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the historic Calais Branch Line to Ellsworth Falls and then to Washington Junction and back to Ellsworth. The ten-mile trip takes approximately 90 minutes.
It is the first tourist-passenger rail to grace the historic Calais Branch Line in decades.
While traveling this stretch of the line we have observed many forms of wildlife including osprey, Blue herons, Bald Eagles, moose, deer, snapping turtles, fox, beavers…and bears!
Of course, any day on the rails is a good one, and we look forward to having you join us soon!
Call 1-866-449-RAIL (7245) and reserve your place today!The Android version of our latest game, the 2D physics puzzler Meatballphobia, is now available on Google Play and Amazon for only US$1.50!
Posted by protomni on Oct 15th, 2013
The availability of Meatballphobia on Google Play and Amazon marks the first stage of the release of our new game, which will soon be available for Windows, Linux, and Windows Phone as well.
We've put a lot of effort into creating a modern puzzle experience with a retro feel that plays naturally and smoothly on both desktops and mobile platforms, and we are glad to say we truly believe we have succeeded at doing so, as do our testers - but you will be the judge of that.
Compared to our beloved platformer Bernie Needs Love - currently in development for Windows and Linux and available with a 50% discount while in beta right here on Desura - Meatballphobia is a much more relaxed experience, with no timer, no highscores, no competitive elements whatsoever: just 50 mind-bending levels of increasing difficulty, all unlocked and available since the first run. The goal is quite simple: you must manipulate the levels in order to drive a meatball onto an unfortunate hysterical head.
This premise might sound over-simplistic and somewhat absurd at first, but we assure you there are many deeper layers of meaning in this. As the description of the game fittingly says, "Meatballphobia is a 2D physics puzzle game about flesh and meat, about the enslavement of both the consumed and the consumer, about life and the systems built around it".
To better illustrate what the theme Meatballphobia is all about, please allow me to quote one of my replies to a question made on the Reddit thread we sent to /r/AndroidGaming last Sunday: "...the idea came from my own discomfort with not only the way meat is produced and the fact it is a fundamental part of my diet, but with the very natural rule that forces one creature to devour another in order to survive. Since the other members of my team share those issues, it was easy convincing them we should invest our efforts in the development of Meatballphobia. I'm not a vegetarian for many reasons, nor does the game have a vegetarian subtext, but I really wanted to create an engaging and entertaining puzzle game that makes the player think about life, about animal and human enslavement, and about the brutality of our current food production and distribution methods."
If you take a look at the following screenshots, you might see that we went for a slightly unsettling 8-bit aesthetics, while permeating the whole thing with a very humorous tone:
You might also want to take a look at the promo video we've made for the Google Play release of the game, as it is much more illustrative of the player experience than any screenshot we can provide:
Finally, regarding Bernie Needs Love, we'd like to add that development is going strong and the next update will introduce many bug-fixes and nice features such as widescreen support. We are also working hard on adding much more variety in levels 2-1 to 2-10 (which will take place in carnival-related areas). Moreover, we expect to add a new 64-bit Linux build with that update, since a couple of users brought to our attention they had to install additional packages to run the game in that environment.
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback, feel free to let us know.
Thank you for reading this and have fun! We truly appreciate your support!Pop Psych: Where we ask a real psychotherapist to delve into the mindsets of our favorite shows and TV characters.
Christ, can you imagine anything worse than joining a cult and still having to be responsible to your cell phone? Hulu’s new series The Path poses this very nightmare scenario right up front and, as goofy as it may seem, this is really a big clue as to what’s going on in this show. I’m a little too old, thankfully, to have been deeply affected by this sort of thing, but I remember towards the end of my time living at home that my dad started bringing his Blackberry on our yearly pilgrimage to Ocean City, Maryland. And while I was unhappily, teenageily disassociated anytime I had to be around my family and girls in bikinis at the same time, I remember the look of total anguish on his face every time he had to answer a work email with sand in his bathing suit. As people love to say, technology has served to make us more connected than ever. Which is great for productivity, but makes it a lot harder to live a fantasy life.
And fantasy life, when you think about it, is the promise of cult life. While most wisdom traditions offer to teach us to accept our worries, cults orient around the idea that if you just say these prayers, perform this ritual, drink this Kool-aid, you can say so long to your worries. The Path has done a really extraordinary job of highlighting this in the first few episodes, across a few different traditional arcs through any belief system. You have Sarah Lane, the true believer who was born into belief; Cal Robertson, the young convert dying to prove his belief; and Eddie Lane, the latecomer comfortable in picking and choosing his own beliefs through Meyerism.
Similarly, the needs they place on Meyerism are varied. Sarah, claiming in an early episode that she’s never made a mistake, needs this system to confirm her belief that her path through life is the most intelligent option. Cal, twice-abandoned son of alcoholics, needs Meyerism to confirm that he is not essentially bad inside. And Eddie, still reeling from the pain of his protective brother’s suicide, needs what may be the simplest and most impossible promise of Meyerism: relief from his horrifying, human history.
It is this basic demand of Eddie’s, the demand to be free of pain, on which this whole show revolves. In the third episode, he confronts cult-defector and deprogrammer Alison, who has followed him home after he decides not to throw his family away over the non-surprise that Meyerism is kind of a hoax. He’s furious with her and tells her that if she bothers him or his family again he’ll make her pay for it. And then, in a moment of total clarity, tells her, “that is not a threat – you do not know where I come from.” If he only knew how true that statement was!
The fact is none of us can know where others come from–even if we know the facts of their lives–because all of us come from inside our own minds. We are all doing our best to take our absolutely unique, ineffable and untranslatable inner experience and put it to words and actions that show who we are. We do an alright job for the most part, but it’s a rigged game. And it hurts! It hurts to be fundamentally so alone, it hurts to try so hard to show up, and it hurts even more to be misunderstood when we do try.
We all want, at least in part, to be free of this. I have no worries generalizing on that point – I hold graduate degrees from two institutions that are a little more culty than necessary for imparting higher education, and something I’ve learned is that places which offer existential “answers” don’t thrive when people feel existentially secure. The pain of our personal histories and of our fundamental being – that we are individuals who long for community – is at the heart of all great religions, and most of the shitty ones too. The question that delineates whether a religion is helpful or harmful for a person is what that religion, philosophy, brand loyalty, etc., offers as wisdom for facing the pain of being a living, lonely human.
What Meyerism seems to be offering its followers is not a group of practices and beliefs for working with the reality of being human, but rather an answer to it. When they talk about transcendence, when they talk about climbing the ladder so as to enter the garden, they are talking about abandoning their humanity. And pay attention to this garden talk, because there’s no way it’s an accident: the book of Genesis presents human life as paradise, until we get kicked out of the garden and consigned to a life with toil and pain. These Meyerists would do well to reread the passage, because they’re ignoring the lesson of Adam and Eve; after getting the boot those two are overwhelmed by pain because they’re so focused on their previous lives in the garden. Meanwhile, if they could just take their eyes off of those closed gates for a minute they’d find that, yes, endless toil can be a bummer but it’s not all gloom if you just change your expectations. It might even be joyous to exist in this world, once you make peace with the pain and allow yourself to really be here. Abel figured this out, Cain didn’t.
Which is something to keep in mind: if you’re convinced your life is going to be easy, you might go a little crazy when it turns out to be hard. This is why Eddie’s so convincing when he tells Alison his menacing isn’t just some idle threat. This is the guy who’s on the way out of Meyerism, which must mean some part of him understands his near-idyllic home life is probably as good as any of us get in this world of dew. He has a lot wrapped up in Meyerism being an Answer, and she keeps reminding him of what he already knows: sorry buddy, it’s not. He’s still human, it’s still going to hurt even when it’s good. That said, he would do well to stop ignoring the important converse – that it’s still going to be good even when it hurts.
Which, I hope, is something the show’s creators understand. Because what’s really amazing is how well they anchor the show in family community. Eddie, whose young survival lessons included “don’t trust your family to stick around”, has married into a big family that sticks around. One of the most frequently returned to scenes in the show is the family dinner. These scenes are portrayed joyously, even though the topics of conversation are often high-tension. Which is accurate: it’s easy to find the fun in difficulty when surrounded by people who truly love you. And while this might seem utterly mundane, it isn’t: when you and your loved ones transmute pain into happiness, don’t ever forget that that’s magic.
James Cole Abrams, MA, is a psychotherapist living and working in Boulder and Denver, Colorado. His work can also be found at www.jamescoleabrams.com where he blogs every Sunday.Shaw’s Freedom Mobile will eventually become one of Canada’s ‘Big 4’ wireless carriers, predicts Barclays analyst Phillip Huang, in a research note obtained by The Financial Post.
According to the analyst, “the pieces are falling into place” for Freedom Mobile to gain new subscribers and become a major wireless player, “a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’,” he explains.
Freedom Mobile is set to expand its wireless network as its 700 MHz and 2500 MHz radio spectrum recently purchased from Videotron will set to be implemented, set to cost $350 million to deploy.
Earlier this year, Shaw president Jay Mehr, said at a telecom and media forum in Toronto, “The future of our business is to be a powerful player in wireless with millions and millions and millions of subscribers.” Freedom Mobile aims to gain 25 per cent of the wireless market in the areas it operates, following a similar goal of wireless player Videotron in Quebec.
Huang says the “lacklustre” performance from Freedom Mobile lately is on purpose, as “It seems to reflect management’s deliberate efforts to not appear disruptive to the incumbents before Shaw is ready.”
Freedom Mobile’s existing wireless network still lacks in quality and speed versus incumbents, but the network can now support iPhones, as Apple’s latest iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X includes Band 66 AWS LTE support.
According to the analyst, he expects Shaw to start selling iPhones within the next six months. With the iPhone being one of the most popular smartphones in Canada, it’s crucial for Shaw to strike a deal to carry the device.
Earlier this month, Shaw filed trademarks for Shaw Mobile, Shaw Wireless and Shaw Mobility on as seen in the Canadian Trademarks Database, suggesting it’s ready to continue pushing further into the wireless space.Dynamic Manufacturing: Creating the Learning Organization, Robert H. Hayes, Steven C. Wheelwright, and Kim B. Clark (New York: Free Press, 1988) 429 pages, $24.95.
American Business: A Two-Minute Warning, C. Jackson Grayson, Jr. and Carla O’Dell (New York: Free Press, 1988) 368 pages, $24.95.
In the fall of 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor rushed into print his Principles of Scientific Management, a thin book that had been gestating since the early 1890s. Taylor was notable in mechanical engineering circles for his codiscovery in 1899 of high-speed steel and for his brilliant paper in 1906, “The Art of Cutting Metals,” which reported on over 30,000 experiments he had conducted at the Midvale Steel Company during the 1880s. By applying scientific techniques—like varying the speed and feed of cutting tools or varying their shapes—he had found the “one best way” to do any metal-cutting task. On the basis of these experiments, he believed he could optimize the performance of the entire machine shop, including the performance of its workers.
With evangelical fervor, Taylor vowed to root out all “systematic soldiering” (i.e., workers doing less than an “honest day’s work”). Doing so, he insisted, required a complete mental revolution in U.S. industry. Taylor tried consulting and worked hard to convince several manufacturing executives to yield control of their production operations to him and his associates. As managers had eclipsed owners, he taught, efficiency experts would eclipse managers.
Taylor advocated pushing responsibility onto people who, like him, had studied the dynamics of production. In return he promised not only productivity increases but also peace between capital and labor.
Unfortunately, Taylor had little initial success; in more than one instance, he and his associates were fired by companies that had retained their services. His reputation as a production expert would probably have remained obscure had it not been for the attorney and future Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, who had been hired in 1910 by an association of companies opposed to proposed rate hikes by the eastern railroads. Brandeis latched onto Taylor’s theoretical work, labeled it “scientific management,” and put one of Taylor’s disciples on the witness stand to tell the Interstate Commerce Commission how the railroads could save a million dollars a day. Headlines throughout the United States proclaimed Taylor’s gospel. An efficiency craze ensued; factories, schools, homes, and even churches were soon Taylorized—hence Principles of Scientific Management.
Taylor’s new book used parables to get his teachings across. His favorite was the story of “Schmidt,” a stocky Pennsylvania German who was a pig-iron loader at Bethlehem Steel. Schmidt loaded about 12 tons of the 92-pound iron pigs each day (and then ran home to work on his little dream house). Using Taylor’s principles, “scientific managers” raised Schmidt’s output to 48 tons per day, and raised his daily wages from $1.15 to $1.85.
Schmidt achieved this remarkable gain, Taylor continued, not only because of science but by being “a high-priced man.” “A high-priced man,” Taylor recounted telling Schmidt, “does just what he’s told to do and no back talk.” Taylor then put things on the line with Schmidt: “When this man [i.e., the manager] tells you to walk, you walk; when he tells you to sit down, you sit down… Now you come here tomorrow morning and I’ll know before night whether you are really a high-priced man or not.” This was “rather rough talk,” Taylor conceded, but with a man of “the mentally sluggish type as Schmidt,” it was “appropriate and not unkind.”
Fifteen years later, in 1926, Henry Ford published an article, “Mass Production,” in the thirteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In it he described revolutionary developments at the Ford Motor Company—the highly specialized machinery, the assembly line, and the $5 day. Interestingly enough, Ford alluded to Taylor’s Schmidt to make clear how his approach differed from Taylorism. Why, Ford asked, should pig iron be loaded by hand? Why not do it with machinery or, better yet, why not eliminate the need for pig iron by casting iron straight from the blast furnace?
In retrospect, however, Ford had actually hit on many of Taylor’s assumptions about work without acknowledging the symmetries. Taylor had not really envisioned Ford’s mechanized work processes. He sought revisions in labor regimens without looking for innovations in production hardware—while Ford and his engineers had mechanized work processes and found workers to feed and tend their machines.
And yet Ford had—perhaps inadvertently—applied Taylorist ideas, such as time-and-motion studies, to lay out machining and assembly processes. At Ford, ultimately, the special-purpose machines and the assembly lines set the pace of work. Taylor was known for his studied disregard for the worker. Ford, for his part, was devoted to the hierarchical production organization demanded by the machines, or to the elimination through automation of skilled jobs on the line.
Taylor and Ford came to mind as I was reading Dynamic Manufacturing, by Robert H. Hayes, Steven C. Wheelwright, and Kim B. Clark of the Harvard Business School, and American Business: A Two-Minute Warning, by C. Jackson Grayson, Jr. and Carla O’Dell of the American Productivity and Quality Center. Since Ford’s assembly-line revolution in 1913, the books justly imply, companies in the United States—indeed, companies throughout most of the world until quite recently—have pursued manufacturing along Taylorist (and Fordist) lines. They have defined jobs and work processes with great precision and saw business organizations as hierarchies, out of a continuing belief that workers “systematically soldier.” They’ve shared, at least in part, Taylor’s manifest contempt for the worker.
Rather than seeing workers as assets to be nurtured and developed, manufacturing companies have often viewed them as objects to be manipulated or as burdens to be borne. And the science of manufacturing has taken its toll. Where workers were not deskilled through extreme divisions of labor, they were often displaced by machinery. For many companies, the ideal factory has been—and continues to be—a totally automated, workerless facility.
Now in the wake of the eroding competitive position of U.S. manufacturing companies, is it time for an end to Taylor’s management tradition? The books answer in the affirmative, calling for the institution of a less mechanistic, less authoritarian, less functionally divided approach to manufacturing. Dynamic Manufacturing focuses explicitly on repudiating Taylorism, which it takes to be a system of “command and control.” American Business: A Two-Minute Warning is written in a more popular vein, but characterizes U.S. manufacturing methods and the underlying mind-set of manufacturing managers in unmistakably similar ways. Taylorism is the villain and the anachronism.
Predictably, both books arrive at their diagnoses and prescriptions through their respective evaluations of the “Japanese miracle.” Whereas U.S. manufacturing is rigid and hierarchical, Japanese manufacturing is flexible, agile, organic, and holistic. In the new competitive environment—which favors the company that can continually generate new, high-quality products—the Japanese are more responsive. They will continue to dominate until U.S. manufacturers develop manufacturing units that are, in Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark’s words, “dynamic learning organizations.” Their book is intended as a primer.
“In contrast to the assumptions of Taylorism,” they argue, “world-class manufacturing organizations do not divide people into those who think and those who act. Learning and applying knowledge must be high on everyone’s agenda, at every level in the organization.”
Grayson and O’Dell’s book is also aimed at corporate managers who are chasing the past, but it goes beyond Dynamic Manufacturing in calling for sweeping reforms in the institutions of American capitalism, from public policy to the educational system.
To be sure, Grayson (the onetime price-control czar in the Nixon administration) and O’Dell swear off state intervention in the economy. They argue for no further protection in international trade, and they oppose the establishment of an “industrial policy” by the federal government—even though Japan has built its current economic strength on the basis of what must rightfully be called an industrial policy. They oppose currency devaluation as a competitiveness strategy because it results in direct foreign investment and the selling off of national assets. They warn that government should not overemphasize capital investment or invest more funds for research and development.
They do, however, call for a redistribution of R&D spending away from defense. More strikingly, they put forth an eight-point government program for victory in the competitiveness war. They are very specific about how to achieve better education: much higher pay for teachers, longer school days, a greatly expanded school year, and larger average class sizes—which is, perhaps, a too slavish desire to emulate the Japanese educational system. The authors’ agenda also includes greater privatization of government services, the reform of U.S. antitrust laws, and improvement of commercial and industrial statistics-gathering to reflect the shift in the economy toward services. They call for raising productivity in government and for cutting the federal budget deficit.
The fundamental weakness of the U.S. economy, they believe, is related to the federal deficit but goes well beyond it. The problem lies in the low savings rate. In fact, A Two-Minute Warning seems to be as much meant for credit-card-wielding U.S. consumers as for U.S. businesspeople.
If the parallels between these two books are striking, so are the differences. Each draws heavily from industrial history to ground its own analysis of America’s productivity problems. But the books do not see quite the same history. Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark include a chapter called “America’s Manufacturing Heritage” that reflects their vision of the golden age of manufacturing in the United States, circa 1950. Their homily—it really isn’t a history—tells us that the United States became a manufacturing giant when it combined old-world skills, which valued quality, with modern scientific knowledge, which valued new ideas and efficiency—and kept this combination carefully in balance.
Then three related things happened; those familiar with Professor Hayes’s work will appreciate the drift of the argument. First, the financial guys took charge and traded long-term growth for short-term profits. Rates of productivity growth fell off. At the same time, U.S. corporate complacency in world markets choked the basic-research binge indulged in by technologically oriented corporations after World War II. The management of industrial R&D laboratories passed from those who had emphasized steady improvement of products and processes to those who valued big science and bet on great leaps forward—while military hardware became the main objectives of R&D spending.
Finally, and perhaps most important, managers allowed Taylor’s principles of scientific management and Ford’s notions about hard automation to get out of hand. It was now that manufacturing organizations became rigidly hierarchical and authoritarian—anything but “learning” organizations. The results, the three authors maintain, have been disastrous.
Grayson and O’Dell construct their history to sound the alarm, not to harken back to the good old days. The United States is following in the footsteps of Great Britain, they write, which did not respond to turn-of-the-century warnings about America’s—and Germany’s—rapidly rising economic power. As a consequence, Great Britain—once the workshop of the world—became a second-rate manufacturing nation, losing both economic and political power in the process. Again, it is our management tradition that is the real culprit.
Curiously, both historical arguments, illuminating as they are, oversimplify U.S. industrial achievements because they underestimate Taylor, overestimate pre-Taylor U.S. managers, or both. Is it true, for example, that the British were warned of impending economic demise just as contemporary U.S. businesses have been warned? Yes and no.
In the 1850s, John Anderson and other British military officers successfully pressed Parliament to fund an American-style small-firearms manufacturing plant, which opened at Enfield in 1857. The Enfield Armory was stocked with American-made machine tools and managed by U.S. manufacturing experts. It turned out a standardized rifle containing uniformly produced parts, a gun far different from the handmade rifles and muskets produced by the arms makers of Birmingham.
After the Enfield Armory opened, Anderson hoped it would become a model for British manufacturers of all kinds of consumer durables. He counseled that if his fellow citizens were “wise in their generation,” they would “not despise this system of manufacture but, on the contrary, will adopt it, for it will secure for them a high vantage ground in competing with other parts of the world.” If the British did not adopt American methods, Anderson warned, “it is to be feared that American manufacturers will before long become exporters…to England.” And yet the British did not adopt U.S. manufacturing methods for another 50 years.
Why the slowness of the British response? British manufacturers viewed most U.S. goods coming in before 1900 as being of poorer quality than British products. Not only were U.S. goods all the same but also they were made with lesser quality materials, were poorly fitted together, and were not finished as perfectly as their British counterparts. British consumers, the manufacturers believed, expected less standardized, higher quality goods.
Actually, a small number of advanced U.S. companies, such as the Singer Manufacturing Company, established factories in Britain during the late nineteenth century using the same production techniques as their sister factories in the United States. They did well in the British and European markets; in fact, Singer’s British factory produced goods at much lower cost than the United States did. (Analogies to Japanese auto companies operating in the United States are unavoidable.)
And so the American system of manufactures, as practiced at companies like Singer, attained its ultimate logic in Taylorism and Fordism. It is true, as Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark recall, that pre-Taylor America was a place of greater skill among production workers. But the genius of American manufacturing back then was really put to the production of goods that were “good enough.” Our system of manufactures was built on the idea of controlling for defects rather than pursuing—as an artist or skilled craftsperson might—perfection. Nineteenth and early twentieth century manufacturers in the United States understood perfectly well that the quality of their goods was determined by how far it deviated from an ideal form at a given price.
By 1900, the British could not touch the quality of U.S. goods—at least not at the U.S. price—and, correspondingly, British consumers began to make compromises. It is with standardized production that U.S. goods conquered world markets. Eventually, as Dynamic Manufacturing bemoans, extreme forms of Taylorism, which made American workers feel that their products were alien to them, led to a palpable decline in the quality of U.S. products.
Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark argue much more strongly the immediate and practical claim that the United States has recently lost its leadership in three bases of competition: relative cost, relative quality, and relative innovativeness. This is where Dynamic Manufacturing takes hold of the imagination.
Although many will contend that an overvalued dollar has played an important role in the rapid loss of U.S. cost advantages, the authors demonstrate cogently that cost problems had emerged well before the dollar took off in the late 1970s. Like Grayson and O’Dell, they cite figures demonstrating that U.S. productivity grew at half the rate of Japan’s during the 1980s, and that this problem was exacerbated by a relative decline in business investment.
Quality has posed even greater problems. U.S. manufacturers quickly lost market share because consumers perceived their goods as lower quality than Japanese goods. This is why the United States has yielded leadership to the Japanese and the Germans in many high-tech industries. Again, there has also been a decline in R&D expenditures as a percentage of the GNP; only 1% of the federal government’s R&D budget went to promoting industrial growth. Indeed, the United States now has a significant “balance of patents” problem.
Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark provide ten useful chapters to guide U.S. managers in creating the “learning” organization—manufacturing companies that are world class. And what better way to begin than to review the prevailing capital-investment process in the United States? As with a growing number of business scholars, Hayes and his associates believe that the modern capital-budgeting regime, with its emphasis on discounted present value, has not served U.S. manufacturing well. Discounted present-value methods fail to comprehend the strategic implications of capital-budgeting decisions, especially the ways investment gives employees opportunities to learn and grow.
Companies that refuse to invest, they argue, fail to take into account the impact of new technology on the organization’s capabilities; they should bank on their organization’s ability to achieve synergies that would be impossible without investment. The key to a wise investment process revolves around the achievement of a broadly “shared understanding of the investment’s purpose and requirements…and the development of a holistic understanding of how the investment relates to their competitive mission.”
Once a sensible capital-budgeting process is developed, Dynamic Manufacturing teaches, it is important that companies value the manufacturing function. U.S. manufacturing companies characteristically have created staff-heavy manufacturing organizations in which commanding executives have too much control. Manufacturing staff should be a “support group, not the aristocracy of the manufacturing organization.”
Let us be clear, however. All of the failings of the old manufacturing organization are symptoms. The disease, according to Hayes and his associates, pertains to human factors, “specifically, management factors—at least as much as it is due to unfair competition or an unsupportive economic climate.” We are experiencing industrial decline essentially because U.S. manufacturing companies still operate within the paradigm of Taylor and Ford. It is in this light that we encounter managers obsessed with short-term profitability.
In a distinctive chapter, “The High-Performance Factory,” the authors give wonderful glimpses of prevailing practices at new and excellent manufacturing operations. They caution that new investment imposes very high short-term costs on a factory, quite apart from the costs of the newly invested capital, and they conclude that new investment is not a viable solution for a company that is in a “do or die” situation. They consider here and elsewhere how the benefits of new investment come not in the short term but over the long term. They consider product and process development (their strongest suit), design for manufacturability, the elimination of waste, and the reduction of work in process.
The high-performance manufacturing organization is one that can design a product correctly the first time—to reduce significantly, if not eliminate, engineering change orders that can cripple manufacturing productivity.
There is much more to Dynamic Manufacturing. This summary has been only a taste. The point is that Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark believe knowledge to be the basis of a dynamically managed factory. Are they right to suppose they depart, therefore, from Taylor?
In fact, the authors often articulate their arguments in the manner of Taylor. They write that, to achieve a dynamic learning organization, “it is not simply a matter of changing a few things; almost everything must be changed and changed dramatically.” Taylor, remember, also stressed that the successful adoption of his system required a complete mental revolution. There is the same tone, the same kind of exhortation.
No doubt, we are talking about two revolutions here—the presumably holistic revolution of Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark on the one hand and, on the other, Taylor’s command-and-control revolution. But in both cases, the key is knowledge-based manufacture, and the critical question is, who controls the knowledge? The general goal is to push authority for the system of manufacture into the hands of people in the organization most competent to devise that system—and to help those people learn more.
Nor is it true that Japanese factories are so very holistic. Think about Japanese quality circles. Hayes and his associates recommend QCs, but only after several preliminary steps have been taken: “improving a factory’s basic housekeeping, correcting its known short-comings, building its technological competence, establishing a philosophy of continual improvement, [and] getting workers’ inputs to process design issues.” Taylor believed that just such steps were critical before the scientific manager brought out the stopwatch, i.e., to calculate the one best way to do a given manufacturing task.
Moreover, Sony, Matsushita, and Sanyo have recently said that their U.S. factories are “not yet ready” for QCs—just as Taylor argued that a foundry at Watertown Arsenal in Massachusetts was not yet ready for the stopwatch. (It seems an overly zealous disciple began time-and-motion studies and then watched the foundry workers go on a wildcat strike, an action that resulted in the banning of the Taylor system from all government facilities.)
True, if the Japanese-run American factories are ever ready for QCs, one can envision the stopwatch in the hands of workers themselves—or at least some workers—not managers. But just because it is now line leaders and ambitious “associates” (Honda’s euphemism for workers) who design ways to make work more stringent, we can hardly conclude from this that factories have become opportunities for worker self-realization. Hierarchy is still a tragic fact of Japanese production, perhaps of all production.
Or consider Grayson and O’Dell turning their arguments on Japanese manufacturers who have made profound changes in productivity and quality at factories that were formerly run by U.S. manufacturing firms. The sample cited is not big: Sanyo in Arkansas and the Toyota-General Motors NUMMI plant in Fremont, California are most conspicuous. Is there not room for at least some skepticism here too?
Formerly, the GM Fremont plant had some 7,800 workers; now under Toyota management, the plant produces more cars than ever with only 2,500 workers. But if one looks carefully around the plant, the ghosts of both Taylor and Ford appear. The 2,500 workers who eventually reentered the Fremont plant did so only after management assessed their “fitness” for the new manufacturing regime, that is, their willingness to accept—and contribute to—rigorous new standards for timeliness and performance. Scientific selection of workers is Taylor’s first principle.
The Fremont plant under NUMMI is not identical to the Fremont plant under General Motors, moreover. The level of automation and computer control is far greater than before. The NUMMI plant, like plants in Japan, is hardly a picnic ground for workers, even if the floors are kept clean enough to eat off of. (Every visitor to Ford’s Highland Park, Michigan plant between 1913 and 1915 remarked how spotless the place was.) Indeed, the great, initial productivity gain was realized in the production of a single, standardized model of the Chevrolet “Nova”—which reminds one of Ford’s Highland Park plant in the era of the Model T. Workers are tightly coupled with machines, and they don’t set their own pace.
I like to think that the Japanese have not buried the paradigm of Taylor and Ford, but have at once brought it to a new level of refinement and wrapped it in a fresh mantle of respectability. The Japanese may have pushed greater responsibility for the strictures on operators down the line to the shop floor. Would that have made any difference to Schmidt?DO you recognise these boys? Police have released incredible CCTV footage of what is perhaps the Gold Coast’s dumbest criminals in action – watch the incriminating footage below.
Between 2:50am and 3:40am on Monday 16 March, a gang of five wannabe thugs were caught on security camera launching a premeditated robbery attempt on a Nerang motorcycle business.
The group can be seen arriving at the Lawrence Drive property in three cars before bringing in a truck which they then try and reverse through the front of the building.
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But their mission is thwarted by a bollard protecting the entrance.
After several failed attempts and numerous glances at the security camera, they give up.
One offender who didn’t get the memo to cover up his face stares straight into the camera.
No property was stolen during the incident however damage was caused to the front of the building and a front window.
Police would like to speak to the five men aged in their late teens to early 20s depicted in the footage.
Anyone with any information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.People are more worried than ever about the possibility of an oil spill from Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, after the company caused the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history when another of its pipelines, 6b, ruptured in 2010, spilling at least 800,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River. The cleanup took three years.
Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 oil pipeline has lain deep under the water in the choppy Straits of Mackinac for more than 60 years.
Over the decades, Line 5 has fed billions of barrels of light crude oil and liquefied natural gas into the lower peninsula of Michigan.
Yet there has never been a drill to test the region’s readiness for a spill from a leak or rupture of the pipe.
Until now, that is.
Enbridge, and ten local, state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, Mackinac County Emergency Response, and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality held an oil spill response exercise Thursday. About 500 people took part in the exercise.
Setting up a command center not so easy in a tiny town
The small town of St. Ignace has few places that can suddenly turn into a command center for a disaster drill. Enbridge Energy sets up at the town’s ice arena.
The company's Stephen Lord says the aim was to make the situation feel real for the people working at command central. Make the spill big and add new situations throughout the day.
"Basically the scenario is fictitious," says Lord. "It’s highly, highly unlikely. It’s an oil release at depth in the Straits of Mackinac."
The amount of oil spill envisioned for the drill - 4,500 barrels – is a fraction of what Line 6b spilled into the Kalamazoo River five years ago.
One of the main reasons that |
to the system itself.
Built-in apps have gotten new features and App Store apps new frameworks that should make the iPhone and iPad not only more accessible and productive, but more enjoyable to use. Fast app switcher There's a new fast app switcher interface for iPhone and iPad that replaces the previous, flat card view with a view that stacks and shuffles the cards. You can still clearly see three sets of apps and icons—previous, current, and next—but now you also get the blurry hint of a fourth in the background.
Visually, it's more interesting and allows for much larger, more glance-able thumbnails. There's currently no setting to flatten it back down, however, so it can adversely affect those with motion sensitivity. You can still flick away one or multiple cards to close their apps. Continuity apps are no longer a card but a tab now at the bottom. You can access it from anywhere in the fast app switching interface with a single swipe. That makes it much more convenient as well. Notifications Notification Center no longer organizes alerts by app but rather in reverse chronological order. That means the most recent notification is on top, with older notifications following down the list. Sections breaks are now by day: today, yesterday, and previous days. iOS 8 introduced interactive notifications. For most apps that meant providing one to four predefined buttons that you could use to trigger typical actions. Messages and Messages alone, however, got text reply—the ability to quickly respond to a text message from right inside the notification. In iOS 9, everyone gets text reply. User Notification Text Input allows for quick replies from Twitter apps, IM clients, and more, as long as developers add the functionality. In terms of implementation, they work the same as other actions, but take in text input and send the response back to the messaging app. They can even be presented along with other options, which makes them potentially even more useful that text reply in Messages. Push payload has also increased again, going from 2 KB to 4 KB, and there's also a new request/response provider for the Apple Push Notification (APN) service designed to improve reliability while maintaining speed and efficiency. It uses HTTP/2, the second generation hypertext transport protocol for the worldwide web, and includes benefits like instant feedback in the response, and simplified certificate handling. It's text input—quick replies—that really shine, though. With them, everything from social networking apps like Tweebot and Twitterrific to secure messaging apps like Signal will be more convenient. Audio and network extensions In addition to all the new extensions detailed above and below, including app indexes, content blockers, shared links, and ReplayKit recordings, iOS 9 includes a few others worth noting as well. Audio unit extensions create an modern architecture for audio plugins not just for iOS but for OS X as well. It means audio plugins can now be packaged into apps and made available on the App Store just like image effects and filters in photo extensions. Network extensions includes Wi-Fi hotspot helpers, personal VPN managers, custom Enterprise VPN servers, and content filters for education. With them, instead of having to manually launch an app to manage networking, extensions can be called by the system when and as needed. For example, hotspot helper extensions (NEHotspotHelper) can claim a hotspot with varying levels of confidence, from high to low. If high, call it to initiate and periodically maintain authentication. They can also annotate Wi-Fi networks to make the association clear. The VPN Manage (NEVPNManager) isn't new to iOS 9 but has been expanded and also brought over to OS X El Capitan. It can create connections, be setup to connect on demand, and can now also configure HTTP proxies and be used in conjunction with enterprise VPNs. It supports IKEv1 and IKEv2, IKE fragmentation, IKE redirect, as well as MOBIKE so it can seamlessly transition tunnels from Wi-Fi to cellular or vice versa. Custom Enterprise VPN (NETunnelProvider) can be used to create a packet tunnel provider (NEPacketTunnelProvider) for IP layer tunneling, or an app proxy provider for app layer tunneling. Content filters for education (NEFilterProvider) allows for on-device content filtering on managed devices. That means, for example, if a student leaves the school network with an iPad owned and maintained by the school, the content filters can still keep working. It also allows for dynamic evaluation, on-the fly updates, and customizable block page. Accessibility With iOS 9, Apple is adding Touch Accommodations for those with tremors or other issues with motor control. You can set customizable hold duration so that brief, unintentional touches are ignored. When enabled, a timer is displayed on screen to make the duration easy to measure. You can also set a customizable time to ignore repeats, so unintentionally touching the same interface element multiple times doesn't trigged multiple events. Tap assistance lets you set the initial or final touch location as the trigger point for actions. So, for example, if you set it to initial and then tap Calendar but unintentionally drag to Clock, Calendar will still launch. If you set it to final, Clock would launch instead. There are new keyboard settings for accessibility that not only lets you turn off the new lowercase virtual keyboard, but also let you adjust timing for key repeat, sticky keys, and slow keys for paired Bluetooth keyboards. Apple recently won the Hellen Keller award for VoiceOver, the screen reader technology that speaks interface for anyone with low or no vision. It's great to see interactive accessibility getting the same level of attention. Right-to-left localization Impressively, Apple has added full, system-wide support for right-to-left languages (RTL) like Arabic and Hebrew. That includes every bit of every standard interface, from icon and button placement to transitions and animation. Even interactions get mirrored, so you swipe to unlock from right to left, scroll Home pages from left to right, and gesture in the appropriate direction for the language being used. If an app uses standard interface schemes (like UITableView and UICollectionView) and best-practices like Auto Layout (including leading and trailer constraints), a lot of the support comes "for free". Custom layouts, of course, require customized support. There's even a way to format the components of names for people in regions where it's not given name first and family name last, but the inverse. It's a different kind of accessibility, but it's every bit as important. And likely good business as well. Typography After years of Helvetica on iOS, a decade of Lucida Grande on the Mac, and a brief flirtation with Helvetica Neue on both, Apple has released its own system font: San Francisco. Specifically for iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan: SF. (Though there's at least one instance of iOS 9 using the Apple Watch version, SF Compact, and to great effect.) San Francisco is a neo-grotesque sans-serif, like Helvetica and FF Din. SF has two optical sizes: Text and Display. Text is for anything under 20 pt, Display for anything over 20 pt. Most times you won't have to worry about the difference—the system handles it automatically. If you're doing work in an image editor, however, and want to match the way SF looks on the screen, you'll need to manually change from Text to Display when you go above 20 pt. There are six weights for Text, both regular and italic:
Light
Regular
Medium
Semibold
Bold
Heavy
Display has nine weights total, adding: Ultralight
Thin
Black San Francisco scales beautifully from the tiny 38mm Apple Watch to the enormous 27-inch Retina 5K iMac. And in so doing, it manages to be both familiar and distinct, interesting but not distracting, legible and enjoyable. On iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, it gives the entire interface a fresh new look. Despite persistent rumors of an Apple Sans typeface having been in the works for years, it's been decades since the company released their own custom font. It'd be hyperbolic to say San Francisco was worth the wait, but it's certainly about time. Photos In addition to Live Photos and Siri search (see above), Photos in iOS 9 is getting its scrubber back. It's a welcome return. When you're in single photo view, even without scrubbing you can see the next and previous photos in the sequence. That not only provides more context, but it also makes finding the right photo much more efficient—no more swiping blindly or jumping back to moments or albums just to see what else is around. Also faster now is photo and video selection. Instead of having to tap on each thumbnail independently to check it, you can simply touch the first one, hold your finger down, and slide to the last one, and the checks will follow you. There are also new built-in albums for screenshots and selfies. The screenshots album includes not only screenshots captured on the same device but also screenshots captured on other devices and synced via iCloud Photo Library. Take a screenshot on your iPhone and it'll show up on your iPad or vice versa. This is really convenient for reviewers like me, but also for anyone who just wants an easy way to find and potentially bulk delete all the screenshots from everywhere. The selfie album doesn't do any fancy facial recognition to filter in photos of you and yours. It simply collects together any photos you've taken with the front FaceTime camera, regardless if it's a selfie or not. If all you do with the front camera is take selfies, then this album will serve you well. If not, consider it less of a selfie and more of a FaceTime-ie album. If there's a photo or video you don't want to have appear in Moments, Collections, and Years, you can use the new Hide button in the Share Sheet to suppress it. It'll still appear in Albums, however, so if you really want it gone gone, you'll still have to delete it. To un-banish a photo or video you need to go find it in its album, tap the Share button, and tap Unhide (which takes the place of Hide for any already hidden photos). Mail Mail now lets you insert not just photos or videos but file attachments as well. On the iPhone you use the same popup menu as you do for editing, but select the new Add Attachment option. On the iPad there's an add attachment option included right in the new shortcut section above the keyboard. Tap it and you go to iCloud Drive. There's a Locations button at the top left that you can also tap to switch document providers to Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive, or whatever you have installed and enabled. If an email contains an attachment, like a PDF file, you can long press the attachment to bring up the Share Sheet. New options include Save Attachment, which lets you put it into iCloud Drive, and if you have document provider extensions installed aJanuary 21, 2016 2:00 PM | John Bridgman
"In the heart of an evil empire, a group of young outcasts rebels against the corrupt system that holds them down," promises Children of Zodiarcs, a tactical JRPG from Cardboard Utopia. Taking cues from dice, board, and card games, this title has launched on Kickstarter after receiving a 93% approval rating through the Square Enix Collective - a record at the time and still one of the highest ratings in the program.
