded"), but is certainly not (though it is often mistranslated that way) but rather moral as an adjective is normally translated as moraalinen, but moral of the story is not tarinan moraali (rather, tarinan opetus).
Complicated cases
The word pair pathetic - pateettinen is more difficult to describe. Originally, pateettinen means 'high-flown' (and English pathetic in its modern meaning, as opposite to its old dictionary meaning, is translated e.g. as säälittävä or surkea). But it seems that the impact of English has changed things so that pateettinen now very often means 'pathetic'. This change has now been recorded in the official dictionary for Finnish (Kielitoimiston sanakirja), though labeled as colloquial. (In the Finnish version of The Lion King on video, Zazu's words about Simba becoming a pretty pathetic king has been translated as "sinusta tulee hyvin pateettinen kuningas". In this context, both interpretations are plausible, and perhaps the translator intentionally created the ambiguity!)
The English words brandy and brand and their use in Finnish is an interesting phenomenon, too. Probably the words don't get confused with each other in English, but in Finnish things might be different. The word brandy has been used in Finnish a long time. The use of brand is newer, and fashionable, and it is typically written as brandi or brändi (where the final -i is pronounced roughly as -y in English brandy). In this case, and in some other cases mentioned above, false friends reflect similarity of two words (or even polysemy) within the English language. But the problem is that a Finn is inclined to associate a word wrongly much more probably than an Englishman might confuse the two English words with each other. For example, English has liquor and liqueur, but only the latter has a counterpart in Finnish; and since films and books in English mention liquors more often than liqueurs, a Finn might easily understand liquor as likööri.
Finnish summary - suomenkielinen tiivistelmä
"Väärät ystävät" ovat sanapareja, joissa samannäköisillä tai samalta kuulostavilla sanoilla on eri merkitys eri kielissä. Ongelmia aiheuttavat erityisesti tapaukset, joissa vierasta kieltä opetteleva olettaa tutunnäköisen tai -kuuloisen sanan tarkoittavan samaa kuin äidinkielessään. Usein kyse on sanoista, joilla on yhteinen alkuperä mutta jotka ovat kehittyneet merkitykseltään ehkä hyvinkin eri suuntiin. Tämä dokumentti luettelee eräitä "vääriä ystäviä", joissa kielinä ovat suomi ja englanti.
On the origin of this document
I got (1999-06-14) an E-mail message from a person writing an English textbook, intending "to include some exercises on false friends (i.e. words that look the same in two different languages but which in fact have different meanings)", and asking whether I could help by providing a list of 10–15 common Finnish/English false friends. My first reaction was that there probably aren't many of them, and no pair that might cause real confusion came into my mind. Little did I know... Luckily I posted a message to the Usenet group sfnet.keskustelu.kieli (a Finnish group for discussing language issues). It initiated an interesting thread, and almost all examples here have been taken from the contributions there. I have tried to pick up those cases which could be especially important in practice: words which could occur in a context where an interpretation based on a false friend makes sense (though the wrong sense). Later, other people have sent me other interesting examples.
I became convinced that false friends actually cause a lot of problems to Finns trying to learn and use English. Perhaps I had forgotten some relevant situations in my past, since they were so embarrassing. Now I remember that during my visit to the US in the 80s, I, being a smoker at that time, was looking for a vending machine to buy some cigarettes. I asked a motel employee whether the motel had a cigarette automaton. In Finnish, automaatti means'vending machine' (and 'automatic teller machine'), among other things. And now I also remember having seen a pub advertisement stating ale-olutta - I was really puzzled by the question whether they sell beer at a reduced price or ale, which is still rather unknown in Finland, enjoyed by connoisseurs mainly. In colloquial Finnish, ale is short for alennusmyynti'sale at reduced price'.The other day, while bored out of my mind during one of my university lecture, I thought to myself “How would a division II or III national team be in the NHL? So, I decided to figure it out by using two of my favourite things: NHLe (National Hockey League Equivalency) and the AIHL (Australian Ice Hockey League).
The Australian National Team, or the “Mighty Roos,” is built up completely of AIHL players. So, the first step to answering this question is to figure out the NHLe for the AIHL. To start, I did research and found that four players in history have played in both the NHL and AIHL, totaling 50 games in the AIHL and 1179 games in the NHL. Using Goals-per-Game I found the NHLe to be 0.12 which is less than half of the WHL, which sounds about right. The chart below is other hockey leagues current NHLe.
The next step is to look at the Mighty Roos current roster, which I found on Wikipedia, and find the individual players NHLe. Using all the NHLe for an 82-game season, the team would score a total of 25 goals which is 141 less than that of the 166 the Colorado Avalanche scored last season. Of course, scoring is only half of the objective in hockey, but unless the best hockey goalie in the world is hiding in Australia I think the few goals for would make them last place in the NHL.
It should also be noted that there is currently a play named Nathan Walker in the Washington Capitals system aiming to be the first Australian in the NHL. Using his AIHL numbers (only playing seven games) he should expect 1.4 goals in the NHL, but using his AHL numbers he can expect a translation to 6.5 goals, which is still bad for a NHL forward.
Nathan Walker playing for Mighty Roos
Another note, with the upcoming Olympics, the Canadian men’s team won’t be as good as Team Canada of years past due to the lack of NHL players, but I don’t think we are at risk of losing to division ll teams from Australia.
AdvertisementsThe coffee king mandates that its frequently-trafficked NYC restrooms will be restricted to employees only — sparking both anxiety and jokes
Starbucks is undergoing a "'wee' change," says Josh Kosman at the New York Post. According to a source close to the java giant, Starbucks has decided that it "cannot be the public bathroom in [New York City] anymore" and will restrict restrooms at its 190 Manhattan locations to staff-use only. The problem: So many New Yorkers were wandering in to relieve themselves that employees had to wait in long lines just to take bathroom breaks of their own. Plus, upkeep costs for the heavily-trafficked loos had grown excessive. Though Starbucks is dismissing the Post's report as "not true," many commentators are still flush with fury. Here's some of the best snark:
Say it ain't so
We always thought Starbucks' free bathroom policy was "a pretty genius business strategy," says Dan Amira at New York. "Come for the emergency bowel movements, stay for the pastries!" Now, the end of "the chain's reign as an oasis in the toilet desert of Manhattan" is actually a "terrifying" prospect for New Yorkers.
SEE MORE: Will Starbucks' $30 million bet on juice pay off?
Occupy the bathroom
Maybe, says The Huffington Post, "the recently-evicted Occupy Wall Street protesters could donate their toilets for public use?"
This is hazardous to your health
"Your next UTI will be sponsored by Starbucks," says Anna North at Jezebel. After all, without a Starbucks to pop into, New Yorkers may have to suppress their bathroom urges for an unhealthy length of time.
Regression
New York City's sanitation department can't be pleased, says The Daily Beast. Will reckless public urination "make a comeback?"
Sadly, this makes sense
The bathroom closure follows reports that Starbucks was kicking out "the laptop hobos who occupy tables for hours while nursing a single cup of coffee," says Hamilton Nolan at Gawker. Starbucks is not in "the 'place to come and use the restrooms for free' business," or "the 'you can't afford office space so why not'rent' our space here for an entire day for the price of a small coffee' business." Starbucks is in the "money money money business."
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Other stories from this topic:
Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily NewsletterVoting booths at a polling station filled with voters and volunteers in Arlington, Va. U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson rejected the argument that a photo-ID requirement was “arbitrary and unfair” and burdened voters who tend to favor Democrats. (Michael Reynolds/EPA)
A federal judge on Thursday upheld Virginia’s voter- identification requirement, dealing a blow to a national push by Democrats to remove laws they say disenfranchise minority and poor voters.
Republicans applauded the decision as “a victory for the integrity of Virginia’s elections,” while Democrats called it a disappointment and said they may appeal.
If the lawsuit ultimately succeeds, it could give Democrats an edge in the presidential race in a swing state with a recent spate of close elections.
In his 62-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson rejected the argument that a photo-ID requirement was “arbitrary and unfair” and severely burdened voters who tend to favor Democratic candidates.
“Virginia has provided all of its citizens with an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process,” with the availability of in-person voting, absentee voting, provisional ballots and free IDs, he wrote.
“Mindful that the Court’s mission is to judge not the wisdom of the Virginia voter ID law, but rather its constitutionality,” the law does not violate the Voting Rights Act or any amendments, he wrote.
The challenge was brought by two activists and the state Democratic Party. They were represented by Marc E. Elias, who is general counsel to Democratic front-
runner Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and has worked for Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and Attorney General Mark Herring (D).
The Republican-controlled state legislature approved a
voter-ID requirement in 2013. It was signed into law by McAuliffe’s Republican predecessor, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell.
Elias said he is considering filing an expedited appeal in hopes that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit hears the case before the November election.
“The purpose of this lawsuit was to ensure that all Virginians are able to exercise their right to vote without being subject to unwarranted obstacles,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s unfortunate that a Republican legislature and then a Republican governor engaged in a process to makes it harder to vote.”
Lawyers including Elias have filed similar lawsuits across the country to reverse strict voting laws. The national effort is being underwritten by a $5 million contribution by billionaire financier George Soros, said his his spokesman, Michael Vachon.
A Wisconsin case is being heard currently, a decision is pending in Ohio, and a North Carolina case will be heard by the 4th Circuit in June in Richmond, Elias said.
[In Virginia, the race is on to register 200,000 felons]
Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) called the lawsuit a “politically motivated” waste of taxpayer dollars, and said most Virginians support the “common sense law” requiring voter ID.
“Unfortunately, their lawsuit unnecessarily cost Virginia taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said in a statement. “It is also unfortunate that Virginia was once again unable to rely on its elected Attorney General to defend the law of the Commonwealth.”
Herring appointed an independent counsel, Mark F. “Thor” Hearne II, to defend the law. The case cost taxpayers more than $775,000 according to a Newport News Daily Press analysis of legal bills.
In addition to the voter-ID piece, the lawsuit, which was filed last June, initially alleged that the state unfairly burdens voters with long lines at certain polling stations and blocks convicted felons from voting.
The judge previously dismissed those claims.Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev (Russian: Василий Иванович Алексеев; 7 January 1942 – 25 November 2011) was a Soviet weightlifter.[3][4] He set 80 world records and 81 Soviet records in weightlifting and won gold medals at the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics.[5]
Biography [ edit ]
At the age of 18, Alekseyev began practicing weightlifting at Trud Voluntary Sports Society, trained by his coach Rudolf Plyukfelder until 1968, when he began to train solo. He was not a naturally large man like other super heavyweights but was encouraged to gain strength by adding weight. In January 1970 Alekseyev set his first world record, and during the World Weightlifting Championship in Columbus, Ohio in 1970 he was the first man to clean and jerk 500 pounds (227 kg) in competition. During one of his early world records, Oscar State OBE remarked that the weight of over 460 pounds (209 kg) in the Olympic press looked so easy it could have been a broomstick.[4] This was the beginning of a series of 80 world records Alekseyev set between 1970 and 1977. He received bonus funds every time he set a world record by the Soviet Union; so he made it a point to gradually increase his world records by 1.1 pounds or 0.5 kg. He was unbeaten and held the World Championship and European Championship titles for those eight years. He was the first man to total over 600 kg in the triple event.[4]
Many thought he would be the first to clean and jerk the mythical 600 pounds but it was never to be as his habit of increasing world records by only 1/2 kilo took so long that age caught up to him.
Alekseyev's performance in the Moscow Olympics of 1980 was a disappointment. He had by then become more of a recluse, training by himself without a coach. In the snatch he set his opening weight too high and was unable to lift it, scoring zero kilograms as the result. He retired from weightlifting after the Moscow Olympics.[3][5]
In 1987, Alekseyev was elected to represent the Ryazan District for the Soviet Union's Congress of People's Deputies.[4] Alekseyev worked as a coach between 1990 and 1992. Under his leadership, the Unified Team earned ten medals in weightlifting at the 1992 Summer Olympics, including five golds.[6]
From 1966 Alekseyev lived in Shakhty, where in 1971 he graduated from the branch of the Novocherkassk Polytechnical Institute. He died on 25 November 2011 in Germany in a clinic where he had been sent for serious heart problems.[3] He was 69. The Russian Weightlifting Federation reported his death and called him a "Soviet sports legend" and "one of the strongest people in the world".[7] He was survived by wife Olimpiada and sons Sergey and Dmitry. Dmitry competed nationally in weightlifting, placing fourth at the 1988 Soviet weightlifting championships.[5]
Legacy and awards [ edit ]
Vladimir Vysotsky devoted his "Song about weightlifter" (Russian: Песня о штангисте, 1971) to Alekseyev.[8]
Alekseyev was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated 14 April 1975, titled "World's Strongest Man."[9] In 1999, in Greece, Alekseyev was acknowledged as the best sportsman of the 20th century. He was also awarded: Order of Lenin (1972), Order of Friendship of Peoples, Order of the Badge of Honour (1970), and Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1972). In 1993, he was elected a member of the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.[10]
In Shakhty, where he lived much of his life, there is a street and park named after him,[11] as well as his monument installed in 2014.[12]
Career bests [ edit ]
Snatch: 190.0 kg (419 lbs) on September 1, 1977 in Podolsk;
Clean and press: 236.5 kg (521 lbs) on April 15, 1972 in Tallinn;
Clean and jerk: 256.0 kg (564 lbs) on November 1, 1977 in Moscow;
Total: 645.0 kg (clean and press + snatch + clean and jerk), on April 15, 1972 in Tallinn, the official world record total in 1972; [13]
Total: 445.0 kg (snatch + clean and jerk) in Podolsk.[1]
World records 24 January 1970 Clean & Press 210.5 kg (464lb) Super Heavyweight Velikie Luki [1]
24 January 1970 Clean & Jerk 221.5 kg Super Heavyweight Velikie Luki
24 January 1970 Total (3) 592.5 kg Super Heavyweight Velikie Luki
24 January 1970 Total (3) 595 kg Super Heavyweight Velikie Luki
18 March 1970 Clean & Press 213 kg (469.5lb) Super Heavyweight Minsk
18 March 1970 Total (3) 600 kg Super Heavyweight Minsk
26 April 1970 Clean & Press 216 kg (476lb) Super Heavyweight Vilnius
26 April 1970 Clean & Jerk 223.5 kg Super Heavyweight Vilnius
26 April 1970 Total (3) 602.5 kg Super Heavyweight Vilnius
26 April 1970 Total (3) 607.5 kg Super Heavyweight Vilnius
28 June 1970 Clean & Press 219.5 kg (483.9lb) Super Heavyweight Szombathely
28 June 1970 Clean & Jerk 225.5 kg Super Heavyweight Szombathely
28 June 1970 Total (3) 610 kg Super Heavyweight Szombathely
28 June 1970 Total (3) 612.5 kg Super Heavyweight Szombathely
20 September 1970 Clean & Jerk 227.5 kg Super Heavyweight Columbus
17 November 1970 Clean & Press 220.5 kg (486lb) Super Heavyweight Volgograd
17 November 1970 Clean & Jerk 228 kg Super Heavyweight Volgograd
12/4/1970 Snatch 177 kg Super Heavyweight Shakhty
12/4/1970 Clean & Press 221 kg (487.2lb) Super Heavyweight Shakhty
12/4/1970 Clean & Jerk 228.5 kg Super Heavyweight Shakhty
12/4/1970 Total (3) 615 kg Super Heavyweight Shakhty
12/4/1970 Total (3) 620 kg Super Heavyweight Shakhty
26 December 1970 Clean & Press 222 kg (489.4lb) Super Heavyweight Dnipropetrovsk
26 December 1970 Clean & Jerk 229.5 kg Super Heavyweight Dnipropetrovsk
26 December 1970 Total (3) 622.5 kg Super Heavyweight Dnipropetrovsk
26 December 1970 Total (3) 625 kg Super Heavyweight Dnipropetrovsk
14 February 1971 Snatch 177.5 kg Super Heavyweight Paris
14 February 1971 Clean & Press 222.5 kg (490.5lb) Super Heavyweight Paris
14 February 1971 Clean & Jerk 230 kg Super Heavyweight Paris
26 March 1971 Clean & Press 223 kg (491.6lb) Super Heavyweight Wienn
4/7/1971 Clean & Press 223.5 kg (492.7lb) Super Heavyweight Moscow
18 April 1971 Clean & Jerk 230.5 kg Super Heavyweight Taganrog
27 June 1971 Clean & Press 225 kg (496lb) Super Heavyweight Sofia
27 June 1971 Clean & Jerk 231 kg Super Heavyweight Sofia
27 June 1971 Clean & Jerk 232.5 kg Super Heavyweight Sofia
27 June 1971 Total (3) 627.5 kg Super Heavyweight Sofia
27 June 1971 Total (3) 630 kg Super Heavyweight Sofia
24 July 1971 Snatch 180 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
24 July 1971 Clean & Press 225.5 kg (497.1lb) Super Heavyweight Moscow
24 July 1971 Clean & Jerk 233 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
24 July 1971 Clean & Jerk 235 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
24 July 1971 Total (3) 632.5 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
24 July 1971 Total (3) 637.5 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
24 July 1971 Total (3) 640 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
26 September 1971 Clean & Press 227 kg (500lb) Super Heavyweight Lima
26 September 1971 Clean & Press 230 kg (507lb) Super Heavyweight Lima
26 September 1971 Clean & Jerk 235.5 kg Super Heavyweight Lima
19 March 1972 Clean & Press 231.5 kg (510.3lb) Super Heavyweight Bollnas
19 March 1972 Clean & Press 235.5 kg (519.1lb) Super Heavyweight Bollnas
15 April 1972 Clean & Jerk 236 kg Super Heavyweight Tallinn
15 April 1972 Clean & Press 236.5 kg (521.3lb) Super Heavyweight Tallinn
15 April 1972 Clean & Jerk 237.5 kg Super Heavyweight Tallinn
15 April 1972 Total (3) 642.5 kg Super Heavyweight Tallinn
15 April 1972 Total (3) 645 kg Super Heavyweight Tallinn
29 April 1972 Clean & Jerk 238 kg Super Heavyweight Donetsk
18 June 1973 Clean & Jerk 240 kg Super Heavyweight Madrid
18 June 1973 Total 417.5 kg Super Heavyweight Madrid
1/3/1974 Clean & Jerk 242 kg Super Heavyweight Glazov
20 March 1974 Clean & Jerk 240.5 kg Super Heavyweight Erevan
28 April 1974 Clean & Jerk 241 kg Super Heavyweight Tbilisi
28 April 1974 Total 420 kg Super Heavyweight Tbilisi
6 June 1974 Snatch 187.5 kg Super Heavyweight Verona
6 June 1974 Total 422.5 kg Super Heavyweight Verona
23 September 1974 Clean & Jerk 245.5 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
29 September 1974 Clean & Jerk 241.5 kg Super Heavyweight Manila
29 September 1974 Total 425 kg Super Heavyweight Manila
27 November 1974 Clean & Jerk 242.5 kg Super Heavyweight London
14 December 1974 Clean & Jerk 243 kg Super Heavyweight Zaporizhia
29 December 1974 Clean & Jerk 243.5 kg Super Heavyweight Lipetsk
7/11/1975 Clean & Jerk 245 kg Super Heavyweight Vilnius
23 September 1975 Total 427.5 kg Super Heavyweight Moscow
11 November 1975 Clean and Jerk 246 kg Super Heavyweight Arkhangelsk
11 November 1975 Total 430 kg Super Heavyweight Arkhangelsk
12/7/1975 Clean & Jerk 247.5 kg Super Heavyweight Montreal
15 May 1976 Total 435 kg Super Heavyweight Karaganda
27 July 1976 Clean & Jerk 255 kg Super Heavyweight Montreal
9/1/1977 Clean & Jerk 255.5 kg Super Heavyweight Podolsk
9/1/1977 Total 445 kg Super Heavyweight Podolsk
11/1/1977 Clean & Jerk 256 kg Super Heavyweight MoscowAt a tense press conference at Versailles, Mr Macron said influential media outlets had lied about him throughout his election campaign. "I've always had exemplary relations with foreign journalists, but they have to be journalists!” said Mr Macron. "Russia Today and Sputnik were organs of influence and propaganda, which spread infamous counter-truths about me."
EPA Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron appeared tense in their first face-to-face meeting
GETTY Mr Macron launched a furious attack on Moscow's allegedly fake news media
Mr Macron was accused of being a corrupt tax-dodger who used an offshore account to shield his millions. There were also rumours about the private life of the 39-year old, whose wife Brigitte Macron is 25 years his senior. In the face of such fake news, Mr Macron said he had no option but to ban certain Russian journalists from his campaign headquarters.
France's First Lady Brigitte Macron in pictures Tue, July 17, 2018 Brigitte Macron is a former high school teacher and the wife of the French politician Emmanuel Macron. See her most recent pictures. Play slideshow REUTERS•Getty 1 of 100 France's First Lady Brigitte Macron in pictures
Mr Putin remained stony faced and did not reply when Mr Macron made the accusations.
Russia Today and Sputnik were organs of influence and propaganda Emmanuel Macron
But the Russian President did reject allegations that Moscow wanted far-Right candidate Marine Le Pen to beat Mr Macron. Commenting on a visit by Ms Le Pen, the Front National leader, to Moscow just before polling day, Mr Putin said: "It did not mean we tried to influence the election result. Moreover it would be almost impossible to do so, anyway.
GETTY He said influential media outlets had lied about him throughout his election campaign
"We are not children – we are serious men." The press conference followed the two presidents' first face-to-face talks and also coincided with the inauguration of an exhibition marking 300 years of Franco-Russian relations. The meeting was seen as an opportunity to rebuild strained bilateral ties, especially over the war in Syria, where Russia is a great supporter of dictator Bashar al-Assad. Mr Putin, 64, cancelled his last planned visit to Paris in October after the then French president, Francois Hollande, said Russian bombing attacks in Syria amounted to war crimes.
GETTY Mr Putin remained stony faced and did not reply when Mr Macron made the accusationsSouth Wales Police warned of an effect on routine traffic policing and major events A chief constable has warned her force will stop responding to accidents on the M4 from April - unless dedicated traffic officers are introduced. Barbara Wilding said South Wales Police faced a £14m "worst case scenario" funding shortfall and could no longer afford routine traffic patrols. Ms Wilding also said that without more funds she would have to charge major event promoters full policing costs. These would include pop concerts, football and rugby matches. Royal visits could also be scaled back. Ms Wilding said with precept funding, raised from the council tax, the force was facing a "worst case scenario" of a £14m funding deficit. Speaking to BBC Wales, Ms Wilding said she had been telling senior assembly government ministers for two years that the force would be facing cuts in the services it delivers without more money, but to no avail. The assembly government warned that police authorities had to be efficient and the minister did not expect "unreasonable council tax increases" to be imposed on the "already hard-pressed householder". Ms Wilding said the work of dealing with accidents, directing traffic and clearing debris should either be done by new traffic officers from the Highways Agency, or be funded through extra money for policing. "We will be building a business case to the Welsh Assembly Government to say if you want us to carry on policing the motorway, responding to those issues, then you must pay for it," said Ms Wilding. "If you don't pay for it, we will no longer be doing it." Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Later in a statement, she said police would still attend collisions but not routine traffic incidents - which were already dealt with by Highways Agency officials in England. "I would ask the public a simple question, would they rather my officers pursue the culprits of a burglary or sat in their motorway patrol car waiting for a truck to have its flat tyre changed? "It's about using our specialist resources in the most appropriate way. For every hour the M4 is closed, it costs the public of south Wales, £1m." Ms Wilding also said that without funding increases, she would be forced to charge promoters of major events in Cardiff, such as rugby matches and pop concerts, the full policing costs. She also suggested the number of events during royal visits to south Wales may have to be scaled back due to pressures on her budget. "We will start charging for the major events, we will have to, because at the moment, our policing levels are going down to 1974 figures," she said. Ms Wilding gave an example of the recent Cardiff versus Swansea football match, which she said cost £250,000 to police, for which South Wales Police received only £25,000 from the event promoters. The chief constable also called for South Wales Police to be paid an extra £1m by the assembly government in recognition of the costs of policing the capital city of Wales, as happens in Scotland. Police on duty at the Cardiff v Arsenal FA Cup tie in January
"The implications are quite simple really, that if football clubs or people putting on events with pop stars are not able to pay for the level of policing that we say is needed for that event, on risk - it's all done on risk - then they may have to consider whether they can run the event in the first place," she said. "And that, of course, has a huge impact on the economy of hotels, shops, transport, the whole thing." At a meeting of the South Wales Police Authority, Ms Wilding also urged members to agree a 9.8% increase in the amount council tax payers are charged for policing so patrols of the M4 could continue. The Welsh Assembly Government said police funding was a matter for the Home Office, with South Wales and Gwent police forces legally responsible for policing the M4 in south Wales. A spokesman said a transfer of certain powers to highways agencies to improve efficiency of road policing and to free up officers for law enforcement had already been proposed. The trial of a rapid response system for the M4 and A55 was also subject to discussion, while two traffic management centres for the same roads had been funded. On the policing of major events, the spokesman said |
‘Climategate 2.0 – Impartiality at the BBC’ explaining how I believed that the culture of environmentalism has perhaps taken hold at the BBC. It is easy for the BBC to dismiss a sceptical blogger (writing at an obviously easily perceived partisan sceptical blog) concerns about the impartiality of the BBC’s reporting on climate change.
I would just hope that The BBC Trust and the senior management at the BBC would seriously reflect on the concerns expressed about the BBC reporting on climate change, from such an experienced and respected journalist as Michael Buerk.
Podcast – Michael Buerk on the Climate Summit
Podcast Transcript – The Fifth Column –
Michael Buerk on the Climate Summit
The latest so-called Climate Summit, that’s been taking place in Durban, hasn’t made many waves. It could be because global warming seems less daunting if you can no longer afford heating bills. It could also be that we’re getting fed up with the bogus certainties and quasi-religious tone of the great climate change non-debate. Now, I don’t know for certain that man’s activities are causing the planet to heat up. Nobody does. We simply cannot construct a theoretical model that can cope with all the variables. For what it’s worth, I think anthropogenic warming is taking place, and, anyway, it would be a good thing to stop chucking so much bad stuff into the atmosphere. What gets up my nose is being infantilized by governments, by the BBC, by the Guardian that there is no argument, that all scientists who aren’t cranks and charlatans are agreed on all this, that the consequences are uniformly negative, the issues beyond doubt and the steps to be taken beyond dispute. You’re not necessarily a crank to point out that global temperatures change a great deal anyway. A thousand years ago we had a Mediterranean climate in this country; 200 years ago we were skating every winter on the Thames. And actually there has been no significant rise in global temperatures for more than a decade now. We hear a lot about how the Arctic is shrinking, but scarcely anything about how the Antarctic is spreading, and the South Pole is getting colder. Droughts aren’t increasing. There are fewer of them, and less severe, than a hundred years ago. The number of hurricanes hasn’t changed, the number of cyclones and typhoons has actually fallen over the last 30 years. And so on. There may be answers, I think there probably are – to all these quibbles – I would like to hear them. I don’t want the media to make up my mind up for me. I don’t need to be told things by officialdom in all its forms, that are not true, or not the whole truth, for my own good. I resent the implication that the exercise of my reason is “inappropriate”, an act of generational selfishness, a heresy. I want a genuine debate about the assumptions behind the more apocalyptic forecasts. As recently as 2005, for instance, the UN said there would be 50 million climate refugees by 2010. That was last year. OK – so where are they? I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse. Where do you see reported the extraordinary greening of the Sahel, and shrinking of the Sahara that’s been going on for 30 years now – the regeneration of vegetation across a huge, formerly arid swathe of dirt poor Africa. More warming means more rainfall. More CO2 means plants grow bigger, stronger, faster. I would like a real argument over climate change policy, if only to rid myself of the nagging feeling that sometimes it’s a really good excuse for banging up taxes and public-sector job creation. It’s not happening. It’s a secular issue but skepticism is heresy. They talk the language of science, but it is really a post-God religion that rejects relativist materialism. Its imperative is moral. It looks to a society where some choices are obviously, and universally held to be, better than others. A life where having what we want is not a right and nature puts constraints on the free play of desires. To reinvent, in short, a life where there is good and bad, right and wrong. As with all religions, whether the underlying narrative is true, has become beside the point.” – Michael Buerk, 16 Dec 2011 Transcript
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Ardrey the aye-aye was showing signs of pregnancy. That means nest-building, the presence of a sperm plug, or simply not womping on any nearby males. Aye-ayes are lemurs, after all, and lemurs tend to be female dominant — which means male lemurs spend a lot of the day trying not to get the crap kicked out of them.
Because Ardrey is one of just 50 aye-ayes in the entire world living in captivity, her handlers at the Duke Lemur Center were anxious to give her a prenatal exam. Aye-ayes are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and sustaining a captive population could one day be crucial to the species' survival.
"That makes every single one of these individuals born and unborn very valuable," said Chris Smith, an education specialist with the center. Located outside Raleigh, North Carolina, the DLC is a 70-acre facility (that I was lucky enough to visit earlier this year) that houses the largest and most diverse lemur population outside of Madagascar.
But you can't just schedule a lemur sonogram at the local OB/GYN. For one, aye-ayes are notoriously manic. And two: "Aye-ayes have big, sharp teeth that we're all afraid of," said Smith. Even under normal conditions, if the aye-ayes aren't kept constantly stimulated, they'll gnaw through the cinderblock walls and floors of their enclosure.
In the wild, the aye-aye uses those rodent-like chompers to tear through tree trunks and expose prey. Aye-ayes also have a long, bony, go-go-gadget finger that can rotate a full 360 degrees and terminates in a claw, which it uses to fish for grubs deep within the bark of trees. It's both the creepiest and coolest thing you'll watch today.
Luckily, this bitey disposition can be overcome with training. Like most lemurs, the aye-ayes are highly adaptable and respond well to reward-based activities. Rather than try to catch the animals with nets and hold them down every time they need to administer medicine or weigh them — an activity that's dangerous to both animal and human — the DLC prefers to coax the lemurs into compliance with a steady dose of dried cranberries.
"Craisins are like lemur crack," said Smith.
The DLC has even taught the little primates to "paint" by throwing a bunch of Craisins onto a mat full of non-toxic, water-soluble paint globs. The lemurs lose their minds over the treats and create some modern art in the process. (Note to OceanSpray: If you're looking to sponsor a good cause…)
With enough repetition and Craisins, researchers have found lemurs can be trained to perform numerous behaviors outside of their natural repertoire. After all, the DLC is no petting zoo. It was founded in 1966 to better understand prosimian primates, and while the mission has since shifted a bit toward outreach and conservation, the center maintains a focus on research. Projects range from biomechanics and biology to cognition and aging.
A baby aye-aye born at the Duke Lemur Center gets weighed. (Facebook.com/DukeLemurCenter)
But conditioning animals takes time. So months before Ardrey ever got pregnant, the handlers started teaching her to trade certain behaviors for a snack. Every time Ardrey would hang calmly in front of them, the handlers gave her a Craisin. Then they added a little belly rub to the hanging behavior. In this way, the lemur builds up a positive association between the desired behavior and a sour-sweet snippet of dried fruit.
After several months of persistence, Ardrey had learned almost all the behaviors necessary for a sonogram. In the meantime, she'd also been allowed to conceive. As a matter of maintaining genetic diversity, every pregnancy in the DLC is planned. Lemurs not scheduled to procreate are either given injections of Depo-Provera or intrauterine devices (IUDs). (You might be on the same birth control as a lemur!)
As a final test of Ardrey's training, the keepers decided to try the whole behavior repertoire with an actual sonogram wand and the tiniest bit of ultrasound gel, since any new stimulus has to be instituted gradually. But as soon as the jelly touched her belly, Ardrey bolted for the highest branches of her enclosure. Training session over.
To make sure it wasn't a fluke, the keepers tried several more times over the course of the next few days, but every attempt ended in failure.
"We don't know if it was the texture or smell," said Smith, "but it became clear that the ultrasound gel wasn't going to happen."
Unfortunately, the gel is necessary to the sonogram process because ultrasound waves can't travel well through the air. But that cold blue jelly isn't the only thing that can act as a conductive medium between wand and womb.
That's when one of the keepers had an idea and went rummaging through the DLC fridge. She came back with a jar of applesauce.
This time, Ardrey performed swimmingly. Not only did she get her treats for performing all the behaviors properly, but she also got to lick all the applesauce off her belly while all those silly humans did whatever it was they were doing.
In the end, the applesauce allowed the DLC to confirm that the aye-aye was in fact pregnant and that both mother and baby were healthy. A few months later, Ardrey gave birth to baby Elphaba, named after the protagonist from Wicked.
So, what's the moral of this story? Conserving endangered species is hard work that requires perseverance, patience, and creative thinking.
Also, if you hate the blue gunk they use at your prenatal visits, try bringing in a jar of Mott's. Even if they get all "health code" on you and refuse to use it, at least you'll have something to munch on during the hour-and-a-half-long wait.OTTAWA — Thomas Mulcair says Canada’s municipalities are heading for an “infrastructure cliff” unless the federal government commits to long-term, stable funding to repair crumbling roads, water and sewer systems.
And the NDP leader says that commitment must be made in the next budget in 2013 since the current Building Canada Fund is set to expire the following year.
The fund, launched in 2007, has pumped some $33 billion into municipal infrastructure projects.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is calling for a new 20-year plan, which would include increasing current federal spending on infrastructure by $2.5 billion annually.
The federation also wants municipalities to be able to spend federal money as they see fit, rather than having to apply for funding for each project.
Mulcair supports the federation’s recommendations in principle but is not committing to a specific dollar amount, other than to promise that an NDP government would turn over another one cent per litre of the existing gas tax to municipalities.
What we are talking about is the priority that the NDP would give to long-term, sustainable funding, predictable funding
“Beyond that, we’re not making any undertaking with regard to that ask,” Mulcair said following a speech Thursday to the federation.
The amount of funding will depend on the state of the economy and the state of the books at the time of the next election in 2015, he added, noting that the Conservatives have pushed back their target for eliminating the deficit by a year to 2016-17.
“What we are talking about is the priority that the NDP would give to long-term, sustainable funding, predictable funding, partnering with the provinces and therefore with the municipalities, to make sure that we no longer have this crumbling infrastructure without the ability to take care of it,” Mulcair said.
“That’s the undertaking we can make realistically.”
Mulcair ruled out one of the federation’s proposals, to allow municipalities to levy a one cent value-added tax or “penny tax.”
[npooyala src=”lmZDI1NzqP3bxzctJE6y40KtMFN2yhl-” playlist=”yes”]Originally titled(no relation to the classic PC game), the film more or less sneaks onto the set of Ridley Scott’sconcerning a young lad named Gardner Elliot (Asa Butterfield from) who is the first human born on the planet Mars after his mother dies during childbirth. Eager to see more than beyond the dome set of Douglas Trumbull’s, the boy begs to travel to Earth for the first time and witness all of its splendor firsthand. So excited to see the new world comprised of water and trees, Gardner breaks loose of the NASA base hospital and embarks on a romantic adventure with street smart pen pal Tulsa (Britt Robertson) with the program director Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldman) and Kendra (Carla Gugino) hot on his tail. Determined to find out his identity in spite of the imminent health risks presented by the Earth’s gravitational pull, the movie becomes another chase thriller romance except that this time we want the boy to be apprehended and returned to safety.
Have you ever wondered what John Carpenter’s 1984 science fiction romantic drama Starman would look like if it were remade decades later as a tween young adult vehicle aimed at high schoolers? Neither have I but clearly that prospect occurred to the Hannah Montana: The Movie director Peter Chelsom who with his new sci-fi tween romance adventure film The Space Between Us.
Have you ever wondered what John Carpenter’s 1984 science fiction romantic drama Starman would look like if it were remade decades later as a tween young adult vehicle aimed at high schoolers? Neither have I but clearly that prospect occurred to the Hannah Montana: The Movie director Peter Chelsom who with his new sci-fi tween romance adventure film The Space Between Us.
Part NASA driven hard science fiction meets your prototypical CW Entertainment tween tripe, this Teen Choice Awards nominee is a bit of a tedious slog that is likely to bore its target audience of high schoolers when it isn’t being completely implausible. The plot itself hangs on the conceit that the boy’s mother secretly became impregnated before her trip to Mars and experienced pregnancy sickness on the way, paving the way for a grand reveal that manages to trump the absurdity of this device. While clearly designed to justify the story of the first human born on Mars, it comes off as a ridiculous contrivance that could only ever happen in the movies. Meanwhile the overqualified Gary Oldman seems to inject some life and care into the proceedings with many soliloquys which sound like trained actor improvisation and B.D. Wong fromshows up too as his usual executive antagonist. As for the young lovebirds aided byon the soundtrack during one of many montages, they’re perfectly bland when Robertson isn’t going off on another angry histrionic rant. I can buy her as a street smart orphan but narrowly escaping capture by leaping into a biplane only to jump out at the last second before it crashes into a barn requires a bit more suspension of disbelief, but I digress. Watch how this movie manages to hit nearly every high watermark ofincluding having the couple end up in Las Vegas, leaping from car to car while being pursued by choppers as NASA tracks their every move. While not quite the identical film, it comes dangerously close to being a ripoff.
Reportedly this was supposed to come out in August but got pushed back to allow for more time to finish the film’s visual effects. Was it worth the wait? Not particularly. The concept of a Mars born human being’s physiology being different than that of the Earthlings is a novel one but it’s in service to the usual saccharine tween clichés driving this love on the run romance of self-discovery. Somewhere in The Space Between Us is a science fiction story worth telling but as a whole it’s a dull bore that I kept waiting to be engaged by well after the end credits rolled.WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - The Republican chairmen of two U.S. House of Representatives committees asked the Justice Department on Monday to launch an investigation into whether Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton committed perjury during testimony to Congress about her use of a private email server.
SEE ALSO: GOP figured closer to being Trump VP with major meeting
"The evidence collected by the FBI during its investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a personal email system appears to directly contradict several aspects of her sworn testimony" to Congress, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte said in a letter to U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips requesting the probe.
See reactions from the FBI's decision against charges:
16 PHOTOS Reaction to FBI director's statement on Hillary Clinton's emails See Gallery Reaction to FBI director's statement on Hillary Clinton's emails The system is rigged. General Petraeus got in trouble for far less. Very very unfair! As usual, bad judgment. FBI director said Crooked Hillary compromised our national security. No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem Statement of @FBI's Comey, recommending no charges but rebuking @HillaryClinton for carelessness, is about best result she could get. The fix is in. No accountability. Pathetic. Absolutely outrageous presser by Comey. DOJ/FBI is supposed to speak in court. If it won't make statements in court, it shouldn't make them. No recommendation of criminal charges! It is over! Let Hillary and the country move on! Repeat: it is over. No criminal charges. Now we ponder which is more irresponsible: @HillaryClinton's identifying classified emails or @realDonaldTrump identifying racist retweets She mishandled top secret classified material in an "extremely careless" manner...which is not "grossly negligent," apparently? The FBI decision shows once again how the Clintons and others at the top get to live by a different set of rules from everyone else. 110 emails contained classified information & email account was possibly hacked. “Convenience” should never be put before national security. The findings of the @FBI are a clear indictment of @HillaryClinton's judgement and fitness to be President The blindfold had clearly been removed from the scales of justice. @realDonaldTrump - What I got from @FBI Director Comey remarks: @HillaryClinton's recklessness makes her unfit to President! #CrookedHillary Hillary may not be POTUS, but she'll be on the Winter Olympic team for ice skating, no one has successfully skated on more thin ice than her Disappointed in FBI's decision to not recommend charges against Clinton. She broke the law. Section 793 of Espionage act uses "gross negligence" vs "extremely careless" standard in treatment of classified information as found by FBI Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
After a year-long investigation of Clinton's emails, the FBI recommended that no criminal charges be brought against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the Nov. 8 election. That recommendation was accepted by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
The FBI found, however, that she was "extremely careless" while secretary of state in her handling of email documents that contained classified information.
Representative Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform panel, accused Republicans of a political vendetta following years of Republican-led investigations of Clinton in the House.
SEE ALSO: David Cameron caught on hot mic
"Republicans are now squandering even more taxpayer dollars in a desperate attempt to keep this issue alive and bring down Secretary Clinton's poll numbers ahead of the election," Cummings said.
Clinton has said that she did not believe she was handling classified information on the private email system.
Chaffetz has also asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to give him access to its investigative files on Clinton. (Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by James Dalgleish and Peter Cooney)
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Bernie Sanders is (finally) expected to endorse Hillary ClintonLOS ANGELES – Sari Pacifica is a newly launched Malaysian global tourism brand that specializes in the development and management of luxury boutique hotels, resorts and spas. Sari Pacifica is currently in the process of developing a chain of resorts in the stunning beaches and islands found not only in Malaysia, but also in other Southeast Asian countries. The group recently opened four luxurious resorts in Malaysia.
Sari Pacifica Redang Island, Malaysia
eTN Chatroom: Discuss with readers from around the world:
Located on Redang Island, Terrenganu, the resort offers visitors 70 villas, white sandy beaches, turquoise waters, colorful marine life, and a spectacular view of the South China Sea. Activities include snorkeling, diving, turtle watching, jungle trekking, and island hopping.
Sari Pacifica Sibu Island, Malaysia
The resort is located on Pulau Sibu, which is part of a string of islands that form the beautifully preserved Johor Marine Park. It is surrounded by a lush tropical backdrop and features 44 villas. The resort boats tropical modern architecture, while the interiors are a blend of Zen and modern contemporary fabrics. Activities include snorkeling, diving, island hopping, and visiting the marine park.
Sari Pacifica Lang Tengah Island, Malaysia
Sari Pacifica Resort Lang Tengah is in a marine park offering one of the best diving and sites in Malaysia. This luxurious resort hotel is built in the rustic local traditional “kampung style” architecture with 38 villas. Activities include snorkeling, diving, beach volleyball, and island hopping.
Aseania Resort Pulau Besar, Malaysia
With white powdery sand and turquoise-blue waters Aseania Beach Resort offers 49 villas with scenic views of the pristine beach and sea, exotic gardens, or lush mountains. Activities include island hopping, snorkeling, diving, jungle trekking, and beach sports.(This is not an actionable idea.)
Dollarama’s stock has performed phenomenally well since its IPO. The underlying business has grown its profits as fast as Salesforce has grown its revenues. Their returns on invested capital are phenomenal (see my post on dollar stores).
Yet I cannot get past the company’s self-dealing with members of the Rossy family and how the financial statements don’t add up.
Quick history of the company
Insiders sold part of the company to Bain Capital in a leveraged buy-out in November 2004. Dollarama has various filings with the SEC relating to the debt issued in this transaction. On October 2009, Dollarama IPOed on the TSE as Bain Capital wanted to sell down its stake in the retailer. Dollarama has numerous filings that you can access via SEDAR.
Dollarama’s “Real Property Leases”
Dollarama’s lease payments to insiders have grown from $3.6M in 2004 to $15.5M in 2013. The payments have grown roughly 17.6% annualized:
2004 – $3.6M (S-4)
2005 – $4.1M, $3.9M (S-4)
2006 – $5.473M or $5.1M (S-4): 11 stores, 3 warehouses and 1 distribution center
2007 – $7.55M: 17 stores, 3 warehouses and 1 distribution center
2008 – $8.522M
2009 – $9.5M: 18 stores, 5 warehouses and 1 distribution center
2010 – $9.8M: 18 stores, 5 warehouses and 1 distribution center
2011 – $10.8M (2011 MD&A) or $14.7M (2012 MD&A): 18 stores, 4 warehouses, 1 distribution center, and head office
2012 – $15.1M: 18 stores, 4 warehouses, 1 distribution center, and head office
2013 – $15.5M: 19 stores, 4 warehouses, 1 distribution center, and head office
Over the years, the amount of real estate involved in related party transactions has gone up. The number of buildings leased from insiders have gone up. Operations in one of the warehouses may have moved from a 239,180 sqft warehouse in Montreal to a 325,000 sqft warehouse in the Town of Mount Royal (also in Montreal).
To be fair, these payments may be at fair market rates. But there is really no way for me to tell. The company does not provide the location and square footage of the real estate involved. At some points in time, the SEDAR filings state that the company is paying for 5 warehouses yet the Annual Information Form states that the company is using 4. I have no idea what the fifth warehouse did or does.
Some of the numbers don’t add up (!!!)
How much were paid to related parties for leases in 2011? The 2011 MD&A says $10.8M. The 2012 MD&A says $14.7M. I could not find an explanation for the discrepancy.
The 2012 MD&A states:
We currently lease 18 stores, four warehouses, our distribution center and head office from entities controlled by Larry Rossy, pursuant to long-term lease agreements. Rental expenses associated with these related-party leases are established at market terms and represented an aggregate amount of approximately $15.1 million for Fiscal 2012, compared to $14.7 million for Fiscal 2011.
The 2011 MD&A states:
We currently lease 18 stores, four warehouses, our distribution center and head office from entities controlled by Larry Rossy, pursuant to long-term lease agreements. Rental expenses associated with these related-party leases are established at market terms and represented an aggregate amount of approximately $10.8 million for Fiscal 2011.
The head office
I believe that Dollarama moved into its new head offices around the end of fiscal 2008:
We plan to move our head office and increase our warehouse capacity. A new head office and warehouse are currently under construction on a site located only a few blocks away from our current head office. This new building will increase our warehousing capacity by approximately 325,000 square feet. We plan to move in to our new headquarters by the end of fiscal 2008.
If you look at the SEDAR filings for information on the “Real Property Leases”, that particular section doesn’t mention the head office until the filings for YE2011. The management information circular for YE2010 states:
The Corporation currently leases 18 stores and five warehouses and the distribution center from entities controlled by Larry Rossy, pursuant to long-term lease agreements. Rental expenses associated with these related-party leases are established at market terms and represented an aggregate amount of approximately $9.8 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2010.
The management information circular for YE2011 states:
The Corporation currently leases 18 stores, four warehouses, its distribution center and its head office from entities controlled by Larry Rossy, pursuant to long-term lease agreements. Rental expenses associated with these related-party leases are established at market terms and represented an aggregate amount of approximately $10.8 million for the fiscal year ended January 30, 2011.
This is confusing. My best guess is that Dollarama has always been paying members of the Rossy family for the use of the new head offices after it moved in (e.g. close to the end of fiscal 2008). I guess they simply chose not to mention the lease on the head office??? Dollarama’s management should be extremely familiar with the property considering that the AIF for YE2010 states that Neil Rossy led the design of the head office:
Neil Rossy is a member of our Board of Directors. Mr. Rossy joined Dollarama at its inception in 1992 and currently serves as Chief Merchandising Officer. He led the design and construction of the Dollarama warehouses, distribution center and head office. Mr. Rossy is responsible for store design, merchandising, product development and special projects.
I feel like something does not add up here.
Why was there a large jump in payments from 2010 to 2012?
I have no idea. From what I understand, legitimate leases would not create situations where the lease suddenly jumps by almost half.
Perhaps there is a legitimate explanation. But I wouldn’t know because the financial statements don’t say.
Do the related party transactions make business sense for shareholders?
I wouldn’t know.
The onus should be on Dollarama management to be transparent about their self-dealing. Why is Larry Rossy, Dollarama’s CEO, in the business of leasing real estate to Dollarama? I think that he should have taken the initiative to provide shareholders with an explanation.
Over the years, Dollarama has been leasing more and more real estate from insiders. This is not behaviour that is consistent with people of high integrity. Somebody with high integrity would try to minimize the magnitude of related party transactions. They would do their best to align their incentives with shareholders. They would not intentionally create situations where they sit on the opposite side of their shareholders in business deals.
The bottom line
I was strongly considering buying Dollarama stock. Unfortunately, the financial statements and self-dealing didn’t make sense to me.
I emailed Dollarama’s CFO (Michael Ross) on Feb 1 but did not receive a reply. So let’s see what regulators have to say…
(EDIT: The lautorite.qc.ca website is incredibly frustrating and does not list a valid email where they can be contacted. It is incredible that they do not want to be reached via email. Should I even bother?)
*Disclosure: No position in DOL.TO.Labor leaders and politicians, no less than arbitragers and Goldman Sachs partners, relied on magic bubbles to keep it all afloat. The line between illusion and lie grew indistinct.
But Monday offered a through-the-looking-glass moment of a sort, seen across the nation, as middle-class union members became improbable symbols of a recessionary era brought on by Wall Street financiers.
“Shared sacrifice” is a phrase often repeated, though only the latter of the two words is honored. Governor Christie, like the Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo in New York, has played bulldog for the wealthiest, insisting that he will not extend a so-called millionaire’s income tax surcharge.
Bob Master, political director of the Communications Workers of America, District 1, which represents most state workers, points to the inverted math. Under the tax surcharge rescinded in 2010, a couple who made $750,000 would have paid about $4,800 a year, or slightly less than a teacher making $65,000 will be forced to pay in higher health care and pension payments under the new plan.
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“From our point of view, we worked very hard over the past 25 years to bargain for our health care plans,” Mr. Master said. “Sweeney is playing right out of the Republican playbook.”
That, it should be said, is a milquetoast denunciation. The teachers’ union is running television ads lambasting the governor and the South Jersey political power broker George Norcross as near-biblical betrayers. And Bill Lavin, representing New Jersey firefighters, wagged his finger at the State Senate last week and promised that “if this bill passes, the only thing that sunsets will be the Democratic Party.”
Where exactly he would hike off to with his members is not clear.
New Jersey’s political scene now calls to mind a flooded cemetery, as long-buried coffins and the skeletons float to the surface, and secrets and dirty deeds are exposed to the sunlight. Every double-dealing alliance, which is to say most of them, is talked of openly.
Mr. Christie, for whom bluster and intimidation are life’s blood, has played a masterful game, constructing a coalition of Republicans, the Essex County executive, Joseph DiVincenzo, and a crucial bloc of South Jersey Democrats who pay obeisance to Mr. Norcross. Mr. Norcross has made millions in the insurance and health businesses and is described (with the utmost respect) as the real boss of Camden County.
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As sport, this party-labor divorce is diverting. But as public policy, it is all flying pots and pans. Betrayals are everywhere, and facts are scarce. In the Senate debate on the health plan, members acknowledged having only the foggiest sense of the effect on employees.
“These are made-up numbers, it made no sense and no one could back it up,” State Senator Paul A. Sarlo said.
As Mr. Sarlo is the Senate budget chairman, his candor is not reassuring.It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook or follow it on Twitter for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.
Pork has had an unfortunate history in this country. As the child of a mother who learned to cook at a time when trichinosis scares were around, all of our pork chops were cooked to well-done. Couple that with the fact that the pork industry spent years catering to customer demands for leaner and leaner meat, and it led to a generation of kids that grew up knowing pork chops only as dry, pale slabs of meat as stringy as a burlap sack and as tough and leathery as Clint Eastwood with a sunburn. Yuck.
But the times they are a-changin', and things are looking up for pork. For one thing, we now have relatively easy access to much better meat. Heritage breed pigs that are bred for flavor instead of low fat content. We also have much safer pork—pork that can be eaten at a juicy medium or medium-rare, the way it was meant to be. On top of all that, we're in a virtual renaissance in terms of novel cooking techniques; better, smarter ways to maximize the flavor and texture of a pork chop. Today we're going to discuss a few of those techniques and see if we can't nail down the best.
All pork chops are cut out of the same basic part of the pig: the loin, a large muscle that runs along its back from the shoulder to its butt.* Depending on where the chops are cut from, they'll have slightly different cooking qualities.** At the butcher or supermarket, you're likely to find at least two out of three of the following cuts:
*Its anatomical butt, not to be confused with the term "pork butt" or "boston butt," which actually refers to pork shoulder. Confusing, right?
**When talking about this in person, I have a tendency to start pointing out where on the human body these cuts would lie. This seems to make some folks uncomfortable. I don't understand why.
Blade chops: Cut from the shoulder-end of the loin. These chops tend to have the darkest meat, and plenty of surrounding fat and connective tissue. They're packed with flavor, but can have some tough or stringy bits.
Rib chops: Cut from behind the shoulder. Rib chops are easily identified by their large eye of tender meat. Depending on which end of the rib section the chops are cut from, they can have either a ton of fat and connective tissue around them (when cut from the blade end), or very little (when cut from the sirloin end).
Center-cut chops: The porcine equivalent of a T-bone steak, with a large eye of meat on one side of the bone, and a smaller eye of tenderloin on the other side. Because tenderloin and loin cook so differently, it's very difficult to cook a center-cut chop evenly without over- or under-cooking one side or the other.
Sirloin chops: come from the end closest to the rump. They contain many different muscle groups, some of which can be quite tough. Save these cuts for braising or stewing.
Tastes can vary, but I generally recommend rib chops for pan-searing, and I prefer chops cut from the blade end. Their higher fat content translates to more flavor and easier searing down the line.
I also like to get my chops cut THICK—I'm talking at least an inch and a half. Any thinner than that and it's difficult to appreciate the nice balance between crisp crust and moist, juicy interior.
How to Cook
There are a few important elements I look for in the perfect pork chops:
Internal juiciness is the most important to me. After having spent an entire childhood full of dry, well-done pork chops, I never want another person to have to experience that particular form of torture again.
is the most important to me. After having spent an entire childhood full of dry, well-done pork chops, I never want another person to have to experience that particular form of torture again. Evenness of internal cooking. I want my chops to be juicy the whole way through, with no dry, stringy edges. The temperature gradient within the chop should be minimized as much as reasonably possible.
. I want my chops to be juicy the whole way through, with no dry, stringy edges. The temperature gradient within the chop should be minimized as much as reasonably possible. A deep, dark, crisp crust, because what good is a moist interior without a crisp crust to contrast it? Browning also builds up complex flavors, making the chops taste meatier and emphasizing their sweet porkiness.
So here's the thing: internal juiciness is almost entirely related to the final temperature to which you cook your meat. The hotter it gets, the dryer it becomes. Here's a rough outline of what happens in that chop as you cook it:
Below 110°F your pork chop is still very close to raw. It'll be translucent in color, like raw meat, and have a soft, unpleasant texture.
your pork chop is still very close to raw. It'll be translucent in color, like raw meat, and have a soft, unpleasant texture. Between 110 and 120°F you're in rare territory. The meat is starting to firm up a bit, but is still translucent and |
): Now with the ranks of the Artists' Underground, Shatter is sent on a mission against Simon Schuster Jovanovich and his franchises in an untitled story. Issue #2 (02/1986): Shatter discovers that several different forces are after him and they all want what's inside his head in "Avenues of Escape." Issue #3 (06/1986): Now with the Alien Nation, Shatter tries to stay alive as he still has people pursuing him in an untitled story. Issue #4 (08/1986): It's the Alien Nation battling with the Simon, Shuster & Jovanovitch and the Artists' Underground while Shatter goes against Cyan in a final confrontation in an untitled story. Issue #5 (10/1986): Shatter finds himself right in the thick of a war zone, but he has no idea how he got there and what war it is in "The Third World War – Part 1." Issue #6 (12/1986): Still in the middle of a war and still having no idea how he got there, Shatter has to escape from a prison camp and stay alive in "The Third World War – Part 2: Adam's Rib." Issue #7 (02/1987): Shatter gets captured again and now finds himself in Singapore as he tries to figure out how he got into that war in "The Third World War Conclusion: Bringing Up Baby." Issue #8 (04/1987): Realizing that he is a wanted man in the free world and the third world, Shatter, with Dr. Chuang Tzu, heads for the Soviet Union in "Red Dawns, White Nights & Blue Mondays." Issue #9 (06/1987): Shatter returns to Daley City with Ravenant, a former contract soldier, and they infiltrate the headquarters of a drug conglomerate and meet an old enemy of Shatter's in "Daley City Vid." Issue #10 (08/1987): With his new RNA talents, Shatter tries them out in Bezirk, a live-action, computerized role-playing game and discovers a hidden underground army in "The Angel – Big Cats on the Breakvine." Issue #11 (10/1987): After reuniting with the real Jack Scratch, Shatter learns from him several important things including the location of the Dreamers' Vault; but Scratch may not be telling the truth in "One-Eyed Jacks and Suicide Kings." Issue #12 (12/1987): Shatter manages to get a force of the Alien Nation and the Allnight Newsboys together to stop an insurance war that was destroying Daley City in "Singing the Alien Nation Blues." Issue #13 (02/1988): Now back on the beat, Shatter tries to find out why and how lethal toxins which kill people got into the water supply in "Utopia, Ltd. – Part 1." Issue #14 (04/1988): The case of the lethal toxins in the water supply becomes much bigger than anticipated as Shatter has to save Daley City, but he has help from an unexpected source in "Utopia, Ltd. - Conclusion."
, Issues #1-14, First Comics Gillis, Peter & Saenz, Mike (April 12, 1988). Shatter: The Revolutionary Graphic Novel, Ballantine Books ISBN 0-449902-88-9
, Ballantine Books ISBN 0-449902-88-9 Gillis, Peter & Saenz, Mike (July 25, 2006). Shatter, AiT/PlanetLar ISBN 1-932051-44-9
References [ edit ]
^ Because of comic book cover-dating practices of this time, most comics were cover-dated two-to-three months in advance of their actual publication date. Therefore, the March 1985 Big K publication and the June 1985 First Comics publications were roughly concurrent. ^ Product description, Amazon.com sale page. Accessed July 15, 2011.
Sources [ edit ]Authorities have been hunting for more than 24 hours for an Oklahoma man they say posted live videos to social media while running from police during a violent rampage that included shooting two police officers, armed car thefts and killing his aunt and uncle, apparently attempting to cut off their heads.
DESPERATE SEARCH FOR GUNMAN AFTER 2 OKLAHOMA OFFICERS SHOT, 2 OTHERS DEAD
Michael Dale Vance Jr., a 38-year-old man from Chandler, Oklahoma, is wanted on multiple charges, including two counts of first-degree murder. Police say he was last seen early Monday about 30 miles from the Texas border in western Oklahoma — 165 miles away from where the manhunt began Sunday night in Wellston.
The two police officers were shot and wounded as they responded to shots fired Sunday evening in Wellston, about 35 miles northeast of Oklahoma City. The Lincoln County Sheriff's Office said one person was arrested, but Vance fled in a patrol vehicle.
MURDER SUSPECT GETS 30 YEARS FOR KIDNAPPING, TYING UP WOMAN AND DAUGHTERS
Vance is suspected of later shooting a woman and stealing her vehicle at a mobile home park near Wellston, then driving about 8 miles to the mobile home of his aunt and uncle in Luther and killing them, Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office spokesman Mark Opgrande said.
Ronald Everett Wilkson, 55, had been shot and had stab wounds to his neck "consistent with an attempt to sever his head," Oklahoma County Sheriff's Deputy Michael Belanger wrote in an arrest affidavit. Valerie Kay Wilkson, 54, had similar neck wounds along with defensive wounds on her arms, the affidavit stated.
Investigators found a large knife covered in blood inside the home, along with a blood-stained shirt and two shell casings from a round typically fired from an AK-47-style assault rifle.
Opgrande said authorities also believe Vance filmed two Facebook Live videos documenting his run from police before going to the Wilksons' home.
In one video, a man wearing a backward baseball cap and a shirt that appears to be covered in blood says he's about to steal another vehicle and that it's "gonna be intense." In another, which seems to be filmed inside a second vehicle, the same man says: "Letting y'all know, look, this is real," before panning to a long gun on the passenger seat.
He said: "If you want to know what's up next, stay tuned to your local news."
Vance also is suspected of shooting a man in the leg in an attempted carjacking early Monday at a convenience store in Sayre, about 30 miles from the Texas border. Sayre Police Chief Ronnie Harrold said the man identified Vance as the man who shot him.
The arrest warrant for Vance also includes charges of an unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony. Court records show Vance faces felony charges of child sexual abuse in Lincoln County, and has a court hearing Nov. 7.
The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said Vance is believed to be driving a silver 2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse with an Oklahoma license plate of 943LQQ. Vance is described as Native American, standing 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 212 pounds.Art cinema pairs with gay magazine to host two-month-long LGBT film festival on TV and bring homosexual issues to the public eye
“When was the last time a movie channel in Hong Kong devoted time to showing specialized programs for gay and lesbian audiences?” asks the maverick Movie Movie channel, tongue in cheek.
It’s a rhetorical question of course.
Though the special administrative region has its own gay pride, gay bars and gay icons, no movie channel would consider exclusively airing LGBT films, no matter how popular they are.
But entertainment history is being scripted from this month as Movie Movie, a TV channel run by Broadway Cinematheque, Hong Kong’s only art house movie cinema, teams up with Dim Sum, the magazine focusing on gay themes, to host “A Queer Summer”.
The gay film festival, the first of its kind for Hong Kong’s TV industry, kicked off last week and will continue till September. The channel is presenting two gay films every Saturday and Sunday night to make the genre more accessible to the Hong Kong public.
Keeping in mind the possibly predominantly Chinese-speaking viewership, the films have Chinese subtitles. Moreover, they will be available on demand, to be watched any time.
Gary Mak, Broadway Cinematheque’s managing director, says it’s difficult to watch gay films in Hong Kong. Most movie channels do not air such films, neither do the popular theaters. Those that do tend to screen them only infrequently.
“Movie Movie (which started broadcasting about a year ago) fills the void,” Mak says. “They show the queer films that other channels do not, as well as the international art house hits that film buffs, like myself, love to watch.
“We feel that fewer and fewer gay films are shown in theaters. We want to keep gay images in the public eye.”
The channel says this is not just screening gay movies but an initiative to change the way people view the LGBT community in Hong Kong.
“Local channels here tend to be more conservative and when gay people are on a local television show, they tend to be laughed at,” says Joycelyn Choi, director of marketing and programming for Movie Movie.
“We are more daring than local channels.”
She says that in keeping with other parts of the world, that are now changing their attitude to the community, Hong Kong too has started to evolve.
Last year, pop singer Denise Ho disclosed she was gay in the city’s Pride. Another popular singer Anthony Wong also came out last year during a concert.
Hong Kong’s legislative assembly saw the election in September 2012 of an openly gay former TV celebrity, Raymond Chan.
Choi says this shows that Hong Kong is becoming more aware and accepting of the gay community.
“The world is changing, so why isn’t Hong Kong television?” she asks.
The films to be screened during the two-month-long bonanza include “Two Weddings and a Funeral”, a Korean film about a gay man and lesbian who pretend to be a couple so that the woman can adopt a child; “Lost in Paradise”, an intense Vietnamese drama with a gay love triangle against the background of male prostitution as well as the story of a female sex worker and a mentally challenged man; and “Love is the Devil”, British painter Francis Bacon’s biopic in which Daniel Craig plays his lover.In Louisiana, a man duped the governor into believing he was the lone survivor of a Navy SEAL team ambushed in Afghanistan. In California, a jousting promoter said he was a SEAL veteran, not just a veteran of battles at Renaissance fairs. And in Georgia, a televangelist listed a stint with the SEALs in his online bio for years, along with bit parts in the films “Green Lantern” and “Who’s Your Caddy?”
None of these men ever served in the elite Navy units that undergo some of the toughest training in the military and undertake some of its most dangerous Special Forces missions. And while there have always been SEAL impostors, their ranks have been reinforced since a SEAL unit based in Little Creek, Va., killed Osama bin Laden six weeks ago.
“I’ve told four women alone this week to run the other direction,” said Mary Schantag, who, along with her husband, Chuck, a disabled veteran, checks out potential impostors and posts their names on their Web site, the P.O.W. Network.
The claims surface as stray comments in bars, a line in a Facebook profile, or an insignia worn on a cap. The consequences are often nil. Pentagon officials have said they don’t have the resources to fact-check every potential liar.
So the only thing standing between SEAL impostors and the truth is a small band of veterans and civilian volunteers, scattered across the country, who have made it their life’s work to expose phonies in all aspects of military service, including bogus war medal recipients.
“Only 500 [SEALs] served in Vietnam. And we’ve met all 20,000 of them,” said Steve Robinson, a former SEAL in Forsyth, Mo., and author of “No Guts, No Glory: Unmasking Navy SEAL Imposters.”
When news of bin Laden’s death broke, these investigators say, they were soon overwhelmed by reports of suspected SEAL phonies. Robinson, who had hunted fake SEALs for 10 years, was called out of self-imposed retirement to help fellow volunteers track down claims.
Military service impostors can go to extraordinary lengths to bolster their lies. A West Virginia man recently went to his grave saying he had won a Purple Heart, a Distinguished Service Cross and a Silver Star — and had news clips from the 1940s to prove it. But when Doug Sterner of Alexandria, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and war hero boast-buster, began digging around in March and obtained the man’s service records, he found a note from 1945 inserted by an officer that said the man’s medal claims were bogus.
As is often the case with such posthumous discoveries, the news did not go over well with the man’s family.
“If they saw me on the street, they would punch me out,” Sterner said.
The Defense Department has so far declined to make verifying war hero claims easier by centralizing records across the services. At the Washington Navy Yard, for example, the names of recipients of all Navy awards sit in boxes, recorded on 3-by-5 index cards.
SEAL impostors are among the easiest to catch. With a few clicks, their names can be run through a comprehensive and regularly updated database of all men who trained and served with the Naval Special Warfare units, which include the SEALs and their precursor units, from the end of World War II to the present day. (SEAL is an acronym for sea, air and land; members are part of the Naval Special Warfare Command, based in Coronado, Calif.)
Robinson estimates there are only 7,000 living former SEALs and 2,200 on active duty. By his calculations, the odds of running into someone who has played in the NFL are better than the odds of meeting a current or former SEAL.
Saying you’re an ex-SEAL might get you a free dinner down at the VFW lodge or overcome a woman’s better judgment, but other fakers are out to defraud the Department of Veterans Affairs. (A 2007 sting in the Northwestern states by the VA inspector general uncovered various military impostors who VA said defrauded the agency out of $1.4 million in benefits.)
Others still are people with legitimate accomplishments — doctors, engineers, police officers and preachers — who can’t resist the urge to embellish.
Celebrity fitness trainer Carter Hays was already established in his field when he started claiming to be an ex-SEAL four years ago. He did it, he said, to “fill a hole in my character.”
Hays had actually served in the Army in the ’70s, was a combat medic and had wanted to join Special Forces but never did.
“When you have something missing in your heart, and if you don’t fill it with Christ, you will fill it with what is accessable [sic] at the time or moment,” he said in an e-mail. “I never intended it to be ‘public.’ Just a few friends.”
But Hays’s claims did become public when he trained several participants on the “Biggest Loser” TV show. His SEAL claim, which he circulated on the Web, caught the attention of ex-SEAL Don Shipley of Chesapeake, Va., who specializes in outing phony SEALs. Shipley made Hays the subject of one of his “Phony Navy SEAL of the Week” YouTube videos, in which he excoriates poseurs.
“I made a terrible mistake that I am ashamed for,” Hays said in an e-mail to The Post.
Once in a rare while, impostors get hauled into court. It’s illegal under federal law to impersonate a member of the military or to wear unearned military honors. But few perpetrators are prosecuted. Clever impostors found a way around the law by showing off their medals without wearing them. The Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which tried to close that loophole by outlawing verbal and written claims, set off a court battle over whether liars are merely exercising their right to free speech.
The outcome is likely to affect what will happen to Ronnie Robbins, a southwest Virginia man who last month was convicted for lying about being awarded two medals for valor in Vietnam and defrauding the Department of Veterans Affairs. He faces up to 28 years in prison plus fines.
Once confronted, most impostors typically deny their lies, the boast-busters say. But a tiny minority fess up in hopes of redemption.
Elton B. Murphy came clean in 2002 after being outed by a now-defunct verification service called AuthentiSEAL. He started lying about being a SEAL not long after he washed out of SEALs training in the 1980s, and kept it up for 16 years.
“I led certain individuals to believe I was a NAVY SEAL,” reads his apology letter posted on the POWNetwork.org site. “At least one individual I did try to convince I went on missions in Central America.”
He apologized to the SEALs. He apologized to the Hillsborough County sheriff’s department in Florida. (He once claimed he was attacked by masked men at gunpoint.) He apologized to his family. He left out only a few other misdeeds “of personal nature... in the ramance [sic] area and marital area of my life.”
He signed the letter simply: “Elton B. Murphy LIAR.”Image copyright Getty Images
The number of long A&E waits across the UK has more than doubled in the past four years as hospitals struggle to cope with demand, BBC analysis shows.
Northern Ireland has the worst performance, although England has seen the fastest deterioration, the figures show.
Over 3m patients who visited UK A&Es waited over four hours in the past 12 months - up by 120% since 2012-13.
By comparison the number of visits has only risen by just over 7% to 26.9m.
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If you can't see the NHS Tracker, click or tap here.
Doctors and nurses said the findings showed the NHS could no longer cope with what was being asked of it and patients were being put at risk.
And Dr Taj Hassan, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said the A&E system had been "stretched to its very limits".
"Staff are working really hard. But we've reached a point where we cannot meet demand.
"Life-threatening cases are prioritised. But a crowded emergency department adds risk. We get delays to assessment, pain relief and antibiotics."
Royal College of Nursing general secretary Janet Davies agreed, describing the situation as "intolerable" and A&E units as "full to bursting".
"Nursing staff in A&E units have been telling us it's hard for them to do more than firefight," she added.
How far short is the NHS of the target?
The data compiled by the BBC shows a significant difference in performance against the four-hour target for treating or admitting patients.
In Northern Ireland, which has seen the biggest rise in people coming to A&E units, just 75% of patients were seen in four hours in 2016-17, whereas Scotland saw 93.9% - only marginally lower than the 95% target.
In fact Scotland is the only part of the UK performing better than it was four years ago.
England has seen the biggest rise in long waiters - a 155% increase. In Scotland the number of long waiters actually fell by 9%.
Regionally in England the West Midlands has the worst performance followed by the North West - patients visiting A&Es in those areas are more than twice as likely to wait over four hours than those in the North East, the best-performing region.
There are minor variations in the way the target is measured across the four nations, although they are considered broadly comparable.
'You feel like you are failing patients'
Image copyright Getty Images
The BBC has been speaking to a number of hospital staff this week about their experiences. Many wanted to remain anonymous given the political sensitivity about the performance of the health service.
But all agreed the pressures were as great as they had ever experienced. One nurse, who works in an A&E unit in south Wales, said his department faced relentless "24/7" pressure.
"I know of colleagues who leave a shift and then come back the next day and find the patient is still there. We have seen them in A&E but there are not beds in hospital. It causes overcrowding and all sorts of delays.
"Ambulances queue outside A&Es as the staff are too busy to take patients off them. I've worked in A&Es for over 10 years and this is as bad as I can remember."
Another nurse, from London, said: "You feel you are failing patients. This is not the sort of care we want to provide, or patients deserve.
"We obviously prioritise the most serious cases, but when it is this busy there is always a risk you miss something. I sometimes finish my shift and end up worrying about my patients."
Patients have also been contacting the BBC.
One of those was Hayley Hughes, who waited over five-and-a-half hours at an A&E unit in Wales after sustaining a head injury.
"I kept falling asleep, which worried my partner.
"There was another couple we were speaking to who had got to A&E about an hour before we did, and they were still waiting when we left. I'd say they were there for about six-and-a-half, maybe seven hours.
"It's ridiculous. Whilst I was being assessed you could see the strain on the faces of the staff."
Is there a solution?
Unless the NHS can get its existing network of hospitals to see patients more quickly, the health service would need another 20 A&Es staffed by at least 170 consultants to hit the target again.
But each nation believes the answer to the problem lies in trying to control the numbers turning up at A&E and ensuring they pass through hospital more quickly when they do need treatment by freeing up beds.
This is done by making sure there are spare beds in care homes and care services in the community, to hand over frail patients to.
Image copyright Getty Images
In Scotland, for example, NHS budgets have been pooled with council funds to create a closer working relationship between hospitals and care in the community, which is one of the reasons why ministers there believe they have performed better than the rest of the UK.
In England an extra £1bn is being invested in social care this year, while £435m has been freed up to help with winter planning, including putting GPs in A&Es to deal with the more minor cases.
A Department of Health spokesman said ministers acknowledge the NHS was "under pressure due to the ageing population", but he pointed out that despite the deterioration, nine in 10 patients were still dealt with in four hours.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals, said the money had come too late.
"We are not where we would want to be as we head into winter. We cannot say with certainty how tough this winter will be, but the likelihood is that services will be sorely tested."
A spokesman for the Welsh Government said there were signs performance was improving when you compared this year to last year instead of four years ago.
But he admitted winter would be "challenging".In principle it appears advantageous for single neurons to perform non-linear operations. Indeed it has been reported that some neurons show signatures of such operations in their electrophysiological response. A particular case in point is the Lobula Giant Movement Detector (LGMD) neuron of the locust, which is reported to locally perform a functional multiplication. Given the wide ramifications of this suggestion with respect to our understanding of neuronal computations, it is essential that this interpretation of the LGMD as a local multiplication unit is thoroughly tested. Here we evaluate an alternative model that tests the hypothesis that the non-linear responses of the LGMD neuron emerge from the interactions of many neurons in the opto-motor processing structure of the locust. We show, by exposing our model to standard LGMD stimulation protocols, that the properties of the LGMD that were seen as a hallmark of local non-linear operations can be explained as emerging from the dynamics of the pre-synaptic network. Moreover, we demonstrate that these properties strongly depend on the details of the synaptic projections from the medulla to the LGMD. From these observations we deduce a number of testable predictions. To assess the real-time properties of our model we applied it to a high-speed robot. These robot results show that our model of the locust opto-motor system is able to reliably stabilize the movement trajectory of the robot and can robustly support collision avoidance. In addition, these behavioural experiments suggest that the emergent non-linear responses of the LGMD neuron enhance the system's collision detection acuity. We show how all reported properties of this neuron are consistently reproduced by this alternative model, and how they emerge from the overall opto-motor processing structure of the locust. Hence, our results propose an alternative view on neuronal computation that emphasizes the network properties as opposed to the local transformations that can be performed by single neurons.
The tiny brains of insects of about 1mm 3 smoothly control a flying platform while avoiding obstacles, regulating its distance to objects and search for objects of interest. This is largely achieved through a complex hierarchical processing of signals from the multitude of ommatidia in their eye to a set of highly specialized neurons that are optimized to respond to specific properties of the visual world. One of these neurons, the Lobula Giant Movement Detector (LGMD) of the locust, has been recently shown to perform a functional multiplication of its synaptic inputs. If true, that would make the LGMD neuron a unique and highly sophisticated neuron that raises questions about the non-linear operations other neurons in other neuronal systems would be able to perform. Hence it is crucial to understand its properties, its role in behaviour and to evaluate whether its responses can be explained in simpler terms. Our results emphasize the role of network architecture and distributed computation as opposed to local complex non-linear computation. We show that our model reliably reproduces the known properties of the LGMD and can be used to control a high-speed robot.
and θ threshold is an animal and species dependent parameter that specifies the approaching object's angular size at which the LGMD firing rate is maximal [27]. Hence, by performing an exponential on the summed inputs an effective multiplication occurs. This model indeed provides for an excellent fit of the LGMD responses to looming stimuli, and as such constitutes a useful benchmark for any model of the LGMD [10]. Nevertheless, this local multiplicative model makes a number of strong assumptions and overlooks the role of the neurons pre-synaptic to the LGMD. More concretely: how does the fan-in to the LGMD delineate an “object” of which θ′ and θ can be assessed, given that an “object” has been defined, how are log (θ′) and θ computed, how is this high-level information represented by the massive fan-in to the LGMD, and how are the parameters related to the approaching stimulus (θ′ and θ) extracted and conveyed to the LGMD in the early visual system of the locust? Moreover, this proposal assumes that the excitatory and inhibitory inputs to the LGMD respond to high level information about the visual stimulus (θ′ and θ) and that the role of the LGMD is to compute a functional multiplication on those. By definition, the functional multiplication attributed to the LGMD heavily depends on having the two above mentioned features reliably computed and delivered to distinct pathways. However, in mathematical terms, there is not a unique combination of input signals to the LGMD that could give rise to the above described firing rate pattern (eq. 1), and thus, no reason to exclude this possibility. Indeed, our model suggests that this is the case (, layers C–D right panel). Would the LGMD in that case still perform a functional multiplication or just a non-linear mapping of its inputs? In fact, the putative multiplicative properties of the LGMD have already been a matter of debate [28] – [30]. In this study we approach the above mentioned points from a system and architectural point of view. We evaluate the alternative hypothesis that the non-linear relationship between the responses of the LGMD neuron and the stimuli the organism is exposed to result from the interaction of many neurons in the sensory processing architecture, i.e. it is an emergent non-linearity that is read-out by the LGMD. In particular, we will assess the contribution of each processing layer in the visual processing hierarchy of the locust, how and what information is conveyed to the LGMD, and the resulting integration at the LGMD level. The empirical validation of this alternative hypothesis, however, is currently unpractical since it requires simultaneous in-vivo measurements from large numbers of neurons under well-controlled behavioural conditions. Hence, to assess the validity of our alternative “emergent non-linearity” hypothesis we resort to a computational approach and use a computational model that is consistent with the anatomy and physiology of the locust visual processing hierarchy, including the ommatidia, medulla, lobula, LGMD and the Descending Contra-lateral Movement Detector (DCMD). Using this model we show that all properties of the LGMD neuron that can be described in terms of a local non-linear operation can be explained as emerging from the structure of the network as a whole. Above all, we show that the inputs to the LGMD are directly driven by the stimulus dynamics rather than resulting from a process of segmentation or computation of the speed of the approaching objects. Despite the differences with Gabbiani's et al. model, the model proposed here displays identical responses to its biological counterpart on all standard stimulation protocols reported in the literature. We demonstrate that the emergent non-linear operations are strongly dependent on the details of the synaptic organization of the locust's visual system. In addition, we apply our model to a high-speed mobile vehicle and show that it reliably stabilizes the movement trajectory and robustly avoids collisions. Hence, our model not only suggests that the functional non-linear response properties of the LGMD emerge out of the network as a whole but also shows robust and realistic real-world properties.
The LGMD neuron is a wide-field neuron that is known to respond preferentially to looming stimuli [11], [12]. Initially, it was first thought to be an on-off neuron due to its integration of neuronal responses generated in the afferent medulla layer that correlate with the onset and offset of local visual features [13] – [15]. More recently the relationship between properties of looming stimuli and the firing rate of the LGMD have been extensively documented, including the non-linear relationship between firing rate and time to collision (TTC), the constant relation between peak firing rate and angular size, the independence of the peak firing rate of the stimulus speed, shape and texture, and the linear relationship between the TTC of the LGMD peak firing rate and the apparent looming stimulus' speed [9], [16] – [18]. The LGMD has been the target of a number of theoretical studies that either investigated its collision detection capabilities [19] – [22], or its putative non-linear integration properties [9], [16] – [18]. The first model was published in the late 90's [22]. Rind et al. have shown that the integration of on- and off-channels by a LGMD model can account for aspects of its looming sensitivity and subsequently this model has been applied to collision avoidance by roving robots [22] – [26]. Recently, it has been shown that all of the known response properties of the LGMD can be accounted for in terms of the multiplication of the angular velocity (θ′) with the angular size (θ) of a looming stimulus [9], where θ and log (θ′) are directly conveyed to the LGMD via separate inhibitory and excitatory pathways ( ). The membrane potential (Vm) deflection is subsequently assumed to be proportional to this multiplication that is subsequently expressed in a firing rate, f −l, via an exponential mapping:
One particular case in point is the Lobula Giant Movement Detector (LGMD) visual interneuron of the locust. Recently it has been shown that the responses of this visual interneuron can be explained in terms of a local product of two high-level features of visual stimuli, their angular size and angular speed by means of a non-linear transfer function of the neuron [9], [10]. If correct, this is the most explicit case reported in the experimental literature that supports the notion of local non-linear neuronal operations and it will have important consequences for our understanding of the computations that the nervous system can perform, as it significantly increases the computational power we can ascribe to single neurons. Hence, given the implications of this finding, it is important to investigate whether the non-linear relationship between the responses of the LGMD neuron and the visual stimuli it is exposed to can be understood in alternative terms, yet consistent with our current knowledge of the system. Here we investigated the alternative hypothesis that the non-linear responses of the LGMD can be explained in terms of an emergent non-linear operation that results from the integration of distributed computations performed by the neurons of the processing architecture as a whole as opposed to being a multiplication operation that is local to a single unit, i.e. the LGMD.
Since the introduction of the neuron doctrine about 100 years ago, a central question has become what local operations the primitive elements of nervous systems can perform. So far, the only operation that has clear experimental support is the threshold operation that converts the depolarization of the membrane into action potentials. However, also other local non-linear operations such as multiplications and divisions have been proposed. For instance, the Elementary Motion Detector (EMD), a well-established model of motion detection in the fly visual system that relies on multiplication in order to explain the neural responses of the Horizontal and Vertical System (HS, VS) visual interneurons [1]. In addition, it has been proposed that attentional modulation can result in a multiplicative gain of neuronal response to sensory stimuli [2]. Another example is the divisive inhibition that is assumed to underlie some of the non-linear adaptation properties of cortical neurons [3], [4], while several other studies have investigated how neuronal noise or dendritic saturation could contribute to divisive gain control [5], [6]. Moreover, theoretical studies on neocortical pyramidal cells have suggested that multiplicative dendritic integration could account for non-linear sensory processing enhancing stimulus classification [7], [8]. Despite the above examples, its computational attractiveness and the fact that some data can be satisfactorily described in non-linear terms, it remains unclear how the biophysics of single neurons could implement these operations.
To evaluate the performance of the LGMD component of the robot system, all collision detections were classified into three groups: correctly detected, false negatives (missed), and false positives. These data have to be read in the context of this fast moving robot, that on average detects a collision 0.5m away from a wall while moving at a mean speed of 1.2m/s. Hence, if the robot does not dramatically change its speed at the moment of detection, it collides in less than half a second. Collisions detected 20–100cm away from the walls were considered as correct, while all collisions detected closer than 20cm from the wall were considered to be detected too late, and thus missed (false negative). Conversely, collisions detected farther than 100cm from the walls, were considered false positives (, grey dashed region). In total, 87.8% of the detections were correct, 4.9% were false positives and 7.3% were missed ( ). The distribution of the number of detections vs. the distance to the wall at the time of detection peaked at 0.5m, and decreased exponentially further away from the wall ( ). Thus, the behaviour of the robot directly results from the non-linear nature of the response of the LGMD model ( ). Since the responses of the DCMD neuron feed directly into the thoracic motor ganglia of the locust that control the wing muscles, this seems to suggest that the amplitude-time course of the LGMD defines a particular collision avoidance strategy that minimizes the number of false positives as the distance to objects increases. In conclusion, these behavioural experiments suggest that the exponential transfer function of the LGMD neuron [9] is more related to its role in the regulation of behaviour rather than to the computation of object approach per se.
The experimental results confirm the necessity of a course stabilization system: when the robot is solely controlled by the LGMD model it displayed an erratic behaviour dominated by multiple loops in either one direction or the other (, right panel). When the LGMD model is combined with the EMD-based course stabilization system, the robot exhibited longer periods of translation exploring a larger area, and had a less variable heading direction (, polar plots). The nearly uniform distribution of the variation of the heading direction during the control experiments (, right panel polar histogram) is the result of the continuous changes that result from the complex dynamics of the Strider robot. When both the LGMD model and the course stabilization system were combined, this distribution was significantly different and reduced to a few preferred heading directions (, left panel polar histogram) (p<0.01, Kolmogorov-Smirnov). To further demonstrate the effect of the course stabilization system in the control of the behaviour of the robot, a linear segmental fitting of the behavioural traces, consisting of finding a sequence of linear segments that keep the Mean Square Error (MSE) of the fit below a threshold value, was performed ( ). This measure allows quantifying the straightness of the trajectory. That is, the longer the segments are on average, the straighter the overall trajectories are ( ). In order to assess the dependency of the fit upon the threshold value, different threshold values were tested. All tested values yielded comparable results. Although it is not the objective of this study to evaluate our course stabilization model, these data serve to illustrate the complex dynamics of the Strider robot. A statistical analysis of the segment length distribution (two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov) showed that in case of the combined system, the distributions of the linear segments were significantly different (p<0.01). Longer segments and a higher variance were obtained for the combined system ( ); concluding that the stabilization system contributes significantly to the straightness of the trajectory. Therefore, the course stabilization system we included is an essential component in order to deal with the dynamics of the Strider, and allows us to perform and evaluate the collision avoidance task with a high-speed robot.
The real-world behavioural task of the robot is to drive forward on a straight course until an imminent collision is detected. The modelled LGMD neuron will detect this upcoming collision and induce a collision avoidance reaction that consists of two phases: first deceleration of the robot, and then change |
amounts of manure produced on factory farms. For a paper published last month in the journal Microbiology, researchers from North Carolina State and Kansas State universities took one for the team — i.e., the public. They did something few of us would want to do: rounded up common flies and roaches hanging around factory hog farms, and tested them to see what kinds of bacteria they were harboring.
Their finding? More than 90 percent of the insects sampled carried forms of the bacteria Enterococci that are resistant to at least one common antibiotic, and often more than one. Here’s how the authors summed up their findings in the paper’s abstract:
This study shows that house flies and German [common] cockroaches in the confined swine production environment likely serve as vectors and/or reservoirs of antibiotic resistant and potentially virulent enterococci and consequently may play an important role in animal and public health.
In a press release, study coauthor Coby Schal, entomology professor at NC State, broke it down in simpler terms:
The big concern is not that humans will acquire drug-resistant bacteria from their properly cooked bacon or sausage, but rather that the bacteria will be transferred to humans from the common pests that live with pigs and then move in with us.
Meanwhile, evidence is mounting that factory-scale animal farms exact a high toll from the people who live around them in other ways, too. A study by University of North Carolina professor Steve Wing and others shows that people with the bad luck to live near giant hog farms suffer demonstrably worse health when the factories are getting up to malodorous stuff like spraying untreated (and thus antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-laden) manure on fields. Among the many hidden costs of cheap pork is that people who live near factory farms are doomed either to be sick or shut in at certain times of the year. (McKenna has an excellent discussion of the Wing study on her Wired blog.)
To answer the questions I posed in the opening paragraph, it seems we’re brewing up some pretty nasty pathogens in our meat factories, along with all the pork chops and chicken wings. And they’re coming our way, carried out on the meat itself, by factory-farm workers, and by common creepy-crawly and flying insects.
Seems like there should be a law banning the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics on farms. In 2009, Rep. Louise Slaughter introduced the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act (PAMTA). So far, the meat industry has managed to, well, slaughter it. But she plans to introduce PAMTA again this year.by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI
Northwest Side legislators said that the remaining weeks of the legislative session that ends May 31 likely will be spent dealing with next year’s budget and making the "temporary" income tax permanent in order to avoid cuts to human services and education.
"Everyone will certainly be looking at the budget issues," state Representative Greg Harris (D-13), who is the chairman of the Appropriations-Human Services Committee, said. "If you look at how far the state has gone, how we were able to pay down unpaid bills, reform pensions, work on health care and help the elderly, then we are getting to the point where we are able to keep our head above water."
Harris said that he will vote in favor of extending the income tax increase. "It will keep us where we are and prevent draconian cuts," he said.
The General Assembly raised the personal income tax rate from 3.0 percent to 5.0 percent, a 66 percent increase, in 2011. Under the terms of that bill, the 5.0 percent rate would remain in effect through this year and then decrease to 3.75 percent in 2015 and to 3.25 percent in 2025.
Governor Pat Quinn announced in his Fiscal Year 2015 budget address that he wants to maintain the income tax rate in order to keep the budget balanced and support education. In return, he wants legislators to approve a $500 property tax refund for home owners.
Quinn also proposed doubling the earned income tax credit years, cutting taxes for businesses that provide job training, spending $1.5 billion on the "Birth to Five" initiative that focuses on prenatal care and access to early childhood opportunities, doubling the state’s Monetary Assistance Program scholarships, and increasing classroom spending by $6 billion over the next 5 years.
State Representative Lou Lang (D-16) said that the legislature will extend the income tax rate.
"An elected official does not want to vote to keep a tax increase from expiring, but in this case I can see merit in extending it," Lang said. "We cut our budget down to the bone, and if someone can show me how to not cut human services, or help senior citizens and people with addiction problems, and educate our kids without that $2 billion that we will lose as a result of letting the tax expire, then step forward."
Lang said that a bill that he sponsored in the Illinois House would amend the medical marijuana pilot program that was approved last year to add epilepsy to the list of medical conditions for which marijuana can be prescribed. The bill would require the state Department of Public Health to adopt rules for issuing an identification card for qualifying patients who are under 18 years of age.
"The bill would add epilepsy to the list of diseases and let children to be able to use the oil to reduce seizures," Lang said. "They certainly won’t be able to smoke it."
However, local legislators balked at the idea that the legislature would address legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Illinois any time soon. A group of legislators have called on the General Assembly to create a task force to develop legislation that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana.
The legislators, county Commissioner John Fritchey (D-12) and state Representatives Kelly Cassidy (D-14), Michael Zalewski (D-23) and Christian Mitchell (D-26), maintain that creating a framework of marijuana regulation and taxation would reduce drug-related crime.
Marijuana arrests account for more than half of all drug arrests in the United States, and from 1975 to 2009 there were more than a million arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession in Illinois, with the majority of the cases being dismissed, Fritchey said.
Lang said that timing for such a proposal is "ill advised" when the medical marijuana program has not been implemented yet. "One controversial issue at a time, that’s how we do it here in Springfield," he said.
Harris said that the issue should be considered "because too many people are getting sent to the Department of Corrections for small amounts of pot." He said that the issue likely will not be addressed during this session.
State Representative Michael McAuliffe (R-20) said that the session will concentrate on the budget vote. McAuliffe said that the legislature will not address gambling expansion and that he will vote against making the tax increase permanent.
McAuliffe said that legalizing marijuana is a step in the wrong direction and that he would not support such legislation. He said that marijuana is a gateway drug to other harder drugs.
State Representative Robert Martwick (D-19) said that there is "no appetite for that in the legislature right now."
"It’s a real hot-button issue and I hope to stay open minded about it when the time comes to deal with it, but I won’t commit to how I would vote when there is no bill," Martwick said.
State Senator John Mulroe (D-10) said that he voted for the tax increase in 2011 because it was supposed to be temporary. "Considering what the effect it will have on the state and the children and old people, I’m hoping that we look at other options," Mulroe said.
Mulroe said that he voted for the increase in order to prevent the state’s economy from collapsing. "I don’t want to vote for it and it’s a tough choice to make, but where will the $2 billion come from?" he said.
Mulroe said that he is curious to see if Quinn signs the pension reform bill that would reduce cost of living increases in municipal retirement systems, a move that would force the City Council to vote for a property tax increase in during an election year.
"Legislators at all levels of government understand that we have the burden of pension liabilities that have to be solved," Harris said. "It will only get worse if we let it linger on. Everyone needs to do something about this so that people will have something for their retirement."
Mulroe said that he is working on a bill that would amend the Illinois Poison Prevention Packaging Act so that electronic cigarette cartridges and liquids could only be sold in special packaging and on a bill that would only allow such substances to be sold from behind the counter. Mulroe was a sponsor of a bill last year that requires e-cigarettes to be sold only to people age 18 and older.
Martwick said that another controversial bill that is being worked on is a proposal that would allow the Clinical Psychologists Licensing and Disciplinary Board to let psychologists with doctoral degrees prescribe medication to mentally ill patients. At present licensed psychiatrists are allowed to prescribe such medication.
The bill would license psychologists to prescribe medicine after they have completed a doctoral degree and have clinical experience in psychotherapy, a master’s degree in psychopharmacology, clinical experience in physical assessment and medication management, and a collaborative agreement with a physician.
"I imagine that the medical society does not want this and it will be a heated debate," Martwick said. He said that many Downstate communities do not have access to a prescribing psychiatrist and that the bill could alleviate the burden of getting medication for mental illness.
Martwick said that opponents of the bill maintain that the move could do more harm than good and that it would pose serious risk to the safety of patients, while supporters say that addressing access to medication in rural areas is important.poster="https://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201601/1048/1155968404_4711665334001_video-still-for-video-4711585545001.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Slightly more than half—52 percent—said they backed Hillary Clinton, while 37 percent opted for Sanders. Poll: Clinton has a better shot at beating Trump than Sanders
Hillary Clinton would have a better shot at beating Donald Trump in the general election than would Bernie Sanders, according to the results of the latest national Monmouth University poll released Tuesday surveying Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters.
Sanders has cut into Clinton's advantage among nearly every voting bloc over the last month, but the former secretary of state still leads by double digits, albeit with an advantage less than half of a month ago.
Story Continued Below
Slightly more than half—52 percent—said they backed Clinton, while 37 percent opted for Sanders, the first time that her advantage has been less than 20 points. In the university's December survey, Clinton held a substantially larger 33-point advantage over Sanders—59 percent to 26 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley polled well within the margin of error, at 2 percent.
Asked who would have a better shot against Trump, 44 percent said Clinton would, while only 16 percent said the Vermont senator would have more of a chance. Meanwhile, 35 percent said they would have about an equal opportunity. In the case of Ted Cruz, 39 percent said Clinton would do better, compared to 17 percent for Sanders and 37 percent for both. Asked who would do better against Marco Rubio, 39 percent said Clinton would, 37 percent said they would have an equal shot and just 17 percent said Sanders would.
Sanders and his campaign have frequently pointed to past polls showing them performing better against Trump than Clinton to emphasize the point of electability. In contrast to the question posed in this poll, those questions have typically presented respondents with head-to-head matchups (for example, Sanders vs. Trump, Clinton vs. Trump) rather than asking which candidate would have a better shot at beating a given candidate.
Clinton took her biggest hit among those describing themselves as liberal. In December, 57 percent in that group backed her, compared to 31 percent for Sanders. This time, the self-described democratic socialist leads by 9 points—51 percent to 42 percent.
In the coveted 18-to-49 demographic, Sanders leads Clinton by 13 points (52 percent to 39 percent) after trailing by 17 points in December. Clinton has, however, held onto her advantage among voters over the age of 50 (64 percent to 24 percent), as well as among blacks and Latinos (71 percent to 21 percent).
Voters indicated that they believed Clinton would do a better job than Sanders on issues related to gun control (39 percent to 21 percent) and health care (36 percent to 30 percent). But when it came to "dealing with Wall Street" and "reducing the gap between the rich and poor," Sanders led Clinton by double digits on both counts.
The poll was conducted Jan. 15-18 via landlines and cellphones, surveying 352 registered voters who identified as Democrats or leaning toward the Democratic Party. The margin of error is plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.Donald Trump has a big lead in polling in his home state of New York, but he won't be getting the votes of two of his biggest advocates there: His kids.
Donald Trump with Ivanka Trump on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. Jeff J Mitchell / Getty Images File
Trump conceded Monday that two of his children — Eric and Ivanka Trump — failed to register as Republicans in the state in time to be eligible to vote for him in New York's April 19 primary.
"They were unaware of the rules and they didn't register in time," Trump said on Fox News. "So they feel very, very guilty. They feel very guilty but it's fine."
The deadline for new voters to register to vote in New York's closed primary was March 25, and the deadline to change party affiliation was back in October.
"Eric and Ivanka, I guess, won't be voting," Trump said.
NBC 4 New York reports that, according to New York's public Voter Registration Database, both Eric and Ivanka Trump are registered to vote but not enrolled in a political party.
Trump's campaign has been plagued in recent weeks by poor organization in local and state-level Republican conventions, where delegates to the Republican National Convention are selected.
In several states over the weekend, the delegates chosen at the party gatherings were Ted Cruz's loyalists, who could support the Texas senator on the convention floor if the nomination race goes to a second ballot.WATCH ABOVE: The Monday, January 19, 2015 traffic report and weather forecast for Edmonton, Alberta and the surrounding area.
EDMONTON – Drivers in and around Edmonton are in for difficult road conditions Monday after freezing rain fell overnight. The rain started in northwestern Alberta late Sunday evening, moving southeast through the Capital Region early Monday morning.
“The next band of freezing drizzle followed by light snow will move in [Monday] evening. We could see around five centimetres of snow,” said weather specialist Mike Sobel, who said the snow could continue into Tuesday morning.
Paved surfaces like highways, sidewalks and parking lots may be icy and slippery.
“Use extreme caution this morning,” said Daintre Christensen, traffic specialist on the Morning News.
“Freezing rain is one of the most difficult road conditions to navigate, namely because it creates road ice that is not easily distinguishable,” she said, adding that ice can be patchy and cause sudden road condition changes within a few kilometres.
WATCH: Preventing falls during winter running
“Take extra care along exit ramps and river crossing. Bridge decks are particularly susceptible to icing, and are treacherous to navigate,” she added.
FREEZING RAIN in the Edmonton area. Drive with caution this morning. Especially along bridge decks #yegtraffic pic.twitter.com/gNzrN4L6z6 — Daintre Christensen (@Daintre_) January 19, 2015
One of the best ways to track locally hazardous driving conditions is from local viewer reports. The #yegtraffic hashtag is often used by Twitter users reporting traffic issues within Edmonton.
If safe to do so, share your weather photos with us via the Global Edmonton Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can also post updates from your community using the hashtags #yegwx and #abstorm.
Want your weather on the go? Download Global News’ Skytracker weather app for iPhone, iPad and Android.Is it too soon for the Chicago Cubs to move Kyle Schwarber back into the leadoff spot in the order?
After giving him a brief spell at the bottom of the Chicago Cubs’ lineup, Joe Maddon decided that it was time to move Kyle Schwarber back into the leadoff spot yesterday against the Colorado Rockies. While it was only one game, the results were far from inspiring. Schwarber went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in the Cubs’ 9-1 loss, which marked their fourth straight defeat.
On one hand, maybe it’s premature to decry the young slugger’s return to leading off as a failure. A single bad game doesn’t necessarily mean anything by itself. But when you consider that he was showing signs of breaking his season-long slump, maybe questioning the decision to suddenly thrust Schwarber back into a position where he’s struggled all year.
Should the Cubs perhaps have left well enough alone for a few more games before rekindling their experiment?
The Numbers
Now, let’s not act as though dropping him in the order has magically cured Schwarber’s struggles. He’s not exactly dominating at any spot he’s hit in the lineup this season. However, over a small sample size, his brief sojourn in the nine slot did yield some promising results.
In seven games (22 plate appearances), Schwarber batted.235 with a.409 OPB and.706 slugging percentage (1.115 OPS) with two home runs and six RBI. By comparison, he had a.190/.311/.678 slash line with six homers and 17 RBI as a leadoff man (162 PAs) before yesterday’s game.
Furthermore, all but one of Schwarber’s June plate appearances came from the ninth spot. As such, there was hope that maybe he was finding something he’d been missing at the plate. His June 3 grand slam, coming just after his lineup shift, looked like a possible turning point. After all, aren’t these the kinds of things the Cubs want from Schwarber, no matter where he hits in the order?
Kyle Schwarber's first career grand slam couldn't have came at a better time. pic.twitter.com/pNn0PqpU5b — Cubs Live (@Cubs_Live) June 3, 2017
Why the Move?
Given his recent play, it’s curious, therefore, that Maddon thought now was a good time to slide Schwarber back into the leadoff role. Why not allow him more time to continue figuring out his approach at the plate? Let’s not forget that he only has 430 career regular season at-bats. For all his phenomenal accomplishments, he’s barely logged a full regular season at the plate. His struggles, even for a naturally talented hitter, shouldn’t necessarily shock people so early in his career.
That isn’t to say that, in an ideal world, Schwarber doesn’t make sense at the top of the order. When he’s going right, he’s a gifted hitter with a good eye, and he’s improved his plate discipline from when he first entered the league. And his.391 OBP in his seven June games may have convinced Maddon that he was back on track and ready to place near Kris Bryant (.396 OBP) and Anthony Rizzo (.387) again. Or maybe the manager just wanted to see if he could help spark a club that had lost three straight.
Whatever Maddon’s reasons, perhaps he would’ve been better off keeping the pressure off Schwarber for now. The Chicago Cubs have capable options like Ben Zobrist and Jason Heyward that can hold down the fort as leadoff men until he’s ready if they still see him at that spot. And assuming they expect Schwarber to help them make a playoff run, it behooves them to get him going sooner rather than later.
If that means letting him find his bearings for a while in the nine spot, so be it. Having Kyle Schwarber hitting well at the bottom of the order beats having him not hit everywhere else.This post is the second of seven posts about the future. Caveat lector.
Steampunk, while now well-distributed and originally offshore, feels quite British. A fetishisation of the difficult, the complex, the grimy, the high-friction and the physical. Engineering-fic. But too often it’s also a default position for a certain kind of literature, like London’s ‘gaslight mode’, that pea-souper, Jack The Ripper, Neverwhere Victoriana that sometimes feels like it’s deadening capital fictions. There must be other ways to mess with histories.
In a recent interview Michael Moorcock had this to say:
MM: In [1971 novel] The Warlord of the Air, for instance, I invented this specific form to do a specific job. And then 10 years later, 20 years later, I’m suddenly dragged into the steampunk movement, as a steampunk writer, which I wasn’t. And again, it’s disappointing to me, because very little steampunk that I’ve read actually does what I was trying to do with Warlord of the Air, which was, I was basically looking at, if you like, a Fabian view of Colonialism. It was an idea of Benign Colonialism, which I didn’t believe in. And I was trying to explore that. Yeah. Whereas a lot of the steampunk doesn’t have that intellectual content, it just uses the period imagery. MM: Yes, that’s right, and they think, “oh great, big airships! Wow!” You’re a bit suspicious of people who like too many big airships. You think, maybe you should be writing porn, you know!
Charlie Stross had a crack at the same problem: the depoliticisation, or absence of politics at all, in the genre, proposing an alternative steampunk that takes “the taproot history of the period seriously”:
Forget wealthy aristocrats sipping tea in sophisticated London parlours; forget airship smugglers in the weird wild west. A revisionist mundane SF steampunk epic — mundane SF is the socialist realist movement within our tired post-revolutionary genre — would reflect the travails of the colonial peasants forced to labour under the guns of the white Europeans’ Zeppelins, in a tropical paradise where severed human hands are currency and even suicide doesn’t bring release from bondage.
Stross’ argument is that second artist syndrome has stripped the genre of its politics and its scientific understanding, leaving it nothing but aesthetics (“nothing more than what happens when goths discover brown”).
It’s a call for a steampunk that explores all the conditions of its history: of the mill, and of the workhouse. It’s the same impulse that, when a friend throws a 1920s party, makes me want to turn up as a polio victim.
So steampunk—hell, *punk—is the retrofitting of today’s potentialities onto the technologies of an arbitrary point in the past. By doing so, those potentialities are made visible: like the distributed communication / packet switching encoded as pillars in the landscape in Keith Roberts’ proto-steampunk novel Pavane.
(That opening line about fetishising the difficult is actually a half-remembered quote from somewhere about the Britishness of Newspaper Club: a retrofit of potentialities onto older technologies if ever there was one.)
So, we can retrofit onto other periods too. Like Dieselpunk, “a subculture and a genre of art blending the aesthetics of the 1920s through the early 1950s with today”, whose self-description declares itself to be entirely aesthetic, prefiguring its devolution into bobby-socks, greaseballs and hotrods rather than anything political.
What about cavepunk, a potential genre that must exist somewhere between Modern Primitives and the Flintstones’ Family Saloon? I’m seeing a lot of fire, and a political focus on anarcho-primitivism and “rewilding”.
When I asked Russell a while back for alternatives to steampunk, he suggested 80s-punk, all massive walkmans and Nike Air Jordans. Back To The Future 2. Technology without the network. Fashionpunk (no).
Can *punk belong to the future, or is it predicated on past knowns? Cyberpunk did and wasn’t: it defined a territory by parodying it (Gibson was always a Beat writer). Likewise the developing-world futurism promised by AfroCyberPunk, which I keep linking to in an effort to will it into being (/being better). Gurgaonpunk. Paulistapunk.
I want to read a near-future enviropunk, where pandas are fed into woodchippers to give us the escape velocity to move beyond enviroconservatism.
Not Salvagepunk, which is merely a hauntological critique of *punk. Salvagepunk is total Dark Mountain, even while it rightly eviscerates hauntology’s endless wibbling about in the tickets of history as “pseudo-Leftist” in the worst sense: factional, morose, yearning for some never-never Golden Age of the past.
*punk is not the same as speculative fiction or alternative history. It’s more focused on technology, and the social implications of technology, than pure spec.fic or alt.hist. That’s what ties it ideally to Science Fiction, and why Sci Fi writers have started to rail against steampunk’s perceived decadence.
But it is definitely tied to time, which suggests there is a path to be made to Network Realism. Even if *punk can be considered anti-realist by definition, we can borrow some of its tools. Are all *punks subsets of timepunk? Or do they merely appear so because of a technological focus that so clearly situates and timestamps them?
(And I’m interested, I realise, because I want Network Realism for precisely the same reasons that Moorcock and Stross decry the aesthetisisation of steampunk: because the aesthetisisation of anything is an abdication of its politics, because the aesthetisisation of politics is fascism, and fascism is the opposite of imagination. We have too many dead literatures.)
If *punk doesn’t have to be about technology, what else can it be about?
Can we locate *punk in forbidden modes of writing, like slashfic, a proto-pornpunk, retrofitting different desires onto existing characters and situations? (Yes, we can.)
Thus, we locate *punk in the quietly radical queer writings of JR Ackerley and Jocelyn Brooke in the years before Wolfenden. These works inhabit a space of imminent possibility imagined by the writers as a way of calling such spaces into being, collapsing the quantum society of the time, full of hypocrises and hidden allowances. If designers are concerned with the recently possible, writers should be concerned with the imminent.
Essentially, *punk is a hollowing out of conceptual spaces based on only slightly varied worldlines. It may be subsumed by aesthetics, as is the problem with most bad steampunk (“stick some brass cogs on it”), but it may also uncover previously hidden possibilities.
*
Update, because there are going to be more:There’s just 5,000 blocks left until a major economic shift in bitcoin — the 2nd “Halvening”
Alex Sunnarborg Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 5, 2016
Bitcoin block #415,000 was just mined, marking just 5,000 blocks left until block #420,000 — the point at which the mining reward will drop from it’s current bounty of 25 brand new bitcoin immediately down to 12.5.
The first bitcoin block, the so called “Genesis Block”, was mined on January 3, 2009, marking the beginning of the bitcoin “blockchain”.
The open-source bitcoin software dictates that every 210,000 blocks, the block reward will be halved, thus dubbing each such event a “Halvening”.
The reward associated with the first bitcoin block was 50 bitcoin, and as we passed block #210,000 on November 28, 2012, we watched that split down to the current reward of 25.
The bitcoin software has mechanisms in place to automatically adjust the difficulty associated with mining a new block so that a new block will be produced approximately every 10 minutes despite the level of competition (computational resources being expended on solving for the next valid block).
As we can calculate, with the “Genesis Block” occurring on January 3, 2009, block #210,000 should have occurred about 2,100,000 minutes (just under 4 years) later, around December 31, 2012.
As we can see in the blockchain, block #210,000 was actually mined about 33 days “early” on November 28, 2012.
Following this logic, we can see that we’ve crossed block #415,000 at an even quicker pace, about 171 days before the date expected after mining the “Genesis Block”.We’ve all seen it in the movies: overgrown “kidults” living at home while their parents pick up their dirty laundry, cook their meals and vacuum around their unmade bed.
This narrow portrayal of what modern-day multigenerational households look like is also found in newspapers worldwide. Names like “mummy’s boys”, “gen why bother moving out”, “kippers” and “gestaters” are used to describe this supposedly dependent generation who won’t leave the comfort of the family home.
Since we began our research four years ago, however, we have found that different generations of the same family live together in one household for a whole range of reasons. This results in a great diversity of outcomes.
These stories of different drivers and outcomes, along with findings from several related Australian studies, are retold in our new book, Multigenerational Family Living.
In the book, we debunk a series of myths about multigenerational households. With around one in five Australians living in multigenerational households since at least the mid-1980s, it’s about time we moved beyond the stereotypes.
Myth #1: Kids won’t become ‘independent’
If one only paid attention to media reports, it’d be easy to think that multigenerational households in modern-day Australia come about solely because young adults won’t fly the nest. While there is some truth in this, there are other reasons, and combinations of reasons, that lead multiple generations of adult family members to live together.
Among the 392 respondents to our survey, “adult children yet to leave home” was only the third-most-common driver. Finance was the most common.
Finance, however, can encompass many things.
Survey results, Author provided
Financial constraints can come about for a wide range of structural reasons. These include an increase in attainment of tertiary (and even postgraduate) qualifications, workforce casualisation and the unaffordability of housing, whether buying or renting.
These constraints often encourage the younger generation to delay leaving the parental home. However, we also found examples of adult children paying their parents’ mortgages and buying homes together to manage housing costs within the family.
Changes in government policies and priorities can also have impacts on people’s decisions about their living arrangement. The withdrawal of government support – such as changes in the Australian child, aged and disability care sectors – increases the pressures on family members to take care of each other.
There have been reports of grandparents moving across town to be closer (or to live with) their grandchildren so they can provide child care during the day.
Likewise, some of our participants said they invited their elderly parents to live with them so they could take care of them because professional aged care facilities were unaffordable or undesirable. “Care arrangement support” was the second-most-common driver for multigenerational living.
Myth #2: It’s something migrants do
There is a lot of literature about how common multigenerational living is elsewhere, whether in Asia, the Middle East, or Southern Europe.
While more than one in three (34.9%) Australian residents born in North Africa and the Middle East lived in multigenerational households in 2011, only one in six (15.7%) born in Northwest Europe (e.g. the UK) did so.
Custom 2011 Census data. Image: Alec Gelota, Author provided
Certainly, there is a cultural element to living arrangement decisions. Yet our analysis shows that three-quarters of people who lived in multigenerational households in Australia in 2011 were born here or elsewhere in Oceania.
Myth #3: Live-at-home kidults take advantage of parents
One of the bigger gripes about multigenerational living is that not everyone pitches in.
Lyn Craig and Abigail Powell found that while adult children do pitch in and help out with chores, these efforts don’t really help their parents all that much, particularly their mothers.
The reasons are a mix of adult children doing chores for themselves (such as doing their own laundry or cooking their own meals), instead of communal sharing, and of culturally imbued ideas about who should be responsible for groceries, cooking and gardening.
Survey results, Author provided
Complaints about chores, however, pale in comparison to those about lack of privacy in the family home. This is the result of a combination of family members not respecting personal boundaries but also of many contemporary housing designs (open-plan living, for instance) that are not suitable for multigenerational needs.
As Bruce Judd discusses in his chapter, some older housing models, including the resurgence of granny flats, may offer better outcomes to people who want to live together in multigenerational homes.
What does it all mean?
Despite the media and some academic spheres giving this household form more attention, there is still relatively little known about it, and particularly the experiences of those who choose to live in them. As this journalist realised, there are pros and cons to multigenerational living, just as there are pros and cons to living alone.
International policy recommendations are advocating for more diverse housing products to house our ever-changing household forms. This includes encouraging people “to share our homes more with other generations and encourage greater intergenerational living”.
To devise the most practical policies do this effectively, we must have a greater understanding of the outcomes for different members within the household.The internet is weak, yet we keep ignoring this fact. So we see the same thing over and over again, whether it’s because of natural disasters like hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, wars like Syria and Bosnia, deliberate attempts by the government to shut down the internet (most recently in Egypt and Iran), or NSA surveillance.
After Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines last month, several towns were cut off from humanitarian relief because delivering that aid depends on having a reliable communication network. In a country where over 90 percent of the population has access to mobile phones, the implementation of an emergency “mesh” network could have saved lives.
Compared to the “normal” internet – which is based on a few centralized access points or internet service providers (ISPs) – mesh networks have many benefits, from architectural to political. Yet they haven’t really taken off, even though they have been around for some time. I believe it’s time to reconsider their potential, and make mesh networking a reality. Not just because of its obvious benefits, but also because it provides an internet-native model for building community and governance.
But first, the basics: An ad hoc network infrastructure that can be set up by anyone, mesh networks wirelessly connect computers and devices directly to each other without passing through any central authority or centralized organization (like a phone company or an ISP). They can automatically reconfigure themselves according to the availability and proximity of bandwidth, storage, and so on; this is what makes them resistant to disaster and other interference. Dynamic connections between nodes enable packets to use multiple routes to travel through the network, which makes these networks more robust.
Compared to more centralized network architectures, the only way to shut down a mesh network is to shut down every single node in the network.
That’s the vital feature, and what makes it stronger in some ways than the regular internet.
But mesh networks aren’t just for political upheavals or natural disasters. Many have been installed as part of humanitarian programs, aimed at helping poor neighborhoods and underserved areas. For people who can’t afford to pay for an internet connection, or don’t have access to a proper communications infrastructure, mesh networks provide the basic infrastructure for connectivity.
Not only do mesh networks represent a cheap and efficient means for people to connect and communicate to a broader community, but they provide us with a choice for what kind of internet we want to have.
For these concerned about the erosion of online privacy and anonymity, mesh networking represents a way to preserve the confidentiality of online communications. Given the lack of a central regulating authority, it’s extremely difficult for anyone to assess the real identity of users connected to these networks. And because mesh networks are generally invisible to the internet, the only way to monitor mesh traffic is to be locally and directly connected to them.__ __
But the Real, Often Forgotten, Promise of Mesh Networks Is… ———————————————————–
Yet beyond the benefits of costs and elasticity, little attention has been given to the real power of mesh networking: the social impact it could have on the way communities form and operate.
What’s really revolutionary about mesh networking isn’t the novel use of technology. It’s the fact that it provides a means for people to self-organize into communities and share resources amongst themselves: Mesh networks are operated by the community, for the community. Especially because the internet has become essential to our everyday life.
#### Primavera De Filippi ##### About [Primavera De Filippi](http://p2pfoundation.net/Primavera_De_Filippi) is a researcher at CERSA / CNRS / Université Paris II. She is currently a research fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, where she is investigating the legal challenges of distributed online architectures.
Instead of relying on the network infrastructure provided by third party ISPs, mesh networks rely on the infrastructure provided by a network of peers that self-organize according to a bottom-up system of governance. Such infrastructure is not owned by any single entity. To the extent that everyone contributes with their own resources to the general operation of the network, it is the community as a whole that effectively controls the infrastructure of communication. And given that the network does not require any centralized authority to operate, there is no longer any unilateral dependency between users and their ISPs.
Mesh networking therefore provides an alternative perspective to traditional governance models based on top-down regulation and centralized control.
Indeed, with mesh networking, people are building a community-grown network infrastructure: a distributed mesh of local but interconnected networks, operated by a variety of grassroots communities. Their goal is to provide a more resilient system of communication while also promoting a more democratic access to the internet.
Are We There Yet? —————–
In recent years, |
of Port Elizabeth last Thursday afternoon staring at a fourth consecutive limited-overs loss to their fierce sporting rivals.
A run of defeats in the coloured clothing format unmatched for almost 20 years, since the days when Australian cricket was forced to accept that their best 50-over team could no longer be their Test XI simply clad in a different uniform.
While this contemporary shift might not carry that same historic legacy, it is no less revolutionary particularly in the eyes of the 14-man Australia touring party who have watched it unfold with incredulity, suspicion and ultimately heartfelt acceptance.
For the manifest switch is but the latest transformation to have been undergone by Australia’s repeatedly re-born vice-captain, David Warner.
Warner reflects on Australia's turnaround
Not that profound change isn’t something of a constant for the 29-year-old.
He’s the one-time larrikin who so wholeheartedly embraced a new life as a doting dad he was named Australia’s Sporting Father of the Year just last month.
He’s the formerly erratic character who has eschewed the fraught nightlife after a couple of untidy scrapes and instead embraced quiet dinners and green tea.
And he’s the latent firecracker who has most recently silenced those who queried his elevation to national vice-captain with an exemplary return in (demeanour and results) when installed as interim skipper after Steve Smith’s early departure from a draining tour of Sri Lanka.
In the process, enhancing his reputation as a national skipper-in-waiting should circumstances ever dictate a more prolonged absence from the incumbent.
But the Warner of the ongoing five-match ODI tour of Sri Lanka has become even further removed from the circa 2013 model when he was suspended from the national team for a late night misdemeanour in Birmingham.
Or even from last year when he was publicly counselled by Cricket Australia Chief Executive James Sutherland to "stop looking for trouble" after a heated on-field clash with India’s Rohit Sharma, where Warner lived his then stereotypical role as Australia’s on-field verbal attack dog.
In the wake of his maiden appearances as Australia captain that netted three consecutive ODI wins to secure a series win over Sri Lanka, followed by a pair of equally meritorious T20 International triumphs, Warner has wholly embraced the power of positivity.
Not so much in his stroke play, which has rarely betrayed a whiff of caution or self-doubt.
Or his approach to the game, which has always been devoutly team first and unashamedly designed to propagate results.
Exclusive: Warner discusses captaincy debut
The change has been far more evangelical, the sort of recalibrated outlook on work, life and the universe that can usually be attributed directly to the mantra of self-help books, life coaches or indoctrinating religious cults.
Where once Warner would meet setbacks and injustices with a combative crack or aggressive posturing, he now shrugs his shoulders and recommends those around him simply search for the good news angle.
"It is what it is" has become a go-to catch phrase.
"Just enjoy the moment and play with a smile on your face" goes another.
It is now seemingly impossible to successfully wave a red rag at the ‘Bull’.
His teammates have taken to whispering conspiratorially about the seismic shift they have, pretty much to a man, warmly welcomed.
"Have you met the new Davey Warner?" one asked aloud after Warner had breezed past dispensing felicitations to everyone in his orbit, as if enveloped in a perfumed cloud.
Others have taken to calling him ‘The Reverend’, such has been the gusto with which he’s embraced the gospel of good news.
An epithet Warner has clearly embraced, as shown by the additional flourish he appended to his trademark ‘Toyota’ jump upon reaching a century at Kingsmead last week.
Warner's 'Toyota' leap // Getty
Arms outstretched and head cocked skywards, in the exaggerated pose of a born-again preacher in full flight.
"A pleasure – you take care and enjoy your day," Warner cheerily told a clearly bemused parent after she had hesitantly asked for an autograph for her son at the end of a recent Australia training session, one of many that the vice-captain patiently penned that afternoon.
In the aftermath of his team’s second consecutive loss to South Africa at Wanderers in Johannesburg last Sunday, on a playing surface both battle scarred and gravel strewn, Warner was quizzed in a private aside how he found fielding amid such unsafe playing conditions.
"Beyond our control," he beamed without missing a beat.
"We just turn up and play to the best of our abilities."
It prompted one of his teammates to note, upon arriving in Durban last Monday with the ODI series up for grabs, "I don’t know where they’ve taken the old Davey Warner, but I quite like this new version".
Finch: We're heading in the right direction
While some have suggested Warner might have fallen under the spell of some new-age mood shaper who has convinced him chakras are integral to shot making, Warner’s ODI opening partner Aaron Finch attributes the switch to much less metaphysical forces.
"After Sri Lanka, Davey was obviously pretty down and I think throughout that whole Test series everyone was a bit flat," said Finch who arrived on that tour as Australia was stumbling to a third consecutive Test defeat against their unfancied opponents.
"Sri Lanka played a brilliant series and now he’s turned the tables and gone ultra-positive.
"It’s something that is actually rubbing off on the boys.
"We didn’t know at the start whether it was legitimate or whether he was taking the mickey.
"But he’s just been ultra-positive around the group and he finds a positive in every scenario.
"Regardless of what’s happening anywhere around the team, or anywhere in your life he’s always finding a positive to come out of it.
"So we’ll see how long it lasts, but it’s been something that’s been excellent around the boys.
"Particularly on a tough tour like this where we’ve beaten so far, it’s always nice for the guys to stay up and about."
Warner crunches Kingsmead century
Certainly it has brought no visibly deleterious effect to Warner’s cricket.
Australia’s leading scorer across the first three games of the series, and the only player in his team to have reached 40 in all three innings that coincided with a hat-trick of losses.
Currently in the midst of the most productive ODI year of his prolific limited-overs career, his 910 runs from 18 matches in 2016 to date (with a handful more matches to come) comfortably surpassing his 2012 output of 840 from 24 innings.
And last Wednesday’s 117 from 107 balls – the world champions’ first century of the South Africa tour albeit in another losing cause – was a study in measured aggression and relentless intent from the time he helped himself to 17 from Proteas’ spearhead Dale Steyn’s second over.
Then crowned it with a dramatic gesture from the pulpit, a celebration of the power of positivity.
As such, and despite a lean Test series in Sri Lanka and an equally unproductive tour to New Zealand last February where he averaged just 22 across both series, Warner enters the coming home Test summer against South Africa and Pakistan full of confidence.
Not that state of mind was ever going to be an issue for the newest incarnation of the (very) Reverend David Warner.There are still plenty of tickets left for tonight's event. You can call the shop today at 281 497 8675 or come straight to Katy Taylor High School tonight.
What: Astronaut Chris Hadfield, Space Station Commander, will give a talk on space travel, music, conquering fear of the unkown and his newest book, THE DARKEST DARK.
When: Thursday, September 15, 7:00 pm. Doors will open at 6:00 pm.
Where: Katy Taylor High School, 20700 Kingsland Blvd, Katy, TX 77450. The event will be in the Performing Arts Center on the east side of campus. We highly recommend parking in the garage in back of the Performing Arts Center, which is accessed from Dominion Drive.
Admission: This is a ticketed event. In order to attend, please purchase THE DARKEST DARK from Blue Willow Bookshop. At the time of your purchase, we will issue a ticket that indicates your place in the signing line. Your book and signing line ticket can be picked up at the event. You can purchase your book in advance or at the event; whichever is more convenient for you.
About the Author:
Chris Hadfield is one of the most seasoned and accomplished astronauts in the world. In May 2013, Hadfield returned to Earth after serving as Commander of the International Space Station, where he and his crew lived for five months (his third mission). Chris frequently speaks to audiences throughout the US and Canada about space exploration and science education.
A limited number of autographed copies of this book will be available for purchase after the event. If you cannot attend the event, and would like a personalized copy of the book, please call us before the event at (281) 497-8675.
If you can't attend the event or need a copy shipped to you, you may call the store or add the appropriate book to your cart on our website. Payment type must be "CreditCard." In the order notes, add personalization details.
To place an international order, please email orders@bluewillowbookshop.com to obtain shipping details and to have items shipped to you. Staff will respond within 24-48 hours.Tokar / Delgo / El Sareif — The rate of cholera infections in Tokar in Sudan's Red Sea state increased significantly on Monday. Journalist Osman Hashim reported to Radio Dabanga that Tokar Hospital recorded 32 new cases, mostly from the peripheral bordering areas, while a number of cases were reported from the villages south of Tokar.
He pointed to the poor conditions at Tokar Hospital, the shortage of medical staff and medicines and the non- preparation of the isolation ward.
Northern State
On Tuesday, Delgo Hospital in the Northern State reported eight new cases of cholera, bringing the total number of infections in the isolation ward to 23.
Activist Ashraf Abdelwedoud told Radio Dabanga that Delgo locality responded to the demands of the residents to establish field hospitals in the headquarters of traditional mining.
He said that the locality authorities established two isolation centres in the areas of traditional mining.
He said that the doctors transfer the cases to Delgo Hospital after treating them and expressed concern about the spread of cases among the people of Delgo as there are 20,000 miners in the areas bordering Delgo.
He reported an increase in the number of cases at Abri Hospital in the Northern State with deteriorating conditions in the hospital.
North Darfur
One person died of cholera and four others were infected at Ghurra El Zawiya village of and neighbouring villages in El Sareif locality in North Darfur.
On Monday an activist reported that a person died of cholera at Mukrema village near Ghurra El Zawiya and two cases were recorded at Ghurra El Zawiya while a one case was reported at Kala village.
He said that there are three cases still hospitalised in the medical isolation centre of cholera at Ghurra El Zawiya village.Evolution has been the goal since the start of training camp, to take the elements of last season to a higher level.
And yet when it comes to Johnson & Johnson, the experimentation has come with the risk of regression for the Miami Heat as they head into Saturday's exhibition against the Orlando Magic at the Amway Center.
What James Johnson and Tyler Johnson accomplished in unison for the Heat off the bench last season was among the reasons why 11-30 at midseason turned into 41-41 at the finish.
But with better than.500 the goal, coach Erik Spoelstra has severed that bond through the first two of the Heat's six exhibitions. James Johnson now starting, a role he inherited late last season out of injury necessity, with Tyler Johnson still sparking the second unit.
In the Heat offense, the goal has been good to better to best when it comes to the quality of shot attempts. That seemingly also was the goal in this uneven rotation reshuffle.
"We have to be open to anything and everything at this point," Spoelstra said, with the Heat practicing Friday at an Orlando-area high school. "Even though we brought back several of the same players, a team is never the same. So it's always going to evolve. It's going to be a little bit different. We want to make sure we're maximizing every single unit that's out there."
Tyler Johnson fueled the Heat with a team-high 21 points in Thursday's shaky 107-88 road loss to the Brooklyn Nets. James Johnson, working this preseason for the first time alongside Dion Waiters in the starting lineup, was just 1 of 4 from the field for two points, after shooting 1 of 5 in Sunday's preseason-opening victory over the Atlanta Hawks.
"Rotations are going to see what's working and what's not working," James Johnson said. "That's what the preseason is for.
"We're still learning each other with the second unit, the first unit and different rotations."
Spoelstra has for the most part fielded two distinct units in the first two exhibitions. But there was a brief span when Johnson & Johnson got to rekindle their chemistry in Thursday's third period, including a sequence that featured James Johnson assisting Tyler Johnson in transition.
"Obviously, Coach knows that we have a connection and that that's not something that we've really got to work on," Tyler Johnson said. "It's something that was there, and we didn't really need to work on it last year. It just kind of comes naturally. We can play off of each other really well.
"But, at the same time, obviously being out there with your guy is something that you want, but, at the same time, it's preseason, trying to do different lineups."
Tyler Johnson said the split has been seamless for him with facilitators such as Kelly Olynyk, Justise Winslow and Josh Richardson now alongside in the second unit.
"J.J., he's a one-of-a-kind player, so you're not just going to pick up and find someone else like him," Tyler Johnson said. "But at the same time there's guys on our team who do a number of different things. A guy like Kelly Olynyk is another versatile big who can pass, who can shoot, who can score. Obviously J-Rich is a guy that we can play together. Justise Winslow is another guy we can play off of.
"We're building relationships in new roles. We didn't get to play with Justise whole lot last year [due to season-ending shoulder surgery in January]. I don't think it's a matter of finding a new J.J. I think it's building the relationships with the guys we have on the court."
Similarly, James Johnson said it would be foolish to try to recreate in the first unit what he had alongside Tyler Johnson with last season's reserves.
"We know what Dion's strength are, and I just try to do the best I can to put him in position to use his strengths," James Johnson said. "The same things I'm doing with [Hassan] Whiteside and the same thing I'm doing with Dragon [Goran Dragic]."
CAPTION Spoelstra: No need to show anger to appease outsiders. Spoelstra: No need to show anger to appease outsiders. CAPTION Spoelstra: No need to show anger to appease outsiders. Spoelstra: No need to show anger to appease outsiders. CAPTION Dwyane Wade: Braids a tribute to Iverson Dwyane Wade: Braids a tribute to Iverson CAPTION Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra says his team showed grit in loss to the Phoenix Suns. Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra says his team showed grit in loss to the Phoenix Suns. CAPTION Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade says his team's loss to the Phoenix Suns hurt his team and their hopes of getting to the playoffs. Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade says his team's loss to the Phoenix Suns hurt his team and their hopes of getting to the playoffs. CAPTION Miami guard Josh Richardson talks about the obstacles that lead hs team's loss to the Phoenix Suns. Miami guard Josh Richardson talks about the obstacles that lead hs team's loss to the Phoenix Suns.
iwinderman@sunsentinel.com. Follow him at twitter.com/iraheatbeat or facebook.com/ira.winderman
For daily Heat mailbag go to sun-sentinel.com/askiraA ring-shaped warp-drive device could theoretically transport a football-shaped starship (center) to effective speeds faster than light. The concept was first proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994.
Scientists, engineers and exploration advocates will gather in central California this week to help plan out humanity's journey to the stars.
The action is happening in Monterey Monday through Wednesday (Aug. 7 through Aug. 9), at a conference called Starship Congress 2017.
"Our question for Starship Congress 2017 is what role the moon can play to catalyze humankind's venturing forth to explore interstellarly," conference organizers wrote in a description of the event. "Furthermore, this year's theme builds on a key take-away from the Starship Congress 2015 summit at Drexel University: In order to make interstellar space exploration interesting to everyone, what must we do to make space accessible for everybody?"
The speakers include physicist Miguel Alcubierre, who in 1994 proposed a type of real-life warp drive that could theoretically enable faster-than-light travel without breaking the laws of physics; planetary scientist Franck Marchis; scientist and sci-fi author David Brin; and Richard Obousy, co-founder and director of Icarus Interstellar, a nonprofit dedicated to helping make interstellar flight a reality by 2100. (Icarus Interstellar is organizing the conference.)
To learn more about Starship Congress 2017, visit the conference page here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/starship-congress-2017-tickets-33352347770
Space.com's Mike Wall will be in attendance, keeping tabs on the most exciting developments.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.October 25, 2017 - Dem Has 20-Pt Likely Voter Lead In New Jersey Gov Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Huge Gender Gap As Women Back Murphy By 36 Points
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A huge lead among women propels Democrat Phil Murphy to a 57 - 37 percent lead over Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno among likely voters in the race for New Jersey governor, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
This compares to a 58 - 33 percent Murphy lead over Guadagno, in a September 13 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.
In today's result, women back the Democrat 65 - 29 percent while men are divided with 49 percent for Murphy and 45 percent for Guadagno.
Murphy leads 92 - 4 percent among Democrats and 52 - 39 percent among independent voters. Republicans go to Guadagno 89 - 8 percent.
With 13 days until the election, 83 percent of likely voters who name a candidate say their mind is made up, while 14 percent say they might change their mind.
Murphy gets a 44 - 34 percent favorability rating among likely voters, compared to Guadagno's negative 33 - 41 percent favorability.
Taxes are the most important issue in deciding how they will vote in the governor's race, 36 percent of likely voters say, while 14 percent list the economy. Another 11 percent cite health care and 9 percent say education.
"Lt. Gov. Guadagno could not be in a worse situation. Phil Murphy leads her among most voter groups and the state's electorate gives her an unfavorable rating overall," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
"What's more, politics is a team game. Guadagno's GOP teammates - President Donald Trump, with a 33 percent job approval rating, and Gov. Christopher Christie, with his 15 percent approval rating - are clearly pulling her down."
"The way Republicans occasionally win in blue states such as New Jersey is by attracting some soft Democrats and dominating among independent voters. But only 4 percent of Democrats say they will vote for Guadagno, compared to 8 percent of Republicans backing Murphy. And his double-digit lead among independent voters makes it difficult to find a realistic path to a Guadagno victory."
Guadagno's role as lieutenant governor to Gov. Christopher Christie is heavier baggage than Murphy's work at Goldman Sachs, New Jersey likely voters say.
For 51 percent of these voters, Guadagno's role as lieutenant governor to Gov. Christopher Christie has a negative impact on their opinion of her. Another 10 percent say it has a positive impact and 37 percent say it doesn't matter.
Murphy's 23 years at Goldman Sachs creates a negative impact on the opinion of 30 percent of likely voters. For 6 percent, it has a positive impact and 61 percent say it doesn't matter.
President Trump, Gov. Christie Approval Ratings
New Jersey likely voters disapprove 65 - 33 percent of the job President Donald Trump is doing. Republicans approve 80 - 19 percent and white voters with no college degree are divided, as 47 percent approve and 52 percent disapprove. Every other party, gender, education and racial group disapproves by wide margins.
Gov. Christie's historic low approval ratings continue, a negative 15 - 80 percent today. Even Republican likely voters disapprove 57 - 37 percent.
Voters disapprove 49 - 31 percent of the job U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez is doing and say 59 - 19 percent that he does not deserve to be reelected next year.
New Jersey likely voters approve 61 - 32 percent of the job U.S. Sen. Cory Booker is doing.
From October 19 - 24, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,049 New Jersey likely voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.2 percentage points, including the design effect. Live interviewers call landlines and cell phones.
The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys nationwide, and statewide polls in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa and Colorado as a public service and for research.
Visit poll.qu.edu or www.facebook.com/quinnipiacpoll Call (203) 582-5201, or follow us on Twitter @QuinnipiacPoll.
1. If the election for Governor were being held today, and the candidates were Phil Murphy the Democrat and Kim Guadagno the Republican, for whom would you vote? (If undecided) As of today, do you lean more toward Phil Murphy the Democrat or Kim Guadagno the Republican?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Murphy 57% 8% 92% 52% 49% 65% 58% 44% Guadagno 37 89 4 39 45 29 38 51 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 2 - 2 1 2 - 3 DK/NA 5 1 4 6 5 5 4 3 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Murphy 46% 57% 52% 71% Guadagno 51 38 44 20 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 1 2 1 1 DK/NA 3 4 4 8
1a. (If candidate chosen q1) Is your mind made up, or do you think you might change your mind before the election?
LIKELY VOTERS....................... CANDIDATE CHOSEN Q1................. CANDIDATE OF CHOICE Q1 Tot Murphy Guadagno Made up 83% 82% 86% Might change 14 14 13 DK/NA 3 4 1
2. Is your opinion of Phil Murphy favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about him?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 44% 7% 71% 40% 41% 48% 47% 31% Unfavorable 34 77 6 38 39 29 36 47 Hvn't hrd enough 20 15 22 18 19 20 15 20 REFUSED 2 1 2 3 1 3 2 2 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Favorable 37% 44% 40% 54% Unfavorable 48 35 41 17 Hvn't hrd enough 14 19 17 26 REFUSED 1 2 2 3
3. Is your opinion of Kim Guadagno favorable, unfavorable or haven't you heard enough about her?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Favorable 33% 80% 8% 33% 41% 27% 34% 46% Unfavorable 41 8 60 44 37 46 49 35 Hvn't hrd enough 23 11 30 19 20 26 15 17 REFUSED 2 1 2 3 2 2 2 2 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Favorable 44% 34% 39% 20% Unfavorable 40 46 43 40 Hvn't hrd enough 14 18 16 38 REFUSED 2 2 2 2
4. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Chris Christie is handling his job as Governor?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Approve 15% 37% 2% 16% 19% 11% 17% 19% Disapprove 80 57 96 78 77 83 79 77 DK/NA 5 6 2 5 4 6 4 4 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Approve 22% 14% 18% 9% Disapprove 75 81 78 85 DK/NA 3 5 4 6
5. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Cory Booker is handling his job as United States Senator?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Approve 61% 23% 90% 56% 52% 69% 58% 53% Disapprove 32 72 4 33 40 24 36 40 DK/NA 8 5 6 10 8 7 6 7 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Approve 50% 62% 56% 74% Disapprove 45 31 38 17 DK/NA 6 7 6 9
6. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Robert Menendez is handling his job as United States Senator?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Approve 31% 11% 45% 28% 31% 31% 30% 21% Disapprove 49 81 27 53 54 44 54 61 DK/NA 20 8 28 19 15 25 17 17 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Approve 25% 27% 26% 41% Disapprove 63 52 57 33 DK/NA 13 21 17 26
7. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Approve 33% 80% 3% 36% 39% 27% 33% 47% Disapprove 65 19 96 60 58 70 64 52 DK/NA 2 1 1 4 3 2 3 1 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Approve 44% 35% 39% 19% Disapprove 54 63 59 80 DK/NA 2 2 2 2
8. Do you feel that Robert Menendez deserves to be reelected, or do you feel that he does not deserve to be reelected?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Yes/Deserves 19% 8% 29% 16% 21% 18% 19% 16% No/Does not 59 87 42 60 62 57 60 67 DK/NA 22 5 29 24 18 25 20 17 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Yes/Deserves 16% 19% 18% 23% No/Does not 70 57 63 51 DK/NA 14 24 19 26
9. In general, how satisfied are you with the way things are going in New Jersey today; are you very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Very satisfied 2% 2% 2% 2% 2% 1% 1% 2% Smwht satisfied 28 35 25 27 32 24 26 30 Smwht dissatisfied 39 38 41 35 38 39 44 35 Very dissatisfied 31 25 30 35 27 34 30 33 DK/NA 1 - 2 1 1 1 - - WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Very satisfied 2% 1% 1% 2% Smwht satisfied 31 24 28 31 Smwht dissatisfied 38 41 40 35 Very dissatisfied 29 33 31 30 DK/NA - 1 - 2
10. Which of these is the most important issue to you in deciding how to vote for governor this year: taxes, the economy, education, the budget, health care, race relations, the environment, gun policy, or ethics in government?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Taxes 36% 53% 26% 35% 39% 32% 33% 43% Economy 14 17 11 16 18 11 15 14 Education 9 2 12 12 8 11 12 3 Budget 6 9 5 7 7 6 8 7 Health care 11 4 16 8 7 15 7 12 Race relations 3 - 3 4 2 3 2 1 Environment 3 - 5 3 3 3 6 2 Gun policy 5 3 9 1 4 6 3 5 Ethics in government 9 10 10 9 10 8 11 9 SOMETHING ELSE(VOL) 1 1 - 3 2 1 2 1 DK/NA 2 1 3 2 1 3 2 2 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Taxes 40% 36% 38% 29% Economy 16 13 14 15 Education 7 9 8 11 Budget 8 8 8 3 Health care 6 11 9 14 Race relations 2 1 1 6 Environment 4 5 4 2 Gun policy 4 4 4 9 Ethics in government 12 9 10 8 SOMETHING ELSE(VOL) 1 1 1 1 DK/NA 1 3 2 2
11. As you may know, Phil Murphy worked for Goldman Sachs for 23 years. Does this have a positive impact on your opinion of Phil Murphy, a negative impact, or does it have no impact on your opinion of Phil Murphy?
LIKELY VOTERS........................................ WHITE...... COLLEGE DEG Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Yes No Positive 6% 7% 9% 3% 8% 5% 5% 4% Negative 30 31 27 32 35 26 31 33 No impact 61 61 61 63 56 65 63 61 DK/NA 3 2 3 2 1 4 1 3 WHITE..... Men Wom Wht NonWht Positive 4% 5% 5% 9% Negative 38 26 32 27 No impact 57 66 62 59 DK/NA - 3 2 5
12. As you may know, Kim Guadagno has been Chris Christie's lieutenant governor for about eight years. Does this have a positive impact on your opinion of Kim Guadagno, a negative impact, or does it have no impact on your opinion of Kim Guadagno?Fragments 1-19 are numbered here according to the ordering used for the "B" fragments in H. Diels, Die Fragment der Vorsokratiker, ed. W. Kranz, 6th ed. (Hildesheim: Weidmann, 1951). Hence Fragment 1 = DK B1, etc.
Fragment 1
surinx
thea
Fragment 2
Fragment 4
Fragment 5
Fragment 6
Fragment 7
krinai
logos
Fragment 8
muthos
eon
eon
noein
ek mē eontos
phaton
noos
noēton
eon
eon
eon
anoēton
to eon
eontos
eon
eonti
themis
themis
to eon
noēma
noēma
eon
Fragment 9
Fragment 10
Fragment 11
eschatos
Fragment 12
Fragment 13
Fragment 14
Fragment 15
Fragment 15a
Fragment 16
phroneei
Fragment 17
Fragment 19
telethei
Fragment 1, line 3:
The manuscripts here are all corrupt (i.e., they must be the results of miscopying since they present a series of letters that do not form a sequence of correctly-spelled words). The most common way to make sense of them gives the sequence of words I have translated above. Recently N.-L. Cordero has argued that the letters could yield a different sequence of words, so that this line would read something like (my translation): Of a goddess, who bears there, in relation to everything, the man of understanding. See N.-L. Cordero, By Being, It Is (Parmenides Publishing, 2005) and Les Deux chemins de Parménide, 2d ed. (Vrin/Ousia, 1997).
Fragment 1, line 29 eupeitheos, well-persuasive; others have eukukleos, well-rounded.
: The manuscripts differ here. Some offer, well-persuasive; others have, well-rounded.
Fragment 2, line 3 hōs estin. Hōs means 'how' or possibly 'that,' and estin is the third-person singular form of the verb 'to be.' Like some modern languages such as Spanish, Greek often omits the noun or pronoun preceding a verb if the subject of the verb is clear from the context. Thus : The Greek here is very difficult. The Greek phrase ismeans 'how' or possibly 'that,' andis the third-person singular form of the verb 'to be.' Like some modern languages such as Spanish, Greek often omits the noun or pronoun preceding a verb if the subject of the verb is clear from the context. Thus hōs estin would mean how/that [something] is. But because we do not have the whole text of Parmenides' poem, we do not have an absolutely clear indication of what the subject of the verb (the "something") is. Given the goddess's remarks about eon ("being" or "what is") in Fragments 6 through 8, many scholars suggest that the subject of the verb estin in Fragment 2 line 3 is eon. This would match well with the description of what must be said and conceived concerning eon on the road of inquiry that is discussed in the first 49 lines of Fragment 8. Other commentators have suggested that in fact there is no subject for the verb, and that the line should be read as indicating that one road of inquiry is to conceive that "is," i.e. to take seriously the meaning and implications of saying that anything "is."
Fragment 2, line 4 Peithō (Persuasion) follows Alētheiē, but the spelling in the manuscripts suggests that it is the other way around. This may or may not be a result of corruption in the manuscripts. As for what : Many translators present this line so that(Persuasion) follows, but the spelling in the manuscripts suggests that it is the other way around. This may or may not be a result of corruption in the manuscripts. As for what
alētheiē (also spelled alētheia ) means, it is related, but not identical, to truth. It is also not equivalent to unconcealment, another way the word is sometimes rendered.To present alētheiē is to do more than to say something true, or to state the truth. Whereas the opposite of truth is falsity or falsehood, alētheiē is opposed |
use a certain Aspect’s fifth skill for movement. Portals with a Sun emblem on the floor might be a prime location for a Light Dash…
Frequenters of the Arena have the opportunity to find a Zephyr Rucksack in their rewards!
Southsun Survival
This new PvP survival free-for-all activity is being run by the charismatic Evon Gnashblade and can be joined by talking to Captain Gnashblade in the Labyrinthine Cliffs. Up to 20 players will be dropped into Southsun Cove with only a bow with which to survive. Scavenge for supplies and kill other Survivors to become the last one standing and secure your victory.
A few tips:
Hunger is a constant threat in the wilderness of the cove; search for rations to keep up your strength.
After an initial grace period, Survivors who die will shift over to the mists. Mist walkers should look for blue motes to help them exact revenge on other Survivors. Note that only one Mist Walker can collect a mote, so later in the game those Revenge Motes will be hotly contested!
The creatures of Southsun Cove slowly move in from the beaches, be sure to check the status of a camp before you enter or you may find a deadly serving of karka.
Dedicated Survivalists have a chance to find a Desert Rose back item in their spoils.
Southsun Survival After Elimination: A breakdown of Mist Walkers and Revenge Motes
Imagine you’ve just stopped to scavenge for goods and a fellow Survivor hits you with a long distance Head Shot. The initial two minute grace period is over and now you’re out of the running for final Survivor. What do you do? Fear not – you may be down, but you are far from out!
Eliminated players return to play as Mist Walkers! Mist Walkers are wisps of spirits returned to haunt the remaining Survivors.
Mist walker skills run off of Revenge Motes – ethereal blue motes that randomly appear in the wilderness and can be created by: Survivors scavenging passiflora and miscellaneous goods Survivors successfully attacking or trapping other Survivors
Stalk surviving players to collect the Revenge Motes they create as they scavenge for supplies and fight other survivors. The motes will allow you to use various skills against Survivors to hasten their demise.
Things to do in the open world
Supporting a Candidate for Achievements
Many of the achievements require you to support your candidate while performing things like events and dailies in the open world.
A few tips:
Be sure to cast your Support Tokens in the Support baskets in Zephyr Sanctum to earn Representation Buttons. These will allow you to show your support while participating in open world content!
Persisting Bazaar of the Four Winds Content
Labyrinthine Cliffs The Bazaar of the Four Winds is still taking place in the beautiful Labyrinthine Cliffs
Lessons from the Sky The Zephyrite Sky Crystals are still around, so adventurers can hunt for any crystals they have not found.
Sanctum Sprint The races continue! Enjoy the magical Zephyrite movements in this high speed competition.
Belcher’s Bluff Make sure you don’t miss your chance to face Poyaqui, the Grandmaster of Om, before he moves to Lion’s Arch!
Trade opportunities The Zephyrites are still accepting land based supplies in return for their Zephyr Supply boxes. The Zephyrite kid is hoping to load up on Tyrian sweets before the Sanctum departs!
Kite Baskets These baskets, filled with Zephyrite goods, are still landing across Tyria for explorers to find!
Stolen Kite Baskets Those hoarding skritt are still guarding their pilfered baskets closely; can you find them in some of Tyria’s most challenging jumping puzzles.
Visit the Bazaar of the Four Winds guide for a complete breakdown of persisting Bazaar of the Four Winds content:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-guide-to-bazaar-of-the-four-winds/Update: May 1st 2018:
All Spreadsheets are Finalized and Forworded to Project Owners to Start Distribution..
Everyone can check his final status in spreadsheets..
no more complaints and issues will be accepted from onward.
Update: Bounty Program is Closed for new Applications.
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[td][center][url=http://www.nodepower.io][font=arial narrow][size=17pt][glow=#045089,2,300][b][size=1pt][sup][size=13pt][color=#045089]█[color=#0660A3]█[color=#086FBC]█[color=#057CD5]█[color=#068AEE]█[/size][/sup][/size][size=5pt] [/size][color=transparent][font=arial black].[/font][/color][color=#068AEE][u][color=#FFF]INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY FOR WIRELESS ENERGY[/u][color=transparent][font=arial black].[/font][/color][size=5pt] [/size][size=1pt][sup][size=13pt][color=#068AEE]█[color=#057CD5]█[color=#086FBC]█[color=#0660A3]█[color=#045089]█[/color][/size][/sup][/size][/glow][/size][/font][/url]
[glow=#272C2F,2,300][b][size=7pt][color=black][font=Arial black].[/font][/color][font=Arial][url=https://www.facebook.com/nodepower.eu/][color=#fff]FACEBOOK[/url] [url=https://twitter.com/nodepower_eu][color=#fff]TWITTER[/url] [url=https://www.instagram.com/nodepower.eu/][color=#fff]INSTAGRAM[/url] [url=https://join.slack.com/t/node-technology/shared_invite/enQtMjQ2MDQxNjY2ODA0LThlMmIzZmY3ZDc5NmU3M2UwYTU4MDZjYWUyYjRmNzc0M2QxMzFjNDcyYzU2ZTg1YWFjYTM3YmMzOWY4Y2Y5NGI/][color=#fff]SLACK[/url] [url=https://www.reddit.com/user/nodepower/][color=#fff]REDDIT[/url] [url=http://www.nodepower.io/whitepaper.pdf][color=#51B6FE]▌ [font=Arial black]WHITEPAPER[/font] ▐[/color][/url] [url=https://medium.com/@nodepower][color=#fff]MEDIUM[/url] [url=https://t.me/nodeofficial/][color=#fff]TELEGRAM[/url] [url=https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYyeSKoizPsbmchL9MNzT1w/][color=#fff]YOUTUBE[/url] [url=https://www.linkedin.com/company/18262353/][color=#fff]LINKEDIN[/url] [url=https://github.com/nodepower/][color=#fff]GITHUB[/url][/font][font=Arial black].[/font][/size][/b][/center][/td][td][/td]
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[Reddit Bounty:
Budget:
Payment:
Terms and rules:
Telegram Bounty:
Join and Apply:
Payments:
Requirements to get paid:
Rules:
2% of Sold Tokens is reserved for all bounties which will be allocated as follows:35% - Social Media Campaign (20% - Twitter, 10% - Facebook, 5% Instagram)10% - Translation and Moderation Campaign (Including ANN thread, WP and website)15% - Blog and Youtube Campaign15% - Signature Campaign10% - Telegram campaign5% - Reddit Campaign10% - MiscellaneousAll Bounties will be paid directly to all eligible users wallets at the end of Main ICO Phase. (allow at least 2 weeks for finalizing and calculation of all stakes, tasks and assign payments)35% of the total Bounty Pool will be allocated for Social Media Campaign bounties which will be divided equally Between Facebook and Twitter Bounties.500 to 1000 Real Followers: 15 Stakes/Week1001 to 5000 Followers: 30 Stakes/Week5000+ Followers: 50 Stakes/Week300 to 1000 Real Friends: 15 Stakes/Week1000+ Real Friends: 30 Stakes/WeekEarn 5 Stakes for Every Valid Comment you do in Facebook posts..in your weekly reports. mention number of comments along with your shares.100 to 500 Followers: 15 Stakes/Week500 to1000 Followers: 30 Stakes/Week1000+ Followers: 50 Stakes/WeekFollow the Official Twitter Handle: https://twitter.com/nodepower_eu Fill this form: https://goo.gl/forms/81YoJsuqguuDJXOJ3 Like Official Facebook Fan-page: https://www.facebook.com/nodepower.eu/ Fill this Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQ8PkMoADj73WFtnyZVZ6JLRZCXyKRCVDq3lFxZGiLvArdqw/viewform Follow Official Instagram Account: https://www.instagram.com/nodepower.eu/ Fill This Form: https://goo.gl/forms/JPNCBgc3mSE4f2eY2 Spreadsheet (All): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zSVHPALVCfsZQxQZMXYOTp0vBQvZ_4a6W14zVSiQy2w/edit#gid=1357588342 1: You Must Follow Official Twitter account and must do at least 7 Retweets A week.2: You must Like Official Facebook Page and must do at least 7 Shares on Facebook,3" You must Follow official Instagram account and like all Instagram updates,(if there is less then 7 official tweets and facebook posts in a specific week then this rule will not comply in that week)4: Only Retweet original posts. do not retweet answers of others and5: make at least 3 Tweet Every week With Hashtage #Nodepower and Make at least 3 Facebook Post Every Describing the Project.6: each Week you must Submit links of your Retweet, Tweets, Posts and Shares in this post.7: Do not Retweet and Share all tasks in one day. you must complete the tasks in overall week. doing all tasks in one day can make you disqualify1: Twitter Accounts must have a Minimum of 500 Real Followers. and Facebook accounts must have a minimum of 300 Real Friends and Instagram Account must have 100 Followers minimum.2: Twitter/Facebook/Instagram accounts must be original. Fake, dead, inactive and bot accounts will not be accepted.3: You must be an active and regular twitter user, and must be retweeting/sharing Node's official tweets and updates.4: Joining with multiple accounts is not allowed. Users found to be using multi accounts, will be blacklisted.5: A user can participate in all 3 social campaigns at the same time.5: Owners and Managers have the right to change the rules, or apply more and do any other reasonable changes in this bounty (Including payment structure and amount)9: doing all tweets and shares in one day can make you disqualify.15% of total bounty pool reserved for all valid translators and community managers. Translate NODE's ANN thread, Whitepaper and Manage local community/thread and get your Reward.Whitepaper translation: 500 stakesANN Thread and Bounty thread translation: 150 stakesModeration: 5 stakes for each post (only OP)To reserve a language please post your interest with some of your previous translation work.(All Translations are Reserved)After finishing your translation, fill in this form with your translation and other details: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1voj4R18ehhnI4ZiOCzqg-f0SuX-zzqIYjuPLTLNZsl8/ Spreadsheet of completed translations: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zSVHPALVCfsZQxQZMXYOTp0vBQvZ_4a6W14zVSiQy2w/edit#gid=1357588342 1: Translations must be original, using any kind of tools such as Google are not allowed. If found the translator will be blacklisted.2: ANN thread translator will be responsible for the moderation as well (we have additional rewards for moderation). The translator must keep the thread active by translation of official announcements, news, posts.3: We do not need any Single Post Dead Thread. If you failed to keep the thread active and up to date, your reward can be reduced to 50% of the actual payment or you could simply be disqualified.4: Increasing the moderation post count by spam posts, posting false posts or paying other to ask questions in your thread is not allowed.5: Newbies i.e. users with no previous experience of translation will not be accepted. Always ask before beginning translation and post your previous translation work.5: Manager and owners reserve the rights to add rules, or do any kind of reasonable changes.We'll Reward all Bloggers, writers, youtubers, video creators who will add their support to promote NODE Project by writing reviews, blogs, articles in their website and blogs, and create video presentation. reviews on their youtube channels and other sources.15% of total the Bounty Pool will be allocated for Blog and Media Bounty Participants.Well Divide all Videos and Blog/Articles in 3 Categories and will reward them as followsHigh Quality: 100 StakesMedium Quality: 70 StakesNormal Quality: 40 StakesWrite your Article, Reviews, or Create Your Video and Submit your Entry Using the form Below:Fill the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rWujUz2O4sO_StA55Xv_ncCIYIBEE-cTEXKAshsyYTw/ Here is the list of all blogs and videos: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zSVHPALVCfsZQxQZMXYOTp0vBQvZ_4a6W14zVSiQy2w/edit#gid=1357588342 1: Low Quality Articles and Videos are not Accepted.2: Article and Videos Must Be genuine. Copying others content, articles or ripping off stuff is not allowed. (You can use official Images, Logos, Graphics posted in the Node's website, ANN thread, facebook and Twitter)3: Article Must be Longer than 500 Characters, less than 500 Characters will not be accepted.4: Video Must be at least 1:30 Minute Long. shorter than that will not be accepted.5: Article Must have 2 Links of Official Website: http://www.nodepower.io/ and a link of the Whitepaper: http://www.nodepower.io/whitepaper.pdf and one link of your own Bitcointalk Profile in bottom of your article to Proof your authorship (if you miss this rule your entry will be disqualified and will not get accepted again)6: In description of Video you must have one link of your official website, one link link of whitepaper and one link of your own bitcointalk profile to proof your authorship.7: Medium, Steemit, Newbium, and other general/free blogging platforms are allowed but only One Post of a Person will be accepted in those platforms.8: and 3 Posts Articles will be accepted in.com.net.org and other premium websites and blogs,9: Manager and the Owners will have the rights to change any rules, or make any changes if necessary.We will reward all the supporters with NODE Tokens who'll add our Signature and Avatar to their Profiles and Help us in promoting the project in all over the forum.30% of total Bounty Budget will be Allocated for SignatureJr Member and Member: 15 Stakes/WeeksFull Member: 30 Stakes/WeekSr Member: 50 Stakes/WeekHero and Legendary: 80 Stakes/WeekFull Member and Up will be Rewarded with 5 Additional Stakes for Wearing Avatar1: Keep the signature until the end of the Campaign. Removing a signature in the middle of campaign will disqualify you.2: You must do a minimum 10 posts per week. less than 10 posts will not be counted.3: Posts must be constructive and On-topic. Spamming, low quality posts, copy paste and off topic posts will not be counted.4: Eligible posts must be 75 Character Long. Posts shorter than 75 Character will not be counted.5: Payment will be done once at the End of the token sale.6: Keep your signature till spreadsheet updated with your final post count (allow at least one week to count posts) Removing a signature before post count will simply disqualify you.7: Newbies are not allowed to Join.8: owners and managers save the rights to apply new rules, change rules and do any other reasonable changes if necessary (including payment amount and structure)Add Signature of Your Profile rank and fill the form below:Joining Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeefIpxnYXl1_b8CT6NvhzPIEvJggrEcvRxeFgCwuYUPFfczg/viewform Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zSVHPALVCfsZQxQZMXYOTp0vBQvZ_4a6W14zVSiQy2w/edit#gid=1357588342 Preview:Now You can Earn reward using your reddit account and help us to promote the project in all our Project through out the reddit Crypto related Communities and Subbreddits..a total of 5% of bounty pool will be allocated for Reddit promotion.5% will be used for the reddit Following and sharing Bounty Program.Tasks need to be done:1: Follow Official Reddit Account: https://www.reddit.com/user/nodepower 2: Post/Share Project link in any crypto related community subreddit. (For Example: reddit.com/r/crypto)(You can post website link. whitepaper link. you can share official blog posts. and you can share all related Press release and other official announcement and updates)3: make/reserve a post in this thread and update the post with your posted/shared links regularly. and Submit that post link through form below:Form: https://goo.gl/forms/asEspuWPESPyNMSj2 spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zSVHPALVCfsZQxQZMXYOTp0vBQvZ_4a6W14zVSiQy2w/edit#gid=1357588342 5 Stakes for each subscribers.2 Stakes for each link posted/shared on any crypto related channel.you'll get additional 0.5/stakes for each upvote you'll gain on your post.1: Reddit account must be original.2: the post must be related to the project. and must not be a spamming.3: Post must exist to the channel. the posts which get removed by subreddit moderators will not be rewarded.4: one Person should use one account. using multiple accounts is not allowed.We are looking for more and more Readers. Followers and Contributors for Our Upcoming Token Crowd-sale event, and for early supporters we have a lot of bounties, rewards and Bonus... Join our Telegram and Slack Channel today. be a part of the largest Cryptocurrency Social Media Platform and Earn bonus reward. Payment will be paid along with all other bounties.1:2:5% of Bounty will be fixed to pay all eligible and active telegram bounty participants.1: You must join the Telegram Group and stay there till the end of Crowdsale.1: an at least 2 month old bitcointalk, twitter or reddit (or 2 month older account in any social platform)2: an ethereum wallet to receive your tokens (only use a wallet address of which you have private key or a ERC20 Toke supported wallet)1: User must stay on the group till the end of crowdsale.2: User must be active and supportive in the group. inactive users can get 50% less payrate or can be simply disqualified.3: Using bad language, spamming, advertising any other service in InvestFeed groups not allowed.4: Only one account on each platform allowed. a person found to be cheating by creating multiple accounts will be disqualified.5: Having a 2 month older bitcointalk, twitter, facebook or reddit account is mandatory.. using brand new accounts of these platforms will not be accepted.Sheriff Lindsay Foulis called drugs 'a curse on society' as he questioned why dealer was bought to court on summary complaint.
© STV
A sheriff has accused Crown Office prosecutors of living in "rarefied atmosphere" after a drug dealer was prosecuted on a summary complaint.
Hamish Brackett, 26, was caught transporting thousands of pounds worth of drugs but is likely to face a maximum period of around two months behind bars.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis lambasted the fact he had not faced a solemn complaint, which gives sheriffs more sentencing powers, when the criminal admitted drug dealing at Perth Sheriff Court on Thursday.
The sheriff said senior Crown Office prosecutors should move out of the "rarefied atmosphere" they worked in to see the damage drugs do on Scotland's streets.
After being told Brackett had £4000 worth of cannabis in his car when he was stopped on the M90 between Inverkeithing and Perth on October 23, 2011, Sheriff Foulis said: "I am a little surprised it is being prosecuted on a summary complaint.
"If those sitting in the rarefied atmosphere of Crown Office saw what damage was done by drugs to society generally they might look at things in a slightly different light.
"I would say over 50% of regular offenders in this court have addiction problems. It is a curse on society."
Brackett, of Manson Avenue, Perth, had sentence deferred for reports. The maximum sentence on a summary complaint is 12 months, but Brackett can expect a one third reduction for pleading guilty before a trial.
If he is sentenced to eight months, he is likely to spend just two of that in jail before being freed on a home curfew with a tag.
Minutes later, the same sheriff renewed his attack on the leniency of the Crown Office after discovering an alleged £80,000 fraudster had also been prosecuted on a summary complaint.
He said: "As far as I can see we have got something like £45,000 worth of fraud and another £37,000 worth of attempted fraud. And that is on summary complaint?
"Is the value of things not sufficient? This is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven instances of fraud or attempted fraud over a period of a month and a half.
"I would repeat the observation I made earlier. I am just summing up my indignation and surprise."
The fraud accused, Christopher Ireland, was not present in court and his case was continued while he maintains his innocence of the charges.
Sheriff Foulis has previously been an outspoken critic of Scotland's justice system and the political constraints placed on sheriffs.
On one occasion, he said Scotland's justice system should "put the lights out then and just walk off" after discovering a drug dealer was freed to commit crime just two months after he imposed a 25-month sentence upon her.
And in April 2011, the sheriff said it was "virtually pointless" jailing a sex offender because there was no way of telling how long he would actually be locked up for.News 10
The suspect sought in the shooting of four police officers was peacefully apprehended early Saturday after a manhunt and hours-long standoff, CBS Local reports.
Police were in contact and had surrounded a home that 32-year-old Samuel Duran allegedly broke into during the manhunt.
A robot was sent into the home around 11 p.m. Friday and Duran finally emerged peacefully at around 12:30 a.m.
"We have him locked down to an area of Sixth Street and Hampton," Roseville Police Lt. Cal Walstad said in a press conference Friday, according to Sacramento Bee. "SWAT officers are involved and they are talking with him on the telephone."
The first officer shot around 3 p.m. was with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and transported to a local hospital. At around 5:10 p.m. three officers with the Roseville Police Department were also wounded and taken to the hospital.
Roseville's official Twitter account described three officers, including the ICE officer, in stable condition, and the fourth in serious condition.
"Obviously [there is] a tremendous amount of concern for our fallen officers that were shot, and the ICE officer that was shot," Roseville Police Chief Daniel Hahn told CBS Local on Saturday. "... We're just hoping they recover quickly."
An ICE spokesperson told AP the officers were involved in a "joint law enforcement action."
During the manhunt and standoff, the official Twitter account of Roseville Police Department tweeted that police had been searching for the suspect for about a week. The account also |
speak and be heard.
Mark: That’s entirely correct. So, in your open you mentioned the popular slogan that liberals have adopted from Voltaire that, “I may disagree with what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Anti-fascists fundamentally disagree with that premise. They argue that, given the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka, the destruction that Nazis have caused, that fascists, white supremacists shouldn’t be granted the right to express their ideas in public, in part because, they argue, had that been done earlier in the 1920s, the 1930s, we might have been able to bypass what ended up happening.
Brooke: I get that as a tactic, but I’m still not sure how the philosophy of anti-fascism squares with the liberal values of free speech and open dialogue, and I guess it doesn’t.
Mark: To some extent, it doesn’t. The question is: if we want to prevent something along the lines of what happened in the 1930s and 40s from happening again, how do we do it? And the liberal prescription for doing it is, essentially, free and open debate and dialogue, and if Nazis do something illegal then hopefully the police will stop them. Antifascists recognize that in the 1930s, 1940s, the police supported fascism. The fascists didn’t actually stage a revolution to come to power; they worked within the political system. And all the reasonable dialogue and debate that one could muster did not do the job. The argument is that, if we want such a horrific crime to not reoccur, it needs to be nipped in the bud, through a variety of tactics, but one of which is through violently disrupting Klan rallies, neo-Nazi speeches, and so forth. The other thing to remember is that anti-fascists identify as communists, as anarchists, as socialists, and want to organize for a revolutionary rupture with the prevailing political system, and that this is in-line with that. That’s also another reason why the two philosophies don’t quite jibe.
Brooke: So, the liberal idea that in a marketplace of ideas the good ideas will rise to the top and the bad will drop out the bottom—they don’t buy that. You don’t buy that either?
Mark: Well, unfortunately, terrible ideas have risen to the top throughout history. The liberal ideal is that the government is a referee in a game that all parties are invited to play. But, in actual fact, whenever left groups have become threatening, you get Red Scares, you get repression, you get COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 70s. And so, anti-fascists are arguing that we want a political content to how we look at speech and society which is drastically different from a liberal take, and that this entails shutting down the extreme manifestations of fascism and neo-Nazism. We need to recognize that this is not simply a question of whether a fascist government will come to power or not. (I’m skeptical that such an explicitly fascist government would come to be.) But that those who carry out hate crimes, they feel emboldened when their ideas become mainstream. So, the idea with anti-fascist politics is to prevent those ideas from having that opportunity.
Brooke: But where does it stop? How are we different from our fascist opponents if we both subscribe to the idea that speech should be repressed when we regard the message to be dangerous?
Mark: Germany has a prohibition against advocating for Nazis publicly. That doesn’t mean that Germany is a closed society where people can’t say whatever they want to say. You can have some prohibitions against speech without going all the way. In the context of an increasing number of hate crimes — the Southern Poverty Law Center cited over 800 such crimes immediately following the election of President Trump — the idea is that the people who carry out these crimes are listening to Richard Spencer speeches, going on Stormfront websites, imbibing this hateful doctrine, and that, to the degree that we can shut it down, we will have fewer people copy-catting them into attacking vulnerable populations. Most people would agree that it was acceptable in the 1930s and 1940s to organize armed resistance to the Nazi regime. The question is: how terrible does it have to be before that becomes legitimate? And the anti-fascist answer is: you need to nip it in the bud from the beginning.
Brooke: You wrote that “liberals tend to examine issues of sexism or racism in terms of the question of belief, or what is in one’s heart. What is often overlooked in such conversations is that what one truly believes is sometimes much less important than what social constraints allow that person to articulate or act upon.”
Mark: Right. So, the message that I’m trying to get across with that is that we have a certain set of societal taboos around what one can say and can’t say, and those have shifted over time. The words that are acceptable to use about different ethnic minorities, about women, about all sorts of groups, have shifted over time. The way that I think that we maintain a firm barrier against the ‘Alt-Right’ making racism okay again, making sexism okay again, is to really increase the social cost of presenting oppressive views out in public. So that when someone like Donald Trump says something sexist, we raise a ruckus, we disrupt business as usual, to make it so that it’s not acceptable to raise these views in public. Increase the social cost of that being able to be a public discourse, and push back through politics.
Brooke: So, what does the American Antifa movement look like? What are its tactics?
Mark: Under that specific banner, it is still relatively new and it’s finding its way. But a lot of anti-fascist or Antifa groups have formed in different cities around the United States. A lot of what they do is researching information on local white supremacists, who they are, where they live, where they work—sometimes pressuring their employers to get them fired, sometimes making sure that if they organize private events at local venues for white supremacists, they try to pressure the venue owner to try to cancel the event. So, that research and coalition-building with groups that are affected by various forms of fascist or white supremacist violence is a lot of what’s done. What gets more of the headlines is when the demonstrations come out onto the street. And so, as I’m sure you and a number of listeners are well aware, there have been high-profile incidences recently, such as in Berkeley, of trying to physically shut down events, that has raised the profile of antifascism.
Brooke: Physically confronting people, that’s part of the strategy, right?
Mark: Yes, it is. It’s an illiberal politics of social revolutionism applied to fighting the far right.
Brooke: In a recent article, you advocated for “everyday anti-fascism,” that is, “anti-fascism that goes beyond punching Nazis.”
Mark: Right. So, there are these glamorous topics—the video of Richard Spencer getting punched got millions and millions of shares. But if we want to think about how to create an anti-racist and anti-sexist society, we need to think about the everyday interactions that we have with each other at our workplaces, in our families, among our friends, and say: if someone is articulating a homophobic perspective, or prejudicial against immigrants, am I doing what I can to try to change their mind? Am I raising some sort of opposition or am I tacitly going along with it because I’m just letting it slide? So, everyday anti-fascism is not having any tolerance for intolerance. It’s not agreeing to disagree about hateful behavior. It’s saying, ‘look, if you’re going to be a part of my life, you need to shape up. You can’t treat people like this; you can’t say things like this.’ And it’s holding people accountable. And sometimes that means you need to end some friendships. Or it means maybe you should boycott the business down the street that’s been rude to Latino immigrants.
Brooke: You say that our goal should be that, in twenty years, those who voted for Trump are too uncomfortable to share that in public.
Mark: Raise the social cost of being a bigot. And sometimes that’s enough to make it so that someone doesn’t feel empowered enough to act on it in a way that puts people in jeopardy. But, there is a growing radical sector of the left that is simply not going to take any chances of the possibility of ‘Alt-Right’ politics becoming the mainstream. We have a Breitbart editor and white supremacist in the White House. We’re not that many steps away from a situation where a crisis unfolds, the Trump administration uses some sort of emergency authorization to centralize power. And so, if we want to make it so that ‘Alt-Right’ ideas are not taken seriously, the anti-fascist argument is that you don’t even let them start to have that platform in society. This is the norm of antifascist politics in Europe, where many people remember the legacies of living under the Franco regime, for example, in Spain, and see how it has affected them in their everyday life. It’s not something that classical liberal sympathizers will feel comfortable with…
Brooke: Or as Jack Shafer refers to me: ‘public radio talk-show hosts.’
Mark: Maybe, maybe. But that [anti-fascism] is a growing response to the white supremacist presence that has grown in alarming ways in our country.
Suggested Further Readings
Trump and Everyday Anti-fascism Beyond Punching Nazis (Mark Bray, ROAR Magazine)
Antifa Worldwide: A Brief History of International Antifascism (Alexander Reid Ross, Anti-Fascist News)
Why no platform is still relevant, and the trouble with liberal “anti-fascism” (LibCom.org)
Sites to follow for Anti-fascist news and analysis: Anti-Fascist News, It’s Going Down, SubMedia
Syllabus on the Political Economy of Fascism (Mike Isaacson)
Beating Milo: How Berkeley Defeated the Alt-Right’s Biggest Troll (It’s Going Down)
No platform for fascists (Workers Solidarity Movement)
Misunderstanding the Civil Rights Movement and Diversity of Tactics (Lorenzo Raymond, The Hampton Institute)
Concerning the Violent Peace Police (David Graeber, N+1)
Black Bloc Tactics – 10 Quick Points (Harsha Walia)
Back in Black (Salar Mohandesi, Viewpoint Magazine)
This is Not a Dialogue (Crimethinc)
It’s Not Your Speech, Milo (Crimethinc)A leader of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced Sunday that she is stepping down from her post to support the presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersSenate Dems seek to turn tables on GOP in climate change fight Bernie Sanders Town Hall finishes third in cable news race, draws 1.4 million viewers Woman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid MORE (I-Vt.).
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Rep. Tulsi Gabbard Tulsi GabbardOvernight Defense: Trump to hold one-on-one with Kim | What to watch as summit kicks off | Top general dodges on Trump emergency declaration Tulsi Gabbard throws cold water on Trump-Kim denuclearization talks Warren vows to forgo 'fancy receptions or big money fundraisers' MORE (D-Hawaii), who serves as a vice chairwoman of the DNC, announced her endorsement in an interview with NBC's “Meet the Press” that aired Sunday morning.
"I think it’s most important for us, as we look at our choices as to who our next commander in chief will be, is to recognize the necessity to have a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment, who looks beyond the consequences, looks at the consequences of the actions they're looking to take, before they take those actions, so we don't continue to find ourselves in these failures that have resulted in chaos in the Middle East and so much loss of life," Gabbard said.
Gabbard is the fourth member of Congress to endorse Sanders in his battle against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE. She is his most high-profile congressional endorsement to date.
The Hawaii Democrat's tenure at the DNC has not been without controversy. In October, she complained she was “disinvited” from a debate after she urged the party to hold more debates. Sanders later offered her a seat with his campaign.
Gabbard has been described as one of the Democratic Party's next rising stars. Still in her first term, she is the first Hindu elected to Congress and the first person born in American Samoa. She is also one of only two female combat veterans elected to Congress.
"Today I accepted Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's resignation as a Vice-Chair of the DNC. The Democratic National Committee is grateful for her service,” DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement, calling Gabbard a “role model.”
“I look forward to continuing to work alongside her when our Party unites behind whoever emerges as our nominee.”
--This report was updated at 11:31 a.m.Sabah Farm Stay: Conflicted Emotions
The concept of a farm stay fills me with a kind of instinctive dread.
Having been raised in the rural backwoods of Australia’s New England region, I can’t hear the word ‘farm’ without my mind being filled with images of the vacant-eyed farm boys who made my high school years so unpleasant.
The phrase conjures up images of back-breaking labour, quiet boredom, and an unwelcome detachment from the comforts that emit from the tiny smartphone that has become every bit as essential to my being as my passport and my wallet.
So, it was a with a certain sense of trepidation that I embarked on a two night Sabah Farm Stay at Kiulu Farm Stay in Malaysia.
Day One: First Impressions and being happily proven wrong
I distinctly remember a growing feeling of desperate unhappiness as the beat up old truck rattled and bounced its way down an increasingly deteriorating dirt track – the bars on my phone’s 3G gradually decreasing and then, finally, disappearing completely.
A frightened chicken fled at my arrival. I did the mental math in my head as to how many hours separated me from blessed civilization.
And then I saw it.
Like a bridge out of some teen fantasy novel, the suspension bridge acted as a kind of barrier between the real world I was leaving behind and the remarkably fascinating world that lived on the opposite side of the river.
Something remarkable happened as I made my slow, swaying way across the bridge: I cast aside my doubts and surly predisposition and I just opened myself up to the experience.
I’m so glad that I did. My time at Kiulu Farm Stay would stand out as the absolute highlight of my time in Sabah.
My accommodation for my visit would be the newly finished Fig Tree.
As you can see, it’s a traditional long house style design with a modern take on both sustainability and convenience. Built from bamboo that creaks and shifts deliciously under your bare feet, modern conveniences like comfortable double beds, hot and cold running water, and a well-equipped little kitchen make it a perfect base to explore the nearby villages and jungle.
Each night, local women would come in to whip together a delicious local feast of kampong (village) chicken, tilapia caught from the many ponds in the area, and fresh picked vegetables.
Far from being tedious affairs, my nights were filled with laughter and comfort.
Whether I was teaching my host how to play Monopoly, drinking rice wine with the locals in a dimly lit hut, or sharing stories in the riverside sulap – I would go to bed each night tired and happy.
And the sleep! I don’t think I’ve ever slept so well as those two nights in which I was lulled to sleep by the warbling river, the twittering night birds, the rustling branches, and the chirping cicadas.
The days were no less entertaining. They were also considerably more exhausting.
My first day saw us immediately heading to the local village to do a little exploration.
As we walked, we’d pluck fresh rambutans and langsat from the trees and share them between us as my two guides took turns talking to me about the local culture.
In many ways, the village reminded me of my own village in Australia. There were obvious differences, of course. My village has high speed internet and cable television, while theirs had more of a pulse. Kids played badminton in the community hall, locals sat outside and chatted, chickens and dogs raced around, and it all felt very much alive.
Unlike other tourist friendly villages I’ve visited in my travels, I didn’t find myself inundated with souvenir vendors or smiling kids asking for money.
Far from it, I was treated to reactions ranging from warm welcomes to polite indifference. It was refreshing to be able to take it in organically, rather than have it forced down my throat.
Our walk took us beyond the village and into the motley of farmsteads and dense jungle beyond. It wasn’t quite machetes out conditions, but there was plenty of ducking under low hanging branches and one-leg-dancing to get myself out of a tangle of vines.
I was taken by the enterprise on display in every farm. With land and resources limited, families don’t focus on a single crop and instead grow everything they might need. Pineapples, rice, tilapia, vegetables, chickens, and more all co-exist in the same relatively small parcels of land.
Day Two: Jungles and Marriage Proposals
My second day in the village offered a more comprehensive exploration.
Starting out bright and early after a big breakfast, we again ventured into the village to learn a bit more about the local culture.
From visits to the local cemetary (where the above panorama of the village was taken) to tight-rope walks through the heart of rice paddies to detours through farms to show off a new local innovation or experiment gone wrong, it was a pleasant way to start the day.
After a brief stop at my host’s home to meet his family and mentally prepare ourselves for the jungle trek, it was off again.
The jungle trek is not some dumbed down tourist thing. It’s a lot of slogging through ankle-deep streams, half-sliding down muddy embankments, ducking underneath thorny vines, and occasionally exhausting uphill climbs.
There are no ropes or paved paths to follow, and it’s all the more fantastic for it.
The trek itself takes about two sweaty, entertaining hours. We fill ourselves with ice cold river water and fresh fruit as we go, with my host’s dog (aptly named ‘puppy’) racing ahead of us to scout the way and ensure there are no unpleasant surprises ahead.
Along the way we forage for ingredients for the lunch we’ll cook together, occasionally stopping to snatch up fresh tomatoes or vegetables whose names escape me.
We even try our luck with the blowgun to see if we can’t bring down a bit of game.
When the trek is finished, we return to my host’s home for a big family lunch that we whip up together. I even chip in by preparing some vegetable and anchovies dish that I proclaim to be my favourite.
There’s fresh lime juice to accompany our meal, and aunts, nieces, sisters, and children all gather around the table.
It’s over lunch that my host attempts to set me up with not one, but two of my relatives.
“This is my sister,” he informs me, “She manages a hotel in Kota Kinabalu and is your age”.
When the sister blushes bright red and beats a hasty retreat, he seems to have dropped the subject.
We’re going to learn how to shell rice and separate the husks from the rice. He summons his niece.
“Future husband and wife!” he proclaims proudly as we perform the task of pounding the rice to get the husks off.
We both blush and I, assuming from Jennifer’s height that she is 12 or 13, quickly try to change the subject.
“What is your favourite subject at school?”
“Tourism management,” she replies.
“Oh, they teach that here?”
“No, they teach it at my university”.
My host cackles with delight and continues to suggest we would be a good match. His many brothers, including the girl’s father, are only too happy to continue the joke as we’re all invited to the local river for a swim where a jungle river and a mountain river meet.
The river is a lot of fun. The warm mountain water and the cold jungle water meet and mingle together, leaving one side of the river ice cold and one side bathwater warm.
The current is strong, so my host slings a rope across the river for the less strong swimmers to grab onto.
All told, there are maybe a dozen of us in the water, with all but me being part of my host’s extended family.
Continuing the joke, my host and two of his brothers continually push their 21 year old niece in my direction. We both politely decline their invitation to marry one another.
We play local variations of water games like Marco Polo, slide along the rapids on our backsides, and probably would have stayed a lot longer had the thunder not begun to boom overhead in prologue to a tropical deluge the likes of which seemed entirely fitting for our jungle setting.
My time at Kiulu Farm Stay was one of the high points of my year.
There was a kind of simple pleasure to be found in a life removed from Instagram and Facebook posts, nervously awaiting WeChat replies from the girl I was flirting with at the time, and emails from work.
We have a nasty habit of glamourising the comparative poverty of those in the developing world as some kind of simpler ideal, and I don’t want to be guilty of doing that here. Education and medical care are still very much issues in communities like this, but initiatives like Kiulu Farm Stay are going some way towards remedying that be bringing vital money into the community.
What I liked most about the experience was that, at least for now, this influx of money has not been used to cheapen the experience. There are no cheesy photo opportunities or cliched tourist traps here – just local people enriching their lives a little by enriching the lives of their visitors.
As my host put it:
“There is poverty here if you measure wealth by money. But nobody here is hungry. Nobody here is thirsty. We have all we need”.
There’s a real beauty in that sense of community – of people pulling together for the improvement of their lives.
I left Kiulu Farm Stay ashamed at my pre-judgement and warmed by their hospitality.
My visit to Kiulu Farm Stay was organised by the Sabah Tourism Board as part of their #HelloSabah campaign. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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From Facebook"Johannes Climacus" redirects here. For the philosopher who used this pseudonym, see Søren Kierkegaard
Saint John Climacus (Greek: Ἰωάννης τῆς Κλίμακος; Latin: Ioannes Climacus), also known as John of the Ladder, John Scholasticus and John Sinaites, was a 6th-7th-century Christian monk at the monastery on Mount Sinai.[1] He is revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches.
History [ edit ]
There is almost no information about John's life. There is in existence an ancient Vita (life) of the saint by a monk named Daniel of Raithu monastery. Daniel, though claiming to be a contemporary, admits to no knowledge of John's origins—any speculation on John's birth is the result of much later speculation, and is confined to references in the Menologion. The Vita is generally unhelpful for establishing dates of any kind. Formerly scholarship, on the basis of John's entry in the Menologion, had placed him in the latter 6th Century. That view was challenged by J.C. Guy and others, and consensus (such as there is) has shifted to a 7th Century provenance. If Daniel's Vita is trustworthy (and there is nothing against which to judge its accuracy), then John came to the Vatos Monastery at Mount Sinai, now Saint Catherine's Monastery, and became a novice when he was about 16 years old. He was taught about the spiritual life by the elder monk Martyrius. After the death of Martyrius, John, wishing to practice greater asceticism, withdrew to a hermitage at the foot of the mountain. In this isolation he lived for some twenty years, constantly studying the lives of the saints and thus becoming one of the most learned Church Fathers.[2] When he was about seventy-five years of age, the monks of Sinai persuaded him to become their Igumen. He acquitted himself of his functions as abbot with the greatest wisdom, and his reputation spread so far that, according to the Vita, Pope Gregory the Great wrote to recommend himself to his prayers, and sent him a sum of money for the hospital of Sinai, in which the pilgrims were wont to lodge.
Of John's literary output we know only the Κλῖμαξ (Latin: Scala Paradisi) or Ladder of Divine Ascent, composed in the early seventh century at the request of John,[3] Abbot of Raithu, a monastery situated on the shores of the Red Sea, and a shorter work To the Pastor (Latin: Liber ad Pastorem), most likely a sort of appendix to the Ladder. It is in the Ladder' that we hear of the ascetic practice of carrying a small notebook to record the thoughts of the monk during contemplation.[4]
The Ladder describes how to raise one's soul and body to God through the acquisition of ascetic virtues. Climacus uses the analogy of Jacob's Ladder as the framework for his spiritual teaching. Each chapter is referred to as a "step", and deals with a separate spiritual subject. There are thirty Steps of the ladder, which correspond to the age of Jesus at his baptism and the beginning of his earthly ministry. Within the general framework of a 'ladder', Climacus' book falls into three sections. The first seven Steps concern general virtues necessary for the ascetic life, while the next nineteen (Steps 8–26) give instruction on overcoming vices and building their corresponding virtues. The final four Steps concern the higher virtues toward which the ascetic life aims. The final rung of the ladder—beyond prayer (προσευχή), stillness (ἡσυχία), and even dispassion (ἀπάθεια)—is love (ἀγάπη).
Originally written simply for the monks of a neighboring monastery, the Ladder swiftly became one of the most widely read and much-beloved books of Byzantine spirituality. This book is one of the most widely read among Orthodox Christians, especially during the season of Great Lent which immediately precedes Pascha (Easter). It is often read in the trapeza (refectory) in Orthodox monasteries, and in some places it is read in church as part of the Daily Office on Lenten weekdays, being prescribed in the Triodion.
An icon known by the same title, Ladder of Divine Ascent, depicts a ladder extending from earth to heaven (cf. Genesis 28:12) Several monks are depicted climbing a ladder; at the top is Jesus, prepared to receive them into Heaven. Also shown are angels helping the climbers, and demons attempting to shoot with arrows or drag down the climbers, no matter how high up the ladder they may be. Most versions of the icon show at least one person falling. Often, in the lower right corner St. John Climacus himself is shown, gesturing towards the ladder, with rows of monastics behind him.
St. John's feast day is March 30 in both the East and West. The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Byzantine Catholic Churches additionally commemorate him on the Fourth Sunday of Great Lent. Many churches are dedicated to him in Russia, including a church and belltower in the Moscow Kremlin. John Climacus was also known as "Scholasticus," but he is not to be confused with St. John Scholasticus, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Several translations into English have been made, including one by Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, 1978). This volume contains the Life of St. John by Daniel, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, and To the Pastor, and provides footnotes explaining many of the concepts and terminology used from an Orthodox perspective, as well as a General Index.[5]
See also [ edit ]
The Uncondemning Monk; also commemorated 30 March
Søren Kierkegaard, who published several works under the pseudonym "Johannes Climacus" and two under the pseudonym "Anti-Climacus"President Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett met with Black Lives Matter activists yesterday at the White House, the latest sign that the Obama administration is involved with the controversial protest group.
Jarrett met with three organizers for Campaign Zero. DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, and Johnetta Elzie as well as Phil Agnew of the Dream Defenders and Jamye Wooten, an organizer for Baltimore United for Change were there, according to a senior White House official who confirmed the visit to Buzzfeed.
After the meeting, Packnett tweeted a selfie with Jarrett thanking her for engaging the movement.
honest and action oriented. thank you continuing to engage w the movement, Valerie. @vj44 http://t.co/RskHvpGIYl pic.twitter.com/WkcA221Tjs — Brittany Packnett (@MsPackyetti) September 17, 2015
“Great meeting, Brittany. Truly appreciate your leadership!!” Jarrett replied on Twitter. Packnett has six recorded entries of visiting the complex long before the protests in Ferguson. She also was among the select group of Ferguson activists that met with Obama in December 2014. “I could tell he is taking this very personally,” Packnett explained after the 45 minute meeting with the president in the Oval Office. “He wants to see some clear, thoughtful action come from this.”
She also revealed that Obama sympathized with the movement, thanks to his background as a community organizer in Chicago.
“He offered us a lot of encouragement with his background as a community organizer, and told us that even incremental changes were progress,” she told reporters after the meeting. “He didn’t want us to get discouraged. He said, ‘Keep speaking truth to power.’”
Packnett was also selected as a member of Obama’s presidential task force on 21st century policing – and has a long record of activism in St. Louis including some time spent in Washington D.C.
In past interviews, she described herself as the “bridge” between Ferguson protestors and Washington D.C.
She also help turn the Ferguson protests into a nationwide movement, after launching a newsletter of information relevant to the protests, spreading the #blacklivesmatter hashtag and helping the movement draft op-eds and documents.
As the Ferguson protests grew, she wrote her own story about her father, a Baptist pastor and a college professor who was “thrown against the hood of his imported car and beaten as my brother watched, screaming and crying.”
“I believe in non-violent civil action. I know that riots solve nothing. But I understand what Dr. King meant when he told Mike Wallace ‘a riot is the language of the unheard,’ nearly 50 years ago,” she wrote. “And in a community long overlooked, underserved, and continually harassed by law enforcement, the pressure finally burst the proverbial pipe.”
The group of activists also met with Roy Austin, the director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs.According to the girlfriend, Mineo requested her to shoot him in the forehead at point-blank range. Police say Mineo and his girlfriend, both conspiracy theorists and doomsday preppers, were ostracized by an alien conspiracy cult that embraced apocalyptic biblical themes from the Book of Revelation. Fearing the coming end of the world, Mineo was overcome with despondency leading up to his death wish.
Last summer, fearing the end times, another prepper killed three men near his fortified compound in Great Cacapon, West Virginia. Erick Shute, who was also a sovereign citizen, says he shot the men with a.223-caliber rifle because they were cutting wood and trespassing on his land. Doomsday preppers often emphasize living “off the land” or “off the grid” and in isolation. Investigators found the tell-tale signs of a doomsday prepper when they searched Shute’s property – stockpiles of food, a cache of guns, and ammunition hoarding. There was also concern that Shute had placed land-mines on the property to protect its perimeter.
The murders in Pennsylvania and West Virginia are just the latest in a long string of brutal murders and suicides among those prepping for the end times. A year earlier, Michael “Augustine” Bournes murdered his wife and three children at their cabin in a remote Montana forest. Bournes, then set his house on fire and committed suicide. Neighbors describe him as a survivalist who lived off the grid.
On January 17, 2015, David Crowley, an aspiring conspiracy filmmaker and screenwriter, shot and killed his wife and daughter in their home in Apple Valley, Minnesota. He then committed suicide. Crowley had been working on a feature film project called “Gray State,” with a storyline that revolved around a coming police state after societal breakdown.
In September 2014, Benjamin and Kristi Strack of Springville, Utah, murdered three of their four children, with a poisonous cocktail of cold medicines laced with dextrorphan and doxylamine. They then killed themselves. Authorities later learned that the parents were worried about the “evil in the world” and wanted to escape a “pending apocalypse.” Family and friends reported the Stracks wanted to move somewhere “far off the grid.”
A few months later, Veronica Dunnachie was charged with the shooting deaths of her estranged husband and stepdaughter during a domestic dispute in Arlington, Texas. Both Veronica and her husband were members of the 3%ers Texas, a militia group, and had an affinity for prepping and learning survival skills. There are other murder/suicide cases (ie, Shane Franklin Miller, Jimmy Lee Dykes, and Peter Keller) that demonstrate the dark side of doomsday prepping.
Doomsday prepping has been an American subculture since the 1950s. During the 20th century, preppers fed on American fears in the aftermath of World War II, the nuclear arms race, civil unrest, and economic volatility. Similarly, the 21st century has brought new uncertainties, including Y2K, weather disasters, the Mayan end calendar, global terrorism, and more civil unrest. In light of these disastrous events and predictions, doomsday preppers’ emphasis on “preparedness” appears to make sense. Family preparedness may even be advisable. Nevertheless, beyond a few legitimate reasons, doomsday prepping, for the most part, represents a dark worldview that combines, to varying degrees, end-times apocalyptic views, an obsession with firearms (and other weaponry), conspiracy theories and too often an anti-government sentiment. When combined, these radical views become toxic and lead unsuspecting followers down a funnel of despair, which perpetuates fear, paranoia and extremism.
Preppers are best known for stockpiling supplies (e.g. food, water, medicine, fuel, etc.) and building bunkers in anticipation of an impending catastrophic event, such as a war, terrorist attack or disastrous natural occurrence. Prepping can be embraced both by individuals, who emphasize surviving “alone,” and groups which emphasize communal living. Examples of prepper communities include the Citadel project in Benewah County, Idaho; the Trident Lakes subdivision in Ector, Texas; and Ft. Igloo in Falls River, South Dakota.
Since the 1950s, Preppers, also known as “survivalists,” have spread their ideology and tradecraft through preparedness expositions, gun shows, literature, and religious institutions — such as Mormons, Baptists, and cults. These trends continue today. Since 2008, the Prepper Movement has steadily increased membership and grown in both sophistication and creativity. Companies specializing in making bulk emergency supplies, like ready-made meals and water purification systems, have attested to this steady rise in popularity due to sales increases. Much like the 1990s, preparedness conventions continue to attract thousands of people at each event throughout the country.
The 2008 Presidential Election, coupled with the 2008 stock market crash, marked the beginning of the prepper renaissance. However, new factors have emerged that have influenced the recent popularity growth of doomsday prepping. In 2016, Donald Trump’s election further stoked the fires of fear and paranoia within the Prepper community and far right extremists with his rhetoric concerning Muslim terrorist threats in the Homeland, nuclear threats from North Korea, criminal threats from immigrants and other security issues. As a result, the Prepper Movement remains popular and supply companies within the U.S. continue to report growing sales. For example, an Idaho-based emergency supplies company, called My Patriot Supply, doubled its online sales during the week of Inauguration Day compared to the same week in 2016. Georgia-based Doomsday Prep also noticed sales spikes on both Election Day and Inauguration Day. Since the 2016 election, it has seen more than a 15% growth.
Cable television shows, such as National Geographic’s “Doomsday Preppers,” Discovery’s “The Colony” and “Survivorman,” have mainstreamed, and even glorified, survivalism and end times prepping. The advent of the Internet has also given preppers a new tool to recruit members and supporters, teach tradecraft using YouTube videos, as well as create entire online marketplaces for purchasing and selling prepper-related gear and other supplies. While there are various theories about what causes the world to end, Preppers are unified on the core beliefs that society is on the verge of collapse and the last days are near.
Besides spreading fear and paranoia and preparing for the end times, the Prepper Movement provides a gateway to more radical ideologies and extremist movements, such as militia groups, white supremacists, and sovereign citizens. Of particular concern, the Prepper Movement has experienced a disturbing trend of murders and suicide over the past four years.
As prepper deaths continue to mount, rumors have circulated on survivalist forums and other far right extremist websites about secret government “hit lists” or “death lists” targeting them. They claim that this trend of murder/suicides within the Prepper Movement is the work of a sinister government plot to get rid of them. They |
four.
The network was reserved for government use but in 1834 two bankers, François and Joseph Blanc, devised a way to subvert it to their own ends.[19]
Sweden [ edit ]
A replica of an optical telegraph in Stockholm, Sweden
At the same time as Chappe, the Swedish inventor Abraham Niclas Edelcrantz experimented with the optical telegraph in Sweden. In 1794 he inaugurated his telegraph with a poem dedicated to the Swedish King on his birthday. The message went from the Palace in Stockholm to the King at Drottningholm. Edelcrantz eventually developed his own system which was quite different from its French counterpart and nearly twice as fast. The system was based on ten collapsible iron shutters. The various positions of the shutters formed combinations of numbers which were translated into letters, words or phrases via codebooks. The telegraph network consisted of telegraph stations positioned at about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from one another. Soon telegraph circuits linking castles and fortresses in the neighbourhood of Stockholm were set up and the system was extended to Grisslehamn and Åland. Subsequently, telegraph circuits were introduced between Gothenburg and Marstrand, at Helsingborg and between Karlskrona and its fortresses. Sweden was the second country in the world, after France, to introduce an optical telegraph network. The Swedish optical telegraph network was restricted to the archipelagoes of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Karlskrona. Like its French counterpart, it was mainly used for military purposes.[citation needed]
United Kingdom [ edit ]
Diagram of UK Murray six-shutter system, with shutter 6 in the horizontal position, and shutters 1-5 vertical
In Ireland, Richard Lovell Edgeworth returned to his earlier work in 1794, and proposed a telegraph there to warn against an anticipated French invasion; however, the proposal was not implemented. Lord George Murray, stimulated by reports of the Chappe semaphore, proposed a system of visual telegraphy to the British Admiralty in 1795.[3] He employed rectangular framework towers with six, five feet high octagonal shutters on horizontal axes that flipped between horizontal and vertical positions to signal. [20] The Rev. Mr Gamble also proposed two distinct five-element systems in 1795: one using five shutters, and one using five ten foot poles.[3] The British Admiralty accepted Murray's system in September 1795, and the first system was the 15 site chain from London to Deal.[21] Messages passed from London to Deal in about sixty seconds, and sixty-five sites were in use by 1808.[21]
[22] St. Albans High Street in 1807, showing the shutter telegraph on top of the city's Clock Tower. It was on the London to Great Yarmouth line
Chains of Murray's shutter telegraph stations were built along the following routes: London—Deal and Sheerness, London—Great Yarmouth and London—Portsmouth and Plymouth.[22] The shutter stations were temporary wooden huts, and at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars they were no longer necessary, and were closed down by the Admiralty in March 1816.[23]
A replacement system was sought, and of the many ideas and devices put forward the Admiralty chose the simpler semaphore system invented by Sir Home Popham.[2][3] A Popham semaphore was a single fixed vertical 30 foot pole, with two movable 8 foot arms attached to the pole by horizontal pivots at their ends, one arm at the top of the pole, and the other arm at the middle of the pole.[1][2] The signals of the Popham semaphore were found to be much more visible than those of the Murray semaphore.[1] Popham's 2-arm semaphore was modeled after the 3-arm Depillon French semaphore.[1] An experimental semaphore line between the Admiralty and Chatham was installed in July 1816, and its success helped to confirm the choice.[23]
Subsequently, the Admiralty decided to establish a permanent link to Portsmouth and built a chain of semaphore stations. Work started in December 1820[23] and the line was operational from 1822 until 1847, when the railway and electric telegraph provided a better means of communication. The semaphore line did not use the same locations as the shutter chain, but followed almost the same route with 15 stations - Admiralty (London), Chelsea Royal Hospital, Putney Heath, Coombe Warren, Coopers Hill, Chatley Heath, Pewley Hill, Bannicle Hill, Haste Hill (Haslemere), Holder Hill, (Midhurst), Beacon Hill, Compton Down, Camp Down, Lumps Fort (Southsea), and Portsmouth Dockyard. The semaphore tower at Chatley Heath, which replaced the Netley Heath station of the shutter telegraph, has been restored by Surrey County Council and is open to the public.
The Board of Port of Liverpool obtained a Private Act of Parliament to construct a chain of Popham optical semaphore stations from Liverpool—Holyhead in 1825.[24] Many of the prominences on which the towers were built ('telegraph hills') are known as Telegraph Hill to this day. As in France the network required lavish amounts of money and manpower to operate and could only be justified as a defence need.
Other countries [ edit ]
Optical telegraph in the harbour of Bremerhaven, Germany
Once it had proved its success, the optical telegraph was imitated in many other countries, especially after it was used by Napoleon to coordinate his empire and army. In most of these countries, the postal authorities operated the semaphore lines.
In Portugal, the British forces fighting Napoleon in Portugal soon found that the Portuguese Army had already a very capable semaphore terrestrial system working since 1806, giving the Duke of Wellington a decisive advantage in intelligence. The innovative Portuguese telegraphs, designed by Francisco Ciera, a mathematician, were of 3 types: 3 shutters, 3 balls and 1 pointer/moveable arm (the first for longer distances, the other two for short) and with the advantage of all having only 6 significant positions. He also wrote the code book "Táboas Telegráphicas", with 1554 entries from 1 to 6666 (1 to 6, 11 to 16,... 61 to 66, 111 to 116,... etc.), the same for the 3 systems. Since early 1810 the network was operated by "Corpo Telegráfico", the first Portuguese military Signal Corps.
Spain was spanned by an extensive semaphore telegraph network in the 1840s and 1850s[25]. The three main semaphore lines radiated from Madrid[25][26]. The first ran north to Irun on the Atlantic coast at the French border. The second ran west to the Mediterranean, then north along the coast through Barcelona to the French border. The third ran south to Cadiz on the Atlantic coast. These lines served many other Spanish cities, including: Aranjuez, Badajoz, Burgos, Castellon, Ciudad Real, Córdoba, Cuenca, Gerona, Pamplona, San Sebastian, Seville, Tarancon, Taragona, Toledo, Valladolid, Valencia, Vitoria and Zaragoza[26].
In Canada, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent established the first semaphore line in North America. In operation by 1800, it ran between the city of Halifax and the town of Annapolis in Nova Scotia, and across the Bay of Fundy to Saint John and Fredericton in New Brunswick. In addition to providing information on approaching ships, the Duke used the system to relay military commands, especially as they related to troop discipline. The Duke had envisioned the line reaching as far as the British garrison at Quebec City; however, the many hills and coastal fog meant the towers needed to be placed relatively close together to ensure visibility. The required labour to build and continually man so many stations taxed the already stretched-thin British military and there is doubt the New Brunswick line was ever in operation. With the exception of the towers around Halifax harbour, the system was abandoned shortly after the Duke's departure in August 1800.[27][28]
The Semaphore Tower at Khatirbazar, Andul in Howrah district of West Bengal.
In 1801, the Danish post office installed a semaphore line across the Great Belt strait, Storebæltstelegrafen, between islands Funen and Zealand with stations at Nyborg on Funen, on the small island Sprogø in the middle of the strait, and at Korsør on Zealand. It was in use until 1865.[29]
The Kingdom of Prussia began with a line 750 kilometres (470 mi) long between Berlin and Coblenz in 1833, and in Russia, Tsar Nicolas I inaugurated a line between Moscow and Warsaw of 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) length in 1833; it needed 220 stations manned by 1,320 operators.
The British military authorities began to consider installing a semaphore line in Malta in the early 1840s. Initially, it was planned that semaphore stations be established on the bell towers and domes of the island's churches, but the religious authorities rejected the proposal. Due to this, in 1848 new semaphore towers were constructed at Għargħur and Għaxaq on the main island, and another was built at Ta' Kenuna on Gozo. Further stations were established at the Governor's Palace, Selmun Palace and the Giordan Lighthouse. Each station was manned by the Royal Engineers.[30]
In the United States the first optical telegraph was built by Jonathan Grout. It was a 104 kilometres (65 mi) line connecting Martha's Vineyard with Boston, and its purpose was to transmit news about shipping. One of the principal hills in San Francisco, California is also named "Telegraph Hill", after the semaphore telegraph which was established there in 1849 to signal the arrival of ships into San Francisco Bay.
The semaphores were successful enough that Samuel Morse failed to sell the electrical telegraph to the French government; however, France finally committed to replace semaphores with electric telegraphs in 1846. Electric telegraphs are both more private and almost completely unaffected by weather; they also work at night. Many contemporaries predicted the failure of electric telegraphs because "they are so easy to cut."[31] The last stationary semaphore link in regular service was in Sweden, connecting an island with a mainland telegraph line. It went out of service in 1880.
In popular culture [ edit ]
A cartoon strip of "Monsieur Pencil" (1831) by Rodolphe Töpffer
The Chappe telegraph appeared in contemporary fiction and comic strips. In "Mister Pencil" (1831), comic strip by Rodolphe Töpffer, a dog fallen on a Chappe telegraph's arm and its master attempting to help provoke an international crisis by involuntarily transmitting disturbing messages. In "Lucien Leuwen" (1834), Stendhal pictures a power struggle between Lucien Leuwen and the prefect M. de Séranville with the telegraph's director M. Lamorte. In Chapter 60 ("The Telegraph") of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), the title character describes with fascination the semaphore line's moving arms. "I had at times seen rise at the end of a road, on a hillock and in the bright light of the sun, these black folding arms looking like the legs of an immense beetle."[32] He later bribes a semaphore operator to relay a false message in order to manipulate the French financial market. Dumas also describes in details the functioning of a Chappe telegraph line. In Hector Malot's novel Romain Kalbris (1869), one of the characters, a girl named Dielette, describes her home in Paris as "...next to a church near which there was a clock tower. On top of the tower there were two large black arms, moving all day this way and that. [I was told later] that this was Saint-Eustache church and that these large black arms were a telegraph."[33] The system was referenced in later works such as C. S. Forester's Hornblower and the Hotspur (1962), where the destruction of a French semaphore tower and a shore battery is a key plot point. A similar event is also the focus of the seventh episode of the television series. Interference with the French semaphore system is also an important plot element in Ramage's Signal by Dudley Pope. In the young adult fiction book Death Cloud by Andy Lane (2010), Mycroft Holmes tells 14-year-old Sherlock Holmes about semaphore stations, commenting about his school beforehand, saying "All the Latin a boy can cram into his skull, but nothing of practical use."
Fictional versions of the telegraph also appear in literature. In the alternative history novel, Lest Darkness Fall (1939), by L. Sprague de Camp, the protagonist, a twentieth century man who time travels into Dark Age Rome, develops a semaphore system to warn of invasion. To make it practical, he also invents the telescope. Pavane (1968), an alternate history novel by Keith Roberts, features a society where long distance communication is by a network of semaphores operated by the powerful Guild of Signallers. Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (from The Fifth Elephant, 1999, onwards) describe a system of eight-shutter semaphore towers, known as Clacks, which occupy a similar role to that of the Internet. Using advanced clack coding, it is possible not only to send very fast telegrams, but also to encode pictures and send them long-distance, and shopping and banking via the clacks is also mentioned. In David Weber's Safehold series (2007), a worldwide semaphore system is used by the Church to help them maintain their dominion over the world. In Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World (2010), the distant-future terrain is criss-crossed with semaphore lines relaying information between the one remaining city, Spearpoint, outlying communities and the airborne community Swarm.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Citations
Bibliography
Crowley, David and Heyer, Paul (ed) (2003) 'Chapter 17: The optical telegraph' Communication in History: Technology, Culture and Society (Fourth Edition) Allyn and Bacon, Boston pp. 123–125
Further reading [ edit ]Time's Michael Grunwald tweets for Assange's death The reporter's aggressive comment caused a Twitter storm
I'm not alone in having little personal love for Julian Assange. That said, I decry any efforts by the U.S. or any government to persecute the publisher for his work with WikiLeaks.
Time's Michael Grunwald, however, with a lack of both professionalism and humanity (and seeming self-awareness) sent out a nasty Tweet Saturday night, essentially calling for Assange's extrajudicial murder. "I can't wait to write a defense of the drone strike that takes out Julian Assange," the reporter wrote (in a since-deleted Tweet that was none the less captured for posterity by shocked Twitter users:)
Advertisement:
Other reporters, particularly Glenn Greenwald, responded with ire and disgust at Grunwald's comment:
[embedtweet id="368879615432871936"]
As HuffPo noted, this Tweet (which, in fact Grunwald only reportedly deleted so as not fuel Assange supporters) is not the Time reporter's first crass and blunt expression of support for extra judicial drone killings. Earlier this year, he welcomed the drone strike that "iced" U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki (whose teenage son was also killed by a U.S. drone.)
[embedtweet id="309050931276820480"]
Following the incident, Time put out the following statement:An executive summary is presented below. Download our complete 19 page analysis, including full valuation and price targets:
Note: At the time of publication of this report, Multicoin is long ZRX.
Executive Summary
0x is a protocol for decentralized exchange (DEX) of ERC20 tokens. ZRX is the native token of the protocol. At its core, 0x is a system of smart contracts that can be used by anyone—it is open-source and completely free to use. Developers can use the 0x protocol as infrastructure to build user-facing decentralized exchange applications. 0x is one of the early examples of a protocol using the franchising go-to-market strategy.
Of the many technical approaches to building DEXs, we believe that 0x’s is the best. 0x utilizes off-chain matching of orders and on-chain execution of trades. This allows for a large number of individual trades to take place quickly without bloating the blockchain with unfilled/cancelled orders.
0x accomplishes this through a novel form of private key-signed messages. Users who wish to conduct a trade create a message that includes specific parameters about the trade—which tokens they’d like to trade, the price, and the order expiry. This message is signed by the user as authorization and broadcast to the network. Once broadcast, this order is open and can be filled by counterparties. Alternatively, the user can name a specific counterparty and send the order directly to that party to fill. The order can only be filled according to the parameters set by the user that generated the order. When the taker signs the order, it is submitted to the Ethereum blockchain, where the trade is executed trustlessly by the 0x smart contract. This means that the smart contract simultaneously takes balances from both the maker and the taker and sends them to the counterparty at the exact same time. No third party must be trusted.
0x is an open source protocol for order discovery and execution. The 0x team aims to provide a real exchange with order books and liquidity. As such, the protocol incentivizes third parties to create channels, called “relayers,” for users to generate and broadcast these messages. 0x allows relayers to charge a fee, denominated in ZRX, for their services. While 0x offers the back-end infrastructure for decentralized exchange, relayers will provide the front-end services that allow 0x to compete with existing centralized services.
Relayers
In addition to facilitating exchanges within existing DApps, the 0x protocol also makes it possible for any third party to run a dedicated decentralized exchange built directly on top of 0x. These parties are called relayers; they run their own order books and user interfaces but conduct trades using the 0x contracts. Radar Relay, The 0cean, Kin Alpha, Paradex, and EthFinex are all independent companies that are building 0x relayers. Other projects such as dYdX, Dharma, and Market are building derivatives and other financial products using 0x.
Relayers are one of the most important parts of the 0x ecosystem, and will likely be critical to the success of the protocol. By creating a set of smart contracts that any relayer can use, 0x will benefit from the natural competition that emerges among different relayers. There are currently upwards of 9 relayers building on 0x, with more to come. Each of these relayers will compete for customers, and each will independently market their services and bring new users into the 0x ecosystem.
Relayers offer the best traits of the centralized exchange model and the decentralized exchange model. Relayers can invest in high-quality user interfaces and charge additional fees for specialized services, but they are never in control of users’ funds. Furthermore, the barrier to entry for building a relayer is orders of magnitude lower than the barrier to entry for building a centralized exchange (primarily due lack of need to maintain an internal ledger of customer balances, build settlement infrastructure, and most importantly no need to conduct KYC/AML due to lack of asset custody). There will be a diverse ecosystem of relayers competing for customers and catering to different niches.
0x also offers a way for relayers to share order books, creating a global liquidity pool and associated network effect that will benefit all stakeholders in the 0x ecosystem.
Protocol Mechanics
The 0x Protocol has the following components:
Makers are those who initiate orders.
are those who initiate orders. Takers are counterparties who fill orders.
are counterparties who fill orders. Relayers are parties who host order books and match makers and takers.
are parties who host order books and match makers and takers. The 0x Smart Contracts are the Ethereum accounts that execute orders trustlessly on the blockchain.
Relayers offer a front-end interface that allows users to interact with the 0x protocol. They can specify required fees for their services. All fees in the 0x system must be paid in ZRX.
Relayers can offer any fee structure they’d like; relayers are likely to be price competitive. Users generate an order (signed with their private key) with a specific set of parameters and send it to a relayer. Parameters include: Which token pair and amount they’d like to trade.
The price at which they’re willing to trade.
A fee to be paid to the relayer.
A time at which the order will expire. Relayers add the order to their order book, as long as it’s valid and includes the relayer’s (optional) fees. Takers scan the order book and find orders that they’d like to fill. Once they’ve found an order, they can execute the order by sending it to the 0x smart contract. Alternatively, some relayers will provide “automatic matching” services so that takers are automatically matched with counterparties without having to scan the order book. The Ethereum smart contract executes orders on-chain. Makers and takers receive their new tokens, and relayers receive their fees. 0x users trade directly from their own wallets. The smart contract takes balances from both the maker and the taker and swaps them at exactly the same time.
ZRX Valuation
0x’s native token, ZRX, has two primary functions:
ZRX is used to pay fees to relayers. ZRX will be used to establish some form of decentralized governance of the 0x protocol by token holders.
Assigning a price target for ZRX tokens is a difficult exercise because there are so many factors at play. Not only must we make estimates for variables like trading volume, fees, velocity, and percentage of tokens being held as investments (vs. being used for their actual utility), but we must also consider the token economics of ZRX, the speculative premium that applies to nearly every cryptoasset in this market, and more.
Our bullishness on the 0x project ultimately stems from the fact that 0x has an extremely talented team that is tackling one of the most pressing needs in the crypto ecosystem using the best technical approach (off-chain relay with on-chain settlement) coupled with strong market validation. The ecosystem that has emerged around 0x is incredible– not only are relayers building traditional exchanges on 0x, but others are using the protocol to offer other financial instruments, and many of the biggest projects in the Ethereum ecosystem are integrating 0x directly.
In the short-term, we foresee significant upward price movement in ZRX from two factors:
The first is utility. As relayers go live, users will need to acquire ZRX tokens in order to use them. Both Radar Relay and Paradex will launch soon, and we expect that, at a minimum, they will quickly surpass EtherDelta in volume. New users will have to purchase ZRX tokens in order to trade, and frequent traders will likely hold a balance of ZRX in order to not have to go through the friction of acquiring tokens for each trade. This influx of capital will likely cause short-term price appreciation.
The second is speculation. 0x-powered relayers will go live soon, and these relayers will serve as powerful proofs of concept for the potential that the 0x protocol has. Cryptoasset markets are not yet mature enough to trade on utility value alone, and hype and speculation continue to be major factors in price movements. As users begin to trade using 0x relayers, we believe they will recognize this potential and purchase and hold ZRX. Decentralized exchange is one of the biggest opportunities in all of crypto, and we expect serious market speculation on this vertical as investors place bets on the protocols they expect to win. The 0x team has consistently proven their ability to execute, and new advancements on their end will likely fuel this speculation.
In the medium-term, we believe that the token mechanics of ZRX will become much more of a factor. As new relayers enter the space and compete for customers, fees will collapse. Some relayers will likely abstract away ZRX-denominated fees entirely in order to provide a more fluid trading experience. As fees collapse and velocity increases, the monetary base needed to support the ZRX economy will become very small. This will likely mean a sustained price decrease for ZRX tokens.
In this same time frame, however, we’ll see the emergence of a formalized governance system for 0x. Large token holders (relayers, investment funds, DApp developers, and speculators) will seek to protect their investments, and they’ll have a process through which they can influence the direction of the project. This is exciting because it means that 0x will continue to evolve. The project is in the very early stages of its life cycle, and it will continue to change in response not only to market forces, but also to changes in Ethereum, its underlying blockchain. Ultimately, the vision for 0x is to be a blockchain-agnostic platform that facilitates cross-chain token exchange. Having a governance system is paramount to support this evolution.
We recognize the shortcomings of the current ZRX token mechanics in the long-term. Fees paid in ZRX would be more easily paid in ETH and will likely be abstracted away in time. It is entirely possible that participants in the 0x economy will seek to implement mechanisms like staking or burning that reduce velocity and supply. We see 0x in its current form as a blueprint for a protocol that will experience significant changes as time goes on. The core team that will guide it through its early stages is one of the most talented in the entire Ethereum space. The ecosystem of relayers, DApps, and other projects that has emerged around 0x is extremely impressive, and it has show itself to be a critical infrastructure component of the Ethereum stack. We are confident that the 0x protocol brings huge value to Ethereum and to the crypto space as a whole, and we believe that there is a big opportunity to profit from that value creation.
Conclusion
Decentralized exchanges are a key piece of crypto infrastructure, and they will fundamentally improve the functionality of crypto economies. 0x is emerging as the leading DEX platform within the Ethereum ecosystem. Not only is the core protocol well-designed and fully functional, but 0x has also incentivized a whole ecosystem of third-party relayers whose services will make using 0x even easier than using a centralized exchange. DEXs built on 0x will have significantly lower fees and lower barriers to entry than their centralized counterparts. 0x’s ability to integrate directly into various DApps will mean greater fluidity and interoperability among Ethereum-based applications. 0x represents a huge step forward for the Ethereum ecosystem. The long term vision for 0x is to become a blockchain-agnostic protocol for cross-chain exchange, and we look forward to seeing the project progress in that direction.
Disclosure:
As of the publication date of this report, Multicoin Capital Management LLC and its affiliates (collectively “Multicoin”), others that contributed research to this report and others that we have shared our research with (collectively, the “Investors”) may have long or short positions in and may own options on the token of the project covered herein and stand to realize gains in the event that the price of the token increases or decreases. Following publication of the report, the Investors may transact in the tokens of the project covered herein. All content in this report represent the opinions of Multicoin. Multicoin has obtained all information herein from sources they believe to be accurate and reliable. However, such information is presented “as is,” without warranty of any kind – whether express or implied.
This document is for informational purposes only and is not intended as an official confirmation of any transaction. All market prices, data and other information are not warranted as to completeness or accuracy, are based upon selected public market data, and reflect prevailing conditions and Multicoin’s views as of this date, all of which are accordingly subject to change without notice. Multicoin has no obligation to continue offering reports regarding the project. Reports are prepared as of the date(s) indicated and may become unreliable because of subsequent market or economic circumstances.
Any investment involves substantial risks, including, but not limited to, pricing volatility, inadequate liquidity, and the potential complete loss of principal. This report’s estimated fundamental value only represents a best efforts estimate of the potential fundamental valuation of a specific token, and is not expressed as, or implied as, assessments of the quality of a token, a summary of past performance, or an actionable investment strategy for an investor.
This document does not in any way constitute an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any investment or token discussed herein.
The information contained in this document may include, or incorporate by reference, forward-looking statements, which would include any statements that are not statements of historical fact. These forward-looking statements may turn out to be wrong and can be affected by inaccurate assumptions or by known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, most of which are beyond Multicoin’s control. Investors should conduct independent due diligence, with assistance from professional financial, legal and tax experts, on all tokens discussed in this document and develop a stand-alone judgment of the relevant markets prior to making any investment decision.PITTSBURGH — When Max Browne committed to play for USC, the Trojans were the No. 1 team in the country. It seemed like the ideal time for the Seattle kid, who was ranked as the nation’s No. 1 quarterback prospect in the 2013 recruiting class. However, it didn’t take long for things to tumble off course for the Trojans and Browne. One month into that season, head coach Lane Kiffin was fired. Fast forward four years and Browne is on the opposite side of the country and now playing for his fifth college head coach.
“Crazy weird deal and it kept getting weirder and weirder, and in a weird way, you kind of got used to that as far as the turmoil goes,” Browne said as he looked back at the bizarre string of events that unfolded in his USC career.
The 6-5, 220-pound quarterback waited for his opportunity behind three-year starter Cody Kessler and then held off talented redshirt freshman Sam Darnold to win the starting job for the 2016 opener against Alabama. The Trojans fizzled coming out of the gate, opening 1-2. Even though Browne had only thrown two interceptions in the first three games, USC had managed only six points against Alabama and just 10 at Stanford.
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Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
New head coach Clay Helton was desperate for a spark and inserted Darnold, who proved to be a revelation with his play-making skills. Darnold lost his first start — a 31-27 loss at Utah — but then led the Trojans to nine consecutive wins, punctuated by a Rose Bowl victory over Penn State, where the young QB set Rose Bowl records for total yards and touchdown passes. Browne threw just six passes in mop-up duty after being made the back-up. In December, he opted to transfer and picked Pitt over Boston College and Fresno State. But even after deciding on the Panthers, there was an additional curveball thrown his way too. When Browne visited Pitt in mid-December, he met with OC Matt Canada. Less than 72 hours after Browne left Pittsburgh he started hearing rumors that Canada was in the mix to become LSU’s new offensive coordinator and sure enough, that’s what happened. Head coach Pat Narduzzi assured Browne he’d keep the same style of offense and the QB felt comfortable enough to keep his commitment.
“I’m used to having a bunch of coaches,” Browne told FOX Sports. “I figured I’ll take my chances and adapt.”
Pitt also had a good track record of transfer QBs succeeding. The quarterback Browne is trying to replace Nate Peterman started out at Tennessee. Before him, ex-Rutgers and Arizona QB Tom Savage ran the offense and he ended up in the NFL. The climate of the Panthers’ program bodes well for Browne to come in and thrive, which is obviously what he’s hoping for.
“The ideal scenario is to bring Pitt an ACC championship, and throw for a bunch of yards and touchdowns,” he says as he looks for a re-boot to his football career.
“I’m not an idiot. Right now, I know what my story is. It is what it is. A lot of people are writing me off. I know that’s not (in line) with the work that I’ve put in or how this should end. I know that I can play at a high level, end on a high note and put myself in a position to get drafted and have a career in the NFL. All the goals that were out there when I committed to USC are still out there. I just have to go have a good year.”
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Browne actually had earned his degree in communications in three years and could’ve left USC as a grad transfer before the 2015 season, which is one theory some Trojan fans floated when Darnold wasn’t named the starter coming out of fall camp. Browne told FOX Sports this week that if he hadn’t been named the opening-day starter he would’ve explored transfer options.
“My family had all those scenarios pointed out,” he said. “I think I had three or four days of that buffer from when (head coach Clay Helton) said he was gonna name a starter ’til the start of school. Once I stepped foot in class, I’m locked in. If he didn’t announce me, I definitely would’ve seen ‘Hey who needs an emergency QB?’ and searched for sure at that point in my career. You gotta play. I’d been sitting long enough but I will say that coming into that meeting, I knew that I’d won the job. I knew I’d outplayed him in fall camp whether that was what they wanted. I knew I did. I think at the time, it wasn’t really a surprise. But things happen for a reason.”
In his three starts, Browne went 55-of-87 for 477 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions while the team averaged 20 ppg. In Darnold’s 10 starts, the Trojans averaged 39 ppg.
Asked why he thinks things didn’t work out for him with the Trojans, Browne pauses a few moments before answering, “That’s a gooooood question.”
“I think I was kinda the guy that got the short end of the stick from a program that was in a tough situation. Obviously, Sam is the big name right now but if you look at our team after three weeks, it wasn’t a one player thing or one person issue. They felt they had to make a change and I got the short end of the stick. But it is what it is. I roll with that. I get it. I was pumped to see my guys do well. It was a tough one but that chapter is still open and still being written.”
Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Spor
Browne, who had won USC’s Bob Chandler Award — honoring the underclassman with outstanding athletic ability, academic achievement and character — said the low point came later in the season “when the dialogue starts being ‘SC isn’t playing for a national championship because of Max Browne.’ That eats at you. I don’t think that was the case. I truly don’t. But when that is what the world thinks–and people at SC know that’s not really the case and I’ve had people there text me that, thanking me, it motivates you and pisses you off at the same time. It puts a weird close to that chapter. At the end of the day, I’m happy that it did turn into a Rose Bowl for my best friends and all of my roommates. I was pumped for them when Matt (Boermeester) made the (game-winning) kick. They’ve been on the same roller coaster too. For them to end on that was pretty sweet.”
That sweet ending to the 2016 season has led to renewed optimism about USC in 2017. The Trojans are a likely preseason Top 5 team and Darnold is the Heisman Trophy favorite and a guy some are touting as a possible first pick of the draft for 2018. As for any speculation of resentment towards Darnold, Browne says there isn’t any.
“It wasn’t just the past eight months but really the past 18 months of this supposed battle that was built up of ‘Max vs Sam,’ but we were good friends. Still are. I always told people if we weren’t competing, we’d be hanging out all the time. He’d come over to my place from time to time. He’s a good dude. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He’s a humble, unassuming guy.”
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Browne was 60 percent done with his MBA when he left USC, he says. He is working on a marketing masters at Pitt. Something else he’s gotten an education in during college: perspective.
“If you’d have asked 18-year old Max Browne about not panning out at USC, that’d have been the biggest disaster ever, a nightmare,” he said. “That’s why I did so much there, so it wouldn’t happen, but when it did happen, well, I’m fine. I still have a great family, great friends, so it definitely gives you some perspective in a healthy way.
“I have no regrets (about choosing USC). Not at all. Still got the degree, almost two of them. Made great friends. Have some great memories. When I first got there (then USC AD) Pat Haden said, ‘Make the most of everything at USC as far as school and connections,’ and I felt like I did that. I still talk to professors and counselors over there. At every point of the way, from every coaching change that was there, I evaluated the factors at play and my best scenario was to stay at USC. And I still feel that way. ”
New Pitt offensive coordinator Shawn Watson spoke to his old friend Tommie Robinson (the former USC running backs coach) who spoke highly of Browne. Tee Martin, the |
eg Singh had placed light machine guns nine or ten inches above the ground. The attempt caused many casualties among the Indian troops. A third attempt to gain the Pool was made by a squad of 200 commandos. On the southern side, the Madras and Garhwal battalions were not able to make it to the pavement around the pool because they were engaged by positions on the southern side.
Despite the mounting casualties, General Sunderji ordered a fourth assault by the commandos. This time, the Madras battalion was reinforced with two more companies of the 7th Garhwal Rifles under the command of General Kuldip Singh Brar. However, the Madras and Garhwal troops under Brigadier A. K. Dewan once again failed to move towards the parikarma (the pavement around the pool).
Brigadier Dewan reported heavy casualties and requested more reinforcements. General Brar sent two companies of 15 Kumaon Regiment. This resulted in yet more heavy casualties, forcing Brigadier Dewan to request tank support. As one APC inched closer to the Akal Takth it was hit with an anti-tank RPG, which immediately immobilized it. Brar also requested tank support. The tanks received the clearance to fire their main guns (105 mm high-explosive squash head shells) only at around 7:30 a.m.[85]
6 June [ edit ]
Vijayanta tanks shelled the Akal Takht. It suffered some damage but the structure was still standing. The Commanders in charge of the operation were shocked by this discovery that Militants in Akal Takhts had two Chinese made Rocket-propelled grenade launchers with armour piercing capabilities.[82]
7 June [ edit ]
The Army entered the Akal Takht. Dead bodies of Bhindranwale, Shabeg Singh and Amrik Singh were discovered in the building.[82] The Army gained effective control of the Harmandir Sahib complex.[citation needed]
8–10 June [ edit ]
The Army fought about four Sikhs holed up in basement of a tower. A colonel of the commandos was shot dead by an LMG burst while trying to force his way into the basement. By the afternoon of 10 June, the operation was over.[citation needed]
Casualties [ edit ]
The Indian Army placed total casualties at:[56]
Sikh militants and civilians: 493 dead [12]
Military: 83 killed (4 officers, 79 soldiers) and 236 wounded.
Unofficial casualty figures were higher. Bhindranwale and large number of his militants were killed. There were high civilian casualties as well, since militants used pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields.[21] The pilgrims were not allowed by the militants to escape from the temple premises in spite of relaxation in the curfew hours by the security forces.[87] The militants hoped the presence of thousands of pilgrims inside the temple premises would prevent action by the army.[67]
Aftermath [ edit ]
President Zail Singh visited the temple premises after the operation, while making the round, he was shot at by a sniper from one of the buildings that the Army had not yet cleared. The bullet hit the arm of an Army Colonel accompanying the president.[88] The operation also led to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards as an act of vengeance,[89][90] triggering the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The widespread killing of Sikhs, principally in the national capital Delhi but also in other major cities in North India, led to major divisions between the Sikh community and the Indian Government. The Army withdrew from Harmandir Sahib later in 1984 under pressure from Sikh demands.[91] The 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 is thought to have been a revenge action.
General Arun Shridhar Vaidya, the Chief of Army Staff at the time of Operation Blue Star, was assassinated in 1986 in Pune by two Sikhs, Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha. Both were sentenced to death, and hanged on 7 October 1992.
In March 1986, Sikh militants again occupied and continued to use the temple compound which necessitated another police action known as Operation Black Thunder on 1 May 1986, Indian paramilitary police entered the temple and arrested 200 militants that had occupied Harmandir Sahib for more than three months.[92] On 2 May 1986 the paramilitary police undertook a 12-hour operation to take control of Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar from several hundred militants, but almost all the major radical leaders managed to escape.[93] In June 1990, the Indian government ordered the area surrounding the temple to be vacated by local residents in order to prevent militants activity around the temple.[94]
Mutinies by Sikh soldiers [ edit ]
In the aftermath of the Operation Blue Star, cases of mutinies by Sikh soldiers, mostly raw recruits, were reported from different places. On 7 June, six hundred soldiers of the 9th Battalion of the Sikh Regiment, almost the entire other ranks' strength, mutinied in Sri Ganganagar. While some managed to escape to Pakistan, most were rounded up by men of Rajputana Rifles. The largest mutiny took place in Sikh Regimental Centre at Ramgarh in Bihar where recruits for the Sikh Regiment are trained. There, 1461 soldiers - 1050 of them raw recruits, stormed the armoury, killing one officer and injuring two before they set out for Amritsar. The leaders of the mutiny divided the troops into two groups just outside of Banaras to avoid a rumoured roadblock. One half was engaged by Army artillery at Shakteshgarh railway station; those who managed to escape were rounded up by 21st Mechanised Infantry Regiment. The other half engaged with the artillery and troops of 20th Infantry Brigade, during which 35 soldiers (both sides) were killed.[95][96][97] There were five more smaller mutinies in different parts of India. In total 55 mutineers were killed and 2,606 were captured alive.[98][96]
The captured mutineers were court-martialed, despite efforts by various groups including retired Sikh officers to get them reinstated.[99] In August 1985, 900 of the 2,606 mutineers were rehabilitated by the Central government as part of the Rajiv-Longowal accord.[96]
Long Term Effects [ edit ]
The long-term results of the operation included:[36]
Defeat of the ISI-backed secessionist Khalistan movement[6][36] Reduction in militancy in the Indian state of Punjab.[36] Ensuring that the Golden Temple remains free from violence and weapons stockpiling.[36]
Criticisms [ edit ]
The operation has been criticised on several grounds including: the government's choice of timing for the attack, the heavy casualties, the loss of property, and allegations of human rights violations.
Timing [ edit ]
Operation Blue Star was planned on a Sikh religious day — the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev, the founder of the Harmandir Sahib. Sikhs from all over the world visit the temple on this day. Many Sikhs view the timing and attack by the Army as an attempt to inflict maximum casualties on Sikhs and demoralise them,[100] and the government is in turn blamed for the inflated number of civilian casualties by choosing to attack on that day. Additionally, Longowal had announced a statewide civil disobedience movement that would launch on 3 June 1984. Participants planned to block the flow of grain out of Punjab and refuse to pay land revenue, water and electricity bills.[101][102]
The Government justified the timing stating that the mission to arrest Bhindranwale could not be delayed any more as he was going to be more aggressive in his approach towards killings of Hindus. Bhindranwale was about to launch a fierce movement planned to murder Hindus in all the villages across Punjab. Plans included killings of All congress (I) MPs and MLAs on 5th June. According to Amarjit Kaur, Bhindranwale wanted to start a civil war between the Hindus and Sikhs.[47] Before the Operation Blue Star started, there was already a rise in the killings of Hindus[60] and 23 people were killed in the final 24 hours before the announcement of the operation.[64] The spate in killings confirmed the doubts of the government which then decided that the operation had to be initiated soon.[30]
When asked about why the Army entered the temple premises just after Guru Arjan Dev's martyrdom day (when the number of devotees is much higher), General Brar said that it was just a coincidence and Army had only had three to four days to complete the operation. Based on the intelligence sources Bhindranwale was planning to declare Khalistan an independent country any moment with support from Pakistan. Khalistani currency had already been distributed. This declaration would have increased chances of Punjab Police and security personnel siding with Bhindranwale.[103] The Army waited for the surrender of militants on the night of June 5 but the surrender did not happen. The operation had to be completed before dawn. Otherwise, exaggerated messages of Army besieging the temple would have attracted mobs from nearby villages to the temple premises. The Army could not have fired upon these civilians. More importantly, Pakistan would have come in the picture, declaring its support for Khalistan.[19] He described the operation as traumatic and painful, but necessary.[104]
Media censorship [ edit ]
Before the attack by the Army, a media blackout was imposed in Punjab.[105] The Times reporter Michael Hamlyn reported that journalists were picked up from their hotels at 5 a.m. in a military bus, taken to the adjoining border of the state of Haryana and "were abandoned there."[105] The main towns in Punjab were put under curfew, transportation was banned, a news blackout was imposed, and Punjab was "cut off from the outside world."[106] A group of journalists who later tried to drive into Punjab were stopped at the road block at Punjab border and were threatened with being shot if they proceeded.[105] Indian nationals who worked with the foreign media also were banned from the area.[105] The press criticized these actions by government as an "obvious attempt to attack the temple without the eyes of the foreign press on them."[107] The media blackout throughout Punjab resulted in spread of rumours. The only available source of information during the period was All India Radio and the Doordarshan channel.[108]
Human rights [ edit ]
Sikh militants [ edit ]
The militants used pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields, to prevent the attack by the army.[21] The civilians were prevented from leaving the complex during the ease in curfew. This led to large number of civilian deaths.
On 6th of June, a group of some 350 people, including Longowal and Tohra surrendered to the Army near the Guru Nanak Niwas. To prevent their surrender to the security forces the militants opened fire and hurled grenades on the group. 70 people were killed in this firing, including 30 women and 5 children. Gurcharan Singh, Secretary of the Akali Dal and a prominent member of the Longowal faction, was also killed.[26]
Two Junior Commissioned Officers of the Army were captured by the militants during the fight and were subjected to torture and then murdered. The militants skinned one of them alive, strapped explosives on to his body, and blew him up while throwing him from the upper floor of the Akal Takht.[26]
On June 8, 1984, an unarmed army doctor who had entered a basement to treat some civilian casualties was abducted by the militants and was hacked to death.[26]
Indian army [ edit ]
Brahma Chellaney, the Associated Press's South Asia correspondent, was the only foreign reporter who managed to stay on in Amritsar despite the media blackout.[109] His dispatches, filed by telex, provided the first non-governmental news reports on the bloody operation in Amritsar. His first dispatch, front-paged by The New York Times, The Times of London and The Guardian, reported a death toll about twice of what authorities had admitted. According to the dispatch, about 780 militants and civilians and 400 troops had perished in fierce gun-battles.[110] Chellaney reported that about "eight to 10" men suspected Sikh militants had been shot with their hands tied. In that dispatch, Mr. Chellaney interviewed a doctor who said he had been picked up by the Army and forced to conduct postmortems despite the fact he had never done any postmortem examination before.[111] In reaction to the dispatch, the Indian government charged Chellaney with violating Punjab press censorship, two counts of fanning sectarian hatred and trouble, and later with sedition,[112] calling his report baseless and disputing his casualty figures.[113] The Supreme Court of India ordered Chellaney to cooperate with Amritsar police, who interrogated him concerning his report and sources. Chellaney declined to reveal his source, citing journalistic ethics and the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press. In September 1985 charges against Chellaney were dropped.[112] The Associated Press stood by the accuracy of the reports and figures, which were "supported by Indian and other press accounts".[114]
Similar accusations of highhandedness by the Army and allegations of human rights violations by security forces in Operation Blue Star and subsequent military operations in Punjab have been leveled by Justice V. M. Tarkunde,[115] Mary Anne Weaver,[116] human rights lawyer Ram Narayan Kumar,[117] and anthropologists Cynthia Mahmood and Joyce Pettigrew.[118][119][120]
The Indian Army responded to this criticism by stating that they "answered the call of duty as disciplined, loyal and dedicated members of the Armed Forces of India... our loyalties are to the nation, the armed forces to which we belong, the uniforms we wear and to the troops we command".[121]:156
Strategy [ edit ]
Five years later, the Army's strategy was criticised by comparing it with the blockade approach taken by KPS Gill in Operation Black Thunder, when Sikh militants had again taken over the temple complex. It was said that Operation Blue Star could have been averted by using similar blockade tactics. The Army responded by stating that "no comparison is possible between the two situations", as "there was no cult figure like Bhindranwale to idolise, and no professional military general like Shahbeg Singh to provide military leadership" and "the confidence of militants having been shattered by Operation Blue Star."[121] Furthermore, it was pointed out that the separatists in the temple were armed with machine guns, anti tank missiles and Chinese made armour piercing rocket launchers, and that they strongly resisted the Army's attempts to dislodge them from the shrine, appearing to have planned for a long standoff, having arranged for water to be supplied from wells within the temple compound and had stocked food provisions that could have lasted months.[121]:153–154
Honours to the soldiers [ edit ]
The soldiers and generals involved in the Operation were presented with gallantry awards, honours, decoration strips and promotions by the Indian president Zail Singh, a Sikh, in a ceremony conducted on 10 July 1985. The act was criticized by authors and activists such as Harjinder Singh Dilgeer, who accused the troops of human rights violations during the operation.[122]
Alleged British involvement [ edit ]
The United Kingdom's Thatcher government was reportedly aware of the Indian government's intention to storm the temple, and had provided an SAS officer to advise the Indian authorities.[123] This and other assistance was reportedly intended to safeguard the UK's arms sales to India.[123] Relevant UK government records have been censored.[123]
Published accounts [ edit ]
Documentaries [ edit ]
Operation Blue Star and the assassination of Indira Gandhi (2013) is a TV documentary which premièred on ABP News Channel series, Pradhanmantri. This documentary, directed by Puneet Sharma and narrated by Shekhar Kapur, showed the circumstances preceding the Operation Blue Star and the events that occurred during it including the aftermath.[124][125]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]If a police-led investigation uncovered thousands of crimes committed by over 300 suspected serial criminals, you would expect the editors of newspapers to be screaming at their journalists to get to the bottom of the story to splash across the front page. If the accused worked for powerful organisations with deep links to politicians and the bosses of these criminal enterprises had access to politicians at the highest level, even hosting parties for the politicians, it would be a huge scandal. Papers would be all over the story…
You would in those circumstances expect the criminal justice system to gear up for trials on a scale not seen in Britain before. Judges would perhaps have to consult their Italian counterparts – who took on the mafia’s tangentopoli in the nineties – for advice. Organised crime on this scale has hitherto been unheard of in Britain.
This isn’t a crime thriller storyline. Operation Motorman uncovered industrial scale criminality and hundreds of suspects names. Currently in Britain the newspapers are neither naming nor shaming because the criminal enterprises are the newspapers themselves, who understandably do not wish to report their own crimes. Their silence is a matter of self-preservation.
When the media don’t want to see justice done and politicians don’t want their closeness to what are effectively criminal enterprises exposed, the judges must then be our last hope for the truth, just as they were in Italy in the nineties. In gifting politicians power – in Italy it was money – the newspapers have come to believe that they are protected by the very same politicians from the law. Britain has been governed for decades by an interlocking politico-media elite analogous to Italy’s tangentopoli…
In the wake of the News of the World scandal last year David Cameron appointed Lord Justice Leveson to
inquire into the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International, other newspaper organisations and, as appropriate, other organisations within the media, and by those responsible for holding personal data.
On the surface the terms of reference looked set to catalyse revelations as to what has been going on – the police, politicians and the newspapers – all were to have their relationships, culture and ethics examined.
In the course of the Inquiry Leveson has received prima facie evidence of some thousands of crimes committed by hundreds of journalists. The Operation Motorman files gathered by the Information Commissioner expose a culture of criminality in the day-to-day functioning of the media. The corrupting of police and other offices of the crown was a matter of course not only at the News of the World and other Murdoch titles, it was also the case at the Mail and the Mirror newspaper groups as well. The silence on this issue from these newspapers is because they fear a circular firing squad.
Leveson has the evidence required to initiate criminal actions and civil actions by thousands of victims of crimes committed by newspaper journalists. Guido challenged Leveson to his face to publish the evidence, thus allowing the victims of industrial scale illegal invasions of privacy to get justice. Leveson claimed it was difficult nine years on. Guido understands that there have been two applications to Leveson to release the Operation Motorman files. The applications, heard in private, were refused.
So in Britain we have a situation where the judge charged with investigating the crimes carried out by the media is covering up their crimes. There is an overwhelming public interest in the victims getting justice.
The Operation Motorman files are huge, the thousands of entries contained in the files are a mere snapshot of the industrial scale criminality carried out by the press. Today Guido is releasing the Blue Book section of the Operation Motorman files covering the 1,028 News International related entries out of a total of some 17,000. These files are known to most newspaper editors and to Guido’s knowledge no action has been taken against the journalists named within, some of whom are now senior journalists. To Guido’s knowledge Guardian journalists have possession of the files covering the Mail and Mirror groups. One wonders why they so far have only been willing to name the names of journalists from the Murdoch press…
It seems to Guido that there is no political will to see this through, the press are by and large keen for their own reasons to suppress the truth and the judiciary are actively suppressing the evidence. In those circumstances it is only by bringing the evidence out into the open that justice will be done.
Download: Operation Motorman Blue Book
Notes:
Inclusion of the name of a journalist in the Operation Motorman files does not mean a journalist has committed a crime. Some of the entries are for innocent inquiries, a few will be breaches of Section 55 of the Data Protection Act which can be justified if the journalist concerned can prove that they were acting in the public interest.
The published file has personal data belonging to victims redacted.
The published file has the names of persons known to be of interest to the security services redacted.
There are transposition errors in the files. For example Gordon Rayner (entries 1006 – 1009) actually worked for the Daily Mail not News International as recorded in the Blue Book. Rayner made over 300 information requests in the Motorman files, over 180 of which were for information that could not be legally obtained.
Journalists should note that Guido is not commenting further for the moment. To understand how to interpret the files contact the Hacked Off campaign.
If you are a named victim contact the Hacked Off campaign they may be able to help.A day after the Supreme Court saw some unprecedented scenes and drama over setting up a constitution bench to probe a medical admission scam, lawyer Prashant Bhushan today lashed out at Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra in a series of tweets.
Prabhasnt Bhushan said, "The Chief Justice of India, for the first time, has violated the most basic norm of any decision-making authority that no one shall be a judge in his or her own case. The brazenness with which the CJI has ridden roughshod over this has brought SC to disrepute."
Prashant Bhushan, who appeared before the Supreme Court constitution bench yesterday, further wrote, "For the CJI to move heaven and earth to prevent the senior five judges to SC to hear this case of CBI FIR alleging conspiracy to bribe bench which he presided over, is a very serious misconduct. He has violated basic principle of natural justice, that you can't be judge in your own cause."
Prashant Bhushan's angry response followed an evident tussle within top judiciary which came to the fore yesterday with the Supreme Court overturning the order of a two-judge bench to set up a larger bench to hear a graft case allegedly involving judges, asserting that Chief Justice of India was the "master of the roster".
WHAT HAPPENED IN SUPREME COURT?
The showdown was over the issue of supremacy of constituting a bench in which the authority of Chief Justice Dipak Misra was allegedly undermined by a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and S Abdul Nazeer, which had on Thursday set up a five-judge bench to hear a case of alleged bribery of judges in which a retired judge of Orissa High Court, Justice Ishrat Masroor Quddusi, is an accused.
Justice Chelameswar, who is the senior-most judge after the CJI, had ordered setting up of the five-judge bench of top judges of the apex court as a petition by an NGO and an advocate had claimed there were allegations against Justice Misra.
However, in a dramatic development, the CJI today set up a five-judge bench headed by him and overturned Thursday's order of the two-judge bench, saying the Chief Justice had the sole prerogative of setting up a bench and allocating matters.
'CJI IS THE BOSS'
In fast-paced events, the five-judge bench, also comprising Justices R K Agrawal, Arun Mishra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar, assembled at 3 PM and commenced an urgent hearing on the question as to who can direct the setting up of a bench of specific judges to hear a particular matter.
"There cannot be a command or an order directing the CJI to constitute a bench of specific strength," the bench said while making it clear that neither a two-judge, nor a three- judge bench can direct the CJI to constitute a specific bench.
"Needless to emphasis that no judge can take up a matter on its own unless allocated by the CJI as the CJI is master of the court," the bench said and annuled the decision of the two-judge bench, in the hearing which witnessed heated exchange of words between the judges and advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners.
"Any order passed contrary to this order (by the constitution bench) should not hold the field and shall be treated to be annulled," the CJI said in hard-hitting remarks while refusing the request of a lawyer to bar the media from reporting the case, saying he believed in "freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press".
The bench said if the principle of law, judicial discipline and decorum of the court was not followed, there would be "anarchy" and "chaos" in the administration of justice as well as the functioning of the institution.
Perturbed by Thursday's order, the CJI, without taking names of the concerned judges, said there were hundreds of matters listed in the court daily and if the orders were passed like this, then the court cannot function.
(With PTI inputs)Defense Secretary James Mattis says the U.S. Army "must stand ready" in the face of continued provocations by the North Korean regime.
While delivering the keynote address at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual meeting on Monday, Mattis outlined the current strategy in North Korea for the U.S. military, saying "it is right now diplomatically led, economic sanctioned, buttressed effort to try to turn North Korea off its path."
He conceded, however, that "neither you nor I can say" what the future holds for the regime.
"There's one thing the U.S. Army can do, and that is you have got to be ready to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed," said Mattis.
Mattis embraced the current diplomatic approach to the crisis, including the UN-led sanctions on the regime supported by the international community.
Defense Secretary Mattis says N. Korea threat would bring "massive" military response
He added, "But that means the U.S. Army must stand ready, and so, if you're ready, that's your duty at this point in time. And I know the Army will always do its duty."
Mattis' comments come after Mr. Trump met with a group of military leaders at the White House on Friday, where he ominously warned the meeting was perhaps "the calm before the storm." It was unclear if Mr. Trump was referring to the current crisis in region. Mr. Trump has also tweeted that "only one thing will work" in dealing with North Korea.
Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
...hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017
Mattis also called on Congress to consider military readiness, particularly as it relates to continued global threats, in its budget discussions.
"I am among majority in this country that believes our nation can afford survival and I want Congress to act in the driver's seat of budget decision, not in the spectator seat of automatic cuts," urged Mattis.
He said that he had "great confidence in the U.S. congress" but had "no confidence in automatic mathematical budget cuts."
The secretary said the Department of Defense was now reworking its business practices to "gain the full benefit from every dollar spent on defense."
"We're taking aggressive action to reform the way we do business and to gain and to hold the trust of the congress and the American people that we are responsible stewards of the money allocated to us and that it translates directly every dollar into the defense of our country and what we stand for."
Mattis said what is probably most important for the Department right now is laying out the problems the military faces to Congress "in compelling and persuasive terms"
"There are times when those of us who wear the uniform can be rightly condemned for being overly conservative, wanting more insurance and more boats and planes and guns and tanks and I understand that," he said.
He added, "But I think the more we can explain we have the time right now to prepare for war is the best way to prevent war, should conflict break out, to get money later, will not be good enough because we won't have the time at this point."
Mattis also said that the military must lay out it's necessary requirements, like proper funds for training and equipment, in such a way that it "leaves no doubt about the need for what we're asking for in order to ensure that America's army is at the top of its game."LAKE FOREST, Ill. — For eight years, Matt Forte was known as the “Workhorse” around Halas Hall, a title that not only represented the heavy load he carried on the field, but also his hard work off the field.
Forte left Chicago last winter as the NFL’s active leader in yards per scrimmage since 2008, the year he was drafted. And in a symbolic gesture, Forte left his worn out “Workhorse 22” cutoff t-shirt hanging in his locker at Halas Hall.
It was time for a new workhorse to emerge.
But without Forte, the Bears’ running back situation is much different this year. There are three young running backs on the roster. Their average age is 23. Their average draft slot is 124th overall.
The Bears decided to replace Forte by committee — a strategy used by head coach John Fox in both Carolina and Denver earlier in his career — but through eight games, the “committee” approach hasn’t been fully utilized, mainly because of injuries. Second-year back Jeremy Langford was the No. 1 guy to start the season, but he missed five games because of an ankle sprain. Third-year back Ka’Deem Carey also missed two games during the same stretch because of a concussion, forcing fifth-round rookie Jordan Howard to carry the load. Much to the delight of the coaching staff, Howard emerged as a capable back, piling up 505 yards on 99 carries this season, a 5.1 yards per carry average.
“You don’t have Matt Forte who was the Workhorse, the No. 1 back,” offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains told WGN Radio this week. “We keep saying ‘running back by committee,’ well Jordan has been the workhorse the last five weeks, but we’re getting (Langford) back healthy and the carries — however it works out — could end up balancing out a little bit.”
Yes, fresh off the bye, the Bears’ running backs are the healthiest they’ve been since Week 2. And back then, they didn’t know yet that Howard could actually play. Thus, this is really the first week all season that Loggains has the opportunity to deploy a full committee of running backs when the Bears visit Tampa on Sunday.
But how does a running back committee actually work? How do the coaches decide which one should be on the field? Given that this approach is somewhat of a foreign concept in Chicago after eight years of Matt Forte, here’s a deep look into what components decide how the running backs are used in a given week:
The Coaches
Head coach John Fox ultimately has finally veto power, but the running back committee is mainly handled by both Loggains and running backs coach Stan Drayton. In fact, on game day, it’s usually Drayton who decides which running back is in the game.
“Dowell doesn’t have time. He gives me the green light to do that,” Drayton said.
The two coaches had never worked together before last season, but they developed trust quickly, even though Loggains was the quarterbacks coach at the time. Drayton had the same responsibility with the running backs when Adam Gase was the coordinator and Loggains didn’t change anything when he got promoted.
“The real challenge comes on game day and feeling who’s got the hot hand and who doesn’t,” Loggains said. “I think that’s where really good running back coaches like Coach Drayton have a really good feel for his guys.”
Drayton’s job was a little easier when Forte was carrying the load, but the challenge of deploying the right running back in the right situation is now greater.
Game Week
Like any other position grouping, the coaches scheme against their opponent and determine the best matchup.
“You have to give the other side of the ball a little bit of credit in respect to what they are defensively,” Drayton said. “Are they a downhill, smash-mouth defense or are they a sideline-to-sideline, athletic, finesse, extremely fast defense? I think I’m gaining a better understanding of who plays well given the style of defense that we’re facing that week, so it can change.”
There are also certain plays each week that get tied to a particular running back. Langford might be able to run a wheel route better than the other backs. Howard might look the most comfortable on outside zone plays. Or maybe Carey’s willingness to block is needed on a key third-down passing situation.
“We definitely have plays that are tagged for each guy,” Loggains said.
In fact, the offensive coordinator said he’ll hold onto plays throughout the game until Drayton makes a switch and has a different running back on the field.
“If there’s a specific play that I want a particular back in, then we may have to personnel that with his name on it,” Drayton said. “We have to do something special like that. Or, if there’s a situation, for example, third down, whether it’s us throwing the football or in protection mode, there’s a back made for that moment. Or a two-minute situation — who’s that back? So it’s either by situation or by play.”
Pass protection is especially important and something the coaches watch very closely during the week of practice.
“Third down, low-red area when you’re going to get more pressure — obviously we’ll look at who has had the best week in pass protection and that will play into those situations,” Loggains added.
Game Day
Game plans tend to change quickly in the NFL. Defenses adjust and the coaches have to adjust back.
“I think early on you always start off with an initial plan, but it’s kind of like how the game goes, everything changes,” Loggains said. “Sometimes it’s a game where you gotta throw it 40 times. Sometimes it’s a game where you’re able to get 30 to 40 runs called.”
Or sometimes your starting quarterback — who’s actually your backup — gets hurt in the second quarter and the third-stringer has to go in. That’s what happened to the Bears Oct. 20 in Green Bay when Brian Hoyer broke his arm. And the change under center also resulted in a change in the backfield.
“In the Green Bay game, a couple series we were downhill, downhill, and we felt like Ka’Deem Carey would be a nice change of pace when (Matt) Barkley went into the game,” Loggains said.
Drayton, who is stationed on the field during games, radioed up to Loggains in the booth and the change was made. Carey had received a few carries up to that point in the game, but it was Howard who was the designated lead-back in the first 20 minutes.
But on the first play from scrimmage with Barkley under center, Carey ran outside to the right and picked up a quick 24 yards.
“During the course of the game, if there’s just a full-flow of just play-calling, I gotta go with the hot foot,” Drayton said.
So Carey ended up with the bulk of the carries the rest of the way. With the Bears falling behind in the second half against the Packers, neither running back ended up carrying a huge workload, but Carey did end up with 10 rushes (48 yards) to Howard’s seven (22 yards).
The Backs
All three Bears running backs were middle-round draft picks, but all three have proven that they can play. Will any of them end up with a career like Forte? That remains to be seen, but despite the injuries this season, the Bears’ stable of young running backs has proven to be good enough.
“The one thing that’s beautiful about that committee is that they’re all different,” Drayton said. “They all bring something different to the table in their running style, and in all phases of running back play, so if we ever feel a guy is struggling in an area, we can do a much better job and get the right guy in on certain situations and we’ll be fine.”
All three have different strengths, but none have glaring weaknesses either, making them somewhat interchangeable. Carey, for instance, is known as the change-of-pace back, but he’s not afraid of contact. In fact, he seeks it out.
“He has some suddenness, but the one thing is — he does hit it downhill hard,” Loggains said.
Howard, meanwhile, is a big, powerful running back who lacks breakaway speed, but has proven to be much more than a between-the-tackles runner.
“Sometimes the misconception with Jordan is, because he’s a big back, that he’s a downhill runner, but Jordan is a really good outside zone runner and that’s where he starts to stretch the defense and make his cuts,” Loggains said.
The offensive coordinator previously had a one-two punch of Chris Johnson and LenDale White when he was the OC in Tennessee and while he might not have an obvious Chris Johnson-type player yet, he thinks he has his LenDale White.
“(Howard’s) got really good vision. And LenDale White was that way,” Loggains said. “He was a big back, but he was a good zone runner because he had good vision and good feet and that’s kind of how Jordan is.”
Maybe the biggest question is how Langford fits in now. The former Michigan State running back was impressive as a rookie when he filled in for Forte for three games in the middle of the season — enough so that he earned double-digit carries in nine of the Bears’ final 10 games, an indication that the team was going to move on from Forte. In theory, Langford was supposed to become the new workhorse, but that was before the team drafted Howard in the spring.
“The thought process has flipped because going into it, Jeremy was the workhorse, or he was going to be the guy that started every week because we didn |
. (Remember, that price is including the 25% gross margin, putting the actual production cost of that battery at $24,000, assuming all else is equal.) That is a mind-boggling $60 to $68.50 per kWh.
Many offered the thought that Tesla was taking a (big) hit on the truck to buy market share, or for another nefarious reason. But Tesla cannot afford that and it would be completely out of character.
We know the Gigafactory was conceived to save about 30% on the logistics costs in the battery production process from raw materials to finished cell. Other integration and economy of scale savings could add to that.
Remember Occam’s razor? It looks like those expectations have come through. That is a far simpler explanation than an unknown battery technology surprise. There will be some incremental battery improvements, like there are each year. But the revolution others are speculating about is not needed.
There is no other battery maker that has this kind of integration in its new battery factories. And without it, other truck makers cannot compete with Tesla on price.
That’s not even counting the few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars Tesla saves by using four Model 3 motors instead of a single specially designed big one. That is a trick others can (and will) copy.
The bottleneck in Model 3 production at the Gigafactory is now better understandable. It was in the line that was required to produce the battery packs at these absurdly low costs. Going so far beyond what was previously possible is both risky and a game changer. The bottleneck illustrates the risk.
The game changer is that Tesla now seems to have a price advantage of $50 to $100 per kWh. For trucks with a MWh battery, that is an advantage of $50,000 to $100,000 in parts purchase to the competition. Completely crazy and out of this world.
Market domination is unavoidable.Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros., Screenshots from Facebook
There is a new movie coming out about Wonder Woman, a cartoon character who was created in the early 20th Century. This film is part of the super popular DC Extended Universe franchise, though it is the first to feature a female hero outside of an ensemble cast—and not just any female hero, but one who many people feel represents women's liberation and empowerment.
One theater chain, the Alamo Drafthouse, even decided to honor the feminist nature of Wonder Woman by planning a women-only screening at their Austin location. Even the projectionist will be a woman, according to a press release from the company.
Read more: Men at Play: Photos of the Guys of Comic Con
This fine and mildly interesting news became allegedly controversial when it attracted the notice of men, who promptly and vociferously began to complain about it. "Have you ever hosted a men's only showing of any film?" one foolish man commented on the Alamo Drafthouse Austin Facebook page.
"We've never done showings where you had to be a man to get in, but we *did* show the Entourage movie a few years ago," the cinema replied.
The theater has responded to the criticism by doubling down on their interest in providing a space for women to watch fun movies free from the scourge of men. "We will be expanding this program across the country and inviting women everywhere to join us as we celebrate this iconic superheroine in our theaters," the company stated after the backlash began.
Undeterred, men have continued to express their opinions on social media about why it's not fair for women to go watch Wonder Woman without men. "Does this mean Drafthouse will have a men's only screening of Man of Steel or The Terminator?" said one lost and confused gentleman. The Drafthouse responded simply, "No!"
When another foolish man complained that a male-only event would never be "approved" by social justice warriors, the Drafthouse responded, "We're actually still waiting on our SJW certification of this event, but crossing our fingers!" By far the best critique came from a man who questioned the Alamo Drafthouse about the upcoming horror film IT, based on Stephen King's iconic novel about a demonic clown that kills children. "Would ever consider a special screening for IT that's only for those who identify as clowns?" the man asked, thinking he had proved a point. Yes, the theater responded, they just might.
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"We are very excited to present select, women-only Wonder Woman screenings at Alamo Drafthouse," said Morgan Hendrix, Alamo Drafthouse creative manager, in an email to Broadly. Select locations will be donating proceeds from ticket sales to charities that serve women's needs.
"That providing an experience where women truly reign supreme has incurred the wrath of trolls only serves to deepen our belief that we're doing something right," Hendrix added.Have you ever looked at an old black and white photograph of flowers and wondered, that would have looked nicer in color?
Well, thanks to an army of Photoshop proficient redditors, these sorts of questions now have answers.
The r/picrequests subreddit is a place for people to submit photos they’d like altered. The section was created about seven months ago by redditor cannedpasta. The section has 1,353 readers and receives dozens of requests a day, some from redditors offering cash in exchange for work.
But as cannedpasta has noticed, most Photoshop savvy redditors have no problem altering a photo for free, especially if it has a compelling story.
That was the case two days ago when redditor wizard4all submitted a black and white photo of his ailing grandfather as a young man for Reddit to alter. It featured wizard4all’s grandfather as a young boxer, with his fists up, ready to fight.
“He has many boxing stories from winning golden gloves in his league to accepting corn field fights from from much larger muscle building guys,” wizard4all told the Daily Dot. “He led a rough life in his childhood and grew up protecting himself.”
The story struck a cord with redditors compugraphx, plobby, ThePendulum, bzknz and csgecko who all tried their hands at adding color to the storied photograph. The result was patchwork of beautifully altered photos, each with their own personality.
“I think people want old pictures colored as a way to update them a bit. It is a way to modernize the photograph for someone while keeping the spirit of the original in tact,” cannedpasta told Reddit. “There is a lot of amazing work that is done around here, and almost everyone does it simply for the fun of it.”
But sometimes Reddit makes people sweat for the alterations, which was the case for redditor foundbypat, whose black and white photograph of his dead father was colorized only after more than five meme-like alterations were submitted first.
“This was a tricky one,” mygrapefruit wrote on Reddit. “Considering he’s standing in the shade, and the whole street is in shade and only the top of the street is where you can see the sunshine flow. I also tried giving it an overall warm glow to compensate to the natural blue shade.”
Image credit, wizard4allBe it Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Kashmir or the entire North East including Assam, creating and nurturing social groups with hate for the majority community has been Congress’ strategy for long. The ideology of ” hate for nationalist forces like BJP” also brings in a diverse bunch of congress-dummies such as BSP, SP, DMK, MIM, UDF, IUML and many such parties.
The most unfortunate aspect of such a hate coalition is the hiring of Leftists to provide intellectual, ideological, communication and academic fire power needed to eliminate a nationalist party like BJP from the Indian political landscape. Their support system extends several foreign powers wanting to destroy the very idea of Indian nationalism. A Congress sponsored Stalin style leftist media and academic architecture is designed to unleash a vicious hate propaganda against BJP or any nationalist voice. Therefore, one sees such a hostile media manned by propagandists posing as self-styled journalists.
The emergence of Aam Aadmi Party must be looked from the above perspective. Its functioning and control is pretty much Congress in style and substance. Appeasement of anti-BJP forces, propaganda support from Congress sponsored self-styled journalists, anchors and media houses, and – most importantly – use of dirty foreign money defines AAP as a catalyst for the making of an urban Naxalbari in Indian metros.
The AAP boss Arvind Kejriwal recently met Tauqeer Raza Khan, the controversial cleric who is charged with rioting cases. Arvind’s support to such hardline elements as Khan suggests a Congress style of communal politics. AAP Cadres are mostly Student Federation of India (SFI) activists whose ideological affinity with Maoists is quite obvious. Intelligence experts must analyse commonalities between AAP and Naxals in Bengal’s Naxalbari village way back in the sixties. Shocking similarities between both movements would emerge. Grossly anti-national in character, such forces land up becoming ‘supari killers’ for the Congress run hate coalition. In the days to come AAP would in fact become another dark ugly and violent face of congress party.
The Congress party is sinking due to corruption, price rise and many issues, therefore it has created Aam Aadmi Party to cut its losses and proxy rule Delhi again by getting AAP to eat into BJP’s victory.
AAP’s functioning for the Nehru Family is too very evident in Robert Vadra’s case. The Secretary of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee Mr Sunit Madhur runs Cicero Associates which looks after Aam Aadmi Party’s propaganda. AAP has hired them for political consultancy as well. Even the AAP website is being designed and funded by Cicero Associates which has Sunit Mathur’s control.
Baring cosmetic gestures, Anna Hazare, Baba Ramdev, Sri Sri Ravishankar and many have distanced themselves from AAP. The mobilization and support which AAP enjoyed in those days, simply fizzled out despite all out efforts by congress sponsored propaganda machines and the likes. The AAP is a congress creation to simply deflect voter attention from real issues and deceive the electorate. Delhi voters must not fall into this Congress trap called “Aam Aadmi Party” and set themselves into another era of violence, mayhem, poverty, corruption and lawlessness.Image caption The three strikes rule has been considered by several countries around the world
Internet piracy rates in New Zealand have halved since the introduction of the controversial "three strikes" rule, a record industry group has said.
The rule allows fines of up to NZ$15,000 (£7,600) to be issued to illegal downloaders caught three times.
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Rianz) said 2,766 infringement letters had been sent out.
But the group has called for the cost of sending letters to be cut.
A handful of users in the country had suffered a third strike, TVNZ reported, but none had appeared before the Copyright Tribunal.
However, Rianz reported a significant drop in piracy levels - its data suggesting the incidences of top-200 movies being viewed illegally went from 110,000 in August to 50,000 in the following month, when the rule came into force.
But it added that the number immediately "plateaued", and noted that four out of every 10 internet users in the country still accessed pirated material.
Pirate Bay
In an effort to combat this, Rianz wants to up the number of infringement notices to 5,000 per month, with the current fee of NZ$25 cut to about NZ$2.
The country's Economic Development Ministry is reviewing the fees. Telecoms companies have argued the cost should in fact be higher.
The three strikes rule has faced intense scrutiny around the world, where it has been considered in various guises and configurations.
In the UK, the Digital Economy Act was passed by the last government, but the key provision of the act - sending out warning letters - has been continually delayed. The first letters are not expected to be sent until at least 2014.
Other anti-piracy measures include the blocking of popular websites used to accessed illegal material - such as the Pirate Bay, which was blocked in April this year.
However, the effectiveness of blocking has come under dispute - last week the BBC revealed that, according to one internet service provider, the dip in downloading traffic following the ban lasted only a matter of days.Walkout music isn't huge business in MMA, but it is an associative identifier to certain fighters, lending it some level of importance. When I hear "Sandstorm", I think of Wanderlei Silva. When I hear "Bad reputation", I think of Ronda Rousey. A fighter's music serves another purpose in that it helps put them in the zone or amps them up for the impending violence they are about to engage in.
Now imagine if every time you chose your walkout song, the organization you're contracted to played something else. That's what happened to UFC Welterweight top contender, Rory MacDonald. MMA Fighting reports that through a snafu with a changed phone number, Rory's walkout music was being selected by an unknown fan.
"Not that I really cared. It's not the biggest deal for me. It's just music, you know. Whatever. I was kind of frustrated. It was weird. Joe Rogan was making fun of me for my music. I'm like, 'Aw man, this sucks a little bit.'" Eventually, as MacDonald explains, the jig was up. An impromptu chat with 'Jason' the producer lead the two to figure out there was a third party there directing things in their own amusing way. "And then one day - I can't remember what the fight was - but Jason comes up to me and he's like, 'Oh man, sorry we can't play such-and-such song.' He named the song and I was like, 'What are you talking about, man?' I think it was a Nickelback song. He's like, 'You said you wanted this song when I texted you.' I'm like, 'Dude, I never said that.' "He's like, 'I'll show you.' He showed me and I said, 'Dude, that's my old number. Who are you talking to?' So he calls the guy and is like, 'Dude, this is not Rory MacDonald. You're faking.' He's like,' Oh yeah, I'm just a fan. I was just pretending.'"
"Ares" says the mix-up wasn't caught for a few years. As a matter of fact, it wasn't until he faced Che Mills at UFC 145 that he began to choose his own songs, and cited Rihanna and Metallica as some of the music he's picked recently.
Here's the list of his walk out music via Tapology:
http://www.tapology.com/ fightcenter/fighters/rory- macdonald-the-waterboy
UFC Entrance SongsJust when one thought US foreign policy couldn't sink any deeper into the hole of its embarrassment, it takes out a shovel and starts digging. Overnight, in what AP describes as a stunning assault that exposed Iraq's eroding central authority, Al Qaida-inspired militants from ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, overran much of Mosul on Tuesday, seizing government buildings, pushing out security forces and capturing military vehicles as thousands of residents fled the second-largest city.
For those who may have forgotten, Iraq was one of those countries "liberated" by the the United States, which unlike Afghanistan where the opium trade is still important, did pull out its troops two and a half years ago.
Ths shocking takeover of Mosul took place months after Al Qaeda-linked fighers took over another Iraqi town, Fallujah, earlier in the year and which they have successfully defended against government attempts to reclaim it.
That however, was just the appetizer: Mosul is a much bigger, more strategic prize. The city and surrounding Ninevah province, which is on the doorstep of Iraq's relatively prosperous Kurdish region, are a major export route for Iraqi oil and a gateway to Syria.
"This isn't Fallujah. This isn't a place you can just cordon off and forget about," said Michael Knights, a regional security analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, cited by AP. "It's essential to Iraq."
The WSJ adds that hours after government forces fled Mosul in disarray following four days of fighting, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared a nationwide "state of maximum preparedness" but didn't indicate whether government forces were mobilizing to retake the Iraqi city, 220 miles north of the capital Baghdad.
The capture of Mosul by rebels linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, is the latest evidence of the weakness and disorganization that have beset Iraq's security forces since the U.S. forces withdrew from the country in December 2011.
Residents of Mosul said they were shocked at the ease of the rebel takeover of government buildings, television stations and military installations where U.S.-supplied fighter airplanes, helicopters and other heavy weaponry are based.
"The whole of Mosul collapsed today. We've fled our homes and neighborhoods, and we're looking for God's mercy," said Mahmoud Al Taie, a dentist. "We are waiting to die."
Videos showed victorious insurgents waving black flags emblazoned with an Islamic script—the standard brandished by al Qaeda militants world-wide.
The biggest irony here is that while the US is arming "rebels" in neighboring Syria, among which numerous Al-Qaeda rebels, the weapons and the trained "fighters" then promptly make their way across the border and continue fighting the US-blessed government in Iraq!
Jessica Lewis, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, said ISIS fighters won a notable victory in Mosul.
"ISIS is designing its campaign around the state that it believes it has already created," said Ms. Lewis, currently research director for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.
"I think that means that Iraq is going to start to look more like Syria. It's a gauge of the severity of the conflict and the trajectory that it's on. That's a very bad sign."
The ISIS-controlled areas of Iraq.
And to think none of this could have been accomplished without the assistance of the US state department.
The Obama administration, responding to the fall of Mosul, said ISIS "is not only a threat to the stability of Iraq but a threat to the entire region." State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the group has drawn strength from the Syrian civil war, where it can acquire recruits, weapons and other resources for its fight in Iraq.
Perhaps miss Psaki should have answered questions about where the ISIS force was getting its weapons. The U.S.-trained and equipped Iraqi security forces, which have floundered since the U.S. pullout, haven't succeeded in thwarting ISIS's emergence as a formidable paramilitary force.
Below is a detailed narrative of just how Al-Qaeda managed to take over yet another garrison in the middle east:
Despite the security precautions, ISIS fighters raided the western half of Mosul early Friday, forcing military personnel and federal police forces to retreat over bridges to the eastern bank of the Tigris River, which divides the city. For three days, residents in the eastern half of the city huddled in their houses and parceled out their ever-dwindling supply of food and other staples, as authorities tried to secure the city. Mosul governor Atheel Nujaifi, appearing Monday evening on national television, made a desperate call for city residents to form ad hoc committees to defend themselves. But he fled on Monday night. In the early-morning darkness of Tuesday, local resistance dissolved, as insurgents poured across the bridges separating east from west. According to witnesses, government soldiers fled on foot, leaving the streets littered with abandoned army vehicles, weapons and uniforms. The vanquished soldiers knocked on doors and begged for civilian clothes, so they could escape without being identified, said Ahmed Khaza'al, a cosmetic dealer. The victory by ISIS and its allies means they control sizable regions in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces. Upon news of Mosul's fall, fears of more fighting rippled across the country.
The US has pledged to help Iraqi leaders "push back against this aggression" as the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked parliament to declare a state of emergency that would give him extraordinary powers to tackle the crisis. The rampage by the black banner-waving insurgents was a heavy defeat for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as he tries to hold onto power, and highlighted the growing strength of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The group has been advancing in both Iraq and neighboring Syria, capturing territory in a campaign to set up a militant enclave straddling the border.
But the battle, for the time being, seemed to be over. Some police were discarding uniforms and weapons and fleeing a city where the black flag of ISIL now flew over government buildings.
"We have lost Mosul this morning," said a colonel at a local military command center. "Army and police forces left their positions and ISIL terrorists are in full control.
"It’s a total collapse of the security forces."
This is the aftermath in clips and images:
Assyrian church set ablaze...
Iraqi troop uniforms left behind...
Smoke everywhere...
As the roads are full amid the mass exodus...
* * *
But the worst news by far for the US is that as a result of the takeover of Mosul by ISIS forces, an unknown number, and at least one, US ultramodern Blackhawk and Kiowa helicopters parked at the Mosul airport, are now in, you guessed it, Al Qaeda hands.
Guys, a base of these was captured by Dawla in Mosul... Imagine what could be done with them. Black Hawk choppers. pic.twitter.com/HXzL0Z8637 — Ghazi (@ghazishami) June 10, 2014
So Mosul has fallen and the ISIS jihadists now have blackhawks and humvees and guns,courtesy of Uncle Sam — Hemil (@cravingHedonist) June 10, 2014
PT: Worth noting that ISIS has captured parts of #Mosul airport, where #Iraq forces maintain a fleet of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. — Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) June 10, 2014
Mosul airport viewed through Google maps: grounded helicopters can be easily seen just east of the main airstrip:
Thank you US State Department: once again, this smashing Al-Qaeda success could not have been achieved without your help.Series of hate crimes taken out on temples and sacred idols have left Hindus in Malaysia much concerned about their safety. Reports of such vandals have been coming since early this year.
Minority Hindus from all around the world expressed concern as the spate of temple desecration in Penang became more frequent over the last month.
Here's a quick glance at the vandals that have been reported.
Muthu Mariamman temple
Two statues of deities were vandalised the Muthu Mariamman temple in Ara Kuda early in July, prompting the temple committee considered installing CCTV cameras for security.
While nothing was stolen from the century-old temple, idols of Lord Muruga and Goddess Amman had been found smashed on the floor earlier in July.
The state government is said to have given RM 10,000 (around Rs 1,67,000) to the temple committee for the damage.
On July 13, police arrested a man on the charges of vadalising the temple.
Sri Madurai Veeran Temple
The Dewa Sri Madurai Veeran Temple at Sungai Nibong Kecil was found vandalised on July 3. Here, too, a statue of a deity worth over Rs 8,000 was damaged just before midnight.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the temple was not being used for religious rituals at the time, and its committee had been served with a notice to vacate the area, as it was located on private land.
Kuil Sri Muniswarar
Priests came in to find signs of a break-in at this temple located in Jalan Baru. Idols of Ganesh, Sivalingam and the main deity Munisverar were found to be damaged with "a sharp object."
Deputy Chief Minister Dr P Ramasamy said the padlocked grilles of the nearly 70-years-old temple had been pried open. The trunk and arms of the granite Ganesh idol, and the serpent on the Sivalingam statute had been smashed.
"The damage is not extensive but once it's broken we can't use the statue again," said Ramasamy.
Statues of deities at the Kuil Sri Muniswarar at Jalan Tunku Kudin were reported to have been broken around July 10.
Sri Veera Muniswarar Alayam Hindu temple
A statue at the Sri Veera Muniswarar Alayam Hindu temple in Petaling Jaya, Old Town, was reported to have been vandalised on July 20. The Star Online reported that a devotee walked in to find the Nagama snake statue inside shattered.
With no CCTV installed in the temple, investigation into the matter became difficult. Nonetheless, the temple committee lodged a police report.
Reaction to the vandals
Almost eight per cent of Malaysia's 29 million population comprises of ethnic Indians, most of whom are Hindu Tamils. With at least four temples being vandalised and no items being stolen, it is apparent that these attacks are triggered by "Hinduphobia".
Speaking to Free and Independent, Ramasamy said, "The pertinent question is why have four Hindu temples been damaged in a short span of two months, in Penang alone? Are there some forces trying to destabilise Penang? Could this be an IS-inspired attack?"
Hindu Stateman Rajan Zed urged Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to 'to come up with an effective strategy to put an end to such reported desecration of religious centers in the country'.
Building a wall to hide a temple
The Chakra reports that the Malaysian government had plans of building a 700m wide wall around a temple in January, which would hide it from the view of drivers on the highway adjacent to it.
However, the temple in question was not named.
In 2009, a group of about 50 men had marched with severed cow heads to protest against the construction of a Hindu temple in Malaysia. The march triggered tension among the communities during that time, resulting in six of the protesters being arrested.Happy 18th Birthday, GNOME!
Today, GNOME turns 18.
On Friday, August 15, 1997, GNOME was founded by two then-university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena Quintero. Their aim: to produce a free (as in freedom) desktop environment that is beautiful and simple to use. In September, we will welcome the release of GNOME 3.18 which continues to embody those founding principles.
Join us in celebrating GNOME’s birthday! Some ideas: wear your GNOME gear, grab drinks with GNOME friends, thank a contributor, or simply take a moment to reflect upon the significance of this day. How has GNOME impacted your life? We’d love to hear. Tweet us (@gnome), or tell us on Facebook (/GNOMEDesktop).
Spread the word and show how vibrant the GNOME community is! Please use these hashtags in your social media posts: #HappyBirthdayGNOME #IAMGNOME #GNOME2015.
Federico Mena Quintero at GUADEC 2015.
Photo Credit: Garrett LeSage
Happy birthday, GNOME! Now go get some drinks and cake.On the surface, 2013 appeared to be a quiet year in terms of language popularity and adoption. The reality, however, suggest considerable activity. As I usually do in January, I analyze several language metrics from multiple sources: Ohloh.net, which measures activity across almost 600,000 open-source projects, Google Trends, and the much maligned Tiobe index. At first blush, there appears to be no change in this year's figures. The latter index, for example, shows that the top eight spots (starting at #1: C, Java, Objective-C, C++, C#, PHP, Visual Basic, and Python, respectively) were exactly the same as last year. But looking deeper, we see…
JavaScript took the ninth slot, which was vacated by Perl, when it dropped four places. The fall of Perl has been going on for a long time and seems now to be accelerating. Despite great affection for Perl, there is no doubt that Python is safely the top general-purpose scripting language. Not only is Python blessed with a large and active community, but this community has by its sheer size and constant contribution to open source overcome the last notable advantage Perl enjoyed: CPAN the rich trove of modules. The following chart, courtesy of Ohloh, shows the number of projects with activity per month for the two languages (Python in purple, Perl in khaki).
Figure 1: Python projects active in a given month vs. Perl for 590,000 open source projects.
While Python crossed over Perl some six years ago, it took several more years for its libraries to catch up with CPAN. I believe it's fair to say that point has passed, or if it has not, that it's close enough that CPAN's differentiators are so small as to confer no particular competitive advantage to Perl.
By all measures, C++ use declined last year, demonstrating that C++11 was not enough to reanimate the language's fortunes, despite the significant benefits it provides. I have previously opined that Microsoft's contention of a return to native languages being led by C++ was unsupported by evidence. It is now clearly contradicted by the evidence.
Part of C++'s decline might be due to the emergence of competing native languages. D, designed by Dr. Dobb's blogger Walter Bright, made a surprising leap in to 18th position on Tiobe. The adoption of D at Facebook for new projects might be part of the explanation. But D is by no means alone. Google's Go, which we covered in a five-part tutorial in 2012, has been quickly gaining traction as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Monthly open-source commits for Go.
While D was designed as a replacement for C++, and Go for C, not everyone is enamored of Google's approach in Go. The disenchanted are increasingly finding comfort in Mozilla's Rust and Nimrod (a language we'll cover later this month in Dr. Dobb's). Rust is widely viewed as a remarkably elegant language, but adoption is hindered by the changes made in each new release. I expect activity will pick up when the language reaches 1.0 (likely this year). Nimrod, in counterpoint, is stable and presents a most original design that straddles Pascal and Python and compiles to C code or JavaScript. As you can see, there are a lot of potential challengers to C++, although only D, at present, can be credibly said to be eating mindshare. However, I expect that the tepid numbers for C++ derive more from its minor presence in the mobile space, which is unarguably the center of new development.
Mobile programming kept Objective-C advancing and it limited Java's decline. The latter was surely due to the language falling out of fashion, especially among hobbyists, and the pressure exerted by other JVM languages, notably Groovy, JRuby, Scala, and Clojure. JavaScript continued surging forward, driven by its use both in mobile products and Web app development.
If I were to guess the next language to get a bump up, I would vote for C#. It has steadily eaten away almost all of VB.NET's turf and, with the recent work by Xamarin, C# might well become the.NET developer's language of choice for mobile. We'll certainly see.
Until then, happy coding in the new year!
Andrew Binstock
Editor in Chief
[email protected]
Twitter: platypusguyOn the same day the Florida Gators learned their defensive leader, senior defensive tackle Dominique Easley, would require season-ending surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and medial meniscus, the team’s offensive leader underwent successful surgery on injuries he suffered during Saturday’s 31-17 victory over the Tennessee Volunteers.
Junior quarterback Jeff Driskel had surgery on his fractured right fibula as planned Wednesday. A plate was screwed into his fibula to heal the bone and keep it stable.
According to a school release, doctors performed two additional procedures on Driskel, repairing the ligaments on the medial part of his ankle and inserting screws across the syndesmosis that connects the tibia to the fibula in order to stabilize the ligament.
He will now be spending the next 4-6 months rehabilitating.
Florida will likely apply for a medical redshirt for Driskel at the conclusion of the season, which would give him two years of eligibility. The coaching staff hopes he will stay heavily involved in the program in the meantime.
“He’s still part of our team. He’s going to be involved. He’s just not going to be out there physically doing some things,” offensive coordinator Brent Pease said on Tuesday. “We got to find a way, as coaches, to keep him involved because I don’t want him just disappearing and not being around. He’s got to be around. He’s got to stay in tune with what we’re doing offensively.”
Pease related that Driskel offered his assistance to the quarterback room and specifically redshirt junior Tyler Murphy, who will start in his place.
“He was in our meetings [Monday]. He told Tyler and he said it to me, too, ‘Whatever you need me to do, you know I’ll be glad to help. I’ll be there for you.’ He’s a supportive teammate.”
The timing of the injury was particularly unfortunate for Driskel as Pease believed he was on his way to becoming a better quarterback despite some of his early-season miscues including three costly turnovers against Miami.
“He was continuing to improve. I could see improvements from him,” he said.
“What does this do to him? It will obviously set you back emotionally because I think he’s put a lot of time and investment into preparing himself, getting better. It’s something you got to overcome. It’s part of football. The good thing with Jeff is that he’ll overcome it and he’ll come back and he’ll be fine. He’ll just have to get back in the swing. It’s just going to take a few 4-5-6 months for that to happen.”
A source close to OnlyGators.com notes that Driskel may need an additional but minor ankle procedure shortly after the healing process and his rehab are completed. Doctors will determine whether that is necessary at the appropriate time.Sen. Bob Menendez was accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and campaign contributions. | Getty Sen. Menendez loses in appeals court
Sen. Robert Menendez has lost another round in federal court in seeking to have the bribery and corruption charges against him dismissed, and the New Jersey Democrat will now ask the Supreme Court to get involved in his case.
In another legal blow, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia ruled Tuesday that it will not hold an "en banc" hearing on Menendez's case. In July, a three-judge panel of that court let stand the charges against him, rejecting his claims that his constitutional protections as a senator were violated.
Story Continued Below
Menendez and his co-defendant, Dr. Salomon Melgen, can now ask the Supreme Court to take up his appeal, or the Menendez can take his chances in front of a jury.
Menendez's defense attorney, Abbe Lowell, signaled that the New Jersey Democrat would ask the Supreme Court to take up his appeal.
"As he has said from the outset, Senator Menendez has always acted in accordance with the law and that, once all of the facts are presented in court, he is confident that he will be exonerated," Lowell said in a statement. "He believes the legal issues in his case are important enough to seek review from the trial court, the appeals court and the Supreme Court. These are the steps he has pursued and will continue to show that the allegations against him are wrong."
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is urging a federal judge in Newark to move ahead with Menendez's trial as soon as possible.
"It has been 17 months since a grand jury sitting in the District of New Jersey indicted Senator Menendez and Dr. Melgen for numerous counts of corruption," federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday. "Accordingly, the Government respectfully requests that the Court schedule a status conference and set this case for trial at the earliest possible date."
Menendez was indicted in April 2015; he was accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper gifts and campaign contributions as bribes in exchange for using his office to help Melgen, a wealthy Florida ophthalmologist and longtime friend and financial backer.
According to the indictment, Menendez received nearly $1 million worth of gifts and campaign contributions from Melgen. In turn, Menendez allegedly intervened on Melgen’s behalf in a multimillion-dollar billing dispute with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and attempted to enforce a $500 million port security contract with the Dominican Republic, as well as obtaining visa applications for several of Melgen’s girlfriends.
Menendez has argued that under the Speech or Debate clause — a constitutional privilege that shields lawmakers and staff from legal action over legitimate legislative activities — he could not be charged with improperly aiding Melgen. He asked the Third Circuit to overrule a lower court, which had let the Justice Department's case against him move forward.
But the appeals court has now rejected Menendez's position. His only option to get the charges thrown out pre-trial is to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in.(CNN) -- Now that Conan O'Brien is out as "Tonight Show" host and Jay Leno is back in, Jimmy Fallon may have quietly positioned himself to be next in line to take the behind-the-desk throne.
As host of "Late Night," still slated for 12:35 a.m. Monday through Friday, Fallon is exactly where O'Brien once was for 16 years: the follow-up to Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." If history repeats itself, Fallon may be poised to take the "Tonight" baton as O'Brien did, though he would probably hope for better results.
The 35-year-old comedian was brought into NBC's late-night fold last March to take over O'Brien's former post on "Late Night." Throughout the entire late-night battle at NBC, Fallon remained the silent new kid, keeping quiet even though the proposed negotiations affected his show as well. NBC originally devised a scheme that would place "The Jay Leno Show" at 11:35 p.m. for a half hour, to be followed by "The Tonight Show" at 12:05, which would knock Fallon back to 1:05, a move that could have put a deep gash in the newcomer's ratings.
"He was wise to stay out of it, and he didn't have much of a choice I don't think. He's a small fish at |
106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Wachovia Bank, National Association, 661 F.3d at 171; John Street Leasehold LLC v. FDIC, 196 F.3d 379, 382 (2d Cir.1999), including the principle, especially pertinent to this appeal, that the facts are to be viewed on appeal in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, see, e.g., Jaegly v. Couch, 439 F.3d 149, 151 (2d Cir.2006). The standards for qualified immunity are also well settled. “[Q]ualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). “A police officer who has an objectively reasonable belief that his actions are lawful is entitled to qualified immunity.” Okin v. Village of Cornwall–on–Hudson Police Department, 577 F.3d 415, 433 (2d Cir.2009).
II. Substantive Analysis
The motor vehicle stop. Initially we note that there is a question whether a motor vehicle stop occurred. On a view of the facts favorable to the Plaintiffs, appropriate for assessing the Defendants' motion for summary judgment, Judy stopped the car voluntarily upon arriving at her son's home. Moments later a police car pulled up behind her car. On the Plaintiffs' view of the evidence, the police did not stop the car. They contend they got out of the car after the car had stopped and were then told by Insogna to get back into the car, which they did. The instruction to reenter the car might be considered a component of a motor vehicle stop because in a typical automobile stop occupants would be told to remain in their car. But even if an automobile stop did not occur (although we note that Insogna insists that he did cause Judy's car to stop), the instruction to reenter the car was a sufficient interference with liberty to constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ( “[W]henever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.”); cf. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 809–10, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996) (“Temporary detention of individuals during the stop of an automobile by the police, even if only for a brief period and for a limited purpose, constitutes a ‘seizure’ of ‘persons' within the meaning of [the Fourth Amendment].”). An officer “may not lawfully order someone to stop unless the officer reasonably suspects the person of being engaged in illegal activity.” United States v. Jenkins, 452 F.3d 207, 212 (2d Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The issue then becomes whether, on the Plaintiffs' version of the facts, Insogna had reasonable suspicion that criminal activity or a traffic violation was afoot. The only act Insogna had observed prior to the stop that prompted him to initiate the stop was John's givingthe-finger gesture. Insogna acknowledged in his deposition that he had not observed any indication of a motor vehicle violation. He stated, somewhat inconsistently, that he thought John “was trying to get my attention for some reason” and that he “was concerned for the female driver.”
Perhaps there is a police officer somewhere who would interpret an automobile passenger's giving him the finger as a signal of distress, creating a suspicion that something occurring in the automobile warranted investigation. And perhaps that interpretation is what prompted Insogna to act, as he claims. But the nearly universal recognition that this gesture is an insult deprives such an interpretation of reasonableness. This ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity. Surely no passenger planning some wrongful conduct toward another occupant of an automobile would call attention to himself by giving the finger to a police officer. And if there might be an automobile passenger somewhere who will give the finger to a police officer as an ill-advised signal for help, it is far more consistent with all citizens' protection against improper police apprehension to leave that highly unlikely signal without a response than to lend judicial approval to the stopping of every vehicle from which a passenger makes that gesture.
On the Plaintiffs' version of the facts, the stop was not lawful, and it was error to grant the Defendants summary judgment on the Plaintiffs' claim concerning the stop. Cf. Sandul v. Larion, 119 F.3d 1250, 1254–57 (6th Cir.1997) (vacating grant of summary judgment to police officers in suit by automobile passenger arrested for disorderly conduct for shouting obscenity and giving the finger to police officer); Cook v. Board of County Commissioners, 966 F.Supp. 1049, 1052 (D.Kan.1997) (denying motion to dismiss suit by automobile passenger arrested for disorderly conduct for giving the finger to a group of protesters, which included to police officer). Nor were the Defendants entitled to qualified immunity on this claim because a reasonable police officer would not have believed he was entitled to initiate the law enforcement process in response to giving the finger. Cf. Sandul, 119 F.3d at 1256–57; Cook, 966 F.Supp. at 1052.
The disorderly conduct arrest. On the Plaintiffs' version of the facts, John's conduct preceding his arrest for disorderly conduct consisted only of the followings events. From a distance of more than 20 feet, he stated in a normal voice that he wanted to speak to Insogna “man to man”; when other officers stood in his way, he retreated and said in a tone too low for his words to be understood by the officers next to him, “I feel like an ass”; in response to an officer's request to repeat what he had said, John did so; Collins then said, “That does it, you're under arrest.”
A police officer has probable cause for an arrest when he has “knowledge or reasonably trustworthy information of facts and circumstances that are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing a crime,” Weyant v. Okst, 101 F.3d 845, 852 (2d Cir.1996), and is entitled to qualified immunity where he “has an objectively reasonable belief that his actions are lawful,” Okin, 577 F.3d at 433.
Even with the wide range of conduct subsumed under New York's expansive definition of disorderly conduct, John's conduct, on the Plaintiffs' version of the facts, could not create a reasonable suspicion that a disorderly conduct violation had been or was being committed. Neither Collins, whom John says arrested him, nor Insogna, whose report says he made the arrest, had observed any disruptive conduct, any threatening conduct, any shouting, or anything that risked a public disturbance. Whether or not giving the finger is properly considered an obscene gesture, neither Collins, who had not observed the gesture, nor Insogna, who had observed it and was likely piqued by having seen it, makes any claim on appeal that the gesture was disorderly conduct. Indeed, such a gesture alone cannot establish probable cause to believe a disorderly conduct violation has occurred. “The disorderly conduct statute at issue here does not circumscribe pure speech directed at an individual. Rather, it is directed at words and utterances coupled with an intent to create a risk of public disorder․” People v. Tichenor, 89 N.Y.2d 769, 775, 658 N.Y.S.2d 233, 680 N.E.2d 606 (1997) (citations omitted). On the Plaintiffs' version, probable cause did not exist for an arrest for disorderly conduct. And because an objectively reasonable police officer would not have believed that probable cause existed, neither Defendant was entitled to the defense of qualified immunity on a motion for summary judgment. Of course, the defense of qualified immunity and the lawfulness of the arrest itself will appropriately be in issue at trial, where both versions of the episode will be presented.
The malicious prosecution claim. The elements of a malicious prosecution claim under section 1983 are derived from applicable state law. See Conway v. Village of Mount Kisco, 750 F.2d 205, 214 (2d Cir.1984). We have stated these elements, under New York law, to be (1) commencement of a criminal proceeding, (2) favorable termination of the proceeding, (3) lack of probable cause, and (4) institution of the proceedings with actual malice. See Jocks v. Tavernier, 316 F.3d 128, 136 (2d Cir.2003); Murphy v. Lynn, 118 F.3d 938, 947 (2d Cir.1997). Additionally, we have said, to be actionable under section 1983 there must be a post-arraignment seizure, the claim being grounded ultimately on the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable seizures. See Jocks, 316 F.3d at 136.
We have consistently held that a post-arraignment defendant who is “obligated to appear in court in connection with [criminal] charges whenever his attendance [i]s required” suffers a Fourth Amendment deprivation of liberty. See Murphy, 118 F.3d at 947; Jocks, 316 F.3d at 136 (concluding that “the requirements of attending criminal proceedings and obeying the conditions of bail” constitute a postarraignment seizure); Rohman v. New York City Transit Authority, 215 F.3d 208, 215–16 (2d Cir.2000) (finding Fourth Amendment implicated where plaintiff “alleged that he was required, as a condition of his post-arraignment release, to return to court on at least five occasions before the charges against him were ultimately dropped,” and where he was obliged by New York statute to “render himself at all times amenable to the orders and processes of the court”) (internal quotation marks omitted). When Insogna swore out a complaint against John and filed it in a criminal court, he commenced a criminal action. See N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law §§ 100.05, 100.10. He thus put in motion proceedings that rendered the defendant at all times subject to the orders of the court, see § 510.40(2), and foreseeably required him to incur the expense of a lawyer and the inconvenience and perhaps expense of multiple court appearances.
The District Court relied on dictum in Burg v. Gosselin, 591 F.3d 95, 98 (2d Cir.2010), to dismiss the malicious prosecution claim. However, there was no claim for malicious prosecution in Burg, see id. at 96 n. 3, the plaintiff having sought damages only for the issuance of a summons, see id. at 96. We ruled “that the issuance of a prearraignment, non-felony summons requiring a later court appearance, without further restrictions, does not constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure.” Id. at 98. The plaintiff in Burg was required to appear in court only once. See id. We observed that “the number of [court] appearances may bear upon whether there was a seizure,” adding in dictum, however, that “it is hard to see how multiple appearances required by a court, or for the convenience of the person answering the summons, can be attributed to the conduct of the officer who issues it.” Id. Burg's dictum is questionable unless the multiple appearances were for the arrestee's convenience, but, in any event, we decline to apply that dictum to the different context of a plaintiff who was required to appear in court in connection with criminal proceedings initiated by the defendant police officer.
Dismissal of the claim for malicious prosecution on motion for summary judgment was error.
Conclusion
We vacate the judgment dismissing all three of the Plaintiffs' claims and remand for further proceedings.
FOOTNOTES
. See Bad Frog Brewery, Inc. v. New York State Liquor Authority, 134 F.3d 87, 91 n. 1 (2d Cir.1998) (reporting the use of the gesture by Diogenes to insult Demosthenes). Even earlier, Strepsiades was portrayed by Aristophanes as extending the middle finger to insult Aristotle. See Aristophanes, The Clouds (W. Arrowsmith, trans., Running Press (1962)). Possibly the first recorded use of the gesture in the United States occurred in 1886 when a joint baseball team photograph of the Boston Beaneaters and the New York Giants showed a Boston pitcher giving the finger to the Giants. See Ira P. Robbins, Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law, 41 U.C. Davis L.Rev. 1403, 1415 (2008).
. A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof:1. He engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior; or2. He makes unreasonable noise; or3. In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or4. Without lawful authority, he disturbs any lawful assembly or meeting of persons; or5. He obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or6. He congregates with other persons in a public place and refuses to comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse; or7. He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.N.Y. Penal Law § 240.20.
JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge:Domains are modules within proteins that can fold and function independently and are evolutionarily conserved. Here we compared the usage and distribution of protein domain families in the free-living proteomes of Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya and reconstructed species phylogenies while tracing the history of domain emergence and loss in proteomes. We show that both gains and losses of domains occurred frequently during proteome evolution. The rate of domain discovery increased approximately linearly in evolutionary time. Remarkably, gains generally outnumbered losses and the gain-to-loss ratios were much higher in akaryotes compared to eukaryotes. Functional annotations of domain families revealed that both Archaea and Bacteria gained and lost metabolic capabilities during the course of evolution while Eukarya acquired a number of diverse molecular functions including those involved in extracellular processes, immunological mechanisms, and cell regulation. Results also highlighted significant contemporary sharing of informational enzymes between Archaea and Eukarya and metabolic enzymes between Bacteria and Eukarya. Finally, the analysis provided useful insights into the evolution of species. The archaeal superkingdom appeared first in evolution by gradual loss of ancestral domains, bacterial lineages were the first to gain superkingdom-specific domains, and eukaryotes (likely) originated when an expanding proto-eukaryotic stem lineage gained organelles through endosymbiosis of already diversified bacterial lineages. The evolutionary dynamics of domain families in proteomes and the increasing number of domain gains is predicted to redefine the persistence strategies of organisms in superkingdoms, influence the make up of molecular functions, and enhance organismal complexity by the generation of new domain architectures. This dynamics highlights ongoing secondary evolutionary adaptations in akaryotic microbes, especially Archaea.
Proteins are made up of well-packed structural units referred to as domains. Domain structure in proteins is responsible for protein function and is evolutionarily conserved. Here we report global patterns of protein domain gain and loss in the three superkingdoms of life. We reconstructed phylogenetic trees using domain fold families as phylogenetic characters and retraced the history of character changes along the many branches of the tree of life. Results revealed that both domain gains and losses were frequent events in the evolution of cells. However, domain gains generally overshadowed the number of losses. This trend was consistent in the three superkingdoms. However, the rate of domain discovery was highest in akaryotic microbes. Domain gains occurred throughout the evolutionary timeline albeit at a non-uniform rate. Our study sheds light into the evolutionary history of living organisms and highlights important ongoing mechanisms that are responsible for secondary evolutionary adaptations in the three superkingdoms of life.
Funding: This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (MCB-0749836 and OISE-1132791) and the United States Department of Agriculture (ILLU-802-909 and ILLU-483-625) to GCA and grants from KRIBB Research Initiative Program and from the Next-Generation BioGreen 21 Program, Rural Development Administration (PJ0090192013) to KMK. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
The analysis of retracing the history of changes in the occurrence and abundance of FF domains on each branch of the reconstructed ToLs revealed that FFs were subject to high rates of gains and losses. Domain gains generally outnumbered losses but both occurred with high frequencies throughout the evolutionary timeline and in all superkingdoms. Remarkably, the gains-to-loss ratios increased with evolutionary time and were relatively higher in the late evolutionary periods. Finally, functional annotations of FFs illustrated significant differences between superkingdoms and described modern tendencies in proteomes.
Here, we describe the evolutionary dynamics of protein domains grouped into fold families (FFs) and model the effects of domain gain and loss in the proteomes of 420 free-living organisms that have been fully sequenced and were carefully sampled from Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya ( Dataset S1 ). The 420-proteome dataset was previously used by our group to reconstruct the evolutionary history of free-living organisms (see [27] ) and was updated here to account for recent changes in protein classification and functional annotation. The dataset is very well annotated, especially regarding organism lifestyles that are otherwise problematic to assign, has already produced patterns of protein and proteome evolution that are very useful (including those described in [27] ), and has produced timelines of FF evolution that are being actively mined. We conducted phylogenomic analyses using the abundance (total redundant number of each FF in every proteome) [28], [29] and occurrence (presence or absence) [30], [31] counts of FFs as phylogenetic characters to distinguish the 420 sampled taxa (i.e. proteomes). FF information was retrieved from the Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database, which is considered a ‘gold standard’ for the classification of protein domains into different hierarchical levels [32]. Current SCOP definitions group protein domains with high pair-wise sequence identity (>30%) into a common FF, FFs that are evolutionarily related into fold superfamilies (FSFs), FSFs with similar secondary structure arrangement into folds (Fs), and Fs with common secondary structure elements into a handful of protein classes [33], [34]. A total of 110,800 SCOP domains (ver. 1.75) are classified into a finite set of only 1,195 Fs, 1,962 FSFs and 3,902 FFs. The lower number of distinct FSFs and FFs suggests that domain structure is far more conserved than molecular sequence (e.g. see [35] ) and is reliable for phylogenetic studies involving the systematic comparison of proteomes [27]. Another advantage of using SCOP domains is the consideration of known structural and inferred evolutionary relationships in classifying domains into FFs and FSFs [36]. In comparison, evolutionary relationships for the majority of the Pfam domains are unknown. We further restricted the analysis to include only FF domains as they are conserved enough to explore both the very deep and derived branches of the tree of life (ToL) and are functionally orthologous [37]. In contrast, FSF domains represent a higher level in SCOP hierarchy and are more conserved than FFs but may or may not be functionally orthologous. Moreover, high conservation of FSF domains is useful for exploring the deep branches of the ToL but may not be very informative for the more derived relationships.
In addition to the frequent reuse of domains, the dynamics between gains and losses also impacts the evolution of proteome repertoires [7] – [9]. Previous studies identified high rates of gene gains and losses in 12 closely related strains of Drosophila [7], Prochlorococcus (a genus of cyanobacteria) [16], and 60 isolates of Burkholderia (a genus of proteobacteria) [17]. A recent analysis of Pfam domains [18] revealed that ∼3% of the domain sequences were unique to primates and had emerged quite recently [19]. This implies that emergence of novel domains is an incessant evolutionary process [1]. In contrast, different selective pressures can lead to loss of domains in certain lineages and trigger major evolutionary transitions. For example, the increased rate of domain loss has been linked to reductive evolution of the proteomes of the archaeal superkingdom [20], adaptation to parasitism in cells [21] (e.g. transition from the free-living lifestyle to obligate parasitism in Rickettsia [22] ), and ‘de-evolution’ of animals [23], [24] from their common ancestor. In these studies, gain and loss inferences were restricted to only particular groups of phyla or organisms. A global analysis involving proteomes from the three superkingdoms remained a challenge. Finally, changes to domain repertoires are also possible by HGT that is believed to occur with high frequency in microbial species, especially Bacteria [25], [26].
Different mechanisms have been described to explain the evolution of domain repertoires in cells [3]. These include the reuse of existing domains [2], [6], interplay between gains and losses [7] – [9], de novo domain generation [1], and horizontal gene transfer (HGT) [10]. Domains that appeared early in evolution are generally more abundant than recently emerged domains and can be reused in different combinations in proteins. This recruitment of ancient domains is an ongoing evolutionary process that leads to the generation of novel domain architectures (i.e. ordering of domains in proteins) by gene fusion, exon recombination and retrotransposition [2] – [4], [11]. For example, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are enzymes that charge tRNAs with ‘correct’ amino acids during translation [12], [13]. These crucial enzymes are multidomain proteins that encode a catalytic domain, an anticodon-binding domain, and in some cases, accessory domains involved in RNA binding and editing [13]. Evolutionary analysis suggests that these domains were recruited gradually over time [14]. In fact, recruitment of ancient domains to perform new functions is a recurrent phenomenon in metabolism [15].
Proteins are biologically active molecules that perform a wide variety of functions in cells. They are involved in catalytic activities (e.g. enzymes), cell-to-cell signaling (hormones), immune response initiation against invading pathogens (antibodies), decoding genetic information (transcription and translation machinery), and many other vital cellular processes (receptors, transporters, transcription factors). Proteins carry out these functions with the help of well-packed structural units referred to as domains. Domains are modules within proteins that can fold and function independently and are evolutionarily conserved [1] – [4]. It is the domain make up of the cell that defines its molecular activities and leads to interesting evolutionary dynamics [5].
We conducted a GO enrichment analysis [56], [57] on FF domains to identify biological processes [58], [59] that were significantly enriched. For this purpose, the list of FF domains was given as input to domain-centric Gene Ontology (dcGO; http://supfam.org/SUPERFAMILY/dcGO ) resource and the most specific and significant associations to GO terms corresponding to different biological processes were retrieved. The statistical significance was evaluated by P-value computed under the hypergeometric distribution [56], while the false discovery rate (FDR) was set to default at <0.01 [60].
We used the SUPERFAMILY functional annotation scheme (based on SCOP 1.73) to study the functional roles of FF domains in our dataset [53] – [55]. The SUPERFAMILY annotation assigns a single molecular function to FSF domains (and by extension to its descendant FFs). The annotation scheme gives a simplified view of the functional repertoire of proteomes using seven major functional categories including, i) metabolism, ii) information, iii) intracellular processes, iv) extracellular processes, v) general, vi) regulation and vii) other (includes domains with either unknown or viral functions). We assumed that FFs grouped into an FSF performed the same function that was assigned to their parent FSF. While this simplistic representation does not demonstrate the complete functional capabilities of a cell, it is sufficient to illustrate the major functional preferences in proteomes (refer to [21] for further description and use of the functional annotation scheme in large-scale proteomic studies).
To determine the relative age of FF domains in our dataset, we reconstructed trees of domains (ToDs) from the abundance and occurrence matrices used in the reconstruction of ToLs. The matrices were transposed, treating FFs as taxa and proteomes as characters. The reconstructed ToDs described the evolution of domains grouped into FFs and identified the most ancient and derived FFs (refer to [27] for an elaborate description and discussion on ToDs). To root the trees, we declared character state ‘N’ as the most ancestral state. This axiom of polarization considers that history of change for the most part obeys the ‘principle of spatiotemporal continuity’ (sensu Leibnitz) that supports the existence of Darwinian evolution. Specifically, it considers that abundance and diversity of individual FFs increases progressively in nature by gene duplication (and associated processes of subfunctionalization and neofunctionalization) and de novo gene creation, even in the presence of loss, lateral transfer or evolutionary constraints in individual lineages. Consequently, ancient domains have more time to accumulate and increase their abundance in proteomes. In comparison, domains originating recently are less popular and are specific to fewer lineages. We note that the N to 0 polarization is supported by the observation that FFs that appear at the base of the ToDs are structures that are widespread in metabolism and are considered to be of very ancient origin (e.g. [27] ). The age of each FF was drawn directly from the ToDs using a PERL script that calculates the distance of each node from the root. This node distance (nd) is given on a relative scale and portrays the origin of FFs from 0 (most ancient) to 1 (most recent). The geological ages of FFs were derived from a molecular clock of protein folds [51], [52] that was used to calibrate important events in proteome evolution. We have previously shown that nd correlates with geological time, following a molecular clock that can be used as a reliable approximation to date the appearance of protein domains [51], [52].
The spread of each FF was given by its distribution index (f-value), defined by the total number of proteomes encoding a particular FF divided by the total number of proteomes. The f-value ranges from 0 (absence from all proteomes) to 1 (complete presence).
To determine congruence between abundance and occurrence trees, we used the nodal module implemented in the TOPD/FMTS package ver. 3.3 [50]. The module takes as input a set of trees in Newick format and calculates a root mean squared deviation (RMSD) value for each pairwise comparison. The RMSD value is 0 for identical trees and increases with incongruence. To evaluate the significance of calculated RMSD values, we implemented the ‘Guided randomization test’ with 100 replications to determine whether the calculated RMSD value was smaller than the chance expectation. The randomization test randomly changes the positions of taxa in trees, while maintaining original tree topology, and calculates an RMSD value for each random comparison [50]. The result is a random distribution of RMSD values with a mean and standard deviation. The calculated RMSD value was compared with the mean of the random distribution to determine whether the observed differences were better than what would be expected merely by chance.
We considered the genomic abundance [28], [29] and occurrence [30], [31] of 2,397 FFs as phylogenetic characters to reconstruct phylogenies describing the evolution of 420 free-living organisms (i.e. taxa) using maximum parsimony. The raw abundance values of each FF in every proteome (g ab ) were log-transformed and divided by the logarithm of maximum value in the matrix (g max ) to account for unequal proteome sizes and variances (see formula below) [29], [43]. The transformed abundance values were then rescaled from 0 to 23 (scaling constant) in an alphanumeric format (0–9 and A-N) to allow compatibility with the phylogenetic reconstruction software. The transformed abundance matrix with 24 possible character states was imported into PAUP* 4.0b10 [44] for the reconstruction of abundance trees. For occurrence trees, we simply used 0 and 1 (indicating absence and presence) as the valid character state symbols. We polarized both abundance and occurrence trees using the ANCSTATES command in PAUP* and designated character state 0 as the ancestral state, since the most ancient proteome is closer to a simple progenote organism that harbors only a handful of domains [20], [38]. The stem lineage of this organism gradually increased its domain repertoire, supporting the polarization from 0 to N and Weston's generality criterion, in which the taxic distribution of a set of character states is a subset of the distribution of another [45], [46]. Phylogenetic trees are adequately interpreted when rooted. This provides direction to the flow of evolutionary information and is useful to study species adaptations. In this study, we choose to root trees using the Lundberg method [47]. This scheme first determines the most parsimonious unrooted tree, which is then attached to a hypothetical ancestor. The hypothetical ancestor may be attached to any of the branches in the tree. However, only the branch that gives the minimum increase in overall tree length is selected [48]. This branch, which exhibits the largest numbers of ancestral (plesiomorphic) character states was specified using the ANCSTATES command in PAUP*. Thus, Lundberg rooting automatically roots the trees by preserving the principle of maximum parsimony. This method is simple and free from artificial biases introduced by alternative rooting methods (e.g. the outgroup method). While selection of an appropriate outgroup to root the ToL is virtually impossible, Lundberg rooting provides a parsimonious estimate of the overall phylogeny and should be considered robust as long as the assumptions used to root the trees are not proven false. To evaluate support for the deep branches of ToLs, we ran bootstrap (BS) analysis with 1,000 replicates. Character state changes were recorded by specifying the ‘chglist’ option in PAUP*. Trees were visualized using Dendroscope ver. 3.0.14b [49].
The 420-proteome dataset used in this study included proteomes from 48 Archaea, 239 Bacteria, and 133 Eukarya. The dataset did not include any parasitic organisms as they harbor reduced proteomes and bias the global phylogenomic analyses (e.g. [38] ). FFs were assigned to proteomes using SUPERFAMILY ver. 1.73 [39] hidden Markov models [40], [41] at an E-value cutoff of 10 −4 [42]. A total of 2,397 significant FF domains were detected in the sampled proteomes. The definitions of eight FFs in the 420-proteome dataset were updated in SCOP ver. 1.75 and were therefore renamed in our dataset. FFs were referenced using SCOP concise classification strings (css) (e.g. ‘Ferredoxin reductase FAD-binding domain-like’ FF is b.43.4.2, where b represents the class [all-beta proteins], 43 the fold, 4 the FSF and 2 the FF).
Results
We first describe the patterns of FF use and reuse in superkingdoms and then build on this knowledge to infer the meanings of domain gain and loss in proteomes.
Global patterns of domain gains and losses To quantify the relative contributions of domain gains and losses impacting the evolution of superkingdoms, we retraced the history of character state changes (i.e. changes in the abundance or occurrence of FFs) on each branch of the reconstructed ToLs. For each FF domain, we counted the number of times it was gained and lost in different branches of the phylogenetic tree. Gains were recorded when the abundance/occurrence of a particular FF at a node was higher than the corresponding value at the immediate ancestral node. In contrast, losses were incremented when the abundance/occurrence of a particular FF at a node was lower. Because we allowed character changes in both forward and backward directions (Wagner parsimony), each FF character could be both gained and lost a number of times across the many branches of the ToL. This assumption is reasonable as different lineages of organisms utilize domain repertoires differently. Because abundance counts are expected to be higher in the eukaryotic species (especially in metazoa) due to increased gene duplication events and a persistence strategy that favors flexibility and robustness (Figure 1D) [64], we also considered gains and loss statistics from the occurrence trees. To evaluate the performance of both models, we first compared the number of FFs that were gained (i.e. net sum above zero) and lost (net sum below zero) in both reconstructions. Out of the total 2,397 (2,262 parsimony informative) FF domains in the abundance model, 1,955 (86%) were gained, while only 236 (10%) were lost (Dataset S2). In contrast, occurrence identified 60.1% FFs as gained (1,353/2,249) and 30.5% (686/2,249) as lost (Dataset S3). Nearly 96% (1300/1,353) of the occurrence gains were also gained in abundance while only 26% (178/686) losses were common to both models. This suggested that abundance included nearly all the occurrence gains and likely overestimated the number of gains (due to gene duplications and domain reuse). In contrast, occurrence led to more balanced distributions and likely overestimated losses (read below). To provide additional support to the gain/loss model, we pruned taxa from the original ToLs leaving only one superkingdom and recalculated character state changes on the pruned trees. This eliminated any biases resulting from the differences in the persistence strategies of the three superkingdoms and yielded four phylogenetic trees, Total (taxa = 420, total FF characters = 2,397), Archaea (48, 703), Bacteria (239, 1,510) and Eukarya (133, 1,696). For each of the four trees, we calculated the sum of gain and loss events for all parsimony informative FF characters and represented the values in boxplots (Figure 4A). In all distributions, medians were above 0 indicating that the sum of net gains and losses was a non-negative number for both abundance (Figure 4A:abundance) and occurrence (Figure 4A:occurrence) models. The exception was the eukaryal tree pruned from the occurrence model, for which the median was exactly zero. The result revealed that while both gains and losses occurred quite frequently, the former was more prevalent in proteome evolution. PPT PowerPoint slide
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larger image TIFF original image Download: Figure 4. Global patterns of gains and losses in superkingdoms. A) Sum of gains and losses for each FF domain is represented in boxplots for Total, Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya reconstructions using abundance and occurrence models. Numbers in parentheses indicate total number of parsimony informative characters in each analysis. A horizontal red line passes through zero on the x-axis. B) Histograms comparing the relative counts of gains and losses for each FF domain character, plotted on the nd scale. Bars in red and blue indicate gains and losses respectively. The global gain-to-loss ratios are listed along with the total number of gain and loss events and gain-to-loss ratios. n is the number of parsimony informative characters in each analysis. C) Histograms comparing the distribution of FF gains and losses in Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya. Bars in red and blue indicate gains and losses respectively. The x-axes indicates evolutionary time. Numbers in parenthesis indicate total number of proteomes in each dataset. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003452.g004 The histograms in Figure 4B describe the distributions of gain and loss counts for all parsimony informative FF characters in the Total dataset. When plotted against evolutionary time (nd), results highlighted remarkable patterns in the evolution of domain repertoires. Domain gains outnumbered losses in both abundance (80,904 gains vs. 47,848 losses) and occurrence (17,319 vs. 13,280) tree reconstructions (Figure 4B). The gain-to-loss ratios were 1.69 and 1.30, respectively, indicating an increase of 69% and 30% in gains relative to losses. Relative differences in the numbers of gains (red) versus losses (blue) suggested that gains increased with the progression of evolutionary time in both reconstructions (read below). We note that different evolutionary processes may be responsible for shaping the proteomes in individual superkingdoms. For example, the origin of Archaea has been linked to genome reduction events [20], [84], while HGT is believed to have played an important role in the evolution of bacterial species [25]. In contrast, eukaryal proteomes harbor |
company, we did not calculate its median tax rate.
For the sector data, FactSet took a further step to smooth out the results, by excluding any companies annual income-tax rates that were above 100% or below 0%.
Another point about the data: the effective income-tax rates include state, local and foreign income taxes paid, if any.
If a company you are interested in has a high median effective annual income-tax rate, it’s obvious that quite a bit is riding on whether or not the two houses of Congress pass a joint bill that President Trump is willing to sign. But keep in mind that many differences between the two tax reform versions need to be worked out.
Much more on tax reform: The Trump tax calculator — will you pay more or less?
And: 10 things you need to know about the new tax lawOne afternoon Ben wanders off to take a hike in the woods, a decision he quickly regrets. A spontaneous turn down the wrong trail draws him away from the seedy hotel his company put him up in on his business trip, away from the picturesque Pennsylvania countryside, away from everyone he’s ever known or loved. What was supposed to be a leisurely loop becomes a harrowing journey through the darkest recesses of his psyche. As he is pulled deeper into the nightmarish, two-mooned alternate dimension where physics are merely a suggestion, men with the skinned faces of Rottweilers stitched over their own hunt him down, a giant woman threatens to turn him into stew, and monsters enslave him until he’s little more than callouses and sinew.
In his new book The Hike, Drew Magary tells the story of how Ben is ripped from his suburban Maryland family and forced onto a path he cannot veer off of nor escape. The past, present, and future fold together until time has no meaning. It’s all Ben can do to keep his sanity intact as he recreates and rectifies his worst memories and personal demons. Along the way he befriends a snarky Crab who dispenses words of wisdom and a hopeful 15th century Spanish sailor with dreams of glory and honor. Sinister cohorts of the Producer, the man who set this whole play in motion, attack, derail, and imprison him while taunting him with all-too-brief moments of joy and respite. The Producer has grand plans for Ben and Ben better pray he survives long enough to confront the manipulative bastard.
The Hike is a fantasy tale with a deeply disturbing horror veneer doused with life lessons, moral ambiguity, and unanswerable questions. Seemingly insignificant decisions lead to terrible things happening to decent people for no particular reason other than they can, and the only way out is through hell and back again. Ben confronts himself at various ages, his childhood traumas rippling through adulthood. It’s a bit of Alice in Wonderland crossed with Dante’s Inferno, Stardust by way of The Twilight Zone, The Odyssey as written by Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers. Part road trip, part epic quest, part Grimms’ fairy tale, with one helluva final twist. It’s the kind of book that would make a cracking TV show, something on AMC, maybe, or Netflix.
It’s also a damn fun book. Witty metaphysics, laugh-out-loud jokes, and absurdist scenarios permeate the story. Magary keeps the Kafka-esque gallows humor at the forefront which prevents it from getting too Song of Kali, but that pinch of fear is there staining the edges. Magary writes with a strong personal style. His narrative flows seamlessly from one devastation to another, always with an undercurrent of charm and fancy. He starts the ride off quickly—Ben is on the path by the end of the first chapter—and never lets up on the throttle. Even the quieter moments of reflection have action churning in the background. Ben never rests, not even when he’s physically resting, and neither does the reader.
Throughout his journey Ben encounters giant insects, smoke monsters, purple swans, rivers of blood, the end of the world, and visions of people from his past. The Producer plunders Ben’s memories, contorts them into vicious corruptions, and hurls them back at him. As long as he stays on the path and completes his assigned task he’ll live to see another day—although pain, suffering, and torment are still on the table—but stray, refuse, or fail, and he’ll die. At the end of the road lies the Producer, a mysterious figure no one has ever seen. He’s the one who chose Ben (“I’ve been waiting for this since the day you were born.”) which means he’s the only one who can set him free. In order to get home and back to his family Ben must out-strategize the god-like being controlling his existence or die trying.
There’s a lot to unpack in The Hike. A cursory or breezy read won’t work here. This is a book that requires some effort on the part of the reader. Between the symbolism, homages, and puzzles, Magary makes the reader work almost as much as Ben. Skip the details or treat the story like an adult version of a Disney fairy tale and it falls flat, but delve a little deeper and what you’ll find makes it all worthwhile. It’s not that it’s especially challenging material. Some of the imagery is on the violent or graphic side but it’s more “TV-MA” than a hard “R,” nor is it laden with introspective philosophizing. What Ben endures is teased out with breadcrumbs scattered throughout the text. An observant reader could predict the route his path will take, or at least the obstacles he’ll face, but just because the narrative is expected doesn’t make it any less exciting.
Usually when I read books for review I like to sit with it and take my time, consuming a few chapters at a time so I can ruminate between reading sessions. With The Hike, I had half the book finished before I’d even realized it, not because it was an easy read but because I was so engrossed I couldn’t put it down. I literally forgot to eat dinner that night, that’s how immersed I was in Ben’s pilgrimage. This is going to be one of those books I recommend to everyone all the time. There’s enough fantasy to appeal to SFF dilettantes and diehards but not so much that I can Trojan horse it to those who insist they only read “literary” fiction.
At once heartfelt, nerve-wracking, and soul-searching, The Hike is an emotional punch to the gut draped in the trappings of fantasy and psychological horror. It’s a beautifully written novel with thoughtful characters, crunchy descriptions, and crisp action. I loved every single ounce of this book. I’m already looking forward to re-reading it and I only finished it a few days ago. Easily a contender for a slot in my top five favorite books of 2016.
The Hike is available now from Viking.
Alex Brown is a teen librarian, writer, geeknerdloserweirdo, and all-around pop culture obsessive who watches entirely too much TV. Keep up with her every move on Twitter and Instagram, or get lost in the rabbit warren of ships and fandoms on her Tumblr.LANSING, Mich. (August 8, 2015) — Two Michigan representatives are being investigated after allegedly using state resources to cover up an affair.
Audio recordings obtained by the Detroit News reveal State Representative Todd Courser, R-Lapeer County, was apparently planning to distribute a fictional email alleging he had sex with a male prostitute in order to hide his relationship with Representative Cindy Gamrat, R-Allegan County.
The discussion took place between Courser and a former House aide, Ben Graham, according to the Detroit News. In the recordings, Courser asked Graham to send out an e-mail to other Republicans as an anonymous political enemy.
At one point, Courser discloses what the email will contain to Graham, saying, “…Courser secretly removed from caucus several weeks ago due to a male on male paid for sex…behind a prominent Lansing nightclub…he is a…sexual porn addicted…sexual deviant. Then you just get nasty about it…”
Graham says nobody will believe it, but Courser responds, “Correct…no they’ll believe some of it…[Courser’s] a freak.”
Courser and Gamrat will be investigated by the House Business Office, according to Gideon D’Assandro, a spokesperson for House Speaker Kevin Cotter’s Office.
There is no timetable for the investigation, but D’Assandro tells WXMI they hope the investigation “doesn’t drag out too long.”
If Courser and Gamrat are found guilty, punishment ranges from stripping them of their positions, staff and resources to expulsion from the House of Representatives.
A removal would require the House passing a resolution with two-thirds of the vote.Franklin Park Elementary School has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The nomination for the 1909 school at 2627 E. 17th Ave. passed through the Washington State Advisory Council for Historic Preservation in March, which placed it on the Washington Heritage Register.
The state panel forwarded the nomination to the National Park Service under the Interior Department for review and listing.
A letter from the state preservation office announcing the listing said that Franklin represents “a second phase of school construction in the city and was one of the structures built as part of a quarter-million dollar effort to modernize the school system just after the turn of the 20th Century.
Franklin is about to undergo a $26 million restoration and expansion project financed by voter-approved taxes.
A ground breaking ceremony was held at the school on Tuesday.
Franklin is the fifth Spokane public school to be listed on historic registers. The others are Lewis and Clark and Rogers high schools, and Hutton and Finch elementary schools. All five have been part of the program by Spokane Public Schools to enlarge and modernize while restoring historic features of the original schools.
Franklin is a three-story Classical Revival structure at 17th Avenue and Mount Vernon Street that was built with a combination of brick, stone, granite, terra cotta, wood and concrete.
Its features include a main entry portico and pediment with two fluted Tuscan columns and two square fluted pilasters against the facade.
The school name is shown from a terra cotta panel above the pediment.
In the new project, the 1953 addition on the west side of the school and portable classrooms to the north are going to be removed to make room for a 36,000-square-foot addition with classrooms, library, gymnasium and multipurpose space with stage and performance area.
Students will move to the old Jefferson Elementary School at Grand Boulevard and 37th Avenue during construction, which is set to run through the end of 2018.BOOLEANOP TITLES UPCOMING TITLES OP-EDS AUTHOR BIO BUY NOW
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An Open Letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Sports Illustrated Publisher Brendan Ripp
By Nicholas Ponticello, Enraged Citizen
August 5, 2015
On Monday, June 22, 2015, in response to a comment on twitter suggesting that Andy Benoit does not think women's soccer is worth watching, Benoit tweeted his 12,400+ followers, "Not women's soccer......women's sports in general not worth watching." He has since deleted the tweet and has issued an apology, citing "playful ribbing" as the premise for his sexist remarks.
An apology is simply not enough. Already, Benoit's sexist tweet is being cast by the media as just another stupid remark to be mocked and then ignored. However, ignoring this sort of comment from a public figure--a so-called sports journalist and member of the American press--is just another way of saying this kind of discourse in the American media is fine so long as it happens on Twitter. So long as Benoit says it on his own time. So long as he deletes it like it never happened. So long as we can all hum loudly enough to drown out the shadow of misogyny in our culture. It's fine.
It is not fine. As a public figure with a highly active online profile, Benoit's sexist comments coupled with his subsequent evasion of all consequences only proves how insidious the problem of gender inequality is in America.
The media must make a stand. So it is that I am reaching out to you Mr. Dorsey, and you, Mr. Ripp, to set a new precedent in this country. You know as well as I do that Andy Benoit's comments breathe life into an America that we thought we had left behind decades ago. Because he is a public figure endorsed by multiple media outlets, Benoit's voice is powerful. And so his comments are more than just the ramblings of an ignoramus. They are a call to action. They say, "Do not value women as you do men." And for many Americans, Benoit's attitude only affirms and strengthens their own ill-founded beliefs.
And so I call upon you, Mr. Dorsey, as you retake the reigns as the CEO of Twitter, to set a precedent for your company--a company that has become a primary source of news and media in this country for thousands of Americans. I ask you to remove Andy Benoit's profile from Twitter. He has lost his privilege to spout his nonsense to the masses. Mr. Dorsey, please show us what you think Twitter can be, what role you think it should play in the future of America, and eliminate Andy Benoit's account.
And I call upon you, Mr. Ripp, to demand the immediate resignation of Andy Benoit from the Sports Illustrated contributing staff. As a magazine that promotes and celebrates athletes of all makes and creeds, it is your duty to uphold the integrity of your publication. Andy Benoit has undermined that integrity.
I welcome news outlets to publish this call to action in a show of support for women's sports and gender equality. The worst thing we could do is pretend that a deleted tweet means it never happened.
Sincerely,
Enraged Citizen
Nicholas Ponticello is a high school mathematics teacher in Los Angeles, where he lives with the art historian Nico Machida and their five freshwater fish. Nicholas received degrees in mathematics and astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006 and is currently earning a certificate in sustainability from UCLA Extension. His debut novel, Do Not Resuscitate received honorable mention at the 2015 Green Book Festival, which spotlights "books that contribute to greater understanding, respect for and positive action on the changing worldwide environment," and is a semi-finalist in the 2015 Kindle Book Awards for Literary Fiction.By Matt Parrott
As far as the mainstream media was concerned, the American Renaissance Conference had been canceled. By all outward appearances, the conference had indeed been canceled. Hundreds who had planned to descend on Charlotte to privately and politely have a conversation about race were thwarted. Antifa thug Daryl Lamont Jenkins, anti-White hustler Leonard Zeskind, and the Charlotte Observer rejoiced. They basked in the respect of the small cohort of burned-out hippies and snot-nosed hipsters who showed up to take credit for having silenced their opponents in the only way they know how: intimidation and force.
Meanwhile, in two different hotels in Charlotte, two separate conferences were taking place: a secret conference and a shadow conference. The scheduled speakers were gathered with Jared Taylor of American Renaissance at the “secret conference” to record their speeches for an Internet audience several times greater than the number of people who would have attended. Those videos are being released through NPI TV, the National Policy Institute‘s recently debuted Internet video project.
Jaenelle Antas of Lighthouse Literature
A few blocks away, determined supporters of American Renaissance were meeting at a “shadow conference“. This conference, organized by a team effort of grassroots activists spearheaded by Jaenelle Antas’s Lighthouse Literature book store, included dozens of White Advocates and race realists. Some flew from as far as Canada, Wisconsin, and Oregon. Some drove from as far as Texas and Indiana. A few supporters from North Carolina dropped by, as well. Far fewer people were able to attend than wanted to attend, and the enemies of free assembly can go ahead and claim that as a win.
But while they were busy doing what they do best: congratulating one another for being winners, we were busy doing what we need to do: networking and devising winning strategies. Andrew Yeoman of the Bay Area National Anarchists and I stayed up well past midnight the night before the conference comparing notes and brainstorming better ways to coordinate our advocacy initiatives across regional, organizational, and ideological boundaries. Gerald Martin, Reuben Hayat, and I stayed up well past midnight the night after the conference drawing protest signs on the floor of the hotel room for a street demonstration the following day.
Technical issues interfered with our original plan of simulcasting the speeches from the secret conference, so we improvised, delivering our own speeches. Voice of Reason’s very own Paul Fromm, a relentless Canadian free speech activist, was kind enough to deliver two excellent speeches – one on freedom of speech in America and one called “Numbers”, that applied race realism and common sense to some current events. Reuben Hayat, better known online as JewAmongYou, delivered a thought-provoking speech on the distinction between hate and resentment. Andrew Yeoman discussed his beliefs and activities in a very informative Q&A with our attendees.
The American Dark Age Shadow Conference
Paul Fromm compares and contrasts the state of free speech in America and in his native Canada. He then discusses its implication for White Advocates.
Reuben Hayat (JewAmongYou) contrasts hate and resentment, contextualizing and validating our frustration.
Andrew Yeoman of the Bay Area National Anarchists (BANA) discusses his National Anarchist philosophy and describes his experiences as a street activist.
Paul Fromm explores the impact of “foreign aid” on Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, explaining how the unfortunate situation ultimately comes down to the numbers.
We would like to express our appreciation to Kevin Slaughter, who came with an impressive A/V setup and took charge of recording the speeches. We also enjoyed his amusing and provocative take on things both at lunch and at the bar after the conference. Thank you, Richard Smith, author of Religion of Macho, for delivering an interesting speech that we were not able to record. Thank you to the many more who can’t be thanked by name, including the benefactors who helped finance this project and the attendees who purchased books while there. There’s still time to show your support and help Jaenelle pay down the rest of her investment in this project by patronizing her online bookstore.
American Dark Age Shadow Conference
It’s satisfying to assemble with comrades who can join you in speaking and hearing the truth. It’s satisfying to defy the enemies of free expression and free association. But it’s important to remember that, for all the fun we had, our work is deadly serious. Our work, that of spreading our ideas, is the first step in a much larger struggle to assure a safe and successful future for ourselves and our future generations. It’s to ensure that our communities are safe to live in and our “leaders” are fighting for us instead of fighting us.
The Anti-Racist Activists would like you to believe that we’re the violent haters, but their death threats against the hotels, their threats against us, and their code of silence when hateful violence is actually committed betrays them. Bearing that in mind, I stopped by Channon Christian’s grave in Knoxville on the way home from the conference, placing a rose on her grave. We dedicate this conference to the legacy of a smart and beautiful young woman whose life was cut tragically short by senseless (but not random) violence. If advocacy efforts inspired by her trials can empower us to stop the epidemic of anti-White violence once and for all, then she will not have died in vain.
Your Light Will Shine ForeverThe Department of Homeland Security distanced itself again on Tuesday from a Republican proposal that critics have described as opening the door to civil rights abuses.
DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that legislation he drafted, which would strip citizenship from American nationals fighting for US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, was not “the most effective tool” for officials conducting counterterrorism operations.
Johnson made the remarks in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Cruz suggested that Secretary of State John Kerry should be lobbying for the bill to pass, despite the fact that he, too, has said that the proposal isn’t necessary.
“There’s existing legislation on the book that provides for other grounds for forfeiting your citizenship,” Cruz told Johnson. “But right now, joining a Foreign Terrorist Organization is not one of those.”
Similar legislation, albeit somewhat narrower in scope, advanced with bipartisan support last Thursday through the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
When asked by The Sentinel for comment on the proposal, a State Department official said after the mark-up that “The Department does not comment on pending legislation.”
During the hearing, only one member, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) raised doubts that the bill would pass judicial review.
“The Supreme Court has recognized that there is a Constitutional right to travel. And I think that comes directly from the right of freedom of assembly under the First Amendment,” said Grayson, a lawyer who used to specialize in government contactor law. “Therefore, in my view, and I hope this becomes part of the record on this, I don’t think that you can promptly deny someone a passport or the right to travel without clear and convincing evidence.”
Republicans on the committee, including chair Ed Royce (R-Fla.) and Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), the author of the so-called FTO Passport Revocation Act of 2015, argued that the bill was Constitutionally sound. Royce said civil liberties concerns motivated the legislation’s backers “to provide permissive authority to the State Department.”
Grayson responded that the Supreme Court’s current “clear and convincing evidence” justification on the prerequisite for the rescinding of passports “is and should be the standard of proof.”
Secretary of State John Kerry already has the power to deny US citizens of the right to use a valid passport—an authority he famously exercised in the summer of 2013, when he left NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden stranded at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. The Russian government has since granted him temporary asylum.
The move by Kerry to refuse Snowden his right to travel caused an outcry from some, including the whistleblower himself, about due process violations.
In one high profile incident involving the status of citizenship and counterterrorist operations, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revoked the passport of US national Anwar Al-Awlaki six months before he was controversially executed by drone in 2011, after President Obama authorized the strike.
In testimony late last year, Robert Bradtke, a State Department adviser on the conflict on Syria explained to the House Foreign Affairs committee why it hasn’t given the Snowden treatment to any suspected American members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIL).
“This is something we would only do in relatively rare and unique circumstances,” he said. “We would only do it also in consultations with law enforcement authorities, and we have not yet had any requests from law enforcement authorities to cancel passports of [ISIL] or foreign fighters.”
Kerry also told Congress in September that he hadn’t rescinded the right to travel to US passport-holders fighting in Syria because of concerns it could derail criminal investigations.
On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Johnson told Cruz that roughly 180 American citizens have or have attempted to join the conflict in Iraq and Syria, but noted that the actual sum is probably higher by now.
When Sen. Cruz first introduced his legislation—to direct the State Department to consider a US national joining a FTO as having “constructively forfeited his or her American citizenship,” as he told Johnson—it was blasted by critics concerned that it would leave Americans vulnerable to human rights abuses.
“As Law Professor Patrick Wiel points out, while the revocation of the right to travel for security reasons may pass constitutional muster, it is less clear whether the government may deprive an individual of their right to a legal identity as an American citizen,” an American University Law School student-run publication noted in January, shortly after Cruz introduced the Expatriate Terrorists Act for the second time.
David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor and volunteer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, in roundly lambasting Cruz’s proposal last September, described US citizenship as an inalienable right, unassailable by legislation.
“Just as one could not strip an accused criminal of his rights to a jury trial against his will, or strip a member of a church of his religious freedom against his will, so Congress cannot strip citizens of their citizenship against their will,” he argued.
When Cruz first introduced the bill last September, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declined to take a position on it. The Administration still has not said whether it would veto the measure or the similar legislation that advanced Thursday through the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in spite of prior criticism expressed by Kerry, Johnson and other administration officials.You’re back at school.
It’s late and you’re hungry. For tacos, obviously.
Now what?
These are the kinds of complex problems that college students have been wrestling with for decades. To assist with this kind of deep thinking, Uber is partnering with the always-amazing Taco Bus to bring USF students late-night tacos on demand—for FREE!
That’s right, from 11pm-2am on Thursday night, students on the USF campus can use the special TACOS option in their Uber app to score an order of 10 tacos, delivered immediately.
Free tacos, delivered at Uber speed and at the time USF students are most likely to be craving tacos. College truly is a life-changing experience.
HOW IT WORKS:
Open your Uber app on Thursday night, between 11pm – 2am If you’re on USF’s campus, tap the TACOS option in the lower-right hand corner of your app Hit request and enjoy your ridiculously delicious late-night Taco Bus tacos
NEW TO UBER?Xenoblade Chronicles X Art Book Shows Off Concepts Unused In Final Game
By Casey. April 4, 2016. 7:30am
In Japan last year, a Xenoblade Chronicles X art book released, featuring over 300 pages of art for characters, enemies, Dolls/Skells and more.
In one section of the book titled “Unidentified Material,” we get a look at some concepts that ultimately did not make it into the final product. Here’s a look at some of the pictures accompanied by translations. [Thanks, Nintendo Everything.]
Page 1
Protanonist (name undecided)
A rough sketch of a young man in his late twenties is found! He ended up as “protagonist” since the name was undecided, but the personality feels different from the avatar of Xenoblade Chronicles X. So that means this character is…!?
Page 2
Father
Just introduced as “Father”, this rough sketch of a mysterious character has rough facial hair. The title probably doesn’t mean age[*], so is he someone’s father?
[* The used Japanese word may mean a father or an old man in general]
Reina Sakuraba
This is a rough sketch of a beautiful character who has an aura of a heroine. One can imagine that she is related to Sakuraba Industries because of her surname…
Page 3
Dark Knight
The person of this design sketch wears black armor and holds a sword which looks like a Japanese katana. This character feels excessive different when compared to other characters. Notice that feet design. It feels like it was shown somewhere in a scene of Xenoblade Chronicles X…
Page 4
Neilnail
This alien character has the same name as a mysterious Doll in a certain quest. “Qlurian” is mentioned in an explanatory note, so is she Qlurian like Celica?
Emily
A design picture of a female character who is a daughter of the president of America. Speaking of the president, Director General Maurice was originally an aide of the president, so how is he related?
Page 5
Protagonist Doll (Ares)
A scheme picture of a Doll named Ares. The silhouette is just like the Ares in Xenoblade Chronicles X, but the appearance that exceeds a living being and glowing things that looks like exhaust vents (?) clearly makes you think that the technology is different from Earth-made Dolls.
Protagonist Doll (Ares burn state)
The meaning of burn state is unknown, but perhaps it is a form with installed armor and armaments.
Page 6
Cockpit of protagonist Doll (Ares)
It is written in explanatory notes that there was “an original pilot” in this frame. Does that mean the protagonist Doll was originally another person’s vehicle?
Transformation sequence of protagonist Doll (Ares)
This scheme picture explains the flow of protagonist Doll’s transformation, or rather shapeshifting. Protagonist Doll isn’t an usual machine, is there something that resembles a living being?
Page 7
Dark Knight’s Doll
A scheme picture of a mysterious Doll which can fly by transforming from human form to cruise form. It may be categorized as a Doll, but it seems like it has been built with more advanced technology than Earth-made Doll.
Page 8
N/A
Page 9
Dreadnought
A scheme picture of a battleship Dreadnought which has flight form and land form. You can guess from the name and appearance that it is a ship from the Earth side, but that role is unknown. Is it reasonable to think that this is a mother ship that the main character boards…?
Xenoblade Chronicles X is available for the Wii U.MOGADISHU, SOMALIA—With life-threatening conditions reaching catastrophic levels in parts of Eastern Africa, the United Nations took the extraordinary step of declaring famine in parts of Somalia, a classification defined by mortality rates greater than two people per 10,000 per day across a specific region, along with skyrocketing rates of deadly malnutrition (above 30% for children under five), among other indicators.
Help alleviate suffering in
the Horn of Africa.
With nearly two decades in Somalia, Action Against Hunger | ACF International was able to quickly launch emergency programs earlier this month when the food crisis and drought-like conditions crippled populations in regions like Mogadishu and Wajid. And while Action Against Hunger's teams continue to provide lifesaving support—treatment and medical care for acutely malnourished children; general nutritional support for children under five years of age; and emergency access to food, clean water, and improved sanitation for displaced populations—families in dire need of help continue to flood into ACF's emergency nutrition centers.
Watch the video below for scenes of the situation on the ground from the Horn of Africa.
Ongoing relief efforts are simply insufficient to counter the scope and severity of the crisis gripping Somalia and the rest of the eastern region. “The UN declaration confirms the scale of this devastating crisis witnessed by our teams on the ground over the past weeks,” states Jens Oppermann, Action Against Hunger’s Country Director in Somalia. “The crisis will only grow in magnitude and severity unless immediate funding is made available and measures are taken to enable aid agencies to further scale up relief efforts.”
Beyond the need for immediate, lifesaving interventions, urgent commitments are also needed to address the famine’s underlying causes and to mitigate its long-term impacts. Program and policy supports are needed to ensure productive harvests this October; livestock restocking is needed for communities whose herds were devastated by drought; water points require substantial rehabilitation; and investments are needed in income-generating activities to ensure long-term resilience to climate shocks and cyclical humanitarian crises.
As one of the few humanitarian agencies working in Somalia today—and the single-largest operating in Somalia’s South and Central regions—Action Against Hunger is well positioned to scale up emergency food distributions and its ongoing nutritional programs in hard-hit southern Somalia. Given Somalia’s special security context, it is paramount that any large-scale relief effort be channeled through organizations already authorized by national and regional authorities to carry out this type of work—and possessing the necessary in-country experience to guarantee the effective deployment of a substantial increase in humanitarian assistance.Welcome to Rusty Lake, a surreal place where anything can happen. We offer you the most mysterious game series you'll ever play.
Why not try out our praised Cube Escape series first? Let the cubes guide you the eerie and atmospheric point-and-click adventures with an "escape room" feeling. Currently we have nine Cube Escape games taking place in the Rusty Lake universe. Download them for free on iOS, Android or play on Desktop.
Next to our Cube Escape series we created two premium adventure games with unique story lines taking place in Rusty Lake as well. Serve deadly dinners to five animal-headed guests in Rusty Lake Hotel or expand the bloodline of the Vanderbooms in our award-winning adventure Rusty Lake: Roots.
On the right, you can find a list of all our games sorted by release date.
On our game portal you can play our free games but also find other adventure, room escape and puzzle games. We selected games with a fascinating story, ambiance or unique game-play made by more forward-looking developers.
Check out our blog, social media or newsletter for new updates and content.
We wish you a pleasant stay in Rusty Lake!SHR vice president of competition announces change of plans hours after saying Sunday is 'business as usual'
Tony Stewart during the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway in June. (Photo11: Andrew Weber, USA TODAY Sports)
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- Tony Stewart will not race Sunday at Watkins Glen International.
Just a few hours after telling USA TODAY Sports that Sunday would be ''business as usual,'' and Stewart would race as scheduled, the team reversed course.
Greg Zipadelli, vice president of competition for Stewart-Haas Racing, announced the three-time Sprint Cup champion would not start the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen a day after striking and killing an on-foot driver in a sprint car race.
Regan Smith started in his place.
"It's an emotional time right now," Zipadelli said.
Stewart released a statement after the race began that read:
"There aren't words to describe the sadness I feel about the accident that took the life of Kevin Ward Jr. It's a very emotional time for all involved, and it is the reason I've decided not to participate in today's race at Watkins Glen. My thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends and everyone affected by this tragedy."
Zipadelli, who said the team would not discuss last night's incident, said he met with Stewart this morning and "he feels strongly this is the right thing to do. We at SHR support it and agree with it. It's a difficult time for both parties. This is what we feel is right and we're supporting Tony in it."
Zipadelli originally told USA TODAY Sports that Stewart would start today and ''we're business as usual.''
STEWART: Hits, kills driver in sprint car race
Stewart struck and killed driver Kevin Ward Jr., 20, who approached his car on-foot after an on-track incident at Canandaigua (N.Y.) Motorsports Park, about an hour north of Watkins Glen International.
Friends and family members of Ward Jr. are gathering at the Ward home in Port Leyden, N.Y.
The family has issued this statement: "The family appreciates all the prayers and support and would like time to grieve at this point."
Earlier Sunday, NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said: "Everything that's been made available to us at this time would not preclude (Stewart) from participating in this event here today. But it's 9:30 in the morning."
He also said earlier that NASCAR has been monitoring the situation and will "honor the process and respect the timeline of the local authorities."
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends and competitors and everyone involved at that complex up there," Tharp said. "While it was a non-NASCAR-sanctioned event, everyone in the motor sports community has feelings for these types of situations. We've been through them before."
Before Stewart withdrew from the race and about 15 minutes after his original comments, Tharp again emphasized that it was too early to say whether Stewart would be racing at Watkins Glen because NASCAR was still gathering information.
CLOSE Greg Zipadelli, vice president of competition for Stewart-Haas Racing, announced Stewart would not race Sunday
After Zipadelli announced Stewart would not race, NASCAR released this statement: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends, and fellow competitors of Kevin Ward Jr. We support Tony Stewart's decision to miss today's race and we will continue to respect the process and timeline of the local authorities and will continue to monitor this situation moving forward."
During Saturday night's sprint car race, Ward Jr. was spun out by Stewart, got out of his car to show his displeasure and then was struck by Stewart's car, sending Ward sliding down the track, fellow sprint car racer Tyler Graves and witness Adam Dulski told USA TODAY Sports.
"This is an ongoing investigation of an on-track crash," Ontario County (N.Y.) Sheriff Philip C. Povero said early Sunday morning.
Later Sunday afternoon, Povero said his investigation continues 16 hours after the deadly crash and that deputies are in Watkins Glen today to speak with Stewart or his representatives. Povero said he has seen no evidence to date of criminal intent on Stewart's part.
Povero asked witnesses and anyone with video of the crash to contact his office at (585) 394-4560. The sheriff also wants to talk with anyone with expertise in this type of racing.
Povero said authorities are waiting, among other things, on a forensic recreation of the crash and an autopsy on Ward by the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office.
The crash was a topic of conversation early Sunday morning among race fans at Watkins Glen.
"Everybody was talking about it, and everybody has seen the video," said 42-year-old Leo Smith of Perinton, a suburb of Rochester, N.Y. Smith camped at the track and had spoken with 10-15 other fans by 7:30 a.m. "It's crazy," he said.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. tweeted Sunday: "We will all loose someone in our time. When a loss is sudden and unexpected, the pain & sadness is suffocating. Prayers for the Ward family."
We will all loose someone in our time. When a loss is sudden and unexpected, the pain & sadness is suffocating. Prayers for the Ward family. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) August 10, 2014
Canandaigua Motorsports Park track president and race director Chuck Miller told the Associated Press:
"I can't see that anybody would've done anything intentional like that. (Stewart's) been great when he's with us. We've had a very good relationship with Tony. We've been proud to have him in our field. He's raced hard. He's raced clean. He respects what we have to offer. Even what he |
maker in a point-forward role.
Ultimately Kansas came out victorious with Jackson compiling a double-double, but just as important for the future of all of these prospects was that they were able to show the Lakers, and every other team in attendance what they’re capable of.The Alexander Muir mural at Queen and Jones in Leslieville is a neighbourhood fixture. But unfortunately, it's slated for a makeover.
As Ward 30 councillor Paula Fletcher says on her website, the mural is the property of the artist who created it. "The original mural project was facilitated by the Ralph Thornton Centre many years ago," she writes, "and bringing in the original artist to redo the mural is not possible."
In July, the Leslieville BIA proposed a new mural without consulting area residents first - many were miffed.
Now, Fletcher says that she worked with a small group, including the BIA and the Leslieville Historical Society, to draw up a short-list of six local artists who've been invited to submit design proposals for a new mural.
In January, this group of six will be whittled down to three finalists and from there, the Leslieville community will get to give feedback on the designs, both online and at public consultations.
Eventually, the committee will choose a mural based on these discussions.
Photo by Bryson Gilbert in the blogTO Flickr pool.It has been suggested that Daap (Earth-616) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)
Contents show]
History
Early Years
Information about Doop's origins, as with anything else about him, is difficult to verify.
According to Captain America, the U.S. government created him in a secret Cold War weapons project.[citation needed] Seemingly unable to learn English,[1] He spoke an alien language (which somehow almost everyone understood or managed to learn anyway)[citation needed]. Allegedly, he had a role in the fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc. Doop also at some point met Wolverine.[citation needed]
He has a mother, Mama Doop, with whom he seems to have difficult relations.[1]
At some other point, during an affair with a woman, Doop ditched her to be with the private detective her husband hired to find him.[5] The private detective's name was Chandler, a nod to Raymond Chandler, the hard-boiled fiction writer who created Philip Marlowe.[6]
Doop joined the mutant team X-Force as their official videographer.[7] Soon afterward, most of X-Force died, and the survivors (including Doop) became X-Statix. There was some suspicion that he had a hidden agenda; if so, nothing ever came of it. He became a popular member, whose line of official merchandise sold well.
In X-Statix's penultimate adventure, Doop's brain exploded. His teammates and the Avengers competed to find the scattered parts and reassemble them. Able to function with his secondary brain, Doop fought Thor Odinson (Earth-616) for the last part and restored his primary brain.[8][9] However, Doop would later die in a hail of bullets, as did the rest of X-Statix on their final mission.[10]
Return
Later, when a group of X-Men were on a mission in space, Polaris witnessed a strange thing in space,[11] which was later revealed to be Doop.[12] After M-Day, the now depowered Gazer also apparently saw Doop through his telescope.[12]
Doop then fell from space to Earth, crashing in Costa Rica in close proximity to Polaris and Havok, revealing himself as Doop, alive but deformed.[12] Doop had a strange behaviour, acting like a child, attacking continuously Havok who was uncomfortable about him, and apparently talking to only Polaris (who called him Daap).[13]
Eventually Havok tried to destroy Doop, causing Doop to encapsulate both a nearby Leper Queen and Polaris within himself and shoot off into space.[13] The two women were instantly captured by an overlooking Apocalypse into his ship, while Doop was rejected into the nature.[14]
After the Schism between Cyclops's Utopians X-Men and Wolverine's side, Doop joined the latter, becoming the receptionist of Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. His role is clearly contested by the School staff, as he appears to be a thief, lazy and useless.
However, he really is busy at school, asked by Logan to take care of the threats he could not handle with his own responsibility. He was seen battling various enemies, receiving even the help of Howard the Duck. Doop also had an active sexual life, becoming sexually involved with Warbird.[3]
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Doop's powers seemed to appear as needed. They could have been magical, psionic, or cosmic in nature.
Levitation: Doop could manipulate gravitons to float in place or to move quickly.
Doop could manipulate gravitons to float in place or to move quickly. Cohesion: Doop could change his size and shape at will. He could also shift his form to "heal" wounds. When dispersed, parts of his body could reassemble themselves. For some reason, parts of his brain could not reassemble, possibly because of a redundant brain in his lower torso.
Doop could change his size and shape at will. He could also shift his form to "heal" wounds. When dispersed, parts of his body could reassemble themselves. For some reason, parts of his brain could not reassemble, possibly because of a redundant brain in his lower torso. Superhuman Strength : Doop possesses a large amount of Unknown strength. He is sufficiently strong enough to battle with Thor.
: Doop possesses a large amount of Unknown strength. He is sufficiently strong enough to battle with Thor. Dimension Gate: Doop could assimilate objects, usually by mouth (but also by holes forming and closing from his body, and send them into another dimension (Doop Land) for storage. Doop Land has significant differences from many other dimensions. This dimension seems also to vary in space, time, and also depending on the people contained. [15]
Doop could assimilate objects, usually by mouth (but also by holes forming and closing from his body, and send them into another dimension (Doop Land) for storage. Doop Land has significant differences from many other dimensions. This dimension seems also to vary in space, time, and also depending on the people contained. Psionic Blast: Doop could fire psionic blasts of unknown strength.
Doop could fire psionic blasts of unknown strength. Psionic Shield: For a short time, Doop could protect himself and others nearby from telepathic probes. [16]
For a short time, Doop could protect himself and others nearby from telepathic probes. Temporal Immunity: Doop could not be displaced in time.
Doopish Magic: Using a spark of Magik's magic, he was able to perform his own magic.[1]
The Power of the Funk: Doop mastered this power and used it on different occasions, defeating both Master Pandemonium and Swarm,[17] and the Devil himself.[3]
Abilities
Professional-level videographer.
. Investigator.
Strength level
Class 100. He could survive a battle with Thor.
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Video cameras, microphones, relays, electric bass guitar and amps, [17]
A handheld device which apparently alerts him of "Global trouble searches" that "have results for you to view". This device alerts him of threats to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. [3]
A Wolverine costume[3]
Transportation
X-Men Blackbird,[18] Moto[19]
Weapons
An electric bass guitar and amps (using the Power of the Funk),[17] an Ultimate Nullifier (or a replica),[3] a submachine-gun (who can use a loading of living bees as ammunition),[3] a chainsaw,[3] briefly used bowling balls,[3] formerly a baseball bat[3]
Notes
The inspiration for this character seems to have come from a certain Slimer. [ citation needed ]
The following image began circulating in September 2001 as a guide to Doop's language.
During his return, Doop (if he is the so-called Daap) seems to have regressed, unstable both mentally and physical. It can have been caused by the shock of his friends death, his time in space and/or his crash. His words had no meaning during this time, but Lorna was apparently able to understand him, making some to believe he had some empathic or telepathic powers. However, Lorna was known for having been fragile mentally during this time, and the loss of her powers may have pushed her further into only thinking she could understand him.
Relationship and sexuality
Doop is one of Marvel's few openly bisexual or pansexual characters. [3] It was later explained that "he ignored the questions, whether he was male, female, straight, gay". [20]
It was later explained that. Doop is one of the more sexually active known characters: As far, it has been more or less hinted that Doop has had intercourse with Madonna, [21] two members (a woman and a man) of the Westchester County School Board, [3] Warbird [3] and also unknown male and female celebrities at the same time. [20]
two members (a woman and a man) of the Westchester County School Board, Warbird and also unknown male and female celebrities at the same time. It was also strongly hinted he practiced some sadomasochist sexual intercourse with Warbird. [3]
He also expressed feelings for Kitty Pryde, asking her to marry him, offering her a ring, taking her on a date, learning to speak English and trying to hypnotize/seduce her.[22]
Trivia
He also participated to at least a Roller Derby tournament with She-Hulk and Tigra, and cried during it.[3]
Discover and Discuss
Search this site for:With UFC heavyweight Travis Browne still under investigation stemming from allegations of domestic abuse, he will remain sidelined from competition.
UFC Tonight reported on Wednesday that the UFC will keep Browne out of action, pending the outcome of the investigation. In July, Browne's wife and fitness model Renee Webb posted pictures to her Instagram account of bruises on her arms and face, later citing Browne as the the culprit.
Webb wrote under the photo showing the abuse: "Probably one of the hardest decisions I've ever made was walking away from this life and starting over. I'm still ashamed for staying as long as I did. #domesticviolenceawareness."
When the news came out of the allegations, the UFC promptly removed Browne from all of his scheduled International Fight Week appearances in early July.
The UFC released a statement at the time, that read as follows:
"UFC is aware of the social media allegations made against Travis Browne. The organization requires all athletes to act in an ethical and responsible manner, as mandated by the UFC Fighter Conduct Policy. UFC will not tolerate domestic violence or any other violation of the policy. Every athletes is deserving of due process and this situation, as with any allegations, will be duly reviewed and thoroughly investigated by an independent party. In light of the news, Travis will not be participating in this week's UFC International Fight Week activities.
"The prevention of domestic violence and the education of the athletes is of the utmost importance to the organization. UFC holds its athletes to the highest standard and will continue to take appropriate action if and when warranted."
The report said that when UFC Tonight reached out to Browne, he opted not to comment.
Browne last fought at UFC 187, when he lost to Andrei Arlovski via first-round TKO (punches) in one of the more memorable rounds of the year.The investigation into the disappearance of Starship One reached a milestone today when Federal President Zachary Hudson confirmed that the remains of Starship One were among the wreckage recently delivered to Leoniceno Orbital. In a statement, President Hudson said:
"The loss of Starship One remains a tragedy, but I must admit to feeling a sense of relief at finally knowing what happened to the presidential ship.”
President Hudson followed his statement with a surprising announcement:
“Our researchers have surmised that the destruction of Starship One was not instantaneous, and that the front of the ship may have suffered less damage than the rest of the vessel. This means there is a very small chance – and I must stress that this is remote – that some of the crew might have been able to reach escape pods. That’s why I’m calling on the galactic community to support a second search – a search for survivors.”
“Pilots who want to contribute to the search should concentrate their efforts in the Lyncis Sector, and in particular on the ON-T B3-1, ON-T B3-2, ON-T B3-3, ON-T B3-4 and ST-R B4-3 1 systems, where we believe further wreckage from the ship may be found.”
Search-and-rescue vessels are already at work in the systems, helping with the hunt for survivors.
On the other side of the galaxy, Princess Aisling Duval has announced a historic campaign to create a new colony for former slaves in the Uibuth system. According to a statement from the princess’s press liaison, all slaves admitted to the colony will be liberated and re-educated, and offered the protection of forces loyal to Her Royal Highness. A spokesperson for the Prismatic Imperium, which is overseeing the initiative, gave further details:
“This morning our most noble lady Princess Aisling Duval returned from Achenar to Cubeo III. Upon arrival she immediately requested a private meeting with the leadership of the Prismatic Imperium. During the meeting, the princess emphasised her enduring wish to bring an end to slavery within the empire.”
“To this end, Princess Duval instructed Lord Corwin Ryan Head of the Prismatic Imperium and Count Vickershaft of the Navigators Guild to make preparations for the founding of a new colony, where freed slaves could live in comfort and safety. With the support of independent factions at D’Arrest Station in the Uibuth system, the colony was duly established. At the behest of the Princess, the Prismatic Imperium is asking pilots to transport slaves of all types to the new colony, where they will be emancipated and re-educated. Significant rewards have been promised to pilots who contribute to the initiative.”
The initiatives begin on the 18th of February 3302 and will run for one week.
Time to get out there and make a difference, Commanders!
Search for Survivors (complete at time of publication):
Leoniceno Orbital, Azaleach system – Find and deliver Escape Pods to Leoniceno Orbital in the Azaleach system to support the ongoing investigation into Starship One.
Freeing the Slaves:
D’Arrest Station, Uibuth system – Help the Prismatic Imperium set up a colony for freed slaves by transporting slaves of all types to D’Arrest Station in the Uibuth system.14 SHARES Facebook Twitter
People like “Dunkirk.”
Christopher Nolan’s latest is sitting pretty at a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing (here’s our own decidedly positive review). And while it’s received close to no negative criticism on a cinematic or storytelling level, it has — as is inevitable for any “based on a true story” film — been criticized on the basis of historical accuracy. In this particular case, the aggrieved party is the country of France.
“Dunkirk,” which in my humble opinion is not as good as everyone’s making it out to be, is based on the true story of the evacuation of thousands of British and Allied troops, who are surrounded by enemy forces on a northern French beach during World War II. The British soldiers were cornered, and the situation seemed pretty dire, but the work of British armed forces by land, sea, and air got those who were trapped out of harm’s way and back home to England. At least that’s the story Christopher Nolan tells in his film.
READ MORE: Christopher Nolan Says ‘Dunkirk’ Script Was Only 76 Pages, Reveals ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Connection
However, France is unhappy with this depiction of the events at Dunkirk. “Anglo-Saxons have an unpleasant tendency to put forward the feats of the British army and pass over those of the French army,” writes HuffPost France. Some in the French media are just plain insulted that Nolan’s “Dunkirk” effectively ignores the role of the French military in the titular evacuation.
English-language French publication The Local quotes French historian Dominique Lormier, who has apparently not yet seen “Dunkirk:” “I hope that this film will highlight the sacrifice of the 30,000 Frenchmen who prevented the surrender of the British troops who would have been unable to defend the territory… By its heroic sacrifice, the French army did indeed save Great Britain from defeat. It was a tactical and strategic defeat for Hitler who could not then force Britain to negotiate a separate peace.”
The film did not satisfy French critics in this regard, as you can clearly see from this scathing review in Le Monde, if you can read French. For the benefit of those of us who are not linguistically inclined to understand the piece, The Local translates some key excerpts:
[Le Monde] accuses the British director of being “witheringly impolite” and “indifferent” towards France by disregarding the role it played in “miracle of Dunkirk” in May 1940.
Reviewer Jacques Mandelbaum writes that one of many reservations he has with the film is that the plot is “purely British”.
He notes there are “a dozen seconds devoted to a group of French soldiers defending the city who were not very friendly and a few more to a French soldier disguised as British in order to try to flee the massacre.”
Mandelbaum negates his own argument to some extent with the following line:
“No one can deny a director’s right to focus his point of view on what he sees fit, as long as it does not deny the reality of which it claims to represent.”
READ MORE: The 25 Best War Movies Of All Time
Having seen “Dunkirk,” I don’t think Nolan is denying any reality relating to the French’s part in the Dunkirk evacuation. Rather, as a Brit, he’s focusing his point of view solely on the British soldiers — which, as Mandelbaum notes, he has every right to do.
Regardless as to where you fall on this debate about the historical accuracy of Christopher Nolan’s new movie “Dunkirk,” at the very least it’s the spectacle of the summer. The film opens on Friday.The United Nations formally launched an investigation into the United States’ targeted killing program on Thursday morning. Ben Emmerson, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, announced the beginning of the inquiry at a press conference in London.
“The central objective of the present investigation is to look at the evidence that drone strikes and other forms of remote targeted killing have caused disproportionate civilian casualties in some instances,” he said, “and to make recommendations concerning the duty of States to conduct thorough independent and impartial investigations into such allegations, with a view to securing accountability and reparation where things can be shown to have gone badly wrong with potentially grave consequences for civilians.”
While Emmerson said his investigation while concern “all use of armed force…for the purpose of targeted killing,” he stressed that “it is the use of drones which has propelled this issue to the top of the international agenda” because of the ease with which the relatively new technology can be deployed.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed several lawsuits challenging the legality of the Obama administration’s targeted killing program, said it welcomed the investigation.
“Virtually no other country agrees with the U.S.’s claimed authority to secretly declare people enemies of the state and kill them and civilian bystanders far from any recognized battlefield,” said ACLU National Security Project director Hina Shamsi in a statement. “To date, there has been an abysmal lack of transparency and no accountability for the U.S. government’s ever-expanding targeted killing program.”
The ACLU Human Rights Program’s director, Jamil Dakwar, said, “We hope the U.S. cooperates with the inquiry, and whether it does or not will show whether it holds itself to the same obligation to cooperate with U.N. human rights investigations that it urges on other countries.”
As President Obama enters his second term, there are signals that he intends to continue the targeted killing program indefinitely. The administration has been working on codifying official rules for the program since shortly before the end of the 2012 election, though there have been recent reports that these rules would exempt the CIA’s Pakistan drone campaign entirely.
Obama may have also signaled his intent to go all-in on drone warfare when he nominated counterterrorism adviser John Brennan to become director of the CIA. Brennan, known by his critics as the White House’s “assassination czar,” has long been one of the key officials involved in developing and implementing the administration’s targeted killing program.
In President Obama’s second inaugural address, he said, “We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war. ” Similarly, in a recent interview, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said drones were “not something that we’re going to have to continue to use forever.” However, in the same interview, he also described drone attacks as ”a continuing tool of national defense in the future.”By Park Jin-hai
Local dramas have been getting away from the previous norm that they should be 16- to 20-episode-long miniseries.
Starting with cable networks, more major television dramas are now experimenting with various lengths. There are dramas with four, eight and 12 episodes, and the length of each episode varies from 10 to 70 minutes.
Experts say the changing commercial market has led the productions to differentiate themselves.
In the past, dramas that were fewer than 16 episodes have had difficulties selling TV commercials. Most of dramas such as these were in fact hastily-made time-fillers between lengthy regular dramas, thus the casting of such dramas was weak and so were commercial sales.
"In the past, if we planned dramas of four or eight episodes, selling TV commercials was a big burden. But now that the overall TV commercial market is sluggish anyway, we have the leeway to experiment with dramas in various formats," said Jung Sung-hyo, chief of the KBS drama department. "Nowadays those four-part dramas are not time-fillers anymore. Based on the story material, the length of dramas varies in a way that raises the quality of even the short dramas."
In this context, short-run dramas -- usually having single episodes and with each episode having a different story, cast, director, and writer -- have been newly revived.
TV broadcasting channel KBS2, which has been airing 10 single-episode dramas each year via its weekly program "Drama Special," started broadcasting "Drama Special 2017" on Sept. 3. The late night Sunday show has been garnering a 4 percent viewership.
"It was a big surprise. Not only the quality of the dramas, but I feel that young writers, belonging to the video generation have a totally different language from the previous so-called text generation. If I hadn't tried this project with young writers, I wouldn't have learned about the changes," Jung added.
As the overall production of dramas is expanding with multi-channels and formats broadcasting dramas, broadcasters need fresh drama content more than ever and that forces them to search for aspiring young writers.
CJ E&M and JTBC joined the short drama market as well. CJ E&M selected 35 writers in April and has been supporting them for their debut. The 10 best scripts will be made into dramas and broadcast through tvN starting December. JTBC has been making web dramas, based on stories selected by the broadcaster's drama writing competition.Story highlights The bus was carrying at least 70 government employees
A remote-controlled explosive device destroyed the vehicle, police say
An eyewitness describes seeing passengers thrown into nearby fields by the blast
At least 17 people were killed and more than 30 others wounded in an explosion that ripped through a bus carrying government employees in northwest Pakistan on Friday, authorities said.
The blast destroyed the bus, police said. It was carrying at least 70 employees of various departments of the secretariat of Peshawar, the capital of the volatile province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Police think the explosion was caused by a remote-controlled device planted in a tin can containing about 6 to 8 kilograms (13 to 18 pounds) of explosives, said Nasir Durrani, inspector general of police in the province.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
Hakim Khan, an eyewitness, said the explosion hurled people sitting on the bus's roof out into fields by the side of the road.
Authorities said 34 people who were wounded in the blast are being treated at nearby hospitals.
Sikander Khan Sherpao, senior minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, suggested the attack had been carried out by forces wanting to sabotage recent efforts by the national government to pursue peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
Violence is frequent in Peshawar and the surrounding region.The other day the New York Times ran a favorable piece about the surging non-Zionist Jewish group, Jewish Voice for Peace. Today the following clarification appears after the article:
After this article was published, editors learned that one of the two writers, Daniel Ming, had been active in pro-Palestinian rallies. Such involvement in a public cause related to The Times’s news coverage is at odds with the paper’s journalistic standards; if editors had known of Mr. Ming’s activities, he would not have been allowed to write the article.
From the Vassar College newspaper a year ago. Sounds like the same guy:
In 2008, Ming was the recipient of a Tannenbaum Peace Fellowship and spent the summer after his sophomore year working with a Jordanian Catholic priest who develops interfaith relationships between Muslim and Christian communities in the country. During his time in Jordan, Ming took time off to visit the West Bank where he toured the area with an anti-occupation group called Stop the Wall.
My headline refers to the fact that the NYT’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief, Ethan Bronner, who is married to an Israeli, has a son in the Israeli army. When it broke the news last year, Electronic Intifada said that it was a conflict of interest; and the newspaper’s public editor concurred; he said that Bronner should be reassigned to some other beat. The Times’s executive editor, Bill Keller, has kept Bronner in Jerusalem, presumably hoping that the issue dies down and no one says anything about it.Washington (CNN) The FBI rejected a recent White House request to publicly knock down media reports about communications between Donald Trump's associates and Russians known to US intelligence during the 2016 presidential campaign, multiple US officials briefed on the matter tell CNN.
But a White House official said late Thursday that the request was only made after the FBI indicated to the White House it did not believe the reporting to be accurate.
White House officials had sought the help of the bureau and other agencies investigating the Russia matter to say that the reports were wrong and that there had been no contacts, the officials said. The reports of the contacts were first published by The New York Times and CNN on February 14.
The direct communications between the White House and the FBI were unusual because of decade-old restrictions on such contacts. Such a request from the White House is a violation of procedures that limit communications with the FBI on pending investigations.
Late Thursday night, White House press secretary Sean Spicer objected to CNN's characterization of the White House request to the FBI.
"We didn't try to knock the story down. We asked them to tell the truth," Spicer said. The FBI declined to comment for this story.
The discussions between the White House and the bureau began with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on the sidelines of a separate White House meeting the day after the stories were published, according to a US law enforcement official.
The White House initially disputed that account, saying that McCabe called Priebus early that morning and said The New York Times story vastly overstates what the FBI knows about the contacts.
But a White House official later corrected their version of events to confirm what the law enforcement official described.
The same White House official said that Priebus later reached out again to McCabe and to FBI Director James Comey asking for the FBI to at least talk to reporters on background to dispute the stories. A law enforcement official says McCabe didn't discuss aspects of the case but wouldn't say exactly what McCabe told Priebus.
Comey rejected the request for the FBI to comment on the stories, according to sources, because the alleged communications between Trump associates and Russians known to US intelligence are the subject of an ongoing investigation.
The White House did issue its own denial, with Priebus calling The New York Times story "complete garbage."
"The New York Times put out an article with no direct sources that said that the Trump campaign had constant contacts with Russian spies, basically, you know, some treasonous type of accusations. We have now all kinds of people looking into this. I can assure you and I have been approved to say this -- that the top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that that story is not only inaccurate, but it's grossly overstated and it was wrong. And there's nothing to it," Preibus said on "Fox News Sunday" last weekend.
CNN has previously reported that there was constant communication between high-level advisers to then-candidate Trump, Russian officials and other Russians known to US intelligence during the summer of 2016.
Several members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees tell CNN that the congressional investigations are continuing into those alleged Russian contacts with the Trump campaign, despite Priebus' assertion that there is nothing to those reports.
It is uncertain what the committees will eventually find and whether any of the information will ever be declassified and publicly released. But the push to investigate further shows that Capitol Hill is digging deeper into areas that may not be comfortable for the White House.
The Trump administration's efforts to press Comey run contrary to Justice Department procedure memos issued in 2007 and 2009 that limit direct communications on pending investigations between the White House and the FBI.
"Initial communications between the [Justice] Department and the White House concerning pending or contemplated criminal investigations or cases will involve only the Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, from the side of the Department, and the Counsel to the President, the Principal Deputy Counsel to the President, the President, or the Vice President from the side of the White House," reads the 2009 memo.
The memos say the communication should only happen when it is important for the President's duties and where appropriate from a law enforcement perspective.
A Department of Justice spokesman said Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reviewing the memos and that "the Department is following the guidelines in its communications with the White House."
The effort to refute the CNN and New York Times stories came as increasing numbers of congressional members were voicing concern about Russia's efforts to influence individuals with ties to Trump.
On February 17, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a briefing with Comey. It's unclear what was said, but senators suggested there was new information discussed about Russia.
"Every briefing we go through we gain new information," said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, a member of the committee. Lankford declined to be more specific about the briefing.
Sen. Angus King of Maine also declined to reveal what was discussed during the Comey briefing. In response to a question on Priebus' strong denial of the claims, King said he was "surprised" that Priebus would be "that categorical."
Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the goal of his panel's inquiry is to follow "leads wherever they go even if they may be uncomfortable to Republicans."
"The American public will want to know if the President had personal or financial ties to the Russian government," Swalwell said.
UPDATED: This story has been updated to reflect new information and comment from the White House.US President-elect Donald Trump was all praise during his conversation with Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (AFP Photo/TIMOTHY A. CLARY)
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump signaled his campaign trail dismissal of the threat of climate change may have been hot air after all, saying he was "open minded" on supporting global accords.
The US president-elect emerged from cabinet-building talks in his Trump Tower headquarters and traveled ten minutes across town to The New York Times to give a wide-ranging interview on his plans.
He disavowed "alt-right" activists who hailed his election as a victory for white supremacy, distanced himself from calls to prosecute Hillary Clinton and defended his global business empire.
And he appeared to soften his pledge to pull the United States out of accords such as last year's COP21 Paris Agreement, that binds countries to national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"I'm looking at it very closely. I have an open mind to it," he told New York Times executives and journalists over lunch at their headquarters, according to the paper's own account.
Campaigning ahead of November 8, Trump repeatedly told crowds of rustbelt and southern voters -- factory workers, coal miners and oilmen among them -- that he would tear up international climate agreements.
As far back as 2012 he had tweeted: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."
Now elected and due to become president on January 20, when he was confronted by Times columnist Thomas Friedman he admitted there may be a link between human industry and global warming.
"I think there is some connectivity. Some, something. It depends on how much," he said, adding he would nevertheless remain concerned about how much green measures would "cost our companies."
- Nazi salutes -
The New York Times sit-down, which followed a reportedly hostile off-the-record clash with TV network chiefs on Monday, appeared to represent a perhaps temporary truce with the hated media.
Trump regularly -- as recently as earlier Tuesday -- insults the "failing New York Times" in tweets, but distanced himself from threats to toughen libel laws and engaged cheerfully with the paper.
"I do read it. Unfortunately," he admitted. "I'd live about 20 years longer if I didn't."
He also, under repeated questioning, denounced the so-called alt-right, after leaders of the movement met in Washington at the weekend and celebrated his victory with Nazi salutes.
He insisted, somewhat controversially, that his sprawling global business empire does not represent a conflict of interest for a president -- at least not according to lawyers he has consulted.
"The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest," he told the paper.
Trump also said that he was reconsidering his position favoring the authorization of torturing detainees after sitting down with retired general James Mattis over the weekend to discuss naming him as secretary of defense.
He reported that he would "love" to clinch a deal to end the intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but on the bloodshed in Syria, Trump was more vague, saying "we have to end the craziness that's going on."
Trump gushed in his admiration for President Barack Obama, whom he will replace in the White House, telling the paper, despite the aggressive tone of his campaign, he had been honored to meet Obama. And he stepped back from threats to prosecute his defeated rival Clinton.
During the campaign, Trump had accused Clinton of illegally destroying email records to cover up wrongdoing and alleged fraud at her charitable foundation -- as his fans chanted "Lock her up."
- Special prosecutor -
Trump was asked by The New York Times whether he stood by a threat, made to Clinton's face in their second debate, to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her.
"I think it would be very, very divisive for the country," the president-elect admitted.
In common with his predecessors, the Republican billionaire has been in no hurry to name a cabinet, leaving the reporters gathered under Trump Tower chasing after rumors as he holds court above.
And if the Washington political class was expecting the populist provocateur of the campaign trail to hire a top team from the institutional mainstream, it could well be disappointed.
His picks include a chief strategist who is a self-described "economic nationalist" and a national security adviser who -- eased into retirement by Obama -- went to dine with Vladimir Putin.I’ve never been much of a mobile gamer. While my friends were hooked on Clash of Clans or Threes, I was happy ignoring the trend and playing my dedicated gaming consoles. So, why is it then that now I’m playing Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle any chance I get?
On its face, Dokkan Battle isn’t all that different from your standard mobile game: it’s a short, turn-based game. You collect items, and you can only do so much before your time runs out, unless you’re willing to pay, of course. I never thought I could like this kind of game, but I was proven wrong.
Dokkan Battle plays a little bit like a Mario Party and a little bit like an old-school Dragon ball Z game. Each map is built like a board game with colored tiles that can cause either a positive or negative result, but instead of mini games, you’ll fight enemies both big and small from Dragon Ball history. Fights are simplistic, quick, and addictively violent. You just can’t get tired of laying beatdowns like this:
There’s something satisfying about kicking someone’s ass so hard you can see it from space, but what really keeps me coming back over and over again is how often something new is happening. Every week there seems to be a new event going on in the game, or a re-release of a group of cards I missed out on. When neither of those things are happening, there’s probably a tournament or some other type of bonus experience points or dragon stones being thrown around. I’ve been playing Dokkan Battle for the last three months. In those three months, I’ve defeated Raditz and Vegeta. I’ve knocked out Freeza and Cell; I’ve saved the universe from Broly’s rampage, I’ve taken part in two World Tournaments and I’ve received untold amounts of free stuff. The folks at Bandai definitely know how to keep players engaged. A few weeks ago it was Broly, then it was Cell, now it’s both of them along with Buu, Dragon Ball Z’s penultimate villain.
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In fact, Dokkan Battle enjoys a dedicated following that most mobile games just don’t have; its subreddit is full of players posting videos of their performances, sharing strategies on how to overcome some of the game’s tougher bosses, and even going as far as mining the Japanese version of the game for info on what might be coming our way in the future. It makes sense why, too. Dokkan Battle has over 330 character cards you can win, and the only way to earn them is through luck.
Getting characters works like this: You can either earn or purchase dragon stones in-game. To pull a single |
gun and already Pelosi’s leadership was being questioned. The Pelosi spokesman downplayed her role in the race, saying: “Pallone and Eshoo have moved on. The caucus has moved on.” And in fact, over the past 10 months, there have been signs that Pelosi has found her groove again.
The president has said many times that much of what we’ve been able to accomplish in Congress over the past six years would not have succeeded without a strong, relentless partner in Congress, and Nancy Pelosi has been that partner. ” Eric Schultz, White House spokesman
In March, Pelosi pulled off a major coup in a fight involving the Department of Homeland Security. Conservatives in the House had protested President Obama’s executive order protecting as many as 5 million immigrants from deportation by holding hostage a DHS funding bill: Block the executive order, they said, or DHS shuts down. At the negotiating table, Boehner proposed a three-week DHS funding bill to buy more time. At Pelosi’s direction, the Democrats rejected Boehner’s offer in favor of a one-week bill. Of course, the House would never reach a deal to fund DHS in just one week, and in reality, the Republicans didn’t want to cripple DHS and appear to be playing games with the nation’s security. Pelosi was effectively calling the Republicans’ bluff. And it worked. Democrats got a clean bill to fund DHS for nine months that was free of the Republicans’ immigration provisions. Boehner “surrendered” to the Democrats, as The Washington Post put it, and the bill passed with 182 Democrats and 75 Republicans voting yes. Later that same month, Pelosi and Boehner cut a rare bipartisan deal that reformed how Medicare reimburses doctors for various types of treatment. “Bipartisan love: Boehner, Pelosi strike deal to kick ‘doc fix,’ ” CNN headlined its story. Pelosi, it seemed, had found a way back to a center seat at the deal-making table. Then, over the summer, she played a key role in lining up members in support of the president’s nonproliferation deal with Iran. By the time Congress returned from recess in September, she had already secured more than enough votes to sustain the president’s veto of any Republican-led disapproval measure.
There really is a question about when we’re going to have a generational shift. ”
In late July, GOP Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina filed a motion to remove Boehner from the speakership, only the latest example of how unruly and rebellious the Republican caucus has become. “Boehner couldn’t be a better speaker for us,” says a source close to Pelosi, “because he’s such a weak person.” As Boehner’s grip on his caucus has weakened in recent years, Pelosi has been able to use Boehner’s inability to deliver GOP votes to her advantage. “She’s come alive this Congress,” one current House member told me. Says George Miller, who still speaks with Pelosi by phone and pays her the occasional visit: “There’s a spring in her step.” TO UNDERSTAND HOW Nancy Pelosi has endured as Democratic leader, it helps to know a very basic fact about her biography: She was born to politics. Her parents’ home in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood was a salon, a gathering place for local pols, priests, businessmen, and union bosses—in short, the nerve center of a political machine presided over by Nancy’s father, Thomas “Big Tommy” D’Alesandro Jr. The D’Alesandros were New Deal Democrats. A portrait of FDR adorned the living room in the D’Alesandro home, and Thomas and Annunciata named one of the children Roosevelt—“Roosey” for short. Big Tommy served two decades in the Maryland legislature and U.S. Congress, where he had a seat on the influential Appropriations Committee. He stored copies of the Congressional Record under Nancy’s bed. One of Pelosi’s first memories is visiting the Capitol with her father at the age of 4. In 1947, D’Alesandro was elected mayor of Baltimore. Nancy saw firsthand what it takes to get anything done in office—how to cut deals and build coalitions. The D’Alesandros kept a legal pad near the front door, Marc Sandalow recounts in his biography Madam Speaker, and when someone came seeking help, the person’s name and phone number were written down and later typed onto index cards. During election season, the D’Alesandros opened their favor file to enlist canvassers, block captains, and other ground troops. So many people called the D’Alesandro home that Thomas had eight additional phone lines installed. At a young age, Pelosi said decades later, “I knew how to answer the phone and tell people where to go if they needed a bed in a city hospital or where to call to get into a housing project.” Judging by her childhood, it’s not hard to see why Pelosi’s friends call her a “thoroughbred.” “It’s in the blood,” says John Burton, a former congressman and ally of Pelosi’s. As Brendan Daly recalls, Pelosi’s father taught her to always ask, “How many votes do you need, and where are you going to get ’em?” (Pelosi’s brother Thomas III also went into politics. He became mayor of Baltimore in 1967, a job he once described as “like having a plate of shit handed to you every day. You have to eat the shit, then the next day, you get another plate of shit and you have eat that, too.” Pelosi, by contrast, never curses and spells out even mildly strong language, routinely referring to this or that piece of GOP legislation as a “piece of c-r-a-p.”) Pelosi’s family had high aspirations for her—just not in politics. “She was groomed for leadership but not for political leadership, not for public office,” her daughter Christine told me. “She never, ever thought she’d run for public office, because she’d never been told, ‘You can do this.’ ” While studying in Washington at all-female Trinity College, Nancy took a class at Georgetown called “Africa: South of the Sahara,” where she met Paul Pelosi, a fellow child of an Italian-American family. They married in Baltimore, moved to Manhattan, and eventually settled in Paul’s hometown of San Francisco. In a span of six years and one week, Pelosi had five children—four daughters and a son. Her office put me in touch with Christine and Alexandra, who are now 49 and 44, respectively, each with children of their own. The two daughters told me about their mother’s upright and proper manner—“the art of gracious living,” is what Alexandra calls it—and her ruthless efficiency running a household with five rambunctious kids. Lunches were packed via assembly line, the kids set the table for breakfast after each night’s dinner, and the children often wore matching outfits. That way it was easier to round up the kids at the playground or the movies. (Even Paul Jr. wore a color-coordinated boy’s version of his four sisters’ outfits.) Gossip and tattling were verboten. Christine described her mother’s philosophy this way: “If you want to confide in each other that’s fine, but don’t confide in each other when you’re happy and bring it out as a sword when you’re mad at each other.”
She was groomed for leadership but not for political leadership, not for public office,” her daughter Christine told me. “She never, ever thought she’d run for public office, because she’d never been told, ‘You can do this.’ ”
The Pelosis lived in a spacious house in San Francisco’s Presidio Terrace neighborhood. The mayor was one of their neighbors. One day, Pelosi recalled, a friend who was plugged into the local political scene visited their home. The friend took a look around and said, “Hmm, you have a big house. We’ll be having lots of Democratic Party events here.” Pelosi thought to herself, That was presumptuous, but she said OK. Their home quickly became a fixture on the local fundraising circuit, with the Pelosi kids ferrying plates of hors d’oeuvres from the kitchen to the guests. But the way she tells it, her return to politics in earnest didn’t happen until 1976, when then-Governor Jerry Brown announced he was running for president. Pelosi had hosted events with Brown and gotten to know the governor. Drawing on her knowledge of Maryland politics and her family’s contacts in the state, Pelosi helped orchestrate a surprising victory for Brown in Maryland’s primary. Brown fell short in his bid for the nomination, but the campaign established Pelosi’s credentials. She rapidly climbed the ranks to become chair of the California Democratic Party, and ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee in 1984–1985. She told me the DNC chair race was the most instructive of her career. She ran on modernizing the party’s index-card-heavy technology and utilizing the computers and software emerging out of her backyard in the Bay Area. No newcomer to brass-knuckle politics, Pelosi says she was nonetheless stunned by how people she’d hosted in her home or thought to be her supporters attacked her during the DNC race. Critics called her an “airhead” and accused her of taking money from the National Rifle Association, which she hadn’t. The number of women saying she had a “Geraldine Ferraro problem” and asking who was taking care of her children surprised her. “Would anybody ask a man, ‘Who’s taking care of your kids?’ ” Pelosi said to me. “No. And frequently it’s women who are asking the question.” She dropped out of the DNC race on the eve of the election. But in early 1987, Rep. Sala Burton—a canny political operative who’d succeeded her late husband, Phillip Burton, and who was suffering from colon cancer—announced she would not run again. On her deathbed, Burton tapped Pelosi to replace her. In April of that year, Pelosi won the Democratic primary by about 4,000 votes. Pelosi’s entire family attended her swearing-in ceremony in the Capitol. According to Sandalow’s biography, when her elderly father rolled past Democratic Speaker Jim Wright in his wheelchair, he slipped him some advice about Nancy: “She ought to be on Appropriations.” Big Tommy died of a heart attack three months later. I ALWAYS SAY to people,” Pelosi told me in one of our conversations, “think of going to a dinner with 450 people—and two tables are women in that whole room.” She was describing the composition of the House of Representatives when she arrived in June of 1987. There were 23 other women in the House then—12 Democrats and 11 Republicans—and they were treated more as a curiosity than colleagues, Pelosi told me. Pelosi secured seats on the Government Operations and Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Committees. (She would have to wait several years before getting on Appropriations.) Years later, Pelosi would tell her female colleagues of the time that she and several male members were in the midst of a tense discussion while walking off the House floor. As they talked, they passed through one set of doors and then another, at which point one of the men turned to her and said, “You can’t come in here.” “What do you mean?” an indignant Pelosi replied. “I’m an equal member of Congress. There’s nowhere I can’t go.” Her colleague replied, “This is the men’s room.”
Following the Republican Revolution of 1994, House Democrats found themselves in the strange position of being in the minority after more than four decades in power. To make matters worse, the Democratic leadership didn’t have many ideas for how to win the majority back. “They weren’t combat-ready,” says George Miller. While the Democratic brass was eager to utilize Pelosi’s fundraising prowess, they were less interested in her ideas on campaign strategy and party messaging. The boiling point for Pelosi and many other Democrats came in the 2000 election. In California, Democrats netted five seats across the state; the caucus needed just three or four more gains in the remaining 49 states to win back the majority. Yet they fell short. After such a disappointing showing, Pelosi flew the California Democratic Party’s consultants to Washington to share their tactics with the caucus. The Californians got a chilly reception, Miller told me. The caucus leadership scheduled the presentation by the consultants at an odd time, depressing attendance, and their ideas were mostly ignored by the powers that be. When the opening came, Pelosi knew for sure she was going to run for leadership. “One day, she says, ‘You know what? I don’t think these boys know how to win,’ ” Miller recalled. “ ‘Wanna win?’ ” In 2001, Pelosi ran against Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland in a brutal intraparty race to be the party whip. She won (118-to-95) and climbed from whip to minority leader the following year, after Dick Gephardt decided to step down. Democrats failed to make any gains in 2004, but in 2006, they claimed 31 seats and won the majority. On January 4, 2007, Pelosi was sworn in as the first-ever female speaker of the House. The next day, she returned to her hometown of Baltimore for a rally in Little Italy. The city celebrated her speakership by naming the block she grew up on Via Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi. Pelosi’s youngest daughter, Alexandra, had traveled to Baltimore for her mother’s homecoming. Afterward, Pelosi’s massive motorcade snarled traffic for miles in all directions as it left the city and headed back to Washington. As Alexandra told me, she and her family were getting nowhere trying to return home to New York. “Thanks a lot,” Alexandra recalled telling her mother. “You got us stuck in traffic.” Nancy Pelosi, keenly aware of how her life was about to change, replied: “At least you have your freedom.” WHEN I VISITED Henry Waxman, who served in the House under eight different speakers and is now a lobbyist, I asked him what made Pelosi different from the other speakers he knew. “I remember when Tip O’Neill was speaker,” Waxman said. “He was an excellent speaker. But he came at the time when chairs were still pretty powerful. If Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and John Dingell, chairman of Energy and Commerce Committee, had a disagreement, they might take it [to Tip]. They’d say, ‘We’re going to go to Tip and have this resolved.’ Well, nobody would know where Tip was. He suddenly just disappeared.” This, of course, was before the days of cell phones. So, Waxman went on, it was left to members and their staff to hammer out a compromise. “While people were waiting around for Tip to come back from wherever he was, they would resolve the issue. That was a very successful strategy.” By the time Pelosi got the speaker’s gavel, the power centers in the House had shifted from the committees to the caucus leadership—the speaker, majority leader, whip. Pelosi met on a weekly or biweekly basis with committee chairs, freshmen and sophomore members, and various caucuses. She rarely dictated how members should vote on any one bill, instead checking in incessantly by phone and in person, asking what a member was thinking, how he or she was feeling, and whether her office could provide any more information. Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland describes Pelosi’s organizing style as “shuttle diplomacy.” The approach may owe something to what Alexandra Pelosi described to me as Nancy’s skill at using “Italian-Catholic-mother guilt.” In the case of Obamacare, Waxman explained that Pelosi had insisted that each of the three committees whose jurisdiction included health care—Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor—begin the negotiations and amendments process at the committee level using the same baseline piece of legislation. That way Democrats could avoid a repeat of the messy committee-level fight that sank President Bill Clinton’s effort to pass health care reform in the early 1990s. The speaker at the time was Thomas Foley, a Democrat from Washington state. “Very nice guy, very smart guy,” Waxman said. “His view of being speaker was very different. He was there when Clinton came in and was doing health care. Each of the committees was doing some bill. We were arguing about the policy. His view was: ‘It will all work out. Things will come to the House floor, there’ll be divisions, they’ll be voted on, and at the end of the day, that will be the bill.’ ” In the case of Clintoncare, this was a disaster. “That’s so antithetical to Nancy Pelosi,” Waxman told me. “She’d want to know what that bill was going to be. Was it going to be a good bill, or was it going to be a watered-down missed opportunity?” Even now, as minority leader, this hands-on approach is still Pelosi’s calling card. It’s constant motion, an endless succession of meetings and phone calls with caucus members on the issues of the day, getting them any information they need on a bill, answering any questions they have. She comes armed to meetings not only with information about the policy but also why a member hesitant to take a tough vote in fact can. “She’ll challenge you,” Democratic Rep. Sam Farr of California says of her leadership style over the years. “When you say, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t be with you this time,’ she’ll say, ‘This is a very important vote; you can be with us.’ She’ll know the numbers—what you got elected by, what your fundraising capabilities are. Most people accept what you tell ’em. Not Nancy.” Pelosi says she prefers to follow the action on the House floor by watching C-SPAN from her couch or desk, usually while writing thank-you letters or signing constituent mail. “I try to watch them on TV more than on the floor because I want to see what the public sees,” she explains. “How many people are in the chamber when we’re watching it? Nobody? Twenty? I want to see that debate, the back and forth, and what the other side is doing.” She is known to text caucus members words of encouragement after seeing them speak on the floor, signing her texts “Nancy.” I asked Pelosi about how she corrals her fellow Democrats. Had the diversity and unruliness of her caucus made it easier or harder to twist arms? “We don’t twist arms,” she insisted. “We build consensus in our caucus. That’s what we have always done. When we had the majority, that’s what we always did.” She described herself as “a weaver of consensus.” She went on: “Every thread is important to us, meaning what that person brought regionally, philosophically, generationally, gender-wise, whatever, ethnically, to the table so that we would have something that would be sustainable.”