Set in the world of Lumus, the story features prominently the titular Zodiarcs - devices which are capable of bending reality to suit the whim of the user that were brought long ago under the guidance of the Heralds. As generations passed, the descendant of the Heralds began to use them against one another, tearing the world apart in great wars. Now rediscovered, the world is set to enter a new age of prosperity.
Made by a team of industry veterans and inspired by the stories of classic JRPGs of past generations, this game intends to combine tactical gameplay, collectible cards, and some clever dice mechanics to tell a deep, memorable story with engaging characters. These characters will influence the way you build your deck and dice, as their selections are indicative of their personalities and play styles.
Visually the game looks fantastic so far. Its characters have a style very unique to it, and what we can see so far of the animation is clean and wonderfully detailed. The music that has been shown off so far is grand, suitable to the classic JRPG inspiration that the team is intending to draw upon. Its aesthetic as a whole manages to be modern and memorable, while still playing homage to its inspirations.
At the heart of any Tactical JRPG is the combat mechanics, and this is where the game really tries some interesting things. Besides the standard suite of mechanics, such as positioning for back attacks and preventing counter attacks, each hero has a specific deck of collectible cards which dictate the actions they can perform. By allowing the player to design the deck as they see fit, they will ideally get to have a lot of control over how the characters' progress, while still preventing the game from falling into traps of having "one correct build".
In addition, the dice system is intriguing. By putting the randomization element that most tactical games rely on directly in front of the player, and indeed giving them a hand in rolling the dice - the player will get to physically roll the dice in-game in order to witness the results - a lot of the feelings of unfairness can be removed, and it removes the question of why a high-percentage chance to hit somehow missed that other similar games often cause.
There is another level on that, and that's the ability to customize the dice. Players will get to collect "loot dice" which they can then use to craft the faces on their heroes' dice. If executed well, this could add a lot of depth and decision making to the planning progress, as players will be able to better control their odds for bigger successes, or make attacks land more reliably.
Children of Zodiarcs is drumming up a lot of success already on Kickstarter, and I have extremely high hopes for it. The art is fantastic, the mechanics are fascinating, and the team has already put a lot of passion and effort into the game so far. It has a lot of ambition behind it, and if it can live up to what it can promise, it looks like an outstanding title. I think the addition of card and dice mechanics could prove to be a lot of fun and I look forward to seeing the game in its final state.Republican members of Congress are reportedly voicing concerns in private about repealing ObamaCare and replacing it with a law-- to be known as 'TrumpCare'-- that they will own "lock, stock and barrel."
Republican leaders have reportedly met privately Thursday in a closed-off downtown Philadelphia hotel to discuss how to avoid turning the health insurance market on its head and not creating a political disaster, The Washington Post reported.
“That’s going to be called TrumpCare,” Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., said, according to a recording of the private meeting obtained by the paper. “Republicans will own that lock, stock and barrel, and we’ll be judged in the election less than two years away.”
GOP congressional leaders, in the weeks following Trump’s victory have essentially hit pause, fearing that a hasty repeal without a comprehensive replacement plan would leave a projected 20 million Americans uninsured.
Trump has said that he plans on providing “insurance for everybody.”
VIDEO: REPUBLICANS CONSIDER OBAMACARE REPLACEMENT
Trump and other Republicans favor simultaneously repealing and replacing ObamaCare, but some colleagues are reportedly stressing out about how to revamp the $3 trillion industry.
Besides the repeal being a source of concern, The New York Times reported that some Republicans have voiced concern about going after Planned Parenthood.
“Health insurance is going to be tough enough for us to deal with, without allowing millions of people on social media to come to Planned Parenthood’s defense,” Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y., said.
Trump and leading Republicans have portrayed the markets as on the verge of collapse, and have cast their own effort to repeal and replace the Obama health overhaul as a rescue mission. Most independent experts say the situation is not as dire, although fixes are needed to strengthen the markets.
Some 11.5 million people had signed up nationwide through Dec. 24, or about 290,000 more than at the same time during the 2016 enrollment season. It’s not clear, however, whether the Obama’s administration’s goal of 13.8 million enrolled for 2017 will be met.
More than 20 million people have gained coverage since the health care law passed in 2010, bringing the nation’s uninsured rate to a historic low of around 9 percent. In addition to subsidized private insurance, the law offers states an option to expand Medicaid for low-income people.
Former President Obama said earlier this month that he’s OK with Republicans making changes to his Affordable Care Act and even changing its name from “ObamaCare” to “TrumpCare.”
“I’m fine with that,” the president told ABC’s “This Week.”
Revamping the health care system will be further complicated by congressional Democrats vowing to stop Republicans at essentially every step.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has said if Republicans void Obama's bill, Democrats won't help them pass alternative legislation.
The Associated Press contributed to this reportJack Andraka, the 15-year-old whiz kid behind a revolutionary new tool in cancer research, has many things in common with Aaron Swartz, the phenomenon at the center of a continuing online freedom debate in the US.
Swartz was also just 15 when he helped co-develop RSS, a form of Web publication, that has enabled dissidents in China and the Middle East, North Africa region to circumvent censors. Andraka is on his way to revolutionizing the medical profession with a cost-effective, much less invasive test for early-stage pancreatic cancer and a number of other diseases (detailed in the video below).
“It'll be three to five years before it's on the market, both as a take home test and in doctor's offices,” the well-spoken high school student told The Vancouver Observer.
But Swartz and Andraka aren't only connected by their teenage prodigy.
Andraka used free online academic journals in the research that resulted in his invention.
“I used them religiously,” Andraka said, “Just because, in most online databases, articles cost about [US]$35, and there are only about 10 pages."
“The public funds a lot of this research. Shouldn't the public have access to it?”
An online digital activist and developer, Aaron Swartz committed suicide earlier this month, weeks before the start of his trial, where he would face three decades in prison for allegedly “stealing” millions of pay-walled articles from Online academic service JSTOR to make them available to the public for free.
“I believe [Swartz's] actions were mostly justified,” Andraka said, “The public funded a lot of that research. It shouldn't be held inaccessible to the public.”
Swartz's best friend and colleague in many of his battles for free and open Internet access Ben Wikler agreed with Andraka.
“Poor and rich people pay taxes for the research that goes into these journals. Only those wealthy enough to pay for subscriptions or go to universities can reap the fruits of their funding... It reinforces fundamental social inequalities,” Wikler said, on the phone from Brooklyn.
Wikler's Canadian counterparts also say that publicly funded research are inherently the property of the public.
“Academic articles are created with public funds, within the public university system,” said open Internet advocate OpenMedia.ca's managing director Reilly Yeo.
“Most writers of these articles are never paid directly for their services. Academic articles should definitely be freely available - that's how we'll see the full potential of the Internet to level the playing field for access to knowledge.”
Footing the bill for book smarts
Still, some of the media published in the aftermath of Swartz's suicide has observed that service's like JSTOR's are labor and cost intensive, and that it is financially implausible to tear down pay walls.
JSTOR spokesperson Heidi McGregor told VO the company's total expenses for 2012 were $52.6 million, garnering a total revenue of $53.2 million.The transgender experience is one of living into an identity that you are (finally) choosing for yourself. Follow along as two people share their journeys.
Have you ever felt uncomfortable? Maybe with a certain group of people or in a certain situation?
What if that situation was one you couldn’t walk away from — or a group of people you couldn’t avoid? What if the source of your discomfort was your own body? And the disconnect you felt from walking around every day as someone you’re not?
And what if, to save yourself, you had to make a decision that might alienate people you love or put you in danger for the rest of your life?
Such is the story of transgender men and women like Michelle Wolf and Tyler Titus.
One woman’s journey
The journey to finding yourself is different for every transgender person. For Michelle Wolf, 45, a transgender female and married mother of a 9-year-old son, the journey included periods of increased femininity immediately followed by purging all things feminine and throwing herself into masculinity.
“I’d dabble in cross-dressing and exploring my feminine side until I’d almost get caught and panic,” Wolf says. “Then I’d throw everything away and look for the most masculine thing I could find in hopes of self-correcting."
In her early 20s, Wolf was desperate to find the most masculine activity she could. “I needed a huge change to push my feminine thoughts out of my head,” Wolf says. “So I joined the military and spent four years in the Air Force.” After leaving the air force, Wolf got married and got a job as an engineer — successfully managing to deny her gender identity. Thinking her struggle was behind her, she settled, and her wife had a child and set off toward a happy future.
For many transgender adults, coming to grips with being transgender is anything but instant. For Wolf, successfully suppressing her true self was never easy. But it was doable — that is, until she reached what she calls her “expiration date.”
“Your expiration date is when you realize that you can’t keep pushing your true self to the back of your mind,” Michelle explains. And hers came in late 2010, when she realized that it was time to explore the self that she hid and denied for nearly 40 years.
After multiple sessions with a psychologist, Wolf was diagnosed with gender dysphoria (or the distress a person experiences as a result of a disconnect between their gender and the sex they were assigned at birth). Her diagnosis was a blessing, which helped her to — at long last — embrace the need to transition. She started transitioning in 2011 and, in 2012, legally changed her name. In 2013, she had a number of surgeries to complete her physical transition. But just because she had surgery doesn’t mean it’s the path for everyone. “Surgeries are difficult and painful,” she explains. “My advice? Do only what you need to so you’re comfortable in your own skin.”
But getting comfortable in your own skin is just the first step for many transgender people. Another hurdle is the reaction of those around you.
“When I came out, the reaction from friends and family was varied,” Wolf says. “People I thought would support me didn’t. And people I thought would abandon me were my biggest supporters.”
A key supporter in Wolf’s life is her wife, who has stuck with her. “It wasn’t easy by any means,” Wolf explains. “But she is the most patient, wonderful person.”
When asked what someone who knows or loves a transgender person should do when he or she comes out, Wolf’s advice is simple. The key is being supportive and educated. “It’s OK to not understand,” she explains. “Be curious. Ask questions. Most transgender people are happy to answer them — and thankful to be asked.”
And what has changed for the better for her since transitioning?
“I am more confident and happy than I’ve ever been,” she explains. “I’ve accomplished things I never thought possible.” A key accomplishment of Wolf’s was recently receiving a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy. And an added bonus? Wolf’s experience helps her connect with the patients she sees in her work as a marriage and family therapist. “I’ve lived both sides of that experience,” she says. “So I use that experience to help the people I treat.”
Tyler Titus' story
For Tyler Titus, 32, a transgender male, therapist and father of two, the journey was somewhat different. Growing up in Titusville, he felt the weight of a “small, conservative town who loved to gossip.” He found relief, fortunately, in time spent with his mother’s family. “They allowed me to be this curious tomboy who played in the woods, built forts, raced BMX, and had more mud on me then outside,” Tyler explains. “However, whenever I had to visit my father and stepmother I was chastised for being so masculine. They were pretty disgusted by their little girl who refused to wear dresses, do her make-up, or play with girl toys.”
Titus’ expiration date came at an unusual time in his life. “I was in my 20s and pregnant with my second son when I realized that living as a woman was not me,” he explains. “I was as feminine as it gets, but I never felt so uncomfortable.”
After significant consideration and self-doubt, Titus came out as transgender in 2014 — a few weeks before his 30th birthday. “I had tossed this gender dysphoria concept around in my head for years before actually allowing myself to accept it,” Titus explains. Coming out made Titus feel empowered and free — initially. But that feeling was short-lived.
“When my father found out I was transgender, he cut out me out completely,” Titus explains. “I can't even remember the last time I heard his voice. Last I knew, they thought I was wrong and broken and wanted nothing to do with me because I caused them too much hurt.”
Bogged down by empathy for others, Titus crashed into a horrible depression two months into his transition. “I started to obsess about the chaos my transition was causing, especially for my boys,” he laments. “I couldn't stop imagining them being tormented and teased because they had a transgender parent.”
Titus, like many transgender people, got so low emotionally that he contemplated suicide. “One night, I got into my car after a heated argument with my wife and I had every intention of finding a deserted lot and slitting my wrists,” he says. “I had convinced myself it would be easier for everyone to just grieve the loss of Tiffany (Titus’ birth name) than to be weighed down by the journey of Tyler.”
(Titus was married to a woman before he transitioned. They were divorced last year.)
Titus doesn't remember how long he sat in the car, but he estimates it was a few hours. As quickly as he had left, he was driving home again, confident that he could get better with help.
“I started building up the desire to change how things are and how others view transgender people,” he explains. “Becoming a voice for the voiceless became my driving force. I wanted to show my boys that they deserved inner peace no matter what the rest of the world told them.”
So Titus started talking to anyone who would listen and listening to anyone who would talk. “I grew and changed,” he says happily, “and I helped others do the same.”
When asked what other opportunities came from his transition, Titus’ answer? To feel self-love and self-confidence.
“I have learned that at the end of the day I deserve to lay my head down on my pillow knowing I am who am and it is absolutely beautiful,” he explains. “I have a genuine love for myself that I fought hard for and no one will ever be able to take that from me.”
Jennifer Kubiak is a communications professional and proud mother of a transgender son. She lives in Erie with her husband and two boys.Updated 2:05 a.m. EST
TOPEKA, Kan. Two Topeka Kansas police officers were fatally shot outside a grocery store Sunday while responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle, authorities said.
Topeka Police Chief Ronald Miller called the shootings of Cpl. David Gogian and Officer Jeff Atherly "unspeakable." He said both Gogian, 50, and Atherly, 29, were shot in the head by a gunman who opened fire on them within minutes of their arrival to investigate the vehicle.
"It's clearly beyond words. It's unspeakable almost about why this happens and why this is happening in America at this stage in our history," Miller said.
Police were searching for a 22-year-old man believed to have been the one who fired on the officers from the vehicle. He remained at large Sunday night. Miller didn't know the motive for the shooting but said the suspect has a criminal history, though he wouldn't elaborate.
A third officer who went to the scene to check on the vehicle was not injured in the shooting.
Gogian and Atherly were taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead.
The call about the vehicle came shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday, police said. Gogian and Atherly had arrived as backup for another officer when someone in the vehicle they were investigating started shooting.
"I don't believe they had any idea this situation was going to go this direction as quickly as it did," Miller said.
A witness told CBS Topeka affiliate WIBW-TV he heard three gun clips emptied, then heard another series of shots.
The station says a neighbor told the Topeka Capital-Journal he heard several shots fired.
He said there was more than one person in the vehicle, which later was found outside a house about 10 blocks from the grocery store. Officers searched the home but didn't find the shooting suspect.
The chief declined to say why officers were investigating the vehicle and why it was considered suspicious.
A small crowd met for a candlelight vigil Sunday night outside police headquarters after hearing about the shooting. As the group gathered, police officials announced to reporters nearby that the officers had died.
Gogian started with the Topeka Police Department in September 2004. Atherly had been with the department since April 2011.
Miller said Gogian was a retired military serviceman. It wasn't immediately clear what branch of the military. He has a son who's also a Topeka police officer.
"He had spent his life in service to his country and in the city of Topeka," the chief said.
Meanwhile, Atherly was "just getting started" in his career, he said.
The last time a Topeka officer was killed in the line of duty was 2000, and it's been longer than that, since 1995, that one was fatally shot on the job.A group of Ghanaian academics, students and artists is calling for the removal of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi from a university campus, saying that the leader of India's independence movement was racist towards black people.
The statue of Gandhi, who spent 21 years (1893-1914) in South Africa and fought for the rights of Indians living there, was erected at the University of Ghana in mid-June during a visit to the country by India's President Pranab Mukherjee.
In an online petition, professors at the university cited a series of Gandhi's own writings during his time in South Africa to illustrate his "racist identity".
They quoted several references in which he depicted Indians as being at a higher level than black Africans, and used the racist pejorative "kaffirs" to describe them.
One of Gandhi's writings cited in the petition reads: "Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness."
Protests in South Africa
Born in 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi became internationally known for his legacy of non-violent resistance and for being at the forefront of India's independence movement after nearly two centuries of British rule.
In the eyes of millions of his compatriots, Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948, is known as the Mahatma, or "great soul", an iconic figure who achieved political and social process through peace.
But the petition's authors said that they could not recognise such a title for a man they accused of actively siding with British colonisers to ensure the interests of South Africa's black population were put down during his time in the country.
"How will the historian teach and explain that Gandhi was uncharitable in his attitude towards the Black race and see that we're glorifying him by erecting a statue on our campus?" senior lecturer Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua wrote in the campaign letter, co-signed by four other petitioners.
In South Africa, Gandhi's legacy has also been called into question recently.
Last year, an online campaign using the #GandhiMustFall hashtag gained traction, while a statue of his in Johannesburg was vandalised during a rally attended by protesters holding placards reading "Racist Gandhi Must Fall".
Ela Gandhi, the social activist's granddaughter and a former MP for South Africa's ruling African National Congress party, argued that while the term "kaffir" was "not considered as derogatory or [a] swear word at that time" compared with its "highly offensive" meaning today, Gandhi's reference to African people as savage and inferior to Indians could not be justified.
"While this was within the context of an application to retain the qualified voting rights that Indians had, today, when we look at it indeed we feel disgust," she told Al Jazeera.
"We ask why should we be critical of others to establish our own stature. There can be no justification for that. In later life, that was one of the ideals Gandhi propagated in respect of caste, class and race," Ela said, adding that there were "many other quotes" from his later years "which point to the exact opposite" of what he is being accused.
"If they do not want his statue, then by all means remove it. But I would suggest, very humbly, do not discard the notion of non-violence, of compassion, of Ubuntu, and of respect for fellow human beings, and for nature and the whole of the universe, simply because these were the ideals Gandhi stood for and was assassinated for."
'Uncomfortable truth'
Ashwin Trikamjee, president of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha, said allegations of racism against Gandhi were not new.
"We have heard of them before," Trikamjee told Al Jazeera.
"What is significant is that Gandhi chose to live with black South Africans and fought a common struggle against apartheid. He earned the respect of all South Africans and was particularly honoured and revered by none other than [former] President [Nelson] Mandela and the ANC."
Pointing out that a street has been named after him in Durban, and describing him as an "inspiration to all South Africans", Trikamjee argued that Gandhi's "philosophy of non-violence certainly made a huge impact and certainly inspired the fight against apartheid".
But Ashwin Desai, a sociology professor at the University of Johannesburg and co-author of The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire, told Al Jazeera that Gandhi never acknowledged nor appreciated the long struggle of African people against dispossession and "their dragooning into mines" under slave-like conditions.
"There is a misrepresentation of Gandhi by court historians who want to present a largely sanitised and universalist Gandhi; as South Africa's first and foremost anti-apartheid fighter," he said, adding that his racist views towards black people had widely been chronicled.
"The hagiographic version must be challenged. The truth about the South African Gandhi is uncomfortable," Desai said.
"Those who seek to remove the statute of Gandhi have rightly focused on a man who spat on the struggles of Africans in South Africa."
'Honouring Africans'
Using the online hashtag #GandhiForComeDown - pidgin for "Gandhi Must Come Down" - the campaign in Ghana has drawn comparisons with last year's "Rhodes Must Fall" initiative in South Africa, which called for the removal of a statue of British coloniser and imperialist Cecil Rhodes from the University of Cape Town.
In their petition, which had gathered more than 1,030 signatures by Wednesday morning, the Ghanaian campaigners also cited a number of "world class" institutions that were removing "racist symbols" to urge educational authorities to pull down the statue from the University of Ghana's Legon campus.
"In the short term … we would like to have the statue [removed]," Obadele Kambon, research fellow at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, told Al Jazeera of the campaign's aims.
"In the longer term, we would like to show the connectedness of various related movements throughout the world for African/Black dignity," he added, citing online campaigns such as #RhodesMustFall, #BlackLivesMatter, #ICantBreathe and #ColinKaepernick's national anthem protest, among others.
"We see them as interconnected throughout space and time."
The university campaigners, who are backed by the ACCRA dot ALT art collective, said they had not been consulted about the installation of Gandhi's statue on the campus, and called for its replacement with memorials "honouring Africa's heroes and heroines".
"Why should we uplift other people's 'heroes' at an African university when we haven't lifted up our own?" the petitioners said.
"We consider this to be a slap in the face that undermines our struggles for autonomy, recognition and respect."If there's a silver bullet that can curb cyberbullying, the Canadian government wants to find it.
The government will launch an evaluation this year into the effectiveness of an "innovative cyberbullying prevention or intervention program," according to documents released Wednesday.
The specifics of the program still aren't known, but the government lists examples of what it's looking for:
ReThink: a tool installed on computers that monitors language and shows a pop-up message if a planned post could be considered cyberbullying.
StopIt: an app that allows students or employees to flag inappropriate posts and anonymously relay them to school or work administrators.
KnowBullying: an app that offers parents tools and suggestions to help them discuss cyberbullying with their kids.
Once the program's framework is set, a contractor will study its effects beginning this fall when students start a new school year.
Prime concern for parents
The government references a study that lists cyberbullying as a top concern for parents.
Graph on parents' top concerns for teens
According to a 2015 survey conducted by Leger on behalf of Primus, 48 per cent of parents are concerned about cyberbullying. That outweighs worries about teen pregnancy (44 per cent), drug use (40 per cent) and alcohol use (38 per cent).
The government's plan to quell cyberbullying at the source is |
owner of the Robin's Donuts-2-4-1 Pizza franchise in Dawson Creek and another that opened recently in Fort Nelson. He also owned a Robin's Donuts in Surrey, but has sold it. Two of the complaints provided to The Vancouver Sun allege that Gu sought more than $20,000 in payments in exchange for jobs in B.C. The Sun is unaware of the details relating to the third complaint, and the B.C. ministry wouldn't make any information public. A fourth complaint against Gu was closed last year following a voluntary settlement between the parties "with no attribution of fault, and no identification of contraventions" of the Employment Standard Act, according to the ministry. Canada's TFW program approved a record 190,842 workers last year, many of them low-skilled labourers destined for fast-food operations in remote communities. "We look into every complaint we receive. Since the (three) complaints (regarding Gu) are open, the ministry cannot comment on the nature of the complaints," a statement from the labour ministry said. "Please note (that) these are only complaints at this point. No violations have been found." Wu alleges that he was verbally scolded and humiliated during his brief work stint in late June at Gu's franchise in Dawson Creek, a small north-eastern B.C. city that is typical of the remote communities where employers say there is a chronic shortage of workers. He also alleges in his complaint that he was charged rent at a rate of $600 a month during the June 30-July 17 period he was in Dawson Creek, living in a rented room but - except for two hours - not working at the franchise. And he is claiming a further $1,200 because Gu refused to pay air travel costs for Wu when he flew from Vancouver to Dawson Creek, and then Dawson Creek to China. His contract stipulated that these costs would be covered by the employer.
Wu's contract with Gu stated explicitly that the employer "shall not recoup from the employee... any cost." It also stated Wu pay only $350 a month for accommodation. Wu said in an interview earlier this month that he was stuck in Dawson Creek with nothing to do because, he alleges, Gu was demanding an additional $19,000 on top of the initial $3,000 payment. "Because I don't give him that money, so he don't give me that work," Wu said in halting English during a telephone interview. (Gu's January application to the federal government to bring in temporary foreign workers stated that successful applicants "must be fluent in English".) The Vancouver Sun has received a number of complaints in recent weeks about various employers and immigration consultants charging workers hefty fees in exchange for help getting work permits under the TFW program. A TFW permit is invaluable for an aspiring Canadian because it is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get permanent residency status under the B.C. Provincial Nomination Program (PNP). The program was set up by the federal government several years ago to allow provinces to select their own immigrants. B.C. and other provincial governments have regularly demanded an expansion of the PNP, but federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney put limits earlier this year on the program due to concerns about its "integrity". What is unusual about the allegations against Gu is that his critics are prepared to go public. The Vancouver Sun was provided transcripts and digital recordings of conversations between a friend of Wu's, who was acting on his and his parents' behalf, and David Gu and Gu's wife, Susan. A second young Chinese national, Hongda Hu, has also come forward to allege that he had a very similar experience with Gu. He filed a complaint with the B.C. government last month that included transcripts of two taped conversations he had with Gu in which they discussed the payment of just over $3,000 from Hu, 22, to Gu. Hu provided documentation indicating his father made the $3,000 payment directly to Gu, although he later decided not to accept the written job offer - which included a contract stating that the employer couldn't "recoup" recruiting costs - after Gu allegedly told him he would need an additional payment of $20,000. "This time, I just didn't feel right to pay him any more because my visa had already been refused once, although he guaranteed me a two-year work visa," Hu wrote in his complaint. In both the Hu and Wu cases, there are recorded Chinese-language phone conversations involving Gu and, in one instance, his wife. The Sun was provided with English translations that were checked and, where necessary, corrected by a Chinese-speaking reporter with The Sun. In both cases, the recordings included conversations about transferring various amounts of money to Gu.Chelsea blew open the race for the Premier League title by ending leaders Liverpool's 11-game winning streak with a deserved victory at Anfield.
Demba Ba gave the Blues the lead at the end of the first half after Steven Gerrard's slip and Willian capped the win with a breakaway goal in stoppage time.
Media playback is not supported on this device Chelsea played with a back six - Rodgers
The result ends Liverpool's 16-match unbeaten streak that had seen them march to the top of the table and means the title is no longer in their control.
Manchester City can draw level with them if they win their game in hand, while Chelsea are two points behind, within touching distance should Brendan Rodgers' side slip up again.
Blues boss Jose Mourinho had threatened to field a weakened team at Anfield ahead of his side's Champions League semi-final second leg with Atletico Madrid on Wednesday but, helped by a disjointed Liverpool display, he produced another tactical masterclass to earn the points.
Liverpool's attempt at a trademark fast start failed in the face of a wall of blue shirts, with the visitors' five-man midfield sitting deep to protect their back four.
Chelsea were keen to disrupt the home side's flow in other ways too, taking their time over set-pieces from the first minute onwards to visibly frustrate Liverpool's players as well as annoying their fans.
Liverpool beaten at the break Steven Gerrard's slip meant Liverpool trailed at the break and they have now won only two of their last 31 Premier League games when they have been trailing at the interval.
The game's pattern of play was soon established. The Reds were still dominant in terms of possession but, on reaching the edge of the Chelsea area, they struggled to open up a typically well-organised defence.
After Liverpool wasted a rare sight of goal when Mamadou Sakho blasted over, they failed to bring a meaningful save from Mark Schwarzer in the first half.
Aside from a skidding Ashley Cole shot and an appeal for a penalty when Mohamed Salah's shot hit Jon Flanagan's hand inside the area, Chelsea did not threaten much either.
But, with Branislav Ivanovic solid alongside rookie Czech defender Tomas Kalas at the back, their game-plan of frustrating their hosts was working and received an unexpected bonus before the break.
Gerrard miscontrolled a Sakho pass then slipped inside his own half, allowing Ba to run unopposed towards the Kop before coolly slotting the ball past Simon Mignolet.
Fernando Torres was unselfish in squaring the ball for Willian when Chelsea scored their second late on
The Liverpool fans chanted Gerrard's name at half-time but, try as he might with a succession of long-range shots, their usually inspirational skipper could not make amends for his mistake.
An absorbing second half again saw Liverpool's attack up against Chelsea's defence and, again it was the stubbornness of Mourinho's men that prevailed.
Media playback is not supported on this device Liverpool 0-2 Chelsea: Jose Mourinho revels in 'beautiful victory'
Even the introduction of Daniel Sturridge to join Luis Suarez in attack made little difference, with their usually prolific partnership failing to find a way through.
Liverpool's best effort was a volley from Joe Allen from the edge of the area that a diving Schwarzer brilliantly palmed away, but in truth Schwarzer had little else to do until he acrobatically denied Suarez in stoppage time.
Moments later, Chelsea made sure of the three points that puts the title race back in the balance. Fernando Torres broke clear and unselfishly played in Willian to fire home their second goal and ensure it was Mourinho, and not Rodgers, celebrating at the final whistle.
Check out the best Premier League photos on the BBC Sport Facebook page.Brownian motion, the seemingly random wiggle-waggle of particles suspended in a liquid or gas, was first systematically studied by Robert Brown in 1827 and described in the Philosophical Magazine the next year (volume 4, page 161). When Brown used a microscope to look at particles from pollen grains immersed in water, he “observed many of them very evidently in motion.” It looked like the particles were alive, so vigorously did they move.
Brownian motion was first explained by Albert Einstein in 1905 as a consequence of the thermal motion of surrounding fluid molecules. Einstein’s theory predicts that Brownian particles diffuse; as a consequence, their mean-square displacement 〈(Δx)2〉 = 2Dt in each dimension is proportional to a diffusion coefficient D and the measured time interval t. As illustrated in figure 1 motion of Brownian particles looks like a jerky and unpredictable dance, and the sudden changes in direction and speed seem to indicate that velocity is not defined. Moreover, the mean velocity 〈v〉 ≡ 〈(Δx)2〉1/2/t = (2D/t)1/2 diverges as t approaches 0. If you think all that is strange, you are in good company: Einstein felt the same way. The phenomenon ofwas first explained by Albert Einstein in 1905 as a consequence of the thermalof surrounding fluid molecules. Einstein’s theory predicts that Brownian particles diffuse; as a consequence, their mean-square displacement 〈(Δ〉 = 2in each dimension is proportional to a diffusion coefficientand thetime interval. As illustrated in figurea, theof Brownian particles looks like a jerky and unpredictable dance, and the sudden changes in direction and speed seem to indicate thatis not defined. Moreover, the mean〉 ≡ 〈(Δ= (2diverges asapproaches 0. If you think all that is strange, you are in good company: Einstein felt the same way.
Brownian motion and concluded that on a sufficiently short time scale, a Brownian particle must have a well-defined velocity, which he called the instantaneous velocity. During that short time, Einstein argued, the particles move ballistically, as shown in figure 1 motion with a well-defined kinetic energy. In 1907 Einstein returned toand concluded that on a sufficiently short time scale, a Brownian particle must have a well-definedwhich he called the instantaneousDuring that short time, Einstein argued, the particles move ballistically, as shown in figureb—that is, the particle trajectory is built from segments of straight-linewith a well-defined kinetic energy.
Furthermore, Einstein predicted that the distribution of particle velocities would obey the energy equipartition theorem, a basic rule of statistical mechanics. In other words, the probability of finding a particle with a particular velocity would be determined by the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, a Gaussian function of speed that otherwise depends only on temperature and the mass of the particle. Einstein then made a prediction about possible experiments, a risky move for a theorist. He said that the time scale for the instantaneous velocity is so short that it would be impossible to measure in practice. Two years later, in 1909, Einstein wrote to Jean Perrin to congratulate the French physicist for measuring the displacement of Brownian particles with a precision Einstein “did not believe … possible.” Measuring the instantaneous velocity, however, is a much more difficult challenge than the one so admirably met by Perrin, and entering the 21st century, it seemed that Einstein’s prediction was correct. But things were soon to change.