[John] Boehner couldn’t be a better speaker for us because he’s such a weak person. ”
There’s no doubt that Pelosi is quite skilled at being a leader—and observers, allies, and rivals all concede that, if she retired, the void in the caucus and on the campaign trail would be huge. She was the “strongest and most effective speaker of modern times,” according to Brookings Institution scholar Thomas Mann. Numerous colleagues told me that she is the best vote-counter they’ve seen. She is also a first-rate fundraiser: According to her office, she attended 750 fundraising and campaign events in 115 cities in 2013 and 2014, raising an eye-popping $101 million for congressional Democrats and the DCCC. All of which makes her in many ways uniquely suited to a time in which money rules politics. “I don’t think she’s going anywhere anytime soon,” the source close to Pelosi told me. “She is the only one who can raise the amount of money needed to compete in this era of virtually no campaign-finance regulations.” But there are other consequences to Pelosi’s continued leadership of the caucus, and not all of them are positive. There is a view among some House members that the longer the current Democratic leadership remains in power, the more it bottles up younger talent below. (“Younger,” in this case, includes members in their 50s and 60s.) This view applies not just to Pelosi, but also to Hoyer (age 76) and Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn of South Carolina (age 75). That grumbling extends to several of the highest-ranking Democrats at the committee level, too. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas warned, in an interview with The New York Times Magazine published in May, that younger members would depart if there weren’t leadership changes. “You look at my class, 2012,” he explained. “Tulsi Gabbard, she’s not gonna stay in the House for long—she’ll run for governor or something else. Joe Kennedy, the same. Pat Murphy, the same. And they’re all talented, ambitious, good fundraisers. But I’ve just got to think that when you see that 20-year road to being in a position of consequence, other options start to look a lot more attractive.” (O’Rourke declined an interview request for this story.) Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who served in the House under Pelosi for three terms, echoed O’Rourke’s sentiment, arguing that committee chairmanships would need to open up. “I think there are a lot of House members who leave after six or eight years because they recognize that they’ve got to stay another decade before they have a shot at chairing a committee,” Murphy told me. “I think the rules of the House are going to have to change if you want to keep new members interested and involved.” I heard these same observations directly relating to Pelosi. “I mean, look, people are appreciative of her long service,” one House Democrat told me. “But at some point, leadership means stepping aside.” Pelosi often points to sexism in debates over her future. At a press conference in the wake of the 2014 midterms, she asked why reporters hadn’t grilled Mitch McConnell over when he’d retire after he failed three times in a row to win the Senate majority. “It just is interesting, as a woman,” she said, “how many times that question is asked of a woman and how many times that question is never asked of Mitch McConnell.” But another current House Democrat, also speaking on background, disputed Pelosi’s analysis. “I don’t think that these things about ‘When is she leaving?’ are gender-based,” the member told me. “Maybe there is some of that, but people are saying that about Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, too.” “You have a Republican leadership,” the member went on, “that with the exception of Boehner—who is still a lot younger than they are—but the rest of them are in their 40s and early 50s. There really is a question about when we’re going to have a generational shift.” There are signs that Pelosi has thought about succession. In May, the Times Magazine reported that a small group of House Democrats had met in secret after the 2014 midterms to lay the groundwork for replacing Pelosi with Van Hollen, a genial, hyper-disciplined budget wonk who led the DCCC from 2007 to 2010. But those plans collapsed when Van Hollen announced he was running to replace Maryland’s senior senator, Barbara Mikulski, who is retiring next year. The source close to Pelosi sought to cast the Van Hollen group—which included several Pelosi stalwarts, such as Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Donna Edwards of Maryland—as tacitly endorsed by the minority leader. But other House Democrats disputed that. The obvious choice to succeed Pelosi is Hoyer, the No. 2 in command and a widely liked figure inside the caucus. “I don’t think there’s any doubt in people’s mind that if Nancy decided to leave,” Hoyer told me, “I would run for leader and I would have a good chance of being elected.” However, based on my reporting, it’s highly likely that, when Pelosi moves on, someone younger would challenge Hoyer for the leader slot. One name I heard was Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, the outgoing chairman of the House Democratic caucus. Becerra, if he ran for leader, could draw votes from a number of places, including the California delegation, the Hispanic caucus, and the Progressive caucus. (Through a spokeswoman, Becerra declined to comment on the speculation. “Nancy Pelosi has been a driving force behind many of our nation’s greatest achievements, from affordable health care to Wall Street reform,” Becerra said. “Her energy is unmatched, and no one builds consensus as she does.”) Here’s a sure bet: Pelosi will do everything in her power before she leaves—whenever that is—to line up a successor and prevent a bloodbath inside the caucus. From her run for DNC chair to her battle with Hoyer for whip, she knows how brutal caucus politics can be. “Politics is tough,” she told me, “but intraparty? Oh, brother.”Here’s a quick tutorial on an HDR control node in Blender. The point is to be able to control the background intensity and the lighting separately. It also gives you the option of having separate background and lighting.
Here is the node as it would be used in the Node Editor.
Here is what you need to put inside the node.
When both inputs are connected to your environment map, the background and lighting are unified and you have independent brightness control.
You can disconnect the background to use a different map, or just a colour for the background.
If you want more control, add texture coordinates to the Environment Texture. This will let you rotate, etc the background.
You can expand this to include control for Gamma, Saturation, Colour temperature, etc if you need these things.
To use this in other scenes, use File / Append / Node Tree to bring this node group into your Blender scene, then use Add / Group in the Node editor to add it to your environment material.The Beer Store Steps In to Allow Ontario’s Contract Brewers to Pour at Beer Festivals
TORONTO, ON – In a move that adds even more ammunition to its ongoing PR battle with the Ontario Convenience Stores Association, Ontario’s Beer Store – the retail chain co-owned by Labatt Breweries, Molson Coors Canada, and Sleeman Breweries – has announced that it will be assisting the province’s small contract brewers in getting their products poured at beer festivals and other events this summer.
As reported earlier this month by BlogTO and other |
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Corpse Run 563: Don’t ask don’t tell Kat’s Korner 592: Hockey! Corpse Run 562: Breakfast of Champions Kat’s Korner 591: This makes sense Kat’s Korner 590: Moar waaaart Corpse Run 561: Stuck in last Kat’s Korner 589: More Waaaaaart Corpse Run 560: Pomp and circumstance Kat’s Korner 588: Big metal thing! Kat’s Korner 587: Professor Layton and the Mystery of the Ring Corpse Run 559: Three notes Kat’s Korner 586: Ooooold Corpse Run 558: Heat death Kat’s Korner 585: Sci-light Corpse Run 557: Subtlety is a virtue Corpse Run 556: Plunger Corpse Run 555: X80 TI Something something Kat’s Korner 584: PARTS Corpse Run 554: Supporting the troops Kat’s Korner 583: The machine Kat’s Korner 582: WART! Corpse Run 553: Starring Kat’s Korner 581: Dumpster dive Corpse Run 552: That’s Wright! Corpse Run 551: Shortcut Corpse Run 550: One for the road Kat’s Korner 580: Pinkie! Kat’s Korner 579: Them reapers! Corpse Run 549: Fartsy Corpse Run 548: Sans p.e.r.i.o.d.s. Kat’s Korner 578: Carolina Reapers Corpse Run 547: Look both ways Kat’s Korner 577: Doodles on hold 546: Something something Nicholas Cage Kat’s Korner 576: On hold doodles are back! Kat’s Korner 575: Vannamelon & Melon Corpse Run 545: Natas Kat’s Korner 574: RAINBOW Corpse Run 544: Super Soaker Kat’s Korner 573: Pinkies! Kat’s Korner 572: EDITS! Corpse Run 543: Smitten Corpse Run 542: I’m dumb Corpse Run 541: Hippos Corpse Run 540: Air-y Corpse Run 539.5: Post Color-War 2015 Corpse Run 539: Name race Corpse Run 538: Kodak moment Corpse Run 537: Cutbacks Kat’s Korner 571: Head thing? Corpse Run 536: Worth fighting for Corpse Run 535: The mind is willing Corpse Run 534: Crafty Kat’s Korner 570: House on the hill Corpse Run 533: P shafted Kat’s Korner 569: Chandledeer Corpse Run 532: Perky Kat’s Korner 568: About a man named Brady Corpse Run 531.5 Kat’s Korner 567: Read this! Corpse Run 531: I’m so tired Kat’s Korner 566: Corpse Run Summer Cribs Continued Kat’s Korner 565: Tower! Corpse Run 530: Peeve Kat’s Korner 564: Old and new Corpse Run 529: It’s about time Kat’s Korner 563: A clock! Kat’s Korner 562: Digs Corpse Run 528: Squeaky! Kat’s Korner 561: Upload Corpse Run 527: Materia switching Kat’s Korner 560: Summer! Kat’s Korner 559: Mature Corpse Run 526: Still excited, though Kat’s Korner 558: Rendering a test version! Corpse Run 525: Greedo Ballin Kat’s Korner 557: Smile! Kat’s Korner 556: Equestria Military Reserves Corpse Run 524: Ink Kat’s Korner 555: Getting there! Corpse Run 523: Edgewise Kat’s Korner 554: The lake! Kat’s Korner 553: Timeline! Corpse Run 522: Order up Kat’s Korner 552: …and the crowd goes wild! Corpse Run 521: Advanced placement Kat’s Korner 551: New fridge! Kat’s Korner 550: DOUBLE THE FUN Corpse Run 520: Pentadamn Kat’s Korner 549: Drawing a crowd Kat’s Korner 548: START! Corpse Run 519: Cherry prestigious Kat’s Korner 547: Dropbox Corpse Run 518: Regular exercise Kat’s Korner 546: Keeps your food cool Kat’s Korner 545: School play! Corpse Run 517: Only $12.99! Kat’s Korner 544: Marching to victory! Corpse Run 516: Insecurity Kat’s Korner 543: AJ in AE Kat’s Korner 542: Join the effort! Corpse Run 515: Lingo Kat’s Korner 541: This guy! Corpse Run 514: G Kat’s Korner 540: How do you like them apples? Kat’s Korner 539: Winged buddies! Corpse Run 513: Totally different Kat’s Korner 538: DRAFT Corpse Run 512: The need Kat’s Korner 537: Firing squad Kat’s Korner 536: Squeaky clean Corpse Run 511: Vino Kat’s Korner 535: Running! Corpse Run 510: Exx Kat’s Korner 534: More puppets! Kat’s Korner 533: Blocking! Corpse Run 509: What could go wrong? Kat’s Korner 532: Puppet building Corpse Run 508: Hooray Kat’s Korner 531: Gatling guns! Kat’s Korner 530: Uhhh… Spongebob? Corpse Run 507: Stereo-stop-it Kat’s Korner 529: Sketch-y-ness Corpse Run 506: If you’re not first… Kat’s Korner 528: Pilotwings Kat’s Korner 527: Take no prisoners, gif! Corpse Run 505: Buzzkill Kat’s Korner 526: Take no prisoners! Corpse Run 504: Hello stranger Kat’s Korner 525: Bo bo bo bo bo bo something? Kat’s Korner 524: Officejack Corpse Run 503: Mind the (age) gap Kat’s Korner 523:We’re not done! Corpse Run 502: Look, a distraction! Kat’s Korner 522: Flannel doodle? Kat’s Korner 521: SHE’S GONNA PUSH IT! Corpse Run 501: Hit-o-cratic oath Kat’s Korner 520: The orphans! Corpse Run 500: Not 20/20 Kat’s Korner 519: 2015 Whisk(e)y Test! Kat’s Korner 518: In theaters everywhere Corpse Run 499: Great expectations Kat’s Korner 517: We all live in an Apple submarine Corpse Run 498: Bee Ae En Ae En Ae Ess Kat’s Korner 516: Let it snow Kat’s Korner 515: Devious! Corpse Run 497: Doubling down Kat’s Korner 514: In my apple submarine Corpse Run 496: Fan death Kat’s Korner 513: Back home doodle! Kat’s Korner 512: Phone doodle guy! Corpse Run 495: Not so regal Bryant Kat’s Korner 511: Day three, out at sea Corpse Run 494.5: Home! Kat’s Korner 510: Ye Olde Medicine Kat’s Korner 509: THE COLORS, DUKE! Corpse Run 494: I’d expect nothing less Kat’s Korner 508: SWANS! Corpse Run 493: Swingers Kat’s Korner 507: …and then then shot itself! Kat’s Korner 506: Day two background! Corpse Run 492: Barred Kat’s Korner 505: Another doodle guy Corpse Run 491: The Great Dictator Kat’s Korner 504: 95 out of 100 Nobles were impressed Kat’s Korner 503: Ebola Spike? Corpse Run 490: The interview part 2 Kat’s Korner 502: Peers animated! Corpse Run 489.5: A dog pooped on the subway Kat’s Korner 501: Peers! Kat’s Korner 500: Who’s that pretty lady? Corpse Run 489: A-rthritis Kat’s Korner 499: OH GOD SHE’S COMING RIGHT FOR US! Corpse Run 488: Hertzfeldt, don’t it? Kat’s Korner 498: In my plastic air-o-plane Kat’s Korner 497: CRAN! Corpse Run 487: Mario K- Kat’s Korner 496: Coffee doodles Corpse Run 486: Windy conditions Kat’s Korner 495: BG! Kat’s Korner 494: Open photoshop night! Corpse Run 485: Wii owe U Kat’s Korner 493: Signing treaties, singing songs Corpse Run 484: Ja, yah? Kat’s Korner 492: Mantarok! Kat’s Korner 491: Family bonding, selling bonds Corpse Run 483: Culinary artes Kat’s Korner 490: Desk ornamenting! Corpse Run 482: GRADE Kat’s Korner 489: Draft horse, no remorse… Kat’s Korner 488: Miss you, Rex Corpse Run 481: Same time next month? Kat’s Korner 487: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie Horse Corpse Run 480: Tales of… the abyss, I guess Kat’s Korner 486: Applefridge Kat’s Korner 485: Play it, son! Corpse Run 479: The streets of Meltokyo Kat’s Korner 484: A very Applejack Christmas Corpse Run 478: Online interactions not rated by the ESRB Kat’s Korner 483: Colored skeleton dance! Kat’s Korner 482: Pa ruh pa pa pum Corpse Run 477: Will of the people Kat’s Korner 481: Do-si-do-ing Corpse Run 476: Shuu, bird, SHUU! Kat’s Korner 480: Grab your partner, do si do! Kat’s Korner 479: Streamy doodle! Corpse Run 475: PSA – It doesn’t work Kat’s Korner 478: Applejacks! Corpse Run 474: Salt-io Kart Kat’s Korner 477: Some civilian casualties Kat’s Korner 476: Sinterklaas or something to that effect! Corpse Run 473: M Kat’s Korner 475: It’s a breeze! Corpse Run 472: Till the day you die Kat’s Korner 474: On hold doodles again! Kat’s Korner 473: Raze that field and raise this barn Corpse Run 471: This is the tale Kat’s Korner 472: Dat view Corpse Run 470: The December to Remem… wait, that’s Lexus… Kat’s Korner 471: More on hold doodles! Kat’s Korner 470: Goodman Stew Corpse Run 469: …guys? Kat’s Korner 469: Desk! Corpse Run 468: Not in your hand Kat’s Korner 468: Pan the floor! Kat’s Korner 467: Indecision Corpse Run 467: Port to port Kat’s Korner 466: Buttons! Corpse Run 466: Mmm mmm good Kat’s Korner 465: Been a while, Pinkie! Kat’s Korner 464: Behind the war… again! Corpse Run 465: Loophole Kat’s Korner 463: War is like an apple farm Corpse Run 464: Party! Kat’s Korner 462: Candy! Kat’s Korner 461: On hold doodles part 2 Corpse Run 463: Not what I had in mind Kat’s Korner 460: Turkey! Corpse Run 462: Why is this full price? Kat’s Korner 459: Rarity is working too Kat’s Korner 458: It’s totally working Corpse Run 461: Float on Kat’s Korner 457: On hold doodles Corpse Run 460: Formal attire Kat’s Korner 456: Day two begins! Kat’s Korner 455: Add in an Applejack Corpse Run 459: Take a number Kat’s Korner 454: Assembly line! Corpse Run 458: FUMTA Kat’s Korner 453: Proof! Kat’s Korner 452: STREAM! Corpse Run 457: Call to arms Kat’s Korner 451: Behind the war Corpse Run 456: In a well rounded kind of way Kat’s Korner 450: Bits! Kat’s Korner 449: Kind of a stream doodle? Corpse Run 455: For whom? Kat’s Korner 448: Fairies? Corpse Run 454: Not even once Kat’s Korner 447: Apple tanks are all we need! Kat’s Korner 447: Apple tanks are all we need! Kat’s Korner 446: Wat. Corpse Run 453: You’re in trouble Kat’s Korner 445: Speaking fancy Corpse Run 452: Light the way Kat’s Korner 444: Detective Coco Kat’s Korner 443: I really don’t know what’s going on here Corpse Run 451: Never believe it’s not so Kat’s Korner 442: Boy my helmet sure looks cute Corpse Run 450: A porcupine Kat’s Korner 441: Aming! Kat’s Korner 440: Tea party! Corpse Run 449: Look at them Kat’s Korner 439: Come on Johnny! Corpse Run 448: Woe is me Kat’s Korner 438: Here we go Kat’s Korner 437: Fear Charlie Corpse Run 447: Deafening? Kat’s Korner 436: The horror Corpse Run 446: Just a flesh wound Kat’s Korner 435: OH COME ON! Kat’s Korner 434: Beach party! Corpse Run 445: Help me, help you Kat’s Korner 433: MEGAMAN! Corpse Run 444: Well trained Kat’s Korner 432: fffffffffffffffffffffffffffff9 Kat’s Korner 431: Korra! Corpse Run 443: It’s true Kat’s Korner 430: Astoria Dragon Cats! Corpse Run 442: Cell 9000 Kat’s Korner 429: That opening thing Kat’s Korner 428: Lean! Corpse Run 441: Rererererereremake Kat’s Korner 427: Apple nightmare Corpse Run 440.5: Cantaloupe Kat’s Korner 426: Booth doodles part eight! Kat’s Korner 425: Pokemon Battle! Corpse Run 440: As a tack! Kat’s Korner 424: It begins! Corpse Run 439: Sand marks the spot Kat’s Korner 423: More van! Kat’s Korner 422: They see us rollin’ Corpse Run 438: Friends with benefits Kat’s Korner 421: Booth doodles part seven Corpse Run 437: Friendship is tragic Kat’s Korner 420: Booth doodles part six! Kat’s Korner 419: Kirstine returns! Corpse Run 436:Line dancing Kat’s Korner 418: Booth doodles part five! Corpse Run 435: 2236ish Kat’s Korner 417: Ceramics take two Kat’s Korner 416: Booth doodles part four! Corpse Run 434: Candy carrot Kat’s Korner 415: Booth doodles part three Corpse Run 433: Love of the game Kat’s Korner 414: Porcupine! Kat’s Korner 413: Booth doodles part two Corpse Run 432: Not-bright Sonata Kat’s Korner 412: Alex pony 2.0 Corpse Run 431:Universally annoying Kat’s Korner 411: Fun in ceramics! Kat’s Korrner 410: Matt pony! Corpse Run 430: Technically correct Kat’s Korner 409: Booth doodles part one Corpse Run 429: Pawn shot Kat’s Korner 408: The return of Karl Facts Kat’s Korner 407: Doodling on my leg, part one Corpse Run 428: I can think of no better time Kat’s Korner 406: Day before camp Corpse Run 427: Eggciting Kat’s Korner 405: Of course not! Kat’s Korner 404: Game face Corpse Run 426: A friend in need Kat’s Korner 403: The Alex buck! Corpse Run 425: Close enough Kat’s Korner 402: Warhorse, proud to be… Kat’s Korner 401: Stream Ponies 2.0 Corpse Run 424: Foreign bodies Kat’s Korner 400: How do you like them apples? Corpse Run 423: Brings us back to… Kat’s Korner 399: Neighing fire Kat’s Korner 398: Take no prisoners… Corpse Run 422: …but they wouldn’t do that, right? Kat’s Korner 397: Grab your partner! Corpse Run 421: Pot and kettle Kat’s Korner 396: Family bonding Kat’s Korner 395: Ruminating on my crimes Corpse Run 420: Emotional roller coaster Kat’s Korner 394: In my plastic aero-plane Corpse Run 419: Specifics Kat’s Korner 393: Play it, son! Kat’s Korner 392: Another livestream roundup! Corpse Run 418: Depreciation Kat’s Korner 391: War is like an apple farm… Corpse Run 417: Mercantile Kat’s Korner 390: Come on Johnny, get your gun Kat’s Korner 389: Birthday roundup Corpse Run 416: Dressed for success Kat’s Korner 388: Applejack stuff! Corpse Run 415: You’re goddamn… close Kat’s Korner 387: Side project BEGIN! Kat’s Korner 386: Cosplaying? Corpse Run 414: Challenging fate Kat’s Korner 385: The incredible Shulk Corpse Run 413: Zantetsuken Kat’s Korner 384: How Applejack won the war Kat’s Korner 383: Livestream doodle number something Corpse Run 412: Our teeth and ambitions are bared Kat’s Korner 382: Goodbye Time Warner Corpse Run 411: Heart of the cards Kat’s Korner 381: Xenoblade Chronicles in a nutshell Kat’s Korner 380: Another livestream group! Corpse Run 410: Starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx Kat’s Korner 379: Standing around Corpse Run 409: Foiled Kat’s Korner 378: Doodles and stuff Kat’s Korner 377: Do you want to eat a poffin? Corpse Run 408: This spud’s for you Kat’s Korner 376: Double the doodle Corpse Run 407: Borderline crazy Kat’s Korner 375: For the first time in forever Kat’s Korner 374: The Smegmadon Corpse Run 406: Technically improbable Kat’s Korner 373: Boat… it’s a boat Corpse Run 405: The littlest molehill Kat’s Korner 372: Totes the right name Kat’s Korner 371: The what the heck crew Corpse Run 404: Investing 101 Kat’s Korner 370: Collecting dust Corpse Run 403: Where everybody knows your name Kat’s Korner 369: Doodles in COLOR Kat’s Korner 368: Delphox Irish darts sombreroville Corpse Run 402: Wondering why Kat’s Korner 367: Giza A Corpse Run 401: Two left feet Kat’s Korner 366: Doodles… just doodles! Kat’s Korner 365: Seriously guys, what is this? Corpse Run 400: Analogues Kat’s Korner 364: Arty Antics doodles Corpse Run 399: Fun with groups Kat’s Korner 363: Cheese Sandwich Kat’s Korner 362: Lord apple and the Strawberry Mousse Moose Corpse Run 398: Rock, paper, scissors Kat’s Korner 361: More doodles! Corpse Run 397: Crits all around Kat’s Korner 360: Doodlishous Kat’s Korner 359: Dragon scared of his Meowth lava lamp reflection Corpse Run 396: Fahrenheit four fifty dumb Kat’s Korner 358: Smile! Corpse Run 395: My man! Kat’s Korner 357: Fire Emblem doodles! Kat’s Korner 356: Moo shall not pass Corpse Run 394: Highlights grown up Kat’s Korner 355: Not a clue! Corpse Run 393: Subtraction by addition Kat’s Korner 354: Mane six fillies Kat’s Korner 353: Double fisting ninja bear Corpse Run 392: One thousand somethings Kat’s Korner 352: Phil the sketchy guy Corpse Run 391: Access denied Kat’s Korner 351: The half cat half dragon Kat’s Korner 350: The underground regal trade Corpse Run 390: Something there Kat’s Korner 349: Beauty and the Sketch Corpse Run 389: Quality apparel Kat’s Korner 348: The book of pony Kat’s Korner 347: Another doodle dump Corpse Run 388: Goldfish Kat’s Korner 346: Toph! Corpse Run 387: Residubious Kat’s Korner 345: Pinkie’s canon cart Kat’s Korner 344: Pinkie cake! Corpse Run 386: Rugged Kat’s Korner 343: Morning doodles Corpse Run 385: By your powers combined… Kat’s Korner 342: Elements of Sketch-ony Kat’s Korner 341: Fire breathing tiger goron penguin Han Solo Corpse Run 384: Enough to go around Kat’s Korner 340: Something something doublemint gum Corpse Run 383: Thinking outside the box Kat’s Korner 339: Warmness! Kat’s Korner 338: Livestream Cats and Alex Scarecrow Corpse Run 382: The food line segment Kat’s Korner 337: Dat Tina Doodle Corpse Run 381: Additive disappointment Kat’s Korner 336: Sing-along-doodles Kat’s Korner 335: Ranbow Dash Doodles! Corpse Run 380: Prerequisites Kat’s Korner 334: Don’t Starve comic doodle Corpse Run 379: Life is blood and this Kat’s Korner 333: Everything is wonderful Kat’s Korner 332: Sketchalo Corpse Run 378: Show me Kat’s Korner 331: Last doodle from 2013 Corpse Run 377: …and into the bottle Kat’s Korner 330: Happy New Year! Corpse Run 376: Tina Tina’s “Real Deal” Cookie Meal Kat’s Korner 329: My sister knows me well Corpse Run 375: Snow bellows Kat’s Korner 328: A Tiny Tina Christmas Kat’s Korner 327: Stream doodles, featuring Rich! Corpse Run 374: Steamrolled Kat’s Korner 326: Sketch, Ink, Color Corpse Run 373: The three letter curse word Kat’s Korner 325: Snow train Kat’s Korner 324: Ms. Harshwhinny Corpse Run 372: Residual self image Kat’s Korner 323: Foundations! Corpse Run 371: Brought to you by Wrigley’s Kat’s Korner 322: Avatar doodles! Kat’s Korner 321: Them doodles! Corpse Run 370: It’s… nice? Kat’s Korner 320: More margin doodles! Corpse Run 369: Aggro-gag Kat’s Korner 319: Margin doodles! Kat’s Korner 318: Doodleguy Corpse Run 368: Doorbusted Kat’s Korner 317: Crossbow? Corpse Run 367: Pest control Kat’s Korner 316: Sketch of the future Kat’s Korner 315: Fluttershy in SPACE Corpse Run 366: The key to the perfect crossover Kat’s Korner 314: Futurama decorations! Corpse Run 365: Why? Kat’s Korner 313: Fun sketch gal Kat’s Korner 312: Subway doodle Corpse Run 364: Boo birds Kat’s Korner 311: 3D Doodle Pad! Corpse Run 363: Onions, Cakes, and Parfait Kat’s Korner 310: The Dark Pineapple Kat’s Korner 309: Lined paper doodles Corpse Run 362: You cannot be serious Kat’s Korner 308: Good night and good Pinkie Corpse Run 361: Spoils spoiled Kat’s Korner 307: Just like old times Kat’s Korner 306: Candy Corn Tails Corpse Run 360: Lumiose City Wombat Club Kat’s Korner 305: Office Halloween Treats! Corpse Run 359: The blind poke-maker Kat’s Korner 304: Sketchy foundation Kat’s Korner 303: Poker penguins! Corpse Run 358: Would smell as sweet Kat’s Korner 302: Everyone loves Chespin Corpse Run 357: You can hang out with all the boys Kat’s Korner 301: The way back machine Kat’s Korner 300: Greased up buttery top hatted Jack-o-Lantern with spine thing Corpse Run 356: Special delivery Kat’s Korner 299: The photo guy Corpse Run 355: A tall drink of crossover Kat’s Korner 298: Tomorrow’s first panel! Kat’s Korner 297: Stream Ponies! Corpse Run 354: Wonder Chef Kat’s Korner 296: Work doodle board Corpse Run 353: The asscent Kat’s Korner 295: Bed bed bed bed bed is a good idea Kat’s Korner 294: The gang (green) Corpse Run 352: Makes perfect Kat’s Korner 293: Roughing it Corpse Run 351: Losers weepers Kat’s Korner 292: Next time, on Corpse Run Kat’s Korner 291: Doodling bad Corpse Run 350: Tactical error Kat’s Korner 290: Planning ahead Corpse Run 349: I’d be rich Kat’s Korner 289: Tomorrow’s panel two Kat’s Korner 288: Nightimish doodling Corpse Run 348: Cover thy virgin ears Kat’s Korner 287: Silly Chrom Corpse Run 347: It’s better than bad, it’s good Kat’s Korner 286: The crew Kat’s Korner 285: Film Ponies – Amadeus Corpse Run 346: It’s bobsled time Kat’s Korner 284: Shark Board! Corpse Run 345: Identity crisis Kat’s Korner 283: Caffeine…free! Kat’s Korner 282: Does Pac Man dream of ghostly sheep? Corpse Run 344: Movin on up Kat’s Korner 281: Mii! Corpse Run 343: Potential pickle Kat’s Korner 280: Smarty Pants! Kat’s Korner 279: Nighttime doodles! Corpse Run 342: Trap your soul, explode your body Kat’s Korner 278: Doodle bunch! Corpse Run 341: BMTMI Kat’s Korner 277: Oh gosh Kat’s Korner 276: Astoria Shower Bears Corpse Run 340: Employee of the millenium Kat’s Korner 275: Sketch set! Corpse Run 339: Also, what’s writing? Kat’s Korner 274: The DMV Kat’s Korner 273: Home! (kinda!) Corpse Run 338: Budget Kat’s Korner 272: Matt doodles! Corpse Run 337: Punchy fresh Kat’s Korner 271: What a day Kat’s Korner 270: More doodles! Corpse Run 336: Nap time Kat’s Korner 269: Color War Begins! Corpse Run 335: It’s all about the green Kat’s Korner 268: Next time, on Corpse Run Kat’s Korner 267: Doodle dump Corpse Run 334: Sugar lips Kat’s Korner 266: EG Rainbow Dash Corpse Run 333: Self-preservation Kat’s Korner 265: Soundbooth doodles Kat’s Korner 264: Alex and Luke! Corpse Run 332: Blind foresight Kat’s Korner 263: Still bothering Karl Corpse Run 331: That lights a fire under your… Kat’s Korner 262: Tomorrow doodle Kat’s Korner 261: Art barn doodles! Corpse Run 330: Hanging out Kat’s Korner 260: Heart! Corpse Run 329: Leap of faith Kat’s Korner 259: Labels labels labels Kat’s Korner 258: Salt-lick taste test Corpse Run 328: It sounded better earlier Kat’s Korner 257: Still bothering Karl Corpse Run 327: The thrill of victory Kat’s Korner 256: Ceramics take two Kat’s Korner 255: Bothering Karl Corpse Run 326: Robbing the cradle Kat’s Korner 254: Food fight Corpse Run 325: The smell of confidence Kat’s Korner 253: Toasted Luke Kat’s Korner 252: Dan’s Birthday Card Corpse Run 324: Terminal Kat’s Korner 251: The Legend of Zelda: Too Cool for School Corpse Run 323: Hand me downs Kat’s Korner 250: Theory of Infinite Chicken Kat’s Korner 249: Kangaroo driven, butt shapped ice cream sammies Corpse Run 322: Helpful Kat’s Korner 248: Doodles from the NBA Finals Corpse Run 321: Routine error Kat’s Korner 247: Egads Kat’s Korner 246: Bill Cospony Corpse Run 320: About that… Kat’s Korner 245: Nathan Graves Corpse Run 319: Literally Kat’s Korner 244: Camp shots! Kat’s Korner 243: E3 press conferences Corpse Run 318: Gift and curse Kat’s Korner 242: The future! Corpse Run 317: Jump around Kat’s Korner 241: A cat for Kat Kat’s Korner 240: Cybor-dodo Corpse Run 316: Hardly shocking Kat’s Korner 239: Pre-sleep doodle Corpse Run 315: Just a touch Kat’s Korner 238: Disappearing Dan Kat’s Korner 237: Awesome awesome anarchy Corpse Run 314: Chocoho Kat’s Korner 236: Raining Corpse Run 313: Live and let live Kat’s Korner 235: Ghirahim! Kat’s Korner 234: Bio-Sheep and Rich’s Kirby Corpse Run 312: New from the app store Kat’s Korner 233: His name is Timmy Corpse Run 311: Meals on wheels Kat’s Korner 232: Sleepy Alex Kat’s Korner 231: The clog squad Corpse Run 310: The Corpse Run Guide to Unclogging a Drain Kat’s Korner 230: Bar room scribbles Corpse Run 309: On the edge Kat’s Korner 229: There’s a long story associated with this Kat’s Korner 228: Strip Search elimination home edition Corpse Run 308: Ingenuity Kat’s Korner 227: How I view Browns fans Corpse Run 307: White Green Blue Purple Orange Kat’s Korner 226: Clog city Kat’s Korner 225: Jump! Corpse Run 306: He does that a lot Kat’s Korner 224: Aardvarks anonymous Corpse Run 305: Projectile dysfunction Kat’s Korner 223: Mermaid ukulele Kat’s Korner 222: Streamenagerie Corpse Run 304: Smashing Pumpkins Kat’s Korner 221: October blues Corpse Run 303: The joys of repetition Kat’s Korner 220: They might be ponies Kat’s Korner 219: Mountain Dew Fairies Corpse Run 302: Seeking headlines Kat’s Korner 218: My little Wolfgang Corpse Run 301: Syntext Kat’s Korner 217: Ocean mood Kat’s Korner 216: Waitin’ Corpse Run 300: I guess Kat’s Korner 215: Mutual interest Corpse Run 299: Food of the gods Kat’s Korner 214: Milk Man Kat’s Korner 213: Steven Segaled arm-wrestling Gatomon, officiated by Ariel Corpse Run 298: Snack money Kat’s Korner 212: Background Lines Corpse Run 297: Elemedical Kat’s Korner 211: Kat Draws part two Kat’s Korner 210: Pokemon flying competition, bread train prize? Corpse Run 296: Blurrier all the time Kat’s Korner 209: Bringing boarding back Corpse Run 295: Well in hand Kat’s Korner 208: My (not actual) face Kat’s Korner 207: Gal Alex breaks the space barrier Corpse Run 294: B-Sizzle Kat’s Korner 206: Boards boards boards Corpse Run 293: The mark of stupidity Kat’s Korner 205: Mini-Christmas part one Kat’s Korner 204: Mega Man on LSD Corpse Run 292: Is that even legal? Kat’s Korner 203: Yes, another board! Corpse Run 291: The descent Kat’s Korner 202: What, another board? Kat’s Korner 201: Yet another storyboard! Corpse Run 290: Chords of steel Kat’s Korner 200: The map… rolled up! Corpse Run 289.5: The soup Kat’s Korner 199: The map! Kat’s Korner 198: Boarding again again! Corpse Run 289: In the heat of the moment Kat’s Korner 197: An important comparison Corpse Run 288: This should be government subsidized Kat’s Korner 196: Certainly fine Kat’s Korner 195: Historical Fruits Corpse Run 287: Qualifications Kat’s Korner 193: More boards! Corpse Run 286: Specs Kat’s Korner 192: Pinkie strikes again! Kat’s Korner 191: Link, Mario, Zelda, and Peach argue around a Dova-cyborg-salad-peacock Corpse Run 285: Invisahue Kat’s Korner 190: Map grab! Corpse Run 284: I win every time Kat’s Korner 189: Rocket disco construction groundhog holding Engarde Kat’s Korner 188: Boarding part four! Corpse Run 283: A significant lack of drainage Kat’s Korner 187: Boarding part three! Corpse Run 282: Smashing! Kat’s Korner 186: Boarding part deux Kat’s Korner 185: How I feel playing 7 Wonders Corpse Run 281: Physics Kat’s Korner 184: Mike draws Alex Corpse Run 280: Give peace a chance Kat’s Korner 183: Boarding Kat’s Korner 182: Queen Chrysalis in a PSY costume on a giraffe Corpse Run 279: Inconceivable! Kat’s Korner 181: Beach! Corpse Run 278: A little out of context Kat’s Korner 180: Butterfly chase! Kat’s Korner 179: Overdone Corpse Run 277: Stumped Kat’s Korner 178: Really?! Corpse Run 276: Nothing is more fun Kat’s Korner 177: So long, Sparano! Kat’s Korner 176: The worst possible thing! Corpse Run 275: You just can’t stop Kat’s Korner 175: Ending Blues Corpse Run 274: The hungry investor Kat’s Korner 174: The Purple Parrot Kat’s Korner 173: Morgan Corpse Run 273: Storagetastic Kat’s Korner 172: Kat draws! Corpse Run 272: Crunch time Kat’s Korner 171: Hometown bed Kat’s Korner 170: Football Rich, and Christmas! Corpse Run 271: The key to happiness Kat’s Korner 169: The End of the World Corpse Run 270: Oral Kat’s Korner 168: Oops Kat’s Korner 167: The gang Corpse Run 269: Teamwork Kat’s Korner 166: Golden Gators Corpse Run 268: Adventures in public transportation Kat’s Korner 165: A crappy apology Kat’s Korner 164: Golden Studmuffins Corpse Run 267: Fairly beneficial Kat’s Korner 163: The road to Atlantic City Corpse Run 266: Triforce of Courage Kat’s Korner 162: Blue Hawks Kat’s Korner |
of the vestibular system, often encountered in aviation. This includes an illusion of inversion, in which one feels like they're tumbling backwards. Through various stimuli, people can be made to feel as if they are moving when they are not, not moving when they are, tilted when they are not, or not tilted when they are.[2]
Vection [ edit ]
When a large part of the visual field moves, a viewer feels like they have moved and that the world is stationary.[3] For example, when one is in a train at a station, and a nearby train moves, one can have the illusion that one's own train has moved in the opposite direction. Common sorts of vection include circular vection, where an observer is placed at the center of rotation of a large vertically-oriented rotating drum, usually painted with vertical stripes; linear vection, where an observer views a field that either approaches or recedes; and roll vection, where an observer views a patterned disk rotating around their line of sight. During circular vection, the observer feels like they are rotating and the drum is stationary. During linear vection, the observer feels like they have moved forwards or backwards and the stimulus has stayed stationary. During roll vection, the observer feels like they have rotated around the line of sight and the disk has stayed stationary.
Inducing vection can also induce motion sickness in susceptible individuals.
Sea legs, dock rock, or stillness illness [ edit ]
After being on a small boat for a few hours and then going back onto land, it may feel like there is still rising and falling, as if one is still on the boat.[4] It can also occur on other situations, such as after a long train journey or after working up a swaying tree. It is not clear whether sea legs is a form of aftereffect to the predominant frequency of the stimulation (e.g., the waves or the rocking of the train), whether it is a form of learning to adjust one's gait and posture, or whether it is a form of the Tetris effect. Sea legs needs to be distinguished from mal de debarquement, which is much more disturbing and long-lasting.
See also [ edit ]MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - A federal judge has given former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman permission to travel to Charlotte, N.C., next week to attend the Democratic National Convention.
The convention is a week before Siegelman is to report to a federal prison in Louisiana to finish his 78-month sentence.
U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller said Siegelman can travel to Charlotte Sept. 3-6. Fuller ordered Siegelman to advise his probation officer of his flight plans and hotel plans.
Siegelman plans to lobby at the convention for President Obama to grant his request for clemency.
Fuller said Siegelman was not a flight risk and could go to the convention. But he repeated a concern he expressed at the sentencing hearing that Siegelman "continues to question the integrity" of the judicial system.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.According to a new Google+ post from Taylor Wimberly, who was spot on with his Moto X Phone leaks, Motorola and Google are planning to team up on the next Nexus device. Wimberly says the device will be released in Q4 of this year and will not be a Google-ified version of the Moto X, but rather a new device altogether. No other details are offered, unfortunately.
With the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7, Google started a trend of Nexus devices being affordable and sold unlocked via the Play Store. Many people expected this to be the case with the X Phone, but that turned out to be false. Is it possible that the more affordable X Phone model rumored for so long was actually a Motorola Nexus device?
Samsung U28E590D 28-Inch 4K Monitor
There’s no question that Google is planning to release a new Nexus phone this fall, but we’ve been left guessing as to who will manufacture it. As we all know, LG produced the most recent Nexus 4, with HTC and Samsung both preceding them.Developer Summary:
“Construct and command your ground defences in a series of increasingly massive battles across the solar system, in our frenetic arcade mash-up of Real Time Strategy and Tower Defence!”
What We Think
To call Revenge of the Titans just another tower defense game wouldn’t be inaccurate, but it would fail to recognize the depth of play that has been wonderfully incorporated into this title.
If you played any of the myriad of free Flash tower defenders out there, you’ll feel right at home with RotT. Enemies wander toward your base, while you put weapon emplacements and other buildings in order to keep them from succeeding in destroying your stronghold. What makes this worth paying for is the length of the campaign and the RTS elements that have been blended in, almost seamlessly, by the developers.
Resource management is typically part of the genre, but often is just a matter of spending what’s available for any given level, or a slow crawl of incoming funds. Revenge of The Titans makes resources more physical by requiring you to drop factories down and process crystals on the surface. These often have to be defended from enemy forces as well.
While upgrading and purchasing new tower types is part of most tower defense games, RotT has a tech tree deeper than most full blown strategy games. You only gain one new element on the tree after every mission, so there is a lot of strategy in what you choose and when you choose it. Not only can you research bigger and badder weapons, but you can develop more efficient factories, shields, and other cool elements.
The visuals of Revenge of the Titans are rudimentary at best, though well polished simplicity is not necessarily a bad thing. Menu and story art appears to be done in Flash with the glow effect on everything and with limited animation. In-game graphics are 8-bit quality. Bases and turrets aren’t complicated and enemies look like the demented cousins of Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde. I think this will be the make-or-break issue for most people. Either you will find the simple style charming, or you’ll see it as annoying.
The story is straightforward enough, as far as I could tell. Aliens are invading and you must defend the solar system. I have to admit, I skipped most of the dialog to avoid having to listen to the Charlie-Brown’s-teacher voice work.
If you’re a fan of tower defense games and like the retro-minimalist art style evident in the screenshots you’ll be in gamer heaven with Revenge of the Titans. The fact that Puppy Games was willing to include RotT in the Humble Indie Bundle #2, and was generous enough to release the source code when enough funds were generated by the project, is enough for me to continue support their efforts.
Download a free demo or purchase Revenge of the Titans at Puppy Games
Rating:An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases could be co-marketed with the Thomas Rockwell’s children’s classic How to Eat Fried Worms. It begins with the author, Moises Velasquez-Manoff, recounting his border-crossing to Tijuana to infect himself with Necator americanus—hookworms—in an attempt to cure the asthma, hay fever, food allergies, and alopecia that had plagued him since childhood. In the next three hundred pages, the author very cogently explains the idea that led him to willingly infect himself with a parasite known to cause severe diarrhea, anemia, and mental retardation in children.
Velasquez-Manoff marshals the reams of evidence researchers have accumulated to support said concept: the hygiene hypothesis, but with an updated, parasitic twist. The ideas he presents haven't been accepted by many in the medical community, and there's little high-quality evidence, in the form of well controlled trials, that exposure to parasites could have positive effects on human health. So, even if the author is thorough, it's important to keep in mind that the evidence he's presenting is primarily in the form of correlations.
Vanishing microbes, a rising tide of allergies
Since children's author Rockwell penned that first worm eating guide in 1973, the incidence of allergies and autoimmune diseases—both disorders in which the immune system attacks things that it should know are harmless—have skyrocketed in the developed world. Those who read that book as children have watched it happen; whereas a PB&J was the standard brown bag lunch for us, our children’s schools are now all nut free.
Adherents of the paleo diet maintain that the trouble started with the advent of agriculture in the Neolithic Revolution, about 12,000 years ago, and has been getting progressively worse. They argue that humans have adapted to eat only foods that could be hunted or gathered, and the recent preponderance of allergies demonstrates that we have not yet evolved to eat food that must be cultivated, like wheat and legumes.
Velasquez-Manoff cites examples of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies whose members are, in fact, much healthier than their age-matched counterparts in the developed world. Yet evolutionary geneticists have an alternate explanation for the dramatic upswing in immune disorders. Genes that cause disease but are common throughout a population, the thinking goes, must confer some benefit or they would have been selected against. And the genetic variants that predispose modern humans to immune disorders are distressingly common. They are also found in genes that are present across a wide variety of species, indicating that they are quite ancient—further evidence that they probably have an important function. Research on different immune diseases all over the world suggests that these genes are involved in defense against pathogens.
For almost all of our evolutionary development humans were pretty much covered in bacteria, viruses, and parasitic worms. Velasquez-Manoff refers to this group as "old friends." These are different from the disease-causing bugs we vaccinate against; we got those much later in our evolutionary development, from the animals we domesticated, and Velasquez-Manoff is clear in his insistence that vaccinating against them is necessary and good.
But finding a way to achieve some sort of truce with "old friends" was the immune system’s essential and constant job throughout our co-evolution. It is only after the sanitary reforms of the early nineteenth century that we suddenly find ourselves in an environment relatively purged of microbes, and these protective genes may be a liability in that environment, rather than an asset.
The Hygiene Hypothesis
A simplistic view of the hygiene hypothesis is that in the absence of something dangerous to fight against—the cholera toxin, for example—immune cells get confused, or bored, and fight against harmless stimuli like dust mites and peanuts instead. But there is a more nuanced view. Our immune systems co-evolved with an enormous community of microbes, and were in fact shaped by them. Many became established, long-term, and vital residents in our guts; the importance, and in fact the very existence, of these commensals has only recently been realized.
Constant exposure to all of these bugs, as a unit, enhanced the regulatory arm of the immune system, modulating responses so that we could tolerate the filthy environment in which we lived while at the same time (hopefully) fighting off those pathogens that posed a mortal threat and not destroying our own bodies in that process. In the martial analogy that is inevitable in discussing immunology, ancient human immune cells that were always surrounded by microbes were like battle-hardened old soldiers who have learned the ability to watch warily when encountering something new, waiting to see whether or not it is dangerous; modern immune cells raised in our hyper-sanitized environment are like new recruits just given their first gun, testy and jumpy at the first hint of a threat and liable to blow up their surroundings in inappropriately directed and outsized force. Experience has not taught them moderation.
On the molecular level, immune cells in the dirty old days made more anti-inflammatory signaling molecules; now, our cells make predominantly pro-inflammatory signals.
Autoimmune diseases are currently thought to arise from an interplay of genetic and environmental factors, notably stress. Some have argued that this means genes are everything, because what modern human doesn’t have stress in his life? Only those genetically primed go on to develop disease.
But Velasquez-Manoff takes us to Sardinia to upend this argument. Sardinians are an isolated, inbred group, and they have experienced a twin epidemic of multiple sclerosis and type I diabetes, both autoimmune diseases, in the past sixty years—ever since they got rid of malaria. For the past few thousand years, those Sardinians that were genetically resistant to the malaria parasite survived; those that were not did not. The relentless presence of malaria in their environment shaped their genomes.
And then when malaria was suddenly removed, its lack may have allowed the immune system’s underlying protective feature to go into overdrive. A similar, if less dramatic, trajectory of events could explain how the removal of most of our "old friends," but especially the worms, uncovered underlying genetic tendencies that only yield autoimmune and allergic disorders in our modern context.
The Helicobacter pylori story further underscores the importance of context. H. pylori definitely, without a doubt, causes ulcers. And stomach cancer. Yet it protects against heartburn, esophageal cancer, asthma, and eczema.
H. pylori has been with humanity since before we left Africa. Why would it make only some people who harbor it sick, and why so much more so in the last few hundred years? Our increased life expectancy doesn’t account for it. In days of yore, when humans routinely encountered H. pylori early in childhood, the bug taught their immune cells tolerance and protected against asthma. Now, since we grow up in cleaner environments, we encounter it later. Not only does its early absence predispose to asthma, its late introduction induces ulcers. But the effects of H. pylori infection are dictated not only by when it is introduced to the human gut, but by the other microbes it does or does not encounter there.
Parasitic worms also seem to be significant regulators of the immune system, able to elicit just the right balance of ferocity and temperance. Deworming campaigns the world over are promptly and predictably followed by increases in asthma and allergy, and the degree of allergy in a society is inversely proportional to how wormy and dirty it is. Hence, people suffering from allergies and autoimmune diseases are now infecting themselves with hookworms, which—on an anecdotal level at least—has alleviated maladies ranging from MS to autism to celiac disease.
Seeing worms everywhere
Yes, he includes autism in the list of modern diseases caused by our out-of-whack immune systems. Along with other cases where immune dysfunction hasn't been established, like obesity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
There are some serious problems with blaming all of these on immune dysfunction, but we'll focus on a single example: autism. Just as the absence of worms’ mediating effects on our immune system causes some people to have an allergic response to harmless ingested proteins and others to attack their own tissues, the argument goes, chronic inflammation in the womb generates fetuses with autism.
Velasquez-Manoff cites circumstantial evidence supporting this idea—autism follows the same demographics as asthma, occurring primarily in firstborns, males, and urban centers in wealthy countries, and one of the risk factors for autism is a mother with an autoimmune disease. But this demographic data is obtained by questionnaire, often with quite a small sample size, and is thus inherently suspect.
As researchers continue to delve into the cause of autism, the data they are accumulating indicates that it is a genetic and not an immune disease. Environmental factors are almost certainly involved, and it is a complex genetic disease—mutations in many different genes, possibly hundreds of them, can cause it. Most cases of autism are sporadic, meaning that only one individual in a family is affected.
But rigorous experiments have shown that even sporadic cases can generally be traced back to spontaneous genetic mutations in the developing fetus. The mutated genes are involved in forming and maintaining the gross architecture of the brain, lending credence to the idea that autism and its accompanying spectrum of disorders arises from a lack of connectivity among neurons. Few of the mutated genes associated with autism seem to be involved in immunity.
When we discussed his book, Velasquez-Manoff did suggest there were limits to how well we should treat our old friends. Deworming campaigns, he said, are still necessary, since the world's poor children are the ones who bear the brunt of the worms' negative effects. Their parasites exacerbate their malnutrition and cause them to miss a lot of school, promoting a cycle of poverty.
The sanitary reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, along with the germ theory of disease and the vaccines and antibiotics it precipitated, were undoubtedly an enormous medical coup that largely eliminated the infectious diseases that had formerly killed a quarter of the population by age one. We no longer live in fear of the Black Death or similar medieval scourges that killed millions.
But along with these breakthroughs came the idea that all microbes are all bad, which yielded needlessly antibiotic soap and sanitary covers for toddlers sitting in shopping carts. The backlash, that we need to get to know and love the microbiota inhabiting our guts, is yielding Brooklyn hipsters who brew their own kombucha and the very unfortunate anti-vaccine movement. This book argues that microbes are neither good nor bad, but can be either or both depending on the context in which we encounter them. And the real cause of the allergy and autoimmune epidemic is that we have severely screwed up that context, both inside our guts and outside in the rest of the environment.
These ideas are still well outside the medical mainstream and, in several cases, the authors intense focus on immune disorders had led him to get carried away. But Velasquez-Manoff has put together a well argued case that, for at least some disorders, our interactions with microbes should at least be given serious consideration. And, despite the copious research involved, the book remains very readable.
And since you were wondering: the worms seemed to clear up his sinuses and skin, but he didn’t grow hair. And they gave him terrible, terrible diarrhea.From left, Jonathan Griffin, Takowork partners Donna Victoria and Michelle Coyle, Mayor Kate Stewart and Laura Barclay of Main Street Takoma cut the ribbon on the new business. Photo by Mike Diegel.
Takowork, a new coworking and event space at 7000 Carroll Ave., 2nd Floor in Takoma Park, held its grand opening Sept. 7.
The flexible use space, formerly occupied by a law firm, was developed for remote workers and entrepreneurs by partners Michelle Coyle and Donna Victoria and will be available for community events in the evenings.
The two took over the space on August 1 and set it up to offer desks, private offices, “phone booths” to take or make private calls, Wi-Fi, a conference room and a kitchen.
“Spaces have been selling faster than we planned,” Victoria said. “We were taking the month of August to set up and people wanted to start working right away.”
The two, as of last night, have 15 tenants signed up, including seven “founding members.” Victoria said tenants include nonprofits, construction workers, consultants, a career coach and others.
Membership levels range from $20 a day for a desk (or $100-$150 per month), a dedicated desk with personalized setup for $300-$350 per month, to team offices for $700-$800 a month. Yearly leases also are available. Each membership comes with a certain level of benefits including access times, complimentary use of the conference room, printing and copying services, and so forth.
Victoria, a political pollster and long-time Takoma Park resident, used to sublet from the law firm who had the offices for more than 25 years.
“I was a one-woman business and it was nice to have a receptionist and some people to chat with,” she said. “It was before coworking became a thing, I was starting to see ‘Oh, there’s some real benefits to not just being isolated.’
“The collaborative work model is the future, and this is an area where a lot of people have diverse work arrangements,” she added.
“Michelle’s motto is ‘Work for yourself, not by yourself,’” Victoria said. “It’s sort of this burgeoning thing when you look at the coworking spaces in downtown Washington, they’re much more expensive, you’re going to have to find parking, and you’re going to have to have a commute. If you live here, this is a much more appealing option.”
Interior spaces were designed to be comfortable and inviting. Photos by Mike Diegel.
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ARLINGTON (CBSDFW.COM) – Arlington Police say a convenience store clerk shot and killed a masked robber Monday night.
It happened at the Super Save in the 2500 block of East Abram Street around 7:45 p.m.
Police on Tuesday said the robber was 22 years old, but have not released his identity.
Another clerk was hiding in a cooler when the shooting happened, according to police.
“The clerk says that this was a robbery attempt and that the suspect had a firearm. If he feared for his life, that’ll have to be determined based upon the interview, there’s a possibility this use of force could be justified,” said Arlington Police Lt. Chris Cook.
Police interviewed both clerks and a customer who was in the store.
A review of surveillance video “reaffirmed the clerk’s initial statements,” according to an Arlington Police Department news release on Tuesday afternoon.
The case has been forwarded to the Tarrant County DA’s officer for further review.Bouncing down the long dirt path, Echo team; Spartan 022, 028, 051 and 095 sat silent in the back of a warthog M914 Recovery Vehicle driven by a very tense and silent UNSC Marine. He had his eyes fixed on the dirt track in front and didn't waver at all, as if he didn't want to disturb the four Spartans he had on board. Private Gomez was a proud soldier and under normal circumstances have done his up-most to make small talk with his passengers if not to shorten the journey more than anything else. The truth was these were not normal circumstances he had four rather short fused Spartans in the back of his 'Hog and all he wanted to do was drop them off on site and leave as quickly as possible. Tension was high upon the vehicle due to the nature of the assignment they were currently en-route to. All four Spartan-III's sat in the back in the sweltering sun bouncing down the road into the Sinoviet ship breaking facility on a low priority defence mission. More like an insult than an assignment to the UNSC's most advanced, well trained and expensive soldiers they ha d to offer. This this reason and this reason alone PVT. Gomez was silent all the way there. Ralph, Spartan-095 sat toward the back of the warthog polishing the barrel of his model 99 Anti-Matériel sniper rifle to the point he could see every cloud in the sky. Jenifer, Spartan-051 stood at the very back of the warthog with her right hand clutching the bar on the top of the vehicle, her M45 Tactical shotgun held loosely in her left and one leg resting on step of the 'hog looking hard into orange brown dust cloud getting kicked up and slowly settling onto the track. Spartan-028, Bradley sat at the front end of the rear personnel section of the warthog balancing his UNSC issue combat knife perfectly on the end of his right index finger, no show of emotion and his left hand rubbing his head bellow his short yet thick brown hair. James-022 sat in the passenger seat of the warthog looking over his left shoulder at his team. He knew every one of them inside and out and he knew they were all agitated. Ralph for example never polished his gun unless he was tired or annoyed and Jen was an easy one. She held her shotgun in her left hand and she was right handed. He knew she adored her gun or as she called it, Theodore and she would never hold it so carelessly if she didn't have her mind on something else. Brad however never did anything other than play with his knife if he could help it. James liked to analyse his team because he believed a leader is only as strong as his team in combat. He glanced down to the Intel pad he had attached to his wrist which told him they would be on site at Sinoviet in exactly 5 minutes, just enough time for rest he figured. He set his visor to full tint and closed his eyes. When James awoke he was in front of a great metal wall coloured grey from top to bottom at either end where huge orange brown rod walls. The Sinoviet facility didn't look anything like he had imagined. One relatively small double door stood at the top of a shallow ramp, rusted railings at both sides looking almost lonely built in to the great wall. The only thing keeping the door company was a small keypad on the left of the door frame. Brad quickly slid his knife into the holster located on his left breast plate and jumped off of the back of the warthog. He looked back at the three other Spartans left in the warthog in anticipation. One by one they all got off. James was the last one. He took an extra few seconds to glance at his Intel pad, tapped it and then jumped off the vehicle. Bradley watched James turn to the Private driving the vehicle. He nodded to him the Private instantly snapped to the road in front, span the warthog and sped away leaving only a pillow of dust as he did. Odd, Brad thought. He hadn't spoken a word to the four of them the whole journey. "This is it." James announced to the team. He stood upright legs apart and hands on his hips. His Designated marksman rifle securely fixed to the back of his MJOLNIR armour. A grand Spartan in the eyes of Ralph. A natural born leader. He was more of a brother to Ralph than a team mate. They had trained together for as long as he could remember. Since he met him he sensed greatness in James. Something assertive yet calm about him. Even the way he stood showed nothing but pride for himself and his team. He would never settle for half measures when it came to his squad and he would go out of his way to ensure the wellbeing of each and every one of them. In battle James would always be the first in there be it thick or thin he would never expect someone to go in his place. An all-out good soldier.Isaac Newton's epiphany came courtesy of an apple; mine was down to an empty packet of crisps. A bright green packet of Walkers' salt and vinegar crisps, to be precise, which slapped into my goggles as I tumbled down the Alpine ski slopes at the start of the year. Shortly after peeling it off my face, I realised that this inauspicious wrapper had the power to save the British economy.
The pistes in Chamonix, you see, were littered with similar empty packets. Leaving aside the environmental implications, something wonderful was happening: economics was working. Around the resort, crisps made in Leicestershire were on sale, competing with snacks manufactured in France. For the first time in many years, English exports were penetrating into the middle of Europe. And this was no fluke: it was all part of the masterplan put into motion by the Bank of England.
Yesterday, in its grand premises on Threadneedle Street, the Bank's governor, Mervyn King, mapped out what Britons can expect from the economy over the next couple of years. The short answer is rather a lot more pain: according to the Bank's Inflation Report, the dents left in the economy from both the financial crisis and the recession are of such a scale that it will take years to pull Britain back to normality. Banks will not be lending again properly for some years; households will take even longer to become confident about their financial prospects. Nor has Britain fully escaped the shadow of Japan, which suffered a "lost decade" that many still think we are doomed to repeat.
But for me, one particular line stood out: when the governor pointed out, rather gleefully, that despite sterling having strengthened over the past few months, it is still a fifth weaker against a basket of other currencies than before the crisis. His point was that although the recession is deeper than expected, and interest rates will need to stay lower for longer, and the recovery will be long and drawn-out, we still – thank God – have the pound on our side.
The explicit pattern is in the way it boosts trade. A cheaper pound makes Britain's goods, denominated as they are in sterling, cheaper to overseas buyers. Hence Walkers' crisps suddenly becoming a viable alternative to the local varieties.
The trade figures released earlier this week were quietly encouraging: while exports are hardly booming (why would they be, given that most of the world is deep in recession?) they are at least plunging less rapidly than imports. All the signs are that London is set to enjoy one of the biggest visitor booms in years, as foreigners capitalise on Britain's unwonted cheapness.
Of course, a weaker pound can irk us: this summer has been painfully expensive for anyone taking their holidays abroad, whether in Europe (prices up by around a quarter) or the US (up by almost a fifth). Imports, too, have become more expensive. But this is a small price to pay for the steroids injected into the economy. The Bank has a rule of thumb about this: every four per cent fall in sterling is the equivalent of a full percentage off interest rates. So, while the Bank's official rate has come down by five per cent since the start of 2008, the fall in sterling has effectively doubled the effect.
On top of that, there's the Bank's quantitative easing programme, under which it is creating money and using it to buy bonds off private investors. According to economists, the £175 billion pumped in is roughly equivalent to a rate cut of just over four per cent. Add it all up, and it equates to interest rate cuts of a staggering 14 per cent in less than two years.
This magical devaluation dividend is hardly anything new for the UK. The pound has come to our rescue in many of the recessions of the past century. Britain's departure from the gold standard in 1931, and sterling's subsequent devaluation, meant that the UK was, comparatively, one of the world's healthiest economies during the 1930s. The fall in sterling after Black Wednesday (less, incidentally, than over the past year) helped to ensure that the recession of the early 1990s was not as baleful as would otherwise have been the case.
After that last ordeal, the Bank has been understandably reticent about being seen to influence the path of its currency overtly. Yet is it any surprise that it lobbied so hard behind the scenes for Britain to remain out of the euro? Robbed of the ability to devalue the currency, Britain would have had little option in this current crisis other than to deflate: to raise taxes, slash spending and suffer the mother of all recessions. Look no further than across the Irish Sea, where Dublin is braced for its toughest year in living memory as it is forced – sitting within the straitjacket of the euro – to take precisely this medicine.
Meanwhile, despite the governor's gloomy news yesterday, Britain is still set to emerge from technical recession – in other words, for its economy to start expanding again – sooner than the vast majority of its Western counterparts. It is hard, given the scale of the crisis's impact in the UK, to see any other explanation for this than the slide in the pound.
Against this backdrop, Mr King's actions over the past few weeks start to make perfect sense. The pound was starting to creep up to a dangerous level, endangering any nascent recovery – hence the Bank's unexpected decision last week to extend its programme of quantitative easing by a further £50 billion. The reluctance yesterday to spell out when the scheme will end is likely part of the same plan.
Sadly, the strategy is hardly foolproof. Indeed, the path ahead is littered with pitfalls. There are two ways the pound's slide could become a disease rather than a cure. The first is if the Bank is wrong about inflation, and prices start to pick up faster than expected. Against this backdrop, the decision to pour so much cash into the economy could start to look foolhardy. The second is if the next government does not take any action to bring the public finances, which are in a horrific state, back under control through a combination of spending cuts and tax rises.
Both these scenarios would result in a sterling slide of an altogether different flavour than the relatively pleasant one of last couple of years – the kind of sterling crisis more familiar from the 1970s, in which investors flee those nations whose economic institutions have been shorn of their credibility. But for now, let's give thanks for the first good thing to have happened to the British economy for quite some time: the fall of sterling, and the spread of Walkers' crisps.Crafting your way through JSON Web Tokens
JSON Web Token is a compact mechanism used for transferring claims between two parties. These are generally represented as JSON objects and can be signed to protect the integrity of the underlying message using a Message Authentication Code (MAC) and/or encrypted. The mechanism followed by JWTs is governed by the standard RFC7519. A JSON Web Token [JWT] consists of three parts; an encoded Header, an encoded Payload and the Signature as shown below:
The Header contains metadata, defines the type of token and the algorithm used for encryption of Payload.
The Payload contains the claims to routes and services in attribute/value key pairs. This is where the bulk of the data is. A claim generally defines the identity of the intended end user and some additional attributes depending on the type of the claim such as:
Reserved Claims: Attributes defined here are pre-defined and are useful for enhancing interoperability like issuer (iss- the issuing entity), sub (subject of claim), expiration time (exp- this describes the duration for which the token will be valid), audience (the intended audience) and others.
Public Claims: These are defined to be used publicly and are defined in IANA JSON Web Token Registry or as a URI.
Private Claims: These claims are specifically used between two parties for sharing information and not to be defined by others.
Finally, the signature is calculated by encrypting the base64UrlEncoded values of Header and Payload using a secret Key.
Although JWT supports both symmetric and asymmetric encryption, we will be referring to symmetric HMAC SHA 256[HS256] for all encryption purposes in the following discussion as the application in question uses it.
Here is the example of a valid JWT for a request. In the figure below the right side represents a JWT containing three parts i.e. Header, Payload and the formula for calculating the Signature. The resultant token is created from the concatenation of the encoded Header, Payload and Signature which is shown on the left side.
Authentication
JWT is perhaps most commonly used for authentication purposes in applications. Upon successful authentication, the application shares an authorization Token with the user. This becomes the identity of the user and needs to be shared for accessing any application resource. Ideally, the token should be protected using a strong secret Key.
Application Analysis
In this blog, we discuss a case where we exploited a poor implementation of JWT for a target application that used JWTs for user authentication and authorization.
When parsing the initial requests, we could identify that the site was using JWT for authentication
Next, in the response we were able to find the encoded token containing our user profile information as shown below:
Upon login, we could access the Tasks, document management and other functionalities meant for a normal user as shown in the figure below:
After this, we traced back a little and analysed the authorization token we received earlier. We used the functionality provided at jwt.io to verify the signature for a variety of different key values. However, in most cases we didn’t get a valid signature by this method.
At this juncture, we could not form a valid signature that would help us modify the Payload and generate a valid corresponding token. What was missing was the ‘secret key’ which is used to sign the JWTs. We wrote a simple python script to brute force the ‘secret key’ from a set of guessable and random key strings (stored locally in a file -secret.txt) as shown below:
We eventually succeeded in brute- forcing the right secret key which was used to sign the JWT as shown below:
To confirm that this was indeed the correct token, we verified whether this value resulted in our previous signature given that the value of the Payload and the Header were unchanged:
Now that we had the secret key, we created a new token and added “admin” in the role parameter in the next request we crafted. Figure below shows the new JWT with the modified role value. The new token was signed using the secret key obtained in the previous step as shown below:
We used the token, created in the above step, in the Authorization Header which was accepted on the server side. This resulted in the previous user (site visitor), getting higher (administrative) privileges. Figure below shows the crafted token being passed in the request to the server:
Going further we also accessed admin functionality such as, Manage User by providing the crafted token to the application as shown below:
It is interesting to note that it was possible to impersonate users, for the system in the above case, by modifying the Bearer token with JWT payload.
Conclusion
While the application uses the JWT mechanism to secure its resources, it could be compromised. This was the result of a weak implementation where the secret key used in signing the JWTs was not strong enough and could be brute-forced. In the above scenario, once the secret key is obtained, a malicious actor can escalate his privileges in the application to access the administrative features. This is equally valid for both horizontal and vertical privilege escalation, or simply enumerate User Ids to impersonate other users.
Configuring strong values for sensitive data such as passwords or secret keys and protecting access to the same can go a long way in saving the application and its users from such attacks.The U.S. Army recently released a draft request for proposals for the Small Airborne Networking Radio, or SANR, for the service’s rotary-wing aircraft platforms.
Product Manager Airborne, Maritime & Fixed Station will replace the ARC-201D radios in the Army’s aviation platforms and provide soldiers with increased data, video, situational awareness, friendly force tracking and voice clarity, according to a recent Army press release.
The Army will award a single, five-year base plus one five-year option indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract. The |
of nuclear annihilation and Soviet hegemony kept the support for the military high among American priorities.
Enemies Within - Ricks is troubled by the increasing use of military forces against US citizens. It wasn’t long ago that Marines descended into the streets of Los Angeles to impose order among rioters, and the Marines used similar strategies to contain the fractious populace as they used in Somalia. One Marine, Captain Guy Miner, wrote in 1992 of the initial concerns among Marine intelligence units over orders to collect intelligence on US citizens, but their concerns over legality and morality quickly evaporated once, Miner wrote, “intelligence personnel sought any way possible to support the operation with which the regiment had been tasked.” Many military officers are calling for the military to be granted wide-ranging powers to be used against civilians, including the right to detain, search, and arrest civilians, and to seize property. In 1994, influential military analyst William Lind blamed what he called “cultural radicals [and] people who hate our Judeo-Christian culture” for what he saw as the accelerating breakdown of society, and went on to discuss the predominant “agenda of moral relativism, militant secularism, and sexual and social ‘liberation.’” Ricks notes that Lind’s words are fairly standard complaints which are often echoed daily on conservative talk radio and television broadcasts. However, he writes, Lind’s words take on a new significance in light of his conclusion: “The next real war we fight is likely to be on American soil.”
Military's Impact on Civilian Society Likely to Increase - Ricks does not believe a military coup is likely at any point in the foreseeable future. While the equilibrium between civilians and the military is shifting, he writes, it is unlikely to shift that far. What is likely is a new awareness among members of the military culture of their impact and influence on civilian society, and their willingness to use that influence to shape the social and political fabric of their country. [Atlantic Monthly, 7/1997] Entity Tags: Dana Isaacoff, Guy Miner, James Moore, US Department of the Army, Charles Dunlap, Stanley Arthur, Thomas Ricks, US Department of the Marines, William Lind, Richard Kohn Category Tags: Other, Veterans Affairs
April 1998: US Space Command Issues Plan Saying US Must Maintain Space Superiority US Space Command issues its Long Range Plan, arguing that the US must maintain its superiority in space and prevent it from becoming a level playing field where “national military forces, paramilitary units, terrorists, and any other potential adversaries” might share the “high ground” with the US. If adversaries establish a presence in space, it would be “devastating to the United States,” the report says. Chapter 2 of the report summarizes the Space Program’s vision for 2020. It emphasizes the need to (1) “ensure un-interrupted access to space for US forces and our allies, freedom of operations within the space medium and an ability to deny others the use of space;” (2) achieve “global surveillance of the Earth (see anything, anytime), worldwide missile defense, and the potential ability to apply force from space;” (3) seamlessly join “space-derived information and space forces with information and forces from the land, sea, and air;” and (4) “augment the military’s space capabilities by leveraging civil, commercial, and international space systems.[/dq] [US Space Command, 4/1998; Foreign Service Journal, 4/2001] Category Tags: Weaponization of Space, Key Events
1999 and After: New Video Manipulation Technologies Raise Fears of Mass Deception Press reports warn that newly-developed digital data manipulation software which automate the creation of fake pictures, videos, or audio recordings could be used for political deception or military advantage. Moviegoers are used to elaborate special effects, but until recently that required expensive and time-consuming, frame-by-frame, post-production work. Now, however, software developed since the mid-1990s permit much faster, even real-time, special effects. Real-time video manipulation allows the deletion of people or objects from a live broadcast or the insertion of pre-recorded images. The technology has commercial applications: it is used in sports broadcasting to generate a virtual “first-down” line or virtual billboards. It is also used, more controversially, in some news programming (see January 13, 2000). A related technology called “digital morphing” is now available to create virtual characters who can convincingly imitate real-life persons, as in the film “Forrest Gump”. Voice morphing, a technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, allows the creation of computer speech based on a short recording of someone’s voice. The virtual voice can be surprisingly life-like: the robotic intonations are a thing of the past. For intelligence agencies and PSYOPS (psychological operations) personnel the new techniques are potential weapons of the future. While the public at large is familiar with edited or “photoshopped” images, it is not yet aware of the possibilities for audio or real-time video deception. [Washington Post, 2/1/1999; Technology Review, 7/2000] Category Tags: Other
April 22, 1999: CNN Executive Defends Network Practice of Only Hiring Retired Military Officers as Military Analysts Radio news host Amy Goodman interviews CNN vice president Frank Sesno, and asks about CNN’s practice of putting retired generals on CNN without balancing its coverage with peace activists. Sesno tells Goodman that he believes it is perfectly appropriate to have retired military officers as paid analysts to comment on foreign affairs and military issues, “as long as we identify them as what they are, as long as we believe in our editorial judgment that their judgment is straight and honest—and we judge that—and it’s not a series of talking points, yes, I think it’s appropriate.” He adds, “I think it would become inappropriate if they were our only source of information or our only source of analysis or our only source of whatever the opinion is that we’re assessing, if there were no opposing viewpoints, if you will.” Goodman asks, “If you support the practice of putting ex-military men, generals, on the payroll to share their opinion during a time of war, would you also support putting peace activists on the payroll to give a different opinion in times of war, to be sitting there with the military generals, talking about why they feel that war is not appropriate?” Senso replies: “We bring the generals in because of their expertise in a particular area. We call them analysts. We don’t bring them in as advocates. In fact, we actually talk to them about that. They are not there as advocates.” So “why not put peace activists on the payroll?” Goodman asks. Sesno retorts, “We do,” and Goodman asks, “Who?” Sesno backs off: “On payroll? No, we don’t put peace activists—we don’t—we do not choose to put a lot of people on the payroll. And we will put people on the payroll whom we choose and whom we feel is necessary to put on the payroll.” Sesno cannot recall the last peace activist that he interviewed. Given all of this, Goodman asks how, aside from “screaming in the streets and getting a picture taken,” does an antiwar voice get heard on CNN? Sesno retorts: “Well, that’s up to you. But, you know, there are a lot of ways people have of registering their opinions: through op-eds, through phone-in shows, through protest, if that’s what people are doing.” [Democracy Now!, 4/22/2008] Entity Tags: Amy Goodman, CNN, Frank Sesno Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda Category Tags: Military Propaganda
September 23, 1999: In Campaign Speech, Bush Warns against Terrorism, Calls for Military ‘Transformation’ In a landmark campaign speech delivered to the cadets of The Citadel, a South Carolina military college, presidential candidate George W. Bush warns of new threats, including terrorism and missile proliferation, and calls for sweeping military reforms. [CNN, 9/23/1999; New York Times, 9/24/1999] Says Bush: “We see the contagious spread of missile technology and weapons of mass destruction.… Add to this [missile threat] the threat of biological, chemical, and nuclear terrorism—barbarism emboldened by technology. These weapons can be delivered, not just by ballistic missiles, but by everything from airplanes to cruise missiles, from shipping containers to suitcases.… Our first line of defense is a simple message: Every group or nation must know, if they sponsor such attacks, our response will be devastating.… And there is more to be done preparing here at home. I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil.” Bush also calls for military change in terms reminiscent of the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA) movement. RMA advocates say that future wars will require a more mobile, agile, and technologically advanced military (see October 29, 2001). “This opportunity [to project America’s influence] is created by a revolution in the technology of war. Power is increasingly defined, not by mass or size, but by mobility and swiftness. Influence is measured in information, safety is gained in stealth, and force is projected on the long arc of precision-guided weapons. This revolution perfectly matches the strengths of our country—the skill of our people and the superiority of our technology. The best way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms.” [Citadel, 9/23/1999] Bush’s speech is praised by the neoconservative think tank, the Project for the New American Century, which says: “[T]he passages on innovation, or the revolution in military affairs, provided the most thoroughly developed ideas in the speech.… Bush lends impetus to the stalled effort to transform the US military to meet future challenges.” [Project for the New American Centry, 9/24/2004] General Richard Myers, the current vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will later recall, “Reading a newspaper account of The Citadel speech, I saw that Bush had done his homework and was passionate about making our military more relevant in the 21st century.” [Myers, 2009, pp. 119] On December 11, 2001, Bush will return to The Citadel as the president of a nation at war and say: “In September 1999, I said here at The Citadel that America was entering a period of consequences that would be defined by the threat of terror and that we faced a challenge of military transformation. That threat has now revealed itself, and that challenge is now the military and moral necessity of our time.” [The Citadel, 12/11/2001] Entity Tags: George W. Bush Category Tags: Other
March 24, 2000: CNN Executive Denies Bias in Using Retired Military Generals as Network Analysts of Balkan Conflict During an interview about CNN allowing Army psyops personnel to serve as interns inside the network (see March 24, 2000), reporter Amy Goodman asks CNN executive Eason Jordan about the network’s practice of using retired military generals and other high-ranking officers to serve as military analysts in times of war, without balancing the generals’ perspective with commentary from peace activists and antiwar leaders. Jordan says he is not aware of any such policy at CNN; however: “In wartime, we want people who understand how wars are orchestrated. We want experts who can address those issues. And if we have not put enough peace activists on the air, that’s not because we have some policy against that.” Jordan denies that the military analysts are there to discuss policy, but merely to explicate technical issues for the audience. Liberal columnist and editor Alexander Cockburn asks a hypothetical question: if indeed the Army, for example, had mounted “an incredibly successful military penetration of CNN,” and that everything Jordan is saying is complete disinformation: “[H]ow would you disprove that? Because, after all, everything that you see on CNN would buttress that conclusion. CNN was an ardent advocate of the war [in Kosovo, and] did not give a balanced point of view. They fueled at all points the Pentagon, State Department, White House approach to the war. I think you could demonstrate that far beyond the confines of your program, and it’s been done by a number of people. I’m just saying that if you looked at it objectively from afar, actually what you could see is evidence of an enormously successful PSYOPS operation. So, in a way, the burden is far more on CNN to disprove what you could conclude was a successful operation.… CNN, as an outlet, both in Iraq and now, is, to my view of thinking, devotes about 95 percent of its time in times of war to putting the US government point of view.” Jordan calls Cockburn’s hypothesizing “ridiculous.” [Democracy Now!, 3/24/2000] Entity Tags: Alexander Cockburn, Amy Goodman, Eason Jordan, CNN Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda Category Tags: Military Propaganda
March 24, 2000: CNN Executive Admits Allowing Military Psyops Personnel to Intern at CNN Was Mistake After the San Jose Mercury News reports on a February symposium where the commander of an Army psyops (psychological operations) unit discussed how Army psyops personnel have worked closely with the US news network CNN (see Early February, 2000), journalist Amy Goodman discusses the issue with three guests: Dutch journalist Abe De Vries, who first broke the story; liberal columnist Alexander Cockburn, who wrote about it in the Mercury News and in his own publication, Counterpunch; and CNN senior executive Eason Jordan. De Vries says he originally read of the symposium in a newsletter published by a French intelligence organization, and confirmed it with Army spokespersons. Cockburn says that after he wrote about it in his publication, he was contacted by an “indignant” Jordan, who called the story “a terrible slur on the good name of CNN and on the quality of its news gathering.” Cockburn says that he, too, confirmed that Army psyops personnel—“interns,” Jordan told Cockburn—worked for several weeks at CNN, but the network “maintains stoutly, of course, that these interns, you know, they just were there making coffee or looking around, and they had no role in actually making news.” Goodman asks Jordan about the story, and he insists that the Army personnel were nothing more than unpaid interns who “functioned as observers” and were “always under CNN supervision. They did not decide what we would report, how we would report it, when we would report something.…[T]hey had no role whatsoever in our Kosovo coverage and, in fact, had no role whatsoever in any of our coverage.” Jordan says that allowing them into CNN was a mistake that the network will not repeat. Jordan says that the psyops personnel merely wanted “to see how CNN functioned, as a lot of people from around the world do. We have observers here from all over the world.” He insists that no one in his division—news gathering—knew about the psyops personnel serving as interns until the program was well underway, and that once they found out about it, they brought it to a halt “within a matter of days.” Cockburn points out that from De Vries’s reporting, the Army was “obviously pleased” by their ability to insert personnel inside one of the nation’s largest news organizations. Cockburn says that it isn’t a matter of the Army personnel conducting some sort of “spy novel” operation inside CNN, but a matter of building relationships: “[T]he question is really, you know, the way these things work. If people come to an office, and they make friends at the office, then the next time they want to know something, they know someone they can call up. A relationship is a much more subtle thing than someone suddenly running in and writing [CNN correspondent Christiane] Amanpour’s copy for her.” Jordan says the entire idea of the US military influencing news coverage is “nonsense” (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond). Goodman counters with a quote from an Army psyops training manual: “Capture their minds, and their hearts and souls will follow.… Psychological operations, or PSYOP, are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behavior of organizations, groups and individuals. Used in all aspects of war, it’s a weapon whose effectiveness is limited only by the ingenuity of the commander using it. A proven winner in combat and peacetime, PSYOP is one of the oldest weapons in the arsenal of man. It’s an important force, protector, combat multiplier and a non-lethal weapons system.” [Democracy Now!, 3/24/2000] Entity Tags: US Department of the Army, Abe De Vries, Amy Goodman, Eason Jordan, CNN, Alexander Cockburn Timeline Tags: Domestic Propaganda Category Tags: Military Propaganda
September 14, 2000: US Ambassador Says Efforts to Prevent Space Arms Race ‘Unwise’ In Geneva, at the Conference on Disarmament, US Ambassador Robert T. Grey, Jr. says that US interest in weaponizing space will not spark an arms race and therefore efforts to establish the proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) treaty would be “unwise,” “unrealistic,” and a waste of time. “The United States agrees that it is appropriate to keep this topic [PAROS] under review,” he says. “On the other hand, we have repeatedly pointed out that there is no arms race in outer space—nor any prospect of an arms race in outer space, for as far down the road as anyone can see.” The US and Israel are the only countries that oppose efforts to outlaw the weaponization of space. Members of the conference express concern that US intentions in space reflect its desire to achieve world hegemony. Grey adamantly denies that the US is motivated by such goals. “We reject allegations that actions or plans of the United States attest to a desire for hegemony, or any intent to carry out nuclear blackmail, or any supposed quest for absolute freedom to use force or threaten to use force in international relations.” He further asserts that this view has “no basis in reality,” because a limited National Missile Defense (NMD) would does “not give anyone ‘hegemony.’” He claims also that hegemony “is unattainable in any case” since the world is so diverse and complex. [US Department of State, 9/15/2000; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1/2001] Entity Tags: Robert T. Grey Category Tags: Weaponization of Space, Key Events
Early 2001: US Practices for War in Space against Country Resembling China A Group of Air Force officers gather at Schriever Air Force Base for five days to conduct war games. The games are centered on a scenario where the US is at war with a country resembling China and the battlefield is in space. Describing the games, MSNBC reports: “[T]he United States and its adversary deployed microsatellites—small, highly maneuverable spacecraft that shadowed the other side’s satellites, then neutralized them by either blocking their view, jamming their signals or melting their circuitry with lasers. Also prowling the extraterrestrial battlefield were infrared early-warning satellites and space-based radar, offering tempting targets to ground stations and aircraft that harassed them with lasers and jamming signals.” [MSNBC, 4/27/2001] Category Tags: Weaponization of Space, War Net
March 20, 2001: Rumsfeld Begins Transformation of Defense Department Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld begins his vaunted transformation of the functions of the Defense Department by issuing the first in the “Anchor Chain” series of “snowflakes,” or unsigned memos from Rumsfeld. The memos are written by Rumsfeld and annotated and edited by, among others, Rumsfeld’s personal assistant Stephen Cambone, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The first memo is a sprawling, overarching combination of mission statement, fix-it lists, and complaints, reflective both of Rumsfeld’s sincere ambitions to cut through the bloated and unresponsive military bureaucracy, and his more personal desire to run the US military from his office. Rumsfeld fells that congressional oversight cripples the ability of the military to spend what it needs to on getting buildings built and weapons systems constructed. He complains that talented officers skip from one assignment to another every two years or so, too fast to “learn from their own mistakes.” He complains that the military “mindlessly use[s] the failed Soviet model: centralized government systems for housing, commissaries, healthcare and education, rather than using the private sector competitive models that are the envy of the world.” This apparently is the origin of the “privitization” of the military’s logistical systems that will come to fruition with Halliburton, Bechtel, and other private corporations providing everything from meals to housing for military personnel both in Iraq and in the US. Forgetting, or ignoring, the fact that the Defense Department has repeatedly demonstrated that it will squander billions if left to its own devices, he complains that Congressional oversight so hampers the department’s functions that the Defense Department “no longer has the authority to conduct the business of the Department. The maze of constraints on the Department force it to operate in a manner that is so slow, so ponderous, and so inefficient that whatever it ultimately does will inevitably be a decade or so late.” Without transforming the relationship between the Defense Department and Congress, he writes, “the transformation of our armed forces is not possible.”[O]ur job, therefore, is to work together to sharpen the sword that the next president will wield. [Woodward, 2006, pp. 26-27] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Bechtel, Halliburton, Inc., Paul Wolfowitz, US Department of Defense, Stephen A. Cambone Category Tags: Pentagon's Power, US Military Dominance
April 2001: Experts Say Weaponizing Space Could Lead to Arms Race MSNBC interviews Paul Stares, an expert on space at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, for an article it is preparing on US plans to weaponize space. Stares is very critical of these plans, arguing that it will spark a new arms race and ultimately increase the vulnerability of US military and commercial assets in space. “It is currently not in the US interest to develop an anti-satellite system,” he says. “We have more to lose than gain from developing such a system. So you really have to wonder at the end of the day whether this is a path we really want to encourage others to go down.” Other experts interviewed by MSNBC have similar opinions. Michael Krepon, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center, also says that by weaponizing space, it would encourage others to do the same. [MSNBC, 4/27/2001] Entity Tags: Paul Stares, Michael Krepon Category Tags: Weaponization of Space, War Net
August 25, 2001: Automated Landing Technology Developed for US Military Tested on Civilian Plane The US Air Force successfully tests the use of a military technology component that will land planes entirely by autopilot. The component is installed on a commercial airliner. The test takes place at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico and uses a Boeing 727. The component for automated landing used by the military is called the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System, or JPALS. The JPALS is a differential GPS ground station developed by Raytheon. It was designed to become interoperable with civilian systems utilizing the same GPS-based technology. The civilian counterpart to the JPALS is known as the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS). Both the JPALS and the LAAS use GPS data sufficiently accurate to allow a plane’s autopilot to land safely without human intervention. The test demonstrates that “the JPALS and LAAS will provide an interoperable landing capability for military and civil applications,” according to a Raytheon announcement (see also August 2000). [SpaceDaily, 10/1/2001] Entity Tags: Raytheon Category Tags: Other, US Military Dominance
6:42 p.m. September 11, 2001: Democrats Must Now Support Increased Defense Spending, Rumsfeld Says At a press briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to task for the Democrats’ opposition to increased defense spending. After answering questions about the terrorist attacks and assuring the nation that “the Pentagon is functioning,” Rumsfeld suddenly turns to Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and says: “Senator Levin, you and other Democrats in Congress have voiced fear that you simply don’t have enough money for the large increase in defense that the Pentagon is seeking, especially for missile defense, and you fear that you’ll have to dip into the Social Security funds to pay for it. Does this sort of thing convince you that an emergency exists in this country to increase defense spending, to dip into Social Security, if necessary, to pay for defense spending—increase defense spending?” Levin replies: “One thing where the committee was unanimous on, among many, many other things, was that the—we authorized the full request of the president, including the $18 billion. So I would say that Democrats and Republicans have seen the need for the request.” [US Department of Defense, 9/11/2001] Entity Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Carl Levin, US Department of Defense Category Tags: Arms Proliferation
September 30, 2001: Pentagon Completes Quadrennial Defense Review for Transformation of Military The Defense Department completes its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The 71-page report, mostly written before the September 11 attacks, attempts to layout a strategy for transforming the military from a cold war era model to one that can respond quickly and efficiently to a variety of symmetrical and asymmetrical threats from both state and non-state adversaries. According to the document, the US military must maintain its status as the most powerful military in the world in order to ensure global stability. “America’s political, diplomatic, and economic leadership contributes directly to global peace, freedom, and prosperity,” it states, asserting that “US military strength is essential to achieving these goals.” As part of the transformation process, the military must focus “more on how an adversary might fight rather than specifically whom the adversary might be or where a war might occur.” The military should drop its focus, the report says, on being able to win simultaneous wars in two separate theaters, in favor of a strategy that allows the US to decisively win one major war—in which it might have to topple a government and occupy the country—while retaining the capability to defend the US against multiple, overlapping threats in other regions. The report puts special emphasis on homeland security and the need to adopt “transformational” technologies in information warfare and intelligence. It also speaks of the need to further militarize space in order to “ensure the freedom of action in space for the United States and its allies and… [the capability] to deny such freedom of action to adversaries.” [US Department of Defense, 9/30/2001 ; Baltimore Sun, 10/2/2001; Washington Post, 10/5/2001; Space (.com) website, 10/8/2001] Category Tags: Weaponization of Space, Key EventsStudy: Poor Are More Charitable Than The Wealthy
Huge charity commitments often get headlines — like the ones Bill Gates and Warren Buffett collected for convincing 40 billionaires to donate at least half of their fortunes. But Paul Piff, a psychology researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, tells host Guy Raz about his studies, which show that poor people are actually more charitable than the rich.
GUY RAZ, host:
And speaking of charity, 40 billionaires announced this past week that they'll give at least half their fortunes to charity. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett unveiled the list, which also includes Larry Ellison, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and George Lucas. The total promise so far: $125 billion.
So you might assume that when it comes to giving, the rich are generally better at it than the rest of us. That's what Paul Piff, a psychologist at U.C. Berkeley, also thought. So he carried out a study and just published his findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Paul Piff, welcome to the program.
Mr. PAUL PIFF (Psychology Researcher, University of California, Berkeley): Thanks so much for having me, Guy.
RAZ: So that question, you know, who's more generous, the rich or the poor, how did you set out to answer it?
Mr. PIFF: Well, we started out by recruiting adults and had them fill out an online questionnaire that essentially asked them to tell us what their socio-economic status was.
Now, when we brought them into the lab, we said: You're going to play a game in which you're given 10 credits, which are going to be equal to cash at the end of the experiment, and we're interested in knowing how many of those credits you want to give, if any, to a partner that you'll never meet and who'll never meet you.
RAZ: Now, you knew, obviously, the socio-economic backgrounds of all these people. What did you find?
Mr. PIFF: So interestingly and possibly counter-intuitively, we found that people who were actually ranking themselves as relative high in their socio-economic status were less inclined to give points away than were people who ranked themselves as relatively lower in social class.
So essentially, people who have more, or who identify themselves as having more, were or tended to give less in this just very simple task of generosity toward a stranger.
RAZ: Was it on an order of magnitude? I mean, was it a significant difference?
Mr. PIFF: It was, absolutely. It was a statistically significant difference, and what we found was that the lower-class people, or the relatively lower-class individuals, were inclined to give away 44 percent more of their points or their credits.
RAZ: Forty-four percent more.
Mr. PIFF: Yeah.
RAZ: Why do you think that people who self-identified as richer were less generous than people who identified as poorer or middle class?
Mr. PIFF: Across these experiments, the main variable that we find that consistently explains this differential pattern of giving and helping and generosity among the upper and lower class is feelings of sensitivity and care for the welfare of other people and, essentially, the emotion that we call compassion.
So it's really compassionate feelings that exist among the lower class that's seen to provoke these higher levels of altruism and generosity toward other people.
RAZ: Were you surprised at what you found?
Mr. PIFF: You know, I had expected this pattern might pan out given the earlier that we've done on the effects of poverty on people's behavior toward others, but the findings that we had across experiments and across contexts in many ways speak against hundreds of years of economical thinking about how people would behave toward others when they're in need.
So I think it's really an interesting counter-intuitive pattern of results that really speaks against certain intuitions that we might have about the behavior of the wealthy or how the wealthy might act toward others.
RAZ: That's Paul Piff. He's a psychology researcher at U.C. Berkeley. His team's findings that the poor are more charitable than the rich were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Paul Piff, thanks so much.
Mr. PIFF: Thanks so much for having me, Guy.
Copyright © 2010 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.You can never know too much about an upcoming game, so in light of that it’s time to learn more about Splatoon 2!
Following an interview between Splatoon Producer Hisashi Nogami and 4Gamer, we have picked out the more noticeable highlights (which there are a LOT of) from Nintendo Everything’s interview translation, which you can see right here:
Splatoon 2 is a “Proper Sequel:”
“It’s a proper sequel to Splatoon, as you can see by the “2” in the name. We’re making a game that fans of the first can enjoy. I also want to give anyone who was interested in the first, but did not play it, a chance to jump into the fun. That way, it will truly be a proper sequel.”
Splatoon 2 Changes and Weapons:
“The gameplay fundamentals are still the same, of course, and the basic Turf War rules haven’t changed but the Special Weapons have all been given makeovers. I decided to have the weapons be gradually released as well, like before. We plan to have more weapons than the first game, with the available choices at the start being more numerous than the original. But I wanted players to once again enjoy the changes in the weapon trends as new ones are steadily introduced. The combinations of Main Weapons and Specials have been changed, and the Sub Weapons are also being revised, so I hope everyone who played the first will enjoy testing out all of the new combinations for themselves.”
Worldwide Matchmaking:
“We are. We’d like to have everyone around the world be able to play together, but the Splatfests will be unique to each region, as they were previously. Just like the first game, we’d like to have people from around the world be able to fight each other.”
Duallies (New weapon Category):
“Yes. The Dualies are a brand new weapon category, like the Shooters, Rollers and Chargers from the first game. The weapon we showed, the Splat Dualies, are their representative.”
Duallies (How they Work):
“You have two reticles, which makes it easy to land hits. However, because the ink it fires is spread out, it will take longer to splat your foes compared to weapons that are more focused. So there are both advantages and disadvantages to it. Its coverage is about the same as the Shooter types.
The Dualies also have a rolling ability, which puts your character into a special stance afterwards. While you’re in this stance, the reticles combine into one, and your rapidfire capabilities also increase.”
The Reason why Splatoon 2 has Duallies in the first place:
“When we started working on Splatoon 2, I decided we had to come up with a weapon that worked differently from previous ones, and would make people say “I wanna try that!” when they see it. Twin pistols… gets the blood pumping, doesn’t it? (Laughs) So I came up with some ideas for how they would work, like that combining them would focus your attacks, and having the extra nozzles quickly roll you around twice.”
The Roller’s New Attack:
“The swipe is still horizontal while you’re on the ground, like the first game, but when you’re in the air, it now swings vertically. This vertical swipe’s specialty is its long range. We wanted to add to the Roller’s viability by giving it this new attack. They’re great at close combat, but very susceptible to long-range opponents. Now with the vertical swipe, they have one more option.”
Charge Keep:
“We’re calling this ability to maintain your charge the “Charge Keep” [note: subject to change in English]. If you turn into squid form while holding a full charge, you can maintain the charged state briefly while moving around. When you exit squid form, you’ll still have the charge ready. If you take too long, though, the charged state will end.”
Shooters characteristics are the Same as they were in Splatoon 1:
“There haven’t been any major changes made to how the Shooters work. Being general-purpose is their big draw after all, so we’re leaving those characteristics much the same as they were in the first game.”
The Curling Bomb:
“The Curling Bomb travels along the ground after you throw it, but if you look closely, there’s a meter on the upper part of it. Once you enter the throwing stance, the meter starts to decrease, so you can control when it will explode by choosing how long to hold before releasing it. It handles a bit differently from the other bombs.
It also bounces off of walls when it hits them, so the direction you throw it is important too, but you still have to manage the timer so that it explodes when it reaches the enemy. The bomb will knock enemies back if it hits them before exploding, but it won’t splat them.
It just knocks them back. But, since it bounces off walls, you can splat an enemy hiding behind obstacles with a well-timed throw. I think it will be used in different ways than the bombs we’ve had up until now.”
All Special Weapons from Splatoon 1 have been Redone:
“That is true. All of the special weapons from the previous game have been changed.
I wanted to reset the tactics used in the game as well. The most used weapons in the game are the Mains and Subs, so the fundamental strategies will be similar to the first game. However, Special Weapons can turn the tide of battle, so strategies revolved around them. Therefore, changing the Special Weapons will greatly shift players’ strategies. I mentioned earlier that I wanted everyone to enjoy the game from a fresh start once more. These changes are part of that.”
Inkjet:
“Its shots burst, and inflict damage over a wide area around their impact point. You can use them like bombs to limit your enemies movements, or even take them out in one shot if you score a direct hit. There’s a delay after firing, so you won’t be able to fire the Inkjet’s attacks continuously. You should probably use it while you’re somewhere safe, away from danger.”
Splashdown:
“It’s pretty flashy, isn’t it? But you have to think carefully about when to use it. You might be invincible during the attack, but you can still be splatted before that, even if you already activated it. By the way, you can even use it while doing a Super Jump, and splat any enemies nearby when you land. There’s a short delay after activating it, so if you use it too early they might evade it, and if you use it to close you might get taken down before it goes off. You need to find the right moment.”
Weapon Combinations are Locked, but will be revised:
“Main Weapons, Sub Weapons and Special Weapons all come as a set, but since we’ve reworked the Special Weapons, we’ll be revising the combinations.”
Making Weapons Desirable to Use:
“The most important aspect we’re taking a look at is what makes the weapons desirable to use. |
a few weeks ago:
“As with the British media, the American media keep telling us that all these Muslim terrorist attacks have nothing to do with Muslims, and Donald Trump's suggestion that we impose a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration is madness, bigoted, racist. Thank God Hitler didn't claim "Mein Kampf" was a holy book and the Fuhrerbunker a mosque. Western governments have devoted incalculable resources to developing some diagnostic test other than "Muslim" to predict terrorism.I have a possible indicator! M-U-S-L-... "
As Trump’s newly-announced VP candidate Mike Pence has been forced to make a drastic u-turn to endorse Trump’s Muslim ban in order to fit the role — he previously described it as “offensive” and “unconstitutional” — it’s clear that Coulterism hasn’t exhausted its ambitions yet.
Alexander Griffing is the director of digital outreach at Haaretz English edition and holds a political science master's degree from Tel Aviv University.Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, said he glimpsed an unidentified flying object during the Apollo 11 flight.
The astronaut also said the first humans to set foot on Mars should never return to earth during a Reddit “ask me anything” question and answer session.
Mr Aldrin, 84, however was reluctant to described the sighting as an extraterrestrial craft, even though he does believe there are other life forms in space.
“I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us,” he said.
“There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world – it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the four panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft.
“So in the close vicinity, moving away, were four panels. And I feel absolutely convinced that we were looking at the sun reflected off of one of these panels.
“Which one? I don't know. So technically, the definition could be ‘unidentified’,’’ he said.
When Mr Aldrin first disclosed the sighting, his remarks triggered accusations of a cover-up from those who believed in UFO’s.
But he remained unapologetic about his caution. “Extraordinary observations require extraordinary evidence,” he added.
“There may be aliens in our Milky Way galaxy, and there are billions of other galaxies. The probability is almost certain that there is life somewhere in space.
“It was not that remarkable, that special, that unusual, that life here on earth evolved gradually, slowly, to where we are today.”
With Mars One, a private sector company, pressing ahead with its plans to send people to the Red Planet, Mr Aldrin said those who go should plan staying there for the rest of their lives.
“I have considered whether a landing on Mars could be done by the private sector,” he continued.
“It conflicts with my very strong idea, concept, conviction, that the first human beings to land on Mars should not come back to Earth.”The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has imposed a strict set of Sharia laws on the citizens of Nineveh province just days after capturing the provincial capital of Mosul.
In a document circulating on social media attributed to the group, Isis warned tribal leaders and sheikhs not to "work with [the Iraqi] government and be traitors" while proclaiming that women should only go outside if absolutely necessary.
"For women, dress decently and wear wide clothes. Only go out if needed," read the document as translated by Al Aan TV reporter Jenan Moussa.
Further rules included bans on drugs, alcohol and cigarettes while public gatherings, the possession of guns and the carrying of flags not of the Islamic state were outlawed.
The document added that Isis wish to destroy all shrines and graves, in reference to Shia shrines in towns such as Samarra where fighting is continuing.
"For those asking who are you? We are soldiers of Islam and took on our responsiblity to bring back glory of the Islamic Caliphate.
"Money we took from [the] Safavid government is now public. Only Imam of Muslims can spend it. Anyone who steals [will have their] hands cut," the document translation read.
Isis have continued their push towards Baghdad, seizing a town only 56 miles (90km) north of the Iraq's capital, according to reports.
The flashpoint town of Dhuluiyah and the area of Muatassam have been overrun by militants following a three-day offensive the Iraqi government has failed to stop, according to AFP.
The group has become the richest terror force in the world after looting $429m and large amounts of gold bullion from Mosul's central bank following the city's capture.Mark Cuban. Reuters When Business Insider asked billionaire Mark Cuban for his advice to the winner (or winners) of the record-high $1.5 billion Powerball lottery, one suggestion he had was: "Don't take the lump sum. You don't want to blow it all in one spot."
For those of us who aren't lottery regulars, winnings are offered in two ways: one large payment up front (the "lump sum") or a series of smaller payments over 30 years ("the annuity").
Seizing the day and the cash, most people secure their lump sum and dance off into the night.
They might, however, be smarter to take the annuity. Here are three reasons:
1. You get more money overall.
If you've been doing any reading at all on the lottery, you probably know that the winner of $1.5 billion doesn't actually take home $1.5 billion in a single check.
In the case of this drawing, a winner who chooses the lump sum will get $930 million before taxes. A winner who chooses the annuity will get the full $1.5 billion over 30 years, starting with a check for $22.6 million — again, before taxes.
USAMega.com has an excellent breakdown of take-home winnings by state, after federal and state taxes. Hint: It's even less.
2. You limit your chances of blowing every cent.
It's not uncommon for a lottery winner to take the money, spend it all, and lose every cent.
As correspondent Josh Barro writes in The New York Times, "The great thing about the annuity is, no matter what stupid choices you make this year, you'll have an enormous check waiting for you next year — all the way until 2045."
3. You have an excuse to keep it.
Barro also points out that, since that first check for $22.6 million sounds like so much less than $1.5 billion (though in reality, most people would probably be pretty happy with even a one-time check for $22.6 million), the winner will have a little more leeway to keep the money from evaporating into a sea of friends and family.
"The big advantage of the cash prize is flexibility, but let's not underrate the value of the annuity's inflexibility," he writes. When well-wishers come to collect, he writes, "Being able to tell them that this year's check is only for $22.6 million, and that's really not very much after taxes and the new mansion and the summer house and the cars and the boats and the new political magazine, will help you conserve your fortune."
Cuban also has advice for this situation: "Tell all your friends and relatives no," he says. "They will ask. Tell them no. If you are close to them, you already know who needs help and what they need. Feel free to help SOME, but talk to your accountant before you do anything and remember this, no one needs $1 million for anything. No one needs $100,000 for anything. Anyone who asks is not your friend."
Read the rest of Cuban's advice to lottery winners »Casu Marzu, an illegal Sardinian delicacy, is perhaps the most outrageously foul dairy product in our galaxy. While it's one thing to eat a cheese that smells like gym socks soaked in milk and left crumpled behind the toilet for weeks; you've entered a whole new class of repulsiveness when you bite into Casu Marzu -- a putrefied cheese infested with live, wriggling maggots.
To craft this noxious specialty Sardinian cheesemakers encourage the cheese fly, Piophilia casei, a.k.a. the "cheese skipper," to lay eggs in their pecorino cheeses. ("Pecorino" is a general Italian term for sheep milk's cheese.) One traditional method is to drill a hole in the block of cheese and slip in a drop of oil to attract the vermin. But the effort isn't always needed. While cheese skippers originally evolved to scavenge decomposed corpses, they've taken enthusiastically to the cured and fermented foods of Homo sapiens. Having discovered a suitable food supply, a mother will lay hundreds of eggs, which then hatch into a vile horde of hungry maggots, eager to devour their host environment.
In the case of Casu Marzu, these maggots -- legless and clawless, dragging themselves through by hooked teeth-- will release an enzyme during their digestion that causes the pecorino's fat to putrefy. This unique fermentation process yields a sticky, gluey, gummy mass, still teeming with the worms -- and ready to be eaten.
So, Just How Tasty Is It?
Once in your mouth, Casu Marzu is reported to cause more of a sensation than a "taste": a kind of oral-digestive riot, starting with a strong burn in the mouth. They say it's good with a full-bodied red, and doubles as an aphrodisiac. But what do "they" know, who eat larvae? As with most things, it's unclear who to trust. It is advisable when taking a bite of Casu Marzu to cover your eyes. This is not to protect your mind from the nauseating sight; but to protect the eyes themselves from the maggots, who can and do leap up to six inches off the cheese, with malevolent precision. (If you're too squeamish for such a confrontation, try sealing the cheese in a paper bag. The maggots, deprived of oxygen, will leap off the cheese in an attempt to escape; and when the pitter patter of their dying flops subsides, you can safely eat.)
Some people consider cheese skipper larvae a health risk, and Casu Marzu is actually illegal in Sardinia -- but this is not to say it can't be had. As a black market delicacy it is exchanged amongst family and friends, a favorite for weddings and birthday parties, and sold just under the radar at markets. Often, Sardinian heath officials are themselves fans of the cheese, appreciating its cultural significance, or its taste, or both.
Some Sardinian farmers still believe the medieval idea that maggots spontaneously generate in decaying cheese. This old theory created strong symbolic associations between cheese and death, but also decay and new life. It's even inspired weird cosmologies (Carlo Ginzburg writes about this in The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller). If you ever have the chance to try Casu Marzu, consider what it means to put the whole Circle of Life in your mouth at once. Then cover your eyes.
Cheese expert David Clark is guest blogging with us all week! Be sure to check out yesterday's post on Big Political Cheeses and the Riots They Caused.Rachel Maddow (MSNBC via Associated Press)
It wouldn’t have been the first time that a major media organization had reported a stunning development that turned out to be untrue. But it surely would have made the Top 5.
On her MSNBC program last night, host Rachel Maddow told viewers that her show had received an apparent NSA document over tip-routing portal SendItToRachel.com. Though Maddow didn’t display the document or detail all of its allegations, she did say that it purported to be very secret. “People who are in a position to recognize or authenticate this kind of document, people who have worked with things at this level of classification, they typically will refuse to even look at a document like this if there’s any chance that it is real, that it is real classified information that has been improperly disclosed,” she said. “That’s because the terms of their own security clearance mean effectively they can’t review anything like that without it creating legal obligations on them.”
And its political implications? “People talk about finding the smoking gun. What got sent to us was not just a smoking gun; it was a gun still firing proverbial bullets,” said Maddow, who went on to note that it “names a specific person in the Trump campaign as working with the Russians on their hacking attack on the election last year.”
And that wrinkle was just one of the fishy details in the over-the-transom tip. According to experts consulted by Maddow and her staff, it’s unlikely that a U.S. citizen would be named in a document of this sort. Other telltale signs relate to printer codes and digital sleuthing that Maddow presented in her trademarked long-form TV narrative style — the particulars of which we won’t detail here. May it suffice to say, however, that “The Rachel Maddow Show” took a pass on this potentially explosive document, except to point out that it appears to be a forgery.
As to who may have sent the document to the show, Maddow says, “We’re working on it.” It could have come from a two-bit trickster or some hanger-on with no agenda whatsoever. Then again: Maddow outlined a scenario with frightening implications for the tip-receiving media on the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia:
Whether or not the Trump campaign did it, one way to stab in the heart aggressive American reporting on that subject is to lay traps for American journalists who are reporting on it, trick news organizations into reporting what appears to be evidence of what happened, and then after the fact blow that reporting up. You then hurt the credibility of that news organization. You also cast a shadow over any similar reporting in the future, whether or not it’s true, right? Even if it’s true, you plant a permanent question, a permanent asterisk, a permanent — who knows — as to whether that too might be false like that other story, whether that too might be based on fake evidence.
No way this is the first time that a media organization has received a forgery or a bogus tip. It happens all the time, for all kinds of reasons. Maddow herself pointed to CBS News’s 2004 reporting on George W. Bush’s National Guard service, which stemmed from documents whose origin Maddow described as “murky.” Explaining that CBS News was “ripped to shreds” over its approach to the story, she noted, “that was a spike through the heart of the story of George W. Bush’s National Guard service keeping him out of Vietnam, which was a true and interesting story and which really might have been a serious ongoing political liability for candidate George W. Bush. But nobody was ever willing to touch it again during that campaign because of the way those documents purporting to prove out the worst aspects of that story blew up like a pipe bomb at CBS News.”
These are dangerous times for reporters — dangerous because they may be body-slammed; dangerous because their resignations may be very readily accepted over a story gone wrong; and dangerous because — yes — there’s misinformation out there. If there once was a stigma attached to spreading bogus tips for the purpose of discrediting the media, it’s receding, according to this comment from Maine Gov. Paul LePage to WGAN-AM: “I just love to sit in my office and make up ways so they’ll write these stupid stories because they are just so stupid, it’s awful,” said LePage. Any excuse to fling the accusation: “FAKE NEWS!”Coordinates:
Region in Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Districts of Republican Subordination (Tajik: Ноҳияҳои тобеи ҷумҳурӣ, Nohiyaho‘i tobe‘i jumhurî/Nohijahoji toвeji çumhurī; Russian: Районы республиканского подчинения, Rajony respublikanskogo podčinenija) is a region in Tajikistan, consisting of 13 districts that are directly under central rule.
History [ edit ]
The Districts of Republican Subordination cover much of the territory of the Gharm Oblast which was dissolved in 1955.
They were formerly known as Karotegin Region.
Districts [ edit ]
The 13 districts are listed below roughly in their order of occurrence from west to east within the band forming the Region of Republican Subordination. The order of the districts and the district names are based on two consistent sources: an administrative map of Tajikistan[2] and a statistical yearbook showing the breakdown of RRP into districts.[3]
West Karotegin [ edit ]
Dushanbe City [ edit ]
East Karotegin (Rasht Valley) [ edit ]
Geography [ edit ]
The plateau is traversed by the Vakhsh River, a right-hand tributary of the Amu Darya. On the northern border run the Gissar and Zeravshan mountains, and on the southern border the Darvaz range 7,600 metres (24,900 ft). The area is 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). The winter climate is extremely severe; snow begins to fall in October and it is May before it disappears. During the warmer months, however, the mountainsides are richly clothed with the foliage of maple, mountain ash, apple, pear and walnut trees; the orchards furnish, not only apples and pears, but peaches, cherries, mulberries and apricots. Both cattle and horses are of a small and hardy breed.[4]An Executive Order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump in his first few days in office could jeopardize a six-month-old data transfer framework that enables EU citizens’ personal data to flow to the U.S. for processing — with the promise of ‘essentially equivalent’ privacy protection once it gets there.
Close to 1,500 companies have signed up to the framework so far, which only got up and running in August, following a multi-year negotiation process.
MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on data protection regulation, tweeted earlier today suggesting that Trump’s presidential order, signed yesterday, might invalidate Privacy Shield.
Section 14 of the Executive Order signed by Trump — ostensibly aimed at enhancing domestic enforcement of U.S. immigration laws — reads:
Privacy Act. Agencies shall, to the extent consistent with applicable law, ensure that their privacy policies exclude persons who are not United States citizens or lawful permanent residents from the protections of the Privacy Act regarding personally identifiable information.
Earlier this month European Commissioner Vera Jourova said she would be traveling to the U.S. this spring to meet with the Trump administration to assess its commitment to the EU-US Privacy Shield.
The data transfer framework is also be due for its first annual review this summer.
Talks to agree the Privacy Shield stepped up urgently in October 2015 after the prior Safe Harbor arrangement was struck down by Europe’s top court, following a legal challenge related to U.S. Government mass surveillance programs. That self-certification regime had been operational for fifteen years.
The question now is whether the replacement EU-US data flow mechanism is about to come unstuck far more quickly — helped on its way by the Trump administration’s privacy-related policy choices.
According to Albrecht’s analysis, there could also be ramifications for another EU-US umbrella agreement, which covers data-sharing between law enforcement agencies in the two regions — with the MEP suggesting sanctioning the administration for making this executive order.
At the time of writing the MEP could not be reached for comment.
It’s not clear at this point exactly how damaging the policy change might be to the continued functioning of Privacy Shield — that depends on how important the extensibility of the U.S. Privacy Act to non-U.S. citizens was during the EU Privacy Shield negotiations, and whether another relevant piece of U.S. legislation (the Judicial Redress Act) is also affected by Trump’s executive order.
But the order on “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States” certainly looks likely to deepen concerns about the legal robustness of the EU-US data transfer mechanism, given it’s explicitly seeking to strip away privacy protections from non-U.S. citizens. Aka the opposite of what the European Commission was intent on achieving during negotiations.
A spokeswoman for the Commission told TechCrunch it does not have a statement on the implications of Trump’s executive order at present — but did confirm: “We’re looking at it at the moment.” Update: The spokeswoman has now sent us a statement in which the EC asserts that Privacy Shield “does not rely on the protections under the U.S. Privacy Act”.
On the Umbrella Agreement the spokeswoman said this relies on the Judicial Redress Act which she said “extends the benefits of the U.S. Privacy Act to Europeans and gives them access to U.S. courts”.
“We will continue to monitor the implementation of both instruments and are following closely any changes in the U.S. that might have an effect on European’s data protection rights,” she added.
The Commission does look to have fired a warning shot across the U.S. administration’s bows at a privacy conference taking place in Brussels this week, by reiterating that if adequate protection for EU citizen’s personal data under U.S. law can no longer be guaranteed then the framework would indeed have to be suspended.
.@EU_Commission : If adequacy is no longer guaranteed, we will have to suspend the #PrivacyShield #cpdp2017 — Laura Kayali (@LauKaya) January 25, 2017
Any suspension of Privacy Shield would mean a return to legal uncertainty for the 1,500+ businesses currently processing EU data in the U.S. via this authorization framework — which includes the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft. (You can find a full list of sign-ups here.)
A key sticking point in the lengthy EU-US Privacy Shield negotiations was the need for the arrangement to ensure essential equivalence of privacy protections for European citizens’ data in the U.S. — so there really can be little doubt that a presidential order seeking to strip privacy protections from Europeans (regardless of the stated intent) will be viewed very dimly by EU officials.
Compare and contrast Trump’s order with a policy directive signed by President Obama at the start of 2014 — which imposed limits on U.S. agencies’ use of signals intelligence collected in bulk with the stated aim of protecting “the privacy and civil liberties of all persons, whatever their nationality and regardless of where they might reside” [emphasis mine].
Obama’s extension of privacy protections to non-U.S. citizens was lauded as a very positive step by EU officials during the Privacy Shield negotiations. So it’s hard not to conclude the trajectory of the new U.S. administration vis-a-vis privacy and foreigners does not bode well for easy data flows between the two regions.
Earlier this month, as the inauguration of President Trump loomed, the Commission was already signalling public concern about the U.S.’ response to questions it sent following the Yahoo email scanning scandal — after news broke last fall the company had built a custom scanning tool at the behest of U.S. intelligence agencies to enable real-time keyword scanning of the incoming email of all Yahoo users.
On that issue Jourova complained the U.S. response had been tardy and lacking in detail. “This is not how we understand good, quick and full exchange of information,” she told Reuters in an interview earlier this month.
Critics of Privacy Shield –– including the lawyer who brought the original challenge against Safe Harbor — have consistently argued the arrangement contains the same fundamental flaws as its invalidated predecessor, given ongoing U.S. government agency surveillance programs accessing European citizens’ data.
And even before President Trump’s signing-in the Privacy Shield had attracted its first legal challenge. (Which might well find fresh fuel for its fight in Trump’s executive order.)
But the European Commission has previously rejected these structural criticisms of the framework — professing itself satisfied with “assurances” secured from the Obama administration that any access to personal data for law enforcement or national security would be “limited to what is necessary and proportionate”, and arguing the mechanism strengthens privacy protections via new components such as an ombudsperson to handle complaints, and an annual review of how Privacy Shield is operating.
However the arrival of Trump could really put the cat among the Commission’s pigeons.
Its overarching aim for Privacy Shield has been to grease the wheels of digital commerce by providing a streamlined mechanism for authorizing EU-US personal data transfers, while achieving an adequate level of compliance with European privacy law. But the new U.S. administration’s priorities on immigration and on business suggest Trump’s America is intent on pulling in a very different direction.
Other data transfer mechanisms for enabling the processing of EU personal data in the U.S. do exist but are generally more complex for businesses to comply with. And their legality has also been called into question.The European Union and the U.S. government are locked in trade talks over cheese — specifically, varieties such as Gorgonzola, feta, Muenster and Parmesan.
The EU wants to ban the use of European names for American-made cheeses as they cut into the sales and identity of the original, European cheeses. The EU argues that "Parmesan" should be used only for cheeses made in Parma, Italy. And while "feta" isn't a place in Greece, the cheese is so uniquely tied to a Greek identity that the EU argues only cheese from that country should be distinguished with the name.
The EU would not disclose exactly what their cheesy proposal would entail, or if it would be discussed this week at a round of EU-U.S. free trade agreement talks in Brussels. Trade negotiations over cheese may seem trivial, but they are important for the EU economy: the ability to exclusively sell the continent's traditional products could help the countries, Greece especially, pull themselves out of recession.
Naturally, U.S. dairy producers, cheesemakers and food companies who participate in the $4 billion industry are fighting the EU's attempts to clamp down on its regional cheeses as they believe the U.S. popularized them.
“It’s really stunning that the Europeans are trying to claw back products made popular in other countries,” Jim Mulhern, president of the National Milk Producers Federation, an organization that represents U.S. dairy farmers, told the Associated Press.
Similarly, a group of 55 U.S. senators find the EU's request hard to swallow. Led by New York Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Pennsylvania Senator Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., the group wrote to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to urge them not to agree to any EU proposals because of the potential impact the request would have on small business owners.
“Muenster is Muenster, no matter how you slice it,” Schumer told the AP.
Although U.S. business owners and select parts of the U.S. have come out and noted their opposition to the EU's request, it's not an uncommon one. Canada and Central America have recently agreed to similar demands from the EU in restricting European cheese names to those from Europe.
In Canada, it's "feta-like" or "feta-style": Canada and the EU agreed that "feta" only comes from Greece.
Whichever side of the cheese debate you land on, it raises interesting ideas on authenticity and a country's unique product. For someone like Errico Auricchio, president of BelGioioso Cheese in Green Bay, who has produced cheese with his family in Italy until he brought his trade to the United States in 1979, the situation is a complicated one — but one that finds him siding with the U.S.
“We have invested years and years making these cheeses,” Auricchio told the AP. “You cannot stop the spreading of culture, especially in the global economy.”Tulip Breaking Virus (TBV) Virus classification Group: ((+)ssRNA) Group IV Family: Potyviridae Genus: Potyvirus Strains mild tulip breaking virus (MTBV)
severe tulip breaking virus (STBV) Synonyms Tulip break virus
Tulip mosaic virus
Lily streak virus
Lily mosaic virus
Tulip breaking virus is one of five plant viruses of the family Potyviridae that cause color-breaking of tulip flowers. These viruses infect plants in only two genera of the family Liliaceae: tulips (Tulipa) and lilies (Lilium).
Also known as the tulip break virus, lily streak virus, tulip mosaic virus, lily mosaic virus, or simply TBV, tulip breaking virus is most famous for its dramatic effects on the color of the tulip perianth, an effect highly sought after during the 17th-century Dutch "tulip mania."[1]
Tulip breaking virus is a potyvirus — a member of the group whose type species is potato virus Y.[2] A distant serological relationship between tulip breaking virus and tobacco etch virus was discovered in 1971.[3]
Tulip breaking virus (TBV), tulip top-breaking virus (TTBV), tulip bandbreaking virus (TBBV), Rembrandt tulip-breaking virus (ReTBV), and lily mottle virus (LMoV) have all been identified as potyviruses by serology and potyvirus-specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In addition, sequence analysis of amplified DNA fragments has classified them all as distinct viruses or strains; recently TTBV has been found to be strain-related to turnip mosaic virus.[4]
Effects of the virus [ edit ]
The virus infects the bulb and causes the cultivar to "break" its lock on a single color, resulting in intricate bars, stripes, streaks, featherings or flame-like effects of different colors on the petals. These symptoms vary depending on the plant variety and age at the time of infection. Different types of colour-breaks depend on the variety of tulip and the strain of the virus. The color variegation is caused either by local fading, or intensification and overaccumulation of pigments in the vacuoles of the upper epidermal layer due to the irregular distribution of anthocyanin; this fluctuation in pigmentation occurs after the normal flower color has developed. Because each outer surface is affected, both sides of the petal often display different patterns.
In the lily species, the virus causes mild to moderate mottling or streaking in the leaves about two weeks after inoculation, and then causes the plant to produce distorted leaves and flowers.[5]
The virus also weakens the bulb and retards the plant's propagation through offset growths; as it progresses through each generation the bulb grows stunted and weak. Eventually it has no strength to flower, and either breaks apart or withers away, ending the genetic line. For this reason the most famous examples of tulips from color-broken bulbs – the Semper Augustus and the Viceroy – no longer exist.
History [ edit ]
Semper Augustus, famous for being the most expensive tulip sold during Gouache on paper drawing, before 1640, of the, famous for being the most expensive tulip sold during tulip mania. The effects of the tulip breaking virus are seen in the striking streaks of white in its red petals.
Long thought to be the earliest recorded plant virus, it is now thought that TBV comes second; the earliest reference to a virus-induced leaf chlorosis (possibly tobacco leaf curl virus) was recorded in Japan in 752 AD.[6]
"Breaking" symptomology was first described in 1576 by Carolus Clusius, a Flemish professor of Botany at Leiden, who noted the variegation, or "rectification", so termed because it was believed that with the offset production of an entirely new "broken" bloom the plant was distilling, or rectifying, itself into a pure life form.[footnote 1][7]
Clusius's observations continued; in 1585, he was the first to note that "broken" plants also slowly degenerated. " … any tulip thus changing its original colour is usually ruined afterwards and so wanted only to delight its master's eyes with this variety of colours before dying, as if to bid him a last farewell."[8] It was not known that the virus was responsible for this effect, so for centuries breeders believed that it was environmental conditions that attenuated the bulb and caused single colour tulips to break and streak. They tried to induce "rectification" through frequent soil changes (which causing the bulb to go to seed); varying the planting depths so the plant had to struggle in too much or too little soil; applying too much or too little manure; using soil that was either too poor or too rich; or storing the bulbs in exposed conditions so that they would be 'acted' upon by the rain, wind, sun, and extremes of temperature. However, as early as 1637 Dutch growers were able to produce new broken varieties through bulb grafting, by combining "broken" bulbs infected with the virus with healthy bulbs that produced uniformly colored flowers.[9]
At the end of the eighteenth century, the notion that "breaking" in tulips was a manifestation of some kind of chronic disorder or weakness in the bulb was certainly considered among botanists; but it was still more or less believed that adverse environmental conditions were to blame. A comment by William Hanbury in 1770 that: "All variegations are diseases in a plant and nothing is so proper to bring this about as a defect in nutriment."[10] bears out this general attitude. Given the lack of knowledge of human infectious diseases at this time (and well into the 19th century) this was not an unusual conclusion,[11] but what is surprising is that while tulip mosaic disease has a far more impressive and documented history than any other plant virus, the realization that it was a communicable plant disease, let alone a virus, came surprisingly late – a decade after the end of World War I. "Plant virus" to plant pathologists at the time was almost synonymous with the tobacco mosaic virus, which had been discovered in 1897, quite soon after bacteriology had become established as an academic subject. Since the prime characteristics of the tobacco mosaic virus are that it damages the leaves and flowers of the plant, stunts growth, and lowers quantity and quality of the crop, it is puzzling to many academics and scientists that twenty more years passed before "breaking" was even suspected of being virus-induced.[12]
Pathogen discovery [ edit ]
By the mid-1920s, biochemistry was coming into its own, and its impact was felt in virus research. Eventually, it was a series of bulb manipulation experiments begun in 1928 by Dorothy Cayley at the John Innes Horticultural Institution in Merton, South London, England that led to the discovery of the virus. The record of Cayley's experiments are held at the Institution's current location in Norfolk. Caley discovered that by mechanically transferring infected tissue from broken bulbs to healthy bulbs during their dormant state, the virus that caused the break in color would also be transferred.[13] These experiments were further refined down to minute amounts, which led her to correctly conclude that the "virus or enzyme infection" was sap-transmissible, probably transferred by an insect, and the degree of breaking was proportional to the amount of infected tissue introduced.[14]
The virus was eventually proved to be transferred in a non-persistent manner by at least four species of aphids, specifically Myzus persica (the most efficient), Macrosiphum euphorbiae, Doralis fabae and Aphis gossypii. McKenny-Hughes reported in 1934 that Yezabura tulipae transmitted the virus between stored tulip bulbs, but this has not been confirmed.[15] The transfer of the virus is non-persistent, which means it is accomplished through the insect feeding. In non-persistent transmission, viruses become attached to the distal tip of the stylet in the insect's mouthparts, so that the next plant it feeds on is inoculated with the virus.[16] The virus does not affect the seed that produces a bulb, only the bulb itself, its leaves and blooms, and its daughter offsets.
It was not until the 1960s that TBV was shown to have flexuous filamentous particles (mostly measuring about 12×750 nm) and finally proved to be a virus. The genetic code of TBV has now been partially sequenced and the virus is recognized as a member of the genus Potyvirus (family Potyviridae). Like other members of the genus it is now readily detected and identified by serological and molecular techniques.[13]
Viral strains [ edit ]
Two separate strains of the virus – Severe Tulip Breaking Virus (STBV) and Mild Tulip Breaking Virus (MTBV) – have been determined by the type and severity of the symptoms they cause.[15] In certain varieties STBV causes full breaking or light breaking, when due to a lack of anthocyanin, pigment present in the surface chromoplast cells fades and the lighter color (white or yellow) of the internal mesophyll is exposed, appearing as irregular streaks or fine featherings. In the same varieties MTBV causes self breaking or dark breaking, which occurs because anthocyanins are formed in excess, so the color in the epidermal cells is intensified in dark streaks or elongated flecks and sworls. Breaking commonly occurs along the edges and tops of petals and sepals. The most common type of breaking found in naturally infected plants, called average break, is caused by infection with a mixture of STBV and MTBV; both light breaking and dark breaking symptoms are present, together with some unbroken areas, in different parts of the same petal. Plants infected with a mixture of strains when young may exhibit both effects, with light breaking symptoms restricted to the basal part of the petal and severe dark breaking effects in the upper parts.[15] Some varieties were later found to be incapable of light breaking, and always showed dark breaking symptoms no matter whether infected with STBV or MTBV or a mixture of both strains.[17] Although they still can be infected, white and yellow flowered varieties are incapable of breaking since they lack anthocyanins; their color is determined by colourless or yellow plastids in the mesophyll.[15] Other outward symptoms can include leaf mottling.
Distribution [ edit ]
Control of the virus is notoriously difficult. Its distribution is world-wide and had been reported in all temperate regions where tulips are grown; it is particularly common in southern Europe where the aphid vectors are abundant early in the growing season. Virus transmission by aphids causes millions of dollars of damage in the flower bulb sector annually. Mineral oils and pyrethroids are applied |
C. A feeder and nipple drinker were installed in each pen. All pigs had ad libitum access to their respective diets and water and consumed the diets in a three‐stage programme.
The insect‐resistant Bt corn line and the isogenic corn line were grown simultaneously side by side in the experimental field of China Agricultural University (Beijing, China). Samples of the Bt and isogenic grains were evaluated for the existence of the cry1Ac gene with polymerase chain reaction and the cry1Ac protein with an antibody specific enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). As indicated by the results of the evaluation, the cry1Ac gene and cry1Ac protein were present in the Bt corn but not detected in the isogenic corn. Samples from the Bt and isogenic corn were analysed for similar chemical and amino acid compositions (Table 1 ). The Bt and isogenic corn diets were formulated to meet or exceed the nutritional requirements for pigs of given weights. 16, 17 Pigs were fed a sequence of diets in accordance with their growth stage from day 0 to 69, day 69 to 134 and day 135 to 196, respectively. Samples of the diets were also analysed for chemical composition (Table 2 ).
After mitogenic stimulation with PHA antigen, with the exception of the proliferation indicates of lymphocyte for females were greater in the isogenic group than in the Bt group at day 134 ( P < 0.05), no other difference was observed (Fig. 1 ). The proliferation indicates that lymphocytes with LPS antigen for male or female pigs was not affected by the diet treatment ( P > 0.05). The IL‐2 contents from serum samples for pigs were not affected by the diet treatment at any time point ( P > 0.05; Fig. 2 ). With the exception of the IFN‐γ concentration of male pigs was greater in the Bt group than the isogenic group at day 134 ( P < 0.05), no other difference was observed (Fig. 2 ).
There was no effect of feeding Bt corn diet to pigs on serum parameters with exception of ALT at any time point during the study ( P > 0.05; Table 5 ). The ALT concentration at day 196 was less in the Bt diet than in the isogenic diet ( P < 0.05), whereas the ALT concentration was not affected by the diet treatment at day 69 and 134 ( P > 0.05). There were no differences in WBCs, RBCs, HGB, PLTs, LYMs, MONs and NEUs of males or females between the diet treatments at days 69, 134 and 196 ( P > 0.05; Table 6 ).
The relative organ weights were investigated on days 69, 134 and 196 (Table 4 ). There was no effect of feeding Bt corn to males on the relative organ weights at any time point ( P > 0.05). There were no statistically significant differences ( P > 0.05) in relative organ weights except for the kidney weight of females of Bt group compared with isogenic group at any time point. The relative weight of kidney of female pigs fed the Bt diet was less than those pigs fed the isogenic diet ( P < 0.05).
Growth performance of pigs was investigated over three stages (days 0 to 69, 70 to 134 and 135 to 196) and overall stage (days 0 to 196; Table 3 ). There was no effect of feeding Bt corn to pigs on BW, ADG, ADFI or G:F at any time point in the present study ( P > 0.05).
DISCUSSION
The Wuzhishan miniature pig is useful for evaluating the potential allergenicity of novel proteins because of the highest inbreeding coefficient, stable heredity and little variability between individual animals.6 Therefore, it may be an ideal animal model for safety assessments of Bt corn expressing crystal toxin. To our knowledge, this is first study that assesses the effect of Bt corn on the growth performance, organ weights and function, serum biochemistry, haematological parameters and immune response in a Wuzhishan miniature pig model at the different stages of growth.
Results from the current study demonstrated that no diet effect was observed for any of the growth performance parameters during the three phases, which agrees with the observation that none of the growth performance measurements showed a diet treatment including the Bt11 corn.23 Long‐term (196 days) feeding of Bt corn to Wuzhishan miniature pigs had no effects on growth performance at the three stages of growth. In agreement with these findings, it has been demonstrated that the inclusion of insect‐protected corn containing a gene from Bt in diets fed to growing–finishing pigs had no adverse effects on growth performance.23, 24 Piva et al.25 observed that Bt corn increased ADG in weaning pigs due to lower fumonisin B1 contents in Bt corn grains. Buzoianu et al.26 also found there was a tendency to increase in ADG between days 31 and 60 in the Bt corn diets, and differences were attributed to a lower resistant starch concentration in the Bt corn. However, the contents of fumonisin B1 (0.07 and 0.08%; data not shown), crude fibre and starch were similar between the Bt corn and isogenic corn grains in the present study, therefore, no difference in growth performance of pigs were found at the different stages of growth.
Organ weights were similar between diet treatments in the present 196‐day study. In agreement with these findings, a long‐term study in male pigs documented no differences in organ weights following Bt corn consumption.26 There were sporadic statistically significant differences in relative weights of kidneys between the Bt group and isogenic group on day 69. The relative kidney weight of Wuzhishan miniature pigs fed the Bt corn‐based diet on day 69 was 0.43% is similar as the value in the historical control data (0.44 ± 0.07%; Min et al.27).This difference was not associated with histopathological or blood biochemical changes.28 They were only statistically significant not biologically. Moreover, the differences did not occur in both sexes at the same time, and they were only distributed at the beginning of experimental period.
In agreement with previous findings in growing‐finishing male pigs as well as in mixed sex pigs serum biochemistry parameters were not significantly affected by feeding Bt corn to pigs.26, 29 The serum concentrations of TG and TCHO were not affected by the diet treatment. Yuan et al.30 also reported serum concentrations of triglyceride and total cholesterol were similar between Bt and isogenic rice diets fed to the rats for a 90‐day study.
Liver dysfunction is initially characterised by an increase in liver size and a concomitant increase in the liver enzymes.31, 32 We found that the liver enzyme ALT was less in males fed the Bt treatment than the isogenic treatment on day 196. Buzoianu et al.26 also found that the liver enzyme AST tended to be lower in the Bt treatment than in the isogenic treatment following 110 days of exposure. Liver toxicity is characterised by a 10‐ to 70‐fold increase in ALT and AST and a 5‐ to 10‐fold concomitant increase of ALP and gamma glutamyl transferase,32, 33 rather than a decrease, none of which were evident in the present study. The differences did not occur in both sexes at the same time, and they were randomly distributed among the three time points. In addition, the observed differences in ALT were minor was not correlated with a change in liver weight and the values were all within the normal reference intervals for Wuzhishan miniature pigs.34
Mitogens are often used to stimulate lymphocytes and therefore assess immune function. LPS or PHA stimulate the proliferation of B‐ or T‐lymphocyte activity to transform into lymphoblasts, respectively.35 The Bt corn had no effect on proliferation indicates of B‐lymphocyte from LPS stimulate at any time point. It is not surprising that the subtle difference between the diet groups for the lymphocyte proliferation from PHA were stimulated at day 134. The T‐lymphocyte proliferation in the Bt group at day 134 was similar to that at days 69 and 196, and the difference was due to the high proliferation in the isogenic group. The results indicate a similar capacity of B‐ and T‐lymphocytes between the treatments to form clones and convert into plasma cell assess the induction of in vitro lymphocyte proliferation by mitogens. Previous studies found subtle alterations of peripheral immune responses in animals fed the Bt maize diet.15, 36 The IFN‐γ concentration was greater in male pigs fed the Bt diet than the isogenic group at day 134 in the present study. The change in lymphocyte proliferation from stimulation of PHA and serum IFN‐γ concentration in this study was transient and isolated up to the sampling time point at day 134, which was not correlated with a change in haematological parameters. Although the subtle changes of peripheral immune responses is unlikely to be of biological significance, the significance of these data remains to be clarified to establish whether these alterations reflect significant immune functions.The name Taposiris Magna denotes the name of a city as well as an Egyptian temple of the same name at the same location established by Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus between 280 and 270 BCE. According to Plutarch, the temple denotes the tomb of Osiris, which is the translation of the name.
After Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC and established his city (called Alexandro and then Alexandria), the city of Taposiris Magna became a center for religious festival of Khoiak. In 1798 after Napoleon landed in Egypt, he conducted a survey of the architecture of the city of Alexandria and Taposiris Magna. After the Ottoman Empire took occupation of the city in 1801, Governor Mohammed Ali of the Khedivate of Egypt decided to rebuild the modern city of Alexandria atop the ruins of the old city. In the twentieth century, excavations of the site were started under the Italian imperial governor, Evaristo Breccia.[1] Calisthenis states that Alexander the Great visited the city on his way to Siwa Oasis, which gives credence to the theory that there must have been a town here in the Hellenistic period.[2]
Role in trade [ edit ]
Ruins of the ″Lighthouse″
The city stood on the navigable arm of the now dried-out bed of the ancient Lake Mareotis. The size of the lake raises the possibility that the harbor played a role in the trade between Egypt and Libya. Traders from the west could use water transportation to the harbor and then take a caravan route. Similarly trade from Libya could be shipped aboard boats to Taposiris and transported to interior cities of Egypt,[2] although this theory also has its critics.[3] The wine produced in this part of Egypt was also famous during this time.[4]
The Temple and the Lighthouse [ edit ]
Atop the Taenia ridge, an outcropping of limestone which separates the sea from Lake Maerotis, stand two monuments that were partly restored in the 1930s. One is a tower that has been used in the reconstruction of the lighthouse of Alexandria and the other is the remains of a temple of Osiris that is also believed to be the last resting place of Cleopatra.[5] In the most scholarly study of the tower yet conducted, it was concluded that "The Tower of Abusir" was definitely not a lighthouse or even a watchtower. It was probably constructed during the Ptolemaic reign after the Pharos was built and was only a funerary monument.[6]
Other structures in the area [ edit ]
Both private and public buildings have been found in the neighborhood along with cisterns and churches. The necropolis shows a variety of burial styles from sarcophagi or pyramids to columns or pilasters. This ancient settlement was occupied from the second century BC to the seventh century AD.[7]
Recent excavations [ edit ]
Various archaeologists have been working on the site from 1998.[1][8] In 2010 archaeologists discovered a huge headless granite statue of a Ptolemaic king, and the original gate to a temple dedicated to the god Osiris. According to Dr Zahi Hawass the monumental sculpture, which is a traditional figure of an ancient Egyptian pharaoh wearing collar and kilt, could represent Ptolemy IV, the pharaoh who constructed the Taposiris Magna temple. The team also found limestone foundation stones which would once have lined the entrance to the temple. One of these bears traces indicating that the entrance was lined with a series of Sphinx statues similar to those of the pharaonic era. Behind the temple, a necropolis was discovered, containing many Greco-Roman style mummies. Early investigations, said Dr Hawass, show that the mummies were buried with their faces turned towards the temple, which means it is likely the temple contained the burial of a significant royal personality, possibly Cleopatra VII.[9]
The expedition, started in 2002 as a self-funded expedition by Dominican lawyer Kathleen Martinez, has found 27 tombs, 20 of which are shaped like vaulted sarcophagi, partly underground and partly aboveground. The remaining 7 consist of staircases leading to simple burial chambers. Inside these tombs, the team has found a total of 10 mummies, 2 of them gilded. The discovery of this cemetery indicates that an important person, likely of royal status, could be buried inside the temple. The style of the newly discovered tombs indicates that they were constructed during the Greco-Roman period. Martinez states that the expedition has excavated a temple at Taposiris Magna dedicated to the goddess Isis, and discovered coins depicting the face of Alexander the Great. They have found a number of deep shafts inside the temple, three of which seem to have been used for burials. It is possible that these shafts were the tombs of important people, and the team’s leaders believe that Cleopatra and Mark Antony could have been buried in a deep shaft similar to those already discovered inside the temple.
Martinez said that the expedition has so far found a beautiful head of Cleopatra, along with 22 coins bearing her image. The statue and coins show her as a beauty, contradicting the idea recently suggested by an English museum curator that the queen was quite ugly. The finds from Taposiris reflect a charm that could have captured the hearts of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive. Moreover, the features of the sculpted head show no sign of African ancestry, contradicting a recently advanced theory. The team has also found many amulets, along with a beautiful headless statue dating to the Ptolemaic Period. Among the most interesting finds is a unique mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some similarity to known portraits of Mark Antony himself.
A radar survey of the temple of Taposiris Magna, west of Alexandria, Egypt, was completed the previous month as part of the search for the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) expedition excavating the temple and its surrounding area was headed by Zahi Hawass, at the time, Secretary General of the SCA, and Kathleen Martinez, a scholar from the Dominican Republic.[10]
In 2012, it was discovered that the ruins had also been affected by the Second Battle of El Alamein. The team had found several unexploded bombs as well as charred remains of Italian and New Zealand soldiers within its tunnels.[11] As of 2013, the excavation had been halted, but Martinez was later given permission to continue her work on the site.[12]
In a 2015 television documentary called "Cleopatra's Lost Tomb" (shown October, Channel 4 in the UK), Martinez said that she was sure that they were close to finding the tomb there, possibly in a corner of the site where two likely tombs deep underground had been discovered. It was hoped that work to investigate the likely tombs would commence when the official digging season opened in 2016.There are very good reasons to be wary of such a prescription. Just as inflation helps debtors, it hurts creditors. Banks and bondholders get cheated, because their loans are repaid with inflated coin. Similarly, people with fixed savings, such as retirees, get punished for their thrift. President Grover Cleveland, a warrior against inflation (in his day, brought about by cheap silver), rightly likened a debasement of the currency to theft. Of course, someone also benefits from this theft—in Cleveland’s era, farmers seeking higher prices; in ours, the unemployed. The latter are hardly to be blamed for being jobless, but helping them involves a trade-off that creates losers as well as winners. And the trade-off is only temporary. Eventually, wages catch up with money creation. Once the economy is operating at its potential, dropping money from the sky will not add jobs. It will keep causing inflation.
Bernanke has given serious thought to the Krugman-Rogoff argument. One obstacle is practical. Fed policy works, in part, by getting the market to do the Fed’s work (if the Fed is buying bonds, traders who want to be on the same side of the markets as the central bank will buy bonds too). But any policy adopted by less than a 7-to-3 majority by the Fed’s Open Market Committee would not be viewed by markets as a credible policy, likely to endure, and Bernanke is not guaranteed to get this margin today. “No central banker would do it,” Mankiw says of raising the inflation target; the political reaction would be too severe. (When Mankiw, a Harvard economist, wrote a column raising the possibility of a higher inflation target, Drew Faust, the university’s president, received letters urging her to fire him.)
This might seem to support Krugman’s thesis that Bernanke would like to boost inflation but has chickened out. But after talking with the chairman at length (he was generally not willing to be quoted on this issue), I think that, although Bernanke appreciates the intellectual argument in favor of raising inflation, he finds more compelling reasons for not doing so. First is the fear that inflation, once raised, could not be contained. The Fed creates inflation by adding reserves to the banking system (falling interest rates are the market’s way of registering the increasing plenitude of money). If so much money enters the system that wages and prices start ratcheting upward, the momentum can be self-perpetuating. “The notion that we can antiseptically raise the target and control it is highly questionable,” Bernanke told me.
Second, raising inflation is not always so easy. Inflation does not go up by fiat—by edict of the central bank. Rather, the Fed has to persuade millions of people to spend more money and tens of thousands of businesses to raise their prices. And this will not happen if people think the monetary easing is temporary. Money comes from credit, and borrowing depends on expectations for the future. The theoretical point is that the market sets long-term interest rates to reflect the sum of expected future short-term rates. So the way to reduce long-term rates is to convince people that short-term rates (which the Fed controls) will stay low for an indefinite period. As Bernanke is well aware, this problem has generated an extensive literature, the gist of which is that the Fed would have to promise to be, in effect, “irresponsible.” In other words, the Fed would have to say, “Even when prices start rising, even when inflation starts to get out of hand, we will still keep rates near zero.” That is what sparked the inflation of the ’70s: people thought inflation was permanent, and a borrow-and-spend mentality set in. If Bernanke were to re-create that climate, it would be hard to shut down.
My sense is that Bernanke is too much a sober central banker to want to risk the Fed’s credibility on inflation. His view represents a serious break from many of his fellow academics because, according to the world as left-leaning scholars depict it, raising inflation is the only thing that will work when the economy has hit dead air. Bernanke thinks he has other tools. One, of course, is quantitative easing. Instead of lowering expectations for short-term rates, which is how the Fed usually operates, quantitative easing involves direct intervention in the long-term sector of the credit market. By purchasing long-term securities, the Fed aims to reduce the cost of mortgages, corporate debt, and so forth. Working on long-term interest rates is a natural move, because short-term rates are already near zero. But whether quantitative easing has much impact is hotly debated. The policy was clearly effective during the early stages of the mortgage crisis, when it helped to unfreeze credit markets, enabling companies and individuals to get loans again. However, even Bernanke’s supporters admit that since these markets have begun functioning again, continued purchases of long-term bonds have had only a modest effect. Mark Gertler, an economist at New York University and a friend of Bernanke’s, says the second round of quantitative easing might have moved the needle by perhaps a quarter of a percentage point. He nonetheless credits this policy with keeping inflation from sagging dangerously low—“not a trivial accomplishment.” The Fed also seems to have accelerated last year’s spike in the price of gold, oil, and other commodities. And that, to conservatives, is just the problem.So how did he do it!? How did President-Elect Trump win? What did he do so right?
In my opinion, it’s really quite simple.
First, he spoke to the pressing issues concerning John & Jane Doe. Health insurance. Jobs. Safety. Simple, basic needs. If the government has their sticky fingers in those particular pies, then the American people expects them to get it right.
Secondly, he understood what was going on and I mean really going on. Oh, he doesn’t talk about it, but he’s got his finger on the pulse of who’s really pulling the strings. He’s followed the money trail. He’s “awake” and informed.
His crowds were “awake” too. They’d taken the initiative to inform and educate themselves on the candidates as well as the issues. They too had their finger on the pulse, gleaning data from all sources, not merely the news venues who (unlike Newsweek) so narrowly avoided having a “Dewey Wins” moment on Election Day. They saw straight through the paranoiac reductio ad absurdum assigning of this “-ism” and that “-phobia” to Trump and were savvy to the projection wielded before, during and after the campaign. They believed the evidence of their own eyes, realizing that the huge crowds at Trump’s rallies betrayed oversampling in the national polls.
“Maybe they wanted to encourage Donald Trump…maybe they wanted to thank him…”
Most importantly, President-Elect Trump went to the people. Whistle-stopping…by private jet.Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan... and waves goodbye to the election.
Mitt Romney picks Paul Ryan... and waves goodbye to the election.
Huffington Post and NBC News are reporting that Mitt Romney will name Paul Ryan when he announces his vice presidential candidate tomorrow morning in Norfolk, Virginia. Although their reports aren't as definitive, Politico and The Weekly Standard all say that Ryan appears to be Romney's pick.
So I guess that means Mitt Romney has finally figured out a way to deflect attention from his secret tax returns, for at least a day or two, anyhow. On the other hand, the thing everyone is going to be talking about instead is the fact that he just picked as his running mate the architect of the GOP's plan to end Medicare as we know it. In other words, Mitt Romney is still the gift that keeps on giving.
This pick tells us several things. One, Romney considers it terrible news since he's delivering the news in a late Friday Night News Dump. And two, he's more concerned with winning his base than he is in winning in November.
Only question left is, when will Ryan release his tax returns?
ABC's Jon Karl:
@jonkarl via Twitterrific Who it is not: Portman, Pawlenty and Rubio. All told they are not the pick.
It's always possible that the above reports are wrong and that it's not actually Paul Ryan. If so, if it's not Ryan, then Karl's tweet would seem to mean that it would be Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, or Bob McDonnell.
NBC reports that Tag Romney called up the losers to tell them they weren't it. Because Mitt is a dick.
The conversation probably went something like this:
Obama picked Biden on a Saturday too, but there was a difference: Obama made his pick 2 days before the beginning of the Democratic Convention. Romney is making his choice 9 days before the GOP convention and gave very little advance notice. It seems as though he's downplaying the pick, as kos said.
Everyone is fired up tonight! Conservatives, because they showed Romney who was boss, and liberals because, you know, we're going to win.
@mpoindc via Twitter for Android Dem operative: "We've spent 18 months trying to make House races about their plan for Medicare and Mitt Romney just did it for us overnight"
Who is going to break it to the conservatives that Romney is still on the ticket?COSTA MESA, Calif. -- It began as a reported disagreement between Los Angeles Chargers coach Anthony Lynn and veteran players Antonio Gates and Philip Rivers over traveling to Canton, Ohio, to witness former teammate LaDainian Tomlinson's Hall of Fame induction speech.
After talking with Lynn, Gates chose to attend last week, while Rivers stayed with the rest of his teammates, participating in a joint practice with the Los Angeles Rams at the StubHub Center.
After the scrimmage, Rivers was given the day off away from practice and the team’s training camp facility to spend time with family in San Diego. Some wondered why Rivers couldn’t have been given last Saturday’s joint scrimmage off instead so he could have attended Tomlinson’s induction speech.
Those incidents stoked the flames locally and nationally that friction potentially exists between Rivers and Lynn.
However, during a conversation with Nick Hardwick and Judson Richards of Xtra 1360 Fox Sports Radio, Rivers put the speculation to rest.
Asked directly by Hardwick, his former teammate, Rivers said his relationship with Lynn is in good shape.
“It’s great,” Rivers said. “It’s been awesome since Day 1. We sat and visited for a long time, way back before we even got close to talking about taking the practice field.
“And then, shoot, we visit daily, whether it’s on the practice field talking about our guys, talking about this or talking about schedules or talking about that. So it’s been great. I do think that that’s -- what’s the term that’s gotten popular? -- fake news.”
Lynn echoed those comments when asked about his relationship with Rivers after practice on Friday.
“My relationship with Philip is excellent,” Lynn said. “I think someone took some second-hand information and turned it into a story when it never should have been a story. But my relationship with Philip and Antonio is great.”
Lynn said Rivers’ decision to remain with the team and play in the joint scrimmage against the Rams instead of traveling to Tomlinson’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony was the veteran quarterback’s choice.
“Absolutely,” Lynn said. “He wanted to be here with his teammates to go through the whole deal we did at StubHub, and I supported that.”Practitioners of economics, the dismal science, often quarrel among themselves, but on one thing at least, they tend to agree: rent control is a thoroughly awful idea.
Because landlords face limits on how much they can raise rents, they often skimp on maintenance. That's bad for renters, who have to live in deteriorating housing. Because developers face limits on what they would earn from rental projects, they build fewer of them. That's bad for renters, too, because apartments are harder to find.
As CIBC economist Benjamin Tal puts it in a smart new report on rent control, "If history is a guide, such policy will mostly hurt the people it's trying to protect."
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Read more: How to fix Canada's red-hot housing markets: A guide to what's happening, what's been proposed and what buyers can do
Read more: Mortgage rates falling as Ontario readies housing measures
Yet, against all common sense, the government of Premier Kathleen Wynne is expanding Ontario's rent-control regime, cancelling a "loophole" that exempts buildings constructed after 1991. In doing so, it will hand Ontario cities a poisoned chalice – something that seems good at first, but in the end does great damage to the receiver.
When Ontario first brought in rent controls back in 1975, the consequence was just what economic theory and real-life experience suggest. A 1988 University of Toronto study found that the effect was "to reduce new construction, to accelerate deterioration and conversion of the existing rental stock, to generate a severe rental housing shortage" and to reduce government tax revenue.
New rental construction fell off sharply and stayed depressed for years. Builders created about 28,000 apartments a year in the five years before controls and about 5,500 a year in the five years after. The situation was so bad that even an NDP government recognized that something had gone badly wrong. In hopes of spurring developers to start building again, it decided to exempt rental stock built after 1991. Every government since has kept that exemption.
Ms. Wynne argues that the exemption never had its desired effect. New rental construction did not take off. But it is now. Several big rental projects are planned in downtown Toronto at intersections such as Church and Wellesley, Bathurst and Bloor and Gerrard and Bay. Big institutional investors are getting into the game, attracted by the reliable returns. By one estimate, 28,000 rental units are in the pipeline.
Extending rent control could squash this revival just as it is getting started. In Modern Principles of Economics, a popular textbook, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok argue that "even a modest rent control can sharply reduce the value of new apartment construction. Developers who fear that rent controls are likely will immediately end their plans to build."
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Expanded rent control could affect the condominium market, too. Many people buy condos with the thought of renting them out, hoping to sell or move in later. If what they can get from rent falls, they are less likely to buy in the first place and developers are less likely to build. So the result of expanding rent controls could be to reduce the supply of new housing. That is the very opposite of what a city in the grip of an affordability crunch needs.
But it's not necessary to speculate about what rent control would do. Decades of experience, here and elsewhere, show what a mess it can create.
New York brought in "temporary" rent control during the Second World War. It has stayed in place in various forms ever since, with a predictable outcome. As Mr. Tal puts it in his report, "Roughly half of the apartments in the city are under rent control, the other half is constantly under-supplied with a clear impact on prices."
The result is a two-class housing system. Tenants hang on for decades to cheap, often crumbling rent-controlled apartments while everyone else scrambles to find a decent place.
No wonder that most economists are in accord about rent control. Sweden's Assar Lindbeck famously said that "In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing." Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman once wrote in the New York Times that "Almost every freshman-level textbook contains a case study on rent control, using its known adverse side effects to illustrate the principles of supply and demand."
Supply is the key word. The long-term answer to the affordability crunch is to build more places to live. Any government that brings in rent control risks choking off the supply of new rental housing when it is needed most. The dismal scientists are right: rent control is a thoroughly awful idea.DC Entertainment's current Black Canary comic book series takes the superhero out of the Justice League and sends her on a tour of the U.S. as the lead singer of a band that shares her name — and to promote the release of the series' first collected edition, DC has bent reality to release a 3-track EP recorded by the band.
Of course, the music wasn't really made by a group of four fictional characters. Instead, the release — called, simply, EP 1 — is the work of Black Canary writer Brenden Fletcher, Caveboy lead vocalist/guitarist Michelle Bensimon and producer Joseph Donovan, who co-wrote two of the three tracks, and performed all three. (The third track on the EP, "The Man With The X-Ray Eyes," is a cover of a song from the 1981 Bauhaus album Mask.)
The release of the EP is supported by a microsite on the official DC Comics site that introduces the band, lists future tour dates (all appearances, of course, are in DC's fictional cities) and describes their music as "a blend of electronic beats and killer riffs" — which seems like a fair description of EP 1, all things considered.
This isn't the first time that a comic book band has produced music in the real world; the movie adaptation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim brought in Beck to provide the sounds of Sex Bob-Omb, and Archie Comics' Josie and the Pussycats and The Archies both had soundtracks to their animated adventures in the 1970s.
The first Black Canary collection, Black Canary Vol. 1: Kicking and Screaming, is available in comic book stores and digitally now. Listen to EP 1 below.The Leaning Tower of Nevyansk (Russian: Невья́нская ба́шня) is a tower in the town of Nevyansk in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, built in the 18th century. Its construction was funded by Peter the Great’s associate and a famous Russian manufacturer Akinfiy Demidov (son of the rich Russian industrialist Nikita Demidov).
The height of the tower is 57.5 metres (189 ft)[1] from the ground and the base is 9.5 metres (31 ft) square. The deviation of the top part of the tower from a right angle is about 3 degrees. There is still no evidence to this day as to when exactly the Nevyansk Tower was constructed. Russian historians believe that it was built between 1721 and 1745. Also, there is no information about the architect of this unique edifice. The Weather Channel has stated that it was built circa 1732.[1]
Technical parameters of the tower [ edit ]
The base is a square with sides 9.5 metres.
Deviation of the tower from the vertical – about 1.85 metres.
"Secular sediment" – 0.9 millimetres per year.
The height is 57.5 metres.
The thickness of the walls in the base is 2 meters, at the last level – 32 centimetres.
Weight weathercock – 25 kilograms, length – 178 centimetres.
The diameter of the ball-lightning rod is 30 centimetres, the length of the spikes-rays is 40 centimetres.
The musical chime has 10 copper bells and 1 bronze bell weighing more than a ton.[2]
The purpose of the tower [ edit ]
Historians are still debating about the exact purpose of the Nevyansk Tower. Some say that Demidov used it as a "bank safe", others believe it was either a watchtower, or a belltower, or a prison,[1] or even a laboratory for conducting chemical experiments and producing counterfeit money. Some historians think that the tower was supposed to embody the might of the Demidov family and serve as some sort of an architectural symbol of their dynasty.
During the restoration works in the tower, archaeologists were able to determine the purpose of some of the rooms. It appears that the first floor of the tower was used for conducting some sort of "secret work" with the help of shackled serfs. According to discovered documents, the second floor may have been Demidov’s "office", where he kept his archives and other papers. The third floor housed a kind of laboratory, equipped with a furnace. A soot sample taken from the flue showed traces of silver and gold in it, but scientists say that the story about Demidov minting coins is probably a myth. Most likely, the tower was used for smelting the top layers of ore-bearing deposits, which often contain silver or gold. Floors four to six have stairwells only. The seventh and the eight floors house a unique clock with bell music made by an English master Richard Phelps in 1730. The story has it that Demidov bought the clock for 5,000 rubles, which was an astronomical amount for that time (for comparison, the construction of the Nevyansk Tower itself cost 4,207 rubles). The clock has three dials, ten music bells weighing about four tons, and one alarm bell. The last ninth floor was probably used as an observation post.
There is one mysterious room in the tower, the purpose of which is still being debated. Archaeologists dubbed it the "acoustic room". It is a 20-square-metre (220 sq ft) room, located between the fourth and the fifth floors. If a person stands in one corner of this room, he or she can whisper words to another person in the opposite corner and they will be perfectly audible. Scientists still do not know whether the room was built like this on purpose or not. It could be that Demidov used this acoustic room for gathering "intelligence" on his high-ranking guests.
The purpose of inclination [ edit ]
A view of the tower from the ground
One of the legends has it that the inclination of the tower was an idea of some talented architect. They say that the tower was purposely inclined to face southwest in the direction of Demidov’s birthplace[1] in Tula. Supposedly, this is how Akinfiy wanted to demonstrate his affection for his former home. Another legend claims that right after the end of the construction of the edifice Akinfiy Demidov and the architect went on top of the tower. There, Demidov asked him whether he could build anything better than the Nevyansk Tower. The architect answered "yes", and Demidov ordered him thrown down |
-month offensive by the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
It said the memo was signed between the two countries' chiefs of staffs, adding that it provides for exchanging military expertise and intelligence and technology information in a way that can boost the two countries' capability for fight terrorism, according to state news agency SANA.
Iran has been one of Syrian President Bashar Assad's strongest supporters since the country's crisis began in 2011 and has sent thousands of Iranian-backed militiamen to boost his troops against opponents.
The Chief of Staff of Iran's armed forces, Maj Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, is on an official visit to Syria. He toured the front lines in the northern province of Aleppo and discussed military cooperation with President Bashar Assad.
Israel has been concerned about Iran's growing role in Syria and has been trying to keep Iran and the fighters it backs away from its border.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Tuesday that he will not tolerate an Iranian military presence in neighboring Syria.
Israel fears Iran will plant itself on the country's doorstep by establishing a Shiite 'corridor,' with land links from Iran to Lebanon, allowing the movement of fighters and weapons across the region.
Earlier Saturday, the Syrian army said Israeli forces struck one of its positions near the Golan Heights south of the country.
The army statement said Saturday's shelling by Israeli troops came after Syrian opposition fighters fired mortar rounds that hit an open area in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, giving the Jewish state a pretext to bomb the army.
The army said the shelling caused material damage without saying if there were casualties.
In one rare incident, Israel this week struck an anti-aircraft battery deep in Syria after it had opened fire on Israeli jets flying over Lebanon.A metro Detroit art gallery will host a performance artist who plans to burn the Confederate flag and bury the ashes on Memorial Day.
Detroit native John Sims, who now lives in Florida, will burn the banner at the N'Namdi Center for Contemporary Art, a small gallery in midtown. Sims said the ceremony is aimed at recognizing the impact Confederate symbols are having on the political landscape.
"It's important to stay on top of these things and send a clear message about the kind of society that we really want to have," Sims said.
Sims has burned the rebel banner, a symbol of heritage for some and hate for others, in various southern cities for over a decade.
"If you can't deal with the things you can see, how do you deal with the things that you can't see?," Sims said.
A ceremony in New Orleans led to the removal of confederate monuments in New Orleans this year. Another ceremony in South Carolina happened just days before Dyaln Roof entered a historically black church in Charleston in 2015 and killed the pastor and several members during a Bible study.
South Carolina later removed the confederate symbol from the state flag.
The Detroit ceremony is being held to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 riots but is also aimed at raising political awareness in a city that saw a significant drop in black voter turnout during the 2016 Presidential election.
"Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, if those cities would have turned out, it'd be a whole different dialog right now," said gallery owner Dr. George N'Nmadi.Sunderland have been far from entertaining in recent years. Their measured, tentative, and frankly boring approach to games has seen them labelled ‘Sundrawland’ by many fans, fed up of having to endure the Black Cat’s fixtures.
They’re often last on Match of the Day for a reason.
Nonetheless, their current run of eight seasons in the Premier League haven’t always been as bad as many think. In fact, they've produced some truly stunning results from time to time. Their five derby victories in a row will live long in the memory on Wearside, whilst Sunderland have also occasionally given some of the big boys a good beating.
It hasn't always been plain sailing along the way as Sunderland haven’t managed to emphatically avenge any of their hammerings; such as the 7-1 loss to Everton, or 8-0 loss to Southampton. It must be noted however, that several of the side’s fixtures over the years have featured magnificent atmospheres, occasionally topped by decent football.
Honourable mentions not on the following list should go to the 0-1 derby victory this season, along with Sunderland’s 2-1 triumph at Stamford Bridge last. The fact that those games haven’t made it into the hall of fame perhaps indicates that Sunderland’s latest stint in the Premier League hasn't been quite as painful as many perceive.
The following top 10 games aren't judged solely on results, but also the atmosphere generated, matched with the significance of the result.
Here goes...Welcome to my pick order list for Aether Revolt–Aether Revolt–Kaladesh Draft. I’ve already played several Drafts at the time I’m writing this, and I feel I have gained a reasonable understanding of the format. Although my first assessments won’t turn out to be 100% accurate, I’m happy to present my guide to the format in time before Grand Prix San Jose, Grand Prix Prague, and right on time for the release of the set on Magic Online.
The pick order list in this article ranks all cards in Aether Revolt from high to low for the first-pick, first-pack decision. Multicolored cards are ranked lower than you might expect because they leave you with less flexibility to choose a second color if you start off your draft with them. Artifacts cards are ranked higher than you might expect because they go into every deck and keep your options more open. Besides, in Aether Revolt Limited, they can help cast improvise cards.
Before I start, I have a set of useful numbers. (Sameer Merchant saved me some work here.) On average, an 8-person Draft will contain the following numbers of copies of cards at each rarity:
Aether Revolt: 2.29 copies of a given common, 0.80 copies of a given uncommon, 0.33 copies of a given rare, and 0.17 copies of a given mythic.
Kaladesh: 0.79 copies of a given common, 0.30 copies of a given uncommon, 0.13 copies of a given rare, and 0.07 copies of a given mythic.
This means that you’re about as likely to see a specific Kaladesh common as you are to see a specific Aether Revolt uncommon.
Now let’s get to my pick order. I broke the list down into separate categories to make it easier to read and to allow me to intersperse some comments, but you can think of it as one continuous list if you like. As a reminder, don’t mindlessly follow this pick order for the entirety of the Draft. You need a good mana curve and a coherent game plan, and things can change a lot depending on what you have already picked so far. The list is just an indication for the first-pick-first-pack decision.
I’ve included two separate ways to view this list as well, one that is text only and searchable, the other that is a continuous visual list with no text. You can bookmark the individual pages, or just use the dropdown. You’ll find them at the bottom of the page (or ctrl-f “searchable list”).
The Best Rares/Mythics
In my view, these are the best cards in the set. I’m aware that Ridgescale Tusker is an uncommon, but it’s one of those “mythic uncommons” that might as well have been mythic rare. Assuming you play creatures on turns 2-4, Ridgescale Tusker adds 8 power and 8 toughness to the battlefield for 5 mana, which is Verdurous Gearhulk territory. It’s one of the best uncommons I’ve seen in a long time, and I believe it deserves to be up here with the actual rares and mythics.
First-pick, first-pack, the only cards I would take over Ridgescale Tusker are Herald of Anguish and Aethersphere Harvester. (All cards in every category are ranked left-to-right, top-to-bottom in the natural reading order.) Walking Ballista, Rishkar, and Heart of Kiran are all close, but so far my experiences with Ridgescale Tusker have been impressive enough that I would favor the 5/5 over those cards.
The Best Uncommons and Good Rares
Untethered Express is like a super-powered Renegade Express. It provides a lot of power for its crew cost, and since it keeps your colors open, I prefer to start my Draft with Untethered Express rather than most of the colored bomb rares.
Lifecrafter’s Bestiary is a card that I would preferably not play in a deck without at least a single source of green mana, but it is a very powerful card advantage engine for base-green decks. In a blue-black improvise deck with a miser’s Forest, it’s still a fine playable.
A lot of these cards are reminiscent of older cards. Quicksmith Rebel wins the “Flametongue Kavu of the set” award, with Vengeful Rebel a close second. The “Sea God’s Revenge of the set” award goes to Baral’s Expertise, with not a lot of competition. Leave in the Dust didn’t come close and is ranked way lower, but at least that card wins the “Cryptic Command of the set” award.
Meanwhile, Yahenni’s Expertise earned the Wrath of God award, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner won the Dark Confidant award, Treasure Keeper took the Bloodbraid Elf award, Release the Gremlins claimed the Manic Vandal award, and… what’s that? These awards don’t even exist, you say?
Oh well, let’s just move on to the next category then.
Excellent Uncommon Removal Spells
The winners of the Oblivion Ring award, the Pyrotechnics award, and the Swords to Plowshares award—okay, I’ll stop now—these removal spells are all great starts to a Draft.
Monstrous Onslaught may cause various judge calls, so let me clarify the way it works: You divide the damage and determine the value of X as you cast Monstrous Onslaught. The value of X won’t change, even if your opponent kills your biggest creature in response.
Other Cards Better than Any Common
Gifted Aetherborn is great, but its double-black greatly favors a 10-7 mana base over a 9-8 mana base. So if you pick it, you should avoid taking too many double-colored cards in your second color.
Maulfist Revolutionary and Skyship Plunderer must target, but they don’t have to target something with a counter. So if your opponent has Attune with Aether on turn 1 and Scrounging Bandar on turn 2, then don’t target your opponent or your opponent’s creature—just target yourself and have the trigger do nothing.
The Best Commons and Higher-Rarity Cards of Similar Quality
Daring Demolition is my pick for the best common of the set. It’s unconditional removal, and sorcery speed is not a big limitation in Aether Revolt Limited because you don’t want to turn on your opponent’s revolt cards anyway. Following that logic, you should often cast instant-speed removal spells in your own main phase nowadays.
Renegade Map may be high, but I’m confident it deserves at least a spot in this category. I always value mana fixing highly in Limited because a typical 9-8 mana base is not quite consistent enough in terms of colored sources for decks with double-colored cards, and it gets even worse once you factor in splashes. Renegade Map is a good mana fixer that doesn’t commit you to any colors, but it’s even better than Spire of Industry because it supports the two themes of the set: improvise and revolt. Aether Revolt feels like a set where synergy is important, so all things combined, I have Renegade Map as the second-best common in my first-pick-first-pack list. In terms of gameplay tips, remember you can crack it in your upkeep to slightly decrease the probability of drawing another land, but it’s often better to leave it in play if you can draw a revolt or improvise card.
Two green cards exceeded my expectations. The first is Scrounging Bandar—I love how versatile the Cat Monkey is. As an example, you can crew a Vehicle in your upkeep, then move all counters to a mid-sized creature, setting up a favorable attack and turning on revolt in the process. It also works with the +1/+1 counter theme in green-black, and it does everything a green deck wants from a 2-drop. The other green card that I was impressed with was Unbridled Growth. It enables 3-color decks, turns on revolt, and can be recurred with Restoration Specialist. That’s a lot of value for a 1-mana card.
On the whole, there are a lot of green commons here, indicating that green may be the best color in Aether Revolt. Meanwhile, I haven’t listed a single blue common yet, which might indicate that blue is worst color. Blue decks in Aether Revolt should be based more on artifact synergies rather than being energy-driven, and it’s possible that I haven’t quite grasped how to draft those blue decks yet, but so far I haven’t had a lot of success with blue decks in Aether Revolt Limited.
Good Playables
A few notes on various cards of interest:
A Batch of Uncommon Gold Cards
Winding Constrictor, Rogue Refiner, and Hidden Stockpile already appeared earlier based on their power level, but the other signpost uncommons fit around here in my view. They’re all pretty powerful, but they aren’t amazing first-picks because they are not as likely to end up in your deck as single-colored cards.
In pack 2, assuming I’m locked into two colors, I would generally take the gold uncommons a bit higher than this list would suggest. If everyone picks two colors completely at random (which doesn’t accurately reflect reality but the assumption allows us to make a quick calculation for insight), then the probability that any of the 7 other drafters are drafting the same colors as you is 48%. Although that is an overestimation because of my pick-colors-at-random assumption, it does indicate that you can’t always count on wheeling a gold uncommon.
Most of these gold cards have relatively straightforward uses, but I have one strategic suggestion: Against green-white decks, don’t trade on turn 3 if you don’t have to. You don’t want to turn your opponent’s Renegade Rallier into a cheaper Bloodbraid Elf. (Wait, didn’t that award already go to Treasure Keeper?)
Fine Playables
There are several interesting build-arounds in this category: Defiant Salvager, Efficient Construction, and Lifecraft Awakening. All of them can range from unplayable to great, depending on how consistently you can enable them. Defiant Salvager in particular synergizes well with Implements, revolt, and the card Wrangle.
Reasonable Filler
There are 2 multicolor cards in this batch. Dark Intimations is a casual 4-for-1 that affects the board, which is an insane effect for 5 mana. The only reason it’s so low in the list is its mana cost. The good news is that it’s in a coherent color combination, as the Grixis shard has all the improvise cards.
Oath of Ajani is a medium card even in a green-white deck, so I would never pick it highly.
Weak Filler
You can always count on seeing a parade of mediocre 4-mana or 5-mana artifact creatures near the end of the pack. I’m not sure why R&D felt it was necessary to add Prizefighter Construct to the carnival, especially when there are already multiple 5-drop artifacts at common and every single improvise player clamors for cheap artifacts, but it’s the world we live in.
Unplayables
Nothing is truly unplayable, but I have yet to find a good or efficient use for these cards. Ornithopter, it saddens me to say, shouldn’t touch your deck unless you have a ridiculous number of improvise cards (say, at least 10). Okay, one exception: If you opened both a masterpiece Arcbound Ravager and a masterpiece Steel Overseer, then you just have to add Ornithopter to the deck as well. Can’t leave him behind in that case.
That wraps up my pick order list. I hope you found it useful, especially if you participate in any of the Limited events this weekend. As for myself, I’ll be doing text coverage in Prague, focusing more on quick content/updates/interaction via Twitter instead of long-form articles, and I can’t wait to ask some of the Pros in attendance about their views on the format.
Now it’s your turn. Which cards would you rank higher, and which ones do you think I overrated? Let me know in the comments below!YORK, ENGLAND - JANUARY 26: The Reverend Libby Lane smiles as she stands next to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, (R) and the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu outside York Minster after she was consecrated as the eighth Bishop of Stockport on January 26, 2015 in York, England. The Church of England consecrated its first female bishop during a ceremony at York Minster today. The Reverend Libby Lane, who has been the vicar of St Peter's Hale and St Elizabeth's Ashley, in Greater Manchester, was ordained as the new Bishop of Stockport in a two hour service led by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
Welcome to this week’s ALL TOGETHER -- the podcast dedicated to exploring how ethics, religion and spiritual practice inform our personal lives, our communities and our world. ALL TOGETHER is hosted by Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, executive editor of HuffPost Religion. You can download All Together on iTunes, or Stitcher.
When Raushenbush was growing up in the 70’s, his Presbyterian church in Madison, Wisconsin had a woman serving on the altar as associate pastor. This just seemed normal to him. He later found out that women in a pastoral leadership position in the church at that time was not common and is still the exception rather than the rule within Christianity.
Recently, Rev. Libby Lane was consecrated as Bishop of Stockport making her the first woman Bishop in the Church of England. The stain glass ceiling break-through only occurred after years of debate and still, at her consecration, a priest stood and objected. In Orthodox Christianity, the Roman Catholic Church and in some Protestant denominations, women are not allowed to serve as pastors or priests. Pope Francis, who has been so open on many issues, has slammed the door shut to any debate on women serving as priests.
Given that women surrounded Jesus during his ministry, were the last to stay with Jesus at the cross, and the first to see him resurrected; it appears clear that Jesus believed in the spiritual power and perception of women. So, why does the church not hold women in the same esteem as did Jesus, the founder and center of the faith?
To help him understand the continuing sexism in the Christian Church, Raushenbush spoke with four extraordinary women: the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts-Schori, the recent US ambassador for Religious Freedom the Rev. Dr. Suzan Johnson Cook, The President of Union Theological Seminary, The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, and the one and only Sister Joan Chittister.
These four women spotlight the Church’s original sin of sexism; however their lives and wisdom inspire hope for the future when all the church might benefit from the spiritual power of women on the pulpit as well as the pew.
Raushenbush recommends a new book by Rev. Dr. Susan Shaw called Reflective Faith: A Theological Toolbox for Women. The book offers readers to consider for themselves the role of women in the church and in scripture in an easy to read style.A “false picture” of the country is being presented abroad, the Polish Foreign Minister said | BAS CZERWINSKI/AFP/Getty Polish conservative’s PR pushback Witold Waszczykowski’s public diplomacy seeks to explain Poland’s new government to critical world.
WARSAW — Poland's new conservative government pushed a public relations counter-offensive this week, sending out its chief diplomat to rebut international criticism of its early moves.
Witold Waszczykowski, the foreign minister, sought to address concerns voiced in Brussels about judicial independence and media freedom and to win over Berlin and London. But his interventions ended up creating diplomatic headaches for Warsaw, and given its domestic opponents fresh ammunition for ridicule.
“We only want to cure our country of a few illnesses,” he told Bild, Germany’s largest circulation tabloid, in an interview published Monday. “A new mixture of cultures and races, a world made up of cyclists and vegetarians, who only use renewable energy and who battle all signs of religion.” He blamed the rise of these ideological foes on previous government’s “left-wing politics.”
Law and Justice, which swept an opposition center-right party out of power in October elections, stands for "what moves most Poles," he added. "Tradition, historical awareness, love of country, faith in God and normal family life between a woman and a man.”
In a separate interview with Reuters published on Sunday, Waszczykowski reached out to London. Warsaw was open to a trade-off with the U.K. that would allow Britain to cut the benefits of migrant Poles, he said, in return for London’s support for establishing a permanent NATO presence in Poland.
Waszczykowski said the world misunderstood the Law and Justice party.
While Waszczykowski's statements were intended to explain Law and Justice to the world, he and the government subsequently scrambled to explain what he meant.
The foreign ministry has walked back his proposal on NATO. Waszczykowski on Monday sought to modulate his views on the threat from mixed-race vegan cyclists, telling Poland TVN television that he used a “lighter tone” in the interview with Germany's Bild since it was a tabloid.
'Common European values'
The pushback from Warsaw takes place against the backdrop of heightened concern and imminent scrutiny from its European allies. Waszczykowski said the world misunderstood Law and Justice but made no concessions to foreign criticism.
European Commissioner Günther Oettinger this weekend accused Poland of infringing “common European values” with a new law that gives the government greater control over the public media, and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has placed a first debate on the rule of law in Poland on the agenda of the Commission's meeting on January 13. The European Parliament debates Poland on January 19.
Frans Timmermans, the Commission vice president in charge of issues involving the rule of law, has sent two letters to Waszczykowski, one expressing concern about a law that changes the makeup and procedures of the country’s highest constitutional court and another on the public media. Both were ignored.
Waszczykowski fired back that the Constitutional Tribunal was a “politically directed institution” and that Timmermans was an “EU bureaucrat” who had no right to be writing to a democratically elected government. “For me, Mr. Timmermans isn’t a legitimate partner,” he told Bild.
His NATO proposal, however, took his own diplomats by surprise. While Poland is generally an ally of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and his efforts to reform the EU ahead of a British referendum on whether to leave the bloc, Warsaw has been wary of Cameron’s push to cut benefits to migrants workers from other EU countries. Almost a million Poles have moved to the U.K. in the last decade.
But Poland is also pushing hard for a permanent NATO military presence in the country as a response to the Russian threat, something that many Western countries don’t want to do for fear of infuriating Moscow.
That led Waszczykowski to suggest a possible deal, according to Reuters. "It would be very difficult for us to accept any discrimination [against migrants]," Waszczykowski told the agency. "Unless Britain helped us really effectively with regard to the Polish defense ambitions at the [July NATO] summit in Warsaw."
The Polish foreign ministry quickly released a statement Sunday night saying that in the interview Waszczykowski clearly said Poland would only drop its opposition to tougher benefits rules for EU migrants if that applied to all U.K. residents.
In the Monday interview with Poland's TVN, Waszczykowski said that a “false picture” of the country is being presented abroad.
“Let’s not create some sort of huge consternation over what’s happening in Poland,” he said. “The Polish government, the Polish parliament are dealing with certain pathologies that have been growing for years in Poland.”A plane crashed in a Van Nuys intersection, killing the pilot. Gordon Tokumatsu reports for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. (Published Friday, Jan. 9, 2015)
A small plane nose dived Friday into a San Fernando Valley intersection near the Van Nuys Airport, killing the pilot, authorities said.
Miraculously nobody else was hurt in the crash reported around 1:15 p.m. at Vanowen Street and Hayvenhurst Avenue, in Lake Balboa, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
"I couldn't get to the body," said Pat Gallegos. "He was long gone by the time that we got there."
The man was identified by the coroner's office as 47-year-old Alberto Enrique Behar of Scottsdale, Arizona.
Pilot Killed When Small Plane Crashes Into Intersection
A small plane crashed in a Van Nuys intersection, killing the pilot, but remarkably, no one on the ground was hurt. Michelle Valles reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. (Published Friday, Jan. 9, 2015)
No one else was on board the experimental plane, Sgt. Barry Montgomery with the Los Angeles Police Department.
The intersection was closed to traffic as emergency responders investigated the wreck. The plane did not hit any buildings, cars or pedestrians during its descent, Montgomery said.
"It absolutely could have been a lot worse," Montgomery said.
The plane is a single-engine Lancair that crashed under unknown circumstances, according to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.
The runway at Van Nuys Airport was inspected following the crash and is operational, according to spokeswoman Mary Grady. Airport operations were not affected.
Witnesses said they didn't hear any noise before the crash.
2015 Southern California Images in the News
"The engine wasn't on at all," said Cheryl Dickerson, who was with a neighbor near the crash site seconds before the crash. "He happens to look up and goes, 'Do you think he's going to make it?' I said, 'I don't know.'"
She said the plane glided silently for a few seconds before nose-diving — somehow managing to avoid hitting anyone.
Esther Lopez, who also witnessed the crash, said she often visits friends who live near the intersection, just south of the airport.
"We heard the loud 'boom!' and then it was, like, 'what was that?" she said.
Asher Klein contributed to this report.After BlackBerry announced it was finished building its own smartphones yesterday, many people were concerned it signaled the end of the company's iconic QWERTY keyboards. But CEO John Chen put those worries to bed, clarifying in an interview with BNN that the company would release another smartphone with a physical keyboard in the near future.
Although BlackBerry will continue to make smartphones with QWERTY keyboards, it's possible it won't be the exact same keyboard you're used to. The company will have to maintain the style and build quality that everyone who enjoys BlackBerry's physical keyboards has grown accustomed to, without actually building or designing it. There's no timetable for a release of the next BlackBerry with a physical keyboard, but hopefully the company will take the time to make sure whoever is building the hardware does so correctly.AMD upto this very moment has been the undisputed winner in terms of miners looking to stock up on new forms of digital currency like Dogecoin and Litecoin. AMD’s Radeon graphics cards possess a secret sauce that allows significantly more powerful compute capabilities, at least the kind required for Scrypt-based mining. That is, until Nvidia released their new Maxwell architecture this week, the watt per hash rate is pretty crazy.
Forbes or Jason Evangelho in specific, posted a small article on this which is an interesting read:
As we learned from my introduction to the GTX 750 Ti, first-generation Maxwell cards exhibit a 35% peak performance boost per core and twice the performance per watt. They also blow Kepler hashrates out of the water. Based on what I’m seeing with the 750 Ti, Nvidia is poised to embarrass AMD in the performance-per-watt race — and that’s a substantial factor when you’re paying the inflated energy bills caused by mining.
Nvidia didn’t breathe a word of Maxwell’s seriously improved hashing ability in their marketing copy or press briefings, but Tom’s Hardware discovered it, and I’ve been able to replicate their findings with multiple 750 Ti cards from both Nvidia and PNY.
What you’re looking at in the image above is a hashrate of about 242kh/s using Nvidia’s reference 750 Ti 1GB graphics card ($139). This is significant for several reasons. First, the 750 Ti is a 60Watt card and doesn’t even require a PCI-E power connector. You could plug this card into a cheap box from HP or Dell with a 300W power supply and have power to spare. Second, the temperature never seems to breach 65 degrees Celsius, and it runs considerably quieter and cooler than the AMD 260x ($119), which achieves a peak hashrate of 206kh/s and consumes nearly 130Watts of power.
“Hold on a minute!” I can hear you saying. “AMD’s 260x is $20 cheaper than Nvidia’s entry-level 750 Ti!” That’s true, but the nominal price difference quickly evaporates when you consider how the 750 Ti sips power, which matters in the long run. Additionally, Tom’s Hardware ran the same mining environment test with AMD’s upcoming Radeon 265 ($149) and achieved a peak hashrate of 252kh/s — and remember that the Radeon 265 is a 150Watt card.
For that same price of $149, here’s what I pulled off with PNY’s 750 Ti 2GB with a moderate (and stable) overclock:
PNY GTX 750 Ti overclocked and using Cudaminer to mine Dogecoin.
A single PNY 750 Ti 2GB graphics card, overclocked and using Cudaminer to mine Dogecoin.
That’s right, 284kh/s, and an even better temperature ceiling of about 56 degrees Celsius. This is consuming less than half the power of AMD’s Radeon 265.
This all leads to a conclusion that’s far from crazy: When Nvidia’s high-end Maxwell cards drop later this year (possibly by late March), they’re going to surpass the hashrates currently possible from AMD, consume less power, and do so while staying cooler and quieter.
One very valid concern for miners and gamers alike is the fear that pricing for Nvidia GPUs will become inflated just as AMD ones have become — caused by a lack of sufficient supply. A representative assures me this won’t happen, and it’s a claim backed up by the fact that Nvidia has much tighter control over their production.Blade Dancer
Some rogues choose to hone their skills with their blades so much that they become inseparable. That bond, accompanied by a certain lithe panache, makes their movement seem almost a dance - and so they have taken to calling themselves Blade Dancers. They flow gracefully from attack to attack, each strike leaving streaks of blood behind, not stopping until none stands but themselves. Blade Dancers can overwhelm even an accomplished opponent's defenses, setting them up for a devastating coup de grace.
A Blade Dancer cherishes unimpeded movement over heavier protection, so they wear only light armor into combat. Extremely competent and aware, a Blade Dancer's weapons tend to be the only defensive protection they need. Unfortunately for their enemies, these blades aren't just used for defense, but offense as well.
Unbalancing Strikes
At 3rd level, you learn how to place your strikes in order to keep your opponent off-balance. Whenever you hit a creature with a Melee Weapon Attack, it has disadvantage on the next Melee Weapon or Unarmed Attack it makes against you, until the end of its next turn.
Fighting Style
Also at 3rd level, you may select one of the following fighting styles. You can't select a fighting style more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Two-Weapon Fighting
When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
Defense
While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.
Dance of Blades
By 9th level, your skill with your blades has progressed to the point where you flow from one attack to the next in quick succession and with the utmost grace. As an action on your turn, you may make two Melee Weapon Attacks in rapid succession. The first strike is made with your main hand and the second with your offhand. You may attack different targets with each of these strikes if you wish, and you may move up to 5 feet between strikes, if you have enough movement to do so. You may not use sneak attack with these strikes. You may only use this ability if you are not wearing medium or heavy armor, and if you are wielding a melee weapon in each hand.
If you do use this ability, you may make an attack with your offhand weapon as a bonus action, just as if you had performed a normal weapon attack. This offhand strike may apply sneak attack damage, following all of the normal rules that would apply to it.
Enhanced Dance of Blades
At 13th level, you can carry on the dance even longer. Instead of two, you can now make three Melee Weapon Attacks when you use your Dance of Blades. You strike first with your main hand, next with your off hand, and then with your main hand again. All of the other effects and rules regarding this feature remain the same.
Feinting Attack
Also at 13th level, you gain the ability to make a Feinting Attack. Any time you perform a Melee Weapon Attack, you may choose to replace it with a Feinting Attack. To do so, roll your attack as normal. If the attack hits, it does no damage. Instead, you swing just wide, forcing your opponent to react, and expose themselves further to future attacks. You get advantage on the next Melee Weapon Attack you make against the same target this turn. If would already have advantage on that attack, each Feinting Attack gives you +4 to hit (that does stack with itself) the next time you perform a Melee Weapon Attack on the same target this turn. Additionally, Feinting Attacks that 'hit' do trigger Unbalancing Strikes on the target.
Whirlwind of Blades
At 17th level, your blades are in constant motion, slicing here and there, but also catching opponents' attacks and turning them back before they can land. If you would be hit by a Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack, you may attempt to parry the blow. Make a weapon attack, using either your main hand or off hand as you wish. If you are attempting to parry a Melee Weapon Attack, make your roll with advantage. You may use the attack roll in place of your Armor Class; if the new value would make the attack miss, it does so. This effect only lasts for the one single attack, and does not count as your reaction. Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until the end of your next turn.
At your DM's discretion, successfully parrying an attack may allow you to also roll for damage to the target. This may make sense in cases where the object you would be parrying is a part of a living thing, such as a dragon's tail attack.Tweag I/O engineering team |
Our mission: deliver correct high-performance software faster. To do that, we recruited a team of experimentalists who use their formal training in a variety of theories and their experience to continuously improve our methodology and publish new tech. Theories that are represented in our team: theory of programming languages, natural languages, operational and control theory, mathematics...
We have found functional programming in particular to be an enabling factor for us on some of the most ambitious projects we've faced: breaking through the exascale barrier in HPC, storing and analyzing vast amounts of clinical trial data, parsing logs at scale, video search with natural language, building complex SaaS products with thousands of concurrent users...
That's why over the past couple of years we've been active contributors to GHC (the -XStaticPointers extension, extending Template Haskell, linear types...), sought to achieve seamless reproducible builds for multi-language projects (Stack's Nix integration and other contributions), broke down the barriers between Haskell and other languages (HaskellR, inline-java), scaled Haskell to run concurrently on hundreds of machines (sparkle) while leveraging the existing Apache ecosystem, and built numerous other tools and libraries for high-performance distributed programming.
Today we're looking to spread the reach of functional programming. Not to preach to the choir - to boldly go where no functional programmer has gone before. That's where you can help! If listening to customers about the challenges they're facing, talking to them about your experience using functional programming, sharing your success stories and coding a bunch sounds like your idea of a good day, we have just the role for you. We're looking to add a new member to our team in a pretty unique role: a technical evangelist.
This is a senior developer role, but with a twist. You'll be getting your hands dirty and fighting from the trenches like the rest of us, building infrastructure for large scientific projects, creating tools to make people's job easier and bring data to them faster. You'll be listening and talking about it the rest of the time, within the company, with our customers and the multiple developer communities out there.
What we're looking for:
Excellent oral and written communication skills in English.
A passion for programming languages and a track record working with typed and untyped functional (Haskell, Scala, Clojure), system (Rust, C++,...) or scientific (R, Python, Julia,...) languages.
Experience writing technical content or explaining technical concepts in blog posts, forums, emails, or other channels.
A willingness to travel, engage with the community and speak at conferences.
We're a European company, with an international presence. This role is remote work compatible, but we'll be prioritizing candidates that are able to relocate anywere in Europe, or |
year, the 2014 version of it. So, that is the priority. There's a lot of ways to do that, you do that with personnel, you do that with teaching and coaching. You do that with points of emphasis, on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game. That's what our players have felt from me and from our staff since we got together. It's all about trying to form your team, trying to make your team strong, about executing at the highest level, about building a group of guys who are going to fight, that are mentally tough. So you are trying to build that, we've been trying to build that from day one with the type of guys we've brought in here and how we go about our business every day."
And if anyone was still unclear of the identity Garrett is trying to instill for the Dallas Cowboys, you can just look at one of the team leaders to understand the kind of culture Garrett is trying to reinforce, and the kind of players he requires to do so. They are not only the type of guys that get it done on the field, they are also the right kind of guys that do everything right prior to gameday and that are a great example to the rest of the team.
"His number one trait, line-one with Dez Bryant, is ‘passion, emotion, enthusiasm for the game.' Nobody catches more balls, nobody cares about it more than he does, and he works very hard at it. He works hard in practice, he works hard after practice. He cares a great deal about being a great football player and also doing great things for our team. He's a great example for the other guys."
Jason Garrett may not create a great media spectacle, and he still needs to improve his ability as head coach on the sidelines on gameday, but it is tough to debate his understanding of all the intangibles that go into being a great head coach and creating a perennial contender with the right approach, a clear team identity, and the need to reinforce those messages every day. One thing seems certain. If the Cowboys don't find more success on the field this season, it won't be because the players and coaches don't understand what it takes to build a strong football team or because their head coach doesn't have a vision. It will be because they haven't made enough progress in the process...one that I hope remains with the Dallas Cowboys for a few more years.Oregon will continue to switch things up at quarterback looking for the answer. Last week we reported Jeff Lockie would start against Colorado.
This week sources tell us Taylor Alie is getting his first career start against Washington State. The Ducks are expected to use a rotation between Alie and Lockie again this week. Although that rotation could vary based on performance.
On Thursday Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich was asked about who'd start.
"I think we know what's going to go to happen and what were going to do, but it's not in granite right now," said Helfrich.
Alie is a walk-on quarterback for the Ducks.
"I couldn't believe he came here, I really couldn't," Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich said Tuesday of Alie. "I couldn't believe he didn't get a scholarship somewhere else. It was one of those deals where were sitting around and watching his film, and you start to put it in your mind that guys ig going to end up wherever. Then, for whatever reason, [he] doesn't end up getting a scholarship."
Vernon Adams is not expected to compete in this contest but will likely dress for show.
Morgan Mahalak appears to be behind the three others based on comments about his progression this week.
As a high school senior at Sheldon high school in Eugene, Alie threw for 3,183 yards and 35 touchdowns to just nine interceptions. He also added 447 yards rushing and seven touchdowns. He played just one season at Sheldon as the starting quarterback.
Ironically Oregon added a commitment from Sheldon (Ore.) quarterback Justin Herbert earlier this week. Alie is also a Sheldon alum.Polish is what distinguishes good software from great software. When you use an app or code that clearly cares about the edge cases and how all the pieces work together, it feels right. Unfortunately, this is the part of the software that most often gets overlooked, in favor of more features or more time on another project. Recently, I had the opportunity to work on an integration between Rails and Puma and I wanted to share that experience in the context of polish and what it takes to make open source work.
The problem
Puma has been the default web server in Rails for about a year now and most things just work™. I talked about some of my previous problems and efforts to get this to work here. When you run rails server with Rails 5+, it uses Puma through an interface called a Rack Handler. Lots of different web servers such as thin also implement a Rack handler allowing Rails to boot the server without having to know anything about the web server. For example, Rails pass a default port of 3000 to the server.
Part of my previous work for getting Puma to play nice with Rails out of the box involved getting Puma’s Rack handler to auto read in config files by default (i.e. config/puma.rb ). This way, we can generate a config file that works with Rails and Puma and doesn’t need any special knowledge of what framework it is running. One of the biggest points was the number of threads in Puma cannot exceed the number of connections in the Active Record connection pool. This works great, but we did run into another slight issue with the config and port. If you remember, I said Rails defaults to port 3000 but we can change this value inside our config/puma.rb using the port DSL:
port ENV.fetch("PORT") { 4000 }
So if you boot your app using rails server and you don’t specify a PORT environment variable you would expect this to connect to port 4000 but instead it connects to 3000. That’s the problem.
While this is a bug, it’s a pretty inconsequential bug. If you boot with rails server -p 4000 it works or if you boot with PORT=4000 rails server it also works, or if you use puma -C config/puma.rb, it works. Just in that one specific case does it fails. That’s what I mean by polish. The software has a bug, but it’s not mission critical. In fact, it functions very well without that bug being fixed and many people will never hit it. However, when you do hit this bug it’s very confusing.
Frustration
User frustration comes when things do not behave as you expect them to. You pull out your car key, stick it in the ignition, turn it…and nothing happens. While you might be upset that your car is dead (again), you’re also frustrated that what you predicted would happen didn’t. As humans we build up stories to simplify our lives, we don’t need to know the complex set of steps in a car’s ignition system so instead, “the key starts the car” is what we’ve come to expect. Software is no different. People develop mental models, for instance, “the port configuration in the file should win” and when it doesn’t happen or worse happens inconsistently it’s painful.
I’ve previously called these types of moments papercuts. They’re not life threatening and may not even be mission critical but they are much more painful than they should be. Often these issues force you to stop what you’re doing and either investigate the root cause of the rogue behavior or at bare minimum abandon your thought process and try something new.
When we say something is “polished” it means that it is free from sharp edges, even the small ones. I view polished software to be ones that are mostly free from frustration. They do what you expect them to and are consistent.
We like to think that most software we write is free from bugs, but it really just means it’s free from bugs we care about. Each bug that gets fixed has a cost both the time spent fixing the bug and the opportunity cost of other features we could be implementing. When it comes down to it, most programmers and organizations don’t, can’t or won’t invest in polishing their product.
Puma Port Problems Put Right
Let’s go back to Puma. This bug has been known for almost a year. Between the time it was reported and fixed, nearly 4,000 tickets had been filed against Rails.
While the bug was easy to reason about, the fix was not. It involved coordination with Rails and Puma and a fairly aggressive refactoring inside of the Puma codebase of how the configuration is stored and loaded. All in all, it took me maybe about 12 hours of dev time to get everything working.
On the Puma side, there are 3 different ways configuration can be applied either directly from a user like puma -p 4000 or via a config file like we saw earlier, or via its own internal defaults. When booting a server through the Puma CLI, you always want the explicitly user-configured options to “win” over any static config in a file. But you want a configuration specified in the file to “win” over any defaults.
The root of the issue is that the Rack handler has no way of communicating what values are specified as a default i.e. Rails specifies 3000 as a port, versus an explicit value such as rails server -p 4000. So when Puma got the value of 3000 it had to assume that it was being explicitly defined by the user, so even if the config/puma.rb specified a different port I had to ignore it.
The fix was to record when we are receiving an explicitly user set value and record this in an array user_supplied_options = [:Port]. Then in Puma, we can apply the configuration values differently depending on if they’ve been explicitly set via a user or merely passed in as a default. While this sounds straightforward, it required a major re-tooling of how config is set and stored internally in Puma.
I wanted to write about this fix not because it’s big and important, but because it’s small. I get asked semi-regularly about the big “show stopper” features coming in <language> or <framework> and while these kinds of things can be exciting, they’re not the bulk of work that goes into polished software. Even for those big features are made up of dozens or hundreds of tiny bug fixes.
In many ways I want my software to be boring. I want it to harbor few suprises. I want to feel like I understand and connect with it at a deep level and that I’m not constantly being caught off guard by frustrating, time stealing, papercuts.Mumbai: A giant cyberattack that crippled India’s largest container port in June provided a costly wake up call for a country determined to digitize its mostly-informal $2 trillion economy.
As the scale of the attack became clear, finance minister Arun Jaitley called an urgent meeting. Those invited included top officials from the home, technology and finance ministries as well as the central bank governor, financial markets regulator and the country’s top planner, according to the letter of invitation seen by Bloomberg.
On the agenda was bitcoin—the virtual currency demanded by extortionists who had held to ransom the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, along with nuclear power stations and oil companies across Europe, America and Asia.
Policy makers in Asia’s third-largest economy, still reeling from a self-inflicted ban on high denomination notes last November, wanted to weigh their options to regulate virtual money. A presentation to the meeting—also seen by Bloomberg—flagged concerns about rising, unregulated exchanges trading bitcoins. Anonymity of ownership and surging value, the presentation noted, had made it the favourite currency of cyber criminals increasingly targeting Indian systems.
Bitcoin last week soared past $4,000 for the first time on growing optimism that faster transaction times will hasten its spread.
Meanwhile, demands for ransom payments in cryptocurrency in India surged 300% in 2016 compared to the previous year, said Bengaluru-based SISA Information Security, which investigated India’s biggest data breach of about 3.2 million debit cards last October. The company this month launched a security operations centre to monitor cyberattacks on governments and private sector, said Nitin Bhatnagar, head of business development at SISA, which audits online payment systems. “It’s an alarming situation’’ said Bhatnagar. “But the expertise in Indian industry is still missing.’’
Attacks escalating
The government’s Computer Emergency Response Team—India (CERT-In) reported more than 50,000 attacks on companies last year.
With more than 27,000 reported attacks so far this year—from phishing and viruses to intrusive malware that cripples systems—India is trying to keep pace with securing data at companies and banks. The July roll out of a nationwide tax that seeks to digitize every monetary transaction in the nation of 1.3 billion people, a fourth of whom are illiterate, has only added to the urgency at a time when cyberattacks like Wannacry and Petya fuel cyberwar worries.
“What’s reported in CERT is a minuscule percentage. It’s the tip of the iceberg,’’ said Sandeep Sudan, head global corporate security at Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s biggest company, which launched the country’s fourth generation mobile service last year, said. “You needn’t be an IT guy even. Today anybody can do it.’’
Reliance had to investigate an alleged leak of personal data of more than 100 million users by a little-known website, Reuters reported last month. According to CERT, 34 Indian companies were affected by ransomware attacks in May and June alone.
Bitcoins, blockchains
Digital currencies have proliferated as money managers invested in blockchain—the technology used to verify and record cryptocurrency transactions—and set up funds to speculate on currencies in the markets. But India is still to catch up with digital currency regulation.
In Russia, the US and Japan, regulators have classified cryptocurrencies as either property or legal payment methods to co-opt them in a bid to stop money laundering. China and the UAE have strong firewalls, while India is still studying regulatory options, the government presentation shows.
By contrast, policy makers in the state of Andhra Pradesh, which last month joined the non-profit Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, are exploring ways to use blockchain technology. The state is looking to build a digital ledger to create a permanent audit trail for land registries. J.A. Chowdary, chief secretary and adviser to the state’s chief minister, did not respond to calls or emailed questions.
Cashless transactions
Fourteen months ago, the RBI asked banks to “immediately" put in place a cyber-security policy, coinciding with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on the use of the Aadhaar biometric database to transfer subsidies to bank accounts of beneficiaries of state programs. It is not clear what progress has been made.
“We are now storing more and more citizens’ data," said Neeta Verma, director general at National Informatics Centre, responsible for encryption and data security for all government welfare programs and offices. “As volumes of data grow, we have also increased the encryption we provide," Verma said, noting plans to hire an extra 355 people to boost her data security team.
India expects a six-fold growth in digital transactions to 25 billion in the year to March 2018, up from 4 billion in 2015-16, according to the World Payments Report 2017. A chunk of this would come from online filings by 8 million tax payers every month under the goods and services tax and increased compliance on income tax.
The June presentation made to the finance minister lists a number of concerns about virtual currencies. It explored banning trade in cryptocurrencies, regulating and taxing it or treating it as a digital asset similar to gold. Still, some of these strategies may not be the most effective way forward, said Amit Jaju, executive director at Ernst & Young Ltd’s fraud investigation and dispute services.
“It would be like banning a bank because a kidnapper used cash as ransom,’’ Jaju said over phone from Mumbai. BloombergFebruary 18, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
House Minerva Pin - Officially licensed House Minerva pin from Pierce Brown's Red Rising™ science fiction series. The institute house pin is available antiqued bronze or brass.
$29.00
Pink Society Necklace (Bronze) - The Pink Society symbol from Pierce Brown's science fiction series, Red Rising™ as an antiqued bronze pendant. The Pink Society necklace is officially licensed with the author.
$29.00 - $54.00
House Mars Pin in Brass - The officially licensed House Mars pin is now available in bright yellow brass as well as antiqued bronze.
$29.00
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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January 31, 2019
New The Lord of the Rings™ Jewelry
Wisdom of Gandalf™ Pendant - A medallion engraved with the sage advise of the wizard Gandalf™, "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Available in sterling silver or antiqued bronze as a pendant or bracelet.
$39.00 - $144.00
"Gandalf", "Frodo", "The Fellowship of the Rings", "The Lord of the Rings", and the items and characters and places therein, are trademarks of the Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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December 14, 2018
New Chulhu Jewelry
Miskatonic University Class Pin with Tentacle Ribbon - Miskatonic University class pin with tentacle ribbon embellishment. Available as a lapel pin or tie tack in sterling silver or bronze.
$25.00 - $49.00
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December 13, 2018
New Chulhu Jewelry
Elder Sign Studs - Stud style earrings featuring HP Lovecraft's Elder Sign symbol available in sterling silver, 14k gold, and 14k white gold.
$29.00 - $409.00
Bronze Miskatonic University Class Pin - Class Pin for Miskatonic University, the fictional university in Arkham, Massachusetts featured in the stories of HP Lovecraft. Now available in antiqued bronze as a lapel pin or tie tack
$19.00 - $29.00
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December 12, 2018
New Mistborn® Jewelry
Hemalurgy™ Spike Ring - Sterling silver Hemalurgy™ spike ring from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn® series.
Badali Jewelry Specialties, Inc. designs are based on the Mistborn novels by Brandon Sanderson. Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008 Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. Mistborn® is a registered trademark of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC, brandonsanderson.com. “Steel Alphabet” designs based on original character designs by Isaac Stewart, and they, “Allomantic,” and all other elements from the Mistborn novels™ and used by permission of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.
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November 26, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Eolian Talent Pipes™ Charm - Officially licensed Eolian Talent Pipe Charm with un-soldered jump ring from Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle ™ series.
Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", and "Eolian", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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November 21, 2018
New The Lord of the Rings™ Jewelry
The Engagement Ring of Aragorn™ and Arwen™ - Among the majestic trees of Lothlórien, Aragorn presented Arwen with his family ring, the ring of Barahir, and he pledged to her his love and life. The ring is available with a sterling silver or 14k gold crown.
"Aragorn", "Arwen", "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings", and the items and characters and places therein, are trademarks of the Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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November 20, 2018
New Bitch Planet™ Jewelry
Non-Compliant Boot Tags - Officially licensed shoe lace tags featuring the Non-Compliant symbol from the Bitch Planet™ comic book series. The NC Boot Tags are available in antiqued bronze, white bronze, and brass.
"Bitch Planet”, and the characters and places therein created by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro and are, trademarks of Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc. under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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November 20, 2018
New Stormlight Archive™ Jewelry
Shash Glyph™ Cufflinks - Cufflinks featuring the Lightweaver™ glyph from The Stormlight Archive series. Crafted in sterling silver and available black antiqued or garnet red enameled finish.
Jeseh Glyph™ Cufflinks - Cufflinks featuring the Windrunner™ glyph from The Stormlight Archive series. Crafted in sterling silver and available black antiqued or sapphire blue enameled finish.
Based on the Stormlight Archive novels by Brandon Sanderson. The Way of Kings Copyright © 2010 Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC and used by permission of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC, www.brandonsanderson.com. All Rights Reserved.
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November 20, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
Institute Ring for House Mars - Officially licensed Institute Ring for House Mars from Pierce Brown's Red Rising™ science fiction series. The wolf head ring is available in sterling silver.
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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November 19, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
House Mars Pin - Officially licensed House Mars pin from Pierce Brown's Red Rising™ science fiction series. The wolf head pin is available antiqued bronze.
The Howlers Pendant - Antiqued bronze or brass pendant featuring the wolf head symbol for House Mars within the Red Society symbol from Pierce Brown's science fiction series, Red Rising™.
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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October 31, 2018
New Dresden Files© Jewelry
Harry Dresden's© Pentacle Earrings - Dangle style earrings featuring Harry Dresden's © pentacle from the Dresden Files ©.
Harry Dresden's© Pentacle Charm - Officially licensed Harry Dresden's © pentacle charm from the Dresden Files ©.
"The Dresden Files", and the characters and places therein are copyrights of Jim Butcher, Imaginary Empire LLC, c/o Donald Maass Literary Agency. All Rights Reserved.
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October 30, 2018
New Dresden Files© Jewelry
Elaine Mallory's© Pentacle Necklace - Officially licensed sterling silver Elaine Mallory's pentacle necklace from the Dresden Files©.
Harry Dresden's© Pentacle Cufflinks - Officially licensed Harry Dresden's pentacle cufflinks from the Dresden Files©.
Anduriel’s© Blackened Denarius Cufflinks - Sterling silver cufflinks of the Blackened Denarius coin that is bound to the fallen angel Anduriel © from the Dresden Files©.
Lasciel’s© Blackened Denarius Cufflinks - Sterling silver cufflinks with the Blackened Denarius coin that the fallen angel Lasciel is bound to from the Dresden Files© by Jim Butcher.
"The Dresden Files", and the characters and places therein are copyrights of Jim Butcher, Imaginary Empire LLC, c/o Donald Maass Literary Agency. All Rights Reserved.
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October 15, 2018
New Dracula by Bram Stoker™ Jewelry
Castle Dracula Pendant - A topographical map medallion with the location of Dracula's castle. The officially licensed Bram Stoker™ necklace is available in sterling silver, bronze or brass and is set with an imitation garnet.
Bram Stoker™ is a trademark of Bram Stoker LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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October 11, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Bracelets
Kingkiller Chronicle™ Bangle Bracelet - Customizable flex style bangle bracelet with your choice of sterling silver Kingkiller Chronicle™ charms.
Kingkiller Chronicle™ Charm Bracelet - Customizable charm bracelet with your choice of officially licensed Kingkiller Chronicle™ charms. The sterling silver bracelet is available in 7" or 8" lengths.
Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", "Adem", "Auri's Brazen Gear", "Chandrian", "Caesura", "Eolian Talent Pipe", "Kvothe", "Rhetoric & Logic", "Saicere", and "Tarbean", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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October 6, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Auri's Brazen Gear™ Charm - Auri's Brazen Gear™ as a tiny charm made of tarnish resistant brass. The Auri's Gear is officially licensed The Slow Regard of Silent Things™ jewelry with Patrick Rothfuss.
"Kingkiller Chronicle", "The Slow Regard of Silent Things", "Auri", "Brazen Gear", and "the Underthing', are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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October 4, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Chandrian Flame™ Earrings - Sterling silver candle stick earrings available with a bright blue enamel Chandrian™ flame, regular flame enamel, or an antiqued finish.
Rhetoric and Logic™ Earrings - Rhetoric & Logic ™, the book Kvothe ™ studies to learn the art of argument, as dangle style earrings. The Officially Kingkiller Chronicle ™ earrings are handcrafted in sterling silver.
Rhetoric and Logic™ Charm - Kvothe's ™ book, Rhetoric & Logic ™, as a charm from Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle ™ series. The sterling silver book charm is officially licensed.
Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", "Adem", "caesura", "Kvothe", and "Saicere", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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September 28, 2018
New Mistborn® Jewelry
Custom Steel Alphabet™ Ring - Comfort fit style band engraved with your words or phrases in the Allomantic Alphabet™ from Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn® series. Available in sterling silver, 14k yellow gold, or 14k white gold.
Badali Jewelry Specialties, Inc. designs are based on the Mistborn novels by Brandon Sanderson. Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008 Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. Mistborn® is a registered trademark of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC, brandonsanderson.com. “Steel Alphabet” designs based on original character designs by Isaac Stewart, and they, “Allomantic,” and all other elements from the Mistborn novels™ and used by permission of Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.
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September 21, 2018
New Choker Options for Eolian Talent Pipes™ Pendant
Corner Hanging Eolian Talent Pipes™ Pendant now available with a black elastic lace choker or a black flocked velvet ribbon choker.
Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", and "Eolian Talent Pipes", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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September 20, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Caesura Sword™ Charm - Kvothe's™ Sword, Caesura™, as a sterling silver charm or pendant. The Caesura Sword charm is officially licensed Kingkiller Chronicle™ jewelry.
Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", "Adem", "caesura", "Kvothe", and "Saicere", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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September 19, 2018
New Demon Cycle™ Jewelry
Wood Ward™ Medallion - The Wood Ward™ is a magical defense symbol which protects the wearer against wood demons in The Demon Cycle series by Peter V. Brett's. The officially licensed wood ward pendant is cast in solid sterling silver.
Snow Ward™ Medallion - The Snow Ward™ is a defensive symbol which protects the wearer against snow demons from Peter V. Brett's The Demon Cycleseries. The officially licensed snow ward pendant is cast in solid sterling silver.
“The Demon Cycle” and the characters, object and places therein, are copyrighted trademarks of Peter V. Brett under license to Badali Jewelry. Ward artwork designed by Lauren K. Cannon. Copyright © by Peter V. Brett. All Rights Reserved.
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September 18, 2018
Niobe: She is Life™ Jewelry
Arnuminel™ Earrings - Amulet of Arnuminel™ dangles from the Niobe: She is Life™ comics series. The officially licensed Arnuminel earrings are available in sterling silver or bronze.
Arnuminel™ Studs - Stud style Amulet of Arnuminel™ earrings from the comics series, Niobe: She is Life™. The Arnuminel studs are officially licensed with the publisher, Stranger Comics.
Small Amulet Arnuminel™ - Officially licensed Amulet of Arnuminel™ from the Niobe comic book series. Available in sterling silver or bronze as a choker or on chain.
Officially licensed by Stranger Comics from the comic series NIOBE: She is Life by Amandla Stenberg, Ashley A. Woods, Sebastian A. Jones and Darrell May. “NIOBE: She is Life,” “Asunda,” and “Arnuminel,” are trademarks of Sebastian A. Jones and Stranger Comics, LLC under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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September 17, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Caesura Sword™ Earrings - Officially licensed Caesura Sword™ dangle style earrings from Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle™.
Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", "Adem", "caesura", "Kvothe", and "Saicere", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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September 12, 2018
New Jewelry Line: Dracula by Bram Stoker™
Dracula's Vampire Bat Pendant - Dracula's Vampire Bat necklace is an officially licensed Bram Stoker™ item inspired by the Dracula novel. Available in sterling silver, antiqued yellow bronze, and dark bronze.
Bram Stoker™ is a trademark of Bram Stoker LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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August 5, 2018
New Bitch Planet™ Jewelry
Non-Compliant Earrings - Dangle style Non-Compliant earrings with your choice of antiqued sterling silver or with a color enamel finish. Officially licensed Bitch Plant™ jewelry with Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro.
"Bitch Planet”, and the characters and places therein created by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro and are, trademarks of Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc. under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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June 28, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Chandrian Flame™ Charm - Sterling silver candle charm available with a bright blue enamel Chandrian™ flame, regular flame enamel, or an antiqued finish. The candlestick charm is officially licensed Kingkiller Chronicle™ jewelry with Patrick Rothfuss. Available with optional chains.
"Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", "The Slow Regard of Silent Things, "Kvothe", and "Auri's Brazen Gear", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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July 6, 2018
New Bitch Planet™ Jewelry
President Bitch Pin - President Bitch Pin from the comics series, Bitch Plant™, by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro. The officially licensed pin is made of antiqued yellow bronze and attaches with two lapel style pins.
Non-Compliant Ring - Officially licensed Non-Compliant Ring the Bitch Plant™ comic series by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro. The NC Ring is made of sterling silver with your choice of plain, antiqued, or enameled finishes.
"Bitch Planet”, and the characters and places therein created by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine DeLandro and are, trademarks of Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, Inc. under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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July 6, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
Pink Society Pendant - The Pink Society symbol as a sterling silver pendant from Pierce Brown's science fiction series, Red Rising™. The officially licensed Pink Society necklace is available with an antiqued or pink enameled finish.
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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July 5, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
Red Rising Bangle Bracelet - Expandable bracelet featuring your choice of Red Society and Gold Society charms. The Red Rising™ charms are cast in sterling silver and are available with a variety of finishes. The bracelet is made of stainless steel.
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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July 5, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
Gold Society Earrings - Dangle style earrings with the Gold Society's symbol from Pierce Brown's science fiction series, Red Rising™. The sterling silver Gold Society earrings are available with an antiqued or yellow enameled finish.
Gold Society Pendant - A sterling silver pendant of Gold Society symbol from Pierce Brown's science fiction series, Red Rising™. The officially licensed Gold Society necklace is available with an antiqued or yellow enameled finish.
Gold Society Necklace in Brass or Bronze - A pendant of the Gold Society's symbol from Pierce Brown's science fiction series, Red Rising™. The officially licensed Gold's necklace is available in brass or antiqued yellow bronze.
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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June 28, 2018
New Kingkiller Chronicle™ Jewelry
Auri's Brazen Gear™ Pin - A lapel style pin of Auri's Brazen Gear™ from Patrick Rothfuss' The Slow Regard of Silent Things™. The gear pin is cast in tarnish resistant brass and is officially licensed Kingkiller Chronicle™ jewelry.
Kvothe's Lute™ Pendant - A sterling silver pendant of Kvothe's beloved lute from the Kingkiller Chronicle™ series by Patrick Rothfuss. The lute necklace is officially licensed with the author.
"Kingkiller Chronicle", "Name of the Wind", "Wise Man's Fear", "The Slow Regard of Silent Things, "Kvothe", and "Auri's Brazen Gear", are trademarks of Patrick Rothfuss c/o Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. All Rights Reserved.
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June 20, 2018
New Wheel of Time® Jewelry
The Wheel of Time® Earrings - Dangle style earrings featuring the iconic image of the Wheel of Time® from Robert Jordan's fantasy series. The Snake-Wheel™ earrings are officially licensed and available in sterling silver and 14k yellow or white gold.
The Wheel of Time® Studs - Stud style earrings featuring the iconic image of the Wheel of Time ® from Robert Jordan's fantasy series. The Snake-Wheel™ earrings are officially licensed and available in sterling silver and 14k yellow or white gold.
"Wheel of Time" is a registered trademark, “Snake-Wheel” is a trademark of The Bandersnatch Group, Inc. c/o Sobel Weber Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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June 20, 2018
New Wheel of Time® Jewelry
The Wheel of Time® Cufflinks - Cufflinks featuring the iconic image from the Wheel of Time ® from Robert Jordan's high fantasy series. The Snake-Wheel™ cufflinks are officially licensed and available in sterling silver or 14k yellow gold.
"Wheel of Time" is a registered trademark, “Snake-Wheel” is a trademark of The Bandersnatch Group, Inc. c/o Sobel Weber Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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May 3, 2017
New Powder Mage™ Jewelry
The Mad Lancer™ Ring - In the Powder Mage™ series, The Mad Lancers™ were a cavalry battalion famed for their bravery and recklessness. The sterling silver Mad Lancer's ring is officially licensed with Brian McClellan.
Ben Styke's Mad Lancer™ Ring - The massive version of The Mad Lancer Ring worn by the battalion's founder, Colonel Benjamin Styke™.
Collector's Mad Lancer™ Ring - Display replica of Ben Styke's Mad Lancer Ring made of white bronze.
"The Powder Mage", "Promise of Blood", "The Crimson Campaign", "The Autumn Republic", the characters, and places therein are trademarks © 2011 by Brian McClellan. All Rights Reserved.
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April 26, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
Gold Society Pins - Officially licensed Gold Society pin from Pierce Brown's Red Rising™ science fiction series. The symbol for the leaders of society is available in yellow brass or antiqued bronze.
Red Society Bracelet - Officially licensed bracelet featuring the Red Society symbol from Pierce Brown's Red Rising™ science fiction series. The worker caste charm is available in sterling silver or yellow bronze with a variety of finishes. The stainless steel bracelet is an expandable flex style
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein, are trademarks of Pierce Brown under license to Badali Jewelry. All Rights Reserved.
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April 25, 2018
New Red Rising™ Jewelry
Red Society Earrings - Officially licensed Red Society symbol earrings from Pierce Brown's Red Rising™ science fiction series. The worker caste charms are available in with an antiqued finish, red enamel finish, or a red ceramic plating.
"Red Rising”, and the characters and places therein |
federal authorities promote the use of livestock-guarding dogs as a means of keeping wolves at bay. Also, farmers are reimbursed for their losses out of the public coffers.
If an individual “problem wolf” kills a certain number of sheep within a certain time frame, he can be shot. However, research suggests that careless culling can create more problems than it solves. Switzerland’s lead gamekeeper agrees that if an alpha wolf is shot, it affects the whole pack.
“This causes the most trouble. With well-organized packs, there are fewer attacks,” says Reinhard Schnidrig of the Federal Office for the Environmentexternal link. However, as he told Swiss public television, SRFexternal link, he doesn’t mean that problem wolves shouldn’t be shot.
Conservationists argue that wolves have a role to play in nature. The fact that they eat foraging prey species like deer helps to limit grazing – thus fostering biodiversity.
(Video: SRF/swissinfo.ch)
Lifespan: 5-8 years Weight: 25-80kg Height at shoulders: 50-100cm Food source: Deer, chamois, wild boar Where to find: Mainly in the Alps but sighted throughout Switzerland Conservation status: Least concern Swiss population: 30-35, grouped into three packs, one pair, and some lone wolves
end of infobox
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SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram SWI swissinfo.ch on InstagramSo i was out all day shopping and just got home to see and package on the couch my roommate brought in and didnt tell me! Well i was super excited and ripped right into it and i couldnt be happier! My SS got my 7 month old a batman costume! Perfect because i needed a costume for him and this is just perfect! THANK YOU soooo much to my SS for making my sons first halloween awesome! You are awesome and thank you for making my first SS experience awesome! UPDATE-today i was sitting here on reddit when i here the screen door open and close, another package? i thought. Yes! and again from my awesome SS!!! this time they were batman cards! and chips..poker night is gonna be fun! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH *internet hug to who ever you are!That’s in addition to the 150+ Afghan troops that have gone AWOL in US.
Source: Training Afghan soldiers exposes the US to a huge risk | New York Post
By Paul Sperry
Washington is a factory for dumb ideas, but taking the cake may be a US-based military training program for Afghan soldiers that not only can’t keep track of enrollees — 152 of whom have gone AWOL — but can’t even get the Afghan army to use those who actually graduate and return home.
The Pentagon says training Afghans in America is necessary to stand up an army in Afghanistan to fend off insurgents. Yet US-trained graduates aren’t even being re-absorbed by the Afghan military.
According to a new Defense Department report, “Afghan government policy does not require [National Defense and Security Forces] units to either return trainees to their previous position or provide them a position that may utilize the training received in the United States.”
In fact, the Afghan government takes trainees, who are in training in this country more than a year, off its active military duty and payroll. Many US-based trainings run longer than one year. Several graduates who returned to Afghanistan left the army after their billets had been given away. In other words, there is no real benefit to bringing these Afghan soldiers to America.
But there is a real security risk.
More than half of the missing trainees have never been caught and could pose a terror threat to America, warns the Defense Department’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction in a 25-page report.
Of the 152 AWOL Afghan trainees, 70 have either fled the US, mostly to Canada, and 13 remain unaccounted for. ICE has deemed Afghan trainees who have gone AWOL “to be high-risk because they involve militarily trained individuals of a fighting age who have demonstrated a ‘flight risk.’ ”
The Afghan trainees, who are given diplomatic visas, undergo no in-person interview or fingerprinting before they are brought into the US. And Kabul “is not enforcing” a program to pre-screen candidates for security risks.
Trainees do, however, get US driver’s licenses and base IDs, allowing them to get through security checkpoints. AWOL Afghans have been stationed at nearly two dozen military installations in the US, including several in the Washington, DC, area, where they have received training in weapons and explosives. Some have been trained to operate and maintain planes.
There is a strong likelihood jihadists could have slipped into the program. The Pentagon inspector general says the Taliban has thoroughly infiltrated the Afghan security forces supplying these special immigrants. And they could turn on their hosts. In June, seven American soldiers were wounded by a US-trained Afghan commando in one of hundreds of insider attacks recorded in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is just one of 20 terrorist groups, including ISIS, now operating in Afghanistan — “the highest concentration of terrorist groups anywhere in the world,” the inspector general reveals.
US-based trainees participating in the Pentagon program have also gone AWOL from other terror hot spots, including 27 from Yemen, 22 from Iraq and nine from Saudi Arabia. But Afghan recruits are by far the worst absconders.
And their numbers keep growing. The rate of US-trained Afghans going AWOL doubled last year and is expected to continue rising this year. A footnote in the report reveals that Pentagon brass told the IG: “There has been a significant uptick in absconders for the Air Force programs” in 2017.
Yet the Pentagon plans to enroll more Afghans next year in “flight training,” as well as Special Forces instruction — without tightening the security process for screening recruits. IG recommendations for strengthening measures were turned down by the Pentagon’s partner in the program, the State Department.
The Pentagon is playing with fire. It’s plain its program has failed in its objectives and is not worth the security risk. It ought to cancel it before it inadvertently supplies the personnel and training for the next terrorist attack on US soil.Bacteria that are commonly found in the mouth are often abundant in patients with colon cancer, but the potential role these microbes play in tumor development has not been clear. A study published by Cell Press February 18th in the journal Immunity reveals that the oral pathogen Fusobacterium nucleatum protects a variety of tumor cells from being killed by immune cells. The findings could open new avenues for the treatment of cancer in human patients.
"Certain bacteria have previously been shown to fight cancer, so the surprising finding of this paper is that bacteria such as Fusobacterium nucleatum can grant tumors an anti-immune defense mechanism," says co-senior study author Ofer Mandelboim, PhD, of The Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School. "Blocking the interaction between these bacteria and immune cells might improve anti-tumor immunity both in general and with regard to colon cancer in particular."
Immune cells called natural killer cells defend the body against a variety of health threats, including viruses and parasites. These cells can also kill tumors, but cancer cells have evolved ways to evade this immune response. In the early 1890s, a surgeon named William Coley recognized that certain bacteria can enhance anti-tumor immunity, and he even used bacterial extracts to successfully treat cancer patients. But the relationship between bacteria and tumors is complex, and until now, it was not known whether other types of bacteria that are common in cancer patients could have the opposite effect: protecting developing tumors from immune cell attack.
To address this question, Mandelboim teamed up with co-senior author Gilad Bachrach of the Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine to study how the anti-cancer activity of natural killer cells might be affected by Fusobacterium nucleatum--an oral pathogen that has been linked to periodontal diseases and is also present in human colorectal tumors.
They found that this bacterium protects a variety of human tumor cells from destruction by human natural killer cells. Moreover, this immune evasion depends on the binding of a bacterial protein called Fap2 to an immune cell receptor called TIGIT. "The implications are that if we either remove the Fusobacterium nucleatum bacteria from the tumors or inhibit TIGIT with antibodies, we might enable immune cells to kill the colon tumors more efficiently," says first author Chamutal Gur of The Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School.
The researchers now intend to test whether this bacterium is found in other types of tumors and whether additional bacteria that colonize tumors affect the activity of immune cells. They also plan to study Fap2-TIGIT interactions in more detail and develop ways to block these interactions. "Because Fusobacterium nucleatum specifically targets tumors, it may be possible in the future to use a Fap2-deleted Fusobacterium nucleatum to guide therapeutic agents to kill the tumors," Mandelboim says.
###
Immunity, Gur et al.: "Binding of the Fap2 protein of Fusobacterium nucleatum to human inhibitory receptor TIGIT protects tumors from immune cell attack"Women in Saudi Arabia are voting for the first time in municipal elections that will also feature the country’s first women candidates for local council seats.
Men and women began entering segregated polling stations across the country beginning at 8:00 a.m. local time Saturday when voting officially got under way.
This change is part of the late King Abdullah’s legacy. Abdullah, who died in January, issued a decree in 2011, authorizing women to vote: “Starting with the next election, women have the right to nominate themselves for the membership of the municipal councils.”
Campaigning has not been easy for women candidates. Saudi Arabia has strict rules of segregation of the sexes so female candidates cannot address male voters unless there is a partition. The only other way they can communicate to potential voters is through male relatives.
WATCH: Video report
“We have been waiting to be given this opportunity for the last 10 years. Ten years as ladies to participate in the political and social decision-making in the country,” said Fawzeya al-Harbi, a female local municipal council election candidate.
Human Rights Watch says it has also been hard for women to register to vote.
The advocacy organization said many voting registration centers were far away from where the female voters live and that they were hard to find. Saudi women are banned from driving.
Human Rights Watch also argued Saudi women faced issues when it came to proving their identities. Authorities now allow women to get ID cards but many do not have them. Women also have difficulty providing proof of residence because they do not usually own property.
“The government should fix the problems that are making it hard for women to participate and build on this progress to create momentum for further women’s rights reforms,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights Watch Middle East director.
Acceptance of change
There has been little public criticism against the participation of women, and younger generations say they support it.
“The late King Abdullah requested for the right of woman to run the municipal elections and this has been implemented now. We as the young generation are supporting the women and will help them and we are with the elections,” Yazid al-Ajlan said, a young Saudi citizen.
But the number of women who registered to vote on Saturday are only a small portion of the total number of voters. They make up almost 131,000 out of the country’s 1.49 million registered voters.
There are also about 980 female candidates compared to almost 6,000 men. Few women, if any, are predicted to win any of the 2,100 council seats that are in play.
The 284 councils are the only part of the government that can be elected by its citizens, and only two thirds of 3,159 seats are elected. The rest are appointed by the minister of municipal and rural affairs.
The councils have only limited responsibilities, including overseeing small, local projects such as budgets for public facilities like roads and parks.
The first municipal election was held in 2005.A ‘vampire mother’ has had titanium ‘horns’ implanted, to complement the tattoos that cover almost 100 per cent of her body.
Tat’s a different look: Maria Jose Cristerna (Reuters)
Maria Hose Cristerna, a mum of four from Mexico, showed off her unusual looks at a tattoo exhibition in Monterrey in California recently.
She had her body transformed as a reaction to enduring years of abuse at home.
The striking look is completed by specially shaped vampire ‘fang’ teeth, fake eye colours and massive earrings – but she’s not finished yet! The 35-year-old claims that she wants even more horns implanted.
‘Tattoos were a form of liberation for me – my way of being immortal – and the horns I have are a symbol of strength and were implanted without anaesthetic,’ she told The Sun.
‘I had the fangs done because I loved vampires as a little girl and I changed the colour of my eyes so they were how I really wanted them to be.’GoPro 4 Night Lapse – The Sky Comes Alive on Vimeo.
If you want to get stellar night lapses (no pun intended) I suggest you continue your Night Lapse education after this tutorial by following our crash course.
The first tutorial— GoPro Setup and All Night Filming — covers what items you need for the setup and the film elements that make for a great night lapse. The final tutorial— Post Production Editing & Color Correction —will help you import/create the night lapse, and enhance the color to bring out the stars. Check out those tutorials if you are already a master of the night mode settings, but as for everyone new to GoPro night photography or trying to improve their night photos, this is a good place to start.
Night Photo Example: (this is a final product you can expect after doing some simple color correction)
The Basics:
I hope you’re excited because the GoPro night mode is an awesome new feature and my personal favorite. The GoPro Hero4 Night Photo/Lapse allows you to capture amazing photos and time lapses on the darkest nights, at sunset, or on a night drive through a city. The difference between night photo and night lapse is that the latter allows you to capture a series of photos over a specific period of time and then compile it into a video like you see above. On a good night to film and a little practice and you’ll be on your way to shooting spectacular night lapses and single night photos.
If you are more interested in single night photos, note that single images can often appear grainy due to the fact that still images can be analyzed in far greater depth than a moving night lapse. To ensure quality you may need to further experiment with lighting, settings, and color correction. I find night photos turn out best when there’s slightly more light and there’s a focus object in the frame. This is because you can lower the ISO and the sensor picks up more color in lighter environments which overall allows for a sharper, clearer picture. For some inspiration, know that my best night photos where taken during night drives through the city or at outdoor events like a fair or concert.
Clearly it’s possible to capture high quality Night Photos/lapses with the GoPro, and I’m sure you’re antsy for the secrets to getting crisp night images. So here is my break down of the
Best GoPro HERO4 night lapse settings for the most common uses.
If you have a question at any point, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below. I’ll do my best to help and give you more examples if needed.
Here’s a reference chart of the GoPro buttons and all the symbols for night mode/protune settings so you can follow along with all the technical terms.
Cheat Sheet:
Before I get to far ahead of myself, if you need a quick reference before going out to film a night lapse, here is my main setup. Granted, this configuration doesn’t work for all situations but it is perfect for filming the stars and night sky.
Shutter: 30s
Interval: Continuous
MegPixels: 12mp Wide
Spot Meter: Off
Protune: on White Balance: 3000K
Color: GoPro
ISO: 800
Sharpness = MED
EV Comp: n/a
For those who seek understanding that will allow you to maximize your filmmaking and use each setting to your advantage, I made this post just for you so let’s dive into it.
Getting to night lapse mode:
Turn on your gopro and press the mode/power button until multishot is on the viewing screen.
Next, select the settings/tab button on the right side of the camera and the multishot settings should come up.
Change the mode setting (the first option) to night lapse using the shutter/select button
Shutter Speed:
After you have enabled Night Lapse, you need to adjust the shutter speed. The shutter speed is by far the most influential setting how a night lapse turns out, and finding the correct speed is often challenging with the options ranging from under 0.5 sec up to 30 seconds. It took me quite a bit of experimentation to master shutter speed along with all of protune, and I’m here to save you the headache and 50 gigs worth of failed night lapses (damn I wish GoPro would have just install a LCD in the HERO4 black).
To adjust the shutter speed, stay in the night lapse settings which you just navigated to and follow these steps:
Starting from the multishot mode, select the settings button on the right side of your GoPro
Next, scroll down using the shutter button and change the mode to night
In order to highlight shutter speed, press the mode/power button
Press the shutter button to arrive at your desired shutter speed
Settings Examples 2 sec, 5 sec, 10 sec Use at dawn, dusk, twilight, or in situations with a relatively bright light source in the frame. Some ideas: traffic at night, concert seats filling up, Ferris wheel, fireworks, or a flashlight painting. 20 Sec Use to film the night sky if there is too much light pollution (full moon or cities). Personally, I will always use a 30 sec shutter speed for filming the night sky unless my test footage came back way over exposed (too bright). It’s easier to tone down over exposed areas in post production than it is to bring out the stars and colors of an under exposed lapse. 30 Sec Used to film the stars, Milky Way, and almost every dark environment. 30 sec shutter picks up the most light and is the Goto speed for most night sky lapses, and night photography even if there is a source of light from the moon or foreground lighting. (foreground lighting is an essential for giving the lapse a focal point. Learn all about it and composure in my first night lapse tutorial). Auto Use at sunrise, sunset, dawn, dusk, twilight (the shutter speed automatically adjusts between the fastest possible; 1/4096th of a second, and 2 seconds). Basically, Auto is the best option for when there’s changing light conditions but I have always had a problem with sudden changes in image color as the sensor adjusts. Give it a try, but if it’s choppy just use a fast shutter speed like 2 sec for capturing a more smooth transition from night to day and vice versa. I mainly use Auto for night drives where the amount of surrounding light is usually changing as in the video below.
Here’s an example of using the auto shutter speed while driving:
ISO:
ISO is responsible for the camera’s sensitivity to light and balances the brightness and resulting image noise. As a rule of thumb, usually photographers opt for a lower ISO (makes the image darker) and a higher exposure (brightens image) when dealing with low light environments. This is because ISO is responsible for much of the noise or grain in a picture and a higher ISO hurts the quality.
The GoPro is remarkable for a $400 camera, but with such a small body and low price they couldn’t pack the best sensor in. As a result you will be forced to use the max ISO of 800 for most night lapse shots when there is no considerable light source. This is not terrible because the GoPro pictures are very high resolution and a little post production color correction can help fix the majority of the noise. Grain or noise is barely visible if you capture a night lapse following my instructions, but as for night photos you might have a little more of a challenge as I mentioned earlier.
Key points:
High ISO = More light and more noise
Set ISO to 800 for filming the night sky, and set to 400 for most all other lighter environments.
Try to avoid high ISO if taking single night photos
Exposure over ISO whenever possible
I set the ISO to 800 for all instances where I’m filming the night sky, or completely dark environments. Set the ISO to 400 for time lapses/photos taken at dawn, dusk, sunrise…etc. Also use 400 for night photography when the object of interest is lit up such as a city, building, car ride, Ferris wheel and many more cases.
There is never one perfect setting and ISO is something I like to adjust after I take a few test images.
White Balance:
White Balance refers to adjust the color tone, in short, the warmth of a picture. Using a lower white balance ie. 3000K will give your lapse a cool blue tone which is ideal for night lapses.
If you want to go in for a blue tone while shooting at night, you can select 3000K in the white balance setting. I use 3000K WB for filming most night lapses, and I found Native White Balance (no white balance correction) to be the only viable alternative. You can do the majority of work with image warmth and white balance in post production so don’t worry to much.
However, if you don’t want to disturb the warmth emitted by the natural light source, avoid using the white balance setting. Auto WB is great for letting in warmth when you need more color.
WB: 3000K | Other Settings constant
WB: 6500K | Other Settings constant
I think you get the idea…
The Remaining Settings:
Interval: Continuous (always)
MegPixels: 12mp Wide (always)
Spot Meter: Off
Spot meter is for instances where you are filming from inside your house or car and trying to capture something outside a window. Normally this doesn’t work well because the camera is automatically atuned to the immediate lighting so everything outside appears too bright or too dark. By enabling spot meter, the GoPro acts as if it were a few meters in front of you, basically placing itself in the outside environment and adjusting it’s light intake accordingly.
I enable spot meter for night lapses when I’m filming from within a car, like in the video above, so that the camera picks up more detail of surrounding environment.
Protune: on (always)
Color: GoPro (always)
Sharpness: MED (can change to high if the environment is well lit up and you are filming with a fast shutter speed)
EV Comp: n/a (nit picky setting. Keep n/a always)
Here are some extra pro tips before you are on your way. (further reading can be found on my GoPro night lapse tutorial part 1 – The Setup)
Stability. A stable camera is essential for capturing clear images and Night Lapses. The exposure/shutter speeds in both Night modes leaves the sensor open over an extended period to capture the minimal amount of light present. This extended period of the shutter speed also means that slight movements will be much more prevalent in a night photo, especially when using a longer shutter, and leads to blurring and distortion. Consequently, the integrity of the GoPro mount becomes crutial, far more important than a stable mount for even standard Time Lapse modes. Versatility and Stability.When I look for GoPro accessories that are best for night lapses/time lapses I look for stability as we established, but also versatility is a large criteria. I want accessories that allow me to get creative shots and that hard to get angle. More than that, I want an accessory that I can use for many more things outside of night lapses and photography. So here are some of my absolute favorite accessories for night lapses and far more.
The winner for versatility is a no brainer. The GoPro 3-way can be configured in three ways—a grip, selfie stick, or tripod. The tripod is exceptional and I love the fact that I can be filming with the grip and quickly set the camera down for a time lapse whenever the situation calls for it. The tripod is screwed upside down into the handle the device has a set of three small legs. All you need to do is flip around the legs and twist them back into the handle to get your tripod. Fast, easy, reliable and always accessible.
Both the accessories allow you to quickly set up your camera for a time lapse in any environment. The Jaws flex clamp from GoPro has a flexible neck that allows you to reposition your camera for the perfect angle. I like the Jaws clamp because I can put my GoPro almost anywhere, get creative shots, and know the camera will be stable. The tips on the simple tension clamp move slightly and securely grab any irregular shapes like your skateboard, a railing, a tree branch, or a car trailer. This is great for night lapses because usually I’m setting up in rugged environments, and it’s much easier and cheaper to use than a tripod.
The suction cup mount is absolutely key for getting great night drive time lapses. I actually just bought one and can’t wait to start using it. The suction mount is for use inside or outside the car and the metal arm has 140-degree upward movement and you can tilt the camera 210 degrees or rotate it 360 degrees. Ultimately, this mount let’s you film dynamic night lapse edits and allows for untamed creativity for different shots. You can film all the perspectives of the car, inside and out, film backwards and all directions, and the panavise sunction cup has a reputation for being incredibly stable and reliable—although I wouldn’t try and scale a building with it.
Well I hope you are now well informed on how to setup your camera to capture a night photo or night lapse. But don’t stop there! A great night lapse only comes when you plan out a good shot, are properly prepared, and have the ability to edit out any flaws in post production.
Learn about the entire process or specific aspects of night lapses through my comprehensive GoPro Tutorials.
I will answer any questions sent to me or left in the comments below, and I would love to see the night lapses you share with me. Oh, and don’t forget about the Amazon Gift Card Giveaway!
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Thanks for reading and good luck with your night photography,
The Viabell TeamAston Martin Racing’s future participation in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship is unclear, following a disappointing outing in last weekend’s season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona.
The factory British squad’s No. 97 Aston Martin Vantage V8 of Darren Turner, Stefan Muecke, Pedro Lamy, Richie Stanaway and Paul Dalla Lana finished eighth in the GT Le Mans class, delayed by power steering issues, but also lacked in performance compared to the competition in the ACO-spec category.
The car’s best lap of 1:45.877 was nearly one second slower than the class-winning Porsche’s quickest time in the race, causing reasons for concern for AMR managing director John Gaw.
“It appeared at Daytona that although last year we could fight for the World Championship in the WEC, there would need to be an adjustment of parameters to allow us to fight in the TUDOR Championship,” Gaw told Sportscar365.
“From what we saw, the Aston was slower on the track, slower to refuel and had to pit earlier in a stint due to the TUDOR-specific regulations.
“This is not the case in the WEC, so we know the performance is in the car. It’s possible for us to fight for the win but it needs the cooperation of the organizers.”
While running to ACO specifications, cars in the GTLM class received a number of pre-Rolex 24 Balance of Performance adjustments.
No notable changes were given to the GTE-spec Aston, while both the Porsche 911 RSR and Ferrari 458 Italia received larger air restrictors and the Viper was handed a 30 kg weight break.
Gaw said the No. 97 Vantage, which remained in the U.S. since the FIA WEC race at Circuit of The Americas last September, is being sent back to the U.K. for scheduled maintenance, with no decision having been made on further U.S. outings.
AMR had been considering a program around the four-round Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup, but Gaw said they quickly need clarity on the BoP before committing to any additional TUDOR Championship races.
“We think it’s a strong championship and the racing is great and we know it’s difficult to get the BoP right the first time,” Gaw said. “We do trust the organizers to get it sorted.”As the former Breitbart reporter and Fox contributor Michelle Fields continues to stand by her assertions that she was assaulted by Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski, an incident that occurred earlier in her career, when she worked for the Daily Caller as a reporter has come to light.
In November of 2011, Fields alleged that she was also, pushed to the ground and assaulted, that time by a New York City Police officer while she was covering the Occupy Wall Street movement and ignoring their instructions.
Disregarding the instructions of police officers is never a good idea, for anyone, including reporters. It’s something that can easily land one in jail, particularly when they are trying to clear an area at a time of a mass disturbance. They don’t have time for polite conversation. One either does what they are told or they end up being moved.
It would appear that Ms. Fields didn’t learn anything from her previous encounter, as she violated the Secret Service perimeter and got next to Donald Trump as he was exiting, in what she claimed was an attempt to ask a question. The Secret Service guy wasn’t doing his job which left it to Lewandowski to do it for him, from a greater distance away.
The following is excerpted for the Daily Caller, their report of an incident involving their reporter during that similar event at Occupy Wall Street:
While covering Occupy Wall Street’s “Day of Action” Thursday morning, Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields and videographer Direna Cousins were struck by NYPD officers as police tried to clear Wall Street of protesters. “The police officers were beating the protesters with batons, and were also beating the media,” Fields told TheDC. “They hit Direna and me with batons. They hit other members of the press in order to get them to move out of the street.” Both were struck, but neither sustained injuries that required hospitalization. Clear indications that Fields and Cousins were members of the press didn’t stop the NYPD beating. “Direna had a camera in her hand and I had a microphone, and we were being hit,” she said. “When I fell to the ground I said at one point, ‘I’m just covering this! I’m covering this!’ And the officer just said, ‘Come on, get up, get up,’ before pulling me up by my jacket.’” In the crush of the crowd, Fields and Cousins were unable to get out of the street and comply with the NYPD’s orders. “The protesters came up to me right away and asked if I needed any medical assistance. They were actually very kind and helpful. It was the police officers who were very aggressive,” Fields added.
It would appear that Ms. Fields, the child of a privileged Hollywood upbringing, believes that there is one set of rules for her and another, the law, is for the rest of the people, the commoners. She might find life a little easier to navigate if she were to drop that privileged perspective.1
En la frontera hay dos cadenas de gasolineras que están vendiendo el litro de Magna en 12.44 pesos y la Premium en 15.35, a costa de tener un menor flujo de ingresos. Se trata de Oxxo Gas, de la embotelladora FEMSA, y Petrol, quienes están demostrando que se puede competir.
Con el banderazo de salida al incremento sólo estas dos empresas, en 28 de sus estaciones de servicio, decidieron castigar temporalmente su margen de ganancia, pues acreditarán el estímulo fiscal que les otorgó el gobierno a siete zonas del país en la lista de precios máximos publicada la semana pasada por la Comisión Reguladora de Energía, es decir, el gobierno se los regresará después.
Un empresario gasolinero de Chihuahua, en donde operan las dadivosas estaciones de servicio, calcula que dejarán de ingresar alrededor de 100 millones de pesos al mes por la atractiva promoción, “son grandes empresas que pueden soportar esa medida, nosotros no”, comenta en corto.
Dichos estímulos fiscales para la frontera norte sustituyeron al programa de homologación, que tenía como finalidad dar un margen para que no se distorsionara el mercado ante los bajos precios en Estados Unidos.
Sin embargo, esa competencia es la que necesitamos en este momento en donde la gasolina, electricidad, gas LP y gas natural están subiendo, aunque primero es indispensable que se apacigüe al reclamo social, cuya consigna debería ser ¿qué nos van a dar por pagar gasolina más cara?
Como consumidores tenemos el derecho, al menos, de recibir el producto completo.
GASOLINEROS PRESIONAN EN SEGOB
El día de hoy se reunirán en la Secretaría de Gobernación representantes de la Organización Nacional de Expendedores de Petróleo (Onexpo), que preside José Ángel García, con funcionarios de alto nivel de esa dependencia para solicitar que se garantice la seguridad en las estaciones de servicio. Ayer G500 advirtió que cerraría las mil 800 estaciones que tiene en todo el país, 15 por ciento del mercado. Aguas, la gasolina es uno de los combustibles más difíciles de controlar en un incendio.
ANARQUÍA EN GAS LP
Como seguramente has leído, a partir de este año quedó liberalizado el precio del gas LP, el combustible más usado en los hogares mexicanos; sin embargo, la Comisión Reguladora de Energía no ha publicado el precio vigente por parte de las empresas que tienen un permiso con ellos para vender este producto, y una explicación pues menos.
Incluso asociaciones de gaseros se desmarcaron del tema y dijeron que no querían 'influir' en el proceso. En nuestra versión impresa te dimos a conocer hoy que el golpe es de más de 20 por ciento… ¿a razón de qué? Si los empresarios concentrados en la Amexgas, de Octavio Pérez; la ADG, de Luis Landeros; y la Adigas, de Víctor Figueroa, descalzos no andan.
AMARGO FIN DE AÑO PARA LA PRODUCCIÓN DE HIDROCARBUROS
No todo son aumentos, pues a menos de que en diciembre haya ocurrido un milagro, todo indica que en 2016 la producción de gas en México tocará mínimo histórico para ubicarse en un promedio diario por debajo de seis mil millones de pies cúbicos diarios.
En contraste, la importación de este insumo, superelemental e indispensable para la industria nacional, creció 35 por ciento entre enero y noviembre del año pasado (últimas cifras disponibles), para ubicarse en más de dos mil millones de pies cúbicos al día. Urgen resultados de corto plazo para José Antonio González Anaya y su Plan de Negocios de Pemex.
Cuéntame cómo te fue en los primeros tres días de la nueva era energética.
Correo: atorresh@elfinanciero.com.mx
Twitter: @Atzayaelh
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Lo que Hacienda no te dice sobre las gasolinasGet the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Liverpool FC have got 11 members of their senior squad away on international duty this week.
Brendan Rodgers has lost fewer players than usual due to the fact that so many are currently recovering from injuries.
Daniel Sturridge, Mamadou Sakho, Emre Can, Jon Flanagan and Joe Allen have all remained at Melwood for treatment and to build up their fitness.
Glen Johnson’s return to club action last weekend came too late for him to be considered by England.
Most of the 11 who have flown off will be involved in Euro 2016 qualifiers but Brazilian Philippe Coutinho has gone to China.
England: Rickie Lambert, Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana, Raheem Sterling. They face San Marino at Wembley on Thursday night and then a trip to Estonia three days later.
Belgium: Simon Mignolet. Home to Andorra on Friday and away to Bosnia on Monday.
Slovakia: Martin Skrtel. They host Spain on Thursday and then Skrtel has a trip to Belarus on Sunday.
Serbia: Lazar Markovic. Armenia away on Saturday and home to Albania on Tuesday.
Croatia: Dejan Lovren. A trip to Bulgaria on Friday and then on Monday it’s Azerbaijan at home.
Brazil: Philippe Coutinho. They face World Cup finalists Argentina in Beijing on Saturday and then travel to Singapore to take on Japan three days later.
Spain Under-21s: Alberto Moreno, Javier Manquillo. It’s a double-header for the full-backs against Serbia - away on Friday and home on Tuesday.A forest floor can store lots of atmospheric carbon, helping to limit global warming that results from carbon dioxide emissions. Most of that storage, scientists have thought, is found in tree leaves and branches that absorb carbon, eventually fall to the ground and slowly decay into soil. A new study in Sweden, however, indicates that |
, I think the tobacco producers might have a more symbiotic relationship. There is more opportunity for them to move away from the production of tobacco into energy crops. But, in the Midwest, production is likely to stay the same for the foreseeable future.
Are there agricultural lobbies working against algae? Are there barriers to algae’s evolution as a farm crop because of supporters and producers of other energy crops?
The U.S. Corn Growers Association, the U.S. Soybean Board, and all those other agricultural lobbying groups are funded through checkoff funds where the producers pay for representation and things like coming up with slogans such as “Milk does a body good.” Well, the algae industry does not yet have check-off funds to support a large lobby initiative, so that could make things seem somewhat restrictive.
It came to the point, from my view, where you could see that OriginOil was really starting to be ready to go to the dance. And I think this engagement with MBD (Energy, in Australia) is really our first real prom, if you will. And like any other prom, what goes on afterwards is going to be really important.
When I met Riggs a year and a half ago I was impressed that OriginOil’s business model was not like other end-to-end algae companies, but rather they were looking to isolate one of the elements of the value chain—in their case, extraction—and brand their solution to it. He seemed to anticipate where we are today, with partnering becoming very popular to address the complementary links of the chain. How has that played out from your view over the past couple of years?
I think what we’ve been able to do is attract partners that recognize that we’re not going to be a competitor, but rather someone who can complement what they are doing. The World Waterworks engagement we have, where they are supplying their Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) system, gave us something that we’ve used to make dryer and better feedstock. And it introduces the DAF system into a completely new market.
World Waterworks principally serves the wastewater industry, and now they can also be in the algae industry, and use our technology as they go forward and engage other partners. So I think that the synergies and these symbiotic kinds of relationships are really important. There is so much to go around, the problems are so massive to solve on a global scale that for us to be concerned about who is getting what ahead of the other guy, so to speak, is really not a very collegiate view.
Why did you get more heavily involved with OriginOil at this point in time?
Where is the extraction phase in its evolution, as far as OriginOil’s approach? When will you consider it a problem solved?
One of the first things that we have to be able to do in developing a technology is to make sure the results are repeatable. We’ve been able to do it most of the time successfully in the lab, but to actually put it in a field situation where we are using someone else’s algae, someone else’s feedstock, using their facilities…it’s really trial by fire, certainly for our 20-gallon system that we recently deployed in Australia.
So, it’s the repeatability, and then to be able to demonstrate its scale. Those two things are probably the key components right now. And that makes our ability to go to the next jump in scale very feasible, very doable.
What is the scale of the work you are doing with MBD?
We’re at basically at a hectare right now that we’ll be working with for the balance of this year. And it will go to something like 10 hectares next year, and then to 100 hectares in 2013. As far as the eventual biomass production…that will depend on the species—whether it’s a salt or fresh water variety, what solar radiation is taken in, what the par values are for their utilization of the solar energy, it all varies quite a bit.
Why did OriginOil get involved with MBD, an Australian company, in the first place?
We knew that one of the ways we can get the cost down in algae production is by focusing on a problem that needs to be solved, so we decided to focus on the CO2 problem. Australia is being very proactive about this and that’s why we are working with MBD Energy, to help them solve their CO2 problem. What feedstock or what materials result from doing all of that will be determined at a later date, once we shake out how it really works. But they are solving their immediate problem. Anything like oils or other products that come out is just an added bonus.
So, at 20-gallons per minute, describe the input and output of your part of the system, with respect to the flow materials?
It comes in as liquid slurry, it’s opaque, you can see that there’s biomass in water. What comes out of our system is highly concentrated, because the cells becomes disassociated with the water component, and flocculate out, or the cell material lyses and drops out of suspension.
In Australia we go to a downstream unit, a way to concentrate that biomass more using the Dissolved Air Flotation system. From that, the biomass then becomes something you can hold in your hand. It’s kind of lumpy, very pasty, and has a dry weight concentration of somewhere around 9% solids content. There could then be another step to separate the oil.
What we’d like to be able to do is develop the fractions of the oil that we’ve been able to extract so we can produce different products. But we think that’s really the job of a downstream refiner and what we are sticking to right now is what we do really well, with so little energy, which is to get the water out and get this oil and biomass together in a paste, and do it in a way where we have a standard biocrude in a standard format.
I think that that’s where we’ll be able to have real drop-in fuel opportunities—by providing basically a petrochemical cracking plant feedstock that is of known water content, known oil content, known biomass, so that they know what they are getting.
The algae industry is going through an evaluation as to where fuel is going to fit into the big picture. You talk about high-value chemicals as the first phase of the industry, or maybe it is the long play? What do you see as the pathway to fuels, and when?
There is considerable debate on what kind of petrochemical resources are still resident on the earth for our use. But, we do know it’s a finite resource. In our tag line we refer to OriginOil as a true competitor to petroleum. And I think from one sense that’s kind of where we’re going. It’s certainly very competitive to petroleum. But we want to be complementary to petroleum, because we will continue to use petroleum for a number of years.
We don’t have the machinery and the infrastructure to really make this light switch instantly turn on. So I think what algae can do is enable those traditional producers to continue producing, while handling their carbon footprint in a more efficient way. We are a solution to help them, really, with their industry.
Fuels are certainly one place where one can go with biocrude, but going with commodity chemicals is a really good area to focus on now, given the profitability difference between that and fuels. So, in our model, the path to fuel is 1) carbon sequestration, 2) commodity chemicals, and then stepping into the lower value products, such as fuel.
Australia has been very aggressive about addressing the CO2 issue, investing $4 billion so far. Is that a model for where you think other countries will go?
I think the events of this year, with the changes in weather particularly, more people understand that climate change is something that is, or can be, close at hand. Things are not going to be like they were in the past. Europe has a $40/ton carbon penalty looming for them. The Australians see this as an important environmental and economic situation for them as well, so they’re being proactive.
So what is your hope in this area? If you had the ears of the top decision makers in Washington, what would you tell them?
I think it’s really important for this country to develop and adopt a comprehensive national energy strategy that transcends the election process. It’s something that we need as law, something that deals with appropriate technology, and the adoption of those technologies where they work well. There is a place for all of them.
Mobile fuels become a little bit more challenging. We need to have a national energy policy that addresses the different kinds of energy stocks that we are going to be developing and the different kinds of mobile fuels that we’ll develop as well. Certainly our national security is hinged on our ability to be energy independent.
What’s keeping you from retiring?
The answer to that, as I’ve told my kids for the last 20 years, is legacy. I want to be involved in an organization like I am right now, where we can effect change and make a societal impact that my kids and their kids will benefit from directly.
It seems like quite a few people have come to this industry as kind of an after-industry in their careers—both because they don’t want to sign off yet, and they see the importance of what can happen here.
I don’t see myself as important by title. I’m important by what I do. And I think it’s important to participate. I think it’s important to let people know that there are examples where you can actually take technology and integrate solutions. You can go out there and solve someone’s big problem and even make money doing it.
Do you feel there is a loss of momentum or enthusiasm in this industry due to some of the hard work and tough science that people have had to deal with?
I think there will always be early attrition, because typically when someone gets into a technologically-based business, no matter what it is, some think that they can do everything—all things algae, in this case. But if you try and build all of the possible products out, you can end up killing yourself in a business that lacks focus.
We know that in real estate it’s about location. In business it has to be about focus. And, for us, everything that we work on in our company has to touch our single-step extraction technology. So if we look at a new innovation in growth systems, what’s important to us is how that growing system affects and impacts the efficiency of our extraction technology.
If downstream someone comes up with a way to extrude a biomass to get a certain fraction of oil, we have to ask if that affects how our single-step extraction tolerances are set. We’ll look at that because we have to be flexible enough to scale, and be reproducible—both on the inlet side and the outlet side. If you lose focus of that reality, I think you are going risk the death spiral.
For a lot of algae’s producers, I think it would be really interesting to see whether there is an answer to the question: what problem are you trying to solve? And I think a critical look will say, maybe they don’t know yet.
At our company we are clear about what problem we are trying to solve. We are trying to solve the problem of our customer, number one. And that is, how do I get rid of CO2, and number two, how do I separate the water from the biomass?
Some of your biggest successes in national energy program development had to do with communications—connecting the dots and putting people together. This is obviously needed within the algae industry, as well as between the industry and other technology solutions providers. Some in this industry complain that a lot of the necessary scientific progress already paid for by tax dollars is just sitting on shelves, hidden from those who could take great advantage of these pre-existing solutions. What can be done to facilitate more communication, as well as to access more of this kind of information?
I think the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) is a great untapped resource. It is the only venue that is organized out of the national laboratory system that really invites the participation of industry. Through the FLC, the Department of Energy can showcase all of the technologies that they’re working on, and the intellectual property and patents they have available for licensing to industry.
So, what could be done to help this agenda and drive some of this policy change is to use the FLC as the way for industry to engage. To me, having been at the National Lab for a total of 20 years, I see them as an incredible national treasure.
How would one spark that to happen?
You could get on the phone and call your congressman and say there is a group of us here at this company who want to engage the resources of the national laboratories. The labs are chartered to do that. The Department of Energy certainly works with all the big oil companies. They understand the system.
So you think this an unexploited resource for algae developers as well?
Totally unexploited. The DOE is a resource that typically engages industry where a commercial solution is unavailable. So when you are trying to develop an algae cracking system or a fractionation tower and there’s nobody that has one and you want to design and build one, you can go to the national lab and pay them to do the research for it.
You might even see problems you have that have already been solved there, and you wouldn’t have known that until you actually found out what’s been going on inside the national labs. And as taxpayers, I think we ought to take advantage of this.
So call your congressman, or go on the FLC website and find out when the next meeting is going to be, attend the meeting, be a speaker, be on a panel, and say that there is an algal industry out there and that we want to get our constituency better connected with the Department of Energy’s national laboratory infrastructure.
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Visit the A.I.M. ArchivesThe text below is an abridged rush translation by Signalfire from the German version found here
Comrades, laborers, proletarians from all over the world,
With joy we announce that our party, the Maoist Communist Party (MKP) in spite of attacks, arrests and repression has held its third Congress with success. Our 3rd Party Congress with the guideline of Marxism – Leninism – Maoism is a modest yet important step in the global revolutionary struggle. But it is also at the same time an important win for the revolutionary struggle in our country. The decisions and the development of our 3 Congress are proof of that. We also know that there will be some who will despise this evolution of our party. But we are proceeding with the determination to develop ourselves in the revolutionary struggle. We welcome the third Congress of our Party. We welcome the international proletariat, the working people and the oppressed peoples. We welcome the worldwide struggle for revolution and communism.
Comrades, laborers, proletarians,
Today, the struggle between the classes is as pointed and cruel as in the past. This cruelty is the product of the antagonistic contradictions between the classes. Statements like “The contradictions between classes are resolved” have been exposed as lies. Saber-rattling and threatening is in the character of the class enemy and is its principle. Underestimating the enemy means forget the enemy and departing the active combat. Not to fight means to run away from battle.These two attitudes contradict the spirit of the third Congress of MKP.
The MKP acts according to revolutionary principles and the slogan “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” is the determining factor in its theory and practice. Our party has taken its place on the front lines of combat with the manifesto of 1972. Yesterday and today we fight for imperialism and all its henchmen and fascist rulers to be buried in the shadow of history.Yesterday and today we are determined and have no qualms! On the revolutionary road we are progressing toward communism. We, the proletarian revolutionaries who are led solely by Marxist – Leninist – Maoist theory and its living spirit, “concrete analysis of the objective conditions “.
Comrades, laborers, proletarians,
The main enemy of the oppressed peoples and nations, first of all the U.S. imperialism and the imperialist robbers organized in blocks, drown the world proletariat, oppressed nations and peoples in blood. The power struggle between imperialists results in the everyday death or starvation of hundreds of thousands. The national powers on the imperialist leash have made it their mission to promote exploitation by their masters. The oppressed are exposed to death, torture and exploitation by the imperialists everyday. Because of this the fascist stooge of the imperialists will only be defeated with revolutionary struggle. We fight against this repression with the Socialist People’s War. We organize the world revolution, which also includes the revolution in Turkey-Northern Kurdistan, where we attack the weak points of imperialism.
In the class struggle for communism our party was and is resolved to continue to increase the revolutionary struggle. Our party only wins importance if it becomes a strategic weapon in the hands of the revolutionary proletariat and the working people in combat. Our party can only resolve the contradiction between the classes in favor of the proletariat and the working people through revolutionary struggle. The third Congress of our Party is in this sense a revolutionary scientific step in progress towards achieving the above objectives. The third Congress of our Party is also a banner of revolutionary resistance against the ruling class, theTurkish government and its leaders. Our 3rd Congress is a revolutionary response to AKP government promoted reformist liquidation.
Our party, which was founded by Ibrahim Kapakkaya and his comrades 42 years ago, has been consolidated within the classes in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan and taken its place in the struggle. The third Congress of our Party stands by its history and heritage, it looks to further develop its communist orientation as its revolutionary duty. In this spirit, our party has determined that the social system dictated by the monopolist comprador bourgeois in Turkey-North Kurdistan is capitalist in its current development.
Starting from this socio-economic analysis, the nature of the revolution, strategy, and other fundamental points in the party’s program has changed.. After 42 years of struggle our party has changed its strategy and tactics in its Third Congress in order to remain true to MLM ideology. The changes in the program, our third Congress brings with it does not mean that the ideological-political correctness of Ibrahim Kaypakkaya or of Comrade Mao Tse-Tung is called into question. It does not in any way alter that. On the contrary, it applied the “concrete analysis of the objective conditions” to the the present time [……]
The third Congress of our party assesses the socio-economic conditions in Turkey as capitalist. Consequently, the nature of the revolution is a proletarian socialist revolution. Consequently, the strategy of revolution, is socialist people’s war. Our 3rd Congress has also decided that the armed struggle still remains valid. In addition to the guerrilla units of the People’s Liberation Army – Halk Kurtulus ordusu (HKO) the other armed wing of the party is the People’s Guerrilla Forces – Partizan Halk Gücleri (PHG) in the cities. With the slogan “women in power, women in the lead” our party has made a positive step forward on the women question […..]
Maoist Communist Party Central Committee
12/25/2013Former NASA astronauts are expected to warn today that the Earth has been slammed by far more asteroids than previously thought -- including 26 impacts since 2001 that caused explosions on the scale of an atomic bomb.
Now, televangelist Pat Robertson says one of those rocks could bring about the prophesied "end times" -- just as he predicted in a 1995 novel.
"I wrote a book, I wrote a book. It's called 'The End of the Age' and it deals with an asteroid hitting the Earth," Robertson said on his show, "The 700 Club," which airs on ABC Family. "I don't see anything else that fulfills the prophetic words of Jesus Christ other than an asteroid strike. There isn't anything that will cause the seas to roil, that will cause the skies to darken, the moon and the sun not to give their light, the nations terrified on Earth saying 'what's happening?'"
Robertson pointed out that Jupiter's gravity pulls most of the bigger space rocks away from us.
But one of these days... POW!
"Hey, just get ready. Get right and stay right with the Lord," he urged in a clip posted online by The Raw Story. "It could be next week, or it could be a 1,000 years from now, but nevertheless we want to be ready at whatever time the Lord says 'I'm wrapping it up, it's time to come home.'"
Robertson has in the past used asteroid news to emphasize his doomsday prediction and plug his book.It took 10 Phoenix police and Maricopa County sheriff's officers to wrestle Ernest "Marty" Atencio to the ground during a struggle Dec. 16 in the Fourth Avenue Jail that ended with Atencio receiving CPR and leaving the facility on a stretcher.
Atencio died at a Phoenix hospital five days after the incident when his family decided to take him off life support.
Atencio's struggle with the police and sheriff's detention officers occurred about 90 minutes after he arrived at the Fourth Avenue Jail after Phoenix police arrested him on assault charges. In a jailhouse video, a Phoenix police officer can be seen placing his arm around Atencio's upper chest or neck before Atencio is taken to the floor and surrounded by the officers. Atencio kicks and struggles on the floor, surrounded by 10 officers who wrestle with him before an unidentified sheriff's deputy deploys a Taser that appears to defuse the situation.
The video later shows eight sheriff's officers surrounding Atencio in a padded cell, where they dragged the 44-year-old Gulf War veteran after he was subdued. Once in the cell, the sheriff's officers continue to struggle with Atencio, although the crowd in the small room makes it difficult to see Atencio, who is on the floor.
The Sheriff's Office on Friday released surveillance video of the fight between officers and the inmate in response to numerous requests from the media. Sheriff's officials declined further comment, citing the ongoing investigation into the struggle that ultimately ended with Atencio dead.
A Phoenix police spokesman said that the Sheriff's Office is conducting the investigation and that the video speaks for itself.
Michael Manning, an attorney representing Atencio's family, declined to comment at the request of the family. Manning said Atencio's family is "deeply grieving" his death and will schedule a memorial service after the medical examiner and an independent expert conduct an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death.
Shortly after the Taser is deployed, officers carry Atencio into a "safe cell" -- a padded room designed to reduce inmates' ability to injure themselves or others.
Eight sheriff's officers join Atencio in the cell after they drag him into the room as they continue to struggle with him and attempt to remove his clothes. After several minutes, the officers leave and Atencio remains facedown, naked and motionless with his arms around his head.
After several minutes, Atencio's stomach moves with a heaving sigh.
Less than 10 minutes later, with Atencio still motionless, the door to the cell opens and sheriff's officers enter with weapons and shields. The weapons and shields are quickly set aside and replaced with medical equipment as the security check turns into a rescue effort. The officers are joined by health-care workers, who help the officers try to revive Atencio by performing CPR and attaching a defribulator to his chest. The officers and health-care workers perform CPR for more than 10 minutes until paramedics with the Phoenix Fire Department arrive and drag Atencio's limp body into the hall, where he is loaded onto a gurney and transported to the hospital.
Atencio died at St. Joseph's Hospital on Wednesday after family members decided to take him off life support.
"He was brain-dead," Manning said at the time.Authorities seized 156 dogs and arrested several men accused of fighting dogs and betting hundreds of thousands of dollars on fights, many of which ended in the dogs’ death or serious injury.
The Tuesday arrests included eight men accused of being involved with dog fights and two others accused of selling cocaine, crack, and heroin.
• Lewis Edmond Andrews Jr., 41, of Maple Hill was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act; conspiracy to possess with the intention to distribute cocaine, crack, and heroin; attending an animal fighting venture; possessing, training, transporting and delivering animals in an animal fighting venture; distributing 28 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of crack and cocaine; distributing a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of crack and cocaine; and distributing a quantity of heroin.
• Ronnie Jeremy Thompson, 39, of Jacksonville was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act; attending an animal fighting venture; sponsoring and exhibiting animals in an animal fighting venture; and possessing, training, transporting and delivering animals in an animal fighting venture.
• Mark Anthony West, 52, of Jacksonville was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act; distributing crack within 1,000 feet of Jacksonville High School; possessing, training, transporting and delivering animals in an animal fighting venture; and attending an animal fighting venture.
• Leo Chadwick, 63, of Hubert was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act; possessing, training, transporting and delivering animals in an animal fighting venture; and attending an animal fighting venture.
• Aaron “Jit” Richardson, 41, of Jacksonville was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act; attending an animal fighting venture; and possessing, training, transporting and delivering animals in an animal fighting venture.
• Cedric Gerard Cook, 38, of Fayetteville was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act and attending an animal fighting venture.
• James David Martin, 38, of Maple Hill was charged with conspiracy to violate the animal welfare act and attending an animal fighting venture.
• James Leslie Golden II, 46, of Ayden was charged with attending an animal fighting venture.
• Randall “Slim” Jacob James, 32, of Maple Hill was charged with conspiracy to possess with the intention to distribute cocaine, crack, and heroin; and distributing 28 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of crack and cocaine.
• William “Bo” Jay Farrior, 36, of Maple Hill was charged with conspiracy to possess with the intention to distribute cocaine, crack, and heroin; distributing 28 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of crack and cocaine; and distributing a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of crack and cocaine.
The eight men are accused of conducting and attending the fights since October 2015 in eastern North Carolina, according to the indictment.
The indictment listed a number of specific dates of the men’s alleged involvement.
On Dec. 17, 2015, Andrews and Cook allegedly met to discuss dog fighting, breeding and conditioning before weighing a Pit Bull-type dog from a strap attached to the ceiling in preparation of a fight, according to the indictment.
On Dec. 19, 2015, Martin is accused of hosting a dog fight in Richlands after being paid by Andrews to do so, according to the indictment. Andrews, Cook, Golden and others are accused of constructing the fighting pit used. Andrews allegedly bet $1,000 on his Pit Bull-type dog Blondie in the fight as Blondie allegedly fought a dog from New York, according to the indictment. Blondie won and the owners of the losing dog used a gun and shovel to kill and bury the dog.
On Jan. 2, Thompson allegedly used a Pit Bull-type dog named Preacher in a “champion” fight, meaning the dogs involved had each won at least three previous fights, according to the indictment. Thompson allegedly bet $30,000 on the fight between Preacher and another dog named Pee Wee. Preacher won the fight, according to the indictment, and Pee Wee died as a result of his injuries. On the same day, Andrews is accused of meeting with an unknown person to sell a dog for $5,000.
On Feb. 6, the indictment states Chadwick allegedly had 30 Pit Bull-type dogs on his property that he was training and conditioning for fights using a treadmill and a “flirt pole,” which is used to condition dogs to chase a fast-moving lure.
Chadwick, Thompson and West allegedly took a Pit Bull-type dog named Nancy to Harrellsville for a fight, according to the indictment. Nancy won the fight while her opponent, Zelda, was hurt badly.
On Feb. 18, the N.C. Highway Patrol pulled over a Kia minivan allegedly occupied by Richardson, Andrews and an unnamed female who were traveling from Oklahoma after buying Pit Bull-type dogs, according to the indictment. Several dogs were allegedly in crates in the back of the vehicle.
On March 12, Thompson and Chadwick are accused of taking a Pit Bull-type dog named Uno to Halifax for a fight, according to the indictment. Chadwick allegedly placed a bet on the fight for West. Uno was allegedly pitted against Half Face, according to the indictment, and Uno lost.
Numerous Pit Bull-type dogs were found on a property owned by Andrews in October and November 2015, according to the indictment.
On Oct. 12, 15-to-20 Pit Bull-type dogs were found on property allegedly occupied by Thompson and Richardson, according to the indictment. Treadmills and dog medications, like steroids, were also found on the property.
On Oct. 13, approximately 15 Pit Bull-type dogs, many malnourished, and dog fighting paraphernalia were allegedly found on property owned by Chadwick, according to the indictment.
On Oct. 23, approximately 31 Pit Bull-type dogs and dog fighting paraphernalia, including a treadmill, were allegedly found on property owned by Andrews, according to the indictment.
In addition to dog fighting, Andrews is accused of having at least 28 grams of a mixture containing crack and cocaine, according to the indictment. Farrior and James were accused of having at least 28 grams of a mixture containing crack and cocaine.
The men accused of involvement in the dog fights are required to forfeit any animals involved with the offenses and any land or property is subject to forfeiture, according to the indictment.
Search warrants covered four properties where dogs used for fights and dog fighting paraphernalia was suspected to be, according to the release, and approximately 156 dogs were seized and are now being cared for by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Don Connelly, the public information officer for the Eastern District of N.C., said he was unable to comment more about the case, including how many dogs died as a result of the fights, if there is a potential for additional charges against the men or additional people charges, and how authorities became involved.
Connelly was also unable to comment on the types of injuries or how many recovered dogs were injured.
The dogs are currently in a temporary, undisclosed location, according to the release.
The Onslow County Sheriff’s Office, Jacksonville Police Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation were involved in the investigation.BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed forces have now seized control of almost 70 percent of Manbij in northern Syria from Islamic State after making rapid advances over the past two days, a spokesman said on Sunday.
Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters man a checkpoint as civilians on pick-up trucks evacuate from the southern districts of Manbij city after the SDF advanced into it in Aleppo Governorate, Syria, July 1, 2016. REUTERS/Rodi Said
Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) have pushed back the ultra hardline Sunni militants into the old quarter after seizing most of the western, eastern and southern sectors of the city, Sharfan Darwish of the SDF-allied Manbij military council told Reuters in Beirut by telephone.
“They are now mainly in the old quarter of the city and parts of the north-eastern part of the city,” Darwish added.
The SDF, which includes the powerful Kurdish YPG militia and Arab fighters, launched the campaign nearly two months ago with the backing of U.S. special forces to drive Islamic State from its last stretch of the Syrian-Turkish frontier.
Though at least 2,300 civilians have been able to escape from Manbij, thousands of residents are still trapped inside. The presence of civilians, who the militants were trying to stop from leaving, was hampering U.S. air attacks, Kurdish sources said.
Progress in storming the city had also been slowed by militants using snipers and planting mines, the Kurdish sources said.
Manbij’s loss would be a huge blow to the militants since it is a vital conduit for the transit of foreign jihadists and provisions from the Turkish border.
“The military initiative is in our hands and the campaign is now being undertaken to liberate what is left of the city and progress is continuing until this moment,” Darwish said.
Earlier the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the SDF, with the support of air strikes, had seized much of the eastern part of the besieged city after slower advances in recent weeks mainly in the western sector.
The monitor said they had captured a clinic, school and a roundabout in the heart of eastern Manbij after heavy fighting. There were no confirmed reports of casualties.
Darwish estimated at least 40,000 to 50,000 civilian residents have escaped since the campaign began.
Activists and residents say dozens of civilians have been killed this month in air strikes in the city and to the north, and rights watchdog Amnesty International said the U.S.-led coalition must do more to prevent civilian deaths.
Manbij is in the northern province of Aleppo, which forms a theater for several separate battles between multiple warring sides in Syria’s five-year-old conflict.The following chest x-rays are from a 70 year old with severe chest and interscapular back pain. What can you conclude from the x-rays?
The frontal chest x-ray shows a widening of the mediastinum. The most useful out of the two views is the lateral chest radiograph which clearly shows the thoracic aortic dilatation involving the ascending arch and the descending thoracic aorta. A prosthetic aortic valve is present and there are also sternal wires.
The clinical symptoms in combination with the x-ray features should raise suspicion for a thoracic aortic dissection.
Contrast enhanced CT chest showed aneurysmal dilatation of the aortic root, ascending, arch and the descending thoracic aorta with extensive intramural haematoma and an intimal flap in the descending aorta extending proximally as well as distally. The CT features were in keeping with a Stanford type A aortic dissection.
Preferred imaging examination for aortic dissection is contrast enhanced CT of the chest. A normal chest x-ray does not rule out an aortic dissection.
What are the chest x-ray findings of a thoracic aortic dissection?
Mediastinal widening is the most common finding (found in approximately 80% of cases).
Double aortic knob sign.
Diffuse enlargement of the aorta with poor definition of the aortic contour.
Calcium sign: inward displacement of the aortic wall calcification by more than 10mm.
Tracheal displacement to the right.
Pleural effusion (more common on the left side).
Pericardial effusion.
Displacement of the nasogastric tube.
Left apical opacity.
Reference: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/416776-overview#a19Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
There's a reason I call Rick Story the king of the spoilers. Last night he was at the height of his powers.
A spoiler is a middle of the pack competitor who can make very good guys look very average. Maybe he never breaks the top five, but no matter who he's in with, there's a good chance they won't look as good as they have before. Last night, Rick Story met Icelandic hot prospect, Gunnar Nelson in a five round tilt. In one of the best attrition performances I've seen in MMA Story wiped the floor with him. By the middle of the fourth round, it was all Story and only three people in the arena still believed in Nelson at all—unfortunately one was a judge and the other two were commentators.
Elsewhere, Rory MacDonald was able to stop Tarec Saffiedine with strikes. Also, Max Holloway put away Akira Corrasani with little trouble. And a couple of other lovely knockouts took place which we'll talk about imminently.
King of the Spoilers
It is one thing finding a gameplan to beat a fighter but it is quite another to convince your man, a ball of emotions, to actually stick to it. Rick Story has one of the finest work ethics I have seen in mixed martial arts competition. He takes the blows, he never gets upset, and he keeps doing exactly what he's been told. On this occasion he had been told to kick Gunnar Nelson's legs out, wind him with the trademark Story body shots, and keep it up for twenty-five minutes.
One of the paramount rules of mixed martial arts and striking arts in general is that movement based styles are always, always, always vulnerable to low kicks. If it's a style of lateral movement—a la Dominick Cruz, Demetrious Johnson and T.J. Dillashaw—you chop the trailing leg during their sidesteps. Against a point karate style, in and out fighter—such as Lyoto Machida, Gunnar Nelson, Stephen Thompson—you chop the trailing leg as they move back. If they eat the kicks, they'll slow down. If they check the kicks, they'll have to stop moving to do it.
If there is movement, there is a leg left behind. The problem with a karate style counter striker is that if you just run in after low kicks you'll run onto a straight and it'll be lights out. This is where feinting is important, or at least showing punches often enough that the opponent will move. These type of fighters are minimalists, they don't like showing their counters on thin air. Fake them out enough and their willingness to throw the counters will disappear.
Between low kicks and powerful rear straights and hooks to the body, Story slowed Nelson down severely round by round. To move in and out quickly, you need a leg in front of your centre of gravity, and a leg behind it so that you can push off in both directions. Pushing away from rather than dragging yourself towards a direction is the secret to quick movement.
The more of a shellacking Nelson's body and legs took, the less his stance was for moving, and the more it was for holding him up. The closer his feet came underneath his center of gravity, the slower his movement, and his punching power disappeared by the fourth round |
sanctions that target Iranian banks and assets.
And we must free ourselves from the tyranny of oil. The price of a barrel of oil is one of the most dangerous weapons in the world. Petrodollars pay for weapons that kill American troops and Israeli citizens. And the Bush administration's policies have driven up the price of oil, while its energy policy has made us more dependent on foreign oil and gas. It's time for the United States to take real steps to end our addiction to oil. And we can join with Israel, building on last year's U.S.-Israel Energy Cooperation Act, to deepen our partnership in developing alternative sources of energy by increasing scientific collaboration and joint research and development. The surest way to increase our leverage in the long term is to stop bankrolling the Iranian regime.
Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation. But that only makes diplomacy more important. If we must use military force, we are more likely to succeed, and will have far greater support at home and abroad, if we have exhausted our diplomatic efforts.
That is the change we need in our foreign policy. Change that restores American power and influence. Change accompanied by a pledge that I will make known to allies and adversaries alike: that America maintains an unwavering friendship with Israel, and an unshakeable commitment to its security.
As members of AIPAC, you have helped advance this bipartisan consensus to support and defend our ally Israel. And I am sure that today on Capitol Hill you will be meeting with members of Congress and spreading the word. But we are here because of more than policy. We are here because the values we hold dear are deeply embedded in the story of Israel.
Just look at what Israel has accomplished in 60 years. From decades of struggle and the terrible wake of the Holocaust, a nation was forged to provide a home for Jews from all corners of the world — from Syria to Ethiopia to the Soviet Union. In the face of constant threats, Israel has triumphed. In the face of constant peril, Israel has prospered. In a state of constant insecurity, Israel has maintained a vibrant and open discourse, and a resilient commitment to the rule of law.
As any Israeli will tell you, Israel is not a perfect place, but like the United States it sets an example for all when it seeks a more perfect future. These same qualities can be found among American Jews. It is why so many Jewish Americans have stood by Israel, while advancing the American story. Because there is a commitment embedded in the Jewish faith and tradition: to freedom and fairness; to social justice and equal opportunity. To tikkun olam — the obligation to repair this world.
I will never forget that I would not be standing here today if it weren't for that commitment. In the great social movements in our country's history, Jewish and African Americans have stood shoulder to shoulder. They took buses down south together. They marched together. They bled together. And Jewish Americans like Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were willing to die alongside a black man — James Chaney — on behalf of freedom and equality.
Their legacy is our inheritance. We must not allow the relationship between Jews and African Americans to suffer. This is a bond that must be strengthened. Together, we can rededicate ourselves to end prejudice and combat hatred in all of its forms. Together, we can renew our commitment to justice. Together, we can join our voices together, and in doing so make even the mightiest of walls fall down.
That work must include our shared commitment to Israel. You and I know that we must do more than stand still. Now is the time to be vigilant in facing down every foe, just as we move forward in seeking a future of peace for the children of Israel, and for all children. Now is the time to stand by Israel as it writes the next chapter in its extraordinary journey. Now is the time to join together in the work of repairing this world.Get the biggest What's On 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
Now in its 19th year, the Manchester Food and Drink Festival (MFDF) will return for 12 days of eating, drinking and showcasing top talent from the city and beyond in 2016.
The event takes place from September 29 to October 9 and will feature a new and improved festival hub in Albert Square. The bespoke, pop-up food village will be open from 12pm – 11pm every day with a whole new design and layout and some first-time additions.
In situ throughout the festival will be the city’s best mix of street food traders (from Manchester and beyond), Marstons Ale Trail Bar, Vin Van Voom Wine, the MFDF live music stage and the now legendary Manchester’s 100 Greatest Beer Bar.
The festival Bake-Off will return to the hub on October 9, where amateur bakers can enter the race to become Manchester’s second MFDF Bake Off Champion. In addition there’ll be a rolling programme of pop up events, mini festivals, masterclasses and more.
Read more:
MFDF will be an opportunity to see some of the finest talent perform gastronomic alchemy – at live cookery theatres, banquets and pop up dinner events. Confirmed culinary stars so far include Nadiya Hussain (Great British Bake Off), who will be performing in the Live Cookery Theatre and sharing her home grown baking tips on Saturday October 8.
Manchester House’s Aiden Byrne will be performing live at the festival, as well as collaborating with others for a special festival spectacular with Nacho Manzano, the three Michelin starred executive chef of Iberica, Manzano will be visiting Manchester especially for the Festival and hosting a one off, extra special MFDF event on October 4.
Susy Atkins, one of UK’s best known and loved wine writers and experts, will be stepping out of Saturday Kitchen straight to Manchester, where she’ll be performing at MFDF’s second annual Three Wine Women event on September 29.
Read more:
Adam Reid, head chef at The French by Simon Rogan and previous MFDF ‘Chef of the Year’ will be sharing secrets at the festival hub, as well as staging his very own, one-off restaurant this year. EAT With Adam will be Reid’s MFDF Festaurant on October 4, 5 and 6. Tickets will cost £60 and go on sale soon.
Jackie Kearney, author of Vegan Street Food and Masterchef runner up will be gracing MFDF with her meat and dairy free experimental vegan banquet and Ginger’s Comfort Emporium’s Claire Kelsey and the rest of her MilkJam crew, baking goddess Charlotte O’Toole of Bakeorama and Nicky Griffiths of Lush Brownieswill also be teaming up for a special pop up.
Kate Goodman, founder and owner of the award-winning Reserve Wines will be back on board at MFDF for Three Wine Women as well as The Big Indie Wine Fest at Whitworth Park on October 7 and 8.
Ramsbottom’s critically acclaimed Spanish restaurant Baratxuri will also be holding a city centre pop up restaurant at the festival, bringing their delicious Basque Country themed menu out from the suburbs and into the heart of Manchester for one night only.
Read more:
From Spain to Italy, and this year the Festival will be celebrating the country that has perhaps given the world more cuisine to treasure than anywhere else. MFDF has teamed up with Manchester restaurant Salvi’s to stage a weekend dedicated to the likes of Buffalo Mozzarella, Gorgonzola, Prosecco, pizza, gelato, olive oil, salami, Parma ham, Primativo and stacks more.
As well as inviting their favourite supplier to Manchester, Salvi’s will also be hosting a “20 Metre Pizza” street collaboration as well as dedicated ‘Italian heritage’ walks around the city.
The festival fringe will also see a host of food events across Manchester’s restaurants, bars, cafes, delis, museums and more. The full programme will be announced over the coming months, but participating venues include El Gato Negro, Hawksmoor, Iberica, Eagle and Child, Tariff and Dale, Mr Cooper’s, Albert’s Schloss, Harvey Nichols, Heaton Hops, James Martin and many more.
The Bookatable Festival Feast will be a series of limited edition, bespoke, dining menus, created by Manchester’s restaurants especially for the Manchester Food and Drink festival in association with Bookatable.
Finally, the Manchester Food and Drink Festival Gala Dinner and Awards will be taking place on October 10. Full details of the location for the Dinner and the Awards Shortlist will be announced in June.
Read more:The former mapping division of Nokia, Here, announced today plans to expand its global mapping efforts, including specific improvements to next-generation maps readable by self-driving cars. The company was acquired by a consortium of German automakers, including Audi, BMW, and Mercedes parent company Daimler, for around $3.1 billion in August. Here’s work on high-resolution, real-time maps now stands to benefit those car manufactures' autonomous efforts, while also making its standard navigation software a more attractive alternative to Google and Apple Maps.
"The closer to reality a map becomes, the less useful it tends to be. Maps have historically been abstractions of reality by necessity," the company said in a blog post. "But what if map data is not only designed for direct consumption by people, but also to be read by machines capable of processing vast quantities of information?" Here plans to use real-time anonymized driver data to improve its software and build more detailed maps, much in the same way Tesla has begun informing its new Autopilot feature with data taken directly from its electric cars.
Map data designed to be read by machines
Here says that it's open to expanding the data gathering initiative to other companies in the auto industry, and doing so would let it "accelerate the development of the next generation map needed for automated driving." Automakers may find it more appealing to work with Here rather than relying and building on free consumer software from tech companies that lacks direct access to vehicle data.The New England Patriots are beatable. Just ask rookie Geno Smith. In his most signature career win, Geno threw for 233 yards, 1 touchdown, and added 32 yards on the ground with another score. Before I detail the game, let me just recognize the top 4 receivers that day: Jeremy Kerley, David Nelson, Jeff Cumberland, Stephen Hill. Take a moment and appreciate Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker. And of course Ryan Fitzpatrick, who is playing some of his best career football when it matters most.
The day began on a high note for the Jets. Geno directed an opening drive touchdown, a 12-yard pass to Jeremy Kerley to give the Jets early momentum. Brady and the Patriots then responded with a 1-yard Brandon Bolden touchdown run. Gronk, making his season debut after missing the first 6 games with back and forearm injuries, had a key 30-yard reception on that drive.
Geno Smith threw a pick 6 on the next possession, giving the Pats a momentum-swinging 14-7 lead. After a Jets field goal, the Patriots scored again on a 17-yard run by current Jet, Stevan Ridley. Kenbrell Thompkins also played for the Patriots at the time, catching 2 passes for 16 yards against the Jets. 21-10 Patriots at the half.
On just the second play of the 2nd half, Brady was looking for Gronk on a cross, but was intercepted by Antonio Allen, who returned it for a touchdown. 21-17 Pats. That is also the Jets' last pick 6. After a pair of Pats punts, Geno directed a much needed scoring drive, this time on an 8-yard scramble for a touchdown. A 27-yard pass to David Nelson on a 3rd down and 5 was the key play on this drive. 24-21 Jets. Gang Green held Brady in check on the next possession, forcing another punt. Nick Folk then tacked on 3 more for a 27-21 Jets lead with 2 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter. The Patriots would eventually tie the game on a pair of field goals after the Jets offense could not close out the game down the stretch. 27-27 heading into Overtime.
After the Patriots won the toss and elected to receive, the Jets defense came up with a huge stop to force a punt. That Patriots drive looked promising after a 16-yard completion to Gronk. After getting into field goal range, Nick Folk lined up for the game winning 56-yarder. He pulled it wide left, but New England's Chris Jones was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after pushing his teammate into the Jets formation. It was the first time in NFL history this penalty was called. The 15-yard penalty put Folk in much better position, and he connected on the 41-yarder to give the Jets a 30-27 win.
Beating Brady at MetLife. It's happened before. In the biggest game since the 2010 playoffs, it needs to happen again for the Jets.Media playback is not supported on this device Vettel goes for a spin around New York
Fresh doubt has been cast over whether next year's Grand Prix of America will go ahead as planned in New Jersey.
Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone told BBC Sport the race would "definitely" not happen, before saying that it would if the track were ready in time.
Race president Tom Cotter insisted the track was ahead of schedule.
But on Saturday, when asked by the BBC News Channel's Inside F1 programme if New Jersey would happen, Ecclestone said: "No. Definitely, no."
It is the second time in two months the F1 chief has expressed reservations about the race.
"We'll have to see, I need to go and have another look," Ecclestone said. "What I've seen up to now, and what's been going on, I'm not quite as sure as they are.
"If they can get it completed and confirm to us it will be done, for sure, they'll be on the calendar."
Sebastian Vettel on the New Jersey track being ready "If they can do that (the Freedom Tower) in one year, it shouldn't be a big problem to lay some Tarmac and put some fences up."
Previously, at the Chinese Grand Prix in April, also in a BBC interview, Ecclestone said: "Maybe the New York race will be 2013. It's if they're going to finish everything - it's a case of when."
The event, which runs along a street course overlooking the Hudson River and Manhattan skyline, is planned to be twinned with the Canadian Grand Prix next June.
Cotter said it would run the week after the Montreal race.
The New Jersey organisers held a promotional event last week at which world champion Sebastian Vettel drove the track layout in a road car.
The Red Bull driver said: "The circuit is not anywhere near close to being ready, but as I said, it would be great.
"I think you can do a lot in one year. It was exactly one year since I last went to New York. They are building the Freedom Tower in Manhattan, and it's nearly done.
"If they can do that in one year, it shouldn't be a big problem to lay some Tarmac and put some fences up."
On the subject of a potential grand prix around the Olympic Stadium in London, Ecclestone said: "We're talking."
He added that it was "a couple of years away" before it could happen.
BBC F1 co-commentator David Coulthard was in New Jersey for the promotional event and drove the track.
He said: "They think they're ahead of schedule. They're talking about 12 months from now, but it's a lot of work - the road is so bowed in the middle. That's the main thing they have to do to have a proper street track."After police killed Eric Garner, I reviewed the use of chokeholds in New York City. The NYPD has acknowledged for decades that chokeholds are potentially deadly. New York City cops have been explicitly forbidden from using chokeholds since 1993. But neither the known dangers of chokeholds nor the policy disallowing them has stopped the NYPD from using the discredited tactic hundreds of times each year.
The civilian board that reviews allegations of NYPD abuse has stated in a report on chokeholds that the NYPD failed to adequately enforce its own chokehold ban.
Now another overseer has bolstered that criticism.
"The first investigation by New York City’s police inspector general includes the finding that in several cases where officers were found to have used a chokehold, the banned maneuver was the officer’s initial physical response to verbal resistance," The New York Times reports. The report examined 10 cases in which officers used chokeholds. "In each instance, the agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, recommended stiff discipline. However, in the cases that have been decided so far, officers were given little or no punishment by the Police Department."
The New York Daily News adds: "In nine of the cases, CCRB recommended the toughest sanction possible, departmental charges. In every case the cop got lesser punishment ranging from no punishment at all to the loss of five vacation days."Syrian efforts to acquire and maintain an arsenal of date to the mid-1970s. Regional security concerns, most notably Syria's adversarial relationship with Israel, were the motivations behind Syria's chemical weapons program. The Syrian regime’s chemical weapons have been used to devastating effect against both combatants and civilians during the Syrian Civil War.
For decades, Syria elected not to join the, claiming it could not unilaterally renounce chemical weapons as long as Israel continued to pose a threat to its security. [1] In the fall of 2013, however, following a United Nations investigation into the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the Assad regime acceded to the CWC and declared its chemical weapons stockpiles to the. [2] The confidential declaration showed that Syria possessed large stockpiles of sulfur,, and nerve gas, as well as various precursor chemicals. [3] Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpile was destroyed by January 2016, but Western officials and the OPCW doubted that the regime had completely and accurately declared its entire stockpile. [4] Continued chemical weapons attacks, including the use of chlorine and a in Douma on 7 April 2018, as well as reported North Korean assistance to an enduring Syrian chemical weapons program, suggest that chemical weapons remain a threat inside the country. [5]
History
1972 to 1986: The Israeli Threat and Initial CW Imports
Defensive CW equipment was among the first CW-related imports by Syria in the 1970s and 1980s. Imported protective capabilities included military vehicles from the Soviet Union fitted with chemical protection systems, as well as a full range of decontamination equipment. [6] Syria also purchased more than 11,000 Chinese MF-11 protective masks. [7]
Press and U.S. government sources indicate that Syria first obtained chemical weapons from Egypt on the eve of its attack on Israel in October 1973. [8] Reports that Israeli troops captured stockpiles of Syrian chemical weapons support the view that Syrian combat troops received these weapons during the Yom Kippur war. [9] Notably, although Syrian forces suffered severe defeat, at no point did they chemical weapons. However, Syrian-born security analyst M. Zuhair Diab and Israeli military analysts suggested that Syria may have planned to use its chemical arsenal only in the event of a total military collapse. [10]
Suboptimal military coordination among Syria, Egypt, and Iraq during the 1973 Yom Kippur War revealed fissures in Arab unity against Israel. The 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty deprived Syria of an important military ally against the Israeli threat, driving it to pursue greater military self-sufficiency. M. Zuhair Diab noted that the near-disastrous clashes with Israeli forces during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 exposed Syria's land and air vulnerabilities, and further motivated Syria's military to acquire chemical weapons. [11]
Other regional developments may have motivated Syria's pursuit of a CW capability, including water-sharing conflicts with Turkey over the Euphrates River, and Turkish allegations of Syrian support for Kurdish terrorism. [12] Perhaps more directly troublesome to Syrian leadership, the Soviet Union chose to support Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, weakening Syria's partnership with the USSR and further isolating Syria. [13] The combination of increased political isolation and observed military deficiencies vis-à-vis Israel provided incentives for Syria to develop a self-sufficient CW capability.
1986 to 2011: Building CW Self-Sufficiency
Despite Israeli media reports that Syria began developing an indigenous chemical production capability as early as 1971, most reports indicate that Syria's CW production capability came online sometime in the mid-1980s. [14] In 1983, a U.S. Special National Intelligence Estimate first identified a Syrian CW production facility. A 2014 disclosure by the British government revealed that by 1986 Syria had obtained hundreds of tons of precursor chemicals, including trimethyl phosphite, dimethyl phosphite and hydrogen fluoride from the United Kingdom, and other technology for developing nerve agents such as sarin gas. [15] By 1990, both media and statements by U.S. officials indicated that Syria had converted several agrochemical factories into sarin production facilities. By 1997, both U.S. and Israeli sources claimed that Syria's CW program included production facilities in Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo and could produce sarin, mustard, and potentially VX. [16] Reports throughout the 1990s pointed to continuing Syrian work on VX agents, but also indicated a lack of success. [17]
The United States has banned the sale of sarin and mustard precursors to Syria since the 1980s. [18] However, by the early 1990's, reports of illicit trade began to emerge. In 1996, Russian authorities charged retired Lieutenant General Anatoliy Kuntsevich with shipping 800-kilograms of precursor chemicals to Syria. [19] Although these charges were eventually dropped, Israeli press reported that Kuntsevich later admitted to the transfer of nerve agent precursors. [20]
From 2002 to 2006, reports from the U.S. Director of Central Intelligence repeated that "Damascus already held a stockpile of the nerve agent sarin, but apparently tried to develop more toxic and persistent nerve agents." [21] The 2009 and 2010 versions of this report drew similar conclusions, including that "Syria remains dependent on foreign sources for key elements of its CW program, including precursor chemicals." [22] Relatively few open source reports of Syrian tests on CW agents or delivery systems emerged during this time. [23] The most recent publicly described test, a Syrian missile test in July 2001, probably involved the use of a simulated chemical warhead. [24] During the early 2000s, Syria's CW program maintained a very low profile, although Jane's Defense continued to report on foreign support for the development of chemical warheads for missiles and other delivery systems. [25]
2011 to 2013: Outbreak of Civil War and Initial CW Use
The outbreak of civil unrest in late 2011 raised questions about both the security of Syria's chemical weapons sites and the potential use or transfer of these weapons. On 23 July 2012, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi stated that Syria would never use "any chemical and biological weapons … inside Syria…that the Syrian army was storing …all stocks of these weapons…" securely, and that such weapons would only be used in the event of "external aggression." [26] Subsequently, Makdissi tried to walk back this apparent acknowledgement of Syria's possession of and, something Syria had previously denied. [27]
As the conflict intensified, the international community became increasingly concerned that Syrian President Assad might use chemical weapons amid Syria's deteriorating security situation and rebel gains. Between late November and early December 2012, Western intelligence agencies obtained clear evidence that Syrian government units were preparing chemical weapons for potential use, including mixing precursor chemicals and loading chemical weapons onto special military transport vehicles. [28] The first reported use of chemical weapons occurred in late December 2012 in Homs, Syria. Civilians were treated for symptoms of chemical exposure such as nausea, vomiting, difficulty breathing, blurred vision, lack of muscle control, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. [29]
A few months later, on 19 March 2013, allegations arose concerning a chemical weapons attack in the village of Khan al-Assal in the Aleppo province. According to the Assad regime, a rocket spewing toxic gas caused 26 fatalities and more than 100 injuries. Both the Assad regime and Syrian rebels denied responsibility for the alleged attack. [30] At the request of the Syrian Government, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon appointed Åke Sellström, on 27 March 2013, to head a fact-finding mission to investigate the incident. Initially, the Assad Government denied the team entrance into Syria, stalling for four months before granting UN inspectors permission to visit the country on 31 July 2013. [31]
On the morning of 21 August 2013, video footage emerged of a chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, just outside of Damascus. According to initial reports and video footage, the attack involved an organized strike on a large area that utilized rockets as dispersal mechanisms. Hospitals and make-shift medical centers reported patients suffering from convulsions, immobilization, breathing difficulties, dilated pupils, cold limbs, and foaming at the mouth. Doctors Without Borders reported that three hospitals within its network confirmed 355 deaths and approximately 3,600 casualties with neurotoxic symptoms, while a U.S. government assessment placed the number of dead at 1,429 people. [32] The Syrian government eventually granted the UN inspection team access to areas of Ghouta after stalling for five days. [33] In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the United States tried to rally support to conduct limited military strikes against Assad's forces, but was only able to gain French support.
2013 to 2014: Dismantling Syria’s CW Stockpile
As the U.S. Congress prepared to vote on whether to attack Syria, on 10 September 2013, the Syrian Government made the unexpected decision to place its chemical weapons stockpile under international control, and committed to joining the Chemical Weapons Convention. Four days later, Russia and the United States reached a deal on a framework to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. [34] The framework called for Syria to submit a comprehensive list of its chemical weapons within one week, for inspectors to return to Syria by November 2013, and for the destruction of all chemical weapons to take place by mid-2014. [35] Syria met its initial obligations by providing two lists of its chemical weapons. [36] According to the OPCW's initial findings, the Syrian arsenal included 1,000 metric tons of Category I chemical weapons, 290 tons of Category II chemicals, and 1,230 Category III unfilled delivery systems such as rockets. [37]
Two days after the framework was agreed upon, the United Nations released its much-anticipated report, stating that the UN had "clear and convincing" evidence that sarin gas was used in the 21 August attacks in Ghouta. [38] While the report did not attribute responsibility for the attack, report details, such as the use of M-14 and 330m rocket artillery and estimated trajectories, suggested that the Assad regime was responsible for the attacks, as the rebels did not possess the type of rockets used. [39] The United States, the United Kingdom, and France accepted the UN report as confirmation of the Assad regime's role in the attacks but Russia stated that the report was "distorted" and "one-sided," and maintained that the Assad regime did not conduct the attacks. [40]
On 27 September 2013, the OPCW adopted a decision on the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, which called for the destruction of all chemical weapons production and mixing facilities by 1 November 2013, and the destruction of all chemical weapons by mid-2014. [41] On 14 October 2013, the Chemical Weapons Convention for Syria, and by 31 October, Syria had met the Phase I deadline of eliminating all of its production and mixing capabilities. [42]
Destruction of Syria’s declared chemical weapons took place outside Syrian territory. On 7 July 2014, the United States began neutralizing 600 tons of sulfur mustard agent and DF, a sarin gas precursor, aboard the U.S. Cape Ray, a cargo ship equipped with a hydrolysis system stationed in the Mediterranean Sea. [43] An additional 200 tons of various chemical precursors were sent to the United Kingdom for destruction. [44] On 4 January 2016, the OPCW announced the complete destruction of Syria’s 1,328 metric tons of declared chemical weapons agents. [45]
2014-2017: Continued CW Use and Undeclared Capabilities
While the destruction of Syria’s declared chemical weapons was hailed as a great achievement, questions remained over the completeness of Syria’s chemical weapons declaration. Samples taken by the OPCW at the Syrian military research site “Institute 3000” (in May 2014 and January 2016), revealed the presence of DIPAE sulfonic acid and DIPA ethanol, chemicals present in the initial stages of VX breakdown. Inspectors also found traces of pinacolyl alcohol at the facility, which is a precursor for the nerve agent soman and has no peaceful uses. [46] In May 2015, it was revealed that OPCW inspectors found traces of sarin and VX at an undeclared military facility during testing in December 2014 and January 2015. [47]
Chemical attacks steadily continued in the wake of the OPCW-UN mission to Syria’s chemical weapons apparatus. Medical aid groups estimate that there have been 198 chemical attacks in the country since 2012, with a majority occurring since the OPCW-UN mission. [48] Heated debate over attributing responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria led to the creation of a new investigative body- the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM). Established on 7 August 2015 by the, the body’s mandate was to identify the perpetrators, organizers, sponsors, or other parties involved in the use of chemical weapons in Syria. [49]
Reports emerged later in August of the use of mustard agent by ISIS against Kurdish forces in Iraq and Northern Syria, as well as against civilians in the town of Marea, Syria. [50] It was suggested that ISIS may have obtained the mustard agent from clandestine Syrian government chemical weapons caches, giving the international community another reason to doubt the completeness of Syria’s initial chemical weapons declarations. [51] On 24 August 2016 and 21 October 2016, the JIM released its first two substantive reports confirming ISIS’s use of sulfur mustard in Marea on 21 August 2015. In the same reports, the JIM formally attributed the chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 to the Assad regime. [52] ISIS deployed sulfur mustard again on 16 September 2016 in the village of Um-Housh, north of Aleppo. An OPCW fact finding mission confirmed the presence of sulfur mustard in a report dated 1 May 2017, and the JIM later confirmed ISIS as the perpetrator. [53]
On 13 December 2016, it was reported that an alleged chemical gas attack killed at least 93 people in villages located in ISIS-controlled territory, west of Palmyra. Witnesses claimed that the smell of the gas “was distinct from the smell of chlorine.” Reported symptoms included coughing, foaming at the mouth, suffocation, convulsions, involuntary urination, and constricted irises, all possible indicators of exposure to nerve agents. [54] The OPCW released a statement calling the allegations concerning and said that its fact-finding mission would investigate, though a report has yet to be released as of early 2018. [55]
On 12 January 2017, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the first set of U.S. specifically related to the regime's use of chemical weapons. It sanctioned eighteen senior Syrian officials in response to the findings of the Joint Investigative Mechanism that the Syrian regime used chlorine as a weapon against civilians. [56] A month later, on 28 February 2017, the UN Security Council failed to adopt a draft resolution to impose sanctions on entities involved in the production or use of chemical weapons in Syria. China, Bolivia and the Russian Federation vetoed the draft resolution. The Russian representative slammed the resolution and the work of the JIM as politically motivated and “laying the groundwork for regime change” in Syria. [57]
On 4 April 2017, there were reports of a sarin gas attack on the village of Khan Sheikhoun, 30 miles south of the city of Idlib. Hospitals and clinics treating victims of the alleged chemical attack were subsequently bombed. The Syrian regime denied responsibility but a declassified U.S. National Security Council report claimed Syrian government forces launched the attack, which killed between 80 and 100 people, many of them children. [58] Two days later, the United States launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at Al-Shayrat airbase, after determining it was the location from which the chemical attack was launched. [59]
In a report released on 30 June 2017, the OPCW fact-finding mission concluded that sarin or a sarin-like substance was used in Khan Sheikhoun on 4 April. [60] The JIM released the results of its own investigation fourth months later. In its report dated 26 October 2017, the JIM confirmed that sarin was used and attributed the attack to the Assad regime. The JIM also revealed that the sarin used in Khan Sheikhoun was likely manufactured from precursor chemicals found in the government’s original CW stockpiles- the same ones at the center of the 2014 OPCW-UN mission to dismantle Syria’s chemical weapons program. [61] Later, it emerged that the OPCW compared the sarin samples from Khan Sheikhoun to sarin samples from Ghouta and Khan al-Assal. It found matching chemical signatures in all three samples, linking the Syrian government to the Ghouta and Khan al-Assal attacks. [62]
On 6 November 2017, the OPCW fact-finding mission announced that during its investigation into the Khan Sheikhoun attack, it found credible evidence that sarin was also used in the town of Ltamenah on 30 March 2017. [63]
Recent Developments and Current Status
Following the publication of the OPCW and JIM reports, tensions rose between the United States and Russia. Russia criticized the work of the JIM, calling its investigation into the Khan Sheikhoun attack biased and “amateurish,” while the United States accused Russia of protecting Assad. [64] Tensions peaked on 17 November 2017, when the UN Security Council failed to extend the mandate of the JIM, terminating the mechanism. Russia vetoed two resolutions to extend the mechanism, allowing it to expire. [65] The UN Security Council has yet to replace the JIM as of April 2018. [66] France, along with 30 other countries, launched the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons on 23 February 2018. The partnership does not replace the JIM but aims to facilitate cooperation and information sharing among states dedicated to combating chemical weapons use. [67]
In March 2018, the UN Panel of Experts tasked with investigating North Korean sanctions evasion released a report detailing cooperation between the two countries on Syria’s various WMD programs. According to the report, Syria received special resistance valves and thermometers associated with chemical weapons production, as well as 13 shipping containers full of acid-resistant tiles, which could be used inside a chemical factory. [68] On 7 April 2018, reports of a large chemical weapons attack emerged from the rebel-held town of Douma, a suburb of Damascus. Eyewitness accounts from civilians and medical workers described individuals with symptoms indicating exposure to chlorine gas, as well as an unidentified nerve agent. Various monitoring groups put the death toll at around 49 individuals. The Syrian regime denied responsibility and blamed rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta for the attack. [69] Russia and Iran tried to defend the Syrian government by denying that the attack occurred, and then shifting the blame to the Syrian Civil Defense Force (known as the White Helmets) and the United Kingdom. [70] On 10 April 2018, The OPCW announced that it would deploy a fact-finding mission to Douma to clarify details of the attack, including the exact chemical agents used. [71] The same day, the UN Security Council voted on competing resolutions by the United States and Russia to revive a mechanism to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria. The Security Council failed to adopt either resolution. [72] In response to the attack on Douma, on 14 April 2018, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France carried out airstrikes against three targets associated with the regime’s chemical weapons program. The targets were a chemical weapons research and development center in the Barzeh district of Damascus, as well as two chemical weapons storage sites outside the city of Homs. [73]
Sources:
[1] Congressional Research Service, “Syria’s Chemical Weapons: Issues for Congress,” 30 September 2013.
[2] OPCW, “Syria’s Accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention Enters Into Force,” 14 October 2013, www.opcw.org.
[3] “Syria’s Chemical Weapons Stockpile,” BBC News, 30 January 2014, www.bbc.com.
[4] Colum Lynch, David Kenner, “U.S. and Europe Say Assad May Have Kept Some Chemical Weapons,” Foreign Policy, 23 August 2016, www.foreignpolicy.com.
[5] Liz Sly, Suzan Haidamous, and Asma Ajroudi, “Nerve gas used in Syria attack, leaving victims ‘foaming at the mouth,’ evidence suggests,” The Washington Post, 11 April 2018, www.washingtonpost.com; Edith M. Lederer, “UN experts link North Korea to Syria’s chemical weapons program,” Chicago Tribune, 27 February 2018, www.chicagotribune.com.
[6] Gordon M. Burck and Charles C. Flowerree, International Handbook on Chemical Weapons Proliferation (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), p. 215.
[7] Gordon M. Burck and Charles C. Flowerree, International Handbook on Chemical Weapons Proliferation (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), p. 215.
[8] |
industry and this is how gamers behave.
I'm not really sure what the best way to organise this would be, and the things I'm going to describe don't really fit together in a clear way, so what I'm going to do is list a number of the incidents that I witnessed and then at the end try to tie it all up with some conclusions that I think can be drawn.
I'm clearly making some pretty serious allegations here and there's a lot of room for things to be misinterpreted, so I'm going to offer a series of caveats and explanations before I get going.
CAVEATS
I'm not going to name the company this took place at because I think that would distract from the real issue here. The company did do an extremely poor job of dealing with these issues but they certainly didn't cause them. I am, however, writing this under my real name, because I want it to be clear that I think it's more important that this information gets out in the open than it is to protect my career prospects.
I will only be listing incidents that I personally witnessed and that I kept written records of. This means that I'm leaving out anything second hand and anything that might be distorted by my memory. As you can imagine, this means that I'm actually leaving out the majority of incidents that transpired.
While I don't know if anyone other than me has raised these issues with management, I do know that a number of my co-workers - both male and female - have raised them with me. To that end, I want it to be clear that I'm not accusing everyone at the company of engaging in this kind of behaviour; there were plenty of reasonable, respectful people, but this is sadly another instance where the jerks ruin it for everyone.
Finally, I want it to be clear that I'm not saying that these attitudes or behaviour were caused by playing video games. What I AM saying is that the game industry and gamer communities often reinforce these attitudes and that it's time for people to step up and put a stop to it.
So, with those explanations out of the way, here are some of the incidents that I witnessed (these all took place in common work areas with numerous people present).
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
A conversation that began with the comment that one particular woman was stupid, then a follow up conversation about how ALL women are stupid, followed by someone clarifying that it's actually only attractive women who are all stupid.
Conversations about how men should go about trying to make women at bars feel poorly about themselves to make them more likely to have sex with them.
When the issue of sexual harassment was raised, one of the leads declared that, in retaliation, a bunch of employees should open up MS Word on their computers and write "BITCH" in large letters across the screen. Clearly the implication was that female employees should know their role, accept their treatment, and be quiet. Unknown to the people involved, it was me and not a woman who had brought the issue to management's attention.
The same lead, in response to the issue being raised again by management, changed his phone's ringtone so that it would loudly play a clip of someone saying "BITCH!" every time he received a call or text message. He then went on to say in an unusually loud voice (making sure everyone in the area could hear him) that that sexism (as well as racism and homophobia) were standard behaviour for the video game industry, that anyone who works there should expect to be treated in that way, and that anyone who didn't like it should go find another industry to work in.
Another employee, also in response, suggested that they find a way to change the name of the WiFi server we used to "Sexual Harassment". That employee then went on later in the day to repeatedly interrupt a female employee every time she tried to express her opinion on a design issue by saying "Who cares, go make me a sandwich!"
Constant references to women as "bitches".
An employee who used his cell phone camera on the subway to take pictures of women's asses to show off to co-workers.
An employee who frequently wore shirts with phrases like "Me, you, and your mom."
An employee who frequently wore a shirt that said "Dead girls can't say no."
A producer one day noticed that someone was having trouble getting a battery out of a device. He told the employee that "You've got to treat it like a bitch!" He then proceeded to slap the phone into his hand before shouting "Take that you whore!"
You could practically write a novel about how frequently some of the women who worked there were hit on by male co-workers; many of these men continually asked the female employees out on dates even if they had previously said they were already in a relationship or otherwise not interested.
CONCLUSION
I've left out a large number of incidents because this is already getting pretty long, but that list is pretty illustrative of the range of things that occurred on a near-daily basis at times, from the petty and childish ("women are all stupid!") to the attempts to scare women out of the office ("if you don't like it then leave!").
It's worth noting that these issues were well known to management - I know that they were because I raised them myself on numerous occasions. No action was ever taken against any of these employees, and as far as I know, the lead who made the most appalling comments is still employed by the company in a supervisory position.
While sexist behaviour is present to some degree in most work places, and sexual harassment takes place in all sorts of industries, I've never witnessed anything like what I witnessed working in the game industry. The harassment of female employees was constant and unrelenting. A co-worker once said to me "I don't know why all the women who work here haven't quit already." It's a sentiment I understood.
The reason I'm writing this is because it's time for the men in this industry to step up. That means people in management need to enforce harassment policies and take serious action against people who engage in harassing behaviour. It means that men need to recognise how harmful this kind of behaviour is and put a stop to it. Tell your co-workers to cut it out. It also means not standing for this kind of behaviour in broader gaming communities, like forums and enthusiast web sites. It means that, when these incidents occur, we need to make it known that sexism is not going to be tolerated in our communities, that women are respected and welcome members of those communities, and that men who insist on being jerks are not. If you're not in junior high then you need to stop acting like you are. Time to grow up, game industry.THE FIRST thing I wanted to talk about is Kraken, since it’s your latest novel and a number of people here in the states are still reading through it. The big question I want to ask is about the power of belief—you might even say faith—in the book. It’s central to both the cosmology and the thematic content of Kraken, and what’s really striking is the way that you look at the various cults, gods, and magics that populate this mystical version of London without falling into the sneering attitude of some of the fashionable new atheism. Can you talk about all this?
IT’S INTERESTING the formulation you use, because I would definitely say faith. I’m not even wholly convinced that belief and faith are exactly coterminous, but I would have to think about that. As you probably know, I’m an atheist, and have been for most of my conscious adult life, but I’ve always been very, very, very interested in faith. I see it as quite a specific thing and not necessarily solely reducible to belief.
I’ve always been very interested in it as a sociological phenomenon, and as an aesthetic phenomenon. For example, a lot of the poetry that I like most is informed by, driven by, and is indeed an expression of faith. I’m quite an admirer of a lot of ecstatic religious poetry. People like Christopher Smart, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Francis Thompson, and others. So I’ve always been interested in faith from that perspective. I’ve also been interested in it from a sociological perspective, the way that faith intersects with political action and rationality and the faux opposition between faith and rationality.
This is where we lead into the thing that you’re talking about with the currently fashionable new atheism. I have extremely little sympathy for the au courant style of crude atheism associated with people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. I suppose it’s based on several things. Above all my antipathy is based on the fact that it seems to be extremely bad sociology. It’s also bad and ignorant theology. I’m not interested in theology in and of itself, although their views on theology are very ignorant, but it’s mostly their bad sociology. It’s all predicated on this notion that religious faith is founded on an intellectual error, and that to me is just staggeringly wrongheaded. No matter what else you think about faith, that is not what it is. So to criticize it on those grounds is wildly missing the point.
Now obviously religions do make truth claims, and those truth claims can be evaluated, so it’s not totally divorced from the issue of rationality. But the idea that that is what it’s essentially reducible to, and therefore you can criticize it on those grounds, just strikes me as a willfully naïve or stupid way of understanding the way that faith and religion intersect with everyday life, with perceived reality and political reality and so on.
For me it’s also a question of courtesy. I’m a very polite boy. I don’t think there is any contradiction between being a radical and being courteous. Except with outright enemies. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t my major drive, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t understand why we should be unnecessarily rude to people that haven’t done anything to us. It seems that there’s a kind of swashbuckling to the new atheist posturing that likes the performance, and likes to pitch itself as a kind of embattled minority striking a blow for intellectual freedom. I just don’t think that’s what it is.
This courtesy issue comes in when you see, for example, things like the “Draw a Muhammad Day” that was on Facebook. Loads of people were involved with that—and you’ve got your hard Islamophobes, your hard racists who were around things like the “Ground Zero mosque”—but this “Draw a Muhammad Day” involved an enormous number of people who were not hard racists. A lot of liberals and civil libertarians were involved in this. Obviously if you’re a socialist you have an analysis of Muslims being particularly the target of racism at the moment and it being a sort of political exigency to stand alongside of them. But even if you strip that out, and you take it on its own terms—the terms of that kind of attack—they’re still like, “Oh these people are trying to stop us from drawing Muhammad.” My response is kind of like, “Were you doing a lot of drawing Muhammad? Has this really fucked with your day?”
I don’t want to suggest that it should be illegal to draw Muhammad, but I do think it’s reasonable to act like a civilized person and say—everything else being equal—if you don’t have an urgent need to do something which is going to unnecessarily offend your neighbor, why do it? Again, that’s not my primary political motivation, but I think it’s a baseline kind of decency that’s missing from the debate.
I’ve kind of veered from the subject, but I’m fascinated by faith. I find it very interesting. But there’s also a more meta-textual component in Kraken. One of the standard tropes in SF/fantasy—particularly fantasy for a long time—has been the strange cult. And so, as much as being an examination of real religion, it was intended to be an affectionate investing in that trope of the weird fantastic cults. It’s as much a reference to the Cthulhu cult as it is to do with any sort of religion.
THAT SORT of relates to another question about the nature of Kraken in comparison to some of your other work. This book is riddled with all sorts of absurdly comedic elements—the existential crisis provoked by an obsession with Star Trek, or a picket line of pigeons, as examples. Can you talk about how deliberate this move toward comedy in a genre sense was in the writing of this novel?
YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY right, and it was very conscious. Most of my books, with the possible exception of Un Lun Dun, which is a children’s book, are quite—I hate the adjective “dark” because it always seems aggrandizing and ridiculous, but they tend to be on the bleak side. Which I’m fine with. But for this particular book I wanted to write something that was self-consciously a comedy. I had been reading a bit of Thomas Pynchon, and one of the things that I always found striking about Pynchon was the extent to which a lot of his books are comedies. Against the Day and even Gravity’s Rainbow both have comedic elements. Maybe it’s kind of a wanker thing to say, but there are sections in Gravity’s Rainbow that just make me cackle every time I read them.
One of the things I kept in mind when writing Kraken is that I think there are often structural problems with comedies. A lot of the time they fail for two reasons. One is that they rely a lot on a setup-response sort of construction. It will often go something like: Setup sentence. Beat. And then, “Boom,” you’re going in for the punch line. I think at their worst comedy books can be quite needy, because they always are striving toward the laugh, and the love, and that kind of thing. I find that a bit oppressive, but I love the way Pynchon manages to do it in a way that doesn’t feel needy at all. It feels like you’re pitched into an absurdist universe which is, in and of itself, quite comic. Obviously I come much more out of an overtly pulp tradition than the genre tradition of Pynchon, but something of that I wanted to kind of get into. Particularly because I love the geek culture that I’m part of, but I’m also very aware of its absurdities—the absurdity of the collector, the absurdity of the fan, and all that sort of stuff. (Speaking as an insider I’m allowed to say these sorts of things.)
So, yes, I wanted Kraken to be a comedy, and I like the idea of a comedy about the end of the world. I like the idea of a comedy about a giant squid. I don’t think it will ever be my primary mode. I did it, and I enjoyed it, and I know a reasonable number of readers haven’t been bowled over by it—it’s divided readers. Having done it once now, maybe every few books I’ll try to do something more comedic, but I really wanted to write something that was self-consciously a comedy for the sake of doing it.
CAN YOU talk a bit about the reception to the shifting of gears that you’ve done a little bit of now—jumping from SF to mystery to comedy (Kraken being a comedy, The City & the City being a mystery, and so on)—how concerned are you with alienating your audience, considering how judgmental geek culture can be?
WELL, I’M concerned at the most abstract level, which is that I have the great fortune to be paid to write fiction, and if I constantly alienate too many people, ultimately I will stop being paid. I would be very sad if I weren’t able to make money as a writer. But that’s a baleful horizon that I don’t think about very often.
For the most part, on the ground, I’m not very concerned about it. That’s mostly because I think I’ve been very lucky with my readership. I’ve been doing this for over ten years now—which, parenthetically, constantly amazes me. Particularly in geek culture you end up with a sort of relationship—perhaps a closer and more direct-feeling relationship—with your readers than in some other fields. I think you can end up with a collaborative relationship with your readers, or, if you want to sound very provocative, you could say that you can train your readers. In fact, many of them are happy to be trained, but I think of it more as collaboration.
I think over the last ten years I’ve been able to establish a relationship with a reasonable hard core of my readers whereby I’m saying, “I’m quite interested in trying to do different things, which will make a much more interesting oeuvre. One of the correlatives of that is that each novel is going to differ from the last. Inevitably, that will mean there will be some that you like more than the others.” I guess what I’m asking of people is that, hopefully, even if you don’t like every book, the project of trying to do different things will be worth it in the long run—and more interesting than the alternative. Even if you don’t love a specific book, maybe you’ll say, “At least I’m glad he’s not just doing the same thing again and again.”
I think I’ve been very lucky with this. I’m not naïve. I think that if I just constantly wrote things that no one liked I wouldn’t be able to do this at all. But I think that my readers have been quite open to me doing a bit of experimentation. I don’t think that’s true of everyone’s readers, but I’m quite lucky.
I also think that you can’t get caught up in the idea of trying to give people what they want as a writer. I really do feel quite strongly that my job is not to give people what they want, but to make people want what I give. I may or may not be successful in that, but that’s the effort. So I never think, “Well, what are people going to enjoy?” I think, “How am I going to make people enjoy and be compelled by the stuff that I’m trying to do?”
Don’t get me wrong; it always makes me sad when some readers don’t like some of the books. I’m as needy as most writers (though I don’t think that everything I do is completely flawless and perfect), but overall I think readers are less hidebound than they are sometimes portrayed to be.
STEERING BACK toward Kraken, one of the most important and interesting characters was Wati—the lead organizer of a general strike of magical familiars. I think that his whole character, and the strike’s portrayal in the novel, is a great representation of the way you stand above some other SF writers in the ability to delve into the class nature of the worlds that you create. It’s something that is hauntingly lacking (at least for socialists) from even the most well constructed of fantastical worlds. There simply isn’t a perspective around what makes society run. My question for you is why do you think that element is so lacking in most SF or fantasy, and how approaching things from a Marxist perspective helps shape your fiction?
IF I can answer the latter question first, it’s simply not something that I’m conscious of. I never think, “As a Marxist, how do I construct this fantasy world?” I never think of this stuff at all, I just sort of get on with it. I think in a sense, usually when asked about it and it’s considered afterward, it’s a function of the fact that, if you’re a socialist, if you’re a Marxist, then class—and certainly other issues, like racism or sexism, but class in particular—is a structuring mode of society. Thus when you’re constructing imaginary worlds in your head, how can you not focus around that? It’s not an optional add-in in the sense of thinking, “Oh! Got to bring in class into this!” It’s how I see the world.
If you think for example of New Crobuzon [the fantasy world created in Miéville’s Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council], you have to think, “What makes New Crobuzon keep ticking?” It’s like the Brecht question in “Questions from a Worker Who Reads.” I think that if you’re a socialist you’ve sort of imbibed that, and it becomes second nature to you. You know, The pyramids, who made them? Who cooked for that king? So this isn’t something that I dwell on but I think it is like second nature, because it’s the way I see the world, and the world I see is filled with questions about oppression and exploitation.
The ways I deal with all that differ project to project. There might be projects where that’s very overt and dominant. Or if you’re coming from a more dreamlike and more surreal perspective it will be more mediated through certain aesthetic techniques and less direct, but it’s always there in the background. It’s in that sense that Trotsky talks about “the social lie.” Combining class with other issues is what determines the degree to which that notion of the social lie permeates the way you envisage the world.
To talk about why it’s missing from a lot of science fiction, I suppose it’s just a function of the fact that it’s missing from a lot of social discussion. It’s very functional to capitalism to pretend that class is fundamentally epiphenomenal and slippery, and if it’s there at all it’s something which is, at best, not very important, or at worst is gauche and vulgar to talk about. It’s like, “Well we’re all terribly mobile anyway, and class is really about the sort of clothes that you wear, ” and so on. So it’s kind of no surprise.
That said, I do think that class does permeate a huge amount of writing (but often in a way that’s not wholly convincing to a socialist), because it’s to do with a reflection. Try as one may, it’s very difficult to sustain the claim that class doesn’t matter, but I think it’s much easier to deflect the lived reality of that and to construct untrue (but not wholly unconvincing) theories of what class is. I think a lot of art and fiction—probably more than ignoring the issue—deals with these unconvincing models of class. So, in a lot of traditional fantasy, class becomes “destiny.” If one wanted to sound like a sort of camp Marxist, one could say that in a lot of radical, petty bourgeois fiction, class becomes a locus for a cultural ressentiment. These are reflections of real things, but are things one might disagree with. This doesn’t mean that these aren’t books that can be enjoyed, but their views of class are not wholly convincing.
I’m really not surprised that a strong sense of class doesn’t appear in most fiction, but I would be wary of parodying this fact. I wouldn’t want to set myself up as a sort of “lone warrior.” There is plenty of really good stuff—including things not written by overt leftists—that is permeated with an awareness of class.
ON A related note, I think that one of the strongest aspects of all of your work is the way that politics become a textural aspect of the story, as opposed to being front and center. There’s never any descent into didactic traps, no high-blown polemical soliloquies, and I’m curious what you think of the long-standing debate among Marxists, sparked by the exchange between Bertold Brecht and Georg Lukács over whether revolutionaries need to approach art primarily as a form of political propaganda. What do you think about this relation between the form and function of art? How does your view of that relation play a part in your political activism and how important is it to bring politics into aesthetics?
THAT’S MORE than one question. On the issue of Lukács and Brecht, anyone who works within the fantastic fiction genre, or in non-realist art, has to have, at best, a very skeptical and combative relationship with Lukács because he was highly sectarian to that whole tradition. Obviously that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn things from him, but his antipathy to the dreamlike, to the non-realist is notorious. The sort of tradition in which I would stand, both as a writer and someone who thinks about literature, is definitely not a Lukácsian one. I think he’s a big presence that needs to be related to, but I wouldn’t agree with him on approach.
In terms of the relationship between writing and activism, again it’s one of those things which—at the level of the lived, day-to-day reality—is a total nonissue for me. I was never one of those leftists who got interested in science fiction as a means of propaganda. I’m someone who grew up reading this stuff and loved it and always wanted to write it. What I’m doing is writing the sort of books that I wanted to read, and there’s nothing mysterious about that. It’s never been an issue to mediate between the two.
I’m obviously aware that lots of my readers are not going to share my politics or will not be interested in them. Maybe they’re in the story for a good monster or an interesting cliff-hanger and so on. There’s nothing wrong with that. Literature’s task is not one of political recruitment. For that reason, it’s never an issue for me.
I like very much your formulation about it having to do with texture, because none of this is meant to disavow the politics of the work. I think of my stuff as very much political and politically inflected, but as you say it’s to do with texture. It’s to do with the fact that the way I perceive the world is political and therefore the way that I perceive the worlds that I write—whether fantastic or not—is also textured by politics. Which is why it’s there, but it’s not defining.
I think it probably is possible to write very good polemical fiction. I don’t want to fall into that liberal argument that art and politics are opposed. Certainly on a couple of occasions I’ve written stories—like a short story I wrote called “An End to Hunger” which is quite consciously a politically polemical story. And there’s the mediated level of something like Iron Council, where it is intended that you don’t need to share the politics to enjoy the story, but it is nonetheless a story that is deeply structured by politics. It does vary project to project, but primarily the desire is to tell interesting or exciting stories within a world that is inevitably constructed with a deeply political texture.
I do sometimes get asked by young left writers about the relationship between my art and my activism, and I feel like, for me, thinking in those terms is a bit of a chimera and is quite dangerous. Art is not a replacement for activism; its job is a different thing. If you want to persuade people of a political position then write a leaflet or give a speech. If you write a fictional book that is saturated with your politics and you do actually change some people’s minds, then that’s terrific. But if you set out with that as the aim then you’re likely to be disappointed, and you’re likely to write a not particularly great novel.
To me politics and art overlap, but they are in no way coterminous, and thinking of them in that light is setting yourself up for trouble.
COULD YOU talk a little bit about J.R.R. Tolkien—whom you once called “a wen [cyst] on the arse of history”—and the question of world building? If I’m correct in understanding what you’ve written of Tolkien, the more reverent side of your views includes an appreciation for the novelty of his constructing a whole fantastical world of remarkable depth. Yet, you’ve also said that, for you, backstory is “irrelevant until and unless it becomes relevant for the text.” How do you approach the world building aspects of writing SF/fantasy, and how is Tolkien a shaping influence on this process?
THE QUESTION of Tolkien is not so much that I admire the depth of his world—in point of fact I find most of the specifics of Middle-earth sociologically unconvincing (to put it politely). But what I think is very revolutionary about his paradigm is that he has to be given credit for “sub-creation.” He really formalized this in a way that had not been done before. Rather than constructing a world that is subordinate to the exigencies of the plot or theme or whatever, you create a world and then you inhabit it with stories and characters. This is something that non–genre people mock quite a lot, but it is an absolutely extraordinary thing to do. It’s an extraordinary aesthetic project and it can do things in certain ways that other genres cannot.
It also comes with certain costs. It is a very strange and very new way of thinking about stories and the way that you and the reader inhabit those stories. Tolkien was the great formalizer of that. So I have a lot of respect for him as someone who thought through this paradigm. So, irrespective of whether you like his work or not—and my opinion on this is a matter of record—there’s no question that that was an extraordinarily important moment in fiction in general and fantasy in particular.
The question of this process for me relates to this: There are various ways of doing world creation, and one of the great problems with world creation is when it becomes an end in itself. When this happens it becomes this desperate and rather neurotic attempt to contain a world and to taxonomize a world totally. Which is of course completely impossible. What you end up with is that clunky fiction where you walk your character through all the places you’ve created simply because you have created them. There can be these endless and pointless excursions, and it doesn’t just make for bad fiction, paradoxically it makes for unconvincing world creation because it is constructed on a notion that the world is knowable in its totality. Some people take this to a sort of extreme.
M. John Harrison, the great British anti-fantasy writer has written brilliant screeds against world creation. He deliberately messes with the reader’s expectations of world creation. He likes to torture us with that nerdy desire we have for a stable secondary world—and I speak as one who shares it. So, for example, the name of the city he’s created in Viriconium changes from story to story with no particular explanation. The map shifts. A character who is dead in one story comes back later on. This of course makes continuity freaks scream in physical pain. I really love this about him. It’s incredibly provocative, and while it’s not the paradigm I write within, I do try to take some of the lessons from that.
What that would mean would be, for example, don’t fill in everything on a map. If you don’t know what’s on a map in the real world, how can you possibly fill one in in a world that doesn’t exist? It’s meaningless. Leave things unknown.
With The City & the City, one of the things that fascinated me was the number of people who criticized it on the grounds of wanting to know how the cities got like that.* Look, I’m not the police, so if not finding out bugged them, and the book didn’t work for them because of it, then it didn’t work for them. Personally that has no traction for me as a reader, partly because I like mystery—I like not understanding things in the books that I read. But also because—and I know we’re not talking about the real world—it’s an equivalent question to asking, “How did London come to be?” “Why is Budapest like that?” It’s a question that demands such an amount of history that the weight of totality is so great that you can’t possibly answer it. Totality evades our complete understanding, not because the world is unknowable, but because there’s so fucking much of it.
For all those reasons, I think one of the most important things in world creation is to leave certain things unsaid. I think there’s nothing wrong with frustrating your readers about that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pissing them off at all, as long as they’re interested.
To mention Harrison one more time, there is a lovely formulation from when he was at his slightly more “world create-y” early on in his career. He has a lovely phrase in the opening of Pastel City where he says, “There were some seventeen notable empires in the later ages of man. None of them concern us here.” And I love that. It’s so cheeky to pitch this historical weight of world creation, but then say, “Well, I’m not going to go into that because it’s really not relevant.” That to me is sort of like the most elegant and funny moment of world creation in speculative fiction in the last thirty years. “None of them concern us here.” That could be the slogan of the epistemologically rigorous world creator.
ONE LAST question—drawn from your essay in Red Planets: Science Fiction and Marxism, where you deal a lot with the relationship between fantasy and SF and the number of people who want to segment one off from the other. The whole essay is an attempt to justify the blurring of distinctions, which you say is a “fact on the ground”; and one of the things I found the most interesting and useful was the ability to say, “Actually, science fiction has the same potential to be backwards looking and reactionary that fantasy does.” So based on that discussion, particularly for readers of SW and the ISR who may not be invested in this world yet, why should they pay attention to science fiction and fantasy? Why is it something that more people should take seriously?
WELL, FIRST of all, I love the formulation of the SF/fantasy debate, because normally it’s put forward by partisans of fantasy—and I include myself in that—arguing that fantasy can be just as interesting and relevant and forward looking as science fiction, but I love the inversion of that. That another way of looking at it is that science fiction can be just as politically crap as fantasy. (Of course I’m being facetious here.) That rigorous divide, which has been pitched for a long time, is something I have very little time for.
The question of why people should be interested in it.… Well I suppose I would say that they shouldn’t. It’s no comrade’s duty to give a shit about any of this. I am a happy geek, I love this stuff, and I absolutely love it. But I don’t think there’s any reason anyone else should love it. You’re not being a bad socialist if you don’t have an opinion on Star Trek, you know?
What I do think is three things: One is that anyone who is interested in modern culture, whether they like it or not, does in fact have to have some understanding of SF and fantasy, simply because they are becoming such tremendously powerful default cultural vernaculars. That’s just a fact. It’s like, if you want to be an educated person about books, you probably want to know a little bit of something about crime novels because they’re very important culturally. This is a fact. You may bemoan it. You may celebrate it, or whatever. But it is a fact that science fiction and fantasy are very powerful cultural forms.
The second one, which is a little bit deeper and closer to my heart, is that—even while different people are going to have different favorite things and have every right to love the things they want to love and ignore the stuff that they would ignore—I do think that we still suffer from a certain type of snobbery. Even among some on the left, some of our more Lukácsian-inclined comrades, who feel that there is something infra-dig [beneath one’s dignity], and sort of silly or unworthy of attention in all of this. I suppose I would say, yes, there is an awful lot of crap written within these paradigms (and those of us who love them probably love quite a bit of the crap even though we know it’s crap), but there are also writers—even those one would not agree with politically—who are worth paying some mind. Gene Wolfe is one of my all-time favorite SF/fantasy writers and he’s a conservative Catholic and it shows, but I think simply in terms of quality writing, in terms of the fiction that matters today, I would urge people that maybe think “this stuff is not for me” to look at people like Wolfe, like Harrison, like John Crowley, like Luke William, like Octavia Butler, like Kelly Link—there are great number of SF writers out there who are among the most important people working in any field. And I think that it’s an exciting time in the world of SF and fantasy. The fantastic tradition in general is doing really well. There’s a lot of really good stuff going on in it.
One of the nicest things that people say to me occasionally is, “I never read science fiction, but I love your stuff.” That’s lovely, but I would really hope that I could operate as a kind of gateway drug in, rather than a conduit out, and say, “You really might find that there’s a lot of really interesting stuff there,” for both cultural and political reasons.
The final things I would say on this, and this is me at my most provocative and partisan for the genre, and I say it tentatively, is I do also think that there are specificities to the fantastic mode which are uniquely well suited to engaging with the lived reality of modernity in a way that the best—and there is much very brilliant—realist fiction cannot do. I think, as well as everything else, that there is something uniquely interesting about the fantastic as a modern literary form.
WOULD YOU qualify that statement as a potentially more interesting literary form?
YES.... I would, but it’s a kernel that exists within even the most degraded fantastic. I’m not saying that makes it better than a really, really good realist novel. What I am saying is: A realist novel, of whatever brilliance, is always limited by its relations to reality because of the paradigm in which it’s working. Whereas the fantastic is able to do certain things—and obviously ninety-nine percent of it doesn’t do those certain things, but it is potentially in its form able to do those things in a way that nothing else can. Adorno supposedly said somewhere, I’ve never been able to find the quote, but supposedly Adorno said, “Kafka is the only writer capable of writing about the twentieth century.” I suspect that was meant as an encomium to Kafka particularly, but to the extent it is true, it is true because of the mode in which Kafka was writing, which was a non-realist, fantastic mode—even if an eccentric kind. I think there is something in the fantastic which has the potential to engage with the lived reality of modernity in a way that the supposedly realist cannot.
Those are the three reasons I would say to the culturally curious and open-minded leftist, “Come on in. The water’s fine.”
* The two cities featured in the novel, Ul Qoma and Beszel, exist in ways both “overlapping” and side-by-side. Characters in the book might be on a street in one city, yet walking across the street |
that qualify for bonus floor area could clarify that such open spaces must be publicly accessible. In other words, a developer would not just be able to create an open space only accessible to their tenants; the open space would need to be available to everyone if it is to qualify for an FAR bonus.
that qualify for bonus floor area could clarify that such open spaces must be publicly accessible. In other words, a developer would not just be able to create an open space only accessible to their tenants; the open space would need to be available to everyone if it is to qualify for an FAR bonus. The University District TDR program could be expanded to include MR (M1) zones within the University Community Urban Center. The expansion would be limited allowing MR (M1) sites to become eligible as TDR sending properties if a landmark structure is located on-site. However, sites with open space and vulnerable masonry structures would not qualify for TDR, and no MR (M1) sites would be able to receive TDRs. Any TDRs derived from MR (M1) sites would have to be used on qualifying properties elsewhere within the University Community Urban Center. The result of the amendment would to be to further incentivize preservation of landmark-worthy buildings.
Requirements for development of Transportation Management Program (TMP) Plans could be added to better manage developments that could have significant transportation impacts through single-occupant vehicle (SOV) trip generation. The types of developments that could be subject are any development that would generate 50 or more student or employee SOV trips during a given P.M. hour, or multi-family residential development that generates same number of SOV trips during a given P.M. hour or create a demand for 25 or vehicles to be parked on-street overnight. Such development proposals would have develop a compliant TMP Plan that meets the City’s adopted rules to reduce SOV trips within the University District. The Mayor’s proposal does touch on TMP Plan requirements, but the scope is much more limited in its applicability.
Commercial floorplate allowances for high-rise development could be increased and provide greater flexibility for uses. Two options are being floated: one would provide greater flexibility for office high-rises generally and another would be targeted toward only greater flexibility for the University of Washington’s future high-rise above the light rail station. In the case of the light rail station high-rise, an average of 24,000 square floorplates would be allowed for the first 160 feet of the structure. In the alternative amendment scenario, conditions on higher floorplate allowances by use would be eliminated and instead the Mayor’s proposal would be modified as follow in Table A:
Transparency requirements could be eliminated for light rail station uses. The Mayor’s proposal requires that at least 60% of street-level facades achieve transparency (except residential uses), but the University District light rail station’s design will not achieve that standard. Therefore, a proposed amendment will add an exemption for light rail station uses within the SM-U zoning district.
could be eliminated for light rail station uses. The Mayor’s proposal requires that at least 60% of street-level facades achieve transparency (except residential uses), but the University District light rail station’s design will not achieve that standard. Therefore, a proposed amendment will add an exemption for light rail station uses within the SM-U zoning district. A loading berth waiver could be added for SM-U zones to allow modifications from off-street loading requirements typically conditioned for certain uses and activities. The waiver would allow alternative means for loading.
In addition to the proposed amendments above, further technical amendments will be prepared to make non-substantive changes to the ordinance and providing housekeeping changes.
Next Steps
The PLUZ Committee will convene on January 19th to discuss these amendments and possibly more, but no vote on them or an amended ordinance will occur. A first vote on amendments will likely take place on February 7th with the land use ordinance possibly moving out of a committee. Final passage of a bill could happen mid-February at the soonest. In the meantime, those who have an interest in the proposal and amendments should contact Councilmember Rob Johnson, Chair of the PLUZ Committee, with any feedback.
City of Seattle – Central Staff Memo With Potential Amendments – 1-19-17 by The Urbanist on Scribd
We hope you loved this article. If so, please consider supporting our work. The Urbanist is a non-profit that depends on donations from readers like you.CHICAGO -- A reunion between John Fox and Adam Gase seemed realistic when San Francisco and Denver both bypassed Gase to fill their respective head-coaching vacancies.
But is it that simple?
Gase was scheduled to interview for the Chicago Bears offensive coordinator position on Wednesday, sources close to the situation tell ESPN, a full five days after Fox became the 15th head coach in franchise history.
Gase’s employment options have dwindled, so perhaps the 36-year old coordinator does reach an agreement with Fox to coordinate the Chicago offense.
Adam Gase, left, is scheduled to interview Wednesday to be the Bears' offensive coordinator. Ron Chenoy/USA TODAY Sports
But according to multiple NFL sources, the belief in league circles is that Fox and Gase were content to go their separate ways when Fox left the Broncos, who in turn plucked Gary Kubiak away from Baltimore to be Fox’s replacement.
One source noted that while Fox and Gase “have a strong mutual respect for one another,” they have differing views on offense, with Fox preferring a more traditional ground attack, mixing in impact plays down the field when available, while Gase is described as a “cutting edge offensive mind” who places of higher emphasis on passing the ball.
Fox is not opposed to throwing the football. Under Fox’s watch, Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammad thrived in Carolina’s offensive system, and Fox reaped the rewards of having talented pass-catchers Demaryius Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders and Wes Welker in Denver.
However, Fox is known as an old-school head coach who comes from a hard-nosed defensive background.
Gase’s offense enjoyed tremendous success in Denver, led by one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, Peyton Manning. With Gase calling plays, the Broncos won 25 regular-season games, two straight division titles, and earned a berth in Super Bowl XLVIII.
But for all the accolades, the organization and both men parted ways.
The Bears moved fast to snatch up Fox, but Gase remains in limbo, passed up not only for a handful of head-coaching gigs, but also for potential offensive coordinator openings in Atlanta, Jacksonville, Baltimore and Oakland.
Why?
One source explained that perhaps the reason Gase is still available is because teams have concerns that he will bolt after 2015 for a head-coaching job.
Does a team on the rebuild, such as the Bears, want to have to look for a new offensive coordinator after only one year?
It’s also curious that Fox didn’t move sooner to bring Gase aboard in Chicago, if in fact, the veteran head coach wants to rekindle their working relationship.
However, Gase has several things working in his favor in Chicago. He’s the son-in-law of longtime New Orleans Saints assistant coach Joe Vitt, who worked with Bears general manager Ryan Pace. Gase and Pace have a good relationship. Gase also interviewed to be the Bears’ head coach before Fox and Pace were hired.
Maybe the Bears feel like Gase is simply the best available offensive coordinator (he probably is), and whatever professional disagreements exist between Fox and Gase can be squashed.
But if for whatever reason the Bears decide to let Gase leave Wednesday without a contract, remember that Fox has a proven track record of finding quality assistant coaches -- including Gase, Mike McCoy, Dennis Allen and Jack Del Rio.
The head coach always has the final say on the coaching staff. If Fox doesn’t want to reunite with Gase, then so be it. Fox’s background earns him the benefit of the doubt.First and most obvious is the ID screen. I know of people with multiple podders in their family who will see this screen as a breath of fresh air when tiptoeing in to check nighttime blood sugars. For the rest of us, this is a potential annoyance. Before proceeding to any other screen, you must hit the soft key for Confirm. This includes when you insert a strip to test your blood glucose. So you insert a strip, confirm your name, then have to (still, really?) confirm the code of the for-all-intents-and-purposes-non-coding Freestyle strips, and then you are prompted for your blood drop. (But you have options for what color the screen is!) Eh, it's not that bad, really.
sure you want to power it off. Okay, one last time... But there are more. Everything you do now, even entering a carb count for your bolus, requires you to Confirm. Confirm. Confirm. I can tell you now that I'm going to get tired of the confirmation screens the same way I did on the t:slim. This is probably all due to safety checks endorsed for all the right reasons. But come on, have you ever tried to turn off a PlayStation3? No really. No, are you sure? No, are youyou want to power it off. Okay, one last time...
The best features of the new system center around Insulin on Board (IOB). In past iterations of the Omnipod, mealtime insulin was not considered in the IOB - only correction insulin. It now considers food insulin as onboard insulin, like many of its competitors' pumps (with the exception of Medtronic). That change will take some getting used to for people for whom the pod has been their only system.
Secondly, IOB is now displayed prominently on the home screen at all times. YES. Also, YES.
I started today on the newest Omnipod Insulin Management System, the UST400. (For an update on how I'm doing on the new system after one month, click here.)For those following my ongoing pump parade, I had left Omnipod last year after over 3 years on their UST200 PDM and original pods because I was frustrated with kinked cannulas and occlusions. From there, I jumped back and forth between my out of warranty backup pump (the Cozmo 1800) and my brand new shiny Tandem tslim (that hasn't worked out for me).And through a strange set of circumstances, I found myself back at Insulet's door just weeks after their new, smaller Omnipod system had been released. Right as my original Omnipod system warranty expired. Right time, right place, and hopefully an improved user experience.These are my first impressions.The new pods are what they promised - lower profile, lighter weight, thinner, shorter, and in every way smaller.It feels like less weight on my skin. I put the first one on my belly, even though I have always had issues keeping belly pods adhered.It felt like the gauge might be thinner. (I'll look that up and get back to you.)The adhesive is an improvement in the sense that the pod itself isbetter welded to the hypafix tape, and being lighterweight, probably won't tear away as easily.I'm not going to pull any punches with you, dear readers. This pod fell off my belly in the shower nothours after I put it on (and I used IV prep!). The good news though is that, while the adhesive didn't stick to my skin the way I'd hoped, it washard to get the adhesive off of the pod. With the old pods, you could cock an eyebrow at it funny and the darn thing would peel away from its tape. But I got the tape off so that I could show you its delicious underbelly.They've tinted the cannula blue for better visibility, though to be honest, at the angle I always find myself wearing a pod, I don't believe this is going to help. But if you wanted to have a friend or family member check it, it'd be more visible to them, I suppose.They've also added a pink horseshoe shaped fixture in the top of the pod to indicate that the cannula deployed properly. Nice, but I never remember having a pod in three years whose cannula did not deploy. I'm not sure if this was a common complaint or if the FDA required it or what.Here's another shot of the new pod with two Verio IQs for reference.Don't get your hopes up about any kind of strip change though. The new system, despite rumored partnerships between Insulet and One Touch, still takes the same old Freestyle strips (pictured below).But look how tiny the little 10-pack boxes are!Nearly everything about the new system is smaller. Look at this itty bitty fill needle? SOOOO much shorter than the fill needles of yesteryear.There's one thing that's not smaller though. The PDM. It isthe same size. Shape. Feel. The buttons are a bit softer and more pressable, thankfully, but it will still fit your snappy color skins from the UST200. It's black, supposedly to resemble smartphones, but it's the same PDM you know and love with a few upgrades to the brain.My biggest beef is with the things that theychange about the system. I had hoped that the system would retain your extended bolus information in the event of a pod change the way I loved that the Cozmo did. If you had to change your set mid-extended bolus on the Cozmo, after you got everything set up, it would remind you that you had been running an extended bolus, tell you how much was left, and ask if you wanted to continue it. When my pod fell off in the shower with the kids tonight, I was in the middle of an extended bolus for some honey-seared Chinese food.The pod change obliterated that information and I instead did a retest and rebolus and all worked out (so far).They also didn't add extra tape near the nose of the pod. This is where I frequently found myself losing adherence and actually where it came up during my shower tonight. This does not make me happy.The new case is as flimsy and cheap as the old one but they did add a velcro strap (left) that accommodates the PDM while in the silicone skin as well as a little black pillow (right) that's supposed to protect the screen. The mesh pocket on the back (not pictured) is as flimsy as ever. And we're supposed to hold a spare pod there? No, thank you. That pocket will be ripped before you can say "Two Toddlers."Get yourself a Myabetic or a Sugar Bag. You'll thank me later.All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic. I put Pod 2 on my upper arm. As expected, I can't feel it and it does weigh less than the old ones. I'll see what all I knock it into tomorrow and keep you all posted.I'm back, Omnipod. Don't disappoint me. Mama needs a pump she can count on.UPDATE: John Finger says Jeff Bower is also a candidate, albiet a long-shot.
Reports from all over saying it's close -- the Sixers may have found their next General Manager in former Blazers executive and ESPN salary cap guy Tom Penn. Rod Thorn has been serving in a consulting capacity while the team has interviewed replacements, and Penn would certainly represent a change of pace for this Sixers organization in desperate need of one.
Penn was with Portland from 2007-2010 and though he's interviewed for the Orlando Magic GM job among others, has been with ESPN since leaving the Blazers. I can't find how old he is exactly, but he's a handsome young dude, so I'd ballpark it at 40 years old, give or take. The ageists on the blog (myself included) are certainly rejoicing.
I love his knowledge of the cap -- hopefully the financial flexibility the Sixers have been working towards will be used in the right place -- and commitment to advanced statistics. The Sixers have always seemed like a TRADITIONAL STATS GET OFF MY LAWN organization, so bringing in some fresh blood with a different take on things (and an affinity for referencing Synergy) will open up some doors.
The best thing is that Penn doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would allow himself to become a figurehead for Doug Collins. We're trying to dig up some more stuff on him, but he seems like a guy with a clear vision on how to succeed in the NBA and could usher in a new era of Sixers basketball. This offseason has continuously ping-ponged my emotions and this move would be a much-needed plus going into next season.
We'll wait and see for now. We all remember how the Danny Ferry thing flipped on a dime.Code by Any Other Name
Pattern matching in Scala for expressions
by Ian Robertson
January 31, 2010
Summary
Scala pattern matchers with side effects can have unexpected results in for expressions.
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Scala has taken the traditional for-construct and put it on steroids. One of the interesting features is the ability to use pattern matching as part of a for expression. For example, the following:
case class Person(firstName:String, lastName: String);
val people = List(
Person("Jane", "Smith"),
Person("John", "Doe"),
Person("Jane", "Eyre"));
for (Person("Jane", last) <- people) yield "Ms. " + last;
last
yield
List("Ms. Smith", "Ms. Eyre")
object First {
def unapply[A](iter:Iterator[A]): Option[(A)] = {
if (iter.hasNext) Some(iter.next) else None;
}
}
val iters = List(Iterator.from(1), Iterator.from(3));
for(First(x) <- iters) yield x;
List(1,3)
List(2, 4)
will (effectively) iterate over all people with a first name of Jane, bindto each person's last name in turn, and then generate a list of the results of theblock, thus returningIn this example, we're using a case class to provide the pattern matching for us, but we can easily role our own. For example, consider the following matcher which will return the first element of an iterator, if there is one:We can try to get the first element of some iterators:However, this does not yieldas one might expect. Instead, it yields
So what is going on here? According to Programming in Scala, a pattern match in a for loop gets converted into a filter followed by a map. Specifically,
for (pat <- expr 1 ) yield expr 2
expr 1 filter {
case pat => true;
case _ => false;
} map {
case pat => expr 2 ;
}
2
next
is translated by the compiler toIn other words, first the input expression is filtered for those elements which match the pattern, and then in a separate pass, the pattern is applied for the purpose of evaluating. Unfortunately, there are a couple of issues with this. First, if the pattern match is computationally expensive, that work will be doubled for every match. Second, and more concerning, if the pattern match is not side effect free, then unexpected results like the one above can happen. In the example above, the pattern match, by callingon an iterator, changes the state of the iterator, so that a different result comes out in the second pass.
Interestingly, Programming Scala states that "it's guarannteed that a pattern-matching generator will never throw a MatchError ". In fact, this is not true. For example, executing
for (First(x) <- List(Iterator.single(1))) yield x;
scala.MatchError: empty iterator
at $anonfun$2.apply(<console>:6)
at $anonfun$2.apply(<console>:6)
at scala.List.map(List.scala:812)
will try to access a single-element iterator twice, resulting in:
One way to view this situation is that Scala's for construct is inherently functional, and should not be mixed with non-functional constructs such as iterators. However, it turns out that there is a completely functional fix to this problem. Simply change the compile-time pattern-match translation to something like:
expr 1 map {
case pat => Some(expr 2 );
case _ => None;
} filter {
case Some(_) => true;
case None => false;
} map {
case Some(x) => x;
}
expr 1 map {
pat.unapply(_);
} filter {
_.isDefined;
} map {
_.get;
}
Option
filterMap
filterForEach
Talk Back!
or, more succinctly:Of course, there is a cost to this approach: by introducing a third pass, extra an extra list ofobjects is created. Another fix would be to add new methodsandwhich cut down the work to a single pass. While less elegant, it would clearly provide a performance boost, and it would be largely hidden from view. In the mean time, one should use pattern matching in for expressions with care.
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About the Blogger
Ian Robertson is an application architect at Verisk Health. He is interested in finding concise means of expression in Java without sacrificing type safety. He contributes to various open source projects, including jamon and pojomatic.
This weblog entry is Copyright © 2010 Ian Robertson. All rights reserved.Over the course of the past two decades, James Gunn has made a remarkable leap from being the brightest light of those lovable scuzzbuckets over at Troma (where he made his screenwriting debut with Tromeo & Juliet, a gleefully stomach-churning gross-out comedy that took some liberties with Romeo & Juliet, the play that inspired it) to being the guardian of Guardians of the Galaxy, a pop culture phenomenon that, between its worldwide gross, home video and merchandising revenue, has probably made somewhere in the range of $1 billion.
Even more remarkably, Gunn managed to make the leap from the newfangled poverty row of Troma to the A-list without losing his voice or his audacity. The guy who made Guardians of the Galaxy one of the few Marvel movies that doesn’t feel like the product of an assembly line (a sleek, efficient, and effective assembly line, but an assembly line all the same) was the same dude who made his first mark on popular culture by mashing up Romeo & Juliet and The Toxic Avenger for the benefit of stoned idiots and the educated alike.
Gunn has always been brash and outspoken (graduates of Troma are not generally known for their coquettish ways and tasteful restraint), but when you make a billion-dollar movie that inevitably leads to another billion-dollar blockbuster (that would be Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which is already underway) the world tends to pay close attention to what you have to say.
“The film implicitly asks why we find some forms of violence exciting and fun, and others abhorrent and disturbing.”
So when Gunn laid into studios and the media on Facebook for learning all of the wrong, lazy lessons from smash success of the hard-R rated Deadpool (another oddball, overachieving member of the Marvel family), he found a receptive audience.
Gunn passionately argued, “Deadpool was its own thing. THAT’S what people are reacting to. It’s original, it’s damn good, it was made with love by the filmmakers, and it wasn’t afraid to take risks.”
Original and good are both scary and unfamiliar to studio executives. They don’t trust either quality, as they’re both liable to scare away audiences. Subsequently, they’re most likely to pick up on the most easily copyable elements of Deadpool — namely, the fourth-wall-breaking, post-modern tone, the R-rated violence, and the swaggering, smart-ass attitude.
Gunn is among the hottest filmmakers alive. Deadpool’s paradigm-shifting early success almost instantly transformed the concept of an R-rated superhero movie from a massive risk into a tantalizing commercial proposition. I imagine that all over Hollywood, hacks are feverishly cramming profanity, sex scenes and pop-culture references into previous family-friendly superhero opuses.
Yet a mere half decade ago, Gunn wrote and directed a hard-R rated superhero movie (one that easily could have been NC-17) that failed to gross even a million dollars. Now, I’m no mathematician, but a billion is substantially more than a million — and even a million is substantially more than the sum grossed by Gunn’s blood-soaked, brain-splattering labor of love, Super.
According to the money-counting folks over at Box Office Mojo, Super made less than half a million dollars. That’s a pittance even given the film’s tiny budget, but I can’t help but feel like Super isn’t just a movie that didn’t make a lot of money — no, it’s a movie that couldn’t (and probably shouldn’t) have made a lot of money.
Super is less a conventional superhero movie than an alternately grim and goofy meditation on what Taxi Driver might have looked like if Travis Bickle had put on a homemade superhero costume and decided to channel his vigilante instincts into beating criminals to death with a giant wrench rather than going the gun-and-assassination route. That’s a big part of what makes the film bold and audacious, but it also explains its complete commercial failure.
In a role originally intended for John C. Reilly, Rainn Wilson stars as Frank, a sad-sack short-order cook who plasters crude, childlike drawings of the two happiest moments of his life — when he married wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) and helped police officers pursuing a criminal — in his shabby little home as a perpetual reminder that the world has more to offer than just misery, humiliation, and an endless gauntlet of pain and suffering.
Frank clings to his sense of morality, to his sense of how things should be, and his bond with Sarah as life preservers in a cold, cold world forever threatening to drown him in his sorrows. Then one day Sarah stumbles out of his life, seemingly permanently, after getting involved with a scumbag drug dealer named Jock (played by Kevin Bacon).
Sarah was a recovering addict who married Frank as one of those mistakes people sometimes make while they’re still in the fumbling, fawn-like early process of recovery. In a flashback, we see her weeping while they have sex, and it’s unclear whether she’s in tears because she’s so raw and vulnerable and open without drugs or alcohol to numb her emotions, or whether she’s crying because she looks like Liv Tyler and she’s having sex with a man who looks like a particularly pathetic Rainn Wilson.
“It’s a film that uses an insane comic-book plot to explore belief and morality and purpose and addiction and connection.”
The real villain in Frank and Sarah’s life and relationship isn’t a low-rent dope peddler, but addiction. Sarah seems to have gravitated towards Frank because he was so removed from the drug-fueled realm of decadence she needed to escape — a simple, honorable man who doesn’t seem to understand why people would ever use drugs when they’re illegal, let alone be driven by the compulsions that gripped his bride.
Frank can’t understand that Sarah is sick, and that sometimes in people’s sickness and disease and addictions, they make terrible decisions that hurt themselves and the people who love them and society as a whole. To make sense of the situation, his brain transforms Sarah’s selfish, drug-fueled withdrawal into something more palatable — he decides that Jock stole Sarah and forced her to use drugs, and he just needs to get her back to heal the massive hole in his soul.
Without Sarah, Frank is adrift; lost, a raw nerve just barely functioning in the world. He’s a man in need of a sign, in need of direction, in need of a purpose. Then, one curious night while watching television, God (voiced by Rob Zombie, in a shameless bit of typecasting) sinks His tentacles into Frank’s body, runs his enormous finger over Frank’s brain, and instills him with a sense of purpose: it will be his fate to fight evil and crime wherever he goes, to reinvent himself from a sniveling sub-human to a super-heroic crime fighter known as the Crimson Bolt.
Frank is aided in this revelation by “The Holy Avenger” (Nathan Fillion), a cut-rate Christian superhero in the vein of Willie Aames’ Bibleman, whose hilariously cheap, bible-thumping productions always seem to be on the verge of turning into pornography. It’s as if The Holy Avenger gang is intent on simultaneously filming their Christlike morality tales and an X-rated parody.
As a crimefighter, Frank is a distinct primitivist, and his fight scenes feel like deliberately cheap, artless throwbacks to Gunn’s Troma days, fortified with elements borrowed from the 1960s Batman. Frank is driven by a divine sense of purpose, but his efforts quickly devolve into a form of crime itself.
Frank brutally beats child molesters and drug dealers, but he also takes his wrench of rage to people who’ve done nothing more serious than cut in line at a movie. I remembered Super being stomach-churning in its violence, but re-watching the film for this column, I see less than I remembered. Gunn doesn’t need to pile on scene after scene of sickening bloodshed: the inhuman thud of metal smashing into meat and flesh as Frank clobbers one mortified bad guy after another indelibly conveys the sadistic, grotesquely excessive brutality of his actions. The film implicitly asks why we find some forms of violence exciting and fun, and others abhorrent and disturbing. The answer has a lot to do with morality, but Frank’s ideals are unstinting and unforgiving that he blurs the line between hero, anti-hero, and villain.
Frank has a child’s black and white worldview, and sense that evil is an uncomplicated entity that simply needs to be punished for good to prevail. But he reluctantly picks up a sidekick who calls herself Boltie (Ellen Page, in the kind of performance you imagine her agent having a heart attack over) who is, if anything, even more bloodthirsty and over-the-top in her violence.
She’s motivated less by a conventional sense of morality than a fetish for being a superhero that always has a sexual component to it (she’s getting off on the idea of being Robin to his Batman) but becomes assaultive when she rapes Frank while they’re both wearing their costumes.
Boltie is the demon hanging over Frank’s shoulder, urging him to give in to his worst, most brutal instincts. If he’s deeply troubled, she’s a sociopath. Together, they’re less a traditional crimefighting duo than a pair of delusional psychopaths feeding into each other’s madness and dysfunction.
Many elements of Super are campy and broad in outline. The protagonist is “touched” in the head, in both the metaphorical and literal sense. There is a delirious animated opening sequence where the Crimson Bolt and Bolty don’t just swiftly and ably dispense justice in a way they never do in the actual film, but also dance exuberantly, and some of the most unnerving violence is accompanied by comic book flourishes.
“Underneath the Troma-style wackiness is a fundamentally serious, even tragic film about a lost man in a lost world.”
But underneath the Troma-style wackiness is a fundamentally serious, even tragic film about a lost man in a lost world seeking transcendence and meaning in the worst possible way. It is a film that uses an insane comic-book plot to explore belief and morality and purpose and addiction and connection.
Gunn has wrestled with drugs and alcohol in the past (struggles that inform his haunting and poignant 2000 semi-autobiographical novel The Toy Collector, whose protagonist is named James Gunn) and Super’s treatment of addiction and recovery is one of the places where its intense sincerity is most powerful.
The film ends with its hapless hero retiring his Crimson Bolt persona and returning to normal life after he succeeds in freeing Sarah from Jock’s clutches and sends her on the path to recovery. With noble self-sacrifice, he helps a woman he realizes is much too good for him find herself and her purpose, a process that inevitably involves her leaving him for a man who is not so broken, not so damaged, and capable of giving her the life she’s always wanted, complete with a brood of adorable, apple-cheeked children.
The Crimson Bolt sets out to be God’s holy wrench of vengeance, but comes to understand that he’s not supposed to save the world. He’s not even supposed to save his wife. No, he’s supposed to give this good but sick woman the tools she needs to save herself. There’s grace in that. There’s transcendence. There’s beauty and purity and compassion in that sacrifice. After alternating between comic book comedy and aching tragedy for much of its duration, Super finds an elegiac, poetic tone as it reaches an incongruously beautiful and pure conclusion.
Wilson invests the film’s protagonist with total emotional investment, but I couldn’t help but think that Reilly would have been better in the role. There’s an ingratiating sweetness at Reilly’s core that makes it easy to root for him no matter how misguided his actions, and while Wilson is good, there’s a prickliness to his persona that’s a little off-putting. Then again, there’s a whole lot that’s off-putting about Super, which is one of the reasons I like it so much.
To quote Gunn on Deadpool (whose hero also wears a red suit and has some issues), Super is its own thing. It’s original, it’s damn good, and it was made with love by the filmmakers, and it wasn’t afraid to take risks. Yet it was precisely those qualities that kept audiences away, and will keep future filmmakers from cynically ripping it off. It turns out that — commercially speaking, at least — there’s such a thing as being too original and too risky. So Super will remain forever Gunn’s own thing. He’s made his blockbuster superhero movie for the masses, but he clearly made Super for himself, and for a strange, small subset of cultists uniquely turned into its strange wavelength — touched, as it were, not by the finger of God, but by the strangely earnest and deep vision of a profoundly talented filmmaker.
Original Certification: Rotten
Tomatometer: 48 percent
Re-Certification: Fresh
Follow Nathan Rabin on Twitter: @nathanrabinMEETEETSE, Wyo. (AP) — A nocturnal species of weasel with a robber-mask-like marking across its eyes has returned to the remote ranchlands of western Wyoming where the critter almost went extinct more than 30 years ago.
Wildlife officials on Tuesday released 35 black-footed ferrets on two ranches near Meeteetse, a tiny cattle ranching community 50 miles east of Yellowstone National Park. Black-footed ferrets, generally solitary animals, were let loose individually over a wide area.
Groups of ferret releasers fanned out over prairie dog colonies covering several thousand acres of the Lazy BV and Pitchfork ranches. Black-footed ferrets co-exist with prairie dogs, living in their burrows and preying on them.
In the weeks leading up to the release, biologists made extra sure the ferrets will have plenty of prairie dogs to eat by treating the local prairie dog population with insecticide and plague vaccine. Plague, which is spread by fleas, can kill off prairie dogs by the thousand.
Scientists recently found plague had killed some prairie dogs in the area but not nearly enough to interfere with the release. In fact, the pattern of prairie dogs killed by the disease suggests the plague vaccine works, said Zack Walker, a Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist.
More plague control will be needed as wildlife officials plan more black-footed ferret releases next year and the year after.
“In the early years, it’s going to be important to keep it up,” Walker said.
The release completed the circle of a story that began in 1981, when a ranch dog named Shep brought home a dead black-footed ferret in the Meeteetse area. Local ranchers took the carcass to a taxidermist, who alerted them it was no ordinary weasel but a very rare specimen, indeed.
Five years later, biologists rounded up the remaining wild ferrets to launch a successful captive-breeding program. Tuesday’s release, in other words, brought the descendants of the last Meeteetse ferrets back to Meeteetse for the first time.
“We thank the ranch owners for their commitment to recovery of black-footed ferrets. The decades of hard work from Game and Fish and our numerous partners show in these recovery efforts,” Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Scott Talbott said in a release.
The Fish and Wildlife Service breeds black-footed ferrets at a facility near Fort Collins, Colorado. There, the young ferrets go through a “boot camp” where they learn how to catch prairie dogs.
Ferrets have been released at 24 sites in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, Arizona and Kansas, as well as Canada and Mexico. Recent release sites include the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge near Denver last fall.
This was the first ferret release in Wyoming in almost a decade. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated all of Wyoming as a zone for “experimental, non-essential” populations of black-footed ferrets.
The designation indemnifies ranchers in case they accidentally harm any ferrets released on their property.
Biologists flocked to the Lazy BV and Pitchfork ranches in the 1980s to learn more about the last remaining black-footed ferrets in the wild, recalled Meeteetse Mayor J.W. Yetter, who worked in the local logging industry at the time.
“There was a whole crew of university people and wildlife biologists in training quartered up at the timber creek ranger station. They were the ones charged with tracking, capturing, radio collaring and generally discovering the extent of that colony and getting biologic information about the members of that colony,” Yetter said.
(© Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)Windows 10 is the latest version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, the company announced today, and it is set to be released publicly in mid-2015, reports The Verge.
Microsoft appears to be skipping Windows 9 entirely; the most recent version of the OS is Windows 8.1, which followed 2012's Windows 8.
Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft's operating systems division, announced Windows 10 during an event in San Francisco today. Windows 10 "will be our most comprehensive platform ever," said Myerson, and "will run on the broadest types of devices ever."
Windows 10 will deliver "one application platform," said Myerson, as the slide seen in |
graduate from the Savannah College of Art and Design
Q: What were the film’s influences, both story-wise and stylistically?
MB: "We both love creating films around stylised 3D characters, which has also influenced our professional careers with positions at companies such as Psyop and now Wolf & Crow. Obviously we were enormously influenced by Pixar. The short films they produced, such as Geri's Game, For the Birds, and Boundin', were so fun to watch and convinced us that you really could tell an appealing story in the short film format. Making something to that quality, both stylistically and story-wise, was one of our biggest goals."
DB: "While the high-end animation from Pixar and Dreamworks were definitely huge influences on the style we went for, we also wanted to distance ourselves a bit story-wise from the Pixar shorts by making our story more subversive but still appeal to the same audiences.
A big influence initially was Dr. Suess, who had an amazing ability to tell important stories
"A big influence initially was Dr. Suess, who had an amazing ability to tell important stories with meaning but without hitting the audience over the head with it and making it enjoyable to read. We initially wanted the film to be a spoken word narrative like a Dr. Suess storybook, but as the story developed and our singer and composer Hunter Curra came in and started putting music to it, we added more singing parts to round out the amazing score he created."
The work of Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr Seuss was a big inspiration
Q: What 3D software did you use and why?
MB: "The 3D animated short film was predominantly created using Maya. Maya gave us the freedom to model and animate all of the necessary assets while maintaining flexibility to create artist friendly tools. For final render we decided to use Chaos Group's V-Ray. As an out of the box render solution, it provided us with the best looking results for the least amount of needed development in its interaction with Maya."
DB: "Maya's referencing system was a huge help as well in allowing multiple people to work on various shots without taking up a ton of space and also letting us keep assets updated in the scene.
Maya's referencing system was a huge help
"When we moved to Wolf & Crow to complete the film, it took on a more traditional centralised pipeline where we were working off of the same servers with people in the same building. By that point I had written a number of pipeline tools for asset management and other tasks so that move both informed how we set up the project on the central server and also dictated how I should update the tools to work as generic pipeline tools for any CG production at Wolf & Crow."
The duo chose Maya and V-Ray to bring their enchanting tale to life
Q: What was the most impressive technical aspect of the project?
MB: "Doing actual cloth and hair simulation was a large effort for such a small team with few resources. We hadn't planned on doing these when we started the project and, at least from a technical aspect, it is what we're most proud with the piece."
Creating hair and cloth presented the team with some new challenges
DB: "Yeah, the cloth and hair were definitely one of the things we had no real clue about going into production. We initially were going to make modeled hair and clothing skinned to the characters, but as I got more experienced with cloth and hair working on commercials and film, we decided to try and tackle it in the short.
"One thing I learned working in more established cloth pipelines is that almost nobody relies on just the default solver for their cloth simulation. Having the straight simulation from Maya's nCloth solver is the first step and then there's a secondary process of pushing and pulling the cloth, fixing interpenetrations, and generally modeling how you want to cloth to look and behave. Maya out-of-the-box has the cloth solver, but we had to develop our own tools to be able to adjust and fix the cloth after simulation."
Q: Did you make any mistakes during production?
MB: "Doing an eight-minute, animated, high quality, CG short film with as little resources as we had was our biggest mistake! Though I'm joking about it being a mistake, I do think the biggest obstacle we overcame is the sheer amount of time and effort it takes to do this type of independent film-making. It's certainly not a sprint, but a marathon, especially when we were trying to do it in our off-hours while working full-time in the commercial production industry.
"We are very proud of finding the motivation and determination day-after-day, week-after-week, and believing in the story enough to see it through to the end. We also have to thank Wolf & Crow for believing in the short and stepping in to provide the resources to finish it, without which we would probably still be working on it."
Bosker and Berenty worked tirelessly to bring their 8-minute tale to the big screen
Q: What's the plan for the short now?
"We finished the short in March and it is currently making its way through the festival circuit, recently qualifying for Oscar consideration. You can find a list of screenings on its website."
Love in the world of advertising
Liked this? Read these!The Lakers forward is known for his antics— such as showing up to a talk show in his underwear — but he’s becoming famous for talking about an issue that is often concealed: mental health. Artest is funding therapy and mental health awareness through the sale of his championship ring and possibly the donation of his entire $6.79 million 2011-2012 salary.
The NBA champion has already raised enough with his ring raffle — nearly half a million dollars — to hire eight school therapists, he says.
He will reveal July 1 what percentage of next year’s paycheck he plans to donate. He says he might give away the whole thing. — PZS
ESPN: It takes a dedicated 0.1 percentile-type of person to consider giving away a large percentage of the $6.79 million he is contracted to make next season. “Either all or some,” Artest said about his donation plans prior to the Lakers’ game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday. “You’ll know July 1.” Read more
“I definitely want to thank … my psychiatrist.”5 years ago
Updated 7:27 p.m., 12/13/2013
Washington (CNN) - A blistering internal report released this week is revealing big problems at the National Zoo and prompting a Congressional review.
On Wednesday, an endangered horse rammed into a fence inside its barn. A gazelle and an antelope-like animal broke their necks the same way. And a hog died from possible malnutrition.
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Last month a zebra severely injured an animal keeper. Earlier this year Rusty the red panda got out, and a vulture escaped its enclosure. Both were recaptured.
"You don't hear this happening at zoos across the country. It certainly shouldn't be happening here at our National Zoo," Cathy Liss, president of the Animal Welfare Institute, said.
A safety inspector with the zoo said human error was the cause of the zebra attack, according to CNN affiliate WJLA. Gates were not properly closed between the zebra's stall and the yard where the keeper was working, leading the two to be in the same enclosure. A nearby gazelle was apparently spooked by the attack and ran into a fence, breaking its neck.
An internal investigation of the Cheetah Conservation Station, which houses cheetahs and other African savanna animals, found "animal care and overall organization, accountability, follow-up and communication are severely lacking."
But Pamela Baker-Masson, a spokesperson for the National Zoo, told CNN, "We never compromise safety and well-being of animals."
Officials point out that the zoo was again accredited in September by the Association for Zoos and Aquariums "after an extensive and rigorous review."
As for the deaths or escapes of the animals, officials say they've taken steps to prevent repeat episodes. The budget may also be partly to blame. The zoo does not charge admission, and Congress has cut $2 million over the past few years.
"This is where we look at ourselves very carefully, and we have to review what resources are available," Baker-Masson said.
A spokesperson for Ranking Member of the House Administration Committee Robert Brady said the Congressman has scheduled a briefing with Smithsonian officials to assess the problems.
"[Brady] wants to hear specifically how budget cuts could have led to this situation, and will offer additional comment after those discussions," the spokesperson said.
Some animal welfare advocates point out there've been no problems with the Zoo's star attractions, like the giant pandas.
The panda cubs get naming ceremonies, and the newest tigers receive around-the-clock attention.
"The lesser-known species, the less charismatic species aren't getting the attention that they clearly need," Liss said.
And they're giving the National Zoo attention it clearly doesn't want.
– CNN's Ashley Killough and Mary Grace Lucas contributed to this report.Fact check: Tony Abbott's claim carbon schemes being discarded doesn't check out
Updated
In the run-up to the repeal of Labor's carbon pricing regime, the Prime Minister has argued that other nations are also winding back their emissions trading schemes.
On an official trip to Canada, Tony Abbott told reporters that trading schemes were "being discarded".
"There is no sign – no sign – that trading schemes are increasingly being adopted. If anything trading schemes are being discarded not adopted," he said on June 8.
ABC Fact Check takes a look at carbon pricing around the world.
The claim: Tony Abbott says emissions trading schemes are being discarded around the world, not adopted
Tony Abbott says emissions trading schemes are being discarded around the world, not adopted The verdict: While there is uncertainty in the international carbon pricing market and global agreements are weak and non-binding, individual nations and sub-national regions are increasingly creating carbon trading schemes of their own.
Emissions trading around the world
Mr Abbott made his comment after saying he and his host, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, were likeminded on the issue. "You might remember that the Canadian government campaigned specifically against a carbon tax at the most recent election here in Canada and it actually was returned to government in its own right, in part on the campaign against a carbon tax," Mr Abbott said.
Fact Check asked Mr Abbott's office for the basis for his claim about schemes being discarded. No reply was received.
According to a June 2013 report by the Parliamentary Library, there were emissions trading schemes in place across Europe, in parts of the United States and Canada, and in New Zealand, Australia, Japan and legislated in South Korea - where a full scheme is scheduled to commence in 2015.
China was the "most notable" country proposing new schemes, with a network of seven pilot schemes in the design and planning stages, the report said.
The European scheme includes 28 European Union countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
A May 2013 World Bank report, Mapping Carbon Pricing Initiatives, suggested the future was bright for emissions trading.
"There has been a surge in activity in carbon pricing mechanisms over the past year. The wise old statesmen of the cap-and-trade world - the EU ETS, New Zealand and [the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the United States] - have now been joined by newer, early-stage cousins: California, Quebec, and Australia," the report says.
"Moreover, China, Korea, and Ukraine are crafting their own schemes, adding variety to the mix. In parallel, and with a sense of urgency, governments and other stakeholders are trying to breathe new life into the existing international carbon pricing mechanisms."
I'm not aware of any carbon pricing, either tax or ETS, that's closing down. Ross Garnaut
Increasing or being discarded?
The World Bank's May 2014 report, State and Trends of Carbon Pricing, looks at how countries are faring with implementing carbon trading schemes and says while international schemes are struggling without strong global agreements, national and sub-national (regional or state-based) agreements are on the rise.
"Today, about 40 countries and over 20 sub-national jurisdictions are putting a price on carbon," the report says. It says the reach of carbon pricing is "steadily increasing".
"Progress across the globe is steady. A total of eight new carbon markets opened their doors in 2013 alone. With these new joiners, the world's emissions trading schemes are worth about US$30 billion," the World Bank says.
But it also says - under the heading 'Two steps forward, one step back' - that there are problems with the international market. It lists Australia's plan to scrap carbon pricing as the first one.
"The Australian government plans to repeal its Carbon Pricing Mechanism legislation and three major emitters, Japan, New Zealand and Russia, officially pulled out of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol," the report says.
The Kyoto protocol is a global framework for emissions reductions targets that sets reduction goals for signatory nations. One way countries can meet those goals is to adopt an ETS, but that is not the only way. Also, countries can adopt an ETS without being signatories to the protocol.
The report says there are also problems with the EU ETS, with the design of the mechanism "unable to cope with the major economic downturn", leading permit prices to drop substantially.
The EU says the global financial crisis caused a surplus of permits, and it is working to reform the ETS to ensure emissions reduction targets are met.
The World Bank's report still says carbon pricing is increasing on a national and sub-national level - it's just that international agreements are having trouble gaining traction.
This map from the report shows existing, emerging and potential emissions trading schemes:
Two of the most significant new schemes are China's seven regional schemes, which cover more than 200 million people, and California's "cap and trade" program.
California has been rated as the eighth largest economy in the world and has created a trading system that links in with schemes in several Canadian provinces. It commenced operation in 2012 and while it currently covers just 35 per cent of emissions, will expand to 85 per cent in 2015.
China is also expected to move from regional schemes to a broader national scheme in the future. "The Chinese government is now pursuing a very aggressive program to curb emissions... the central government is on record with a very very tough program to cut back on emissions," economist and China expert Christine Wong told ABC's Q&A on July 7.
What the economists say
Economist Ross Garnaut says he doesn't know of anywhere in the world where carbon pricing is being rolled back.
Professor Garnaut headed an independent review of climate policy commissioned by Kevin Rudd and state and territory governments in 2007 (updated in 2011).
"I'm not aware of any carbon pricing, either tax or ETS, that's closing down and the World Bank [report] is authoritative," Professor Garnaut told Fact Check.
On July 6, 2014, over 50 economists signed an open letter that asked the Government to reconsider scrapping Australia's carbon pricing scheme.
It said: "Australia’s major trading partners are acting on climate change and it is important to have an effective price and limit on pollution in place now to begin Australia’s transition to a low-carbon economy."
Regina Betz from the University of New South Wales Centre of Energy and Environment Markets, who signed the letter, told Fact Check more countries were moving towards emissions trading, not away from it.
"I am not aware of any other country who is dismantling their scheme. I think it is the other way, more countries are considering [introducing] schemes," she said.
Climate advisory panel A panel of climate experts advises ABC Fact Check on its work on climate issues.
This fact check was reviewed by Malte Meinshausen, Frank Jotzo and Tony Wood.
Meet the panel here.
Another signatory, Stephen Howes from the Australian National University, said there had been some backward steps for emissions trading - the global financial crisis caused a significant drop in the price of emissions permits in Europe, and some countries, like Japan and Canada, have walked away from the Kyoto Protocol - but "overall with China introducing pilots and California going ahead you would have to say more adoption than discarding".
"Australia is the only case I know of discarding after adoption," he said.
The verdict
While there is uncertainty in the international carbon pricing market and global agreements are weak and non-binding, individual nations and sub-national regions are increasingly creating carbon trading schemes of their own.
Mr Abbott's claim that "trading schemes are being discarded not adopted" doesn't check out.
Sources
Topics: environment, government-and-politics, emissions-trading, business-economics-and-finance, abbott-tony, liberals, australia
First postedThe first three DLC packs for Gears of War 3 seem to each have been created with different players in mind. "Horde Command" was obviously aimed at fans of Horde mode, and the fact that all three of the new maps in this first DLC pack were later bundled for free with remakes of two maps from the original Gears of War suggests the lasting value of the pack lay in the fortification upgrades. The second DLC pack, "Raam’s Shadow," was geared towards campaign fans, and now "Fenix Rising" (available for 800 Microsoft Points, or $10) seems aimed directly at Gears 3's online multiplayer die-hards.
Five new multiplayer maps make up the bulk of the new content in this DLC offering, and each one is designed to represent a distinct stage in the journey of series protagonist Marcus Fenix. While all five maps are playable in Versus, Horde, and Beast modes, we focused mainly on Versus mode in our testing.
The Academy map is reminiscent of the city environments in the first Gears of War, offering a large, detailed environment that offers the package's greatest variety of viable tactics. Depths is a gorgeous map set in an underwater portion of the COG island refuge of Azura. It favors mid- and short-range combat but also presents ample opportunities for long-range work, and a raised center position provides a nice, strong focal point for players to fight over.
Aside from those two standouts, though, the rest of the new selection are not as strong. Anvil, a mid- to short-range map where you'll need to have your shotgun at the ready, is not nearly as interesting visually, and the design lends itself to spawn-trapping on the Barracks side. Escalation is a map from the original Gears of War set in the front yard of the Fenix Estate, pre-Emergence Day. It's a very narrow map with long, clear lines of sight for sniping, but spawn points at the top and bottom of the map can lead to frustrating situations where players are flanked by respawning enemies from the rear. Finally, the Slab has mid-range lines of sight, but matches there play out almost exclusively in close-quarters combat against the sort of drab grey/brown color scheme you'd expect from a prison environment.
Fenix Rising also adds a few minor tweaks outside of the new maps. The four extra skins that come packaged with the DLC are probably not a selling point in and of themselves, though those that weren't able to get Thrashball Cole and Savage Kantus by other means can get them here.
The DLC also includes a new "Re-up" feature that allows veteran Gears 3 players who have maxed out at Level 100 to reset their experience without affecting their TrueSkill matchmaking data (re-upped players appear in different colors on matchmaking screens, so you can't pretend you're a newbie). Re-upped players can unlock one of three new weapon skins for each time they claw their way back to Level 100, which should keep players obsessed with online bragging rights busy for quite a while.
The new DLC is also required if you want to play in the new Stay Frosty playlists, which also include a number of pre-Fenix Rising maps. This new mode limits your default weapon selections to the Hammerburst and Snub Pistol, both set to ridiculously high damage settings -- just two pistol headshots will result in a kill, for instance. The new Fenix Rising maps appear much less frequently as options during regular Ranked matches, so players that have grown tired of the old maps might want to wait for a dedicated Fenix Rising playlist.
If you’re addicted to Gears 3 multiplayer then this package is definitely a great value. If you were already patient enough to wait for a review like this one, though, it might be worth waiting to see whether the maps come out for free later on, since only two of the five maps really made a strong impression.
Dennis Scimeca is a freelance journalist from Boston, MA. His weekly video game opinion column, First Person, runs Thursdays on The Escapist. You can reach him through his blog, Punching Snakes, or follow his random excitations on Twitter: @DennisScimeca.MUMBAI/JAIPUR: That the IIT coaching sector is one of the country's most profitable is well known. But there is also a cottage industry that feeds off coaching classes, one that deals with the buying and selling of top rankers at the joint entrance exam ( JEE ).For over a month, TOI tracked one such ''broker'' trading in students, a man named Vishnu Agarwal from Kota, a dusty town in Rajasthan that has become the IIT coaching capital of India. He ''sells'' top rankers from one class to another for a fee.Agarwal's modus operandi is simple. He first zeroes in on the brightest students from the bestknown IIT coaching classes who are most likely to clear the JEE. He then approaches other coaching classes in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Delhi and offers them the opportunity to administer their test series to these students. Once the JEE results are declared, the coaching class can include those who appeared for their test series as part of the total number of students from their institute who made it to the IITs. The test series is free of cost for students, who are sometimes even paid to write these tests. The coaching class pays Agarwal for the service.Agarwal even claims that, for Rs 6 lakh, he can provide new entrants in the IIT coaching sector with the entire academic plan of well-known coaching classes such as Bansal in Kota. According to Agarwal, around 1,000 coaching classes in India use Bansal's content, much of which is provided by him. He claims he has clients in Bihar, UP and Chattisgarh, among other states.He operates from a plush locality in Kota's Talwandi colony, with three cellphones and a laptop. One of his mobile numbers is registered in Mumbai while the other number is registered in Kota. He would not reveal the third number.The matter came to light when Agarwal contacted IITians Pace, a popular coaching class in Mumbai, and offered to ''sell'' it some top-rankers from the biggest names in Kota's coaching industry. TOI worked alongside Praveen Tyagi, MD of IITians Pace, to expose Agarwal. Our reporters approached him from Mumbai and Jaipur.Tyagi first put TOI's Mumbai correspondent on a conference call with Agarwal, where he discussed his business model and how he would produce top rankers for Pace's test series.TOI then phoned Agarwal from Mumbai posing as Tyagi's secretary, Sonal, and discussed plans to take the deal forward. The conversation was recorded. Agarwal said he could provide 30-40 candidates from three classes in Kota (Bansal, Resonance and Vibrant) who would definitely score a rank below 100 at JEE. Each of thes student would come for Rs 10,000. He said he could also provide a few more kids who would probably make it to the IITs, but with a rank above 100. These, he said, would cost only Rs 5,000 per head. He said that in addition to his own fee, he would also have to pay students some money to appear for the tests.Brryan Jackson tells his story as part of the IKnow HIV campaign in 2009. Courtesy i Know HIV/Vimeo
A MAN who was injected with HIV by his father when he was just 11-months-old says he forgives his dad.
Brryan Jackson, 22, was given the infected blood transfusion by his father Brian Stewart so he could avoid paying child support, The Daily Mail reports.
In 1992 Brryan was in hospital suffering from asthma when his father, a blood transfusion specialist, snuck into his hospital room and injected Brryan with the HIV-positive blood.
Brryan developed AIDS by the age of five and doctors said he wouldn't live past the age of six. The medication he had to take caused him to lose 70 per cent of his hearing. At one stage he was taking 23 oral pills, two IV bags, and three injections.
But Brryan has defied all doctors' warnings and lived to the age of 22, and the virus has been undetectable in him for the past five years.
"Anyone in my condition would die in three months, they gave me five," Brryan told KPLR.
"I went from 23 pills to just one pill a day and now I'm undetectable, my T-cell count has been up, giving me zero per cent chance of passing on the virus."
His father was convicted and given a life sentence, but he could be free in a few years.
Brryan says he was able to forgive his father because of his Christian faith.
"I think there is salvation for everyone, and I find myself praying for his salvation."
But growing up was tough. Brryan was isolated by his schoolmates and at one point even considered suicide.