Optical tweezers motion of matter. Specifically, he showed that a focused laser beam could trap small particles in water and move them around at an experimenter’s will. His invention, known as the optical tweezer, has become a major tool in physics and biology. In recent years optical tweezers have been used to study Brownian motion. As a trapped particle, typically a bead of glass, undergoes such motion, it slightly deflects the trapping laser beam; the deflection can then be observed with a split photodetector. (We’ll give details with figure 2 We now take a detour to Bell Labs in the 1970s. Arthur Ashkin, a scientist at the laboratory, demonstrated something remarkable: Light could control theof matter. Specifically, he showed that a focusedcould trap small particles in water and move them around at an experimenter’s will. His invention, known as thehas become a major tool in physics and biology. In recent yearshave been used to studyAs a trapped particle, typically a bead ofundergoes suchit slightly deflects the trappingthe deflection can then be observed with a split(We’ll give details with figure.) The split-photodetector approach has traditionally been limited by the speed of commercially available detectors. We and our colleagues realized that we could change the design of the device to speed up the detection by a big factor. Our group then built an experiment to study Brownian motion of beads in air, because the time during which a particle undergoes ballistic motion is much longer in air than in a liquid. We needed to resolve spatial motion on the order of 1 Å, within a time frame of 50 µs. 2 glass bead is trapped. You might wonder how we got a bead to that exact location. The procedure was actually a little tricky. We spread dry beads on a glass slide and positioned the slide above the optical tweezer. The slide was shaken violently to detach beads, which fell due to gravity. We repeated that process until we detected a single trapped bead (see figure 2 laser beams were on, we could keep the bead for as long as we liked. Once the bead was trapped, we recorded its motion with the split photodetector. Typical traces are shown in figure 2 measurements of the instantaneous velocity of a Brownian particle, a feat that Einstein said was impossible. Figurea shows our setup, in which two counterpropagating laser beams—the optical tweezer—are focused to a single spot where abead is trapped. You might wonder how we got a bead to that exact location. The procedure was actually a little tricky. We spread dry beads on aslide and positioned the slide above theThe slide was shaken violently to detach beads, which fell due to gravity. We repeated that process until we detected a single trapped bead (see figureb). As long as thewere on, we could keep the bead for as long as we liked. Once the bead was trapped, we recorded itswith the splitTypical traces are shown in figurec; the lower one represents the firstof the instantaneousof a Brownian particle, a feat that Einstein said was impossible. velocity measurements, we can construct a velocity probability distribution, and as figure 2 theoretically predicted Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. From the measured velocity distribution we can also calculate the average kinetic energy of the glass bead. At temperature T, each velocity component contributes a factor of ½k B T to the kinetic energy (k B is Boltzmann’s constant), the same as a molecule of air. From manywe can construct aprobability distribution, and as figured shows, our results are in excellent agreement with thepredicteddistribution. From thedistribution we can also calculate the average kinetic energy of thebead. At temperature, eachcomponent contributes a factor of ½to the kinetic energy (is Boltzmann’s constant), the same as a molecule of air.I recently had the pleasure of sitting next to Representative Chris Collins for a three-hour flight to Florida. Anyone seated within five rows of Representative Collins was lucky enough to hear about his intelligence, savvy, wealth, and boastful pride in the recent election results. How he has direct access to the president’s son-in-law and won’t be taking a job at the White House as he is too valuable in Congress with his expertise in the pharmaceutical industry. I never once heard him mention how the voters in the district where he lives decided after four years they no longer needed his services as county executive and voted him out of office. Is losing the state where you live and voters know you best and the national popular vote by more than million people evidence of some overwhelming mandate, or just a repudiation of Washington, DC and a deeply flawed beltway candidate like Hillary Clinton?
What has Representative Chris Collins “knowledge and expertise” done for our healthcare?
US healthcare as a percentage of GDP has grown from six percent in 1970 to 18 percent by 2016. During the same period in Canada, Germany and the UK it went from roughly five percent in 1970 to 10 percent today. The US is currently spending seven to eight percent more of its GDP on healthcare than any other industrialized nation with no impact on actual health outcomes as a nation. Americans pay some of the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, often 50 to 80 percent more than just across the border in Canada. Eight percent more of US GDP is about 1.5 trillion dollars yearly. Money that could be spent on education, roads and bridges, tax reductions, or reducing the $19 trillion federal debt.
Representative Chris Collins seems far more interested in feeding his oversized ego, running pharmaceutical companies in Australia, and making money with private placement stock offerings for his friends and family than in helping solve the healthcare and debt crisis we face in America. Listening to him drone on about all his accomplishments and status for three hours made me regret ever voting for him. Representative Collins seems the epitome of the “public servant” whose actions and results show he is far more concerned with increasing his own power and wealth than helping his constituents or this country.
The next time you see Representative Collins driving his red Ford pickup truck while campaigning, ask him why he left the Range Rover and Mercedes parked in his heated garage over-looking Spaulding Lake. Was he afraid they would get dirty, or was it because he is embarrassed that, with all his wealth, he does not buy American-made vehicles, despite asking you to vote for him as your representative in Congress?
I’d like to know why Representative Collins did nothing when Gildan closed New Buffalo Shirt Factory in Clarence last year and moved the printing of t-shirts for companies like Nike and Disney to Honduras? He actually told news outlets that anyone who still wanted a job with Gildan was being offered one, but failed to mention most of those the jobs paid about $15 per day and were located in Honduras. Where was his outrage at a huge corporation moving jobs offshore to save 25 cents per printed t-shirt while over 150 of his constituents lost their jobs? At least Donald Trump would have embarrassed Gildan with a Tweet, just for the optics. Was Representative Collins too busy enriching himself with private stock offerings in Australia to worry about the people who live and work in his district, or just too inept and incompetent to do anything about it?
The people of the 27th congressional district of New York State deserve a representative who will fight for them. Gildan offshoring New Buffalo Shirt Factory jobs in 2016 from Clarence to Honduras happened on his watch. He was elected to fight for the people and jobs in his district, to keep America strong. Representative Collins either does not get it or just does not care. This is not about Democrat or Republican, but I demand to be represented by someone more concerned about helping his constituents than feeding his own ego and wallet. We need to send that message and a big piece of humble pie to Representative Collins in 2018. —AARON WALKER, CLARENCEFPS Russia has won TTAG’s Irresponsible Gun Owner of the Day award more times than I’ve had hot dinners. The last time we gave the faux Russian the gong, he was shooting a polymer pistol at close range without eyes and ears. And then we kinda, well, lost interest. (Dan the man accused Kyle of sleepwalking through his schtick.) But then we wandered across this “Irresponsible Gun Owner” T-shirt offer. While it’s nice that little ole’ TTAG has pinged the YouTube sensation’s radar (23 million hits on the AA-12 video), it’s un-friggin’-believable that Kyle would fail to understand the damage this ironic T can do to gun owners in general and any idiot stupid enough to wear it. Let me spell it out...
Generally, gun rights advocates don’t want fence-straddlers to think that gun control advocates are talking sense when they tell firearms-averse or ignorant Americans that owning a gun is fundamentally irresponsible. You know: you’re more likely to have an “accident” with a gun than use it to defend your life. (Hunting never gets a look in in that discussion).
The thing to keep in mind: millions of Americans—including millions of members of the so-called “silent majority”—don’t have a sense of humor about guns. They view guns as a deadly serious business, and not in a good way. If they see someone walking down the street wearing this shirt they’re going to think that the gun owner IS irresponsible. Because it’s irresponsible to make a joke about firearms responsibility.
Now I know we do that. But no matter how lighthearted our IGOTDs seem, every one has a serious point: don’t be irresponsible with guns. Our message is clear: people who are irresponsible with firearms are either schmucks or, well, irresponsible. We, as responsible gun owners, acknowledge their presence. And then reject them.
On a personal level, what are you meshuggah? Anyone who wears a T shirt calling themselves an irresponsible gun owner is just begging to be treated like an irresponsible gun owner. By friends, family, associates, strangers and, lest we forget, the police. Imagine someone wearing that T-shirt for their mug shot. Now imagine a jury looking at same.
See? That’s funny. Only it stops being funny when it starts being you. But really, it should be FPS Russia wearing this garb. But it isn’t. I’m thinking that’s because A) it would be true and B) Kyle’s smarter than he looks. Nah. Couldn’t be that, could it?0
This past January, UFC president Dana White (Pictured) trashed ESPN after “Outside the Lines” released what he perceived as a one-sided piece on what the planet’s premier mixed martial arts promotion pays its athletes. Surprisingly, White sat down for an extended interview with the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” this week to discuss, you guessed it, fighters’ salaries.
Finances once again became a hot topic after boxing legend Mike Tyson told “The MMA Hour” that MMA fighters are well underpaid. In addition, the UFC is set to host the most anticipated rematch in the sport’s history tomorrow when middleweight king Anderson Silva defends his throne against Chael Sonnen. Needless to say, blockbuster pay-per-view numbers are expected.
“The one great thing about UFC fighter pay is not too many know exactly what the fighter pay is,” White told ESPN. “I’ve had this discussion, me and Mike Tyson talked about it [on Tuesday]. He agrees. The bottom line is when we first signed our deal with FOX they came out and said, ‘Oh my God, these guys are getting paid this kind of money? Why don’t you scream that from the rooftops? Those are the kind of things that get people interested and engaged.’
“Whenever Tyson fought, people would talk about how many millions of dollars he was making after that fight, and I said to those guys, exactly. Now look at what happened to Mike Tyson.”
Tyson declared bankruptcy in 2003, despite having received over $30 million for several of his scraps and $300 million during his illustrious career.
White immediately turned the conversation towards his biggest PPV draw in welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre. He claims fighters prefer for their paychecks to remain under wraps, and if they choose to flaunt their financial status, that’s their prerogative.
“If you notice, I don’t put any gag order on any of my fighters,” White added. “If Georges St-Pierre wants to run out and start telling everybody what he makes every year, that’s his [choice]. You don’t see him doing it, do you? They’re not running out telling everybody how much they’re getting paid. It’s a negative thing, it’s not a positive thing. It creates a lot of negativity and a lot of problems in these guys’ lives.
“There’s a fighter that we have named Rory MacDonald, and he came up underneath [St-Pierre]. People are calling him the ‘New GSP,’ including GSP. [MacDonald’s] saying already that, ‘I would never fight George St-Pierre.’ I said, ‘Really? Let him take a look at Georges St-Pierre’s bank account, he’ll fight him tomorrow.’”
It has been reported GSP earns roughly $5 million each time he takes center stage because he shares a piece of the PPV pie. However, it’s likely the superstar is pocketing more due to the top secret discretionary bonuses the UFC awards some of its fighters.If scientists keep publishing the results of their work in journals, we’re going to run out of stuff to eat. The latest nutritional no-no literally has meat-eaters on the ropes following a startling article published in Nature Medicine that draws a possible link between a nutrient (carnitine) in red meat and cardiovascular disease. But what makes this interesting and so different from past debates – like how saturated fat and meat was once thought to hasten your arrival at the pearly gates – is the role of gut microbes as an intermediary in this tangled web of cardiac arrest.
The story goes something like this: Your run-of-the-mill 8-ounce steak contains ~180mg of the nutrient carnitine (click here to learn how to pronounce). In and of itself, carnitine is not a bad thing as your body produces it naturally and it’s used everyday in the transport of fatty acids into your mitochondria. However, dietary carnitine from a slab of red meat can be gobbled up (metabolized) by your resident gut bacteria and converted to something called TMA (trimethylamine). So far so good until it diffuses and makes it’s way from your gut into serum (blood). Since TMA is a gas at room and body temperature, translocating across the gut barrier is not a problem. Once in your blood, TMA makes its way to your liver where it is oxidized into TMAO (trimethylamine-N-oxide). From this point, the researchers argue that elevated levels of TMAO muddy up some mechanisms including cholesterol transport, which accelerate atherosclerosis. In short, not good news for red meat lovers – or so it might seem.
This is a complicated paper with a lot of moving parts that are worth (re)considering (explored below). But the most interesting finding is the role of gut bacteria in this process and the data presented in the paper suggests that vegans and vegetarians have a decreased capacity to generate TMA from dietary carnitine than do omnivores – due to the fact they harbor different gut bacteria. But the most striking finding in this bacterial connection – at least for me and the one that almost caused me to fall out of my chair when I read – was the role of one group of bacteria known as Prevotella. The researchers discovered that regardless whether you were a vegan/vegetarian or an omnivore, higher levels of Prevotella in your gut correlated with higher levels of TMAO in your blood. Using gut microbial data from three individuals recently analyzed as part of the American Gut project – one of which is myself – I will touch upon the irony of the argument that carnivorous habits may lead to accelerated atherosclerosis in the context of Prevotella. But first, lets look at the Nature Medicine paper.
To demonstrate that gut bacteria are necessary to convert carnitine from red meat to TMA in the gut, which if you remember, is then absorbed into the blood and makes its way to the liver where it is further converted into TMAO, researchers gathered together five omnivores and fed them each an 8-ounce sirloin steak (which contains ~180mg of carnitine) and a tablet of an additional 250mg of carnitine (d3-carnitine) tagged with a heavy isotope which allowed the researchers to follow this particular dose through the body. So, we have regular (dietary) carnitine from the red meat and an isotope labeled d3-carnitine (note the d3 denotes isotope labeled). The researchers then drew blood after the meal over a period of 24 hours and as expected, the levels of d3-TMAO went up over time, indicating that the gut bacteria did their thing and metabolized the isotopic d3-carnitine into d3-TMA that was absorbed and converted to d3-TMAO by the liver. Interestingly, while the d3-carnintine from the tablet ended up as d3-TMAO in serum, the native or natural carnitine and TMAO from the steak only showed “modest” concentrations in serum according to the researchers. In other words, the impact of the steak was semi-uneventful.
To further demonstrate the contribution of gut bacteria to the carnitine>TMA>TMAO development, the researchers put the same five omnivores who wolfed down the sirloin steak with the 250mg carnitine chaser on broad-spectrum antibiotics for a week (metronidazole 500 mg and ciprofloxacin 500 mg – twice daily) to suppress their gut bacteria – as broad-spectrum antibiotics have a tendency to do. After taking antibiotics twice a day for a week, the 5 omnivores were called back in and given another 8-ounce sirloin steak and 250mg d3-carnitine tablet. However, unlike during the first visit, the week of antibiotics caused a “near complete suppression” of TMAO in blood or urine. On top of that, no d3-TMAO was noted either. In other words, no detectable levels of TMAO or d3-TMAO were formed suggesting that whatever bacteria were present before that were endowed with the genes to metabolize carnitine from meat or the tablet into TMA, were gone.
After this second meal at the end of the week of antibiotics, the researchers discontinued the antibiotics and sent the omnivores home. After a few weeks had passed and enough time had presumably elapsed for their gut microbiota to recover from the week-of-antibiotic-hell, the omnivores were called back in for another steak and 250 mg tablet. This time, the gut bacteria that were capable of metabolizing carnitine into TMA in the gut had reappeared as TMAO and d3-TMAO came back with a vengeance in blood and urine. Taking together, all three steak dinners and tablet chasers demonstrate the “TMAO production from dietary carnitine in humans is dependent on intestinal microbiota.”
At this point you’re probably wondering which bacteria were depleted during the week of antibiotics: who were the nasty culprits responsible for creating TMA, but were metabolically shut down during a week of broad-spectrum antibiotics only to re-bloom after the fog of antibiotic war had lifted? Would seem simple enough – they were there during the first meal, wiped out during the week of antibiotics, then reappeared after several weeks of recovery. As amazing as it might sound, it appears the researchers DID NOT collect stool samples during this phase of the project so have no idea how the microbial composition had shifted before, during, and after antibiotics. Oh my – how unfortunate. Lets move on.
At this point, the researchers noted that TMAO (native and d3-labeled) varied among individuals following ingestion of carnitine. More to the point, a post-hoc nutritional survey revealed that red meat consumption might enhance ones ability to generate TMAO from carnitine. So it was time to break out the George Forman Grill again, get some tablets of carnitine ready and invite a vegan to dinner.
Kudos to the researchers as they were able to get a long-term (>5 years) vegan to scarf down an 8-ounce sirloin steak and the additional 250mg of d3-carnitine. The figure below plots what happened next. Over the course of 24 hours they took several blood samples from the vegan. As you can see, no appreciable amounts of TMAO showed up in the blood as a result of ingesting the steak (left panel) or the isotope-laden d3-TMAO (right panel) for that matter. Keep in mind this is a sample size of exactly ONE person. For comparison, the researchers also plot a “single representative omnivore” that self-reported eating meat on a daily basis. Though the researchers do not specify, the assumption is that the data plotted below for this single “representative omnivore” is from one of the five omnivores that participated in the previous five omnivore study discussed above.
That said, among the five omnivores to choose from, it’s not clear which omnivore they selected to plot against the vegan: was it the one with the largest concentrations of TMAO, the one with the least amount, or was it one from the middle of the pack? If it were me, I would probably select the one with the greatest concentrations of TMAO to plot against the vegan – for dramatic effect! You see some of this dramatic effect in the plot on the right (d3-TMAO). You will notice that the panel on the left (TMAO) has vertical axis ticks set at 0, 4, and 6 – clearly showing a spike in the level of TMAO for the omnivore. However, the panel on the right (d3-TMAO) has the ticks on the vertical axis set at 0, 0.125, and 0.250 – to create a pretty dramatic effect for one that really didn’t exist. I have taken the liberty and re-plotted (red circle and line) the concentrations of d3-TMAO for the omnivore it the researchers had used the same vertical scale as the panel on left. This, of course, is much less dramatic and clearly shows that in a sample size of exactly ONE for each group (omnivore vs vegan), the omnivore showed elevated levels of native TMAO but very nominal increase of d3-TMAO from the isotope-laden pill. In other words, the gut microbiota from both individuals failed to metabolize the 250 mg of d3-carnitine into meaningful levels of d3-TMAO in blood.
As a side note, it’s also not clear if the TMAO levels for the “represented omnivore” is from baseline (pre antibiotics) or TMAO levels measured during the third visit – the one following the several weeks of wash out to allow the gut microbiota of the five individuals to recover. I’m not being nit picky here, but this does matter (a lot). It matters as the researchers note in Supplemental Data that a “representative omnivore” significantly greater levels of TMAO in their blood after the weeks of washout from the antibiotics over baseline (we don’t know about the others). The assumption is that gut microbiota of all five individuals had returned to pre-antibiotic diversity and abundance. But we don’t know for sure, as previous studies on the antibiotic impact on the gut microbiome have shown that it can take weeks or even months for the gut microbiome to recover and it often settles back in a different composition all together (altered state). All we know is that our five omnivores – based on a representative omnivore – had bounced back with a greater metabolic ability to yield TMA from dietary carnitine.
In either case, would be nice to know how representative the omnivore really is and whether or not we are seeing the TMAO levels from a highly perturbed gut microbiota following antibiotic treatment. Increased gut permeability might be contributing to elevated TMAO levels as well. This, taken together with the sample size of ONE for each and the fact that no appreciable amount of d3-TMAO was noted among either (only TMAO for the omnivore), I think the jury is still out on this one. Fascinating nonetheless, but more data is needed. Sample of ONE does not allow for any statistical comparisons. Again, unfortunate – lets move on.
Now the study gets really interesting. This time they gathered together 26 vegans and vegetarians and 51 omnivores (note in the text of the article the researchers say 23 vegans and vegetarians but show 26 in the plot below – I will go with the 26). After fasting overnight for 12 hours, the researchers found that baseline levels of TMAO in the morning was significantly lower in the vegans and vegetarians compared to the omnivores (see figure left panel). However, there is considerable overlap in the box plots – that is, a considerable range. It appears there are vegans and vegetarians that have just as high or higher levels of TMAO than some omnivores. Given there are less vegans and vegetarians in the sample (26 vs 51), would increasing the sample of vegans and vegetarians to the same as the omnivores (n=51) change this plot in anyway – possibly capturing more vegan/vegetarian variability?
From the 26 vegans and vegetarians and 51 omnivores the researchers picked five from each group and gave them each the 250mg d3-carnitine tablet (no steak this time) and measured the d3-TMAO in the blood at several time points over 24 hours (see plot). As can be seen, the d3-TMAO levels went up in the omnivores but not the vegans and vegetarians. However, it’s striking to see the variability in the omnivores – ranging from near 0 to almost 30. Said differently, a SINGLE omnivore among the five can explain much of the elevated levels show in the plot. Also, since this was a subset of the larger group of 26 vegans and vegetarians and 51 omnivores, we do not know if the researchers selected omnivores that showed higher levels of baseline (fasting) TMAO. Since they had to pick someone, would be nice to know the selection criteria: did they pick omnivores with low, medium or higher levels of baseline TMAO levels? In either case, following the d3-carnitine challenge omnivores showed an increase as a group, but with some less so than others.
To explore the possibility that plasma TMAO levels might be associated with specific gut microbial taxa, the researchers collected stool samples from 23 of the 26 vegans and vegetarians and 30 of the 51 omnivores (at baseline |
government were made aware of the three underage migrants and are said to be observing them closely.
District office spokesman Eva Dörpinghaus confirmed that the three migrants had been watching Islamic State videos and that one of them had made his own Islamic State flag. One of the migrants had been described by asylum staff as “ambitious, diligent and willing to learn.”
“The indications that unaccompanied minors are radicalising are different,” Dörpinghaus said, adding that supervisors of the underage migrants required a “special sensitivity” to detect the signs of radicalisation.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) was also notified and they, in turn, mobilised anti-radicalisation experts who are now working with the migrants.
An expert at BAMF said, “Looking at supposed IS videos or crafting an IS flag is a fact that may indicate a radicalisation process at an advanced stage,” and the agency appear to be taking the potential threat very seriously.
Freising Police Chief Ernst Neuner said that no charges would be made against the migrants as no crime had been committed. He likened the case to German children drawing swastikas, a symbol banned in Germany.
The radicalisation of young underage migrants is a top concern for German authorities as some of the attacks committed in the country this year were plotted or carried out by underage Muslims, some of them asylum seekers.
Salafist preachers have been reported infiltrating asylum homes to recruit young migrants. Police and intelligence agencies have warned that extremists volunteer in asylum homes for the purpose of radicalising migrants.
Young Muslims have also been radicalising themselves by accessing Islamic State propaganda on the internet. French scholar Gilles Kepel has said the problem of young Muslim radicalisation is so troublesome it could lead to a European civil war.Story highlights A group headed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh has been poring over Penn State e-mails
E-mails provided to CNN show that Joe Paterno wielded power beyond the realm of football
An official says in a 2005 e-mail that Paterno wanted to keep disciplinary matters internal
"Coach Paterno would rather we NOT inform the public... despite any moral or legal obligation..."
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh's investigation into possible wrongdoing at Penn State University appears to be examining football coach Joe Paterno's apparent preference for handling scandalous issues internally, and what role that may have played in a potential cover-up involving former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, convicted on 45 counts of child sex abuse on June 22.
Freeh's group has been poring over internal Penn State e-mails and has interviewed a past university official about the way Paterno influenced a variety of disciplinary matters, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Freeh is leading an internal review of Penn State's handling of the scandal that is unrelated to criminal investigations.
The e-mails obtained by CNN from a source familiar with the investigation, and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, show Paterno wielded power that went well beyond the realm of football or even the athletic department.
In a 2005 e-mail from Dr. Vicky Triponey, then vice president of student affairs in charge of disciplining students, to athletic director Tim Curley and others, she summarizes a meeting they had with Paterno in which he tells her that he wants to be the sole disciplinarian of his players.
She criticizes Paterno for wanting to limit the Campus Code of Conduct to incidents that take place on campus and keeping disciplinary matters involving his players private. "Coach Paterno would rather we NOT inform the public when a football player is found responsible for committing a serious violation of the law and/or our student code -- despite any moral or legal obligation to do so," according to her e-mail.
In the same e-mail, Triponey, also refers to calls her office was receiving from coaches and others. "I must insist that the efforts to put pressure on (Student Affairs) and try to influence our decisions...simply MUST STOP," she writes.
Dr. Vicky Triponey
Curley, in a subsequent e-mail, acknowledges that Triponey's take on the conversation with Paterno is accurate.
Triponey replies to Curley, "I know you are caught in the middle of a very difficult situation," an apparent reference to appeasing Paterno.
In a subsequent e-mail to then-Penn State President Graham Spanier she is more blunt: "I am very troubled by the manipulative, disrespectful, uncivil and abusive behavior of our football coach," she writes.
Triponey has been interviewed by the Freeh group, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
JUST WATCHED Paterno's role in Sandusky case examined Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Paterno's role in Sandusky case examined 04:16
JUST WATCHED Blogger's meeting with Sandusky Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Blogger's meeting with Sandusky 02:36
JUST WATCHED Lawyer: Penn State e-mails are appalling Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Lawyer: Penn State e-mails are appalling 05:14
JUST WATCHED Sandusky still eligible for pension Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Sandusky still eligible for pension 03:20
In the same e-mail, she calls Paterno's behavior "atrocious" and said others are mimicking his behavior. "It is quite shocking what this man -- who is idolized by people everywhere -- is teaching our students..." she writes.
Triponey's e-mails may be a sign Freeh is also examining the culture around the football team as his investigators work to determine the circumstances surrounding a 2001 sexual incident with a young boy and Sandusky in a Penn State shower room and reported by then graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary.
In purported 2001 e-mails between Curley, Schultz, and Spanier, read exclusively to CNN, Curley appears to change his mind about reporting the locker room incident to outside authorities after speaking to Paterno, he wrote in one e-mail. Sandusky was convicted in June of four counts related to the 2001 shower incident, including unlawful contact with minors, a first-degree felony.
Curley and former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz face perjury and failure to report child abuse charges in connection with the Sandusky case. They have pleaded not guilty.
In 2007, after a widely reported incident where more than a dozen players crashed an off-campus party and started a violent brawl, Paterno appears to send an e-mail, through his assistant, to Spanier that says, "I want to make sure everyone understands that the discipline of the players involved will be handled by me as soon as I am comfortable that I know all the facts."
Paterno's attorneys have said the coach didn't use e-mail. The exchange shows while he may not have had his own e-mail account, his assistant would still send e-mails for him.
Paterno planned to punish the team by forcing them to perform 10 hours of community service and clean up the stadium after home games, according to a memo provided by a source familiar with the investigation.
After Triponey tried to discipline football players in the same manner as other students, she was harassed both online and at her home, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. On her front lawn somebody put up a "for sale" sign. Police installed a surveillance camera. In the end, the source says Spanier suggested she think about her future at Penn State, and she resigned.
After Triponey left Penn State, the university changed its discipline policy involving off-campus incidents. Its current code of conduct says it only applies to "off campus conduct that affects a Substantial University interest."
The Freeh goup and the university declined comment on this story.
Efforts Sunday night to obtain a comment from the Paterno family were unsuccessful. Paterno died of complications from lung cancer in January.
The 2001, 2005, and 2007 e-mail exchanges are among many now under investigation by the Freeh group. The e-mails revealed so far suggest coach Paterno preferred to handle bad behavior internally, a preference that may have influenced a decision by university officials not to report Sandusky to authorities in 2001 and allowed him to continue to abuse young boys.Presumptive Republican nominee for the US presidential election Donald Trump has attacked former Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Iraq War “disaster,” saying he did a “terrible job” by invading.
In an interview with ITV, Trump warned that the Chilcot Inquiry into the 2003 invasion, which will finally be published on July 6, will not look good for the former Labour PM.
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“I don’t see it as war crimes. I just think he goes down as somebody who did a terrible job.
“[President George W.] Bush got us into it, that’s a terrible, terrible thing that happened,” he said.
“Tony Blair made a mistake. You can’t just go in haphazardly. You folks got involved in that mess just as we did and now look at it.”
Trump said UK leaders should put the needs of their own country before that of America, and would get more respect if they stood up to US presidents.
“I’m surprised somebody would see the Bush relationship as being that important.”
Trump also criticized Lord Alan Sugar, who hosts the UK version of the Apprentice, but is critical of the Republican’s campaign.
“He’s small time. Don’t forget that Sugar works for me. Every time he makes money from that show he pays me.”
Trump also denied claims he saw Princess Diana as the “ultimate trophy wife” or had any interest in wooing her despite once claiming he could have “nailed” her.
His comments come a day after he said he is unlikely to have a “very good relationship” with Prime Minister David Cameron.
He also called newly elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan “ignorant” and in need of an IQ test because he criticized Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the US.
In response, Khan has invited Trump to London to meet his wife and teenage daughters.
The capital’s first Muslim mayor is standing by his attack on “ignorant” Trump, but has now offered the Republican an olive branch.
“I invite Donald Trump to come to London. Meet my wife and daughters. Meet my friends and neighbors. Meet Londoners who are British: they’re Londoners, they’re Muslim,” he told ITV.
“You know the great thing about London? Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists… we don’t just tolerate each other, we respect, we celebrate, we embrace.
“And my concern is this. Are you inadvertently making our countries less safe by giving the impression there is a clash of civilizations?
“Are you doing the job of Daesh and the extremists for them by saying the West hates Islam? I am the West!” he said, using an Arabic pejorative term for Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL)."Oh, this place again," my mother says, as if somewhere in her memory, where most things are forgotten, this building, with its enormous orange and yellow Senior Living sign, clicks a normal synaptic reaction.
"Yes," I say. "That's right. Let's go inside and have some lunch."
It all seems so innocent, a dutiful son taking his elderly mother out for a meal. She doesn't know how I've struggled with the decision I've made, how it tears me apart. She doesn't know that today isn't just lunch. And she doesn't know that my heart is broken again because I've done this before—struggled and ultimately removed another family member from a comfortable home without consent.
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Twelve years ago, I paid two men to come to my house in the early hours of the morning and take my eldest son to a therapeutic wilderness program in North Carolina. With my wife standing beside me, I grabbed his shoulder as he slept. "Wake up. These men are here for you. We love you," I said, before I calmly walked away.
It seemed so utterly heartless, but the truly difficult part—making the decision to send him away—was done. The wringing of hands and the endless debating was over. His situation, of course, was hugely different from my mother's, but the agonizing process of getting from what should we do? to actually doing it was eerily the same.
At 14, my son had remained impervious to all the help we'd given him. Medication didn't help. Therapy had little impact. Love was our best hope, but that, too, failed to stop his relentless opposition and violence. His brothers loved and feared him. During his worst episodes, it wasn't uncommon for him to brandish a large kitchen knife through the house. He was euphemistically diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, and the police were regular visitors to our home. But the last straw for us—a thankfully nonviolent act—was his refusal to attend school.
Just like my mother, he had no idea what was coming. The evening we sent him away, he was playful and even shoveled the few inches of snow that covered the driveway. It was weird; he was being so good. But I couldn't let a few hours of good behavior change my decision—he'd wreaked havoc for years and endangered the people who loved him most.
Before sending him to wilderness therapy, I'd spoken with the experts, the teachers and social workers and educational specialists, most of whom felt the wilderness would be a useful step toward altering his behavior. Still, my wife and I were tormented by the anguish of sending him away. Had we abrogated our responsibilities as parents? What if it didn't work? What if he hated us for it? And what about the expense? Would we resent him for putting us through this enormous financial burden, and would he sense our resentment? And now, with my mother, history was repeating itself, although with a different twist.
My mother, now 85, started showing the first signs of dementia about five years ago. She'd wake up in the morning, go to the local convenience store, and purchase three cardboard containers of soup. When she got home, she'd consume half of one container and put the rest in the refrigerator. A few hours later, forgetting that she'd been to the store, she'd purchase three more, and once again, consume half of one container. Once a month, during mostly quiet but sometimes loud and agitated battles, I'd throw out more than 50 containers of soup against her wishes.
In the winter, she'd wear a red sweater and black pants. In the spring and fall, she'd wear the same red sweater and black pants. In the summer, when she couldn't bear the heat, she shed the sweater and pants for a nightgown that looked as if it hadn't been washed in years, much the same as the red sweater and black pants. She said she bathed, but she also said she did the laundry.
On a warm day in June, my wife and I showed up at my mother's home and were horrified by the state she was in: clad in gray pajamas covered with dried spills and yellow stains, her hair stringy and unkempt. As always, a half-smoked cigarette hung between her fingers. Aghast, I said, "You look filthy!" To which she replied, nonplussed, "It's fine." Dementia had settled in, taking away the woman who'd taught me how to tie my shoes, how to swim, to spell, to be respectful and kind to others. The sophisticated woman who'd dressed to the nines for most of her adult life, who'd adorned herself with pearls, was indistinguishable from a person living on the street.
My son was gone for 15 months, attending a therapeutic boarding school after seven weeks in the wilderness. He was 16 when he came home, and at 17 we had him taken away again, this time to a lock-down therapeutic boarding school in Utah. The stealing, violence, and drug use had gone beyond what we could ever have imagined. The years after that were punctuated by many arrests and more than a few stints in jail. I can still feel the fear I lived with—that at any moment, we'd get a phone call notifying us that he was dead. Yet he survived, and today at 27, after spending four years in a sober living house, he has a good job, a loving girlfriend, and the possibility of a long and happy life. He exercises no less than two hours a day, looks amazing, and is proud of his transformation, as he should be. He loves his family, and often tells us that, but I wonder if he's ever really forgiven us for those two abductions. Do they still haunt him, as they haunt me, especially now, as I drive my mother to the senior living facility for our "lunch date"?
She's in a good mood and chatty as we get on the New Jersey Turnpike and drive past the New York City skyline. "That's my city," she says with pride, admiring the expanse of tall buildings that seems to evoke her childhood. There's an endless library of stories in her head, as fresh as if they'd happened yesterday. But ask her what day of the week it is, or what month, or year, and she blithely and honestly says, "I don't know." She also doesn't know that less than 24 hours earlier, she'd told me to go to hell when I suggested it was time to sell the house. Or that sometimes she calls me 15 times a day, often screaming at me to get garbage out of her house that isn't actually there.
At lunch my mother says, "This is a really nice place and the food is so good." She speaks as if she's been here before, but she thinks she's been to nearly every place we go, even if we haven't. It helps her feel comfortable.
There's a plan in place. I'm going to tell her that my wife and I are going on a trip and she's to stay at the facility until we return. I'm dubious about the plan, but this is what the experts at the facility are recommending since three times before, my mother agreed to enter an assisted-living facility, and each time she stubbornly reneged 48 hours before moving. I know my mother pretty well: she may have dementia, but she's not stupid.
During lunch, two of the residents join us. This is part of the plan. They're supposed to engage my mother in conversation to make her feel comfortable. Yet over the next 20 minutes, not many words are exchanged. I begin to lose confidence in the plan. My mother and I finish our meals and rise from the table. As we're leaving the dining room, I see an empty table and ask her to sit down. "I have to talk to you," I say.
"Okay," she replies.
"I'm going away for a while."
"Yeah, so what? You go away all the time."
"That's true," I say, "but you're going to stay here while I'm gone."
All of a sudden my mother is as quick as a cobra about to strike its prey. "No!" she screams, slamming her fist down on the table. "You bastard," she yells. Suddenly, she's a woman with purpose and storms out of the building.
To my amazement, the diners continue quietly eating. I suspect they've seen this before. I signal a couple of staff members. When we find her in the parking lot, we lie and say it's only a temporary stay until I return. We bring her inside and show her the beautiful suite that'll be her new home, fully furnished and decorated by my wife and me. And then I do the unthinkable. I've done it before. I turn and I leave.
Later that day, I ride my bicycle for a few hours. Normally, cycling clears my head, but this ride is different. I'm obsessed with what I've done. How could I betray my mother just as I betrayed my son? How could I leave her like that and not even say I love you? Was she really unable to care for herself? She'll hate me for the rest of her life.
The next day my mother calls me. "Can you come over?" she asks. "I don't feel well."
"What's wrong?" I reply.
"My stomach is bothering me. Can you come over?"
"No. Not today."
I'm terrified, despite assurances from the staff that my mother is adjusting nicely. If I see her, I know she'll immediately want to go home. "Is she asking to go home?" I ask one of her caregivers. "No, but she thinks someone is coming to take her home soon." I stay away.
Seven days pass and my youngest son takes it upon himself to visit his grandmother for lunch, knowing it's unlikely that she'll be angry with him. Although she introduces him as her favorite cousin from New York, she doesn't bring up her house. She doesn't ask him to take her home. In fact, my son reports, she's happy. The following day, I muster up the courage to follow in his footsteps. My wife joins me.
My mother is waiting for us when we arrive. She looks amazing: clean and nicely attired. She smiles and embraces us as we sit down in the dining room. "Let me tell you about this place," she says with confidence. "The people are so nice. They really know what they're doing. And the food is good, isn't it? When we're done eating, I'll show you my room. It's so big."