"I had three knives in front of me and thought, why me? Why me? But I realised there is hope, and it's not about what you have it's what you can give."
The 22-year-old is still in college, and spends his spare time promoting education and awareness of HIV/AIDS.
###1902
Soccer, or association football, comes to Portland via English sailors docking along the waterfront.
1904
A small group of enthusiasts form the Portland Association Football Club, the
first soccer league in Portland. Still, there are no regular teams.
1906
The PAFC makes its season debut when the English ships Galgate, Elaine and Visigoth drop anchor in the Willamette providing local players some much-needed opponents. The Portlanders, though thoroughly out of practice, rout the English and their wobbly sea legs, 7–1.
Jan 1907
Portland claims another resounding soccer victory when the PAFC beats a team of English sailors from the steamers Vermont, Strathord and Gymeric, 5–1.
Feb 1907
200 spectators gather at the Cricket Club grounds, the city’s makeshift soccer pitch, in 35-degree weather to watch English and Scottish sailors play a fast-paced, if terrible, match. Nevertheless, onlookers describe the city’s enthusiasm as the beginning of a “soccer renaissance.”
Nov 1907
Touching off a fierce rivalry between the two cities, the PAFC team travels to Seattle—accompanied by a band of spirited “rooters”—to play on Thanksgiving Day in front of a large crowd. Portland loses 3–2.
Dec 1907
Riding the recent success of soccer in the city, the Oregonian for once predicts the future—about a century too early—touting “visions of great amphitheaters which will hold tens of thousands of cheering soccer rooters.” The paper even addressed the skeptics: “The soccer men are dreaming dreams, and who shall say they will not prove true?”
Oct 1908
The newly formed Portland Football Association (replacing the PAFC) prepares for its most ambitious season yet, organizing into standing teams. The league will play a total of 45 games, culminating in an Oregon championship game. The six initial teams are Multnomah, the Columbias, the Cricketers, the Caledonians, the Crescents, and the O. R. & N. Though no longer dependent on British sailors for opponents, many of the players are English and Scottish immigrants.
Feb 1909
Portland is taught a lesson by the Brits. An All-England team trounces the All-America team, 1–0. “In the words of the poet, the American eagle tackled the English lion yesterday afternoon, but came off second best… Of course, the better team won, but American absenteeism is chiefly responsible for the defeat.”
Mar 1910
Red and white Multnomah wins the Oregon Championship 4–0, shutting out Queen’s Parks, who “were caught napping.” Reporters conclude that the losing team “spoiled the effects of their hard training by smoking tobacco” before and during the match.
Nov 1912
The Oregon Soccer Football Association comes into being (replacing the PFA) and adopts four teams initially: the Mount Scott team, the Cricketers Second, Lents Independents, and Portland Heights.
1926
The Timbers soccer team appears for the first time—in an appropriate early-twentieth-century industrialist mode—as the Timber Barons from Longview, the only out-of-town team in the league. They win the Oregon Championship this year.
Mar 1926
Columbia Park in North Portland draws the biggest crowd for a soccer game to date. A mob of 5,000 fans congregates to watch the Thistles battle the Timber Barons for a 1–1 tie.
1968
Two troubled leagues merge to form the North American Soccer League (NASL), the first major professional soccer league in the country, which would eventually peak at 24 teams.
Oct 1974
Portland bids to receive a franchise in the NASL. The effort is spearheaded by Oregon Soccer Inc, which envisions pro soccer coming to the Rose City in time for the season start in April 1975.
Jan 1975
The burgeoning North American Soccer League (NASL) offers Portland the 20th franchise for the 1975 season, bringing pro soccer to Portland for the first time.
Feb–Mar 1975
Team owners sponsor a citywide vote to name the new team. More than 3,000 people cast ballots. The top entry, “The Pioneers,” hits a snag—Lewis & Clark College has already claimed it. The nod goes to the second-place choice, “The Timbers,” recipient of just 44 votes. Phew! The Rainbows and RainDrops were close behind.
Aug 1975
In its first season, Portland charges to the NASL playoffs, packing then–Civic Stadium with up to 33,503 fans. One player says: “When you hear a roar from a crowd like we had at Civic Stadium, your body breaks out in goose bumps.” The Timbers lose the championship game; nevertheless, the press dubs Portland “Soccer City USA.”
Aug 1979
The Timbers nearly go bankrupt—but Louisiana-Pacific, one of the largest wood-products companies in the US, saves the day, buying the team for about $750,000.
Aug 1982
Seven years after Portland became “Soccer City USA,” the franchise ends just as it began, losing to the Seattle Sounders, 1–0. The NASL itself folds two years later.
1988
The Timbers are resurrected in the Western Soccer Alliance (WSA), a short-lived professional league, ushering in the era known as Timbers II. Before the WSA’s gloomy demise in 1990, the Timbers draw more fans than any other team in the league.
May 2001
The Timbers once again come to life in the United Soccer Leagues. Fans are few at first, but their numbers swell as the Timbers Army is born.
Mar 2009
A new era begins when MLS awards Portland an expansion franchise. Owner Merritt Paulson ponies up the $40 million expansion fee.
Mar–April 2011
Following a $31 million PGE Park renovation, the Timbers enter the MLS, playing their first game at the Colorado Rapids. On April 14, the team christens the new/old stadium against the Chicago Fire.For a brief period of time in the late 80’s I had the privilege of serving my country in Berlin, Germany.
One of the many problems with the way Germany was divided up after the Allies won World War II was the fact that the capital, Berlin, was located on the Eastern side. Given its economic and cultural importance, the Allies weren’t willing to hand the entire city over to Stalin. The solution agreed to, was to divide Berlin up into four key sections; an American sector, an English sector, a French sector, and a Soviet sector.
As more people began defecting into the democratic districts of the city, the communists decided to surround the Allied sectors with a wall. A barricade designed to keep people in, trapping their own citizens in what was beyond doubt, the dark side of the metropolis. In some places it was a fence, in others a water barrier patrolled by speedboat, and in many sections it was the now iconic, and then ominous, 12’ high cement “wall”. Regardless of where someone tried to cross, they would find guard towers, dogs, barbwire, and Soviet block soldiers ready to shoot and kill anyone who tried to leave their socialist utopia. And more than a few times from my apartment, you could hear the alarms that signaled someone was trying anyway.
People who have a more naïve view of history may think President Reagan’s famous “Evil Empire” rhetoric was misplaced, or, at the very least, too hawkish. Having lived in Berlin while the wall was still up, and having crossed over into East Berlin on several occasions, I can ensure you it was anything but. It was as if you had walked from a full color musical, the beautiful, modern, megalopolis of West Berlin, into a black and white horror film, the grim, bullet ridden remnants of the city known as East Berlin, filled with the shuffling and miserable poor. And no matter where you went once you moved through Checkpoint Charlie, and no matter how aware the East German citizens were of their constant and malevolent observation by Stasi and KGB operatives, they still risked their lives to approach you and beg you to help them cross over to freedom.
One of the first places you went when you arrived to your assignment in Berlin was a school. There, you were given a crash course in history. Much of it was designed to give historical context to the National Socialist movement, the economic collapse that preceded it, and the treaty of Versailles that helped ignite it. They didn’t want young Americans like myself living amongst the population absent either a sense of history, or a sense of empathy.
The other lesson they ingrained in you was just how populated the city of Berlin was at the time, with foreign intelligence agents. As a way point between East and West, Communist and Democratic, Berlin served as a sort of Mos Eisley Cantina for spies. If you had or were ever going to have, any access at all to classified information, the question wasn’t whether a foreign intelligence agent would approach you, the question was when.
It wasn’t just the East German Stasi or Russian KGB or GRU who were everywhere; it was every National intelligence service on the planet. Berlin was crucial to the Cold War. And given that reality, the United States government had a vested interest in letting us know how agencies like the KGB worked, what methods their officers used to turn people like us, into stooges for people like them.
The Russians had a handy acronym they taught their KGB case officers – M.I.C.E.
Money – Ideology – Compromise – Ego
M.I.C.E, once you hear it you don’t forget it. It’s clean, clear, and pretty comprehensive. M.I.C.E represented the four methods used to turn a representative of the United States government, into as asset, or, at the very least, a useful idiot. A term we will return to in a short while.
M – Money is an obvious motivator. Yet surprisingly, you’ll find the sums used by the Russians to turn western agents, was, given the seriousness of the crime, usually quite small. The former Marine, Clayton Lonetree, gave his KGB handler hundreds of classified documents, including floor plans to a US Embassy; and in exchange he made a sum total of about 18,000 dollars. The KGB always had to worry that their field agents, who had more freedom of travel than the average Soviet serf, would defect to a free Nation. Giving them access to six figure sums wasn’t something they liked to do.
I – Ideology was the next motivator and most intelligence officers will tell you that by far, it was the most powerful and reliable one. But, given the unpleasant nature of communist nations, it wasn’t one that was often available. And it certainly wasn’t one that was easy to inculcate in a potential American turncoat. The acquisition of ideological assets tended to weigh in the favor of the western powers, not the Soviet ones.
C – Compromise was next, and it was common. Compromise meant, for the most part, blackmail. Gaining leverage through the collection of embarrassing or criminal information regarding a potential asset. What vices does the individual have? Do the like hookers, drugs, gambling, or theft? Do they have secrets? Are they cheating on their spouse? If not, would they? Are they gay? As long as there was a stigma around something, that something remained a place for leverage – no matter what it was. And even if they hadn’t indulged yet, getting people to bite the hook of temptation isn’t always difficult, assuming you use the right bait.
Last, but certainly not least, we come to the simplest, easiest to employ, and by far most common way to get individuals to betray their own nation, E – Ego.
It might surprise you to learn that lots of people have given away national secrets, become Judas to their own country, through the use of little more than flattery. Give a man a “covert weapon”, a 10$ cane with a hidden sword inside. Make them feel like James Bond. Make them feel smart. Make them feel strong. Make the feel attractive. Make them feel important. And slowly, over time, they’ll hand over nuclear codes. That is, if our government fails in its duty to keep such things out of the hands of people who are weak enough, fragile enough, needy enough, to be susceptible to the kind of approbation a skilled KGB agent can offer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is a highly trained, highly skilled, intelligence officer. A man who rose through the ranks of the KGB, you can rest assured that one his greatest talents is learning where people are vulnerable. In fact, I promise you, he’s a master of it. Ego, in all its vein forms, is one of the greatest weaknesses a man can have. Bluster, bravado, a quick temper, a tendency to |
, premieres on Saturday April 8 at 1930 GMT on CNN InternationalA controversial Donald Trump-branded luxury hotel in Canada has postponed its opening until early next year.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver, which was supposed to start allowing guests next month, pushed back the launch to January because construction isn't finished, a spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said the delay had nothing to do with the upcoming election in the United States or recent sexual assault allegations against the Republican presidential nominee. She said the construction team made its decision two weeks ago.
Delays had already pushed the scheduled opening from August to November.
Related: Donald Trump's brand is 'plummeting,' biographer says
But the hotel, the second to bear the Trump name in Canada, has been a point of contention for the country since Trump's campaign kicked into gear.
Days after Trump pledged to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S. last December, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson wrote to the hotel's developer asking that Trump's name be removed from the building.
The developer, Holborn Holdings, is licensing the Trump brand for the property, which will be the second-tallest building in Vancouver and the first luxury hotel built in the city in six years.
"Donald Trump's hateful positions and commentary remind us all of much darker times in our world's past," Robertson wrote in his letter. He cited a petition to remove Trump's name that was signed by more than 50,000 people.
Related: Foot traffic is down at Trump properties since he launched his campaign
"It is their belief, and my belief, that Trump's name and brand have no more place on Vancouver's skyline than his ignorant ideas have in the modern world," Robertson wrote.
A poll taken by the Canadian research firm Angus Reid last December suggested that many agreed. More than half of Canadians said Trump's name should not appear on the Vancouver nor on a Trump hotel in Toronto that opened in 2012.
Holborn Holdings could not be reached for comment, and Robertson's office referred a CNNMoney reporter to his letter.
Recent reporting suggests Trump's presidential campaign could be hurting his business. A Foursquare report released this month showed Trump-branded hotels, casinos and golf clubs had about 16% fewer visits in September compared to a year ago.
And Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio, citing "good data," said Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources" that Trump's brand equity is "plummeting."Pop quiz: do any of you remember the last From The Backline episode featuring only our our two hosts? You actually have to way back to the "Ol' Days" of January 2015 since it was a show with only Mark and Jorge.
But I digress.
This week's show is just as busy as ever. In Part 1 (1'-33') the guys talk "Pedro-mania" and go over the impressive win for the Whitecaps over Real Salt Lake last weekend.
In Part 2 (34'-72') we talk all about the awesomeness that was the WFC2 home opener, MLS scores and standings, and we also put it out there that we should be the ones to lead a intervention to get Toronto FC stop acting like Toronto FC.
Show Music:
Bye Bye Bad Man - The Stone Roses / Overtime - Cash Cash
Audio highlights care of WhitecapsFC.com and Team Radio. All rights reserved.
Feedback:
Email: fromthebackline@outlook.com
Facebook / Twitter
You can also download or subscribe to the From the Backline podcast on iTunes and Stitcher or with show's RSS feed
Visit the website of the show for all the episodes and show notes.
If you have a question or comment for a future episode, then please send us an email at fromthebackline@outlook.com or throw a tweet our way at @fromthebackline or by using the hashtag #FTBLPODA promotional picture from The Inbetweeners USA has been unveiled.
The image shows Bubba Lewis (Simon), Joey Pollari (Will), Mark L Young (Neil) and Zack Pearlman (Jay) in action as the characters made famous by Joe Thomas, Simon Bird, Blake Harrison and James Buckley in the original Channel 4 show.
The Reservoir Dogs-esque picture suggests that some key elements from the series, such as Simon's bright yellow Cinquecento Hawaii and Will's infamous briefcase, will also feature in the adaptation.
The Inbetweeners USA has received the backing of Anthony Head, who cameoed in The Inbetweeners Movie as Will's father and whose daughter Emily starred in the original series as Carli D'Amato.
"I have to say, sometimes you wonder about translations [but] it's good, actually," he said. "They followed [the original] very close. Its themes are pretty common."
The Inbetweeners will debut on MTV in the US on August 20, while the British big-screen version will receive a stateside release on September 7.- Family members of a Minnesota man connected to young people who allegedly attempted to fight for ISIS, say he frequently expressed radical beliefs about religious Jihad.
Amir Meshal, 32, is on the government’s “No-Fly” list, and as the FOX 9 Investigators revealed, recently got his Class A Commercial Drivers License, which will allow him to drive large semi-trucks.
Meshal’s cousin, Tony Osman, recalled a non-stop road trip the two made from Minnesota to New Jersey two years ago for a family funeral.
"He said Jihad is the greatest and highest and best thing you can do in Islam. And the best deed equaled by none," Osman recalled. “On the car ride, Amir was listening to Blind Sheikh and Osama Bin Laden. Video tapes on his handheld device connected through the speakers. They were lectures and promoting Jihad."
"He seemed to be very fascinated and enthralled by it (Jihad)," said Osman. "I asked him also what he thought about ISIS and this was like June or July. He said they're a good group, seems they want to implement the Koran and the Sharia."
Meshal has been on the FBI's radar since 2007, when he was arrested leaving an Al Qaeda training camp in Somalia. He was held for three months in secret prisons in Kenya and Ethiopia, enduring grueling interrogations.
Osman recalled several parts of his conversations with his cousin. "He said, do you know the real reason I went to Somalia? And I said, no I don’t. This is the first time I am hearing this. (Mashal:) I went to train with some high level Al Qaeda people who had just returned from Afghanistan.”
Nabil Ashour is another relative, who Meshal lived with for a short time, after returning from Somalia. "What I saw when he came back was not the same kid that I saw and lived with me that I knew from New Jersey," Ashour said. "I felt he was like helping a terrorist lie low in my basement." Nabil Ashour isn't a practicing Muslim. He believes his cousin is looking for martyrdom.
Meshal is suing Homeland Security with help of the ACLU for being held in rendition overseas and for being on the no-fly list. In a letter last December, Homeland Security said Meshal is not only a terror threat, but "has the operational capacity to carry out a terror attack." The reasons for that assessment are classified, blacked out on documents. The two lawsuits are on appeal. A decision is expected soon.
Last summer, Meshal was kicked out of a Bloomington mosque for attempting to radicalize young people, including many of those who prosecutors say were attempting to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.
Meshal is suspected of playing an influential role with Abdullahi Yusuf, who is now a cooperating government witness and Abdi Nur, believed to have been killed fighting for ISIS.
Osman was with Meshal when he met with the group.
Osman: "I need to talk to the brothers privately and he talked to the group of kids that was arrested.”
Reporter: “How long would he talk to them?”
Osman: “5, 10, 15 minutes."
Reporter: “And did he seem to be leading them in anyway?”
Osman: "I am not sure, honestly. They did seem to respect him highly and value his opinion and listen to him."
He further recalled Meshal encouraged the young people to watch videos of Sheikh Anwar Al Awlaki, a radical cleric killed in a U.S. drone strike, whose lectures have inspired lone wolf attacks all over the world. "He called them Sheikh Anwar's videos. He said that guy speaks the truth. He said if you want to know the truth listen to this guy." Osman remembered.
Osman has known Meshal since they were just five years old, growing up near Newark, New Jersey. They're actually double cousins. Their parents are siblings, in a complicated and intriguing family tree. Osman's step father, Khalid Ibrahim, is an un-indicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. When Osman was only 10 years old his step-father took him to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he said he received training alongside the Taliban. He's photographed holding a grenade launcher. Osman, is now a personal trainer and said he had long ago rejected radical Islam.
The FBI and U.S. Attorney have repeatedly declined to talk to the Fox 9 Investigators about Meshal and whether he may be a target in any criminal investigation. The standard criminal charge has been "material support" for a terrorist organization. That can be buying a plane ticket or even driving someone to the airport to fight for ISIS. But simply preaching about the virtues of Jihad especially in a foreign country is not criminal. Many would argue it is protected free speech.
Meshal’s attorney with the ACLU, Hina Shamsi, said in a statement to the FOX 9 Investigators: “Mr. Meshal has been under law enforcement scrutiny for over a decade and has never been charged with a crime. He rejects any and all false allegations about his beliefs and stands by the statements he has repeatedly made, that he has engaged in no wrongdoing and wants only only what any other American wants, which is to get on with his life peacefully. It is shameful that he continues to be hounded by false allegations, rumor, and innuendo.”
In a separate statement to The FOX 9 Investigators last May, Meshal said: “I would never suggest that anyone join ISIS or any other group that kills innocent people, nor would I ever provide money to do so.”
According to Osman, Meshal told him "innocence" is relative when it comes to Jihad, especially in defense of a Muslim state, a caliphate. "People who don't implement Sharia, even if they're Muslim, they're considered infidels and we should kill them and we should defend our lands and implement Sharia," Osman remembered Meshal saying.
Reporter: “Did he say he would do Jihad in the United States?”
Osman: "He didn't specifically say I’m going to do Jihad in the United States. What he told me it was his right to do Jihad, wherever he is, and if the enemies of Islam trap him in the enemy land all options are open to him."
Meshal's attorney released a statement Monday night saying "he rejects any and all false allegations about his beliefs and stands by the statements he has repeatedly made, that he has engaged in no wrongdoing and wants only what any other American wants, which is to get on with his life peacefully.”***ONLINE ORDERS HAVE ENDED – TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE EVENT***
Spend an Evening with legendary KISS and Grand Funk Railroad guitarist BRUCE KULICK! Presented by Fan HQ, Outtakes Bar & Grill, Rockabilia.com and Capitol Guitars!
Friday, February 22nd
Outtakes Bar and Grill – New Hope (Map)
Doors at 8:00pm
Q and A from 9:00-9:45pm
Meet and greet starting about 9:45pm
Bruce will participate in a Q and A session and will mix in a little guitar playing with his stories. Tommy Sommers from Three Sides of the Coin will be our host for the evening. A number of fan questions will help drive the conversation. The evening will end with an autograph/photo session for VIP ticket holders.
Tickets start at only $15 each in advance ($20 day of the event). A limited number of VIP Meet and Greet tickets are also available and include an autograph on the item of your choice* (not included) and a posed photo with Bruce by our event photographer.
***Note – Autographs on guitars or guitar parts require an additional fee of $100 – payable at the event***
Bruce will have a merch table at the event and will sign those items in addition to the one autograph included with the VIP tickets during the meet and greet. Bruce’s personally signed merch will also be available for purchase for general admission ticket holders (items will be signed by Bruce in advance).
Order Tickets Using the Links Below (tickets available exclusively online using the links below)
Continue reading →Has digging into season 2 made you think about your own crazy ex-girlfriend moments, if you have any?
"In some ways, I always felt like a crazy ex-girlfriend. But it was very self-flagellating, because when you're a crazy ex, it's like: 'Oh my god, my ex is crazy.' Nine times out of 10, if someone is acting insane, the other person has done something to merit that person being insane — there's a culpability on the side of both parties.
"I never did anything like Rebecca because, in some ways, I think that I have always been able to pursue happiness in ways that Rebecca can't. I've always pursued theater — that was always my passion. My parents never forced me to do anything I didn't wanna do, unlike Rebecca's mother."
Her mom is just terrifying.
"Terrifying, but so true — so relatable to me [laughs]. I never got to that level of misery. I think I was always afraid of being seen as crazy. Which, Rebecca doesn't have that fear as much. For me, it's really like: I want to be seen as rational, I want to be seen as not crazy.
"And so, I think that inside I felt like Rebecca, emotionally. But I never did half the things that she did because there was a certain — in a good way — self-censorship on my actions. But I let myself become boy-crazy in ways that I still find debasing of myself. I didn't ever climb outside of a guy's room to stalk him — it was all subtle things. But those subtle things, in many ways, were me lying to myself. That's almost more humiliating than climbing a tree outside of a guy's house to stalk him."
We also seem to have our work cut out for us in terms of undoing the "crazy girlfriend" stereotype.
"The world, for so many years, has been ruled by men. Still is. With that, you get the male gaze, the way men see the world. [It's] the de facto: 'This is the way everything should be.' I was talking to a screenwriter, and I asked him: 'Why do male screenwriters often write, Pretty but doesn't know it? Why is that such a fantasy — that a woman would be pretty and doesn't know it?'
"He goes: 'Well, men want to write someone who is hot, but who they could theoretically fuck. Because women who are pretty and do know it don't wanna fuck screenwriters.' [laughs] If women were the prevailing force in the world, I think you'd have a different standard. Gender is a very complicated thing that I'm still actively learning about — I think we're all still actively learning about gender. Especially people I know who are trans. They think about gender in a way that I have never had to."
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend returns to the CW on Friday, October 21, at 9 p.m. EST.Dear friends,
DGR UK has had an exciting year so far. With numbers growing, DGR UK had a strategy meeting in May with an interesting discussion on where to focus our energy. We decided on three broad areas:
1. attending UK protests and marches to show our solidarity and support for the events
2. start brainstorming DGR UK campaigns and actions
3. contact allies and groups with a shared outlook to work together
We have started moving forward with all these areas. DGR UK members attended the London Anti-Austerity march on June 20th.
DGR UK members attended the Reclaim the Power camp in May and got involved in one of the actions.
DGR UK members attended and helped with the organisation/running of the Earth First Summer Gathering. It was a very well attended and enjoyable gathering and we look forward to next years.
Three groups in London have contacted DGR UK to request we attend their meetings to speak about Deep Green Resistance. Some of these will be public events so we will share the dates once they are confirmed.
DGR UK members will be at the COP21 London climate change march on November 29th, hope to see you there.
Love and rage,
The DGR UK TeamOn the Road to The Man In Black: 10 Places to See if You Heart Johnny Cash by Original Fuzz
Coming in hot on the trails of Johnny Cash's anniversary of death, we've got a list of the 10 best places to visit if you're a true J.R. fan. May the spirit of Johnny Cash live on as our contributor, Dee Gross, guides you through these places significant to The Man In Black, and explains why you need to see them. Read on.
With my Pandora station tuned to the Man in Black, it is easy to think on all the familiar tales that surround Johnny Cash. Most people know about his clothes, his voice, and his songs, but where do you go if you really want to know the man behind the legend. Here is my top 10 places to visit if you are a true Johnny Cash Fan.
Hendersonville, TN.
Hendersonville is where Johnny Cash lived, so naturally it is an absolute must visit for fans. I would recommend waiting for sunny weather for your visit. The moment Nashville Pike changes to Johnny Cash Parkway, that is your signal to roll down windows and blast your favorite tune. Then you can stop off at the Hendersonville Memorial Gardens. This cemetery is the final resting place of Johnny and June. Pay your respects to one of the greatest loves in music and listen of the ghostly duets that echo in the wind. If you need help finding the burial plot, Hendersonville Memorial Garden even has a website that will help you find the exact location. If you are feeling brave, rent a boat, hop on Old Hickory Lake and head towards Hendersonville. You might be able to catch a glimpse of the ruin of Johnny Cash’s "nature house."
The Grand Ole Opry
There are many reasons to visit The Grand Ole Opry, but this is particularly a great place for Cash fans. Some of Cash’s most famous performances happened at this country music landmark, and being inducted into the Grand Ole Opry is one of country music’s highest honors. It also happens to be where Johnny and June first met.
Sun Records and Studio
Though Cash had an inauspicious beginning at Sun Records, he proved the record executives wrong by recording his first song, "Cry, Cry, Cry." The company itself has moved to Nashville, but the original location has turned into a tourist destination in Memphis.
Nickajack Cave
Though there is some debate as to the legitimacy of the story, this tale is so ingrained in Cash’s lore that it is too big to be ignored. This is the place of Cash’s alleged suicide attempt and subsequent rebirth.
The Ryman
Known as The Mother Church of Country Music, Johnny Cash joined the many amazing musicians that filled its rafters with music. Johnny Cash also filmed the aptly named The Johnny Cash Show here. The show was a classic variety show and featured many famous artists including everyone from Bob Dylan to Bob Hope.
Folsom and San Quentin Prison
Two of Cash’s most iconic performances were at Folsom and San Quentin. These performances cemented his outlaw reputation and were just plain cool. There are debates as to which performance was the best, but perhaps it is best to visit both just to be sure. There is a museum of Folsom Prison that you can visit to learn the history. Not gritty and hardcore, but for $2, not a bad price to follow in the footsteps of a legend. Both are still active prisons complete with death row, so visit at your own risk.
Kingsland, Arkansas
Kingsland is the birthplace of Johnny Cash. It is where he first discovered his love of music and experienced the life-changing tragedy of his brother’s death.
The Country Music Hall of Fame
There is probably, at least, part of you that doubts this recommendation, but put away your judgement for just this one location. Perhaps, this is indeed a tourist destination, but it is good enough to make even the most jaded hearts melt. Located in downtown Nashville, down the street from where Johnny used to work, the CMHOF is celebrating Johnny Cash in its current exhibit Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Cash is one of the few artists who has been given the honor of being inducted into both The Country Music and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is a definite stop on the Tour de Cash. Especially during October when the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame will honor The Man in Black during the 21st annual Music Masters series.
The Johnny Cash Museum
If you want to be completely immersed in Cash Memorabilia, then the Johnny Cash Museum is for you. Located in Downtown Nashville on 3rd Ave, it is a home for all things Cash.
Cash’s legend shall never die. His spirit lives on in his music and in the loved ones he left behind. These places offer us mere morsels of a glimpse of greatness. So get your tunes all ready, head out on the road, and prepare to be immersed in the world of Johnny Cash.
Dee Gross is a writer and frequent contributor to the Original Fuzz Magazine. You can find more of her words on her blog The Mad Scientists and Their Gross Life.You’ve chosen what to do. You’ve started working hard on it. You’ve overcome the initial issues and are getting somewhere.
You’re learning from your mistakes. You’re getting better all the time. Finding the process awesome. Loving it. The sense of new found possibility.
But then it happens, then things start to unfold. You miss a day and it’s harder to get going the next. So you miss another and on and on.
You make plans to start, just to be thrown off track by something. Find yourself distracted. The motivation is starting to wane.
Don’t let it.
What’s holding you back? Focus is the key. Letting unimportant things grab your attention. Don’t let them. Start saying no to anything that’s not crucial.
Saying no to browsing the web.
Saying no to reading articles.
Saying no to research.
Saying no to that great idea you just had.
Saying no to starting in 5 minutes.
Start Now. Throw out the unnecessary.
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”
— Steve Jobs
Get working, get focussed. Say no. Force yourself if you have to. Throw out everything unnecessary.
Do it now. Right now. As soon as you start, those good feelings will rush back. Do it once and the feelings appear. Keep going, keep saying no and the feelings become permanent. You become awesome.
Start saying no. Start focusing. Start feeling great again.
Go Now. Say no to everything unimportant. Focus on that one thing. And when you do celebrate how great you are for doing it.Hertz is reportedly canceling car reservations during the solar eclipse later this month, and people are not happy
So many people have been planning their late summer vacations around the solar eclipse, which happens later this month. It can only be seen from certain parts of the U.S., so people have been booking plane tickets and rental cars to make sure they get to their preferred spot to enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience. But Hertz reportedly canceled car reservations around the solar eclipse on August 21st, leaving some customers totally stranded.
According to BuzzFeed News and a handful of customer complaints on Twitter, Hertz reportedly made robocalls last week informing customers that their reservations had been cancelled due to overbooking — even for customers who had diligently made their reservations months in advance. HelloGiggles’ request for comment from Hertz was not immediately returned.
This is common in the car rental and airline industry: Hertz doesn’t want a bunch of cars sitting around their garages if people cancel, so they take as many reservations as possible — even taking your credit card info and everything. But sometimes not enough people cancel, and there are more bookings than cars available — so they have to cancel them. Again, this is especially annoying when you’re the savvy traveler who makes reservations way in advance.
People are not happy with Hertz for canceling their solar eclipse reservations.
It’s especially frustrating since the car rental company advertised all summer, encouraging people to get a rental car to drive and see the eclipse.
Don't miss out on the Total Solar Eclipse on August 21st! Reserve one of our BRAND NEW rentals! #hsv #shoals https://t.co/WaNkhqEjmh pic.twitter.com/IMObBL3Wfs — Hertz Car Rental (@EagleAutoLLC) August 1, 2017
Renters also complained that Hertz had jacked up rental prices for the eclipse — so customers not only had their reservations canceled, they had their expensive car reservations canceled. At least there’s still some time for people to rework their travel plans, though many on Twitter feel they’re totally out of luck without a car.
Planning trip to PDX for eclipse & booked car @Hertz mos ago. Just got robocall canceling reservation b/c they're overbooked. Anyone else? — Katie O'Connor (@katieoconnoresq) August 3, 2017
To see eclipse and visit grad schools - Airline tix for 2 from NY to OR: $1400; hotel: $1300; @Hertz cancelling res: priceless!!... — mary anne egan (@geekgrl4) August 4, 2017
@Hertz price gouging in Portland for the eclipse weekend. 'Glitch' takes unlimited res, while increasing price 10x... cancels priors. — Andrew Yakovlev (@a_yakovlev) August 3, 2017
@Hertz I think it's pathetic that companies are gouging people during the week of the solar eclipse. What is normally a $175 rental now $441 — Scott L. (@RoadGliding) July 29, 2017
Car rental, Portland OR Aug 20-27, $3000. Same car, same place Aug 22-27, $300. 10x more if rented before eclipse. #highwayrobbery #hertz — Amy Milstein (@greenmangoes) July 31, 2017
The total solar eclipse is slated to happen on August 21st and will be visible from South Carolina all the way over to Oregon, following a very specific path. A lot of the best places to see the eclipse are outside of major cities, making it even more necessary to have your own transportation.
Hopefully, everyone who was planning on traveling to see it can figure out other ways to complete their travel plans, even without a Hertz rental car.A new report released last week asserts that utility-scale solar is much more economical than small-scale solar. The clear implication is that we should let incumbent utilities build or buy solar from large-scale arrays instead of allowing customers to generate their own power.
There are several reasons to seriously question the mistaken assertion that big solar is better.
Follow the money
First, this study is funded, in part, by the Edison Electric Institute. The Institute is the for-profit utility trade group whose 2013 report on “disruptive challenges” suggests, among other things, that utilities have to fight back against distributed solar energy as a revenue threat. Their members include many utilities proposing or implementing higher charges on their customers to make small solar less economical. In other words, the sponsors of this study have a financial interest in slowing the growth of small-scale solar.
Second, the report is prepared for First Solar, a Wal-Mart-family-supported solar developer that views rooftop solar as a competitive threat to its utility-scale solar business. In other words, the study was commissioned by a company whose financial interest is in reducing competition from small-scale solar.
Question the assumptions
In theory, we could find objective study results despite biased funders, but you won’t find them here. Let’s talk about a few of the titanic omissions in the study's comparison of large- and small-scale solar.
Utility-scale solar and residential solar aren’t comparable on a levelized-cost basis, because only one delivers power at the point of use (residential solar). Utility-scale solar has to get to customers, and that requires access to (and often construction of) high-voltage transmission infrastructure that is not only controversial, but expensive.
The following chart, based on a Clean Coalition analysis from 2011, shows that transmission costs for large-scale solar projects can outweigh the economies of scale that come from their large size.
Cost can be higher, but value is lower for solar energy from centralized solar arrays. For example, numerous studies on the value of solar energy (and one state law) illustrate the particular grid benefits of distributed solar that utility-scale doesn’t provide, including reduced line losses, deferred distribution system maintenance, avoided transmission capital expense, and increased resiliency.
It’s not just a theory; it’s an industry practice. When Geronimo Energy pitched Xcel Energy on 100 megawatts of new solar capacity in Minnesota, the company promised to build it in chunks of 2 megawatts to 10 megawatts each that it asserts “will deliver many benefits, including a reduction in line loss, elimination of transmission costs, and geographic diversification of generation assets.”
The following chart, illustrating Minnesota’s value-of-solar formula, shows particular values that only apply to distributed solar like that on residential rooftops.
Distributed solar also has substantial economic benefits of interest to electric customers, if not their monopoly utilities. For example, 1 megawatt of solar that is locally owned rather than utility-owned means as much as $5.7 million in lifetime economic benefits for a community. And the dramatic rise in residential and commercial rooftop solar arrays suggests electric customers see a clear economic opportunity in generating their own power.
Question the purpose
It’s tempting to accept the assertion that bigger is better, especially for environmentalists seeking the most rapid transition to clean energy. But the truth is that distributed solar competes on cost and value, and it’s a faster way to a cleaner power sector.
Look no further than world-leader Germany, where more than 25 percent of annual electricity production comes from renewable energy, 7 percent from solar alone. The vast majority of German solar arrays (70 percent) are 500 kilowatts or smaller (less than the size of an Ikea rooftop).
In contrast, the splashy 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Array took seven years to develop and construct, during which time over 8,000 megawatts of distributed residential and commercial solar were installed in the U.S. Don’t forget that, like Germany, thousands of these distributed solar arrays are locally owned, widely distributing the economic benefits of the clean energy transformation.
The issue of economic benefits may be the central point. Utility-scale solar safely fits within the antiquated 20th century centralized monopoly model of electricity delivery, insulating utilities from innovative customer-centered distributed power. In fact, a late 2014 study highlighted that net metering of distributed solar is a minor threat to ratepayers, but a much more significant threat to utility shareholders.
There’s nothing wrong with building utility-scale solar. But let’s be clear: it’s neither the most economic nor the fastest way to green the electricity sector, and it cements centralized control of electricity system in an era of widespread decentralized innovation. And that may be too high a price to pay.
***
This article was originally posted at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and was reprinted with permission. Follow John Farrell on Twitter or get the Democratic Energy weekly update.20 Most Memorable Arrests of Phoenix Athletes
1.) Jason Kidd
During the New Jersey Nets’ playoff run of 2001, fans of opposing teams chanted “wife-beater” at Kidd, in reference to his arrest at the beginning of the year in Arizona, when Kidd was still with the Suns.
2.) Tom Chambers
Chambers is long retired from the NBA, but last year he was busted for DUI, reportedly saying during the DUI tests, “I can’t even do the nose thingy-muh-bobber sober.”
3.) Mark Grace
Grace was retired from baseball when he racked up two DUIs in Scottsdale, landing him afour-month jail sentence.
4.) Charles Barkley
Like other local sports legends’ arrests, Barkley’s was a bit embarrassing. Highlights of the DUI arrest report include the following:
5.) Brad May
The only former member of the Phoenix (now Arizona) Coyotes on this list, May was arrested in 2005 after punching a sheriff’s deputy in the face in Scottsdale.
6.) Jonathan Dwyer
At a time when domestic violence was the biggest story in the NFL, the Cardinals’ backup running back Jonathan Dwyer was arrested on domestic-violence charges for allegedly punching and head-butting his wife, and was released by the team.
7.) Daryl Washington
Last year, Washington was arrested on allegations that he choked his child’s mother, and broke her collarbone by shoving her. Washington’s already suspended for this entire season for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy.
8.) Jason Richardson
Former Suns forward Jason Richardson was not a very good driver. Fresh off a DUI arrest, in late 2008, Richardson was pulled over going 90 mph in a 35 mph zone. Richardson’s 3-year-old son was in the backseat at the time, although not in a car seat.
9.) David Boston
Boston, a wide receiver for the Cardinals, was arrested in 2002 for driving under the influence of cocaine and marijuana. Boston has been arrested on two other occasions since leaving the Cardinals, once for DUI, and another for allegedly punching a woman.
10.) Michael Beasley
Beasley was a disappointment for the Suns, on and off the court. Beasley was arrested in Scottsdale in 2013 on a charge of marijuana possession, which isn’t that spectacular, but Beasley has a long history of being caught with pot.
11.) Michael Pittman
Pittman, once the Cardinals’ starting running back, was arrested twice in one month for domestic violence, but only was suspended for one game during the 2001 season.
12.) Mike DiFelice
DiFelice, a former catcher with the Diamondbacks, was arrested in 2001 “on charges he punched a female patron in the face, attacked another woman with a lighter and slugged a male parking valet.” He’d lasted just 12 games with the Diamondbacks.
13.) Stephon Marbury
Marbury, who had recently been acquired by the Suns for Jason Kidd (featured later on this list) was arrested for extreme DUI back in 2002.
14.) Cliff Robinson
Almost exactly one year before Marbury’s arrest, Suns forward Cliff Robinson was arrested on DUI and marijuana-possession charges.
15.) Richard Dumas
Dumas, a former Suns star, ended up having to work for a living after blowing his NBA money, but police say he was stealing from work, at a Luke Air Force Base exchange.
16.) Rex Chapman
You probably forgot all about former Suns player Rex Chapman until he was arrested last month on allegations that he shoplifted more than $14,000 worth of products from an Apple store.
17.) Alberto Callaspo
In 2007, in Callaspo’s second year in the Big Leagues with the Diamondbacks, he was arrested on allegations that he kicked his wife. He was traded after the season ended.
18.) Archie Goodwin
Suns backup guard Archie Goodwin just finished his first NBA season last year, and during this off-season, managed to get arrested in some sort of fight outside a roller rink in Arkansas.
19.) Mario Bates
Before domestic violence was a big focus in the NFL, Cardinals backup running back/kick returner Mario Bates was arrested in consecutive years (2000 and 2001) for domestic violence, and was suspended for a grand total of two games.
20.) Bobby Chouinard
Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Bobby Chouinard was arrested after allegedly pointing a gun at his wife’s head. That was the last of two seasons Chouinard had in Arizona.
Well there is the list of the top 20 popular sports felons in Phoenix. All credit for this story and the original content can belongs to the Phoenix New TimesA man was charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and a related gun charge in the death of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, Michigan's Wayne County Prosecutor's Office said Friday.
Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced the charges against Theodore Paul Wafer, 54, also known as Ted, who allegedly shot the young woman in the face on his porch in Dearborn Heights, Mich. in the early hours of Nov. 2.
"We obviously do not feel that the evidence in this case reveals that the defendant acted in lawful self defense," Worthy said.
Wafer's attorney, Cheryl Carpenter, did not immediately return a request for comment.
"Under Michigan law, there is no duty to retreat in your own home, however, someone who claims self defense must honestly and reasonably believe that he is in imminent danger of either losing his life or suffering great bodily harm, and that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent that harm," Worthy added in a statement. "This'reasonable belief' is not measured subjectively, by the standards of the individual in question, but objectively, by the standards of a reasonable person."
Several hours before the shooting, McBride reportedly crashed her car several blocks away in Detroit. Detroit Police said they received a call just before 1 a.m. reporting a female driver had hit a parked car and then left the scene on foot. Worthy said she appeared disoriented and bloody.
Regarding the call as a lower priority, officers were not immediately sent to the scene of the accident. A little later, they received a call in which another individual said the driver had returned to the accident and appeared to be intoxicated or injured. By the time cops arrived at 1:40 a.m., 17 minutes after the second call, |
6p/9p per elector in a borough or county constituency. In the short campaign the constituency spending cap is £8,700 + 6p/9p per elector.
The possibility of a quick second election seems more likely as Ukip, the Scottish National party and the Greens gain support.
Polling has shown voters are increasingly disenchanted with the idea of coalition and believe a second hung parliament would be bad for Britain.
It is known many senior Tories would prefer, in the event of a hung parliament, to try to govern as a minority government rather than form another coalition, and then go for another election.
Lord Cooper, an election strategist at No 10, said last week that polls indicate the Conservatives are unlikely to win an outright majority at the next election and that a “tidal wave” of support for parties such as Ukip would lead to a “messy” hung parliament.
Last year Cameron told Conservative colleagues that he would change party procedure to ensure that in the event of a second coalition being negotiated the final deal would have to be approved by Conservative MPs before being signed.
Given the Tories’ large-scale backing from City and hedge fund donors, and that many of Labour’s donors have drifted away, the Tories are in a much stronger financial position.
Over the last four years they have raised £78m, a quarter of which came from hedge fund donors.
The Observer disclosed on Sunday that the Conservatives have ignored Electoral Commission recommendations and secured a 23% increase in spending. The change to the law on candidates’ election spending was passed without parliamentary debate, despite a direct warning by the commission against such “excessive spending to prevent the perception of undue influence over the outcome of the election”.
Labour officials have acknowledged they will not be able to match the Tories’ funding now they are more reliant on union funds and individual donors. Insiders say they will unveil at least two new “big donors” in the New Year.
They are also beginning to see the fruits of an online campaign for smaller donations, party officials said, following a similar 2011 strategy by Barack Obama to rely on the “small dollar”.
Iain McNichol, the party’s general secretary, on Thursday sent out emails to all party members asking for small donations, and pointed to the recent change in election law as a way of drumming up support.
“[The Tories] just quietly changed the law to raise the ceiling on how much money they can spend on trying to cling on to power. Their changes mean they are free to funnel huge amounts of cash from their wealthy donors – up to £32.7m – into the fight to decide who wins the next election,” he wrote.
Ukip sources say they have received some recent large donations from former Tory donors, saying their identities will be released in February in accordance with funding rules. In the meantime, Ukip has held a number of recent fundraising evenings including an event at Chilham Castle in Kent, owned by its long-term supporter Stewart Wheeler.Click here to view the complete list of archived articles
This article was originally published in the Summer 2011 issue of Methods & Tools
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Software Measurement
Sue Rule & P. Grant Rule, s.rule @ smsexemplar.com
Software Measurement Services Ltd., www.smsexemplar.com
What Does Functional Size Measurement Mean?
When Grant Rule was working with early pioneers of agile methods back in the late 1980s, estimating was a big issue. No one, it seemed, knew how to determine accurately in advance how big a project was, how long it would take, or how much it would cost. This was particularly a problem for a software house delivering fixed price contracts. Focusing on rapid, iterative delivery to ensure the user gets the right software product is good; but at what price?
While advocates of Lean-Agile rightly emphasise the importance of delivering the right thing, it is essential that professional software managers also keep reliable accounts of software process performance for estimating costs, auditing performance, and improving productivity. Effectiveness is delivering optimum value for the minimum cost.
The solution to Grant’s estimating issue, and many associated software project control issues, was the IFPUG function point measurement method developed by Alan Albrecht in 1979. Yet for various reasons, functional size measurement has failed to become widely adopted as a software project management tool. Perhaps it seems arcane - difficult - part of that top-heavy bureaucracy development teams want to be rid of. But as a result, estimating remains a widespread problem for Agile and non-Agile developers alike. Process performance remains hugely variable and unpredictable, with measurement often still the most neglected area of process improvement. By stripping away much of the dysfunctional and redundant process control that can accumulate around the software process, the current interest in Agile is bringing many of these issues to the surface. But many IT professionals seem stuck in a rut, ploughing new land with a newly Agile team but using the same blunt plough and running into the same obstacles.
CIOs, bid teams, development teams, vendor managers and legal advisors seeking better ways of contracting - particularly for Lean-Agile software development - are still faced with the dilemmas Albrecht was seeking to tackle. How do you know your development teams - in-house or outsourced - are delivering best value for money? How does a supplier manage the risk of a fixed price contract? How does he demonstrate competitive productivity levels and on-going improvement? How will Agile benefit my organisation? How does the business manage the risk if we can’t detail the requirements up-front? How do you measure the benefits of outsourcing IT? Which technology should we choose? Will a change of technology affect the value delivered? What are the relative merits of buying it, building it or outsourcing it?
Alan Albrecht’s answer to addressing these issues was to measure software size in terms of the output delivered to the user - its functionality - rather than simply in terms of the time and effort put into the development. Deriving a software size from the user’s requirements which can then be mapped to the time, resources and budget needed to realise those requirements gives you the necessary objectivity to tackle the scope, project and performance control issues. It also takes you at least part way to measuring the business value and benefit delivered by software. At least you know how much it will cost and how long it will take to deliver the specified functionality; the software should do what it "says on the tin" and it should be delivered on schedule, within budget. If the customer has bought beans instead of tomatoes, or needed a three course meal and not a tin of beans at all, there is something amiss elsewhere in the process.
Functional size measurement means the ability to make objective performance comparisons across teams, across market sectors, and between different suppliers. It means reliable productivity and pricing benchmarks. It means accurate baselines and measures of improvement. It means early and accurate estimations of software project cost and duration. That was why Grant Rule first adopted the technique back in the 1980s - and remains a knowledgeable advocate of it today.
Estimating
The predictability of software projects remains a major issue for many business managers. Agile can exacerbate this if delivered software products or software product components have to be routinely re-factored. Customers considering outsourced Agile development will rightly require some assurance of value for money, and suppliers need a reliable oversight of costs to ensure prices remain competitive. The ‘Story Point’ measures used by many Agile teams to estimate and manage projects are little more than a new take on our old friend, the measure of input. Estimates using Story Points rely on team knowledge and capability, based on individual experience. The process of arriving at them is even known as Planning Poker, an indication of the level of personal skill and informed guesswork required. Story Points cannot be compared between one team and another (let alone one market sector or one supplier and another). Their use either as an effective and reliable estimating tool or as objective and comparable measures of productivity is therefore very limited.
In 2010, Grant Rule published a short paper on using the most modern of the functional size methods - COSMIC - to derive accurate estimates from User Stories (used by Agile teams to capture requirements.) As measurement specialists, SMS recommend the use of COSMIC as the quickest, most reliable, and most easily learned method of introducing robust software estimating practice for developers using Agile or more traditional development practices.
Size Matters - Accurate Early Estimating
Project failure rates have been shown to relate strongly to the size of project undertaken, with the largest projects accounting for the highest failure rate. Rule’s Relative Size Scale was a table developed by Grant Rule to provide a quick and easy early range estimate of project size and cost in terms of clothing sizes - Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large. The scale uses benchmark data to provide a valuable and reliable early-stage feasability check.
COCOMO II Profiling - Accounting for Non-Functional Requirements
The Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO) is an algorithmic software cost estimation model developed by Barry Boehm. The model uses a basic regression formula, with parameters that are derived from historical project data and current project characteristics. COCOMO enables more refined estimates to be derived from simple unadjusted function points by taking into account differences in non-functional project attributes (Cost Drivers). Detailed COCOMO can also account for the influence of individual project phases.
COCOMO II was brought out in 2000, to adapt the original model for use estimating software projects in modern development conditions such as incremental development and rational unified process. COCOMO II is continually evolving to adapt to changing software methods.
What are Function Points?
Function Points measure the end users requirements in terms of data movements. This means that an early functional size estimate can be derived before any code has been written. They are then also used to measure the actual cost of developing the requirements, which can be compared directly to the estimate and used to calibrate a scale for a particular development environment. If development productivity figures are known, the cost of developing new software can therefore be estimated early enough to make direct comparisons to the cost of buying a software package, or simply using a non-technical solution. Function Point measures are independent of technology so can compare different suppliers, technologies and different teams to give an objective basis for a cost benefit decision.
Because they encompass both cost (development effort consumed) and benefit (requirements fulfilled), Function Points unlock the door to measuring productivity; velocity; quality; and value in software development.
The capacity to measure the amount of output produced for input provided gives an objective productivity figure.
gives an objective figure. Measured against time - E.g. FP delivered per elapsed month - function points provide objective and comparable measures of velocity.
- function points provide objective and comparable measures of. The number of defects detected over total size of delivery - i.e. no of defects delivered over no of FP delivered - gives a measure of quality.
- gives a measure of. By comparing costs, effort and time expended per function point delivered, we can also demonstrate the huge waste generated by ineffective software processes compared to the standards of measurable efficiency shown by effective, Right-shifted organisations. Although a long way from being a comprehensive measure of value delivered to the customer, this offers a measure of the component of value for which the software developer is solely responsible. Ensuring the functionality delivered is aligned to business need is the joint responsibility of the business user and the development team and outside the scope of functional size measurement.
A Comparison of Functional Size Methods
The most widely used function point methods are IFPUG, NESMA, Mk II and COSMIC. Of these, IFPUG is based on the original method designed by Alan Albrecht. COSMIC is the newest method, developed by an international team of metrics experts to support modern software.
Where organisations have already made some investment in IFPUG capability, it may make sense to use this more widely known method. It is actively managed and maintained by the International Function Point User Group, with the latest version 4.3 released in January 2010. The Certified Function Point Specialist qualification is a recognised standard for IFPUG counting competency. There is considerable IFPUG benchmarking data available, although it is questionable how valuable some of the older data is in terms of benchmarking modern software performance.
While the older functional size measures - typically, IFPUG - can be used for Agile projects, there are significant problems. IFPUG counting is not the easiest process to learn or apply, and even with trained practitioners, time can be wasted debating fuzzy areas. Interpretation of the IFPUG counting rules for complex modern software environments can be tricky, sometimes resulting in differences of opinion between supplier and customer.
COSMIC offers all the advantages of functional size measurement, without some of the shortcomings of earlier methodologies which were not designed with 21st century software in mind. It will prove easier to introduce, easier for both business users and software developers to understand and apply, and a more effective communication mechanism for negotiating the delivery of value. It is an established standard with recognised training qualifications. There is a growing repository of benchmark data available.
See the table below for a more detailed comparison.
Types of measurement scale and permissible operations using them
The type of scale depends on the nature of the relationship between values on the scale. Four types of scale are commonly defined:
Nominal – arbitrary labels, classification data, no ordering – the measurement values are categorical but it makes no sense to state that one category is ‘greater than’ another. For example: Yes/No; Black/White/Yellow/Red; male/female, animal/vegetable/mineral; the classification of defects by their type.
Ordinal – ordered but differences between values are not important – the measurement values are rankings. For example: restaurant ‘star’ ratings; political parties on left to right of the spectrum are given labels Red, Orange, Blue; Likert scales that rank ‘user satisfaction’ on a scale of 1..5; the assignment of a severity level to defects.
Interval – ordered, constant scale, but no natural zero – the measurement values have equal distances corresponding to equal quantities of the attribute. For example: dates, temperature on Celsius or Fahrenheit scales – differences make sense, but ratios do not (e.g., 30°-20° = 20°-10°, but 20° is not twice as hot as 10°! Other examples: cyclomatic complexity has the minimum value of one, but each additional path increments the count by one.
Ratio – ordered, constant scale, natural zero – the measurement values have equal distances corresponding to equal quantities of the attribute where the value of zero corresponds to none of the attribute. For example: height; weight; age; length; temperature on Kelvin scale (e.g. absolute zero = 0°K, and 200°K is twice as hot as 100°K); the size of a software source listing in terms of Non-Commentary Source Statements (or Source Lines Of Code).
The method of measurement usually affects the type of scale that can be used reliably with a given attribute. For example, subjective methods of measurement usually only support ordinal or nominal scales.
Only certain operations can be performed on certain scales of measurement. The following list summarizes which operations are legitimate for each scale. Note that you can always apply operations from a 'lesser scale' to any particular data, e.g. you may apply nominal, ordinal, or interval operations to an interval scaled datum.
Nominal Scale. You are only allowed to examine if a nominal scale datum is equal to some particular value or to count the number of occurrences of each value. For example, gender is a nominal scale variable. You can examine if the gender of a person is F (female) or to count the number of Ms (males) in a sample. Valid statistics: mode, chi square.
Ordinal Scale. You are also allowed to examine if an ordinal scale datum is less than or greater than another value. Hence, you can 'rank' ordinal data, but you cannot 'quantify' differences between two ordinal values. For example, political party is an ordinal datum with the Liberal Democratic Party to the left of the Conservative Party, but you can't quantify the difference. Another example are preference scores, e.g. ratings of eating establishments where 10=good, 1=poor, but the difference between an establishment with a 10 ranking and an 8 ranking can't be quantified. Valid statistics: mode, chi square, median, percentile.
Interval Scale. You are also allowed to quantify the difference between two interval scale values but there is no natural zero. For example, temperature scales are interval data with 25C warmer than 20C and a 5C difference has some physical meaning. Note that 0C is arbitrary, so that it does not make sense to say that 20C is twice as hot as 10C. Valid statistics: mode, chi square, median, percentile, mean, standard deviation, correlation, regression, analysis of variance.
Ratio Scale. You are also allowed to take ratios among ratio scaled variables. Physical measurements of height, weight, and length are typically ratio variables. It is now meaningful to say that 10 metres is twice as long as 5 metres. This ratio holds true regardless of which scale the object is being measured in (e.g. metres or yards). This is because there is a natural zero. Valid statistics: mode, chi square, median, percentile, mean, standard deviation, correlation, regression, analysis of variance, geometric mean, harmonic mean, coefficient of variation, logarithms.
A comparison of the most common Function Size Measurement (FSM) Methods
General Information IFPUG FPA r4.3 NESMA FPA v2.0 Mark II FPA r1.3.1 COSMIC FSM r3.0.1 Origin Created by Allan Albrecht at IBM in 1978
Latest release (January 2010) of the original method Believed to have been created by NESMA (aka NEFPUG) in mid-1980s
Derived from IFPUG Created by Charles Symons at Nolan Norton in 1984 (put into public domain 1991) Updated method for use with DBMS, structured methods, CASE tools, etc Created by international consortium of industry subject matter experts and academics from 19 countries in 1997 Updated method for use with OOA/D, layered architectures, Web2.0, lean/agile, etc Counting Practices Manual Available to IFPUG members Available for sale Available - public domain Available - public domain Counting Practices Manual - languages available English & some other language versions available to members Dutch-language version
English-language version English-language version 9 language versions:
Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish Used by Public & private sector organisations, large & small, both customers & vendors, around the world
Mostly MIS users Stable user base – international Public & private sector organisations, large & small, both customers & vendors, primarily in The Netherlands Mostly MIS users Declining user base – mostly The Netherlands Originally HM Government’s preferred method for sizing & estimating software. Now used by a few public sector customers & their vendors
Declining user base – mostly United Kingdom Public & private sector organisations, large & small, both customers & vendors, around the world MIS and Engineering users Growing user base – international Terminology used Founded in the 1970s Founded in the 1970s Uses structured methods terminology Compatible with OOA/D, & software eng. principles Availability Available only to members of IFPUG (but easy to join organisation) Public domain -– download from NESMA Public domain – download from UKSMA Public domain – download from COSMIC Design Authority (independent of vendors) International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG)
www.ifpug.org Netherlands Software Metrics Association (NESMA)
www.nesma.nl United Kingdom Software Metrics Association (UKSMA)
www.uksma.co.uk COmmon Software Measurement International Consortium (COSMIC) www.cosmicon.com
Common Features
1. Compliance
All four methods comply with the international standard for Functional Size Measurement Methods – ISO14143:
IFPUG FPA r4.3 NESMA FPA v2.0 Mark II FPA r1.3.1 COSMIC FSM r3.0.1 ISO/IEC 20926:2003 ISO Standard applies only to
unadjusted FP ISO/IEC 24570:2005 ISO Standard applies only to
unadjusted FP ISO/IEC 20968:2002 Recommended method for HM Government (UK) ISO/IEC 19761:2003/2010 BCS Technology Award Winner in 2006 Recognised as a National Standard in Spain & Japan
2. Certification
All four methods operate certification schemes for training measurement staff:
IFPUG FPA r4.3 NESMA FPA v2.0 Mark II FPA r1.3.1 COSMIC FSM r3.0.1 Yes
Certified Function Point Specialist (CFPS)
Uses IFPUG CFPS Yes
Certified Function Point Analyst
(CFPA) Yes
COSMIC Practitioner Certification
Benchmarking Data
All four methods are supported by the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG). There are differences, however, in the size of the comparative data pool:
IFPUG FPA r4.3 NESMA FPA v2.0 Mark II FPA r1.3.1 COSMIC FSM r3.0.1 Large data set compiled over many years – the utility of antique data is questionable Large
Comparisons use
IFPUG data Small
Some native data; can be compared to IFPUG data if care is taken Moderate and growing
Data since 1997; ISBSG benchmark released 2009; can be compared to older data if care is taken
All four methods share the following characteristics:
Oriented toward user-required functionality
Helps verify consistency & completeness of user-required functionality
Analyses can be used as basis for construction of tests independent of code & test activities
Measures functional size of dynamic (behavioural) aspects of system (expressed as e.g. use cases, conversational dialogues, user stories, epics & themes, etc)
Measures development of new requirements
Measures adaptive maintenance (enhancements)
Designed for MIS systems - flat & indexed files, batch systems, OLTP systems
Can be used to measure Functional User Requirements before design, code & test
Can be used to measure Functional User Requirements after design, code & test
Can be used to (re)estimate during product life-cycle
Size can be used as input into top-down software cost models such as COCOMO.II.2000, SLIM, SEER, Price-S, etc
Can be used to construct product burndown charts, calculate takt time, #sprints, etc
Independent of product non-functional requirements
Independent of project constraints
Independent of developer experience
Independent of process, project management & development methods
Early estimates of functional size can be made based on incomplete knowledge of Functional User Requirements – enabling consistent use of one size scale for estimating & measurement throughout project:
IFPUG FPA r4.3 NESMA FPA v2.0 Mark II FPA r1.3.1 COSMIC FSM r3.0.1 Can produce early estimates using various methods:
e.g. Fast Eddy, File-Based Approach, Transaction-Based approach Can produce early estimates using various methods:
e.g. Fast Eddy, File-Based Approach, Transaction-Based approach Can produce early estimates using various methods:
e.g. Data Model Approach (CRUDL), Transaction-Based approach Can produce early estimates using various methods:
Event-Based Approach, Object-Based Approach, Story-Based Approach
NONE of the four methods deliver the following characteristics:
Measures corrective maintenance (fixes)
Measures perfective maintenance (refactoring for improved performance)
Measures algorithmic complexity
Measures reuse of code
Differences between the four main methods:
Characteristic IFPUG FPA r4.3 NESMA FPA v2.0 Mark II FPA r1.3.1 COSMIC FSM r3.0.1 Measures functional size of static (data storage) aspects of a system (expressed as files, tables, entity types, classes, etc) Yes Yes Regarded as ‘double accounting’
only information processing measured Regarded as ‘double accounting’
only information processing measured Compatible with modern methods of requirements analysis Partially
(1975/85s concepts)
requires data model Partially
(1980/85s concepts)
requires data model Yes
(1980/95s concepts)
requires data model Yes
(1995/2010s concepts)
incl. incremental Designed for MIS systems - Relational DBMS No
But mapping rules have been developed No
But mapping rules have been developed Yes Yes Designed to be applicable to real-time and/or embedded systems No
MIS concepts only No
MIS concepts only No
terminology can be re-interpreted for real-time Yes
one common model applicable across MIS, real-time & embedded systems Can be used to measure complex, layered architectures No
Rules assume monolithic system – infrastructure & middleware is ‘invisible’ No
Rules assume monolithic system – infrastructure & middleware is ‘invisible’ Yes
Limited – can recognise
3-tier architecture Yes
Designed to recognise ‘layered architectures’ –
measures all functional requirements allocated to software systems Scale type:
Nominal – distinguishes members of sets, unordered
Ordinal – relationship between sets, unequal intervals
Interval – comparisons, equal intervals, arbitrary zero
Ratio – comparisons, equal intervals, a natural zero
ref: ISO/IEC CD 15939. ‘Nominal/Ordinal’ Scale Unequal intervals between Low & Average, and between Average & High ‘Nominal/Ordinal’ Scale Unequal intervals between Low & Average, and between Average & High ‘Ordinal/Interval’ Scale Weights derived so that
1 MkII fp = 1 IFPUG fp
approximately comparing functional processes Ratio Scale Empirical data suggests
1 cfp = 1 IFPUG fp
approximately comparing functional processes Permissible arithmetic & statistical operations Categories assigned relative weights: Data can be 'ranked', but 'quantifying' differences between values is difficult due to ‘cut off’ (Low is c. half of High) –
ratios are problematic Categories assigned relative weights: Data can be 'ranked', but 'quantifying' differences between values is difficult due to ‘cut off’ (Low is c. half of High) –
ratios are problematic Ordered, synthetic scale with a natural zero: Data can be ranked; differences & ratios between values can be quantified within limits but are problematic due to the use of weights Ordered, constant scale with a natural zero: Data can be ranked; differences between values can be quantified; ratios make sense (i.e. 20 is twice the size of 10, and 2000cfp is twice 1000cfp). Accounts for information processing by: Sizing static data and dynamic behaviour Sizing static data and dynamic behaviour Sizing dynamic behaviour, the use of data Sizing dynamic behaviour, the use of data Models the functional user requirements as: File Types
and
Elementary Process
(= Input-Process-Output) File Types
and
Elementary Process
(= Input-Process-Output) Logical Transactions
(= Input-Process-Output) Functional Processes
(= Input-Process-Output) Equivalent of
stimulus/response message pair (i.e. a ‘thread of control with some input, related processing, and some output) Elementary Process either:
External Input (EI),
External Output (EO) or
External Query (EQ)
depending on ‘primary intent’ Elementary Process either:
External Input (EI),
External Output (EO) or
External Query (EQ)
depending on ‘primary intent’ Logical Transaction (LT) All stimulus/response message pairs regarded at LT irrespective of ‘primary purpose’ Functional Process (FP) All stimulus/response message pairs regarded at FP irrespective of ‘primary purpose’ Rules for measuring size Different rules apply depending on elementary process type Different rules apply depending on elementary process type Same rules apply to all logical transactions Same rules apply to all functional processes Base Functional Component(s)
Internal Logical File
External Interface File
External Input
External Output
External Query Internal Logical File
External Interface File
External Input
External Output
External Query Input Data Element
Entity Reference
Output Data Element Data Movement
(either: Entry, eXit, Read, or Write depending on direction of movement) Contributors to functional size Per File Type:
#static Data Element Types & #Record Element Types Per Transaction Type:
#dynamic Data Element Types
& #File Type References Per File Type:
#static Data Element Types & #Record Element Types Per Transaction Type:
#dynamic Data Element Types
& #File Type References Per Logical Transaction:
#Input Data Elements
#Entity References
#Output Data Elements Per Functional Process:
#Data Movements i.e. the movement (Entry, eXit, Read or Write) of one Data Group Unit of measure Different weights assigned to 5 function types depending on their relative ‘complexity’
Unit = 1 fp (IFPUG) Different weights assigned to 5 function types depending on their relative ‘complexity’
Unit = 1 fp (NESMA) Weights assigned to the ‘minimum size logical transaction’ add to 2.5 to establish comparability between MkII and IFPUG Unit = 1 fp (MkII) 1 Data Movement
=
1 COSMIC Function Point
Unit = 1 cfp Sensitivity to small changes to requirements Low (only detects changes at boundaries between Low, Average, High categories) Low (only detects changes at boundaries between Low, Average, High categories) High (detects changes of single data element types and single entity references) Moderate (detects changes to single data-groups) Integrity of measures (how well do the measures reflect the thing measured?) Artificial limits (weights, thresholds, uneven intervals) limit size of function types measured.
Integrity is limited. Artificial limits (weights, thresholds, uneven intervals) limit size of function types measured.
Integrity is limited. No artificial limits imposed on size of functional process.
Integrity is good. No artificial limits imposed on size of functional process.
Integrity is excellent. Sensitivity to variation in functional size of dynamic model of system i.e. functional processes Stepped:
minimum step 3fp
maximum step 7fp Stepped:
minimum step 3fp
maximum step 7fp Stepped:
minimum step either
0.26, 0.58 or 1.66
maximum step infinity Accommodates size variation from zero to infinity in steps of 1 cfp Sensitivity to variation in functional size of static model of system i.e. data stores Stepped:
minimum step 5 fp
maximum step 15 fp Stepped:
minimum step 5 fp
maximum step 15 fp Data stores are considered to deliver functionality only when the data is referenced in transactions Data stores are considered to deliver functionality only when the data is used in functional processes Smallest feasible functional process 3 fp 3 fp 2.5 fp 2 cfp Smallest feasible enhancement 3 fp 3 fp 0.26 fp 1 cfp
Related Articles
Estimating With Use Case Points
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A 90-year-old woman has been dragged off the street and raped in Rochdale.
The attack happened at around 6.45am yesterday, Tuesday 24 June 2014, when the victim left home to visit the butchers for a bacon sandwich.
As she walked along Spotland Road she felt a hand go over her mouth and she was dragged backwards.
She lost then consciousness and awoke on the floor. She had been raped.
Live: See live updates on the investigation here
The woman had a pound coin in one hand and a walking stick in the other.
The victim then walked to the butchers and raised the alarm.
Police say the woman is now being supported by specially-trained officers and detectives have launched an investigation.
She is in a traumatized state.
They want to hear from anyone who may have seen the victim, and potentially the attacker, on the morning of the attack.
The woman is white and wore a white summer dress with a flower print and a cardigan.
The only description of the attacker is that he was white.
Superintendent Alistair Mallen based at Rochdale, told a press conference that police had good lines of forensic enquiry.
He said: “I am sure the entire community will share our revulsion at this.
“The victim has been through an horrific ordeal and we are all hoping she can make a full recovery.
“She is now being supported by experienced officers and we are doing everything possible to reassure her that we will catch the man responsible.
“This kind of attack is thankfully so rare that it will naturally cause a huge amount of concern in the community.
“I now want people, including the criminal fraternity, to imagine if that had been your mum or grandma. I want to harness these feelings and use them to help the police do their job - catch this man and put him before the courts.
“So, this happened in a busy part of town at the start of a normal working day. Did you see the lady walking down Spotland Road before 7am yesterday and, if so, did you see anyone else nearby.
“It may not have struck you as significant at the time, but please, if you saw anything or anyone that you think could be relevant then please call the police.”
Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk said the attack on Spotland Road yesterday had sickened the town to its core.
“Local people are struggling to comprehend how anyone could do this,” he said.
“Our heart goes out to this poor woman, she must have gone through hell. There is a real sense of shock and horror in the community and the police need to do everything possible to catch this sick individual. But they need the help of the community and people must stand up and be counted.
"Someone somewhere will know something that can help the police,” he said, “and I would urge them to search their conscience and come forward to pass that information on.
"Anyone with even a glimmer of suspicion should contact the police immediately."
Anyone with information is asked to call police in Rochdale on 0161 856 8470/8420 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.Growing up in Canada, soccer was always more of a leisure activity than a sport. For those who didn't particularly enjoy baseball, it was a way to pass the summer months until the hockey season started up again. A way to keep in shape for the "real" sports season that would soon follow. In my age group it was a game that people tended to grow out of quicker than hockey, and soon jobs and other pursuits would crowd their summers. We all played, but none of us took it seriously.
A main reason is the fact that soccer, in general, never took itself seriously in Canada. Coaches were often the fathers of players with little knowledge of any sort of strategy. Their main purpose was to make sure everyone got the same amount of playing time. Practices rarely became more advanced, and when they did the general lack of skill within the group of players was evident.
To be fair, I never played at a high level. I got into the sport late and for the most part only played house league. The difference between coaching in house league hockey and soccer, however, was incredible. As a young hockey player I spent my time at the lowest level of minor hockey with coaches that included a former OHLer with an exceptional knowledge of the game.
I also played for my high school, and had several friends who I would watch play at higher levels. In all of my personal experience of soccer in Canada I never once came into contact with a coach who had a knowledge of soccer that impressed me. I think if you asked around, the feeling would be pretty mutual.
It comes down to this: before Canada can produce elite players, it has to start producing elite coaches. While this is improving, the quicker the development process improves in this country the more passionate soccer players will realize their dreams. Fewer will be forced to take their game to Europe at a young age to develop, and therefore fewer will lost to other national teams.
The ridiculous argument against this is that coaching will not change a country that is not traditionally among soccer's elite nations. In fact one that isn't considered even close. Somehow the estimated 767,000 kids who play soccer in Canada are instantly horrible players as a result of the country in which they are born. Because "Canada isn't a soccer country" and that cannot be changed.
In fact it can, and that process has already begun. John Herdman took a Women's National Team that lost every game at the 2011 Women's World Cup and led them to a Bronze Medal a year later at London 2012. While few are arguing that Canada will win the World Cup this summer, they are certainly in the conversation as the host nation.
Look at our "horrible" Men's National Team, who under the guidance of new coach Benito Floro have lost only two games since 2013. In the process they provided a legitimate challenge to one of the top soccer nations in the world, got a result against one of CONCACAF's best teams on the road and recently outplayed the 33rd ranked Iceland over two matches.
Floro will also be front and center of an important coaching event: the 2015 National Soccer Coaching Conference taking place at the end of the month at the University of Toronto. Floro will be joined by some other noticeable faces: Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney, former national team star Kara Lang as well as Toronto FC director of sports science Jim Liston.
The conference runs between January 30 and February 1. It is a major investment, as the registration fee is $250.00. However, if you are currently coaching at a high level, or would like to help see Canadian soccer move forward, this is a massive opportunity. If you are at all interested you can find more information on the conference at the event's website.
The call to arms for years has been to buy tickets for the national team, as a home team crowd will help the country move forward. While the importance of this has in no way diminished, investing time in coaching is far more fulfilling and will do far more for the sport in Canada going forward.• This article was amended on 14 November 2013 to remove an image of the Earth First logo. There was no intention to suggest a link between Earth First and any of the terrorist attacks referred to in the article. The logo was used only because the article refers to a column in an Earth First journal 30 years ago about nanotechnology.
A chain of terrorist attacks has struck scientists in Mexico since 2011. Similar actions were taken in Switzerland in 2010 and in Italy in 2012. The Mexican attacks have been claimed by a group called Individuals Tending Towards Savagery (ITS). Their texts are littered with references to Theodore Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and expressions including "fire on nanotechnological development and on those that support it". Nanotechnology is portrayed as the cause of a future ecological catastrophe, generated by the self-replication of lethal nano-robots.
Experts say that the response to these attacks should be severe. "The answer should not be debating the terrorists on the intellectual ground, but on the moral ground |
wages sink due to a tax credit. Mr Cameron should bear their results in mind when his government presents its ideas for reducing welfare bills in the budget on July 8th.Getty Images / Getty Images
If EKGs can detect potential problems in heart function, then doctors are asking why brain scans can’t be used in the same way, to identify disorders like depression, autism or schizophrenia.
Doctors have long relied on EKGs, or electrocardiograms, to track the electrical activity of the heart and find any potential aberrations in the normal pattern of blips and valleys that could indicate distress. It’s not invasive, not that expensive, and for the patient, only involves getting hooked up to a few leads with patches on the chest.
Now researchers say that a similarly patient-friendly technique could scour brain activity for signs of trouble. The idea is to look for any changes in the normal “resting state” of multiple brain regions recorded by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines. And so far, promising evidence suggests that it may be possible to detect when communication between these regions is out of sync, or otherwise different from the norm. Even more encouraging, say scientists, various mental disorders, such as depression and autism, may involve different aberrant patterns of activity, providing a type of visual fingerprint for the condition. Finding such signatures could not only lead to better diagnosis of certain neurological or developmental diseases but also track how well patients respond to treatment.
And — just as with a standard EKG test — all the patient has to do is lie still. “With resting-state fMRI, they just have to hold still for eight minutes in the scanner,” says Dr. Michael Greicius, medical director of the Stanford Center for Memory Disorders. “That’s the main practical advantage.”
(MORE: Unique Brain Pattern Could Predict Autism in Youngest Children)
In the latest demonstration of this approach, appearing in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers compared the resting-state brain activity of children with autism to that of similarly aged youngsters without the developmental disorder. The autistic children showed a distinctive pattern of hyperconnected signaling in what the authors call the brain’s “salience network,” a collection of regions that appear to regulate attention.
Other researchers have found evidence that such fMRI scans might also help diagnose attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia and depression. In an experiment appearing in the forthcoming July issue of Psychiatry Research, Dr. Jonathan Posner of Columbia University and his colleagues looked at 22 children with ADHD who were not yet on medication and compared them with 20 youngsters around the same age without the disorder. Compared with the healthy children, those with ADHD had, on average, less coordinated brain activity between regions such as the prefrontal cortex, an area at the front of the brain thought to be involved in decisionmaking, and the caudate, a region located toward the base of the brain involved in controlling impulses. Such patterns could one day help identify children at highest risk of developing ADHD and provide them with behavioral or educational support to address symptoms early on, when such interventions might have the biggest impact.
And such scans aren’t limited to diagnosing disease but could help improve treatment of mental disorders as well. “I am most interested in us[ing] resting-state fMRI to really examine the effects of treatment,” says Posner. He also published a paper in JAMA Psychiatry last spring showing that antidepressants successfully quieted hyperconnectivity in the brains of individuals with chronic depression.
(MORE: Concussion and Alzheimer’s Patients Show Similar Brain Changes)
That trial compared brain scans from 32 people with depression with those from 25 healthy counterparts and confirmed that the former group had more activity in what is known as the default mode network, a collection of disparate brain regions that makes up the baseline, or default level of brain activity necessary to keep a body functioning. When a person performs a mental task, this default network is suppressed. But in the depressed patients, this network was overactive, and that was associated with increased rumination — or overfixating on a thought that could contribute to depression.
The patients with depression were then given a 10-week course of either the antidepressant Cymbalta (duloxetine) or a placebo. At the end of the trial, patients who received the drug showed similar connectivity patterns to those seen in healthy individuals, but the depressed participants who received placebo did not. (The study received some funding support from the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, which markets Cymbalta.)
(MORE: Your Brain on Laughter)
Similar differences were found among those with schizophrenia. In these patients, both the default network and the salience network appear disrupted compared with those without the disorder, according to French neuroscientists who published their results in the journal Schizophrenia Research. They noted that lack of synchronicity involving a part of the brain called the left striatum, which wasn’t seen in healthy individuals, was associated with symptoms of schizophrenia like delusions.
Other research has pointed to differences in resting-state abnormalities in illnesses such as Alzheimer’s, Tourette syndrome and anxiety disorder.
So why are such brain scans not used for clinical diagnosis? Until recently, limited computing power often meant that scientists could only analyze fMRI data from one brain region at a time, and many of these patterns require a more global view to understand how certain networks interact with others.
(MORE: Brain Scans Can Predict Which Criminals Are Likely to Get Rearrested)
But as imaging technologies become more robust, such scans could increasingly become useful diagnostic tools for doctors. With autism, for example, doctors are “really desperate for a biological marker to help with diagnosis and [measuring] treatment response,” says Daniel Smith, senior director of discovery neuroscience at Autism Speaks. Currently, most children are diagnosed around the age of 2, when the behavioral symptoms of inattention and repetitive actions tend to emerge. More studies suggest, however, that intervening with behavioral therapy in children as young as 6 months old could reduce, or even normalize, some of the aberrant brain changes responsible for the disorder, so diagnosing the condition as early as possible could become critical.
For other conditions affecting the brain, fMRI may not be as helpful. “I don’t think this is going to yield insights into every neurologic disorder,” says Greicius, who is dubious that abnormalities in resting-state connectivity exist in disorders such as multiple sclerosis — in which neuronal deterioration is “willy-nilly” — or traumatic brain injury, which can disproportionately affect an isolated area. But for conditions like autism, it could provide valuable opportunities to both understand and improve treatments. First, however, as with any new technique, scientists will have to replicate and confirm the early results. If they hold up, he says, “That’s going to help shore up recent exciting preliminary findings” — and hopefully pave the way for assigning certain mental illnesses their own imaging fingerprint that could give doctors and patients a head start on treatments.THE craze for sex robots will lead to a growing number of men whose only sexual and romantic relationships will be with dolls, academics say.
So-called "digisexuals" will shun human partners in favour of the new kind of virtual reality porn and customisable robots able to speak and interact.
Channel4 4 Married engineer James says he has sex with his doll April four times a week and even takes her out on dinner dates
The warning comes in a study of the growing use of sex dolls. including at the world's first brothel staffed entirely by robots.
High-tech sex dolls with realistic silicone skin and the ability to flirt and even simulate orgasms have become increasingly available.
Psychotherapists should be prepared for more clients "participating in digisexualities", says a report by ethics researchers Neil McArthur and Markie Twist of the University of Manitoba.
They write: “There is no question that sex robots are coming.
Lumidolls 4 This is one of the sex doll at a Barcelona brothel staffed entirely by robots
Channel4 4 High-tech dolls can be customised to create the buyer's ideal partner
"Our view is that they will represent a different sort of sexual experience from what existing technologies offer.
“People will form an intense connection with their robot companions.
“These robots will be tailor-made to meet people’s desires, and will do things that human partners cannot or will not do.
"For this reason, significant numbers of people will likely come to use robots as their primary mode of sexual experience.
The Sex Robots Are Coming documentary is set to lift the lid on the growing trend
Lumidolls 4 Some of the more realistic sex dolls cost up to £15,000
"Many people will find that their experiences with this technology become integral to their sexual identity and some will prefer them to direct sexual interactions with humans.”
Sex doll technology has advanced in recent years as companies produce life-like robots costing up to £15,000.
Buyers can hand-pick features such as face, hair and breast size.
And the dolls are programmed to remember the owner's birthday and favourite films and music.
Some can be made to feel warm like real flesh and simulate an orgasm during sex.
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Another company in London has started selling Samantha, a high-tech sex dolls who likes to be "seduced" - and could soon be mass produced in Wales.
Last month we told how sex robot creator Sergi Santos claimed regular romps with his dolls had spiced up his marriage.
And last week married engineer James revealed he is having an affair with a 5ft sex doll - who he takes on dinner dates - and his wife of 36 years doesn't mind.
Samantha the sex doll interacts with creator Sergi Santos
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.Sony unveiled its pocket-sized set-top box in Japan last year, and since then us Western gamers have been clamoring for our own version of the PlayStation TV. The miniature device showed up in the U.S. on Tuesday, and Mashable spent time putting it through its paces.
See also: 10 CEOs Pitch Their Disney Accelerator Startups in 6 Seconds
The PlayStation TV is more likely to compete with devices such as the OUYA or other game consoles than be a replacement for your Apple TV or Chromecast— for reasons that will become apparent below. However, it has a nice price: The PS TV is just $99 for the device itself, or for an additional $40 you can get the PS TV, an 8GB proprietary Sony memory card, a PlayStation 3 controller and a copy of The Lego Movie game. Considering the memory cards, which are incredibly overpriced, cost $20 to $30 by themselves for 8GB, the bundle is a pretty good deal.
Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
Out of the box
The PlayStation TV is incredibly small, with a great form factor. It's even smaller than an Apple TV. It can easily slip into any entertainment setup.
The back hides an A/C power input, along with HDMI, USB and Ethernet jacks. There's a slot for the Sony PlayStation Vita memory card, and a slot on the side for PlayStation Vita cartridges. The USB port sadly can't be used for extra storage, or to import media to the PlayStation TV. It's simply there to connect a controller for charging.
After a simple setup process, you'll be dropped into a menu that will look very familiar to Vita owners. The interface is completely identical, blown up to fit a television. Globular app icons float 10 per page, with pages filling up as you add games and apps. The icons seem to shimmer as they hang in three rows across the screen. What's unfortunate about this setup is the Vita app icons make sense for touch, not for controller navigation.
This interface shovelware is even more evident when trying to close an app. On the Vita, you'd simply pull on the app's folded right corner to dismiss it. Try pulling on a corner with a controller. It's surprising that Sony didn't try to modify the UI to something closer to the PS3 or PS4, which is already built with controller input in mind.
Because the whole experience is just an enlarged Vita screen, the text is huge. Apps such as the PlayStation Store don't feel like they scale up well. Put it on a TV and it just looks weird, like viewing a computer monitor on too low of a resolution. (I thought there might be a resolution solution in settings, and didn't find one.)
The PlayStation TV next to an Apple TV, for size comparison. Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
PlayStation TV game library
Thankfully diving into games made me forget my UI troubles. The PlayStation TV has a diverse library, thanks mostly to Sony's CrossPlay support that brought many titles to Vita at the same time as PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4. There were a lot of Vita titles available in the PlayStation Store for download, including download-only independent titles. I was happy to be able to re-download titles I already digitally owned for Vita or PS3 to my PlayStation TV, like Spelunky and Dragon's Crown.
Games range in price from a couple of bucks to $39.99, and existing PlayStation Plus members — Sony's $50-a-year bonus game program — will get all their old games and a few new games per month for free.
And, best of all, the PlayStation TV is basically a $100 Minecraft machine, thanks to the title's release on Vita this week. This could be a low-cost option for parents wanting to get their kids into the game that don't own a console or computer.
There are a lot of classic PlayStation One titles available too, although playing some of those aging titles on a TV screen might be less nostalgic and more painful. Not all early 3D games have aged well.
Image: Mashable, Luke Leonard
Streaming game options
The PlayStation TV also works with PlayStation Now, Sony's cloud streaming game service, and it can stream a full PlayStation 4 experience from another room in your house.
PlayStation Now allows players to rent games from previous-generation PlayStation 3, and there is a wide selection of titles available. Game rentals can range from $2.99 to $4.99 for four hours on most titles, to closer to $30 for 90-day rentals. Consumers have rightly complained some of these prices are exorbitant, though there is a middle sweet spot in the pricing for seven-day rentals, which range from $5.99 to $8.99. There are more than 100 titles available, ranging from bigger hits, more obscure games, and even some brand new releases.
The "PS4 link" function brings the full PlayStation 4 experience onto the PlayStation TV. You can access any games or media available on that console from another TV in your house, but it only works on the same network.
It's important to note that streaming does not seem to work well over wireless. While Brooklyn, where I did a majority of my testing, may not have the best infrastructure, many other parts of the country suffer from the same problem. (For those interested, I tested this at work in Manhattan on a T1 connection, and at home with Verizon FiOS.)
Sony says very specifically on the package materials that a wired connection is recommended, and connecting via ethernet made games that were unplayable run perfectly. So if your home setup doesn't allow for wired connections for both the PS4 and PS TV, it might not work. It's really cool when it does though, giving users the option of accessing their entire PS4 library in a different part of the house.
Can it compete with other set-top boxes?
The PlayStation TV has huge potential to provide an all-in-one set-top box solution that provides both streaming games and other entertainment. Unfortunately, the PlayStation TV is totally devoid of apps required to do so. I really was surprised to see a platform that Netflix isn't available on, but the "Apps" section of the PlayStation Store was barren. No Hulu Plus. No Amazon Prime Video. Instead, we get two lesser-known video services: Film distribution platform Crackle, and Crunchyroll, which caters to anime and Korean TV fans.
You can purchase movies to rent or own on the PlayStation TV, but that doesn't seem like the direction consumers are moving in.
Huge potential on the horizon
The PlayStation TV's bumpy issues are easy to patch in the future. The interface can be cleaned up, and entertainment apps can be added. The great news is that people will now be able to enjoy many of the great games available on the Vita at a lower price, especially since the platform has recently become a magnet for unique indie games. If you have the right connection type, PlayStation Now also offers a lot of entertainment value in the future. All of this in a teeny form factor and a pretty low price point.“There was a problem. We couldn’t see the true condition until the snow departed,” the head of the new Central Maine and Quebec Railway said in an interview. “I could travel over it and look at it and get a sense of how many bad ties there were and I was shocked.”
LAC-MÉGANTIC, QUE.—It wasn’t until the winter passed and the snow cleared on the train tracks running into this destroyed town where 47 people died in last year’s rail disaster town that John Giles saw for himself what his company had signed up for.
Safety, in the wake of the tragic derailment, comes before business considerations in a year that has seen a flurry of new regulations and tighter rules intended to boost the security of rail transport in Canada.
Giles’ firm closed in January on the sale of the bankrupt Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Rail company, whose 72 cars of crude-oil cargo derailed on July 6, 2013, killing so many and wiping out Lac-Mégantic’s downtown core. Now it is focusing on the safety of its rail network, with plans to replace 13 kilometres of worn out track, upgrade signal crossings where the track crosses roads and replace 24,000 wooden cross ties, the blocks on which the rails sit.
A lot has been done since the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic. The federal government brought in rules preventing trains carrying dangerous goods from being left unattended, instituting tougher braking standards, limiting speeds through populated areas and banning one-man crews on trains carrying hazardous materials such as combustible crude oil.
“The short answer is yes, I think we are better off,” said Fredericton Mayor Brad Woodside, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the national mayoral lobby group that has championed the fight for stricter rail standards in the country.
“There was a particularly fateful set of circumstances that made this a disaster on the scale that it was,” said Mark Winfield, an associate professor of environmental studies at York University.
Some safety advocates, however, believe the fundamental risks of transporting dangerous goods have not been addressed in an industry where shipments of crude oil on trains are expected to triple by 2016 to 700,000 barrels a day from 200,000.
There was a fire on the train, which was parked and unattended on the main track at the top of a long, downhill slope. There was the failure of the air brakes and the alleged insufficient application of the train’s handbrakes. It occurred on a Saturday night, when dozens of people had gathered at a popular local bar and others were sleeping in their apartments, tragically unaware.
“Those things are just the fates,” said Winfield, “but I think that how a train ended up in that location, with that cargo, in that condition, points to much larger and much more systemic failures.”
Those include the so-called Safety Management System requirements, which put the onus on rail companies to come up with and enforce their own safety regimes, which are then audited by the federal government.
“It may be fine as a supplement to a regulatory regime, but it’s not a substitute for Transport Canada setting the rules and Transport Canada enforcing the rules. That’s the fundamental problem,” Winfield said.
For what it is worth, Giles, who is busy setting up his new railway on MM&A’s old tracks, says he would never have signed off on one of his trains carrying that amount of oil being left unattended for any length of time in the early morning hours of July 6, 2013.
No mayor would have approved of it either. That’s why, 20 days after the deadly train derailment, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities started working on finding a way to improve rail safety in the country and looking at what needed to change.
Woodside said the National Municipal Rail Safety Working Group, of which Lac-Mégantic Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche is a member, has claimed several victories over the last year.
First among those changes concerns the DOT-111 tanker cars that must be upgraded or taken out of service by 2017 if they don’t meet tougher standards. The rail industry had been pushing for a 10-year transition, but the FCM succeeded in getting Ottawa to set a three-year window.
The real success of the ban will only come if the United States adopts a similar standard in phasing out the older tanker cars.
The second change was forcing rail companies to produce annual reports listing the materials being carried along particular routes. The goal is to ensure fire crews and other first responders have the training and equipment necessary to respond to crashes, spills and fires, whether they happen in a farmer’s field, near water or along a main downtown street.
“When you go back far enough, towns were built around the railway, but we have since come into a situation where we’re transporting a lot of different things that we didn’t transport back then, that didn’t create those kinds of serious situations that we’re now experiencing,” Woodside said.
Where many once gazed romantically at rail cars rumbling along a track, or raged at a lengthy road crossing, the residents of Lac-Mégantic are now haunted by the tracks that cross through their old downtown core like a scar. They are all too aware of the potent power of the track, even if they understand it is a vital piece of the town’s economic health.
“I do understand that and I think it’s absolutely natural. What we’re going to try to do is communicate to the cities, the municipalities and towns where we travel — starting with Lac-Mégantic — and we’re going to keep them conversant with the changes we’re making,” said Giles, a longtime railway executive.
“We’re going to work hard to try to remove the shadow of doubt that hangs over the town today.”
The CMQ railway has run a dozen trains through the town since taking over from MM&A. For now, the loads are inert raw materials like wood that come into the Tafisa factory, the town’s main employer, and leave as particle board destined for Ikea stores.
The drivers move their loads slowly, carefully. They would tiptoe along the tracks if they could.
But Lac-Mégantic residents are bracing for the day that oil once again rumbles through their town in the forests of eastern Quebec. It won’t happen soon, says Giles. Maybe never again.
“I have only one refinery in my service area and it’s in Saint John (New Brunswick). Today (the oil) is moving over the Canadian National line into Saint John. Other crude is being moved into Saint John along barges on the Atlantic Coast,” he said.
“I don’t know that there’s any demand for the movement of crude over our railroad... I don’t know that we’ll ever handle crude shipments again.”The route to running in November's US presidential election is via a series of elections known as primaries and caucuses. This is the process by which supporters of the Democratic or Republican parties, in each US state, say which candidate they would like to see representing their party in the presidential poll. How does it work? KEY GUIDES Quick guide: US election Primary and caucus dates A caucus guide What is a primary? Each state gets to send a certain number of delegates to the parties' national conventions in the late summer, where each party's nominee is formally chosen - and the primaries and caucuses determine which candidate those delegates vote for. Broadly speaking, the more voters from a given state give their backing to candidate X, the more delegates pledged to support candidate X will be sent from that state to the national convention. Why did Iowa and New Hampshire come first? No particular reason, it just happened that way. This year Iowa held its caucuses on 3 January and New Hampshire held the first primary on 8 January. It's sometimes argued that they don't deserve it, because they are not representative of the US as a whole - they are small (especially New Hampshire), they don't have big cities, and their populations are not very diverse. The counter-argument is that both states have politically-educated voters who put would-be candidates through a lot of tough questioning. What was Super Tuesday? A day (a Tuesday!) when a lot of states hold primaries or caucuses simultaneously. The practice began in the 1980s. In 2000, 16 states held primaries on 7 March, at which about 60% of all delegates were up for grabs. In 2004, Super Tuesday split in two. There was a Mini-Tuesday (or Super Tuesday I) on 3 February, followed by a Super Tuesday II on 2 March. California, Ohio and New York all held their votes on Super Tuesday II. On 5 February 2008, 24 states took part in "Super-Duper Tuesday", including California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey. Caucus or primary - what's the difference? Caucus procedures vary according to state law. In most states, such as Iowa, voters meet in private homes, schools and other public buildings to discuss the candidates and the issues. They then elect delegates to the county conventions. County convention delegates elect delegates in turn to state conventions, where delegates to the national conventions are chosen. At Democratic caucuses, the voters sometimes publicly divide into groups, gathering in different corners of a room to show their support for the different candidates, and delegates are allocated accordingly. Republican caucuses usually take the form of a secret ballot, the results of which inform the allocation of delegates. In primary elections, all registered voters in a state directly vote for their preferred candidate. Are the caucuses and primaries held at the same time every election year? No. This year everything happened earlier. From 1972 to 1992 the exercise began in late January (or occasionally early February) and the nominations were not usually settled until the first Tuesday in June, when California, New Jersey and Ohio held their primaries. This year they began on 3 January, and the Republican nomination was effectively settled on 5 February, the earliest ever Super Tuesday (though John McCain only became certain of victory on 4 March). The Democrat battle looks set to continue until June, and with early start the contest will have lasted longer than ever - more than five months. Is a long nomination contest a bad thing? To spend several months criss-crossing the country meeting voters is a good test of a candidate's strengths and weaknesses, and it gives Americans lots of opportunities to decide which politician they like best. Also, a little-known candidate who does well in the early caucuses or primaries has a chance to attract financial support, and organise a strong campaign. The shorter the primary campaign, the less time there is for an outsider to gather momentum. However, a long primary season can mean the eventual nominee has less time to prepare for the general election battle against the other party's candidate - and that their own party is more divided. Why did the primary calendar change? Some states felt the established system gave too much prominence to the states which began the selection process, and too little to those at the end of the process, so in the 1990s a trend began for states to move their primaries and caucuses forward. This just increased the disadvantage of coming last and gave states more of an incentive to rush to the front of the queue. States such as Iowa and New Hampshire, which have traditionally come first, responded by moving their own events earlier still. Did the Democratic and Republican parties attempt to stop states changing the electoral calendar? Yes. The Democratic Party punished Michigan and Florida by refusing to accept their delegates at the national convention. The Republican Party penalised Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Wyoming, by reducing their quota of delegates by half. Do these penalties matter? They could, in theory, if it's a close race. The Democrats have closed the door to about 8% of delegates, the Republicans to about 5%. It's possible the decisions to impose the penalties could be reversed before the convention. However, proposals by Democrats in Florida and Michigan to stage their contests again have foundered.
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StumbleUpon What are these?In a video that surfaced on Instagram Thursday afternoon, Meek Mill says he would fight Drake for $5 million and let Nicki Minaj be the ring girl.
Better video quality of #meekmill saying he'd fight #drake for $5 million and #nickiminaj can be the ring girl. A video posted by DJ Akademiks (@akadmiks) on Jan 12, 2017 at 4:19pm PST
We should note it is not known when this video, posted via DJ Akademiks, was captured. In the video below, Akademiks said the monologue was originally streamed on Instagram Live.
You probably don't need us to tell you that the two rap stars have had beef dating back to the summer of 2015, when Meek Mill outed Drake for using a ghostwriter, Quentin Miller.
You've probably also heard that Meek and Minaj, one of hip-hop's most famous couples, broke up last month. In other words: this video is juicy and will have the internet buzzing for more than one reason.
Akademiks tagged 50 Cent, who is promoting a celebrity boxing card, in his post, and said the Soulja Boy vs. Chris Brown fight is "so last week."
Even Nicki's ex, Safaree, weighed in. On an Instagram post by The Shade Room about Meek's fight offer, he commented, "Drake don't got time but I do."
The chances of a Drake vs. Meek Mill celebrity boxing match are probably pretty close to zero, but the leak of this video is sure to spark discussions among fans—who would win?BOTTLE ROCKET is an exceptionally fresh and thoroughly fun movie. I found myself smiling throughout, and not even sure why. I can't even say what kind of movie it is. For BOTTLE ROCKET defies any attempt at classification, any assault on its originality and creativity by placing it neatly in a box. It is neither a comedy nor a drama; not a love story nor a crime flick. It blends all of these genres--along with a pinch of classic Americana--into a very unique, delightful movie. Yet it is also a deliciously messy enigma: a loosely strung-together melange of brillance and childishness, high and pop art, profundity and absurdity. By the film's conclusion, I knew I had seen something special, a truly inspired and deeply personal work.
BOTTLE ROCKET's power lies in its characters. They are so quirky, so unique, that they seem unmistakably real, and therefore patently likeable. They are simple people who lead quietly extraordinary and beautiful lives, people who believe in following one's dreams, chasing after true love, being individuals--and all with childlike wonder, innocence, and joie de vivre. In short, they are people of unique and genuine character. They also happen to be hysterically funny. BOTTLE ROCKET, while I would not categorically call it a comedy, is easily one of the funniest movies of the nineties. The brothers Owen and Luke Wilson give laudable (although not flawless) performances as the two principals, and they are supported admirably by some great character actors.
BOTTLE ROCKET is also a beatiful picture. The photograhpy is excellent--stylish in an understated way--and this adds an element of class to an already quality piece. Almost every shot would make an excellent photograph, full of rich and subtle detail, and interesting interplay of colors, textures, and distances. BOTTLE ROCKET does not have lavish sets, nor does it take place in exotic locales. Anderson instead transforms what would otherwise be lacklustre settings like rural Texas and a cheap motel into places of almost otherworldly beauty. The lighting has a lot to do with this effect, giving the movie a very clean, bright feel--think of a J.Crew ad, only set in the rural Midwest instead of a Cape Cod beach house. The movie gives the warm, uplifting feeling of a young, free, and beautiful America, a feeling one gets at certain times reading Kerouac. The music is superb to boot, as in all Anderson's flicks, and greatly enhances the visual experience.
Yet BOTTLE ROCKET falls short in its bid for perfection. For one thing, the love story, while sometimes touching, is very artifical and abstract. At times I really wanted Inez and Anthony to get together, but I couldn't help but feel manipulated by the forced nature of their love. Anthony instantly falls in love with the motel housekeeper, who doesn't speak a word of English because she's from Paraguay. The love-at-first-sight gimmick only works when the characters develop a fulfilling emotional bond over time, but this doesn't happen in BOTTLE ROCKET. Also, I think Anderson indulges in the 1960's motif a bit much. From the music to the sets to the hairstyles, everything reeks of the sixties--hell, even all the cars are vintage. There are points in the film where one could easily forget it was made in '96. The ending even reminded me of COOL HAND LUKE. But BOTTLE ROCKET, I've learned, is a very subjective experience and therein lies its genius, at least in part. If you have a well-developed eye, you'll probably like this film, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The movie's much like a bottle rocket, in fact: it can spark, sizzle, and delight, but in the end, you're not sure whether it could have had more substance. Final note: the DVD is bare-bones. Can't we get at least a commentary, people?Share
Cord-cutting and DVRs might not seem like they belong in the same sentence, but the TiVo Roamio OTA combines the best of both worlds, adding DVR capabilities to broadcast TV along with streaming from most major services. Now the line is getting an upgrade, including one important addition and another important subtraction.
Today TiVo unveiled the Roamio OTA 1TB, adding 500GB storage that allows users to store up to 150 hours of HD content. The new model will cost users $400, but that mammoth price is easier to swallow thanks to the other big announcement: there is no need for an ongoing monthly subscription fee. That initial price covers both the hardware and the service.
“The TiVo Roamio OTA 1TB is in a class of its own,” said Ira Bahr, TiVo’s chief marketing and retail sales officer. “It delivers the unparalleled TiVo DVR experience, as well as an intuitive integration between free over-the-air HD channels and major streaming services. No other device brings everything you watch together into one single, easy-to-use interface.”
Simply plug in an HD antenna, and any local channels in your area are seamlessly integrated into the experience, complete with the SkipMode 30-second commercial skip that helped propel TiVo to stardom. If you’re in a hurry to catch up with a favorite show, QuickMode — introduced last year — allows you to watch a show up to 30 percent faster, and with the audio pitch-corrected so the actors don’t sound like chipmunks.
Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video are built-in and with the OneSearch feature, both broadcast TV and streaming video can be browsed and searched at the same time. Built-in support for casting allows video from Netflix or YouTube to be streamed from a mobile device to the Roamio OTA 1TB without the need for a separate piece of hardware like a Chromecast.
As we mentioned in our review of the original Roamio, one of its most powerful features is the ability for the box to serve as your hub for all visual media. With four built-in tuners, the Roamio OTA 1TB can stream live, recorded, and OTT content to TiVo Mini devices throughout your home, and recorded shows can also be streamed to Amazon Fire or Apple TV devices.
Whether or not all that will be worth the $400 entrance fee for frugal cord-cutters remains to be seen.
The TiVo Roamio 1TB will be available starting May 2 and can be found at Best Buy stores and online via Best Buy, Amazon, and the TiVo website.DUBAI, April 3 (Reuters) - Iran will honor the framework agreement for a nuclear accord provided world powers hold up their end of the bargain, President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday, hailing what he called a historic deal.
"We don't cheat. We are not two-faced," Rouhani said in a live televised address. "If we've given a promise... we will take action based on that promise. Of course, that depends on the other side taking action on their promises too."
The tentative accord, struck on Thursday after eight days of talks in Switzerland, clears the way for a settlement to allay Western fears that Iran could build an atomic bomb, with economic sanctions on Tehran being lifted in return.
He added that world powers now accepted Iran could enrich uranium on its own soil, something he said they had once argued posed a threat to the region.
The accord marks the most significant step towards rapprochement between Washington and Tehran since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
"Today is a day that will remain in the historic memory of the Iranian nation," Rouhani said.
"Some think that we must either fight the world or surrender to world powers. We say it is neither of those, there is a third way. We can have cooperation with the world." (Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh and Sam Wilkin, Writing by William Maclean; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)NEW DELHI: India’s decision to cancel a $740-million helicopter contract with Italian-owned AgustaWestland last week added to an already long list of failed defence deals which have left the military |
relationship with Will stings but doesn’t have a chance to carry, since she’s taken off the testimony lineup and reconciles with Will shortly after; Prurnell swans past in the background reminding Crawford of the FBI party line; Beverly Katz doesn’t get more than a few dramatic side-eyes to her name. Imagine what could happen if any women were allowed to have a conversation with each other! (Don’t rush, it’ll probably be a few more weeks.)
But by the end of “Hassun,” rounding the corner into the main courses, Hannibal’s creation of a Will Graham ham-handed straw-man fan (say it five times fast) to take credit for Will’s crimes—or at least provide reasonable doubt—indicates the thin end of a wedge that’s going to strain the rest of the season. The appearance of the stag as a way out, and Hannibal as warden of the cage, indicates that Hannibal will be facing down a very different Will: guarded, single-minded, and renegotiating who his allies are. “He wants to know me,” Will says of his admirer, but it’s not an epiphany—it’s a challenge. Who’s hungry?
Stray observations:
I’m so excited to sub in this week on an episode with so much to…chew on. (I’m not a cannibal.)
“Gratitude has a short half-life.” Book bingo!
At this point, it seems downright cruel to use a clockface on this show.
Also perfection: The score and sound design this episode is as beautiful/horrifying as always.
“We should have taken a stool sample.” I mean.German sprinter says sport has become cleaner but that some will always try to cut corners
The most successful sprinter in last year’s Tour de France, Marcel Kittel, has said on the eve of the Dubai Tour that clean riders in the sport have an obligation to be vocal about the necessity of racing without doping products.
“The most important thing for us young riders is to show that we are different,” the Giant Shimano rider told Gulf News. “We need to show that we are here to fight for our voice and that we do not want to be compared to those riders who have cheated or are cheating.
“We are ready to fight for our idea of cycling and we want to make clear what we want.”
Kittel has spoken out against doping for several years. Last July he called for lifetime bans and criminal charges against those who dope. Soon afterwards, he agreed to undergo a lie detector analysis for German Sports Bild magazine.
The forensic psychologist Holger Leutz concluded that on the basis of the physiologicial responses from that test that Kittel was speaking the truth when he said he didn’t dope.
“The things we have monitored during the interview were very evenly measured,” he stated then. “That is a sign of credibility. Kittel makes us believe in a pure generation of cyclists. I dare say in response to what the detector indicates that Marcel Kittel has never used doping and is a clean athlete.”
Kittel had previously faced accusations when it emerged in 2012 that he had been administered the controversial black light therapy while being treated by the doctor Andreas Franke at an Olympic training site in Erfurt. However he said that he was being treated for illness and stopped in 2008.
Importantly, the practice was only added to WADA’s banned list three years ago, meaning it was not illegal at the time. The agency confirmed to VeloNation in February 2012 that the practice was not breaking the rules prior to 2011.
Kittel said that his Giant Shimano team was also opposed to doping. “Our team philosophy is very clear,” he stated. “We want high professional sport that is clean and we live that philosophy. And that’s exactly what we try to show spectators, other riders and anyone who is interested in our sport of cycling.”
Unlike others who try to convince the fans that the problem is completely in the past, Kittel is a realist and said that human nature is flawed and that some riders in the sport will likely continue to try to cut corners.
“I want to make one thing very clear: I am not sitting here and saying cycling is completely clean of doping,” he stated. “There are people who are always trying to take shortcuts to success. But I do believe we have made very good progress and cycling is one of the leaders when it comes to anti-doping.”
He identified the Lance Armstrong case and the related investigation by USADA and others as an example of how the sport can benefit from looking at the past. “It was important for all to know how it happened so that future generations do not make the same mistakes all over again,” he stated.A new report has revealed the extent to which Britain’s housing crisis has been driven by mass immigration, with young people “paying the price” for this policy through ever-rising rents.
Migration Watch UK found that the “unprecedented” net migration of 2.5 million people over the past decade has been one of the main factors in pricing young people out of the UK housing market.
Published Thursday, the paper found that mass migration is the “major component” fueling the heavy demand on housing that has sent rent prices sky-high and made it hard for Britain’s young to save for a house deposit.
Migrant families make up nine out of 10 new households added in the last decade, according to the think tank which reported that “London is bearing the brunt of ballooning demand for rental properties.”
Households headed by foreigners accounted for more than 80 per cent of growth in the UK capital’s private-rented sector over the past 10 years, a period in which the report says rents rose by 36 per cent while wages grew just 21 per cent.
Report: Migrants Make up 90 Per Cent New Households over Past Decade
https://t.co/BYpnwNk90y — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 15, 2017
One major result of demand for housing in Britain outpacing supply is that young people have increasingly been priced out of the housing market, according to the paper.
“Young people in particular have been negatively affected with many having to stay longer in shared accommodation or remaining in the family home with their parents.
“This delay in settling down in their own home can lead to other important life decisions being delayed, such as having children,” said the study, which pointed to figures from Shelter which found 59 per cent of 18-44 year olds in Britain reporting being “forced to put their lives on hold as a result of the housing crisis”.
In the last 10 years the share of 25 to 34-year-olds in England who own their own home has plummeted from 57 per cent to 38 per cent, the migration policy think tank found, noting that the proportion of home owner-occupiers in the same age bracket shot up from 24 per cent to 46 per cent during the past decade.
UKIP immigration spokesman John Bickley blasted establishment political parties for neglecting to mention the role of mass migration in policy discussions regarding the “major housing crisis” in Britain.
“They blame each other for the housing crisis and desperately try to deflect the audience’s gaze away from what they have been solely responsible for: uncontrolled immigration,” he said of Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Conservative MPs.
Britain's Health Service 'On Its Knees' Thanks to Mass Migration, Says Cancer Specialist https://t.co/3uxYkFqub7 pic.twitter.com/QaxT8uuhyt — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 9, 2016
Veteran journalist Stephen Glover struck a similar tone in a column for the Daily Mail, suggesting that “pigs might fly” before UK political figures agree to “accept the major role immigration has played in putting pressure on housing, the NHS and schools”.
In it, he complained of the situation at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, where MPs brought up homelessness and the overstretched NHS “without anyone mentioning the gigantic, but perennially mute, elephant in the room”.
Slamming the failure of the country’s media and political class for refusing to “mention the dreaded ‘I’ word in relation to the scarcity of resources”, Glover said it is “not remotely racist to suggest that if a country has net migration of around 250,000 every year for ten years, that is bound to place an extra strain on public services and the availability of housing”.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Filed under: Biblical Studies
Tags: Biblical Scholars, Historicity of Jesus
Biblical scholars are reacting uncomfortably to signs of public interest in the view that Jesus did not exist. Not all biblical scholars, though. A tiny few do publicly welcome and accommodate this mythicist view of Jesus with their Christian faith and others who have confessed to being open-minded on the question. (For details see Who’s Who: Mythicists and Mythicists Agnostics.) But it is no secret that biblical studies is dominated by the Christian faith, both its liberal and conservative wings, so when articles questioning the most fundamental precept of that faith appear in prominent media outlets like The Washington Post, Salon.com, and most recently Macleans, some of those scholars let their indignation and impatience show. Unfortunately for their cause, however, while they focus on defending their traditional assumptions they all too often completely ignore (or misrepresent) the actual reasons many intelligent and educated people continue to have doubts.
My own position on mythicism: Following is my (slightly modified) email reply to someone who recently asked me if I was an agnostic on the mythicist question. — Yes. It is the best we can argue. The evidence and critical methods we have can only allow us to argue that our New Testament literature can well be explained without recourse to a historical Jesus but that fact does not itself prove their was no historical Jesus. Even some “historicists” admit that the historical Jesus is essentially irrelevant to what became Christianity. Personally I see no reason to believe in the existence of a historical Jesus but I cannot prove that position, so I must remain agnostic. The best I can do is to demonstrate how the evidence we have for Christian origins can be explained far more cogently without reference to a historical figure. [A danger some mythicists fall into is an ideological desire to prove Jesus was not historical but the expression of some other deity or cosmic phenomena,] — that is, looking only for evidence to support their theory. That approach is susceptible to confirmation bias. If we can’t find ways to test our hypotheses and identify how they could be disproved then we are not using valid historical or scientific reasoning. [I think a more interesting and profitable pursuit than trying to prove or disprove the historicity of Jesus is to explore and understand the evidence that sheds light on Christianity’s origins.] In posts on Vridar I’ve said several times that by explaining the origin of a gospel narrative as an adaptation of another story (say, Jesus stilling the storm from the Jonah story) we do not disprove the historicity of the event. Ditto if we find mythical associations with Jesus : even known historical emperors described themselves and were described by others in ways comparing them with mythical persons. What matters is what the evidence we have points us towards. If we have evidence for a literary or mythological borrowing, and that is all there is, then — all other things being equal — it is reasonable to tentatively assume that that the literary or mythological source is the origin of our narrative. But our conclusion is tentative – pending the discovery of additional evidence that there is also a historical source.
In this series of posts I will address the public responses of two mainstream scholars, Philip Jenkins and Stanley Porter (who responds jointly with Hughson Ong, a relatively new name in the field), to Brian Bethune’s discussion of Bart Ehrman’s new popular book, Jesus Before the Gospels, in the context of questions raised by Richard Carrier’s On the Historicity of Jesus. The two articles:
Both responses are clearly written with considerable impatience:
In debates about Christian origins, one tiresome canard is going to come up sporadically, and usually, it’s not worth wasting time on. (Jenkins) Here we go again, chasing after another ill-conceived theory about the Bible, this being one that periodically rises from the mordant ooze. (Porter-Ong)
And both responses completely sidestep Brian Bethune’s core questions. By way of reminder here are those unaddressed questions that arise from Ehrman’s book:
Q1. Almost entirely from the Christian tradition
Ehrman’s memory book, in effect, is more an appeal to the faithful to accept historians’ approach than a new way of evaluating evidence. His list of what historians, including himself, think they can attest to hardly differs from a list he would have made a decade ago: Jesus was a Jew,
an apocalyptic preacher like the man who baptized him, John the Baptist;
his teaching, rooted in Torah, was delivered in parables and aphorisms;
Jesus had followers who claimed his message was validated by the miracles he wrought;
in the last week of his life, Jesus went to Jerusalem, where he caused a disturbance in the Temple that, some hours later, led to his arrest;
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor found him guilty of sedition and had him crucified. However appealing and reasonable such a list is to modern skeptics, it is still drawn almost entirely from within the faith tradition, with buttressing by the slimmest of outside supports—brief references from Roman observers. (My own bolded emphasis and formatting in all quotations)
Q2. Buttressed by the slimmest of outside supports
Bethune then shows us just how slim the most “rock-solid” of those outside supports are:
Consider one item on Ehrman’s list, perhaps the most accepted and certainly the one with the largest claim to historical accuracy embedded within it: Pontius Pilate executed Jesus. Scholars are almost universally on-side, as are most Christian churches. Pilate is the sole figure from Jesus’s trial for whom we have undoubted archaeological evidence, and he’s also, perhaps coincidentally, the only one to become part of the Nicene Creed, the most widely embraced capsule statement of Christian faith: “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” But that wasn’t what all early Christians thought. The apocryphal Gospel of Peter says King Herod signed the death warrant.
Others who thought Jesus was nearly 50 when he died believed that happened in the 40s of the first century, long after Pilate had been recalled to Rome.
The Nazorians, an intriguing sect of Torah-observant early Christians discussed by a fourth-century scholar, believed Jesus died a century before the canonical Gospels, around 70 BCE. (And, since they were descended directly from the first followers of Christ, called Nazarenes before they became known as Christians, the Nazorians cannot be easily dismissed. The Babylonian Talmud, composed by the fifth century, notes the same.) Yet Pilate is in Mark as the agent of Jesus’s crucifixion, from which he spread to the other Gospels, and also in the annals of the Roman historian Tacitus and writings by his Jewish counterpart, Josephus. Those objective, non-Christian references make Pilate as sure a thing as ancient historical evidence has to offer, unless—as has been persuasively argued by numerous scholars, including historian Richard Carrier in his recent On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason For Doubt—both brief passages are interpolations, later forgeries made by zealous Christians.... The Gospels are forthright in their agendas to serve theological and not historical needs. Mark may have pinned Jesus’s death on Pilate because he knew or believed it to be true, says Carrier, or he may have been practising “apocalyptic math.” [“Apocalyptic math” is a reference to the interest in that day of finding a timetable for the appearance of the messiah in the mysterious numbers in the Book of Daniel.]
Craig Evans interlude
Uh oh, is Carrier befuddling the public with the question begging “interpolation” card? Is he blithely sweeping aside contrary evidence as possible forgeries? That’s how Craig Evans, another mainstream scholar, chose to react to Carrier’s case in a recent debate. But in a live debate situation Carrier was able to respond on the spot and remind the audience that far from any question begging, detailed and abundant evidence for the claim of forgery was used to back up the assertion. (Bart Ehrman himself not very long ago even wrote another popular book demonstrating just how widespread forgery was in the early Christian world.)
http://ksutv.kennesaw.edu/play.php?v=00030027
When Craig Evans brushed aside Carrier’s assertions he was brushing aside all the evidence and argument upon which those assertions were grounded. That’s not addressing the arguments; it’s reacting to them in a way that leaves the critical public unpersuaded.
Meanwhile, both Jenkins and Porter-Ong quietly leave aside that other detail of concern to Bethune, the problematic theological function of the Christian sources.
Q3. Thinking through Paul’s silence and the Gospels’ details
Bethune thinks through the implications of Paul’s non-interest in the historical Jesus:
Carrier’s rigorously argued discussion—made all the more compelling for the way it bends over backwards to give the historicist case an even chance—is the first peer-reviewed historical work on mythicism. He’s relatively restrained in his summation of the absences in Paul’s letters. “That’s all simply bizarre. And bizarre means unexpected, which means infrequent, which means improbable.” Historicists have no real response to it. Ehrman simply says, “It’s hard to know what to make of Paul’s non-interest; perhaps he just doesn’t care about Jesus before his resurrection.” Other historians extend that lack-of-curiosity explanation to early Christians in general, which is not only contrary to the usual pattern of human nature, but seems to condemn the Gospels as fiction: if Christians couldn’t have cared less about the details of Jesus’s life and ministry, they wouldn’t have preserved them, and the evangelists would have been forced to make up everything.
Bethune identifies the wobbliness of mainstream scholar’s responses. When Ehrman attempts to squash any thought of using his sceptical arguments to doubt the very existence of Jesus by insisting that the Gospels remain very important documents, Bethune steadies the boat with:
And so they are, to the history of Christianity and Western culture in general, but not to the history of Jesus, as Ehrman’s own foray into memory study demonstrates: Biographical details, the assurance of physical actuality, are the greatest missionary tools.
Ehrman is correct that the stories we read in the gospels served a meaningful purpose for those people who were responsible for first recording and embracing them. If those people were involved in missionary work then the gospel stories serve as ideal templates for them. Bethune:
Soon enough, as the tendencies of human memory predict, the cosmic Christ, like central figures in other contemporary mystery cults, was “factualized” to better attract adherents. Again, given the way social memory is really all about the problems of now, the Gospels display their interest in issues liable to confront any missionary: prophets without honour in their own lands (that is, treated skeptically in their villages, where people remember them); faith healings that don’t always work out (it’s the fault of those who lack faith); why your allegiance should be to your faith family, not your biological kin (Jesus pushed away his own siblings).
So Brian Bethune, after reading Bart Ehrman’s new book on the nature of the evidence we have for Jesus, is left with serious unresolved questions and expresses these in a widely read forum.
Enter the impatient professors
(I should say that I have enjoyed immensely one of Jenkins’s books and look forward to reading more; I have also found Stanley Porter’s works of interest and use in my own personal studies. My criticisms here are limited to their inability to cope with ideologically incorrect challenges from outside their academy.)
And not only impatient, but indignant.
Unfortunately they let slip a little arrogance and even some bullying that I can’t imagine working well in their favour among honestly questioning bystanders.
Example: Porter-Ong even take Bethune to task for being so misguided as to raise questions posed by Carrier’s arguments and apply them to the implications of Ehrman’s study! Thinking outside traditional paradigms is NOT how their mainstream profession does things! Carrier’s arguments have no business being set against Ehrman’s work. Since Ehrman himself does not doubt the historicity of Jesus Porter-Ong stress that in their view it is invalid to bring the question of the historicity of Jesus into his study.
It is unfortunate, however, that Bethune in his article has totally misconstrued the issue by juxtaposing Richard Carrier’s doubting Jesus’ existence and Bart Ehrman’s advocacy of social memory theory, as well as misrepresenting the utilization of social memory theories in Gospel studies by citing (only) Ehrman.... In short, it is not a theory of history and cannot be used to determine historicality (such as whether or not Jesus existed).
And again,
The use of social memory theories in Gospel studies is at most for purposes of elucidating and understanding the social constructs and the oral traditioning process of the Jesus stories in the Gospels, and definitely not for arguing for or against Jesus’ existence.
The theory certainly cannot be used to determine “historicality (such as whether or not Jesus existed)” and Bethune clearly is aware of that, but Porter-Ong are choosing to ignore the questions concerning “historicality” that inevitably arise as an unintended consequence of that theory. Porter-Ong further attempt to belittle Bethune and his readers by telling us that they are being foolishly and ignorantly misled by a faddish book written by a popular hack (Ehrman) rather than a real authority on the subject. (I agree that Ehrman has shortchanged other scholars in the field who have been working on social memory long before his own work appeared, but this is irrelevant to the concerns of lay readers represented by the Macleans article.)
Porter-Ong are bold enough to admit that they do not even need to have read Ehrman’s and Carrier’s books to justify their patronizing criticism of someone entertaining questions after having read them both:
It is not our intention here to directly critique Ehrman’s or Carrier’s work, for we have not read them in full yet. Nor is it our objective to join in this ongoing social memory fad....
I like the face-saving “in full yet”. Fact: their criticisms elsewhere in their article leave the more informed lay readers in no doubt that they have not read much of Ehrman’s book (it’s very short and easy to read by scholarly standards) and effectively none of Carrier’s book at all. Yet they bring the full weight of their professional status to bear down heavily on a lay reader who has questions arising from a reading of both.
From admitting to not having read the books the move on to downright ignorance with the following:
Milman Parry and Albert Lord speak of the Serbo-Croatian bards composing new songs in every act of performance, they also say that the new composition is still based and draws upon known “oral formulas” that will fit the metrical lines or patterns of the new song. In short, “an act of creation” does not imply “an act of fabrication.” With respect to social memory theory, it is doubtful whether Ehrman is the appropriate and accurate authority to cite in terms of the scholarly research done on the subject. He may just be, as he has been before, trailing along in public support of the latest fad.
I think that passage is intended to impress the ignorant masses with data that only the erudite professionals would know and that supposedly refutes the entire “social memory” theory. In fact the Milman Parry and Albert Lord work on Serbo-Croatian bards is not about social memory theory as addressed by Ehrman or any of the post-modernist social-memory theorists in biblical studies. I guess such an irrelevant gaffe is to be expected from scholars who in one breath say a certain theory is too complex to be understood well by a populist writer yet in the next breath insist that same theory is a mere fad. They appear not to have bothered with Maurice Halbwachs any more than they have with Ehrman. In sum: Porter-Ong appear to have made their minds up that the gospel authors derived their stories from oral tradition and that oral tradition worked according to a century old study of Balkan bards and no further theories or books that might challenge their conclusions need be seriously addressed or even read. It follows that the only way they can respond to outsiders’ challenges is through intellectual intimidation.
The desperation of the Porter-Ong defence becomes almost amusing with their second point:
[W]e should also understand that historians, while they evaluate the reliability of their sources, also depend on those same sources to do their work. To claim that the Gospel materials contain ahistorical information about Jesus does not automatically negate his existence; this is a huge leap from scholarly studies of historical sources to a denial of an actual historical fact. To be clear, to believe that “eyewitnesses tend to offer the least trustworthy accounts, particularly when recalling something spectacular or fast-moving, like Jesus walking on water” (39) is certainly different from arguing that the multitude of eyewitnesses who saw Jesus walk and live on earth (1 Cor 15:5-8; 1 John 1:1-3) lied about his existence. This kind of skepticism makes it hard to think that we know anything from the past, whether ancient or modern.
Yes, scholars do need to believe in the core historical reliability underlying the gospel narratives or else they won’t be able to do any more work based on the historical core underlying the gospel narratives! Once again Porter-Ong have chosen to remain ignorant of the challenges thrown up by the mythicists. The gospels really are not like other ancient historical and biographical writings. As Bethune rightly implies, historians do not normally rely almost entirely upon theological tracts as the foundation of any other historical reconstructions.
Towards the end of their article Porter-Ong bring out a most absurd claim, so often made in defiance of all we know about the range of literature both ancient and modern, that a narrative set in a real geographical or historical setting should itself be assumed to be essentially historical!
the fact that archaeological artifacts also attest to and corroborate much historical information in support of the Gospel accounts should also prompt us to study and assess our presuppositions and arguments further, before making any hasty and preposterous conclusions.
Their inability to deal with Bethune’s questions finally collapses into desperate farce:
if Jesus really did not exist, how about his contemporaries, did they exist? The Gospels indicate that Jesus lived amidst a very dense and multiplex social network. How are we to make sense of this social network, if we say that Jesus did not exist, but that the people in his social network did exist?
Yes, well....
Brian Bethune must be wondering if this is the best the defenders of the historicity of Jesus can do so let’s move on to Philip Jenkins.
Jenkins has an even more blunt response to anyone who ventures into the “far swamps of extreme crankery”....
For the next post….. Part 2
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EmailSift Science Takes $5.5M to Wield Machine Learning Against Fraudsters
Sift Science, which helps online retailers detect fraud, has raised $5.5 million led by Union Square Ventures with Max Levchin, Chris Dixon, Marc Benioff, First Round Capital and others.
Co-founder Brandon Ballinger told AllThingsD that his company has two big strengths: First, it uses machine learning to detect user behavior patterns — one million of them already — that correlate with fraud; and second, it’s made to be easy to integrate with any existing website via free APIs.
After that, customers pay ten cents per user per month for every user beyond 5,000.
Ballinger noted that because it’s standard practice to hold online stores liable for fraud — as compared to offline, where banks often cover fraud instead — this could potentially be a very big business.
In testing, Sift Science has observed all sorts of interesting phenomena. For instance, people who register to buy something with a Yahoo email account are twice as likely to be fraudsters as the norm. Meanwhile, people who register with an AOL account are half as likely as the norm to attempt something fraudulent.
Ballinger had previously developed similar in-house systems at Google to detect malicious advertising. He and co-founder Jason Tan started Sift Science in June 2011, and participated in the Y Combinator program later that year. They now have a team of nine people in San Francisco.
Sift Science has been in testing with companies including Airbnb, Listia, Affirm (Max Levchin’s new startup) and Uber. Customers can either use the service to block transactions in real time or to flag them for review before they’re settled.Next Chapter >
It’s Really Happening This Time
Team sports have never really been my forte. I was always the clumsy kid who got picked last for team games, and then I’d end up running away from the ball when it flew towards me. That’s such a stereotype, right? But if people-watching could be a sport, now that’s something I’ve always been good at. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a weirdo stalker or anything. I just enjoy observing people and trying to figure them out; what their personality type is, what they’re all about. Sometimes I’ll see someone and randomly start imagining what their life story might be like. But recently I started thinking, what do other people think when they see me?
If you’re a car person, you’ll know. You’ll know that my Chuck Taylors are scuffed and ruined from running around at so many car events. You’ll know that my jeans are usually patchy and worn from kneeling or lying on the ground taking photos of cars, and you’ll know that I can’t afford to buy nice clothes because I already spend everything I earn on the one thing I love most. That is, old Japanese cars.
Well, it’s actually just one old Japanese car: a 1975 Datsun S30 280Z. And for the last two and a half years it’s what my life has revolved around. In my last project car update I got the Datsun ready to drive to the 4&Rotary Nationals show, only to have it break down in spectacular fashion and have to be transported to and from the show on the back of a truck. It wasn’t exactly the maiden voyage I’d been dreaming of, but we were so close to getting the car running properly and I wasn’t about to give up hope. With winter in New Zealand fast approaching, there wasn’t much time left…
We were having some major teething problems with the Mikuni Solex carburettors. No matter what we tried, when we balanced the carbs and then applied the throttle, they wouldn’t return back to balance. We knew we needed to get it sorted once and for all, and we suspected there might be bigger issues than just the throttle linkages playing up. So we took the Z down to carb guru Bob Homewood at Hitech Motorsport. Having worked on Datsun race cars for over 30 years, amongst every other type of car imaginable, we knew that Bob and his team would know what to do.
After a good look over, Bob confirmed our suspicions – all three carbs would require a rebuild. We needed new gaskets, mains jets, idle jets and emulsion tubes. Of course, if the carbs were Weber or Dellorto it would have been no big deal – Bob would have had the parts on the shelf. Unfortunately, Mikuni is a whole different story, as the Japanese company no longer produce or support these side draughts. For a second, I considered scrapping the old Mikunis and buying a set of brand new Webers to solve the problem, but in the end, too much time and effort had gone into our carbs to ditch them. Thankfully, local Z enthusiasts pointed us in the direction of Wolf Creek Racing in the States, who were extremely helpful and had a good selection of Mikuni NOS parts available.
The new throttle system we’d just had fabricated also had to be completely replaced in favour of a brand new Redline linkage kit. In theory this all should have solved the balancing issues, but when Hitech tested it out, the carbs still weren’t syncing when the throttle returned back to idle. Bob figured out that the carbs needed the original Mikuni throttle arms that they would’ve originally come with, as when we bought them second-hand they had been changed for custom items to work with the old throttle system.
To make matters worse, it turned out that nobody could source the throttle arms anymore – Wolf Creek Racing included. It felt like we’d hit a big brick wall. On the off-chance that the guy we’d bought the Mikunis off in the first place still had the original throttle arms laying around somewhere, we decided to get in contact with him. And guess what? He did! ‘No worries mate, I’ll pop them on a courier for you first thing tomorrow’. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. That was until the courier arrived and we excitedly opened the package, only to discover that he’d sent us just ONE throttle arm! At this point, we just had to laugh. On the upside, we had one throttle arm to use as a template so that Bob could fabricate two more.
With the three arms now installed, the Z was bolted onto the dyno for the first time. But Bob could only get it up to 4,500rpm before vibrations started shaking the car violently and he had to abort the run. Our first concern was that there might be something wrong with the driveshaft, but after taking it out and having a specialist look over it, it turned out to be in perfect working order.
Thankfully, we solved the issue pretty quickly. It turned out to be the right-hand axle universal joint which was completely worn out – an easy fix. We got the Z back to Hitech for a final dyno run, which revealed 180hp at the wheels at 5000rpm. This was just about bang-on what we’d been expecting for a 10:1 compression, street-cammed L28 on 40mm triples. Of course, that sort of power isn’t exactly mind-blowing compared to most of the cars you see here on Speedhunters, but it’s exactly what I was after though. I think the smooth, easy power delivered by the straight-six is a perfect match for the chassis, and it makes for a very quick and hilariously fun point-to-point street car. This build to me is about enjoying the Z as a whole experience and I’d rather drive an old classic rich with history and character, than an over-powered car lacking those things.
The rebuilt L28 provides plenty of torque, and it sounds so damn good screaming all the way up to 7000rpm! The new dropper bars allow the carbs to stay perfectly in sync, eliminating the previous idle issues, and with the addition of some new PiperCross air filters, the Z was given a clean bill of health and was ready to take home.
We then stopped in to get a fresh wheel alignment at Tyre Tech on the North Shore of Auckland. It was something the car was in dire need of considering it hadn’t had one since the entire front end had been pulled apart.
We also took the time to correct the excessive toe-in on the rear end – a common problem with an extremely low S30, but an easy fix now thanks to the rose-jointed lower control arms.
As you can see, I also got sensible with a set of C-spanners and raised the car up to a more drivable ride height in pure anticipation. Could this be it? Was I finally going to be able to enjoy driving the Z without any problems? After 28 months of things constantly going wrong, it simply felt too good to be true…
Hanging With The Z Club
But it wasn’t. When the weekend finally came around and it was time for our first ‘official’ outing, I was bursting with nervous excitement. With a quick turn of the key and a few pumps on the gas pedal, it roared to life without complaint. It was surprisingly easy to drive; so nimble and light to pilot when compared to the loud, heavy breathing of the triple sidedrafts. The gear ratios weren’t ideal, and shifting up to third and fifth felt a bit laborious, but the adjustment to being on the left-hand side of the car was almost instant, especially in such a small car. In fact, I think I almost prefer driving from that side now.
As I pulled out onto the motorway and prolonged the change up to fourth, the carbs were gasping so violently it was almost like they were tearing through the air in front of me. And as the revs climbed higher I just couldn’t get enough of their malevolent melody. After completely taking the car apart and knowing what every little piece, every component, even every bolt was doing right at that moment while I was in command was the strangest sensation. It was like I could feel every part of the car through my body. Finally we were one, and it was just us and the road.
As we passed other cars on the motorway I could see their occupants looking and smiling when they saw me driving. Now they know, I thought to myself.
My moment of feeling like a total badass quickly vanished though. As when we drove through a light rain shower and I fumbled to find the switch for the wipers I realised that I’d put them on backwards! And yes, they did scratch the paint on the cowling – but only very lightly. I was bummed out at first, but looking back on it now it was actually pretty hilarious. What a rookie move!
As we drove through the countryside and the gold and auburn autumn colours flashed past us, I couldn’t help but feel a strong sense of adoration for my home country. We have so many great driving roads in New Zealand, and compared with a lot of other places around the world our laws on modified vehicles are actually quite lenient. Oh, in case you were wondering, it wasn’t a coincidence that we were following another 280Z. We actually had a particular destination in mind for this first outing…
We’d been invited to a special get together at the Whenuapai Air Force base, hosted by the Z Club of New Zealand. There’s a huge knowledge base within the club’s online community that has played a huge part in helping us complete Project Z, so we weren’t going to miss the opportunity to meet some of the faces behind it.
One of my favourite cars was this immaculate 240Z in perfect restored condition. It even had the original wheels which I don’t think I’ve ever seen on an S30 here in New Zealand! The above image reminds me of those ‘spot the difference’ challenges in children’s |
) are popular and can be given a try. Also your favorite local bar might serve special rum punches on this day. Just check it out.MOSCOW — From pro-Kremlin politicians to Cossacks, many Russians are convinced that the wildly popular Pokemon Go smartphone app is either a cunning Western plot to destabilize Russia or the spawn of Satan.
And quite possibly both.
“There is a feeling that the devil came through this mechanism and is simply trying to destroy us spiritually from within,” Franz Klintsevich, a senior Russian security official, told the state news agency TASS.
Although Pokemon Go by Nintendo has not received an official release in Russia, many people have downloaded the app by adjusting their smartphone settings. Popular sites for “catching” the game’s garish “pocket monsters” include Red Square, the territory of the city’s landmark Hotel Ukrainia and other areas in central Moscow.
Mr. Klintsevich, vice chairman of Russia’s Committee on Security and Defense of the upper house of parliament, also expressed concerns that the augmented reality game is a Western “psychological operation” that could be used to manipulate the minds of young people.
“This could lead all the way to revolution,” he said.
Mr. Klintsevich urged both houses of Russia’s parliament to consider legislation to restrict the use of Pokemon Go after Sept. 18 parliamentary elections.
State media quoted a retired national security service agent this month as saying the game could be a way for the U.S. to enlist unknowing people, including soldiers, into taking photographs of strategically important locations. The gaming app uses a smartphone’s GPS to create a map of the user’s surroundings and taps into the phone’s camera to superimpose an image of a Pokemon monster on the screen.
“Imagine that the little beast in question doesn’t appear in some park but at a secret site where a conscript or other soldier takes and photographs it with his camera,” Aleksander Mikhailov, a retired major general of the Federal Security Service, told state news agency RIA Novosti. “It’s recruitment by one’s own personal desire and without any coercion. This is the ideal way for secret services to gather information.”
Russia’s Communists, the second-largest political party in parliament, are also up in arms.
“Users of mobile devices with this game installed on it could become unsuspecting accomplices in terrorist acts,” read an official complaint that Communist Party lawmaker Denis Voronenkov sent to the Federal Security Service.
Mr. Voronenkov also said Pokemon Go was developed by the CIA to carry out “uninterrupted spying activities” in Russia.
His opinion was echoed by Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist thinker with reported links to the Kremlin who said Niantic, the San-Francisco-based developer of Pokemon Go, has links to a CIA venture capital firm.
In St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-biggest city, the leader of the local Cossacks urged Russian officials to ban the smartphone app.
“We need to drag people out of the virtual world. It all smacks of Satanism,” Andrei Polyakov, leader of the Irbis Orthodox Union of Cossacks, told Russian media.
‘Massive case of paranoia’
God’s Will, a Russian Orthodox Christian movement, has publicly appealed to Nintendo to prevent “iPhone zombies” from hunting Pokemons in churches and cemeteries by excluding all holy places from the game. Russian state media have warned viewers that anyone caught playing the game in church or on international borders could face up to three years in prison.
Although there is no talk of an official ban on the smartphone app, Russian Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov said he is “starting to suspect” it may have been developed by U.S. intelligence services. The Kremlin’s Council for Human Rights and Civil Society has said it will review concerns about the game.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was distinctly unimpressed with the prospect of tourists hunting virtual-reality monsters around Red Square and Lenin’s tomb.
“Pokemons are no reason to visit the Kremlin, which is a jewel of world culture,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on Pokemon Go.
Not all Russians are suspicious of the game.
“All these allegations seem like a massive case of paranoia to me,” Tatiana Marinskaya, a 40-year-old Moscow-based office manager, told The Washington Times. “I’ve seen Pokemon Go on a friend’s phone, and it doesn’t look like something I’d waste my time on.”
Others are far more enthusiastic. On Tuesday, Russian media reported that a student from St. Petersburg had caught 147 Pokemons, setting a world record.
In a bid to counter Pokemon Go mania, Moscow city officials announced Monday that a Russian-developed version of the game would be launched in the capital next month. It will feature famous Russians such as Ivan the Terrible and Pyotr Chaikovsky in place of multicolored Pokemon creatures.
The storm over Pokemon Go reflects widespread suspicions among Russian officials over foreign technological innovations.
Mr. Putin in the past has called the internet a CIA project, and Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-installed leader of Chechnya, recently urged men to prevent their wives from using the WhatsApp smartphone app after anger over a forced marriage spread on the popular messaging service.
Last month, Russia’s parliament approved a legislative package tightening controls over telecommunications companies and other providers of online services.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.HOW ASIAN GUYS CAN START WINNING & BE MORE ATTRACTIVE TO WOMEN.
Kevin Nguyen Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 13, 2017
Source: Johnny Tri Nguyen, Actor
Have you ever wondered why Asian men are seen as unattractive in Anglo Saxon countries? It’s because we are minorities in a larger pool of people. It’s highschool all over again and the kids who came first have a louder voice and sit at the cool table at lunch. It’s also tough on Asian Americans because of America’s history of war with Asian countries which perpetuate hate towards Asians, which is a whole seperate discussion.
Okay so let’s start off with everyone thinking that Asian guys are losers. In the media, the last few decades didn’t showcase asians in a positive light, Asian men have been demasculated; having to play feminine roles such as the token Asian guy who delivers chinese food. Which reinforces to the masses and viewers the uncoolness of Asian men; again, that is a whole seperate discussion of its own for another day.
THE FACTS
The truth and reality is that a lot of people don’t know much about Asian culture other than Chinese food, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee; oh yeah, and K-pop. The allure of the average Asian guy doesn’t quite scream out, “Fun, out-going, mysterious or dangerous”. Most do exceptionally well in University and focus on their tight knit family and careers.
To be honest, that doesn’t quite make the average female say, “quick! Jimmy! put your penis in my vagina!”. It translates to, “that’s nice, Jimmy..”. Which is totally fine for a man going down the traditional route and wants to start a family. But for the average guy who wants to date more and be attractive to the opposite sex, there are going to be some things they have to pay attention to.
YOUR HERITAGE, CULTURE & COUNTRY
This might seem like a curve ball but if you were born in the U.S. or any Anglo Saxon country and you’re of Asian descent, please either do your research on the interesting aspects of your family’s heritage and culture or go visit that country (bonus points if you stay for a long period of time).
Why is this important? Because most people from these countries (Anglo Saxon) have some culture but it’s not as interesting and as rich as yours. Knowing more about your culture only gives you the upper hand. It is so attractive when you meet someone who knows a great deal about their culture which sets them apart from the bland boring people with little no knowledge of thier own heritage.
What is it about your rich heritage that intrigues you? What is interesting? Knowing this is a step closer to higher self-esteem, self confidence and it is another part that makes a man interesting. It also makes you walk differently and talk differently when you know more about yourself and your roots.
NEVER PANDER TO WHAT IS COOL
It’s okay to go out and be open-minded, go on reddit or just go out and talk to people and ask them what they like and are into. As much as I’d like to advise people to look deeply into their heritage and roots; it’s also extremely rewarding to dive into other cultures around the world and locally just to get a pulse on what people are talking about.
What this does is it gives you perspective, it helps you become more in tune with what other people around you are thinking so you can at least stay on the same page in terms of having thoughtful conversations.
People like it when you at least know how to speak their lingo; so when someone asks you if you’ve watched ‘Breaking Bad’, or ‘Stranger Things’, you can at least talk about it and say you haven’t watched it but know a little bit about it.
Knowing the zeitgeist or what people are interested in doesn’t necessarily mean you have to become the other person. I’ve been a victim of this and I’ve seen it countless times where an Asian guy will completely be white-washed or become a nerd, maybe even be so into the hip-hop community that he changes his thoughts and beliefs and panders to what is cool, especially if it isn’t something he truly believes in.
The goal is to always be yourself, and I know what you’re thinking; “Kevin! I’ve been myself but it’s just not working,” relax, slow and steady wins the race. If you think Anime and Gundam toys are cool and love assembling toys while others might think you’re a loser, you’ve got to stick to what you love and believe in.
Never pander to what you think is cool and own yourself. An asian guy that loves to read books, watch films and plays ping pong who truly loves it, is much more attractive than that same guy trying to be something he’s not, such as spending time dressing up like a bad-boy who is ripped and looks like Zac Effron in Bay Watch.
TRIED AND TRUE
So you thought this article was going to have a list of actions for an Asian guy to be more attractive which you’ve seen on the internet before such as; 10 cool things to buy, or 5 phrases to say more often to be attractive. This isn’t that kind of article, the hard facts are it’s difficult to be attractive and there needs to be a great deal of groundwork before you can even get comfortable with the tactical stuff like talking to people and walking with swagger (honestly).
You don’t have to be Asian, this pretty much works for everyone:
Start implementing an excersize routine that involves weight-lifting to build muscle and discipline. Do push-ups if you can and air squats if you don’t have equipment. Pull-ups are great if you have anywhere to do them.
Find ways to dress better, but not over the top. And have fun with this one, Fashion is all about communicating to the world who you are inside. Make sure your wardrobe communicates positive things such as; smart, easy-going, clean and fashionable. If you need some inspiration go on google, Instagram or pickup some cool underground magazines. I find Japanese Fashion magazines have the best inspirations for me.
Take initiative to say hello first, Be the first to open the door for someone or to introduce yourself to everyone, not only women. Getting out your comfort zone and being friendly shows everyone else that you’re comfortable with yourself, that you’re having a good time and are an open person. This is very attractive.
A good haircut works for every man, find a good barber and think about how you want to style your hair. Hair is a big deal and it shows the world how much you love yourself and it also shows who you are as a person. If you’re going for the skater, bedhead look then have it messy. If you are a business guy or are smart and want to be presented as scholarly then get a clean cut.
It is attractive when a guy loves himself and also has the humility to take compliments.
YOU’RE GOING TO WIN, BUT NOT EVERYTHING
So now you’ve accepted that you’re the underdog, have learned more about your origins and culture, have a pulse on what everyone is talking about and are cleaning up quite nicely as in dressing nice and treating yourself well. Now what?
Newsflash, the world doesn’t owe you shit. Women don’t owe you their attention and you can’t expect to all of a sudden be the most handsome and attractive fella around and have thousands of babes lined up to get your autograph. This only increases your chances as it gets you more eyballs. Just like you won’t sell stocks and bonds to a baby or boxing gloves to an elderly person; you’ve got to know your market my friend.
Not all Asian guys can be placed in one giant box. There are so many different kinds of Asian guys; ones that like Boxing and going out to clubs are bars, ones that are more into traveling, gaming, soccer and cooking. So you’ve got to know your market and win in that market while having fun at the same time.
You’re never going to know if you don’t go out and at least try. I knew I hated clubs and bars at night when I couldn’t have conversations with anyone thorugh the loud and annoying music; I don’t drink alcohol and everyone just seemed so distant to me.
I’ve done better at coffee shops and supermarkets where my charm and talking skills are useful and it shows off who I am as a person. But at the same time I don’t do well in coffee shops uptown for some reason, as I find more success downtown.
You’ve got to keep looking and trying new venues and places or even travel to different countries. There is a place in this world, there is a spot somewhere that you can win in. You’re just delusional if you think you can buy a car, get some nice clothes and have every girl in the world on your.. porsche.
WIN BY NOT WINNING (Or even wanting to win)
At last, I want to talk about getting out of the game entirely. You don’t want to win this game so that other people can have better opinions of you. Because its not your job to care about what other people think. Are you attractive? Are you not attractive? This ends up being a useless thought because it stops you from playing your own game, the game you love whether it be excelling in your career or continuing to do that thing you love.
It’s the moment when you’re in your zone, grinding and loving yourself that you become more attractive to people without even realizing. Now I know this sounds lovely and for the reader, there’s still an underlying curiosity.
Yes, put in the hard work; go out and make relationships with people if its that important to you. Go out and have beautiful, safe consensual sex with at least 20+ women. The more sex you have the more you realize it’s not everything and that it wasn’t what you expected. There is still a void that only truly loving yourself can fill.
This is the antidote, and by having more sex you realize that it’s not that big of a deal and your interactions with women and the world will be totally different. You gradually end up not giving off a desperate vibe anymore and Women can sense that from 1,600 miles away. You become more confident and comfortable in your own skin; and that my friends, is how an Asian guy can be more attractive and start winning, just not at everything.
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I hope you guys got some value out of this article, I always try to give more and help in any way I can by sharing my thoughts and ideas.
If you guys liked this article please clap it up ( I think you can clap 50x ) haha. It would mean so much to me if you left a comment on what you thought.
I also write daily on my Instagram: @YendegreezFirst came names and today a Quebec corruption inquiry watched video of construction bosses handing over cash to Mafia chieftains at a notorious Sicilian Mafia hangout in Montreal.
A few of the construction magnates head up companies that have received, between them, hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts from municipal governments.
A Montreal police detective showed surveillance video of the entrepreneurs meeting with high-ranking members of the Rizzuto clan and exchanging and counting cash — all at the former Consenza Social Club in Montreal.
And he explained why those videotaped scenes are no laughing matter: They're part of a monumental scam that drives up the price of construction, he testified.
Montreal police Det. Eric Vecchio walked the Charbonneau commission through the RCMP surveillance footage, pointing out where mobsters met with construction magnates. (Charbonneau commission)
Some of the video shows the late Nicolo Rizzuto, the onetime don of Canada's most powerful crime family, stuffing cash into his socks.
Another video shows a Christmas party attended by most of the Rizzuto clan's top figures as well as at least four construction-industry bigwigs. The businessmen shake hands with and cheek-kiss the Mob bosses, converse with them, and in some cases duck into to a back room to exchange wads of cash.
The'middle man'
Eric Vecchio, a Montreal police detective working with the Charbonneau commission inquiry, said the video demonstrates that one member of the Rizzuto hierarchy, Rocco Sollecito, was in charge of dealing with construction cash.
Montreal police Det. Eric Vecchio says this video shows former Mob godfather Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. taking a seat with his associate Rocco Sollecito, who counts money handed over by construction tycoon Nicolo Milioto (In French).
Vecchio further said that construction tycoon Nicolo Milioto, seen at the Consenza 236 times over the span of two years, acted as a "middle man" between the construction industry and the once-dominant Rizzuto clan.
The police detective said another scene caught on tape shows Milioto coming into the back room, handing over a stack of cash to Sollecito and leaving. Then Rizzuto chieftans Paolo Renda and Francesco Arcadi enter and Sollecito splits the cash between them. Renda, considered the consigliere of the Rizzuto family, has been missing since 2010. Arcadi is in prison after pleading guilty to overseeing drug smuggling and illegal gambling. Nicolo Rizzuto was shot dead by a sniper in 2010.
Yet another segment that was shown on Wednesday shows, according to Vecchio, Arcadi exchanging cash in the back room with businessman Domenico Arcuri (watch it here). Arcuri was a shareholder in Construction DAMC, formerly Construction Mirabeau, until August. His former business partners include the heads of another company called CSF Paving.
This surveillance video, according to Det. Vecchio, shows entrepreneur Accursio (Alex) Sciascia handing two wads of cash to Nicolo Rizzuto, who stashes the money in his socks. The second bit captures Nicolo Milioto passing money to Rocco Sollecito, who separates it into piles then stashes it in his jacket and back pocket. (In French).
Vecchio identified three other major figures in Montreal-area construction — Lino Zambito, Enrico (Rick) Andreoli and Paolo Catania — as those seen mixing with Mob bosses at the Christmas party. Zambito, of Infrabec Construction, greets Mob man Sollecito and chats with consigliere Renda. Andreoli talks with them as well, and later has a private backroom meeting with Renda. Catania is seen on the video greeting Renda.
The stacks of money being stuffed into Nicolo Rizzuto's socks came from players in an industry that, according to Vecchio, would see its costs ramped up by as much as 30 per cent because of the "tax" imposed by the Mafia.
"It was effectively a tax — a cut that was given to make sure things went well," said Vecchio, who described the cut as a way to get protection, to buy peace or gain the influence of certain individuals.
"It's clear the people who were paying this tax believed this — or they wouldn't be paying it."
The Mob's rates have decreased, he said. The fees being charged now are half what they were a few years ago, when the Rizzutos were still at the height of their power, he said.
RCMP did nothing with video
The videos were shot during Operation Colisée, a five-year investigation that culminated with mass arrests in 2006 in the largest sweep against the Italian Mafia in Canadian history.
But the RCMP says it never used the evidence gathered on the videos — because it wasn't pertinent to its drug investigation. The Mounties fought in court, unsuccessfully, to keep from sharing the evidence at the public inquiry.
The construction entrepreneurs said to be caught on the tapes have all received significant contracts from the City of Montreal.
Catania's Catcan Enterprises, a civil engineering firm, has along with its partner companies received $154.6 million in contracts from the City of Montreal since 2006.
Arcuri's Construction Mirabeau (now Construction DAMC) got $24 million in city contracts over the last 10 years, mostly for sewer work. CSF Paving obtained tens of millions of dollars in municipal work.
Milioto is the former president of Mivela Construction, one of the top 10 recipients of City of Montreal contracts since 2006, having bagged at least $60.7 million in taxpayer-funded work.
Zambito's Infrabec Construction, which declared bankruptcy in 2011, has obtained $68.7 million in public-works contracts from Montreal and Laval since 2006.
Andreoli's Canbec Construction Inc. has received at least $7.2 million in deals, largely for snow removal.
Zambito was arrested in 2011 and Catania in May, and both face criminal charges stemming from the awarding of public contracts. Arcuri "has tight links with the Rizzuto family" and hasn't been seen in Montreal since August, Det. Vecchio said. Businesses linked to Arcuri have been firebombed six times since Aug. 17.
In all, the RCMP intercepted 64,000 conversations at the Consenza club and shot more than 35,000 hours of video over four years. A total of 1,340 charges were laid as part of its vast probe and 90 people were arrested in 2006, but none of it was related to possible corruption in construction. While the tapes kept rolling when construction bosses were around, officers weren't listening in on the discussions and didn't dig deeper because that wasn't part of their mandate.
The Charbonneau commission, led by Quebec Superior Court Judge France Charbonneau, is looking into criminal corruption in the Quebec construction industry and its ties to organized crime and political parties. The commission's own investigators have been able to identify certain construction industry executives not identified by the RCMP.
The language spoken on the videos is mainly a Sicilian dialect.FILE PHOTO - An exchanged Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note 7 is seen at company's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, October 13, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji/File Photo
SEOUL (Reuters) - Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Tuesday it plans to recover 157 tonnes’ worth of rare metals from recalled Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in a bid to minimize the environmental impact of the fire-prone devices.
Samsung said in a statement it planned to reuse components such as camera modules, chips and displays as replacement parts on devices sent in for repairs or sell them. It would also recover metals such as cobalt, copper, gold and silver from components that would not be reused.
The world’s top smartphone maker is trying to move on from the withdrawal of the Note 7 premium devices last year due to safety concerns, a failure which cost the firm $5.4 billion in operating profit.
Sales of the flagship Galaxy S8 launched in April have been healthy, analysts say, suggesting a recovery is underway. The firm had sold 3.06 million Note 7s to consumers before its second and final recall in October, roughly 2 months after launch.
Environmental activists such as Greenpeace have called on Samsung to recycle or recover the rare materials contained in the devices.
The South Korean firm launched a modified version of the Note 7 in its domestic market earlier this month as part of the recycling effort.And the only time he spoke the word "fairness" was to promise fairness between generations by not bequeathing debt. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with his grandson Jack after addressing the party at the national Liberal party campaign rally in Homebush, Sydney. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Turnbull provided almost a caricature of Coalition brand identification, overwhelmingly emphasising economic growth and border security. It was a deliberately restrained launch that announced only the most parsimonious of new spending, designed to portray the Liberals as the party of grown-ups. The prime minister said that the UK's Brexit vote was "a sharp reminder of the volatility in the global economy" and went on to offer himself as the right leader for such times.
"Always expect the unexpected," he intoned sagely on Sunday, only to have the Labor Party come up with something completely expected a few hours later. Attorney-General George Brandis and Treasurer Scott Morrison have said they expect the results of the plebiscite to be fulfilled. Credit:Jason Edwards Labor played along with this campaign of caricatures by promising a bigger national debt. Its budget costings, released on Sunday shortly after the Liberal launch concluded, just confirmed the most fundamental electoral misgiving about the party. Mr Turnbull on Sunday. Credit:Andrew Meares
It promised to deliver a total deterioration in the budget deficit that would be $16.5 billion worse over four years than the Coalition's pledged deficits. The Labor brains trust apparently thought this was a brilliant plan. They must have, because it would be so simple to do better. The cumulative total spending in the federal budget over four years will be about $2 trillion. So Labor confirmed all the old fears about its profligacy for a sum that is a minuscule 0.8 per cent of total spending, less than a 10th of a per cent. An experienced budget examiner could have suggested a hundred ways to cut this much – or more – without materially harming any key Labor undertaking.
Labor has gained nothing by this, and lost so much. But outside politics and in the place known as reality, neither party is offering the country responsible budgeting. The analyst who assesses Australia for the credit ratings agency Moody's, senior vice-president Marie Diron, says: "Whatever the outcome" in the Australian election, "we don't expect significant change in fiscal consolidation. "Both sides put emphasis on spending restraint, and this seems to be very difficult for governments in Australia," she tells me. It doesn't have to be this way.
"Spending restraint has been more effective in New Zealand," where the government has just delivered its second consecutive budget surplus, she points out. Although Moody's rates Australia at the highest possible level of creditworthiness of AAA, it is "vulnerable to a shift in sentiment – debt is supplied by foreign investors and sentiment can shift dramatically" she tells me. Indeed. Just look at how the global tolerance for economic risk has whipsawed in the past few days. The Liberal and Labor parties are competing for power. They are not truly competing to solve Australia's spending addiction. They are both leading the country into a fiscal fantasy. Loading
Just as the Prime Minister pretends to be a true conservative, both parties pretend to manage the national finances conservatively, with the tiniest margin of difference just enough to give life to the old caricatures. Follow us on TwitterA A
SEATTLE -- Police are searching for the man who doused a woman with flammable liquid and set her on fire after an argument in South Seattle on Sunday evening.
Neighbors who witnessed the attack, at the Parkway Apartments in the 7400 block of Rainier Avenue South, said the victim's boyfriend was waiting for her when she got home.
The suspect, 62-year-old John Turner, then approached the victim, who tried to walk away from him. The suspect then grabbed the victim, began shouting at her, and threw an unidentified fluid on her, splashing some on a friend of the victim, who was standing nearby.
Police believe Turner then set his girlfriend on fire, also igniting the victim's friend's jacket in the process.
Witnesses at the scene said the fluid smelled like gasoline.
"So I thought he was going to hit her because he was really handling her pretty bad," said neighbor Patricia Workenh. "And I said, 'I'm going to call 911,' and (he) turned and looked at me and said, 'Call them.' And then... next thing I knew it, I seen the fire. I seen the fire, whatever, gasoline, it was gasoline."
"She just, you know, caught fire and she was just running back and forth," said another neighbor. "And the flames were still on her and she was running back and forth - it was still burning."
As the suspect fled the scene, his girlfriend rushed to a nearby courtyard and rolled on the ground to extinguish the flames all over her chest, face and arms. The victim's friend was able to remove her own burning jacket, escaping serious injury.
The woman was eventually doused and rushed to Harborview Medical Center for treatment of burns. Seattle Fire officials say the woman is in critical condition with burns over 20 percent to 30 percent of her body.
Neighbors tell us they know Turner -- that he lives in and out of shelters in Seattle. Police are still looking for him.
People who live in the apartments say the victim has lived there more than three years now - and they say they've been telling her for some time to leave her boyfriend.
Turner stands about 5-feet-7-inches tall and weighs 145 pounds with a skinny build. He was wearing dark clothing at the time of the attack and is known to frequent Seattle's downtown and Pioneer Square areas, according to police.Welcome to Oceanside, California; temperature is a balmy 68 degrees, it’s about ten AM local time, and we are about to be part of the first group of journalists to ride the new P2. We had been briefed the day before on the new frameset and component spec, been quickly fitted on the bike, and now it was time to see what the bike that sets the bar for an industry could do.
It turns out; the new P2 can do a whole lot, and do it really, really well.
Updating a Kona Winning Bike
Let’s back up a bit. The P2 Classic, Cervélo’s name for the previous P2, is seven years old. In that time, it has won Kona twice, been declared illegal by the UCI (after they declared it legal the year prior), and has found itself powering Cervélo’s dominance of the infamous bike count at Ironman Worlds to the point of nearly being able to best the other manufacturers counts all by itself. With the release of the P5 in 2012 and the updated P3 nipping at its heels just over a year later, the P2 was the last bike in Cervélo’s lineup without an update. It came in two models, 105 and Ultegra 6700, as well as a frameset, and could be had for under two and a half grand for the complete 105 bike. Bear in mind that not all that long ago, this was a winning bike at Kona for that price – the reputation of the P2 as a performance bargain is well earned.
P3 Frameset on a Budget
Rest assured that with the new P2, that reputation isn’t going anywhere. First, the new P2 will come as a single model – 105 only, no frameset available – for $2,800, available today. Second, the frame is a direct port from the P3. Let’s be clear: there is no difference whatsoever between the frame of the P2 and the P3. For those wondering about expandability, this includes the integrated bosses on the top tube, on the top of the bottom bracket for the upcoming frame mount options (“in the works by third parties,” we were told), and on the bottom of the downtube for a Di2 battery. Every aero trick from the P3’s frame is present, as well: the rear-wheel-hiding seat tube cutout, the dropped downtube that hugs the front wheel, and the head tube that extends rearward to the 3:1 UCI maximum. Even with all of this, the P2/3 frame is 16.4% stiffer at the head tube and 6.5% stiffer at the bottom bracket than the prior P2 frame. The new P2, just like the P3, uses BBright for a bottom bracket specification.
There is a different fork, but according to Cervélo’s on-hand engineer Mike Trigonidis, the difference in drag is “negligible,” and the real distinction is that the fork is significantly cheaper to manufacture versus the P3’s fork, allowing them to meet the price point for the P2 rather than a slightly cheaper P3. The changes, even side-by-side, are difficult to spot by eye alone. Cervélo’s suggestion was to lay hands on both forks, especially on the trailing edge of the legs and the rear crown, where the P2’s fork is discernable as being much more rounded than the P3’s, and this makes sense. Hard angles in tight spaces are difficult to keep costs down on; even if they are marginally faster, they certainly aren’t cost-efficient.
Perhaps most importantly, where the frameset is concerned, the seat post has been swapped out for the rail setup found on both the P5 and P3, which renders the P2 UCI legal once more. Budget TT racers, rejoice; your new bike has come. The new P2 is a whole lot of aero for not a lot of money. What’s more, with 105 derailleurs on board, it will be an eminently reliable machine to put the hurt on against the clock with.
First Ride
The proscribed route is about 30 miles down the Pacific Coast Highway, which has some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere in the States. Our minder is a single Cervélo rider, along with a photographer hanging out the rear hatch and side door of a Dodge Caravan as the Garmin clocked us well north of 35 miles an hour in full aero tuck, screaming down descents. What is important about this is that, at the time, the Garmin was stowed into a jersey pocket and we simply had no idea of how fast we were going. Certainly, we were well aware that we were pushing 50×11 at a fairly high cadence, but the new P2 was the very definition of calm during the entire ride; it never once gave more than what we would classify as “feedback.” Where other bikes have a tendency to strip confidence from a rider when moving in excess of 30 miles an hour, the P2 only seems to add to it – this is a bike that simply lacks any drama. You ride it fast because you don’t have to worry about the bike’s response to speed; it frees your legs from the nagging of your mind and, all of a sudden, you’re flying.
Our P2 was equipped with a single bottle behind the Fizik Arione using an Delta Sonic, an Aero TT on the down tube, and a Stealth Pocket attached to the top tube via the bento bosses located just aft of the cable entry cutout, all XLab products. The bento location was easily accessible, as was the rear bottle carrier, in any position one cared to ride. The aero bottle, due to the dropped down tube, the size of frame we ride in Cervelo’s new geometry, 58, and the somewhat complicated maneuvers required to extricate the Aero TT bottle from its cage, was farily difficult to access. We suspect it could be made smoother with practice, but it is worth noting that the dropped down tube does make frame-mounted hydration more difficult to access.
When it comes to stopping, there will be some who insist that the FSA brakes that come as standard are inadequate. These people are wrong; we had zero issue with braking performance, especially given the price point. It is worth pointing out that, where the brakes are concerned, the P2 uses standard brakes on both the front and rear, while incurring no drag penalty for the rear brake due to the seat cutout shielding it from the wind, though the brake cable is exposed to the wind briefly. This means that the P2 (and, by extension, the P3) are capable of using any number of aftermarket brakes, both cabled and hydraulic, allowing it to be purchased now and upgraded to whatever the rider wants further down the line.
This upgradeability is at the heart of the P2. Don’t like a spec choice? Change it. There are few bikes that come out of the box as fast as the P2 is, and fewer still that can be made even faster through the use of industry standard implementation during the design of the bike. The steerer tube is 1 1/8”, so fit any stem you like, which means that any bar you please will fit right up, too. BBright is common enough to find any type of crank you could desire. The brakes can be replaced with everything from an Omega to Magura. There are bosses for DI2 battery mounting, as well as any bottle configuration one could want to try. The new P2 isn’t so much a complete bike as it is a complete platform to put your dream bike together on, and at $2800, we cannot think of a more modular TT machine than this without tacking on nearly half again the value of Cervélo’s newest.
P3 Comparisons
Let’s address the elephant in the room for a moment. Yes, the P2 is a 105 P3 with a cost-effective fork for $1150 less than the mechanical Ultegra version. Yes, there are compromises being had to get it down to this price, such as the exclusion of the Adamo in favour of a Fizik or a Tiagra chain and cassette instead of something more upmarket, but let’s be fair – those are the first parts replaced on a bike, anyway. The P2 isn’t just the “Poor Man’s P3;” think instead of it as the “Minimalist P3.” This is a P3 without someone else’s idea of the bells and whistles. This is a P2 that is ready to be not just “a” P2, but “your” P2. The last P2 went |
matches but, more seriously, Taylor is accused of gouging St Helens fullback Jonny Lomax during the Catalans’ previous game against Saints at Langtree Park, which carries a ban of between four-and-eight matches.
Taylor, who is likely to be sidelined for a spell with a broken rib sustained in last Thursday’s match, is not eligible for an early guilty plea after he served a one-match ban earlier in the season for a dangerous throw and will face a hearing on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Wakefield prop David Fifita is facing a grade B offence for a high tackle on Widnes fullback Rhys Hanbury in Sunday’s 40-8 defeat by the Vikings.
Watch the eye gouge in the video player above.COOPER Cronk will send Sydney clubs into meltdown by sensationally announcing he will move to the Harbour City in 2018, ending his 14-year career at the Storm.
Just last year Cronk inked a $2 million, two-year deal to commit his entire career to Melbourne.
On Tuesday, he revealed the second year of that contract was in his favour and he would turn down the only club he has ever known to turn the player market on its head.
Watch the announcement on Cronk’s future in the video player at the top of the page.
With 306 appearances since debuting in 2004, Cronk will become just the second triple centurion to change clubs after Paul Langmack left Wests to join the Roosters in 1998.
It is the first time a 300-game, one-club player has gone to market in rugby league’s 109-year history.
Cronk’s decision will end his long club association with great mates Cam Smith and Billy Slater after well over a decade together as one of the most illustrious trios in rugby league history.
He will also part ways with Craig Bellamy, the master mentor who took a punt on playing him at the scrum base in 2006 and ended up with one of the best halfbacks the game has seen.
Cronk paid tribute to the trio on Tuesday, labelling them the club’s “real” big three.
“To Craig, Cameron and Billy. (People) talk about ‘the Big Three’ but in my eyes they’re the real ‘Big Three’,” an emotional Cronk said at Tuesday’s press conference.
“I’m a distant relative if you talk about those three in terms of the contribution you make to this football club. They’re the three most influential people in this club’s history.
“As long they’re here, whether I’m here or not, there’ll be guaranteed success because one, they’re very good at what they do. Two, their work ethic. And their desire for success.
“Whether I’m here or not, Storm members will be guaranteed success having those three guys here.”
Cooper Cronk will be a guest on NRL 360 tonight. Tune in to Fox League 502 from 6.30pm to watch the interview!
Ben Ikin, Nathan Ryan and Ben Glover break down where it’s all gone wrong for the Bulldogs and the roster moves they need to make to become premiership contenders again.
You can also subscribe via iTunes or for Android users, listen on the iPP Podcast Player app.
As recently as last week Cronk shot down suggestions he was planning to retire, reiterating his commitment to the Storm that was made despite lucrative approaches from the Dragons and Rabbitohs midway through 2016.
The star No.7 remains well and truly at the top of his game, claiming a second Dally M Medal and his first Golden Boot award last season as Melbourne powered to a fifth grand final appearance during his time at the club.
As to where Cronk winds up next season, all the 33-year-old was willing to reveal is that he wants to continue playing — but he won’t come cheap.
“In terms of what happens next, I sit here today (and to be) completely honest I actually don’t know,” he added.
“What I do next year is up in the air but I feel fit enough, I feel mentally strong enough to continue playing.
“I’ve been wrestling with this decision about playing on or not playing on here in Melbourne and up until this point that’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about.”
Complicating matters as well is the uncertainty around the 2018 salary cap, with suggestions clubs may be forced to shed players if the final figure lands at a mooted $8.84 million, well short of the $9-10 million some outfits have been budgeting for.
Parramatta are one club with cash to spend thanks to the war chest in excess of $1 million left by Kieran Foran’s release.
The spines at Canterbury and Wests Tigers — who locked in Des Hasler and Ivan Cleary as their long term coaches on Monday — also remain up in the air next season as both club’s sort out messy roster and salary cap situations.
While the Rabbitohs are understood to have been seriously interested in the Maroons and Kangaroos playmaker this time last year, they have since re-signed NSW Origin No.7 Adam Reynolds until the end of 2021.
The Dragons may also be out of the running having gone all in on Ben Hunt for 2018, to the tune of $6 million across a five-year deal with an option for a sixth.
Skipper and five-eighth Gareth Widdop does however remain off-contract, while funds may also be freed up if Josh Dugan chooses to pursue his $1 million asking price — which the Dragons current offer falls short of by roughly $250,000 — elsewhere.
While Cronk’s longtime representative teammate Johnathan Thurston has confirmed 2017 will be his last Origin and Kangaroos campaigns, Cronk has no intention of wrapping up his rep commitments before he retires from club duty.
With fiancée and Fox Sports presenter Tara Rushton based in Sydney, as well as growing media commitments of his own, Brisbane boy Cronk will now make his home behind enemy lines in the Harbour City.
Live stream the Storm’s grand final replay with Cronulla on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week FOXTEL PLAY trial and start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW!The senator began his interrogation with an innocuous question: “Where is your present residence?”
“Lexington, Virginia,” the witness replied.
“How long have you resided at Lexington?”
“Since the first of October last—nearly five months,” said the witness, whose name was Robert E. Lee.
Lee had surrendered his Confederate army at Appomattox 10 months earlier, in April 1865. In the fall he became president of Lexington’s Washington College. Now, on February 17, 1866, he was in Washington, D.C., testifying before Congress’ Joint Committee on Reconstruction. He was not happy to be there. Even in the best circumstances, Robert E. Lee didn’t enjoy public speaking, and these were hardly the best circumstances. The Confederacy’s most famous general had been summoned to the Union capital to be grilled by a committee dominated by Radical Republicans determined to publicize evidence of atrocities committed by former Confederates against freed slaves and pro-Union Southerners.
“Are you acquainted with the state of feeling among what we call secessionists in Virginia at present toward the government of the United States?” asked Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan.
“I do not know that I am,” Lee replied. “I have been living very retired and have had but little communications with politicians. I know nothing more than from my observation, and from such facts as have come to my knowledge.”
“From your observation,” Howard said, “what is your opinion as to the feeling of loyalty towards the government of the United States among the secession portion of the people of that state?”
“So far as has come to my knowledge,” Lee replied, “I do not know of a single person who either feels or contemplates any resistance to the government of the United States or indeed any opposition to it.”
“How do they feel,” Howard asked, “in regard to that portion of the people of the United States who have been forward and zealous in the prosecution of the war against the rebellion?”
“Well, I do not know,” Lee said. “I have heard nobody express any opinion in regard to it.... I have heard no expression of sentiment toward any particular portion of the country.”
Really? Was it possible that the general had never heard anybody in Virginia express any opinion about Yankees in the first 10 months after the Civil War?
Perhaps Lee’s famously patrician bearing and gentlemanly manners discouraged his acquaintances from making rude comments about their former enemies. Or perhaps the general was being less than candid in his testimony. He certainly affected an air of ignorance that seems dubious, answering question after question with such phrases as “I never heard anyone speak on that subject” and “I cannot speak with any certainty on that point” and “I have no means of forming an opinion” and “I scarcely ever read a paper.”
When Lee repeatedly denied that former Confederates disliked Yankees, a skeptical senator asked: “Do you mean to be understood as saying that there is not a condition of discontent against the government of the United States among the secessionists generally?”
“I know of none,” Lee replied, apparently with a straight face.
As one of Lee’s biographers, Roy Blount Jr., put it: “Called before the congressional Reconstruction committee, Lee managed coolly to avoid giving Republicans anything regarded, at the time, as red meat.” But Lee’s awkward encounter with the committee was not simply a series of artful evasions. The general did reveal his views on several important issues, including racial equality and the meaning of treason.
“General, you are very competent to judge the capacity of black men for acquiring knowledge,” said Senator Howard. “I want your opinion on that capacity, as compared with the capacity of white men.”
“I do not know that I am particularly qualified to speak on that subject,” Lee replied. “But I do not think he is as capable of acquiring knowledge as the white man is.” Black people are “an amiable, social race,” Lee told the committee. They will work briefly to earn their sustenance, but they aren’t inclined to prolonged hard work: “They like their ease and comfort.”
Congress was debating a constitutional amendment granting black men the right to vote, and Representative Henry Blow of Missouri asked Lee his opinion of the idea.
“My own opinion is that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently,” Lee said, “and that giving them the right of suffrage would open the door to a great deal of demagogism.”
“Do you not think,” Blow asked, “that Virginia would be better off if the colored population were to go to Alabama, Louisiana or some other Southern state?”
“I think it would be better for Virginia if she could get rid of them,” Lee replied. “That is no new opinion with me. I have always thought so, and always been in favor of emancipation—gradual emancipation.”
Lee’s views seem shockingly bigoted today, but in 1866, they were, as Blount wrote in his biography, “pretty much the genteel opinions of the time, North and South.”
More interesting than Lee’s racial views were his opinions on an issue that could have led to his execution—treason. The Constitution states, “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” Many Northerners felt that Lee—who had resigned from the U.S. Army to lead an army fighting against the United States—should be hanged for treason.
Nobody on the committee had the guts to ask Lee if he had committed treason, but Senator Howard backed into the topic, bringing up Jefferson Davis, the former Confederate president, who was then in prison awaiting trial. Would any Virginia jury, Howard asked, convict Davis of treason?
“I think it is very probable that they would not consider that he had committed treason,” Lee replied.
“In what light would they view it?” Howard asked. “What would be their excuse or justification?”
“So far as I know,” Lee said, “they look upon the action of the State, in withdrawing itself from the government of the United States, as carrying the individuals of the State along with it; that the State was responsible for the act, not the individual.”
“State, if you please,” Howard said, “and if you are disinclined to answer the question, you need not do so—what your own personal views on that question were.”
“That was my view,” Lee replied, “that the act of Virginia in withdrawing herself from the United States, carried me along as a citizen of Virginia, and that her law and her acts were binding on me.”
“And that you felt to be your justification in taking the course you did?” Howard asked.
“Yes, sir,” said Lee.
In the end, of course, neither Lee nor Davis nor any other Confederate was ever tried for treason. And Lee’s hour on the committee’s witness stand turned out to be the only time he was ever asked to explain his actions under oath. He came away unscathed, but he was no doubt delighted to return home to Lexington, where—if his testimony can be believed—nobody ever raised any disturbing questions about the Civil War.
Sponsored Content:Computer scientists have figured out to how trick a widely used electronic voting machine into altering tallies with a technique that bypasses measures that are supposed to prevent unauthorized code from running on the device.
The method, known as return-oriented programming, has already been used to defeat security measures built into the Linux and OpenBSD operating systems. Now scientists have used it against the Sequoia AVC Advantage machine, which is used almost universally in New Jersey and in parts of Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado and Virginia, according to the Verified Voting Foundation.
The machine is programmed to execute code only when it's stored on read-only memory chips that are difficult to install and remove. By expressly forbidding the running of code contained in random access memory, the designers intended to make it impossible for attackers to inject malicious programs that might compromise the integrity or confidentiality of the election.
The computer scientists were able to evade this safety mechanism using return-oriented programming. Rather than designing the malicious code from scratch, the technique reassembles programming expressions already found in the targeted software in a way that gives the researchers the ability to take complete control over the machine. It's tantamount to kidnappers who write a ransom note using letters cut from the headline of a newspaper.
The research team - from Princeton University, the University of California at San Diego and the University of Michigan - pulled off the attack by obtaining a Sequoia AVC Advantage legally off the internet. Without access to any of the source code, they reverse engineered the hardware. They were then able to reverse engineer the software it ran by analyzing the machine's ROM.
Sequoia and manufacturers of other brands of e-voting machines frequently discount vulnerability research into their products by pointing out that the underlying source code is closely guarded. Researchers in many studies, they argue, have unrealistic access to the devices' inner workings.
"What we have shown or what I hope we have shown in this paper is that that criticism in untrue," Hovav Shacham a professor at UC San Diego, told The Register. "It might take a little more work if we don't have the source, but nevertheless we're able to find vulnerabilities and exploit them in useful ways in machines where the only access we have is the physical artifacts themselves."
Sequoia in the past has gone to great lengths to prevent outsiders from peering into its proprietary voting machines. Last year, it threatened to sue after a county in New Jersey asked Princeton University researchers to inspect election gear suspected of malfunctioning during the presidential primary election.
The exploit works successfully on AVC Advantage machines running software version five, Shacham said. It remains unclear if the flaw that makes the attack possible is contained in newer versions of the software.
The proof-of-concept attack caused the machine to steal votes in a pre-determined way. The code that makes it possible can be installed in a few minutes. While a simple rebooting of the machine causes the malicious instructions to vanish, the exploit also caused the machine to appear as if it were turned off when in fact it was turned on. When the power switch is activated, the malware makes the machine appear to boot up.
A Sequoia spokeswoman said she hadn't read the report and had no comment. She suggested interested parties look here for responses to previous research by Princeton professor Andrew Appel, a computer scientist who has long criticized the security of the machine.
Return-oriented programming has already been shown to be an effective way of piercing protections such as WxorX found in Linux, OpenBSD and Solaris. Its application to the Sequoia machine is impressive because the device is undocumented except to a select few who have signed non-disclosure agreements. The research was presented Monday at the Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Workshop of Trustworthy Elections. The paper in PDF and slides are available here and here respectively.
"It's excellent research," said David Wagner, a computer scientist from the University of California at Berkeley who attended the conference and was not involved in the paper. "The research is significant because it illustrates that attacks get better over time and it shows just how difficult it is to protect paperless voting systems." ®On December 26th, the annual World Junior Championship will begin in Buffalo, NY. Other than the Stanley Cup playoffs, this tournament is what I most look forward to every year because we get to watch prospects from all over the world compete against each other for a few weeks to prove that they are the best prospects in the world. This article will focus on Flyers’ prospects that will be featured in the tournament.
Carter Hart
One of the players who was invited to participate is top goaltending prospect, Carter Hart. Last year, Hart was one of the final two goalies playing for Team Canada, splitting time with Connor Ingram, a prospect for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Hart eventually claimed the starting role for the championship game against the U.S.A. Canada went home with a silver medal after falling in the shootout.
This year seems to be different for Hart. Heading into the World Junior camp for Canada, it seems as though he is the clear starter and will most likely play almost every game in the tournament. This year, he has been dominating the WHL with an incredible 1.32 GAA,.961 SV%, and 5 shutouts, proving himself to be one of the top goaltending prospects in the world.
German Rubstov
Another top Flyers’ prospect who played at the World Juniors last year was German Rubstov. Unfortunately, Rubstov had very little playing time last year; he was buried on the fourth line for a majority of the tournament, and had very little production due to this lack of ice time. This year will most likely be different. He is now one of the older players on the team and is very likely going to get top-six minutes. If he is given that role, many talented wingers for Russia, including 2018 top draft prospect Andrei Svechnikov and 2017 first round pick Klim Kostin, will surround him.
Linus Högberg
One of the lesser-known prospects playing in the tournament that every Flyers fan should be watching is Linus Högberg, who is projected to be a top-four defenseman for Sweden. Sweden has one of the most impressive defensive cores heading into the tournament, including the likes of (likely) future first overall pick, Rasmus Dahlin, and Toronto prospect Timothy Liljegren. Högberg is likely to pair with one of these players due to his impressive defensive game. Both Dahlin and Liljegren are extremely talented in the offensive zone, so being paired with Högberg will allow them to show off their offensive skill set.
The World Junior Championship is an extremely competitive tournament and, with some of the Flyers prospects playing prominent roles for some of the best countries, it will be awesome to watch them compete throughout this tournament. This is some of the most entertaining hockey to watch all year and, when you can watch the Flyers top prospects compete, it becomes even more entertaining.
Andrew is currently a computer engineering student at Penn State heading into his sophomore year. Andrew is a Toronto, Canada native turned Flyers fan and worships the game of hockey.KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. -- Ivan Ljubicic was preparing for his third-round match at the Nasdaq-100 Open on Sunday when he found something totally unexpected in his locker, naked fellow player Michael Llodra.
The French prankster Llodra decided to surprise Ljubicic by
taking off his clothes and squeezing into the Croatian's locker,
much to the amusement of the other players in the changing
rooms.
"I went to open the locker and I was completely shocked,"
13th seed Ljubicic told reporters.
"He was looking at me, I was looking at him. I said, 'What
the hell are you doing here?'"
Ljubicic has made a brilliant start to the 2005 season,
reaching four finals in three months and also beating Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick during Croatia's Davis Cup win over the U.S. in Carson, California three weeks ago.
"He (Llodra) said to me, 'I'm trying to get positive energy
from you. You're winning a lot of matches this year'," said
Ljubicic.
"The locker, it's not a big locker, it's a small locker.
It's not easy to get in that locker, I'm telling you.
"He is not a small guy [but] very flexible. Very, very
flexible."
Ljubicic took the prank in good heart and went on to win his
match against American Vince Spadea 6-3, 4-6, 7-6.
Llodra was also victorious in his first-round doubles match
alongside Arnaud Clement.
"Now, when I open my locker, I'm opening it really slowly,"
said Ljubicic. "After this I don't know what I'm going to find
in there."Less than a year ago, when a group of leading researchers was calling for a moratorium on the use of a revolutionary technology, Chinese researchers shocked the world by using it to genetically modify human embryos. The worry was that unfettered access to the technology might enable such embryos to become fully grown humans, who will then pass on mutations to all their offspring. The risk of unintended consequences seemed too great.
Now a different group of Chinese researchers have again wielded the technology to genetically modify human embryos. This time, however, the reaction from some scientists is just an annoyed shrug. Clearly a lot happened in the last year for perceptions to change so drastically.
The technology in question is called CRISPR, and it allows researchers to make genetic modifications with greater precision than ever before. In 2015, Chinese researchers used CRISPR to target genes responsible for a blood disorder called β-thalassaemia. They were only able to replace the defective gene in 28 out 71 embryos. Worse still, it left a slew of unintended changes in other parts of the genome.
In the latest attempt, researchers at Guangzhou Medical University have gone a step ahead. Instead of trying to correct mutations that could cause disease, they used CRISPR technology to insert a genetic mutation which might offer resistance against HIV.
The mutation was targeted in the CCR5 gene, which is responsible for producing a protein that HIV uses to latch on, enter, and infect a human immune cell. If the CCR5 gene were mutated, the logic goes, the HIV virus would not be able to infect—and thus the mutation would confer resistance to the disease.
The researchers report in the Journal of Assisted Reproduction and Genetics that they were successfully inserted the mutated gene in four out of 26 embryos. And, even in the successful cases, not all copies of the CCR5 gene were modified. In other cases mutations were caused that weren’t intended.
The experiment had been approved by a local ethics committee, which ensured that the study followed Chinese government guidelines. All the experimental human embryos were ”non-viable,” which means they would have been unable to become fully grown humans. Such abnormal embryos are an inevitable part of in-vitro fertilization therapy, where sometimes two sperms insert their DNA into a single egg.
“The results are both comforting and disturbing,” says Peter Donovan of the University of California at Irvine. “The good news is that the technique worked for this group in the same way that it did for the first group… an important part of the scientific process showing it wasn’t a fluke the first time. The salutary lesson is that there is still much to be learned about gene editing in human embryos before it is ready for prime time.”
The rate of failure has made some bioethicists and scientists question the motives of Chinese researchers who continue to test CRISPR in human embryos. They argue that, while CRISPR offers greater precision, it still isn’t ready for testing in human embryos. Others, like Donovan, maintain that it will be studies using donated human embryos that will give us the most understanding.
Despite the divided opinion, there is definitely a change in perception. The first study reporting the genetic modification of human embryos resulted in a summit held in November between the science academies of China, the US and the UK. After days of deliberation, the world’s leading geneticists agreed that, while no CRISPR-modified embryos should become full human beings, research using human embryos can continue.
The Chinese group that did the latest work insists that their “proof-of-concept” may provide solutions to improving human health. They write, “Despite the significant scientific and ethical issues involved, however, we believe that it is necessary to keep developing and improving the technologies for precise genetic modifications in humans.”Religious Right activists David and Jason Benham were guests on Liberty Counsel’s “Faith and Freedom” radio program today, where they recounted seeing “the inside of the devil’s lair” when they lost their reality television program a few years ago.
Back in 2014, the brother were slated to star in a home renovation program for HGTV that was cancelled after we and others highlighted their long history of anti-gay and anti-choice activism. The incident transformed the Benhams into Religious Right martyrs and David said that, as a result, they now have a national platform to speak out against the ways in which business and all elements of society are forced to pander to the gay rights movement.
The Benham brothers have a unique perspective, David explained, because they have personally seen “the inside of the devil’s lair in terms of this thought mafia that targets Christians.”The Hamilton Tiger-Cats today announced the acquisition of national player Seydou Junior Haidara from the B.C. Lions in exchange for a fifth-round pick in the upcoming draft and the rights to a player on Hamilton’s negotiation list.
Haidara, a two-year CFL veteran who played for Laval’s 2012 Vanier Cup championship team, has played for the Lions his entire pro career. He’s registered seven catches for a total of 77 yards. Not a standout total, but Haidara also picked up 24 special teams tackles, indicating that he wasn’t primarily playing in the B.C. offensive scheme.
This is the first piece of the puzzle for the Cats to fit into the hole left by the departed Sam Giguere and the injured Spencer Watts.
Haidara will be playing downfield for Hamilton, and the 6’1″, 215-pound player is physical enough to take on the wide position or the slot. The new rules for receiver contact will play to the advantage of strong receivers who will be harried mercilessly on and near the line, too. The Tiger-Cats are probably betting on Haidara to gain an advantage here too.
But don’t expect this to be the last Canuck the Tiger-Cats will pick up before the start of the season. They’re still looking for quality domestic talent in the air, if there is any to be had.
The following is the team Press Release.
Ticats Acquire Canadian Receiver Seydou Junior Haidara
HAMILTON – The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have acquired national receiver Seydou Junior Haidara from the BC Lions in exchange for the Ticats’ fifth round pick (43rd overall) in the upcoming 2015 CFL Draft and the rights to a player on Hamilton’s negotiation list.
Haidara, a 6-1, 215-pound native of Quebec City, Quebec, was selected in the second round (12th overall) of the 2013 CFL Draft. In two seasons with the Lions, Haidara recorded seven catches for 77 yards and 24 special teams tackles. A product of Laval University, Haidara was a member of the 2012 Vanier Cup championship team, catching 23 balls for 294 yards and three touchdowns in his final season with the Rouge et Or.Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Last month, we broke news that Microsoft had cancelled the Phantom Dust reboot that was in the works at an independent studio called Darkside Games. As a result of this cancellation, Darkside shut down, laying off around 50 staff.
The news has raised questions about the fate of Phantom Dust, a beloved cult classic that was originally released as an action-strategy-card game for the original Xbox back in 2004. Microsoft says they're still working on their planned reboot for Xbox One, which they announced last year at E3, to much excitement.
But it remains unclear whether publisher is using what's already been created by Darkside or totally starting from scratch—and they won't give any details—which has led fans and even the ex-developers at Darkside to wonder just what the hell is going on.
We have at least a little more concrete information to offer. Today, we can reveal what Darkside had developed before they shut down, thanks to leaked video footage sent to me by a source who worked on the game. This video is from a "near-final" slice of Phantom Dust that the developers showed to Microsoft just before their game was officially cancelled, according to that source.
In the above video, which clocks in at three minutes and shows off a multiplayer 1v1 battle, we can see a male player character dueling with a lady—Freia, a character from the original Phantom Dust, according to the person who sent the video. (This incarnation of Phantom Dust was originally built as a multiplayer game, though Microsoft would later ask for a single-player campaign too, sources say.)
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"Each player would have an arsenal deck of cards (skills) they could mix and match to bring into a battle, but their cards/skills were randomly selected from the deck once in the battle," said a person who worked on the game, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to speak publicly about this project.
In the match shown above, the player starts with four skills: Bomb, Bullet of Fire, Levitate, and Heat. He swaps Heat for another skill, Psycho Knife, before the match begins. These names might sound familiar if you've ever played the original Phantom Dust—some are similar and some are taken straight from the original game.
"You'd have a starting hand (shown in the bottom right) and if you didn't like that hand, you could do a re-roll at the start of the match," the source told me. "The orbs you pick up represent those cards/skills."
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After setting his skills, the player in the video runs around pelting his opponent with fireballs. Constant mobility appears to be a big theme here, as is environmental destruction—at one point, around 1:25 in the video, the player knocks down a pillar, and does the same a few seconds later. He plays around with other skills, too, including abilities called Crystal Wall and Twister. There are particle effects everywhere—fireballs, barriers, gusts of wind. It's not exactly mind-blowing, but it's pretty.
"One thing I'm bummed about is not having footage of the big level destruction even where the tree grows huge roots, knocking down most of the 2nd and 3rd floor platforms," said the source who sent over this video. "But you still get a sense of the destruction with some walkways going down from stray shots."
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
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This footage is instantly recognizable if you've ever played or seen the original Phantom Dust, which is by design, according to people who worked on the game. Their edict was to reboot it, not re-imagine it.
"Originally the edict was to go 70% original game, 30% new," said the source. "Over time that turned into'remake Phantom Dust,' so that was our goal for the last half of development. We were going to update and streamline a very dated game (especially their menu system and horribly paced single player), but otherwise it was going to be a reboot/remake. I'd say we were probably trending towards an 85% remake, 15% new."
Looking at the demo footage might make you wonder why Microsoft cancelled Darkside's Phantom Dust. It certainly looks good, and although we have no way of knowing whether or not it was actually fun to play, it's easy to imagine a deep, interesting multiplayer game with the type of mechanics and aesthetics we can see in this footage.
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"I believe that the vertical slice we delivered was as good as anyone could have reasonably expected," said a person who worked on the game. "It was very nearly E3 demo good, way beyond what a vertical slice should be. But apparently not good enough for them. And to hear them quickly say they're finishing development elsewhere is certainly a slap."
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.Skip to comments.
Busted Flat: All-Too-Normal Activity Dominates the 'Ghostbusters' Remake
©2016 Village Voice, LLC. All rights reserved. ^ | SUNDAY, JULY 10, 2016 AT 9 A.M. | BY MELISSA ANDERSON
Posted on by Behind Liberal Lines
What I watched for the next two hours was mostly a tragic underutilizing of four of this country's funniest women Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon as the evil-ectoplasm battlers of the title, fighting to save a New York that is played primarily by Boston combined with what felt like the world's longest laser-tag game.
the main performers rarely get to display their individual idiosyncratic strengths. It's particularly dispiriting to hear McCarthy, one of the most floridly gifted verbal riffers in comedy, have to utter frat-brah catchphrases like "Let's do this."
That kind of lifeless, recycled language sounds even worse when Wiig, another performer who has perfected how to do things with words, cries out, "Say hello to my little friend" before zapping a spook in the film's near-interminable final act, a glut of green beams that suggests nothing more than an f/x trade show. (Look how much technology has advanced since 1984!)
(Excerpt) Read more at villagevoice.com...
TOPICS:
Culture/Society
Editorial
News/Current Events
US: Massachusetts
US: New York
KEYWORDS:
2016election
boston
election2016
ghostbusters
juddapatow
katemckinnon
katiedippold
kristenwiig
lesliejones
massachusetts
melissaanderson
melissamccarthy
negative
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reboot
review
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Female critic for the Village Voice hated the movie? Can't be. The producers already told us that the only people who wouldn't like the remake would be women-hating Trumpkins.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I do know one thing. I always thought Whoopi Goldberg, was the ugliest woman in the US. Well, Leslie Jones, now has top honors. As my late father would say, “Son, I could place her out in my cornfield and she would have crows bringing back corn, they had stole three years ago.”
by 2 posted onby Capt_Hank (btu's...kcal's...to kJ's, but my activation energy is still high.)
Comment #3 Removed by Moderator
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Even a Village Voice liberal hates it.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
Feig, who directed Wiig and McCarthy in Bridesmaids (2011) and the latter in The Heat (2013) and Spy (2015), has done more than any other filmmaker to expose the idiocy of an industry that still insists that women cannot carry big-studio-financed comedies. But his Ghostbusters, which he co-wrote with Katie Dippold (the scripter of The Heat), is too risk-averse, despite its nominally radical gender-switching premise. I see the problem right away. The first three films are raunchy, 'R'-rated comedies. Admittedly, I laughed my ass off throughout all three of them. Ghostbusters could never have been a raunchy, 'R'-rated comedy. Feig was probably the wrong guy at the helm to try to dial it back.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I’m waiting for the “Hitler reacts to the new Ghostbusters” YouTube video.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
I am getting tired of being told that if you are not thrilled about the Ghostbusters remake you must be a misogynist. Most remakes are not any improvement on the original. The fact that someone is doing a remake at all is usually a clear indication of lack of creativity. The worst remakes are gimmicky remakes such as this where they recast rolls with different sexes or races. That is not creativity, that is a formula. I fully expect that someday some idiot will remake Gone With The Wind with Rhett and Scarlett recast as black and gay.
by 7 posted onby kennedy (No relation to those other Kennedys.)
To: Behind Liberal Lines
The guy from Wreckless Eating basically said the movie is completely anti-male and sucks to high heaven.
To: Capt_Hank
I don’t mean to pick on people for their looks, but Good Heavens, did they send out a request for the tallest, most masculine, boorish, Moochelle-attitude double in the land?
I actually wondered if she was transgendered.
Apart from that, it’s amazing how seriously this movie is being taken. I suppose expectations were sky high.
Your dads remarks about the scared crows made me laugh.
To: Huskrrrr
OK, I should have done a search first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwPcujJ-Eyc
To: lee martell
Remake was unnecessary, we already know the story. Sould have been a totally different movie based on the concept. No reason to go see it.
To: Behind Liberal Lines
ouch, that’s going to leave a mark
|
it seems, that’s how Chicago Bears offensive lineman Kyle Long sees things.
Long, the younger brother of Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long and son of broadcaster and Hall of Famer Howie Long, couldn’t help but chime in on Twitter the other day when a nice picture of his father and brother popped up.
Take a look.
Related Chris Long tells fantastic story about being asked if he watched the Super Bowl
Before he was a Super Bowl champion with the Patriots, @JOEL9ONE was just a little baby who could fit in his dad's hand. pic.twitter.com/Bms52yva3s — Andy Gray (@AndyGray35) June 7, 2017
Kyle, seeing the picture and his brother’s response to it, had a response of his own that is pure Twitter gold.
Dad never held me — Kyle (@Ky1eLong) June 8, 2017
That tweet then sent the Long brothers and actor Anders Holm (“Workaholics”) into a classic exchange.
Your mom never held you. — Anders Holm (@ders808) June 8, 2017
Your mom never held you. — Anders Holm (@ders808) June 8, 2017
Your mom takes grips the undercarriage of a greyhound bus for state to state travel — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) June 8, 2017
Your mom was bob Ross's side chick — Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) June 8, 2017
You see, Howie, all this could’ve been avoided if you just held Kyle a little more as a baby. Note for parents everywhere.Depression is a malicious disease that feeds on the life of your soul. It can leave you almost wishing you were dead because of how badly it hurts. It’s extremely difficult to get through and even harder to cure – at least that’s what they want us to think. Big pharma will set anyone who is sad upon a long-term antidepressant and it’s actually killing us – and we’re letting it happen..