Whenever there's a moment, and there are plenty, when she's not paying attention, my wife and I look at each other in joyful astonishment. And then there's the most amazing transformation of all. On the day I'd dropped her off, she was being escorted along a walking path, chain-smoking in her desolation. Now the staff tell me she hasn't had a cigarette in five days—this from a woman who's been smoking since she was 15! That was my sign, the lightning bolt of affirmation I needed.
I'm never quite sure if I made the right decision with my son, though I often think he might be dead had I done nothing. I know that today he's kind and gracious and grateful to the people who made difficult choices for his survival. I hope the same is true for my mother, that she's better off after I made a difficult choice for her, too. She may not be able to tell me as much, but it certainly seems that way.
At one point, I convinced myself that my mother believed she was on vacation. But recently, I've come to think there's an unconscious recognition in her that for the first time in many years, she can simply relax with no worries. I can relax, too, a little bit at a time, breathing in and out, but also knowing deep inside that, as life carries us forward, I may have to make other wrenching decisions out of love, as best I can.
***Wauwatosa Mayor Kathy Ehley wore jeans to work Wednesday.
So did Tosa East High Principal Nick Hughes. And Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. And Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.
They encouraged their employees to do the same – in Tosa, all those not in uniform, Ehley said.
All because Tosa East High itself also wore jeans – 1,050 pairs of them, covering the campus fence to call startling attention to Denim Day, a day to remember and support survivors of rape.
McKenna Nerone promised that her senior community service project would draw attention, and it did. Drivers on Wauwatosa Avenue slowed and stared. Those who were expecting something – perhaps not sure what – honked in appreciation of McKenna's work.
For weeks, McKenna has been collecting blue jeans. Each pair on the fence stands for a woman raped – one every two minutes – during just the hours McKenna spends in school over a week.
Blue jeans are the symbol of Denim Day because of an Italian rape case in which the defendant was freed – because a judge said the victim's jeans were too tight and therefore she could not have removed them unwillingly.
The outpouring of support for McKenna's display was astonishing.
"This isn't all," McKenna said. "I've got 700 or 800 more."
She has a full day ahead after a long night. McKenna and a hardy group of friends started hanging jeans at about 11:30 p.m., she said, and finished at 2:30 a.m.
"We had about 24 people working for awhile," she said. "It looked pretty powerful even in the dark, but now in the daylight – wow."
She was back at the school at 6 a.m., as bright as she could be on little sleep, but far from done.
Mayor Ehley arrived at 7:30 to read a proclamation declaring April 24 Denim Day in Wauwatosa. At 9:15, McKenna had a news conference scheduled with Barrett. Then she would be off to Madison for another with Van Hollen.
But while all the official attention is gratifying and important to her cause, McKenna found the most moving moments in her effort surprising and personal.
There was the young woman who donated jeans and said she had been raped at knifepoint three years before, at 17. She had never told anyone. Because of McKenna's courage to speak up for her, she said, she was going to tell her parents what had happened.
And then there was the Tosa shopowner.
McKenna's mom, Kimberly, called it the most moving experience of all.
"We stopped in and McKenna asked if she would put a poster up," Kimberly said, "and the woman said no, she didn't like to have things in her windows. I just pulled on McKenna and said, 'Come on, let's go.'"
"But McKenna said, 'Well, can I at least tell you my story?' And she said, 'OK, tell me your story.'
"She began to cry. And she said, 'I'm one of them.' A rape survivor.
"She said, 'Sure, I'll put up your poster, and I'll collect jeans for you. A week later she called, and we went to pick them up. She had a Suburban full of jeans."
There were many more. Women who "came out" to McKenna as quiet survivors, overcoming a wholly unnecessary shame at being a helpless victim, suddenly realizing there was a voice speaking for them.
McKenna said the experience of her Denim Day project will stay with her throughout her life – but don't expect it to become who she is. One lesson in this is that someone in any walk of life can take a stand to right a wrong.
"A lot of people ask me if I'm going to become a social worker," McKenna said. "But no, I'm not. I'm going to Hamline University in (St. Paul) Minnesota, and I'll be studying biology and Spanish, and taking pre-dental.
"I'm going to be an orthodontist."Farooq Sattar says Taliban extremism goes against Jinnah’s liberal Pakistan.
KARACHI: Terming the Taliban’s move of creating ‘state within a state’ as the biggest threat, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) will hold a countrywide referendum on Thursday to decide whether people want Jinnah’s ‘liberal’ Pakistan or the Taliban’s extreme ideological state.
Addressing a press conference at the Lal Qila ground on Sunday, MQM’s deputy convener Farooq Sattar lashed out at the Taliban, just days after militants had threatened to liberate the people of Karachi from the MQM.
Suggesting the attack on Malala was a wakeup call for the nation, Sattar said, “The referendum will decide the fate of the country.
The people will have to decide if they want Jinnah’s Pakistan or the Taliban’s Pakistan.”
The MQM leader said that the referendum was being held on November 8, a day before Allama Iqbal’s anniversary. Polling stations would be formed across the country, and people would be able to cast their vote from 9am to 5pm. Votes may be cast via a website and through SMS, a facility put forth for overseas Pakistanis in particular. A commission comprising retired judges, lawyers, intellectuals would be monitoring the referendum. “Irrespective of the result, the MQM wants a progressive, liberal and secular Pakistan,” said Sattar.
Highly critical of the Taliban, Sattar said that the militants have challenged Pakistan’s constitution. “Years ago when Altaf Hussain had warned everyone of rising Talibanisation in the country, and especially in Karachi, leaders of religious parties and journalists made fun of him and accused him of spreading fear,” he said. “And today, finally, the Supreme Court demands action against the Taliban. This proves that Hussain was speaking the truth.”
Furthermore, the MQM leader said that while education and technology is the key of every progressive nation, the Taliban are stopping people from pursuing education by blowing up schools and attacking students. “The October 9 incident is a final wakeup call for Pakistan when the country’s daughter Malala was attacked. The whole nation came together and condemned the incident.”
“Jinnah did not want extremism. He wanted a liberal, secular and democratic country where all communities were free to practise their religion,” he added.
Great fury
Pointing out the Taliban’s atrocities, Sattar said that they were violators of women’s rights. “Not only do they treat women like animals but also whip them to death. They declare people infidels and force their beliefs on to others.”
He said the country was facing great external and internal threats: with drone attacks threatening its sovereignty on one hand and religious extremism and terrorism destroying its image abroad. “Imambargahs, masjids and mazars are being attacked. Law enforcement agencies are not spared; rangers and police officers are being killed brutally.”
Sattar said that the referendum will prove that the people are united and want equal rights for minorities. “Pakistanis want harmony and peace in the country. They want a democratic and liberal nation. This referendum will give a new life to the country, help to free it from foreign aid, and to move towards stability,” said Sattar with high hopes. He added that all political parties, including the ANP should participate in the referendum and prove their unity against the militants.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 5th, 2012.
Read full storyThe park's much anticipated ice rink will be the center of attention for the rest of the festivities, and it will be open from noon to 9 pm on Friday and 10 am to 10 pm on Saturday--admission is $8 for adults and $7 for kids/seniors/military, with skate rentals costing $3. There will also be "ice performances" at the top of each hour from noon to 4 pm, and coaches available to help new skaters.
Saturday will also have live music in the park from 10 am to 3 pm, various art-y options, and a "Get Active" program from Results Gym with boot camp, a kids obstacle course, and a Zumba class.
my Canal Park project page for photos of what the footprint has gone through over the years. Considering that it was nine years ago this month that I first wrote about the plans to remove the school buses from the park's three-block site along 2nd Street between I and M, SE, I'd say this opening indeed qualifies as a milestone in the neighborhood. Seefor photos of what the footprint has gone through over the years.
Kruba Thai and Sushi says that their restaurant in the ground floor of the Foundry Lofts at the Yards is opening on Monday, Nov. 12. Will that come true as well? We shall see!) (The BID also says that the management ofsays that their restaurant in the ground floor of theat theis opening on Monday, Nov. 12. Will that come true as well? We shall see!)
UPDATE: I should add there's no word in this whether the Park Tavern restaurant will open on this same weekend--my guess is that the pressure is pretty strong to have it open in some format, but there's no announcement.
by the Capitol Riverfront BID is announcing thatwill have a two-day Grand Opening, on Friday, Nov. 16 and Saturday, Nov. 17, kicking off with a ribbon cutting with the mayor and other dignitaries at 11 am on the 16th.Houston officer takes bullet in cartel crackdown 'Hell to pay' after agent's slaying
Massive raid is launched on cartels in the U.S.; shooting injures officer in Houston sweep
A Houston Police Department SWAT member leaves a raid where an officer was wounded Thursday. Two suspects were arrested, including one who was shot in a north Houston house. The officer is expected to survive; the suspect was listed as stable. less A Houston Police Department SWAT member leaves a raid where an officer was wounded Thursday. Two suspects were arrested, including one who was shot in a north Houston house. The officer is expected to survive;... more Photo: Eric Kayne, Chronicle Photo: Eric Kayne, Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston officer takes bullet in cartel crackdown 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
A Houston police officer was shot and an alleged drug dealer wounded Thursday as authorities riding a wave of emotion launched a nationwide attack on Mexico's drug cartels and gangsters in the United States.
Less than 48 hours after the burial of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent slain in Mexico, teams of U.S. federal agents and state and local officers cracked down on drug-traffickers and their allies. Federal authorities in Houston reported 33 arrests and seized drugs, cash and guns. They would not identify any of the suspects arrested locally.
Authorities were still making arrests on Thursday across the country and in Central America, Colombia and Brazil, and they predicted hundreds would be arrested by this morning.
A veteran Houston Police Department narcotics officer was shot Thursday morning after entering a house in north Houston as part of the operation. Nainash Patel, 39, was shot twice, with one bullet going through his elbow and another lodged in his hip. He is expected to fully recover.
Houston police released few details about the suspect, except that he is in stable condition at Houston Northwest Medical Center.
The shooting occurred at 207 Buckboard, across the street from an elementary school. HPD spokesman Kese Smith said officers entered the home after identifying themselves, and a suspect opened fire with a handgun. Another suspect in the home surrendered peacefully, he said.
He 'will not be forgotten'
The sweep, dubbed Operation Bombardier by the Drug Enforcement Administration, started on the East Coast and resulted in arrests from New Jersey to California.
Robert Rutt, special agent in charge of Houston's ICE-Homeland Security Investigations, said U.S. authorities are targeting gangsters and associates in response to ICE agent Jaime Zapata's murder, which has already yielded six arrests south of border.
The effort shows Zapata "will not be forgotten," Rutt said.
"While the murder is personal to ICE, we are arresting transnational gang members and drug traffickers who have links to Mexican cartels because of their criminal activity and not simply out of retaliation," he said.
Zapata was killed and another agent was injured Feb. 15 while driving an armored sport-utility vehicle with official license plates on a main Mexican highway.
Zetas and other cartels
The Zetas cartel is being blamed for the attack. One of its reputed henchmen has apparently told Mexican officials the U.S. agents were mistaken for rival gangsters.
"We are not just going after Zetas, we are going after all cartels," said Carl Pike, assistant special agent in charge of special operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "We want all the cartels to realize this. It is the schoolyard mentality — a bully situation. The cartels have pushed - if you don't push back, you become the victim. U.S. law enforcement is not going to become the victim."
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican whose district includes part of Harris County, said the nationwide sweep was an appropriate response to the Mexico attack.
"Quite frankly, this operation was long overdue," he said.
"It is a massive undertaking, very dangerous," he said. "It is like walking into a snake pit, where these drug dealers and cartel members are."
White House Drug Policy Director R. Gil Kerlikowske commended agents and officers involved in the sweep.
"Today's forceful crackdown demonstrates that the United States will never back down from the threats posed by barbaric criminal organizations that smuggle poisons into our communities and have no regard for innocent human life," he said.
"Today's forceful crackdown demonstrates that the United States will never back down from the threats posed by barbaric criminal organizations that smuggle poisons into our communities and have no regard for innocent human life," he said.
Mike Vigil, the retired international operations director for the DEA, said the sweep had many similarities to what happened after the murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, who was tortured to death in 1985 after being kidnapped by Mexican drug traffickers.
"We were going full bore," recalled Vigil, executive director of ManTech International, a global logistics and information technology firm. "The U.S.-Mexico border was largely shut down at one point, and Camarena's killers were hunted across Latin America and Europe.
Raises some eyebrows
"You immediately have to come forth with a tremendous message that they are not going to get away with it," he said.
"If they are going to engage in this type of violence, there is going to be hell to pay."
Coming so soon after Zapata's slaying, both the arrests in Mexico and the U.S. crackdown won praise but have also raised eyebrows.
Few of nearly 35,000 gangland style murders in Mexico during the past four years have ever been investigated, let alone solved so quickly. Even high-profile cases, like last summer's assassination of the man all but certain to have been elected governor of the Texas-Mexico border state of Tamaulipas, remain unsolved.
"These operations are fine, but they should be happening all the time," said Raul Benitez, a Mexican national security analyst. "What I don't like is that they only launch these types of actions when they attack an American agent."
Staff writers Dudley Althaus, Terri Langford, Dale Lezon, Peggy O'Hare, Stewart Powell and Zain Shauk contributed to this report.
susan.carroll@chron.com
dane.schiller@chron.comDaily fantasy sports sites FanDuel and DraftKings are prepared to fight in court against New York state’s top prosecutor, who said that they were running illegal gambling operations and ordered them to stop taking bets in the state.
Downtown Manhattan and the One World Trade building (R) are seen from the observation level of the Empire State Building in the Manhattan borough of New York February 4, 2015. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
DraftKings called the cease and |
he’s an outsider not only in political circles but also in media circles and hasn’t built up a store of favors with the press that longtime politicians would have.
And, of course, some would argue that the mainstream media in the US always favor liberal politicians, which Trump isn’t.
But Hillary is no saint.
And the avalanche of recently leaked emails certainly has given the media enough bad stuff to publish about her and her campaign, including a conversation by Hillary’s aides against Catholics that didn’t make it into the mainstream media.
Trump has complained loudly about his treatment by some of the biggest papers in the US. In fact, he’s threatened to pull the credentials of the Times and the Washington Post.
But it wasn’t until very recently that proof surfaced (in leaked emails) as to just how much some of these papers were favoring — and doing favors for — the Clinton campaign.
For instance, the Times’ political reporter, Maggie Haberman (who once worked here at The Post), was called a “friendly journalist” by Clinton staffers who would tee up stories for their campaign.
Haberman was working at Politico when she won her “friendly journalist” status but is now with the Times.
A different leaked memo reveals that another Times reporter, Mark Leibovich, allowed the Clinton campaign to veto quotes given by Hillary before he put them in a story.
When the negotiation over the quotes was completed, Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for the Clinton campaign, wrote to Leibovich to say “pleasure doing business.”
It’s been clear to me for a while that the Times and other media outlets have been favoring Hillary over Trump. And that’s their right — in the editorial page and in columns.
To the Times’ credit, it did break the original story about Hillary using a private email server instead of a government-issued one like everybody else at her State Department.
And checking quotes for accuracy with a source isn’t unusual, although blanket veto power — if that’s what this was — isn’t proper.
I’ve been in this business long enough to know the tit-for-tat negotiations that go on between reporters and sources.
But allowing a source to have too much control over a story makes a paper nothing more than a puppet and destroys the notion of a free press.
This last example is perhaps the most egregious. Another leaked email from Palmieri on July 8, 2015, is a discussion with John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, and others about a Times story on the costs of some of Hillary’s policies.
Palmieri writes: “I wanted to give you an update on NYT pending story on the costs of policy proposals... I had a pretty frank conversation with them about what an unfair story would do as a further setback in the relationship.” I assume that means relations between Hillary and the Times.
“Maggie thinks it is responsible and that we are not going to have a problem with it — it will have all the caveats that HRC [Hillary Clinton] has not actually proposed these policies... She [Maggie, I assume] is going to read me the story later today off the record to further assure me.”
I assume “Maggie” is Maggie Haberman, who — with another reporter — two days later published a 1,500-word story on Page 19 of the paper with the headline “Clinton Aims an Ambitious Economic Agenda at a Party Shifting Left.” Anyway, that’s why I canceled my Times subscription.
If you feel the same way, you can dial the Times at 800-698-4637. They’ll offer you a deal to stay. I told them all I wanted was honest coverage.Should have bought one sooner!
My item arrived exactly as advertised, little brown box with the player a remote and a couple cables. Took me less than 10 minutes to set up, and that's only because you've got to navigate the display keyboard to enter all the info...super easy though. I immediately hooked up my external HD and was off and running. Netflix was as easy as pushing the button on the remote, again with entering the info, and presto...my account was up and going. Now I don't have to use my game console or other devices to watch my digital movie collection or Netflix. The options in the settings menu were quite satisfactory, very functional and mostly self explanatory. It has several features and applications that I will likely never use, but I bought it to pretty much be a player device for my external hard drive...I found the Netflix button to be a bonus. If you want more features spend A LOT more money. This little unit does exactly what it was intended to do, and it does it well.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: RefurbishedAIADMK MP PR Sundaram has threatened to "chop off the tongue" of anyone who speaks about his party chief Jayalalithaa's health
A parliamentarian of Tamil Nadu's ruling AIADMK has threatened to cut off the tongue of anyone who comments on Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's health.PR Sundaram made the remarks while referring to Jayalalithaa's arch rival, DMK chief M Karunanidhi, suggesting recently that she should step down as she was unwell."Karunanidhi wants Amma to take rest. What's his age? He's 93 and he says he wants to live for 100 years. He doesn't want to hand over power to his son," sneered Mr Sundaram."As an MP I have to be restrained. If anyone speaks about revolutionary leader Amma, his tongue will be cut off," he raged. He was speaking at a public meeting he had organized on Sunday to celebrate Ms Jayalalithaa's recent poll victory.AIADMK Spokesperson CR Saraswathi later said: "Let me check. The MP could have said it jokingly on stage."Ms Jayalalithaa's 10-day absence from work earlier this month fueled huge speculation and provoked barbs from rival parties.While the DMK said the 67-year-old should quit, Congress leader EVKS Ilangovan demanded that the government clarify whether she was unwell. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted that Ms Jayalalithaa was likely to travel to the US for a surgical procedure. The AIADMK has denied that their leader plans to travel abroad for a liver transplant.The Chief Minister resumed work on July 15 and in the half hour she spent in office, she gave orders to appoint faculty members in government colleges and used video conferencing to launch schemes.Ms Jayalalithaa was sworn in on July 4 as a state legislator after she won a by-election with a record margin. That election was needed to formalize her return as Chief Minister; her third term had interrupted when she was jailed on charges of corruption last year, which meant she was disqualified as an elected representative. After she was acquitted in May, she returned to office. The government of neighbouring Karnataka has appealed against her acquittal in the Supreme Court.INDEPENDENT TD PETER Mathews is seeking all-party support in his bid to be elected to the European Parliament, saying he and the 10 others who are elected as MEPs in May need to come together to secure debt write down of €53 billion for Ireland.
Mathews has said that the Irish people need “political statesmanlike leadership” and a “straight-talking team” of 11 “robust individuals” to advance the attempts to secure an extensive debt write down for Ireland.
He is proposing to lead or at least be part of this team, and wants all-party support for his election bid.
He said: “What the people of Ireland need is political statesmanlike leadership that would create a special purpose competent, professionally qualified and experienced, courageous, straight-talking team of 11 robust individuals to fill Ireland’s 11 seats at the European Parliament.”
Though he is affiliated to the Reform Alliance of expelled Fine Gael TDs and senators, Mathews has been keen to underline his independence. However he has not ruled out joining Fianna Fáil or any other political party, but insists it is up to them to invite him to join their party.
No talks
He believes he will need party support to be elected to the European Parliament, but he has had no discussions either formal or informal with any of them about the possibility of joining or gaining their support.
The Dublin South deputy, who was expelled from Fine Gael and later quit the party over the abortion issue last July, believes that in addition to any retroactive recapitalisation of Ireland’s two pillar banks, AIB and Bank of Ireland, the arrangement whereby the promissory note arrangement was replaced with long-term bonds last year needs to be cancelled.
“I have been a consistent, persistent advocate of cancellation of the €28 billion long term government bonds which replaced the promissory notes, while at the same time advocating further Euro system creditor compression of about €25 billion in the two main Irish Banks,” Mathews said.
Mathews said a team of 11 MEPs would “command attention, respect and effective clout” in the European Parliament rather than “being represented by 11 fragile individual ‘snowflakes’ lost in the EU parliamentary ‘blizzard’”.
He is likely to raise these issues at the Reform Alliance conference being held in the RDS next Saturday.Ryan Burton has re-signed until the end of 2018.
HAWTHORN has re-signed young forward Ryan Burton until the end of 2018.
Burton, who was the Hawks’ first selection in last year’s NAB AFL Draft at pick 19, was contracted until the end of 2017 but has signed a one-year extension.
“We drafted Ryan knowing he had an in injury that would need time to overcome,” Hawthorn’s recruiting and list manager Graham Wright said.
“We’ve been really happy with his progress so far and think he will be a really good player for us in the future.
After missing the entirety of 2014 with a badly broken leg, the 19-year-old has returned to action for Box Hill Hawks in recent weeks.
He has played in both of the Box Hill Hawks’ VFL victories – against Sandringham and Williamstown – spending time in attack and defence.
Got a question for Burto? He's taking over Twitter from 12pm...
Wright said the contract extension was a sign of the club’s commitment to the North Adelaide product, who will have an operation on his leg later this week.
“He needs to have an operation to take out the plate and screws from his 2014 injury,” Wright said.
“We wanted to take away any anxiety that he may have had, and show him that we think he’ll be a really important player for us long-term.”Second, big data can work well as an adjunct to scientific inquiry but rarely succeeds as a wholesale replacement. Molecular biologists, for example, would very much like to be able to infer the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their underlying DNA sequence, and scientists working on the problem use big data as one tool among many. But no scientist thinks you can solve this problem by crunching data alone, no matter how powerful the statistical analysis; you will always need to start with an analysis that relies on an understanding of physics and biochemistry.
Third, many tools that are based on big data can be easily gamed. For example, big data programs for grading student essays often rely on measures like sentence length and word sophistication, which are found to correlate well with the scores given by human graders. But once students figure out how such a program works, they start writing long sentences and using obscure words, rather than learning how to actually formulate and write clear, coherent text. Even Google’s celebrated search engine, rightly seen as a big data success story, is not immune to “Google bombing” and “spamdexing,” wily techniques for artificially elevating website search placement.
Fourth, even when the results of a big data analysis aren’t intentionally gamed, they often turn out to be less robust than they initially seem. Consider Google Flu Trends, once the poster child for big data. In 2009, Google reported — to considerable fanfare — that by analyzing flu-related search queries, it had been able to detect the spread of the flu as accurately and more quickly than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A few years later, though, Google Flu Trends began to falter; for the last two years it has made more bad predictions than good ones.
As a recent article in the journal Science explained, one major contributing cause of the failures of Google Flu Trends may have been that the Google search engine itself constantly changes, such that patterns in data collected at one time do not necessarily apply to data collected at another time. As the statistician Kaiser Fung has noted, collections of big data that rely on web hits often merge data that was collected in different ways and with different purposes — sometimes to ill effect. It can be risky to draw conclusions from data sets of this kind.
A fifth concern might be called the echo-chamber effect, which also stems from the fact that much of big data comes from the web. Whenever the source of information for a big data analysis is itself a product of big data, opportunities for vicious cycles abound. Consider translation programs like Google Translate, which draw on many pairs of parallel texts from different languages — for example, the same Wikipedia entry in two different languages — to discern the patterns of translation between those languages. This is a perfectly reasonable strategy, except for the fact that with some of the less common languages, many of the Wikipedia articles themselves may have been written using Google Translate. In those cases, any initial errors in Google Translate infect Wikipedia, which is fed back into Google Translate, reinforcing the error.Jonathan Ernst/Reuters White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders might want to have a chat with whoever writes her lists of presidents.
It was probably a slip of the tongue, but Twitter was swift and unforgiving in its skewering of Sarah Huckabee Sanders after the White House press secretary referred to “JFK” and “Kennedy” as two different presidents during a Tuesday press briefing.
Speaking to reporters about White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s controversial comments about Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, Sanders, reading from notes, contended that “all of our leaders have flaws.”
“Washington, Jefferson, JFK, Roosevelt, Kennedy. That doesn’t diminish their contributions to our country. It certainly can’t erase them from our history. And Gen. Kelly was simply making the point that just because history isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it’s not our history,” she said.
Her flub did not go unnoticed.
HI GUYS SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS THINKS JFK AND KENNEDY WERE TWO DIFFERENT PRESIDENTS HAVE A GREAT AFTERNOON. pic.twitter.com/yfxT9MJw5e — Amanda Guinzburg (@Guinz) October 31, 2017
ALSO FYI SOMEONE WROTE THAT DOWN ON A PIECE OF PAPER FOR HER TO READ. BEST REGARDS. — Amanda Guinzburg (@Guinz) October 31, 2017
im literally going blind at sarah huckabee sanders saying "JFK" and "Kennedy" in a list like they arent the same person — 🎃true spooky boy🎃 (@Pelleliu) October 31, 2017
Sarah Sanders Huckabee: All of our leaders are flawed. JFK, La Guardia, LAX, Newark Liberty. — Jeremy Newberger (@jeremynewberger) October 31, 2017
Sarah huckabee sanders is really out here thinking JFK & Kennedy were two different people — Eileen🕊 (@EileenTyrrell) October 31, 2017
Not only did Sarah Huckabee Sanders compare General Lee to JFK, but she also thinks JFK and Kennedy are two different presidents. — Nick (@STFUNICK) October 31, 2017
Just watched a clip of SHS listing both JFK *and* Kennedy as Presidents. pic.twitter.com/grT82EqTR4 — Busty Shackleford 💀 (@Wyndgrove) October 31, 2017
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Kelly had said that a “lack of ability to compromise” had led to the Civil War.
The White House chief of staff went on to describe Lee, who’d fought to protect Southern states’ rights to own slaves, as “honorable.”
CNN White House reporter Jeremy Diamond noted that Sanders’ JFK/Kennedy mistake was perhaps the least thing wrong with her defense of Kelly’s statements.Both groups sit together in a White House conference room for about 90 minutes. On one side are a half a dozen members of the European Parliament. Facing them is an equally-sized American delegation, including Karen Donfried, senior director for European affairs in the National Security Council (NSC) and a fluent German speaker.
The agenda is full of issues that have become day-to-day business in trans-Atlantic relations: the scandal surrounding US monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone, NSA espionage and accusations of spying. They're all uncomfortable topics that diplomats of allied nations usually prefer to keep quiet about. But shortly before the meeting's end, the Americans appear to look inward. How should we proceed, they ask contemplatively.
"They seemed almost helpless, as if they'd become obsessed," says Jan Philipp Albrecht, a Green Party MEP and one of the participants in the meeting. "The US government representatives honestly looked like they didn't know what to do. And they left no room for doubt that more spying revelations are to be expected." The odd exchange is an accurate reflection of the mood in Washington.
The White House appears uncertain of how to respond to the almost weekly barrage of embarassing spying scandals, most of them arising from the trove of secret NSA documents leaked by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. Heather Conley, director of the European program at the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says trans-Atlantic relations are facing a new test just a few years after the dispute over the Iraq War: "It's a bad sign when both sides break the tradition of silence and confront each other on intelligence infringements."
'Everybody Does It'
US representatives have made repeated accusations that Germany has also spied on Americans. The Washington Post reported on a case from 2008 when the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence service, inadvertently sent American officials a list of 300 phone numbers belonging to US citizens and residents -- raising suspicions that the numbers had been tapped. A former deputy secretary of homeland security under President George W. Bush also described French and German intelligence agencies as "good" at spying on American officials. And US National Intelligence Director James Clapper on Tuesday testified before Congress that European allies are guilty of the same kind of spying that the US does.
Chancellor Merkel sent a delegation to the White House on Wednesday to address the cell phone monitoring, intending to send a clear signal of disapproval and demand concrete promises of change, like a mutual no-spying agreement akin to the "Five Eyes" pact that covers the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
But the meeting produced no announcement of any concrete agreements. The German embassy said the meeting was merely a "working discussion," and that neither side would publicly discuss the results. Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the NSC, said the meetings were part of an agreement between Obama and Merkel to "intensify further the cooperation between US and German intelligence services." She had nothing to announce after the Wednesday evening meeting, but said the dialogue would continue over the coming days and weeks.
'Power Struggle' within United States
Elmar Brok, chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, was part of the European delegation that visited Washington shortly before the German group. Brok later talked of a "power struggle" going on in the United States between civil rights advocates and defenders of the intelligence services.
It remains to be seen if the current situation indeed amounts to a power struggle. What is clear is that the stakeholders involved -- the NSA, the White House and individual members of Congress -- are all following their own strategies, inevitably leading to tension in Washington.
Partnerships 'More Important' than Spying
NSA director Keith Alexander's brash performance before Congress was principally aimed at reassuring his own colleagues, as the NSA comes under increasing pressure. Alexander isn't going to allow the Germans, the Europeans or even the president turn him into a scapegoat.
However by Wednesday, Alexander took on a more conciliatory approach. Alluding to the Merkel cell phone scandal, he said that limiting some NSA programs may become necessary because, "in some cases the partnerships are more important." Alexander's tactic seems to be providing a show of strength while at the same time leaving the door open to future changes of course.
President Obama now seems willing to end alleged surveillance of allied leaders, carefully distancing himself from the intelligence services. Obama's inner circle has let it be known informally that the president learned of the surveillance only this summer, and ended it immediately. However members of previous administrations, chiefly that of George W. Bush, have been quoted in the press contradicting this version of events, claiming that Obama must have known about the surveillance earlier.
All the while, new details of NSA activities are constantly being revealed. The "Washington Post" reports that the NSA gained access to Google and Yahoo networks, an allegation which NSA director Alexander flatly denied. "I can tell you factually we do not have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers," he said, adding that any access would come through a court order.
Congress Takes Over
The NSA is now suddenly coming under pressure from Congress, whose members had largely ignored the Snowden revelations until recently. Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, criticized the intelligence community with unusual force and called for a "total review of all intelligence programs." The following day, Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, and Representative Jim Sensenbrenner, a Republican, introduced a bill aimed at curtailing the NSA's ability to collect telephone metadata.
It increasingly seems that the Obama administration is no longer playing the lead role in the investigation of the surveillance scandal, according to MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht. Instead, he says, "the debate about NSA surveillance is being taken up by Congress and the media."
Anecdotal evidence seems to bear this out: On their recent visit to Washington, the European Parliament delegation was overwhelmed by media interest, not something that happens every day. Albrecht says of his meeting with Congressman Sensenbrenner: "He was irate, he said that surveillance had developed in a way that he had never thought possible."probaddie
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True Bro New Optic Changes and Grip: Compatibility Issues illram banana, and 5 more like this Quote Select Post
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Member Back to Top Post by probaddie on
In short: whenever two attachments that modify adsRecoilReductionLimit are applied to the same weapon, the attachment with the higher alphabetical order takes precedent. In this context, "higher alphabetical order" is with respect to the ATTACHMENTFILE name, not the display name. For example, the ELO does precede the Grip in alphabetical order, as its ATTACHMENTFILE name is "reddot".
For example, if the Grip (grip) and Recon Sight (acog) are applied to the same weapon, the weapon will only receive a 7.5% reduction in ViewKick after the first shot, as "grip" precedes "acog" alphabetically. However, if the Thermal Sight (ir) is attached instead, the gun will receive a 15% reduction in ViewKick after the first shot, as "ir" precedes "grip" alphabetically. Note that this renders the Grip effectively useless whenever it is used in tandem with the Thermal Sight, and that any changes to the CenterSpeed of these optics still take effect as intended.
To summarize, equipping the Varix 3, RECON or Thermal Sight with a Grip renders the Grip useless. With the first two, you lose the updated benefit to recoil reduction; with the Thermal Sight, the Grip simply has no effect. The patch notes released this week indicate that several optical attachments now confer a reduction in recoil to the receiving weapon. Marvel4's spreadsheet is being updated with the cooresponding weapon statistics as I write. However, he has also discovered that the way in which this benefit is produced conflicts with the Grip.In short: whenever two attachments that modify adsRecoilReductionLimit are applied to the same weapon,. In this context, "higher alphabetical order" is with respect to the ATTACHMENTFILE name, not the display name. For example, the ELOprecede the Grip in alphabetical order, as its ATTACHMENTFILE name is "reddot".For example, if the Grip (grip) and Recon Sight (acog) are applied to the same weapon, the weapon will only receive a 7.5% reduction in ViewKick after the first shot, as "grip" precedes "acog" alphabetically. However, if the Thermal Sight (ir) is attached instead, the gun will receive a 15% reduction in ViewKick after the first shot, as "ir" precedes "grip" alphabetically. Note that this renders the Grip effectively useless whenever it is used in tandem with the Thermal Sight, and that any changes to the CenterSpeed of these optics still take effect as intended.To summarize, equipping the Varix 3, RECON or Thermal Sight with a Grip renders the Grip useless. With the first two, you lose the updated benefit to recoil reduction; with the Thermal Sight, the Grip simply has no effect.
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True Bro New Optic Changes and Grip: Compatibility Issues via mobile Quote Select Post
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Member Back to Top Post by haoz on The Varix 3 is hilarious. Manowar with rapid fire is transformed into ICR like accuracy. Now with no need for grip, a four attachment gun of Varix 3, rapid fire, quickdraw, and fast mags is superior to red dot, grip, quickdraw, and fast mags. I had my first 10000+ game with it on nuk3town.
I also tried using it on SMGs. The cumbersome scope in of the sight made it a little harder to use, but the VMP and Weevil both became almost recoil less.
It would make for a good attachment on the drakon and on the lmgs I bet.
I don't know what the developers were thinking. Is try to enjoy it before before YouTube popularizes this optic.
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Member Back to Top Post by mannon on I'm still a bit hazy on how all of this will actually come out affecting recoil since the centerspeed stuff still stacks. Is there a simple rule of thumb that would apply to all attachments affecting recoil that we could put in order from worst to best recoil?
Something like below
Worst to Best Recoil:
Rapid Fire
Naked
Rapid Fire + Grip
Grip
Only, of course with all the combinations with sights. And of course sights with identical stats don't need multiple unique entries. Oh the other hand, would such a list even be universally true for all weapons or even all of a class such as AR?
Sorry, I'm just struggling with trying to put this information into practical use without having memorized all the stats. Though I guess it'd be better if I just pulled up the stats and did some research, but I thought it might work out to something fairly simple, if I was lucky. ;pwhy your sexy eyes are now a sin before allah
Muslim fundamentalists want all those harlots to cover up their sexy, sexy eyes, lest they're tempted to sin at the sight of an exposed iris.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is generally known for four things to the outside world. It’s home to vast natural reservoirs of oil. It’s territory hosts the historic birthplace of Islam in Medina and Mecca. Its sheiks enjoy huge profits and spend them on lavish parties, hired help, and exotic cars and vacations around the world. And on paper, the kingdom goes by an extremely strict, fundamentalist interpretation of Islam called Wahhabbism, a legacy of a pact with the Saud family as the nation’s current lands were being conquered. Under this peculiar brand of religious belief, Saudi women have been getting a very raw deal for many decades, banned from all sorts of activities we in the West consider routine for both sexes. They can’t go out alone, they can’t drive, they can’t shop in the same stores as men, and your couch probably has a much more favorable legal standing in any legal household dispute than The Kingdom’s women. There was a hope that this may change after King Abdullah gave them the right to vote, but that view quickly darkened after an Egyptian news site reported that the Saudi religious police may now start demanding that women cover their overly sexy eyes, or else…
This newest innovation in religious belligerence has been hatched by the often loathed Saudi religious police force known as The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, and further extends the already rather explicit message from very conservative Saudi men who believe that women simply aren’t valid human beings in their eyes and are more akin to property. And hey, their logic seems to continue, if they’re my property, why should others be looking at them or talking to them? Why do some of them even try to make the occasional peep about being treated like real people? If they get uppity, we’ll arrest them, lash them, or stone them until they stop complaining and do as we tell them, right? And this mix reactionary fundamentalism has been working very well to keep Saudi women repressed and helped fizzle out peaceful demonstrations by a number of Saudi ladies who wanted to be able to drive themselves on some basic family errands. One of the first women to try was swiftly sentenced to ten lashes, though the King suspended her sentence at the last minute in light of international discontent about the matter. And strangely, not too long afterwards, he suddenly began to publicly mull the idea of allowing women to vote and run for office in The Kingdom.