A study conducted in Canada has raised even more eyebrows to the truthfulness and effectiveness of antidepressants. Almost any one of them will agree on one thing: they don’t work. In fact, they’re actually killing us by increasing your risk of early death by 33%! The study was conducted by a team of McMaster University located in Hamilton, Ontario. It was published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. It analyzed 17 earlier studies which involved close to four hundred thousand participants to determine to long-term effects of antidepressants.
They were studying the effect of antidepressants on patients without cardiovascular issues because antidepressants can additionally thin blood, they removed the data from patients with heart issues. What the found was terrifying. They discovered that the long-term effects of antidepressants elevated the risk of death by 33%…
Depression is a horrific ailment to experience and anyone who has, knows one thing; you’re desperate for relief. Sadly big pharma takes advantage of this to make money.
The big pharma has never really cared for us, they just want our money. They’re filthy stinking rich and it’s off of our wallets too. As rich as they are, you’d think they would at least fulfill their jobs but that’s the last thing they are trying to do. They don’t want to cure disease because without it they would have no money! It’s the biggest business in America, and depression seems to bring in massive amounts of their revenue.
Science Daily explains why the risk is likely elevated in this way:
It’s widely known that brain serotonin affects mood and that most commonly used antidepressant treatment for depression blocks the absorption of serotonin by neurons. It is less widely known, though, that all the major organs of the body — the heart, kidneys, lungs, liver — use serotonin from the bloodstream.
Antidepressants block the absorption of serotonin in these organs as well, and the researchers warn that antidepressants could increase the risk of death by preventing multiple organs from functioning properly.
“We are very concerned by these results,” said lead researcher Paul Andrews, as reported by the Daily Mail. “They suggest that we shouldn’t be taking antidepressant drugs without understanding precisely how they interact with the body. I do think these drugs for most people are doing more harm than good and that physicians ought not to generally prescribe them.”
It is hard to imagine how doctors can think that a drug that increases your risk of early death by 33%, doubles your risk for suicide, and over 90% of them don’t work. When are you throwing out the happy pills? Because I just threw mine out.Hi folks! So, Snowdown is almost upon us, and to help celebrate we decided to give the Poro King mode some love! Unleash the King's magical power by helping him taste-test his brand new flavors of Poro Snax! **TL;DR: {{summoner:30}} + {{item:2052}} = {{summoner:14}} | {{summoner:32}} | {{summoner:21}} | {{summoner:31}} ** This time around, the Snax have been enhanced with exciting new flavors - and the King is hungry! Use the magic of the Snax to power up your King, and try to dodge the enemy's Poro Tosses so they can't do the same to you. We hope these changes will be a fun change of pace for Poro King players, as well as helping to focus more attention on the lovable, regal puffball the mode is named for. http://i.imgur.com/6jHk8Ul.jpg ----------------------------------------------------------- **Gameplay Changes** * The trinket slot is now taken up by one of four new kinds of Poro Snax * These trinkets are re-usable items you feed to the King, each with its own effect * You can swap between Snax freely at the in-game shop (whenever you're allowed to shop) **Snax Flavors** (names kinda WIP!) * **Super Spicy Snax**- The King breathes a continuous blast of fire ahead of him, burning minions, champions, and towers alike * **Frosted Snax** *(brr)* - The King launches a barrage of icy projectiles at faraway enemies, forcing them to dodge and weave or suffer an icy demise * **Espresso Snax** - The King gets "jumpy". He leaps into the air and crashes down, knocking away nearby enemies and briefly granting himself a hefty shield * **Rainbow Snax Party Pack! -** You give the King a pack of Snax to share! He tosses them behind the enemy, where Poros pop up to catch them. In their excitement, they charge back towards the king, knocking enemies along with them. ----------------------------------------------------------- Poro King won't be coming around again for a little while, but we wanted to give you guys a heads up on the new changes ~~before Moobeat does~~ ;) {{champion:432}} -Rabid Llama
Title
Body Cancel
SaveColumbus Clippers 2, Norfolk Tides 3
Box Score · Clippers fall to 46-42
The Columbus Clippers managed just four hits against the Norfolk Tides yesterday, while striking out 11 times. Four of those whiffs came from Adam Moore, who wore a golden sombrero for the day — 0-for-4, four strikeouts.
Ryan Merritt got the start for the Columbus and turned in six solid innings. He struck out six, walked one, and allowed two runs off eight hits. In his last three starts for Columbus, he has allowed three runs over 21 innings with 16 strikeouts.
Another name that should be familiar to Indians fans, Perci Garner, made his second relief appearance for the Clippers this season. His first was disaster, when he allowed four runs and five walks in one inning. He only faced one batter yesterday, but he got him out and did his job.
Akron RubberDucks 7, Altoona Curve 6
Box Score · RubberDucks improve to 44-41
It took a dramatic, four-run inning in the bottom of the ninth, but the Akron RubberDucks walked off their 44th win of the season yesterday. Yonathan Mendoza played “hero” on the day, drawing a walk with the bases loaded to push the winning run home after the Altoona Curve intentionally walked Luigi Rodriguez.
Bobby Bradley has done a lot of work improve his strikeout rate this season, but he struck out three times yesterday. The good news is that’s only the fourth time he’s struck out more than twice this season. He did so 15 times last season.
Eric Haase, the other catcher on the Akron RubberDucks, continues to play a pivotale backup role to Francisco Mejia. Haase went 3-for-5 last night, and he is 17-for-40 with five home runs over his last 10. At 24 years old, it might not be long before Mejia-Haase is the catching duo in Cleveland.
Yu-Cheng Chiang continues to climb out of his early-season slump with his 19th home run of the season, a towering shot to left field that cut the RubberDucks’ deficit in half early on.
The ‘Ducks turned to Matt Whitehouse for the start, who promptly turned in his worst outing of the season by allowing six runs over five innings. The bullpen duo of Robbie Aviles and Neil Holland held the Curve scoreless over the final four frames.
Lynchburg Hillcats 4, Salem Red Sox 3
Box Score · Hillcats improve to 53-35
The Best Team in the Indians Organization continued their winning ways with a 4-3 win over the Salem Red Sox.
Martin Cervenka and Gavin Collins each had three hits for the Lynchburg Hillcatss — the latter also added a home run and four runs batted in. Dominic DeMasi pitched a scoreless five innings and Argenis Angulo closed out the game to earn a win.
Lake County Captains 5, West Michigan Whitecaps 4
Box Score · Captains improve to 36-51
Juan Hillman has had a rocky career since being drafted in the second round of the 2015 draft, but last night was one of his best starts ever. The 20-year-old struck out nine West Michigan Whitecaps batters en route to his fourth win of the season.
The nine strikeouts were a career high for Hillman, and it was just his fourth shutout in which he pitched five or more innings. And just for good measure, he only walked one opponent.
Offensively, the bottom of the Lake County Captains order came through big time. Alexis Pantoja and Miguel Eladio combined to go 4-for-6 in the eighth and ninth spots in the lineup, while Luke Wakamatsu added a home run from the leadoff spot. Mitch Longo, who has been on an absolute tear since returning from a wrist injury, had his 13-game hitting streak snapped with an 0-for-2 day. He did draw a walk, so his on-base streak lives at 14 games.
Mahoning Valley Scrappers 7, Williamsport Crosscutters 8
Box Score · Scrappers fall to 10-10
Despite a furious ninth-inning rally that brought them within a single run, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers fell to.500 on the season with a 8-7 loss to the Williamsport Crosscutters.
Jesse Berardi led the way with three hits. The 21-year-old shortstop is 16-for-38 with four doubles this season, good for a.421/.436/.526 slash.
Will Benson’s strikeout issues continued, as he whiffed two more times yesterday. He has already struck out 26 times this season (15 games), but he did draw two walks yesterday, which is a step in the right direction. He also notched his first hit since July 4.
AZL Indians 4, AZL D-backs 6
Box Score · Indians fall to 4-9
More 2017 draft picks are beginning to funnel into the AZL Indians, including catcher Joshua Rolette, who was drafted in the 39th round. He recorded a hit in his debut. Tre Gantt, a 29th-round pick in this year’s draft, went 1-for-1 with three walks.
The Tribe’s first overall pick in the draft, Tyler Freeman, has not settled in enough to show his speed on the bases, but he is 9-for-24 in the early stages of his career. As a side note, he was born on May 21, 1999, which is way too close to 2000, which is way too close to making me feel extremely old.
The DSL Indians had a scheduled off-day.Four players off to fast starts (too fast?), four players off to slow starts (too slow?)…
It is just about time for poolies to start panicking because their star player is off to a slow start and killing their early season buzz. As some GM’s panic others will pay exorbitant prices because a scrub is scoring on half of his shots because that is guaranteed to continue for the rest of the season. So just as last week examined hot and slow starts on a team level, this week will look at some starts from individual forwards around the league.
Hares
Vladimir Tarasenko
Tarasenko has picked up where he left off last season except he is turning up the volume. He currently has his lowest even strength shooting percentage over the last three years at 10.3%, it has been over 12% each of last two years. That is balanced out by his power play shooting percentage of 20%. The notable difference in Tarasenko’s game this year is that he is shooting more than in previous years. Since entering the league Tarasenko has been on a slow rise from two shots per game to 2.5 shots per game last year. In previous years not being a volume shooter necessitated a higher shooting percentage for Tarasenko but that looks to be changing. He is currently averaging 4.5 shots per game, that is Ovechkin-esque volume which will not last. Should Tarasenko stays above three shots per game he has a legitimate shot at the art ross.
Martin Hanzal
There are so many red flags with Martin Hanzal. First he has nine assists with seven of those assists being of the secondary nature. As first assists are more repeatable than second assists this does not bode well for his continued production. The second red flag is that while he has yet to score a goal it is only because is not shooting. He is bound to score but if he continues to only take two per game (he rarely exceeds that) even if he scores on 10% of his shots that is only 15 goals. Third the Coyotes are horrible and getting horribly outshot every game, making it even more unlikely that Hanzal continues at a point per game pace. Finally, Hanzal is a major band-aid boy as he misses a minimum of 20 games almost every year. Sell him now just in case anyone thinks he is for real.
Artemi Panarin
Panarin’s in a great situation now that he has proved this column wrong and made the Blackhawks. He is in a pretty plush situation as not only is Artem Anisimov translating for him in game but he can play in the shadows of Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa and alongside Patrick Kane. Even given his situation he is highly unlikely to remain a point per game scorer this season. He does not shoot a lot at just two shots per game at even strength, although the Blackhawks get a ton of shots when he is on the ice. With Panarin taking so few shots of his own he will need to keep his shooting percentage up over 13% to approach 15 goals. More disconcerting is that his success has been based on being involved in 75% of the even strength goals scored when he is on the ice. Last year only Toews and Kane were able to maintain that level of involvement in the Hawks’ even strength goals. After raining on Panarin’s parade get ready for an abrupt 180 degreee turn, if he continues to get more than three minutes of power play time per game 60 points is not out of reach if he even sports a 60% IPP.
Johnny Gaudreau
Gaudreau puts Panarin’s level of involvement in even strength goals to shame as Gaudeau has been involved in all the Flames even strength goals scored when he is on the ice. Even after he falls back to last year’s level Gaudreau is still in line for more points than he had last year as he is playing close to two minutes minutes more per game this year. However, even with the increased ice time his shot numbers are horrible but the Flames as a team do not generate a ton of shots. That will change when TJ Brodie returns and one of Kulak or Engelland are ushered out of the lineup. All this adds up to Gaudreau being able to come close to 70 points even as his on-ice shooting percentage falls under 14%.
Tortoises
Antoine Vermette
It is going to be a rough year for Antoine Vermette. Max Domi has already been off his line to play with Duclair and Hanzal. The replacement of Domi with Doan should make Vermette’s season longer and all the more difficult. Domi has already generated twice as many scoring chances as Shane Doan has this year. Aside from his linemates Vermette is playing just over 15 minutes per game, down from 17 minutes last year, with less than 10 of those coming at even strength. When Vermette is on the ice the Coyotes average 25 shots every six games, or they take four shots per game when is on the ice. At that rate Vermette will be lucky to be on the ice for 33 even strength goals. Given his historical on-ice shooting percentage, IPP and the current Coyotoes shot rate Vermette should put up 27 points total. Thank the stars for that Arizona power play.
Jakob Silfverberg
This whole tortoise list could conceivably be made up of Anaheim Ducks, it was legitimately tough to limit it to just one. Silfverberg was the sleeper du jour over the off-season so his slow start is likely one of the most surprising. Part of the reason for the slow start is that the Ducks as a team, and Silfverberg specifically, are converting virtually none of their shots. Silfverberg for example has not scored a goal and has an on-ice shooting percentage of 1.7%. Those will both undoubtedly go up, and the Ducks are taking the same number of shots as they took last season. Thus it would be easy enough to look at those two factors and suggest that there are no real problems in Anaheim. There are however a couple glaring factors for Silfverberg specifically though. The amount of scoring chances and high danger chances the Ducks generate when he is on the ice have dropped precipitously. He is on pace to generate 40 fewer scoring chances this season than he did last season, and the Ducks as a team are generating much fewer chances when he is on the ice. The same can be said to a similar extent about high danger chances. If Silfverberg and the Ducks are not getting to scoring areas any more this may not be just a blip on early season radar. It is not time to panic just yet but something to keep an eye on. If the TSN rumours are correct and Randy Carlyle is coming get ready to bail.
Anze Kopitar
Early in the season Kopitar is playing as much as he ever has, which is a minute and a half more than he did last season. Not surprisingly he is also generating more shots and scoring chances. He is also scoring on more of his shots as his shooting percentage currently sits at just over 13%. Given that he fluctuates largely between 11 and 13 percent there is no reason to predict a huge fall. Furthermore, The Kings as a team are generating shots and scoring chances at the same rate per 60 minutes that they always have with Kopitar on the ice. The reason Kopitar has not produced much in the way of points is that the Kings are not scoring when he is on the ice as can be seen from his on-ice save percentage. Similarly he has yet to be involved in an even strength goal scored when he is on the ice. That is after being involved in 75% of the even strength goals he was on the ice for last season. This is basically a long winded way of saying that there should not be any reason to worry unless Kopitar is ridiculously unlucky all season. If this continues much longer this is probably the best time to pry him from a panicking poolie.
Dmitrij Jaskin
Until Jaden Schwartz went down with an injury Jaskin was slowly having his ice time stripped away from him. The three games before Schwartz’s injury Jaskin was getting less than 10 minutes of ice time per game. That includes getting virtually no power play time. That all changed with Schwartz out of the lineup, an important factor given that he will miss three months. In the first game without Schwartz Jaskin received 20 minutes of ice time including five minutes on the power play. Unsurprisingly he went on to generate six of his 15 shots on the season in that game. That game also him reunited with his early season linemates David Backes and Troy Brouwer. That is a major upgrade from Scott Gomez and Scott Upshall or Kyle Brodziak and Steve Ott. With limited other top six options Jaskin should be safe in his new role as long as Schwartz is out. He will start to produce in very short order, as the time to buy is now. Right now.Two modders are currently working on a HD Texture Pack project for Resident Evil 4. While an official HD version was released, the textures that Capcom included were a bit underwhelming (to say the least). And – as most would expect – this duo has managed to surpass the development team by creating proper HD textures for this fourth part of the Resident Evil series.
The team has recently released some comparison screenshots between the original and their HD textures, as well as comparisons between the original, the official HD and their own HD textures.
As the team noted, it is currently developing the new textures based on the Ultimate HD version of the game.
Those interested can go ahead and download the first release of this texture pack that focuses on the prologue of the game.
Resident Evil 4 HD Project is still far from being completed. According to the team, 30% of the game’s environmental textures were completed back in October.
Still, this project looks really promising so here is hoping that the duo will keep working on it.
Enjoy!
Original versus HD Project
Original versus Ultimate HD versus HD ProjectSignup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
When asked his opinion on the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, the Governor of Iowa declined to give a personal opinion, and instead just said that his state would “live with” the decision.
Republican Governor Terry Brandstad said on Monday, that individuals would have to make up their own mind on the issue, and declined to offer a personal opinion.
“I guess it depends upon your perspective and your point of view on those things,” Branstad said during a weekly news conference at the Iowa Capitol. “I guess people can make your their own judgement on that. We’re going to live with the law and make whatever adjustments are necessary.”
The Supreme Court decision on DOMA on Wednesday, will mean that same-sex couples married in Iowa, and all other states that allow same-sex marriage, will be entitled to the same benefits as straight married couples.
“It does have some impacts on people in many different ways,” he said, “and I would let people make their own judgement on that.”
Iowa legalised equal marriage back in 2009, when its Supreme Court found the state’s law defining marriage as between one man and one woman unconstitutional.
Branstad did go on to hint, however, that he may be in support of a referendum on the issue, saying that the federal ruling does allow such a vote on the issue.
“It basically says the federal law is struck down but it’s up to the invidual states,” Branstad said. “And many states have indeed amended their constitution to provide for one-man/one-woman marriage. I’ve always felt the people of Iowa should have the opportunity to vote on that issue.”
On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which federally defined marrage as between one man and one woman. These cases were seen as key in the campaign for equality in the US.AN ELDERLY widow recovering from a cancer operation has vowed to stay in her home after being beaten by burglars during an “evil” attack.
AN ELDERLY widow recovering from a cancer operation has vowed to stay in her home after being beaten by burglars during an “evil” attack.
Widow who had cancer operation is beaten by burglary gang in her home
German national Heike Mueller (75) was at her home near Kerrykeel on Donegal’s Fanad peninsula when the three-man gang struck.
The retired NATO official and former solicitor moved to Ireland two decades ago – and has vowed to stay here despite the attack.
She has been in remission from cancer since a life-saving operation five months ago.
“I have lived here for all this time and nothing like this has ever happened to me,” she said.
“I came here on a cheap flight from Germany where you had to stay for 10 days and I ended up staying here.
“I walked into this house and knew this is where I would stay and I am going to stay now.”
Ms Mueller said three men were at the door when she went to answer it.
“They pushed me to the ground and hit me. They grabbed me by the arms and shook me and demanded money. They were very aggressive,” she said.
“I tried to kick and hit them back but they kept shaking me.
“They left me with bruises on my face and there are marks on my arms because they were holding me so tight.”
Ms Mueller is well-known in the north-west, where she works as an alternative medicine healer. But she said the gang picked on the wrong person.
“I don’t have a car, I don’t have a television and I have nothing of value,” she said.
“As it happens, this month I didn’t get my pension. I get paid from Germany and it was sent back there by mistake by the bank because of some glitch, so I literally didn’t have a cent in the house.”
“It has left me very badly shaken. It is more than terrifying when this happens to you, and I am very very frightened still. It is worse than that.
“They ripped out the telephone so I couldn’t use my panic alarm, but thank God for my neighbours who have been brilliant. They were able to call the gardai.
“This happened to me just a few months after I had an operation for cancer. This should not happen.”
Ms Mueller was one of two pensioners targeted by burglars in Co Donegal at the weekend.
An 88-year-old woman in Glengad on the Inishowen peninsula returned home from weekend Mass to find her home ransacked.
Christmas presents were among the items stolen.
Local people have put up a €1,000 reward for information leading to the arrests of those responsible.
Insp Michael Harrison described the attacks as “evil”.
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Married Premier League star Kolo Toure had a lengthy affair with a young model – after tricking her into believing he was a car salesman.
The Manchester City defender told pretty Kessel Kasuisyo his name was Francois and showered her with expensive gifts he claimed he bought with cash he made selling motors, she claims.
And in a desperate bid to keep his real identity secret, she says, the £90,000-a -week star would sneak into her council flat wearing sunglasses with a baseball cap pulled over his face.
Smitten Toure, 31, kept up the astonishing facade for two years.
He married the mother of his two children during the alleged affair and even carried out a bizarre pretend proposal to Kessel, 22 – getting down one one knee to give her a £1,000 diamond ring.
But the game was up for the Ivory Coast international – who portrays himself as a devoted family man – when one of his mistress’s pals recognised him.
She told Kessel to Google her car salesman boyfriend’s real name – and the shocked beauty found Toure’s wedding pictures online.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, Kessel says: “I am devastated. On some of the wedding pictures he is crying but a few weeks before he was in my bed.
(Image: Getty)
“Two or three weeks after the wedding he was at mine. Around the time he got married he called and said he was back in Africa and had just sold two cars.
“I believed everything he said, I am hurt and confused by it all. Maybe he wanted me to be a second wife. I just don’t know. Everything about his strange behaviour now all makes sense.”
Kessel met Toure, whose brother Yaya also plays for City, outside the Bijou nightclub in Manchester in September 2010. “He started chatting me up and we swapped numbers,” she says.
“Then he gave me a lift home. The next day he called me and we met at a hotel. I told him he looked familiar and he just said maybe he looks like somebody. He said he sold cars in Africa and did some charity work.”
At least Toure wasn’t lying about his charity work – he is an ambassador for Save The Children.
Kessel says: “He said he came from Ghana and was a student too. He said his father was a minister. I am not a fan of football. I thought maybe I had seen him on telly with his father.”
He called her again within a fortnight and they met in the same hotel, the Malmaison in Manchester. “He bought me some sexy white lingerie and black shoes,” says Kessel. “We started kissing and ended up doing it.”
Kessel claims their relationship was on and off until December of that year.
“We would go a week without seeing each other and then he would call me. Sometimes we would meet twice in a week,” she says. “I asked if he had a girlfriend and he said no.”
(Image: Sunday Mirror)
But devout Muslim Toure had been with fiancee Awo for at least nine years. The couple live in Manchester with their daughter and son. When Toure – who joined Man City for £16million from Arsenal – suddenly stopped calling Kessel in December 2010 she thought it was the end of their brief fling.
But nine months later, after she had moved home, he called her again. “He asked if I wanted to meet up and I told him I had my own flat now,” says Kessel. “He came around in a big car. He was wearing a cap and big sunglasses.
“I told him it was my birthday and he asked me if I would wear some of the stuff he bought me so I got dressed up and we ended up in the bedroom.
“The next time I saw him he bought me a birthday present. He got me a gold watch and some 18-carat diamond earrings.
“He used to call me constantly but from a private number so I couldn’t call back. I was suspicious, but he said he didn’t want me to waste my money calling.
“He once gave me £500 to send to my mother in Zimbabwe. Another time he gave me £200 for food because my fridge was empty. I started to question him about exactly what he did and he would say just selling cars. Things were on and off. This January he asked me to be a girlfriend but said he was going back to Africa to do business.”
Kessel said Toure, banned last year for six months by the FA for taking his wife’s diet pills, broke off contact again between January and May this year. When he got back with Kessel, she had no idea he was weeks away from getting hitched. “He said he had something special for me,” she says. “He called me Princess and turned up with a £1,000 diamond and ruby ring.
“It wasn’t an engagement ring but he said it was symbol of how he felt. He went down on his knee and said he was really serious about me.
“He really got to me. I started telling my friends about him. But whenever I asked to take his picture he refused which I found a bit odd.” Yet Kessel managed to snap him off guard. In June Toure went back to Africa and married Awo at a mosque in the Ivorian capital Abidjan with his brother Yaya as best man. Official photographs showing a tearful Toure wearing a white suit were released to African news websites
(Image: Youtube grab/RTI 1)
Kessel still had no idea her new man was anything but a very successful car salesman.
Weeks after his wedding, “Francois” was seeing her back at her flat. “He told me he wanted me to go to Paris and said he would meet me there,” says Kessel. “I told him before I did that I needed to meet his parents.
“But he said I should give it time to talk to his parents because I am not a Muslim and they would expect me to be with a Muslim. I believed almost everything he said.” But eventually she got fed up with his secretive behaviour and hung up on him during a call in September. He hasn’t been in contact since. Kessel says she only found out the truth a fortnight ago when she showed a pal some of the snaps she had managed to take.
“She said I should go on Google and type in Kolo Toure. It all came up – Manchester City, the wedding pictures to his long-time girlfriend. I felt a fool. I now understand why he used to hide his face and use a private number. I want to make sure he doesn’t do it to anyone else.”
In an interview in 2005, Toure spoke about his excitement at becoming a dad and said he loved relaxing with his partner and family. And last month, on a visit to a school in Ivory Coast where he is a hero, he said: “We are role models. The way I behave is the way the children will want to be.” A source close to Toure said last night: “I have spoken to Kolo and he is denying ever knowing or meeting the girl.”Now that the major free agent signings have been finalized, the Last Word On Sports NFL department will be looking at the top three needs for each team heading into the 2016 NFL Draft. Today, the New England Patriots are the focus. I previously wrote an article that discussed New England’s top three needs this off-season.
The Patriots do not have a pick in the first round of the draft this year since NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has zero sense when it comes to doling out discipline. But Bill Belichick’s team does have 11 total picks to utilize this year, including four compensatory selections they were given due to players they lost.
Below are the Patriots draft picks for the 2016 NFL Draft
Second round (No. 60)
Second round (No. 61, from the Arizona Cardinals, via the Chandler Jones trade)
Third round (No. 91)
Third round (No. 96, compensatory)
Sixth round (No. 196, from the Houston Texans via the Keshawn Martin trade)
Sixth round (No. 204, from the Chicago Bears via the Martellus Bennett trade)
Sixth round (No. 208, compensatory)
Sixth round (No. 214, compensatory)
Sixth round (No. 221, compensatory)
Seventh round (No. 243, from Houston via the Ryan Mallet trade)
Seventh round (No. 250)
While the Patriots have added some veteran players this off-season (Chris Long, E.J. Biggers, among others), the Hoodie’s team still has holes they need to address through the draft.
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS 2016 NFL DRAFT: TOP 3 NEEDS
Running Back
Yes, the Patriots have Tom Brady under center, which helps enormously, but New England couldn’t run the ball last season. They all but abandoned their ground game towards the end of the season and it is one of the main reasons (along with a poor showing from the offensive line) that the Pats fell to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship game.
As of now, Dion Lewis and LeGarrette Blount (re-signed to a one-year, incentive laden, deal, by the Pats on Wed.) will be the most utilized backs. But Lewis tore his ACL just five months ago and Blount landed on season-ending injured reserve on Dec. 13 due to sustaining a hip injury. When Lewis and Blount were on the field last season they were playmakers, but it is difficult to project how a player, particularly a running back, will come back from a leg injury. If, for some reason, neither Lewis nor Blount are capable of taking the majority of carries, or either goes down with another injury, there isn’t much faith that the reserve backs (James White, Brandon Bolden, Tyler Gaffney, Joey Iosefa, or Donald Brown) are capable of stepping into that lead back role, although White did a pretty good job taking over for Lewis last season.
The Patriots need to help protect Brady and one way to do that is to actually be able to run the football. With the backs they currently have on their roster a really solid ground game is not exactly a sure thing, particularly if Lewis and/or Blount go down again.
Offensive Line
There’s no way to sugarcoat it, New England’s offensive line did not do their job last season. They failed to keep Brady upright in 2016 and the future Hall of Famer was sacked 43 times, including the playoffs.
Nate Solder and Sebastian Vollmer figure to be the starters at tackle with Cameron Fleming, Marcus Cannon, LaAdrian Waddle and Keavon Milton as the reserves. Solder was really the only Patriots offensive lineman who was worth his salt in 2015, and both Vollmer and Cannon will be free agents after the 2016 season. The Patriots need to add some depth for next year so 2015 isn’t repeated and plan for beyond this coming season.
Center Ryan Wendell was injured last season and that certainly contributed to the offensive line’s poor play, but it wasn’t the only reason. Plus, Wendell is now a free agent and it looks like Bryan Stork will take over the job at center, with David Andrews (Stork and Andrews shared time at center |
dangerous. I'ma just rest by the side of the road here, get my breath back for a bit. So I've been looking for music that's calming, sensitive, healing—soothing sounds to save even internet-accelerated brains. And I've found that much of it comes from—or focuses on—the very place that is so often associated with both love and fear of intense futurity in underground music these days: East Asia.President Trump announced more than three dozen appointments Friday night for key administration positions.
The president intends to nominate Richard Grenell to serve as the next U.S. ambassador to Germany. Grenell served in former President George W. Bush’s administration as a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations.
“For nearly two decades, he has served as the primary communications adviser for public officials at the local, state, Federal, and international levels, as well as for a Fortune 200 ranked company,” the White House statement said. “Mr. Grenell is the longest serving United States spokesman at the United Nations (2001-2008) having served four United States Ambassadors.”
Rep. Tom Marino was also chosen to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Marino, a former county prosecutor, worked to help expand access to treatment for people with opioid addiction. Marino’s nomination will lead to a special election in Pennsylvania.
The president also tapped Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine to head NASA, which is already causing controversy on both sides of the political aisle. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, both of Florida, say a politician should not have the lead role in the country’s space program.
“I just think it could be devastating for the space program. Obviously, being from Florida, I’m very sensitive to anything that slows up NASA and its mission,” Rubio told POLITICO.
“It’s the one federal mission which has largely been free of politics and it’s at a critical juncture in its history,” he added. “I would hate to see an administrator held up -- on [grounds of] partisanship, political arguments, past votes, or statements made in the past -- because the agency can’t afford it and it can’t afford the controversy.”
Nelson told Politico much the same: “The head of NASA ought to be a space professional, not a politician.”
His nomination will also lead to a special election in Oklahoma.
Additionally, the president nominated Robert Jackson, a Columbia University law professor, for a vacant seat on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
According to the White House’s press release, the rest of the list includes:YouTube might have Music Key in its hat (sort of), but apparently it's having issues locking down deals for the proposed ad-free subscription service that'd cover the rest of its media. Google's video wing is having troubles getting content creators onboard with the service, according to The Information. As the site's sources tell it, YouTube has even threatened to set certain channels to private so the videos therein won't show up in searches. That's if the creators don't play ball, of course. YouTube tried strong-arming indie musicians in a similar way last year. The Information notes that where the biggest difficulties might lie would be with TV networks that have a presence on the video portal because plenty of them are already married to the likes of Hulu for subscription content. All in all, if you were holding out for ad-free YouTube -- at a nominal fee -- you're going to be waiting a bit longer.For other military campaigns in Persia, see Persian War (disambiguation)
The Persian Campaign or Invasion of Persia also known as Invasion of Iran (Persian: اشغال ایران در جنگ جهانی اول) was a series of engagements in Iranian Azerbaijan and western Iran (Persia) involving the forces of the Ottoman Empire against those of the British Empire and Russian Empire, and also involving local population elements, beginning in December 1914 and ending with the Armistice of Mudros on October 30, 1918 as part of Middle Eastern theatre of World War I.
Background [ edit ]
Persia was formally neutral in World War I. In reality, Persian forces were affected by the rivalry between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers and took sides based on the conditions. Western interest in Persia was based on its significant oil reserve and its strategic situation between Afghanistan and the warring Ottoman, Russian, and British Empires. Persia was divided into northern and southern spheres of influence under the Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907, with the Russians naturally having gained the northern part adjacent to their holdings in the Caucasus, while the British took the south. The convention capped off several decades of the Great Game between the Russians and British. The treaty included thus their respective spheres of influence in Persia as well, and provided a further counterweight to German influence.
Germany established their Intelligence Bureau for the East on the eve of World War I, dedicated to promoting and sustaining subversive and nationalist agitations in British India and the Persian and Egyptian satellite states. The bureau was involved in intelligence and subversive missions to Persia and Afghanistan to dismantle the Anglo-Russian Entente. The bureau's operations in Persia were led by Wilhelm Wassmuss.[9] The Germans hoped to free Persia from British and Russian influence and to further create a wedge between Russia and the British, eventually leading to an invasion of British India by locally organized armies.
The Ottoman Empire's military strategic goal was to cut off Russian access to the hydrocarbon resources around the Caspian Sea.[10] Aligned with the Germans, the Ottoman Empire wanted to undermine the influence of the Entente in this region, but for a very different reason. The Ottoman Minister of War, Enver Pasha, claimed that if the Russians could be beaten in the key cities of Persia, it could open the way to Azerbaijan, to Central Asia and to India. Enver Pasha envisioned an extended cooperation between these newly establishing nationalistic states, if they were to be removed from western influence. This was his pan-Turanian project. His political position was based on the assumption that none of the colonial powers possessed the resources to withstand the strains of world war and maintain their direct rule in their Asian colonies. Although nationalist movements throughout the colonial world led to political upheaval in nearly all colonies in Asia during World War I and the interwar period, the decolonisation on the scale of Enver's ambitions was never achieved. However, Enver Pasha continued with his ambition after the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the victorious Entente Powers until his death on August 4, 1922.
In 1914, before the war, the British government had contracted with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company for the supply of oil for the navy.[10] The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was in the proposed path of Enver's project: the British had the exclusive rights to work petroleum deposits throughout the Persian Empire except in the provinces of Azerbaijan, Gilan, Mazendaran, Astarabad and Khorasan.[10]
Forces [ edit ]
The Persian forces were established around certain districts, instead of one single force. Each district (like state forces) furnished battalions and each of the provinces had several battalions. Each district depending on the tribal grouping furnished one or sometimes two battalions usually under their own chiefs. The strength of battalions was from 600 to 800. They had artillery batteries whose strength ranged from four to eight guns. The irregular troops amounted to about 50,000 in each district, with ranks composed of tribal horsemen and an uncertain number of footmen, all poorly armed. It was not uncommon of the chiefs, who controlled the battalions, to change sides. Some of these forces were Qashqai Tribesmen, Tangistani Tribesmen, Laristani Tribesmen, and Khamseh tribesmen. The Persian central government also had the Persian Central Government Gendarmerie, which had Swedish officers and consisted of about 6,000 troops. Only 2,000 of the 6,000 were mounted. They were in six regiments, each of nine battalions, and their armament included Mauser rifles, twelve machine guns, and four mountain guns. The Persian forces were dispersed at Tehran, Kazvin (Ghazvin), and Hamadan with the objective of keeping the country's main roads, which covered an estimated distance of 930 miles, under Persian control.
In 1914, Enver Pasha ordered Lt. Col. Kâzım Bey, commander of the 1st Expeditionary Force (11 December) and Lt. Col. Halil Bey, commander of the 5th Expeditionary Force (25 December): "Your duty is to move with your division towards Persia and proceed through Tabriz to Dagestan, where you will ignite a general rebellion and repulse the Russians from the shores of the Caspian Sea."
The German operations were carried out by Wilhelm Wassmuss and Count Kaunitz. Wassmuss, known as the German Lawrence, was a German consular official in Persia who loved the desert, and wore the flowing robes of a desert tribesman. He persuaded his superiors in Constantinople that he could lead Persian tribes in a revolt against Britain.
In 1914, the British Indian Army had several units located in the southern influence zone. Britain had extensive experience in dealing with tribal forces because of the Indian experience. At the end of 1917, a British force headed by Major-General Lionel Dunsterville was established. He arrived to take command in Baghdad on January 18, 1918. The British troops of Dunsterville eventually numbered about 1,000. They were supported by a field artillery battery, machine gun section, three armoured cars, and also two airplanes. Together with mobile field hospitals, staff officers, headquarters staff etc., the total force must have numbered about 1,300. Dunsterville was ordered to "proceed from Mesopotamia through Persia to the port of Anzali, then board ship to Baku and onwards." In 1916 the British formed the South Persian Rifles to protect their interests in Persia.[11]
Russia had long since established forces in the region. The Persian Cossack Brigade and a small contingent of the Russian Caucasus Army under the Armenian General Tovmas Nazarbekian was stationed there. The Cossack Brigade consisted of eight squadrons, a small battalion of infantry and a horse battery of six Krupp guns; their total strength did not exceed 2,000. Besides this force, in 1912 Russia obtained the formal consent of the Persian government to the formation of a similar Cossack Brigade at Tabriz under Russian officers. The consent of the government was given as a condition for the withdrawal of Russian troops in Persian Azerbaijan which, at the onset of the Great War, Russia did not. The Russians also moved one detachment of Armenian volunteer units under the command of Andranik Ozanian to this region.
Battle zone [ edit ]
Map showing the Ottoman campaigns of 1918
The engagements were in northern Persian Azerbaijan, comprising the provinces of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, and Ardabil, and cities including Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Maragheh, Marand, Mahabad, and Khoy.
Operations [ edit ]
Prelude [ edit ]
The central Persian government had difficulties in establishing order before the war. In a single year; the Qashqai Tribesmen, the most powerful in southern Persia, defied the governor-general and raided in Fars as did the Boyer Ahmad-i's Tribesmen; the Khamseh Tribesmen raided the caravan routes in the Kerman province; and other tribes raided in the Fars, Yazd or Kermān provinces from time to time. The government-controlled gendarmerie had gradually established themselves, although not wholly, and engaged a number of tribesmen. The authorities constructed posts along the routes which they held at the outbreak of war.
Russia maintained forces in northern Persia. The Russians, based on security reasons of the situation of Armenian and Assyrian Christians in Persia, occupied a number of cities. Tabriz was occupied in 1909; Urmia and Khoi in 1910. This measure enabled the Russians not only to control Persia, but also to secure the road from their rail-head at Djoulfa to the Van Province of the Ottoman Empire through Khoi.
On July 28, 1914, World War I began. First the Ottoman Empire did not take any serious action. However, the security of the region began to decline even before the Russian-Ottoman conflicts. Disturbances began along the border. A notable attack was made on Urmia, ostensibly by Kurdish Tribesmen. About the same time the Russians closed the Ottoman consulates in Urmia, Tabriz and Khoi, and expelled the Kurds and other Sunni Muslims from the villages near Urmia. Arms were given at the same time to some of the Armenian and Assyrian Christians. Russian authorities distributed 24,000 rifles to the some Kurdish Tribesmen that sided with them in Persia and the Van Province.[12] Russian-Ottoman conflicts began with the Bergmann Offensive on November 2, 1914.
1914 [ edit ]
In December 1914, General Myshlaevsky ordered a withdrawal from Persia at the height of the Battle of Sarikamish.[13] Only one brigade of Russian troops under the command of the Armenian General Nazarbekoff and one battalion of Armenian volunteers scattered throughout Salmast and Urmia. Contact was limited to skirmishes on the border of northern Persia. The presence of Russian cavalry units kept them quiet.[13] Enver established [one division] troops from conscripted at Constantinople [December 25].[14] This unit was given under the command of Khalil Bey.[14] While Halil Bey's troops were preparing for the operation, a small group had already crossed the Persian frontier. After repulsing a Russian offensive toward Van, Van Gendarmerie Division [commanded by Major Ferid], a lightly equipped paramilitary formation, had chased the enemy into Persia.
On December 14, 1914, Van Jandarma Division occupied the city of Qotur. Later, proceeded towards Khoy. It was supposed to keep this passage open to Kâzım Bey (5th Expeditionary Force) and Halil Bey units (1st Expeditionary Force) who were to move towards Tabriz from the bridgehead established at Qotur. However, the Battle of Sarıkamısh depleted the Ottoman forces and these forces to be deploy to Persia needed elsewhere. On January 10 the 5th Expeditionary Force, which was on the way to Persia, was rerouted north to the Third Army and soon it was followed by the 1st Expeditionary Force.
1915 [ edit ]
In 1915, Wilhelm Wassmuss conferred with local chiefs and distributed pamphlets urging revolt. He was arrested by a local chief, but managed to escape from British custody. He hoped to incite a revolt through pro-German members of the Persian government in conjunction of invasion of Ottoman troops towards Kermanshah and Hamadan.[13]
On January 4, 1915, a volunteer detachment led by Omer Naci Bey, who was sent to Persia on a special mission by Talat Pasha, captured the city of Urmia. One week later, the "Mosul Group" commanded by Omer Fevzi Bey entered Tabriz, without facing much resistance. Apparently taking the Russian higher command completely by surprise. Though referred as Khalil Bey by Aram, Omer Fevzi with his [superior] forces captured the city of Urmia in a few hours and marched on Salmast.[14] At the end of 1914, Omer Fevzi who was identified as Khalil took nearly a thousand Russians prisoners.[14] On January 26–28, 1915, in Sufian area, General Chernozubov had a brief fighting. Russia sent a strong force which succeeded in recapturing the city. On January 30, Chernozubov entered Tabriz.
On February 3, 1915, General Nazarbekov launched a counter-offensive. This time, the Van Gendarmerie Division succeeded in holding its lines. In early March, Nazarbekov attacked with a stronger force. He had seven battalions in total. On 7 March, Van Gendarmerie Division evacuated Dilman and began to withdraw, reaching Qotur three days later and entrenching there.
[14] 1st battalion of the Armenian volunteer unit under the command of the Andranik
In April 1915, the 1st Expeditionary Force under the command of Halil Bey moved towards northern Persia. The objective was the city of Dilman, and to clean this region from Nazarbekov's forces, which would provide a significant tactical advantage in the Caucasian Campaign. Diliman was the place of one of the fiercest battles between the Armenians and the Turks.[14] The first battalion of the Armenian volunteers, under the command of the Andranik repulsed the attacks of Khalil Bey, until the Russian Chernozubov arrived[14] The newly arrived Russian forces from the Caucasus, they were able to put to flight Khalil Bey.[14] A poorly executed night raid on April 14 cost Halil Bey around 2,000 casualties. He lost 3,600 soldiers in the course of those three days.[14] General Nazarbekov managed to push Halil Pasha regulars towards Başkale after the Battle of Diliman (April 15, 1915), securing the situation.[13] Halil Bey received the following cable from Enver Pasha and leave this theater of war: "Van is silenced. Roads to Bitlis and Iraq are under danger. In order to avoid even greater threats, withdraw as soon as possible and join the Third Army which would take control of these gateways."
On May 8, 1915, one of the twelve Armenian messengers from the Siege of Van had got through to Persia[15] An Armenian volunteer unit with Andranik, along with 1200 men, and commander Chernoroyal's division dispatched toward the Bashkaleh. On May 7, they captured Bashkaleh. This group from Persia reach the City of Van on May 18.[15] They had expected to find Van still in a state of siege and were amazed at finding it in the hands of the Armenians.[15] When word got to Yudenich, he sent a brigade of Trans-Baikal Cossacks under General Trukhin. With Van secure, fighting shifted farther west for the rest of the summer.[13]
During July 1915, Russian forces at the Caucasus Campaign had a general retreat which one Russian column retreated up to Persian frontier. This retreat was the consequence of events at June 1915. Yudenich planned an attack to limit the Ottomans at Moush and Manzikert. He planned to outflank from Beyazit and Persian Azerbaijan towards Van.[13] However, the Russian advance toward the Caucuses campaign did not last long. The Russian forces suffered reverses. The command of Khalil Bey Eleven divisions of regular troops attacked the very center of the Russian Caucasian advance. In a few days they with Battle of Manzikert July 16, and later Battle of Kara Killisse the Russian army retreated.
In August 1915, as the British occupied Bushire, the gendarmes under Akhgar retreated to Burazjan.
In November 1915, Colonel Pessian as commander of Gendarmerie in Hamedan launched an attack on the pro-Russian Persian Cossack Brigade at the Battle of Musalla. His gendarmes managed to disarm the Persian Cossacks and he managed to win some of the cossacks to join his forces in a patriotic speech he made to them after their defeat. After this victory, Russians advanced on the Persian Gendermerie, in Robat-i-Karim forces under Mohammad Hossein Jahanbani and in Hamedan-Kermanshah road forces under Colonel Pessian and Azizollah Zarghami could not defend Hamedan against an advancing Russian Caucasus Army which was superior in numbers and weapons. In Soltanabad, gendarmerie force under Masoud Kayhan were also defeated by the Russians. The gendarmes then retreated to Kermanshah. On November 10, 1915, pro-Central powers Persian Gendarmerie under Ali Quli Khan Pasyan defeat pro-British Khamseh tribal forces of Ibrahim Khan Qavam-ul-Mulk and capture Shiraz. All British residents of Shiraz are arrested. Gendarms also capture Yazd and Kerman.
In the middle of November 1915, General Yudenitch who was managing the Caucasian Campaign (the nearest to the spot), dispatched two columns into the Persian Azerbaijan; one, under General Nikolai Baratov, with the order to push southwestward through Hamadan to Kermanshah, on the way to Bagdad. The second column advanced through Kum and Kashan to Ispahan. A detachment of the Russian Caucasus Army marched on Tehran. On November 14, The Austro-Hungarian and German Ministers left the capital, but Ahmad Shah Qajar did not agree to leave his people behind, and the Prince of Reuss undertook to hold strategical points with a force of 6,000 of the Persian gendarmerie, about 3,000 Turkish irregulars, and the disaffected Persian tribesmen, about 15,000 in all. By the end of the month, Tehran was taken by the Russians Caucuses Army and Armenian volunteers.
In December 1915, the Shah was induced to appoint a new pro-Ally cabinet with Prince Firman Firma at its head. On December 15, 1915, Hamadan was captured by the Nikolai Baratov. Baratov's job was not difficult because, there was no significant resistance. During the last days of 1915, Sir Percy Sykes assigned a mission with a temporary rank of Brigadier-General to establish a force South Persia Rifles using the local Tribesmen which would render their service for a price. His mission was to counter the strong German influence in most of South Persia.
1916 [ edit ]
In January 1916, Baratov drove the Turks and Persian tribesman and occupied Hamedan. On February 26, Baratov's forces captured Kermanshah. On March 12, Baratov's forces captured Kharind. Baratov reached the Ottoman frontier, 150 miles from Baghdad in the Mesopotamia campaign, by the middle of May. It was expected that this unit would eventually effect a juncture with the British army in Mesopotamia. In fact, a Cossack company of five officers and 110 men left the Baratov's Russian division on May 8, rode southward a distance of about 180 miles through the territory of disaffected tribesmen, crossing several mountain passes at an altitude of 8,000 feet, and reached the British front on the Tigris on May 18.
On February 26, 1916, the Russians advanced and defeated the gendarmes who then retreated to Qasr-i-Shirin and managed to hold the region until May 1916, when Qasr-i-Shirin was captured by the Russians. This time, many gendarmes went to live in exile in Istanbul, Mosul and Baghdad. In the spring of 1916, Ibrahim Khan Qavam-ul-Mulk and his Khamseh tribesmen defeated the gendarmes under Ali Quli Khan Pesyan and Ghulam Riza Khan Pesyan who shot and killed each other. Other gendarmes, the German Consul Roever and the Swedish Captain Angman were arrested and tortured.
In early May 1916, due to Enver Pasha's insistence, the Ottomans launched a second invasion of Persia. This was undertaken by the XIII Corps commanding roughly 25,000 troops; the Germans promised to contribute some artillery batteries, but this aid never came. On June 3, the Russians attacked the 6th Infantry Division in an attempt to encircle them at the town of Hankin. However, they were too thinly spread, and their infantry were held in check while their encircling cavalry were crushed. Ottoman casualties were light compared to the Russians: 85 killed, 276 wounded, and 68 missing. This gave the Turks valuable time to strengthen their defenses. On June 8, they crossed the border back into Persia.[16]
In late May, facing Baratov was assigned to the XIII Corps commanded by colonel Ali İhsan Bey, who began his advance. Meanwhile, on the Russian side, Baratov was hoping to capture Khanaqin and move down to Baghdad, which could have been taken by the Russians as the Turks and the British were busy with fighting each other. On June 3, he forced Khanaqin once again, but this time the balance had changed. The Ottoman XIII Corps successful repulsed Baratov's forces, and did not leave it there; soon the counter-offensive that was planned launched. Ali İhsan Bey captured Kermanshah on 2 July and took Hamadan on 10 August. Having lost half of his men, Baratov was forced to retreat north. Baratov stopped at the Sultan Bulak range. In August 1916, the gendarmes return to Kermanshah.
German Imperial Treasury notes
(5 and 10 Mark, 1904/06) with
red Persian denomination overstamp
for 12 qiran 10 shahi and
25 qiran respectively (1916–17).
Part of the toman issue by
World War I German forces in Iran.
On June 12, 1916, the British advance in southern Persia which was undertaken by Percy Sykes column under reached the Kerman. From this point, he supported the Russians operations against the Ottoman Empire until June 1917, when he was withdrawn with the new Persian government.
In 1916, General Chernozubov sent a Russo-Assyrian military exhibition into Hakkari. The squads within the expedition were led by the Assyrian Patriarch's brother David; Ismail, Malka of the Upper Tyari; and Andreus, the Jilu Malik.
In December 1916, Baratov began to move on Qoms and Hamadan for clearing Persian forces and Ottoman troops. Both cities fell in the same month.[13]
Count Kaunitz disappeared without a trace, either killing himself or being a victim of assassination by disenchanted coup members. The premature coup was crushed in Tehran as Ahmad Shah Qajar took refuge in the Russian legation, and a sizable Russian force arrived to Tehran under Baratov after they landed in Bandar-e Pahlavi in November of that year.[13] The pro-German coup members of the Majles fled to Kirmanshah and Qom without fighting.
1917 [ edit ]
In 1917, Mar Binyamin was invited to the Russian embassy by Basil Nikitin in Urmia for negotiations. Nikitin assured the Assyrians that after the War they will have a national community land in Russia. At the meeting, the Patriarch was accompanied by Agha Petros. The presence of the armed squads of Assyrians in Urmiya irritated Persians. Persians were afraid that Russians might come back and, united with the Assyrians, proclaim their power in the city.
The chaos caused by the Russian Revolution put a stop to all Russian military operations. In January 1917, the Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich Romanov was sent to join Baratov. Baratov established a Cavalry Corps headquarters at Qazvin in northern Persia. Following months Baratov's forces began to suffer desertions. Baratov had barely an effective regiment in his hand at November 1917 as many of his cossacks returned to their Stanisa villages.
In April 1917, Baratov met with a Colonel Rowlandson, who was the liaison to link Caucasian Cavalry Corps with the British Dunsterforce. The new government removed the Grand Duke from his command and reassigned General Yudenich to a meaningless position in Central Asia. He then retired from the army. The Russian army slowly disintegrated until there was no effective military force during the rest of 1917.
On December 16, The Armistice of Erzincan (Erzincan Cease-fire Agreement) was signed officially brought an end to the hostilities between Ottoman Empire and Russians Special Transcaucasian Committee. Ottomans and Germans began to dispute possession of the provinces along the border between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Enver Pasha believed that Germany had disregarded Turkish interests when the terms of the armistice were negotiated with Russia and moved on to disregard German interests, sending armed forces to the region. A newly established Ninth Army, consisting of the I Caucasian Corps and IV Corps was sent to Persia, under the command of Yakub Shevki Pasha. The task of this army was to "Stop the British advance in Persia, to prevent them from helping the Bolsheviks, to cover the area between the Lake of Urmia and the Caspian Sea, and, if necessary, to join the Sixth Army for the operation to capture Baghdad."
With the Russian armies began to disintegrate.[17] Van, which was located at the Caucasus Campaign war zone, was completely cut off from the Allies. At this time, the British Army did not move very far beyond Baghdad in the Mesopotamian campaign.[17] Armenians of the Van attempted to hold their own.[17]
1918 [ edit ]
During 1918, British invited Armenians to hold out and picked officers and non-commissioned officers organized them under the command of Lionel Dunsterville at Baghdad.[17] It was named the Dunsterforce.[17] The military goal of Dunsterforce was to reach the Caucasus via Persia.[17] It was planned to organize an army to be recruited from the Armenians and other pro-Ally elements that still existed in the Caucuses.[17]
In February 1918, the Caucasian Cavalry Corps only consisted of Baratov, General Lastochkin, Colonel Bicherakov, Colonel Baron Meden and about 1000 loyal Kuban and Terek Cossacks. Baratov and his men assisted, even though the new Russian government had signed a peace agreement, while the British remained in Persia until after the end of World War I.
On 3 March 1918, The Grand Vizier Talat Pasha signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Russian SFSR. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk stipulated that the frontiers between Russia and the Ottoman Empire was to be pulled back to prewar borders and the cities Batum, Kars, and Ardahan were to be transferred to the Ottoman Empire.
In April 1918, the Armenians in the Van province were eventually evacuated and withdrawn from the region and retreated eastward toward Persian Azerbaijan.[18] Early in 1918, the Ottoman Third Army moved to the offense. Retreating Armenians from Van, joined by the Assyrians in defense, made a stand near Dilman but continued to retreat southward in the vicinity of Lake Urmiah.[18] Third Army did not follow the retreating force.
On 8 June 1918, the IV Corps entered Tabriz. Yakub Shevki faced an Armenian volunteer force of 4,000 men coming from Van. They aimed to break through the Şahtahtı-Tabriz line and join with Ozanian's forces. On 15 June, the 12th Division of the IV Corps defeated this Armenian unit at a battle to the north of Dilman. The city of Dilman was captured on 18 June. On 24 June, Ozanian's forces managed to defeat opposing units and to lay siege on the city of Khoy. The 12th Division came to the rescue and repulsed Ozanian's forces. At the same time, the 5th Division of the IV Corps had to retreat in the face of a 1,500-strong Armenian force. In the south, Urmia fall to the IV Corps on 31 July. By the end of July, there was an increasing British presence in Persia and the Ninth Army's advance came to a halt.
During July 1918, the British Army captured the greater portion of Mesopotamia during the Mesopotamian Campaign, as well as a large parts of Persian Azerbaijan. Preparations were made for the establishment of a large camp for Assyrian and Armenian refugees near Bakubah, Iraq.[19] Towards the end of September it was decided to raise four battalions from the Assyrians and Armenians refugees at Bakubah along the lines of an Indian Infantry battalion.[20] 2nd Battalion was established by Van Armenians. The 3rd Battalion was established by Armenians from other regions. The G.O.C. North Persian Force decided to locate his 2nd Battalion to Senna. The 3rd Battalion moved to Bijar.[20]
By September 1918, the Ottomans consolidated their control over northern Persia, between Tabriz and the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. But they lost the rest of the region to the British. They would hold this territory until the Armistice on 30 October 1918 when the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros and the military operations ended.
In 1918, about half of the Assyrians of Persia died of Turkish and Kurdish massacres and related outbreaks of starvation and disease. About 80 percent of Assyrian clergy and spiritual leaders had perished, threatening the nation's ability to survive as a unit.[21]
Aftermath [ edit ]
After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire soon followed. Enver Pasha's political vision ("If Russians are beaten in the key cities of Persia, they could be forced to out from the region") failed as Russian and Bakhtiari troops landed in 1920 and forced the pro-Turkish Majlis to disband. The immediate outcome of the Campaign was the Anglo-Persian Agreement, which gave drilling rights to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The "agreement" was issued by British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon to the Persian government in August 1919. It guaranteed British access to Iranian oil fields. In 1919, northern Persia was occupied by the British General William Edmund Ironside to enforce the terms of the Armistice of Mudros. Britain attempted to establish a protectorate in Iran. Britain also tightened military control over the increasingly lucrative oil fields.
In late 1920, the Soviet Socialist Republic in Rasht was preparing to march on Tehran with "a guerrilla force of 1,500 Jangalis, Armenians, and this time Kurds, and Azerbaijanis were on their side", reinforced by the Soviet Red Army. But Soviet forces withdrew in 1921, which helped Britain in its goal of establishing a protectorate. In that year, a military coup established Reza Khan, a Persian officer of the Persian Cossack Brigade, as dictator and then hereditary Shah of the new Pahlavi dynasty (1925). Reza Shah curtailed the power of the Majlis, effectively turning it into a rubber stamp. While Reza Khan and his Cossack brigade secured Tehran, a Persian envoy in Moscow negotiated a treaty with the Bolsheviks for the removal of Soviet troops from Persia. The coup d'état of 1921 and the emergence of Reza Khan were assisted by the British government that wished to halt Bolshevik penetration of Iran, particularly because of the threat it posed to the British colonial possession of India. It was later claimed by the British government that Britain provided "ammunition, supplies, and pay" for Reza's troops.[22][23][24] However, Reza Shah's later strong anti-British actions, including fighting and deposing the puppets of the British government in Iran, such as Sheikh Khazal, strongly contradicts these claims.[25]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]Uber vs Careem vs Dubai Taxi – which one is cheapest? By Mike Priest
Suffering from cab confusion? Here’s a breakdown of each service’s rates…
Cab-culture is something that is synonymous with Dubai. Whether you don’t have your own car to get to and from work, or are simply looking for a safe and convenient ride to brunch, for a certain segment of the city’s population, cabs are an every day part of life.
For a time, the only option available to residents was hailing an RTA taxi – by no means a bad thing – but in recent years a new crop of tech-focused car-hailing companies have appeared, injecting a healthy amount of competition into the market.
The two major app-powered players, local-heroes Careem and Silicon Valley bigwigs Uber, have recently launched their own low-cost options designed to fall in line with the pricing structure of the RTA’s cabs.
UberX and Careem Go are currently undergoing three-month trials, both publicly and privately, to see if the services are ultimately a benefit to consumers and, we imagine, don’t interfere with the RTA’s services too much.
One thing we have always struggled with, however, is getting to grips with just how much the various services cost compared to one another. To that end we’ve put together a couple of handy infographics to help clarify just which of the three will get you to your destination for the cheapest possible fare. Aren’t we nice?
First things first, some housekeeping…
While we have endeavoured to provide as accurate prices as possible, it should be noted that they are only estimates and can vary subject to time, distance, traffic, timing and availability of cars.
Careem Go is currently undergoing a private 3-month beta, which we are not privy to and therefore unable to corroborate the fares provided to us by the company. For UberX we compared the fares in-app with those sent to us by the company. We used the RTA taxi fare calculator to work out the Dubai Taxi fare.
Now that we have all the disclaimers out of the way, let’s get on to the good stuff…
Uber vs Careem vs Dubai Taxi: A Breakdown
The first infographic is a breakdown of fares across the three services, illustrated by the base fare (what the meter starts on the moment you step into a car), cost per km and the minimum fare you will be charged regardless of the distance travelled.
We chose to compare the most commonly used cars across each service, including the low-cost, business and large options. For a full list of available cars and rates we recommend visiting each service’s respective website.
As you can clearly see above, Uber and Careem blow Dubai |
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5-8. WarknightSoulOne of the most ridiculous claims recently related to Menne et al 2010 and my surfacestations project was a claim made by DeSmogBlog (and Huffington Post who carried the story also) is that the “Urban Heat Island Myth is Dead“.
To clarify for these folks: Elvis is dead, UHI is not.
For disbelievers, let’s look at a few cases showing UHI to be alive and well.
I’ve measured it myself, in the city of Reno for example:
The UHI signature of Reno, NV – Click for larger image
Read the story of how I created this graph here The procedure and raw data is there if you want to check my work.
I chose Reno for two reasons. It was close to me, and it is the centerpiece of a NOAA training manual on how to site weather stations to avoid UHI effects.
NOAA shows their own measurements that mesh well with mine:
To back that up, the NOAA National Weather Service includes the UHI factor in one of it’s training course ( NOAA Professional Competency Unit 6 ) using Reno, NV.
In the PCU6 they were also kind enough to provide a photo essay of their own as well as a graph. You can click the aerial photo to get a Google Earth interactive view of the area. The ASOS USHCN station is right between the runways.
This is NOAA’s graph showing the changes to the official climate record when they made station moves:
Source for 24a and 24b: NOAA Internal Training manual, 2004-2007
Oops, moving the station south caused a cooling. Fixed now, all better.
What is striking about this is that here we have NOAA documenting the effects of an “urban heat bubble” something that DeSmog Blog says ” is dead”, plus we have NOAA documenting a USHCN site with known issues, held up as a bad example for training the operational folks, being used in a case study for the new USHCN2 system.
So if NOAA trains for UHI placement, I’m comfortable in saying that DesmogBlog claims of UHI being “dead” are pure rubbish. But let’s not stop there.
From an embattled scientist.
A paper in JGR that slipped in 2007 without much notice (but known now thanks to Warwick Hughes) is one from Phil Jones, the “former” director of the Hadley Climate Center in the UK. The paper is titled: Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China
In it, Jones identifies an urban warming signal in China of 0.1 degrees C per decade. Or, if you prefer, 1 degree C per century. Not negligible by any means. Here is the abstract:
Global surface temperature trends, based on land and marine data, show warming of about 0.8°C over the last 100 years. This rate of warming is sometimes questioned because of the existence of well-known Urban Heat Islands (UHIs). We show examples of the UHIs at London and Vienna, where city center sites are warmer than surrounding rural locations. Both of these UHIs however do not contribute to warming trends over the 20th century because the influences of the cities on surface temperatures have not changed over this time. In the main part of the paper, for China, we compare a new homogenized station data set with gridded temperature products and attempt to assess possible urban influences using sea surface temperature (SST) data sets for the area east of the Chinese mainland. We show that all the land-based data sets for China agree exceptionally well and that their residual warming compared to the SST series since 1951 is relatively small compared to the large-scale warming. Urban-related warming over China is shown to be about 0.1°C decade−1 over the period 1951–2004, with true climatic warming accounting for 0.81°C over this period.
Even though Jones tries to minimize the UHI effect elsewhere, saying the UHI trends don’t contribute to warming in London and Vienna, what is notable about the paper is that Jones has been minimizing the UHI issues for years and now does an about face on China.
Jones may have tried to hide CRU data, but he’s right about China.
Fromwho writes:
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) blames Melbourne’s equal warmest overnight temperature of 30.6 degrees, on January 12 on the heat island effect. The previous time the city was that hot overnight was February 1, 1902.
The Age newspaper cites a meteorologist at the bureau, Harvey Stern,
Melbourne recorded its equal warmest overnight temperature, 30.6 degrees, on January 12. The previous time the city was that hot overnight was February 1, 1902. A meteorologist at the bureau, Harvey Stern, said that Melbourne suffered from a heat island effect, in which a city is warmer than the surrounding countryside. This was the case especially at night, because of heat stored in bricks and concrete and trapped between close-packed buildings.
I am stunned if that is correct firstly because BOM isn’t blaming Global Warming and secondly that the urban heat island effect directly receives the blame. With faults in the 2007 IPCC’s AR4 now pouring out I guess it is not suprising that attributions of weather events are now, shall we say, possibly becoming more circumspect.
Heatzilla stomps Tokyo
From the website “science of doom” who writes:
New Research from Japan
Detection of urban warming in recent temperature trends in Japan by Fumiaki Fujibe was published in the International Journal of Climatology (2009). It is a very interesting paper which I’ll comment on in this post.
The abstract reads:
The contribution of urban effects on recent temperature trends in Japan was analysed using data at 561 stations for 27 years (March 1979–February 2006). Stations were categorized according to the population density of surrounding few kilometres. There is a warming trend of 0.3–0.4 °C/decade even for stations with low population density (<100 people per square kilometre), indicating that the recent temperature increase is largely contributed by background climatic change. On the other hand, anomalous warming trend is detected for stations with larger population density. Even for only weakly populated sites with population density of 100–300/km2, there is an anomalous trend of 0.03–0.05 °C/decade. This fact suggests that urban warming is detectable not only at large cities but also at slightly urbanized sites in Japan. Copyright, 2008 Royal Meteorological Society.
Why the last 27 years?
The author first compares the temperature over 100 years as measured in Tokyo in the central business district with that in Hachijo Island, 300km south.
Tokyo – 3.1°C rise over 100 years (1906-2006)
Hachijo Island – 0.6°C over the same period
This certainly indicates a problem, but to do a thorough study over the last 100 years is impossible because most temperature stations with a long history are in urban areas.
However, at the end of the 1970’s, the Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System (AMeDAS) was deployed around Japan providing hourly temperature data at 800 stations. The temperature data from these are the basis for the paper. The 27 years coincides with the large temperature rise (see above) of around 0.3-0.4°C globally.
And the IPCC (2007) summarized the northern hemisphere land-based temperature measurements from 1979- 2005 as 0.3°C per decade.
How was Urbanization measured?
The degree of urbanization around each site was calculated from grid data of population and land use, because city populations often used as an index of urban size (Oke, 1973; Karl et al., 1988; Fujibe, 1995) might not be representative of the thermal environment of a site located outside the central area of a city.
What were the Results?
Mean temperature anomaly vs population density, Japan
The x-axis, D3, is a measure of population density. T’mean is the change in the mean temperature per decade.
Tmean is the average of all of the hourly temperature measurements, it is not the average of Tmax and Tmin.
Notice the large scatter – this shows why having a large sample is necessary. However, in spite of that, there is a clear trend which demonstrates the UHI effect.
There is large scatter among stations, indicating the dominance of local factors’ characteristic to each station. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation of 0.455 (Tmean = 0.071 logD3 + 0.262 °C), which is significant at the 1% level, between logD3 and Tmean.
Here’s the data summarized with T’mean as well as the T’max and T’min values. Note that D3 is population per km2 around the point of temperature measurement, and remember that the temperature values are changes per decade:
The effect of UHI demonstrated in various population densities
Note that, as observed by many researchers in other regions, especially Roger Pielke Sr, the Tmin values are the most problematic – demonstrating the largest UHI effect. Average temperatures for land-based stations globally are currently calculated from the average of Tmax and Tmin, and in many areas globally it is the Tmin which has shown the largest anomalies. But back to our topic under discussion..
And for those confused about how the Tmean can be lower than the Tmin value in each population category, it is because we are measuring anomalies from decade to decade.
And the graphs showing the temperature anomalies by category (population density):
Dependence of Tmean, Tmax and Tmin on population density for different regions in Japan
Quantifying the UHI value
Now the author carries out an interesting step:
As an index of net urban trend, the departure of T from its average for surrounding non-urban stations was used on the assumption that regional warming was locally uniform.
That is, he calculates the temperature deviation in each station in category 3-6 with the locally relevant category 1 and 2 (rural) stations. (There were not enough category 1 stations to do it with just category 1). The calculation takes into account how far away the “rural” stations are, so that more weight is given to closer stations.
Estimate of actual UHI by referencing the closest rural stations – again categorized by population density
And the relevant table:
Temperature delta from nearby rural areas vs population density
Conclusion
Here’s what the author has to say:
On the one hand, it indicates the presence of warming trend over 0.3 °C/decade in Japan, even at non-urban stations. This fact confirms that recent rapid warming at Japanese cities is largely attributable to background temperature rise on the large scale, rather than the development of urban heat islands.
..However, the analysis has also revealed the presence of significant urban anomaly. The anomalous trend for the category 6, with population density over 3000 km−2 or urban surface coverage over 50%, is about 0.1 °C/decade....This value may be small in comparison to the background warming trend in the last few decades, but they can have substantial magnitude when compared with the centennial global trend, which is estimated to be 0.74°C/century for 1906–2005 (IPCC, 2007). It therefore requires careful analysis to avoid urban influences in evaluating long-term temperature changes.
So, in this very thorough study, in Japan at least, the temperature rise that has been measured over the last few decades is a solid result. The temperature increase from 1979 – 2006 has been around 0.3°C/decade
However, in the larger cities the actual measurement will be overstated by 25%.
And in a time of lower temperature rise, the UHI may be swamping the real signal.
The degree of urbanization around each site was calculated from grid data of population and land use, because city populations often used as an index of urban size (Oke, 1973; Karl et al., 1988; Fujibe, 1995) might not be representative of the thermal environment of a site located outside the central area of a city.
California Counties by population show a distinct UHI signature.
My friend Jim Goodridge, former California State Climatologist identified the statewide UHI signature issues way back in 1996. This graph had a profound effect on me, becuase it was the one that really made an impact on me, switching my views to being skeptical. Yes, I used to be a warmer, but that’s another story.
Goodridge, J.D. (1996) Comments on “Regional Simulations of Greenhouse Warming including Natural Variability”. Bull, Amer. Meteorological Society 77:1588-1599.
Goodrich (1996) showed the importance of urbanization to temperatures in his study of California counties in 1996. He found for counties with a million or more population the warming from 1910 to 1995 was 4F, for counties with 100,000 to 1 million it was 1F and for counties with less than 100,000 there was no change (0.1F).
He’s been quietly toiling away in his retirement on his computer for the last 15 years or so making all sort of data comparisons. One plot which he shared with me in 2003 is a 104 year plot map of California showing station trends after painstakingly hand entering data into an Excel spreadsheet and plotting slopes of the data to produce trend dots.
He used every good continuous piece of data he could get his hands on, no adjusted data like the climate modelers use, only raw from Cooperative Observing Stations, CDF stations, Weather Service Office’s and Municipal stations.
The results are quite interesting. Here it is:
I’ll have more interesting revelations from Jim Goodridge soon.
NASA JPL’s climatologist says UHI is an issue
This press release from NASA Jet Propulsion Lab says that most of the increase in temperature has to do with ubanization:
[NASA’s JPL Bill] Patzert says global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases is responsible for some of the overall heating observed in Los Angeles and the rest of California. Most of the increase in heat days and length of heat waves, however, is due to a phenomenon called the “urban heat island effect.” Heat island-induced heat waves are a growing concern for urban and suburban dwellers worldwide. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, studies around the world have shown that this effect makes urban areas from 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 6 degrees Celsius) warmer than their surrounding rural areas. Patzert says this effect is steadily warming Southern California, though more modestly than some larger urban areas around the world. “Dramatic urbanization has resulted in an extreme makeover for Southern California, with more homes, lawns, shopping centers, traffic, freeways and agriculture, all absorbing and retaining solar radiation, making our megalopolis warmer,” Patzert said.
You can see it from space. NASA (not the GISS division) measures it. Here’s a report they presented at the last AGU meeting in December 2009. Gee, that curve below looks like Reno, NV, doesn’t it?
› Larger image
NASA researchers studying urban landscapes have found that the intensity of the “heat island” created by a city depends on the ecosystem it replaced and on the regional climate. Urban areas developed in arid and semi-arid regions show far less heating compared with the surrounding countryside than cities built amid forested and temperate climates.
“The placement and structure of cities — and what was there before — really does matter,” said Marc Imhoff, biologist and remote sensing specialist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “The amount of the heat differential between the city and the surrounding environment depends on how much of the ground is covered by trees and vegetation. Understanding urban heating will be important for building new cities and retrofitting existing ones.”
Goddard researchers including Imhoff, Lahouari Bounoua, Ping Zhang, and Robert Wolfe presented their findings on Dec. 16 in San Francisco at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
› Larger image (suburban)
› Larger image (urban)
Yep, UHI is alive and well. Anybody with an automobile dashboard thermometer who drives a commute from country to city can easily measure UHI, and you don’t have to be a climate scientist to prove it to yourself.
UPDATE: For a primer on how UHI is not dealt with by NOAA and CRU, have a look at this Climate Audit post:
Realclimate and Disinformation on UHI
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RedditMADISON, Wis. - A 17-year-old faces drug charges after officers conducting drug surveillance stopped a car lurking in hotel parking lot, Madison police said.
The North District Community Policing Team was involved in a drug surveillance operation around 5 p.m. near the 4700 block of Hayes Road when they noticed a 2000 Buick LeSabre driving into a hotel parking lot, according to a release.
A variety of tips sent to the police team led them to setting up a surveillance operation in the area, police said.
The movements of the lurking car and all of the occupants did not seem to fit with normal patron activities, so officers stopped the car a short distance away, according to the release.
While interviewing everyone in the car, officers determined that drug involvement was likely the reason behind why the vehicle was in the area.
More than 100 grams of marijuana, scales and drug packaging materials were found, and 17-year-old David C. Dodge was arrested on related charges, including possession with intent to deliver THC and drug paraphernalia.Welcome
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The government's modus operandi is grounded in the new science of geo-dialectics: the dynamic relationship between the one and the many. As fellow human beings, you and I individually are the “one”; humanity is the “many”. Despite relative differences, therefore, we are intrinsically bonded. From this basic realization derives such notions such as sovereignty, human rights and social justice as well as wellbeing and peace.
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A World Citizen is a human being who lives intellectually, morally and physically in the present. A World Citizen accepts the dynamic fact that the planetary human community is interdependent and whole, that humankind is essentially one. A World Citizen is a peaceful and peacemaking individual, both in daily life and contacts with others. As a global person, a World Citizen relates directly to humankind and to all fellow humans spontaneously, generously and openly. Mutual trust is basic to his/her lifestyle. Politically, a World Citizen accepts a sanctioning institution of representative government, expressing the general and individual sovereign will in order to establish and maintain a system of just and equitable world law with appropriate legislative, judiciary and enforcement bodies. A World Citizen makes this world a better place to live in harmoniously by studying and respecting the viewpoints of fellow citizens from anywhere in the world.
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The history of the WGWC can be found in the FAQ section. Coordinators of World Commissions can be found in the Commissions section. Please contact us via the Communications section.It might be the pain medication, Andrew Taylor jokes — but the Hamilton man is convinced he met an angel.
It was last Tuesday, Dec. 20. He had gone to the barber for a shave, and then stopped at the LCBO to pick up a bottle of wine. His daughters were home for an early Christmas dinner and his wife was busy at home in the kitchen.
As he headed home on Main Street East near the traffic circle, Taylor, 52, slipped on the ice.
"Within a minute, I realized something had gone bad. I reached down and realized my foot wasn't where it was supposed to be. And then I felt another protrusion that wasn't where it was supposed to be," he recalled Wednesday.
"The next thing I heard was the whoosh of a city bus stopping."
An HSR driver, spotting Taylor sprawled on the ice, pulled his bus over and got out to help.
"He said 'Hi … I'm a bus driver from the HSR. You've had a bad fall. I have paramedic training and I've called EMS, but with your permission I'd like to splint your foot,'" Taylor says.
The driver worked to secure his injured ankle until the ambulance arrived to take him to hospital. It turned out he had fractured his ankle in three places.
Now on bed rest, Taylor knows that the man was just doing his job, but he is brought to tears as he recalls the good deed. He says the driver's efforts made a real difference in his recovery — and at the very least, minimized his trauma.
Taylor emailed the HSR with his praise for the driver. In response, they said a commendation will be passed on to his supervisor.It is essential to burn the body fat for having a healthy life. It decreases the risk of several diseases. You can follow different ways for this. The most effective way is exercise. You can do exercise at home or go outside to a gym. So know about the best exercise to burn fat and then try them.
Skating: Skating helps in burning fat. You need to do skating with proper safety. You will need elbow pads for the safety of elbow and knee,wrist guards for the safety of the wrist and helmet for keeping your head safe.
Walking: Walking every day is good for health. It burns body fat. You can walk anytime you want. You can go to your nearest place by walking. You can go to school or the office or your workplace by walking. It will save your money. It will require some time. So if you want to burn your body fat, you need to walk regularly.
Running: Running is also good for burning body fat. Most of the sportsman regularly runs for maintaining a healthy life. Running shoes are available everywhere, which will help you in maintaining the safety of your feet while running.
Jumping Rope: This is a common way of burning fat. You only need a rope. Normal rope can help in this purpose. You can have a rope with handle. The handle helps in jumping easily.
Hula Hooping: This is another exercise of burning body fat. You need the right size hoop for doing it properly. The larger hoops help in spinning it easily. You need to maintain it by moving it around the waist. Then you need to follow the process again and again.
Tennis: Though this is a well-known game, this is also a good exercise. It burns fat by regular practice. You need to play continuously for a specific time period for getting benefit. It is essential to play regularly for maintaining body fitness.
Dancing: Dancing is a good form of exercise. It moves the whole body and increase the metabolism. It may burn the fat slowly. If you choose a high rhythm, the movements will be fast. It will help in burning fat easily. You can make a list of your favorite songs. It will help you in doing your exercise regularly.
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Gym: You can also go to the gym. There are specialists who will give you instructions. They will suggest you best exercise to burn fat. There are lots of modern equipments and machines which helps in burning fat. So if you want to know about exercise which will suit you, you can go to the gym. They also give other instructions, including food habits which will be helpful for you.
These are the best exercise to burn fat. You can follow any of them. You need to do that exercise regularly. Regular exercise will burn your body fat and keep you fit and away from most of the diseases.Pictured: The high-achieving senior who shot female student, 15, and killed himself after taking Molotov cocktails and shotgun to school 'to take revenge on debate coach who demoted him'
Three students injured and the gunman found dead at Arapahoe High School in Centennial on Friday afternoon
Gunman Karl Pierson entered school and said he was targeting librarian Tracy Murphy who also worked as the speech and debate team coach
Pierson is thought to have been demoted within the ranks of the speech and debate team earlier this week and may have been suspended
He showed friends pictures of the shotgun he used for hunting
Two explosives were found at the school- one was smoking and the other was disarmed by responding officers
Pierson, a senior at the school, has been described as 'geeky' and'sweet'
Arapahoe is just miles from Columbine High School - where 13 were killed in 1999 - and the Aurora movie theater where 12 were shot dead last year
It also comes on the eve of 1-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting
The shooter: Karl Pierson, a senior at Arapahoe High School, has been named as the shooter who killed himself and injured three others
The high school senior student who walked into his Colorado high school with a shotgun and two explosives was targeting the librarian and was upset over the fact that he had been benched from the debate team earlier this week.
Karl Pierson has been identified as the shooter who went into Arapahoe High School at around 12.30pm Friday afternoon asking for the librarian by name. Reports say that he did not conceal his shotgun and word traveled to librarian Tracy Murphy- who doubled as the speech and debate team advisor- that he was the target.
Police responded to the scene and found Pierson, 18, had injured three other students and shot at the librarian but missed, before killing himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
A fellow student told local news station KDVR that he was coming back to school after running an errand during his lunch break and was in the parking lot when he saw the librarian running out of the building.
‘He seemed incredibly shocked, he was in awe,’ student Frank Warnoff said of Mr Murphy.
Warnoff said that Murphy kept telling him what happened inside, naming Pierson and saying what appears to be the motive for the shooting.
‘I docked him from the speech and debate team and that just shocked him,’ Warnoff recalled Murphy telling him.
‘(Mr Murphy) just kept repeating (the shooter’s) name and what happened and where (the shooter) was.
Debate team: Karl Pierson (left) was a member of the debate team and previously competed at nationals for the school, but his coach, librarian Tracy Murphy (right) allegedly demoted him earlier this week causing him to snap
Sheriff Grayson Robinson said at an afternoon press conference that the shooter was a current student at the school but other reports suggested that he may have recently been suspended.
The police have not publicly released Pierson's name, but public records and local news reports, as well as debate team and cross country team listings all point to Pierson as the shooter.
‘I could see a bit nerdy and geeky but in a sort of charming way,’ Warnoff said.
‘I could see that he was bullied but he was always very humble and down to earth, always in a good mood and energetic. I just never saw him as this kind of person.’
Aside from the self-inflicted gunshot wound, the other injuries were sustained by three students, two of whom were injured by the shotgun and the third who sustained some other kind of unspecified injury.
Hands up: Police search students as they are led out of the school with their hands in the air on Friday afternoon. Two students were injured after a gunman opened fire before he shot himself
Fears: Students comfort each other at Arapahoe High School following the shooting Under investigation: A full team of police are swarming this house in Highlands Ranch (pictured before the investigation) as it is thought to be where the shooter lived Warranted: Police prepare to search the Pierson home for explosives after finding two at the high school One of the injured students has been released from the hospital, another remains in the hospital but is in good condition and the third is still in serious condition at Littleton Hospital.
The student in serious condition is believed to be a female student. Some reports say that she happened to be in the same area as the shooter when he shot at her but others say she tried to intervene and stop him.
Mr Murphy told Warnoff that ‘he was shot at but he missed he was able to dodge the blast of the shotgun’. RELATED ARTICLES Previous
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Next Hollywood publicist was shot in the heart in fatal attack as... Share this article Share Local station KDVR reports that Pierson was suspended earlier this week after shouting at a teacher. Others in the school were apparently aware that the student was having a difficult week because the otherwise calm and happy student seemed to snap.
‘I wasn’t there but I heard in one of his classes on Wednesday he went out to get something from his locker I believe, came back and started pounding on the door because it was locked. They just couldn't figure out how he was so upset,’ Warnoff said. Heartbreaking: Student Dominika Kostecka, 17, is emotional as she gets picked up by her mother after the school was evacuated following the shooting Comforting: Allie Zadrow (right) hugs her friend Liz Reinhardt (left) after being evacuated from the building All too familiar: Parents Cathy Thorson (left) and Heather Moran (right) hug each other after arriving on the campus to pick up their kids. Residents are all too aware that the Columbine High School massacre took place just eight miles away in 1999
Neighbors said that the high school senior ‘seemed normal’ and was described as being ‘sweet’ and ‘quiet’.
One neighbor told MailOnline that the boy was a member of the cross country team and they waved from across the street whenever they saw each other but were not particularly close.
To those who knew the boy, the fact that he had access to a gun does not come as a surprise as he reportedly showed his friends a picture of a shotgun that he used for hunting.
The timing and location of the shooting puts itself on a growing list of school shootings.
Sheriff Robinson said that while the investigation is still on-going, there is ‘absolutely no indication at all that this would be tied to Sandy Hook’ even though the shooting took place the day before the one year anniversary of the Connecticut shooting that left 20 children and six educators dead. Arapahoe High School is 16 miles away from the Aurora movie theater where a shooting occurred in June 2012 and only eight miles from Columbine High School, which was the scene of the first mass school shootings in the United States when it occurred in April 1999.
‘We are really, really, really surprised that this happened,’ senior Eric Waugh told CNN.
‘We had talked about it and we had lock down drills at times but we never thought that it would happen at our school.’ Escape: Law enforcement officers escort students, with their hands raised, out of Arapahoe High School Reunited: Students meet with their relieved parents at a fast food joint across from the high school Authorities swarmed the scene about 20 minutes after the initial call and t he sheriff commended the librarian for his quick thinking by leaving the school, saying that the man's intention was to get the gunman away from the school. 'In my opinion, this was the most important tactical decision that was made,' Sheriff Grayson Robinson said at an afternoon press conference. 'He took himself away from the school in an effort to get the shooter to go with him.'
Only one weapon, which was used in the shooting, has been found at the school.
Two other explosives- one of which was initially reported to be a Molotov cocktail- were found at the school. Sheriff Robinson said that one was smoking when police found it but it did not go off. The second explosive was disarmed before it went off.
He also specified that there are three scenes that are being searched in addition to the school: the shooter's car which was parked in the school lot, the shooter's home, and a secondary home that the shooter is believed to have had recent access to.
Lockdown: SWAT team members lead students away from Arapahoe High School near Littleton, Colorado Terror: The students kept their hands in the air where the gunman opened fire on Friday afternoon Staying together: Students from Arapahoe High School evacuate their building in Centennial My heart hurts so much right now for my alma mater #ArapahoeHighSchool "#Warriors always take care of each other." — AnnaSophia Robb (@robbannasophia) December 13, 2013 Authorities added that they believe the gunman acted alone but that this remains under investigation. They are searching Pierson's locker and visiting his home.
After news of |
read Adam Smith, but in his own way also failed to embrace Smith’s teachings. While T.J. rightly opposed Hamilton’s single federally privileged nationwide bank of issue, he favored zero nationwide banks of issue, not many. He was even suspicious of state-government-chartered banks of issue.
The Rise of "Free Banking"
Smith’s work on banking did, however, come to inspire defenders of “free banking” around the world in the debates that surrounded the creation of national central banks in the 19th and 20th centuries. (A classic account of these debates is Vera Smith’s The Rationale of Central Banking, published 1936. It is available at the Liberty Fund’s website.) In Britain, there was what I call a “Free Banking School” in the 1825–50 period who argued for removing rather than enhancing the Bank of England’s monopoly privileges. Smith’s followers in the FBS strengthened his arguments for free trade in banking and for viewing bank-issued money as self-regulating. On the continent, J.B. Say and others recommended free banking over central banking.
Here in the United States classical liberals like William Leggett and Richard Hildreth in the 1830s argued for free entry into banking and note-issue rather than the restrictive chartering system in place. In Latin American countries, periods of liberal constitutions during the 19th century often brought free banking reforms, enacted as an integral part of liberal economic policy. (By the way, a new volume on Chile’s favorable experience with free banking will soon be published by scholars at the Universidad de Desarollo.) All these advocates saw that free banking is the policy ideal that results from applying the norms of classical liberalism to money and banking.
Changing Views in the 19th Century
Other leading classical liberals of the 19th century, I regret to note, failed to consistently apply their principles to money. David Ricardo favored nationalization of coinage and banknote issue, and the forced substitution of redeemable paper notes for coins in all but the largest payments. Richard Cobden, the heroic leader of the movement against the Corn Law tariffs, supported the nationalization of banknotes.
Whereas Smith and Hume largely shied away from analyzing whether the sovereign’s policy was unjust or sinful, and asked mainly whether it was prudent, two of their followers were quite passionate: Thomas Paine in the 1780s and William Cobbett in the 1810s.
Paine took up the theme of bane of irredeemable government-issued paper against the blessing of gold and gold-redeemable banknotes. The occasion was a threat, soon after the Revolutionary War ended, that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would issue its own irredeemable paper notes. Like Adam Smith, Paine recognized the benefits of redeemable commercial banknotes. But he warned:
But when an assembly undertake to issue paper as money, the whole system of safety and certainty is overturned, and property set afloat. Paper notes given and taken between individuals as a promise of payment is one thing, but paper issued by an assembly as money is another thing. It is like putting an apparition in the place of a man; it vanishes with looking at it, and nothing remains but the air.
Like Oresme and Mariana before him, Paine denounced the injustice of legal tenders laws that compel creditors to accept payment in legally overvalued money worth a fraction in the market of the money repayment actually contracted for. He declared:
As to the assumed authority of any assembly in making paper money, or paper of any kind, a legal tender, or in other language, a compulsive payment, it is a most presumptuous attempt at arbitrary power. There can be no such power in a republican government: the people have no freedom, and property no security where this practice can be acted. … If anything had or could have a value equal to gold and silver, it would require no tender law; and if it had not that value it ought not to have such a law; and, therefore, all tender laws are tyrannical and unjust and calculated to support fraud and oppression.
I have been fortunate in my career to have a second mentor besides Leonard, namely Walter Grinder, who worked with Leonard for many years at the Institute for Humane Studies. When I told Walter a few weeks ago what the theme of this talk would be, he urged me to include the English writer William Cobbett among the liberal heroes on the money question. Cobbett’s most famous work on money was Paper against Gold, first published in 1810 during a period in which the Bank of England had stopped redeeming its notes in gold or silver. (Liberty Fund now carries Paper against Gold (1815 edition) in its Online Library of Liberty.)
Like Paine, Cobbett was passionate about the injustice of what he called “that dreadful curse, a paper-money not convertible into gold and silver.” He roundly condemned the hypocrisy of Parliamentary defenders of the Bank’s continued breach of contract:
You tell us that the public like Bank notes as well as guineas [gold coins]. But, with these assertions upon your lips, you pass a law to protect the Bank against the demands of that public; you pass a law to compel that public to receive paper at the Bank, instead of that gold, which you say they like no better than that paper.
One of the best pieces of advice that Walter Grinder gave me came 40 years ago, when I had to write a paper for a college course in U.S. intellectual history, he recommended that I look into the writings of William Leggett, the most free-market thinker of the Jacksonian Era. It was in Leggett’s work that I first saw a reference to the experience of free banking in Scotland, which became the subject of my dissertation and first book. I’m still milking the topic. So I’d say Walter’s tip paid off handsomely. (I also edited a collection of Leggett’s writings for Liberty Fund, also now online.)
Leggett, a journalist in New York City in the 1830s, was a key intellectual mover behind the so-called “Free Banking” laws adopted in various states. So-called, because they did not institute anything close to laissez-faire in banking, although they did open up and regularize the process of obtaining incorporation for banks. For Leggett, the injustice of restricting entry into banknote issuing followed from the principle that any individual “has a natural right to give his promise to pay a certain sum on a piece of paper, and, subscribing it with his name, to pass it for what those with whom he deals may be willing to receive it.”
“we have our doubts... whether it would not be better to leave coinage as well as banking, entirely to the laws of trade.”
Leggett’s ideal was the complete separation of government from involvement with banking. He opposed both government sponsorship of banks and, unlike some hard-money Jacksonians, equally opposed any legislative ban on privately issued banknotes, writing that: “an exclusive metallick currency could only be instituted and maintained by the force of arbitrary government edicts, totally contrary to the first principles of natural justice.”
Competition among banks will ensure that the public receives whatever security against fraud it demands: “Let existing banks be subject to unrestricted competition, and then the banking associations, whether corporate or voluntary, that give the public the largest securities, and conduct their affairs with the wisest economy, will meet with the greatest success.” All that governments need to do is to “repeal those enactments which forbid the free use of capital and credit.” In his endorsement of full laissez-faire in the provision of bank money, Leggett went beyond Adam Smith, who had endorsed a ban on small notes and a ban on contractual clauses that gave banks the option to delay redemption on banknotes (for a penalty).
When restriction of the right of note issue was defended by analogy to the federal government’s constitutional power of coinage, Leggett was led by the logic of free trade to stand the argument on its head: “we have our doubts... whether it would not be better to leave coinage as well as banking, entirely to the laws of trade.”
Austrians and Chicagoans
Let’s skip ahead one more time. In the 20th century, the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises reformulated the case for free banking with new analytical rigor in his great work The Theory of Money and Credit (1912). Friedrich Hayek made somewhat ambivalent cases for gold and free banking earlier in his career (in his 1937 book Monetary Nationalism and International Stability), but in the 1970s called forcefully for Choice in Currency and then The Denationalisation of Money.
Mises and Hayek were of course founding members of the MPS. Many other members, led by Milton Friedman, had made peace with central banking and fiat money during the 1940s through the 1970s. I’m told that debates over the gold standard versus rule-bound fiat money raged for so many years within the society, without resolution, that the topic has been deliberately omitted from the program since the 1980s.
Friedman's own frustration in getting the Fed to adopt a rule had convinced him that a central bank would wriggle around any rule imposed on it.
Leonard Liggio described Milton Friedman’s early position in this way when he wrote a piece summarizing the monetary debate at the 1978 MPS meetings:
Friedman said … that he believed government intervention in money was inevitable, and that therefore, the proper role of an economist was to advocate sensible interventions. He … advocated a constitutional amendment which would establish the rules that the monetary authority should follow. Friedman insisted that "We are doomed" if we believe that de-statizing money is the only answer.
Leonard’s narrative continues:
F.A. Hayek then rose from the audience … He noted that the gold standard historically was the only discipline on governments. He reaffirmed his own opposition to all monopoly on money and to all government control of money. He presented what he calls his revolutionary program — monetary competition in each country after denationalization or destatization of money. The private issue of money, he argued, is the only answer.
It should be noted that Friedman moved toward Hayek’s denationalization direction in the 1980s. I personally became aware of this change of outlook in 1983. In that year I published a piece in the Cato Journal which, in one passage, criticized Friedman’s 1960 book A Program for Monetary Stability, and his 1962 Capitalism and Freedom, where he endorsed government monopoly of currency (on the grounds that private currency is inherently fraud-prone) and called for certain bank regulations to make control of the monetary aggregates easier for the Fed. Professor Friedman kindly sent me a note about that passage, telling me that our views were not as different as I thought. In a 1984 piece, he called for freezing the monetary liabilities of the central bank, shutting down the central bank’s monetary policy committee, and allowing private competition in currency issue to satisfy any growth in the public’s demand for currency.
What had changed Friedman’s mind? Evidence. The post-1962 research on free banking by Hugh Rockoff and others had persuaded him that inherent fraud was not a problem with private note-issue, while his own frustration in getting the Fed to adopt a rule (interpreted in the light of public choice arguments) had convinced him that a central bank would wriggle around any rule imposed on it so long as it continued to exist. In a 1986 piece co-authored with Anna Schwartz, he was ready to give a more classical liberal answer to the question posed in the piece’s title: “Has Government Any Role in Money?”
This is the question I want to leave you with: If we want to enlarge monetary freedom, and limit the government’s role in the monetary system in the interest of sounder money, what’s the best way for us to do that?
______________
[1] Technical aside: there are three ways to debase: (1) remint coins with a lower percentage silver content, using the same coin dies and giving them the same face value; (2)reduce the coins’ weight without reducing their face value, and (3) “cry up” the currency, i.e. raise the face value of existing coins with no change in content.
[2] On the Spanish scholastics more generally, see Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, Early Economic Thought in Spain, 1177–1740 (1978), and, of course Alejandro Chafuen, Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics (2003).
Republished from Alt-M.Leaders of some of the biggest Silicon Valley companies descended on Trump Tower on Wednesday afternoon, as the tech industry and President-elect Donald Trump tried to reboot their relationship following a contentious election that often saw tech execs standing in opposition to the Republican's campaign.
Trump told the gathered executives that he was "here to help you folks do well" and specifically promised "to make it a lot easier for you to trade across borders."
"We want you to keep going with the incredible innovations," Trump said. "There's nobody like you in the world."
CEOs invited to the face-to-face with Trump included:
Apple’s Tim Cook, who hosted a fundraiser for Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, a guest of first lady Michelle Obama at the 2016 State of the Union Address
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who has been a frequent Trump target
Google parent company Alphabet’s Larry Page; Tesla's Elon Musk; IBM’s Ginni Rometty; Intel’s Brian Krzanich; and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg
The meeting was set up by Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, incoming Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and one of the few tech execs to offer full-throated support of then-candidate Trump, Peter Thiel.
SILICON VALLEY LEADERS SLAM TRUMP
Elsewhere in the industry, Trump was not a favorite. As the billionaire steamrolled his competition en route to the GOP nomination and general election fight against Clinton, 140 tech sector leaders signed on to a July 14 open letter declaring that “Trump would be a disaster for innovation.”
“His vision stands against the open exchange of ideas, free movement of people, and productive engagement with the outside world that is critical to our economy – and that provide the foundation for innovation and growth,” the letter stated.
None of the 140 signatories were among those listed as attending Wednesday’s meeting with Trump.
Reporters were allowed to witness only the first moments of the meeting and most of the attendees departed without comment. A spokesman for Cisco said the meeting was "very informative and productive."
Tensions with the valley remain. Business Insider reported that hundreds of tech engineers -- from Apple, Google, IBM and other companies -- have signed a pledge not to help build a database to collect data on Muslim Americans. (Trump during the campaign initially seemed to leave open whether he would pursue a Muslim database when asked by reporters. However, he later clarified he wanted to focus only on refugees – as he and the campaign stressed they were not calling for a religion-based database.)
Though Trump took hits from Silicon Valley during the election, he also got his own shots in.
After Apple refused an FBI request to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists, Trump called for a boycott of the company’s products and demanded Apple move more of its manufacturing inside U.S. borders.
“We’re going to get Apple to build their damn computers and things in this country instead of in other countries,” Trump said during a rally in Lynchburg, Va. in January.
Trump also lambasted the algorithms used by top social media and search sites for allegedly hiding information that could prove damaging to Clinton.
“Wow, Twitter, Google and Facebook are burying the FBI criminal investigation of Clinton. Very dishonest media!” Trump tweeted on Oct. 30.
Bezos was a regular victim of Trump's, likely because, in addition to being Amazon's CEO, Bezos also owns The Washington Post, which has been highly critical of Trump.
"The @washingtonpost, which loses a fortune, is owned by @JeffBezos for purposes of keeping taxes down at his no profit company, @amazon. The @washingtonpost loses moey (a deduction) and gives owner @jeffbezos power to screw the public on low taxation of @Amazon! Big tax shelter. If @amazon ever had to pay fair taxes, its stock would crash and it would crumble like a paper bag. The @washingtonpost scam is saving it!" Trump tweeted in three subsequent missives on Dec. 7, 2015.
Trump also met with Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Tuesday.
And while Trump has used Twitter more effectively than any other presidential candidate to build his political brand and speak directly to supporters, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly was not invited to Wednesday's summit.
A subsequent report in Politico quoted a source saying Twitter was “bounced” from the meeting as payback for refusing to allow an emoji version of an anti-Clinton hashtag during the campaign.
A senior transition official told Fox News, "They were not invited because they aren’t big enough."Tdap vaccine could injure or kill women's babies, admits vaccine manufacturer
Tdap vaccines laden with aluminum, rat poison, ethanol and other toxic adjuvants
(NaturalNews) The official vaccination schedule issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises all pregnant women to get the Tdap vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough), warning them that, if they don't, their children could get sick. But it is a fact that this aluminum- and formaldehyde-filled vaccine jab, and shouldn't be administered to them.A PDF file of the CDC's "2014 Recommended Immunizations for Children from Birth Through 6 Years Old" states very clearly on the first page that pregnant women should get a Tdap vaccine in their third trimester of pregnancy in order to protect against whooping cough. A colorful graphic with a rendering of a pregnant woman reads as follows:"Is your family growing? To protect your new baby and yourself against whooping cough, get a Tdap vaccine in the third trimester of each pregnancy. Talk to your doctor for more details."Simple enough, right? Pregnant women who trust what the CDC has to say about vaccine safety will read this and immediately head down to their local vaccine clinic for a jab. But pregnant women who do their homework will immediately notice that something is majorly wrong with this ill-gotten advice, which runs contrary to the official safety warnings that accompany Tdap vaccines.Sanofi Pasteur, Ltd.'s Adacel vaccine for Tdap, one of the two major Tdap vaccines currently on the market, bears the following warning in its package insert:"Safety and effectiveness of Adacel vaccine have not been established in pregnant women.... Animal reproduction studies have not been conducted with Adacel vaccine. It is also not known whether Adacel vaccine can cause fetal harm when administered to a pregnant woman or can affect reproduction capacity.""Adacel vaccine should be given to a pregnant woman only if clearly needed."You can read the Adacel package insert for yourself here:Similarly, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)'s Boostrix Tdap vaccine bears package insert warnings that the jab has never been proven safe for pregnant women.It goes even further to admit that Boostrix has "no adequate and well-controlled studies in pregnant women":So while the CDC says that all pregnant women need the Tdap vaccine to protect their babies against whooping cough, the two major producers of Tdap vaccines warn that the jabs may not be safe for pregnant women and could actually kill their babies. Tdap vaccines may also inhibit a woman's ability to have babies in the first place.Meanwhile, both vaccines contain a rich cocktail of aluminum-based adjuvants, residual formaldehyde (rat poison), residual disinfectant chemicals and various other chemical preservatives including 2-phenoxyethanol and polysorbate 80. Both vaccines are also admittedly made using bovine byproducts, artificial amino acid compounds and other unnatural additivesIt is also important to note that the Tdap vaccine is officially categorized as a Category C drug, which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) says can cause adverse effects in unborn babiesThen, there is the inconvenient truth that the pertussis component of the vaccine, which is the prevailing impetus behind its push, doesn't even work as claimed. Nearly every major whooping cough outbreak in recent years has affected primarily or only vaccinated individuals, despite claims that the vaccine prevents infection and transmission.[1] http://www.cdc.gov [2] http://www.vaccineshoppe.com [3] http://vaccines.procon.org [4] http://vaccines.procon.org [5] http://chemm.nlm.nih.gov [6] http://vran.org2 years ago
Hey Everyone,
Thank you so much for checking out the season premiere of Fan Service!!! We are all extremely happy to be back, and its all thanks to your dedication!!!
Coming up this week we will be seeing the return of one of my favorite segments, "Stan's Shower Thoughts". Can you guess what show Stan was thinking about when he is all slippery and wet?
As noted on the last episode, we have been deciding on what two shows to discuss as part of the "Fan Service Anime Club". I am happy to announce that we will be following "Drifters" and "Yuri!!! on Ice". Be sure to watch the first episode of each and join in on the conversation this Friday at 5pm CST.
Also, be sure to assist Gray, Kerry, Yssa, Austin, or myself in trying to find a shot that will most tickle Miles' jimmies (hint: think sick action shots) for "Fan Service Shot of the Week".
Now we've been getting a lot of questions about whether or not Fan Service videos will be released to the public, so we wanted to take a moment to clarify!
Fan Service is a FIRST-Exclusive show on roosterteeth.com, and really that's because FIRST members are the reason we were able to green light the show in the first place (no pun intended). The support we've received from FIRST memberships is why RT has been able to dish out badass content like Day 5 and Crunch Time, and even though it's not identical in scope to those series, Fan Service falls into that category of premium content. We're an incredibly niche program, in that not everyone in the world wants to tune in for an anime show (in the same way not everyone wants to tune in to hear folks talk about sports or finances or artisan pottery making).
We will be releasing the audio from Fan Service episodes on iTunes and GooglePlay for people to download, though with the visual nature of the show, I'd still highly recommend viewing it as a FIRST member if you're able.
The best comparison I can make would be to Funhaus' Twits & Crits series. The reason that show exists is because of FIRST Members, so FIRST members get the full, hour-long-plus episodes and folks on YouTube get a more condensed, "highlight reel" version of the show for free.
We hope this all makes sense to you guys and we hope that the FIRST members out there who have been supporting us are enjoying the show! If you're not a FIRST member, remember you can try a 30-day FREE trial and cancel anytime (but for real, it's only like 3 bucks a month)!
Thanks so much (we literally couldn't do this without you)! See you Friday at 5pm CST!
<3Wikimedia Commons SHANGHAI -- The front door of the nightclub was simply out of the question. It was too dangerous. Even the brutish-looking Chinese toughs hired to protect the Heat here in Shanghai knew that.
The back door was the only option, and it wasn't much better.
A crashing, sweating horde of humanity all hopped up on who knows what was there waiting to mob LeBron James. This was supposed to be Dwyane Wade's private party, by invitation only, but someone had leaked the information, and everyone in Shanghai tried to crash the nightclub.
Forget international diplomacy, cracking skulls suddenly seemed like a reasonable option. No. Remain calm. Maybe this was just a normal Friday night in Shanghai.
The club of choice for the Heat's one night out on the town was typical enough. Three floors, finely crafted wooden fixtures and familiar bass grooves lording over every sense in your body. The communist overtones of northern China and Beijing hide themselves well in Shanghai, a southern city that feels like a mix between New York and San Francisco in some areas and New Orleans and Amsterdam in others. It's a cool town.
But the people trying to push into the club -- there was nothing cool or internationally chic about them.
Ever seen old video footage of The Beatles when all the girls are losing their minds, screaming through raw throats and reaching out their arms over barricades at Paul and John? Most of those images are from The Beatles' first tour of the United States in 1964. That was the scene at this Shanghai nightclub, except there were no barricades and no sweet little girls -- just grown men and women acting like boy-band groupies and someone, in all their brilliance, had apparently thought it was a good idea to feed these people booze.
"Just push," said one of the Heat's staff members.
It took 10 minutes to break through the first floor. Wade's party, sponsored by a Chinese social media company, was on the third.
For James and Wade, the trip to Beijing and Shanghai for the NBA's 2012 China Games was an exhausting week of promotional appearances, shoe-company business, fan appreciation events, a few practices and two exhibition games. There wasn't much time to relax, and this party was supposed to be one of those times. Most of the Heat's players had elected to attend, so being the only journalist allowed into the event was a pretty good score.
James and most of the players were hanging out near the bar area of the third floor when I finally breached the multiple levels of security in place to keep out the crazies. The place was packed full of Americans and other internationals. Of the Heat's contingent, there were the players, coach Erik Spoelstra, a few staff members and a couple of executives.
A section of the floor space had been roped off for the players and a mass of people, men and women, were surrounding the velvet barrier. These were the traditional sort of groupies I have become accustomed to in three seasons covering the Heat. Finally, I felt at home.
The dress code on the invitation to the party had said "smart and sexy," and the many attendees were dressed appropriately. The promoters -- the professional partiers charged with finding attractive people to populate a high-end event -- had done their jobs well.
As for the guy in charge of the air conditioning, he should be fired. It felt like 90 degrees in the place. It was open bar, so I ordered, said hello to Ray Allen and made my way outside to enjoy the balcony. The stifling heat and gorgeous views would send everyone my way soon enough.
The nightclub was located across the Huangpu River from the players' hotel and all the enormous skyscrapers. Shanghai is a boomtown, so everything that is new and big and in the postcards is actually not located in the city center. They're in Pudong, which was once a suburb but is now the city's financial district.
The enormous structures across the river glimmered and twinkled like the short dresses of the women in the club. Below the balcony, a dedicated group with "Wade" stickers under their eyes waited patiently for a glimpse of the players. Then, suddenly, all the lights went out over the river.
An ordinance requires the skyscrapers to turn off the tops of their buildings at 10 p.m. Still, even without lights the view was breathtaking. It was around that time James walked outside and found a seat.
"It is so hot in there," he said.
James looked down at his iPhone and checked his Twitter feed. Like most (if not all) of the Heat's players at the party, he was not drinking. James was wearing thick-framed gold-rimmed glasses, a buttoned-up vest and what looked like a multicolored ascot.
For a moment, he was alone and almost entirely by himself. He let out a road-weary sigh.
"I don't know about you, but this trip has been pretty tiring," James said.
For all my time in China, I never got more than four consecutive hours of sleep. Neither did James. Your body clock is so scrambled it just doesn't allow it. During the week, James had to cancel a few Nike-sponsored events sponsored just to catch up on his rest. He stretched out his legs, a self-made barrier, and looked around him as the people on the balcony began closing in.
"Hey, LeBron, I know you read The Hunger Games," said a man, American, clutching a beer. "I teach ninth-grade English and I tell all my students you read the books."
"Oh, yeah," James said. "Cool."
The man asked James what he thought of the ending and James nodded his head, "It was a good read."
James looked over and smirked ever so slightly. He read The Hunger Games during last season's playoffs and ever since then people have been asking him about the book. The English teacher suggested a reading list of more science fiction, and James thanked him.
Below the balcony, the DJ played Frank Sinatra's New York. James' night was almost over. He was ready to leave.
A small child danced around the balcony, oblivious to the giant men surrounding him. Rashard Lewis and Joel Anthony were leaning against the balcony's rail as fans screamed for their attention below.
"Who brought that kid in here?" James said, shocked by the sight of the toddler. "It's way past his bedtime."
And past James' as well. He rose to his feet, nodded his head good-bye and walked past the toddler back into the club. His night was done.
While James was completely spent, Mario Chalmers was obviously full of energy. He bounced around, cracking jokes and enjoying the night. He looked down from the balcony and spotted Udonis Haslem, rolling into the party about two hours late.
"U.D. is here," Chalmers said. "It's on now."
Remember that dress code? U.D. doesn't do "smart and sexy." He had on jeans and a simple black hoodie jacket. Haslem is tough and blue collar and genuine at all times. He strode unnoticed past the group of fans below.
Allen joined Lewis and Anthony on the edge of the balcony, and then it happened -- the highlight, or lowlight of the night, depending on your perspective. One of the boy-band fans had somehow found his way up the stairs, past security and onto the balcony. He rushed toward Allen, pushing him backward against the railing.
"Sign my shirt," he screamed in broken English into Allen's face. "I love you! I love you! I love you!"
It was a guttural scream. He held out a pen and screamed it again.
"You don't want me to sign you shirt," Allen said to the man, who appeared to be in his mid-20s. "What's your momma going to say when you come home with a dirty shirt?"
"I love you!" he screamed. "Sign! I love you!"
Amazingly, Allen remained completely calm.
"You momma is going to be mad," Allen said with a straight face.
"I love you! I love you! I love you!"
Allen signed the breast of the fan's white polo shirt and cracked, "You can find the same thing at your local Wal-Mart."
Made in China. Just like this night. ___
(c)2012 The Miami Herald
Visit The Miami Herald at www.miamiherald.com
Distributed by MCT Information ServicesThe Altoona Curve franchise began when Arizona and Tampa Bay were both awarded Major League Baseball franchises beginning in the 1998 season. The addition of these two teams had a domino effect through baseball with the expansion of not only the major leagues, but throughout Minor League Baseball as well. With this expansion, AA baseball received two new teams to begin play in the 1999 season. The Erie SeaWolves were already an established minor-league team with outstanding short-season attendance, and were quickly awarded one of the new franchises. The second spot in the new, larger Eastern League looked to be headed to Springfield, Massachusetts, but city native Bob Lozinak, developer Tate DeWeese, businessman Mark Thomas and a group of Pennsylvania lawmakers rallied to get the final spot, making a formal presentation to league officials on October 5, 1997. The proposal received unanimous support and Altoona won the other franchise.
Groundbreaking on Blair County Ballpark took place on March 7, 1998, and the franchise was formally awarded in April. In June of that year, the "Curve" nickname was selected over several other proposals, including Lake Monsters, Ridge Runners, and the Altoona Fish. The name was inspired by nearby Horseshoe Curve, with many of the logos inspired by the former Pennsylvania Railroad which housed their maintenance facility in Altoona.
The next step for the start of the Altoona Curve was to find a major league affiliate. The Erie SeaWolves had already had several successful seasons in the Pirates' organization, as a short-season single-A affiliate. In the end, however, the Pirates chose Altoona for their AA affiliate.
The Altoona Curve began their first season on the road at the Reading Phillies on April 9, 1999. Their first game was suspended by rain and completed the next day as part of a doubleheader. That first game was a 6–2 loss, but the Curve scored their first-ever victory in the second game, beating Reading 6–4. A few days later, on April 15, the Curve christened Blair County Ballpark by defeating the Bowie Baysox 6–1 in front of a crowd of 6,171.
On April 2, 2002, Lozinak and DeWeese sold the franchise to a collective headed by Pittsburgh attorney Chuck Greenberg. Among the partners in the collective are Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis and NHL star Mario Lemieux. The first season under new ownership was the most successful to date, performance-wise as well as economically. During August of that year, the Pirates signed on for another four-year development agreement through the 2006 season.
During the 2003 season, the Curve made the Eastern League playoffs for the first time, and followed that up with two more appearances in 2004 and 2005. Their performance on the field has led to increased numbers in the stands, and the Curve increased attendance for five consecutive years before dipping by just a few thousand in 2005.
Following the 2004 season, General Manager Todd Parnell was honored as the Eastern League Executive of the Year, and the franchise won the Larry MacPhail Award for the best promotional effort (on and off the field) in all of Minor League Baseball.
On April 2, 2006, their fourth anniversary as owners, Greenberg and his group announced an additional four-year extension on the development agreement with the Pirates, keeping the Curve's affiliation intact through at least the 2010 season.
On December 2, 2008, Chuck Greenberg sold the Altoona Curve back to original owner and Altoona native Bob Lozinak.
On May 23, 2009, the Altoona Curve and Pittsburgh Pirates renewed their development agreement, which now runs through the 2014 season.
On September 18, 2010, the Curve defeated the Trenton Thunder to clinch the franchise's first ever Eastern League Championship. The Curve won the series three games to one.
On September 29, 2010, just 11 days after winning the franchise's first Eastern League Championship, Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington decided to not re-sign manager Matt Walbeck.[1]
In 2016, four Curve players were picked for the Eastern League All-Star Game—Tyler Eppler, Edwin Espinal, Jared Lakind, and Harold Ramirez.[2]
On April 23, 2002, Adrian Burnside, Neal McDade and Chris Spurling combined for the first no-hitter in Altoona Curve history. Burnside pitched the first five innings, McDade pitched the next three and Spurling pitched the ninth inning to complete the no-hitter.[3] On July 25, 2013, Ethan Hollingsworth, Jason Townsend, Jhonathan Ramos and Ryan Beckman combined for the second no-hitter in Altoona Curve history. Hollingsworth pitched the first four innings, Townsend pitched the next three, Ramos pitched the eighth inning and Beckman pitched the ninth to complete the no-hitter.[4]With strong opinions on everything from the Israeli elections ("I'm very, very upset") to Hollywood's worship of awards, Portman will unveil her directorial debut, 'A Tale of Love and Darkness,' her way — all in Hebrew — just a short flight away from her new home in Paris: "I like being a stranger in a place. You’re kind of an outsider, and I think that's what makes you. It's the only way I've ever known."
This story first appeared in the May 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
It's 8 a.m. in Los Angeles on a late-April morning, and Natalie Portman, 33, is not quite her usual glamorous self.
The past few weeks have been tough for the globe-trotting actress turned style icon turned writer-producer-director. First, she was in London for six days, finishing the sound mix of her new film, an adaptation of Israeli author Amos Oz's memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, which marks her feature directorial debut; then she flew to Los Angeles, where she oversaw the movie's color-timing. In just a few hours, she'll head to Beijing for two days of promotional work as a spokesperson for Dior, and after that she'll be back in L.A. for four days before traveling to Cannes for Darkness' out of competition debut May 18.
All of which might explain why she seems so guarded about this interview. She sits, ramrod straight, plunking her iPhone in the middle of the table and hitting "record" before she has said a word, as if challenging me to quote her with razor-sharp accuracy — which, I must admit, casts a pall over our conversation.
"Did somebody burn you?" I ask.
"No," she says. "I just, when I'm talking about delicate issues, I want to make sure that everyone's accurate, you know."
This may not be the best way to start, but it does make a point: During the next 79 minutes, Portman is going to be blunt.
Portman with co-star Michael Fassbender in the upcoming 'Weightless.'
On Benjamin Netanyahu, newly re-elected as prime minister of Israel, the country of her birth: "I'm very much against Netanyahu. Against. I am very, very upset and disappointed that he was re-elected. I find his racist |
unrest in Ukraine's south-east was "the result of the unwillingness and inability of the leadership in Kiev to take into account the interests of Russia and the Russian-speaking population".
It said Mr Putin had urged Mr Obama to "use the resources at the disposal of the American side" to help prevent any bloodshed.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption William Hague: Eastern Ukraine facing "very dangerous situation"
It dismissed claims that Russia was interfering in Ukraine, saying the accusations were based on "questionable information".
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday the situation in eastern Ukraine was "very dangerous". Speaking to the BBC, he commended the Ukrainian government for acting "very responsibly throughout this crisis".
Thousands of Russian troops are reported to be deployed along the border between Ukraine and Russia. Kiev fears any crackdown on pro-Russian groups could trigger an invasion.
Rebels appeal to Putin
Mr Turchynov said on Tuesday the aim of the operation in Donetsk was to "protect Ukrainian citizens, to stop the terror, to stop the crime, to stop the attempts to tear our country apart".
Pro-Russian rebels have seized buildings in about 10 towns and cities across eastern provinces that form the heartland of Ukraine's heavy industry.
A four-way meeting on the crisis, involving the EU, Russia, the US and Ukraine is due to be held in Geneva on Thursday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned on Tuesday that any use of force by the Ukrainian government in the east could undermine the talks.
"You can't send tanks against your own citizens and at the same time hold talks," he said.Ignite a global resistance to reclaim our world and save humanity! This weekend only, all Xbox Live Gold members can enjoy 2K’s turn-based strategy hit, XCOM 2 for free as part of Xbox Live Gold’s Free Play Days.
Beginning at 9:00 a.m. PT on Thursday, October 26 and running through to 11:59 p.m. PT on Sunday, October 29, Xbox Live Gold members in Xbox One markets will get a special opportunity to fight for the future of humanity.
During the week, you’ll also have the option to purchase XCOM 2 or XCOM 2 Digital Deluxe from the Xbox Store at 60% off. Should you decide to return to the fight later, all of your achievements and saved-game progress will be waiting for you.
You can download XCOM 2 starting at 9:00 a.m. PT on October 26 by clicking on the Gold Member area on the Home Dashboard or downloading directly from the Xbox Store. Stay tuned to Xbox Wire for all the latest Xbox news.poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201611/2396/1155968404_5209998324001_5209996235001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump will honor NATO commitment, Obama says
President-elect Donald Trump is committed to NATO, President Barack Obama said Monday.
Trump, the Republican president-elect whose unexpected victory last week shocked other world leaders, was often critical of NATO on the campaign trail, going so far as to call it “obsolete.” Those statements, coupled with his praise of Russian leader Vladimir Putin -- with whom Trump spoke by phone on Monday -- have alarmed foreign leaders, especially in the front-line states in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.
Story Continued Below
Obama, who is preparing to embark on his last trip to Europe as president, said Trump signaled when they met last week that he would not be throwing out the decades-old alliance.
“He expressed a great interest in maintaining our core strategic relationships,” Obama said at his first press conference since last week’s election. “And so, one of the messages I will be able to deliver is his commitment to NATO and the Transatlantic Alliance.”
“I think that's one of the most important functions I can serve at this stage during this trip. is to let them know that there is no weakening of resolve when it comes to America's commitment to maintaining a strong and robust NATO relationship and a recognition that those alliances aren't just good for Europe, they're good for the United States,” he added. “And they're vital for the world.”
Responding to a question about foreign leaders’ concerns about Trump, Obama also made a point to note that the president, while “the spokesperson for the nation,” is not the only person affecting U.S. foreign policy.
“The influence and the work that we have is the result not just of the president,” he said. “It is the result of countless interactions and arrangements and relationships between our military and other militaries and our diplomats and other diplomats, and intelligence officers and development workers. And there is enormous continuity beneath the day-to-day news that makes us that indispensable nation when it comes to maintaining order and promoting prosperity around the world. That will continue.”
Also on Monday, National Security Adviser Susan Rice told AFP that allies could trust the United States to fulfill its treaty obligations, even under a President Trump.
"The weight of this office, and the weight of American global leadership, and the responsibilities that it entails, and the history that we share, the interests that endure, make it reasonable for our allies and partners to expect that the United States will uphold its obligations," she said.RCMP have charged two Nova Scotia men with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman.
Police say the woman was at a house party in Hants County when two men forced her into a vehicle. She says they took her to a remote location and sexually assaulted her.
The woman says they then returned her to the house where the party had been.
On Monday, police arrested Sanchez Lemar Clarke, a 25-year-old Halifax man, at the house. A second man, 24-year-old Kingsley Cornell Downey from North Preston, turned himself into RCMP in Windsor on Wednesday.
Both face charges of kidnapping, sexual assault, and theft of a motor vehicle. None of the charges have been tested in court.
Police had been parked at a house connected to the investigation since Monday morning.On those days when you are looking for a comforting, hearty, simple dish to make, Mjadarra is for you.
The beauty of this dish is that it is easily adjusted to your liking and all the ingredients can be found in your pantry at any time, yet it is very nutritious and filling.
It is made of three main ingredients along with some olive oil, salt, pepper and water. It’s so important to use a good quality olive oil for the onions as most of the flavor of the dish comes from both the onions and the olive oil.
Growing up, it was one of those meals you would have on a cold, wintery day and feel satisfied, feel it warm you up from the inside out. A heaping spoonful of the tender lentils and bulgar combined with the sweetness of the crispy fried onions, the crunch of a simple, lemony salad and the tang of thick, creamy yogurt, could melt all your worries away. These days, the rustic dish is one of my husband’s favorite to come home to after a long day at work, and when I do make it, he expects there be enough for leftovers the next day… but if there is none left, it’s not because I skimped on servings ;).
Mjadarra – Lentils and Bulgar with Crispy Onions
Makes about 3-4 Servings
2 cups Brown Lentils
1 cup Bulgar
3 cups Onion, thinly sliced
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Boil the lentils with 1 tbsp salt in 3 cups of water for about 40 minutes, until lentils are tender.
Stir in bulgar and cook covered about 10-15 minutes more until the lentils and bulgar start to come together. Add water if needed and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Sauté 2 cups of the sliced onion in 3 tbsp olive oil until golden brown and soft.
Add onions and olive oil to the lentil mixture. Stir to combine and cook a
few minutes more.
Fry the remaining sliced onion in olive oil until golden brown and crispy.
Plate the lentil mixture and top with the crispy fried onions.
Serve the Mjadarra with plain yogurt and a simple salad.
This is a very adjustable dish. The ratio of lentils to bulgar to onions to olive oil can easily be tweaked to your liking, but this is my preferred ratio. Enjoy!
Check out @a.la.susu on Instagram for a quick recipe video for this recipe!It’s always easy to write a Hello World application, the code looks simple and straight forward and the SDK feels very adapted to your needs. But if you have experience writing a more complex app on Android, you know that production code is not like this. You have spent hours trying to understand why your shopping cart won’t update after changing the orientation of the phone if there is no WiFi. You figured that the solution is probably to add yet another if statement to your already 457 lines long Activity’s onCreate() method, between the one that fixes that crash on Samsung devices running Android 4.1, and the one that shows a $5 coupon on the user’s birthday. Well, there is a better way.
At Remind, we ship new features every two weeks, and for us to maintain that velocity and high product quality, we need to have a way to keep the code simple, maintainable, decoupled and testable. Using an architectural pattern like MVP allows us to do this and to focus on the most valuable part of the code, our business logic.
MVP, or Model-View-Presenter, is one of multiple patterns that promotes separation of concern when implementing user interfaces, in which the roles of all these layers slightly differ. The goal of this article is not to describe the differences between these patterns, but to show how it can be applied to Android (as it is in most modern UI frameworks, such as Rails and iOS), and how it can benefit your app.
You can find sample code illustrating most of the techniques described in this post here: https://github.com/remind101/android-arch-sample
Old-school Android
The separation of concern as intended in the Android framework is the following: the Model can be any POJO, the View is your XML layout, and the Fragment (or Activity, originally) acts as the Controller/Presenter. In theory it works pretty well, but as soon as your app gets complex, you end up having a lot of View code in your Controller. This is because there is not much you can do in XML, so all the data-binding, animations, input detection, etc. ends up in the Fragment, along with your business-logic.
It gets worse since those complex different bits of UI can also be placed in Lists or Grids. The Adapter is now responsible for not only containing the View and Controller code for all those different parts, but also for managing them as a collection. As those parts are highly coupled, they become very hard to maintain and even harder to test.
Enters Model-View-Presenter
MVP offers us a way to dissociate all that tedious low-level Android code that is needed to display your UI and interact with it, which will live in the View, and the higher level business-logic of what your app should do, which live in the Presenter.
The way to achieve that on Android is to consider the Activity or Fragment as the View layer, and to introduce a lightweight Presenter to control it. The most critical part is to establish the responsibility of each layer and standardize the interface between them. Here is a high level separation of roles that has been working fairly well for us:
The View (Activity or Fragment) is responsible for:
Instantiating the Presenter, and its binding/unbinding mechanism
Informing the Presenter of relevant lifecycle events
Informing the Presenter of input events
Laying out the views and binding data to them
Animations
Event tracking
Navigating to other screens
The Presenter is responsible for:
Loading models
Keeping a reference to the model, and the state of the view
Formatting what should be displayed, and instructing the View to display it
Interacting with the repositories (database, network, etc.)
Deciding the actions to take when input events are received
Here is an example of what the interface between the View and Presenter could be:
interface MessageView { // View methods should be directives, as the View is just executing orders from the // Presenter. // Methods for updating the view void setMessageBody ( String body ); void setAuthorName ( String name ); void showTranslationButton ( boolean shouldShow ); // Navigation methods void goToUserProfile ( User user ); } interface MessagePresenter { // Presenter methods should mostly be callbacks, as the View is reporting events for the // Presenter to evaluate // Lifecycle events methods void onStart (); // Input events methods void onAuthorClicked (); void onThreeFingersSwipe (); }
Here are a couple of interesting points to notice about this interface:
The methods to update the view should be simple and targeted on a single element. This is better than having a single setMessage(Message message) method that will update everything, because formatting what should be displayed should be the responsibility of the Presenter. For example, you might want to start displaying “You” instead of the user name if the current user is the author of the message, and this is part of your business logic.
method that will update everything, because formatting what should be displayed should be the responsibility of the Presenter. For example, you might want to start displaying “You” instead of the user name if the current user is the author of the message, and this is part of your business logic. Lifecycle events methods on the Presenter are simple and don’t have to map the (overly complicated) Android lifecycle ones. You don’t have to implement any of them, but you can implement as many as you want if the Presenter needs to take specific actions.
Input events methods on the Presenter are kept at a high level. If for example you’re trying to detect a complex gesture, like the 3 fingers swipe example, all the gesture detection should be done in the View.
You can see that there are MessagePresenter.onAuthorClicked() and MessageView.goToAuthorProfile() methods. The implementation of the View will probably have a click listener that calls this Presenter method that will call goToAuthorProfile(). Should you skip all this and just directly go to the author profile from the click listener? No! The decision of going to that profile when the author name is clicked is part of your business logic, and belongs in the Presenter.
As a rule of thumb, if your Presenter contains code from the Android framework and not pure Java, you are probably doing it wrong. And reciprocally, if your View needs a reference to the Model, you are probably doing it wrong too.
As far as tests are concerned, most of the code that you absolutely need to test will be in the Presenter. What’s great is that all this code doesn’t need Android to run, as it just has a reference to the View interface, and not its Android-specific implementation. This means that you can just mock the View interface, and write pure JUnit tests that make sure the right methods are called on that mock to test the integrity of your business logic. This is what your tests look like now.
What about Lists?
So far we made the assumption that our Views were Activities or Fragments, but they can be anything. What we have found to work pretty well for lists is to have the ViewHolder implement the View interface (either the RecyclerView.ViewHolder kind, or the plain old ViewHolder to use with a ListView). You just need some basic logic in your adapter for handling the binding/unbinding of the Presenters (there is implementation for all of this in the example repo).
If you consider the example of a screen containing a list of Messages, a loading spinner, and an empty View, the separation of concern now looks like:
The list Presenter is in charge of loading the Messages and the logic for showing list/empty/loading views
The Fragment is in charge of the implementation for showing the list/empty/loading view and navigating to other screens
The Adapter is in charge of mapping Message Presenters to their ViewHolder
The message Presenter is in charge of the business logic for a single Message
The message ViewHolder is in charge of displaying a single Message
All those components are loosely coupled and can easily be tested independently from each other.
Even better, if you have both a list screen and a detail screen for your Messages, you can re-use the same message Presenter and just have two different implementations of the View interface (the ViewHolder one and the Fragment one). This keeps your business logic DRY.
Similarly, the View interface can be implemented by custom Views. This lets you use MVP in custom widgets that can be reused throughout your app, or just allows you to break complex UIs into simpler blocks.
MVP and Configuration Change
If you have spent time writing Android apps you know how much of a pain supporting orientation and configuration changes is:
The Fragment/Activity must be able to re-create its state. Every time you work on a Fragment you must ask yourself how this would behave during orientation change, if there is something that needs to be persisted to the saved instance state Bundle, etc…
Long running operations in background threads are very hard to get right. One of the most common mistakes is keeping a reference to the Fragment/Activity in the long running operation (which is needed to update the UI when it finishes). This causes the old Activity to leak (and possibly crash the app due to increasing memory usage) and the new Activity to never receive the callback (and never update its UI).
Using MVP properly can actually take care of this for you without even having to think about it. Because the Presenter objects have no strong references to the actual UI they are very lightweight and can be retained during orientation changes! Because the Presenter keeps a reference to the Model and the state of the View, it is able to re-create the View in the correct state after the orientation change. Here is an approximative description of what happens during orientation change with this pattern:
Activity is initially created (let’s call this instance one) - New Presenter is created Presenter is bound to the Activity
User clicks on the download button Long running operation starts in the Presenter
Orientation changes Presenter is unbound from the first instance of the Activity First instance of the Activity has no reference, is available for garbage collection Presenter is retained, long running operation continues Second instance of the Activity is created Second instance of the Activity is bound to the same Presenter
Download finishes Presenter updates its view (the second instance of the Activity) accordingly
You can see an implementation of how to retain Presenters across configuration changes in the example repo in the PresenterManager class.
Wrap Up
That’s it! Hopefully this shows you how using a separation of concern pattern like MVP can help you write maintainable and testable code.
To summarize:
Separate your app business logic by moving it to a plain java Presenter object
Spend time writing a clean interface between your Presenter and your View
Have Fragment, Activities or custom views implement the View interface
For lists, have the ViewHolder implement the View interface
Test your Presenter thoroughly
Retain your Presenters during orientation change
You can find an implementation of all this in the ArchExample repo
There are also plenty of libraries out there that can help you use such patterns and do better separation of concern in your app, like Mosby, Flow and Mortar or Nucleus, that I encourage you to take a look at.KingCorwin Profile Joined February 2013 United States 133 Posts #2 great looking map! pathing very limited without destroying rocks, but i like it because that makes the attacking player have to do some work.
The forward third looks crazy hard to defend having three paths of attack to it
And this isnt probably the nicest comment, but i wouldnt use the char marsh tileset again (its just so hard to look at and like) Corwin#12780
Qikz Profile Blog Joined November 2009 United Kingdom 10996 Posts #3 I really like that Tileset. Personally I think this map is really cool! :D FanTaSy's #1 Fan | STPL Caster/Organiser | SKT BEST KT | https://twitch.tv/qikzsd
Flummie Profile Joined August 2010 Netherlands 414 Posts #4 Looking really good o0!!
Well done ผมพยายามหาคำตอบอยู่ตลอดเวลา
SiskosGoatee Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Albania 1482 Posts #5 Etcetc, overlord spot back of mineral line ZvZ etcetc. WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
Gfire Profile Joined March 2011 United States 1698 Posts #6 People are gonna hate the dark tileset.
I don't like the double-high cliff on the edge of the main since it makes it so hard to see the low ground around that mineral line in the lower right.
Dig the layout though. all's fair in love and melodies
SiskosGoatee Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Albania 1482 Posts #7 For all the people who complain about dark tilesets, so many maps have dark tilesets that I think more people actually like them, or at least like making them, than people dislike them. Apart from that, a lush beach like Ohana doesn't really suit the theme of this game as much as a things like a derelict space station or asteroid. WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
Uvantak Profile Blog Joined June 2011 Uruguay 1380 Posts #8 I'm not sure how this map will play out, because of the flow of the expansions and i can't see a solid place to position the army after taking the third, evything becomes very scattered, but i can tell you that this map is a lovely thing, i just love the Char marsh, and atm im making a map on it.
One thing i have to agree with siskos is about the overlord spot, and in this map that would be easy to do, just add some doodads in that corner of the main that's almost on top of the natural minerals and then block it with pathing paint so no ground units can pass there, and then add some invisible LoS blockers mixed with doodads and there you have your overlord spot!
btw I almost forgot, what's the distance between main bases/main ramps?? that walking path looks really long. @Kantuva | Mapmaker | KTVMaps.wordpress.com | Check my profile to see my TL map threads, and you can search for KTV in the Custom Games section to play them.
Caviar Profile Joined April 2011 70 Posts #9 I love the layout.
I think it could be a little more interesting if instead of the long diagonal rocks blocking off the middle instead you put two smaller maybe 6x6 (or what ever size) rocks on the top and bottom of the Xel Nagarestricting access to it and blocking movement between that area.
Timetwister22 Profile Joined March 2011 United States 538 Posts Last Edited: 2013-04-04 17:59:32 #10
As far as a few questions and comments:
Thanks to those who seem like the map. Now go get some games on it :DAs far as a few questions and comments: On April 04 2013 23:34 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Etcetc, overlord spot back of mineral line ZvZ etcetc.
You can stick your overlord over the main section that is behind the natural mineral line. Creep does not reach that far, thus making it very difficult for queens to reach.
You can stick your overlord over the main section that is behind the natural mineral line. Creep does not reach that far, thus making it very difficult for queens to reach. On April 05 2013 00:06 Gfire wrote:
I don't like the double-high cliff on the edge of the main since it makes it so hard to see the low ground around that mineral line in the lower right.
Dig the layout though.
Yeah, I'm not very fond of this happening either. Here, it's a minimal issue though, and easy to fix if it does become an issue. Would look something like this in game.
Yeah, I'm not very fond of this happening either. Here, it's a minimal issue though, and easy to fix if it does become an issue. Would look something like this in game. + Show Spoiler + On April 05 2013 00:52 Uvantak wrote:
I'm not sure how this map will play out, because of the flow of the expansions and i can't see a solid place to position the army after taking the third, evything becomes very scattered, but i can tell you that this map is a lovely thing, i just love the Char marsh, and atm im making a map on it.
Positioning would probably look something like this in PvZ and TvZ. Same thing without the wall in the non-Zerg matchups:
+ Show Spoiler +
Positioning would probably look something like this in PvZ and TvZ. Same thing without the wall in the non-Zerg matchups: On April 05 2013 00:54 Caviar wrote:
I love the layout.
I think it could be a little more interesting if instead of the long diagonal rocks blocking off the middle instead you put two smaller maybe 6x6 (or what ever size) rocks on the top and bottom of the Xel Nagarestricting access to it and blocking movement between that area.
Thanks! And yes, that is something to think about actually... Thanks! And yes, that is something to think about actually... Former ESV Mapmaker | @Timetwister22
SiskosGoatee Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Albania 1482 Posts #11 On April 05 2013 02:58 Timetwister22 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 04 2013 23:34 SiskosGoatee wrote:
Etcetc, overlord spot back of mineral line ZvZ etcetc.
You can stick your overlord over the main section that is behind the natural mineral line. Creep does not reach that far, thus making it very difficult for queens to reach. You can stick your overlord over the main section that is behind the natural mineral line. Creep does not reach that far, thus making it very difficult for queens to reach. WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
eviltomahawk Profile Blog Joined August 2010 United States 10876 Posts #12 On April 05 2013 00:08 SiskosGoatee wrote:
For all the people who complain about dark tilesets, so many maps have dark tilesets that I think more people actually like them, or at least like making them, than people dislike them. Apart from that, a lush beach like Ohana doesn't really suit the theme of this game as much as a things like a derelict space station or asteroid.
As long as the map doesn't mess with the visual clarity of the game too much, I'm fine. Ohana had great visual clarity at least. Maps with dark lighting and too many particle effects on top of a dark tileset tend to be annoying to spectate, especially on a low-quality stream. As long as the map doesn't mess with the visual clarity of the game too much, I'm fine. Ohana had great visual clarity at least. Maps with dark lighting and too many particle effects on top of a dark tileset tend to be annoying to spectate, especially on a low-quality stream. ㅇㅅㅌㅅ
NewSunshine Profile Joined July 2011 United States 3814 Posts Last Edited: 2013-04-04 21:43:55 #13
Second thought, the map is very tight-looking in a large number of places.
+ Show Spoiler +
A Zerg player will probably not want anything to do with the area in yellow, and so would expand the other way, along the red path, which is fine, since it expands away from your opponent's preferred line of army movement. A problem with this though is that the expansion is quite far away in this case. Also, a Protoss in general could set up pylons in the yellow area, utilizing the chokes but nullifying the rush distances. The red path itself is generally the path you'll want to take to attack, so I think moving the rocks from the first ramp onto the second(along the path) could be cool, so that taking the nearby detour path through the 3 o'clock base would be desirable until the rocks are down, but you don't have to knock down rocks to move out of your base.
Overall, I think a lot of the nuances of this map are cool though. I like how the center itself is set up, where you don't want to move an army through it, you only want the watchtower, which itself watches over the otherwise even pathing. However, I think a lot of these elements could work beautifully with a shorter rush distance, and maybe some opening up as well. The way it is now, I could see a P giving Z hell in several different places.
With the way these rocks are set up, shorter distances between players would be the first thing I'd look at. I could be full of crap though, since nothing can replace actual games. This is just my cursory analysis. First thought, the rush distances look absolutely enormous.Second thought, the map is very tight-looking in a large number of places.A Zerg player will probably not want anything to do with the area in yellow, and so would expand the other way, along the red path, which is fine, since it expands away from your opponent's preferred line of army movement. A problem with this though is that the expansion is quite far away in this case. Also, a Protoss in general could set up pylons in the yellow area, utilizing the chokes but nullifying the rush distances. The red path itself is generally the path you'll want to take to attack, so I think moving the rocks from the first ramp onto the second(along the path) could be cool, so that taking the nearby detour path through the 3 o'clock base would be desirable until the rocks are down, but you don't have to knock down rocks to move out of your base.Overall, I think a lot of the nuances of this map are cool though. I like how the center itself is set up, where you don't want to move an army through it, you only want the watchtower, which itself watches over the otherwise even pathing. However, I think a lot of these elements could work beautifully with a shorter rush distance, and maybe some opening up as well. The way it is now, I could see a P giving Z hell in several different places.With the way these rocks are set up, shorter distances between players would be the first thing I'd look at. I could be full of crap though, since nothing can replace actual games. This is just my cursory analysis. "If you find yourself feeling lost, take pride in the accuracy of your feelings." - Night Vale
Munk200 Profile Joined November 2011 United States 52 Posts #14 With the Ovie spot behind the nat. Just remove the main base part of it there, make it an air space. Will allow for ovies to sit there without being killed. It also makes the main slightly smaller so its not completely impossible for zerg to scout the tech of their opponent. You cant choose what happens to you, you can only chose how to react.
SiskosGoatee Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Albania 1482 Posts #15 Yeah, would be a good change, I'm not sure what the purpose of that area is apart from hiding tech from scans, it allows you to park tanks and defend your natural more easily I guess. WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
FlyingBeer Profile Blog Joined June 2012 United States 262 Posts #16 I love this map.
I'm of the opinion that long rush distances are necessary when you have a backdoor entrance to the natural.
How long would it take for a worker to scout the entirety of the main for any funny business like a cannon rush or proxy rax? It seems your mains are a little too big.
I think your biggest problem is the third. I'd suggest getting rid of the big blocker dividing the two primary attack points to the third and just slightly collapse the edges to create one big attack path into the third. That would create two points of attack for a player on 3 bases, similar to daybreak, except with those rocks to add a potential third attack path, which seems like it would be quite balanced.
You have four primary attack paths in the middle, but they're all identically sized at all their points, so there's no reason for a player to favor one attack path over another, making the outer two completely useless until a player takes a center base.
Laserist Profile Joined September 2011 Turkey 1371 Posts #17 I am not a map expert but from a player's perspective, layout is too dark to play many games on it. It affects your mood and psychology definitely. “Are you with the Cartel? Because you’re definitely an Angel.”
Munk200 Profile Joined November 2011 United States 52 Posts #18 For the people concerned with the main size, the picture is deceiving. The scale on the map is really nice. I personally like the way the 3rd is set up with the 2 slightly smaller chokes rather than 1 slightly larger choke. Makes for a more interesting game play and forces people to split their army's up.
You should try playing the map before making judgment. You cant choose what happens to you, you can only chose how to react.
SiskosGoatee Profile Blog Joined May 2012 Albania 1482 Posts #19 On April 05 2013 18:13 Laserist wrote:
I am not a map expert but from a player's perspective, layout is too dark to play many games on it. It affects your mood and psychology definitely. People get depressed from lack of bright colours? Sunlight okay, but that's to do with vitamin D. You don't get that from a screen.
People get depressed from lack of bright colours? Sunlight okay, but that's to do with vitamin D. You don't get that from a screen. WCS Apartheid cometh, all hail the casual audience, death to merit and hard work.
ScorpSCII Profile Joined April 2012 Denmark 499 Posts #20
Although an obvious spelling mistake, it may be worth fixing. On April 04 2013 16:58 Timetwister22 wrote:
Concpet
Mapmaker | Author of Atlas, Rao Mesa & Paralda
1 2 Next AllGood build quality. AF is useless.
Build quality is really good. AF is useless with my Tamron 90mm macro (canon mount) on sony a6500. It keeps going back and forth from one end to the other, never catches focus, never. The aperture value transmitted to the camera is not same as if its on a canon camera. I think the information is misinterpreted (at least with Tamron 90mm macro). Its ok for macro work, since most of the time you will be manually focusing. but it limits the use of the lens. Go for it, if you are willing to focus manually all the time. Consider it as a manual focus adaptor with aperture control and exif transmission.
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Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: roxsenPresident Obama has made repeated use of executive orders to advance the administration’s goals when Republicans in Congress refused to act. Last week, he signed two orders requiring modest but important steps by federal contractors to narrow the wage gap between female and male employees.
These useful measures made even more glaring his failure to honor a 2008 campaign pledge to ban discrimination by federal contractors based on sexual orientation or gender identity. A long-delayed measure to outlaw such discrimination by all employers, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, cleared the Senate five months ago with Mr. Obama’s support, but House Republican leaders are in no hurry to follow suit. John Boehner, the House speaker, has said that a law against that sort of discrimination would be “frivolous.”
Mr. Obama said in November that workplace discrimination “needs to stop, because, in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense.” An executive order barring discrimination by federal contractors would extend badly needed job protections to more than 11 million employees who work in states that lack such protections and whose companies fail to provide them voluntarily, according to the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law.
What Mr. Obama needs to do is act on his principles and issue such an order, without the religious exemption that was put into the Senate bill to lure Republican votes. Challenged last week to explain the mystifying delay on this issue, Mr. Obama’s spokesman said that the president supported broader legislation and that its enactment by Congress would make an executive order “redundant.”Our City Forest is proud to announce that by the end of this week we will have converted 21,117 sq ft of turf grass lawn into drought-tolerant gardens, bringing our Lawnbusters program out of the pilot phase. This is our small contribution to combating the ongoing environmental impacts of lawns. We would like to thank all the homeowners who gave us the chance to convert their lawns for working with us to mitigate California’s historic drought. Converting 21,117 sq ft of lawn will saves approximately 680,812 gal of water every year (assuming watering rates of about 0.62 gal per sq ft once a week). We would like to think that converting lawns into drought tolerant landscapes also honors the original civic and democratic spirit of American home landscaping by demonstrating a commitment to caring about the long-term impact of the landscape on your health, your neighbor’s health, the environment and the entire water supply. Congratulations Lawnbusters! With help from our community we hope to maintain and expand the impact of this program to save millions of gallons of water a year and create environmentally sustainable urban landscapes.If you don’t understand the vocabulary, check the end glossary.
Let’s look at a play from the start of the fourth quarter where the Warriors got their final separation from a game, scrappy Utah Jazz team.
The key lineup in Game 1 was Ian Clark (+7), Klay Thompson (+23), Draymond Green (+19), Andre Iguodala (+9) and David West (+14). The +/- numbers are striking on a night where Stephen Curry (+5) and Kevin Durant (+2) didn’t post their usual big +/- numbers. It wasn’t so much that Curry and Durant played badly, but that they mostly shared the floor with Zaza Pachulia (+6) and JaVale McGee (-1). These two centers got singled out for repeated attack by the Jazz by having their man set screens for the pick-and-roll, and forcing them to defend against speedy drivers in space.
West, in |
bad in this situation? Robbing the CEO of his bonus would be easier to justify, and possibly more ethical, but does that then shift the value of the cops’ actions?
This is usually how Deus works, by miring people in semantic debates and inching their position ever closer to his, and I should add, with considerably more skill that I can legitimately muster. That’s why it’s difficult to write smart characters. There’s almost no chance the person writing them is smarter the character. An inventor or scientist, sure, throw out some technobabble and then show the thing they invented, but writing a genuinely intelligent character is tough. One of the few really good examples I can think of is Hannibal, or at least the first two seasons. Hannibal approaches situations in that show with forethought and planning that borders on Batman level absurd, but if you were really 65 IQ up on everyone else around you, things that seem like ridiculous foresight to someone else might come as second nature to you. Deus hasn’t really displayed this yet, since doing so either takes a lot of text or a long plot in which characters can reveal their machinations. I think that’s part of the reason why most smart characters come across as intelligent but unwise. They have flashes of brilliance but no long game.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.2011 has been an important year for Android. With devices like Samsung Galaxy S II, Motorola XOOM and Kindle Fire turning heads in the market, atop the release of what is arguably the best iteration of the mobile OS (Ice Cream Sandwich) yet, it was only a matter of time before the head honchos of mobile app development began hopping onto the Android bandwagon. Not only has the year seen many big names debut on the Android Market, but many novice developers make big names for themselves, and to top it all off, the Market is now home to over 400,000 apps.
There is no denying the fact that it is still way behind the iTunes App Store in both quantity and quality (especially where the visual appeal of UI, in general, is concerned), but the degree of improvement that the platform and its apps have undergone the previous year surely exceeds the expectations of most of its fans. Here at AddictiveTips, we’ve been observing the progress of the platform and its app repository quite closely, bringing you the best apps in and out of the Market day after day. As the year ended, we decided to take a trip down memory lane, and compile a list of the ones we found to be the most unique or useful of lot.
1. Google Currents (Perhaps the best news reader and RSS aggregator for Android yet)
2. AirDroid (Remotely access, and control all the core features/apps of your Android device from any web browser)
3. Baconreader (Arguably the best reddit client available in the Android Market)
4. ZeroPC Cloud Navigator (Comprehensive all-in-one cloud data browser for Android tablets)
5. TeamViewer (Full remote desktop access and control)
6. Screencast & Recorder (Rooted devices only: One of the only apps in the Market that records smooth, high quality screencasts)
7. Espier Launcher (Remarkably accurate iOS Springboard clone)
8. LapseIt (The best time-lapse video creator for Android that we’ve come across so far)
9. Emit (Stream & download audio and videos from desktop and iTunes library over Wi-Fi)
10. Skitch By Evernote (One of the best annotation and drawing tools; integrated with Evernote)
11. iOnRoad (Augmented reality driving companion with collision detection alerts)
12. Yahoo! IntoNow (Identifies what’s being played on TV, and displays detailed program information)
13. SPRiiD (Remote file sharing between two Android device over the internet)
14. Boat Browser (Chrome and mobile Safari-like browser with tabbed-browsing, quick dial, and support for webpage scrolling via volume buttons)
15. Elixir 2 (Comprehensive system info tool and app/task manager, with a vast suite of homescreen widgets)
16. LBE Privacy Guard (Rooted devices only: Monitors access requests made by apps and alerts you of them, much like Windows’ UAC)
17. MiLocker (MIUI dev team’s lockscreen replacement app for all Android devices; has a large online store of downloadable lockscreen themes)
18. Iris (Siri-inspired voice-controlled assistant; indulges in casual chat, and helps you with calling, texting, online searching and launching apps)
19. Hipmunk (Track shortest and most economical flight routes to worldwide destinations)
20. Intel Pair & Share (Stream photos from Android to PC and/or other Android devices over Wi-Fi)
21. Viber (Free VoIP app to call and text other app users from your contact list; registration done through phone number, much like WhatsApp)
22. Remote Tablet (Remotely control one Android device with the other over Bluetooth)
23. Undelete Beta (File/data recovery tool for Android)
24. SHREDroid (File shredder; removes traces of deleted files from internal memory and SD card to prevent file recovery)
25. Pops (Custom animated alerts for your text messages, Facebook, Twitter and Emails)
26. Cloudless (Two-Way media sync between Android & PC over Wi-Fi without a desktop client)
27. TouchRetouch Free (Allows seamless removal of unwanted content from images)
28. Dropsync (Provides two-way sync between your device’s local storage and your Dropbox cloud)
29. Hearing Saver (Automatically changes media volume to predefined levels when headphones are plugged in or unplugged)
30. Plug In Launcher (Auto-launches an app of your choice when usb/power cable or headphones are connected)
31. Magic Hour (Lets you apply photo filters, edit existing filters or create your own from scratch; has a massive online filter repository as well)
32. MX Video Player (Media player with support for all popular video and subtitle formats; no additional plugins required)
33. Cheetah Sync (Two-way data sync between Android & PC/Mac over Wi-Fi)
34. Voxer (Push-to-Talk IM client that supports sharing images, location and voice messages; saves voice messages, and plays them while offline)
35. TalkBox (Cross-platform voice messenger that merges the conventional text chat interface with voice communication)
36. Merriam-Webster Dictionary (Official Merriam-Webster Dictionary app; the dictionary is offline and supports voice search)
37. Any.DO (An elegantly designed and feature-rich task management & reminder app)
38. SkyAMP (Stream music on Android device from your Windows SkyDrive account)
39. BitTorrent Remote (Remotely control torrent downloads/uploads on your desktop BitTorrent client)
40. WiFiKill (Rooted devices only: Lets you disable internet for any device/user from a WiFi network that you are connected to)
41. Sonalight Text By Voice (Text-to-Speech & Speech-to-Text based messaging app for incoming and outgoing text messages)
42. Wi-Fi Network Analysis (Provides a comprehensive collection ways to monitor Wi-Fi networks, and relevant information)
43. Say Cheese Camera (Voice-controlled camera replacement with an additional ‘stealth’ mode)
44. Steam For Android (Unofficial steam client with an ICS-like user interface)
45. Add Friend (Lets you add Facebook friends by touching your NFC-capable devices together)
46. MagicLocker (One of the best lockscreen replacements out there; has several downloadable themes)
47. WiFi QR Code Generator (Generates QR codes that can be scanned by Barcode Scanner to join WiFi networks)
48. MIUI Launcher (Clone of the MIUI custom ROM’s native launcher)
49. Gifinator (Easy-to-use animated GIF creator)
50. Agile Lock (Great HTC Sense 3.0 lockscreen clone)
51. DC Comics & Marvel Comics (Official DC & Marvel comics clients for Android with built-in, frame-to-frame based comic readers)
52. Visidon AppLock (Apply face-recognition lock to apps of your choice)
53. SkyDrive Browser (Unofficial SkyDrive client with dual-pane browser)
54. Nemus Launcher (Homescreen replacement with unique App Drawer and folder widgets)
55. Do It (Tomorrow) (Task management two days at a time)
56. GO Contacts EX (Enhanced version of the GO dev team’s popular, feature-rich contacts replacement app)
57. Outdoor Navigation (Swiss army knife for travelers)
58. Social Jogger 2 (Sleek social media aggregator for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr & Plurk)
59. SaveMeeting (Record, save and share audio recordings of meetings, and their text transcripts; transcripts are generated via Text-to-Speech)
60. DeskSMS (Forwards incoming texts as mail or chat messages to your Gmail or Gtalk account respectively; provides the option to toggle forwarding for each via a homescreen widget)
61. Hacker’s Keyboard (Full 5-row keyboard replacement)
62. ChannelCaster (A feature-rich news reader and social media app mashup)
63. Unlock With WiFi (Automatically disables lockscreen when connected to user-defined WiFi network)
64. Connection Checker (Automatically toggles WiFi or mobile data in case of weak signals until a stable connection is established)
65. IVONA (High Quality, realistic alternative to the stock Android Text-to-Speech engine)
66. Andie Graph (Emulator for TI graphing calculators)
67. Android Theme Launcher (Highly customizable launcher-style Live Wallpaper)
68. 360 (Easily create and share panoramic photos with other users and friends)
69. Limit Your Call (Set custom notification patterns and automatic hang-up time for your calls to cut down on phone bills)
70. ShakeCall (Receive and end calls by shaking the device)
71. Soundtracker Radio (Extremely feature-rich music discovery app that fetches lyrics for songs of your choice, and lets you explore musical taste of local users)
72. MightyText (Previously known as Texty; lets you send and receive your Android device’s text messages to and from your desktop)
73. Battery Calibration (Rooted devices only: Re-calibrates your device’s battery)
74. BITS Widget (Create your own clock and weather homescreen widgets)
75. AutoCAD WS (View, edit and share DWG files stored locally or on your AutoCAD WS cloud)
76. HDMwIn (Full HDMI mirroring for HTC EVO 4G; no root required)
77. Kernel Manager (Rooted devices only: Download and flash custom kernels for your device)
78. Angel Browser (One of the most feature-rich Android browsers to date)
79. Volume Sync (Mutes the media volume whenever the ringer volume is muted)
80. SD Maid (Clear your SD card and internal memory of residues left behind by deleted apps and other unnecessary files)
81. Hulu Plus (Official Hulu client for Android)
82. Dock4Droid (Adds a gesture area at the bottom of the screen for quick task switching)
83. PCAutoWaker (Automatically turns your desktop on when your Android device connects to the same WiFi network)
84. ZDBox (All-in-one system monitoring and management toolkit)
85. Ultimate App Guard (Scheduled lock/unlock profiles for apps with up to seven methods of protection)
86. NVIDIA Tegra Zone (Game discovery app for Tegra-powered Android devices)
87. GO Locker (One of the best lockscreen replacement apps to date; has its own online repository of downloadable themes)
88. Yahoo! Play (Identifies songs, lets you make mood-oriented playlists)
89. Lightbox (Capture photos, apply filters and sync with the web)
90. Wallpaper Changer (Automatically cycles through wallpapers of your choice after a specified interval of time)
91. Ripple Lock (Honeycomb-inspired lockscreen replacement)
92. Read It Later Free (Archive web pages/articles and read them later from within your device, desktop browser or other mobile platforms)
93. PicsIn Viewer (Aggregates images from cloud and social networks as well as from gallery, and lets you upload/download them from within the app)
94. Android Lost (Comprehensive anti-theft, remote access and control solution; now allows controlling multiple devices at once)
95. Mutli Texter (Send unlimited SMS to an unlimited number of contacts at once)
96. Smart Rotator (Allows you to specify apps for which you want auto-rotate to remain enabled)
97. UC Browser 8.0 (High speed, data saving web browser with support for caching browsed content)
98. Conimgo (Expense/budget management app for roommates)
99. SD Increase (Rooted devices only: Boosts read and write speeds of SD card)
100. Bird Bar Notifications (Drag and launch notifications drawer from within fullscreen apps)
101. Application Folder (Highly customizable folder widgets for your homescreen)
102. RemebAR (Facial recognition app to remember friends, and share meetings with them on your Facebook wall)
103. BrowsAR (Scan QR codes to view Facebook profiles in profiles in augmented reality)
104. MXHome Launcher (Homescreen replacement with unique App Drawer concept and 3D graphics)
105. Regina 3D Launcher (Homescreen replacement with amazing 3D graphics)
106. SemiSilent (Enable ringer for calls from specific contacts while keeping your device in silent mode)
107. Strimz (Stream live video recordings to your Facebook Wall)
108. Draw n Chat (Real-time virtual drawing board sharing between two Android devices over the internet)
109. Tablet Market (Medium for finding great Honeycomb-optimized apps on the Android Market)
110. Voice Control Without Internet (Launch Android apps via voice commands without an internet connection)
111. Cisco Connect Express (Remotely manage & monitor your Cisco routers)
112. Invisibright (Allows you to control brightness by swiping along the edge of the screen or tilting your device)
113. Trulia Rent A House (Helps you find the best places for rent around your location)
114. MIUI Music Player (Standalone MIUI music player app for all Android devices)
115. QISS (Comprehensive IM and social networking browser with support for sharing texts & photos across major micro-blogging web services and social networks)
116. Call Master (Customized, schedule-based settings for incoming calls and texts for individual contacts & groups)
117. The Social Radio (Reads your Twitter feed out loud, with music of your choice playing in between tweets)
118. K-Adroit (Comprehensive online encyclopedia for Android smartphones and tablets)
119. Meporter (Citizen journalism app that allows you to share geo-tagged news & photos)
120. Hitlantis (Music discovery app with an intuitive UI)
121. Alfred (Personal virtual concierge that suggests eating places as per your preferences)
122. goHow Airport (Comprehensive airport finding and flight tracking app that fetches real-time information directly from some of of the top airports around the world)
123. ViBe (Create & set custom vibration patterns for individual contacts or groups)
124. Evoqu ShopAdvisor (Find red-hot shopping deals, scan barcodes, analyze recent market trends, and check user reviews of technology products from major online merchants)
125. Volume Rocker (Switch between as many as 5 customizable sound profiles from within the app or its homescreen widget)
126. Weather Services (Detailed weather forecasts with live weather cam images from various regions of the world)
127. AppAware (The easiest and most convenient way of finding and sharing trending apps and games from the Android Market; supports displaying local apps)
128. Calendar Silencer (Syncs events from multiple calendars, and automatically silences your device according to selected activities in your schedule)
129. Birthday Scheduler for FB (Automatically sends personalized wishes to your Facebook friends on their birthdays)
130. Ask.com (Official Android client of the famous web-based Q&A platform)
131. Prox (Uses your device’s proximity sensors and accelerometer to read hand gestures, and perform various actions)
132. Mobli (Instragram-like photo and video-sharing app for Android)
133. Student Timetable (Easily the most feature-rich student planner for Android that we’ve come across)
134. SMS Board (Forwards incoming SMS to email as well as Facebook and Twitter as private messages)
135. Mr. Mouse (Motion-Tracking WiFi Mouse)
136. Speaklib (Clipboard manager that reads copied text out loud in multiple languages)
137. Snapbucket (Photobucket’s photo styling app with customizable effects; lets you unlock additional filters by snapping more photos)
138. AppPlus (Check latest price drops of apps in the Android Market)
139. Legimi (eBook reader & downloader with option to sync local library over the internet, and publish highlighted text to Facebook)
140. N3xGen Theme Manager (Comprehensive gallery for Android themes and launcher skins from the Market)
141. MyAlbum (Download entire Facebook albums to your device with a single tap)
142. Quick Event (Automatically creates calendar events from simple text; identifies information within the text and enters it into appropriate fields)
143. Sleep Timer (Automatically plays, pauses or stops multimedia during user-specified time intervals)
144. Wi-Fi Chat (IM that lets you chat with users connected to the same Wi-Fi Network)
145. Default App Manager (Clear, set & edit default apps)
146. ProCapture (Handy camera replacement app with multiple capture modes)
147. Autodesk Inventor Publisher (View 3D assembly instructions on the go)
148. CNN for Android (Official CNN client for Android; lets you submit your own stories via iReport)
149. NASA App (Official NASA client; lets you explore the best from space)
150. Hotmail (The official Hotmail client for Android)
So which of the above fall into your list of favorites? If you didn’t find one or more of your favorite apps in our list, feel free to tell us about it in the comment section below. If you liked this list, you might also want to check out the following:
150 Best Windows Applications Of Year 2011
100 Best Mac Applications Of Year 2011
85 Best iPhone & iPad Apps Of Year 2011
30 Best Windows Phone 7 Apps Of Year 2011
20 Best Cydia Tweaks Of Year 2011
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTERIt was one of those emails you never want to get.
Coming just weeks after Edward Snowden began sharing details about the National Security Administration’s secret spy programs — I learned directly the NSA was also watching me.
In early July, I put my limited graphic design skills to work, replacing the 50 stars on an American Flag with the seals of 50 federal departments, agencies and bureaus either known or highly suspected of spying on the public.
The name I gave it: The United State of Surveillance.
The design quickly spread online, largely thanks to Reddit. Within 24 hours, it was the top link of the day on several subreddits, including the NSA-inspired r/restorethefourth.
Now, I usually end up with images that are close to 80MB in size (that’s a lot — generally movie-poster size, in full resolution). It’s a lot to upload unless I buy space on the Internet, so I would upload my designs to Zazzle, where someone can choose to put it on a poster, T-shirt, or whatever else Zazzle sold.
But I didn’t expect they’d remove a design made entirely of taxpayer-funded federal government seals.
“Your product contained content which infringes upon the intellectual property rights of National Security Agency (NSA),” read the email, from “Mike” at Zazzle’s “content management team.”
“We have been contacted by legal representatives from the National Security Agency, and at their request, to remove products which infringe upon their rights from the Zazzle Marketplace,” the email read.
What images was the NSA upset about? The agency’s “logo, full name and its acronym (NSA).”
That’s right, the NSA wanted my permission to use its seal — or even its name.
A public agency at the center of the biggest privacy scandal ever had lawyers to silence criticism, using obscure laws that did not even apply.
I had broken the law, in the NSA’s eyes, and they see all. It left me with a certain degree of anxiety — mixed with anger that such a claim could be used, when it was so obviously an abuse of the spirit (and letter) of the law.
Investigative reporter Ben Swann reported the same phenomenon about a month later, when libertarian-leaning apparel company LibertyManiacs also had its NSA-inspired designs booted from Zazzle.
Why did Zazzle do this? The CEO of the company failed to respond to my message, but the customer service team eventually did.
“The representative of the National Security Agency contacted Zazzle to remove designs bearing the National Security Agency seal, the text ‘NSA’, and the text ‘National Security Agency’. All products bearing these designs are in direct violation of Public Law 86-36.”
That law, laid out by the NSA, states, in Section 15(a):
No person may, except with the written permission of the Director of the National Security Agency, knowingly use the words ‘National Security Agency’, the initials ‘NSA’, the seal of the National Security Agency, or any colorable imitation of such words, initials, or seal in connection with any merchandise, impersonation, solicitation, or commercial activity in a manner reasonably calculated to convey the impression that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the National Security Agency.
Now, there’s a lot in this sentence (believe it or not, it’s just one sentence), but the easy part is the qualifier at the end.
It’s illegal to use the NSA name to convey “that such use is approved, endorsed, or authorized by the National Security Agency.”
Now, the American flag design I made clearly isn’t an official document. I dare say, no one would think — even could think — such a clearly negative portrayal of the NSA (and of the other 49 other divisions included) is “approved” or “endorsed” by the same group.
In a line, here’s the logic: “Someone might think we’re criticizing our own existence. Therefore, you’re criticism is illegal.”
Screw that.
“I find it troubling that Zazzle removed my work after getting a notice, without any substantiation of why that image would not be public and therefore eligible for open use,” I wrote back to Zazzle, but to no avail.
LibertyManiac’s NSA T-shirt design spoofed the NSA logo, with the slogan, “The only part of the government that actually listens.”
Just like that, “within an hour or two,” as the company founder Dan McCall put it, the NSA had found him, and threatened Zazzle with a lawsuit unless it was removed.
My situation got even better. Because I included other agency seals, I got the attention of another omnipresent federal department.
“In addition,” Zazzle said in its explanation email, “the design contained an image which infringed upon intellectual property of U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”
That infringement, assumedly, is the department’s seal (located on the second row, all the way to the left).
“Total crap,” said a nationally recognized First Amendment attorney, suggesting I file a civil action for deprivation of rights under U.S. Code Section 1983.
“Someone should sue.”
But who’s ballsy enough to sue a government that has admitted it already has every secret about you? Who wants their life ruined just to share a digital picture?
Is there any American citizen strong enough to fight back?
More importantly, is there anyone brave enough?
The design is now available for purchase or customization at Pondyr Store. It is also available in its full resolution for download here [PNG].
AdvertisementsYour goal becomes sending the “status update” email, and the feature is a means to an end.
In order to click “Send,” you must first complete everything you promised to yourself you would. For whatever reason, I find this to be way more compelling than exterior deadlines imposed by someone else. It becomes little mind-game with yourself, as you try to make good on the bet that you’d accomplish what you set out to initially.
You become focused on the important things.
You’re less likely to waste time working through a random edge-case if it doesn’t move you closer to sending that email. The “Status Report” acts as a litmus test throughout the day, similar to a To Do list, but more pointed and more personal, because it’s a communication, chambered, ready to be sent to your boss or client as soon as possible.
Stay connected and reap the rewards.
There’s definitely a happen medium to communication. Eamil your boss every 10 mins with an update, and you’ll shortly be disregarded and relegated to a pile of other annoying, unimportant unread emails they’re sure to get throughout the day. Collate your thoughts into a concise list of accomplishments, and sent 3x — 5x a week, and you’ve effectively communicated your progress to someone that matters. Connected clients/bosses are a good thing.
But, how?
I don’t usually do this right away. Any any sizable task (something that might take you 1–3 days to complete), there’s always that lull. After you’ve started into the project, and gained some momentum, you might find an issue that just dissolved your motivation a bit. It’s not that it’s a show-stopping issue or anything, it so happened to hit you at the right time and, along with all the other work you’ve done, you might decided it’s time for a break.
Since you’ve started the project, you already have a pretty good idea of what you are going to deliver, you haven’t seen anything that makes you want to run for the hills, and you’ve made enough progress to establish momentum and velocity.
You’ve just found the perfect time to write up a status update.
Take a break, imagine you’re done and write a status update.
Hmmm, doesn’t that feel nice?The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced its new board of governors for 2016-17, which includes director Steven Spielberg and actress Laura Dern.
The film editors branch will require a run-off election after a tie between candidates Maryann Brandon and Mark Goldblatt.
Here are the new governors elected:
Laura Dern, actors branch
Sharen K. Davis, costume designers
Steven Spielberg, directors
Roger Ross Williams, documentary
Laura Karpman, music
Kevin Collier, sound
Returning after a hiatus are governors William M. Mechanic, executives branch; Leonard Engelman, makeup artists and hairstylists; and Craig Barron, visual effects.
The board so far includes 17 women, but that number could change, depending on the results of the film-editors runoff. (Voting will take place July 25-28.) The 2016 board includes seven people of color: Daryn Okada, Sharen K. Davis, Roger Ross Williams, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Gregory Nava and Reginald Hudlin. The latter three were appointed as governors-at-large in January.
That’s out of a total 54 (51 elected, plus the three governors-at-large). Academy execs have been working for more inclusion in its membership and its board. The Academy demographics have long reflected the film industry as a whole; but the goal has been to add diversity, to set an example of what the industry could be.
Related Oscars: With Massive Invite List, Academy Redirects Diversity Debate
Spielberg’s election is a coup for the Academy; even though he fits into the Caucasian-male demographics of the majority membership (and the industry as a whole), he’s a reminder to the general public that this is an organization of top professionals who have integrity and a strong social awareness.
Incumbent governors who have been re-elected include David Rubin, casting directors branch; John Bailey, cinematographers; Jan Pascale, designers; Mark Johnson, producers; Nancy Utley, public relations; Jon Bloom, short films and feature animation; and Robin Swicord, writers.
Governors serve a three-year term. Every year, one governor from each branch is up for election. The other two from the branch remain, to maintain stability and continuity. The Academy’s 17 branches are each represented by three governors, for a total of 51, plus the three governors-at-large.
Board runoffs are rare, but not unprecedented; there were also runoffs in 2009 and 2015.
“I’m honored and privileged to welcome the Academy’s new board,” said Academy president Isaacs. “I thank our members for actively participating and taking another step toward inclusion, one that will bring new ideas and perspectives as we continue to expand our global outreach while leading our community forward.”
On June 29, the Academy invited a record 683 new members, with members of the new class being 46% female and 41% people of color. The Academy membership, with the new class included, is now 27% female and 11% people of color. Before the announcement of the new class, it was just 25% female and 8% people of color.The BMW-driving speed fiend who claimed a record-setting lap of Manhattan on YouTube boasted of even crazier car exploits to the cops who arrested him, authorities said on Friday.
Adam Tang, 30, of Harlem admitted to investigators that he filmed and posted a dashboard video documenting his mad run around Manhattan, and said he once covered 4,000 miles in 38 hours, “which means driving over 100 miles an hour consistently for the entire trip,”: “a prosecutor, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Shilpa Kalra, told a judge on Friday.
“This is not the defendant’s first violation,” Kalra said, adding, “He does not seem to feel he’s required to abide by the laws governing the roads.”
Tang appeared in court sporting facial hair, and wearing the same baggy shorts and Jack Daniels logo t-shirt he had on when police arrested him on Thursday night.
He was arraigned on two misdemeanor counts, one each of reckless driving and reckless endangerment. Kalra said her office might seek a felony grand jury indictment of Tang. Judge Joanne Quinones ordered Tang’s driver’s license suspended and demanded that Tang, a Canadian national, surrender his passport.
Quinones denied a request by Tang’s public defender, Vanessa Macias, that he be released on his own recognizance, and set bail at $10,000. Quinones made no ruling on Kalra’s argument that Tang isn’t poor enough to qualify for legal aid.
“He informed our office that he made enough day trading that he doesn’t need to do anything else for support,” Kalra said.
The portrait that emerged of Tang in court was at odds with his couch-casual attire: a graduate of Canada’s University of British Columbia who majored in economics, worked as a legal assistant, moved to New York City two years ago, and whose wife works as an educator at the Whitney Museum.
Not to mention the blue 2006 BMW Z4 roadster with Canadian plates that cops also seized on Thursday, two days after Police Commissioner Ray Kelly had promised to nab the anonymous scofflaw.
A smiling Tang, told reporters on Thursday night, “I’ll comment later” as he was frog-marched in cuffs and stuffed into a cop car for a slower ride into custody. He said nothing at his arraignment.
Tang went online last week to claim his mad Manhattan circuit of 26.5 miles in 24 minutes and 7 seconds – for an average speed of 66 mph on an improvised route with posted limits of 35-50 mph.
A time-compressed dashboard video of the stunt surfaced on YouTube on Aug. 28 under an account called “AfroDuck Production.” The post, entitled “Fastest Lap Around Manhattan 2013,” claimed the record-setting run happened on the night of Aug. 26.
AfroDuck also boasted of his anonymity to the car-geek Web site, Jalopnik: “You frankly can’t identify who I am by just looking at the video.”
But police have the ability to track and identify motorists after the fact, Kelly said Tuesday, and Tang was arrested after NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad reviewed the video.
The video, still posted, has netted more than 363,000 views as of Friday afternoon. In the video’s comments section, and on Twitter, tongue-in-cheek cries of “Free AfroDuck!” were multiplying, along with arguments over how solid a case authorities have against the alleged speedster.Public interest in the anti-Clinton book genre appears intense. A trio of books critical of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are among the top five positions on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list.
“Crisis of Character: White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill and How They Operate” by Gary J. Byrne is now No. 1 on the hard-cover nonfiction list at The Times; it has remained on the list for four weeks.
In second place: “Hillary’s America: Thee Secret History of the Democratic Party” by columnist and documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, new to the list this week. The libretto for the popular new musical “Hamilton” is in third place, and in fourth, it’s “Armageddon: How Trump Can Beat Hillary” by veteran political strategists Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, also new to the roster this week.
The Times’ combined list for print and e-book nonfiction is very similar. “It Gets Worse” by YouTube personality Shane Dawson sits at No. 1, followed by Mr. Byrnes’ book in second place, Mr. D’Souza’s in third, and the Morris/McCann work in fourth.
The appetite for such books has been growing. Mr. Byrne’s book was No. 1 at Amazon for four weeks before it was even published in June, though the author said his book has been “shunned by every mainstream media outlet.”
Pre-orders were brisk. Not everyone was a fan, however. The Association of Former Agents of the United States Secret Service released a statement denouncing Mr. Byrne’s book, suggesting the author has an “underlying motive,” among other things.
“I did not write this book for partisan politics, I wrote it so I could get the truth out. Now that I am retired, I also feel I have a responsibility to the American public to tell my story, so you know what the truth is,” Mr. Bryne said in a public video produced to counter the claims. “This story is all true.”
Regnery, which published Mr. D’Souza’s book, points out that Mrs. Clinton noted in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last week, “Some people just don’t know what to make of me.”
“Actually, Dinesh D’Souza knows exactly what to make of Hillary Clinton — and he’s letting the whole country in on the secret,” the publisher responded in a statement on Monday.
Mr. D’Souza’s companion feature-length documentary film “Hillary’s America” is currently seen in theaters nationwide and has no become the highest-grossing documentary of 2016, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Outlander Comes Home Facebook
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The US hit series, and winner of this year’s People’s Choice Award for Favourite Cable Sci Fi/Fantasy TV Show is coming to the country that inspired it.
New fantasy series, Outlander, is based on the historical novels by Diana Gabaldon, and has proved a big hit across the Atlantic.
The heroine of the series, Claire Randall, visits a circle of standing stones just outside Inverness and through them journeys back in time to the 18th century.
The series was filmed in Scotland, and viewers can spot local landmarks as they would have looked in the 1700s.
Set upon by redcoats, and rescued by a rugged, kilted Scotsman named Jamie Fraser, English Claire finds herself in an alien world, both beautiful and barbaric. She stumbles into the beginnings of a Jacobite rebellion, and realises with horror that the famous Battle of Culloden, where many of her rescuers will likely perish, is only a few years away.
Outlander was filmed in Scotland, and viewers can spot local landmarks, re-imagined as they would have been in the 1700s: Doune Castle stars as Castle Leoch, Falkland features as 18th century Inverness, and the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore even makes an appearance as the Scottish crofts where Jamie and Claire seek shelter in the very first episode.
Jay Marine is the Vice President of Amazon Instant Video in the EU and he’s thrilled to be bringing the hit show to the UK:
“Filmed in Scotland and already hugely popular stateside, we can’t wait to bring the show and its stellar cast of breakthrough British talent to the UK where we know there is a huge fan following already.”
Eight episodes of the series are being released on Amazon Prime on March 26, with future episodes launching weekly from Sunday, April 5.
Have a look through our gallery on the right to get a flavour of Outlander or click here to read more about the show – and what it could mean for Scotland.If you’re searching for a perfect wooden cottage, look no further than this website. This simple yet useful 12 by 18 feet cabin will provide the space you need to have a lovely weekend. With a 3-foot porch included in the kit, you might be tempted to move permanently into this type of house. The manufacturer, Cabana Village company, has chosen cedar or maintenance-free siding, 1/2″ plywood roof sheathing as well as 2 by 4 SPF framing for this particular build, making it a structure cheaper than you think. You can make the bold choice today and move in right away. Just order the plans for the design and type of cabin you pick and you can begin the work. Share the opportunity with your friends – who knows, maybe you’ll all move to a much calmer environment where you can enjoy the cabin to its full potential!
more details here…. Cabana VillageWalk-O-Meter Create 250,000 new jobs Will "get government out of the way of employers... who will then help Wisconsin create 250,000 jobs by 2015, and as we create those new jobs, we will be able to add 10,000 new businesses.”
Updates
Economists say time has run out on top campaign promise
Gov. Scott Walker fell short when it came to his top 2010 campaign promise -- that the state would add 250,000 private-sector jobs in his first term. But he would have finished much closer had there been four years with the jobs growth seen in 2014 -- especially the final four months of the year. State employers added an estimated 53,400 jobs in 2014, pushing the total for his four-year term to 146,795. That's about 59 percent of the total Walker promised as a candidate. For |
Conclusion
HOV lanes are currently one of the primary tools that the state uses to relieve congestion and improve air quality. Given annual increases in congestion and plans to double the number of HOV lanes over the next 20 years, we recommend that the Legislature, Caltrans, and RTPAs consider the options outlined above. This should help to ensure that the freeway capacity utilized by HOV lanes is managed most efficiently and that any expansion to the HOV lane system be closely tied to evidence that the lanes are achieving their goals.
Index to Acronyms AVO Average Vehicle Occupancy CAAA Clean Air Act Amendments CARB California Air Resources Board CMA Congestion Management Agency EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency FHWA United States Federal Highway Administration HOT High Occupancy Toll HOV High Occupancy Vehicle ILEV Inherently Low Emission Vehicle MTC Metropolitan Transportation Commission NJDOT New Jersey Department of Transportation RTPA Regional Transportation Planning Agency SANDAG San Diego Association of Governments SIP State Implementation Plan SOV Single Occupancy Vehicle TCM Transportation Control Measure TDM Transportation Demand Management ULEV Ultra Low Emission Vehicle VMT Vehicle Miles TraveledCrytek's UK-based studio formerly known as Free Radical (which developed the multiplayer in Crysis 2, and Time Splitters) has been confirmed as the developer for Homefront 2.
Taking over from the recently shuttered Kaos Studios, the Nottingham-based studio will take place after the events of the first Homefront, building upon the war story written by John Milius (Red Dawn, Conan the Barbarian, Apocalypse Now).
"We see Homefront as a really strong universe that has a lot of potential and that has been expertly created and marketed by THQ,” commented Crytek boss Cevat Yerli in the official press release.
"We believe that bringing our level of quality, creativity and production values to the next Homefront title, creates an opportunity for both THQ and Crytek to deliver a truly blockbuster game. It’s really important to us that THQ has the faith in giving us a lot of creative freedom over one of its most important properties to allow us to bring the Homefront world to life in a new and innovative way."
Homefront 2 is due for release in fiscal year 2014. No other details have been released at this point in time.On the night of December 26, 2004, a massive quake of magnitude 9.1-9.3 — with its epicentre in Bay of Bengal — triggered one of the biggest Tsunamis the world had ever witnessed. The massive waves, measuring up to 30 metres, created havoc in 15 different countries killing more than 2,00,000 people. More than half of those who perished in the calamity belonged to Indonesia.
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In India, over 10,000 people were killed in the disaster, which is considered to be one of the deadliest in recorded history. The extent of damage it caused was attributed to a number of reasons, mainly poor infrastructure and warning systems and large population living in coastal areas.
The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami or Christmas Tsunami, caused fatalities among large number of tourists because of the holiday season. Today marks the 12th anniversary of that devastating event.
Speaking to Indian Express on 10th anniversary of the Tsunami in 2014, Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary Shailesh Nayak said, “The absence of an early warning system in India at that time was not because of any lack of capability or expertise, but because no one had thought that a tsunami of that size could ever hit India. Not much is known about the last major tsunami to hit India, in the 1880s. The tsunami that hit the western coast in 1945 too is poorly documented”.
As per the official count, 10,136 people died in India with majority of the casualties reported from Tamil Nadu. However, unofficial estimates believe the actual number could have been over 18,000 people. The second most affected region in India was Andaman and Nicobar islands where official death toll reached over 1,300, with over 5,500 missing.
Millions were displaced and subsequent research work revealed that the environment also suffered damage because of it. The only active volcano of the country, Barren 1 on Andamad Islands, erupted on December 30 as a result of the seismic activity. However, nobody was harmed in the incident.
On January 1, 2005, Ministry of Home Affairs released a ‘Tsunami impact report’ which said: “The Tsunamis have caused extensive damage in Andaman & Nicobar Islands, the States of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu and UT of Pondicherry. 97 aftershocks of intensities between 5.0 to 7.0 on Richter scale have been reported so far. The death toll is now at 9575. This is likely to go up once confirmation regarding 5801 missing persons/feared dead (as per preliminary survey) in the Nicobar Group of Islands is received.”
According to the report, a total of 36,09,000 were impacted only in mainland states – Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. A concerted relief and rescue operation followed the catastrophic event and the world community donated over $14 billion in 2004 as aid. Apart from India and Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand were also severely impacted.
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Since the unfortunate incident in 2004, India and other countries along Indian Ocean belt have now advanced their security systems to respond quickly to any such warning in the future. Meanwhile, the 2004 Tsunami remains etched in memories of millions throughout the world as one of the most devastating natural disaster to have occurred in recorded history.If you want to know the battery time remaining on a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air running a modern version of Mac OS system software, including 10.14.x Mojave, 10.13.x high Sierra, and 10.12.x Sierra, then you will have to learn a few new tricks to do so. This is because Apple has removed the battery time indicator from MacOS Sierra 10.12.2 onward, meaning if you install the update on a MacBook Pro, MacBook, or MacBook Air, you will no longer get a battery life remaining estimate from the battery menu. Given that Mac laptops are inherently mobile and battery dependent, many users like to have a general idea of how much battery time is remaining, even if it’s not 100% accurate, and thus are understandably not too enthusiastic about removing such a feature.
We’ll show you a few ways to check how much battery life may be remaining on any Mac laptop running the latest MacOS system software releases, including a more advanced way to restore the old battery menu again.
Use CoconutBattery to See Battery Time Remaining as a Menubar Item
CoconutBattery is an excellent if not ancient tool (seriously, we first covered it a decade ago!) that allows you to track the health and performance of your Mac laptop battery. The more modern versions of CoconutBattery also offer an optional battery menu which you can use to see the battery time remaining on any MacBook, MacBook Pro, or MacBook Air.
Installing and using CoconutBattery for checking battery life remaining is probably the easiest and least hassle method of seeing a battery life estimate on a Mac laptop that has had the feature removed with 10.12.2 update and remains removed in latter updates.
Get Coconut Battery here (free, third party utility)
Once you launch CoconutBattery, go to the apps preferences to enable it to load on login and to enable the menu bar item, where you will be able to see battery time remaining.
Aside from the battery remaining estimator, CoconutBattery also lets you track battery cycle count and other battery health statistics, it’s a genuinely useful Mac utility for laptop users.
Use Activity Monitor to See Battery Time Remaining
Activity Monitor Energy section lets you see what apps are using a lot of battery on a Mac, and it also provides an estimate for how much battery life is remaining.
Open Activity Monitor from /Applications/Utilities/ Go to the “Energy” tab and wait a few moments, the bottom section will update and offer a “Time Remaining” number
Note this feature may be removed in a future software update since Apple removed the battery life estimator from the menu bar, so enjoy it while it lasts if that is the case.
Restore Battery.menu from a Prior MacOS Release
This one is a bit more advanced and involves mucking around in the system folder. It’s also trickier because you must have the Battery.menu file from MacOS 10.12.1 or earlier after you have updated to 10.12.2, 10.12.3, 10.12.4, 10.13.x, 10.14.x, etc. If you plan ahead of time, you can simply copy the file yourself from the following location:
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/
Locate the “Battery.menu” file from 10.12.1 or earlier and make a copy of it to your desktop or elsewhere easy to find.
After updating to MacOS 10.12.2 or later, you will then restore your just backed up version of “Battery.menu” back into the /Menu Extras/ directory.
You might need to disable SIP to accomplish this process successfully (be sure you enable it again afterwards), or boot into Recovery mode and move/copy the earlier version of Battery.menu after updating. I went with the latter approach, and it works fine.
This tip idea was left in our comments and I can confirm it does work, assuming you have access to the pre-10.12.2 Battery.menu package anyway.
There are other ways to check battery life remaining on a Mac as well, feel free to leave your own ideas and utilities in the comments. As usual, how accurate the battery life estimates are depends on many factors. Perhaps Apple will recalculate power use to more accurately reflect battery estimates for MacBook Pro and MacBook users, but until then, use one of the methods detailed here if you’re curious. Or just follow the battery percent indicator gauge and watch the clock, that would work too.
Do you know of another method to track battery time remaining for Mac laptops in new MacOS versions? Share with us in the comments below!In May of 2014, Steve Kerr was offered two head coaching jobs. He had the opportunity to work with his former coach Phil Jackson (an 11-time NBA Champion), who had just been announced as President of the New York Knicks. But instead, Kerr decided to try his luck with a Golden State franchise that had not achieved more than a sixth-seed in 23 years.
And wow, did that turn out to be the best decision ever, or what?
With only a few games until the playoffs, the Knicks are sitting at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with the worst record in the league at 14-62 (as well as the worst record in franchise history). Kerr’s Warriors, on the other hand, are the best team in the NBA with a record of 63-13 (best in franchise history).
Just how far can the Warrior’s go?
Steve Kerr will win coach of the year, Steph Curry will win NBA MVP, and the Warriors will be the 2014-15 NBA Champions, and here’s why:
Kerr for Coach of the Year
The Warriors nearly have the same roster as they did last year. But with the improvements the team has undergone, you’d think they went from being a rec league squad to the Globetrotters. Kerr’s ideology has had a drastic impact on both offensive and defensive ends of the court. After playing under Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich, after playing alongside Michael Jordan and Tim Duncan, and after being a sideline commentator for TNT, Kerr (a five-time champion himself) had developed enough expertise to become more qualified than half the league’s coaches already. Kerr also instilled an offensive ideology with an emphasis on ball and player movement. Since he has implemented a more fluid offense, the Warriors have gone from the 6th in pace of play to 1st, 7th in assists to 1st, and 10th in points per game to 1st. And this is Kerr’s first year coaching!
Kerr’s emphasis on ball-movement comes to fruition
Steve Kerr’s use of personnel, which drew criticism at the beginning of the season, has worked extraordinarily in creating a cohesive second unit. He took former all-star Andre Iguodala, who had started every game in his career, and benched him in favor of third year player Harrison Barnes. Kerr also signed Shaun Livingston to serve as backup point guard while Steph Curry rests. Since restructuring the second unit, Livingston is averaging 50% from the field and Barnes’ three point shooting has gone from 35% to 42%. Talk about a huge improvement from last year when the Warrior’s second-team back-court consisted of Jordan Crawford and Steve Blake.
With the game on the line, Kerr puts the ball in the hands of 3rd-year Harrison Barnes
Steph Curry for MVP
Let’s start with the numbers. Curry is: 1st in total steals, 1st in free-throw percentage, 1st in win-shares/48 minutes, 2nd in total points, 2nd in plus/minus, 3rd in three-point percentage, 3rd in player efficiency rating, and is shooting a much higher percentage from the field than other MVP candidates James Harden and Russell Westbrook (Curry’s 48.2% vs. 44.2% and 41.9% respectively). While some may argue that Harden means more to his team than Curry does, Curry has been the leader of a truly historic Golden State team, which deserves a lot of credit. If the season ended today, the Warriors would have a winning percentage of.829, the sixth-best percentage in NBA history. Curry is playing intelligently as well, averaging less turnovers and fouls per game than both Harden and Westbrook. As the best player on the best team, Curry is practically a lock for MVP. Don’t believe me? In an ESPN survey of experts last week, 80.5% agreed Curry was the favorite.
Fun Fact: Curry is 3rd all-time in three point percentage. Funner Fact: Steve Kerr is 1st.
Warriors as 2014-15 NBA Champions
Sports anchors love to say things like “the west is wide open” and “the playoffs are all about who gets hot at the right time.” In the past, those phrases have rung true, but in 2015 the Warriors are burning hotter than the California sun. The Warriors have already beaten every team this year and haven’t lost to any team more than once. Want to know why? Because they can beat any playstyle their opponents throw at them. If you want to go big, they’ll play 7’0 Andrew Bogut and 6’11 David Lee/Mo Speights. Want to go small? They’ll throw in 6’6 Draymond Green at PF who’s a match-up nightmare. Want to shoot threes? Good luck keeping up with Splash Brothers™ Curry and Klay Thompson at the other end. The Warriors are as versatile as they are deep; 14 of the 15 guys on their roster have double-digit PER’s. Everyone on the Warriors contributes, which is why Steph Curry is about to win most valuable player while playing fewer minutes/game than any MVP in league history.
Combine their stars, bench depth, and Kerr’s coaching/staff, and you have a juggernaut dream team that will refuse to lose. The Warriors have the highest FG%, 3pt%, and more assists than any other team in the association. They have the highest PPG (109.7), most possessions per game (98.1), highest defensive rating (100.7), and only recently fell to third highest offensive rating (111.5) as a result of resting starters for the playoffs. Most importantly, their average point differential through all games is 10.65 (2nd are the clippers with 6.13). Why is this important? Because only seven other teams in NBA history have had a point differential higher than 10, and six of those seven teams went on to win the Finals.
In 20 years when NBA 2k35 comes out, the 2015 Warriors will be the historic team you choose to combat your annoying friend picking the ‘96 Bulls. But for the fans, hopefully the playoffs are more intriquing than predicted. Good luck to the other 15 teams in the playoffs, you’re going to need it, because the Warriors are already celebrating.
(Stats courtesy of basketball reference, streamable clips courtesy of reddit.com/r/nba)
Edited by Ben Zolna.After BioShock creator Irrational Games effectively shut down in February, many wondered what the dozens of laid off staffers would do next. Some transferred to new positions at established studios like the nearby Turbine Inc. or Blizzard Entertainment, but not everyone moved to a well-known company. Others, like BioShock Infinite contributing writer Joe Fielder, went out to start their own thing. Fielder and a team of former Irrational Games designers have formed a new indie studio called Day For Night Games, today announcing their first project, a "surreal" first-person game called The Black Glove.
The Black Glove takes place inside of a "surreal theater" called The Equinox where the player isn't sure if what's happening to them exists in a real place, in their mind, or even another dimension. It's like the extradimensional "Black Lodge" from Twin Peaks, Fielder says. You'll play a character whose goal is to improve the works of an artist, filmmaker, and musician in the present by altering the past. "If we do our jobs correctly, it'll be unlike anything anyone's played before," Fielder said.
The game's bizarre teaser images, which Day For Nights Games has released through Twitter, were designed by Robb Waters. You may not know his name, but you're probably familiar with his work. He was a principal concept designer for System Shock's Shodan, Thief's Garret, BioShock's Andrew Ryan, and most recently, BioShock Infinite's Songbird.
"If we do our jobs correctly, it'll be unlike anything anyone's played before" -- Joe Fielder on The Black Glove
Also working on The Black Glove are a group of Los Angeles-based musicians, one of which is Many Embers. Fielder was able to attract musicians to his new project thanks to connections he made while writing for Los Angeles music scene website Radio Free Silver Lake.
Fielder and Day For Night Games are keeping specific details about The Black Glove, like the gameplay mechanic that lets you change the past, largely under wraps, at least for now. Come July, the studio plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign with far more details about The Black Glove, including the names of other team members working on it, what platforms it's coming to, what engine it runs on, what the space minotaur is, and how much money the company is seeking for funding to make the game a reality.
According to Kickstarter's own data, video game projects are one of the most likely categories to fail to reach their funding target. But Fielder isn't worried about these statistics. "I still think it's a viable platform and not only for games, but for any number of other media," he said. Fielder is also not concerned that his team will miss deadlines. "It's a team that's had a lot of experience making games. I can say that in my experience as a producer, I can ensure that we make [game design choices] on time and on budget," he said.
Asked for specifics regarding the surprise closure of Irrational Games, Fielder said he's not the best person to speak about this, insteading offering up his take on the studio's culture and the people he worked with.
"A lot of people who were working there were knocking on the door of being leads and directors or had thoughts about going off and doing their own thing. It was a very amazing place to work, when you work with people who were at the top of their game. Good folks," Fielder said. "I've learned a ton working at Irrational. It was an amazing but demanding experience. Looking back, I have no regrets. I felt like it taught me a ton about creating narrative-focused games."
Irrational Games is not entirely dead. Co-founder Ken Levine and about a dozen others are currently focused on a "smaller, more entrepreneurial" project for Take-Two Interactive, though it's unclear if they are going to keep the Irrational Games name. Meanwhile, 2K Marin is shepherding the BioShock series going forward. No new entries in the series have been announced, but Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick says the franchise is "beloved" and that it still has room to grow.
FULL DISCLOSURE: Joe Fielder is the former site director and editor of GameSpot.Space - also commonly known as the final frontier - has left us in a state of awe since we ever first laid eyes on it. Inspired by numerous works of science fiction, we've made it a mission of ours to not only explore space, but to colonize its planets as we continue searching for a secondary home.
And while our efforts have been mildly successful thus far, a group of non-biological "creatures" have already achieved the difficult task of conquering space. They're known as robots.
Whether on the International Space Station (ISS) or on another planet, these automated machines have extended our reach into the cosmos far better than any actual human hand has accomplished. It all started in 1969 when the Soviets made the first attempt to land a robotic rover, known as Lunokhod 0, onto the Lunar surface of our Moon. Unfortunately for the Soviets, the rover was unsuccessful in its landing; instead crashing down after a failed start.
Since then, however, 11 more rovers have been launched to explore both the Moon and Mars, with a majority of them successfully achieving both deployment and landing. The more recent successful launch of a rover was the Curiosity, of which is still in operation (though is currently taking a much-needed vacation).22 year-old Berkeley High School graduate and alleged ISIS supporter Amer Sinan Alhaggagi was indicted by a federal grand jury July 20 on a charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Among other charges, Alhaggagi, who was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in November, is alleged to have provided “services and personnel” — such as opening social media accounts — to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, from July to November 2016.
Federal prosecutors allege that Alhaggagi conspired to kill 10,000 people across the Bay Area by methods such as planting backpack bombs in UC Berkeley campus dormitories and setting fire to the Berkeley Hills.
“The whole Bay Area is going to be up in flames,” Alhaggagi allegedly told an FBI informant, according to NBC Bay Area.
Alhaggagi could face up to 47 years in prison if ultimately convicted on every count he faces.
Alhaggagi’s arraignment has yet to be scheduled. The investigation was conducted by a combination of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Berkeley Police Department and members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, including the Oakland Police Department.
In a statement sent to NBC Bay Area, Alhaggagi’s family said they were “shocked to learn of the allegations against Alhaggagi.
“Amer is not and has never been radicalized in any way. He grew up in this country and loves it here. He is peaceful and kind,” Alhaggagi’s family said in the statement. “He was very young and immature when he got involved in the online conversations that are the basis for these accusations. He did not think those conversations were serious and he never had any intent to harm anyone. We love him and continue to fully support him.”
Bobby Lee is an assistant news editor. Contact Bobby Lee at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @bobbylee_dc.There’s this thing I’ve been noticing.
It seems that increasingly, we have two atheist movements. I’m seeing national atheist organizations, local atheist communities, individual atheist organizers and activists and voices and participants, increasingly sorting ourselves into two different movements.
There are the ones who care about social justice; the ones who want to make organized atheism more welcoming to a wider variety of people; the ones who want their atheist communities to do a better job replacing the very real services that many marginalized people get from their religions; the ones who want their atheist communities to work in alliance and solidarity with other social change movements. (Or, to be more accurate — the ones who care enough to take real action.)
And there are the ones who don’t care, who aren’t interested in connecting their atheism to social justice — or don’t care enough to take significant action. They’re the ones who would be perfectly happy to have more women or black people or other marginalized folks at their events, but don’t care about it enough to examine why their events aren’t diverse, to listen to criticism about it, to accept some responsibility for it, or to change what they do. In some cases, they’re the ones who don’t want to connect their atheist activism with social justice — and don’t want anyone else to do it, either, to the point where they’re actively working to poison any efforts in that direction.*
Yes, this is an oversimplification, as almost any analysis saying “you can sort all X’s into two categories” will be. There’s non-trivial slippage between the two movements, and there are people and organizations (such as the atheist support organizations) who, for legitimate reasons, are trying to keep a hand in both. It might be more accurate to say that there are at least two atheist movements. But there are definitely these two: the ones who care about social justice, and the ones who don’t, or who don’t care all that much.
And I want to put my time and energy into building the first one.
There’s this pattern I’ve been seeing a lot lately. One of the Assholes of Atheism puts their foot in their mouth, says or does something spectacularly horrible about race or gender, or tone-polices other atheists speaking out about this stuff. (Example; example; example; example; example; example; example; example; example; example — just a few of many.) When criticized about it, they double down. It turns into a firestorm that eats the Internet. And people on social media come out of the woodwork saying, “I’m an atheist/ agnostic/ skeptic/ non-believer — but I don’t want anything to do with this movement! It has nothing to do with me, and it doesn’t look like it wants anything to do with me, and every time someone pushes for it to have something to do with me, it turns into a firestorm that eats the Internet. Fuck that noise.” If they were already involved in the movement, they say, “Okay, that was the last straw, I’m outta here”; if they weren’t already involved in the movement, they say, “Wow, I had no idea about this crap! I’m outta here.”
I want to help build a movement for these people. And I want to help make that movement more visible, so more of these people know it exists.
To be very clear: I am most emphatically NOT saying, “Let’s stop wasting our time on these arguments about social justice, let’s just get to work making it happen.” When we see racist/ sexist/ etc. shit in organized atheism, I think it’s reasonable and right to push back if we feel so inspired. The pushback can be effective: it can change the minds of individuals, and the policies of organizations. And it sends up a flare to the people being left out: “Over here! There’s a different atheist movement over here! Yes, we agree, that one can really suck! You might like this one better! Check it out!”
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t get into these arguments, or that I’m going to stop getting into them. I’m saying that I want my arguments to be in the service of building that first movement. And I’m not saying I will never ever ever work with any person or any organization that I see as primarily rooted in the other movement. I almost certainly will, at least sometimes. (At least, I will if they’re in the “We just don’t care that much” category: if they’re in the “We don’t care, and we don’t want anyone else to care, and we’re working tirelessly to poison the efforts of people who do care and make their lives a misery” category, obviously I’ll have nothing to do with them.) I’m saying that my primary focus, and my primary committment, will be to help build the atheist movement I care about: the one that cares about the people I care about, and that’s translating that care into action.
Yes, yes, I know. Deep Rifts. It’s so sad that the community has so much infighting and is so divided. Can’t we all just get along? Wouldn’t we be stronger if we all just got along? I keeping thinking of something Alex Gabriel once wrote: “I’m not sorry atheists are divided. I’m sorry we need to be.”
Like Alex, I wish the rifts weren’t necessary. But I think they are. As I’ve said before: The big tent is a myth. The choice isn’t between a divided community and a big tent where everyone is included and gets along great. The choice is between a divided community, and a community that serves only a limited number of atheists — ironically, the ones who probably need it the least. The choice is between an openly divided community, and a de facto divided community — a community that divides out women and African-Americans and trans people and working-class people and other marginalized folks, unintentionally but unmistakably, after their first or second atheist event when someone said something racist or sexist and nobody spoke up, or sometimes before they ever got involved, the first time they read some jackass thing Richard Dawkins said and decided, “Ewwww, never mind, that movement’s not for me.” The choice is between a community that’s constantly infighting, deeply divided over whether to prioritize social justice — and a single, united community that doesn’t prioritize social justice, and leaves the people harmed by social injustice out in the cold.
I don’t want to leave those people out in the cold. I want to help build a movement for them, and with them. It would be nice if it could all be the same movement — it sure would be a lot more efficient — but that doesn’t seem to be an option, and I’m not going to beat my head against that wall any more.
I’m remembering a few years ago, when Jen McCreight was sick of this bullshit, and called for a new wave of organized atheism — a wave that was explicitly committed to social justice. I don’t know how much of this “two movements” thing I’m observing is a result of that call to action, and how much was happening anyway or would have happened anyway. And I’m not — repeat, NOT — calling the social justice branch of the movement Atheism Plus: partly for clarity’s sake (that term is being used by a very specific online community), mostly because the term has been poisoned by people who use it as a mocking insult. I don’t actually feel a compelling need to call this movement anything at all. I’m not issuing a call to action (although if you hear it as one, that’s awesome). I’m making an observation. I’m describing a pattern that I’m noticing. And I’m saying what I want to do about it.
When we see the Assholes of Atheism be particularly assholic, it can be very demoralizing. And if other people’s response is to say “Fuck that noise, I’m outta here,” I’m not going to argue too strenuously. Everyone gets to decide for themselves which communities they want to be part of, and which movements they want to work with, and how much of what kind of bullshit they’re willing to deal with.
I’m saying: When I see the Assholes of Atheism be particularly assholic, it doesn’t make me want to leave the atheist movement. It inspires me to work harder, to grow the movement I want to see.
And if that movement has to be over here, largely separate from the mainstream — so be it.
* With a few exceptions, I’m not going to say who I think is in which group. Among other reasons: Experience has taught me that saying “Such-and-such person/ group is pro-social-justice” is enough to get them targeted with hatred and harassment.
Note: If your response to this is, “But — mission drift!”, please read the following pieces, and make your comments there. I am not interested in hosting a debate about mission drift in this post.
Does Social Justice Activism Mean Mission Drift for Atheism and Skepticism?
Atheist Highway Cleanups, and Some Further Thoughts On “Mission Drift”
No, It’s Not Mission Drift — But It’s Too Controversial! More on Atheism and Social Justice
Issue Organizations Versus Community Groups — At Last, A Legitimate Question About Atheism, Social Justice, and “Mission Drift”
“It’s Hard”: The Crux (Apparently) of the Atheism, Social Justice, and “Mission Drift” Question
Grand Canyon/ Wbell Devils Anvil AZ image via U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, via Wikimedia CommonFiftieth Celebration of the Citizen Naismith Trophy Season Kicks Off with 50 Candidates Vying for 2018 Top Player of the Year Honor
ATLANTA (November 9, 2017) – The Citizen Naismith Trophy kicks off a special season, which will culminate with the 50th presentation of the award April 1, 2018, and today the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced 50 players to watch for the coveted honor. A list of the midseason 30 team will be released on Feb. 14, 2018.
“We are proud to recognize our former winners during this special season, and reflect on the heritage and tradition of the past 50 years,” said Eric Oberman, executive director of the Atlanta Tipoff Club. “There are tremendously talented candidates vying to win the 50th Citizen Naismith Trophy and that process starts today.”
NAME CLASS POSITION SCHOOL CONFERENCE Jaylen Adams Sr. G St. Bonaventure Atlantic 10 Deng Adel Jr. F Louisville ACC Rawle Alkins So. G Arizona Pac-12 Grayson Allen Sr. G Duke ACC KeVaughn Allen Jr. G Florida SEC Deandre Ayton Fr. F Arizona Pac-12 Marvin Bagley III Fr. F Duke ACC Mohamed Bamba Fr. F Texas Big 12 Joel Berry II Sr. G North Carolina ACC Trevon Bluiett Sr. G Xavier BIG East Bennie Boatwright Jr. F USC Pac-12 Miles Bridges So. G/F Michigan State Big Ten Bruce Brown So. G Miami ACC Jalen Brunson Jr. G Villanova BIG EAST Jeffrey Carroll Sr. G Oklahoma State Big 12 Jevon Carter Sr. G West Virginia Big 12 Wendell Carter Jr. Fr. F Duke ACC Bonzie Colson Sr. F Notre Dame ACC Mike Daum Jr. F South Dakota State Summit League Tyler Davis Jr. C Texas A&M SEC Angel Delgado Sr. C Seton Hall BIG EAST Hamidou Diallo Fr. G Kentucky SEC Trevon Duval Fr. G Duke ACC Vince Edwards Sr. F Purdue Big Ten Matt Farrell Sr. G Notre Dame ACC Marcus Foster Sr. G Creighton BIG EAST Devonte' Graham Sr. G Kansas Big 12 Ethan Happ Jr. F Wisconsin Big Ten Aaron Holiday Jr. G UCLA Pac-12 Chandler Hutchison Sr. G Boise State Mountain West Justin Jackson So. F Maryland Big Ten Kevin Knox Fr. F Kentucky SEC Jock Landale Sr. C St. Mary's WCC Kelan Martin Sr. F Butler BIG EAST Nate Mason Sr. G Minnesota Big Ten Yante Maten Sr. F Georgia SEC Bryant McIntosh Sr. G Northwestern Big Ten Jordan McLaughlin Sr. G USC Pac-12 Chimezie Metu Jr. F USC Pac-12 Shake Milton Jr. G SMU American Athletic Malik Newman So. G Kansas Big 12 Michael Porter Jr. Fr. F Missouri SEC Collin Sexton Fr. G Alabama SEC Landry Shamet So. G Wichita State American Athletic Reid Travis Sr. F Stanford Pac-12 Allonzo Trier Jr. G Arizona Pac-12 Moritz Wagner Jr. F Michigan Big Ten Nick Ward So. F Michigan State Big Ten Jonathan Williams Sr. F Gonzaga WCC Robert Williams So. F Texas A&M SEC
Overall, nine players on the Watch List represent the ACC, while the Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC each placed eight candidates. Duke, which has won more Citizen Naismith Trophies (7) than any other school, leads the Watch List with four players, followed by Arizona and USC with three players apiece. Players who do not make the watch list are still eligible to be selected for the midseason 30 team.
ABOUT THE ATLANTA TIPOFF CLUB
Celebrating 50 Years of the Citizen Naismith Trophy
Founded during the 1956-57 season, the Atlanta Tipoff Club is committed to promoting the game of basketball and recognizing the outstanding accomplishments of those who make the game so exciting. The Atlanta Tipoff Club administers the Naismith Awards, which have become the most prestigious national honors in all of college basketball. Named in honor of Dr. James Naismith, inventor of the game of basketball, the Naismith Trophy recognizes the top Men’s and Women’s College Basketball Players of the Year. Other Naismith Awards are presented to the Men’s and Women’s College Basketball Coaches of the Year, Boys’ and Girls’ High School Basketball Players and Coaches of the Year, Basketball Officials and Outstanding Contributors to the game. Celebrating its 50th year by honoring past winners, the Citizen Naismith Trophy was first presented to UCLA’s Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) in 1969. Old Dominion’s Anne Donovan won the inaugural Women’s Citizen Naismith Trophy in 1983.
ABOUT CITIZEN
Citizen, a pioneer in watchmaking and innovative technology since 1918, promotes excellence and creativity with a deep-rooted respect for craftsmanship. Citizen advocates “Better Starts Now,” searching for and accomplishing goals that are cause driven. In this respect, Citizen aligns with organizations and personalities that reflect the values of the brand including the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, Naismith Awards, National Merit Scholarship, and Good360.
For over 40 years, Citizen’s Eco-Drive technology has served as the prime example of how the brand is dedicated to making the world and its environment a better place. A simple yet revolutionary concept, Eco-Drive harnesses the power of light from any natural or artificial light source and converts |
for the time being on such systems.We see quite a few people with systems that we can only described as "high end". Some of these systems are not experiencing the framerates they would like to see. This however falls into two groups: Those who really see a bug in our game where the FPS is throttled for strange reasons that are being investigated and those that have stable framerate and expect more.If your game is fast most of the time but only slow in nebulas try if turning off AA (Antialiasing) changes the performance significantly. If yes then you are render bound in nebulas. Please report to info@egosoft.com with your specs and we will investigate.SLI - Unfortunately we have not yet optimized the game at all for SLI systems and based on reports we hear SLI actually hurts rather then helps performance. We will investigate this ASAP but for now we suggest that you disable SLI rendering.We will improve the performance across all systems. On high end systems like the ones described in this chapter, there is definitely most room for improvement. However X Rebirth will always remain a very CPU heavy game which can not achieve the same framerate that you may be used to from very graphic intensive first person shooters.As I have explained above our engine is oftentimes CPU bound because of the massive AI simulation going on in the background. This is happening on multiple threads, but there are always two threads which mostly limit the framerate. This means the game will greatly benefit from a quadcore machine where two cores can crunch on our two main threads, one core can do the graphic driver code and the fourth one is free for the lower priority threads of our game such as pathing calculations, loading and sound. More cores will unfortunately not help much at this point in time.Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Liverpool have been handed a deadline by Juventus if they are to move for Arturo Vidal, according to reports in Italy.
The Old Lady have told prospective suitors they will only entertain offers up until August 2.
Vidal has been linked with a move to Manchester Utd all summer, with the Reds also reportedly showing interest.
This comes following the Chilean international repeatedly stating he is unsure where his future lies.
The Reds are the favourites to sign Bayern Munich winger Xherdan Shaqiri after finally lodging a bid, reports Swiss newspaper Blick.
Brendan Rodgers and Co. are apparently heading the queue despite a long line of suitors and they suggest the Reds have offered £14.2million for the 22-year old which is believed to be close to the Bundesliga champions' valuation.
Both Juventus and Roma are also keen but the lure of the Premier League could prove decisive.
Finally, Oussama Assaidi's move to Stoke is in the balance, say the Express.
A fee of £4.5million rising to £7m has been agreed but personal terms are proving difficult.
The Moroccan spent the season on loan at the Britannia last term and was thought to be keen on a permanent switch, but the 25-year-old's wage demands are apparently proving a stumbling block.
The Potters are keen to do a deal ASAP and if an agreement isn't struck soon are prepared to look elsewhere.
poll loading Is Shaqiri worth the money? 13000+ VOTES SO FAR YES NO
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In pictures: Liverpool FC step up pre-season training at Harvard UniversityStefan Bradl’s future looks much clearer after this weekends Indianapolis Grand Prix, with the German supposedly closing in on a deal to ride for the Pramac Ducati team for 2016.
Just last week, we covered a story from the Italian press that suggested Crutchlow may be in line for a sensational return to Ducati, however, today’s claims from speedweek.com, suggest that Bradl is the choice of Audi Chairman Rupert Stadler.
The reports say that Bradl had held discussions with Pramac managers six weeks ago, before the Assen Grand Prix, over a potential move in 2016, with Yonny Hernandez looking to be the man dropping from Pramac down to his old Avintia team.
The first the public heard of Bradl’s potential move was when Pramac Racing Team Manager Francesco Guidotti told speedweek at the post-Sachsenring, Misano test that “Bradl is an option for us in 2016”.
With Giovanni Cuzari’s subsequent troubles with the law, and Bradl’s departure from the Forward Racing Yamaha team, it’s made negotiations much easier for Ducati, who had also considered Cal Crutchlow, Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith for the second seat, as well as Moto2 series leader Johann Zarco.
The desire to get Bradl on the Ducati is a very obvious marketing one, as well as a sensible one for on track action. When Audi bought Ducati, rumours of Bradl were rife from the off, but the German continued with his LCR Honda team, right up until the end of 2014 before being replaced by Cal Crutchlow. Once his future with LCR appeared to be sealed, Bradl acted quickly, signing a deal to race for the Forward Yamaha team, before Ducati had a chance to open negotiations with him.
At the time, the Pramac Ducati was still seen as an undesirable option, but the drastic improvement of the GP15, and the fact Pramac will have them next season instantly makes the Pramac bike, suddenly a very attractive proposition for lots of riders.
As well as having the GP15, the close links, and chance to move into the full factory team is another factor. It isn’t clear if Bradl would have a contract directly with the factory like Andrea Iannone had in 2014, or if indeed one with Pramac, but Ducati are already looking at Bradl as a potential Andrea Dovizioso replacement for 2017.
Ducati’s success this season has made next season’s chances harder, with the tyre and fuel allowances being taken away for next season, but the pace of the GP15 should be more than enough encouragement for Bradl, as well as a – albeit very slim – chance of ending next season on a GP16.
The German had admitted he would rather fight and compete in Moto2, than cruise around at the back of the MotoGP grid, so the incentive and close links to the factory will undoubtedly play a huge part in negotiations between Bradl and Ducati.
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When President Obama announced his sweeping new plan for preventing gun violence on January 16, it included no fewer than twenty-three “executive actions,” in addition to a series of legislative proposals. The message was clear: in the face of congressional intransigence—on gun control and beyond—Obama will push changes through the executive branch that he believes to be for the good of the country. “Congress too must act, and Congress must act soon,” Obama said, while making it clear that the White House will not wait for the GOP-controlled House. Ad Policy
It was not the first time the president has flexed his executive muscle. Obama deployed such power during his first term on a number of notable occasions. The “Mini–Dream Act” executive action, for example, was hugely successful, both in terms of public policy and progressive politics. It helped people in an immediate and tangible way, was enormously popular with Latinos and Asian-Americans, and may well have won him re-election.
Others, like raising the CAFE standards to demand better fuel efficiency from carmakers and capping student loan payments, were part of the Obama administration’s “We Can’t Wait” initiative, launched in the fall of 2011, following the debt ceiling fiasco and the House Republicans’ refusal to seriously consider the American Jobs Act. “We can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job,” Obama said at the time. “Where they won’t act, I will.”
The president has also acted through the appointment process. He made a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, despite intense congressional opposition, and another three recess appointments to the five-member National Labor Relations Board, putting it back in action after the Republicans refused for months to confirm any new members. Obama also handed down the Health and Human Services Department contraception mandate—a critical fulcrum point in the GOP’s politically costly “war on women.”
Less high-profile measures have included utilizing the 1906 Antiquities Act, first used by Theodore Roosevelt to protect historic or beautiful public land, to preserve a few areas, including Fort Monroe in Virginia and Fort Ord in California. Last fall, Obama also named Colorado’s Chimney Rock Archaeological Area as a national monument, and dedicated the César E. Chávez National Monument in California.
The president can do much more. So can the cabinet departments and federal regulatory agencies. As Barack Obama begins his second term, and weighs his overall legacy, it will be crucial for progressives to push him to act on a broad range of issues for which there is an absence of congressional will (or a concerted effort to block progress). Pressing for reforms through executive action—using both “street heat” and “suite heat”—should be a serious focus of our work in the coming months.
An executive order, briefly defined, is a presidential directive that carries the force of law. Such actions have a long and checkered history in American politics: Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was enacted via executive order, as was the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II (one of a flurry of orders handed down by FDR). Executive orders were used sparingly, for the most part, until the presidency of Bill Clinton, who vastly expanded their use, handing down more than even George W. Bush. Obama has continued this broader trend, issuing 144 executive orders in his first four years. Less binding are executive actions, presidential recommendations that cannot be carried out by the executive branch unilaterally.
In the era after 9/11, the consolidation of executive authority has led to a number of dangerous policies [see David Shipler, in this issue], and we strongly oppose the extreme manifestations of this power, such as the “kill lists” that have already defined Obama’s presidency. Yet executive power, when properly deployed, can and has played a legitimate role in helping to realign the country with its values and the needs of Americans—as Obama attempted to do when he ordered the closing of Guantánamo and an end to torture just days into his first term.
With this goal in mind, The Nation has compiled a list of executive actions that the president should take across a broad range of issues—and asked our readers to submit their own. Many pointed to the excessive military, intelligence and police powers they would like to see rolled back, at home and abroad. Richard Nixon declared the “war on drugs” and created the Drug Enforcement Administration via executive order; Obama, some readers suggested, could finally end the “war on drugs”—or at least direct the DEA to stop enforcing disproportionate crackdowns on drug crimes—using the same power.
Indeed, in addition to ratcheting back the “war on drugs,” the executive branch could also—at least in theory—end the war in Afghanistan; help close some of our hundreds of overseas bases; follow through on its pledge to close Guantánamo; cut back on the use of drones; stop jailing whistleblowers; end the official harassment and surveillance of Muslims and activists; and even pardon Leonard Peltier.
Obviously, the president is unlikely to act on a number of these suggestions. But it is also obvious that our nation is facing multiple crises, many of which will not wait until an obstinate GOP House has evolved enough to act. Wherever possible, the president should act on his own to implement good public policies that can break the gridlock and ease at least some of our most serious crises, such as the heating of the earth’s atmosphere and the dangerous storms like Hurricane Sandy that result; our overextended and bloated military empire; and the corporate corruption of our political system, among many others.
We believe that aggressive and progressive executive action will bring political benefits as well, because the public is tired of waiting for results from Washington. And even if it doesn’t, taking action is still the right thing to do—for the planet, for the jobless and the homeless, for the loyal voters who stood in long lines to make history with Barack Obama twice. Besides, what’s a second term for if you can’t use your presidential power for the good of the many?
What follows is a list of ways that Obama can act to achieve progressive goals in his second term. Some, like taking nuclear weapons off “hair-trigger alert” status, are long overdue—a relic of another age that nonetheless bears correcting. Others, like a plan to modernize voting protocols, are tied to our current political landscape. By no means is this an exhaustive list—it was designed to inspire and encourage further brainstorming along these lines, as well as action-building strategies on how to explicitly pressure the White House over the next four years.
* * *
Environment
Assemble a Commission on Climate Change
In his first press conference since winning a second term, President Obama said, “I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions. And as a consequence, I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.” He should start by assembling a blue-ribbon Climate Change National Security Commission to take stock of the most pressing dangers posed by climate change. The commission would be composed of experts like Dr. James Hansen and Bill McKibben, and its members would outline a schedule for analyzing and making recommendations on how best to tackle this enormous and wide-reaching national security issue.
Direct the EPA to Regulate All Greenhouse Gases
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate all greenhouse gases, yet it has not done so. It is long past time for Obama to order the EPA to exert this authority—not just when it comes to carbon dioxide, but methane gas and black carbon as well. Specifically, the president should direct the EPA to apply the approach advocated by NASA scientist James Hansen and the Center for Biological Diversity, which would set a national pollution cap of no more than 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If that standard sounds overly ambitious, the president should bear in mind that regulations issued under the Clean Air Act are supposed to be “technology forcing”—inducing the private sector to develop and deploy superior technologies that will safeguard the health of the public and the planet.
Reject the Keystone Pipeline and ‘All of the Above’
With climate change already battering the nation’s great cities and ravaging our Farm Belt, it is unconscionable for federal policy to make things worse by encouraging major expansions in coal, oil and natural gas consumption. The president should reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline from Canada and replace his “All of the Above” energy strategy with a “Green Growth” one that rapidly phases out fossil fuels while scaling up energy efficiency and wind, solar and other renewable sources.
Foreign Policy And National Security
Take Nuclear Weapons Off ‘Hair-Trigger’ Status
To this day, the United States and Russia have several hundred missiles ready to launch at a moment’s notice. In 2000, George W. Bush called this “another unnecessary vestige of Cold War confrontation,” and eight years later, Barack Obama vowed to undo it. Yet nothing has changed since then. As Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, points out, handing down an order to do so would not be unprecedented. “George H.W. Bush ended the practice of having our nuclear-armed bombers on strip alert as part of his unilateral 1991 nuclear initiatives,” he says. “He also took hundreds of missiles off alert.” Obama should make good on his promise and lay whatever diplomatic groundwork is necessary to issue this long-overdue executive order, which could make our planet a lot less dangerous.
Take Cuba Off the ‘State Sponsors of Terror’ List
In another relic of the Cold War, Ronald Reagan placed Cuba on the State Department’s list of terror-supporting countries to demonize its support for revolution in Central America. “This was, and continues to be, a grave injustice,” says Peter Kornbluh, director of the National Security Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project. “Rather than a terrorist advocate, Cuba has been, historically, a victim of terrorism, much of it shamefully emanating from US territory. The written justifications for keeping Cuba on the list over the last several years actually read like arguments to take Cuba off the list.” Kornbluh cites Cuba’s efforts to mediate a cease-fire and peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC rebels as proof that Cuba, in fact, is “playing a fundamental and constructive role in seeking to end conflicts that breed terrorism in the region.”
Audit the Pentagon
Almost every federal agency routinely passes the yearly financial audit required by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. The major exception is the Pentagon, which is “unauditable,” according to the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO). The Pentagon has broken every promise to Congress about when the audit would be done, even as Congress doubled Pentagon spending. It’s time to get serious, but no new laws are needed. “President Obama should request significant reductions in the Pentagon budget until the Pentagon can pass the audit,” said Rafael DeGennaro, a former taxpayer group leader who is starting the nonprofit Audit the Pentagon.
Economy
Create a National Development Bank
The president often invokes the need to invest in “nation building at home.” As he told a crowd in Virginia on the campaign trail last summer: “Let’s rebuild our roads and our bridges…. Let’s build broadband lines and high-speed rail. Let’s expand our ports and improve our airports. That’s what’s going to keep us at the cutting edge of a twenty-first-century economy. And we’ve got tens of thousands of construction workers ready to be put back to work.” To this end, a National Development Bank could provide the funding for such ambitious projects—and serve as a source of funding for reconstruction projects following Sandy-scale natural disasters.
Labor
Implement ‘High Road’ Contracting
In fiscal year 2009, according to the GAO, the government awarded more than $6 billion in contracts to companies that had violated federal labor laws. Obama should instruct the Labor Department to implement a policy of rewarding and punishing potential contractors based on their labor, environmental and other records. In the absence of a congressional minimum-wage increase, Obama could mandate living-wage standards for federal contractors as well.
Grant Wage and Overtime Protections to Homecare Workers
In December 2011, as part of his “We Can’t Wait” initiative, Obama promised to extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to homecare workers. “One year later, we are still waiting,” a number of homecare workers wrote to the president in December. According to the National Employment Law Project, “the long-delayed rules change would close a loophole—known as the companionship exemption—that allows most of the nation’s 2.5 million homecare workers to be shut out from basic minimum wage and overtime protections. The rules change would provide a rapidly growing workforce with the same basic wage guarantees that other workers have relied on for decades.”
Criminal Justice
Challenge the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Of the president’s twenty-three executive actions addressing gun violence—several of which were quite important—one was particularly troubling: his promise to “help schools hire more resource officers,” a euphemism for putting more police in schools. This will only accelerate what advocates call the “school-to-prison pipeline,” a phenomenon so catastrophic that the Senate held its first hearing on how to address it just two days before the Newtown massacre. Before following through on this action, the president should direct the Justice Department to draw up a racial impact statement to analyze how such a policy might disproportionately affect children of color, and take steps to ensure that it does not.
Pardon Prisoners and Commute Unjust Sentences
As Sasha Abramsky recently wrote in our pages, President Obama has been stingy in exercising his considerable pardon power, even for prisoners serving clearly unjust sentences. The New York Times has reported that he has granted a pardon for one out of every fifty applicants, “compared with 1 out of 33 for George W. Bush, 1 of 8 for Bill Clinton and 1 of 3 for Ronald Reagan”—and this despite the scores of federal nonviolent drug offenders ensnared by the drug war. Obama should not only hand down pardons to men and women serving time disproportionate to their crimes; he should also order the Federal Bureau of Prisons to regularly send the White House names of potential candidates for commutations and early release.
Tell the Justice Department to Focus on High-Level Offenses
To prevent such miscarriages of justice, Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project suggests that “the president and/or attorney general could issue a policy recommendation asking United States attorneys to prosecute only high-level cases or those in which there is a clear federal interest.” This could include ordering the DEA to cease its raids on medical marijuana growers, which result in outrageous miscarriages of justice—as in the case of Chris Williams, arrested in Montana for growing then-legal medical marijuana, who at one point was facing more than eighty years in prison.
Immigration
Stop Deporting Undocumented Parents
On January 2, the Department of Homeland Security released a rule aimed at reducing the amount of time “US citizens are separated” from family members seeking legal residency status. This is a positive development, but it does not change the fact that Obama’s staggering number of deportations—1.5 million people in his first term—has left thousands of children in foster care after their parents were deported. A study by the Applied Research Center estimates that at least 5,100 kids are in foster care in twenty-two states—a number that could rise to 15,000 by the end of Obama’s second term if deportation levels continue apace. Given the hints that Congress will take up comprehensive immigration reform, Obama should take steps to halt the deportation of parents until this comes to pass.
Reproductive Rights
Tell HHS to Approve Over-the-Counter Plan B for All Women
In December 2011, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius made the unprecedented decision to overrule a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to make the “morning-after pill” available over the counter to women of all ages. The president, much to the dismay of many American women, supported the move and went so far as to invoke his two daughters in doing so. Obama should reverse this decision, which was clearly born of political calculation: studies have shown that the emergency contraception pill known as Plan B has no adverse effects on young women and girls under 17.
Reinterpret the Helms Amendment
In 2009, President Obama fulfilled a campaign pledge and repealed the global gag rule, “one of the most ludicrous and paternalistic U.S. foreign policies in history,” in the words of RH Reality Check. Yet the “last stronghold of America’s oppressive overseas reproductive health policies, the Helms Amendment, is still alive and well.” This forty-year-old law prohibits any foreign aid that might be used for abortion, regardless of the law in those countries and in spite of supposed exceptions to accommodate cases of rape, incest and risk to the woman’s life. “Even our colleagues who oppose abortion rights regularly carve out these minimal exceptions to the harsh anti-abortion bills and amendments they introduce,” twelve members of Congress wrote to Obama in December 2011. “Conforming implementation of the Helms Amendment to the actual meaning of the law should not be controversial and, in any case, would be eminently defensible.”
Civil Liberties
Rewrite FBI Guidelines for Spying on Americans
In 2009, The New York Times revealed new post-9/11 powers bestowed on the FBI that lowered the bar for targeting certain communities as possible terrorists. “One section lays out a low threshold to start investigating a person or group as a potential security threat,” the paper reported. “Another allows agents to use ethnicity or religion as a factor—as long as it is not the only one—when selecting subjects for scrutiny.” The result, as Center for Constitutional Rights president emeritus Michael Ratner points out, has been to criminalize communities and entrap individuals simply because of their religion, ethnicity or political activities. “Obama could protect our right to dissent and protest by ordering the FBI to curb surveillance and entrapment of activists and others not engaging in criminal activity.”
Release the Legal Memos on Targeted Killings
In this era of the so-called “disposition matrix,” Obama is not likely to reverse the dangerous course he has taken on targeted killings. But at the very least, he must stop ignoring the transparency pledge he made upon taking office in 2009, to “hold myself as president to a new standard of openness.” As Vicki Divoll, former deputy legal adviser to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, wrote in an impassioned op-ed for The New York Times, Obama “has refused to tell Congress or the American people why he believes the Constitution gives, or fails to deny, him the authority to secretly target and kill American citizens who he suspects are involved in terrorist activities overseas. So far he has killed three that we know of.” The president should release the secret memos that outline his administration’s rationale for targeted killings.
Voting Rights
Modernize Voting
When a newly re-elected President Obama thanked Americans for voting him back into office, he acknowledged that some had “waited in line for a very long time” to do so. “By the way,” he added, in an unscripted aside, “we have to fix that.” Although the states are in charge of administering their own voting practices, the Brennan Center for Justice has identified one way the president can unilaterally move to modernize voting methods across the country. “Several states have requested agreements to designate certain federal agencies as voter registration agencies, meaning that registration materials should be offered to all citizens when they directly interact with those agencies,” explains Nicole Austin-Hillery, director and counsel at the Brennan Center’s Washington office. “Where it is within his authority, we would like to see the president direct agencies to accept these designations. This will encourage other states to make additional designation requests and should significantly increase registration rates among those directly served by the agencies.”
Money in Politics
Appoint New Federal Election Commissioners
“The FEC is the most dysfunctional agency in government, thanks to partisan deadlock,” says Robert Weissman of Public Citizen. “Five of the six members are serving past their terms—including the former chair, who has announced she will step down February 1—because the president has not made new appointments.” It’s past time for Obama to appoint new commissioners to better equip this critical agency to do its job.
Make Government Contractors Reveal Political Donations
Congress has repeatedly failed to pass the DISCLOSE (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections) Act. But the president could address this by requiring federal contractors to open the books on their campaign spending. As Public Citizen has pointed out, “among the 50 largest contractors, nearly all contractor political spending was disclosed to the public until 2010, when [an FEC] loophole and a Supreme Court decision combined to permit unlimited secret spending in elections.” In the post–Citizens United era, the president should take all actions necessary to rein in such secretive, uncontrolled spending.
“Readers Respond: How Should Obama Flex His Executive Muscle?”Members of St. John's city council have approved a proposal to construct two new buildings at the east end of Duckworth Street, while bypassing the recommendations of a commissioner who held public hearings on the controversial proposal.
Councillors unanimously voted to ignore commissioner Marie Ryan, who recommended lowering the building set to be built near Hill O' Chips from six storeys to five.
Ryan's report catalogued a long list of complaints from neighbours and others who felt that that character of Duckworth Street east would be damaged by the Light House project.
In addition to a hotel on the south side of Duckworth Street, the project includes a separate building across the street — on the grounds of a former fire station — that will contain a parking garage and condominiums.
At Tuesday evening's weekly meeting, councillors voted to stick with the plan for the Light House project that they had approved in February.Photo by Elvert Barnes via Flickr
It's easy to say fuck the police. But we know we need them. We need the police to protect us, although quite often it seems like we need to be protected from the police. But when people agitate for more effective policing they are not suggesting the institution be eliminated, but demanding that police do their jobs better. But while it's important to be critical of the police, especially in the midst of a national policing crisis, we cannot escape or even comprehend our policing crisis without knowing what the police are thinking.
More from VICE on America's policing crisis:
A Decade After Hurricane Katrina, Police Brutality Is Still a Problem in New Orleans
Police Have Killed at Least 1,083 Americans Since Michael Brown's Death
Why It's Almost Impossible to Reform America's Police
How Cops Became Soldiers: An Interview with Police Militarization Expert Radley Balko
Earlier this year I met a black police officer who currently serves on the force of a major American police department. Each time we spoke I was impressed at how willing he is to be critical of his fellow officers, and how blunt he was in assessing the state of policing in the United States today.
Most police officers are not allowed to give interviews, which is perhaps understandable, but also a shame, because it denies people the opportunity to add their perspective. My cop friend, who I'll call Marc, agreed to let me publish one of our conversations, as long as he could remain anonymous. Below is our interview, lightly edited for clarity.
Toure: Why do you think so many shocking policing incidents have happened over the last year?
Marc: Some of it has to do with the petulance of police. What I mean by the petulance, and I've argued with some co-workers about this, we have to be held to a higher standard. We took an oath. The community didn't take an oath to protect the community—we would like them to, we would like them to be part of the solution. But they made no promises and took no oath. We did. We volunteered for this job and we are held to a higher standard.
In a lot of the situations I'm referring to, we're not talking about how police deal with criminals. We're talking about unarmed people who may have committed some basic violation, or done nothing wrong, and then things go way off the rails.
That's entitlement. Remember on South Park when Cartman started talking about, 'Respect my authori-tah?' And then he starts beating people? It's an entitlement thing. You have to get back to the basic question of why do people want to do this job? And if you're not from the inner-city but you wanna police the inner-city, I kinda have to question, why do you wanna do that? Not saying that that's not honorable, but what are your motives behind that?
And I think it's an entitlement thing. It's like, 'I'm wearing this badge and you need to respect me.' So I pull you over and I expect your respect, but you've been harassed by police and disrespected and you have somewhere you want to go, so you give me a little bit of attitude. But instead of being an adult and controlling the situation and de-escalating it, now I escalate the situation and say shut your mouth. You say 'Hold on sir, I'm a grown man. I won't shut my mouth.' Now we're going back and forth and no one's de-escalating the situation, it goes from zero to 100. And I think the police's job is always to de-escalate the situation.
Like Sandra Bland, that situation irritates me because it was a simple ticket that shouldn't even require anything. OK, she doesn't like the police. People have a right to not like you. Get over it. It's a God-given right for people to not like you. But, you can't be disorderly to the police, so people need to understand the disorderly conduct thing.
But I also think cops have to understand not to take it too personal. I'm in a confrontational job and 99 percent of the time when I deal with someone it's gonna be in a confrontational environment. Therefore it's my responsibility to de-escalate the situation at all times.
But what we hear from the police is a fear of being overpowered or having their authority lost to a particular young, unarmed black man. You hear that narrative over and over.
It would be nice if everybody who is in law enforcement were skilled marital artists and skilled fighters. But unfortunately in a job that's hard to get people to apply for anyway, there are people who are walking around this nation with a gun and a badge who have never been in a real fight. Never. Never been punched in the face before. So [they] don't have confidence in that skill. So when a person balls his fist up or comes after you, the first thing you think is, 'I know I can't fight. And I have a gun on me.' And there's a fear that you'll be overpowered and killed with my own weapon. A lot of cops have died this way.
They show you these videos in the academy. "How we die." It's not just fear of the black man, it's fear of people within itself. But then we have the perception from the media that the black man is the animal. He's stronger, bigger, faster, more aggressive. So the white person who never grew up around blacks, all he has is this perception that these individuals have this superhuman strength. And it's like, before the fight even begins I already think I'm gonna lose. And the reality is if you can beat me up and overpower me then you have the ability to take the gun off my hip and kill me with my own weapon. That's a strong possibility. And if I'm afraid for my life that's all I need to use deadly force.
We hear cops saying over and over in these incidents, 'He went for my gun, I feared for my life.' It seems like there's this playbook coming down from someone telling them, 'If something happens say this, it'll get you out of jail.' Is there some reason why we keep hearing the same story over and over?
One of the main things they focus on in the academy is liability. You have to know the liability of the law. You're carrying a tool that can end somebody's life so you have to know when you can use it and when you can't. It's taught in the academy you can only use your weapon when you fear for your life or your safety, or the safety of others. It's beat down that this is when you can use it. So officers across the nation will always say 'Well, I was in fear for my life.' You can't say anything else because there's no other reason to shoot somebody.
When you look at all these incidents which one makes you the sickest?
The Cincinnati one.
Sam Dubose.
You can't put yourself in harm's way in order to use deadly force. Yes, we don't wanna chase people and yes, if somebody runs from me it sucks to chase them, but you can't just be bustin' off at cars because they drive away. Especially if it's not for something major. It's not like this person was a rapist or a killer. We're talking about a traffic stop. So that one was sickening. And South Carolina was sickening.
Walter Scott.
That was sickening. The guy's running away. That's called a chase. It's time to run. Catch up to the person, tackle 'em, and then take 'em into custody. It sucks. God knows I don't wanna run all the time but unfortunately that comes with the territory.
So this narrative of black lives being taken by cops, and then making national news so each incident becomes a big story on its own—has that had an impact on cops on the ground and how they do their job?
I think so. I truly honestly believe and think so. And I don't think it's just the movement, I think it's a combination of stuff. They don't feel like they're gonna be backed by the mayors. I think one of the things we all want in our jobs is job security and the hope that we have bosses who support us. We all want supervisors to support us. And the community doesn't support you, they never really have. If a cop dies there's no national outcry, the community doesn't really care. The mayor doesn't support you because the mayor is a politician. The mayor, the county councilmen, they want votes. They want to win. So everybody has this fear they'll set you up just to make national news and say 'See we're doing something.'
It's almost like instead of saying 'Lets get the facts,' it's, 'Nah, lets make 'em [cops] guilty and we'll figure it out later. To quiet the storm because we don't want these Black Lives Matter people protesting in our backyard so we'll hang the officer out to dry. Well who wants to be in a job where you're hung out to dry?
Are you saying cops are going out on stops and feeling extra stress and tension and anxiety and thus officers are not de-escalating incidents, and they feel an anxiety because they don't feel supported and they're |
continue to be a matching of standards and regulations on both sides. Customs checks, however, would be required for goods coming from outside the EU and for those goods not covered by EEA membership, which unfortunately would include agricultural produce.
The second option would be a bespoke customs union with the EU. This would require more negotiation/transition time as it is not an ‘off the shelf’ solution. The UK would have tariff-free trade with the EU (although, again, not in agricultural produce, unless that was specially arranged) but it would have little freedom in the deals it makes outside the EU, it would have to apply the Common External Tariff, and it would need to continue to comply with EU regulations and harmonisation in some areas.
For the Irish border, the UK being in a customs union with the EU would mean tariff-free trade, but it would not secure freedom of movement of people or services. Customs documentation and checks would be required on the Irish border for (among many other things) compliance with standards, Rules of Origin, and for agricultural produce (which could be subject to tariffs and quotas).
Finally, there is the option of a deep and comprehensive free trade arrangement, such as with Canada. There is no hope that this can be finalised on top of the exit deal within the coming year so any transitional arrangement would be vital. This would offer an escape from the jurisdiction of the ECJ, the freedom to negotiate other deals, and an end to budgetary contributions to the EU. However, this would mean a ‘hard’ customs Irish border in that divergence between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would increase and Northern Ireland would presumably be open to goods that are restricted in the EU Single Market (e.g. the infamous chlorinated chicken).
Flexibility and imagination must be demonstrated by the UK as an act of sovereignty and self-preservation
Of course, there is another option: a ‘no deal’ Brexit, in which the UK leaves with no trade agreement in place and falls back on WTO terms. This would automatically mean the hardest form of an economic border between the UK and Ireland as tariffs would have to be applied both ways and there would be no regulatory equivalence between them. Even if this were the will of the UK government and unionist parties, to hurtle towards this outcome with no preparation and no information is to leave businesses, services and citizens brutally and unnecessarily exposed. Flexibility and imagination cannot be gifted by the EU – it must be demonstrated by the UK as an act of sovereignty and self-preservation.
This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of LSE Brexit, nor of the London School of Economics.
Dr Katy Hayward is Reader in Sociology & Senior Research Fellow, Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.Buy Photo Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel announces in May that no charges will be filed against two Neenah police officers who shot and killed hostage Michael L. Funk. (Photo: Danny Damiani/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo
Pinning down how often fatal police shootings occur in Wisconsin is harder than you might think.
There is no single definitive source on police shootings in the state.
Only the federal government has historically tracked deaths involving police but its data is now widely considered to be incomplete, including by FBI authorities.
In Wisconsin, a series of high-profile police shootings prompted Gov. Scott Walker to sign new policies into law in 2014 that require external investigations and greater public disclosure of investigative findings if prosecutors decline to press charges against any of the involved officers. But the new policies remain in their infancy.
Since the state mandated investigations into deaths caused by police, state Department of Justice officials have released nine reports on deaths involving police. The cases involved incidents in Ashwaubenon, Fond du Lac, Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, Monroe, Neenah and Watertown. It took state officials at least seven weeks to complete their investigations in most cases, according to the reports. The most recent case involving Neenah police took about five months.
So far many agencies have requested the Department of Justice to perform the required external investigations rather than another local agency.
On Friday, Attorney General Brad Schimel said the officers in the December shooting at Eagle Nation Cycles in Neenah would not be criminally charged in the case. The Department of Justice on Friday released its findingsalong with hours of video from the scene.
Department of Justice officials said no officer has been charged in any of the deaths they have investigated since May 2014. As of Monday, the department had flagged 20 of its cases as officer-involved deaths while another 11 were non-fatal shootings.
Three Department of Justice cases are currently being reviewed by district attorneys. Eight other investigations remain ongoing.
Independent efforts by labor groups and others, such as a Pulitzer-prize winning series by The Washington Post last year, have also brought more details to light about police shootings. Monitoring news reports and other records, the Post identified 11 fatal shootings in Wisconsin last year.
So far this year, The Post has identified seven fatal shootings that involved police in Antigo, East Troy, Eau Claire, Geneva, Lake Hallie, Milwaukee and Wausau. Information compiled by the Wisconsin Professional Police Association also confirms The Post’s figures.
Keegan Kyle and Alison Dirr are reporters for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. They can be reached at kkyle@gannett.com and adirr@gannett.com, or on Twitter @keegankyle and @AlisonDirr
Read or Share this story: http://post.cr/1T8XIK9Against the Odds: Quest for Ula's Temple (Modern)
by SaffronOlive // Jan 12, 2017 Tweet
video Against the Odds modern
Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode sixty-eight of Against the Odds. Last week, we had a wacky enchantment poll featuring one enchantment for each color, and when it was all said and done, our blue enchantment—Quest for Ula's Temple—had a crushing victory, beating out Curse of Misfortunes by a massive 13%! As a result, this week we are heading to Modern to see if we can cheat some Leviathans, Kraken, Serpents, and Octopi into play for free!
Anyway, let's get to the videos, but first a quick reminder. If you enjoy the Against the Odds series and the other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube Channel.
Against the Odds: Quest for Ula's Temple (Deck Tech)
Against the Odds: Quest for Ula's Temple (Games)
The Deck
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Building around Quest for Ula's Temple is actually pretty challenging because, while it may not be obvious, the namesake enchantment actually puts a lot of restrictions on our deck. First, since it can only put Kraken, Leviathans, Serpents, and Octopi into play, we need to make sure we have enough creatures of these types to have at least one in hand once we trigger Quest for Ula's Temple. Second, we need to play a ton of creatures in general to be able to trigger Quest for Ula's Temple (by revealing a creature on top of our deck during our upkeep). Unfortunately, since Kraken, Leviathans, Serpents, and Octopi are all extremely overcosted, we can't just play all creatures of these types—even if we get counters on our Quest for Ula's Temple at light speed, we'll still be dead before we start putting creatures into play. Finally, since we only have four copies of Quest for Ula's Temple (which means some games we won't draw one), we also need a backup plan for playing our huge sea creatures. With these restrictions in mind, I considered a couple of different builds, including a UG Ramp deck and a deck that used Summoning Trap as a backup plan for putting our sea creatures into play, but it felt weird to be anything but mono-blue, since that is the color of not only Quest for Ula's Temple but also all of our sea creatures. So, in the end, we ended up a deck that's not just mono-blue but about as mono-blue as a deck can possibly be!
Sea Creatures
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We ended up with a total of 11 creatures we can put into play for free with Quest for Ula's Temple, which is enough that we should usually have one in hand once we get our quest active. One thing I learned while building this deck is that Kraken, Leviathans, Serpents, and Octopi are actually really bad. Most are six to nine mana, and their effects aren't that exciting (mostly, they are just big); however, there are a handful of powerful ones.
In picking creatures for Quest for Ula's Temple, the most important thing is to find creatures that can help us get back in the game when we are behind, and Stormtide Leviathan and Scourge of Fleets are two of the best options. Stormtide Leviathan is essentially a Moat on a stick, which means that, even if our opponent has a lethal board state, if we can dump it into play, it will (hopefully) keep us alive by keeping our opponent from attacking. Meanwhile, Scourge of Fleets helps us catch up by bouncing all of our opponent's creatures back to their hand. Elder Deep-Fiend isn't actually all that exciting with Quest for Ula's Temple. While a free 5/6 is fine, we miss out on the "tap things" ability because it triggers when cast. On the other hand, it is one of the easiest sea creatures to cast because we can emerge it in as early as Turn 4, get a huge body, and Time Walk our opponent by tapping down their lands.
The Backup Plan
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Our backup plan for casting our huge, expensive sea creatures is to use Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (along with Borderposts) to generate a bunch of mana. While it might sound funny, one of the reasons this plan works is Quest for Ula's Temple. While our deck has a massive 30 creatures (which means, apart from mana sources and Quest for Ula's Temple itself, we only have one non-creature spell), it can still take a few turns to get enough counters on Quest for Ula's Temple to start putting sea creatures onto the battlefield for free. While we are waiting, Quest for Ula's Temple is a blue mana symbol that sits out on the battlefield to up our devotion, which in turns helps us make more mana with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and cast our huge sea creatures the old-fashioned way!
Blue-Mana-Symbol Creatures
The rest of the deck is essentially just creatures with blue mana symbols. While they all do things, there are two reasons they are in the deck. First, they up our creature count to make sure we are triggering Quest for Ula's Temple as consistently as possible. Second, they help generate mana with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to help us cast our huge sea creatures when we don't have a Quest on the battlefield. While I'm not going to talk about all of the creatures, a couple are worth mentioning individually.
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Dimir Guildmage lets us draw a ton of cards with our Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which helps us find our sea creatures so we have them in hand when our Quest for Ula's Temple is ready to go.
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Voidmage Prodigy takes advantage of the fact that a lot of the non-sea-creature creatures in our deck are Wizards, so we can let it sit out on the battlefield and counter whatever horrible thing our opponent plays.
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Harbinger of the Tides and Venser, Shaper Savant give us creatures with blue mana symbols that also provide some amount of protection from our opponent's creatures. If our opponent goes all in on an Inkmoth Nexus or Death's Shadow, we can flash in one of our bounce creatures and return the threat to our opponent's hand, hopefully keeping us alive long enough to take over the game with our huge sea creatures.
The Matchups
While our sideboard (with counterspells) can help shore up some of our worst matchups, generally speaking, our deck struggles against fast creature-based combo decks (because we don't play many ways to interact, and the ways we do have to interact—in Harbinger of the Tides and Venser, Shaper Savant—are pretty expensive) and spell-based combo decks, because we don't have many real answers in the main deck (although we do have Judge's Familiar, which can help slow the opponent down a little by making them play off curve, and Voidmage Prodigy which is sweet but easy to play around). As a result, we're hoping to dodge decks like Infect, Death's Shadow, Storm, and Ad Nauseum.
On the other hand, our deck is really good against creature-based decks. In the early game, we can clog up the board and chump block with our endless creatures, and then in the late game, once we have Quest for Ula's Temple online, we can easily go over the top of just about anything our opponent is trying to do. Plus, our sea creatures—Stormtide Leviathan, Scourge of Fleets, and Elder Deep-Fiend— do a great job of catching us back up against decks that are trying to win by beating down with creatures.
The Odds
I'm not sure I've ever been more shocked by the record of an Against the Odds deck. All in all, we played five matches and won four of them (good for an 80% match win percentage) and played 12 games, winning eight (a 66.67% game win percentage), which makes Quest for Ula's Temple one of the best-performing Against the Odds decks of all time. This said, we got a little bit lucky, especially against Tron, which should be close to an unwinnable matchup, but apparently Commandeer is pretty sweet when it's targeting Karn Liberated (although even here, we were extremely lucky, since Commandeer is a one-of sideboard card and we happened to have it two games in a row). Plus, we played a couple of lower-tier matchups in UW Starfield and Possibility Storm, which certainly helped. However, we did beat both Tron and Sun and Moon, which are tier one decks.
So, is Quest for Ula's Temple good? I'm not really sure. While the record looks great, I expect that if we played another five matches (let alone another 50 matches), our percentages would drop significantly—back towards the "normal" range for Against the Odds decks. That said, it was a blast to play, and with a bit of luck, it can win a lot of matches!
Vote for Next Week's Deck
For this week's poll, we are focusing on a specific cycle of creatures: the Spirit Avatars from Shadowmoor and Eventide. Which do you want to see made into a deck next week? Let us know by voting in the Against the Odds poll below!
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Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck! As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive and at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com."Bloody Hell! That's the biggest leopard seal I've ever seen!"
Leopard seals are pretty scary predators, especially if you're a penguin. But they can be friendly to other leopard seals, which is something that photographer Paul Nicklen learned during one of his trips to Antarctica. He was taking underwater photos when a leopard seal started feeding him penguins, starting with live ones, which were released close to him (to see if he would catch them), and ending with half-chewed dead ones. One theory is that the leopard seal saw his reflection in the lens of the camera and thought that Nicklen was a fellow predator, but an awkward one in need of some help.. You have to check out the video below, the photos are great!
The Seal Saw Him as a Useless Predator
Here's is a video of Nicklen explaining what happened, with many incredible photos. It's really worth seeing (you might have to turn up your volume to hear anything, though):For more photos by Paul Nicklen, check out his website. His book titled Polar Obsession looks really good.
See also: Beijing Zoo Puts their Animals on the Menu
If you like this article, you can follow me on Twitter (@Michael_GR) and Stumbleupon (THMike). Thanks.
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Crap. Global Warming Could Reduce "Catch Potential" in Tropical Fisheries by 40%A California walnut farmer is proving that with ingenuity and persistence, even traditionally energy-intensive industries can help address climate change.
Russ Lester’s Dixon Ridge Farm was already organic and a model of water conservation. But drying walnuts before they are taken to market uses a lot of energy. So Lester wanted to find a way to produce his own power. One day, he realized the answer was literally falling from the trees.
LESTER: “We have all this by-product walnut shell. This shell is a really, really good energy source, easily converted into clean renewable electricity and heat.”
With help from the state, Lester leased a “bio-max” generator, capable of turning walnut shells into clean-burning bio-gas.
Today, with two generators, Dixon Ridge Farm actually produces more energy than it needs and sells the excess electricity to the grid.
Lester also captures the waste heat from the furnaces and uses it to dry his harvested walnuts, saving a lot of energy.
The left over walnut shell ash can then be sold or used as fertilizer on the orchards – nourishing the trees, which, as they grow, remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
Sometimes the solutions to climate change can be literally all around you.
Reporting credit: ChavoBart Digital Media.
Photo: Walnut shell processing under way to then be burned to produce energy (source: Dixon Ridge video screenshot).
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Dixon Ridge FarmsMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Aaron McMahon said he believes he was targeted for leading a campaign against the loyalist paramilitary UDA in the Clandeboye area of Bangor.
About 200 people attended a rally in Bangor on Thursday night to show support for a community worker who was beaten with a hammer by masked men in his home.
Aaron McMahon was attacked by a gang in front of his family.
He believes he was targeted for leading a campaign against UDA activity in the Clandeboye area of of the town.
Mr McMahon criticised police and politicians for not doing enough to combat paramilitaries.
The police said individuals who try to "terrorise people" must "be isolated".
At the rally on Thursday night, Green party councillor John Barry said the council had a responsibility to do more.
"We have a responsibility to serve our community, part of which is protecting it, and we've fallen down on this occasion," he said.
"That's why we need to have a root and branch reform, a good look inside at how council operates and how we relate with community groups, particularly community groups that are paramilitary-linked."
'Masked men set upon me'
Earlier, Mr McMahon, who sits on the board of the North Down Community Network, described what happened: "I walked into the workshop and then I felt the door being forced open.
"When I turned around, two masked men set upon me.
"It probably only lasted a minute at most, but I could hear the kids screaming and (my wife) Michelle screaming. Then they left."
Image caption Mr McMahon says he believes that if his wife had not been able to scream for help, he may not have survived the attack
Mr McMahon's wife said her instinct, when she realised what was happening, was to protect the children in the house.
"I saw the door being pushed open and two masked men coming in, so I screamed to get the kids upstairs.
"They were screaming as well, so my main concern was to keep them away. I opened the front door and screamed for help out on the street."
Mr McMahon was treated in hospital for severe bruising, but has since been discharged.
He spoke out about Ulster Defence Association (UDA) flags erected around a local play park earlier this year and sought political help to have them removed.
"I spoke to a local MLA and, within days, the ones around the park were moved to alternative sites," he said.
Image caption A rally is being held in support of Mr McMahon on Thursday night
He explained that there were also concerns about intimidation around the community's Eleventh Night bonfire.
Fearful
Mr McMahon said he was asked if his community association would meet the UDA.
"My committee agreed that this wasn't an issue for the community association. The community felt they were left high and dry," he said.
"They said they believe the issue is up to the police, the council and our politicians to resolve. But no action was taken. Young people were left to fend for themselves."
Mr McMahon said he believes that if his wife had not been able to scream for help, he may not have survived the attack.
He says he was left with "no choice" but to stand up to the paramilitaries and the attack has made him more determined to continue his community work.
In a statement, the PSNI said: "Officers in Bangor strive to provide a first class policing service to all in the town and it is clear that the vast majority of people within the local area have chosen to support the police and support law and order.
"Those small groups of individuals who continue to try and terrorise people and commit criminal acts must be isolated from communities.
"Police in Bangor will continue their efforts to bring those responsible for criminality before the courts, but we need the help of the local community."
A 32-year-old man was arrested "on suspicion of aggravated burglary". He was later released on police bail pending further inquiries.After shutting down a Democratic filibuster, the Missouri Senate voted 21-13 to approve an anti-union measure that would make Missouri a “right-to-work’’ state.
Republican backers were two votes short Tuesday night of the 23 needed to override a guaranteed veto by Gov. Jay Nixon. They also achieved the final vote by using a controversial and rarely used procedure – called “moving the previous question,’’ or PQ – that angered many of the bill’s opponents.
“That’s the end of discussion for 2015,’’ said state Sen. Scott Sifton, D-Affton, who was among the leaders of the 8 ½-hour filibuster.
Four Republicans joined all nine Democrats in opposing the bill, HB 116, which now goes back to the House for another vote, because of Senate changes.
The bill would bar employers and unions from requiring all workers in a bargaining unit to pay dues. Backers say the ban would make Missouri more attractive to business, while opponents say the aim is to drive down wages and curb unions’ political clout.
The House had passed its version in February, but that tally (91-64) was 18 votes short of the 109 needed to override a gubernatorial veto. The next House vote, which must come by Friday’s adjournment, will show how much progress had been made by Speaker John Diehl, R-Town and Country, in amassing additional support.
Maneuver to force vote rarely used
Sifton – a 2016 candidate for attorney general -- asserted that Senate Democrats will now use procedural moves to gum up the Senate’s works for the remaining three days of session. That could kill or delay action on other significant measures, including a generally routine annual bill authorizing the state to accept $3.5 billion in federal money for health-care programs, mainly the existing Medicaid program.
It’s been eight years since the Senate last deployed the PQ in regular session, although the maneuver was used during last year’s veto session to override Nixon’s veto of a bill requiring a 72-hour waiting period for abortions.
But a stunning difference this time was that Republican leaders deployed the PQ, in effect, against fellow Republicans.
The four Republicans opposing “right to work” included Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey, R-St. Charles, who previously had declined to publicly state his position on the issue. He was joined by Sens. Paul Wieland, R-Imperial; Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, and Gary Romine, R-Farmington.
All four Republicans represent districts with large pro-union populations. At least two spoke during against the bill during the Democratic-led filibuster.
Senate Minority Leader Joe Keaveny, D-St. Louis, called the Senate’s PQ action “an affront to the long-held traditions of the Missouri Senate.”
The bill’s chief Senate sponsor, Majority Leader Ron Richard, R-Joplin, contended that the procedure was necessary to advance the bill. "This legislation will bring more businesses to the Show-Me State, increase our job numbers and foster a better environment for workers," said Richard, the former mayor of Joplin, Mo.
Backers point to the 25 states that already are “right to work,’’ saying they are seeing more job growth. Opponents point to statistics showing that the average pay in those states has declined.
Political players weigh in
The Senate vote swiftly attracted reaction, pro and con, from political activists, candidates and groups.
Supporters include the Missouri chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group with ties to the Koch brothers.
"Missouri is one step closer to joining 25 other states across the nation in giving its workers more freedoms,” said state director Patrick Werner. “…It's great to see Missouri join many neighboring states in helping our local workers and employers."
Opponents, meanwhile, also pointed to support from the American Legislative Exchange Council, another conservative group, and vowed to make the Senate vote an issue in next year’s elections.
Labor leaders already are singling out several Republicans who voted for “right to work’’ after previously receiving union support. They include Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who’s now running for attorney general in 2016, and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Glendale, who’s running for state treasurer.
Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, a Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, made clear he’s among the opposition. Kander sent out tweets declaring, “The majority party in #moleg listened to a few special interests instead… I don't know why the majority party decided to spend this session attacking working Missourians, but they'll regret it in 2016.”
Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, contended that "right to work,'' and the Senate vote, will help Republicans statewide. He asserted that 80 percent of his southern Missouri district's constituents back "right to work."
State Capitol correspondent Marshall Griffin contributed to this report.About
What is the EnergyBridge?
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What makes the EnergyBridge so different?
This system plugs directly into a power outlet and uses solar power to offset your home's energy use. During a power outage the EnergyBridge automatically takes over to provide steady power to your critical appliances. This gives you continuous access to power in any situation.
One of our first prototypesIn September 2010, several Carnegie Mellon graduate students in rhetoric, Doug Cloud, Hilary Franklin, Alexis Teagarden and Matt Zebrowski, started this blog called The Silver Tongue. During this time, blogging was still new and popular and unbridled optimism was still held by many over the election of Barack Obama. TST was a smart source of observations on political, environmental, and pop culture topics. Rhetorical theory provided the source for this insight because our founders believed, and we still do, that rhetoricians must remain engaged publically in issues and events that affect our communities. The TST founders described rhetoric this way:
“We…believe that rhetoric is the way things get done in a democracy, that communication and persuasion are desirable alternatives to force. We cannot solve social problems without understanding, and we cannot achieve understanding without rhetoric. Of course, rhetoric can be can be used to deceive, too, and it frequently is. It can be a force for good or deception, depending on who’s using it.”
This belief holds true more than ever within this current political climate, which is characterized by contentious issues like the ending of DACA, the resurgence of overt white nationalism in the US and in Europe, continuing debates over climate change reality and policy…. We need public scholars to help make sense of it all. With over 300 posts on this site from numerous writers, TST has been an important part of public conversations for the past seven years.
But to remain effective in this task, it is now time for a reboot. We are taking the mission of TST in a new direction, with new technologies, and with a new name. The Silver Tongue is now being transformed into Re:Verb – the new site can be found here.
This new podcast will engage the listener on current issues from a critical perspective. We envision this as a site where scholars of language, culture, and rhetoric can share insights on contemporary issues in ways that engage and interest a broader public. Acknowledging the many ways that “engagement” with issues may take shape — as commentary, scholarship, conversation, creation, and for some, even strategic disengagement — Re:Verb embraces multiple humanistic perspectives, modalities, and ways of “talking about talk.”
We look forward to receiving your suggestions on topics and hope you like the new site and the new changes.Audi of America established prices for the limited-production 2012 Audi R8 GT starting at $196,800 at the launch of sales in the U.S. market. The Audi R8 GT is the lightest, fastest and most powerful entry in the Audi supercar lineup, which has won global acclaim. Only 333 Audi R8 GT models will be produced worldwide, with 90 slated for U.S. buyers.
2012 R8 GT pricing (excluding $1,250 destination charge, taxes, title, options and dealer charges):(Information on pricing and specifications for the full Audi R8 lineup can be found at http://audiusanews.com/audi/assets/specs/11R8_PricingOptions.pdf.)The 2012 R8 GT receives significant exterior modifications aimed at enhancing its already stellar handling, and it is powered by a modified 5.2-liter V10 FSI engine that produces 560 horsepower (35 hp more than the R8 Coupe 5.2 quattro and the R8 Spyder 5.2 quattro). The 2012 R8 GT employs the R tronic sequential manual transmission. This pairing produces a top track speed of 199 mph, and a 0-62 mph time of 3.6 seconds. Overall, the Audi R8 GT will provide drivers with high lateral acceleration and a low center of gravity.The signature Audi ASF® lightweight construction of the Audi R8 GT, combined with extensive use of lightweight carbon fiber body parts reduces the weight by approximately 180 pounds when compared to the Audi R8 Coupe 5.2 quattro. Key carbon fiber components are the rear hatch, spoiler and diffuser.The Audi R8 GT continues the heritage of mid-engine configuration with quattro® all-wheel drive that has distinguished all R8 variants. The axle load distribution of the R8 GT will be 43/57 front/rear. Integrated into the front differential is axle-load-optimized torque split with self-locking differential in the rear axle.The newest member of the Audi sports car family was inspired by the Audi R8 LMS GT3 race car. To convey its limited-edition nature, the Audi R8 GT will come with a variety of exclusive interior and exterior touches. Each car will have a numbered gearshift knob. The instrument cluster will be white with the R8 GT logo and the interior will feature carbon matte inlays. The seats, headliner, steering wheel and handbrake lever will be black Alcantara® with contrast stitching. Door sills will include aluminum inserts with the R8 GT logo.On the exterior, the grille, distinctive sideblade and other trim parts will come in exclusive matte finishes. The Audi R8 GT will also be available in an exclusive new color: Samoa Orange.Optional carbon-fiber reinforced ceramic brakes are available to provide superb fading resistance even in racetrack conditions. Brake calipers with a red anodized finish come with the ceramic brakes. A 12-speaker, 495-watt Bang & Olufsen® sound system is also available. The Audi R8 GT offers other trim and wheel options to personalize the full array of standard features.AUSTIN — More than 10,000 books are banned from Texas prisons, but they might not be the ones you think.
Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for fiction, is not allowed. Neither is Freakonomics, the 2005 bestseller that explained concepts such as cheating at school and parenting techniques using economic theory.
But Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, as well as his On National Socialism and World Relations, are both on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's list of approved books. Also allowed are two books by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke as well as James Battersby's The Holy Book of Adolf Hitler, described on Amazon.com as "the Bible of neo-Nazism and of esoteric Hitlerism."
Where's Waldo? Santa Spectacular is banned. So is Homer Simpson's Little Book of Laziness and Monty Python's Big Red Book. A collection of Shakespearean sonnets is banned.
On the approved list? Satan's Sorcery Volume I by Rev. Caesar 999 and 100 Great Poems of Love and Lust.
The Dallas Morning News requested a full list of the books Texas' nearly 150,000 inmates can and cannot read in the state's dozens of prisons. A total of 248,281 titles are on the approved list; another 10,073 are banned.
What gets banned?A few years ago I was flipping through Twitter and saw this joke:
Those first two guys who thought Superman was a bird or a plane, what were they so excited about?
Weeks later I was at an open mic and I heard a comic tell the same joke on stage. I couldn’t figure out why it felt like I had heard that particular comic’s material before, even though I knew I had never seen him perform. Eventually I remembered the tweet. I cared for about a day and then decided not to anymore. If I were to start worrying about every open mic comic who steals material I’d drive myself crazy.
About six months later I was at a well-regarded show and about eight or nine minutes into his set, the second comic told the joke. I had more of a problem with it this time around. This wasn’t an open mic full of young comics looking to get stage time and one homeless dude looking to get non-sidewalk time. People had paid money to see this show. Patton Oswalt was the first comic to go up. Furthermore, this wasn’t a young punk no one cared about, stealing jokes to get a laugh and boost his self-esteem just enough to keep him from moving back to Topeka. This was a comedian who had done the late night circuit. Why would an accomplished comedian steal jokes? Didn’t he see what had happened to Carlos Mencia? No, not the part where he made a bunch of money and got super famous. The part where everyone thinks he’s a butthead now.
I hadn’t thought about the joke in a few years and had all but forgotten about it until I saw it again recently on Twitter. It was interesting to me that the joke was still being passed around, and I was curious as to how many people had tweeted it. I did a Twitter search and this is what I found.
This joke has been tweeted by multiple people across the world every day for the past five years. We may need FiveThirtyEight to take a look at it in order to get a full statistical analysis, but in the meantime I would like to invite you down the rabbit hole that has been this joke’s life.
October 18th, 2009
As far as I can find, this was the first time it was tweeted:
Speaking of Superman, why do people in Metropolis get excited if they really thought they saw a bird or plane? — Seven (@Prostatus52) October 19, 2009
Keep in mind this doesn’t mean this is the first time the joke was made, just the first time it was tweeted. Also, it doesn’t necessarily mean it was the first time it was tweeted, either. If someone tweeted it before this, but has since deleted his or her account, it wouldn’t have shown up in my search.
November 2009 - May 2010
During this period, the joke is only tweeted three times by three different users. But then…
June 2nd, 2010
Comedian Shari VanderWerf tweets it to 38k followers:
Those first two guys who thought Superman was a bird or a plane...?
What the fuck were they so excited about? — Shari VanderWerf (@shariv67) June 2, 2010
This blasts the joke into the stratosphere. VanderWerf may not be Patient Zero, but she’s definitely the person who infected the most people the earliest. In fact, two years later, Penn Jillette would give VanderWerf a shout out to let people know |
, breakbulk, refrigerated, military and construction-related cargoes, as well being the nation’s busiest port of call for cruise ships, according to the trade journal American Shipper. Gulftainer is investing $100 million in infrastructure, equipment and personnel to run the 20-acre terminal, which is expandable to 40 acres.
In 2006, a major international controversy came to a head over security concerns when Dubai Ports World acquired several U.S. port operations along the East Coast.
Then-President George W. Bush weighed heavily in favor of allowing Middle East allies to conduct business in U.S. ports. But Dubai Ports World sold its interest in the U.S. ports shortly after it bought them, a move seen widely as a defeat for Middle Eastern port companies trying to establish a foothold in the lucrative U.S. cargo market.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey told WND the transfer of control at Port Canaveral is “conceivably” a major concern and it should be getting more scrutiny in light of the flap over the Dubai ports acquisition in 2006.
“We had a big flap several years ago over Dubai owning and controlling several ports on the East Coast, and it got switched around rather quickly after that situation came under intense media coverage and public outrage,” Woolsey said.
But the Canaveral deal has not received anywhere near the amount of publicity as the Dubai purchase.
“I think the main problem with port access if the owner now is Mr. Hussein’s nuclear chief’s brother, or when we were looking at Dubai, is that there could be some influence from some folks wanting to smuggle something in, if you just look at some of the possibilities. The ports are different, are more problematic on some things than, say, airports.”
That’s because of the capacity to have “very substantial amounts of material, whether nuclear or chemical, in bulk” at a seaport, Woolsey said.
“And I don’t know the process for effective TSA searches for airports and seaports, but I do know we had a situation six months to a year ago, in which the employees of several of the major airports were hired by a company that had a background in which it was saving money by hiring people principally from the Middle East,” Woolsey said.
“So if it’s an airport and you’re just walking along the flight line at night near the hangars and you have a small suitcase in your hand with a nuclear weapon in it, and the explosive would go off when you get near the plane, it would probably be considerably easier to do something devastating at an airport than a seaport. But the seaport would potentially provide a place where it’s a very high volume substance of some kind, whether chemical, biological or nuclear,” he added.
“They both are vulnerable unless you’re doing a very good job of vetting employees who work there, and making sure nobody sneaks chemical weapons or something like that into a cargo container.”
Kenneth Timmerman, author of “Deception: The Making of the YouTube Video Hillary and Obama Blamed for Benghazi,” said there should have been a CFIUS review of the deal.
CFIUS is the Committee for Foreign Investment in the U.S., and it is responsible for reviewing the national security implications of foreign companies looking to buy critical U.S. infrastructure. Such reviews are launched by the treasury secretary.
“But there never was [a review] in 2014,” Timmerman said.
“Why was there no CFIUS review?” asked Timmerman. “That’s the biggest question to me. At least they should have reviewed it. Was there a review and they found it was fine without going through the official process? It seems to me there should have been a full review. The question is, if there wasn’t one, why not?”
Port spokeswoman Rosalind Harvey told the Sentinel, “After extensive filing of all required paperwork to U.S. Treasury Department officials, the panel found that no review was required because the agreement was a lease and not a purchase of Port assets.”
Woolsey said Congress should be more involved in these types of transactions.
“What it may speak to is we don’t have a very good system for reviewing and making available to Congress and even relevant parts of the executive branch [information] that involves our important infrastructure,” he said. “Airports and sea ports need to be watched carefully and vetted. But exactly who would have been responsible for negotiating and whether there could be a substance we should worry about would be speculation on my part.
He said the Dubai Ports deal has clear parallels to the Canaveral deal, and it appears maybe some lessons went unlearned. He said Gulftainer may have learned lessons on the other side, however, such as how to keep the deal out of the public spotlight until after it was consummated.
“Whoever got involved in doing it may have taken a lesson from Dubai to make sure they didn’t have any public speculation about it,” he said. “It seems strange. It seems someone ought to have had this on their radar. And it makes you wonder whether Congress had it brought before them at all and whether they should have had a closer look.”
Walsh, CEO of the Canaveral Port Authority, signed the agreement with Badr Jafar, chairman of Gulftainer’s executive board, at a ceremony held at Port Canaveral on June 23, 2014.
“This agreement marks a new era for Port Canaveral,” Walsh beamed in a statement published by the Orlando Sentinel. “With work on the widening and deepening of the Canaveral Harbor currently in progress, the new container and multi-purpose cargo terminal will further underscore our credentials as one of the most important economic engines for our region, while providing value to Central Florida shippers and distribution facilities by lowering overall costs and offering more efficient links to the supply chain.”
“The decision to grant this agreement to GT USA was made after careful consideration and due diligence. An international port operator, the company has strong competencies in port development and supply chain improvement that is an ideal fit to our port development objectives,” Canaveral Port Authority Commission Chairman Tom Weinberg told the Sentinel. “This is a true game-changer that will strengthen our cargo operations.”
Port Canaveral is a cruise, cargo and naval port in Brevard County, Florida, near Orlando. It is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world with 3.9 million cruise passengers passing through during 2014.
Recently, SpaceX, a company that designs, manufactures and launched advanced rockets into space, has begun moving some of its operations over to Port Canaveral. SpaceX plans to lease “the 52,000-square-foot building” in Port Canaveral.
SpaceX currently operates two launch pads at Kennedy Space Center and nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and it is rapidly expanding.Advertisement
Thousands of Muslims gathered outside Rome's Colosseum to protest the closure of mosques and other places of worship in the Italian capital.
The group gathered outside the iconic ancient Roman building to pray as they promoted their right of freedom to worship during the peaceful march yesterday.
An imam led the group in chants of 'Allah Akbar' which means 'God is great,' as they kneeled to the ground facing the Colosseum.
Scroll down for video
The Muslim community of Rome gathered by the Colosseum to pray and demonstrate against the alleged shutting down by police of unofficial places of worship in the city
Men held up signs reading in Italian 'To close a place of worship is against faith' during the demonstration (pictured)
Children joined in the peaceful protest with signs that read 'peace', open the mosques' and 'love' (pictured)
Thousands gathered outside Rome's iconic Colosseum building to pray as they promoted their right of freedom to worship during the peaceful march
The protest was organized by a Bangladeshi group, Dhuumcatu, which has complained that smaller or more informal mosques in Rome have been branded illegal by authorities for building violations.
At least 1.6 million Muslims live in the country but there are only a handful of mosques officially registered with the Italian government.
Most worship takes place in houses and Islamic cultural centres.
But, Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in August that'mini mosques in garages' should not be allowed as it makes them difficult to monitor, possibly raising the risk of radicalisation.
The Dhuumcatu Association, said police had closed three improvised mosques in Rome in last few months.
Sikdir Bulbul, 41, is an Italian citizen who has lived in Rome for 16 years. He said the mosque he helped establish in 2012 was shut down in September.
Protest organisers The Dhuumcatu Association, said police had closed three improvised mosques in Rome in last few months
At least 1.6 million Muslims live in Italy but there are only a handful of mosques officially registered with the Italian government. Most worship takes place in houses and Islamic cultural centres
Protesters attached placards to lamp post near the Colosseum and stated they want City Hall to intervene to lay out clearer rules for opening a Mosque
He added: 'Friday prayer is very important to us so today we have come to the Colosseum. Otherwise where else can we pray?'
Protesters attached placards to lamp post near the Colosseum stating they want City Hall to intervene.
On its Facebook page the Dhuumcatu Association said there needed to be clearer rules on setting up mosques.
A statement read: 'We are sick of the criminalisation of our places of worship. There are no relevant regulations, and we cannot invent solutions independently of the authorities.'
Thousands sat outside the Colosseum (pictured). On its Facebook page the Dhuumcatu Association said there needed to be clearer rules on setting up mosques
Italy's Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in August that'mini mosques in garages' should not be allowed as it makes them difficult to monitor possibly raising the risk of radicalisation
A statement from the protesters read: 'We are sick of the criminalisation of our places of worship. There are no relevant regulations, and we cannot invent solutions independently of the authorities'
The peaceful protest was criticisied by far-right politians. Gian Marco, leader of the anti immigration Northern League, said: Muslims today who decided to pray in front of the Colosseum had to be stopped. It was a scene that was unacceptable'.
The Colosseum has great significance in the largely Catholic country. It is generally regarded by Christians as a site of the martyrdom of believers during the Roman Empire's persecution of the religion.
A cross now stands outside the building inscribed with the words: 'The amphitheater, one consecrated to triumphs, entertainments, and the impious worship of pagan gods, is now dedicated to the sufferings of the martyrs purified from impious superstitions'.
The Dhuumcatu Association, said police had closed three improvised mosques in Rome in last few months. They sat outside the iconic building for hours on Friday to protest (pictured)
In a statement police said they guarantee freedom of thought, but within a legal framework. They also confirmed the closure of some places of prayerNASCAR Sprint Cup team owner Michael Waltrip with drivers Martin Truex Jr. and Clint Bowyer at Richmond International Raceway. (Photo: Peter Casey, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Martin Truex, Jr. is out of the Chase
Waltrip Racing GM Ty Norris suspended
NASCAR, teams credibility takes a hit
CONCORD, N.C. — NASCAR wanted to send a stern message to the Sprint Cup Series by dropping the hammer Monday on Michael Waltrip Racing.
And it did: If you're going to manipulate our races by ordering your drivers to lay down, be smarter than MWR's ham-handed bungling of team orders next time.
The major takeaway from NASCAR effectively wiping out that team's results in Saturday's Federated Auto Parts 400?
There are no guarantees the regular-season cutoff race won't unfold under exactly the same cloud of deceit the next time it is run at Richmond International Raceway.
Even though it docked Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer and Brian Vickers 50 points apiece, the overarching lesson that teams learned wasn't "don't do this, or we'll nail you."
It was do a better job of disguising it until NASCAR figures out how to monitor its teams' traffic well enough to determine when underhanded tactics are occurring.
CHASE: Newman in; Truex out after epic penalties
It took two days for the sanctioning body to rule Monday on what seemed obvious to anyone paying attention to a scanner Saturday night: MWR made Bowyer and Vickers take dives to put Truex in the final wild-card spot. It was a sinister plan superbly executed under major duress with the cunning of criminal masterminds. But the team co-owned by a man who revels in his court jester persona fumbled the post-race cover-up with a vaudeville act worthy of the Three Stooges.
NEWMAN: Says MWR manipulated race outcome
So what steps is NASCAR taking to ensure that doesn't happen in the future?
President Mike Helton was asked that, and the answer wasn't exactly reassuring.
"One day, there'll be a way to scan 43 teams times 3-4 person per team and keep up with all that but that's not today," Helton said. "I don't think it's reasonable for us to assume the responsibility without getting to that level of technology that can help us do that. There'll be additional technologies to apply to get a more clear, quicker answers. We don't have that today to reasonably expect us to react instantly to radio conversations. We don't have the current technology to listen to every team member talking."
Boys, have at it, and have a good time pretending that you are racing entirely above board in the future.
GALLERY: Richmond's controversial finish in photos
There was only one winner in this decision: Stewart-Haas Racing's Ryan Newman, who gets into the Chase in the final wild card spot as Truex got booted.
There are almost too many losers to count.
-- MWR, whose lingering reputation for unscrupulous practices and malfeasance (hey remember that jet fuel scandal six years ago?) took another hit and resulted in a newfound patsy: General manager Ty Norris, who was suspended indefinitely for blatantly ordering Vickers to pit under false pretenses.
-- Hendrick Motorsports and its sponsors that stand to lose millions in exposure by not having Jeff Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet in the Chase
-- NASCAR and its credibility among mainstream sports fans and media who might have been curious about how the sport would handle its own version of a Black Sox Scandal.
-- And likely legions of fans who feel as if justice was, at best, half-served despite a virtually unprecedented display of discipline Monday night at NASCAR's R&D Center.
Gordon remains out of the Chase even though he was in it before the subterfuge began Saturday.
Bowyer, who triggered the shenanigans with a spin that video and audio indicated was intentional, will begin the Chase without any penalty.
WATCH: Bowyer's spin from his in-car camera
NASCAR effectively gave MWR an out by declaring there was no conclusive evidence that Bowyer spun on purpose.
Within 30 minutes of last night's news conference, Michael Waltrip had taken it, tweeting "this wasn't a master plan or about a spin, it's about a split-decision made by Ty to try to help a teammate. I stand by my people."
This wasn't a master plan or about a spin. It's about a split-second decision made by Ty to try to help a teammate. I stand by my people. — Michael Waltrip (@mw55) September 10, 2013
That turned Norris into a scapegoat who acted alone and left a sport already beset by conspiracy theories stinging with another blemish that raised questions about the integrity of its competition.
This was mostly an intractable situation for NASCAR. Ask Formula One how easy it is to police a plethora of multicar teams with millions of dollars at stake (it gave up on outlawing team orders after a decade of futility). And between sponsors, teams, drivers and fans, there are too many constituencies to satisfy.
But even though there might have been no recourse for a perfect administering of justice, there had to be a better way to reassure its fan base and industry that it wouldn't happen again.
As Gordon, a four-time champion with a lot of clout, tweeted after the decision, "At this point all that matters to me is if NASCAR decides to fix this then fix it completely!"
Take me out of this completely. At this point all that matters to me is if @NASCAR decides to fix this then fix it completely!. — Jeff Gordon (@JeffGordonWeb) September 10, 2013
The fix wasn't enough Monday.
Which means the fix will be in again in the future.
Follow Nate Ryan on Twitter @nateryanBlue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has out-of-this-world ambitions – with expansion plans to match.
Permit filings at the city of Kent, Wash., reveal plans for a 236,000-square-foot warehouse complex and 102,900 square feet of office space, southwest of Blue Origin’s current 300,000-square-foot headquarters and rocket production facility in an industrial area of the city.
Last year, Blue Origin purchased a 120,000-square-foot warehouse building across the street from its headquarters to support the production of the company’s BE-3 and BE-4 rocket engines, as well as its New Shepard suborbital boosters and crew capsules.
“When we go to the next step with our next rocket, we’re going to use that building as a bigger facility for production,” the Puget Sound Business Journal quoted Blue Origin’s president, Rob Meyerson, as saying.
Blue Origin didn’t respond to GeekWire’s inquiries about the existing warehouse building, or the bigger project that’s under consideration. But a planner for the city of Kent, Jason Garnham, confirmed that the future project is still in the works.
In an email, Garnham told GeekWire that the construction permit applications are “currently on hold, pending our request for more information regarding environmental conditions of the site.”
“Meanwhile, the project is also under review by other jurisdictions such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Washington State Department of Ecology, and the applicant is awaiting review and approval by those agencies before proceeding,” Garnham said.
The reviews could take another two to four months, he said.
The project is listed in city records as “Avenue 55 Blue Origin.” Avenue 55, a Seattle-based development management company, did not respond to GeekWire’s requests for comment.
Blue Origin’s workforce is growing along with its expansion plans. Last March, the company said it had 600 employees, but the number has since risen closer to 1,000. More than 100 job openings are listed on its website. Virtually all of those jobs are in Kent, 16 miles south of Seattle, with a smattering of additional openings at Blue Origin’s West Texas suborbital launch site and at its Florida office.
A 750,000-square-foot factory is currently under construction near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and it’s due to be ready to manufacture Blue Origin’s New Glenn orbital rockets by the end of 2017.
Swung by the @blueorigin factory under construction just outside the KSC gates. It’s taking shape, and it’s big. pic.twitter.com/ZT3F5TswsY — Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) February 18, 2017
The end of this year is just about the time that Blue Origin hopes to start putting test astronauts on New Shepard’s suborbital spaceflights in West Texas. The New Shepard capsule, which has been tested six times over the course of the past two years, is capable of carrying up to six people to altitudes beyond 62 miles. The ride provides several minutes of weightlessness and an astronaut’s-eye view of Earth.
During a recent interview published by the Welland Tribune in Ontario, newly hired Blue Origin engineer Ben Laurence said the company’s testing plan calls for three crew members to pilot the spacecraft. “The other three spots are being filled through a lottery within the company,” Laurence said.
Laurence said he’d love to go. And Bezos has said paying passengers could be flying as early as 2018, although the ticket price hasn’t yet been set and reservations aren’t yet being taken.
The New Shepard is powered by Blue Origin’s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 rocket engine, but the New Glenn will make use of the BE-4, a more powerful engine that burns liquefied natural gas.
The BE-4 is also the current favorite for use on United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket. However, Blue Origin is facing competition on that score from Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR-1 engine. ULA is waiting to get the results from the first full-scale BE-4 engine firing before making its choice.
That all-up static fire test is expected to take place sometime in the next few months. If the tests go the way Bezos hopes, Blue Origin aims to ramp up BE-4 operations to reach full production by 2019, either in Kent or someplace else – like Florida, for instance.
In Florida, state and local officials have already set aside at least $18 million in incentives for Blue Origin’s orbital operations, and are talking about allocating $17 million more.
Meanwhile, the Washington Legislature is considering a bill that would provide tax credits for Blue Origin and other companies engaged in advanced space manufacturing, as well as biotech and environmental ventures.
For what it’s worth, an analysis from the Washington Department of Revenue suggests that the credits could have a fiscal impact of $30 million over the next two years. Not all of the credits would go to Blue Origin, of course.
How many of Blue Origin’s big plans will turn into reality? Where and when will that happen? Figuring out the economic and policy calculations that will drive Jeff Bezos’ decisions over the next year could get as complicated as, well, rocket science.Bill Maher has wrung the most comedy — and attention — he can out of his campaign to unseat a little known Republican congressman from Minnesota. But on Tuesday, things get serious for Mr. Maher, the host of HBO’s “Real Time”: He wants to win.
Or at least come close.
“If we could flip this guy, or at least make it way closer than it’s ever been,” Mr. Maher said in a telephone interview, “I think it would send a message.”
The message Mr. Maher has wanted to send since his show began what he called a “flip the district” campaign last June is that voters should be better informed about their representatives, many of whom have little to worry about, because they come from districts set up to ensure incumbents are re-elected. “There is too much money in the system and too much apathy,” he said.
Other television shows and comedians have dipped a toe into political campaigns. Stephen Colbert made a comedy-based run (in his blowhard conservative character) for president in 2008, and in 2011 started a so-called super PAC that highlighted loose campaign finance laws. Long before, Pat Paulsen made his presidential candidacy a running gag on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1968. Neither of those efforts had any serious intent, however, as Mr. Maher’s has.This is an outrage and must be stopped!
The robot barman, called Mr Asahi, debuted at Selfridges in London, serving up Asahi beer to the locals. I am totally serious.
The 1st problem with the robot barman: He serves shitty beer. Asahi is bad Budweiser on a good day. Calling it "warm piss" is a compliment.
2nd problem: It's freaking weird looking. Those eyes make me want to reach over and steal all the pints it's pouring without leaving a tip. Wait, that's good thing.
3rd problem: No boobs.
4th problem: (see 3rd problem.)
5th problem: Waste of human talent. Wouldn't society have been better off if these scientist spent their time on more noble pursuits? Like inventing a robot that helps wheel chair bound people, perfecting robotic prosthetic devices or by making a giant laser that could blow up Earth from the Moon? Eviilll!
In short, the day robots replace humans, is the day I quit drinking. Alone at McSorley's, by myself, till 4am every week night.
PS - I'm 5 hours sober.Command
Command is one of my favorite patterns. Most large programs I write, games or otherwise, end up using it somewhere. When I’ve used it in the right place, it’s neatly untangled some really gnarly code. For such a swell pattern, the Gang of Four has a predictably abstruse description:
Encapsulate a request as an object, thereby letting users parameterize clients with different requests, queue or log requests, and support undoable operations.
I think we can all agree that that’s a terrible sentence. First of all, it mangles whatever metaphor it’s trying to establish. Outside of the weird world of software where words can mean anything, a “client” is a person — someone you do business with. Last I checked, human beings can’t be “parameterized”.
Then, the rest of that sentence is just a list of stuff you could maybe possibly use the pattern for. Not very illuminating unless your use case happens to be in that list. My pithy tagline for the Command pattern is:
A command is a reified method call.
“Reify” comes from the Latin “res”, for “thing”, with the English suffix “–fy”. So it basically means “thingify”, which, honestly, would be a more fun word to use.
Of course, “pithy” often means “impenetrably terse”, so this may not be much of an improvement. Let me unpack that a bit. “Reify”, in case you’ve never heard it, means “make real”. Another term for reifying is making something “first-class”.
Reflection systems in some languages let you work with the types in your program imperatively at runtime. You can get an object that represents the class of some other object, and you can play with that to see what the type can do. In other words, reflection is a reified type system.
Both terms mean taking some concept and turning it into a piece of data — an object — that you can stick in a variable, pass to a function, etc. So by saying the Command pattern is a “reified method call”, what I mean is that it’s a method call wrapped in an object.
That sounds a lot like a “callback”, “first-class function”, “function pointer”, “closure”, or “partially applied function” depending on which language you’re coming from, and indeed those are all in the same ballpark. The Gang of Four later says:
Commands are an object-oriented replacement for callbacks.
That would be a better slugline for the pattern than the one they chose.
But all of this is abstract and nebulous. I like to start chapters with something concrete, and I blew that. To make up for it, from here on out it’s all examples where commands are a brilliant fit.
Somewhere in every game is a chunk of code that reads in raw user input — button presses, keyboard events, mouse clicks, whatever. It takes each input and translates it to a meaningful action in the game:
A dead simple implementation looks like:
void InputHandler :: handleInput () { if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_X )) jump (); else if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_Y )) fireGun (); else if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_A )) swapWeapon (); else if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_B )) lurchIneffectively (); }
Pro tip: Don’t press B very often.
This function typically gets called once per frame by the game loop, and I’m sure you can figure out what it does. This code works if we’re willing to hard-wire user inputs to game actions, but many games let the user configure how their buttons are mapped.
To support that, we need to turn those direct calls to jump() and fireGun() into something that we can swap out. “Swapping out” sounds a lot like assigning a variable, so we need an object that we can use to represent a game action. Enter: the Command pattern.
We define a base class that represents a triggerable game command:
class Command { public: virtual ~ Command () {} virtual void execute () = 0 ; };
When you have an interface with a single method that doesn’t return anything, there’s a good chance it’s the Command pattern.
Then we create subclasses for each of the different game actions:
class JumpCommand : public Command { public: virtual void execute () { jump (); } }; class FireCommand : public Command { public: virtual void execute () { fireGun (); } }; // You get the idea...
In our input handler, we store a pointer to a command for each button:
class InputHandler { public: void handleInput (); // Methods to bind commands... private: Command * buttonX_ ; Command * buttonY_ ; Command * buttonA_ ; Command * buttonB_ ; };
Now the input handling just delegates to those:
void InputHandler :: handleInput () { if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_X )) buttonX_ -> execute (); else if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_Y )) buttonY_ -> execute (); else if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_A )) buttonA_ -> execute (); else if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_B )) buttonB_ -> execute (); }
Notice how we don’t check for NULL here? This assumes each button will have some command wired up to it. If we want to support buttons that do nothing without having to explicitly check for NULL, we can define a command class whose execute() method does nothing. Then, instead of setting a button handler to NULL, we point it to that object. This is a pattern called Null Object.
Where each input used to directly call a function, now there’s a layer of indirection:
This is the Command pattern in a nutshell. If you can see the merit of it already, consider the rest of this chapter a bonus.
The command classes we just defined work for the previous example, but they’re pretty limited. The problem is that they assume there are these top-level jump(), fireGun(), etc. functions that implicitly know how to find the player’s avatar and make him dance like the puppet he is.
That assumed coupling limits the usefulness of those commands. The only thing the JumpCommand can make jump is the player. Let’s loosen that restriction. Instead of calling functions that find the commanded object themselves, we’ll pass in the object that we want to order around:
class Command { public: virtual ~ Command () {} virtual void execute ( GameActor & actor ) = 0 ; };
Here, GameActor is our “game object” class that represents a character in the game world. We pass it in to execute() so that the derived command can invoke methods on an actor of our choice, like so:
class JumpCommand : public Command { public: virtual void execute ( GameActor & actor ) { actor. jump (); } };
Now, we can use this one class to make any character in the game hop around. We’re just missing a piece between the input handler and the command that takes the command and invokes it on the right object. First, we change handleInput() so that it returns commands:
Command * InputHandler :: handleInput () { if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_X )) return buttonX_ ; if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_Y )) return buttonY_ ; if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_A )) return buttonA_ ; if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_B )) return buttonB_ ; // Nothing pressed, so do nothing. return NULL ; }
It can’t execute the command immediately since it doesn’t know what actor to pass in. Here’s where we take advantage of the fact that the command is a reified call — we can delay when the call is executed.
Then, we need some code that takes that command and runs it on the actor representing the player. Something like:
Command * command = inputHandler. handleInput (); if ( command ) { command -> execute ( actor ); }
Assuming actor is a reference to the player’s character, this correctly drives him based on the user’s input, so we’re back to the same behavior we had in the first example. But adding a layer of indirection between the command and the actor that performs it has given us a neat little ability: we can let the player control any actor in the game now by changing the actor we execute the commands on.
In practice, that’s not a common feature, but there is a similar use case that does pop up frequently. So far, we’ve only considered the player-driven character, but what about all of the other actors in the world? Those are driven by the game’s AI. We can use this same command pattern as the interface between the AI engine and the actors; the AI code simply emits Command objects.
The decoupling here between the AI that selects commands and the actor code that performs them gives us a lot of flexibility. We can use different AI modules for different actors. Or we can mix and match AI for different kinds of behavior. Want a more aggressive opponent? Just plug-in a more aggressive AI to generate commands for it. In fact, we can even bolt AI onto the player’s character, which can be useful for things like demo mode where the game needs to run on auto-pilot.
By making the commands that control an actor first-class objects, we’ve removed the tight coupling of a direct method call. Instead, think of it as a queue or stream of commands:
For lots more on what queueing can do for you, see Event Queue.
Why did I feel the need to draw a picture of a “stream” for you? And why does it look like a tube?
Some code (the input handler or AI) produces commands and places them in the stream. Other code (the dispatcher or actor itself) consumes commands and invokes them. By sticking that queue in the middle, we’ve decoupled the producer on one end from the consumer on the other.
If we take those commands and make them serializable, we can send the stream of them over the network. We can take the player’s input, push it over the network to another machine, and then replay it. That’s one important piece of making a networked multi-player game.
The final example is the most well-known use of this pattern. If a command object can do things, it’s a small step for it to be able to undo them. Undo is used in some strategy games where you can roll back moves that you didn’t like. It’s de rigueur in tools that people use to create games. The surest way to make your game designers hate you is giving them a level editor that can’t undo their fat-fingered mistakes.
I may be speaking from experience here.
Without the Command pattern, implementing undo is surprisingly hard. With it, it’s a piece of cake. Let’s say we’re making a single-player, turn-based game and we want to let users undo moves so they can focus more on strategy and less on guesswork.
We’re conveniently already using commands to abstract input handling, so every move the player makes is already encapsulated in them. For example, moving a unit may look like:
class MoveUnitCommand : public Command { public: MoveUnitCommand ( Unit * unit, int x, int y ) : unit_ ( unit ), x_ ( x ), y_ ( y ) {} virtual void execute () { unit_ -> moveTo ( x_, y_ ); } private: Unit * unit_ ; int x_, y_ ; };
Note this is a little different from our previous commands. In the last example, we wanted to abstract the command from the actor that it modified. In this case, we specifically want to bind it to the unit being moved. An instance of this command isn’t a general “move something” operation that you could use in a bunch of contexts; it’s a specific concrete move in the game’s sequence of turns.
This highlights a variation in how the Command pattern gets implemented. In some cases, like our first couple of examples, a command is a reusable object that represents a thing that can be done. Our earlier input handler held on to a single command object and called its execute() method anytime the right button was pressed.
Here, the commands are more specific. They represent a thing that can be done at a specific point in time. This means that the input handling code will be creating an instance of this every time the player chooses a move. Something like:
Command * handleInput () { Unit * unit = getSelectedUnit (); if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_UP )) { // Move the unit up one. int destY = unit -> y () - 1 ; return new MoveUnitCommand ( unit, unit -> x (), destY ); } if ( isPressed ( BUTTON_DOWN )) { // Move the unit down one. int destY = unit -> y () + 1 ; return new MoveUnitCommand ( unit, unit -> x (), destY ); } // Other moves... return NULL ; }
Of course, in a non-garbage-collected language like C++, this means the code executing commands will also be responsible for freeing their memory.
The fact that commands are one-use-only will come to our advantage in a second. To make commands undoable, we define another operation each command class needs to implement:
class Command { public: virtual ~ Command () {} virtual void execute () = 0 ; virtual void undo () = 0 ; };
An undo() method reverses the game state changed by the corresponding execute() method. Here’s our previous move command with undo support:
class MoveUnitCommand : public Command { public: MoveUnitCommand ( Unit * unit, int x, int y ) : unit_ ( unit ), xBefore_ ( 0 ), yBefore_ ( 0 ), x_ ( x ), y_ ( y ) {} virtual void execute () { // Remember the unit's position before the move // so we can restore it. xBefore_ = unit_ -> x (); yBefore_ = unit_ -> y (); unit_ -> moveTo ( x_, y_ ); } virtual void undo () { unit_ -> moveTo ( xBefore_, yBefore_ ); } private: Unit * unit_ ; int xBefore_, yBefore_ ; int x_, y_ ; };
Note that we added some more state to the class. When a unit moves, it forgets where it used to be. If we want to be able to undo that move, we have to remember the unit’s previous position ourselves, which is what xBefore_ and yBefore_ do.
This seems like a place for the Memento pattern, but I haven’t found it to work well. Since commands tend to modify only a small part of an object’s state, snapshotting the rest of its data is a waste of memory. It’s cheaper to manually store only the bits you change. Persistent data structures are another option. With these, every modification to an |
central bank and the government said low and stable inflation has helped underpin the Canadian economy and preserve confidence in the value of money.
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"Controlling the pace of inflation at a steady and low level protects the purchasing power of all Canadians and helps sustain growth and job creation," Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in a statement.
The Bank of Canada uses the inflation target when determining monetary policy and setting its key overnight interest rate.
Canada started using an inflation target to guide monetary policy in 1991 and has kept the target set at two per cent since 1995.
Since then, inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, has averaged close to two per cent and only stepped outside the one to three per cent range for short periods. The bank and government said inflation has also been less volatile during that time.
CIBC economist Royce Mendes suggested that there had been some speculation that the Bank of Canada would increase the inflation target.
"However, the costs of such a change, and the uncertainties associated with being the first major central bank to do so, appear to have outweighed the benefits of such," Mendes wrote in a report.
"That said, the bank will continue to research potential improvements to the monetary policy framework in the years ahead given the constraints central banks are currently facing."
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The agreement is set to last for another five years, ending Dec. 31, 2021.Chris Brown Accuser Grand Larceny Suspect In Plaza Hotel Theft
Chris Brown Accuser's a Grand Larceny Suspect in Plaza Hotel Theft
EXCLUSIVE
The woman claiming Chris Brown pulled a gun on her is wanted in NYC for questioning in connection with criminal theft... for allegedly stealing a fancy designer purse at a swanky hotel.
The incident could be significant in the Chris Brown case, because alleged victim Baylee Curran claims a certain piece of jewelry that caught her eye triggered the events that led to her 911 call.
Baylee was vacationing with a few friends at The Plaza back in 2013 when they began arguing in the hotel. According to police docs, Baylee snatched a $1,000 Louis Vuitton purse from one of the girls and ran out of the hotel.
The purse contained $200 in cash, as well as credit cards and a Michael Kors wallet.
Security chased Baylee, who allegedly dropped the purse but somehow fled with the contents.
By the time cops arrived Baylee was long gone. There's a warrant of sorts -- it's called an I-Card -- which will allow NYPD cops to pick her up and take her to the station for questioning, if they find her in the city.
Apparently, the incident was bad enough that the alleged purse-snatching victim got a restraining order against Baylee from an L.A. judge.
Baylee's rep tells TMZ she had no idea New York City cops wanted her for questioning. She also claims her friend was the thief... not her.
TMZ broke the story... Baylee called 911 and accused Chris of pulling a gun on her when she says all she was doing was admiring some jewelry.Sep 3, 2017-
The Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) has started removing the overhead cable and wire mesh cluttering the roadside poles in the Capital.
The electric, telephone wires and cables jumbled and dangling in a web like structure from the poles have contributed in disfiguring the city's beauty. The unmanaged utility wires have also been posing security risk and contributing towards irregularities in revenue collection, Minister for Information and Communications Mohan Bahadur Basnet said as he cut down the tangled wires on a pole at Maitighar..
"The Energy Ministry is forwarding the effort to set up underground wire network with support of the Asian Development Bank and there are discussions for broadening the roads," Minister Basnet shared.
The Information Ministry had earlier summoned the concerned authority to identify the wires but could not continue the effort to manage the hideous wires.
NTA Chairman, Digambar Jha, said the security risk posed by the jumbles of wires at a single location and the possibilities of accidents that could occur by wires getting in the way of motorbikes and vehicles necessitated the step for removing the cable and telephone wires.
The NTA plans to manage the wires for now and lay them underground in future. The authority has already allocated budget for setting up the underground wire network. RSS
Published: 03-09-2017 13:42Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
Sirens wailed shortly before noon in the Golan Heights on Wednesday, as heavy fighting took place just over the border in Syria between President Bashar Assad’s forces and rebels.
The sirens sounded in the Alonei Habashan and Ein Zivan regions of the Golan, prompting local residents to flee for cover. IDF units scanned the area for signs of stray fire damage, but the shells landed in Syrian territory.
Tanks on the Syrian side could be seen firing and there was the sound of helicopters overhead.Sirens last sounded in the area in April, when two shells fired from Syria struck the Golan Heights. They failed to cause injury or damage and the IDF did not return fire.Syrian rebels surround the border town of Hader, but have not penetrated the village, Mendi Safadi, an Israeli Druse who has served as Deputy Regional Cooperation Minister Ayoub Kara’s chief of staff told The Jerusalem Post. He has met with Syrian opposition activists.“Hader is now totally surrounded by rebels, who just took a strategic hilltop north of the village,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.Fighting around Hader, he said, has led to the deaths of at least 10 rebels and 14 pro-regime fighters.In Israel, the Druse have mounted ongoing protests about the situation, with some waving Syrian flags to show their support for Assad’s regime.Last week, Nusra Front killed 20 Druse in the village of Qalb Loze in Idlib province in northwestern Syria.Eyad Bos, a Druse who comes from the Golan village of Bukata, told the Post from the Golan border with Syria that many Druse are there watching Hader, where there was sporadic fighting outside the village on Wednesday, particularly in the surrounding hills.The IDF is present on the border and is observing and being vigilant, Bos said.“All the Druse in all the world are worried in solidarity” regardless of where they are from, he added, explaining that in the Druse religion there is a strong belief about the connection of Druse souls and a need to take care of fellow Druse no matter where they are. Asked about Israel’s possible action to protect the Druse, Bos replied that the state needs to take care of the Druse near its border just as it did for those in Nepal following April’s earthquake.Separately, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday he had discussed Syria’s use of chemical weapons with Russia.Speaking to reporters via video conference from Boston, Kerry said he is confident Assad’s government is responsible for a “preponderance” of chemical attacks against his own people and that “everyone’s patience is wearing thin.”Meanwhile, rebels in southern Syria announced a major offensive on Wednesday to capture remaining positions held by the Syrian military in Quneitra province, near the Golan Heights, where bombardments could be seen a short distance away.Quneitra sits in a sensitive region around 70 km. southwest of the capital Damascus and has been the scene of frequent fighting between insurgent groups opposed to Assad and the army backed by allied militia.A Syrian army source told Reuters the army had beaten back an insurgent assault to take over several hilltops and the government-controlled villages of Tel Shaar and Tel Bazaq, north of the deserted provincial capital of Quneitra.“Army units have foiled efforts by the terrorist groups against these villages in the Quneitra countryside,” the army source said, adding that at least 200 insurgents were killed or wounded in the army operations.State television footage showed several tanks and dozens of ground troops moving reinforcements through army-held villages in the lush agricultural border province, where rebels have made gains in the last two years.Rebel spokesman Issam al-Rayes wrote on Twitter that an alliance of insurgent groups that did not include Nusra Front, were taking part in the offensive under the banner of the rebel Free Syrian Army.Nusra has fought in southern Syria, but is not thought to be the main insurgent force there, unlike in other parts of the country.Rayes later told Reuters the attempt to seize remaining army strongholds in the province, following several failed efforts, including the targeting of the army’s main Liwa 90 base.“This is an attempt to end the presence of the regime in the province,” he said.The insurgents were eyeing the city of Baath, the province’s main administrative center and the town of Khan Arnba, the two main urban centers still in the hands of the government.Dislodging the army from Quneitra would open a supply route to rebels south of Damascus in the opposition- controlled western Ghouta, from where they could target Assad’s seat of power.“We are aiming to destroy the first line of defense of the army around Damascus in this area,” Rayes said.Insurgents fighting in Sweida province further east had failed during recent fighting to capture a main road to Damascus and it was not clear whether they could secure a route to the capital in this latest offensive, he said.Another insurgent alliance including Nusra Front has taken hold of the northwestern Idlib province, edging closer to Assad’s coastal stronghold, while Islamic State fighters overran the central city of Palmyra last month.The United States and its coalition partners staged 11 air strikes in Syria and Iraq on Tuesday targeting Islamic State militants, the Combined Joint Task Force leading the operation said.In Syria, four strikes hit three units of militant fighters near the cities of al Hasaka, Aleppo, and Kobani, the task force said in a statement released on Wednesday.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>By Wes Siler, Hell for Leather
Motorcycle airbags have for years been just-over-the-horizon technology promising to exponentially elevate impact protection when a rider goes down. Top-level racers are just now taking advantage of the Dainese D-Air and Alpinestars TechAir systems, but so far only rudimentary systems requiring a lanyard connection to the motorcycle have been available to road riders.
[partner id=”hellforleather”]With the releases of Dainese D-Air Street, motorcyclists will benefit from a 75 percent reduction in impact forces to the back over a CE2 back protector and an 89 percent reduction over a CE chest protector. D-Air Street also helps prevent hyperextension, hyperflexion and compression of the neck, all while inflating in as little as 45 milliseconds to guard against frontal impacts. This is the next level of safety.
D-Air Street has four main components:
An ECU/user interface that mounts in the cockpit/on the bars.
Two accelerometers that mount on the fork.
A lean angle sensor under the seat to detects falls.
The airbag unit worn by the rider.
It’s a far more sophisticated setup than the primitive airbag vests that have been available for a while. Such suits work like the kill switch on a jet ski, physically pulling a switch that triggers inflation when you separate from the machine. The problems with that are obvious: It does little to protect you if you aren’t thrown from the motorcycle, and the risk of accidental deployment is huge.
With D-Air Street, accelerometers mounted on the fork can detect an accident and trigger inflation in.025 seconds — before you even realize you’ve hit something. There’s minimal potential for accidental inflation, and the connection between user-worn garments and the ECU is completely wireless.
According to the Motorcycle Accidents In Depth Study, an impact with an automobile accounts for 60 percent of all motorcycle accidents. The time between the motorcycle hitting the car and the rider hitting the car is just.08 seconds. After the head (which should be protected by a helmet), the most frequently injured body parts are the chest, abdomen and back. D-Air Street provide comprehensive coverage of the chest, upper abdomen, collar bones, neck and back.
The lean angle sensor mounted under the seat will detect falls or slides.
Dainese claims the airbag is not subject to interference because it employs a continuous radio signal connection between the wearable unit and ECU. With no existing certification processes in place, Dainese worked with Germany’s super-strict TUV certification program to develop standards for wearable airbags. Over 800 tests will look at the following areas:
General safety
Ergonomics
Radio and telecommunication
Algorithm/software
Functional safety
Chemical harmlessness
Quality management
Dainese tested the system in a variety of circumstances that could hamper inflation or cause injury. Wearing a backpack? D-Air will still inflate. When it does inflate, it won’t impact your helmet in such a way that could cause whiplash. Got a passenger? The airbag won’t throw them off the bike or injure them upon inflation. If the bag inflates while you’re sitting against your top box or luggage, it won’t throw you off the bike.
D-Air is available only at Dainese’s D-Stores, and they’ll handle the installation. Once installed, you need to handle battery charging and installing a SIM card. The battery in the jacket or vest lasts 30 hours and recharges via a USB. The SIM card handles communication between the ECU and the rider and passenger. The garments then “mate” with the ECU so your system doesn’t inflate another rider’s airbag. A cockpit display keeps you informed of battery charge levels and system activation and warns you if something’s screwy. The airbag also vibrates if it needs to tell you something.
Initially, Dainese will offer a Gore-Tex jacket and a vest (no price or availability dates yet). The jacket incorporates a back protector and all the usual armor. The vest is worn over your jacket or leathers, and you can wear conventional back and chest protectors and other armor underneath it. Once installed, operation requires virtually no user input and the area of coverage and level of impact amelioration are both huge.
D-Air Street isn’t for everyone. It will be expensive and it will require installation on your motorcycle/s. You’ll need to recharge batteries and show some responsibility for taking care of it. But for riders who use motorcycles as a primary means of transportation, it will make riding far safer.
Photos and video: DaineseCybercriminals are using a fake Windows Update installation dialogue box to sell a bogus security product called Anti-malware Defender, security researchers have warned.
The scam uses very realistic looking Windows Update dialogue boxes, pop-ups and bogus anti-virus scans, said Andrew Brandt, malware researcher at Webroot.
The scam is triggered by infected websites that push drive-by downloads at visitors and include links to genuine Microsoft information pages, he said in a blog post.
If the "install now" button is clicked, the malware attempt to coerce victims into buying a "licence" to the nonexistent product.
Identifying the file is not difficult for users accustomed to the Windows Task Manager, said Brandt.
"Unlike a real Windows Update session, these fake updates appear as a DLL running from the temp folder with the words'start worker' in the command line," he said.
Victims can stop the malware from running by emptying the temp folder.Doctor Who: Fifth Doctor Peter Davison says Time Lord should never be played by a woman.
A former Doctor Who actor says a woman should never fill the role but he's OK if the time lord's ethnicity changes.
The fifth doctor, Peter Davison, who has been a public supporter of UK Labour and once voiced an election ad for the party, wants the character to remain male.
"My instinct as a viewer is that the Doctor is a male of the species even on Gallifrey (Dr Who's home planet) and probably shouldn't undergo a sex change", he told a reporter in his Sydney hotel room.
Centre front: fifth Doctor Peter Davison.
"That's just my own view."
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The 63-year-old, who is in the country for the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, says the character is an important role model for young boys.
He also said the Doctor-companion dynamic might not work with a female running the show.
"He's (the Doctor) not always certain about what he's doing and he's usually accompanied by a very strong female companion.
"If you reverse that, it seems to me you have an uncertain... female doctor with a very strong male companion... and that does seem to be very unbalanced."
There was speculation about the possibility of a female lead before the appointment of Peter Capaldi as the 12th doctor in 2013.
Though Davison doubts a woman in control of the Tardis would be appropriate, he says he's sure the character will one day be non-Caucasian.
But, the actor to break the mould will have to do so completely on merit, he said.
"Whether or not you have a black or ethnic actor playing Doctor Who is entirely down to the best actor for the role," he said.
"I don't think it should just be about `let's pick a black actor just for the sake of doing it'."
"Probably, there were names (of non-caucasian actors) on the shortlist last time (the new doctor was picked) so I'm sure it will happen."
Davison's daughter, Georgia Moffett, who is married to tenth doctor David Tennant, once played a female time lord on the show.
The actor, who was cast in Law and Order UK after his Doctor Who stint, says he'd like female time lords other than the doctor to play a bigger part.Pope Francis today received in private audience His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, major archbishop of Kyiv-Halyc in Ukraine.
The meeting followed yesterdays referendum in which pro-Russian voters on the Crimean peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine. The United States and European Union have called the referendum illegal.
No details of todays meeting have been given but it is likely that the fate of the Ukrainian Catholic priests ministering in Crimea was discussed.
Over the weekend, a Ukrainian pastor was released after being taken captive from his church in Crimea. Father Mykola Kvych, pastor of the Dormition of the Mother of God Parish in Sevastopol, was taken from his church by two men in uniform and four men in civilian clothing, according to a Ukrainian Catholic Church spokesman.
Father Kvych and other priests in Crimea were urged to evacuate with their families to mainland Ukraine, but the priests returned to their parishes to be with their faithful during the crisis.
During his capture, Father Kvych was questioned on whether he had been organising anti-Russian riots. He is now understood to be in safe place, outside Crimea, but exact details of his whereabouts are unknown.
Ukrainian Catholics make up about 10 percent of Crimeas 2 million inhabitants; the majority of the people on the peninsula are ethnic Russians and speak Russian. Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia in late February and, in early March, Russian forces entered Crimea.
Crimean politicians say more than 96 percent of voters participating in the referendum on Sunday voted to secede from Ukraine. Members of the Crimean Parliament formally asked to join the Russian Federation on Monday.
Critics accuse Russia of not conducting a free vote as a region cannot usually unilaterally separate without the consent of the rest of the country. They also accuse Russia, which refuses to recognise the Ukrainian government, of abusing, torturing and threatening minorities such as Catholics, Tartars and Ukrainians.
Other audiences
Also today, the Pope received Archbishop Nicola Girasole, apostolic nuncio in Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, and Grenada.
On Saturday, the Holy Father received in audience: Archbishop Orlando Antonini, apostolic nuncio in Serbia; Father Michael Anthony Perry, O.F.M., minister general of the Order of Friars Minor, with members of the General Definitory; and Fr. Saverio Cannistra, O.C.D., prepositor general of the Descalced Carmelites.EUGENE -- In March, Vernon Adams Jr. crossed the pass over the Cascades, heading west from Cheney, Washington, to Seattle. Six months prior he made the trip with a busload of Eastern Washington teammates and nearly beat the Washington Huskies in a shootout that featured 111 combined points and was decided by seven.
Adams threw seven touchdown passes that day at Husky Stadium, a record for a UW opponent.
When he returned in the spring he brought himself, a few footballs and not much else. But he wanted to throw some more passes and, after being barred from EWU practices after announcing his transfer to Oregon, he linked up with Huskies receiver Jaydon Mickens to do it.
Adams declined an interview request this week to discuss the throw-and-catch session with Mickens. On Thursday afternoon, his new head coach was just as mum as to whether Adams will get a chance Saturday evening to throw some more passes at Husky Stadium, this time for the Oregon Ducks (3-3, 1-2 Pac-12).
"I think we have an idea and certainly from a package standpoint, a schematic standpoint, I think we know where we are," said Mark Helfrich, asked whether Oregon would use one quarterback against the 3-2 Huskies or hold steady to a rotation including either Jeff Lockie or Taylor Alie. "We'll keep that internal."
Adams, the starter after fall camp, has looked "good" in practices, or about the same as he did in past weeks, Helfrich said.
"It's just a gradual progression of confidence," he added.
Adams hasn't played in Oregon's past two games as he rests a broken index finger on his throwing hand, an injury that's affected how hard, far and accurate he can throw.
Offensive coordinator Scott Frost, speaking on Monday, noted that Oregon's offense would get better once it stuck to one quarterback. UO hasn't had that luxury since Adams was pulled for good Sept. 26 against Utah, after a 2-of-7 start to what became a runaway Utes victory. Lockie earned starts each of the past two games and has completed a combined 21 of 33 passes with two interceptions and touchdowns, and has been sacked four times. Alie had a larger role in a victory against Colorado than he did in a loss to Washington State, but is the better runner of the two, offensive coordinator Scott Frost said. He's completed 4 of 11 passes in the past two games, with a touchdown.
Each had looked forward to his opportunity, but played unevenly since receiving it. That hasn't necessarily dimmed either's confidence, Helfrich said, even if Adams could return soon and usurp the starting job.
"I think that's where (a lack of confidence) kind of shows up is the uncertainty and maybe not being as detailed in your preparation is something that usually shows up when a guy is in that frame of mind," Helfrich said, "and from that standpoint, no, they've been good."
The Huskies have the Pac-12's best defense against the run and are second-best against the pass. The return of Adams could give Oregon's flagging passing game a boost in a stadium he knows well as a visitor. And, perhaps, he might allow Oregon to continue the trend of poor Pac-12 houseguests: Visiting teams are 14-4 in conference play so far.
"That is bizarre, I have no explanation for that," Helfrich said. "I hope it continues this week, I'm all for it right now."
Notes: Redshirt freshman running back Tony Brooks-James has not played two of the past three games due to injury. Taj Griffin and Kani Benoit have taken his carries as a result, with Griffin gaining 220 yards on 22 carries the past two games. Helfrich intimated that Brooks-James could return this week after not playing against Washington State, saying UO has elements of its game plan that include him. "Royce (Freeman) is obviously the 1-A (option). I think a combination of all those other three in some order of Taj, Kani, Tony and then there are some specific things that each guy has in the plan."... Injured sophomore cornerback Chris Seisay again left practice on a scooter... The weather forecast calls for rain Saturday at kickoff, but Helfrich said precipitation wouldn't play a role in who plays at quarterback. "If you get into a big wind situation that might affect some things. We'll wait and see the conditions."
-- Andrew Greif
agreif@oregonian.com
@andrewgreifAs Kam Chancellor’s holdout from the Seattle Seahawks rolls though its fourth week, there’s been no movement from either side. There’s no resolution in sight. Fans are getting restless, and the team is preparing to play meaningful games without him.
A few days ago, following reports that Kam was willing to miss the entire year, I posted this to twitter:
Can we all agree that Kam Chancellor is getting some really bad advice from his agent? — Keith Myers (@MyersNFL) August 20, 2015
That seemed logical at the time, but is it correct? The role of the NFL player agent is one that is often misunderstood. They’re both the advisor and the employee of the player.
To help get an understanding of an agent’s role in a holdout like Chancellor’s, I talked with two different agents. Both are veteran agents with multiple NFL clients, the second of which has at least one client with the Seahawks.
I offered anonymity, and they both accepted. Recruiting (and keeping) clients is a competitive business for agents. They didn’t want anything published that might hurt them in the future.
One of the first things both agents told me is that Chancellor’s holdout doesn’t make a lot sense. Agent 1 made it very clear: “I have no idea what his agent is doing.”
I need to note that neither agent knew anything about the inner workings of Kam’s situation and negotiations. They both have their own clients that require their attention. Instead, we tried to keep the bulk of our conversations about holdouts in general.
One of the takeaways from talking to the agents is that Alvin Keels, Chancellor’s agent, might not be the one driving this ship, but he is almost certainly at least a willing co-pilot.
I asked both what they would do if a client came to them and said they wanted to hold out when it was a bad idea. Would they be willing to say “no” and risk losing the client to another agent.
Agent 1: I would TRY my hardest to explain the situation. Try to get them to honor the contract. If I knew I could win, I’d encourage it probably. But [at the] end of the day, I work for him. If he holds out and doesn’t get it, you could lose him anyways. Lose-lose situation.
Agent 2: To be real, clients leave for any reason. One’s much lower than that, but you’re getting paid to be their agent. They should listen as you have their best interest at heart. I mean, if the opportunity is there, an agent would love to get paid the commission.
So if your agent says its a bad idea, then it really is a bad idea. The idea that Kam is driving this holdout against the recommendation of Keels is unlikely.
While it is easy to say “I wouldn’t recommend it” in a specific case, that doesn’t mean that a holdout wouldn’t be recommended in a slightly different situation. Then it simply becomes a question of degree. One agent might be slightly more aggressive than another.
So when does a holdout become a viable option? Both agents had very similar ideas on that. The keys were that a player was drastically outperforming a contract, and that the player was nearing the end of their deal. Kam Chancellor was actually a good example of this when he was on his rookie contract.
There were a couple of exceptions. The first was if a player signed a free-agent deal worthy of a backup, then later got a chance to play regularly and proved to be an All-Pro. Seeing that Chancellor has a top-3 contract for his position already, that isn’t the case here.
The second situation came from Agent 1. He said there could be an “under-the-table deal where was an agreement in place to redo [the] deal and [the] team didn’t honor it.” There’s no evidence of that in Kam Chancellor’s case, but neither side would openly discuss it if there was.
Agent 2 added that the entire process puts the agent in a tough position with the team. “[It] puts you in a weird position with the team and future negotiations for other clients they might be interested in.”
Instead Agent 2 said he would have recommended a completely different strategy for Chancellor.
I would have waited another year. Ball out. Wait to see what [Eric] Berry gets, and attack.
Both of the agents indicated that they think that Chancellor’s holdout will likely end soon. It is one thing to miss practices and face potential fines. It is another thing to miss games and miss out on contracted salary.
Agent 1: They had a plan, [Chancellor] was fine with the plan when he signed. If they don’t cave, he loses a LOT of money.
Agent 2: I can’t see [the Seahawks] caving. Kam will probably be back when he starts losing real money.
Ultimately, the biggest point here is that everyone is interested to see what the Seahawks will do. Fans, agents, players and even other teams have all taken a very keen interest in what the Seattle Seahawks will do with Kam Chancellor.
Agent 2 said it best. “Believe me, everyone’s watching”SUMMARY
On December 23, 2015, Ukrainian power companies experienced unscheduled power outages impacting a large number of customers in Ukraine. In addition, there have also been reports of malware found in Ukrainian companies in a variety of critical infrastructure sectors. Public reports indicate that the BlackEnergy (BE) malware was discovered on the companies’ computer networks, however it is important to note that the role of BE in this event remains unknown pending further technical analysis.
An interagency team comprised of representatives from the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC)/Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT), U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), Department of Energy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation traveled to Ukraine to collaborate and gain more insight. The Ukrainian government worked closely and openly with the U.S. team and shared information to help prevent future cyber-attacks.
This report provides an account of the events that took place based on interviews with company personnel. This report is being shared for situational awareness and network defense purposes. ICS-CERT strongly encourages organizations across all sectors to review and employ the mitigation strategies listed below.
Additional information on this incident including technical indicators can be found in the TLP GREEN alert (IR-ALERT-H-16-043-01P and subsequent updates) that was released to the US-CERT secure portal. US critical infrastructure asset owners and operators can request access to this information by emailing ics-cert@hq.dhs.gov.
DETAILS
The following account of events is based on the interagency team’s interviews with operations and information technology staff and leadership at six Ukrainian organizations with first-hand experience of the event. Following these discussions and interviews, the team assesses that the outages experienced on December 23, 2015, were caused by external cyber-attackers. The team was not able to independently review technical evidence of the cyber-attack; however, a significant number of independent reports from the team’s interviews as well as documentary findings corroborate the events as outlined below.
Through interviews with impacted entities, the team learned that power outages were caused by remote cyber intrusions at three regional electric power distribution companies (Oblenergos) impacting approximately 225,000 customers. While power has been restored, all the impacted Oblenergos continue to run under constrained operations. In addition, three other organizations, some from other critical infrastructure sectors, were also intruded upon but did not experience operational impacts
The cyber-attack was reportedly synchronized and coordinated, probably following extensive reconnaissance of the victim networks. According to company personnel, the cyber-attacks at each company occurred within 30 minutes of each other and impacted multiple central and regional facilities. During the cyber-attacks, malicious remote operation of the breakers was conducted by multiple external humans using either existing remote administration tools at the operating system level or remote industrial control system (ICS) client software via virtual private network (VPN) connections. The companies believe that the actors acquired legitimate credentials prior to the cyber-attack to facilitate remote access.
All three companies indicated that the actors wiped some systems by executing the KillDisk malware at the conclusion of the cyber-attack. The KillDisk malware erases selected files on target systems and corrupts the master boot record, rendering systems inoperable. It was further reported that in at least one instance, Windows-based human-machine interfaces (HMIs) embedded in remote terminal units were also overwritten with KillDisk. The actors also rendered Serial-to-Ethernet devices at substations inoperable by corrupting their firmware. In addition, the actors reportedly scheduled disconnects for server Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS) via the UPS remote management interface. The team assesses that these actions were done in an attempt to interfere with expected restoration efforts.
Each company also reported that they had been infected with BlackEnergy malware however we do not know whether the malware played a role in the cyber-attacks. The malware was reportedly delivered via spear phishing emails with malicious Microsoft Office attachments. It is suspected that BlackEnergy may have been used as an initial access vector to acquire legitimate credentials; however, this information is still being evaluated. It is important to underscore that any remote access Trojan could have been used and none of BlackEnergy’s specific capabilities were reportedly leveraged.
MITIGATION
The first, most important step in cybersecurity is implementation of information resources management best practices. Key examples include: procurement and licensing of trusted hardware and software systems; knowing who and what is on your network through hardware and software asset management automation; on time patching of systems; and strategic technology refresh.
Organizations should develop and exercise contingency plans that allow for the safe operation or shutdown of operational processes in the event that their ICS is breached. These plans should include the assumption that the ICS is actively working counter to the safe operation of the process.
ICS-CERT recommends that asset owners take defensive measures by leveraging best practices to minimize the risk from similar malicious cyber activity.
Application Whitelisting (AWL) can detect and prevent attempted execution of malware uploaded by malicious actors. The static nature of some systems, such as database servers and HMI computers, make these ideal candidates to run AWL. Operators are encouraged to work with their vendors to baseline and calibrate AWL deployments.
Organizations should isolate ICS networks from any untrusted networks, especially the Internet. All unused ports should be locked down and all unused services turned off. If a defined business requirement or control function exists, only allow real-time connectivity to external networks. If one-way communication can accomplish a task, use optical separation (“data diode”). If bidirectional communication is necessary, then use a single open port over a restricted network path.a
Organizations should also limit Remote Access functionality wherever possible. Modems are especially insecure. Users should implement “monitoring only” access that is enforced by data diodes, and do not rely on “read only” access enforced by software configurations or permissions. Remote persistent vendor connections should not be allowed into the control network. Remote access should be operator controlled, time limited, and procedurally similar to “lock out, tag out.” The same remote access paths for vendor and employee connections can be used; however, double standards should not be allowed. Strong multi-factor authentication should be used if possible, avoiding schemes where both tokens are similar types and can be easily stolen (e.g., password and soft certificate).a
As in common networking environments, control system domains can be subject to a myriad of vulnerabilities that can provide malicious actors with a “backdoor” to gain unauthorized access. Often, backdoors are simple shortcomings in the architecture perimeter, or embedded capabilities that are forgotten, unnoticed, or simply disregarded. Malicious actors often do not require physical access to a domain to gain access to it and will usually leverage any discovered access functionality. Modern networks, especially those in the control systems arena, often have inherent capabilities that are deployed without sufficient security analysis and can provide access to malicious actors once they are discovered. These backdoors can be accidentally created in various places on the network, but it is the network perimeter that is of greatest concern.
When looking at network perimeter components, the modern IT architecture will have technologies to provide for robust remote access. These technologies often include firewalls, public facing services, and wireless access. Each technology will allow enhanced communications in and amongst affiliated networks and will often be a subsystem of a much larger and more complex information infrastructure. However, each of these components can (and often do) have associated security vulnerabilities that an adversary will try to detect and leverage. Interconnected networks are particularly attractive to a malicious actor, because a single point of compromise may provide extended access because of pre-existing trust established among interconnected resources.
ICS-CERT reminds organizations to perform proper impact analysis and risk assessment prior to taking defensive measures.
ICS-CERT also provides a recommended practices section for control systems on the ICS-CERT web site (http://ics-cert.us-cert.gov). Several recommended practices are available for reading or download, including Improving Industrial Control Systems Cybersecurity with Defense-in-Depth Strategies and Seven Steps to Effectively Defend Industrial Control Systems.
Organizations that observe any suspected malicious activity should follow their established internal procedures and report their findings to ICS-CERT for tracking and correlation against other incidents.
For more information on securely working with dangerous malware, please see US-CERT Security Tip ST13-003 Handling Destructive Malware at https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST13-003.
DETECTION
While the role of BlackEnergy in this incident is still being evaluated, the malware was reported to be present on several systems. Detection of the BlackEnergy malware should be conducted using the latest published YARA signature. This can be found at: https://ics-cert.us-cert.gov/alerts/ICS-ALERT-14-281-01E. Additional information about using YARA signatures can be |
well as background noise. While this inspired in Mr. Big only a subconscious desire for Ronco products, the parrot Pablito had experienced a marked augmentation to his vocabulary. “Oh my gosh! I don’t even buy paper towels anymore! Awrk!” the bird would screech, to Mr. Big’s chagrin. Pablito, admittedly, was starting to get on his nerves, which were already fraying. His was one of the few outfits shipping cocaine to the Lunar Colonies, though it was certainly not the biggest or flashiest. He was largely relegated to working in the bowels of his one remaining transport rocket in order to keep himself mobile and cut down on overhead. Still, government crackdowns had wreaked havoc on his supply, and these cost-saving measures left a bad taste in his mouth. For the evening, however, the nefarious business of coke dilution was complete. He placed the ten single-kilo bags into his safe and locked it. Suddenly, the door behind him crashed in, startling him, his two guards, and Pablito. When Mr. Big saw who it was, he let out a sigh. “I’ve got you now, Mr. Big!” announced the handsome intruder. As Mr. Big was all too aware, this was the private detective, Spaff Dungo. Spaff fancied himself something of a rogue agent, but was actually thicker than an Antarctic milkshake. “Spaff,” Mr. Big said, shaking his head, “the last time you broke in here, we got a restraining order against you, which is really embarrassing for someone in my position. I don’t understand how you manage to keep finding this ship, but please, for fuck’s sake, go away.” Spaff raised his laser pistol and smirked. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he said. “You’d like it if I just left you to your evil deeds.” “Yes, I would,” replied Mr. Big. “One-nine-hundred-hot-love! Awrk!” said Pablito. “What was that?” asked Spaff. “Was that some kind of code? Is ‘hot love’ the code name for your newest plot? I knew you were up to something! Spaff Dungo can smell deception from orbit!” Mr. Big, sensing an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, adopted a theatrical tone. “Oh, no!” he intoned. “Pablito, how could you reveal my secrets? Please, mighty Spaff, do not steal away with my Pablito! He is the linchpin of all my shady dealings!” The ruse worked. Somewhat out of character, perhaps out of desperation, Spaff grabbed Pablito’s cage and bolted out of the room. The guards stood dumbfounded. Mr. Big screamed, loud enough for Spaff to hear, “After him, men!” and then, quieter, said, “Look, guys, Spaff couldn’t shoot you if you laid down in front of him. Just chase him off the property, and then you can go home.” Mr. Big then kicked off his shoes, and wondered how much money Spaff would spend on 900 numbers before he quit. Mr. Big figured it would be a lot.
Relatively Irrelevant Inside Text: Apparently, it is my fate to be blindsided every five reviews or so by a book that’s part of a series that I didn’t know about. This particular one was sneaky enough that I didn’t figure it out until I was finished and looking up cover info. It sure doesn’t say so anywhere in or on the novel, and I didn’t need any background info to get into the story, so screw it. Insofar as the fare, it’s pretty standard, though it’s a good standard. It’s a sort of space cowboy thing, focused on the frontier of newly-explored space and trade-route establishment. It could be an episode of Firefly, if it were more clever, or of Star Trek, if it were less antiauthoritarian. The book is solid, well-crafted, well-written, and, though it won’t shatter any conventions, clever enough within its scope to fascinate. In retrospect, it makes sense as part of a series, and I’d be interested in reading more of it. Mildewed copies of Andre Norton, beware—I’m on the hunt for you. There’s no shelf too high, no bookshop too far… actually, my local bookshop is right across the street (as populated by its wares as it is, I refer to my apartment as “The Armadillo’s Pillow, Northwest Annex”), so there may very well be a bookshop too far, but I wouldn’t know.
Rating: 8.5 Integral Ship Cats
Questions for Critical Cover-Viewing:
At what point in future history do we cease to identify ourselves by nationality and start to rally behind basic geometric shapes?
Have you ever seen a parrot so pissed off for want of a cuttlebone?
When man finally embraces his desire to reach for the stars, what strange cultural climate will rekindle love for the rocket design schemes of Wernher Von Braun?
Click to find us on Facebook and Twitter, and Tumblr. We are also all over /r/badscificovers.
AdvertisementsI’m currently watching Carl Sagan’s excellent Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. I feel compelled to post the following quote from episode four, Heaven and Hell, as it stood out for its elegant argument for the strength of scientific ideas and for not rejecting uncomfortable (if incorrect) ideas:
There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That’s all right. It’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.
The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts. Rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas.
The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge. And there is no place for it in the endeavour of science.
We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. And the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources."Despite my moments of bravado, I struggle at industry events (and in life) with the sense that I don't rep a certain standard of beauty and so when I show up to the Met Ball surrounded by models and swan-like actresses it's hard not to feel like a sack of flaming garbage."
Lena Dunham has issued an apology to Odell Beckham Jr. over the comments she made about the NFL star snubbing her at the Met Gala in her Friday Lenny Letter interview with Amy Schumer.
"I would never intentionally contribute to a long and often violent history of the over-sexualization of black male bodies — as well as false accusations by white women towards black men," she wrote in a lengthy post on her Instagram account Saturday. "I see how unfair it is to ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone I don't know at all... I'm so sorry, particularly to OBJ."
During the candid Q&A with friend Schumer, Dunham and the Inside Amy Schumer star bonded over the mutual discomfort they felt while attending this year's Met Ball, the annual Costume Institute Gala hosted by Anna Wintour. During the high-fashion event, Dunham was seated next to the New York Giants football player, whom, she has now clarified, she has never met.
"I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards," Dunham wrote in the Lenny Letter interview. "He was like, 'That's a marshmallow. That's a child. That's a dog.' It wasn't mean — he just seemed confused."
She continued, "The vibe was very much like, 'Do I want to f— it? Is it wearing a … yep, it's wearing a tuxedo. I'm going to go back to my cell phone.' It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, 'This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.' "
The reaction was swift, with many on social media calling out the Girls creator for her insensitive comments.
Dunham attempted to clarify her comments later on Friday in a series of tweets, saying it was not "an assumption" about who he is or "an expectation of sexual attention," but simply reflected her sense of humor.
The backlash, however, did not quell, prompting Dunham to issue a full-blown apology on Saturday.
Read the full post from her Instagram below.
I owe Odell Beckham Jr an apology. Despite my moments of bravado, I struggle at industry events (and in life) with the sense that I don't rep a certain standard of beauty and so when I show up to the Met Ball surrounded by models and swan-like actresses it's hard not to feel like a sack of flaming garbage. This felt especially intense with a handsome athlete as my dinner companion and a bunch of women I was sure he'd rather be seated with. But I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts. I feel terrible about it. Because after listening to lots of valid criticism, I see how unfair it is to ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone I don't know AT ALL. Like, we have never met, I have no idea the kind of day he's having or what his truth is. But most importantly, I would never intentionally contribute to a long and often violent history of the over-sexualization of black male bodies — as well as false accusations by white women towards black men. I'm so sorry, particularly to OBJ, who has every right to be on his cell phone. The fact is I don't know (I don't know a lot of things) and I shouldn't have acted like I did. Much love and thanks, LenaAs confirmed by Variety, Emmy-winning director Joseph Sargent died from complications related to heart disease. He was 89.
Sargent fought in World War II as a teenager, but he began studying acting after returning to the United States. He picked up a sizable list of minor roles in front of the camera in the ‘50s, and by the mid-’60s he was working primarily as a TV director. Over the next few years, Sargent directed episodes of some of the biggest shows of the decade, including Lassie, Bonanza, Gunsmoke, and Star Trek. In 1973, he won his first Emmy for directing the pilot episode of Kojak.
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Sargent’s most famous directing job, however, happens to be one of the few times he worked in the movies instead of on TV: 1974’s The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three. An obvious influence on plenty of modern thrillers—not to mention its multiple remakes—Pelham is widely recognized as one of a rare class of films that feels uniquely of its era but still holds up today. After that, Sargent almost exclusively directed TV movies, finally wrapping up his long career in 2008 with the Jeff Daniels-starring deafness drama Sweet Nothing In My Ear.
In addition to the Emmy he won for Kojak, Sargent won three other Emmys and four Directors Guild Of America awards. Paris Barclay, president of the DGA, said that Sargent’s “dominance and craftsmanship was legendary,” adding that he “embodied directorial excellence on the small screen.”The worst military fiasco under the Trump administration — in which four US soldiers were killed alongside four Nigeriens by Islamist militants — was the result of reckless behavior by US Special Forces.
OUALLAM, Niger — The mission that resulted in the death of eight soldiers — including four Americans — in a firefight with Islamist militants in Niger earlier this year was the result of reckless behavior by US Special Forces in Africa, according to insiders and officials with knowledge of the operation.
The deaths came as a result of a poorly executed mission intended to gather information about three senior ISIS militants operating in isolated territory on the border between Niger and neighboring Mali. The US-led mission reached its target destination — BuzzFeed News can reveal for the first time that it was a militant camp across the porous border in Mali — on Oct. 3 and was returning back to base the following day when they were attacked, according to a senior ranking Nigerien official. But insiders say the fatalities in the remote village of Tongo Tongo were likely avoidable had the mission been better planned, although it is unclear whether key decisions were made by soldiers or their commanders back at base. Officials warn of the risks of further such operations just as the Trump administration is putting more US boots on the ground through the little-known Special Operations Command, Africa program (Socafrica). A Nigerien general, two senior military officials, and an official from the Nigerien government’s anti-terrorist unit spoke about the mission to BuzzFeed News on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak with the press.
When a message crackled over the radio at an isolated US military base just before midnight on Oct. 3, it sealed a series of missteps that led to the fatal firefight.
In visits to “red zone” areas, deemed out of bounds by US and other foreign embassies, and high-level interviews, locals and senior officials told BuzzFeed News that the worst military fiasco under the Trump administration came after US soldiers rushed into a hornet’s nest of militants with insufficient intelligence, while a series of “negligent” decisions during the operation handed an accidental victory to an ISIS offshoot. The incident highlights the consequences of the US prizing firepower over intelligence-gathering, even in militant-controlled terrain where local military partners are on the backfoot. And it comes as Special Force troops are being drawn deeper into shadow wars against militant Islamists on the continent — wars that have no military solution, according to those mired within them. When a message crackled over the radio at an isolated US military base just before midnight on Oct. 3, it sealed a series of missteps that led to the fatal firefight. Earlier that morning, a convoy of soldiers in desert camouflage sped over the dry riverbed that marks the edge of Ouallam, a garrison outpost almost 60 miles from Niamey, the capital of the vast landlocked West African country. The dozen US Special Forces and their 30 Nigerien counterparts were taking part in what the Pentagon publicly described as a routine reconnaissance mission. Passing one final military checkpoint, beyond which the road dissolved into sand, the men continued northward toward the border with Mali, whose dunes and desert caves are a haven for groups loyal to both al-Qaeda and ISIS. But a second senior Nigerien military commander briefed on the matter told BuzzFeed News they were in fact seeking three specific targets. “The objective was intelligence-gathering on three militants,” the commander said. He also confirmed the names of two of the militants the convoy was searching for: a man who goes under the alias of Petit Tchapori, and Chefou Doundou, a former cattle herder nicknamed Dondo by locals and code-named “Naylor Road” by US intelligence. A US defense spokesperson declined to comment on any questions from BuzzFeed News, citing an ongoing investigation by the Department of Defense. “The investigation is exploring issues of policy, procedures, resources, doctrine, training, judgment, leadership, or valor central to this incident. The Department of Defense will always strive [to] ensure our forces are properly equipped and have the necessary capabilities to accomplish their mission and defeat any threat,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The two militants were key local lieutenants in a fledgling ISIS affiliate called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), led by the Western Sahara-born Adnan al-Sahrawi. Drawing on their deep ties in villages far from any urban area, the two senior militant leaders have spearheaded successful recruiting tactics for ISGS over the past year, swelling its ranks enough to carry out “repeated attacks along the border with Mali.”
Jane Hahn for BuzzFeed News
Under US rules of engagement, troops can only accompany Nigeriens when enemy contact is considered “unlikely.” Although there had been at least 46 militant attacks in the area in the last 18 months, the US soldiers were in unarmored pickups and relatively lightly armed when they ran into an ambush by militants just outside Tongo Tongo, a village of several dozen mudbrick homes. Their assailants easily outgunned them with sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic weapons mounted on trucks, according to a Nigerien anti-terrorism official. The attack lasted for at least two hours, ending only when military aircraft flown by French soldiers stationed in neighboring Mali flew overhead. The Mirage jets and Puma helicopters were unable to drop bombs for fear of hitting Nigerien or US soldiers because they were not in radio contact with them, according to US officials.
Officials familiar with such operations have questioned whether the mission should have taken place at all. Approaching high-value militants is by nature a delicate operation that often requires many months of intelligence-gathering and meticulous planning, military and intelligence officials told BuzzFeed News. That appears to be far from the case in this operation. “Socafrica has, in recent years, become increasingly secretive, unaccountable, clientelistic, and — as recent episodes suggest — reckless. Odds are they didn't have the granularity of intel to offset the risk of such a mission,” said Matthew Page, a former Africa specialist with the State Department’s intelligence arm. “I think the bigger issue at stake here is the degree to which Special Forces Africa is increasingly seen by US diplomats and defense officials as a ‘rogue element’ that is pushing the envelope on its missions and activities in the Sahel, and elsewhere in Africa, without explicit buy-in from US policymakers, diplomats, or even senior military commanders.” Questionable decisions were made in the hours preceding the attack. By the afternoon of Oct. 3, the soldiers had reached their destination — a militant bush camp in a village called Akabar, located in a nature reserve some four miles inside the Malian border, a second Nigerien official told BuzzFeed News. A US Defense spokesperson would not comment on the exact nature of the operation, but said: “We don't conduct any operations without the consent of the respective host nations.” The US’s military partnership in the region allows them to accompany Nigerien troops up to 50 kilometers inside the Malian border. After destroying the deserted camp, the patrol made a puzzling decision: They decided to keep pursuing their targets by combing nearby villages, according to the Nigerien general and the anti-terrorist unit official. That meant, without prior planning or any contingency plans, they would be extending the time spent in territory full of militants and their informants — a basic error, say US officials with dozens of such missions under their belts. “That’s not how it’s done,” Donald Bolduc, a retired general who led Socafrica until June, said of what’s known officially about the mission so far. Senior militant leaders are normally well protected, Bolduc said, with rings of security guards and layers of militants who communicate with one another via radio, he said. “The resources and planning didn’t seem to be there for that kind of operation,” he said in an interview with Reuters in October. Long after nightfall, when the mission was due to be debriefed back at the base, instead US soldiers sent a radio call to those awaiting their return in Ouallam. That decision to stay, which was relayed in that call, proved to be a disastrous mistake. “They sent a message just around midnight saying that because their position was still around the border with Mali, and that’s a high-danger zone, they would stay the night there,” a second Nigerien senior military official briefed on the matter said. It’s unclear whether that decision came from the soldiers on the ground or their commanders back at base. Moving around in the dark would make the patrol more vulnerable to attack from militants who were far more familiar with the terrain. The mission set up camp and began a night-watch rota, the official said. They set off to return to base at daybreak, pausing briefly to rest in an unnamed village just after dawn broke.
“You could call it negligence... They were moving around in a zone owned by militants. They let their guard down.”
The decision to stay overnight while deep in militant territory was all the stranger considering the very thing they’d set off to do, both US and Nigerien military officers said. “You could call it negligence,” a Nigerien army general briefed on the matter told BuzzFeed News from Niamey. “They were moving around in a zone owned by militants. They let their guard down.” The general said it was likely informants had relayed the fact that US soldiers were in the area to senior militants. “There are a dozen villages around the frontier with Mali. The enemy took advantage of informants in these villages,” the general said. The convoy didn’t radio as they were approaching Tongo Tongo, which was far from where they’d spent the night, because by then they were considered outside the immediate danger zone. Shortly before midday, the mission stopped outside the tiny village because it had a well. The US soldiers had supplies of bottled water, but their Nigerien counterparts needed to fill their flasks, with temperatures hovering around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Souley Mane, a 34-year-old builder from the village, saw the convoy pull up. He said the soldiers approached him to ask if they could use the well. Mane told them he would have to let the village chief know there were soldiers in the area. Mane said the village chief, Alassane Mounkaila, was surprised to hear soldiers were in the area because he was usually forewarned by the Nigerien army when patrols were taking place. “I told him, there are white soldiers with them, too. He immediately got up to go and see them,” Mane told BuzzFeed News in an interview in Ouallam. “All I know is they needed more water and while they were here, they decided to take the opportunity to question the village chief.” When the team set off over an hour later, a group of armed men on motorbikes cut them off from the front, according to an account by a Nigerien anti-terrorist official. Several motorbikes with similarly armed militants then came in from behind. Having “sandwiched” the soldiers, who were initially able to return fire, there was a temporary lull before vehicles mounted with machine guns rolled onto the scene, and unleashed heavy gunfire in an attack both US and Nigerien officials have said was professionally executed. The Oct. 4 ambush bore the fingerprints of Sahrawi, a former al-Qaeda veteran who, having switched allegiance to ISIS, is looking to climb the ranks among the militant groups jostling for influence in the region. US officials, puzzling over what they say was an hour-long delay before soldiers requested aerial support, believe the time it took for the more heavily armed militants to arrive may have led the troops to underestimate the gravity of the attack. An hour after the first contact with militants, a message was relayed to French soldiers, who have taken a lead in anti-terrorism operations in their former colony. By the time French Mirage jets flew overhead two hours after the attack began, four soldiers from each nation had been killed, and the rest had scattered over several kilometers, the Nigerien general said. “When deaths occur in a mission in which, despite the risks, killing wasn’t foreseen, then the mission was a disaster,” the general added. A few days later, Mounkaila, the village chief fell under suspicion from both US soldiers and Nigerien officials for being in cahoots with militants. He has been detained ever since.
Jane Hahn for BuzzFeed News A sign reading " No proliferation of small arms and light weapons" outside of Boubon Village, Niger, Nov. 1, 2017.
Niger rarely makes it into the US news, with many people assuming the country is a misspelling of its better-known neighbor, Nigeria. Even senior US officials seemed unaware of the shadow war happening there, let alone the “mission creep” that is taking place under a cloak of darkness afforded by a state of emergency imposed by the Nigerien government.
The US has a mandate only to train and assist — and explicitly not to engage in combat missions — although Niger also hosts two US surveillance drone bases. Niger’s defense minister has since announced he has asked the US to begin using armed drones for the first time in the impoverished nation. That’s exactly the sort of mission creep that’s making some observers increasingly uneasy about the 800 US troops stationed in the country, the biggest foreign contingent by far. Mamane Touda, an official at the country’s top civil rights organization, said there was something else that troubled him about US soldiers “creeping in — and creeping in is the phrase I mean to use,” he said in an interview in Niamey. What’s most troubling, said Touda, was that both US and Nigerien soldiers were operating in three counties that have been under a state of emergency since March. “And the state of emergency was declared with no parliamentary consultation whatsoever. That’s totally illegal,” said Touda. With ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliphate in disarray in Syria and Iraq, the organization’s newest branches sprouting in Africa offer a glimpse into the playbook its affiliates might use.
“The soldiers were found naked because the militants took everything they could — military uniforms, weapons, comms equipment.”
In Niger, Sahrawi commands the two-year-old ISGS, which seems to be refining its tactics and showing that they can cause significant damage and mayhem with a relatively small number of fighters, said Andrew Lebovich, a regional security expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations. “They’re not really geared towards seizing territory — these attacks are happening on trucks. But even so, they’ve been able to inflict a fair amount of pressure on the Nigerien military.” The manner in which the US soldiers’ corpses were found pointed to a plan to capture at least some of them alive. “The soldiers were found naked because the militants took everything they could — military uniforms, weapons, comms equipment,” the Nigerien general told BuzzFeed News, contradicting US officials who have publicly said there were no indications troops fell into enemy hands. “They wanted to cart them away [alive] so that people wouldn’t know if they were dead or alive as hostages. It would have been a negotiating tactic.” That plan was likely scuppered when the arrival of French jets forced the militants to flee. Still, a desire to keep under the radar as the group expands could explain why ISIS has been slow to seize on what would normally be a major propaganda coup. In the sect’s Amaq publication, which typically glorifies ISIS attacks, Tongo Tongo was only mentioned briefly once. For a group that is quick to claim attacks by its affiliates even when those links are tenuous, it seems that in Niger they want to build up numbers on the ground before taking responsibility for attacks that would likely provoke retaliatory airstrikes. For those living in Tongo Tongo, little has changed since it became the site of a massacre. Mane, the builder who lives there, recently stumbled on a makeshift graveyard of militants some 20 kilometers from the village. The graveyard — evidence the militants felt comfortable enough either to wait around or return to bury their dead after the ambush — isn’t what scares him most. It’s the sound of engines on the village’s sandy roads that troubles him now. “The only people that have motorbikes here are them because they use them for patrols,” the builder said. “And we’ve been seeing motorbikes coming in and out of the village, always in pairs or threes, almost everyday ever since.”
Jane Hahn for BuzzFeed News Abdoulaye Moumouni walks with his herd to the Niger River on the road to Boubon in Niger Nov. 1, 2017.
Almost two weeks after the Tongo Tongo ambush happened, the incident spiraled into a political disaster after Donald Trump got into a public spat with the widow of one of the dead soldiers. Myeshia Johnson was on her way to receive her husband’s body when Trump told her in a condolence call that her husband “knew what he signed up for,” prompting a series of claims and counterclaims over what he said.
Key senators said they hadn’t realized US troops were even in a region where Islamist militant groups have taken root in recent years. “We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing,” senator Lindsey Graham said. Some 1,200 soldiers US soldiers are stationed in the Sahel and the US is being drawn deeper into a complicated situation where militants have been operating in the region for years. On a blistering day in January 2013, Abdoulaye Moumouni was moving his cattle in search of water in northwestern Niger when a group of turbaned men appeared on the horizon. The 50-year-old herder was somewhere so far off road it had no name; the nearest inhabited place was Ayorou, a speck of a village a full day’s walk away. As a member of the seminomadic Fulani ethnic group, Moumouni was used to going days without seeing anyone else but other herders. He initially assumed the three men were Tuareg rivals, with whom the Fulanis have been fighting for generations over valuable livestock. As the men got closer, Moumouni saw that their turbans were not wrapped in the Tuareg style. They carried automatic weapons, not the carved knives or homemade muskets typically used to defend against desert animals. “You could tell they weren’t from here. The way they were dressed, and they had long beards and serious guns,” said Moumouni, as he led his herd through fields of sun-frazzled millet.
“You could tell they weren’t from here. The way they were dressed, and they had long beards and serious guns.”NBC is launching the bulk of its fall lineup during premiere week, which kicks off September 23 with the season premiere of The Voice and the series premiere of hot new drama The Blacklist. NBC’s flagship new comedy, The Michael J. Fox Show, also will debut during premiere week with two-back-to-back episodes following an hourlong season opener of Parks And Recreation. NBC’s two other Thursday comedy newcomers, Sean Saves The World and Welcome To The Family, will be introduced the following week, along with new Wednesday drama Ironside starring Blair Underwood. Grimm and new drama Dracula will be held back, debuting on Friday, October 25 as a Halloween-themed event. The Biggest Loser returns October 8. Here is the premiere schedule, with new shows in bold:
Monday, September 23
8-10 PM – The VOICE (5th season Premiere)
10-11 PM – THE BLACKLIST (Series debut)
Tuesday, September 24
8-9 PM TBD
9-10 PM – The VOICE (Tuesday Premiere)
10-11 PM – CHICAGO FIRE (2nd season premiere)
Wednesday, September 25
8-9 PM – REVOLUTION (2nd season premiere)
9-11 PM – LAW & ORDER: SVU (15th season premiere)
Thursday, September 26
8-9 PM – PARKS AND RECREATION (6th season premiere)
9-9:30 PM – THE MICHAEL J FOX SHOW (Series debut)
9:30-10 PM – THE MICHAEL J FOX SHOW
10-11 PM – PARENTHOOD (5th season premiere)
Friday, September 27
9-11 PM – DATELINE NBC
Wednesday, October 2
10-11 PM – IRONSIDE (Series debut)
Thursday, October 3
8:30 PM – WELCOME TO THE FAMILY (Series debut)
9 PM – SEAN SAVES THE WORLD (Series debut)
Tuesday, October 8
8-9 PM – THE BIGGEST LOSER
Friday, October 25
8-9 PM – DATELINE NBC (Regular slot premiere)
9-10 PM – GRIMM (3rd season premiere)
10-11 PM – DRACULA (Series debut)Every morning for decades, the scene on 47th Street between between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan has pretty much looked the same. At around 9 a.m., clusters of Hasidic Jews with their long black coats and white beards walk briskly towards their offices, black leather suitcases in hand, past jewelry storefronts that are slowly starting to open for business.
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Seen through store windows, employees take out diamond rings, bracelets, earrings, and pendants from the plastic boxes they've been safely stored in for the night. Armed policemen patrol around and some stores have security teams of their own — big muscle in dark suits guarding doors and checking the IDs of diamond cutters, polishers, gemologists, and salesmen before anyone enters a building. There are also inconspicuously-dressed bystanders pacing the area, giving the impression that the whole area is being carefully surveilled by undercover cops.
Dozens of solicitors — men wearing baseball caps and sunglasses, often with foreign accents — hit the sidewalks, handing out fliers that promise the best price for gold while competing hustlers walk straight up to passersby, muttering deal pitches in their ears.
It's just another day in the Diamond District.
Except, there's an unusual number of shoppers huddling near a particular window one spring morning. Several women who are looking to buy earrings are astonished to see a strange sign that reads, "Lab-Grown Diamonds!"
"Why would anyone buy such a thing?" Sharon, a mother of four living in Brooklyn, asks. The friends she's with, all of whom declined to share their names, nod in agreement. Still, they can't help but admit that the so-called "lab-grown" stones on display look exactly like the rest of the diamonds in the case. The women walk away, but not before writing down the name of the company: American Grown Diamonds.
Inside the store and down the stairs, Ariel Baruch, a 26-year-old whose family has been in the jewelry business for three generations and owns American Grown Diamonds, is sitting in his office, looking at some product under a loupe, a small magnification tool used to study jewelry.
American Grown, which has exclusive rights to buy diamonds from several undisclosed labs in the US, started selling synthetics (a scientific term loathed by the lab-grown industry, but routinely used in the greater jewelry world) a little over three years ago and now wholesales stones to some 250 stores around the country. Four months ago, the Baruchs decided to promote their business more widely in New York City, and so they put up the sign that attracted Sharon and plenty of others.
Baruch takes a 1.5-carat synthetic diamond that's set in a ring and holds it under a lamp. The clear, smooth facets sparkle in the light. The stone is beautiful.
"There's no way to look at it and know it's not natural," Baruch says. "Not with the naked eye, not with a loupe, and not with a standard microscope. Only special technology can tell the difference. Right now I believe we're the only ones selling lab-grown diamonds around here, but I want to say in two to three years more people are going to be carrying them. There are just no negatives to it."
When he says "around here," he means 47th Street, but American Grown is just one of several dozen lab-grown diamond companies that have cropped up over the last few years. Though lab-growns have been around for a while, it was only recently that the science of creating colorless, nearly flawless diamonds was finally perfected. (And, for the record, not everyone agrees that there are "no negatives to it" — but more on that later.)
With technology advancing, and with younger shoppers drawn to synthetic options, the question of whether or not lab-grown diamonds will invade the market is now a matter of when, not if.
A diamond is grown when a gas cloud of carbon hovers over a tiny diamond seed in a heated vacuum chamber, adding layers of crystal onto the seed.
Diamonds have long been considered extraordinarily valuable, and have been traded as a commodity for thousands of years. According to the Gemological Institute of America, the stones first gained commercial popularity in India, where diamond trading began as early as the 4th century BC. During the Middle Ages, caravans that unearthed diamonds in India's rivers traded them with Western Europe, where they became coveted by the upper class. The world's diamond capital moved from India to Brazil in the 1700s, and then to South Africa, when a giant diamond mine was discovered in the city of Kimberley in 1866. In 1888, British businessman Cecil Rhodes established his mining company, De Beers, in the country, and effectively founded the diamond industry as we now know it.
A century before this, however, scientists began their quest to make diamonds in a lab. Ignited by Antoine Lavoisier's discovery that diamonds were merely a crystalline form of carbon, the result of pressure deep within the earth, in the late 1700s, little progress was made for nearly 200 years.
Then came General Electric. Physical chemist H.Tracy Hall joined its "Project Superpressure," and in 1954, after nearly four years of synthetic diamond experimentation, Hall lead his team to a breakthrough. They were able to create small diamonds after heating carbon to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and applying extreme pressure with a heavy hydraulic press — a method referred to as high pressure and temperature, or HPHT. According to the New York Times, Hall's knees buckled when he realized he had cracked the |
. All the schools, I really saw myself at every one of them. It’s definitely a relief. I’m just happy about my decision. I think I made the right decision."
With Phillips’ commitment, Tennessee has moved up the No. 4 recruiting class in the country, according to 247Sports.In May of this year, the eco-extremist group Individualists Tending Toward the Wild (ITS) issued a statement claiming responsibility for the murder of two hikers in the State of Mexico and the femicide of Lesvy Rivera at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, providing as justification for these acts their belief that “every human being merits extinction.” In response, I wrote “There’s Nothing Anarchist About Eco-Fascism: A Condemnation of ITS” for It’s Going Down, denouncing both ITS and the U.S.-based anarchist platforms that disseminate and promote the group’s activities.
While by no means the first anarchist condemnation of ITS, it did garner a bit of attention, facilitated in part by the responses of ITS and its supporters, which we will turn to in a moment. Shortly thereafter, strong critiques emerged from other quarters, in particular from insurrectionary anarchists such as L from the UK, Eat from Indonesia, and a joint statement from former members of Anonymous Anarchist Action, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, the Mariano Sánchez Añón Insurrectional Cell and others in Mexico.
Taken together, these statements offer a robust distancing of ITS from anarchists and anarchist practice across varying tendencies. None were written in the hope of actually changing the behavior of ITS but to unequivocally clarify the distinction between anarchism and ITS. Indeed, since May, ITS has continued on its terroristic path. Most notably, the ITS franchise in Chile claims to have twice placed bombs on Transantiago public buses (one, two). In doing so, they follow in the steps of ITS in Mexico who claimed to have placed a bomb on public buses in Mexico City last October and November and ITS in Brazil who in January claimed to have placed a shrapnel-filled bomb at a crowded bus station in Brasilia. Indeed, the favorite tactic of ITS these days appears to be putting bombs in public areas in the hopes that they explode and maim or kill as many random people (or “hyper-civilized sheep” in their words) as possible.
While indiscriminately blowing up civilians based on a twisted, authoritarian ideology places ITS in league with ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the State, of particular concern to anarchists should be the special vehemence ITS reserves for us and the threat it poses to anarchists. With tiresome predictability, ITS goes on and on about how wrong and bad anarchists are. (Undoubtedly this article will receive such a reply.) At times it is not clear who ITS hates more – all of civilization or just us. But in an odd twist, alongside the relentless defamations, ITS also spends a notable about of energy attempting to recuperate selected anarchist history into their eco-extremist ideology, in particular the few attacks by anarchists in which several civilians were killed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Like a spurned lover, ITS cannot accept that anarchism is just not that into it. So it adopts a defensive position of projected hatred, all the while continual reaching out to anarchism as if to pleadingly say, “See what a few of you did over 100 years ago? You’re just like us. We should be together, even though I hate you.” Yet in its anarchist revisionism, ITS fails to grasp that even in the rare anarchist action which resulted in the loss of civilian life, it has never been anarchist praxis to kill people for the sake of killing people.
Helpful in understanding this behavior is the matter of ITS’ ideological (or theological) fragility. Though they have been around for six years, those six years have been marked by frequently shifting and inconsistent rationales, beliefs and analyses put forward by the group for what they do and why. They have now sought resolution to their existential incoherence by resorting to the basest of premises: “kill ‘em all.” This oppositional posture creates a Manichean world without nuance and therefore requires no explication or nuance on their part. By proclaiming all to be the enemy, they provide themselves an impenetrable refuge from all critique and also any need for internal consistency. Yet by existing as purely in opposition to everything, with nothing but disdain for all aspirational proposals, they reduce themselves to mere activists. Their actions seek to change nothing, they are symbolic and done simply to make themselves feel better. They are like a graffiti artist who goes out to put their tag on as many walls as possible then goes home, pats themselves on the back and sends out a communique. The tragic part, of course, is that the ITS brand of futile activism involves killing and wounding people.
By creating an ideology against anarchism and also shielding their actions from critique by stating that they believe that they will never change anything, ITS can come across as both inventive and reactionary at the same time. The small anarchist following ITS generates is also telling, insofar as they are people who are already hostile to social struggle and see ITS as developing a critique of currents within anarchism they also wish to attack. In short, while ITS is an instrument we are told to “have a conversation with” and “ask questions about,” in reality ITS is simply a means to an end for those who desire to wage a ‘culture war’ within anarchism. They help normalize and popularize ITS while still holding it at arms-length as a way to divorce themselves from any responsibility. This is something ITS wants just as much as do the people who make money selling their communiques and use ITS to build up their personalities as podcasters and journal publishers. Meanwhile, the very group these anarchists use to reap social capital from threatens to kill us and attempts to blow up our friends and spaces.
That anarchists would want nothing to do with this is unsurprising. It is therefore predictable that as the anarchist rejection of ITS has become more strident, the reaction of ITS has reached new levels of unhinged vitriol. In November of last year, they issued a statement complaining of “censorship” from Noblogs after the site dropped their page. In March, after Chilean insurrectionary anarchist prisoner Joaquín García criticized ITS, it mocked him and called for an attack on “that senile hippy Zerzan” in the same breath. The article I wrote in May apparently touched a nerve and ITS responded with the only tools at its disposal – anger and violence – by threatening to kill me.
Mr. Campbell, you should value your life more. You’re addressing some dangerous people who have killed people indiscriminately for over six years. We are still free, and they have not been able to catch us. How are you so sure that we don’t know the place in Mexico where you “vacation” and we won’t show up as we tend to do? You should chill out because in a country where killing journalists is very common, it’s not a good idea that you go about everywhere with your camera, or you’ll end up like your colleague Bradley Will. Remember him? Only this time the bullets won’t be coming from PRI goons.
For good measure, in the same statement they also throw in some homophobia, referring to myself and others as “fucking faggots,” and some sexism in denouncing the “pussy motherfucker sons of Contrainfo.”
After more anarchist condemnations of ITS came out, they responded with another statement going after insurrectionary anarchists in Mexico along with snitchjacketing the main individual behind the anarchist library and social center Biblioteca Social Reconstruir. It being an ITS statement, of course there is again a fair amount of homophobia and sexism contained within. However, in this case it also clarified an incident that occurred last year at OkupaChe, the occupied Che Guevara Auditorium on the campus of UNAM.
OkupaChe is an autonomous space for a variety of collectives and individuals that for years has been under threat and attacks from the police and university administration. On December 14, after a growing push for the eviction of the okupa, there was to be a large student assembly with OkupaChe as the first item on the agenda. At some point during the night before the assembly, an explosive device was left outside the doorway of the auditorium. It was described as a package made up of flammable material and nails, powerful enough to have started a fire and wounded people at the space as well as passers-by. Initially thought to be part of the push to evict OkupaChe, in March an ITS group mentioned “an annoying device that we left in the mousetrap called che.” In the more recent statement, ITS elaborates further, regurgitating without irony the government’s talking points about the space:
[D]id you know that one of our groups placed a bomb at the “Che Squat”? That was done mainly because they were defaming us and we shit on those anarcho-rock star ex-con politicians and drug addicts who hang out there, because the auditorium is supposedly so legendary: a symbol of “autonomy” and the “combative” student movement of the ‘90’s.
So along with their tirades and death threats against individual anarchists, one can see that they have actually attempted to kill or injure anarchists en masse and cause damage to anarchist spaces. In preparation for this article, I reached out to anarchists in Mexico to attempt to document other ITS threats. They indicated that numerous threats from ITS have been directed against anarchist individuals and projects, but no one felt comfortable going on the record.
In case their reprehensible actions, along with threatening and attempting to kill anarchists, is not enough of a reason for anarchist disassociation from ITS, there is another cause for anarchist concern. ITS proudly proclaims it has never been caught, even though “Interpol has already collected all the information that it could from the Internet about our Mafia.” Yet is that true? If ITS is placing bombs on buses in three countries then why the subdued reaction from the State to an international terrorist movement? The English-language spokesperson for ITS calls himself Abe Cabrera. Abe is an unknown figure among radicals yet has been welcomed into some circles because of his advocacy of eco-extremism. He is open about where he lives, yet remains unmolested by the state. This is odd if Interpol is involved and when compared to the treatment members of the ELF press office received for the less-egregious acts they reported on. I am certainly not advocating that the state target him and to attempt to answer why he hasn’t been would be pure speculation. But as with many of ITS’ own claims, things do not add up.
Despite all of the above, the disturbing fact remains that various anarchists and anarchist projects in the U.S. continue to provide a platform to ITS. In relaying that fact to both social and insurrectionary anarchists in Mexico, they responded with bewilderment, anger and disappointment that a group that is bombing and threatening them is being propped up in the U.S. by some anarchists. This again speaks to the privilege these U.S.-based anarchists enjoy in treating ITS as an intellectual exercise while comrades in Mexico are under attack by them. Since May, these platforms have posted a slew of articles and podcasts about ITS and personally attacking anarchists who criticize ITS. In response to the ITS statement threatening to kill me, one prominent anarchist in this vein wrote, “OMG this shit is so hysterical. Wow.” And then promptly reposted it on their website. (It was later removed after numerous individuals pointed out that an anarchist site reposting death threats against anarchists was rather outrageous.) Most recently, this same grouping published Black Seed, a journal being distributed nationally that in part seeks to incorporate eco-extremism, including ITS, into green anarchism. A second edition of the eco-extremist journal Atassa is set to be published around year’s end, presumably again by Little Black Cart.
This is pointed out not with the expectation that these individuals and projects will stop supporting ITS. Rather, it is so anarchists are aware of those in our circles who are providing legitimacy and cover for a group whose sole purpose is to murder people and who have a history of targeting anarchists in particular. ITS has proclaimed itself an enemy to anarchists. Its words and deeds reaffirm that. Why, then, should our enemies be welcome or tolerated in our spaces?OK, history buffs, time to vent out all your indignation at the mind-boggling liberties Hollywood takes with its "historical" films. Yahoo! Movies has put together a rather witty list of the 10 most historically inaccurate movies, and seeing these films ballasted for the laughable inaccuracies is actually more entertaining than some of the movies themselves.
I feel validated by the inclusion of Elizabeth: The Golden Age which was simply ridiculous, and I laughed out loud at the comment on The Last Samurai: "It's doubtful that a 40-something alcoholic Civil War vet, even one with great hair, would master the chopsticks much less the samurai sword." Ha!
Also, might I point out that Mel Gibson stars in two of the movies, and another one of them is Apocalypto. Three out of 10, Gibson. Well done! To see the full list, which appears to be in no particular order,
.
Yahoo! Movies' 10 Most Historically Inaccurate Movies:
10,000 B.C.
Gladiator
300
The Last Samurai
Apocalypto
Memoirs of a Geisha
Braveheart
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
The Patriot
2001: A Space Odyssey
Well, what do you think? Would these films, more than any others, "make your high school history teacher cry"?
SourceST. PETERSBURG
What started as negotiations to extend an amicable and mutually beneficial relationship into a second decade instead ended in a shocking divorce Friday as Joe Maddon exercised an opt-out clause in his contract and left the Tampa Bay Rays after a successful nine-year run as their manager.
It was the second staggering loss for the Rays in the past 10 days, following the departure of executive vice president Andrew Friedman to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Matt Silverman, who took over last week as president of baseball operations, said the Rays will immediately begin a "deliberate and comprehensive" search for a replacement that will include internal and external managerial candidates, operating with no timetable but a sense of urgency, given a series of pending roster decisions. Current bench coach Dave Martinez and former Rays player Gabe Kapler are among the possibilities.
Maddon said money and opportunity were the reasons for the decision, one he described as "gut-wrenching, almost made you sick." Silverman said the Rays were both surprised and "disappointed" by Maddon's decision and felt it was based on more than the financial terms of their offer.
Maddon, 60, said he left without promise of a job elsewhere, but agent Alan Nero said he expects him to be managing in 2015. Though the Minnesota Twins are the only team with an opening, there was immediate speculation that a team would fire its current manager for the chance to hire Maddon, with the Chicago Cubs considered most likely. The Phillies and Angels could be possibilities. Friedman's Dodgers and the Mets said Friday they would not be making a change.
Maddon, who was signed through the 2015 season for an annual average of $2 million, said the break-up was the result of money — directly in terms of what the Rays offered, and indirectly in that he wanted to explore the open market at a time when his value is at its peak.
"I have been doing this for a long time," Maddon told the Tampa Bay Times. "I have never had this opportunity to research my employment on my terms. Never, never, never. I mean never. And I think anybody given the same set of circumstances would do the same thing."
Silverman, however, said the Rays felt they made "very generous" offers that were believed to include salaries in excess of $3 million, enough that Maddon would have ranked among the five top-paid managers.
"I do not think our financial offer contributed to Joe's decision," Silverman said on a conference call. "I feel very comfortable with how we extended and the contract that we put forth."
But with the top managers getting around $5 million, Maddon wanted more — for his family and his charitable endeavors, he said — and took advantage of the previously undisclosed opt-out clause, one he said he had forgotten Nero had included in his last extension.
The clause allowed Maddon the right to opt out if either Friedman, Silverman or principal owner Stuart Sternberg left the team. It gave him a two-week window to make the decision.
So even after Maddon said last week that he wanted to stay with the Rays and considered it "the best place in all of baseball to work," and after Silverman said he expected to work toward another deal to keep Maddon at the helm "for many more years," they found themselves on opposite sides of what at times was a contentious negotiation. At one point Maddon sought permission to talk with a few teams to see what the possibilities were, and the Rays said no.
The Rays — operating "diligently and aggressively," Sternberg said — made an initial offer, Maddon (and Nero) made a counter offer, the Rays came back with a second offer, and at that point Maddon (and Nero) had enough and notified the team Thursday he would opt out.
"I could see we were still too far apart," Maddon said, "and then I'm running out of time" with four days left in the two-week window.
Maddon said he knows he could end up not managing in the coming season — though he could easily find a TV gig or "special assignment" work with a team — but was willing to take that risk for the opportunity.
"I can't deny there is a monetary component to it, absolutely there is," he said. "But in order to fulfill your wishes regarding family and whatever else, you have to take care of yourself first. It's not selfish. There is still a really strong altruistic component to me. But beyond that, it's about exploration. What is out there? I have this unique opportunity and I think it'd be foolish to not explore it."
Said Nero: "In the end it ended up not being just about the money. It was about a lot of things. It was about the opportunity."
The Rays will be more than interested observers in where Maddon ends up. If they feel he had been encouraged to leave by the promise of a deal elsewhere, they could file a tampering charge with the commissioner's office, which would make the breakup even more acrimonious.
Maddon gave no indication that his decision had anything to do with concern about the Rays' future (especially in Friedman's absence) or frustration with the annually small payroll or lack of progress in getting a new stadium (though he has mentioned that as the lone drawback to the job).
The news was stunning throughout the baseball world, none more so than to the Rays players, some of whom got text messages from Silverman minutes before the announcement.
"I was extremely shocked," pitcher Alex Cobb said. "Mostly for the fact that after Andrew left and hearing Joe's comments were pretty strong toward staying."
"I was very surprised, probably just like everybody else," said infielder/outfielder Ben Zobrist, the longest serving Rays player. "I really assumed he was going to manage at least one more year through his contract. I'm sure he's probably got something else in the works."
Maddon's departure leaves the Rays coaching staff in limbo. The seven coaches are all signed for next season, but a new manager typically gets to decide which, if any, he wants to keep. So, unless they get permission to look elsewhere (hitting coach Derek Shelton, for example, might be a candidate for the open Yankees job), they may have to wait and see what happens with the Rays, or if Maddon gets a job and wants to bring any along.
Maddon took over the Rays in 2006 — his first full-time managing gig after 31 years in the Angels organization — and led them to a 754-705 record, winning two American League manager of the year awards and making four trips to the playoffs in a six-year window before stumbling to a 77-85 record this season. He was known for his casual style, perpetual positivity, gimmicky themed dress-up trips and occasional clubhouse antics, and for his unconventional strategy. He was also popular in the Tampa Bay community, involved extensively in charitable work, and he is — and will remain — partners in a restaurant, Ava, opening next month in south Tampa.
Though surprised he left them, several Rays players said they will look back kindly at Maddon's time with them.
"Although I have not heard from Joe I'm sure that he has sound reasoning for his decision," third baseman Evan Longoria said. "He was able to accomplish something in his time with us that not many can say they've had success doing, complete cultural change and the belief in something new and innovative. I'm appreciative for the knowledge that he shared with me and the amount of growth I experienced playing for him."
Contact Marc Topkin at [email protected]. Follow @TBTimes_Rays.Teens everywhere are smooshing their heads together in an attempt to capture the perfect selfie, and while that sounds pretty innocent, danger is lurking just around the corner: all those selfies could be causing an uptick in head lice cases.
SFist talked to a lice expert located in Scotts Valley named Marcy McQuillan who notes that though lice is usually found in elementary aged kids, she’s seen a “huge increase” in lice cases in teens this year. The obvious culprit for this anomaly? Evil, evil selfies.
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“Typically it’s younger children I treat, because they’re at higher risk for head-to-head contact. But now, teens are sticking their heads together every day to take cell phone pics,” McQuillan told SFist.
There’s only one clear solution here: shave your teen’s head. That’ll show ’em.
Contact us at editors@time.com.The groupstages have ended, the qualifiers are done, and as we wait for the main event to commence, perhaps it is time to check as to how our Compendium Predictions results are looking, halfway through TI6.
The Compendium is a very unique crowd-funding tool for Dota 2 which was first initiated by Valve back in 2013 for the third iteration of the The International Dota 2 Championships and since then has become one of the most anticipated add-on of every TI year and the Majors tournament series, which has their own compendium-esque feature called the Battle Pass, mainly due to its included limited edition items such as hero sets, pets, weather effects and other cosmetics.
This year, the TI6 Compendium, or more specifically now called the TI6 Battle Pass in which the compendium is included, has helped TI reach a current total of $19,988,175 in Prize Pool making it once again the largest single game tournament prize pool in Esports history. One of the very features of the Compendium involves the interactive predictions in which players can predict winners of certain categories for teams, heroes and players like “the team with most kills”, “player with the highest farm”, “the most picked hero”, and ultimately the TI Champion.
As TI reaches its main event stage, and looking back at the predictions last Manila Major, it maybe safe to say that at this some predictions may already be broken as the recent variety and the air of unpredictability bought, not only by the current metagame, but also the caliber of teams that are participating in TI, and with that in mind, let’s all take a look at the Compendium Prediction results at this stage of TI so far before we hit the main event.
Hero Predictions
Picked, banned, contested, the hero pool of every TI grows exponentially every year, with the teams and players always at the ready with new lineups and pocket strategies. This year’s Compendium predictions for heroes include aspects such as Farming, Winning, Supporting and Survival together with the usual “most banned” or “most picked” categories.
The tournament favorite – Most Picked
1st. Mirana, the Priestess of the Moon
Picked 66 times in the tournament
Runners up:
2nd. Batrider, 65 picks 3rd. Ogre Magi, 46 Picks
The recent addition of Mirana to the list of heroes that are granted the Aghanim’s Scepter buff may have somehow helped in her topping the list as the most picked hero in TI6. Granted the periodical automatically cast Starstorm when getting the Aghs, it has helped increased Mirana’s usability whether played as a support or as a core, as showcased by players such as EG‘s Suma1L, and Execration’s Kimo, whose clutch teamfight appearance after gettin the Aghanim’s Scepter nearly clinched Xtcn a TI spot by winning against compLexity in the Wildcard rounds.
Too problematic to be up against – Most Banned
1st. Io, the Wisp
Banned by teams 70 times in the tournament
Runners up:
2nd. Elder Titan, 63 picks 3rd. Drow Ranger 57 Picks
Io’s strength has long been misunderstood by most players, as he falls generally on the unpopular heroes list, together with the likes of the most banned hero category’s 2nd placer, Elder Titan. However, in the pro leagues, Io’s global presence, and compatibility with nearly all offensive carries, especially in the hands of Chinese teams, was able to help him gain all the respect of becoming TI’s most hated hero to go up against with.
The most victorious – Highest Winrate
1st. Sylla the Lone Druid
Won ~90% of his Games in the tournament
Runners up:
2nd. Bristleback,~80% Winrate 3rd. Puck, ~80% Winrate
The double team advantage of Lone Druid may have seen its best days at TI as Sylla and his bear gain the highest winrate percentage of an estimated 90% of his games. Both Bristleback and Puck will tail him closely though as both heroes are tied in their winrate percentage, with Kunkka sitting below both at 70%.
Going for the gold – Highest Average Gold Per Minute
1st. Razzil the Alchemist
Reached an average of 850 GPM
Runners up:
2nd. Lone Druid, 672 GPM 3rd. Anti Mage, 664 GPM
Greed has been kind for the like’s of Alchemist as he sits on a comfortable top spot for heroes with the highest Gold Per Minute Average in the tournament. The joint damage of Radiance builds and prioritizing Acid Spray to clear creepwaves and feed gold to the Goblin’s Greed ticker makes an undisputable gold generating combination that places Razzil on the top spot of high-gold generating heroes, without Lone Druid or even Anti Mage coming close.
Farm, farm, farm – Highest Last Hit Average
1st. Anti-Mage
Average last hit count: 536
Runners up:
2nd. Naga Siren 435 Last Hits 3rd. Morphling, 408 Last Hits
While Alchemist may sit at the top of the Highest Average GPM category, he will be of no match to the Anti-Mage when it comes to the greed for last hits as Anti Mage sits at an average of 536 creep kills for all his games. His advantage in Base Attack Time, great mobility, plus the habit of Battle Fury powered farming makes AM a lean mean creep killing machine that even Naga Siren’s Illusion-based push partnered with Rip-tide and Radiance cannot match up as the Slithereen siren who only sits at 435.
Out for blood – Highest Kill Average
1st. Ulfsaar the Ursa Warrior
Killed an average of 11.0 enemy heroes
Runners up:
2nd. Queen of Pain, 9.8 Kills 3rd. Slark, 9.0 Kills
Brother bear Ursa was never the type to be kind to his enemies and that is proved once again in TI6, sitting at 11.0, Ursa will claim the current top rank for the average most number of hero kills in his games, followed by Queen of Pain sitting at 9.8. The numerous appearances of the hero in TI6 is also worth noting as Ursa is picked 13 times this week during the course of the Wildcards and the Groupstages, and has also reached a ~69% win rate in all his matches.
Survivability is the key – Lowest Death Average
1st. Sylla the Lone Druid
Only died and average of 1.6 times
Runners up:
2nd. Slark, 3.0 Deaths 3rd. Queen of Pain, 3.0 Deaths
Aside from sitting at the top of the list for heroes with the highest winrate, Lone Druid will also find himself on top of another list that recognizes survivability as he is at the top of heroes for havin the lowest death average. Even the mobility of both Slark and Queen of Pain, who is at 2nd and 3rd place both with 3.0 respectively, proved to be no match for Sylla and his Bear whose high beef, plus added pseudo crowd control through Savage Roar managed to help him and his bear escape the clutches of death numerous times.
Never gonna let you down – Highest Assist Average
1st. Undying, the Almighty Dirge
Assisted on kills 16.8 times
Runners up:
2nd. Kunkka, 16.1 Assists 3rd. Bounty Hunter,15.5 Assists
Undying will surely never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around or dessert you when you need it most as the undead zombie lord scores an average of 16.8 assists from all of his matches in The International. Spreading his damage across the battle through the help of his zombies scoring multiple assists per game may not be as hard as it seems on Undying although he is followed closely by Admiral Kunkka with a score of 16.0 and whose damage spread through Torrent, Ghost Ship and even the Tidebringer, may match, if not surpass the Dirge’s capability.ESL has revealed the match-ups for the fourth round of matches at ESL One Cologne.
Day two of ESL One Cologne came to an end with NiP and Liquid booking the first spots in the quarter-finals of the competition after moving past mousesports and OpTic, respectively.
The next round of matches, scheduled to start on Thursday at 12:00, will see three teams join Virtus.pro and TYLOO, who have been dumped out of the tournament after picking up three losses.
SK will take on G2 in Round 4
When it comes to the pool of teams sitting on a 2-1 record, SK against G2 is the undoubted tie of the round. The draw has seemingly been kind to FaZe, who will go up against OpTic for a playoff berth, while in-form mousesports will take on Natus Vincere.
Below you can find the match-ups for the fourth round of ESL One Cologne:
* winner qualifies for the playoffs
** loser is eliminatedBernie Sanders explicitly wants to start a political revolution in America. Judging from the crowd of 11,000 supporters in Phoenix on Saturday night, that has already taken place. Within a short period, Sanders has become the most electrifying presence on the 2016 campaign trail, attracting bigger crowds than any presidential candidate of either party. He has the grassroots army that he says is the critical component to progressive change. Now the question becomes what he will do with it, immediately, before any primary vote is cast.
After some unfortunate tone-deafness dealing with a protest from #BlackLivesMatter activists at Netroots Nation – something the campaign is already working to correct – Sanders rallied audiences in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas over the weekend. At the Phoenix Convention Center, the notably young crowd has gotten to know the democratic socialist’s positions so well (probably from his applause lines being tweeted on the campaign Twitter feed) that they repeated them in real time, like lip-synching at a concert. He has captured the imagination of a segment of the population who feels ill-served by the narrowness of our politics.
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Among liberal millennials in their formative political years, Sanders offers truth-to-power rhetoric that speaks to the disappointments of the Obama years, on issues like Wall Street’s power, the takeover of government by the wealthy and the need for single-payer universal health care. Sanders’ path for sustaining real change is entirely based upon bottom-up organizing. “The key mistake of the Obama Administration,” Sanders said last year to Bloomberg, “was to more or less disband the grassroots network that he had put together to get elected.”
Now Sanders has that grassroots network, or at least a critical mass of people willing to listen to him on the issues of the day. There is no more prominent voice on the American political left today, save for Elizabeth Warren. And Sanders is arguably more visible right now, with news-making rallies and a growing email list (the campaign won’t say how big).
This gives Sanders an opportunity to show exactly what can happen when politicians use their popularity as an organizing tool. Because there are winnable fights happening right now that could use his attention.
For example, the federal highway trust fund faces a deadline at the end of the month, with plenty of potential downsides. The House passed a five-month patch setting up a more permanent fix that pays for infrastructure with a misguided tax amnesty for large corporations that park earnings overseas, which has been pushed in recent weeks by Chuck Schumer. Senate Republicans, thinking they may get a better deal with a colleague in the White House, are scrambling to find money for a two-year patch, including making significant cuts to the federal employee retirement program.
The payment options for infrastructure are pretty awful, compared to simply putting a user fee on the roads that need fixing through a small increase in the gas tax. Liberal Democrats have the power to shape what happens next, and the first stage of the endgame is happening in a matter of days. So where is Sanders on that? What’s he telling his supporters to do about it?
Tied up with the highway bill are negotiations around the expired Export-Import Bank. Though most of the Democratic Party now supports Ex-Im, in the past Sanders has been staunchly against it as an example of corporate welfare and outsourcing, earning praise even from the likes of Ted Cruz. Congress will try to resurrect Ex-Im soon. If Sanders still believes it helps ship jobs overseas, is he prepared to ask his new followers to help him stop it?
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Similarly, within two months we will have a Congressional vote on the nuclear deal with Iran. Foreign policy items go completely unmentioned in Sanders’ speeches, but at his Senate website he called the deal “a victory for diplomacy over saber-rattling.” President Obama just needs one-third of either house of Congress to maintain the nuclear deal, again giving power to the liberal bloc. The votes will occur in September. Is Sanders prepared to organize around that?
There are more short-term issues up in the air, from the fight over the next appointment to the Securities and Exchange Commission to the inevitable battles over the government shutdown and raising the debt ceiling and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which Sanders has already engaged on). What’s his strategy?
The model for organizing from inside the Senate comes from Elizabeth Warren, who uses her platform to push on short-term issues. She doesn’t always win, such as with the Citigroup-written derivatives loophole snuck into a federal spending bill last year. But she knows how to leverage her power and the citizens who believe in her message. She stopped Antonio Weiss from becoming the number three leader at the Treasury Department and has now apparently stopped Keir Gumbs, a lawyer who actually held seminars with corporations about how to evade taxes, from joining the SEC.
Warren derives her success from picking winnable fights and forcing fellow Democrats to take her side, because of the promise of being aligned with the emergent Warren wing. She is respected on financial reform and issues affecting the working class, and when she speaks up, it matters and can change policy.
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Sanders has never had this platform for his issues before. But one email to his list (which he reportedly writes himself) or the mention of a particular topic on the stump could have significant organizing value. He has nationwide house parties coming up next week, over 1,500 of them, where he could spread a particular message, if he chooses. Tell Chuck Schumer not to give multinational corporations a bailout. Tell Democrats not to undermine diplomacy. Tell the President that prime regulatory seats should not be sold to Wall Street executives. And then he can supplement that with phone calls and protests. There’s an opportunity to operationalize his candidacy.
Making change is about more than giving a well-worn political speech. It’s about active engagement, challenging bad ideas pushed by powerful people and demanding something different. Sanders knows this: it’s the entire basis for his candidacy. But he could put it to work before anyone goes to a caucus in Iowa or a voting booth in New Hampshire. Things are happening right now that will impact millions of Americans. If Sanders is making the argument that he will be an organizer as President, he has to show that he can be one as a candidate, too.Rod Johnson’s move away from the Spring Framework, which he has overseen since its creation 2003, has been known for a while. In July, Johnson announced his departure from VMware in a blog post entitled ‘Oh the Places You’ll Go!’, writing that he was “ready for some different challenges”.
Today, just in time for the beginning of JavaOne, it emerged that Johnson is to join Typesafe, the company behind Scala, Akka and Play, as a member of the Board of Directors. While the press release doesn’t specify what Johnson’s new role will involve, the company says that he will bring “more than 15 years of experience in the Java infrastructure software space”.
Typesafe is a rising star within the Java industry: in August, Typesafe raised $14m in capital funding, and Johnson’s involvement is merely the latest triumph for the company. The Scala language’s high-profile fans include Twitter, who switched away from Ruby in favour of Scala several years ago.
Johnson, who is no stranger to building a platform from scratch, makes perfect sense for the burgeoning company – especially one working on a language billed as “the next Spring”. Having created the Spring Framework in 2003, he soon founded the SpringSource in the subsequent year, and has continued to oversee its development (and success) over the past nine years.
Hopefully the future of the Spring Framework is still in safe hands. In his parting blogpost, Johnson insisted that he will “always be part |
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tweet me or you can Follow @Tals_StorylinesA French-language university is one step closer to reality in Ontario as the Liberal government says it will introduce legislation to create one.
The provincial government is accepting key recommendations from a report by the French-language University Planning Board.
The location isn’t yet determined, but the university would be intended to serve central and southwestern Ontario, the areas with the fastest growing Francophone populations.
Ontario is home to 611,500 Francophones.
Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews calls the announcement a tremendous step forward, saying it will provide access to high-quality French-language university education.
The government says the university would be the first of its kind in the province, though there are currently two publicly funded French-language colleges and nine universities at which students can study in French.
Francophone Affairs Minister Marie-France Lalonde says Francophone culture and the French language have always been essential to Ontario’s identity and prosperity.Four years after Chris Brown assaulted Rihanna, popular culture is getting dangerously close to turning him into the victim. “This is the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who’s been subjected to unthinkable violence,” said Seth MacFarlane on Sunday, hosting the Oscars and referring to Django Unchained. “Or as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie.”
Singers Chris Brown and Rihanna snuggle up at the Grammy Awards. ( Christopher Polk / GETTY IMAGES for NARAS )
Including Rihanna in the punch line was strange, as if she was somehow complicit in her own attack. But what the quip really did was inject more conspiratorial venom into those who claim Brown is a casualty of a double standard when it comes to domestic violence and the celebrity hierarchy. In 2009, after photos of Rihanna’s battered face were leaked, Hollywood and the world recoiled with horror. But on Sunday, MacFarlane’s joke signalled Hollywood was eager to shake off the revulsion and embrace its basic instincts. The assault, in other words, could now be entertainment.
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MacFarlane’s not the only one treating it as such: On Wednesday, NBC will air an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit titled “Funny Valentine.” The synopsis reads, “When a famous rapper brutally assaults his girlfriend, the SVU squad must battle music industry politics in pursuit of justice.” A promo that aired last week was unambiguous in what story this was depicting. The singing thug is a baby-faced, baseball-cap wearing, sweet talking sociopath who holds inexplicable sway over his pop star girlfriend. In appearance and manner, even initials, “Caleb Bryant” might as well be Chris Brown. In the real story, Brown received five years of probation and six months of community service for punching, biting and slamming Rihanna’s head into the passenger window of a rented Lamborghini. In this reimagining, the fictional villain could end up dead. Brown and Rihanna, reunited as a couple and fresh off a vacation to Hawaii to celebrate her 25th birthday, are unlikely to PVR the show. But between the monologue cracks and the prime time dramas, between the gravity of what happened four years ago and the floating lightness of how they seem to remember it, any new references to the assault seem to trigger one consequence: to torque Rihanna’s belief that Brown has already paid too high a price for what he did.
As she told Rolling Stone this month: “He’s not the monster everybody thinks.” The ubiquity of Brown and Rihanna on social media — they essentially serve as their own paparazzi, distributing images via Twitter, Instagram and YouTube — increasingly shrouds another troubling fact. For a young man who nearly lost everything, Brown seems to have learned nothing.
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There may be no such thing as a teachable moment in our age of oversharing, because Brown has not spent much time under a halo. Since the assault, he’s gotten into a nightclub brawl with Drake, a parking lot brawl with Frank Ocean and a Twitter brawl with the writer Jenny Johnson that was so crude and scatological, he temporarily shut down his account. Through all of this, whether it was hatching duet plans or serenading him at the Grammy Awards this month, Rihanna seems to drift alone, even when they’re together. This might be the most unfortunate part of a deeply unfortunate incident. By taking clumsy but relentless shots at Brown, the entertainment industry is forcing the defiant Rihanna into the role of public defender. They are helping to perpetuate a growing myth that Brown is a victim. All of this trivializes the past. It also blinds everyone, including Rihanna, to what might happen in the future. vmenon@thestar.caAbout This Game Soundscape VR is your own private music venue, a mind-blowing audiovisual experience, an interactive piece of art to explore, and the next evolution of music visualizers. Play your favorite music inside Soundscape - any song from any music service - to immerse yourself in a brand-new 360-degree world of breathtaking visuals beyond that of any live show or music festival you have ever experienced. Use your motion controllers to effortlessly create and modify the visuals with a new seamless control scheme that allows your eyes to stay focused on the action without having to dig through menus. Lights, lasers, particles, and many other effects will come to life at your touch as you teleport through space and create endless combinations of visuals in this interactive sandbox world. You haven’t heard your favorite songs until you've experienced them in Soundscape.
Although being created with electronic music in mind, it works well with many genres from Jam to Hip hop. You can adjust the BPM easily in-game at any time by glancing at your wrist to customize the visuals from the grooviest slow jams, to the fastest drum & bass beats. Soundscape allows you to curate the visuals and easily control the pattern, color, strobe, rotation, speed, and scale of lights along with other special bonus effects. You'll also control various fireworks, glowsticks, trails of neon light, showers of sparks, and massive columns of flame. Watch the particles ricochet around the environment as gravity warps to different levels and your cosmic environment shifts from one galaxy to the next.
The launch of Soundscape is only the beginning of what's to come. Soundscape is being designed as a new platform for music experiences across the globe and as the intergalactic VR music festival of tomorrow. Ever had a new song you were addicted to and couldn't wait to share with friends? Coming soon you can connect with them directly and listen to any song simultaneously - together, all while dancing in VR, chatting, and creating incredible visuals for one another. Or just create and DJ your own virtual party to find strangers who love the same artists as you do.