But then again, these rights may be short lived. The buzz from the kingdom says King Adbullah is rarely lucid for more than a few hours a day and the real force behind the sudden reforms is one of his daughters. A new crown prince appointed after the slated one passed away from numerous ailments, the 77 year old Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, doesn’t think much of women’s rights, and in 2009 said there’s no need for women to vote or try to hold office in Saudi Arabia. His view of the female half of the human species is as abysmal as of those in charge of the laws that strip them of all but the right to existence. Whereas in the West, fundamentalists who try to treat women like their possessions are constantly ridiculed and rightfully so, in Saudi Arabia, it’s normal to treat women as third-class citizens, instruct them to seal themselves in burqas, separate them from male Saudis by threat of legal, institutionalized violence, and now warn them to be ready to cover their eyes should one of the fundamentalist enforces of a CPVPV squad decide that their particular eye color and shape makes him feel some sinful and immodest temptation, or what we, in a society that doesn’t feel it needs to be based on the prudish ideas of obsessed, asexual clerics, would call perfectly normal feelings of attraction.
Really, it never ceases to both amaze and scare me how religious fundamentalism can propel some to build oppressive institutions and make discrimination based on nothing more than the claims of theologians who spend their lives endlessly rehashing hundreds of interpretations of the same texts, the modus operandi. To think that there is a country where a public appointed official can call a press conference at which he issues a legally enforceable edict to women to cover their eyes if they make prudes like him feel funny and be taken as seriously as a judge ruling on a case in court simply boggles my mind. And this is without even imagining the kind of mindset a CPVPV squad member would have to spend his days patrolling the streets and looking out for anyone acting like an actual human being rather than a fearful automaton programmed by al-Wahhab. It’s no wonder that the religious police is widely despised by Saudis and reports of abuses by its officers are not at all uncommon. After all, when you believe that your decisions are divinely correct and that those who violate what Allah told you was right are insolent sinners who deserve your wrath for their own good, why not make a few extraordinary efforts? It’s a tough job to keep humans from being humans and women from getting ideas about having the same rights as men, but there always seems to be a tyrannical zealot more than happy to do it. And as long as people like him are around in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s women will suffer.Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been banned from having contact with anyone under 18 unless an adult is present who's aware that he pleaded guilty in a hush money case related to the sexual abuse of teen boys, according to new restrictions imposed by a federal judge, CNN reports.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin in Chicago placed those new conditions on Hastert late Tuesday, but it was not clear what spurred the action. The restrictions come a day after a sealed order in the case was filed.
"You shall not have contact with any person under the age of 18, except in the presence of a responsible adult who is aware of the nature of his/her background and current offense, and who has been approved by the probation officer and treatment provider." – Thomas Durkin
Hastert never faced sexual abuse charges because the statute of limitation had expired, but he pleaded guilty in October 2015 to structuring bank transactions in a way that evaded requirements that he report where the money was going.
The money was part of a deal to keep a former student quiet about Hastert's prior sexual abuse of teenage boys when he was a teacher and coach, according to investigators.
The former Republican congressman from Illinois was released from federal prison in July after serving 13 months of a 15-month sentence
Once one of the most powerful men in America, Hastert is now banned from having any pornographic material or using any "sex-related telephone numbers." The restrictions also require him to provide copies of his phone bills and credit card statements to his supervising probation officer, and forbid him from using the internet without prior approval from a probation officer.
Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $250,000 to a victims' fund as part of the case. He also was sued by a student seeking to collect $1.8 million of what he said was a $3.5 million deal to cover up his past misconduct.
"I'm deeply ashamed to be standing before you here today," Hastert said in court during his sentencing in April 2016. "I know I'm here because I mistreated some of my athletes as a coach."
Scott Cross, who was sexually abused by Hastert when he was 17, said it took him 37 years to speak out about the abuse.
"You think about shame, guilt, embarrassment, humiliation – the Hasterts of the world have so much trust and respect over you that you really have a hard time processing and understanding it," Cross told CNN in July when the ex-speaker was released.
Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker, was a congressman from 1987 to 2007.
WN.com, Jim BerrieThe Theory of Royaltivity
Everything in sports is relative.
When the Braves or Cardinals have a.500 season, it is a down year. A “bad” year. One to forget, often ripe with a fan base calling for change.
When the Royals reached and exceeded.500 in 2003, it was considered a magical year. This wasn’t because it was an example of spectacular baseball, but rather because they were a group of players whom on paper appeared to be a band of misfits. They EXCEEDED expectation.
They made it fun to watch baseball.
Watching Jose Lima win games with guys like Aaron Guiel providing the offensive punch. It was fun to win games. Even losing wasn’t that bad, because quite frankly, they were SUPPOSE to lose.
Fast forward 11 years to 2014 and you have a Kansas City Royals team that is suppose to win.
The Dayton Moore led front office has assembled a very good pitching staff that was put together as the much needed compliment to the heralded offensive potential of Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas. With Billy Butler and Alex Gordon already providing solid offensive production, it was all but a certainty the Royals offense would be one that could make some noise. We all know what happened.
Just earlier this month, some guy wrote this explaining how we should be thankful for what we have instead of always wanting more. That sure seemed like a long time ago, when the Royals were still coming off a 10 game winning streak, and looked poised to not let disaster strike. They have since given back all they gained in that stretch, and then some.
While still a slightly better team than the 2013 version was at this point, the Royals are once again below.500, and trending in the wrong direction.
Make no mistake, its not the losing that is most bothersome. Its the attitude that is carried with that losing. With a clubhouse of players whom on an individual basis have by and large been projected to be above average, the chemistry and execution has been the component lacking. With a myriad of hitting, running, and bench coaches all sharing the blame for the various miscues, one constant has remained.
If removing Pedro Grifol and Jack Maloof were merely moves in order to shake up the status quo, then it is time to do so again. With the parity in this seasons AL race for the second wildcard, the Royals find themselves teetering on the brink of being in the race, and that of being totally irrelevant. The losses this team is able to give away are now very few, and there is suddenly no time left to turn it around or figure it out. They must begin playing now. The needed record to be on pace for 90 wins is 55-43. The Royals are 48-50. There is a very wide gap there, and only 64 more games to play.
Ned Yost has had his chance. While his in game decisions are often the source of anger, that isn’t even the reason he needs to be replaced. All managers make in game mistakes, it is simply a product of the game, especially with the arm chair quarterbacks having the advantage of hindsight. No, the reason it is time for Ned to go is the same reason he has used as an excuse to replace |
. A U.S.-led coalition has hit at the jihadists sieging Kobane—with 13 strikes on Wednesday and Thursday—but bombs alone may not suffice. It is the Turkish military, whose tanks are currently sitting on the Syrian border, that may be in the best position to save stave off a mass slaughter. But the Turks refuse to join the fight, even though the Turkish Parliament voted on Oct. 2 to deploy the Turkish army to fight in Iraq and Syria, and to allow foreign troops on Turkish soil. A week after the vote, Turkey has not participated in any U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State.
Turkey’s stock as a Western ally is plummeting. Ankara stubbornly resists joining the coalition unless it broadens its fight to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s 200 or more F-16 fighter jets sit idle as the Islamic State makes alarming gains across Syria and Iraq. This stands in sharp contrast to other Muslim world allies – including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and even Jordan – that have taken part in the aerial campaign against the Islamic State.
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Turkey’s absence is conspicuous. It’s the only NATO ally among these Muslim world partners. To be clear, the fight against the Islamic State is not a NATO mission, but it serves as a reminder of how little Erdogan’s regime has done to help preserve order in the Middle East.
In many ways, Turkey has made the fight against the Islamic State more difficult. Apart from permitting some unarmed American drones to fly out of its territory, Ankara has refused to allow the West to operate from Turkish airbases. This has forced strike aircraft to fly their sorties from the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, Shaheed Mwaffaq in Jordan or Al Dhafra in the UAE. As for the Incirlik air base that NATO operates in Eastern Turkey, Ankara has made it clear that for the time being, it is currently off limits for armed operations.
But this should come as no surprise. Incirlik has long been off limits. Ankara refused to allow the United States to utilize the air base for kinetic operations in the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath. Instead, the base has been used for logistics, support and training. Turkey owns the facility, but technically, according to Article 5 of the NATO charter, it cannot restrict the NATO activities on the base in an approved operation. Still, it can restrict U.S. personnel and equipment. And it has consistently done so, to the frustration of American military planners.
Admittedly, one could argue that the Turks were right to hold off on joining America’s ill-fated war in Iraq. But that would be ignoring Turkey’s role in other international conflicts. Take the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan since 2001, where Turkey limited its role to logistics and training and refused to take part in combat. Similarly, Turkey deployed nearly 400 personnel to NATO forces in Kosovo, as well as other personnel to other international operations in the Balkans, but with responsibilities limited to training, observation and support.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
COMEDIAN Doug Stanhope’s letters to his Death Row pen pal helped him to write a book about his relationship with his late mother Bonnie.
The American stand-up, who is known for his abrasive and potentially offensive material, will publish One Funny Mother: A Memoir next April.
Doug admits he needed help from friends, colleagues and acquaintances to help him recollect the facts.
The 48-year-old said: “I haven’t followed anything that has gone on outside my front door for the last six months because I have been working on that book.
“It’s about my life with her and how she influenced my comedy and what a train wreck she was, sometimes in a good way.
“The whole thing was a difficult process.
“First of all, my memory is so bad, I had to check with everybody the timelines and when and how all of that happened.
“I had a Death Row inmate pen pal who I wrote to for several years and early on in my correspondence, I asked him to keep my letters and send them back to me as a de facto diary.
“Those things are priceless having been doing stand-up for over 25 years, which is constant road work.”
Doug has been compared with the late Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce and his book will recount how his mum influenced his comedy.
He said: “She allowed me to be an adult far younger than any other parent would.
“She was vulgar and crass and that was our sense of humour.
“I was doing what I’m known for now when I was 11 years old and being sent to a psychologist by the school for the same things we laughed at over the breakfast table.
“Despite outbursts of a sexual and violent nature, she had my back.
“We had to go to a psychologist a couple of times. We’d make jokes in front of him.
“I’d ask, ‘Mum, do we have to have our beatings tonight?’
“She’d have to explain to him that this was our sense of humour but he wasn’t buying it.
“He thought we had things we had to work through.”
Doug is back in the UK for the first time in three years. He performs at Glasgow’s O2 Academy tonight and tomorrow.
The comic has no plans to tone down or change the material for his British audiences.
Doug added: “Those people (who are easily offended) don’t come to my show.
“I’m not on television, so they can’t boycott sponsors.
“To generalise, it’s usually someone’s girlfriend. I don’t have to deal with it. I’m not going home with them but I get the occasional tweet that someone’s wife hates my guts or wants to leave him because of it.”There was a violent arrest in the East Bay that was caught on camera Tuesday afternoon. Some witnesses say it was a case of police brutality, but the other major issue could be what happened when the cameras were turned off.The arrest at Contra Loma Boulevard and Buchanan Road was recorded by multiple people, but when police spotted the cameras, witnesses claim officers confronted them.This brings up some interesting questions about the rights of people and their video versus the rights of the police and whether or not they can take away that video.The Antioch Police Department declined an on-camera interview and all three witnesses that spoke to ABC7 News said they were afraid to reveal their identities because of what they saw police do to the man being arrested.On some of the video posted to YouTube you can hear a witness saying, "I don't think that's necessary."The first witness told ABC7 News, "I thought it was overkill. I was disgusted by it."Several witnesses say the man, who appeared to be mentally disturbed, was handcuffed while police used a Tazer on him and hit him with a baton. Then, they say, an officer released a police dog that began biting the man until he was bleeding and unrecognizable.The first witness continued to say, "Not his legs and his arms, his face and his head! That's doing too much."A second witness ABC7 News spoke to says officers began confiscating cellphones from anyone who shot video of the incident. An officer asked for his cellphone after he shot video and the witness said, "Then he took my phone anyway because I didn't want no problems. He emailed the incident to his phone."The first witness said, "They didn't take no for an answer apparently because they pulled one lady out of her vehicle to get it, and she wouldn't give it up and they were about to arrest her and finally they let her go because I believe she gave it up."However, a third witness told ABC7 News he was ordered to erase his video. So he did. He said, "They were being kind of controlling, like demanding, 'erase your phone' and they were trying to take people's phones away."The American Civil Liberties Union says police officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photos or video without a warrant.Antioch police told ABC7 News in a statement, "If a person is not willing to turn it over voluntarily, an officer can sometimes seize the device containing the video. The police would have to get a search warrant to retrieve the video from the device."Antioch police would not comment on the details of the incident.Anyone wanting a document witnessed in New South Wales must remove face coverings such as burqas or niqabs
Muslim women in the Australian state of New South Wales will be required to show their faces when they have documents witnessed under new identity check laws.
The laws – due to come into force on 30 April – will apply to statutory declarations and affidavits and cover anything that conceals a person's face, including motorcycle helmets, masks, veils, burqas or niqabs.
It follows a court case in which a woman wearing a burqa had a six-month jail sentence overturned on appeal last year because of doubts about her identity.
Carnita Matthews, 47, was originally convicted of falsely accusing a police officer of trying to remove her burqa during a random breath test. The conviction was overturned on appeal because the woman who made the complaint was wearing a burqa, making it impossible to tell whether it was Matthews.
Traffic laws were subsequently changed, and drivers who refuse to show their faces face being jailed for up to a year and fined $5,000 (£3,400).
The NSW state attorney general, Greg Smith, said the Matthews case highlighted the need for the rules to be clarified. "If a person refuses to show their face, an authorised witness must decline to sign their documents unless the person has a legitimate medical reason for keeping their face covered," he added.
"In some situations, it means individuals wearing full or partial face-covering garments will need to reveal their faces for the purposes of identification."
Witnesses who do not comply with the new requirements face a fine of $220. Smith said the more comprehensive identity checks would minimise the risk of fraud.
Aziza Abdel-Halim, the president of the Muslim Women's National Network of Australia, said the change would not have an impact on the community.
"The majority will accept it," she said, adding that it is a requirement in many Muslim countries. "Some will reject it, but they won't have a leg to stand on because the law is the law."
Abdel-Halim said it was no different to being required to confirm your identity by showing your face if you are sitting an exam.
David Bernie, the vice-president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, agreed, saying: "I really don't think this should cause any problems as long as a woman has the opportunity for a female JP to witness documents, and there are plenty of female JPs and solicitors in NSW."
There are around 90,000 justices of the peace in NSW who provide the service on a voluntary basis.This week, a new startup, Starry, announced it would bring gigabit-speed Internet access to consumers, without data caps, at a price that is equal to or less than your average broadband plan. It also announced that it would do this without ripping up the ground to lay expensive fiber cables or asking local governments for construction permits. It would beam the signals over the air.
It was a shocking promise. For nearly all consumers, Internet access over the air tops out with 4G LTE speeds. Of course there is Wi-Fi, but that is just a short-range extension of a wireline connection. Even experimental attempts to send Internet by drone and balloon never do better than a 4G connection. Is it really possible that this company has made the leap from that to gigabit speeds or better?
Read the rest of this post on the original site »More than four years after the nuclear power-plant disaster in Japan, the United Nations agency renewed pressure for an alternative to holding the tainted water in tanks and offered to help monitor for offshore radiation.
“The IAEA team believes it is necessary to find a sustainable solution to the problem of managing contaminated water,” the Vienna-based agency said in a report. “This would require considering all options, including the possible resumption of controlled discharges into the sea.’
TEPCO officials are still using water to cool molten nuclear fuel from the reactors and while on-site tanks were installed to hold 800,000 cubic meters of effluent, engineers have battled leaks and groundwater contamination. The assessment, published Thursday, was based on visits by an IAEA team in February and April.
The IAEA also said it would send scientists to collect water and sediment samples off the Fukushima coastline to improve data reliability.
‘‘TEPCO is advised to perform an assessment of the potential radiological impact to the population and the environment arising from the release of water containing tritium and any other residual radionuclides to the sea in order to evaluate the radiological significance,’’ the agency said. ‘‘The IAEA team recognizes the need to also consider socioeconomic conditions.’’
FISHERMAN PROTEST
Previous releases of Fukushima contamination into the Pacific have drawn protests by Japanese fishermen and environmental groups. Fish caught off the coast of Fukushima have been subject to testing for radiation before being sold.
Contamination from Fukushima has been measured off the western coasts of the U.S. and Canada, signaling the need for more monitoring, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the largest private non-profit research group looking at the world’s oceans.
Though contamination levels off the North American coast are ‘‘extremely low,’’ oceans need to be monitored ‘‘after what is certainly the largest accidental release of radioactive contaminants to the oceans in history,’’ Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole, said last month.
SOURCE: BloombergProlonged television watchers have a higher risk of fatal pulmonary embolism, a condition associated with long haul flights, reveals research presented at ESC Congress today by Mr Toru Shirakawa, public health research fellow in the Department of Social Medicine at Osaka University in Japan.1 The 18 year study in more than 86,000 people found that watching an average of five or more hours of television per day was associated with twice the risk of fatal pulmonary embolism as watching less than two and a half hours daily.
"The association between prolonged sitting and pulmonary embolism was first reported among air raid shelter users in London during World War II," said Mr Shirakawa. "Nowadays, a long haul flight in an economy class seat is a well known cause of pulmonary embolism that is called 'economy class syndrome'."
He continued: "Pulmonary embolism is a serious, sometimes fatal, lung-related vascular disease characterised by sudden onset of symptoms such as chest pain or difficulty breathing. The disease is caused by obstruction of the pulmonary arteries by blood clots, generally formed in the leg vessels. Risk factors include cancer, prolonged bed rest or sitting, and oral contraceptive use."
The current study is the first prospective assessment of the association between prolonged television watching and fatal pulmonary embolism. The study included 86 024 participants (36 007 men and 50 017 women) aged 40 to 79 years who completed a self administered questionnaire including information about average television watching time per day as part of the JACC Study,2 which started between 1988 and 1990. Participants were followed up for a median of 18.4 years until 2009. Mortality from pulmonary embolism was identified from death certificates.
Length of television watching was divided into three groups: less than 2.5 hours, 2.5 to 4.9 hours and 5 or more hours per day. Risk of death from pulmonary embolism according to length of television watching was calculated after adjusting for age at baseline, gender, history of hypertension, history of diabetes, smoking status, drinking status, body mass index, walking and sports habits and menopausal status.
During the follow up period there were 59 deaths from pulmonary embolism. The researchers found that people whose average television viewing time was more than five hours per day had twice the risk of fatal pulmonary embolism as those who watched an average of less than two and a half hours daily (hazard ratio [HR]= 2.38).
The association was more prominent in people under 60 years of age in whom watching television more than five hours per day was associated with a six-fold risk of fatal pulmonary embolism compared to watching less than two and a half hours (HR=6.49). In this age group, watching 2.5 to 4.9 hours tripled risk compared to less than 2.5 hours (HR=3.14).
"We showed that prolonged television viewing may be a risky behaviour for death from pulmonary embolism," said Mr Shirakawa. "Leg immobility during television viewing may in part explain the finding. To prevent the occurrence of pulmonary embolism, we recommend the same preventive behaviour used against economy class syndrome. That is, take a break, stand up, and walk around during the television viewing. Drinking water for preventing dehydration is also important."
He continued: "In this era of information technology, use of other visual based media devices such as personal computers or smartphones is popular. Prolonged computer gaming has been associated with death from pulmonary embolism but to our knowledge a relationship with prolonged smartphone use has not yet been reported."
Mr Shirakawa concluded: "Public awareness of the risk of pulmonary embolism from lengthy leg immobility is essential. More research is needed to assess the risks of prolonged use of new technologies on pulmonary embolism morbidity and mortality."A northwestern Ontario First Nation has released a five-year-old report confirming the community suffers ongoing effects from mercury poisoning, but it says the government has never acted on the findings.
At a news conference in Toronto on Monday, members of Grassy Narrows First Nation presented the 2009 report that they say should have been made public long ago.
The report was commissioned by the Mercury Disability Board, an organization established in 1986 through an out-of-court settlement to assess and manage claims related to mercury contamination in the Wabigoon/English River system.
A Dryden-based paper company dumped mercury into the river between 1962 and 1970, contaminating the main source of fish for Grassy Narrows First Nation and Wabesemoong Independent Nations. For decades, people at Grassy Narrows have been seeking more recognition and better treatment of the symptoms they suffer after their fishery was contaminated in the 1960s by mercury from a nearby pulp mill. (CBC)
The report concludes, "There is no doubt that there was high mercury exposure in these two communities in the late sixties and early seventies... There is no doubt that at these levels of exposure, many persons were suffering from mercury-related neurologic disorders.
"There should have been extensive examinations and followup of these communities from that time forward, and assistance with respect to health and nutrition."
The report's authors, Canadian mercury researchers Laurie Chan and Donna Mergler, also wrote that the Mercury Disability Board's approach "to assess whether or not an applicant has signs or symptoms consistent with mercury poisoning was designed based on the state of science and knowledge of the impact of mercury on human health in the 1980s."
Neurological symptoms'very high'
Chan and Mergler reviewed studies by Dr. Masazumi Harada, a Japanese researcher who had visited Grassy Narrows in 1975, and again in 2002, to test residents for mercury contamination and conduct neurological exams.
Fish is a staple diet for the people of Grassy Narrows, whose own waters and fish have been contaminated with mercury. (CBC) They noted that dozens of residents Harada had diagnosed with mercury poisoning "were not acknowledged" by the Mercury Disability Board.
David Sone, a campaigner for the environmental group Earthroots who is working with Grassy Narrows, told CBC News those findings prove that many mercury poisoning survivors continue to be denied compensation.
"The Mercury Disability Board is simply using old science and, because of that, they're excluding the majority of people who deserve compensation," he said. "Since that time we've learnt... that people can be impacted at much lower levels of mercury than we previously thought."
The report said mercury poisoning continues to affect people in Grassy Narrows and Wabeseemoong First Nations and that residents were not receiving adequate medical care.
"We... want to highlight the urgent need to improve the general health of the two communities as the health status of the participants was clearly poor," the authors wrote. "The rate of residents reporting neurological symptoms was very high for such a small population."
Ministry says Grassy Narrows had access to report
Sone said the conclusions would have been presented to the Mercury Disability Board, which includes representatives from Aboriginal Affairs at both the federal and provincial government levels, but officials failed to act.
But a spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs said the report was dealt with appropriately.
"The literature review in question was presented in 2010 to the Mercury Disability Board [MDB] which is an organization independent of the Ontario government," wrote Scott Cavan in an email to CBC News. "The literature review was shared with the entire Mercury Disability Board which includes First Nation representation from the Grassy Narrows community.
We understand that the Mercury Disability Board held an open house in Grassy Narrows First Nation where people could ask questions of the board and discuss the report."
EricaMeekes, spokesperson for the federal minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada [AANDC} also provided an email response: "The health and well-being of First Nations is a priority of the Government of Canada. AANDC continues to work with the Mercury Disability Board and the Province of Ontario to support their work in addressing the issue of mercury contamination. In total, our Government has contributed more than $9 million in compensation to Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong First Nations affected by mercury contamination, for economic and social development initiatives."
Chief Roger Fobister said he is looking for an apology and acknowledgement of the problem, compensation to all those affected and a complete river system cleanup.
The Grassy Narrows group also wants a federal representative to attend the mercury board meetings. It said that, as of yet, it has been unable to have both provincial and federal government representatives at a meeting at the same time.
Grassy Narrows resident starts hunger strike
Grassy Narrows resident Steve Fobister says he's on a hunger strike to draw attention to the issue of mercury contamination in his community. (Paul Borkwood/CBC)
A member of Grassy Narrows First Nation affected by mercury poisoning says he's started a hunger strike.
Steve Fobister announced at the Toronto press conference Monday he hopes his protest will help to continue to draw attention to the issue of mercury contamination.
Fobister said he suffers severe disabilities, which he attributes to mercury exposure.3,000 sea turtles have washed up dead on the shores of Baja, California in the last five years according to a report published by UC Santa Cruz last week. More below the fold.The UC Santa Cruz report concluded that the North Pacific loggerhead turtles washing up in Baja are dying due to fishing activity. Turtles are accidentally caught in nets, hooks and other fishing gear. The Baja turtles are experiencing the highest stranding rates related to fishery activity in the world.
The North Pacific loggerhead travels 7,000 miles from Japan to Baja's Big Sur to feed for as many as thirty years before returning to Japan. In the past 10 years, the number of female turtles nesting in Japan has dropped by fifty to eighty percent.
Local fishermen are working with the Mexican government to protect the turtles. Together they plan to create a refuge for them in a designated "hot spot" area where most are harmed.
More on Sea Turtles:
Mediterranean Sea Turtles Endangered
The Great Turtle Race
Man Trades Turtle for MercedesWe’re in weird times here in 2016; it was only about a month ago, before her collapse at a 9/11 event, that asking about Hillary Clinton’s health put one firmly in the deplorable “conspiracy theorist” basket, at least according to many in the mainstream media.
So it’s best to tread lightly when approaching news that Paul Combetta, a technician with Hillary Clinton’s IT provider, Platte River Networks, left behind a few incriminating crumbs on the internet, ironically when asking about how to cover someone else’s tracks.
Let’s just say for now that U.S. News and World Report has taken an interest, as has Major Garrett of CBS News. U.S. News staff writer Steven Nelson notes that “the requests match neatly with publicly known dates related to Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state.”
Computer Specialist Who Deleted Clinton Emails May Have Asked Reddit for Tips https://t.co/DSKpfg7ruY — Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) September 19, 2016
How soon until the cable and broadcast networks pick up the story? Never?
Reddit calls itself “the front page of the internet,” which might sound like an empty boast for those not familiar with the site. It’s a huge discussion board covering every topic in existence. It’s ugly as sin, with none of the candy-colored buttons or graphical trappings of Web 2.0 or whatever Web we’re now on — which makes it a paradise for computer nerds and geeks of all stripes. Ask anything, and someone will answer.
Some are claiming to have evidence that Combetta, who is reportedly the technician who — oops! — obliterated Hillary Clinton’s email archive using BleachBit software and then pleaded the Fifth before the House Oversight Committee last week, popped onto a Reddit discussion board in 2014 to ask how to “remove or replace [the] to/from address on archived emails.”
A lot of the theory depends on attaching Combetta to the username “stonetear,” but it looks like internet detectives have done just that.
Good thing people captured the screens while they could; it looks like stonetear’s Reddit history has been wiped, like, with a cloth or something.
#StoneTear now scrubbed the evidence from #reddit… Cmon Paul. You know you are in a lot of trouble. Deleting more evidence will not fix. — Deplorable Atom Bomb (@Torchify911) September 19, 2016
The reddit username stonetear" is Paul Combetta's username on Etsy, as well as his email: [email protected] — Alcoholic (@austin_klavins) September 19, 2016
Paul Combetta, aka the guy who was ordered to delete the emails by Hillary and was granted immunity, has the email address [email protected] — Calip (@CalebHoch) September 19, 2016
7-23-14, Committee reaches agrmnt with State on production of records. 7-24-14, Paul Combetta requesting tech help to strip “VIP’s emails” — Utesbyfive (@Utesbyfive) September 19, 2016
Caught. => Paul Combetta Allegedly Asked Reddit How to Wipe Hillary's Emails https://t.co/ZoqfE3lBn5 pic.twitter.com/IxCzIRRzWG — Steven Crowder (@scrowder) September 19, 2016
Whoa. HRod's now immunity-protected BleachBitter Paul Combetta on REDDIT two years ago. https://t.co/M7khmkEek0 pic.twitter.com/KqHJhiRerY — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 19, 2016
That’s still pretty sketchy. Any photo evidence? “Just look at that face.”
This image confirms "stonetear" username of #Hillary's Paul Combetta. He was granted immunity but plead the 5th in front of Congress. pic.twitter.com/yYTBANf2NC — RealGabagool (@RealGabagool) September 19, 2016
OK, you have our interest, and not because of the mom-jeans-and-no-shirt look. Go on.
Paul Combetta has been confirmed as /u/stonetear. His post during Clinton email investigation seems odd. #stonetear https://t.co/6tMXwHe6Uk — The Desperate Run (@thedesperaterun) September 19, 2016
Hmm … an interesting situation in which the user needs to strip out a VERY VIP’s email address from archived emails?
So, they wanted to KEEP the emails but CONCEAL HRod's identity/address to dodge subpoena. Only when this failed did they turn to BleachBit. — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 19, 2016
Or maybe they just wanted to replace HDR22 with HRod17, and succeeded? It's all so strange. — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 19, 2016
It is time to start asking. A lot. As mentioned above, the House Oversight Committee managed to get his name, and that’s about it. He’s not talking, his colleague Bill Thornton isn’t talking, and Bryan Pagliano didn’t even show up for the hearing despite having been subpoenaed: Platte River Networks, ladies and gentlemen.
Please, tell me again about how Hillary Clinton and her team aren't hideously corrupt and I should just look away & pretend because Trump. https://t.co/ifhhi9orcy — Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) September 19, 2016
Hey @HillaryClinton! Next time you're destroying evidence, maybe find co-conspirators who don't need to ask Reddit how to do it? — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) September 19, 2016
Today might be a Monday, but at least your name isn't Paul Combetta… — Chris Brinton (@cjbrinton) September 19, 2016
It’s clear that no one from Platte River feels like chatting about this, but maybe the House Oversight Committee would like to extend another invitation to clear up this conspiracy theory before it spreads further?Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
UFO hunters are feeling out of this world - thanks to Hillary Clinton.
She has announced that she will release government-held UFO files to the public if she is elected president.
The Democratic candidate spoke out on Jimmy Kimmel Live as she leads the race against Bernie Sanders for the party's nomination for November's election.
She has followed in the footsteps of her husband Bill, who appeared on the show in 2014 and was asked if he ever looked into UFOs or Area 51 - a top secret airbase rumoured to "back engineer" alien craft.
Bill said "sort of" but added there were no dead aliens there.
(Image: Jimmy Kimmel Live!)
Now Hillary has vowed to dig deeper if she makes it to the White House.
Read more :
Speaking for the first time on TV about the issue, she told Kimmel: “I’m going to do it again. There’s a new name for UFOs. It’s unexplained aerial phenomena. That's the new nomenclature. I would like us to go into those files and hopefully make as much of that as public as possible.
“If there’s nothing there, let’s tell people there’s nothing there. If there is something there, unless it’s a threat to national security, I think we ought to share it with the public.”
(Image: Jimmy Kimmel Live!)
It is not the first time the Clintons have been linked with aliens.
When Bill was president between 1993 and 1996, he was approached by the late billionaire philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller to release UFO files as part of the ‘Rockefeller initiative’.
Hillary was also involved in the talks.
(Image: Jimmy Kimmel Live!)
Her campaign manager John Podesta, Bill’s former Chief of Staff, admitted he had convinced Hillary to declassify UFO files in a TV interview last month.
Stephen Bassett, America's only registered lobbyist on ET/UFOs and founder of Paradigm Research Group, hopes the issue will be broached in upcoming Democratic debates.
He told Mirror.co.uk: “The only circumstance under which a leading presidential candidate, her president husband and their common advisor would repeatedly speak to the ET issue during a campaign is when their collective brain is fully aware the ET presence is fact."
(Image: YouTube)
Britain’s leading UFO hunter, former police detective Gary Heseltine, who edits UFO Truth Magazine, believes Hillary knows more than she is letting on.
Read more:
He said: “I think Hillary is playing clever on the subject of UFOs.
"At the moment interviewers are stopping short of asking her the real question that needs to be asked - What was your role in the Rockefeller Initiative?
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"If that direct question is asked the American public will realise the depth of her involvement and her detailed knowledge of the subject, providing she tells the truth."
Bookies have now slashed the odds of finding ET life from 1000/1 to 100/1.
A William Hill spokesman said: "Should Hillary utter the unthinkable words then we are facing a monster payout."OK, everybody take a valium.
The NDP’s historic breakthrough in Alberta isn’t quite on the same seismic scale as the Parti Québécois’s first victory in Quebec, the occasion for that celebrated Aislin caption. But it has already set off comparable shockwaves at the notion that a “conservative” province like Alberta could have embraced a “socialist” party like the NDP, as it was described in the New Republic.
Whoa, now. The NDP is not so far left as all that. And Alberta never was the rock-ribbed conservative redoubt of myth. In election after election, decade after decade, Albertans have voted for a big-spending party that gave them stuff on a scale most provinces could only dream of, squandered their money on various mad “diversification” schemes, and involved itself in all of the meddlesome busywork you would expect to find in any modern bureaucratic state. Under Peter Lougheed it even had its own airline. It may have had the word Conservative in its name, but that was all it was: a word.
The province spent more than most, paid its employees more — then was shocked to find that it could not sustain itself on this lifestyle at less than $100 a barrel. Jim Prentice may have been wrong about some things, but the furor over his “look in the mirror” comment was quite ludicrous: who was it who voted for all these, if not Albertans? And when it all came crashing down, they turned to a party that would give them even more stuff — as always, to be paid for by someone else: tax oil, tax corporations, tax the rich, just don’t tax us.
There is no policy sense in which Alberta is more conservative than the other provinces, and there is little in the platform the NDP campaigned on — higher corporate taxes, higher minimum wages, more schemes to diversify the economy into higher “value-added” activities — that a PC government couldn’t have or hasn’t offered at one time or another. They’re bad ideas, all of them, but they’re not so bad that they could not be advocated by all parties, all parties having converged on the same populist ad hockery — this subsidy to cement the loyalty of that interest or demographic group, this tax break for another.
I don’t want to say that Albertans were necessarily motivated by the NDP platform. A lot of the people who ended up voting for the party were telling pollsters they would vote for the Wildrose Party halfway through the campaign; had the personable, thoughtful Brian Jean who showed up on election night been the Wildrose leader in the televised debate, and not the over-coached automaton viewers saw, things might have turned out rather differently.
But certainly the platform does not seem to have hurt them any. Perhaps that’s just a statement about how little ideology mattered in this election, when the ballot question was “throw the bums out: yes or God yes.” A lot of the credit, too, goes to the party’s leader, Rachel Notley, and her good-natured, common-sense appeal. But it’s also a testament to the NDP’s willingness to pitch its tent and wait for people to come to it, rather than chase them all over the ideological map.
Election after election, federally and provincially, the party makes more or less the same broad case to the voters, and while electoral success has been slow to come, it is growing: the NDP has lately become competitive in more and more places it never used to be — first Ontario, then Atlantic Canada, then Quebec, and now Alberta. When their policies proved a hard sell at first, they didn’t just trade them in for new ones. They tried again, and they tried harder. They had confidence in themselves, they had confidence in their ideas, and they had confidence in the voters.