Soundscape can be enjoyed sitting, standing, or even lying on your back. Teleportation movement allows you to pick your ideal vantage point anywhere in-game. You can swap between different modes of play easily. Choose to chill out and let the program do all the work creating the visuals automatically, then take complete control again at any time whenever you're ready! Soundscape strips away all the inconveniences of the modern music experience - waiting in line, aggressive security, expensive drinks, poor visibility and audio equipment - and puts the power in your hands instead.
Soundscape is a cutting-edge virtual reality visual experience, choose your graphics options wisely in-game. Similar to Crysis when it was released in 2007, GPU hardware does simply not yet exist to drive Soundscape to its maximum potential. Even a 1080ti will not be able to supersample significantly due to the extreme nature of the layers of visuals and the variability of how each person chooses to play the game.It would make perfect sense if Sean McDermott were sensing a bit of déjà vu these days.
A year ago, when he was defensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers, his top cornerback, Josh Norman, was about to enter free agency.
Now, as head coach of the Buffalo Bills, his current top cornerback, Stephon Gilmore, is also about to become a free agent.
The Panthers tried negotiating a long-term deal with Norman, but when the numbers grew too steep for their liking, they placed a franchise tag on him.
On Wednesday, NFL teams can begin placing franchise and transition tags on impending free agents. Barring any breakthrough in a negotiation that has gone on for months with no signs of significant progress, it's reasonable to expect the Bills will at least give consideration to putting a franchise tag on Gilmore before letting him hit the open market. This year's projected franchise tag for cornerbacks is $14.3 million.
Given that the Bills don't have a ton of salary cap space and also face a decision on whether to pick up the hefty option on a contract extension for quarterback Tyrod Taylor, one has to wonder how much potential McDermott sees for history repeating itself.
On April 20, with talks for a long-term agreement going nowhere, Panthers General Manager Dave Gettleman rescinded Norman's franchise tag and allowed him to become an unrestricted free agent. Two days later, Norman signed a five-year, $75-million contract with the Washington Redskins.
Since last summer's training camp, Gilmore, whose 2016 salary was $11.082 million, has made overtures that he's seeking a similar, if not better, deal. Since the end of the 2015 season, he has described himself as an "elite corner."
It's fairly clear that, beyond their respective incomes, Gilmore doesn't see any cause for change in the way he and Norman -- both of whom hail from South Carolina -- compare with each other since both entered the NFL in the 2012 draft.
Gilmore, a standout at the University of South Carolina, joined the Bills as a first-round pick, 10th overall. Norman, who starred at Coastal Carolina, was a fifth-round choice, 143rd overall, of the Panthers.
What isn't nearly as clear is how the Bills see his value. Within the last year, one high-ranking team official said the club had no intention of paying Gilmore at the level of Norman. Whether the arrival of McDermott, who is expected to have a strong say in how the roster is assembled, will change that remains to be seen.
For McDermott, turning around a Buffalo defense that has ranked 19th in yards allowed (and 15th and 16th in points allowed) in each of the past two seasons is at or very near the top of his to-do list. Doing so without Gilmore would figure to make that more challenging, at least in the short term.
The scheme that McDermott and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier employ calls for zone coverage, in which Gilmore thrived when Jim Schwartz utilized a similar concept as the Bills' defensive coordinator in 2014. Gilmore also more than held his own while playing primarily man-to-man coverage for former Bills coach Rex Ryan the past two seasons.
Although Norman's absence, alone, wasn't to blame, it certainly was a factor in McDermott's Carolina defense slipping from its No. 6 NFL ranking in points and yards allowed in 2015 to 26th and 21st in those categories a year later. The defensive collapse contributed greatly to the Panthers going from a 15-1 record on the way to Super Bowl 50 to a 6-10 finish last season.
Norman also didn't come close to living up to the money he received, reinforcing the notion he was a far better fit in McDermott's scheme than he was in the defense Joe Barry ran in Washington before being fired after the 2016 season.
As he sets out to get off to the best start possible as a rookie head coach, McDermott is undoubtedly seeking all of the help he can get.
Gilmore would figure to be an important piece. Is he important enough for the Bills to pay at least $15 million per season? Is he important enough for them to give him a franchise tag to make sure he doesn't get away?CLOSE Plans for 88 Elm St. would tranform the vacant office building. Brian Sharp
Buy Photo A view of 88 Elm St. looking east from the Midtown site as the building appears today. (Photo: Brian Sharp/staff photographer )Buy Photo
Rising 13 stories, the vacant former office building at the edge of Midtown sits in the shadow of promise but around the corner from problems.
On one side is Midtown Tower. On the other, the old Hotel Cadillac and another vacant property.
Tom Masaschi and his DHD Ventures are betting on promise.
The plan is to convert 88 Elm St. from a bland, brick and cement building with narrow windows into a modern, largely glass mixed-use structure with ground-floor commercial, 36 apartments and a two-story office at the top with a wraparound balcony. The smaller, and somewhat higher-end, units should differentiate it from Midtown Tower, he said. The Tower is getting a $59 million overhaul into 179 modern apartments and three floors of retail/commercial space.
A rendering of 88 Elm St. looking east from the Midtown site as the building would appear once renovated. (Photo: T.Y. Lin International/Staach Design )
Both are banking on the trend of people moving to the center city. The downtown population has nearly doubled since 2000, and currently is estimated at more than 6,000.
"No question (location) is a concern," Masaschi said, referring to Chestnut Street as a risk factor today but likely to become a unique area unto its own in the future.
"We saw (88 Elm) as an opportunity and a bit of a risk. We had to look at the building with different glasses on because the way it sits right now, and the way it looks, it is going to be quite different."
DHD also is "heavily involved in Chestnut," actively pursuing a couple of other properties. He declined to elaborate. And the company owns 111 on East (the former East Avenue Commons) and 120 East Ave., both roughly a block away from 88 Elm St. Working with the city and hotel operator, Masaschi said, "we all figure it out together."
A different developer, Matthew Wood, bought the vacant building at 65 Chestnut St. days after plans to raze and redevelop Midtown first were announced in 2007. Nothing has happened since. DHD since bought the parking lot behind it to service 88 Elm St.
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"The first guys in definitely get a little bloody," Masaschi said.
City approvals await, including sale of the property. The city currently owns 88 Elm St., but has a memorandum of understanding with DHD, after seeking development proposals. DHD is talking with the city and Monroe County about some public assistance, possibly tax incentives.
Construction could begin around the first of the year and would take a year to complete. DHD has yet to establish a firm project cost.
"We saw (88 Elm) having a lot of potential, being part of what is happening with Midtown," said Adam Driscoll, development director with DHD Ventures. "It's all going to be like a domino effect."
BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com
Twitter.com/sharproc
Read or Share this story: http://on.rocne.ws/VveKbzNew England Patriots fans can now support Tom Brady by doing one of the things they’re best at: drinking beer.
The Eagle Brook Saloon in Norfolk, Massachusetts, tapped their Free Brady Blonde IPA—a tribute by owner Chuck Horne to the embattled quarterback of his favorite team. “We just feel like the NFL is taking a shot at the big guy on the block to make a statement,” Horne told ESPN regarding Brady’s four-game suspension. “It's ridiculous.”
Eagle Brook says they have a close relationship with their local NFL franchise. The bar, which is located about 3 miles from Gillette Stadium, was formerly co-owned by Patriots tight end Russ Francis and, according to their website, “remains a hangout for members of the area’s professional football team.” The bar also has a history of working with a local microbrewery to create its own beers, so getting one whipped up for Brady wasn’t much of a stretch.
Though the Free Brady Blonde IPA doesn’t actually do much to help get Brady’s suspension reduced (unless you count angry, drunken emails sent to Roger Goodell after its consumption), it does try to help the reigning Super Bowl MVP in other ways: $1 from each pint goes to a charity of Brady’s choosing. As the bar’s menu says, “We don’t get mad, we get charitable.”
Horne said he’s sold more than 500 glasses of the beer in its first week. Knowing Patriots fans the way I do, he probably sold all those to a total of about 27 people.
Related: 7 People You Always See At a Fantasy Football Draft
Tom Brady's Secret To His Success? Obviously Avocado Ice Cream
The Worst Beer in Baseball May Surprise YouKubikschach 8×8×8 gamespace Three-dimensional chess (or 3D chess) is any chess variant that uses multiple boards representing different levels, allowing the chess pieces to move in three physical dimensions. In practical play, this is usually achieved by boards representing different layers being laid out next to each other. Three-dimensional variants have existed since at least the late 19th century, one of the oldest being Raumschach (German for "Space chess"), invented in 1907 by Ferdinand Maack and considered the classic 3D game. Maack founded a Raumschach club in Hamburg in 1919, which remained active until World War II. Chapter 25 of David Pritchard's The Classified Encyclopedia of Chess Variants discusses some 50 such variations extending chess to three dimensions contains, as well as a handful of higher-dimensional variants. Chapter 11 covers variants using multiple boards normally set side by side which can also be considered to add an extra dimension to chess. "Three-dimensional chess" is used colloquially to describe complex, dynamic systems with many competing entities and interests, including politics, diplomacy and warfare. To describe an individual as "playing three-dimensional chess" implies a higher-order understanding and mastery of the system beyond the comprehension of their peers or ordinary observers.[3] Contents
Kubikschach Edit
Lionel Kieseritzky (1806-1853) developed Kubikschach (German for Cube Chess) in 1851. He used an 8×8×8 board, labelling the third dimension with Greek letters alpha through theta. This format was later picked up by Maack in 1907 when developing Raumschach. According to David Pritchard, this format is: the most popular 3-D board amongst inventors, and at the same time the most mentally indigestible for the players [...] Less demanding on spatial vision, and hence more practical, are those games confined to three 8×8 boards and games with boards smaller than 8×8.
Raumschach Edit
Star Trek Tri-Dimensional Chess Edit
Other three-dimensional chess variants Edit
In fiction Edit
Notes Edit
References EditI'm always skeptical about little green men and their flying machines. There's always one nutter/hoaxer claiming to have captured an UFO on a blurry film. This time, however, it's hard to dismiss because multiple people caught it at the same time. Updated.
The video above shows three videos taken from three different angles by three different people—including one woman from Mississippi—synchronized into one. Here's the first video, showing a bright dot descending and hovering over Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest spots in the world, at the heart of the Jewish-Muslim conflict in Israel:
Yes, it's not very different from other blurry videos, except that this was simultaneously being filmed from different angles by other people around the city. That's the surprising fact. Here are more videos comparing the shots, with a close up of the American tourist's video:
I'm sure that many people will claim some short of divine hand in all this, since this temple has a huge significance for the three dominant religions in the world. According to the Muslim version of the Lord of the Rings, the Dome of the Rock is the place where Muhammad ascended to heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel. They also believe that Muhammad hanged around here with Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. The Jewish also believe that Abraham prepared Isaac for sacrifice.
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I don't know what the hell this is, but that kind of behavior—hovering so close to a building and accelerating at blinding speed upwards—can't be replicated by any flying machine known to humans. Maybe it's all just a very elaborated conspiracy by multiple people from different nationalities and beliefs. Perhaps it is an awesome hoax by someone else—maybe a viral marketing campaign. Or maybe it's a secret Israeli military UAV. I'm only certain of one thing: I can't wait for Bill O'Reilly to tell us about how this was probably Jesus descending in his spaceship to check out if the tides were still working or not.
What do you think? Is this real or a hoax? And if it is real, what do you think it may be?
Update: Here's the fourth video that appears on the initial comparison.Sometimes I feel like the only person who cares about my freedom to direct my own life or the privacy and security of information about me. I bought a MacBook Air a couple of years ago because it seemed light and robust enough to carry around. The hardware meets expectations but so does the software. By this I mean I have always disliked Apple’s arrogant attitude (that is since before the Steve’s started building machines) and now ever so much more so. Let me give you a few examples.
“iCloud works by storing your information securely on a remote server. This online storage capability is also known as “cloud” storage. By securely storing your information online, you can access this information from any device, at any time.” Just what do they mean by “secure”? Any knowledgeable hacker with 2 minutes’ access to my MacBook can get my Apple ID and access to my iCloud account. Bingo — s/he has access to anything stored locally on my hard drive and everything in iCloud. How’s that for security?
OK. So I just won’t use iCloud. Try it. Most of the applications I want to use assume that iCloud will be enabled. The documentation on how to reset the defaults is obscure if it exists at all.
And about Apple help/support/documentation. Have you ever noticed how much of the text is devoted to how “awesome” your user experience is going to be and how little explanation there is about the structure of the software system you are expected to use? Sure, it’s intuitive if you only skim the surface of the program’s capabilities. But not if you are used to any other operating system.
I suppose I should keep my mouth shut while the Steve Jobs admiration frenzy is still in full swing but his legacy is haunting me. Apple is positioning itself to infiltrate every aspect of my existence: communications, entertainment, purchasing, my work (since most of that takes place online), and my movement around the planet. What is to prevent it from transitioning from tracking what I do to dictating what I am allowed to do?
I’m picking on Apple because of its offensive, public presumption that I will think everything it does is groovy but the threat is just as great from its competitors, Google, MicroSoft and others. These are corporations, organized for profit, not morality. They are bigger and better managed than the governments that purport to regulate them.
We are like the proverbial frogs submitting to slowly heating water. Regardless of the accuracy of that tale, the metaphor is still relevant. We are so enthralled with the neat things that we can do with highly-connected, computer technology that most of us are not attending to the pernicious possibilities. We are lulled by claims that our data is secure when only selected segments of the communication channels are protected by encryption. Most data is transmitted in the clear during some portion of its journey. We think of “the cloud” as some sort of heaven for data rather than a physical box full of memory chips under the control of human administrators and programmers. Don’t think for a minute that the security backdoors required by the NSA can’t be opened by anyone else.
What’s the solution? I’m not sure now any more than I was when my phone was tapped during the Viet Nam war. Although I speak out on occasions like this, I mostly lead a quiet, uncontroversial life. Let’s hope nobody notices.
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PocketThe SOPA/PIPA Protest Shows Why There Needs To Be Complete Transparency With TPP
from the keeping-stuff-secret-is-simply-not-an-option dept
The transparency surrounding TPP must increase. If the public feels that the provisions included in TPP jeopardize the openness of the Internet, it will strongly oppose the adoption of TPP. To prevent this from happening, the negotiations concerning the IP chapter must become more transparent. Drafts must be made available online for public comment. The fact that in the past some trade negotiations have had little transparency is irrelevant. The SOPA experience demonstrates that a new era of public engagement in IP policy has begun
Internet users care deeply about its vitality. The overwhelming public opposition to SOPA and PIPA generated by just one day of online protests indicates that the members of the public will take strong and immediate political action to protect this medium which has become a central part of their lives at home, school, and work. IP, at least to the extent it intersects with the Internet, is no longer an issue of only narrow technical interest.
IP rules can have a significant impact on legitimate websites. The Internet democratizes commerce and communications. Platforms such as eBay or YouTube allow individuals and businesses of all sizes to reach large audiences and markets. But IP rules that place too heavy a legal burden on the platforms for user activities, as do SOPA and PIPA, will constrain the growth of this Twenty-First Century medium of trade and discourse.
IP rules can affect international trade. The Internet does not recognize national boundaries. IP rules in one country can affect the operation of websites in another country. SOPA and PIPA would not only impose liability in the United States on non-U.S. websites that may be legal in their host countries; they also would interfere with the operation of these websites in their host countries. Provisions like SOPA and PIPA would allow countries – and indeed, individual companies – to erect trade barriers without following multilaterally agreed procedures with notice and due process.
Lawyer Jonathan Band has written up an execllent analysis for why what happened with SOPA/PIPA (pdf) demonstrates why the Obama administration and the USTR in particularbe significantly more transparent when it comes to TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. TPP, of course, is the evil stepchild of ACTA. Rather than learning that excessive secrecy in ACTA was the wrong approach, it appears that the USTR simply determined that since itwith being so secret with ACTA, it might as well double down and be even more secret with TPP. Not only that, but early reports and leaks from the ultra-secret TPP negotiations suggest that the USTR -- once again acting as the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce's personal waterboys -- was trying to shove in every bad idea that it failed to get into ACTA.However, as Band notes in his paper, the problems with excessive copyright legislation that impacts the internet is becoming a big issue with the public, and that shouldn't be taken lightly. Most of the paper goes through the specific problems of SOPA and PIPA, as well as the public's response to the attempts by the MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce to push through such a ridiculously bad bill that would impact internet sites worldwide. It then uses that to explain why the USTR simply needs to be more transparent:Furthermore, Band makes the point that the USTR (and any government, really) can no longer pretend that copyright laws are obscure laws that do not impact the public. The public has hopefully now clearly established itself as a very important -- if not-- stakeholder in any debates around copyright issues going forward.Finally, the paper makes it clear that, no matter how many times the lobbyists backing these bills and trade agreements like to pretend that they don't impact US sites, that's simply laughable, and the public knows it:These points seem obvious to many of us. The real question is whether or not the administration and the USTR recognize it yet. The fact that it's still been negotating the TPP agreement in secrecy suggests not. That it thinks it can get away with such blatant rent seeking for Hollywood interests, in the face of a public that is now paying attention to these issues shows an incredible disrespect for the public's best interests. It's a shameful statement on whose interests the USTR is really representing -- and the nature of crony capitalism in the US government these days.
Filed Under: acta, pipa, protect ip, sopa, tpp, transparencyIt’s come to this: China’s sports and culture authorities have demanded that square dancing be regulated and choreographed.
According to China.org, more than 600 instructors have been trained for 12 choreographed drills by a panel of expert dancers and fitness trainers.
The panel will be led by fitness trainer Wang Guangcheng, whose square dancing team shot to notoriety after performing on China’s Central Television Spring Festival Gala in February.
These 12 drills will be accompanied by pop music, and introduced to local fitness sites across 31 provinces and municipalities over the next five months.
Aunties and their noisy square-dancing antics have sparked debate across China in the past couple of years, most recently in Xi’an and at the Shanghai Zoo. Residential communities have complained that the dancers’ gatherings disturb public order, despite their intentions of merely promoting a positive form of exercise for elderly groups of people.
However, Liu Guoyong, the chief of China’s Administration of Sport, admits that ‘square dancing represents the collective aspect of Chinese culture‘. He therefore maintains that it will be not banned, but simply guided ‘with national standards and regulations’.
Government-approved Xiaopingguo dance routine Government-approved standard routines for the smash hit Xiaopingguo. Learn it and use it at the next square dancing session at a park near you!体育总局推官方版广场舞 小苹果动作是这样的！READ MORE: http://shst.me/a6v Posted by Shanghaiist on Sunday, 29 March 2015
By Freya TwigdenFifty-four days ago, the NWSL and A+E held a massive media event in Manhattan to announce a new partnership. The proverbial landmark arrangement calls for the fifth-year league to appear on national television. Every week. At the same time. If that were not the answer to what NWSL fans have been clamoring for ever since the YouTube stream of the very first game ran about six minutes behind real time, there were other nuggets as well. A redesign of the NWSL website is in the works as is a new NWSL app. Meanwhile, A+E took an equity stake in the league and the two entities combined to form a marketing arm, NWSL Media.
The event had the feel of something important, even for those of us unable to be there. And there were cupcakes.
As of Tuesday though, only 18 days remain until opening day. That means we’re three-quarters of the way from announcement to kickoff. During that time, no details have been announced about a streaming platform for non-Lifetime matches, the league site is slightly enhanced but not redesigned, there is no app, and no announcement about on-air talent has been made. In the meantime, fans are antsy. They want to know when, how, and at what cost they can watch matches this season. A reasonable request, even if the reasons for the delays are equally reasonable.
The question then, is how did we get so close to the season with so little public information? How did we go from cupcakes to radio silence?
The production is going to be good: All indications are that the television product is going to be somewhere between strong and spectacular. Having spoken off the record to people involved at many different levels of the group that will put on the games, I’m expecting good things. There are big time and experienced soccer and television people in the mix at all levels. Anyone thinking we’re going to get soft, aw shucks coverage is mistaken.
At some point I expect Jenn Hildreth and Aly Wager to be announced as the broadcast team for the national games and they will travel to each city. Any production can only be as good as its voices, and these two will offer immediate legitimacy to NWSL on Lifetime. Hildreth has called the last two NWSL Championships—and with this deal it seems, the next three—and has been involved since WPS. Her call of Amy Rodriguez’s goal in the 2015 title match, while recognizing on the fly that beaten right back Elli Reed had just subbed into the match unexpectedly, was a stroke of brilliance.
{MORE: Weekend preseason roundup | Lee on the Red Stars’ winning off season}
Wagner, noted for her commentary of international matches, dipped her toe in the NWSL waters as an analyst at the draft. She is one of the few who has been able to balance the knowledge she acquired from having played the sport at its highest levels with unflinching balance and hard-hitting critiques when needed.
Having been personally ousted from Sky Blue FC’s local broadcast team so the remainder of the matches can be handled out of a central studio, I will withhold my opinion on that arrangement. But for those in agreement with my colleague Hannah Kronick, keep in mind there will be benefits to having the broadcasts centralized.
But why so quiet? Immediately after the announcement, I set out to book an interview with someone at A+E to discuss how the deal came about and to gain a deeper understanding of how things will work, the expectations, and things of that nature. The interview, as well as one with then-NWSL commissioner Jeff Plush, was eventually cancelled. This is not intended as a woe-is-me tale, but taking me out of the mix, I have yet to see a single item from either the league or A+E with any quotes outside of what was said at the launch event.
Even if NWSL is on the verge of using Lifetime to break through into the public consciousness, this is, simply put, a public relations fail. Every outlet that covers women’s soccer, and probably several who don’t, would have easily been sold on doing an interview with anyone high up the food chain at A+E or NWSL. This has not happened. Instead NWSL was left holding the bag when Carli Lloyd announced her move to Manchester City (she herself has said she expects to be back in Houston this summer) and slipped Plush’s resignation in midway through the SheBelieves Cup.
On Tuesday, an NWSL spokesperson told me they league is working hard on finalizing linear and digital broadcast plans for the 2017 season. The person added that there have been positive developments and offered optimism that the broadcasts would be of greater quality and be in more households this year. No details though on a partner or timeline.
{POINT4POINT: Lauletta, Kronick discuss NWSL, A&E deal}
The virtual radio silence gives this all the feel of episodic television. But guess what? Many of those shows are experts at keeping themselves in the public conversation. Pete Nowalk, the showrunner for How to Get Away With Murder, often conducts interviews to be posted in the minutes after an episode airs. Many cast members will do the same. A deep dive into these Q&As reveals that that tell us very little—maybe a nugget about what we might find out in a week’s time. But they serve notice that the show is alive and well and they undoubtedly drive conversation among viewers and even potential viewers.
It makes sense that all parties want everything in perfect order before announcing details on the new streaming partner (at this point you can rule out YouTube.) There was a lengthy conference call with A+E executives and the clubs on Monday, but multiple sources have indicated there was no reveal about who the new streaming partner will be. Could they really not know yet? That’s doubtful, but these things take time to test and develop. My original thought that the Portland tournament would be used as the testing ground for the new streaming partner did not happen.
Regardless, the silence is boggling to the mind. If you watch even a little Major League Soccer, you know that its commissioner Don Garber takes every possible opportunity to wax poetic about the league’s growth and future. Of course MLS, despite its recent successes, is not quite as healthy or vibrant as Garber will have you believe. But neither is NWSL as desolate as its perpetual silence would have you believe. And I ask, which of those arrangement has a better feel to it?
In conclusion: I’ve been among the most vocal skeptics of the A+E arrangement, but despite that I really do believe this will be a major net positive for the league. Especially if the production value on the Lifetime games is as high quality as I expect it to be, this should be a banner year for NWSL. The texture of the schedule is the best it has ever been for any season of women’s pro soccer dating back to WUSA, the quality of play is only getting better, and with a sustainable league we finally have clubs with established identities we’re all familiar with.
The radio silence is deafening though. We enjoyed the cupcakes, but we’re ready for the rest of the meal.A pedestrian was killed and six other people were wounded Monday afternoon when a terrorist went on the rampage in an industrial digger in central Jerusalem.
VIDEOS: Terror returns to the streets of Jerusalem
The terrorist hit the man as he walked on the street, as well as a bus and a car before being shot dead by an officer from the Israel Prison Service who was in the area. Images from the scene showed an overturned bus, and the the terrorist dead in the cabin of the digger.
Security officials at the |
energy of the spacecraft as it's moving past the object, and we're not asking the system to brake, so you save energy and delta v [change in velocity]."
The team's concept currently calls for a sample-return spacecraft to carry six lightweight, rocket-shaped "penetrators," which would be swung down at the target object(s) from orbit or during a flyby using a miles-long space tether.
The penetrators would hit at high speed — up to 2,240 mph (3,605 km/h, or 1 km/sec) or so — and go deep beneath the surface. During the impact, they would collect several kilograms of material in a sampling canister, which would be reeled back to the parent probe by the tether for eventual return to Earth. (The outer shell of the penetrator would remain in the ground.)
The six-shooter approach enables the collection of multiple samples — an enticing prospect for scientists, Winglee said.
"Going to one spot is both expensive and typically will raise more questions than it answers," he said. "There's a lot of cost reduction in doing multiple ones [samples], and the scientific return will be geometric at least, because then you've got several samples from different points, and you can actually see what the homogeneities in the system are."
Solar system bodies that could be the target of a "hard landing" sample-return mission range from tiny asteroids all the way up to bodies as large as Jupiter's moon Europa and the planet Mercury, the researchers wrote in their NASA report.
A tether-penetrator system could also be used on Earth to take samples from extreme or hazardous environments, such as the inside of a volcano or ground contaminated by a nuclear accident, Winglee said.
Tough material
Winglee's team has received two rounds of NIAC funding in the last two years to advance their research. Part of the work involves devising and testing energy-absorbing materials that can withstand the tremendous forces a penetrator will experience when it crashes into its target body.
They've made significant progress in this respect, team members said. For example, prototypes that were slammed into the ground during field tests in Nevada's Black Rock Desert last year performed well at impact speeds of 450 mph and 900 mph (725 km/h and 1,450 km/h).
"Because of the innovations that we've been working on, we're actually getting really, really close to having a penetrator that can survive a well over 1,000-meter-per-second impact," said team member Chad Truitt, also of the University of Washington.
Winglee and his colleagues hope that further success will bring in more money, allowing them to mount a much more elaborate and telling test.
"We would love to go to do a realistic one in space, but that's not cheap," Winglee said. "I think that when we demonstrate that we can survive a 1-kilometer-per-second impact and pull sample out, then I think we would hope that the NASA supporters would say, 'That is something that should really be tried in space.'"
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Link opens in new tab
Thanks for your support -- It does make a difference
Use Case
The Selenium bindings for NodeJS are very nice that everything is a promise. When you are sending a command to the browser, this command might pass (say, return the element if found), or fail (say, trying to click an element that doesn’t exist), so, it’s a good fit for promises.
However, when I write tests, I think of them as a sequence of steps. With promises, the next step is always in a then() function.
But no one wants to keep nesting code like
x.then((y)=>y.then( (z)=>z.then(...) )).
Selenium extends promises so that you don’t have to do this all the time, but I soon hit limits (like loops).
Then I remembered reading about TypeScript support for async/await. When I tried it, the coding experience was nice, but I had to do a bit of setup.
Configuring Async / Await In TypeScript
I had to turn some experimental flags on, and target ES6. The easiest way to do this is to create a tsconfig.json file in the directory where I run tsc (TypeScript compiler) from. Here’s what mine mainly looked like:
<code>{ "compilerOptions": { "target": "ES6", "experimentalDecorators": true, "emitDecoratorMetadata": true, "experimentalAsyncFunctions": true }, "files": [ "app/**/*.ts" ], "exclude": [ "node_modules" ] } </code>
Node, ES6, Babel, And ES7
I tried to run the output of TypeScript in Node, but it didn’t work. It complained about import statements. It seems that Node doesn’t understand ES6 module system, not very surprising given it has its own module system too, commonJS.
TypeScript can target commonJS, but async/await is only supported when targeting ES6.
So, I decided to take the output through Babel before I run it with NodeJS.
Side Note: Babel already had support for async/await as it’s also coming to ES7. But by the time I got to that I was already happy with my autocomplete experience in TypeScript that I wanted to continue with this setup.
Using Atom Editor
It was so easy to get babel to work with TypeScript in Atom. I had atom-typescript package installed, and it suppoted an extra property in tsconfig.json :
<code>"externalTranspiler": "babel" </code>
This is a NON-standard TypeScript property. But it allowed me to work very happily with Atom, and my.ts files processed via TypeScript and Babel whenever I save them.
This approach had a main no-go issue though. Anyone who pulls my code should be able to get it to work without me committing the “auto-generated” JS files, and without the others having my Atom setup, and building the project from Atom. This won’t work in CI build server.
Using Gulp Tasks
At this point, I decided to have a gulp task that does the transformation. It turned out to be very easy.
The following code sets gulp to process all.ts files in “app” folder via TypeScript and Babel, and save them as.js files:
<code>var gulp = require("gulp"); var ts = require("gulp-typescript"); var babel = require("gulp-babel"); var rename = require("gulp-rename"); gulp.task("ts-babel", function () { // Using my existing tsconfig.json file var tsProject = ts.createProject(__dirname + "/tsconfig.json"); // The `base` part is needed so // that `dest()` doesnt map folders correctly after rename return gulp.src("app/**/*.ts", { base: "./" }).pipe(ts(tsProject)).pipe(babel({ optional: ["runtime"] })).pipe(rename(function (path) { path.extname = ".js"; })).pipe(gulp.dest(".")); }); </code>
You might wonder why did I do both transformations in the same task. That’s mainly to save disk writes, so that I don’t have to write an ES6 file that’s never going to be used except for Babel processing.
If you want to split them, should be easy, like:
<code>var gulp = require('gulp'); var ts = require('gulp-typescript'); var babel = require('gulp-babel'); var rename = require('gulp-rename'); gulp.task('tsc', function() { var tsProject = ts.createProject(__dirname + '/tsconfig.json'); return gulp.src('app/**/*.ts', { base: './' }).pipe(ts(tsProject)).pipe(rename(function (path) { path.extname = '.babel'; })).pipe(gulp.dest('.')); }); gulp.task('babel', function() { return gulp.src('app/**/*.babel', { base: './' }).pipe(babel()).pipe(rename(function (path) { path.extname = '.js'; })).pipe(gulp.dest('.')); }); gulp.task('ts-babel', ['tsc', 'babel']); </code>
NPM Prerequisites
To run these, you need to install the needed packages:
<code>npm install gulp gulp-typescript gulp-babel gulp-rename babel-runtime --save-dev </code>
Example & Conclusion
So, that’s all it takes to run the compilation/transpilation. You might want to hook this into nodemon or some gulp-watch task etc., but this is not specific to TypeScript or babel in any way, so, I thought it’s not worth mentioning here.
If you are curious about the code that I needed this setup for, check out my sample code post.
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Thanks for your support -- It does make a difference'The Young Turks' host Cenk Uygur, a Bernie Sanders supporter, speaks with CNN's Brian Stelter about his assessment that CNN is biased against Bernie Sanders because they plan to call the nomination for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night (while including superdelegates who only vote at the convention in their hypothetical delegate total).
Stelter berated Uygur for standing in the way of the first female presidential nominee.
Uygur says that it is journalistically unethical to include the votes of superdelegates to put Clinton over the top, because those delegate only cast their votes at the convention. The convention is more than a month from now, and Uygur says that the possibility of Clinton being indicted over her email server still exists.
"Brian, I hear you have Reliable Sources, so tell me: Do you have any reliable sources inside the FBI or the State Department who have told you that she is not going to get indicted? Because that would be news," Ugyur said, referencing the name of Stelter's CNN show.
"I do not," Stelter admitted before changing the subject. "Other that that, it seems to me that you are misleading your audience. Giving them more hope than they should actually have."
"I tell people about the delegate math all the time," Uygur responded. "And as Bernie Sanders himself said, it is an uphill battle for him to win the pledged delegates... I have challenged Bernie Sanders on my program, I said look, if there are more pledged delegates on her side, and there is no indictment, then the race is over. That is an if, though, it has not happened, and the superdelegates do not vote until the convention. So for you guys to call it [for Clinton on Tuesday night], when you don't know what the circumstance are going to be, it is simply incorrect. It is not journalism.""I always saw that he was a great goalie but also thought that he was too small."
"I am the number one"
Let's rewind back to fall of 2012. Saros had started his second season with HPK U20 but things weren't going well. Saros was letting in unusually soft goals.
"He seemed angry and tight. He had set a bar for himself and it was really high. He was really critical towards himself" Lukkari reveals.
"Playing became forced because he thought that he had to be above the bar he had set for himself. We had to work to make playing enjoyable again. He had to became more relaxed so he would be able to get his flow back"
The duo got back on track. Saros was the number one goalie when HPK U20 won their first ever Championship.
Although he was great with HPK, the games with national team weren't going so well. He had one more obstacle to overcome.
"He was playing in Husso's shadow in the national team. His biggest problem was mental. He was too nervous and it showed in his play" Lukkari tells.
It sounds almost unbelievable considering that Saros' mental toughness is one of his biggest strengths now.
"Juuse was really humble and modest. He was too humble and modest. We worked on the nervousness a lot. I tried to get him to adopt an attitude where he could say to himself that he is the number one goalie for the national team without being cocky" Lukkari describes.
Finally the mental exercises paid off. During the 2012-2013 season Saros was number one goalie for Finland's U18 team. He played all games in U18 World Championships in Sochi. He was praised by his own and by his opponents.
"Saros won USA basically by himself. I've seen only a few of his games but he seems outstanding" Connor McDavid told Jatkoaika during the World Championships.
Finland won the bronze medals and Saros was selected as the best goaltender in the tournament. Although everything seemed to be going smoothly Saros doubted himself before the tournament.
"He told me that he was really tired, both physically and mentally. In the locker room he was thinking by himself about how could he be a winning goaltender in the World Championships" Lukkari recalls.
Saros thought about it for a moment and then started walking towards the rink. On the way he had decided that he would imagine he wasn't going to play in the World Championships but, instead, was playing roller hockey and having fun with his friends in Hämeenlinna.
Too small or athletic enough?
Summer of 2013 was exciting for Saros. He was eligible to be drafted in the NHL.
Scouts had taken notice when Saros was playing with HPK U20 team. He got more attention after the successful Sochi tournament.
Despite outstanding statistics and great abilities there was something that would affect drafting Saros, and there was nothing he could do about it. NHL teams like big goalies. Saros was only 5'10".
"NHL teams started drafting big goalies and we didn't take Juuse so seriously. I always saw that he was a great goalie but also thought that he was too small. But he never played poorly" Nashville Predators' scout Janne Kekäläinen recalls.
Predators had three picks on fourth round. They drafted center Felix Girard and sold one of their picks to St. Louis Blues. The third pick they used to take Saros.
Predators weren't supposed to draft a goaltender at all. Pekka Rinne has just signed a seven-year and 49 million dollar contract few years back. Predators also had goalie prospects in their system behind Rinne. They had Swedish Magnus Hellberg and Czech Marek Mazanec.
Saros fell on Preds' lap as a 99th overall pick.
"I was expecting him to go earlier. All of a sudden he was still available on fourth round. Our head scout asked me to come over and asked me if we should pick Saros. I said that we should absolutely do that" Kekäläinen says with a smile.
GM David Poile believes that Saros would have ended in some other team if he just was a bit taller.
"Teams don't draft many goalies that are 6-foot or under. If he was taller he would have gone in the first or second round. His size has been an issue throughout his career so far and it will be until he makes it in the NHL regularly." Poile says.
"Athletically, he is on elite level. Not just compared to other goalies but compared to other athletes, too."
Lukkari and Saros have developed techniques that helps Saros play bigger.
When he drops down he keeps his posture higher. That helps him cover the top of the goal, but Lukkari also believes that it's better for the hip joints and helps Saros move better.
"Juuse thought about these things himself and every once in a while I asked him what kind of situations he would like to practice. He would tell me and I would make up a drill for the situation." Lukkari says.
When playing floorball and soccer as a junior Saros was never a goalie. Playing on field helped him develop his play between the pipes. He would read the play better and would be one step ahead of the situation.
He was also mentally tougher. Mental toughness was one of the best known qualities when he made it from the juniors to Liiga.
"I don't know anyone who is mentally tougher and had developed so much. He succeeds in every challenge we give him and he does it superbly." Kekäläinen praises.
"Juuse's biggest talent is his devotion and how determinedly he practices. That makes him a top athlete." former head coach Salo says.When something–anything–beats expectations these days, it’s big news. This morning, the Commerce Department reported that durable goods orders had risen 0.8%, instead of dropping 1.2%, as expected.
What does that mean? A durable good is something that can be used repeatedly, for several years. The category includes furniture, automobiles, planes, and appliances. Orders are a way of gauging the health of the manufacturing sector, as well as future business investment.
What drove the recent spike? Transportation, according to Forbes:
Orders for transportation equipment rose 6.3% and accounted for the overall increase in durable goods orders. Orders for civil aircraft rose 29.7%, orders for defense aircraft rose 10.1%, and orders for motor vehicles and parts rose 3.0%, the largest gain since July 2007.
Bloomberg lists a caveat:
Bookings for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a measure of future business investment, fell 1.4 percent after a 2.2 percent decrease in August.
In other words, two volatile manufacturing industries, planes and cars, showed increases. The defense industry is doing well, thanks to the Middle East. But overall, the picture still looks grim. Manufacturing, a major driver of the economy, is weak. This is not surprising, given previous years’ offshoring patterns.
BloggingStocks adds analysis:
Given slowing international demand and the pullback in U.S. consumer spending, the manufacturing sector remains a major concern for policy makers: it’s really hard for the U.S. economy to grow at an adequate rate without a healthy manufacturing sector.
The big question remains: What will policymakers and manufacturers do about this problem? (Besides cutting interest rates.)Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. Content can be viewed at actual source page: http://youtu.be/dtfiH7ud6Yk Video by Katie Schoolov
Electronic cigarettes are catching fire nationwide.
E-cigarettes are touted as a harmless, high-tech alternative to cigarettes. But critics say they're an insidious way to get people addicted to nicotine.
E-cigarettes offer the sensation of smoking, without burning tobacco. These battery-operated devices heat up liquid nicotine and turn it into vapor. Users say they’re a lot safer than smoking cigarettes. But public health experts aren’t so sure.
At Vapor Craze, an e-cigarette shop across from San Diego State, Jeff Pascua puffs away. Or, as he calls it, vapes.
Every few moments, Pascua reloads his e-cigarette from a small plastic bottle.
"It’s called the e-liquid juice," Pascua said. "Two types: VG and PG. Vegetable glyceride, and then propylene, I can’t pronounce that."
Pascua used to smoke cigarettes. Then he heard about e-cigarettes and decided to give them a try.
Pascua said vaping helps him curb his cravings for a real smoke.
"It’s just there when I need that feeling, you know? Breaking a habit is hard to do," Pascua explained.
Vapor Craze sells more than two dozen flavors of e-liquid juice. Pascua prefers the banana walnut flavor known as Monkey Business. He’s knows the juice contains nicotine, but he’s not worried about it.
"From what I’ve read and seen and heard people talk about, nicotine is just like caffeine — good in moderation," Pascua said. "I’m not saying everyone should do it, but, in moderation it’s not harmful enough, you know?"
There are a number of different types of vaping products. Starter kits can cost as little as $30. High-end devices with digital readouts can run in the hundreds.
Vapor Craze worker Vance Pope loves vaping. With every vape he takes, he blows out smoke that looks like car exhaust on a cold day. Pope thinks his job selling vaping stuff is awesome.
"Because I feel like I’m changing lives. Getting people off cigarettes and changing the actual notion, of the look, or the feel of actually smoking," Pope said.
Before discovering vaping, Pope was a two-pack-a-day smoker. And now?
"It’s just such a positive attitude that I face around other people, by not smoking at all," he said. "And I don’t get the little snickers of wow, your clothes stink, or, that kind of thing, or, you stink, dude! You know, it’s a great feeling."
E-cigarettes were invented in China. They were introduced in the U.S. in 2006. Since then, e-cigarettes have become a multibillion-dollar industry.
But unlike tobacco products, e-cigarettes aren’t regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. As a result, ads featuring sexy, scantily clad women touting e-cigarettes are all over TV. Some argue these ads target children.
The Centers for Disease Control reported 1.8 million teens used e-cigarettes last year. That’s a 100 percent increase from the previous year. Word on the street is, e-cigarettes are sort of cool, and high-tech. The big question is: Are they safe?
Dr. Thomas Novotny, a former U.S. assistant surgeon general and professor at the San Diego State University School of Public Health, said the jury is still out.
"We don’t really know what the hazards are, because the research hasn’t been done," he said. "I think the biggest hazard is nicotine addiction, and the normalization of smoking, I mean, the re-normalization of it. And this is really disturbing, because it’s taken us decades to get smoking to be less than socially acceptable and to be restricted in public places, so that people are free from the exposure, and also to sort of reduce the uptake of smoking by kids.”
In the absence of federal regulations, four states and the District of Columbia have included e-cigarettes in their indoor smoking bans. California is said to be considering similar action.
Vista has become the first city in San Diego County to ban e-cigarettes wherever smoking is prohibited, and the Carlsbad City Council passed a similar measure on Tuesday.
Vista City Councilman Cody Campbell says it’s the right thing to do.
"Basically we’re saying that it’s not OK to encourage youth in our communities to choose this product, and basically become addicted," Campbell said.
The Sweetwater Union High School District is ahead of the curve, too. Communications director Manuel Rubio said in October the South Bay district added e-cigarettes to its ban on tobacco products on campuses and at all student events.
“We had a couple of instances at our campuses, where students were bringing them to school, they were showing them to their friends, and they were playing with them," Rubio said. "And we just thought, you know what, before it becomes a bigger issue, why not take a step out there, and do the right thing for kids.”
Back at Vapor Craze, Vance Pope doesn’t buy the arguments against e-cigarettes. He said flavors like sugar daddy and juicy booty aren’t designed for kids. After all, his store doesn’t let kids under 18 buy e-cigarettes.
"But as long as they’re 18, I feel like that’s their choice," Pope said.
The FDA has developed some rules on e-cigarettes, but hasn’t made them public yet.
Officials say the White House is reviewing the proposal.
To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.This page lists individuals and organisations who publicly expressed an opinion regarding the Scottish independence referendum, 2014.
Against independence [ edit ]
Political parties [ edit ]
Registered political parties
Non-participant political parties
Campaigning groups and individuals [ edit ]
The following organisations and individuals registered with the Electoral Commission as supporting a No vote.[1]
Publications [ edit ]
Newspapers
Magazines
Businesses [ edit ]
Trade unions [ edit ]
Other organisations [ edit ]
Individuals [ edit ]
Politicians [ edit ]
Contested elections with Scotland
Within the rest of the United Kingdom
International
Business people [ edit ]
Actors [ edit ]
Musicians [ edit ]
Sportspeople [ edit ]
Writers and academics [ edit ]
Other public figures [ edit ]
For independence [ edit ]
Political parties [ edit ]
Registered political parties
Non-participant political parties
Campaigning groups and individuals [ edit ]
The following groups and individuals registered with the Electoral Commission as supporting a Yes vote.[1]
Publications [ edit ]
Newspapers
Trade unions [ edit ]
Other organisations [ edit ]
Individuals [ edit ]
Politicians [ edit ]
Contested elections with Scotland
Within the rest of the United Kingdom
International
Business people [ edit ]
Actors [ edit ]
Musicians [ edit ]
Gerry Cinnamon
Sportspeople [ edit ]
Writers and academics [ edit ]
Other public figures [ edit ]
Officially endorse neither side [ edit ]
After the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) attempted to register with the Electoral Commission as a group supporting a "no" vote in the referendum, several organisations resigned or suspended their membership of the CBI in order to maintain their neutrality.[337] The CBI had its registration annulled,[338] with its director saying that the attempt to register had given the misleading impression that it was a political entity.[339]
Political parties [ edit ]
Publications [ edit ]
Newspapers
Trade unions [ edit ]
Businesses [ edit ]
Other organisations [ edit ]
Individuals [ edit ]
Other opinions [ edit ]
A compilation of "doubters" by Better Together and journalist Simon Johnson was published by the Daily Telegraph on 24 March 2014.[376] It listed individuals and organisations who have raised concerns about Scottish independence, although they have not necessarily expressed outright opposition.[376] During the financial reporting season in early 2014, several companies (including Aggreko, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclays, Standard Life, Royal Bank of Scotland, Macfarlane Group and Breedon Aggregates) listed Scottish independence as an issue in their risk management sections.[377]
Businessmen, including Sir Tom Hunter and Sir Tom Farmer, called for more clarity in the referendum debate to best make a decision.[378]
In 2012, the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) published a report called A Just Scotland, which laid out "challenges for both sides of the debate", in particular calling on Better Together to "outline a practical vision of how social and economic justice can be achieved within the union".[379] The STUC had previously refused an offer to join the Better Together campaign.[380]0 Owners, vets reporting even more deaths suspected to be connected to Trifexis
Channel 2 consumer investigator Jim Strickland has discovered that hundreds more pet deaths are now blamed on a popular dog medicine.
Since Strickland first reported data collected by the Food and Drug Administration eight months ago, the number of death complaints is up nearly 40 percent, now coming in at a rate greater than one dog per day.The FDA cautions there is no solid evidence linking Trifexis to any dog's death. The reports are simply complaints from owners and vets in which the pill is suspected."It's just horrendous to watch an animal die such a horrible, painful, excruciating death," said Acworth resident Anita Bergen.Bergen's case is included in the FDA data.Her Scottie named Fergus was 10 years old when she tried Trifexis."The initial reaction from taking that one pill was horrible," Bergen said."One pill?" asked Strickland."One Trifexis pill was all he ever had."Bergen says the dog lost all muscle control, lost his thirst and suffered liver failure. She euthanized him two months after giving him the pill."I do feel deceived. I do not feel there was full disclosure," Bergen said.Trifexis is a once-a-month pill to kill fleas, control parasites and prevent heartworm. TV commercials list side effects like vomiting and lethargy, but not death.Strickland learned through the Freedom of Information Act that the FDA lists 965 complaints of dog deaths blamed on Trifexis.That's an increase of 38 percent in the last eight months, and close to the total of 1,000 deaths linked to Chinese-made chicken jerky pet treats.Drug maker Elanco maintains it can find no link between the pill and any dog fatalities."I see that as a cause for investigation, and as they're looking at those causes. I feel confident the FDA will follow through, but from our experience, we haven't seen it," said Cobb County veterinarian Toby Carmichael.Carmichael says he and his partners have prescribed 75,000 doses of Trifexis with no adverse complications."My dogs have been on Trifexis since it came out and haven't had an issue once,” Carmichael said.Physician Rochelle LePor has given her 7-year-old rescue dog Cooper nearly 40 pills over three years."I can only speak of my experience. For me, it’s like a wonder drug," she said."The FDA is not going to allow a product on the market that's going to hurt animals," added Carmichael.Reports to Elanco's customer hotline have had an impact. There are now nearly 1,500 complaints of lost muscle control; a condition called ataxia.Elanco added ataxia to its list of side effects two years ago.Elanco also added seizures, the malady that hit a prize bulldog named Foxy, owned by 50-year veteran breeder Nancy Harrison.The dog developed additional symptoms beyond her veterinarian's control."So you were forced to euthanize her?" Strickland asked."Yeah, if you saw it, you wouldn't want to live with it either. And never in 52 years had I had one before,” Harrison said.Harrison stopped using the drug, even though her other dogs handled it without issue."It's hard to lose a dog. They're my children," said Harrison.The mystery of their dogs’ deaths eats at her and Bergen."All the tests that are done, they're all inconclusive. No one can ever say this death is absolutely the result of administering this particular medication. But all the owners, all the pet caregivers know," said Bergen.The FDA says it's continuing to monitor reports, and considers the product label a living document. To date, there are no plans to list death as even a rare but potential side effect.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A 25-year-old health worker has been jailed after convincing a former lover that a child she was baby-sitting was in fact his son.
Charmaine Leigh Wilson, 25, of Garfield Avenue, Bridgend forged a birth certificate and DNA test results to convince Liam Griffiths he was the father of her child - when the baby actually belonged to her friend.
Wilson was jailed for four months after admitting two charges of making a false document under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981.
The court heard how the defendant had met Liam Griffiths on a night out three-years-ago when he gave her a lift home.
Helen Edwards, prosecuting said Wilson had subsequently terminated a pregnancy following a one night stand between the pair but had become “besotted” with her victim and began bombarding him with messages via text and social media.
Health worker Wilson later met Griffith’s family at Bridgend’s Princess of Wales hospital where the victim’s grandfather was being treated for terminal cancer.
It was there she introduced a child to Liam’s mother, Cathryn Thomas, describing the little boy as her grandchild, to the “complete surprise” of family members.
The court was told how the defendant later created a false birth certificate and results of a DNA test, which Liam Griffiths had provided her a sample for.
Wilson meanwhile, who had been an unpaid child minder for the boy since his birth would regularly visit the family with the child, who they treated as one of their own.
Helen Edwards said: “The grandmother bought the boy clothing and toys and on his second birthday a big party was held.”
She added: “The family decided to build a log cabin in the garden of the family home where Mr Griffiths and his son could live.”
When Griffiths posted a picture of the boy posing in the cabin on Facebook a mutual friend asked the victim “what he was doing with her cousin?”
Helen Edwards said: “The mother then confirmed it was her son.”
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Cathryn Thomas said: “I feel that we have had a family bereavement, having lost a child that I honestly thought was my grandson, who I had bonded with, fallen in love with and spoilt rotten.
“I felt I had missed out on the early part of his life and wanted to make up for the time I had lost as a grandparent.
“The timing of the lie was also a factor as I still haven’t grieved properly for my father, who passed away in February.
“I feel Charmaine took advantage of me and our family at our lowest ebb.
“Finding out the truth of the matter, and that the baby had another name, and that Charmaine had simply borrowed him in passing off as her own has caused me nothing but upset and grief.”
She added: “I haven’t stopped crying for days. I’m still trying to be strong for my son, who has been awful since he found out the child he thought was his own, having had a DNA result, was not.
“He too had bonded terrifically with him, I cannot think of words to say, that a human being could deceive another in this way and cause the hurt and upset is has done to our family.”
In his victim impact statement, Liam Griffiths said: “Everything I see now reminds me of the child I have lost.
“I tried to keep Charmaine on-side and changed my lifestyle for access of the child I thought was my son.
“I’d given up a holiday this summer to work on a home I had planned for me and my son.
“I was in the process of looking for a change of car as I drive a convertible which is not child friendly.
“The only word I can use to describe Charmaine and what she has done is mental.
“I cannot believe she would deceive me in this way.
“I am devastated and heartbroken to have lost a child I thought was my son.
“We fell in love with him from the start.”
Steve Jones, representing the defendant described his client’s actions as a “lie that snowballed out of control” and said the defendant had shown “huge remorse for the pain she had caused” under police interview.
He said that Wilson’s actions had been triggered by the termination of a pregnancy which had left her “heartbroken” and feeling as if she had “lost everything.”
Mr Jones added: “She felt an attachment with Mr Griffiths and wanted to be with him.”
Wilson who has been suspended from her role at Princess of Wales hospital was also issued a restraining order forbidding Wilson from contacting Liam Griffiths or Cathryn Thomas.
Magistrates at Bridgend said her actions had been “calculated over a long period” and added that she had “targeted a family at a vulnerable time.”
Speaking after the hearing, a family member of the child, who did not want to be named, said: “She (the boy’s real mother) had been through a really tough time and had a newborn to take care so her supposed friend was helping with the eldest child.
“She had no idea Wilson was doing this, when she found out she was sickened.
“But the boy is OK, although he keeps asking for his dad, which is absolutely heartbreaking.”25 quotes about chasing your dreams
I’m a geeky quote junkie who’s been collecting my favorite quotes in a journal since the mid-90’s (God I’m getting old, that seems like just yesterday). Here’s a collection of 25 quotes about chasing your dreams. I hope you love them as much as I do.
25 quotes about chasing your dreams
1. “Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.” – Unknown
2. “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” -Colette
3. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Unknown
4. “Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are.” -J.C. Hare and A.W. Hare
5. “If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.” -Anna Quindlen
6. “I have lots of things to prove to myself. One is that I can live my life fearlessly.” – Oprah Winfrey
7. “The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.” -Ben Stein
8. “When it’s over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement.” -Mary Oliver
9. “If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.” – Oscar Wilde
10. “Life is a difficult assignment. We are fragile creatures, expected to function at high rates of speed, and asked to accomplish great and small things each day. These daily activities take enormous amounts of energy. Most things are out of our control. We are surrounded by danger, frustration, grief, and insanity, as well as love, hope, ectasy, and wonder. Being fully human is an exercise in humility, suffering, grace, and great humor. Things and people all around us die, get broken, or are lost. There is no safety or guarantees.
The way to accomplish the assignment of truly living is to engage freely, richly, and deeply in the living of your dreams. We are made to dream and to live those dreams.” – SARK
11. “Follow your bliss.” -Joseph Campbell
12. “I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.” -Mary Oliver
13. “There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.” -Rita Dove
14. “Listen– are you |
parents in Karnal and my mother has cooked a delicious dinner for me,” she said.Jyoti’s ordeal began when her agent emailed her script to Kunal. He met her and they discussed money and credit. She wanted top billing since she had given him a bound, 90-page script. But Kunal wanted certain changes and wanted to buy the script without giving any credit to her. The deal fell through. Jyoti then opened negotiations with another producer with whom she signed an agreement and was given an advance.Meanwhile, Kunal started his film, which will mark his acting debut, and from what she read in the papers, Jyoti detected an uncanny resemblance with her script. Subsequently, she filed a complaint with the Film Writers Association.The Dispute Settlement Committee of the Film Writers Association ruled in Jyoti’s favour, but Kohli appealed at the Appellate Tribunal, which comprises three senior writers. The Tribunal compared the two scripts without being told who had written which one. The Tribunal too detected major overlap in the two scripts. Since Jyoti had registered her script with the Film Writers Association before Kohli began work on his film, the Tribunal declared that it was a clear case of copyright violation.The case then moved to the Joint Dispute Settlement Committee which comprises members of the Federation of Western India Cine Employees to which all 22 trade associations are affiliated. The representatives of the producers association (IMPPA) met with those of the Federation to sort out the issue. “But just before the case came up for hearing, some calls were made seeking confidential information about who was on board prompting Jyoti to move the Bombay High Court asking for a stay on Kohli’s film shoot,” said Anjum Rajabali, activist of the Film Writers Association.The Bombay High Court asked for a guarantee of Rs 50 lakh from Kunal but vacated the stay. That was a dark day for Jyoti who recalls breaking down in court and crying all the way home to Versova in the cab.Many friends from the industry told her to drop the case. They said she stood the risk of being blacklisted. “Bills were mounting and I wanted to be able to focus on my writing. For a moment, the thought of giving up the fight crossed my mind. But then, my husband, Harsh Warrdhan, who’s also a freelance writer, and I decided to move the Supreme Court which in two hearings gave its verdict. Today, I feel vindicated for all those who’ve been through a similar situation and thank my family, friends, the fraternity and even strangers for their unstinting support,” she said.Anjum said the judgement is a shot in the arm for writers who will be encouraged to take their fight for copyright to court now. “Jyoti is not a hugely successful writer, nor does she have plenty of funds behind her,” he said, “but she is a girl with considerable talent and spirit and has shown the fraternity the way ahead.” Kunal has been asked to withdraw the defamation case against Jyoti. He has called her names in the media like ‘extortionist’ and ‘publicity hungry’.ROME — When John Isner received an invitation to play a charity exhibition match in Seattle in late April with Roger Federer, his initial reaction was to double-check the date.
“First, I said, ‘Roger’s doing an event in Seattle then?’” Isner recalled, surprised that Federer, the Swiss star, planned to be in the Pacific Northwest in the middle of the European clay season.
Federer, 35, had already decided to skip clay Masters events in Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome, and made his absence from clay events complete last week, announcing he would withdraw from the French Open, which will begin Sunday.
“I need to recognize that scheduling will be the key to my longevity moving forward,” said Federer, who has won three hardcourt events this year, including the Australian Open.NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—President Obama is about to issue an executive order that would force all Americans to purchase a monthly supply of marijuana, the Fox News Channel reported today.
According to Fox’s Sean Hannity, who broke the story, Obama’s initiative is part of a broader plan to make weed available and affordable to every individual in the United States.
Under Obama’s plan, every American would be required to purchase a government-mandated amount of marijuana per month or face a penalty of up to two thousand dollars.
Hannity said that the President hopes to have the mandatory marijuana plan up and running by 2015, “but they’re still working on the Web site.”
Appearing on Fox, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) took issue with Obama’s recent remark that marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol: “I saw that as an insult.”
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Photograph by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty.Wolf Alice are on the official trailer, but who else will be soundtracking Renton's adventures this time?
There are few movie soundtracks quite as iconic as that of Trainspotting. Now T2 Trainspotting, the much-anticipated sequel to the ’90s movie, is getting tangibly close – so we can get excited about not only the film itself, but the songs that will soundtrack it.
What do we know about the soundtrack to T2 Trainspotting so far?
The clues and reveals came in drips, like a syringe leaking tasty, tasty smack. The official trailer for the film, released in November, featured ‘Born Slippy’ by Underworld, a track that was used in the original. Another track from Trainspotting – Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust For Life’ – was also used in a previous teaser trailer, which perhaps suggested it would be included on the full soundtrack again.
The latter part of the trailer also features ‘Silk’ by the mighty Wolf Alice, whose bassist Theo Ellis was understandably excited.
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WELL. We now know that plenty of other musicians also have good reason to be excited, as the track list for T2 Trainspotting soundtrack was officially revealed on Friday January 13, and it looks like this:
1. Iggy Pop – ‘Lust for Life’ (The Prodigy Remix)
2. High Contrast – ‘Shotgun Mouthwash’
3. Wolf Alice – ‘Silk’
4. Young Fathers – ‘Get Up’
5. Frankie Goes to Hollywood – ‘Relax’
6. Underworld /Ewen Bremner – ‘Eventually But (Spud’s Letter to Gail)’
7. Young Fathers – ‘Only God Knows’
8. The Rubberbandits – ‘Dad’s Best Friend’
9. Blondie – ‘Dreaming’
10. Queen – ‘Radio Ga Ga’
11. Run D.M.C. vs. Jason Nevis – ‘It’s Like That’
12. The Clash – ‘(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais’
13. Young Fathers – ‘Rain or Shine’
14. Fat White Family – ‘Whitest Boy on the Beach’
15. Underworld – ‘Slow Slippy’
So, we can see that ‘Lust For Life’ gets a Prodigy remix, which the dance-punk firestarters – the twisted dance-punk firestarters – rattled off especially for T2 Trainspotting. Here’s a flame-grilled taster of what it’ll sound like, shared via the band’s official Instagram account.
#theprodigy #purefire A video posted by The Prodigy official (@theprodigyofficial) on Dec 2, 2016 at 2:15am PST
Fuck! It sounds massive. And new and exciting. And also weirdly nostalgic. We’re getting #vibes over here. Also new: ‘Only God Knows’ by Young Fathers, the experimental hip-hop group from Edinburgh, the city in which the film is set. Two tracks from the band’s excellent 2015 album ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’.
Irvine Welsh, the author of Trainspotting and its sequel Porno, on which T2 Trainspotting is loosely based, has bigged up Young Fathers in no uncertain terms. Speaking to Gigwise before the soundtrack was confirmed, he said: “Sometimes you get great tracks but they don’t go with it. The one I hope works for the soundtrack is Young Fathers you know they’re Edinburgh. They’ve created their own genre.”
READ MORE: ‘Choose reality TV, slut shaming, revenge porn’: Read the full updated ‘Choose Life’ monologue from ‘Trainspotting 2’
What does the soundtrack need to do?
The original Trainspotting soundtrack was such an integral part of the movie, with tracks by the likes of David Bowie, Sleeper, Primal Scream, Goldie and more enhancing everything that was happening on screen tenfold. The songs became synonymous with the scenes they soundtracked – who can listen to Brian Eno’s ‘Deep Blue Day’ and not think of Renton diving into “the worst toilet in Scotland” or hear ‘Born Slippy’ and not be transported back to the gang’s bleak world?
T2 Trainspotting‘s soundtrack needs to do much the same thing. Creating something as iconic and perfect was obviously a lot easier said than done, but director Danny Boyle is notorious for his ability to select just the right music for his films. Look at the ongoing success of the first one, 20 years after it was first released: it topped the UK vinyl charts upon re-release in November last year (pressed onto delicious orange vinyl) and we still find ourselves waxing lyrical about how it defined 1996 by being generally bloody brilliant. Hopefully the T2 Trainspotting soundtrack will similarly evoke #feelings about 2017 in years to come.
Who should have been on the T2 soundtrack?
We put this question to Wolf Alice, who picked out their ideal fellow soundtrack-ers for us (Let’s Eat Grandma, Foals and Honeybloody FTW). And, yes, the original soundtrack was like a who’s who of ’90s subculture. You’d hope this time round would also reflect the times we’re living in while retaining the edge of its predecessor – no one wants to hear Adele scoring Renton falling in love, right?
Instead, NME reckons Boyle could have looked to artists like Jamie T (‘Tinfoil Boy’ would be perfect), Slaves, Disclosure, man of the moment Skepta and gritty realists Sleaford Mods to give even more life to his creation. How about Jamie xx as this generation’s Underworld? Or The Twilight Sad’s ‘A Girl In The Corner’ to add some authentic Scottish misery to the mix? It was a great idea to include a band as depraved as Fat White Family, but using ‘Touch The Leather’, with all its druggy connotations, rather than ‘Whitest Boy on the Beach, could really be a genius move.
But these are minor quibbles. The soundtrack looks amazing, and we can’t wait for everyone to get it in their ears when it’s released in tandem with the film on January 27. Choose your favourite local record store, choose the awesome T2 Trainspotting soundtrack.Chili's A black veteran says he was refused a free Veterans Day meal at Chili's after a man wearing a shirt supporting President-elect Donald Trump called his military service into question.
On Friday, Ernest Walker visited a Chili's in Cedar Hill, Texas, planning to partake in the chain's offer of a free meal for military veterans, CBS 11 reports.
Walker said everything was normal as he ordered his food. Then, he was approached by a man who questioned his military service.
"I was approached by an old white guy, maybe in his 70s, with a Trump Shirt, at Chili's on Veteran's Day yesterday... He said he was in Germany, and that they did not let Blacks serve over there," Walker wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday.
Walker told Dallas News he was stationed in Hawaii in the 25th Infantry Division during the late 1980s. Black soldiers have fought in every American war since the Revolutionary War, including World War II, though often in segregated units.
Walker said that as he prepared to leave with a to-go box of food, he was approached by the manager of the Chili's location, Wesley Patrick. Walker said Patrick told him that another customer had reported he was not a real veteran and that his dog, who was with him at the restaurant, was not an actual service dog.
"At this point I was grossly offended embarrassed dehumanized and started Recording," Walker, whose name on Facebook is Ernest Blackbatman, wrote in a post accompanying a video that he recorded. "Mr. Wesley snatched my food away, made body contact."
In the video, Patrick repeatedly tells Walker he needs to leave, eventually taking away his to-go box of food.
Walker said in another Facebook post that he joined the military when he was only 16 years old, at a time when he was homeless and sleeping behind a Kroger.
Over the weekend, Walker's Facebook post was shared more than 5,000 times. The Facebook and Twitter accounts of Chili's were flooded with criticism.
"You allow racism among your management staff? I find it hard to believe that your executives would be okay with this behavior," one comment said. "I love your restaurants, I've dined at dozens and dozens of your locations. Now please... so people feel safe next time they eat at a Chilis."
"I will certainly not be dining at Chili's Grill and Bar while they remain silent on hiring racist or bigoted staff who assault African-American veterans," another said.
On Monday, Chili's announced the chain had apologized to Walker and removed the manager from the restaurant.
"Today, we personally apologized to Mr. Walker for the unfortunate experience in our restaurant on Veterans Day and thanked him for his service to our country," Kelli Valade, Chili's president, said in a statement. "We also thanked him for taking the time to speak with us and he appreciated our apology... We took swift action and immediately removed our manager from the restaurant. We are now in the process of working with Mr. Walker on a resolution that promotes trust and healing."
The US has seen a rise in racially motivated attacks after Trump was elected president on Tuesday. Representatives from two organizations that track hate crimes, the Southern Povery Law Center and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told USA Today that they had seen a much larger number of people reporting hate crimes than was typical since the general election.Outside the Barbican Centre, in the City of London, steel crowd barriers define a narrow path to and from the theatre’s stage door. Polite notices ask for consideration of the neighbors. These measures, which have been in place since early August, have done little to contain the public ardor for Benedict Cumberbatch, who ends a wildly successful three-month stint as Hamlet at the Barbican this week. (Tickets to the performances sold out within seven hours, and a live broadcast to movie theatres earlier this month attracted nearly a quarter of a million viewers worldwide. Encore screenings are likely to continue until the sun swallows the Earth.)
On a recent weeknight, the fans were pressed against the barriers, quivering with expectation. Some had seen the night’s performance, whereas others had shown up in hopes of catching one of Cumberbatch’s occasional streetside cameos. One young British man announced, somewhat defiantly, that his loyalties lay with Ciarán Hinds, the “Game of Thrones” star who portrays Claudius in the Barbican production. “What is it with Cumberbatch?” he asked a nearby group of American women, sounding genuinely curious. The women craned their necks around him, angling for a better view of the stage door.
Cast members trickled out. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who plays Laertes, chatted about craft on the edges of the crowd. Jim Norton, who plays Polonius, treated the longing behind the barriers with sympathetic concern, as if it were a mild medical condition. “I do hope Ben will come out,” he muttered as he signed programs. “I think he will.” Hinds emerged, looking harried. “I’m very late,” he said apologetically as he strode by. (“Ciarán!” his acolyte wailed.)
Cumberbatch, who first gained international fame in 2010, for his leading role in the BBC series “Sherlock,” has since become a phenomenon of his own. His audience’s enthusiasm is partly circumstantial: the character of Sherlock Holmes has inspired extreme fan behavior since Arthur Conan Doyle first tried to kill him off, in 1893, and “Sherlock” ’s lovingly irreverent modernization has spread the virus to new generations. Cumberbatch also had the mixed fortune of being a bachelor at the time of his career breakthrough (he has since married the actress and theatre director Sophie Hunter; their first son was born in June). His illusory availability, combined with his exotically imperfect looks and self-deprecating charm, launched a thousand adoring memes.
But the furor around Cumberbatch also has a lot to do with real talent, as his turn as Hamlet makes clear. Onstage at the Barbican, supported by a uniformly excellent cast, Cumberbatch transforms himself into a grief-stricken rich kid from a messed-up family. Like other fine performers, he has the ability to pull his audiences out of their restless, itchy, needy selves and into a larger story, and he applies himself to the job with vigor; after more than seventy shows, he was still crying, sniffling, and sweating his way through the two-hour-plus performance. If the purpose of theatre, as David Mamet wrote, is to “inspire cleansing awe,” then actors, at their best, are secular servants to the ineffable. Offstage and offscreen, fans pursue them not just for a taste of fame but also to get within selfie range of transcendence.
The trouble is that when actors come to see themselves not as well-paid intermediaries but as actual deities (and everything in popular culture encourages them to do so), their power fades. Cumberbatch, who is the child of two actors and grew up in the London arts community, seems unusually alert to this danger. Although he does invite attention, sometimes joyfully so, he acknowledges that his cult is not of his creation. “I’ve been around for ten or fifteen years before this happened and I wasn’t on any lists of the millionth most attractive,” he told Dave Davies of “Fresh Air” earlier this year. “I think it is a reflection of the work and hopefully how I come across when I’m talking about the work, rather than what I actually have got.” For the past several weeks, he has ended his curtain calls at the Barbican with a plea for aid to Syrian migrants, exhorting audience members to leave their change in donation buckets in the foyer.
On the sidewalk outside the theatre, with most of the company now accounted for, the tension mounted. The stage door opened again, revealing not Cumberbatch but Andrew Scott, who portrays the arch-villain Moriarty on “Sherlock.” The crowd issued a collective squeal, thrilled by the unexpected crossover. Scott, who had been in the audience that evening, gamely added his signature to a fusillade of programs. Finally, after a long pause, Cumberbatch appeared in a crewneck sweater and glasses, looking as weary as any other thirty-nine-year-old after a long evening’s work. The crowd screamed, tried to consider the neighbors, and then, as Cumberbatch neared the barriers, seemed to condense and rise up, as if about to crest over itself. Here was a chance for a personal benediction.
Cumberbatch, silhouetted in the glow of camera phones, began to work his way down the line, head bowed over programs and posters. Less then a minute later, however, he straightened, raised a hand, and turned back, disappearing into the theatre. The doors closed and the fans groaned. After a few moments, they began to disperse into the dark.Dear Millennials,
There's an old story about a guy taking a smoke break with his non-smoking colleague.
"How long have you been smoking for?" the colleague asks.
"Thirty years," says the smoker.
"Thirty years!" marvels the co-worker. "That costs so much money. At a pack a day, you're spending $1,900 a year. Had you instead invested that money at an 8% return for the last 30 years, you'd have $250,000 in the bank today. That's enough to buy a Ferrari."
The smoker looked puzzled. "Do you smoke?" he asked his co-worker.
"No."
"So where is your Ferrari?"
When you think about money and saving, stop, look around, and ask yourself: Where are all the Ferraris?
Sure, not everyone with $250,000 should buy a Ferrari, or even wants one. But we know the rough financial position of average Americans, and it isn't within hailing distance of Ferraris. Less than 60% of Americans are saving anything, and two-thirds of those who are have less than $25,000 salted away, according to ConvergEx. Almost half of Americans couldn't come up with $2,000 in the next month if they had to, accord to the National Bureau of Economic Research. According to Nielsen Claritas, Americans age 55 to 64 have a median net worth of $180,000 -- less than they'll likely need for health care spending alone during retirement.
How can so many Americans be so poor if accumulating a lot of money over time is as simple as saving a few dollars a day?
Because most people don't take advantage of what you Millennials have in spades: Time.
You have time on your side. Decades in front of you to save and invest. It's the biggest financial asset you own today, and you're probably not even aware of it. The single best thing you can do for your finances is to realize how valuable it is.
I know you, Millennials. When you think about building money for retirement, you focus on earning more money later in your career. And why not? You'll likely earn far more in your 40s and 50s than in your 20s and 30s. Waiting until you have a nice fat paycheck before you save money makes sense, right?
Wrong.
The average American age 16 to 24 earns $444 a week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those age 25 to 34 earn $707 a week. Workers age 45 to 54 earn $878 a week. And those age 55 to 64 earn about $900 a week.
So, by the time you're in your 50s you can expect to earn about double what you earned in your 20s and 30s. Optimistically.
Compare that to the value of money saved and invested in your 20s and 30s, and we're not in the same ballpark.
For the last 150 years, the S&P 500 has delivered an average annual return of 6.6%, after inflation. During that period, we had nine major wars, 33 recessions, a half dozen financial crises, and an uncountable number of really awful things happen to the economy. Through it all, 6.6% a year is what you averaged. It's the best estimate we have of what stocks will return over the next many decades.
And lucky you, earning a 6.6% return on your savings does nothing short of miracles over time. If you are 20 years old, every dollar you save today will be worth $18.50 by the time you are 65 (and that's adjusted for historical inflation). If you're 30, each dollar saved today will be worth $9.6 by age 65.
Think about that. From the time you are in your 20s and 30s until your 60s, your weekly wages might double. But money saved in your 20s and 30s could very realistically grow tenfold by the time you reach your 60s.
Saving a little bit of money when you are young can be a more efficient way to build wealth than saving a lot when you're older.
I know how ghastly the jobs market is right now, Millennials. And most of you lucky enough to have a job feel as if your paychecks round to zero.
I get it.
But don't overlook the incredible asset you have in time.
Time allows the market to do the heavy-lifting wealth-building for you.
Take advantage of that any way you can. $20 a month. $100 a month. Whatever. Any small amount you save now will likely be more important to your long-term wealth than much larger amounts saved when you're older and earning more money.
This might sound basic and boring, but in 40 years, you will not care what the 200-day moving average is, or how many basis points Treasury yields rose this month, or the short-term forecast of another well-dressed analyst with a charming British accent. I promise. What will matter is whether or not you saved money and invested it for the long haul.
I know you, Millennials. You're spending $5, $10 a day on stupid stuff you probably don't even like while working tirelessly in college and work to boost your future earnings. Once you realize cutting out the former can be as important to your finances as trying to boost the latter, you might find yourself closer to your goals. That's how you leverage your assets. That's how you turn cigarettes into Ferraris.
Good luck.
Check back every Tuesday and Friday for Morgan Housel's columns on finance and economics.
link— Graffiti artist Adam Cole – better known as Adam Cost – has returned to his craft after a self-imposed hiatus to much fanfare in recent years.
But this week, he also found himself back in handcuffs, police said.
Cost, 45, was known during the 1990s as one of the most prolific graffiti artists in the city, police said in a news release. He once specialized in wheat-pasting his tag, “Cost,” onto the walls and doors of private buildings and other structures, police said.
The “Cost” moniker has been appearing again around Manhattan over the past few years, and police said they have again been the lookout. With evidence showing up that Cost was back in the game, NYPD Sixth Precinct Officer Colin Sullivan had read up on Cost and had urged his colleagues to be on the lookout for him, police said.
“The tags I saw recently appeared to be pretty fresh,” Sullivan said in a news release. “Everyone in my unit was aware of what this guy looks like. I’ve been boring these guys to death with Adam Cost pictures.”
Sullivan’s partners in the Cabaret Unit allegedly spotted Cost around 4 a.m. this past Sunday as he walked back to his car on an otherwise desolate West 13th Street in the Meatpacking District, police said. Cost was carrying an extendable pole with a wet brush affixed to it, and his clothes were covered in what appeared to be “goopy paste,” police said.
“We noticed this man who fit (Cost) to a ‘T’,” Sgt. Michael Alfieri said in a news release.
Alfieri, along with officers Craig Sikorski and William Morris, looked up to see a “Cost” tag about two feet high and three feet wide emblazoned about 20 feet over a rare wine shop, police said. Fresh adhesive was still dripping from the tag, and a container full of glue was sitting on the sidewalk below, police said.
The officers found the lid for the drum of glue right next to Cost’s Porsche Cayenne, parked on the same Meatpacking District block between Seventh and Eighth avenues, police said. More glue drums and brushes were inside the SUV, police said.
The NYPD executed a search warrant on the vehicle Wednesday, and took adhesive, brushes, and hundreds of “Cost” stickers and posters, police said.
Cost was charged with criminal mischief, making graffiti, and possession of a graffiti instrument in nine incidents this year. He was released on bail following an arraignment and was due back in court on Friday, police said.
In the 1990s, Cost was best known in New York City for his work with another graffiti artist who went by the name “Revs.” At one time, signs proclaiming each of their names were seen around the city on the back of “walk/don’t walk” signals, and roller pieces reading “Cost/Revs” the two names appeared on larger services.
In a 1995 letter to the editor to the New York Times, Upper East Side resident Robert Davidson called Cost “probably the worst graffiti vandal in the history of New York.”
Cost’s return to the streets as a graffiti artist was front-page news in the Village Voice back in March 2013. At that time, Cost had a new female “bombing partner” called ENX, and their artwork appeared for sale at the Doyle New York Street Art Auction.
The Voice reported that Cost’s work was highly valuable in the art world to the point where his new tags and posters were being stolen off the street. He told the publication he once sold a piece of artwork for over $30,000.
Cost was only arrested a couple of times in 1994. On one occasion he used a broad-tip marker on a subway wall in Queens and was caught with a canister of tear gas, and on another occasion, he was caught tagging the “Cost” moniker onto the steps of another train station, police said.
The Voice reported he was once sentenced by a judge in Queens to 200 days of cleaning graffiti.
Cost then went underground for several years, until his tags resurfaced in 2010. More recently, he has taken to Instagram where he has thousands of followers, police said.
You May Also Be Interested In These StoriesThe losers of the left have worked themselves into such a bizarre hysteria over the fact that they lost the White House that they have lost all connection to reality and are now hyping their most ludicrously paranoid fantasies.
The function of this lunacy is to put off the inevitable moment when they are going to come back to Earth and reckon with the fact that they were horribly wrong and the American people have rejected them. For them, Stephen K. Bannon is the straw man of the hour.
I can’t think of anything stupider than the charge coming from all quarters of the left–including a headline in the pathetically wretched Huffington Post–that Bannon is an anti-Semite. The source? A one sentence claim from an angry ex-wife in divorce court no less, that Bannon didn’t want their kids to go to school with Jews. I find that particularly amusing since Bannon wanted to make a film to celebrate this Jew’s life.
Not to be outdone, CNN, which has been particularly vicious, did a nasty attack on Bannon using another of the thinnest reeds available: This was a headline at Breitbart.com calling Bill Kristol a “renegade Jew.” In fact, neither Breitbart nor Bannon is responsible for that statement. A Jew is. I wrote the article, which was neither requested nor commissioned by Breitbart. And I wrote the headline: “Bill Kristol, Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew.”
I wrote the article when Kristol set out to lead the “Never Trump” movement, after Trump had secured the Republican nomination. I would write it again in a heartbeat. I would write it the same way and with the same headline. Bill Kristol and his friends betrayed the Republican Party, betrayed the American people, and betrayed the Jews when he set out to undermine Trump and elect the criminal Hillary Clinton. Obama and Hillary are supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that launched the Arab drive to destroy Israel and push its Jews into the sea (that was their slogan).
If Obama and Hillary had their way, Egypt’s leader al-Sisi would be overthrown, the Brotherhood would be back in power, and Israel would be facing a threat from the biggest military power in the Middle East and almost certainly at war with Islamic terrorists who openly call for the extermination of the Jews.
I have known Steve Bannon for many years. This is a good man. He does not have an Anti-Semitic bone in his body. In his new position as Chief Strategist in the Trump White House, Bannon is the strongest assurance that people who love this country can have in America’s future, the strongest assurance that America is in the hands of people who will give this country a chance to restore itself and defend itself against its enemies at home and abroad.Steven Gerrard dedicated Liverpool's 3-2 victory over Manchester City to the memory of the 96 men, women and children who lost their lives at Hillsborough, their families and the survivors.
The captain was visibly emotional upon the full-time whistle on Sunday after the Reds had marked their final game before the 25th anniversary of the tragedy with a series of tributes.
"The reason I was so emotional was because of when this game fell," explained Gerrard.
"It wasn't just because it was a big match in our season, it was because this week is always about more than football for everyone associated with Liverpool. It's emotional for so many people.
"I'm speaking on behalf of everyone when I say the win was dedicated to the victims and families of Hillsborough."PARIS (AFP) — French prosecutors have asked the European parliament to lift the immunity of right wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen over an inquiry into alleged fake parliamentary jobs, legal sources said Friday.
The revelation comes just nine days before France heads to the polls for a highly-unpredictable presidential election with Le Pen, who heads the eurosceptic Front National (FN), one of the frontrunners in the April 23 first round.
The demand was made at the end of last month after she invoked her parliamentary immunity in refusing to attend questioning by investigating magistrates on March 10.
The case is linked to an expenses inquiry in which the European Parliament has accused Le Pen’s FN of defrauding it to the tune of some 340,000 euros ($360,000).
The parliament believes the party used funds allotted for parliamentary assistants to pay Le Pen’s personal assistant Catherine Griset and her bodyguard Thierry Legier for party work in France.
French investigators leading the case raided the party’s headquarters outside Paris last month in a bid to determine whether the FN used European funds to pay for 20 assistants — presented as parliamentary aides — who were working for the party elsewhere.
But Le Pen shrugged off the request, saying it was “normal”.
“It’s totally normal procedure, I’m not surprised,” she told Franceinfo radio.Good news: It looks like Robert Griffin III is finally learning the importance of avoiding big hits and instead throwing the ball away when a play breaks down.
Bad news: No one outside the confines of the field -- or the practice facility -- is safe when Griffin decides to throw it away.
Children in sandboxes in backyards near the #Browns facility beware: RG3 has thrown 2 away over 16 foot fence into yards. Hit garage today — Mary Kay Cabot (@MaryKayCabot) June 7, 2016
Before you get all lathered up, this is an encouraging development, even if a nearby garage has to pay the price. One of the big knocks against RG3 during his time in Washington was that he took too many needless hits, those hits accumulated, and injuries ensued.
@MaryKayCabot My sources told me RG3 couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Turns out he CAN connect with a garage. — Nate Vertucci (@NTucc) June 7, 2016
@MaryKayCabot@JasonLaCanfora So are the Browns mathematically eliminated yet? — Drew Malley (@MalleyDrew) June 7, 2016
@MaryKayCabot say what u want about Johnny Manzell but at least he never trashed someone elses house during practice — PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) June 7, 2016
Now the hope is that first-year coach Hue Jackson can revitalize Griffin's career, and that undoubtedly entails living to play another snap. In the meantime, Twitter had a good bit of fun with Mary Kay Cabot's tweet because, well, it's Twitter and it's June.
Taking the long view, the expectations are that Griffin will be named the starter to begin the regular season but Jackson's in no hurry to do so.
RG3 gets a second chance in Cleveland. USATSI
"I don't think (I'm ready yet),'' Jackson said last week. "I'm seeing the improvement out of the whole group that I'm looking for, but we still have a little bit more that I need to see to feel very comfortable and confident in saying 'this is our guy.' They're all competing extremely hard and extremely well and when the time is right, trust me -- you guys will be the first to know what that is that we're going to do.''
Jackson comes to Cleveland with a history of getting the most out of his young quarterbacks, and the hope is that he can do that with Griffin, the 2012 offensive rookie off the year who floundered in his final three seasons with the Redskins. But Jackson has to overcome more than RG3's recent struggles; the Browns have had 24 starting quarterbacks since the team returned to Cleveland in 1999.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A seventh day of strikes and clashes across France
France has begun importing electricity as the wave of strikes against pension reforms takes hold of energy supplies.
The news emerged as President Nicolas Sarkozy warned that the economy and jobs could be hit if the disruption did not end quickly.
In one hour on Wednesday, 5,990 megawatts were imported, equivalent to the output of six nuclear reactors.
At least 12 of France's 58 reactors are shut for maintenance but the unions say production has been cut at four others.
If it is not stopped quickly, this disorder which is aimed at paralysing the country could have consequences for jobs by damaging the normal running of economic activity Nicolas Sarkozy, French President France's 'children of the revolution'
The CGT union said striking workers had lowered output at the Cattenom nuclear plant in north eastern France.
It also claimed that strikers in the South West had cut power to 15 town halls controlled by Mr Sarkozy's UMP party.
France's other energy supplies have already been severely disrupted by industrial action which has left all the country's 12 oil refineries blockaded for more than a week and a quarter of its petrol stations empty. MPs were told on Wednesday that 3,190 had run dry.
Police reopened three fuel depots in western France overnight, after ministers ordered blockades be lifted.
Striking gas workers were also reported to have stopped gas from being injected into the country's network from three out of 12 storage sites.
President Sarkozy issued a statement insisting that the disruption could not continue: "If it is not stopped quickly, this disorder which is aimed at paralysing the country could have consequences for jobs by damaging the normal running of economic activity."
He said he would press ahead with unpopular plans |
Vimeo.What is flexbox?
Flexbox, named also flexible box, is a new layout mode introduced in CSS3, which defines how elements are arranged in a page in a way that they behave predictably under different screen sizes and devices.
It is called flexbox because of its high flexibility on controlling the behaviour of elements in various directions. Compared to the old layout methods like display table and floating inline blocks, it is much easier and more flexible to:
Lay out elements in different directions
Rearrange display order of elements
Align elements to different position
Dynamically fit elements into container
When not to use flexbox?
Flexbox is wonderful for scaling, aligning and re-ordering elements. But try to avoid using flexbox for:
overall page layout
websites which fully support old browsers
Browser support of flexbox. Captured from CanIUse (http://caniuse.com/#search=flex)
Most old browsers, like IE8 or below, do not support or only partially support flexbox. If you want to play safe, you should fall back to old css, for example display: inline-block with float and display: table.
However if your only target on modern browsers such as chrome, firefox, Safari, IE 10+ or Edge, then it is definitely worth giving a try.
Terminology
In a flexbox model, there are:
flex items, the elements being controlled in size and way of alignment
flex container, which contains flex items
flow direction, which determines the layout direction of flex items
Humans learn from experience and examples. So let's start!
Level 1 - Basic
1. Creating a flex container
<div class="flex-container"> <div class="flex-item"></div> <div class="flex-item"></div> </div>
.flex-container { display: flex; }
In order to define a container as flex container, only display: flex is needed. Without setting any extra rule, all direct children are considered as flex items which are laid horizontally from left to right in the same row. If total width of flex items are greater than the container, they will be scaled down so that they all can just fit into the container.
2) Put flex items into one column
.flex-container { display: flex; flex-direction: column; }
See the Pen qZbvaq by Felix Yau (@felixyau) on CodePen.
Flex items can be laid vertically by setting flex-direction: column. It is also possible to lay them in reverse order by setting to flex-direction: column-reverse or flex-direction: row-reverse.
.flex-container { display: flex; flex-direction: column-reverse; }
Level 2 - Beginner
1. Put flex items to the right
.flex-container { display: flex; justify-content: flex-end; }
Recall that there is flex direction for every flexbox model. justify-content is defining where the flex items should be placed along the flex direction. In the example, justify-content: flex-end means items are put to the end of the flex container in horizontal direction. That’s why they are placed to the right.
2. Put flex items to the center
.flex-container { display: flex; justify-content: center; }
It is trivial to center align flex items along the flex direction.
3. Spread out flex items
.flex-container { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; }
Flex items are spread out similarly to justify-content: space-between. However there will be space for the starting edge and ending edge of the flex container. The width will be half of that between 2 adjacent flex items.
4. Align flex items in other direction
.flex-container { display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; }
Usually, we would like to lay elements along the flex direction and at the same time, align flex items in other direction perpendicular to flex direction. By setting justify-content: center and align-items: center, flex items can be placed at the center of flex container both horizontally and vertically.
5. Align a particular flex item
.flex-container { display: flex; align-items: center; }
.flex-bottom { align-self: flex-end; }
Note that besides specifying the way of alignment in flex container, it is also possible to align a particular flex item differently by putting “align-self”.
Level 3 - Intermediate
1. Allow flex items to wrap into other rows/columns
.flex-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; }
By default, flex items are not allowed to wrap and they are resized to fit into one row or column if flex container is not large enough. By putting flex-wrap: wrap, flex items which are causing overflow will then be wrapped to another line.
2. Reverse wrapping
.flex-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap-reverse; }
Flex items are still laid in multiple lines as flex-wrap: wrap-reverse. However the lines start from the end of flex container.
3. Justify position of lines of elements
.flex-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; align-content: flex-start; }
By default, wrapped lines of flex items are stretch to take up all remaining space with equal spacing between 2 adjacent lines. You can set align-content to the flex container to determine the positioning of elements when there is wrapping. Possible values are flex-start, flex-end, center, space-between, space-around and stretch (default value)
Level 4 - Advanced
1. Expand elements
.flex-container { display: flex; }.flex-item.nth-of-type(1){ flex-grow: 1; }.flex-item.nth-of-type(2) { flex-grow: 2; }
flex-grow takes effect only when there is remaining space in a flex container. flex-grow of a flex item is the ratio of container's remaining width/height that the item takes to fit exactly the container's size. Default is set to be 1. When being set to 0, the flex item will take 0% of the remaining space, meaning it will not grow at all. In this example, the ratio is 1:2, meaning the first item will take up ⅓, while the second item will take ⅔ of the space left.
2. Shrink elements
.flex-container { display: flex; }.flex-item:nth-of-type(1) { flex-shrink: 1; }.flex-item:nth-of-type(2) { flex-shrink: 2; }
flex-shrink only takes effect when the flex items overflow the flex container because of insufficient space. It is the ratio of overflowed width/height that the item will reduce to fit exactly the container's size. When being set to 0, the flex item will reduce 0% of the overflowed space, meaning it will not shrink at all. In this example, the ratio is 1:2, meaning the first item will reduce ⅓, while the second item will reduce ⅔ of the extra space.
3. Set the size of elements
.flex-container { display: flex; }.flex-item.nth-of-type(1) { flex-basis: 200px; }.flex-item.nth-of-type(2) { flex-basis: 10%; }
Instead of using the initial size of an element, you can customize its size with flex-basis. By default the value is flex-basis: auto, in this case the initial size calculated from non-flexbox css rules are used. You can also set it to some absolute value and percentage value with respect to the flex container, for example flex-basis: 200px and flex-basis: 10%.
4. Put flex-grow, flex-shrink, flex-basis together
.flex-container { display: flex; }.flex-item:nth-of-type(1) { flex: 1 0 100px; }.flex-item:nth-of-type(2) { flex: 2 0 10%; }
flex is a shorthand for flex-grow, flex-shrink and flex-basis. In this example, the first flex item is set to be flex-grow=1, flex-shrink=0, flex-basis=100px and the second flex item is set to be flex-grow=2, flex-shrink=0, flex-basis=10%. Since there is remaining space for the flex container, only flex-grow takes effects and flew-shrink is ignored.
Conclusion
Flexbox is easy to learn and manipulate. This is very essential especially when nowadays web development cycle is usually short and rapid. If you are not confident enough and want to play around with flexbox, you may visit Flexyboxes and Flexbox Froggy to try out more. You can also read more on css trick: A guide to flexbox and w3c: CSS Flexible Box.Sajad Gani Lone is tall, suave, and an articulate man. At his packed rallies in Kashmir, he dives deep into the crowd, raising slogans of change. In the interiors of the border district of Kupwara in north Kashmir, as young men carry Lone on their shoulders, the cheers grow louder and slogans follow: “Jeeve Jeeve Lone jiye” (Long live Lone).
When Lone, Chairman of the People's Conference, decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, after a brief stint in separatist politics, he had emphasized that fighting elections was “a shift in strategy, not ideology”.
The son of legendary Kashmiri politician Abdul Ghani Lone, the young Lone was dubbed as a ‘traitor’, and accused of splitting his father’s People's Conference, even dividing the Hurriyat Conference - an amalgam of separatist parties - into two. Sajjad’s slain father was in fact the brain behind the formation of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in the early nineties.
But, junior Lone lost his maiden attempt to enter Parliament, and came a distant third in the race for the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency in 2009. Following the humiliating defeat, he chose to turn into a semi-recluse, rarely appearing on television news channels of which he'd been a darling not so long back.
However, slowly and silently, in the past five years, he has trudged from village to village, up and down the rutted tracks, and built his party base in Kupwara, his hometown. In the process, he has focused mainly on youth, the fulcrum of his party, who see in Lone the possibility of change.
Today, the political scene in north Kashmir’s border distract of Kupwara presents a very different picture from 2009. If the current wave survives, Lone might be able to sweep all five seats in Kupwara district, it is being said. He is perhaps the only separatist-turned-mainstream politician in Kashmir valley, who enjoys such a mass following among the young in north Kashmir.
“He has come a long way,” says journalist Ashiq Hussain, who covers the border town of Kupwara for the newspaper Rising Kashmiri.
"He gives a feeling to young of being equal, his friends, not merely political workers. Traffic comes to a halt when people attend his rallies in thousands, and he has been able to convert that into votes,” Hussain adds.
And this has garnered him considerable attention in recent days.
In a surprising move last week, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) national general secretary J P Nadda met Lone in his Sanat Nagar residence, an uptown locality in the summer capital of Kashmir, Srinagar.
Nadda is a very senior party functionary, tipped to be a minister in Modi's Cabinet when an expansion is undertaken. Nadda just lost the race for BJP party presidentship to Amit Shah.
BJP leaders says it took a lot of time to prepare the ground for the meeting between the party’s national general secretary and Lone. And along with Lone, the BJP is also holding talks with like-minded parties in Kashmir to achieve their'mission 44+', their pitch to form the government in Jammu & Kashmir after Assembly elections later this year.
Not just BJP, the regional Peoples Democratic Party’s leader Nizamuddin Bhat knocked at Lone's door on Saturday too, signalling the possibility of a post poll alliance.
However, surprisingly, Lone has remained silent.
Until recently, no one would have imagined that Lone would become such an important player in Kashmir’s troubled politics. So much so that regardless of political ideologies, parties are seeking his audience. He was seen as too small a player in Kashmir's mainstream politics. His People's Conference has a strong base in five Assembly seats in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district, and with PDP fighting over ticket allocation in the prestigious Baramulla constituency, Lone could well surprise political pundits.
Whatever happens in the future, if the present political scene is symbolic of anything, it is the making of Sajad Lone as one of the most important political players in valley, after NC and PDP.
But it has been a lonely journey, coupled with shortage of resources.
When Lone decided to fight Lok Sabha elections in 2009 he had strongly suggested that it was not for government formation in Jammu & Kashmir, but to take his vision document to Indian Parliament. He had stirred a hornet's nest in Kashmir with this "vision document".
"Achievable Nationhood" is a 268-page document written by Lone after months of research and consultation. It was a clear departure from positions held by any separatist party in Kashmir then.
Lone's model attempted to achieve an economically single, boundary-less Jammu & Kashmir Economic Union, with India and Pakistan jointly managing defence and foreign affairs of their respective portions of Kashmir. It was a process of unification of the two parts of Kashmir by producing a "single economic entity" out of "two distinct geographical and political sub-entities" with separate sovereignty linkages with India and Pakistan, Lone had said in the document.
But, the government, which had asked him to come up with a road map, didn’t eventually acknowledge it.
After this Lone said he had to “change his strategy.” And that strategy might pay off in the assembly elections scheduled to be held later this year.
Lone has a degree in economics from Cardiff university in London, he burst on to Kashmir’s political scene after his father Abdul Ghani Lone was shot dead on May 21, 2002. His brother Bilal Gani Lone is executive member of moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
After he decide to fight elections a row broke out between him and his elder brother Bilal and they bifurcated the People's Conference. A fifteen feet wall sprang up between the houses of the two brothers. That divide still exists.
If Lone indeed ends up doing business with the BJP or the PDP, it could catapult him into the kind of prominence his father once enjoyed.
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.Facing a far friendlier audience than she did at the U.S. Capitol, new Education Secretary Betsy DeVos thumbed her nose at one of the Senate's top Democrat today at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
DeVos strutted onstage to cheers of 'we love you!' and gave the audience some love right back, introducing herself by name to the raucous crowd.
'You may have heard some of the wonderful things the mainstream media has called me lately,' she said. 'I, however, pride myself on being called a mother, a grandmother, a life partner of 38 years tomorrow and perhaps the first person to tell Bernie Sanders to his face that there's no such thing as a free lunch.'
DeVos was referring to her contentious Senate confirmation hearing where she went before three of the body's biggest liberal names: Sens. Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Al Franken.
DeVos also doubled down on a statement she made yesterday about the Trump administration's move to roll back bathroom protections for transgender students.
'This issue was a very huge example of the Obama administration's overreach to suggest a one-size-fits-all federal government approach, top down approach to issues that are best dealt with and solved at a personal level and a local level,' she told CNN's resident Donald Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany.
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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos got a far warmer reception at CPAC than she did on Capitol Hill and even mocked Sen. Bernie Sanders in her opening remarks
CNN's resident Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany (left) was tasked with asking Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (right) questions Thursday at CPAC
MeEnany also brought up DeVos' Senate experience saying she was 'appalled by the way Sen. Warren conducted herself.'
DeVos' nomination made history for being controversial. She got zero Democratic votes and two Republican senators refused to vote for her, so Vice President Pence was forced to come to Capitol Hill and cast a tie-breaking vote.
Today a more defiant DeVos showed up at the annual conference of conservatives, where Vice President Mike Pence will grace the stage tonight and President Trump will speak tomorrow.
'My job isn't to win a popularity contest with the media of the education establishment here in Washington,' she said, telling the crowd she loved their energy.
DeVos, a Michigan-based school choice advocate and Republican fundraiser, explained simply her stance on education at the conference.
'Do you believe parents should be able to choose the best school for their child regardless of zip code or family income?' DeVos asked the crowd, who answered in the affirmative.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos proclaimed from onstage that her job wasn't to 'win a popularity contest with the media of the education establishment'
Gov. Scott Walker revealed at CPAC that he had called Education Secretary Betsy DeVos after she was blocked from entering a D.C. school, as he encountered similar protests in Wisconsin
'Me too and so does President Trump,' she said. 'We have a unique window of opportunity to make school choice a reality for millions of families.'
MeEnany wasn't the only conservative vocally supporting DeVos from onstage, as the new education secretary was recently blocked from entering a D.C. school by protesters.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who faced widespread protests in Madison in 2015 over a controversial public union-killing bill, told the CPAC audience that he had called DeVos after the Washington incident.
'I called Betsy DeVos, who's a good friend of mind, and I said, "You know what? Been there, done that,"' he said.
Walker shared that the activists he faced glued the door shut to a Wisconsin school so that he couldn't go inside.
'Now, the good news is that the school was not to be deterred,' Walker recalled. 'They actually took the door off the hinges and we were able to read to the kids,' he said.“Tez Gelmir” from Australia has built lots of projects for his son, but with his daughter’s first birthday coming up he “felt it was her turn to get some project love and what better way than with her own Speeder Bike?!”
The project was inspired by the 74-Z Speeder Bike from Star Wars and if you haven’t seen the movies yet, Tez has an explanation:
“The 74-Z Speeder Bike is best known for its appearance in the 1983 movie, Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. In which Imperial Scout Troopers, on the forest moon of Endor, engage in a vicious chase with Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa after the Rebels commandeered the speeder bikes to pursue their foes,” explains Tez Gelmir.
You can find the entire step-by-step build process on Instructables!
More info: Instructables (h/t: laughingsquid)When Max (Taissa Farmiga) and her friends reluctantly attend a screening of “Camp Bloodbath,” an infamous ‘80s cult horror film that starred Max’s late mother (Malin Akerman), they are accidentally sucked into the silver screen. They soon realize they’re trapped inside the movie and must team up with the horny, Reagan-era idiot “Camp bloodbath” counselors – including Max’s mom as the shy scream queen – to battle the film’s machete-wielding killer Billy Murphy. Face to face with her mother for the first time in years, Max has a second chance not only to see her, but to save her, and with the help of her friends, get back home before Billy kills them all. Also starring Adam DeVine, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Angela Trimbur, with Alexander Ludwig and Nina Dobrev.In a dramatic development that could lead to renewed focus on Hillary Clinton's email server scandal, NBC reports that the Romanian hacker who first exposed Hillary Clinton's private email address is making a "bombshell" new claim: that he also gained access to the former Secretary of State's "completely unsecured" server.
"It was like an open orchid on the Internet," Marcel Lehel Lazar, who is better known by his handle Guccifer which he used when he first unveiled the formerly unknown domain name of Hillary personal server one year ago, told NBC News in an exclusive interview from a prison in Bucharest. "There were hundreds of folders."
Cynthia McFadden, right, with the Romanian hacker Guccifer in Romania
As previously reported, Lazar was extradited last month from Romania to the United States to face charges he hacked political elites, including Gen. Colin Powell, a member of the Bush family, and former Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal.
NBC further reports that according to a source with knowledge of the probe into Clinton's email setup told NBC News that with Guccifer in U.S. custody, investigators fully intend to question him about her server.
To this point Lazar, 44, has not provided documentation to back up his claims, nor has he released anything on-line supporting his allegations, as he had frequently done with past hacks. The FBI's review of the Clinton server logs showed no sign of hacking, according to a source familiar with the case.
Brian Fallon, national press secretary for Clinton's presidential campaign, said Guccifer's claims were baseless. "There is absolutely no basis to believe the claims made by this criminal from his prison cell," said Fallon. "In addition to the fact that he offers no proof to support his claims, his descriptions of Secretary Clinton's server are inaccurate. It is unfathomable that he would have gained access to her emails and not leaked them the way he did to his other victims.
"We have received no indication from any government agency to support these claims, nor are they reflected in the range of charges that Guccifer already faces and that prompted his extradition in the first place," Fallon added. "And it has been reported that security logs from Secretary Clinton's email server do not show any evidence of foreign hacking."
That strawman, of course, now puts Hillary in harms way as it redoubles attention on a scandal that many had decided was likely going to blow over. All that Trump will have to do now is find confirmation that Lazar is telling the truth and suddenly Clinton's email transgressions will get a renewed lease on life at the worst possible moment, just as a federal judge opened the door to interviewing Hillary Clinton as part of a review into her use of a private email server while secretary of State.
All this is happening just as as Hillary thought she had managed to put her email scandals behind her.
According to The Hill, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia laid out the ground rules for interviewing multiple State Department officials about the emails, with an eye toward finishing the depositions in the weeks before the party nominating conventions.
Clinton herself may be forced to answer questions under oath, Sullivan said, though she is not yet being forced to take that step.
“Based on information learned during discovery, the deposition of Mrs. Clinton may be necessary,” Sullivan said in an order on Wednesday. [READ THE ORDER BELOW] Discovery is the formal name for the evidence-gathering process, which includes depositions.
“If plaintiff believes Mrs. Clinton’s testimony is required, it will request permission from the Court at the appropriate time.”
In his order, Sullivan pointed to revelations from the emails appearing to show officials trying to evade demands of FOIA. In one email, for instance, Mull told Abedin that Clinton’s emails “would be subject to FOIA requests” if she used a department-issued BlackBerry, even though her identity would remain secret. Abedin responded that the idea “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” In February, Sullivan ruled that the evidence-gathering process could proceed, and the two sides have been haggling since then. Sullivan had previously suggested that Clinton could be forced to respond to questions, but his order on Wednesday offered the clearest indication that it remains a real possibility.
The order comes in the course of a lawsuit from conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, and leaves open the possibility that Clinton will be forced to answer detailed questions on the eve of her formal selection as the Democratic presidential nominee about her creation of the server.
While it is unclear yet if Hillary will be deposed, Sullivan ordered at least six current and former State Department employees to answer questions from Judicial Watch, which has filed multiple lawsuits over the Clinton email case. Among these are longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin, former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, under secretary for management Patrick Kennedy, former executive secretary Stephen Mull and Bryan Pagliano, the IT official believed to be responsible for setting up and maintaining the server. The judge also ordered the State Department to prepare a formal answer about Clinton’s emails. Donald Reid, a senior security official, may also be asked to answer questions, if Judicial Watch so decides.
More importantly, that process is scheduled to be wrapped up within eight weeks, putting the deadline in the final week of June, and well ahead of the presidential election.
* * *
Judicial Watch brought suit against the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in an effort to bring Abedin’s emails to light. The lawsuit has since evolved into a battleground over Clinton’s use of the private server.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called Wednesday’s order “a significant victory for transparency and accountability,” and promised that it would shine a light on Clinton’s email practices.
“Judicial Watch will use this discovery to get all of the facts behind Hillary Clinton’s and the Obama State Department’s thwarting of FOIA so that the public can be sure that all of the emails from her illicit email system are reviewed and released to the public as the law requires,” he said in a statement.
* * *
Any deposition would surely roil the presidential race and force her campaign to confront the issue, which has dogged her for a year. Once again, this is precisely what Trump will pounce on and will be sure to make it the centerpiece of all his upcoming debates withHere are five things we learned at this year's prospect camp:
From the time they woke up in the morning until well after the sun went down, Blues prospects were kept busy during the team's annual prospect camp at the Ice Zone at St. Louis Outlet Mall. From team breakfasts, morning workouts, presentations from the Blues' coaching staff, practices and scrimmages, all 26 prospects left Saturday night with a good sense of what it will take to play at the NHL level.
1. Thompson, Kyrou and Walman are knocking on the door
Tage Thompson - the Blues' top draft pick in 2016 - is hard to miss. At 6-foot-5, Thompson is easily one of the most skilled and developed prospects in the Blues' system. He played 34 games at UConn last season before turning pro and joining the Chicago Wolves for the final 16 regular season games (and 10 playoff contests).
"Thompson has put in a pretty good month since the season was over with his workouts. He looks stronger, especially with the puck and his skating," said Tim Taylor, the Blues' Director of Player Development. "He's got an extra step and an extra gear now. Another five to seven pounds on him in the rest of the summer, he's going to really benefit from that, especially leg strength."
Kyrou was selected by the Blues in 2016 after the club traded goaltender Brian Elliott to Calgary to acquire the pick to draft him. Now in his second prospect camp, the 6-foot, 177-pound forward demonstrated the speed and skill that Blues scouts liked from the beginning.
Kyrou, who put up 94 points (30 goals, 64 assists) last season with the OHL's Sarnia Sting, could have a chance to represent Team Canada at the international level soon. If he adds some strength to complement his speed, it won't be long before he gets a chance to represent St. Louis, too.
As for Walman… he might be the closest prospect to making the Blues' roster. A 2014 third-round pick, the defenseman won an NCAA championship with Providence College and forgoed his senior season to turn pro in March.
"Walman's skating is unbelievable. He takes a step and he's by guys and has instant separation," Taylor said. "I know (Blues assistant coach) Darryl Sydor had him at the end of the year in Chicago. They're really excited about him.
"He's a guy that really could step in … he has a real, real legit chance of making the lineup opening day."
2. Kostin is an 'absolute beast'
When the Blues saw the top-ranked European skater still available late in the first round of the draft, they took swift action.
Having already traded their second first-round pick to Philadelphia in a deal to acquire Brayden Scenn, they made another deal and sent Ryan Reaves and a second-round pick to Pittsburgh in exchange for Oskar Sundqvist and a first-round pick, which they used on Klim Kostin.
"That could be an absolute steal in the draft, maybe (the biggest) I've ever seen," Taylor said. "He's an absolute beast on the ice. He's such a big, powerful man. We were very, very impressed with his play and strength."
Kostin played in the Kontinental Hockey League last season, and teams may have been worried about whether he'd make the leap to North America.
But he's here. He wants to play here. And he's as good as advertised.
3. Thomas improved every single day
It was a whirlwind week for Robert Thomas, who saw his named called in the first round (20th overall) and then was on a plane bound for St. Louis less than a week later for Prospect Camp.
With only two seasons of junior hockey under his belt, the Aurora, Ontario native found himself on the ice against much more-seasoned competition this week.
Yet, he still got better every day.
On the final scrimmage of the camp, Thomas scored twice - once on a breakaway and again in a five-minute sudden death overtime period.
"He's a gifted player," Taylor said. "He's a two-way hockey player. There are a lot of details in his game that go unnoticed I think by the average fan, but you look at that as a manager. There are things you have to teach players usually, and he has that already."
4. Toropchenko may be a steal in the fourth round
Russian forward Alexey Toropchenko also made the trip to St. Louis for prospect camp just days after being selected by the Blues in the fourth round (No. 113 overall), and the Blues like what they see.
"His speed is a huge asset," Taylor said. "He will go back to junior to play for (the) Guelph (Storm). It's really going to help with the North American style of his game. He's going to have to come and learn the language, but he has a grasp (already).
"With Klim and Toropchenko, both were happy to be here, both had smiles on their faces and were trying to learn the language. That's a huge bonus for these guys."
5. Fan support was tremendous yet again
Not that it's any surprise, but Blues fans turned out in droves yet again this summer. It was standing room only at the Ice Zone at St. Louis Outlet Mall this week as all four days were jammed with fans anxious to see hockey and the future of the Blues.
"The relationship between Blues fans and Blues players is real solid," said Taylor. "I think it's great we have these players learning that early."
To accommodate so many fans, the Blues may need to move future prospect camps to a larger venue - and the state-of-the-art facility proposed for Creve Coeur Lake Park would be just the place.Dec 13, 2012; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Adam Jones (24) along the sidelines prior to playing the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. The Bengals defeated the Eagles 34-13. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Coming off of a season-altering win over the Green Bay Packers, the Cincinnati Bengals are riding as high as they’ve ever been in the Marvin Lewis-era, but they may be on the verge of losing one of their best defenders soon, as cornerback Adam Jones was reportedly arrested for disorderly conduct.
Jones was a passenger in vehicle pulled over this morning, and it was determined the driver was under the influence and was arrested and issued a DUI. Jones was arrested and cited with disorderly conduct, but it’s unclear as to what exactly he did to get arrested.
Because Jones falls under the NFL’s repeat offender classification, he could be subject to suspension by the NFL. It doesn’t help that Jones was already in trouble after he he was seen on camera striking a woman in Cincinnati this summer. It’s hard to foresee Jones lasting much longer in the NFL if this keeps up.
While this doesn’t sound like Jones necessarily did anything wrong, just being in a vehicle with a driver who was over the legal drinking-limit was bad enough, and is just another example of his poor judgement skills.In the three cases brought against the government, by the parents of Jordan King, Colin R. Dwyer and William Mead, all three special masters used strong language in dismissing the expert evidence from the families’ lawyers.
The master in the King ruling emphasized that it was “not a close case” and “extremely unlikely” that Jordan’s autism was connected to his vaccines. The master in the Dwyer case wrote that many parents “relied upon practitioners and researchers who peddled hope, not opinions grounded in science and medicine.”
Patricia Campbell-Smith, the master in the Mead case, also dismissed two subarguments made by a few opponents of vaccines, saying they “have not shown either that certain children are genetically hypersusceptible to mercury or that certain children are predisposed to have difficulty excreting mercury.”
She also echoed a contention by vaccine defenders that a shot is safer than a tuna sandwich. “A normal fish-eating diet by pregnant mothers” is more likely to deposit mercury in the brain than vaccines are, she wrote.
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In a telephone press conference after the rulings, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the inventor of a rotavirus vaccine from which he receives royalties, praised the decisions, saying: “This hypothesis has already had its day in scientific court, but in America we like to have our day in literal court. Fortunately, we now have these rulings.”
Fears of thimerosal emerged more than a decade ago and have cast a pall over vaccines ever since, even though it has been removed from most of them. The fear has caused some parents to avoid them and made outbreaks of diseases like measles and whooping cough more likely.
Even with this decision, Dr. Offit said, “it’s very hard to unscare people after you’ve scared them.”
The Coalition for Vaccine Safety, a group of organizations that believe vaccines cause autism, dismissed the rulings.
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“The deck is stacked against families in vaccine court,” said Rebecca Estepp, of the coalition’s steering committee. “Government attorneys defend a government program using government-funded science before government judges. Where’s the justice in that?” The coalition claims to represent 75,000 families.
Amy Carson, founder of Moms Against Mercury, who has a son with brain damage, called the vaccine court arrangement “like the mice overseeing the cheese.”
The vaccine injury fund and the court overseeing it were created in 1988 after judgments in state court lawsuits over vaccines became so inconsistent and so expensive that vaccine companies started quitting the American market.
The third theory, that measles vaccine causes autism, is still to be ruled on by the special masters. But Lisa Randall, a lawyer with the Immunization Action Coalition, which defends vaccines, said she believed some of the test cases had been “abandoned” by the families that brought them after the 2009 decisions dismissed a variant of the same theory.While Millennials are less churched than most generations, data has shown they are no less spiritual. So why aren’t they in our pews? The longer I have examined this question, the more I’ve been convinced it is the wrong one. Instead of bending over backward to try and attract Millennials to our churches, what if we considered how we could best minister to and with Millennials?
So, this article is not fundamentally about drawing in Millennials, but to minister to them and involve them in our communities of faith. Here are a few bits of advice for your church from a Millennial minister who knows a lot of Millennials, has ministered alongside them as colleagues and peers, and is concerned about the future of this generation (and those following) in our churches.
These reflections stem from a panel at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina’s General Assembly this year called, “Why church matters (and doesn’t) to Millennials,” hosted by Corinne Causby, a student at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Four other Millennials, including myself, served on the panel, which will reprise at the CBF General Assembly in Greensboro, N.C., this summer. If you are interested in any of the topics below or have any question, please come and speak with us.
1. Understand their economics.
Mountains of student (and other) debt, the unfulfilled promise of unpaid internships, lack of full-time permanent positions, and dwindling income growth are just a few of the realities that characterize Millennials’ economic life. Millennials are often unable to attain traditional markers of adulthood that other generations have taken for granted. Home ownership, independent living, marriage, children and saving for retirement are not choices available for a significant number of Millennials.
Two quick examples bring this reality into stark relief. First, at the CBFNC, one panelist asked the audience to raise their hand if they had been told they must do unpaid work or an unpaid internship to advance their career. Every Millennial raised their hand; no |
. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 04:00 PM EDT
I really liked that Google came back to ask Joshua about the Java 7 vote. Java 7 was stalled for years over the dispute with the Apache Software Foundation regarding the Java TCK. Several JCP members were willing to support the ASF and vote "No" on the specification. However, once Oracle and IBM signed their deal with regard to IBM moving from Apache Harmony to OpenJDK the writing was on the wall. The ASF had no recourse except to resign from the JCP. Several other JCP members who would have voted "No" also resigned and were replaced by Oracle, so it is no great surprise. Stephen Colebourne documented these events extremely well in his blog in 2011. [ Reply to This | # ]
Apache - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 04:58 PM EDT Shocked! - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 12:28 AM EDT
- Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 04:58 PM EDT
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 04:44 PM EDT
A. You could add two numbers, but couldn't do any I/O. E.g.,
the simplest program, the first program you write is "Hello
world". This isn't doable without an I/O API.
Firstly - if Oracle wins, then they will have shown that you
can't trust them. In just the way that we don't trust
Microsoft. And once you can't trust a company or a person,
every interaction with them carries that baggage, and
whenever you have the opportunity to avoid dependency on
them you think about it. The consequence is that Java will
only be used when it's necessary and unavoidable.
Secondly - if Oracle win, then the I/O library and all
others become unusable by FOSS advocates. And we'll have to
write our own set of APIs and split the language base
between those that use the Oracle standard and those that
use the FOSS libraries; there can be no dependency on any
Oracle libraries/APIs.
Neatly accomplishing exactly what Oracle claim to want to
avoid. Anyone would think they want the language to die. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 04:52 PM EDT
Be careful what you wish for.
Every time that I write a program in Linux I use, at least,
two APIs which were included in GPLed packages. One for the
system calls and one for calls to gcc run time library(s).
I don't release my programs under GPL and it is legal and
proper because the people who wrote gcc or Linux have never
claimed copyrights of the APIs; unlike Oracle they play fair.
If the judge will accept Oracle's idea of copyrights to API
then plenty of people will be very afraid to write programs
on Linux or use gcc. The big winner will be Microsoft.
Not Good.
(And I thank Google for fighting against this idea, hard.) [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 04:55 PM EDT
OK, this is the 9th Circuit. So, that's good. But I still get the feeling that
this just creates an appeal and won't be settled for a long time to come.
[ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 05:45 PM EDT
As I understand it, copyright can only be used to protect
creative content. APIs and classpaths are not creative
content, they are a rigidly enforced referencing convention
which code cannot deviate from for compatibility reasons.
Hence they are not creative but rather part of the Java
language's structure.
In addition, fair use of copyrighted material allows the use
of limited copying of names for functions, variables,
classpaths and comments for reference purposes.
If this fair use wasn't permitted, it would be possible for
the Coca Cola company to sue the publisher of any negative
article using the name "Coca Cola" for copyright
infringement and so stifle free speech. Similarly the
publishers of a street map of New York, and the New York
telephone directory would be able to charge a copyright free
from anybody who used the name of a street or a person taken
from their publications in any written communications.
This would be total madness - even worse than the patent
madness we have now. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 05:49 PM EDT
One of the topics getting discussed here is Sun releasing openJDK under GPL with
the classpath exception. The argument goes 'If only dalvik was under GPL and
derived from openJDK not Harmony then Oracle could not complain, since this is
expressly permitted under the GPL...'. That argument is probably a dead end.
Lets try another argument:
1. openJDK contains all the APIs being argued about.
2. Each method in a java language API has either public, private, protected,
package access restrictions. All non-private methods can be used in inheritance
if a method is public or protected in a non-final regular class or a public
interface then it is volunteering itself for inheritance/implementation when it
is consumed by a programmer using the API.
3. In a java program during inheritance the full signature of the method is used
to identify the method being overridden.
4. The licence of openJDK explicitly says that programs making use of it don't
need to be GPL.
/*license gpl+cpe*/
package foo.bar;
public class APIclass {
public int add(int, a, int b) { //GPL+CPE
return a+b;
}
}
/*license creative-commons-do-whatever*/
package mypackage;
import foo.bar;
class MyClass extends APIclass {
public int add(int x, int y) { //API method signature reproduced but no-longer
under GPL
System.out.println("adding " x + ", " + y);
return super(x,y);
}
}
API
foo.bar.APIclass
public int add(int, a, int b)
...
So in normal use of a publicly facing API covered by GPL+CPE it is possible to
extract the method signature and sidestep the GPL+CPE. There is nothing
nefarious about it. Repeat this step for every public/protected method and then
extract just the method signatures from your own subclasses and you get the
public/protected API as a list. This process will produce a big API that may
exactly match the ordering in the openJDK source but is under no copyright
certainly not GPL-CPE
Lets look at private API methods that are not intended/cannot be consumed by
normal regular use. Well first of all these are part of the implementation so
are not usually part of the public API that would be given to a programmer but
there are several corner cases in java where someone re-implementing an API for
comparability reasons would also clone private method signatures (for example
where the class might be interrogated at runtime using'reflection' and
everything marked private becomes public). Well we could get the private APIs
using reflection but IMO that is not clear-cut legal. Instead there is a simple
way: simply take the openJDK source, locate the private methods you want to
copy, change private to public and save the changes the code is still under
GPL, how can it not be? Now inherit the method in your own non-GPL class and
extract the method signature from your own non-GPL code. The same procedure can
be used to extract signatures from classes marked final which otherwise can't
be inherited.
An alternative weaker argument can be made that the the public/protected method
signatures in the openJDK source are directly analogous to the header files in
c. Google have previously been accused of taking the headers from GPLed c/c++
source-code and rewriting the code so that is no longer covered by the GPL but
still has the original header files this is done for interoperability with
existing code. Now this might leave bad taste in the mouth but is it legal? Well
according to the people who drew up the GPL it is perfectly fine:
<i>In an email Richard Stallman says 'I've talked with our lawyer about
one specific issue that you raised: that of using simple material from header
files. Someone recently made the claim that including a header file always makes
a derivative work. That's not the FSF's view. Our view is that just using
structure definitions, typedefs, enumeration constants, macros with simple
bodies, etc., is NOT enough to make a derivative work. It would take a
substantial amount of code (coming from inline functions or macros with
substantial bodies) to do that.' This should help end the recent FUD about the
Android 'clean headers.'</i>
http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0301.1/0362.html
By publishing their APIs under GPL+CPE Sun/Oracle have placed any
public/protected API contained in openJDK non-copywritable when presented as a
list with no source-code attached. Since the API can derived legally in at least
three ways:
By simply inheriting the class into your own code, overriding the method and
then running grep over your own code.
Using reflection to list available packages and methods from your own program
running on openJDK do Oracle claim to own the output of your programs when
running on their own fully free and open-source GPL+CPE openJDK?!
By analogy the GPL does not extend to header files in c according to the
authors of the GPL. Method signatures declared public/protected may be
equivalent to header files in c.
Conclusion: It is trivial to write legally permitted non-GPL code, using no
non-GPL Oracle API documentation, only the openJDK source code for reference,
that results in a list of Oracles precious API as a document.
R [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: SilverWave on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 06:03 PM EDT
Nelson Muntz is a fictional character and bully from the animated TV series The
Simpsons.... Simpson. He is best identified by his signature laugh
("HA-Haw!").
---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions
[ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: webster on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 09:25 PM EDT
.
It's about time. Oracle ought to move for a mistrial. They have been trying to
convince the Jury that some aspect of API's is copyrightable AND that there is
infringement of such copyrightable API's. There is hardly any disagreement on
the rest of the "facts" of this case. Now they have to proceed
without knowing what the Judge will decide about this issue. It is a lot of
wasted time. Oracle: "If API's are copyrightable, consider this; if they
are not, never mind." Without this issue there is little for the jury to
do other than listen to stipulations. Since they have been listening to this
API-"design" mumbo-jumbo, Oracle can argue that the issue's
disappearance hurts their credibility.
Judge Alsup will decide more mindful of legal and industry precedence. The
presumption is against copyrighting API's. The GPL and the Harmony license may
also preclude the API copyright issue.
There is little for the jury to decide. There is no wilfull infringement if
this case sets a new precedent. How can Google infringe by a rule that didn't
exist yet. And then the licenses...
API's appear to be clips of code that one can precisely invoke in a language to
do powerful and flexible things. The API's derive from ancestral coders passing
on and enhancing functionality. They are basic to making the circuits in the
computer behave in an anticipated matter. It is code below the source
programming level but above the brutal binary level. It keeps everyone from
having to reinvent the wheel in every language. Use the old stuff unless you
see an improvement. Copyrighting these clips is little more advanced than
copyrighting words or letters or yes/no, or... numbers, like 0 or 1.
~webster~
. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 10:01 PM EDT
Do I understand this correctly...
While employed at Google:
Bloch copied code from Timsort
Bloch donated code to Java
Bloch used part of same code at Google
This is the ONLY code that Oracle is said was copied by Google?
...or am I missing something [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 10:06 PM EDT
The Judge declaring he would be the one to decide if API's are
indeed Copyrightable is the best thing to happen for Google
this week!
Here's a case that might have some important information for
Judge Alsop's Copyrightability issues:
Lexmark Intl v. Static Control Components
https://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/Lexmark_v_Static_Control/2004102
6_Ruling.pdf
Let's just hope Judge Alsop decides correctly, so Google
doesn't have to appeal his ruling, that it took this appellate
court to overturn!
Why aren't all the Java API's deemed copyrightable by Oracle.
Same function/purpose as any other API's in the Java
programming language? So why only these 37 API's published in
the Specifications. Is that the only place they remain under
copyright according to their claims or is it that it's the only
place these API's can be seen to be published with a copyright
notice anywhere in Java? Why didn't Google post the Oracle
Copyright Notices in Android then? Maybe because these 37 API's
are not so special or different from all the rest of the Java
API assets taken out of context by Boes from the Copyrightable
Specifications rather than in their implementable form?
http://www.infoq.com/news/2006/11/open-source-java
Great information from Tim Bray (Sun/Oracle 2006) speaking to
InfoQ, when Java was Open Sourced:
""we have to ensure that users of Java don't have to worry
about getting claims that by using Java they're infringing a
patent held by any of the contributors to Java (including Sun);
so we have to prevent anyone, whether by accident or on
purpose, from contributing code to Java and then being able to
launch claims against people who use it.""
And another interesting Tim Bray quote for you:
""The GPL doesn't require that bytecode classes using a GPLd
java.lang.Object be licensed under the GPL as well. That's
because neither the bytecode nor the source code using it are
derivative works of java.lang.Object, as all that ever ends up
in them are interface names and constants, and those remain the
same, regardless of the license of the java.lang.Object class.
Those symbols are standardised through the JCP, and published
as specifications. They are necessary for interoperability.
Therefore, the symbol names and constant values can not be
claimed as original works by a GPLd java.lang.Object, and
accordingly don't meet the bar for copyrightability.""
The judge needs to run the tests for "copyrightability"
himself, without Oracle or Google's input. So it's decided
based on what's legally copyrightable instead of what Oracle
wishes was copyrightable!
If.... Oracle's "API's are Copyrightable" claims are court
stamped and approved, then Oracle can use this "Come On" pitch
sales ruse to force you to pay for what even they say is FREE
to Use... the Java Programming Language. It's like as if Oracle
is putting out some magnificently delectable Banquet dinner for
FREE. But... then make you pay the equivalent price of every
item on the table, for the plate and utensils to eat it with!
[ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 21 2012 @ 10:47 PM EDT
Bloch explained that regex was borrowed from Java. Now we just need some
explanation about how string formatting was borrowed from C and how a lot of the
math functions were borrowed from other languages as well.
[ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Khym Chanur on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 02:04 AM EDT
Doesn't it have to go this way? That is, isn't whether or not APIs are copyrightable a matter of law, which makes it something the judge has to decide? ---
Give a man a match, and he'll be warm for a minute, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Paraphrased from Terry Pratchett) [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 03:42 AM EDT
Perhaps more a question for the techies, but what happens if Sun is granted a
controlling copyright on these APIs. Does they mean they would have a
controlling copyright on those data structures and algorithms, regardless of
the implementation language?
Let us consider the example of a book. I cannot write my Barry Cotter novel
about a teenager sorcerer if it is a simply variation of another well-known
series by Ms J K Rowling. Can I implement a C++ API that sorts a sequence of
numbers stored in a sequential container without violating the copyrighted
Java container API. Or rather, can I provide a complete package of data
structures and algorithms, much as every computer language supplies out-
the-box?
It is bad enough that we are facing the current trend to patent the 'words in
our dictionary', but at least pattens expire after 'only' a few decades.
Copyright essentially locks these things away for ever, given the trend of
extending copyright lifetimes each time certain culturally sensitive works are
approaching the end of their existent copyright terms.
I cannot see victory for Oracle as anything less than the end of the ability to
practice software in USA. In practice I suspect software businesses would
continue, but trading in the knowledge that they could be shut down by
lawsuit at a moments notice, which is a pretty strong incentive to move
elsewhere, were there not so many paying customers over here. It would
become a thoroughly toxic market though, and probably lose many of its top
talents. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: s65_sean on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 07:56 AM EDT
I questioned Mark's statement in the previous article that oracle had released
the java programming language under the GPL. I never received a reply pointing
to any proof of this GPL'ing of the java language ever happening. Here in this
article PJ repeats that statement.
Does anyone have a link or citation to support the statement that the java
programming language was released under the GPL?
The only thing related to java that I am aware of that Oracle (Sun) has released
under the GPL is the OpenJDK, which is not the java language. it is an open
source version of a set of java related programming tools, but it is not the
java language itself. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 07:57 AM EDT
Oracle talks A lot about the fragmentation of Java Android/Google has created.
But if you think about it they have just created a new very large alternative
Java Programing language ecosystem. And it is big as there is probably more
lines written targeting Android each day than there are targeting Java ME/SE/EE.
So eventually it should overtake these other forms of Java in total lines
written to date etc. This is probably what scares Oracle the most.
But I would argue that it actually reduces fragmentation because there is likely
to be only one main Mobile platform version that uses the Java Language and this
is going to be Android/Delvik (note Java ME is just a toy version of Java and
you can't run a mobile platform on it).
So because Google has done such a good job so far on Android there is no need
for anyone to further fragment Java with every phone maker trying to make
different versions etc. The only real effect is that instead of Oracle holding
all the Java cards we have some real competition now. So right now it is only
Oracle that is fighting to further fragment Java and hurt the language in
general.
Michael [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 08:15 AM EDT
Here is one example of interfaces in programming, public methods in programming.
Leading-Edge Java
Design Principles from Design Patterns
A Conversation with Erich Gamma, Part III
by Bill Venners
June 6, 2005 [...]
In this third installment, Gamma discusses two design principles highlighted in the GoF book: program to an interface, not an implementation, and favor object composition over class inheritance.
Program to an interface, not an implementation
Bill Venners: In the introduction of the GoF book, you mention two principles of reusable object-oriented design. The first principle is: "Program to an interface, not an implementation." What's that really mean, and why do it?
Erich Gamma: This principle is really about dependency relationships which have to be carefully managed in a large app. It's easy to add a dependency on a class. It's almost too easy; just add an import statement and modern Java development tools like Eclipse even write this statement for you. Interestingly the inverse isn't that easy and getting rid of an unwanted dependency can be real refactoring work or even worse, block you from reusing the code in another context. For this reason you have to develop with open eyes when it comes to introducing dependencies. This principle tells us that depending on an interface is often beneficial.
Bill Venners: Why?
Erich Gamma:Once you depend on interfaces only, you're decoupled from the implementation. That means the implementation can vary, and that's a healthy dependency relationship. For example, for testing purposes you can replace a heavy database implementation with a lighter-weight mock implementation. Fortunately, with today's refactoring support you no longer have to come up with an interface up front. You can distill an interface from a concrete class once you have the full insights into a problem. The intended interface is just one 'extract interface' refactoring away.
So this approach gives you flexibility, but it also separates the really valuable part, the design, from the implementation, which allows clients to be decoupled from the implementation. One question is whether you should always use a Java interfaces for that. An abstract class is good as well. In fact, an abstract class gives you more flexibility when it comes to evolution. You can add new behavior without breaking clients. The article goes on, still, I have a difficulty seeing the difference between a public method in a class and an API as is discussed in the Oracle vs Google case.
Maybe there is one, but I don't know what it would be. Maybe someone can enlighten me.
---
______
IMANAL
. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 08:18 AM EDT
I am not sure if I actually understand this:
A developer can donate Code to Java (like J. Bloch
maybe)presuming Java is GPL, Free and open source. The
donation is taken into the Java code base, Oracle/Sun
whoever, says: "thank you great contribution". And then
later down the road that same developer gets sued by Oracle
for using his own code that he donated to GPL-Java?
Is that really the way GPL-Opensource Java works? Or am I
missing something?
How many Non-Oracle/Sun authors donated their own code to
the GPL'd Java codebase?
How much of Java was written by Authors outside of
Sun/Oracle? Are they all going to be coerced now by
Oracle/Sun to pay for and license back their own
contributions to the Java Codebase?
Is that really how Opensource and GPL-Java works?
Is it just me thinking that this is fraud or am I wrong
that, just missing some key point?
[ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 12:07 PM EDT
I think the real problem for the court here is that the term "API" is jargon more than meaning. Without the experience of being an experienced programmer, it's very hard to understand the variety of ways and levels at which the term can correctly apply. Instead of using this meaningless-to-laymen jargon, expand the definition to focus on the important part. Application Programming Interface. The point that needs to be made in court is that an API is simply an "interface" between software components. "interface" is a word which in general usage has precisely the same flexibility as API does in programming usage. Drop the jargon abbreviation - speak English and get to the core of the matter. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: mcinsand on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 03:33 PM EDT
Although some wiser, calmer heads here have been cautiously optimistic, I'm a
bit more confident. Judge Alsup has been steadly, carefully avoiding any
decisions that would pave the way for an appeal. Although it's been
frustrating, things like giving Oracle upmteen chances with the damages
estimates would give Oracle a decidedly uphill battle in appealing any ruling.
Given the Judge's cautious nature, I don't think he would rule on API copyrights
without a solid, concrete, well-documented legal basis. If the API's were
copyrightable, then the way Sun/Oracle GPL'd the language itself would create
gray areas for a jury to be required.
If he's ruling, then I think we have a great chance of uncorking something in
celebration soon! [ Reply to This | # ]
optimism - Authored by: jvillain on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 11:13 PM EDT
Authored by: sproggit on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 04:12 PM EDT
Reading through the testimony from Leo Cizek, there's an interesting exchange
where he is being questioned by Counsel for Oracle:-
Oracle: What was discussed regarding Android licensing Java?
Leo Cizek: Which of the two JME technologies would be most appropriate.
Oracle: Where was this meeting held?
Leo Cizek: All 3 meetings were held at Google's headquarters.
Oracle: Who attended meeting two?
Leo Cizek: Me and Vineet Gupta.
Oracle: And for Google?
Leo Cizek: Andy Rubin, Brian Swetland, [missed one attendee for Google].
Oracle: What was discussed?
Leo Cizek: Further discussions of Open Source licensing, regarding whether Sun
would [ missed ], and did Google need a JCL.
Oracle: And the third meeting, in December 2005, who attended that?
Leo Cizek: For Sun: Vineet Gupta, Alan Brenner, and me. For Google: Andy Rubin,
Brian Swetland, and Borenstein.
Oracle: Why was Brenner there?
Leo Cizek: He led a large part of the discussion regarding [trying to] convince
Andy Rubin to 1) use Sun's technology (CDC), and 2) not use Open Source for
licensing.
It's that bit right at the end of my excerpt that caught my eye: Mr Cizek
clearly states that one of the Oracle deputation to Google went along
specifically to try and persuade Google to "not use Open Source for
licensing".
Well, duh... if *Oracle* felt that this was something that they needed to
*persuade* Google over, then doesn't it follow that *Oracle* felt that Google
could not be *compelled* to ignore an Open Source approach???
I am not sure how well this would have been picked up by the jury, but it reads
like another foot-gun moment for BSF. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 04:46 PM EDT
"When determining "substantial similarity" what is Oracle
comparing?" is the question Mark asked.
He then started talking about APIs.
I think at this point Mark took a left turn and inadvertently fell through
Oracles looking glass.
I think the answer is actually much simpler.
They are comparing Androids Book to their Book.
That Book is the API Specification, that is the English Language Descriptions of
the APIs
(cf. Day 3 of the..Challenged Item 6)
The confusion I think arises as to what's what and the question of which comes
first. Let's see if I can articulate that.
If I write a phone book, you expect that phone book to be arranged like all
phone books, alphabetically, by surname, forename, street address/zip code.
But I'm not like you, I'm an artist, I am very creative and I work very hard.
I instead order it by the second digit in your post/zip-code as the first order,
and the third letter in your surname as the second order, after that fall where
they may.
That is covered by copyright doctrine.
That is, my choice of selection, structure and arrangement is most definitely
creative (albeit useless as a phone book)
(I believe doctrine states it is Arrangement rather than Organisation, but
seeing as it has become such, at least in discussion here, I shall refer to it
as SSO from here on)
I am entitled to (thin) copyright protection in that SSO.
You may not, without my permission/license, produce a phone book with the same
SSO.
Oracle is pointing at it's Book, and saying look, we 'designed this', it is
complex, it is interesting, it is creative, it is (unlike my phone book), a work
of art for programmers, it is creative, we are entitled to protection for the
SSO as well as the English Language expressive content.
They then say, if it is so, such that our SSO is protected, then it follows that
after Google read our specification, they copied our SSO into their source code
(the 37 Apis), and therefore their source code is a derivative work, regardless
of its being an independent implementation. Their declarations are an identical
copy of our SSO.
I've been getting irritated through this discourse about Oracles wilful misuse
of the terms "API", and "API Specification", frankly the
diversion into the GPL made me want to scream. So much that I could only find
myself writing odd humour (I did the "Groklaw to be taken down" and
law.corporate.due_diligence() API Implementation, posts)
But the GPL thing made me stop and ask how do you go about dispelling something
that is offered up as confusing and something that appears to be a struggle to
understand even for technical people? And this is it.
Oracle are saying that their Book has a unique and creative SSO and everything
follows from there.
All the discourse around here starts at the declarations and implementations and
looks out, this is a function, this is a class, this is an interface, this is a
package, the API Specification is just the documentation for the stuff we've
just said.
It leads to the raging discussion "what is an API?". I even fell into
the trap of trying to provide an example of an API for OddOrEven, my post went
wrong and bugstomper beat me to the repost with a much better articulation.
But if you look at it the other way up, from Oracles position, it doesn't
matter a jot what an API is, or even what's in it, or whether its free to use or
GPL or open, or where the boundary is between API and Language or what the
various licenses permit, say or don't say.
SSO is the only thing that counts. It is not the APIs and their SSO, it is only
the SSO, all else follows from there.
It explains why in the list of Challenged items (again cf. Day 3 of the....)
Item 1 The 37 APIs, and Item 4 the Declarations in the 37APIs are identical
symbol for symbol are called out separately, and yet in the not in contention we
see 2) Names of any particular element, despite all of these being basically the
same thing from a technical point of view.
(IANAL) Google can try all the estoppel, de-minimis, functional, merger they
want, but that's only pandering to the illusion and nibbling at the edges, they
are talking about code and Oracle aren't (TBF we haven't heard Googles side
yet)
It seems to me that if instead Google show that the code came first, that the
Book comes from the code, that the SSO is a consequence of and falls out of the
code, then the Book is just a Book and the SSO is '(in/ac)cidental' and no more
than just a happy result of using javadoc, then the whole SSO argument goes out
the window, and we stay exactly where we are. Your source code is protected,
Your book is protected, your binary is protected. Doesn't it?
Is it that? Or did I just muddy the water even further? [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 07:51 PM EDT
I hope Google's lawyers point out that API's have been around
for over half a century, and no one has tried to copyright
them before. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 08:07 PM EDT
For quite some time now, Pl/Sql has been the de-facto language for programming
using an Oracle database.
Oracle Pl/Sql is based on Ada, it says so in Appendix C of the Oracle 11g Pl/Sql
Reference Manual, and has said so in the version of the manual that has
accompanied each major database release back to Oracle 8 at least. If memory
serves me correctly, it goes back to Oracle 6. It might even go back further
than that.
The Ada 83 Language Reference Manual is copyright the US Government
(http://archive.adaic.com/standards/83lrm/html/lrm-01.html#1), which is not
surprising as they paid quite a lot to get the language developed in the first
place.
So - does this mean that Oracle copied the Ada APIs when they created Pl/Sql,
and if so, was a licence necessary, and did they obtain one??
Are they guilty of themselves doing exactly what they accuse Google of??
I'm sure that plenty of your readers with better memories and legal minds than
mine will know the history and details.
Keep up the good work
Regards [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: LouS on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 09:34 PM EDT
In order for something to be copyrighted it must be fixed in some tangible form. But an API has no tangible form - it is an abstract idea. What confuses people is that there are several entities related to an API the do have fixed tangible forms. There can be an implementation of an API, which is copyrightable source or binary (or byte) code. But there can be many different implementations of the same API, so the implementation is not the API There can be documentation of an API which is copyrightable human- language text, aimed at either the user or the implementer of the API. (Documentation aimed at the implementer is often called a "specification".) But there can be many different documents describing the same API, so the documentation is not the API. Consider the words "Gee" and "Haw" which were commands used to tell a plow horse to turn left and right respectively. (You might consider these a "Application Plowing Interface :) The fact that Gee means turn left and Haw means turn right are abstract facts, separate from the fact that these meanings are listed in some document or that horses are trained to respond that way. There is no way to patent the meanings of Gee and Haw because theses meanings have no fixed form, [IANAL so take the above with a grain (at least) of salt.] [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, April 22 2012 @ 11:24 PM EDT
The last comment is totally bogus. The aforementioned APis are already
made available under GPLv2 in OpenJDK. The question is why GOogle
have not derived their implementation from this?? [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 03:46 AM EDT
The API's might not be copyrightable, however the implementation of the API's can be copyrighted and hence can fall under the GPL. Given that OpenJDK also distribute an implementation of the API's, OpenJDK can therefore be GPL'ed. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: vadim on Monday, April 23 2012 @ 05:44 AM EDT
It is very disturbing to see that when discussing copyrightability of API people seems to forget about the other side of copyright equation : Promotion of Progress of Science and useful Arts. The U.S. Constitution says: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries So the question is If we allow copyrights on API are we promoting Progress of Science and useful Arts? IMO the obvious answer is NO. On the contrary this will open the potential of miriads of new lawsuits. In will have an enormous chilling effect on industry. [ Reply to This | # ]
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 23 2012 @ |
3. Kansas City Chiefs
Arguments in favor: Massive upgrades at quarterback and coach, unusual level of core talent for subpar team, massive turnover differential, fumble recovery rate, friendly schedule
Arguments against: Limited upside of quarterback, astoundingly low level of performance last year
The Chiefs were outscored by better than 13 points per game last season, which was the 14th-largest margin in the NFL over the past 25 years. They were a 2-14 team that wasn’t particularly unlucky to go 2-14 despite having six Pro Bowlers on their roster. What sort of promise can 2013 possibly hold?
Competence. That’s what Alex Smith and Andy Reid can provide, even if greatness proves to be beyond their grasp. Ron Jaworski just placed Smith at 20th in his quarterback rankings. Twentieth doesn’t sound all that great. But think about Matt Cassel and Brady Quinn for a moment. He’s replacing a pair of quarterbacks who couldn’t be trusted with throwing the ball in any but the most desperate moments last season. Upgrading from, say, the 45th-best quarterback in football to the 20th? That’s the move the Colts pulled off last year when they traded in Curtis Painter for Andrew Luck. When your quarterback play is that dismal, even improving to league-average can be an enormous, multi-win upgrade.
And the numbers favor a Chiefs revival, too. Kansas City’s turnover differential last year was a grotesque minus-24, which tied them for a spot in the cellar. That offense is extremely unlikely to throw 20 interceptions again with Smith at the helm, and the defense is likely to recover more than five fumbles this time around. The Chiefs recovered only one out of every three fumbles that hit the ground during their games, the third-lowest rate in the league. They also get to play the AFC South, the NFC East, the Bills, and the Browns, which is arguably the easiest schedule in the league. Believe in the Chiefs!
2. Philadelphia Eagles
Arguments in favor: Coaching voice change, massive turnover differential, fumble recovery rate, hidden special teams bounce back
Arguments against: Uncertainty related to coaching change, quarterback play
Although it seems difficult to remember, the Eagles were actually a passable team during the first half of last season. It was after firing defensive coordinator Juan Castillo during the team’s bye week that the Eagles quit on Andy Reid and collapsed, finishing 1-9. There’s still a good amount of the core that made the playoffs from 2008 to 2010 here, and they chose the high-risk, high-reward coaching option this offseason when they added Chip Kelly. Of all the teams on this list, it seems like the Eagles have the highest upside.
The statistical case backing them up is built upon an impossible turnover rate. Philadelphia was the other team with a minus-24 turnover margin, and by recovering 35 percent of the fumbles in their games, they finished just ahead of Kansas City, at 29th. Of course, Kelly has already become the first coach to teach Michael Vick how to avoid fumbling, so that should solve a good chunk of the problems there.
In all seriousness, Kelly’s insistence on getting the ball out quickly should reduce the likelihood of fumbles, and some simple variance should help push the Philadelphia offense back toward the middle of the pack. The defense should also deliver more than the eight interceptions it produced last year, so it’s not difficult to imagine the Eagles actually winning the turnover battle in 2013.
As for the “hidden” special teams numbers, that’s a Football Outsiders statistic that encapsulates how teams were impacted by special teams performance out of their control, including such obvious ones as how reliable field goal kickers and kickoff artists were against them. The Eagles were the fourth-most impacted team in football last year by those figures, with kickers notably going 27-for-29 on field goals against them in 2012.
1. Detroit Lions
Arguments in favor: Underperformed Pythagorean expectation, awful record in close games, faced difficult schedule, fumble recovery rate, turnover differential
Arguments against: Top-heavy team only one injury away from disaster, difficult division
The probable comeback crown belongs to the Lions, who have just about every statistical indicator tracking in their favor. Their 4-12 season saw them produce the point differential of a 6.5-win team while going 3-8 in one-touchdown games. They had the league’s third-worst turnover margin at minus-16, likely owing to their defense recovering just six fumbles last year. (Their recovery rate of 32.6 percent was the second-worst in the league.) They’ve also dumped return man Stefan Logan, who muffed six times last year and somehow took a knee on the 4-yard line. Remember: Sometimes, competency is enough.
Detroit’s a scary team to back because they’re perpetually running a high-wire act. If one false move puts Matthew Stafford, Calvin Johnson, or Ndamukong Suh on the sideline for any length of time, the team is basically toast. If those guys stay healthy, though, the baseline talent here should be enough to get the Lions past.500 and have them approach the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.The following is a script from "Disrupting Cancer" which aired on Dec. 7, 2014. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is the correspondent. Draggan Mihailovich, producer.
Cancer has outwitted scientists and doctors for decades. More than 1,500 people still die of the disease every day in this country. But scientists will tell you they have learned more about cancer in the last five years than ever before. And no one is more optimistic about what that will mean for patients than Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. He's been called a genius, a showman, an innovator and a hypester. He's also the richest man in Los Angeles, a doctor and entrepreneur who is worth an estimated $11 billion.
The billionaire shaking up the world of cancer
Soon-Shiong was a respected surgeon before making his name in the cancer world by developing a multibillion dollar drug that few initially thought would work. He now wants to disrupt the conventional way we treat cancer and Soon-Shiong is overflowing with ideas on how to do it.
Give Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong a white board and a few markers, and like a mad scientist he'll diagram how he thinks cancer can be beaten. He wants to attack on multiple fronts and is confident there is a pathway to the cure. For 45 minutes, he outlined his vision from beginning to end.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and Dr. Sanjay Gupta CBS News
Sanjay Gupta: This is a crazy looking board (laughter)...
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This is what goes on in my head you know, this is, it's like bursting. It just has to get this stuff out right?
Sanjay Gupta: Are we looking inside your head?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Yeah, I think so, a little bit (laughter)...
Sanjay Gupta: How long before we get to here?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I'm incredibly encouraged to say that we are on the path. And the technology to actually do all these things is not just hypothetical.
Technology is the main weapon Soon-Shiong is deploying against cancer. In October, at his company's headquarters in Los Angeles, final tests were being run on high-speed tumor genome sequencing machines that Soon-Shiong is convinced will unmask the molecular secrets to cancer.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: And for the first time with this technology we can watch it, catch it, outsmart it, and play chess at this multi-dimensional level.
To understand the significance of what Soon-Shiong is touting, it's important to know what cancer is.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: A cancer is not what people think, cells growing. Cancer is actually the inability of the cells to die.
The key is figuring out the genetic mutation or glitch that prevents cells from dying a natural death. Soon-Shiong's hope is to provide patients with the precise genetic mutations that fuel their cancer regardless of where tumors are found in the body.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The mutation that happens in lung cancer could be the exact same mutation that happens in the breast cancer. So you need to treat that patient based on its mutation not on its physical, anatomical location.
"A cancer is not what people think, cells growing. Cancer is actually the inability of the cells to die."
Sanjay Gupta: That's a big idea. I mean, you know, the idea that the breast cancer specialist, they're looking for breast cancer mutations and they may be missing the ball.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Absolutely.
A lung cancer drug could work on breast cancer, for instance, if the mutation is the same.
The concept of doing away with labeling the disease by where it's found is not unique to Soon-Shiong, but it is a tectonic shift in the fight against cancer, the notion of classifying a cancer by its mutation.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Imagine reclassifying cancer. And having people conceive and understand that cancer's a slew of rare diseases. So I am very excited because we are gonna create this revolution.
Sanjay Gupta: And what's it going to mean?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Well, it's going to mean you have a better shot at having a better outcome and having a quality of life and actually turn the cancer hopefully into a chronic disease.
Sanjay Gupta: That's very optimistic. Realistic as well?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I think so. Very much so.
Soon-Shiong has appointed himself to lead this revolution. Cancer genome sequencing is not new but what's different about Soon-Shiong's project is the scale. He has spent nearly a billion dollars of his own money to build a massive infrastructure, run by super computers, to find every single genetic mutation that could drive cancer.
This is Soon-Shiong's plan: A patient, anywhere in the world, has his tumor biopsied. The tumor cell's complete genetic map is then created all the way down to the proteins that are produced. What only recently took months can now be done in a day.
Ultimately, personalized information for each cancer patient would show up in the palm of his hand.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This is the baby...
Sanjay Gupta: That's it, huh?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: It'll be the world's first browser of the cancer genome, so think about that. You'll be able to fly through to get to the single letter that's mutated.
He's teamed with Blackberry to produce a device that will identify for patients and doctors what they need to make more informed decisions.
Sanjay Gupta: At the end of the day, someone has a tumor and they could find out the complete analysis of that tumor and what the perfect drug is to treat it?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Correct. That's what's exciting. It's not the end of the day. This is what we think we can bring to the world now.
But some in the cancer world fear Soon-Shiong is getting ahead of himself, that he's declaring victory before any of this has been proven to work consistently.
Derek Raghavan: It's show me the money, show me the data. Show me that it's true.
Dr. Derek Raghavan, a renowned oncologist and researcher, is president of the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina.
How to label cancer
Sanjay Gupta: Dr. Soon-Shiong says, 'Look, if we can figure out which mutation's driving cancer, we're gonna be able to find the drugs that treat cancer.' Is that a fair theory?
Dr. Derek Raghavan: Yes. That's a fair theory. But to say I can throw a tumor into a gizmo, and that gizmo will tell me the answer in a few minutes, and everything will flow from that, I don't think we're there now. I don't think we'll be there next year. I think there's just too much hard, complex science that has to be done before this is state of the art. But it's a very cool idea for the future.
The vast majority of mutations are actually not a threat. So to figure out which mutations are dangerous, Soon-Shiong is going back in time.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This national treasure...
Sanjay Gupta: Wow...
In the basement of the John Wayne Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, California, decades of cancer tissues were stored by scientists in deep freeze vats. Now Soon-Shiong wants to use technology that didn't exist back then to map the genomes of these thousands of tissues in order to look for critical patterns.
Deep freeze vat CBS News
Sanjay Gupta: So even after a patient died, their samples were stored here. They can go back, say, "Oh, they had this mutation." And now we can explain that this mutation actually leads to death. And other mutations may not.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: That's exactly right. And ask the question, "Why did this patient live and why did this patient die? Why did this treatment work, why did that not work?"
To make any of this work, Soon-Shiong believes you need to upend the way cancer drugs are developed. He's started a biotech company to try to dramatically ramp up production.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I know it sounds an audacious goal but you need to actually develop 20 to 30 drugs a year to actually get ahead of this game.
Sanjay Gupta: Right now it takes a few years to create a single drug and you're talking about 30 drugs in, in one year. Is that really feasible?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: I think that's where we have the challenge in pharmaceutical industry. We actually need to change the way we develop drugs now.
Soon-Shiong is impatient with the pace of drug approvals. In the early 90s, he invented a drug called Abraxane that treats pancreatic, lung and breast cancer patients. But more than a decade passed before the FDA approved it.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The problem is for cancer, however, we don't have that time. You know, if you have pancreatic cancer, you have two months, if you have metastases throughout your body. The war against cancer is a war against time.
Soon-Shiong is also frustrated with what he calls the trial and error cycle of cancer care.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The truth of the matter, we treat cancer today, we guess. We take what we call the average results, put it in you, see if it works. If it doesn't work, oops, we'll try another drug. If it does work, we stop the drug. When you look back 10 years from now, it's almost barbaric.
The 62-year-old native of South Africa can afford to be outspoken because of his immense wealth. He doesn't need to rely on the government or Big Pharma for funding. Soon-Shiong is certain what he terms the Dark Age of cancer treatment is nearly over, and the Enlightened Age is about to begin.
Sanjay Gupta: What will the average person note about the Enlightened Age versus the Dark Age?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: The treatment doesn't need to be painful. Metastasis doesn't need to be a death sentence. Cancer could be a chronic disease...and treated towards the cure.
While the oncology world may cringe when he boasts, as he's prone to do, patients see him differently.
David Roy: The established community doesn't like false hope. But if you have a terminal disease like I do, you want some hope.
David Roy was diagnosed two years ago with stage four, metastatic pancreatic cancer. He was given four and a half months to live and told to settle his affairs. He called Dr. Soon-Shiong, whom he had met on a plane years before. Soon-Shiong recommended a UCLA oncologist who devised an unusual therapy that combined Abraxane with other cancer drugs. Then Soon-Shiong had Roy's tumor genome sequenced. Based on those results, Roy is now taking part in a clinical trial involving another front in cancer treatment.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: That's the T-cell and that's the cancer cell.
It's called immunotherapy. Soon-Shiong is not the only one working on it, but he was anxious to show us why oncologists believe it's a promising field: a time-lapse demonstration of how T-cells, which our immune systems naturally produce, can attack cancer cells...
Patrick Soon-Shiong: This is a cell that's actually gobbling up the cancer cell. This cell will grow in size and this cell will decrease in size so watch (laughs). So, here's the T-cell gobbling it up. There's the cancer cell. And...
Sanjay Gupta: That's amazing. So you're literally watching cancer cells die here?
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Correct.
Sanjay Gupta: If you find these T-cells and you're able to isolate them, is the idea then, you know they could do the job, you could come out and grow them, proliferate them, and put 'em back in the body.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Exactly.
Even though it's been two years now since David Roy's original diagnosis, he's realistic about his chances of survival. But he's convinced Soon-Shiong and other scientists are on track to dramatically decrease cancer death rates in the not too distant future.
David Roy: I'm not sure that it'll happen fast enough for me, but I have every confidence that my children and grandchildren won't be concerned about the things that I'm concerned about. We are on the edge here, of going from the oil lamp to electricity. And it is going to happen.
Soon-Shiong's most provocative idea, though, centers on how cancers may become metastatic.
He believes chemotherapy works best when administered in frequent, low doses and that in some cancers the traditional method of blasting a tumor with heavy doses of chemotherapy may be actually be counterproductive - because it could induce cancer cells to escape the hostile environment, enter the bloodstream and find a new home.
Sanjay Gupta: It's on the move.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: It's on the move. And it's looking for another place to land.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: Circulating tumor cells in the blood is the new frontier. Those are the circulating tumor cells.
Sanjay Gupta: That's incredible.
If cancer spreads the likelihood of survival decreases dramatically. So before individual rogue cancer cells fan out and form new tumors, Soon-Shiong wants to detect them with what are known as liquid biopsies. A person's blood sample is put through this bio-chip that separates normal blood cells from heavier, circulating tumor cells. This is a view inside the bio-chip as the tumor cells are being funneled to the top.
Patrick Soon-Shiong: And if we can now monitor the cancer cell in the blood we then have a path to getting this and winning this war. We never had those paths before.
After pulling out the circulating tumor cells, scientists can take them back to the genome sequencer to look for new mutations that made them resistant to the initial treatment...and hopefully find a new drug to treat it. It's yet another angle Soon-Shiong is taking to disrupt cancer.
Sanjay Gupta: You got genomics. You have circulating tumor cell liquid biopsies. Death by T-cell. Why are you the one taking all this on, I mean these are lots of different types of things...
Patrick Soon-Shiong: You know, somebody once said to me, "You know, Patrick, you're all over the place." And I said, "You have to be all over the place" because I'm trying to fight this war from all over the place. Because you can't, there's no one single magic bullet.Jeff S. Love it!! Extremely helpful for drafting at the last minute. If I had paid 20 dollars for it, I would have won it twice back. Thank you guys for a solid app.
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koncretegudda Just gotta trust it This app is not bad at all the layout is amazing, if you play more 5050 games you have a higher chance of winning they always produce pretty good lineups sometimes you just have to play them I noticed that.February 17th, 2011 started off just like any other day for ‘Firefly’ fans around the world; little did they know what was about to transpire. That day Entertainment Weekly interviewed our favorite Captain. During that interview EW asked Mr. Fillion, “If Castle had its series finale tomorrow, and Fox said to you and Joss, ‘We screwed up; let’s try doing Firefly again’ would you do it?” His response is what started it all!
Nathan Fillion:
“Yes. Yes. I would examine very closely Fox’s reasoning — I’m a little gun-shy. If I got $300 million from the California Lottery, the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet.”
A fan thought, “Hey, why take the chances with the lottery; I’d be willing to put a few bucks in support of Nathan buying the rights.” The next day, with the help of a good friend, HelpNathanBuyFirefly.com was born:
“The Plan:
Phase 1) Generate momentum. We’re going to setup a way people can pledge funding towards the mission of putting the rights to Firefly back into the hands of people who care about it. Since Nathan said he’d be game to be those hands, we’re going to watch for …
Phase 2) Nathan chimes in towards us and approves the effort. At that point, it’s a real mission and we’ll switch into….
Phase 3) We’ll setup a way for the funding to be collected into a Non-Profit Organization. We’ll then want everyone to make good on their pledge and contribute.”
The founders were not alone. Support started flowing in from all corners of the web; the initial Word press site crashed with all the traffic and the Facebook wall moved so fast it was almost impossible to keep up with.
In the week that followed, everyone waited with eager anticipation for the pledge system to be set up, all the while ideas of how to get our beloved show back on the air were suggested one after another. Mr. Fillion and the rest of the cast were bombarded with tweets asking their thoughts on HNBF. Jane Espensen, Jose Molina, and Jewel Staite all tweeted support towards Nathan Fillion, saying they’d all be on board if Serenity flew once more.
On day seven, which seemed like weeks for the 70K+ fans that were refreshing the page every couple seconds, in hopes of some news on the plan. Soon, an update was posted. This update made it clear that Nathan was most likely joking. The concept being that when a dollar amount of what fans are ready to spend in support of ‘Firefly’, HNBF would become serious and hopefully attract Mr. Whedon and Mr. Fillion to re think fan-funded projects. The final part of the update was that with the pledge system, there would be an option to give a percentage of your pledge to charity, should the project fail to bring ‘Firefly’ back. This did not go over well with a few vocal fans. To make matters worse, Mr. Fillion’s comment on the campaign came.
“It’s beautiful to dream of more Firefly, but PLEASE DON’T SEND ANY MONEY. Just keep being great Browncoats, which you are!”
Some fans took that as a direct message to stop the plan all together, others took it as a coded message to “misbehave”, citing the episode ‘Out of Gas’.
Two days later came the next update, to let every one know that the Big Damn Plan was being worked on by the new team and the pledge system would soon be up. Along with that update was the info for Browncoats:Redemption (BC:R) and the suggestion that while everyone waits, they should check them out and support another fan run ‘Firefly’ project. Overnight. over 340 fans donated towards the project and raised $10,000+ in a single day (total, as of this writing, has expanded to over $17,000). Many fans felt they were being scammed at this point, as if they were being given the ‘ole switcher-woo’. An update to address these concerns and those about the anonymity was posted a few days later, albeit a tad to late; the comment battles had already waged.
Amidst the waging war over BC:R in the previous post the pledge system was finally up, in line with Day 10 and 100,000 fans on the Facebook page. The pledge numbers rose like clockwork, with the occasional phony pledge that was quickly removed.
Two weeks into the campaign, another interview with Nathan Fillion is done. He clearly states to the fans do not send money to a website and that ‘Firefly’ was a very expensive show costing over a million dollars an episode. Soon after an update was posted to acknowledge Mr. Fillion’s comments, and stating that it is understood that this is a massive undertaking that will take determination, perseverance, and faith to accomplish.
On March 6th, The Big Damn plan was revealed!
“1. The idea here is to create a limited partnership to be owned by the fans. Anyone who invests in the company has a voice.
2. The purpose of this partnership will be to enable what everyone has been hoping for all these years: the production and distribution of more of our favorite show. Obviously, there are a lot of things to figure out before we actually get to that point.
3. We’re going to create a system through which anyone can invest in the organization. If we can’t raise enough money, or if we can’t acquire the rights we’re after, we return the remaining funds. No hassle, no questions, no worries. There might be expenses like hiring a veteran negotiator, but we’re going to keep expenses minimal. We’re fans and will be investing too, so we will make it as safe an investment as we can for all involved. “
The Plan was well received by most of the Fans and the pledge numbers continued to rise. Then late March 7th, over 100,000 hearts sank with one tweet. Through Joss Whedon’s sister in-law, the Whedon team expressed that they did not support HNBF (later clarified to express uninvolvement).
As promised since the start, the plan would not move ahead without support from Mr. Fillion or Mr. Whedon, the Big Damn Plan was shutdown. HelpNathanBuyFirefly.com was locked down and all continued communication was directed over to the Facebook page. Once the Pledge hit over $1,000,000 dollars at an average of just over $85 per pledge it was also locked down.
In an amazing show of selflessness many fans donated all or a portion of what they would have pledged to Kids Need to Read in honor of Nathan Fillion. In the next few weeks over $3000 was raised! The days following at the Facebook page made it clear that the fans were not ready to give up on their dream. Many pleasant conversations arose, and the Facebook page came to be a peaceful place for ‘Firefly’ to gather and discuss ways to show their support.
The final act of HNBF (as a page) was to create a design contest for Unstoppable Signals. The winning designs have been placed on various “Signal Gear”. The proceeds of all merchandise sold is donated to Kids Need to Read and can be ordered right here through the new home of Unstoppable Signals.FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Jay Groome was the first-round pick of the Red Sox in 2016, taken No. 12 overall. Ranked as the top overall talent in the Draft class of 2016, Groome came out of the New Jersey high school ranks and threw sparingly during his pro debut, with 6 2/3 total innings. The left-hander comes in at No. 41 overall on the list of Top 100 prospects in baseball.
As part of MLBPipeline.com's visit to all 30 Spring Training facilities, we'll be sitting down with prospects and getting to know them a little better. At Red Sox camp, it was No. 3 prospect Jay Groome.
As part of MLBPipeline.com's visit to all 30 Spring Training facilities, we'll be sitting down with prospects and getting to know them a little better. At Red Sox camp, it was No. 3 prospect Jay Groome.
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Jay Groome was the first-round pick of the Red Sox in 2016, taken No. 12 overall. Ranked as the top overall talent in the Draft class of 2016, Groome came out of the New Jersey high school ranks and threw sparingly during his pro debut, with 6 2/3 total innings. The left-hander comes in at No. 41 overall on the list of Top 100 prospects in baseball.
MLBPipeline.com: This is your first Spring Training. How has this experience been? And how is it different than you expected?
• Red Sox Top 30 Prospects list
:: MLB Pipeline Spring Training reports ::
Groome: My experience has been phenomenal. I'm coming out every day and doing what I love. I didn't think it was going to be this crowded, though everyone did say it was going to be. It's weird walking into the weight room and seeing all these big leaguers. I grew up watching Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia and David Price.
I guess it's a little more thrilling. I try to look at it like they're just regular guys and maybe they'll be my teammates later on down the road. We go out of our way to say hello to each other. It's crazy that they go out of their way to say hello to me. I was down here for the offseason and Chris Sale, the first day he came to us, his first day, he came and said "What's up?" to me.
MLBPipeline.com: Have you been able to pick the brains of any of these guys? Chris Sale, David Price, you have some good lefties to choose from.
Groome: I'm not really a big guy to go and ask questions. Every single time they've been in the bullpen over there, I'll go out and watch them. I watched Sale's first live BP, and it was just incredible. They really don't miss that much. When I was watching Sale, every pitch was where the catcher set up. The catcher wanted a slider in to a righty, and bang, right on the inside corner. I'm more of an "eyes on" learner.
MLBPipeline.com: When did you get down to Fort Myers?
Groome: I've been down here the whole offseason. I got a place about five minutes away from here. I've been getting after it. I wanted to come in ready for Spring Training and hopefully break camp with a full-season team. I've been down here for about six, seven months now. I'm used to the weather now. I like the heat. I don't ever want to go back to where it's cold. In Jersey right now, it's snowing. Not just the weather down here, it's the facilities, the trainers who have helped me get to where I wanted to be through the offseason. I thank them a lot for that.
MLBPipeline.com: Your Draft experience was a little up and down. You were our No. 1 prospect heading in, then you slid a little bit when the Red Sox kind of jumped in and took you. How did all of that impact you?
Groome: I really don't like to dwell on it that much. I'll say that my family was probably going through a lot more stress than I was the day of the Draft, just because I always wanted to play professional baseball. It didn't really bother me who I ended up with. It was a dream come true when I heard my name called by my favorite team. My whole family had no idea when they saw me slide. Then my aunt said, "This is it. He's going to get picked by the Red Sox." Sure enough, they called my name and the whole house went nuts
• Red Sox Spring Training Report
MLBPipeline.com: You're from Jersey. How is it that the Red Sox are your favorite team?
Groome: It goes back to my dad. Everyone in my family is a Yankees fan, but he always liked Pedro Martinez. The same players I liked. He liked watching Nomar Garciaparra. I grew up watching Pedro when he was on the Red Sox, Dustin Pedroia when he came along, David Ortiz. It grew on me, the players and how they go about their business. Pedroia always gives it his all. I always looked at him like a role model. I always want to go out there and put my team in the best spot to win and do anything you can to help your team win.
Jonathan Mayo is a reporter for MLBPipeline.com. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanMayo and Facebook, and listen to him on the weekly Pipeline Podcast.As you may have noticed we are already massive fans of Clare Maguire, so we were quite excited to hear what the Breakage Remix of her latest single Ain’t Nobody sounded like. I have one word for you, immense.
Zane Lowe has described this track as “quite simply the biggest remix of the year”, whilst I on the other hand wouldn’t go that far. Nothing has beaten Russ Chimes’s remix of Starry Eyed yet for me I’m afraid! Having said that though, this remix is very, very good.
I had to do a lot of audio editing since Zane Lowe decided to laugh over the majority of the track both times he played it (tosser), but I’m quite happy with the results. Even so I’ll he uploading a higher quality version if/when I get my hands on one.
Clare Maguire – Ain’t Nobody (Breakage Remix)
ytaudio(d9t9fIzAFa0)
edit: Updated with a CDQ download. Mission accomplished. The liar got caught out twice.
Oh and please re-tweet this track on The Hype Machine <3 at: http://awe.sm/5Ao4E as we want it to appear on the Twitter chart! Thanks!Italian equity markets have come under intense pressure on Monday, with the FTSE MIB benchmark tanking 4% as a sell-off in financials pushed the market regulator, Consob, to ban short-selling. Markets trembled in the face of a power struggle between embattled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti over spending cuts, sending Italian sovereign bond yields and CDS to record highs.
Things don’t look pretty in Italy. Benchmark equity index MIB fell 4% on Monday after a 3. |
headlines like this one: "Year 3: Redskins are getting worse, not better"
20. Arizona Cardinals (LW: 16, 4-5): Really, how did they start 4-0?
21. Cincinnati Bengals (LW: 18, 3-5): If they would just beat the teams they should beat, like the Dolphins and Browns, they'd be 5-3 right now.
22. Dallas Cowboys (LW: 20, 3-5): Cowboys vs. Eagles next week. Loser fires their head coach?
23. New Orleans Saints (LW: 27, 3-5): The Saints have won three of four. They're a threat to run the table if things go well.
24. Tennessee Titans (LW: 22, 3-6): "In my 50 years of owning an NFL franchise, I am at a loss to recall a regular-season home game that was such a disappointment for myself and fans of the Titans," owner Bud Adams said.
25. Buffalo Bills (LW: 23, 3-5): Super Mario was booed on his return to Houston. And he liked it. He probably would've liked staying in Houston, too.
26. New York Jets (LW: 25, 3-5): "We're not even close," Rex Ryan said. "We're not sniffing the playoffs." Not much else to say here -- he's right.
27. Carolina Panthers (LW: 30, 2-6): Cam Newton has the dumbest stories written about him.
28. Oakland Raiders (LW: 26, 3-5): The race to not finish last in the AFC West is on.
29. St. Louis Rams (LW: 28, 3-5): The Rams new GM is doing these a little differently this year, which is a good thing. Not finishing over.500 in nearly a decade is a bad thing.
30. Cleveland Browns (LW: 29, 2-7): The Browns have only lost three games this year by more than one score. Staying competitive is the goal this year, actually winning games is the goal next year.
31. Jacksonville Jaguars (LW: 31, 1-7): So the Jags are better than the Chiefs, right?
32. Kansas City Chiefs (LW: 32, 1-7): Still haven't led for one second in regulation this season. As a Chiefs fan, I'm not even mad. That's impressive.I live in the hippest neighborhood in the world. Uhhh… maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s a little place called WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN!
There are so many perks to living here it’s crazy. My daily routine is very cool. I can gambol along Bedford Avenue at any time of day and stumble upon a photoshoot for a fashion blogger or street performer set against one of our many artsy advertising murals. There are so many new faces here every day, between the European tourists browsing our vintage stores or coffee shops and my friends moving in from the Midwest. It seems like every week, a trendy new brunch spot or trendsetting music venue is opening up, catering to my needs as a hip urban millennial.
Everything about Williamsburg is hip. Our residents are hip, our stoops are hip, even our air is hip… which gave me an idea recently.
Since my salary as a brandegizing synergist at a boutique marketing firm barely covers the maintenance fees at my loft as is, I decided to sell a few items on eBay—some rare shoegaze vinyl from Record Store Day at Rough Trade, an extra bike seat, an unopened mixology set. But then I thought: What could be cooler than owning a sample of air from the trendiest zip code on the planet? So on Monday night, I listed a sampling of Williamsburg’s finest oxygen on eBay.
“Air from Williamsburg, Brooklyn! HIP COOL BROOKLYN LENA DUNHAM 11211” read the listing’s title. The description read in part:
“The air was collected in the summer of 2015 and the mystery oxygen could’ve come from anywhere–perhaps it circulated at our trendiest bars and brunch spots like Enid’s or the Wythe Hotel. Or maybe it spent some time on the set of Lena Dunham’s hit HBO show, ‘Girls.’ It could’ve even been breathed in by our hippest resident celebrities like Sky Ferreira. That store on Bedford Ave. that sells only fedoras? The hot sauce store on Wythe? We’re not saying! There’s truly no telling where in 'The Burg' this air came from!”
I started the bidding at $39.99 which I thought was a steal given how hot Williamsburg real estate is right now, and I offered to ship the air in either a Ziploc bag or a mason jar from one of our many, many mason jar specialty shops.
Things took off quickly. My inbox was flooded with questions from eBay users. “Can I vape the air?” one user asked. (Yes, you can vape it with the vape paraphernalia from our many organic, farm-fresh vape stores.) “Are there any side effects?” asked another. (Only looking very cool!) “Is any of the air from 11249?” (Yes, and there is absolutely no air from Bushwick a.k.a. “East Williamsburg” with the singular exception of Roberta’s.)
A bidding war broke out. Before I knew it, within three days, it had collected 41 bids, the top one being for $20,100. That may seem high, but in Williamsburg dollars a 50,000 percent mark-up is actually quite reasonable.
To my surprise, a number of blogs and websites started posting stories about my hot item. Brooklyn Magazine, DNAinfo, amNewYork, Brokelyn, HyperAllergic, FreeWilliamsburg, and many other local outlets all devoted some coveted internet ink to it. An ABC News Radio piece about it got picked up and sent the story around the country. I had interview requests coming in from places like The Huffington Post and Thrillist. It even made the evening news.
As usual, people couldn't get enough of America’s hippest neighborhood and all the cool art we’re making here. This was a win-win-win situation, I thought. I was pocketing a few extra bucks, a very lucky bidder was getting a steal on a hot item, and the public was getting to hear more about the country’s trendiest hood. Then something went wrong.
On Thursday evening, eBay sent me an email informing me that my account, TheEdgeDweller, had been suspended. They did not provide a reason.
I called up eBay’s customer service number and recorded my conversation with their associate, RJ. RJ was not very helpful, and would not provide specific reasons for my account’s suspension. He also refused to reactivate the listing. “We’ve determined that it is in our mutual best interest to part ways,” he told me. “I’m so sorry but I’m not going to be able to be more specific.” This was both humiliating and familiar. I used to make out with the second basewoman on my McCarren Park kickball team (2013 league champions The Ball Busters) in the back of the Turkey’s Nest until she ended things between us using the exact same words.
“This is like a dictatorship,” I told RJ. “Here in Williamsburg where I live”—I let the impressive nature of that declaration hang there for an extra second—”we do things as a community because we’re cool and hip, and that’s probably why the air was going for so much money.” RJ would not budge. “eBay has the right to suspend an account… we’re unable to be more specific.”
“It would be one thing if I were selling something illegal, like Phrosties, but I’m not,” I told him. “I met all of the guidelines of eBay.” He would not tell me which of the terms of service I had violated.
I needed the money, I pleaded with RJ. Some friends from my luxury condo and I were planning on pooling our cash and opening a DIY venue. Could I just start a new account and relist the item? “I don’t encourage you to open a new account because we will still be able to know that it’s you,” he warned me.
Eventually, around the point where I started likening eBay to the KGB, RJ disconnected the call, and I was left with only more questions. What kind of country is this where I am banned from selling something as pure as air?
#FreeTheAir
Fortunately, the media, who was still highly invested in this story, seemed to have more answers than I did. New York Business Journal dedicated some much-deserved reporting into the matter: “We reached out to eBay to learn why this particular item was taken down and promptly heard back from their North American Communications manager: 'his listing was removed as it was in violation of eBay's No Item policy.'” Um, air is an item. It is literally the most essential item.
The article continues: “In January 2007 eBay formally banned the sale of ‘virtual items’ as might be used in video games. But this is clearly not a virtual item. Is the fully inflated bag empty? Though the actual contents of the bag may have been difficult or impossible to verify, the answer is clearly, no. Perhaps it's a work of art? Whatever the case, the bag clearly exists, and someone wanted to buy it.”
I agree with the writer’s assessment that it both exists and is a work of art. After all, French artist Marcel Duchamp once created an art piece out of 50 cc of Paris air in 1919, and that city didn’t even have a J. Crew back then.
AdWeek also weighed in with the headline “This Diabolical Hipster Hoodwinker Almost Sold a Bag of Brooklyn Air for $20,000” about my injustice suffered in “the hipster-friendly Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y.,” as they called it. They labeled it “The Hipster Scam to End All Hipster Scams,” claiming that “this hipster hoodwinked plenty of people in an elaborate manner.” This was absurd. I was not trying to “scam” or “hoodwink” anyone! (Although thank you for repeatedly noting how hip I am!)
All of this has left me incredibly frustrated. I just want to be free to sell my "hipster air." If anyone from eBay is reading this, I hope you will reconsider your decision and allow me to spread the hipness of Williamsburg throughout the world. You should know that in a show of solidarity, many of my entrepreneurial neighbors have expressed to me that they will no longer use your service to sell their handcrafted sunglasses made from reclaimed wood and will only make them available on Etsy. Also, if the $20,100 bidder is reading and would like to PayPal me said $20,100, please contact me and I will be glad to mail you your item.
And if anyone else has an excess of money and a burning desire to be hip, I’ve got some air from Williamsburg to sell you.
In addition to being a "hipster entrepreneur," Dan Ozzi is also a Noisey editor. He lives in Williamsburg with his fellow hip urban millennials. Follow him on Twitter.A series of dihydro-1H-pyrrolo[1,2-a]imidazole-2,5(3H,6H)-diones were synthesized. These bicylic derivatives contain both the 2-pyrrolidinone and 4-imidazolidinone nuclei, already recognized as important for cognition enhancing activity. In addition, these structures maintain the backbone of piracetam and oxiracetam with the acetamide side chain restricted in a folded conformation. Their ability to reverse scopolamine-induced amnesia was assessed in a one trial, step-through, passive avoidance paradigm. The main features observed are a potent antiamnestic activity after ip administration (minimal effective dose being between 0.3 and 1 mg/kg ip for most compounds), the presence of a bell-shaped dose-response curve and, generally, a reduction of biological activity after po administration. However, the unsubstituted compound (15, dimiracetam) shows no evidence of a bell-shaped dose-response curve and completely retains activity when given orally, being 10-30 times more potent than the reference drug oxiracetam.Full Disclosure mailing list archives
By Date By Thread Microsoft Windows NT #GP Trap Handler Allows Users to Switch Kernel Stack From: Tavis Ormandy <taviso () sdf lonestar org>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:11:17 +0100
Microsoft Windows NT #GP Trap Handler Allows Users to Switch Kernel Stack ------------------------------------------------------------------------- CVE-2010-0232 In order to support BIOS service routines in legacy 16bit applications, the Windows NT Kernel supports the concept of BIOS calls in the Virtual-8086 mode monitor code. These are implemented in two stages, the kernel transitions to the second stage when the #GP trap handler (nt!KiTrap0D) detects that the faulting cs:eip matches specific magic values. Transitioning to the second stage involves restoring execution context and call stack (which had been previously saved) from the faulting trap frame once authenticity has been verified. This verification relies on the following incorrect assumptions: - Setting up a VDM context requires SeTcbPrivilege. - ring3 code cannot install arbitrary code segment selectors. - ring3 code cannot forge a trap frame. This is believed to affect every release of the Windows NT kernel, from Windows NT 3.1 (1993) up to and including Windows 7 (2009). Working out the details of the attack is left as an exercise for the reader. Just kidding, that was an homage to Derek Soeder :-) - Assumption 0: Setting up a VDM context requires SeTcbPrivilege. Creating a VDM context requires EPROCESS->Flags.VdmAllowed to be set in order to access the authenticated system service, NtVdmControl(). VdmAllowed can only be set using NtSetInformationProcess(), which verifies the caller has SeTcbPrivilege. If this is true, the caller is very privileged and can certainly be trusted. This restriction can be subverted by requesting the NTVDM subsystem, and then using CreateRemoteThread() to execute in the context of the subsystem process, which will already have this flag set. - Assumption 1: ring3 code cannot install arbitrary code segment selectors. Cpl is usually equal to the two least significant bits of cs and ss, and is a simple way to calculate the privilege of a task. However, there is an exception, Virtual-8086 mode. Real mode uses a segmented addressing scheme in order to allow 16-bit addresses to access the 20-bit address space. This is achieved by forming physical addresses from a calculation like (cs << 4) + (eip & 0xffff). The same calculation is used to map the segmented real address space onto the protected linear address space in Virtual-8086 mode. Therefore, I must be permitted to set cs to any value, and checks for disallowed or privileged selectors can be bypassed (PsSetLdtEnties will reject any selector where any of the three lower bits are unset, as is the case with the required cs pair). - Assumption 2: ring3 code cannot forge a trap frame. Returning to usermode with iret is a complicated operation, the pseudocode for the iret instruction alone spans several pages of Intel's Software Developers Manual. The operation occurs in two stages, a pre-commit stage and a post-commit stage. Using the VdmContext installed using NtVdmControl(), an invalid context can be created that causes iret to fail pre-commit, thus forging a trap frame. The final requirement involves predicting the address of the second-stage BIOS call handler. The address is static in Windows 2003, XP and earlier operating systems, however, Microsoft introduced kernel base randomisation in Windows Vista. Unfortunately, this potentially useful exploit mitigation is trivial to defeat locally as unprivileged users can simply query the loaded module list via NtQuerySystemInformation(). -------------------- Affected Software ------------------------ All 32bit x86 versions of Windows NT released since 27-Jul-1993 are believed to be affected, including but not limited to the following actively supported versions: - Windows 2000 - Windows XP - Windows Server 2003 - Windows Vista - Windows Server 2008 - Windows 7 -------------------- Consequences ----------------------- Upon successful exploitation, the kernel stack is switched to an attacker specified address. An attacker would trigger the vulnerability by setting up a specially formed VDM_TIB in their TEB, using a code sequence like this: /*... */ // Magic CS required for exploitation Tib.VdmContext.SegCs = 0x0B; // Pointer to fake kernel stack Tib.VdmContext.Esi = &KernelStack; // Magic IP required for exploitation Tib.VdmContext.Eip = Ki386BiosCallReturnAddress; NtCurrentTeb()->Reserved4[0] = &Tib; /*... */ Followed by /*... */ NtVdmControl(VdmStartExecution, NULL); /*... */ Which will reach the following code sequence via the #GP trap handler, nt!KiTrap0D. Please note how the stack pointer is restored from the saved (untrusted) trap frame at 43C3E6, undoubtedly resulting in the condition described above. /*... */.text:0043C3CE Ki386BiosCallReturnAddress proc near.text:0043C3CE mov eax, large fs:KPCR.SelfPcr.text:0043C3D4 mov edi, [ebp+KTRAP_FRAME.Esi].text:0043C3D7 mov edi, [edi].text:0043C3D9 mov esi, [eax+KPCR.NtTib.StackBase].text:0043C3DC mov ecx, 84h.text:0043C3E1 mov [eax+KPCR.NtTib.StackBase], edi.text:0043C3E4 rep movsd.text:0043C3E6 mov esp, [ebp+KTRAP_FRAME.Esi].text:0043C3E9 add esp, 4.text:0043C3EC mov ecx, [eax+KPCR.PrcbData.CurrentThread].text:0043C3F2 mov [ecx+KTHREAD.InitialStack], edi.text:0043C3F5 mov eax, [eax+KPCR.TSS].text:0043C3F8 sub edi, 220h.text:0043C3FE mov [eax+KTSS.Esp0], edi.text:0043C401 pop edx.text:0043C402 mov [ecx+KTHREAD.Teb], edx.text:0043C405 pop edx.text:0043C406 mov large fs:KPCR.NtTib.Self, edx.text:0043C40D mov ebx, large fs:KPCR.GDT.text:0043C414 mov [ebx+3Ah], dx.text:0043C418 shr edx, 10h.text:0043C41B mov byte ptr [ebx+3Ch], dl.text:0043C41E mov [ebx+3Fh], dh.text:0043C421 sti.text:0043C422 pop edi.text:0043C423 pop esi.text:0043C424 pop ebx.text:0043C425 pop ebp.text:0043C426 retn 4 /*... */ Possibly naive example code for triggering this condition is availble from the link below. http://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/c0af0967d904cef2ad4db766a00bc6af/KiTrap0D.zip The code has been tested on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003/2008, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Support for other affected operating systems is left as an exercise for the interested reader. ------------------- Mitigation ----------------------- If you believe you may be affected, you should consider applying the workaround described below. Temporarily disabling the MSDOS and WOWEXEC subsystems will prevent the attack from functioning, as without a process with VdmAllowed, it is not possible to access NtVdmControl() (without SeTcbPrivilege, of course). The policy template "Windows Components\Application Compatibility\Prevent access to 16-bit applications" may be used within the group policy editor to prevent unprivileged users from executing 16-bit applications. I'm informed this is an officially supported machine configuration. Administrators unfamiliar with group policy may find the videos below instructive. Further information is available from the Windows Server Group Policy Home http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/grouppolicy/default.aspx. To watch a demonstration of this policy being applied to a Windows Server 2003 domain controller, see the link below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRVI4iQ2Nug To watch a demonstration of this policy being applied to a Windows Server 2008 domain controller, see the link below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8pfXW7crEQ To watch a demonstration of this policy being applied to a shared but unjoined Windows XP Professional machine, see the link below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Y6d-BVwxk On Windows NT4, the following knowledgebase article explains how to disable the NTVDM and WOWEXEC subsystems. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/220159 Applying these configuration changes will temporarily prevent users from accessing legacy 16-bit MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 applications, however, few users require this functionality. If you do not require this feature and depend on NT security, consider permanently disabling it in order to reduce kernel attack surface. ------------------- Solution ----------------------- Microsoft was informed about this vulnerability on 12-Jun-2009, and they confirmed receipt of my report on 22-Jun-2009. Regrettably, no official patch is currently available. As an effective and easy to deploy workaround is available, I have concluded that it is in the best interest of users to go ahead with the publication of this document without an official patch. It should be noted that very few users rely on NT security, the primary audience of this advisory is expected to be domain administrators and security professionals. ------------------- Credit ----------------------- This bug was discovered by Tavis Ormandy. ------------------- Greetz ----------------------- Greetz to Julien, Neel, Redpig, Lcamtuf, Spoonm, Skylined, asiraP, LiquidK, ScaryBeasts, spender and all my other elite colleagues. Check out some photography while at ring0 @ http://flickr.com/meder. ------------------- References ----------------------- Derek Soeder has previously reported some legendary NT bugs, including multiple vdm bugs that, while unrelated to this issue, make fascinating reading. - http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2004/Oct/404, Windows VDM #UD LocalPrivilege Escalation - http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2004/Apr/477, Windows VDM TIB Local Privilege Escalation - http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2007/Apr/357, Zero Page Race Condition Privilege Escalation ------------------- Appendix ----------------------- SHA-1 checksum of KiTrap0D.zip follows. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 99a047427e9085d52aaddfc9214fd1a621534072 KiTrap0D.zip -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iQEVAwUBS1W6+RvyfE4zaHEXAQK//QgAvo/VhPdeASGe7SSfC3jLwNzsfVfM+FMo x7JZMMfVUh6b/+FxvokIpsCUf7QQkv+YcyCiatutVjUok5aw5BirFtPLHORIIKPX B5gN2a4G8RIXh5yKE6FffKGQsPJNW1Ua5Jss8rf59TEj3EDky1vco+WVmmz7TsHn TQdUreVcL8wFmCAgq5X0AKrdepYDBmYLF0AUFOdG3mKJ43dnP59p9R7+ckv0pfLW XtvOgzZDNMew4z2Z53YQpE7dO+Y3H3rnhLN7jF7i9We9iiG4ATDke8byFAIDZQZx ucq5EOcRsfAAWW3O8EbzQa0NiHHScJrKDjvg0gX1Y69MBBwCLNP6yg== =LHU0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ------------------------------------- taviso () sdf lonestar org | finger me for my gpg key. ------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/ By Date By Thread Current thread: Microsoft Windows NT #GP Trap Handler Allows Users to Switch Kernel Stack Tavis Ormandy (Jan 19)Growing number of scientists are predicting global cooling: Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: ‘We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years’ ‘Sun Sleeps’: Danish Solar Scientist Svensmark declares ‘global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning…enjoy global warming while it lasts’ Prominent geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook warns ‘global COOLING is almost a slam dunk’ for up to 30 years or more Australian Astronomical Society warns of global COOLING as Sun’s activity ‘significantly diminishes’
Climate Depot Exclusive Round Up of Global Cooling predictions
Professor Judith Curry of, the chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, on June 14, 2013: “Attention in the public debate seems to be moving away from the 15-17 year ‘pause’ to the cooling since 2002 (note: I am receiving inquiries about this from journalists). This period since 2002 is scientifically interesting, since it coincides with the ‘climate shift’ circa 2001/2002 posited by Tsonis and others. This shift and the subsequent slight cooling trend provides a rationale for inferring a slight cooling trend over the next decade or so, rather than a flat trend from the 15 yr ‘pause’.”
Climate Depot Note:
Many scientists in recent years have noted the recent global cooling and predicted many years to decades to centuries of more global cooling. Below is a sampling of scientists and studies on global cooling.
UW-Milwaukee Professor’s Peer-Reviewed Study Predicts 50 Years of Global Cooling – January 2010: ‘A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor is making headlines for his work suggesting the world is entering a period of global cooling. “Now we’re getting a break,” Anastasios Tsonis, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at UWM, said in an interview with the MacIver Institute. Tsonis published a paper last March that found the world goes through periods of warming and cooling that tend to last thirty years. He says we are now in a period of cooling that could last up to fifty years.
Atmospheric Scientist Tsonis on record cold: ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while’ — Tsonis was flooded with ‘hate emails’ after 2009 peer-reviewed study predicting ’20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures’ — ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth’
Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: ‘We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years’
New Study: Russian Astrophysicist from Russian Academy of Science Predicts Global Cooling: ‘From 2014 we can expect start of deep cooling with a Little Ice Age in 2055′ — Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, 196140, Russia — Applied Physics Research, Vol. 4, No. 1 February 2012: Abstract: ‘We can expect the onset of a deep bicentennial minimum of total solar irradiance (TSI) in approximately 2042±11 and the 19th deep minimum of global temperature in the past 7500 years – in 2055±11.’
Flashback Sept. 2009: ‘Sun Sleeps’: Danish Solar Scientist Svensmark declares ‘global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning…enjoy global warming while it lasts’
Global Cooling Coming? Aussie Scientist David Archibald uses solar and surface data to predict 4.9°C fall — ‘Normal solar cycles are 11 years long, but the current one (cycle 24) is shaping up to be 17 years (unusually long), and using historical data from the US, David predicts a 2.1°C decline over Solar Cycle 24 followed by a further 2.8°C over Solar Cycle 25. That adds up to a whopping 4.9°C fall in temperate latitudes over the next 20 years. We can only hope he’s wrong’
Prominent geologist warns ‘global COOLING is almost a slam dunk’ for up to 30 years or more — ‘There is no single piece of real evidence that points to CO2′ as driving temps — Dr. Don Easterbrook: ‘We’ve had 27 climate changes in the last 400 years: warm, cold, warm, cold. There have been four in this past century that have nothing to do with CO2, because CO2 wasn’t a factor hundreds of thousands of years ago. We know that those are not at all related to CO2. So why would we expect climate change today to be related to CO2?’
AUSTRALIAN SCIENTIST PREDICTS GLOBAL COOLING: “SUN IS THE MAJOR CONTROL OF CLIMATE; LOOK FOR COOLING’ — ‘Prof. Cliff Ollier of the School of Earth & Env. Studies, U, of Western Australia, recently presented a paper in Poznan, Poland, in which he described the sun as the major control of climate, but not through greenhouse gases.”There is a very good correlation of sunspots and climate. Solar cycles provide a basis for prediction. Solar Cycle 24 has started and we can expect serious cooling. Many think that political decisions about climate are based on scientific predictions but what politicians get are projections based on computer models. The UN’s main adviser, the IPCC, uses adjusted data for the input, their models and codes remain secret, and they do not accept responsibility for their projections.” Download paper here
New paper finds that a solar proton event could cause global cooling of more than 3C — Paper published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics — Study finds that ‘a solar proton event, if it took place in the near future with an intensity similar to that ascribed to the Carrington Event of 1859, must be expected to have a major impact on atmospheric composition throughout the middle atmosphere, resulting in significant and persistent decrease in total ozone,’ resulting in a ‘significant [global] cooling of more than 3C’
Famed hurricane forecaster Dr. William Gray predicts global cooling over next 20 years
Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook at Heartland Skeptic Conf.: ‘The main question is not will we have global cooling, it’s how intense will it be’
Dr. Easterbrook: ‘What we see now in the climate is nothing new 90% of 10000 years was warmer than the present’
Watch Now: Meteorologist Joe Bastardi on how global warming hype is hurting the economy & warns of global cooling
Sampling of scientists and scientific studies predicting global COOLING – Up until October 2008
[Note: Many of the scientists and studies cited below first appeared in the December 2007 U.S. Senate Report of over 400 (For Full Senate Report see: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport ) See also U.S. Senate Report released in July 2008: ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008 ]
Global COOLING Continues: 2008 So Far Coolest For at Least 5 Years Says World Meteorological Organization – ‘First half of 2008 the coolest since 2000’ — Excerpt: – The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday. The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. […] The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. […] Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino. “We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years,” said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. “Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say.” “Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it’s warmer than average,” added Baddour.
‘This is going to be catastrophic’ – Brrr! Farmers’ Almanac says cold winter ahead – Associated Press – August 20, 2008 — Excerpt: Households worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmers’ Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S. “Numb’s the word,” says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80 to 85 percent for its forecasts that are prepared two years in advance. The almanac’s 2009 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder than average temperatures, with only the Far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings. “This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people,” said almanac editor Peter Geiger, noting that the frigid forecast combined with high prices for heating fuel is sure to compound problems households will face in keeping warm. The almanac predicts above-normal snowfall for the Great Lakes and Midwest, especially during January and February, and above-normal precipitation for the Southwest in December and for the Southeast in January and February. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions should be getting an unusually wet or snowy February, the almanac said. The forecasts, which are spelled out in three- and four-day periods for each region, are prepared by the almanac’s reclusive prognosticator Caleb Weatherbee, who uses a secret formula based on sunspots, the position of the planets and the tidal action of the moon.
‘Global warming of the past 30 years is over’ – July 20, 2008 – By Geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. — Excerpt: Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over. The announcement by NASA that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode (Fig. 1) is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1°F per decade for the rest of the century.
Mexican scientist warns Earth will enter ‘Little Ice Age’ for up to 80 Years Due to decrease in solar activity! – August 16, 2008 — Excerpt: An expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a “little ice age” which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM, as argued earlier during a conference that teaches at the Centre for Applied Sciences and Technological Development. […] Velasco Herrera described as erroneous predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), pursuant to which the planet is experiencing a gradual increase in temperature, the so-called global warming. The models and forecasts of the IPCC “is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity,” said the specialist also in image processing and signs and prevention of natural disasters. The phenomenon of climate change, he added, should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and the very human activity, and external, such as solar activity. […] “In this century glaciers are growing”, as seen in the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and with Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, said Velasco Herrera. […] The prognosis on the emergence of a new Ice Age has little uncertainty as to their dates. The latest, according to Victor Manuel Velasco, could arrive in approximately two years. In another lecture he gave at the beginning of last December, the same expert had said that the cooling would arrive within 30 or 40 years. And in early July, Velasco Herrera said that satellite data indicate that this period of global cooling could even have already begun, since 2005. Original Spanish language website: http://www.milenio.com/mexico/milenio/nota.asp?id=651680 — Google Translated link from Spanish: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milenio.com%2Fmexico%2Fmilenio%2Fnota.asp%3Fid%3D651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl |
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