That’s true more generally of so-called “progressive” parties: Liberal, NDP or Green. I’ve said it before: The left is winning. They are raising taxes, they are running deficits, they are adding whole new government programs, like carbon trading or the Ontario pension plan — all things they were told were politically impossible. Of what comparable victory can the right boast in recent years? In what important way has government become smaller? What industry has been deregulated? What Crown corporation has been privatized? What corporate subsidy has been eliminated?
Has the tax system grown simpler and flatter or more complicated? Are there fewer needless intrusions on personal freedom? Are the toxic fixations of identity politics any less dominant a concern under Conservative than progressive parties? Conservatives used to talk confidently about rolling back the frontiers of the state. Now they don’t talk about anything much. Oh wait, I’ve just been handed this press release from Rona Ambrose: the Conservatives will impose “comply or explain” gender quotas on corporate boards. Hallelujah. You’d never catch a Liberal or NDP government doing that.
Which is to say, part of the reason the left is winning is that it is the only side showing up. The left pushes, and the right does not push back — doesn’t offer its own alternatives, certainly, or even a serious critique. Because it doesn’t have one, really. We are back to the 1960s and 1970s, when the expansion of the state was a one-way ratchet — growing during periods of left-wing rule, barely held in check under the right — and the only alternative the right could offer was “we’d do it less expensively.”
Probably Alberta’s election results will not be replicated nationally. But who can say? Voters are fickle nowadays. Parties can no longer count on ancient tribal loyalties. And if they offer nothing in their place, if it all just comes down to whose leader has the brightest eyes, who knows? On any given Tuesday, who knows?
National PostLotta Jakobsson, a senior safety specialist at Volvo Cars, commented: “When comparing data from Sweden and Germany [over the last five years], it becomes evident that the Swedish habit of transporting our smaller children in |
stimulus is applied, the membrane potential rapidly rises to a peak potential of +40 mV at time = 2 ms. Just as quickly, the potential then drops and overshoots to −90 mV at time = 3 ms, and finally the resting potential of −70 mV is reestablished at time = 5 ms.
All cells in animal body tissues are electrically polarized – in other words, they maintain a voltage difference across the cell's plasma membrane, known as the membrane potential. This electrical polarization results from a complex interplay between protein structures embedded in the membrane called ion pumps and ion channels. In neurons, the types of ion channels in the membrane usually vary across different parts of the cell, giving the dendrites, axon, and cell body different electrical properties. As a result, some parts of the membrane of a neuron may be excitable (capable of generating action potentials), whereas others are not. Recent studies[citation needed] have shown that the most excitable part of a neuron is the part after the axon hillock (the point where the axon leaves the cell body), which is called the initial segment, but the axon and cell body are also excitable in most cases.
Each excitable patch of membrane has two important levels of membrane potential: the resting potential, which is the value the membrane potential maintains as long as nothing perturbs the cell, and a higher value called the threshold potential. At the axon hillock of a typical neuron, the resting potential is around –70 millivolts (mV) and the threshold potential is around –55 mV. Synaptic inputs to a neuron cause the membrane to depolarize or hyperpolarize; that is, they cause the membrane potential to rise or fall. Action potentials are triggered when enough depolarization accumulates to bring the membrane potential up to threshold. When an action potential is triggered, the membrane potential abruptly shoots upward and then equally abruptly shoots back downward, often ending below the resting level, where it remains for some period of time. The shape of the action potential is stereotyped; this means that the rise and fall usually have approximately the same amplitude and time course for all action potentials in a given cell. (Exceptions are discussed later in the article). In most neurons, the entire process takes place in about a thousandth of a second. Many types of neurons emit action potentials constantly at rates of up to 10–100 per second. However, some types are much quieter, and may go for minutes or longer without emitting any action potentials.
Biophysical basis [ edit ]
Action potentials result from the presence in a cell's membrane of special types of voltage-gated ion channels.[3] A voltage-gated ion channel is a cluster of proteins embedded in the membrane that has three key properties:
It is capable of assuming more than one conformation. At least one of the conformations creates a channel through the membrane that is permeable to specific types of ions. The transition between conformations is influenced by the membrane potential.
Thus, a voltage-gated ion channel tends to be open for some values of the membrane potential, and closed for others. In most cases, however, the relationship between membrane potential and channel state is probabilistic and involves a time delay. Ion channels switch between conformations at unpredictable times: The membrane potential determines the rate of transitions and the probability per unit time of each type of transition.
Action potential propagation along an axon
Voltage-gated ion channels are capable of producing action potentials because they can give rise to positive feedback loops: The membrane potential controls the state of the ion channels, but the state of the ion channels controls the membrane potential. Thus, in some situations, a rise in the membrane potential can cause ion channels to open, thereby causing a further rise in the membrane potential. An action potential occurs when this positive feedback cycle proceeds explosively. The time and amplitude trajectory of the action potential are determined by the biophysical properties of the voltage-gated ion channels that produce it. Several types of channels capable of producing the positive feedback necessary to generate an action potential do exist. Voltage-gated sodium channels are responsible for the fast action potentials involved in nerve conduction. Slower action potentials in muscle cells and some types of neurons are generated by voltage-gated calcium channels. Each of these types comes in multiple variants, with different voltage sensitivity and different temporal dynamics.
The most intensively studied type of voltage-dependent ion channels comprises the sodium channels involved in fast nerve conduction. These are sometimes known as Hodgkin-Huxley sodium channels because they were first characterized by Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley in their Nobel Prize-winning studies of the biophysics of the action potential, but can more conveniently be referred to as Na V channels. (The "V" stands for "voltage".) An Na V channel has three possible states, known as deactivated, activated, and inactivated. The channel is permeable only to sodium ions when it is in the activated state. When the membrane potential is low, the channel spends most of its time in the deactivated (closed) state. If the membrane potential is raised above a certain level, the channel shows increased probability of transitioning to the activated (open) state. The higher the membrane potential the greater the probability of activation. Once a channel has activated, it will eventually transition to the inactivated (closed) state. It tends then to stay inactivated for some time, but, if the membrane potential becomes low again, the channel will eventually transition back to the deactivated state. During an action potential, most channels of this type go through a cycle deactivated→activated→inactivated→deactivated. This is only the population average behavior, however — an individual channel can in principle make any transition at any time. However, the likelihood of a channel's transitioning from the inactivated state directly to the activated state is very low: A channel in the inactivated state is refractory until it has transitioned back to the deactivated state.
The outcome of all this is that the kinetics of the Na V channels are governed by a transition matrix whose rates are voltage-dependent in a complicated way. Since these channels themselves play a major role in determining the voltage, the global dynamics of the system can be quite difficult to work out. Hodgkin and Huxley approached the problem by developing a set of differential equations for the parameters that govern the ion channel states, known as the Hodgkin-Huxley equations. These equations have been extensively modified by later research, but form the starting point for most theoretical studies of action potential biophysics.
Key: a) Sodium (Na+) ion. b) Potassium (K+) ion. c) Sodium channel. d) Potassium channel. e) Sodium-potassium pump.
In the stages of an action potential, the permeability of the membrane of the neuron changes. At the resting state (1), sodium and potassium ions are unable to pass through the membrane, and the neuron has a negative charge inside (mainly due to the large proteins that are negatively charged). Once the action potential is triggered, the depolarization (2) of the neuron activates the sodium channel, allowing sodium ions to pass through the membrane of the neuron and results in a positive charge in the neuron and a negative charge in the extracellular fluid. After the action potential is reached, the neuron begins repolarization (3), where the sodium channels close and the potassium channels open, allowing potassium ions to cross the membrane and flood into the extracellular fluid, resulting in a positive charge in the extracellular fluid and a negative charge that is below the resting potential of the neuron. Finally, to return the neuron to that resting potential after the potassium pump closes, a sodium-potassium pump works to exchange three sodium ions per two potassium ions across the plasma membrane during the refractory period (4). Once the Na+ and K+ are back where they started, the neuron is back to its resting state (1), ready to repeat the process for the next action potential. Ion movement during an action potential.a) Sodium (Na) ion. b) Potassium (K) ion. c) Sodium channel. d) Potassium channel. e) Sodium-potassium pump.In the stages of an action potential, the permeability of the membrane of the neuron changes. At the(1), sodium and potassium ions are unable to pass through the membrane, and the neuron has a negative charge inside (mainly due to the large proteins that are negatively charged). Once the action potential is triggered, the(2) of the neuron activates the sodium channel, allowing sodium ions to pass through the membrane of the neuron and results in a positive charge in the neuron and a negative charge in the extracellular fluid. After the action potential is reached, the neuron begins(3), where the sodium channels close and the potassium channels open, allowing potassium ions to cross the membrane and flood into the extracellular fluid, resulting in a positive charge in the extracellular fluid and a negative charge that is below the resting potential of the neuron. Finally, to return the neuron to that resting potential after the potassium pump closes, a sodium-potassium pump works to exchange three sodium ions per two potassium ions across the plasma membrane during the(4). Once the Naand Kare back where they started, the neuron is back to its resting state (1), ready to repeat the process for the next action potential.
As the membrane potential is increased, sodium ion channels open, allowing the entry of sodium ions into the cell. This is followed by the opening of potassium ion channels that permit the exit of potassium ions from the cell. The inward flow of sodium ions increases the concentration of positively charged cations in the cell and causes depolarization, where the potential of the cell is higher than the cell's resting potential. The sodium channels close at the peak of the action potential, while potassium continues to leave the cell. The efflux of potassium ions decreases the membrane potential or hyperpolarizes the cell. For small voltage increases from rest, the potassium current exceeds the sodium current and the voltage returns to its normal resting value, typically −70 mV. However, if the voltage increases past a critical threshold, typically 15 mV higher than the resting value, the sodium current dominates. This results in a runaway condition whereby the positive feedback from the sodium current activates even more sodium channels. Thus, the cell fires, producing an action potential.[note 1] The frequency at which a neuron elicits action potentials is often referred to as a firing rate or neural firing rate.
Currents produced by the opening of voltage-gated channels in the course of an action potential are typically significantly larger than the initial stimulating current. Thus, the amplitude, duration, and shape of the action potential are determined largely by the properties of the excitable membrane and not the amplitude or duration of the stimulus. This all-or-nothing property of the action potential sets it apart from graded potentials such as receptor potentials, electrotonic potentials, and synaptic potentials, which scale with the magnitude of the stimulus. A variety of action potential types exist in many cell types and cell compartments as determined by the types of voltage-gated channels, leak channels, channel distributions, ionic concentrations, membrane capacitance, temperature, and other factors.
The principal ions involved in an action potential are sodium and potassium cations; sodium ions enter the cell, and potassium ions leave, restoring equilibrium. Relatively few ions need to cross the membrane for the membrane voltage to change drastically. The ions exchanged during an action potential, therefore, make a negligible change in the interior and exterior ionic concentrations. The few ions that do cross are pumped out again by the continuous action of the sodium–potassium pump, which, with other ion transporters, maintains the normal ratio of ion concentrations across the membrane. Calcium cations and chloride anions are involved in a few types of action potentials, such as the cardiac action potential and the action potential in the single-cell alga Acetabularia, respectively.
Although action potentials are generated locally on patches of excitable membrane, the resulting currents can trigger action potentials on neighboring stretches of membrane, precipitating a domino-like propagation. In contrast to passive spread of electric potentials (electrotonic potential), action potentials are generated anew along excitable stretches of membrane and propagate without decay.[9] Myelinated sections of axons are not excitable and do not produce action potentials and the signal is propagated passively as electrotonic potential. Regularly spaced unmyelinated patches, called the nodes of Ranvier, generate action potentials to boost the signal. Known as saltatory conduction, this type of signal propagation provides a favorable tradeoff of signal velocity and axon diameter. Depolarization of axon terminals, in general, triggers the release of neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft. In addition, backpropagating action potentials have been recorded in the dendrites of pyramidal neurons, which are ubiquitous in the neocortex.[c] These are thought to have a role in spike-timing-dependent plasticity.
Maturation of the electrical properties of the action potential [ edit ]
A neuron's ability to generate and propagate an action potential changes during development. How much the membrane potential of a neuron changes as the result of a current impulse is a function of the membrane input resistance. As a cell grows, more channels are added to the membrane, causing a decrease in input resistance. A mature neuron also undergoes shorter changes in membrane potential in response to synaptic currents. Neurons from a ferret lateral geniculate nucleus have a longer time constant and larger voltage deflection at P0 than they do at P30.[10] One consequence of the decreasing action potential duration is that the fidelity of the signal can be preserved in response to high frequency stimulation. Immature neurons are more prone to synaptic depression than potentiation after high frequency stimulation.[10]
In the early development of many organisms, the action potential is actually initially carried by calcium current rather than sodium current. The opening and closing kinetics of calcium channels during development are slower than those of the voltage-gated sodium channels that will carry the action potential in the mature neurons. The longer opening times for the calcium channels can lead to action potentials that are considerably slower than those of mature neurons.[10] Xenopus neurons initially have action potentials that take 60–90 ms. During development, this time decreases to 1 ms. There are two reasons for this drastic decrease. First, the inward current becomes primarily carried by sodium channels.[11] Second, the delayed rectifier, a potassium channel current, increases to 3.5 times its initial strength.[10]
In order for the transition from a calcium-dependent action potential to a sodium-dependent action potential to proceed new channels must be added to the membrane. If Xenopus neurons are grown in an environment with RNA synthesis or protein synthesis inhibitors that transition is prevented.[12] Even the electrical activity of the cell itself may play a role in channel expression. If action potentials in Xenopus myocytes are blocked, the typical increase in sodium and potassium current density is prevented or delayed.[13]
This maturation of electrical properties is seen across species. Xenopus sodium and potassium currents increase drastically after a neuron goes through its final phase of mitosis. The sodium current density of rat cortical neurons increases by 600% within the first two postnatal weeks.[10]
Neurotransmission [ edit ]
Anatomy of a neuron [ edit ]
Several types of cells support an action potential, such as plant cells, muscle cells, and the specialized cells of the heart (in which occurs the cardiac action potential). However, the main excitable cell is the neuron, which also has the simplest mechanism for the action potential.
Neurons are electrically excitable cells composed, in general, of one or more dendrites, a single soma, a single axon and one or more axon terminals. Dendrites are cellular projections whose primary function is to receive synaptic signals. Their protrusions, known as dendritic spines, are designed to capture the neurotransmitters released by the presynaptic neuron. They have a high concentration of ligand-gated ion channels. These spines have a thin neck connecting a bulbous protrusion to the dendrite. This ensures that changes occurring inside the spine are less likely to affect the neighboring spines. The dendritic spine can, with rare exception (see LTP), act as an independent unit. The dendrites extend from the soma, which houses the nucleus, and many of the "normal" eukaryotic organelles. Unlike the spines, the surface of the soma is populated by voltage activated ion channels. These channels help transmit the signals generated by the dendrites. Emerging out from the soma is the axon hillock. This region is characterized by having a very high concentration of voltage-activated sodium channels. In general, it is considered to be the spike initiation zone for action potentials, i.e. the trigger zone. Multiple signals generated at the spines, and transmitted by the soma all converge here. Immediately after the axon hillock is the axon. This is a thin tubular protrusion traveling away from the soma. The axon is insulated by a myelin sheath. Myelin is composed of either Schwann cells (in the peripheral nervous system) or oligodendrocytes (in the central nervous system), both of which are types of glial cells. Although glial cells are not involved with the transmission of electrical signals, they communicate and provide important biochemical support to neurons. To be specific, myelin wraps multiple times around the axonal segment, forming a thick fatty layer that prevents ions from entering or escaping the axon. This insulation prevents significant signal decay as well as ensuring faster signal speed. This insulation, however, has the restriction that no channels can be present on the surface of the axon. There are, therefore, regularly spaced patches of membrane, which have no insulation. These nodes of Ranvier can be considered to be "mini axon hillocks", as their purpose is to boost the signal in order to prevent significant signal decay. At the furthest end, the axon loses its insulation and begins to branch into several axon terminals. These presynaptic terminals, or synaptic boutons, are a specialized area within the axon of the presynaptic cell that contains neurotransmitters enclosed in small membrane-bound spheres called synaptic vesicles.
Initiation [ edit ]
Before considering the propagation of action potentials along axons and their termination at the synaptic knobs, it is helpful to consider the methods by which action potentials can be initiated at the axon hillock. The basic requirement is that the membrane voltage at the hillock be raised above the threshold for firing. There are several ways in which this depolarization can occur.
When an action potential arrives at the end of the pre-synaptic axon (top), it causes the release of neurotransmitter molecules that open ion channels in the post-synaptic neuron (bottom). The combined excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials of such inputs can begin a new action potential in the post-synaptic neuron.
Dynamics [ edit ]
Action potentials are most commonly initiated by excitatory postsynaptic potentials from a presynaptic neuron. Typically, neurotransmitter molecules are released by the presynaptic neuron. These neurotransmitters then bind to receptors on the postsynaptic cell. This binding opens various types of ion channels. This opening has the further effect of changing the local permeability of the cell membrane and, thus, the membrane potential. If the binding increases the voltage (depolarizes the membrane), the synapse is excitatory. If, however, the binding decreases the voltage (hyperpolarizes the membrane), it is inhibitory. Whether the voltage is increased or decreased, the change propagates passively to nearby regions of the membrane (as described by the cable equation and its refinements). Typically, the voltage stimulus decays exponentially with the distance from the synapse and with time from the binding of the neurotransmitter. Some fraction of an excitatory voltage may reach the axon hillock and may (in rare cases) depolarize the membrane enough to provoke a new action potential. More typically, the excitatory potentials from several synapses must work together at nearly the same time to provoke a new action potential. Their joint efforts can be thwarted, however, by the counteracting inhibitory postsynaptic potentials.
Neurotransmission can also occur through electrical synapses. Due to the direct connection between excitable cells in the form of gap junctions, an action potential can be transmitted directly from one cell to the next in either direction. The free flow of ions between cells enables rapid non-chemical-mediated transmission. Rectifying channels ensure that action potentials move only in one direction through an electrical synapse.[citation needed] Electrical synapses are found in all nervous systems, including the human brain, although they are a distinct minority.
"All-or-none" principle [ edit ]
The amplitude of an action potential is independent of the amount of current that produced it. In other words, larger currents do not create larger action potentials. Therefore, action potentials are said to be all-or-none signals, since either they occur fully or they do not occur at all.[d][e][f] This is in contrast to receptor potentials, whose amplitudes are dependent on the intensity of a stimulus. In both cases, the frequency of action potentials is correlated with the intensity of a stimulus.
Sensory neurons [ edit ]
In sensory neurons, an external signal such as pressure, temperature, light, or sound is coupled with the opening and closing of ion channels, which in turn alter the ionic permeabilities of the membrane and its voltage. These voltage changes can again be excitatory (depolarizing) or inhibitory (hyperpolarizing) and, in some sensory neurons, their combined effects can depolarize the axon hillock enough to provoke action potentials. Some examples in humans include the olfactory receptor neuron and Meissner's corpuscle, which are critical for the sense of smell and touch, respectively. However, not all sensory neurons convert their external signals into action potentials; some do not even have an axon. Instead, they may convert the signal into the release of a neurotransmitter, or into continuous graded potentials, either of which may stimulate subsequent neuron(s) into firing an action potential. For illustration, in the human ear, hair cells convert the incoming sound into the opening and closing of mechanically gated ion channels, which may cause neurotransmitter molecules to be released. In similar manner, in the human retina, the initial photoreceptor cells and the next layer of cells (comprising bipolar cells and horizontal cells) do not produce action potentials; only some amacrine cells and the third layer, the ganglion cells, produce action potentials, which then travel up the optic nerve.
Pacemaker potentials [ edit ]
In pacemaker potentials, the cell spontaneously depolarizes (straight line with upward slope) until it fires an action potential.
In sensory neurons, action potentials result from an external stimulus. However, some excitable cells require no such stimulus to fire: They spontaneously depolarize their axon hillock and fire action potentials at a regular rate, like an internal clock. The voltage traces of such cells are known as pacemaker potentials. The cardiac pacemaker cells of the sinoatrial node in the heart provide a good example.[g] Although such pacemaker potentials have a natural rhythm, it can be adjusted by external stimuli; for instance, heart rate can be altered by pharmaceuticals as well as signals from the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves. The external stimuli do not cause the cell's repetitive firing, but merely alter its timing. In some cases, the regulation of frequency can be more complex, leading to patterns of action potentials, such as bursting.
Phases [ edit ]
The course of the action potential can be divided into five parts: the rising phase, the peak phase, the falling phase, the undershoot phase, and the refractory period. During the rising phase the membrane potential depolarizes (becomes more positive). The point at which depolarization stops is called the peak phase. At this stage, the membrane potential reaches a maximum. Subsequent to this, there is a falling phase. During this stage the membrane potential becomes more negative, returning towards resting potential. The undershoot, or afterhyperpolarization, phase is the period during which the membrane potential temporarily becomes more negatively charged than when at rest (hyperpolarized). Finally, the time during which a subsequent action potential is impossible or difficult to fire is called the refractory period, which may overlap with the other phases.
The course of the action potential is determined by two coupled effects. First, voltage-sensitive ion channels open and close in response to changes in the membrane voltage V m. This changes the membrane's permeability to those ions. Second, according to the Goldman equation, this change in permeability changes the equilibrium potential E m, and, thus, the membrane voltage V m.[h] Thus, the membrane potential affects the permeability, which then further affects the membrane potential. This sets up the possibility for positive feedback, which is a key part of the rising phase of the action potential. A complicating factor is that a single ion channel may have multiple internal "gates" that respond to changes in V m in opposite ways, or at different rates.[i] For example, although raising V m opens most gates in the voltage-sensitive sodium channel, it also closes the channel's "inactivation gate", albeit more slowly. Hence, when V m is raised suddenly, the sodium channels open initially, but then close due to the slower inactivation.
The voltages and currents of the action potential in all of its phases were modeled accurately by Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley in 1952,[i] for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963.[β] However, their model considers only two types of voltage-sensitive ion channels, and makes several assumptions about them, e.g., that their internal gates open and close independently of one another. In reality, there are many types of ion channels,[33] and they do not always open and close independently.[j]
Stimulation and rising phase [ edit ]
A typical action potential begins at the axon hillock with a sufficiently strong depolarization, e.g., a stimulus that increases V m. This depolarization is often caused by the injection of extra sodium cations into the cell; these cations can come from a wide variety of sources, such as chemical synapses, sensory neurons or pacemaker potentials.
For a neuron at rest, there is a high concentration of sodium and chloride ions in the extracellular fluid compared to the intracellular fluid, while there is a high concentration of potassium ions in the intracellular fluid compared to the extracellular fluid. The difference in concentrations, which causes ions to move from a high to a low concentration, and electrostatic effects (attraction of opposite charges) are responsible for the movement of ions in and out of the neuron. The inside of a neuron has a negative charge, relative to the cell exterior, from the movement of K+ out of the cell. The neuron membrane is more permeable to K+ than to other ions, allowing this ion to selectively move out of the cell, down its concentration gradient. This concentration gradient along with potassium leak channels present on the membrane of the neuron causes an efflux of potassium ions making the resting potential close to E K ≈ –75 mV. Since Na+ ions are in higher concentrations outside of the cell, the concentration and voltage differences both drive them into the cell when Na+ channels open. Depolarization opens both the sodium and potassium channels in the membrane, allowing the ions to flow into and out of the axon, respectively. If the depolarization is small (say, increasing V m from −70 mV to −60 mV), the outward potassium current overwhelms the inward sodium current and the membrane repolarizes back to its normal resting potential around −70 mV. However, if the depolarization is large enough, the inward sodium current increases more than the outward potassium current and a runaway condition (positive feedback) results: the more inward current there is, the more V m increases, which in turn further increases the inward current. A sufficiently strong depolarization (increase in V m ) causes the voltage-sensitive sodium channels to open; the increasing permeability to sodium drives V m closer to the sodium equilibrium voltage E Na ≈ +55 mV. The increasing voltage in turn causes even more sodium channels to open, which pushes V m still further towards E Na. This positive feedback continues until the sodium channels are fully open and V m is close to E Na. The sharp rise in V m and sodium permeability correspond to the rising phase of the action potential.
The critical threshold voltage for this runaway condition is usually around −45 mV, but it depends on the recent activity of the axon. A cell that has just fired an action potential cannot fire another one immediately, since the Na+ channels have not recovered from the deactivated state. The period during which no new action potential can be fired is called the absolute refractory period. At longer times, after some but not all of the ion channels have recovered, the axon can be stimulated to produce another action potential, but with a higher threshold, requiring a much stronger depolarization, e.g., to −30 mV. The period during which action potentials are unusually difficult to evoke is called the relative refractory period.
Peak and falling phase [ edit ]
The positive feedback of the rising phase slows and comes to a halt as the sodium ion channels become maximally open. At the peak of the action potential, the sodium permeability is maximized and the membrane voltage V m is nearly equal to the sodium equilibrium voltage E Na. However, the same raised voltage that opened the sodium channels initially also slowly shuts them off, by closing their pores; the sodium channels become inactivated. This lowers the membrane's permeability to sodium relative to potassium, driving the membrane voltage back towards the resting value. At the same time, the raised voltage opens voltage-sensitive potassium channels; the increase in the membrane's potassium permeability drives V m towards E K. Combined, these changes in sodium and potassium permeability cause V m to drop quickly, repolarizing the membrane and producing the "falling phase" of the action potential.
Afterhyperpolarization [ edit ]
The depolarized voltage opens additional voltage-dependent potassium channels, and some of these do not close right away when the membrane returns to its normal resting voltage. In addition, further potassium channels open in response to the influx of calcium ions during the action potential. The intracellular concentration of potassium ions is transiently unusually low, making the membrane voltage V m even closer to the potassium equilibrium voltage E K. The membrane potential goes below the resting membrane potential. Hence, there is an undershoot or hyperpolarization, termed an afterhyperpolarization, that persists until the membrane potassium permeability returns to its usual value.. The resting membrane potential is restored by the actions of the sodium-potassium pump, which transports three sodium ions out of the cell for every two potassium ions transported into the cell.
Refractory period [ edit ]
Each action potential is followed by a refractory period, which can be divided into an absolute refractory period, during which it is impossible to evoke another action potential, and then a relative refractory period, during which a stronger-than-usual stimulus is required. These two refractory periods are caused by changes in the state of sodium and potassium channel molecules. When closing after an action potential, sodium channels enter an "inactivated" state, in which they cannot be made to open regardless of the membrane potential—this gives rise to the absolute refractory period. Even after a sufficient number of sodium channels have transitioned back to their resting state, it frequently happens that a fraction of potassium channels remains open, making it difficult for the membrane potential to depolarize, and thereby giving rise to the relative refractory period. Because the density and subtypes of potassium channels may differ greatly between different types of neurons, the duration of the relative refractory period is highly variable.
The absolute refractory period is largely responsible for the unidirectional propagation of action potentials along axons. At any given moment, the patch of axon behind the actively spiking part is refractory, but the patch in front, not having been activated recently, is capable of being stimulated by the depolarization from the action potential.
Propagation [ edit ]
The action potential generated at the axon hillock propagates as a wave along the axon. The currents flowing inwards at a point on the axon during an action potential spread out along the axon, and depolarize the adjacent sections of its membrane. If sufficiently strong, this depolarization provokes a similar action potential at the neighboring membrane patches. This basic mechanism was demonstrated by Alan Lloyd Hodgkin in 1937. After crushing or cooling nerve segments and thus blocking the action potentials, he showed that an action potential arriving on one side of the block could provoke another action potential on the other, provided that the blocked segment was sufficiently short.[k]
Once an action potential has occurred at a patch of membrane, the membrane patch needs time to recover before it can fire again. At the molecular level, this absolute refractory period corresponds to the time required for the voltage-activated sodium channels to recover from inactivation, i.e., to return to their closed state. There are many types of voltage-activated potassium channels in neurons. Some of them inactivate fast (A-type currents) and some of them inactivate slowly or not inactivate at all; this variability guarantees that there will be always an available source of current for repolarization, even if some of the potassium channels are inactivated because of preceding depolarization. On the other hand, all neuronal voltage-activated sodium channels inactivate within several milliseconds during strong depolarization, thus making following depolarization impossible until a substantial fraction of sodium channels have returned to their closed state. Although it limits the frequency of firing, the absolute refractory period ensures that the action potential moves in only one direction along an axon. The currents flowing in due to an action potential spread out in both directions along the axon. However, only the unfired part of the axon can respond with an action potential; the part that has just fired is unresponsive until the action potential is safely out of range and cannot restimulate that part. In the usual orthodromic conduction, the action potential propagates from the axon hillock towards the synaptic knobs (the axonal termini); propagation in the opposite direction—known as antidromic conduction—is very rare. However, if a laboratory axon is stimulated in its middle, both halves of the axon are "fresh", i.e., unfired; then two action potentials will be generated, one traveling towards the axon hillock and the other traveling towards the synaptic knobs.
Myelin and saltatory conduction [ edit ]
In saltatory conduction, an action potential at one node of Ranvier causes inwards currents that depolarize the membrane at the next node, provoking a new action potential there; the action potential appears to "hop" from node to node.
In order to enable fast and efficient transduction of electrical signals in the nervous system, certain neuronal axons are covered with myelin sheaths. Myelin is a multilamellar membrane that enwraps the axon in segments separated by intervals known as nodes of Ranvier. It is produced by specialized cells: Schwann cells exclusively in the peripheral nervous system, and oligodendrocytes exclusively in the central nervous system. Myelin sheath reduces membrane capacitance and increases membrane resistance in the inter-node intervals, thus allowing a fast, saltatory movement of action potentials from node to node.[l][m][n] Myelination is found mainly in vertebrates, but an analogous system has been discovered in a few invertebrates, such as some species of shrimp.[o] Not all neurons in vertebrates are myelinated; for example, axons of the neurons comprising the autonomous nervous system are not, in general, myelinated.
Myelin prevents ions from entering or leaving the axon along myelinated segments. As a general rule, myelination increases the conduction velocity of action potentials and makes them more energy-efficient. Whether saltatory or not, the mean conduction velocity of an action potential ranges from 1 meter per second (m/s) to over 100 m/s, and, in general, increases with axonal diameter.[p]
Action potentials cannot propagate through the membrane in myelinated segments of the axon. However, the current is carried by the cytoplasm, which is sufficient to depolarize the first or second subsequent node of Ranvier. Instead, the ionic current from an action potential at one node of Ranvier provokes another action potential at the next node; this apparent "hopping" of the action potential from node to node is known as saltatory conduction. Although the mechanism of saltatory conduction was suggested in 1925 by Ralph Lillie,[q] the first experimental evidence for saltatory conduction came from Ichiji Tasaki[r] and Taiji Takeuchi[s][49] and from Andrew Huxley and Robert Stämpfli.[t] By contrast, in unmyelinated axons, the action potential provokes another in the membrane immediately adjacent, and moves continuously down the axon like a wave.
v of myelinated neurons varies roughly linearly with axon diameter d (that is, v ∝ d),[p] whereas the speed of unmyelinated neurons varies roughly as the square root (v ∝ √ d ).[u] The red and blue curves are fits of experimental data, whereas the dotted lines are their theoretical extrapolations. Comparison of the conduction velocities of myelinated and unmyelinated axons in the cat. The conduction velocityof myelinated neurons varies roughly linearly with axon diameter(that is,),whereas the speed of unmyelinated neurons varies roughly as the square root ().The red and blue curves are fits of experimental data, whereas the dotted lines are their theoretical extrapolations.
Myelin has two important advantages: fast conduction speed and energy efficiency. For axons larger than a minimum diameter (roughly 1 micrometre), myelination increases the conduction velocity of an action potential, typically tenfold.[v] Conversely, for a given conduction velocity, myelinated fibers are smaller than their unmyelinated counterparts. For example, action potentials move at roughly the same speed (25 m/s) in a myelinated frog axon and an unmyelinated squid giant axon, but the frog axon has a roughly 30-fold smaller diameter and 1000-fold smaller cross-sectional area. Also, since the ionic currents are confined to the nodes of Ranvier, far fewer ions "leak" across the membrane, saving metabolic energy. This saving is a significant selective advantage, since the human nervous system uses approximately 20% of the body's metabolic energy.[v]
The length of axons' myelinated segments is important to the success of saltatory conduction. They should be as long as possible to maximize the speed of conduction, but not so long that the arriving signal is too weak to provoke an action potential at the next node of Ranvier. In nature, myelinated segments are generally long enough for the passively propagated signal to travel for at least two nodes while retaining enough amplitude to fire an action potential at the second or third node. Thus, the safety factor of saltatory conduction is high, allowing transmission to bypass nodes in case of injury. However, action potentials may end |
1969 Order gave Mr Lee unduly wide powers. The then Leader of the Opposition, Ted Heath, went so far as to suggest that the Order was ultra vires of its enabling statute (the West Indies Act 1967).
There is therefore little to be learnt from this unusual episode.
The Turks and Caicos Islands
The most recent example of “direct rule” came in the Turks and Caicos Islands between 2009 and 2011. The British Government decided to suspend parts of the constitution (albeit not all of it: notably, the chapter on fundamental rights remained in force). A subsequent legal challenge by the deposed premier met with failure (R (Misick) v SoSFCA [2009] EWCA Civ 1549). In this case, “direct rule” is something of a misnomer, as the public powers over the Territory were vested in the Governor rather than being transferred to London.
Explaining the decision to intervene, the relevant Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the FCO reported to Parliament that a commission of inquiry had found “a high probability of systemic corruption or serious dishonesty”, together with “clear signs of political amorality and immaturity and of general administrative incompetence”.
This collection of problems – and perhaps even any of them individually – arguably provided sufficient grounds to justify intervention by London. However, the opportunity does not seem to have been taken to set out in detail the grounds on which the British Government will seek to fully assert its sovereignty over a Territory. It may be that the current controversy will provide a new opportunity for clarification in this regard.
Graham John Wheeler is a solicitor (England and Wales, Republic of Ireland) and an independent researcher.
(Suggested citation: G.J. Wheeler, ‘The British Overseas Territories and “Direct Rule”’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (12th Apr 2016) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))Thiago Tavares will drop to the featherweight division for his next bout in the UFC.
Tavares, who revealed his plans to cut 10 pounds for his next fight after a first-round victory over Justin Salas last month, has verbally agreed to meet UFC newcomer Zubair Tuhogov at UFC Fight Night 36 in Jaragua do Sul, Brazil, on Feb. 15. Combate first reported the news.
The Brazilian will make his featherweight debut after racking up a 8-5-1 record under the UFC banner. Tavares (18-5-1) hasn’t fought outside of Brazil since March 2011, and is 3-1 in front of his countrymen.
Tuhogov, a 22-year old, makes his UFC debut riding a six-fight win streak, the longest of his 3-year MMA career. The Russian fighter has a 15-3 record with six stoppage victories.
UFC Fight Night 36 takes place in Arena Jaragua in Jaragua do Sul, and is headlined by the middleweights Lyoto Machida and Gegard Mousasi. The UFN 36 card now includes:
Lyoto Machida vs. Gegard Mousasi
Ronaldo Souza vs. Francis Carmont
Francisco Trinaldo vs. Jesse Ronson
Thiago Tavares vs. Zubair Tuhugov
Viscardi Andrade vs. Nicholas Musoke
Charles Oliveira vs. Andy Ogle
Cristiano Marcello vs. Joe Proctor1.(review here )- $55MThe big mystery all week has been whethercould bestOctober box office record. Well, it was a tight one, but Ridley Scott's space drama couldn't quite defy. The Martian opened with a terrific $55M, which is just behind$55.8M. It's always possible those numbers change tomorrow when the official totals are calculated, but really does it matter? A start like this puts the Matt Damon-led film with the impeccable cast in awards territory, and we all remember how welldid a couple of years ago, right?may be on even better footing. The reviews are phenomenal, Damon plays a more likable character, and the film is stirring up pro-science sentiment all around the country. Think Hollywood wouldn't want to look "cool" by tapping into that a little bit?2.- $33M/$90.5MHaving one of the strongest second-week holds in a long time,only slid 32% for an additional $33M. With so few family friendly animated movies it was obviously going to have long legs, but this goes beyond the Adam Sandler-voiced comedy's projections. Audiences really love Sandler...when they don't have to actually look at him.3.- $12M/$15MThe biggest mover of the week was Denis Villeneuve's stunning drug war thriller,. Expanding to over 2600 theaters in its third week of release, the film exploded with $12M. The film stars Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro, so it wasn't hurting for star power as all are proven draws, and the reviews are some of the year's best. But it's not unusual for a film to do great on the indie scene only to tread water upon expansion. That's clearly not happening here, and makes Lionsgate's decision to roll on with a sequel look even smarter 4.- $11.6M/$36.5MAnne Hathaway and Robert De Niro have carried Nancy Meyers'to another solid week, earning $11.6M and bringing the tally to $36.5M. The film didn't cost a ton and now it has earned more than its budget. At this point it's looking to be on the upper end of Meyers efforts.5.- $7.6M/$63.2M6.- $5.9M/$52.5M7.- $5.5M/$33.1M8.- $3.9M/$57.6M9.- $2.8M/$60.5M10.- $2.4M/$52.7MGetting off to a shaky start only Philippe Petit could withstand, Robert Zemeckis'(review here ) opened on Wednesday with just $1.9M total. Granted, it was only in 448 IMAX and 3D theaters with a wider rollout next week, but considering how welldid in a similar situation this has to be disappointing.WATCH DOGS 2 is a game-changer for Ubisoft. The story has a fun-loving tone that fits the setting and subject matter, the atmosphere is dense and painstakingly detailed, and the characters are surprisingly likable, rising above their archetypes as the story goes on. Perhaps most important are the tweaks made to the infamous Ubisoft formula. WATCH DOGS 2 is not a simple carbon copy of every other Ubisoft open world game. The gameplay is refined, streamlined, and efficient, focusing more on pre-made, carefully-crafted scenarios and less on repetitive procedural content. From the moment I picked this game up, I actually had trouble putting it down, but after I beat the game I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing.
I can keep playing my favorite open world games for months or even years after I’ve beaten the main story, but I had no desire to keep playing WATCH DOGS 2 after I completed it. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but as time went on I started to think WATCH DOGS 2 strayed from the formula a bit too much. To create the perfect open world game, you need both focus and freedom, quality and quantity. You need gameplay that’s both diverse and compelling, wrapped up with a story that’s both focused and open-ended. It’s a difficult balance that many games never achieve.
WATCH DOGS 2 is the perfect object lesson of a great game that couldn’t quite find this balance. In their attempts to move away from their tiresome formula, Ubisoft may have gone a bit too far in the opposite direction, creating a high quality, streamlined experience without the bells and whistles many gamers have come to expect.
So, how does WATCH DOGS 2 miss the mark on open world game design? How do we create the perfect open world? Can we have limitless playability without sacrificing quality? Or are we trying to have our cake and eat it too? Well, let’s take a look!
The Open World Spectrum
Creating an open world game is a delicate process, and WATCH DOGS 2 is no exception. Most open worlds can be placed on a spectrum between two extremes. On one hand, you have sandboxes: these games tend to be more free-form, placing few restrictions on the player and putting an emphasis on exploration, experimentation, and player-driven scenarios. Games like MINECRAFT, MORROWIND, or DON’T STARVE can all be considered sandboxes.
Ubisoft has become infamous for applying mediocre sandbox features to their open world games. There’s often a sea of collectibles scattered across the world, constant random encounters, and a seemingly inexhaustible series of objectives. The goal here is to give the player the sense that the world is alive and to make sure they never run out of things to do, but this has led to a slew of games that lack originality. You often find yourself doing the same few activities for hours on end without an interesting story or intrinsic motivation to keep you engaged. While this interpretation of the sandbox was popularized by Ubisoft, it’s been adopted by many other developers over the years, creating a great deal of fatigue for gamers.
But after playing WATCH DOGS 2 and going back to some older Ubisoft games, I realized this formula was never the problem. It was the lack of anything on top of it. I feel the same way about the Ubisoft formula as I do about the radiant quests in SKYRIM. In both cases, the developers relied on these mechanics in lieu of diverse, compelling gameplay. With a few tweaks, the Ubisoft formula could provide a simple sandbox experience on top of an already compelling game. I love random encounters, I love emergent gameplay, I love mini-games and distractions, but you can’t base a game on those features alone. It’s like having icing without the cake.
READ: What are the basic components of an open world game? Let’s take a look!
On the other end of the spectrum, you have the theme park: a delicious cake with no icing at all. These are games where the open world can sometimes feel tacked-on, where it’s just a method of getting from point A to point B, without much in the way of side activities or emergent gameplay. Many MMOs lean at least slightly in this direction, presenting the player with a vast open world but guiding them in a linear fashion toward the endgame. The goal here is to streamline the game, to create a high-quality experience for the player without getting bogged down with superfluous activities. However, if you place too much focus on one thing, it can work against you. The most recent example of a poorly made theme park is MAFIA III, a game with a solid story and core mechanics bogged down by a lack of diversity and an open world with no reason to exist. Unlike previous Ubisoft games, which lean toward the sandbox, WATCH DOGS 2 definitely slipped into theme park territory. The game delivers a compelling story with solid mechanics, but not much to do in the world compared to other games within the same genre.
Call me an idealist, but I think we can have the best of both worlds. This is where WATCH DOGS 2 misses the mark, creating several problems that mar an otherwise brilliant experience:
Once You’re Done, You’re Done
WATCH DOGS 2 has quite a bit of content. There are side quests full of interesting stories and gameplay, collectibles that actually reward the player for finding them, and all sorts of car, bike, and even sailing races. Between this, the main story, and a satisfying gameplay loop, WATCH DOGS 2 can keep you occupied for at least a few weeks.
The problem is that the gameplay loop (the core activities the player performs) is completely reliant on the story and pre-set side-missions. Once you’re done with them, you’re pretty much done with the game. In a game that focuses almost entirely on using stealth and gadgets to navigate carefully crafted levels, once those levels are complete, you suddenly find yourself with little to do. In previous Ubisoft games, you could keep finding things to do for months after you completed the main story. Granted, the things you were doing were rarely engaging and stopped being fun after a while, but there’s a balance between these extremes that Ubisoft is missing.
Take a non-Ubisoft game like RED DEAD REDEMPTION. Along with a solid series of quests, side quests, and collectibles, the game is chock-full of content to keep you occupied for a while. There’s an endless supply of randomly generated encounters and procedurally generated bounty hunting missions. Since the gameplay loop is solid, the game can keep you occupied for months on end.
I respect WATCH DOGS 2’s decision to move away from repetitive, procedurally generated content in favor of a more focused experience, but I don’t think these design choices are mutually exclusive. The original WATCH DOGS, for all its faults, had some interesting random encounters. You could stop robberies in progress, take out criminals, and generally live out your own vigilante fantasy. There are still elements of this in the sequel but they’re not enough to keep you occupied for long. I would have liked to see WATCH DOGS 2 expand upon these procedural activities, making them more hacking and stealth oriented, and generally giving the player more to do in between missions.
READ: What’s at the core of our humor? Why do we love absurdity?
What if the eavesdropping and hacking of pedestrians were more involved? What if someone’s profile information could generate a random mission for you? What if you could discover a corrupt CEO on the street, travel to his randomly generated mansion and use your hacking skills to steal his money and rewire it to the people he’s ripping off? What if you could listen in on a gang member discussing an upcoming robbery, and actually interfere with it for good or ill? What if there were just enough of these unique, repeatable scenarios that they stayed fresh without getting old too quickly?
If WATCH DOGS 2 had more random and procedural missions on top of what we’ve already got, I’d be playing this game for years to come.
Distractions are Good
It’s not just a lack of emergent gameplay that shortens the lifespan of an open world game. Whether you notice it or not, mini-games and other distractions can have a real impact on a game’s longevity. Mini-games are rarely the focus of an open world experience, but there’s a certain comfort in knowing they’re there. You can always take a break from your main quest and immerse yourself in the world by playing silly board games, getting drunk at a bar, or engaging in any number of distractions that give you a variety of things to do.
The original WATCH DOGS had your standard chess games, drinking games, and racing activities, as well as a jarring, anachronistic, yet surprisingly creative set of virtual reality games.
Aside from some racing activities, there are absolutely no mini-games of any kind in WATCH DOGS 2. I’ll always choose a solid set of primary activities over a handful of meaningless distractions, but I have to wonder why the mini-games from the first entry weren’t at least carried over to the sequel.
This all connects to my original point. Ubisoft was so committed to dropping the formula that they missed an opportunity to diversify the gameplay. They went so far in the opposite direction that they ignored the (flawed) potential in what they already had.
WATCH DOGS 2 needs more icing. I would have loved to see more hacking tournaments like the one we briefly experienced in the main story. I would have welcomed additional types of hacking puzzles on top of what we already got. What if you could play arcade games at the bar and cheat your way to the top with your hacking skills? It could even be a game within a game, where you’re trying to cheat without your opponent noticing.
In a game about technology and hacking, the possibilities for mini games were endless. The lack of diverse, varied activities in WATCH DOGS 2 is a missed opportunity in an otherwise brilliant game.
The New Formula
Open world games are hard as hell to make. Even when you make a great one, there can still be some minor problems that cut short the lifespan of your game. So what have we learned here? How can we improve upon the open world formula? Well, it all comes down to that spectrum I mentioned earlier, that delicate balance between a free-form sandbox and a streamlined theme park.
READ: How is the latest Warcraft expansion? Let’s take a look!
Creating an open world game isn’t so much a matter of finding a middle ground here, but of going toward both extremes at once. Varied gameplay is not mutually exclusive with a solid level design. Emergent gameplay is not mutually exclusive with a compelling story. We can take the most engaging mechanics from both sides without sacrificing the quality of either. Is this more difficult than leaning slightly toward one side or the other? Of course, but if history has taught us anything, it’s that we can have the best of both worlds. There’s nothing wrong with demanding greatness.
If you insist on going to one extreme, go all the way. Games like MINECRAFT and EVE ONLINE prove that there’s a market for full-on sandbox games. Games like UNCHARTED and PORTAL prove that there’s a market for linear, high-quality gameplay without having an open world in the first place. WATCH DOGS 2 faces an identity crisis, where it leans more toward one side, while still retaining elements from the other. As a result, no matter how great the game is, there will always be some lingering issues.
The Point
I love open world games, but creating a great one is a delicate balancing act. There’s a million ways to get them wrong and only a few ways to get them right. Finding that balance between diversity, quantity, quality, and longevity may be a difficult task, but it can and has been done before. When an open world hooks you in, there’s nothing else like it. Suddenly you’re living a life in a virtual world, a world that feels alive, full of things to experience and discover.
We should always applaud a game for innovating, for evolving in a positive way to create a better experience, but I think it’s up to us as gamers to challenge developers. I want my cake, and I want to eat it too.
I loved WATCH DOGS 2, and hopefully, Ubisoft will expand upon what they learned from this game without sacrificing the little things that make open worlds so great.ST. CLOUD - The debate over same-sex marriage is dividing members of the clergy within the United Methodist Church.
During their annual conference in St. Cloud, about 40 Minnesota United Methodist clergy have signed a statement saying they would marry any couple who came to them, including same-sex couples. Reverend Bruce Robbins of the Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis read the statement yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon. He said he initially had about a dozen of his colleagues sign the statement, by last night that number had grown to 40. The statement was a voluntary action and not a part of the annual conference.
Meanwhile, Bishop Sally Dyck says the statement itself does not break church rules. However, she says the church discipline does forbid same-sex marriage, and clergy who perform them could lose their conference membership, or clergy credentials. Robbins says that won't stop him from performing the ceremonies.
About 900 voting members - half of whom are clergy - are at the conference in St. Cloud this week.
There are about 75,000 United Methodist members in Minnesota, in 365 churches.On Friday, the ACLU settled a class action lawsuit, pending court approval, against officials in the East Texas town of Tenaha and Shelby County over the rampant practice of stopping and searching drivers, almost always Black or Latino, and often seizing their cash and other valuable property. The money seized by officers during these stops went directly into department coffers. It was highway robbery, targeting those who could least afford to challenge the officers’ abuse of power, under the guise of a so-called “drug interdiction” program and made possible by Texas’s permissive civil asset forfeiture laws.
Hundreds, if not more than a thousand, people have been stopped under the interdiction program. From 2006 to 2008, police seized approximately $3 million from at least 140 people as part of the program. None of the ACLU’s clients were ever arrested or charged with a crime after being stopped and shaken down.
Officers who are defendants in the case testified that there were no limits on the searches and seizures conducted under the interdiction program. One of the defendants, Barry Washington, testified that he considered the ethnicity and religion of the motorists to be factors relevant to establishing reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Under oath, when asked what indicators of criminal activity might be, Washington testified:
Well, there could be several things. There could even be indicators on the vehicle. The number one thing is you have two guys stopped, and these two guys are from New York. They’re two Puerto Ricans. They’re driving a car that has a Baptist Church symbol on the back, says First Baptist Church of New York.
The plaintiffs in the ACLU’s lawsuit lost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the defendant officers. If they refused to part with their money, officers threatened to arrest them on false money laundering charges and other serious felonies. The consequences for parents of color were even worse: officers threatened mothers like Jennifer Boatwright that if they did not part with their cash and valuables, their children would be taken away from them and put in foster care. This was not an empty threat; when Dale Agostini, a successful restaurant owner, refused to hand over $50,000 in business earnings he was carrying to buy new restaurant equipment, police seized both his money and his 16-month-old son. When Agostini pleaded to keep his son or at least kiss him goodbye, the officers refused and simply continued counting the money they had seized from him.
Thankfully, pending court approval of the ACLU’s settlement, police will now be required to observe rigorous rules that will govern traffic stops in Tenaha and Shelby County. All stops will now be videotaped, and the officer must state the reason for the stop and the basis for suspecting criminal activity. Motorists pulled over during a traffic stop must be advised orally and in writing that they can refuse a search. In addition, officers are no longer using dogs in conducting traffic stops. No property may be seized during a search unless the officer first gives the driver a reason for why it should be taken. All property improperly taken must be returned within 30 business days. And any asset forfeiture revenue seized during a traffic stop must be donated to non-profit organizations or used for the audio and video equipment or training required by the settlement.
To the best of our knowledge, this settlement is unprecedented in not only strictly monitoring traffic stops for racial profiling and other abuses, but also removing the incentives that can lead law enforcement to engage in highway robbery.
While Tenaha represents some of the most egregious abuses in racial profiling and civil asset forfeiture, the facts are far from unique. The ACLU is investigating similar abuses in states across the nation. In the meantime, the settlement in Tenaha should send a message to law enforcement departments across the nation: officers should focus on protecting the communities they serve, not on policing for profit.
Learn more about asset forfeiture abuse: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.The winner of 3DST35 "New & Improved"
I invited R0m1R, winner of 3DST34, to pick this week's winner and tell us a bit about his choice. He wrote:
I will choose Abby's scan (my new cat) because from my experience I know that fur is very difficult to scan and it's even harder on a moving subject! So yeah she has done a really good job with her cat, Congrats! NB: Gerpho's turbine was one of the best scan I've ever seen but since he won just a few months ago I prefered to choose someone else ^^
My new cat by Abby Crawford on Sketchfab
Congrats @abbyec! The $25 3D Hubs voucher is coming your way.
Check out all the entries of 3DST35 here.
This week's topic: Romance
As I'm in the middle of picking the winners for our Valentine contest, and preparing another Valentine-related project (more on that later today), my mind is on romance What does it mean to you? Capture something romantic this week
Welcome to 3D Scanning Thursday (3DST)!
Hey, nice of you to join us! The 3DST is a weekly community challenge for 3D Scanning enthusiasts. Participating is about fun and honor, although we do offer a modest prize.
How do I participate?
We pick a new topic every week and you enter by creating a 3D scan using any tool you like ([here's a list of 3D scanning apps][scanning_apps] that you could use). The topic for this week is Romance. Don't take it too literally, just let the topic be your inspiration for this week.
After uploading, tag your work with the 3DST36 tag so everyone can view the contest gallery. For extra fun, post your entry below (just write down the URL in a reply).
The submission deadline is Thursday before midnight.
What can I win?
[3D Hubs][3dhubs] is sponsoring the 3DST with a $25 3D printing coupon. Thanks guys!
Cool, anything else?
We only have a few additional rules:
You can submit as many entries as you like.
Entries scanned before theme announcement are not ok.
That's about it! If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, have a great weekend and enjoy creating your 3D scans!No great band is born without a struggle and no great records are born in a vacuum. For every artist whose ideas make your wig spin there are a huge pile of influences – from specks of colour to swathes of sound – that delivered them to that point. And this is where The Roots Of… comes in. Each week we’ll take a band, pull apart the threads that make them who they are and build a Spotify playlist from those influences…
“In high school,” Eminem once said, “being a rapper was like being one of the X-Men…”
Marshall Mathers III spent a great deal of his time at school wishing he were a superhero. A shy, skinny, glasses-wearing kid from a poor, broken home, the boy who became Eminem spent the first 14 years of his life being a target. Growing up in a seriously rough part of Detroit, random bullying and abuse was a wearingly predictable, day-to-day reality, but two random events would help to shape Mathers’ life. Aged nine he was beaten up so badly he developed a cerebral haemorrhage and slipped in and out of consciousness for five days – the older boy behind that beating, D’Angelo Bailey, would end up named in the song ‘Brain Damage’ from Eminem’s debut LP. Four or five years later, while walking home from a friend’s house, Mathers was jumped outside a shopping centre, robbed, stripped and had a gun held to his head. His life was only saved by a passing – armed – trucker who pulled his own gun on the boy’s attackers. It’s not hard to see how turning yourself into your own version of a superhero might seem attractive to someone who’d suffered through that sort of childhood.
By the spring of 1997 Eminem – now living with his girlfriend and their baby in a crack-infested neighbourhood – recorded the demos for ‘The Slim Shady EP’. After coming second in that year’s Rap Olympics event in Los Angeles, some copies of the EP made it to Interscope and their superstar signing, Dr Dre. “In my entire career in the music industry,” Dre said later “I have never found anything from a demo tape. When [I heard] this, I said, ‘Find him. Now!’” A few weeks later the pair were in the studio. They recorded ‘My Name Is’ in an hour and Eminem’s debut album quickly went quadruple platinum. But how did he actually get there?
IN THE BEGINNING
Eminem’s mother Debbie Nelson had been a Jimi Hendrix loving hippy-rocker who’d briefly been in a band called Daddy Warbucks with Em’s father, Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr. It was Em’s mother who took him to see Talking Heads and Stevie Nicks (the boy liked ‘Rhiannon’, apparently), but it was her half-brother, Uncle Ronnie, who turned him onto hip hop, playing the 12-year-old Ice T’s ‘Reckless’ in 1984. A flood of music followed as hip-hop’s “golden age” unfurled over the next decade.
LOSE YOURSELF
The sheer wealth of creativity that welled up between in the decade between 1986 and 1996 is still hard to take in. From the Beastie Boys to LL Cool J, Kool G Rap and DJ Polo to Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, NWA, A Tribe Called Quest and Brand Nubian, they all set the stage for those who’d follow, like Biggie, Nas, Tupac, Jay Z and, of course, Eminem.
OLD TIME’S SAKE
While still an artist stuck in the hustle, Eminem would sample LL Cool J, jazz legend Idris Muhammed, soul pioneer Curtis Mayfield, Grover Washington Jr and Bill Withers on his early tracks. ‘Just Don’t Give A Fuck’, from 1997, used a piece from Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 while ‘When To Stand Up’ from a year later relied on a slice of Donny Hathaway’s 1972 cut, ‘Vegetable Wagon’ though neither of these tracks made much headway.
50 SHADES OF DRE
… But Em’s debut major label debut single ‘My Name Is’ sampled Labi Siffre’s 1975 track, ‘I Got The…’ which, famously, features Chas & Dave on keys and drums. On the LP, ‘Guilty Conscience’ used Little Peggy March’s hit ‘I Will Follow Him’, while ‘Cum On Everybody’ weaved ‘Gimme What You Got’ by LA disco producers Le Pamplemousse and Gladys Knight & the Pips’ 1973 smash, ‘Who Is She (And What Is She To You)’. Finally, Eminem and Dre’s collaborations had given the young Marshall Mathers the platform and the success he’d spent his whole life dreaming of. “God sent me to piss the world off,” as he once said in a song. What he did with the fame – and his attitude to the world – is a whole other story.
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The Roots Of… Arctic Monkeys
The Roots Of… Pixies
The Roots Of… Arcade Fire
The Roots Of… Daft Punk
The Roots Of… The Strokes
The Roots Of… The Libertines
The Roots Of… Manic Street PreachersDallas Cowboys quarterback Kellen Moore (17) hands the ball off to Dallas Cowboys running back Darren McFadden (20) in the first half of a game against the Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York on Sunday, December 27, 2015.(Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)
Since organized team activities begin this week at Valley Ranch, I'm focusing on the five most interesting position battles on the Cowboys roster.
OTAs and minicamp obviously won't decide these spots. It will come down to a combination of the two, training camp, preseason games and who becomes available when teams start trimming their rosters.
But as of right now, these are the groups I have my eye on.
1.) Running back
Ezekiel Elliott wasn't drafted fourth overall to be part of an equal rotation. If the Cowboys really want their running game back at 2014 levels, Elliott will get carries early and often, just as DeMarco Murray did. The rushing attempts Joseph Randle received that season will be given to Darren McFadden and Alfred Morris. I can't see Dallas keeping more than four running backs. Right now, my best guess would be Elliott, McFadden, Morris and Darius Jackson, depending on where Lance Dunbar is in his rehab process.
The next question: Do they keep a fullback? Jason Garrett has kept one on the roster in the past. However, this could be the year they choose to go a little heavier at another position. The fullbacks on the current roster are Keith Smith and Rod Smith. Keith is converting over from linebacker. Rod is converting over from running back.
2.) Safety
It seems likely the Cowboys will go into the season with Byron Jones and Barry Church as their starting safeties. The front runners for the backup spots are Jeff Heath and J.J. Wilcox. I can't see Dallas keeping more than four safeties, so where does that leave sixth-round pick Kavon Frazier? Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said after the draft that they had a fourth-round grade on Frazier.
The Cowboys signed Heath to a new four-year contract in April so he seems safe. Wilcox, a third-round pick in 2013, is entering the final year of his rookie deal.
"I got to get better," Wilcox said last week. "I'm still growing at the position. This is my fifth year playing it. I've been playing offense all of my life, so I still have a lot of upside. I just have to keep learning the game, study hard on the film, just be more consistent in open-field tackling and being the best safety that I can be."
3.) Wide receiver
I think the Cowboys will keep five wide receivers on their active roster. Since you can already write in Dez Bryant, Terrance Williams and Cole Beasley, the final two spots should come down to Brice Butler, Devin Street and Lucky Whitehead.
Butler and Whitehead are the front runners. Butler finished with 12 catches for 258 yards last season while Street caught seven balls for 114 yards and a touchdown. Whitehead is the Cowboys' most valuable receiver on special teams, so if he was to be the odd man out, Dallas would have to find another kick and punt returner.
Also keep an eye on undrafted rookie free agent Chris Brown. Last season at Notre Dame, the 6-2, 195-pounder started all 13 games, catching 48 passes for 597 yards and four touchdowns.
4.) Cornerback
I anticipate the Cowboys going with five cornerbacks on their 53-man roster. Orlando Scandrick, Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne seem locked in. That leaves two openings. The favorites for those spots are Terrance Mitchell, Deji Olatoye and sixth-round pick Anthony Brown, another player Jones said the Cowboys had as a fourth-rounder on their board.
"We're not hitting or anything, but in terms of his movement and how smart he is, how fast he is, his ball skills, it's all real positive right now," Cowboys secondary coach Joe Baker said of Brown. "[Rookie minicamp] really suits Anthony's skill set because he's quick, he can run. So all of the stuff we're doing on air, he looks fantastic."
5.) Defensive end
Defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli prefers to have an eight-man rotation on his defensive line. That generally means about five ends and three tackles. With Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence suspended for the first four games, the next few months will determine who will step into those key roles. As of right now, the battle at that position comes down to Benson Mayowa, Jack Crawford, David Irving, Ryan Russell and fourth-round pick Charles Tapper.
I'm predicting that the Week 1 starters at defensive end will be Mayowa on the right side and Crawford on the left.
"You don't have to have the most talent," Marinelli said after a recent rookie minicamp practice. "Jack Crawford is a perfect guy. Every time he came in he impacted the game. He had four sacks as a rotational guy. He had a lot of hits, pressure. He's fresh. He comes in and he's got a great motor. You got an advantage right there.
"It's the motor and the skill and the attitude we're looking for."EMBED >More News Videos Spiderman and the owner of Arkham Comix talk about why they're trying to help.
EMBED >More News Videos Watch 12-year-old Howell talk about his battle with cancer.
EMBED >More News Videos Watch Dr. Kristin Schroeder describe Howell's will to fight.
He dresses up as Spiderman to help bring a smile to children with life-threatening illnesses, and now he's trying to help fundraise for a local 12-year-old boy with brain cancer. Rick Schafferman is the man behind the Spidey suit and he's hoping for a big turn-out Saturday, for a fundraiser to help pay Howell Brown's cancer-treatment bills.The local Spiderman is partnering with a comic book store in Rocky Mount, called Arkham Comix, for the event, and 10 percent of the sales are going to Howell's cause. Prizes and pictures with costumed superheroes, including'Raleighman ', are all part of the fun.It's all part of a group Schafferman founded called The Excelsior League, a group dedicated to "improving the quality of life with pure heart and cosplay."Howell has been battling medulloblastoma, or brain cancer since 2012. Kristin Schroeder, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at Duke University Hospital and one of Howell's doctors, said medulloblastoma is a common type of brain cancer with an 80 percent cure rate."There are new treatments that are coming out every year it seems, there are new options for it," Schroeder said. "Despite that, because of the location, it is something that can spread and when it does spread, it is something that tends to spread from the brain down through the spinal cord."Schroeder said this is what happened in Howell's case.Howell had an operation to remove the tumor in his brain, but the cancer came back, and it is Stage 4 -- the last stage."It's just been me and my mom and then I was doing real good," Howell said. "I was cancer-free, they removed the tumor with a big surgery, and then it came back on my spine, so me and my mom has been dealing with this. That's what we're doing right now."Howell's mom, Sue Brown, is a single mom and she said dealing with Howell's cancer battle has been difficult all the way around.Brown said their family had to relocate to Durham from Clyde, a small town west of Ashville, to seek treatment at Duke. She said the community |
ILUTION. If the company can't make a profit, well then by God, issue more stock to a new group of poor unworthy slobs. As they say, there's a sucker born every minute.
In order to do its part in making America energy independent, Chesapeake Energy diluted its shares by 319 million, or 70% over the past decade:
Okay, a 70% dilution of its outstanding shares over the decade wouldn't be that bad if investors were rewarded with a decent stock price. Sadly, Chesapeake's stock performance is just as dismal as its percentage of share dilution. Even though Chesapeake's share price doubled since the beginning of the year, it is down 75% from its high in 2014.
Furthermore, the once mighty Chesapeake stock traded for a high of $62 in 2008, but today, trades for a mere 7 bucks a share. WARNING...For those savvy investors who are swallowing the Mainstream media hype that a new bull market in energy stocks has begun, let me show you Chesapeake Energy's EKG... its vitals:
This chart should be easy for anyone to follow. The Green Dollars represent Chesapeake's total assets and the Red Line displays its total liabilities. For a company to get a CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH, its assets must outweigh its debts... and by a wide margin.
Well, that may have been true for Chesapeake in the past, but today we see a TERMINALLY ILL PATIENT. In the third quarter of 2016, Chesapeake's total liabilities were higher at $13.7 billion versus its total assets of $12.5 billion. Gosh, I wonder who owns the $9 billion of Chesapeake's long-term debt?
Okay, well maybe there's a slight chance that Chesapeake can begin to work harder at producing profits by increasing its natural gas production. To do this, they would have to spend more money. If we look at the chart below, we see another disturbing trend:
According to the figures above, Chesapeake's capital expenditures are down a stunning 90% at $1.6 billion, since its peak of $14.7 billion in 2012. This is definitely heading in the wrong direction.
By looking at all the financial indicators, the future for Chesapeake Energy looks quite dim. Unfortunately, these indicators only provide part of the DISASTER taking place in the Good ole U.S. of A.
Chesapeake Energy Survived By Slashing Royalties To Property Owners
While Chesapeake Energy had to resort to spending $60 billion more to fund its business than it made from operations, on top of massive share dilution... this just wasn't enough. According to several sources, Chesapeake Energy decided to slash its royalty payments to the land owners to help make America energy independent once again.
In the article, How The Fracking Industry Avoids Paying Royalties To Its Landowners, it stated:
Don Feusner ran dairy cattle on his 370-acre slice of northern Pennsylvania until he could no longer turn a profit by farming. Then, at age 60, he sold all but a few Angus and aimed for a comfortable retirement on money from drilling his land for natural gas instead. It seemed promising. Two wells drilled on his lease hit as sweet a spot as the Marcellus shale could offer—tens of millions of cubic feet of natural gas gushed forth. Last December, he received a check for $8,506 for a month’s share of the gas. Then one day in April, Feusner ripped open his royalty envelope to find that while his wells were still producing the same amount of gas, the gusher of cash had slowed. His eyes cascaded down the page to his monthly balance at the bottom: $1,690. Chesapeake Energy, the company that drilled his wells, was withholding almost 90 percent of Feusner’s share of the income to cover unspecified “gathering” expenses and it wasn’t explaining why. “They said you’re going to be a millionaire in a couple of years, but none of that has happened,” Feusner said. “I guess we’re expected to just take whatever they want to give us.”
In another article, I watched a short video on just how bad the farmers and landowners were getting screwed by Chesapeake. One farmer received $1.10 royalty check one month, and then $0.10 the next. What was really shocking was that one landowner received a bill for $30,000 from Chesapeake, instead of a royalty payment. This was in the Pennsylvania Marcellus area. You have to watch this video from PA Royalty Ripoff below:
https://youtu.be/rGPCcmiaiLw
In addition, there have been several large class action royalty payment lawsuits against Chesapeake in various states in which they are producing oil and gas. Here is a map of Chesapeake's operations:
Supposedly, the Marcellus is the largest and most profitable shale gas field in the United States. Of the 43 billion cubic feet per day of U.S. shale gas production, the Marcellus is producing 18 billion cubic feet per day, or 42% of the total.
But, as several Americans in the video explain, they haven't been receiving their royalty payments even though Chesapeake continues to extract gas. While other companies are actually paying their landowners their fair share of royalties, the situation in the entire U.S. Shale Energy Industry isn't much better than the financial catastrophe taking place at Chesapeake.
U.S. Shale Energy Industry Has Been In The Red Since 2009
I found this wonderful table in an article, Oil Industry Spending Too Much; Deficit Spending Is Unsustainable, on the free cash flow for the Large Cap E & P oil and gas companies in the United States. If there is one chart you have to see, this is the one:
This chart gives us a true picture of the DISASTER taking place in the U.S. Shale Energy Industry. While I have focused this article on the second largest shale gas producer in the U.S., we can clearly see that the entire group lost money in 2012/2014, and the industry as a whole has been in the RED since 2009.
What is even more amazing about the figures in this table is that the Large Cap Shale Producers suffered higher losses (negative free cash flow) when the price of oil was at its highest prices from 2011 to 2014. Even though the price of oil began to fall in 2014, the average price for the year was $93.
Furthermore, the table also shows a forecast for continued negative free cash flow for the entire industry in 2015 and 2016. Thus, the U.S. Shale Energy Industry will have been in the RED for eight consecutive years.
Today, the price of oil is trading half of what it was in 2014 at $49-$50. While some analysts are pointing to "increased efficiency" and "lower production costs", this won't save the industry as it is still producing an INFERIOR and UNECONOMIC quality of oil and gas.
As I mentioned in my interview on the X22 Report, the amount of damage taking place on the U.S. roads and landscape by the Shale Fracking Industry is off the charts. Here is a picture from the article linked above showing the huge FOOTPRINT that one shale gas well has on a farmer's property:
Can you imagine looking at that everyday on your picturesque farmland? What is even worse, you have to look at that when the company isn't even paying your royalty payments. Of course, when the well is finally producing shale gas, most of this equipment will be gone, but the size of the drilling pad is huge.
Moreover, the amount of damage done to local and state roads by the Shale Fracking Industry is huge. According to the excellent research by the Energy Policy Forum,
Pennsylvania collected $204 million in impact fees in 2012 (they don’t have a severance tax), but road damage topped $3.5 billion! Since 2009, Arkansas received $182 million in gas severance taxes, but estimates road damage cost $450 million.
Well there you have it. Fracking shale gas in the Pennsylvania Marcellus generated $204 million in impact fees, but the road damage topped $3.5 billion. What a deal. From the information I have read, it takes an estimated 1,600 truck trips for a single fracked well.
As we can see from all the information and data provided in this article, the Great U.S. Shale Energy Industry has been a complete failure. Moreover, we are witnessing the U.S. Shale Gas Industry, COUNTDOWN to DISASTER. When the industry finally implodes, who will pay to properly cap the tens of thousands of fracked wells?? Who will fix the roads? What happens when the natural gas-electric generation supply drops considerably?
Yes, that is correct. The United States will be in serious trouble. However, Americans today have no clue that the U.S. Shale Energy Industry has made no real money, ripped off landowners of their royalty payments, polluted groundwater and destroyed countless roads across the country, all in the effort to make us "Energy Independent."
Well done....
Check back for new articles and updates at the SRSrocco Report.In the greatest combination of liquor and the mall food court since that time you drank a bunch of liquor and went to the mall food court, noted alcohol confectioners Pinnacle have announced the release of Cinnabon Vodka—a vodka that, at last, you don’t have to combine with Cinnabon yourself. Described as boasting “decadent flavors of cinnamon, brown sugar and rich cream cheese frosting with hints of caramel”—flavors that were, until now, notably missing from ordinary vodka—Cinnabon vodka is not-so-subtly being targeted at women, Ad Age reports, whose increased interest in sweetly flavored booze has convinced distillers that dames will drink anything, even a vodka that tastes like hot cream cheese.
Cinnabon vodka will be rolled out on January 1 (conveniently, the day when America already doesn’t feel like drinking, thanks), and supported with “a national sampling tour targeting ‘various brunch and happy-hour soirees,’” which it will then ruin with Cinnabon vodka. It is expected that some poor bastard, probably me, will have to Taste Test it for this very website. God damn it.
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The transformation of vodka into liquid Cinnabon is believed to be the second-most controversial redesign of the week.Apple’s next-generation iPhone 8 is slated to debut this coming September, and it should be released either later that month or sometime soon after. But new flagship iPhones always launch in September, right? While that has been true ever since Apple shifted its release from the early summer to the late summer, recent reports suggest that Apple and its manufacturing partners are having trouble with a key piece of technology expected to debut in Apple’s tenth-anniversary smartphone
According to those reports, Apple was faced with two options: either delay the launch or ditch the tech. And now, perhaps for the first time ever, loyal Apple fans are praying that the company’s hotly anticipated new iPhone is delayed.
Why is everyone hoping for a delay? The answer to that question lies in a leak that we showed you on Wednesday. As you’ll undoubtedly recall, a source with a mixed track record shared a leaked schematic drawing he claimed shows the iPhone 8’s rear housing design. Here’s the image in question:
The image shows a phone that looks like a flattened iPhone 5, but an extra hole can clearly be seen beneath the Apple logo. That hole, according to rumors, could be the relocated Touch ID fingerprint scanner. Apple has been working for years to embed its Touch ID sensor beneath the iPhone’s display, and the iPhone 8 was expected to be the first iPhone to feature the new tech. Apple is said to be having problems getting its new embedded scanner to a point where it can be mass-produced, however, so reports have suggested that the company is toying with relocating the scanner to the back of the phone.
As we mentioned in our earlier coverage, there’s a good chance that this is fake. If it’s real, it also might just be one of several designs Apple was experimenting with. We sincerely hope one of those two scenarios ends up being accurate, because this design is absolutely awful. We explained why in yesterday’s post, and it looks like even hardcore Apple fans agree that this iPhone design would be terrible.
Just about every single reaction we’ve seen to this leak has been negative. If you’re looking for one spot to check out the general consensus, this Reddit thread should suffice. The Apple subreddit is full of people who love Apple and just about any product it releases, but the idea of an iPhone 8 with a Touch ID scanner on the back is universally hated.
Most of the thread is just people commenting on how awful this design would be, in general. But one user made a very important point. “Just try holding your iPhone now and reaching your index finger that far below the Apple logo,” he or she wrote. “If this is true, it is a disastrous placement of touch ID, even worse than the [Galaxy S8] in my opinion.”
This is a fantastic point, and it’s probably the best indication that this leak is fake. As we noted in our Galaxy S8 review, Samsung’s fingerprint scanner placement on its new flagship phones is awful. The placement on the iPhone 8 pictured above is even worse, however. The idea of having to fumble with your phone to hit a fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone that’s positioned more than halfway down the phone might actually be nauseating.
The odds are fairly good that actual iPhone 8 components will begin leaking very soon, and our fingers are crossed that these schematics will quickly be debunked.X-Men: Blue #14 6 / 10 Reviewer {{ reviewsOverall }} / 10 Users (0 votes) BC Rating Summary Writer: Cullen Bunn, Artist: Jorge Molina, Color Artists: Matt Milla, Guru-eFX, Letters: VC's Joe Caramagna, Cover by: Arthur Adams and Peter Steigerwald, Graphic Designers: Jay Bowen, Anthony Gambino, Editor: Mark Paniccia, Assistant Editor: Christina Harrington, Publisher: Marvel Comics, Release Date: Out Now, Price: $3.99
Mojo’s magical mystery tour continues as news stations struggle to cut through his global broadcast. Inside his arenas, more and more X-Men are being picked off as one team fights the recreations of the Avengers and the other battles amalgams of their worst threats.
Magneto, Polaris, and Danger finally enter the fray, but Mojo already has a simulation lined up for these three.
Luckily, Longshot may have finally found a way to get the X-Men out of this predicament, but will things just get worse from there?
While I’m still a little iffy on the premise, I’m a little more onboard now that the story has entered some kind of groove. Plus, Magneto is in this book, and Cullen Bunn has worked absolute magic with that character before..
One of the main things that does keep the entertainment value high is Mojo. I’m digging the hell out of that yellow blob in this story. He’s funny, oddly charismatic, and absolutely disgusting. He’s like the child of Roadhog from Overwatch and the ghost of Roger Ailes. He’s kind of magical.
Of course, I suppose Roadhog could be the child of Ghost Rider and Mojo too, but, well, you get the point I’m illustrating.
Magneto finally taking the stage helps too, and the absolute glee he experiences while tearing through the Marauders which slaughtered the Morlocks so long ago is infectious. I so adore Magneto.
The overall plot is still a bit messy, with this less being a gauntlet of X-Men baddies and kind of snapshots of the X-Men fighting some of their old threats. And that does illustrate another issue I’ve had with this story. There’s very little tension in the individual battles being waged here. No weight has been placed on the X-Men winning any of these encounters. You’re just waiting for someone, and Longshot was likely the one to do it, to crack the code and get the teams out of there.
If this were some kind of actual gauntlet, the battles may be more interesting. However, as is, the fight scenes aren’t that absorbing.
This is especially true when (spoilers I guess?) you discover that Mojo has just been storing away the “dead” X-Men to use again later. Don’t get me wrong, that makes sense as a plot point, and it’s kind of a nice jab at how mainstream comic books handle death. However, establishing it sooner would have been a better plan so you don’t look like you’re just faking deaths for dramatic effect, which is another overused mainstream comic book trope ironically.
Jorge Molina’s artwork here is pretty good. He makes Mojo look absolutely grotesque, and I love it. The X-Men themselves look heroic and stalwart. The recreations of some old costumes look nice, and I dig that he gave Longshot is awful, awful mullet again. The color work by Matt Milla and Guru-eFX is solid too, with each scene having a nice range of colors to keep things lively.
While I didn’t hate this issue, I can’t quite recommend it. “Mojo Worldwide” is still riddled with problems, and a good number of them are baked-in to the premise itself. While Bunn, Molina, and company do their best to provide a good read here, it’s still just mediocre. I can’t say you should give it a pass, but I can’t recommend it either. Make of that what you will.
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About Joshua Davison Josh is a longtime super hero comic fan and an aspiring comic book and fiction writer himself. He also trades in videogames, Star Wars, and Magic: The Gathering, and he is also a budding film buff. He's always been a huge nerd, and he hopes to contribute something of worth to the wider geek culture conversation. He is also happy to announce that he is the new Reviews Editor for Bleeding Cool. Follow on Twitter @joshdavisonbolt.
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Related PostsCat lovers, brace yourselves for the good news. Vancouver is about to get its very own cat café where you can enjoy a coffee and play with one of the Catfé’s cat hosts.
According to Metro News, Catfé’ founder and owner Michelle Furbacher hopes to have the ball rolling by this coming September.
“People will meet the cats, fall in love with them and maybe want to adopt them,” said Furbacher. Of course, spending time with animals will also reduce the stress levels and it is the perfect opportunity to play with a kitty for those who do not own pets.
The cafés are popular in Asia, particularly in Japan and Korea, and Europe and have only just begun to arrive in North America.
However, there are major hurdles to get the Catfé concept open with Canada’s stricter food and safety regulations. Speaking with the newspaper, she is also in discussion with local animal shelters on creating a business model that helps sheltered cats find permanent homes with loving families.
Besides cats, food and beverages, there will also be Wi-Fi, a small library space and event space. Cat owners will not be permitted to bring their own cats. A location for the first Vancouver Cat Cafe has not been finalized.
For more information and updates on Vancouver Catfé, follow their Facebook page.
However, there is no word on when Vancouver will get its first Dog Café. Yes, they exist too:
Featured Image: Cats in cups via Shutterstock
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DH Vancouver Staff Daily Hive is the evolution of Vancity Buzz, established in Vancouver in 2008. In 2016, the publication rebranded and opened newsrooms in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. Send story tips to @DailyHiveVan @DailyHiveVancouver Daily Hive is the evolution of Vancity Buzz, established in Vancouver in 2008. In 2016, the publication rebranded and opened newsrooms in Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. Send story tips to [email protected]
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Great players don’t always make great teachers.
Babe Ruth couldn’t get hired as a manager. Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky were nowhere near as successful building or coaching a team as they were playing on one.
For chess it’s a little murkier. Tarrasch, Nimzovich and Reti were not only world-class players in their day, but among the greatest theoreticians the game has ever known. Both Capablanca (“Chess Fundamentals”) and Fischer (“Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess”) wrote instructional manuals that are still rewarding reads today. Botvinnik, Bronstein and Tal all produced annotated game collections that are among the classics of the genre.
But it is also striking that some of the best and most influential teaching books of modern times were written by good-but-not-great players, from Irving Chernev and Hans Kmoch to IMs such as Jeremy Silman and John Watson. (Silman’s “How to Reassess Your Chess” may be the most recommended book out there for players looking to kick their game up a notch.)
American chess lost another of those prolific IMs this month with the death of Danny Kopec June 12 at the age of 62. The Brooklyn University computer science professor had some notable successes at the board, including a New York high school championship, several top-three finishes at the U.S. Open and the Scottish national championship in 1980 and 1981.
But Kopec’s most lasting legacy will likely be a string of fine instructional books and articles, an annual chess camp and one of the first sets of teaching videos for chess. Today’s game finds Kopec applying some of his own lesson plans to defeat Nick DeFirmian, one of the strongest American grandmasters of his era, in a 1985 game.
In a Torre Attack that bears a strong resemblance to the Sicilian Poisoned Pawn lines, Kopec as White shows himself equal to the dynamic demands of the position on 8. Rb5! Qxa2 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Ne4 a6 (see diagram; two pawns up, Black will be fine if he can develop his pieces) 11. Rxc5!! Bxc5 12. dxc5!, leaving the Black king mercilessly exposed.
DeFirmian tries to find relief in flight (15Rf8? loses to 16. Qg5+ f6 17. Qg7+ Rf7 18. Qxf7+ Kd8 19. Qf8+ and mate next), but after 21. Bxb5! Rb8 (cxb5 22. Nb5+ forks king and queen) 22. Bxc6 Rxb3 23. cxb3 Qxb3+ 24. Kd2 Qb2+ 25. Kd3 Kxc6 26. Nc4! Qb3+ 27. Kd4, the White king is safe — and even contributes to the attack — while the Black monarch’s woes remain.
The end comes on 28. Qe7! (threatening 29. Qd6+ Kb7 30. c6+, winning the queen) Kb5 29. Rb1!, and Black resigns as 29Qxb1 30. Na3+ is winning.
–
The real Olympics — the 42nd World Chess Olympiad — kicks off Sept. 1 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and, on paper at least, the U.S. will be sending perhaps its strongest team ever. The U.S. Chess Federation confirmed late last week that GMs Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So — Nos. 3, 6 and 10 in the current FIDE world rankings — will lead the team.
The Americans last medaled in the biennial event in 2008 and last took gold in 1976 — when the then-Soviet Union team was boycotting the event.
Kopec-DeFirmian, 1985
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bg5 c5 4. e3 Qb6 5. Nbd2 Qxb2 6. Rb1 Qc3 7. Rb3 Qa5 8. Rb5 Qxa2 9. Bxf6 gxf6 10. Ne4 a6 11. Rxc5 Bxc5 12. dxc5 Qa5+ 13. Nfd2 f5 14. Nd6+ Ke7 15. Qh5 Qa1+ 16. Ke2 b5 17. Qxf7+ Kd8 18. Nb3 Qc3 19. Kd1 Nc6 20. Bd3 Kc7 21. Bxb5 Rb8 22. Bxc6 Rxb3 23. cxb3 Qxb3+ 24. Kd2 Qb2+ 25. Kd3 Kxc6 26. Nc4 Qb3+ 27. Kd4 Qb4 28. Qe7 Kb5 29. Rb1 Black resigns.
• David R. Sands can be reached at 202/636-3178 or by email at [email protected]
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.What is Unhaggle?
Unhaggle is a Canadian automotive buying, pricing and data company. Our free price report let's you know
what others paid for new cars in your area as well as the invoice pricing (what dealers pay), helping you negotiate the lowest price.
New or Used - Which Car Should I Buy?
Should you buy a new car or a used one? It’s a common question among car buyers. Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as simple as it seems. There are pros and cons in each case. Some prefer new vehicles because they offer more customization options and require next to no maintenance fees, but others slam them because they lose a good chunk of their resale value as soon as they are driven off the dealership lot.
So, which one should you choose then? Check out the infographic below to help you weigh the pros and cons.
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<p><strong>Infographic provided by new car pricing site <a href='http://www.unhaggle.com/'>Unhaggle</a>.</strong><br /><br /><a href='http://www.unhaggle.com/new-or-used-car/s/'><img src='https://s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/uh-dn-media/uploads/new-or-used-which-car-should-i-buy-infographic.png' alt='Infographic: New or Used - Which Car Should I buy? | Unhaggle' width='900px' border='0' /></a></p>
What is Unhaggle?
Unhaggle is a Canadian automotive buying, pricing and data company. Our free price report let's you know
what others paid for new cars in your area as well as the invoice pricing (what dealers pay), helping you negotiate the lowest price.Beer Map: Two Giant Brewers, 210 Brands
In the past decade, a few big beer companies went on a buying spree, spending some $195 billion to buy up brewers around the world, according to Bloomberg.
Beer drinkers can be excused for not noticing. Unlike, say, airlines, which fold their acquisitions into one big, global brand, big beer companies tend to keep the brands they buy in the market.
As a result, the two biggest beer companies on the planet — Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller — now own more than 200 brands based in 42 countries (including 18 in the U.S. alone). We've put together this handy guide so you can know whose beer you're really drinking.
The story of Anheuser-Busch InBev's rise to global dominance is all about consolidation. Inbev was born out of a merger of Belgian brewer, Interbrew, and Latin American brewer, Companhia de Bebidas das Américas aka AmBev, in 2004. That same year, Anheuser-Busch grew by acquiring one of China's biggest brewers, Harbin. The company we know today came about when InBev bought the American/Chinese powerhouse, Anheuser-Busch, for $52 billion dollars in 2008.
SAB Miller, the number two global brewer, got its name in 2002 after South African Breweries bought Miller. Just a couple years later, the firm grew by buying up the second largest brewer in South America, Bavaria. Two years later, they launched a joint venture in the U.S. with MolsonCoors* to create MillerCoors. In 2011, they bought Australia's biggest brewer, Foster's, and took a big stake in Russia's second biggest brewer, Efes.
These days, the beer market is increasingly about the world outside the United States. The fastest growing beer market in the world right now is China, and several South American markets are growing rapidly as well. That's why brewing giants like ABI are trying to snap up brewing operations all over the globe. Just last April, ABI paid $1.2 billion for a big stake in Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana, the Dominancan Republic national brewer, which brews Presidente beer.
That's why Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI), the world's largest brewer, wants to buy the world's seventh largest brewer, the Mexican brewer, Grupo Modelo.
The buyout offer would give ABI control of 46 percent of the U.S. beer market (it has 39 percent of the U.S. beer market and Grupo Modelo has 7 percent). That alarmed the Department of Justice's antitrust division so much they sued to stop the merger.
But ABI really wants to make this deal happen. The company even agreed to sell off the right to sell Corona in the U.S. The move is an attempt to appease U.S. regulators, but it hints at something larger — ABI's interest in the market outside the U.S.
"The AB InBev and Grupo Modelo transaction has always been about Mexico and making Corona more global in all markets other than the U.S.," the company said in a recent press release.
*Clarification: The MillerCoors joint venture applies to the U.S. MolsonCoors still has sole ownership of Blue Moon and Coors Light outside the U.S.*A Republican state legislator in Missouri has proposed legislation that would make it a felony for lawmakers to introduce legislation to restrict Second Amendment rights in the state.
Legislation introduced Monday by state Rep. Mike Leara (R-St. Louis) would make state legislators guilty of a Class D felony if they introduce legislation "that further restricts an individual's right to bear arms." Leara said that the bill is needed because he sees a growing number of his colleagues looking to take away gun rights from the state's residents.
“We seem to be having a lot of people willing to further restrict our constitutional rights and take our rights," Leara told The Huffington Post. "It is a push-back to the people who don’t believe in our constitutional rights. There have to be consequences to removing our constitutional rights.”
Leara said recent legislation which would ban assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines from being manufactured or carried in Missouri pushed him to introduce his bill. Under the assault weapons ban introduced by state Rep. Rory Ellinger (D-University City), Missouri residents who own assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would have 90 days to remove them from Missouri after the bill takes effect.
Ellinger's bill was referred to the state House General Laws Committee on Monday, but no hearing date has been scheduled by the committee.
“That went too far," Leara said of Ellinger's bill. "It was a confiscation bill without compensation.”
According to the website of the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission, those guilty of a class D felony can be sentenced to up to four years in jail and can receive a probation sentence of between one and five years. The text of Leara's legislation has not been posted on the state website.
Leara said that he does not think his bill will face problems in terms of its constitutionality under the First Amendment or a provision in the state constitution giving legislators immunity from arrest for official actions.
“If we attempted to take away people’s constitutional rights outside the legislative process or civil rights, there would be consequences," Leara said. "I believe there have to be consequences for this. I value our Second Amendment rights as importantly as civil rights.”
Leara's legislation is the latest in a series of pro-Second Amendment bills being introduced in state legislatures around the country. They include a series of bills to prohibit the enforcement of federal gun bans in states, a bill in Mississippi to create a nullification commission, and a bill in Kansas that would prohibit doctors from asking about gun ownership.
State Rep. Stephen Webber (D-Columbia) told HuffPost that there "are a ton of bad bills filed every year" but said that the legislature should have discussions about them anyway. The bill will likely be stopped by the legislative process or courts, he said. Leara should pursue defeating bills in the legislature, rather than focusing on felony legislation, Webber added.
Webber also noted that he has concerns over the content of the bill.During the Soweto uprising—a series of black student–led protests against apartheid—Julia Mavimbela noticed how hate and anger were affecting the youth in her hometown. So she created a community garden as a way to help the youth deal with their feelings, the same feelings she had felt after the death of her husband. “Let us dig the soil of bitterness, throw in a seed of love, and see what fruits it can give us…. Love will not come without forgiving others.”
In 1981, Julia met missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while they were working together to clean up a boys’ club in Soweto. Soon after, she began taking the missionary discussions. At first, she was not really interested, but then the missionaries began to teach the plan of salvation. “Then I started listening, really listening, with my heart…. As the missionaries taught me the principle of eternal relationships, I had the feeling that here is the way to be with my parents and my husband.” Within months, Julia was baptized.
Soon after joining the Church, Julia was asked to speak in stake conference. Julia recalled: “When I walked to the podium, I think most everybody was shocked. It was their first time seeing a black person speaking at conference.” She served the Church in many capacities, including as a Relief Society president, a public affairs missionary, and a public affairs director for the Church in South Africa. After the dedication of the Johannesburg South Africa Temple, Julia was sealed to her parents and husband and became one of the first temple workers there. She continued to serve until her passing in 2000.In the early Eighties tens of thousands of Britons scoured the puzzle book ‘Masquerade’ for clues about the location of a Golden Hare – now the classic treasure hunt is set to be reinvented for the digital age.
Unveiled at the London Book Fair, ‘The Great Global Treasure Hunt on Google Earth’ will provide a series of drawings that include visual and textual puzzles described by publisher Carlton Books as “ferociously complicated”.
The book will then lead readers to places on Google’s online global map, Google Earth, and ultimately to a single destination. Readers who submit the answer online between the September 1 launch and the end of March will be entered into a draw for a €50,000 prize.
Patterns and outlines found in satellite imagery, scenery, directions from one place to another or simply thematic connections in Google Earth will provide a piece of the puzzle, which will ultimately point to a place that could be anywhere in the world. Readers will not, however, need to visit it.
“The Great Global Treasure Hunt” is written by Tim Dedopulos, a former editor of Mensa puzzles who has previously written a history of wizards along with more than 90 other puzzle books. “Most images have 10 -12 separate clues,” he said. “That might lead you to a certain pattern of roads or the way a piece of parkland looks on Google Earth and then to a main clue.”
The new book recalls the UK craze set off by Masquerade, launched in 1979. The children’s book, written by Kit Williams, concealed a series of 15 major clues in pictures telling the story of Jack Hare’s quest to carry treasure from the Moon to the Sun.
A ceramic casket concealing jewels and a Golden Hare was eventually unearthed in 1982 near Ampthill, Bedfordshire, although the first person to claim the prize was later found to have cheated.
Mr Dedopulos said that he genuinely believes anyone could solve his treasure hunt. As the publication is worldwide, the winner will not even need any specific maths or language skills. “It doesn’t require any mighty intellect,” he claimed. “But it is difficult.”
The Great Global Treasure Hunt on Google Earth will be published in September for £9.99.Toronto Mayor John Tory says he is open to following Vancouver's lead by imposing a tax on vacant homes to crack down on speculators, as pressure mounts on governments of all levels to rein in the runaway real estate market.
"Vancouver recently implemented a vacant-home tax. And I am open to exploring whether this would be the right measure for Toronto," Mr. Tory told reporters on Thursday after a closed-door meeting with housing experts that he convened to discuss the city's accelerating affordability crisis.
"I look at housing as a place to live for people in this city," Mr. Tory said. "That is what I view as my responsibility, not to look after the investment needs of people who chose real estate as their investment target. They'll look after themselves."
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The idea comes amid continued warnings that Toronto's real estate market, where the average price of a detached single-family home is $1.6-million, is a bubble waiting to burst.
An RBC Economics report released Thursday warns that house prices haven't been so unaffordable in Toronto since 1990, just before housing markets went into a "deep and prolonged slump." Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa has signalled that some sort of action on the housing market is coming in his government's budget, expected next month.
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have shown that stupidity should not be rooted out of the organization completely: it can be an important resource that organizations should cultivate, maintain, and engineer. In many cases, a dose of functional stupidity is what is required. Employing very highly qualified people may be a disservice to them and to the organization. Supporting a degree of functional stupidity is an important managerial task. Fourth, and counter to the previous point, managers should seek to guard against excess functional stupidity. We have pointed out that while functional stupidity may help organizations to function, it can have negative consequences such as disappointment and failures. In order to avoid these, practitioners must be willing strategically to inject some aspects of critical thinking into organizational life. This will help to unsettle forms of functional stupidity that have become too ingrained. In this sense, a central task for many managers is to strike a balance between the intelligent use of knowledge on the one hand, and propagation of functional stupidity on the other. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we hope that the concept of functional stupidity will facilitate more critical reflection on smart organizations. In particular, we hope to prompt wider debate about why it is that smart organizations can be so stupid at times.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Earlier versions of this paper were presented at EGOS, July 2009 in Barcelona, the 2009 Academy of Management Congress in Chicago, Free University of Berlin, University of Paris Dauphine, and the University of Queensland. We are grateful to JMS editor, Joep Cornelissen, as well as Emma Jeanes, Dan Kärreman, Karen Lee Ashcraft, Dennis Tourish, and Hugh Willmott for comments on earlier drafts.DELTA COUNTY, MI - Some residents of Garden Peninsula, a scenic Upper Peninsula community on Lake Michigan's northern shore, say power-generating turbines have hurt their quality of life and will kill birds, including eagles and other protected species, on migratory routes. The residents and Garden Peninsula Foundation have filed a federal lawsuit against Traverse City-based Heritage Sustainable Energy seeking damages and asking that the project, with 14 turbines, be re-evaluated or abandoned. They are also trying to stop expansion. "Putting it out there and having to live with it was bad enough, but now, to have an expansion is unconscionable," attorney Susan Hlyway Topp told MLive and The Grand Rapids Press. Heritage Garden Wind Farm, which generates enough power to supply nearly half of the households in Delta County with clean energy, contends it is a good neighbor. At this point, it has no plans to expand, although there are property owners who would welcome turbines on their land, said Rick Wilson, vice president of operations. He said that his company "is in compliance with all county, state and federal regulations." Wilson said the foundation's claims "have no merit," and he vowed that "Heritage will vigorously defend itself in court." The attorney for the property owners believes this is the first such federal case filed in Michigan. The case is being handled in U.S. District Court in Marquette. The wind farm became operational in September 2012, with 14 2-megawatt wind turbines. The company said it has been well-received by the community, bringing jobs, particularly during construction, tax money, and royalties to 53 landowners who are expected to share $250,000 to $400,000 every year. The project encompasses 10,000 acres. During construction, $10 million went into the local community, with over 40 local and regional businesses in the Upper Peninsula used for site work, equipment rental, fuel, materials, food and lodging. In all, 75 workers took part in construction, the company said. The company contends animal mortality rates are similar to those in other places in the U.S., with assessments ongoing. "We really have long-standing, conservation-minded owners and staff," Wilson said. The lawsuit tells another story. The residents listed in the lawsuit, which also names Kenneth Salazar, U.S. Secretary of Interior, and the U.S. Fish and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as defendants, say their quality of life - and property values - have been diminished by "the disturbing audible noise, vibrations, and shadow flicker from the wind turbines (that) have invaded the individual plaintiffs' homes and properties...." Then, there is the high cost to wildlife, the lawsuit said. The foundation contends that the Fish and Wildlife Service, in a Nov. 4, 2011, letter to the power company, recommended against constructing the energy development in the Garden Peninsula "due to the high potential for avian mortalities and violations of Federal Wildlife laws, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act." Wetlands and the peninsula itself act as a "funnel" for migratory birds crossing Lake Michigan. The lawsuit said the plaintiffs believe that reports have been submitted to the Fish and Wildlife Service showing that eagles have been killed in the 450-feet-high turbines. The Fish and Wildlife Service strongly disagreed with an expert for Heritage over his assessment of avian risk, and said it "is likely to pose a very high risk for avian mortalities, including a high risk for bald eagle mortalities," the lawsuit said. The lawsuit said the Fish and Wildlife Service said no turbines should be located within 3 miles of the shoreline, which would make placement on the peninsula difficult. Topp and co-counsel F. Michelle Halley contended in the lawsuit that leaders of Garden Township and Delta County had "no experience with or understanding of the likely adverse effects of the massive noisy machines" when the turbines were constructed. Residents were told the turbines would be no louder than a refrigerator. "Those representations were false," the attorneys wrote. The township late last year passed a nuisance noise abatement ordinance but the lawsuit said it has not yet gone into effect. "These turbines were constructed and began operation with no environmental impact assessment performed by any federal or state agency, despite known use of the area for nesting, foraging and migration by numerous birds including eagles and protected species," the lawsuit said. "The Foundation and its members believe that the activities which are the subject of this action either will or are likely to unlawfully impair or destroy natural resources, including but not limited to rare, threatened, endangered or protected avian and bat wildlife and their natural habitat in the Garden Peninsula, including eagles, Kirtland's Warbler, Piping Plover, the Rufa red knot, other migratory birds and bats in violation of the Michigan Environmental Protection Act," the lawsuit said. The foundation is described as a grassroots organization of property owners in Garden Peninsula. "The foundation brings this action on its own behalf and also on behalf of its adversely affected members who live in and recreate in the Garden Peninsula and who enjoy the local ecosystem and the species within the ecosystem for recreation, scientific, spiritual, educational, aesthetic, and other purposes. These members also include Garden community residents, including farmers, living in close proximity to the Garden Wind Farm Project who enjoy the natural benefits provided by the migratory birds, avian and bat wildlife, such as tourism during migration periods, photography and insect control," the lawsuit said. John Agar covers crime for MLive/Grand Rapids Press
E-mail John Agar: jagar@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReporterJAgarBeing publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high quality content. Please support us!
Who doesn’t love houseplants? Something about crisp, green, growing leaves seems to brighten up any room. But did you know that houseplants can elevate mood, enhance creativity, promote wellness, and according to studies by NASA, Associated Landscape Contractors of America, and the American Society for Horticultural Science, they also purify indoor air?
Our modern day homes are rife with pollutants that can cause a host of health problems. Chemicals from furniture, floor coverings, paints, detergents, air fresheners, and household cleaners can hover inside poorly ventilated homes, as well as those with good airflow. Fortunately, there are many houseplants that will filter these chemicals and clean air naturally, as well as brighten up your living space.
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Below is a list of the best houseplants for cleaning the toxins out of the air in your home:
1. English Ivy
This charming evergreen vine grows happily in low or indirect light conditions. The leaves are poisonous, so keep them away from pets and kids. Fortunately, English Ivy enjoys containers and hanging baskets, and brightens up shelves and dark corners beautifully. Studies have shown that English Ivy is effective at removing benzene, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, as well as other allergens such as mold and airborne fecal matter. Hang one near your pet’s letterbox, or in the bathroom.
2. Peace Lily
The beautiful broad green leaves and cupped white blooms of the peace lily is a favorite in the NASA study for removing the three most common pollutants: formaldehyde, benzene, and trichloroethylene. Peace lilies will thrive and flower in bright light. They can handle lowlight conditions, though they may not produce blooms. Keep the foliage and flowers clear of dust to maximize their detoxifying power. The plant is poisonous as well, so keep it out of reach of kids and pets.
3. Bamboo Palm
This sturdy palm can grow tall, between 3 to 6 feet, and is an elegant plant in any room. It’s effective at removing the formaldehyde often used in furniture, so arrange it next to chairs, couches, and end tables, in indirect light. During dryer winter months, the bamboo palm can also add a bit of welcome moisture to the air.
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4. Ficus
Ficus is a tropical looking evergreen with twisting roots and bright green, shiny leaves. It’s effective at removing pollutants from furniture and carpets, though it can be a bit temperamental to grow. Keep the leaves clear of dust and water moderately.
5. Dracaena
The sword shaped leaves of the Dracena plant can come in a variety of colors and variations, and can easily reach ceiling height when cared for properly. This plant is best for ridding the air of chemicals found in lacquers, varnishes, and gasoline. Also known as a Corn Plant, the Dracena is a dramatic, but fairly easy plant to maintain.
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6. Chrysanthemum
You’re probably already familiar with these colorful flowers. Mums are popular in bouquets, but as a potted plant, they are excellent at filtering out chemicals found in glues, paints, detergents, and plastics. Chrysanthemums love bright light, and add a gorgeous pop of color to any room.
7. Golden Pothos
Pothos are excellent for filtering out formaldehyde and stays green, even if kept in the dark, which makes it ideal for basements and garages. A proficient grower, Pothos is great in containers and hanging pots where its trailing vines can tumble over the pot’s edge.
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8. Snake Plant
A common, if not slightly offensive, nickname for this blade-like plant is mother-in-law’s-tongue. It’s awesome at filtering out chemicals found in toilet paper, tissues, and other toiletry products. It enjoys low light and humid conditions, which makes it ideal for bathrooms.
9. Spider Plant
Often considered a gift plant, since the Spider Plant produces runners with ‘babies’ that can easily be transplanted. Spider Plants filter out chemicals emitted from leather and rubber. This resilient plant takes very little maintenance, and can get by happily without water. It will tell you it’s thirsty when the green of the long, skinny, striped leaves fade. A little water will perk it right back up!
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10. Aloe
Aloe is an excellent low maintenance plant for sunny locations. It’s great at removing chemicals from paints and chemical cleaning products, and the gel inside the succulent spiked leaves can be used to relieve cuts and burns. Aloe is a slow grower, but it can get quite large.
The recommended rule of thumb is one potted houseplant every 100 square feet, but you really can’t have too many houseplants for good air quality. Here’s a list of even more air cleaning plants. Display plants in groups to maximize their filtering power and create a lovely aesthetic. And then…breathe easy!
Image source: Merec0 / Wikimedia CommonsBig Bug Man is an unreleased animated superhero television movie that was Written by Simpson's Writer Bob Bendetson (Who was also co-director) along with Family Guy director Peter Shin and starred the voices of Brendan Fraser and Marlon Brando. It was noteworthy for being Brando's last film (his last performance would be for The Godfather Game, or at least most of it if not all of it). The film starred Fraser as Howard Kind, an employee of a candy factory that is bitten by bugs and becomes the superhero Big Bug Man. However, he soon becomes corrupted by the business world.
Marlon Brando had initially been approached to play the part of evil businessman, Nicholas Dunderbeck, but Brando, who had always wanted to play a woman, decided to play the small role of the elderly candy company founder, Mrs. Sour, instead. When the directors arrived at his home to record him, they found that Brando had even dressed up in a wig, dress, gloves and makeup to get into character. Brando was frail and required oxygen throughout the recording, but he remarked it was the most fun he had since acting in Julius Ceasar. He died the very next month on July 1, 2004.
The film was scheduled to be released in 2006, then 2007, then in 2008. However, nothing has been heard regarding the project's release since, and its future is uncertain. Storyboard sequences have been since found online.[1][2]
Big Bug Man News Piece regarding Brando's involvement in the film. Advertisement poster for the film.2 You know that the place of worship for Sikhs is Gurudwara, but which is considered the most significant and holy of Sikh shrines?
Harimandir Sahib, Amritsar
All of these Gurudwaras are in India. In the fifteenth century, a lake existed at the site of the temple. The fourth Sikh Guru, Guru Ram Das, enlarged the lake and encouraged people to settle in the area. His successor, Guru Arjan Dev had the Gurudwara constructed in the centre of the lake. Ironically, he asked a Muslim to lay the foundation of the Gurudwara (Sikhs and Muslims were bitter enemies in those days). The Gurudwara is plated with gold and is hence informally known as Golden Temple. It is actually quite beautiful, so everyone would have a look at it. The lake is called Amritsar (The lake containing the Nectar of Immortality) and is considered very sacred. The city that grew around the Gurudwara is known as Amritsar too.Requiring employees in the United States to speak a foreign language is not discriminatory but forcing them to speak English violates federal law under a sweeping order issued by the Obama administration to crack down on “national origin discrimination” in the workplace. The government’s new enforcement guidelines state that bilingual requirements don’t meet discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act but English-only rules do because they’re restrictive language policies.
The administration asserts that the new rules, which cover a broad range of scenarios that could get employers in trouble, were created because the American workforce is “increasingly ethnically diverse.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, made them public a few days ago. “The increased cultural diversity of today’s workplaces presents new and evolving issues with respect to Title VII’s protection against national origin discrimination,” the agency writes in the lengthy document. “This enforcement guidance will assist EEOC staff in their investigation of national origin discrimination charges and provide information for applicants, employees, and employers to understand their respective rights and responsibilities under Title VII.”
Two years ago, the administration laid the foundation for the new measures by suing a private American business for discriminating against Hispanic and Asian employees because they didn’t speak English on the job. The case involved a Green Bay Wisconsin metal and plastic manufacturer that fired a group of Hmong and Hispanic workers over their English skills. Forcing employees to speak English in the U.S. violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC claimed in its lawsuit. That’s because the Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination based on national origin, which includes the linguistic characteristics of a national origin group. Therefore, the EEOC argued, foreigners have the right to speak their native language even during work hours at an American company that requires English.
Now the agency has created official federal rules to support this absurd theory as well as other innovative discrimination categories, including “multiple protected bases.” This is a seldom recognized but potent Molotov cocktail of prejudice based on race, color and religion. As an example, the new rules mention discrimination against Middle Easterners perceived to “follow particular religious practices.” Among the amusing hypotheticals embedded in the rules is an Egyptian named Thomas who alleges he was harassed by his coworkers about his Arab ethnicity and Islam. “Thomas’ charge should assert national origin, race and religious discrimination,” the EEOC writes, referring to its new “multiple protected bases” category. The agency reassures that it will protect Middle Easterners, stating that “Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on the perception that someone is from the Middle East or is of Arab ethnicity, regardless of how she identifies herself or whether she is, in fact, from one or more Middle Eastern countries or ethnically Arab.”
Employers that use Social Security requirements to screen applicants are warned that they may be charged with discrimination because it disproportionately eliminates individuals of a certain national origin and has a disparate impact based on national origin. That makes Social Security screens “unlawful under Title VII unless the employer establishes that the policy or practice is job related and consistent with business necessity,” the EEOC rules say. Here’s another good one involving prejudice in hiring: “Reliance on word-of-mouth recruiting may magnify existing ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity in a workplace and result in the exclusion of qualified applicants from different national origin groups,” the EEOC rules state. That would constitute a violation of federal law, the EEOC points out, because the employer’s actions have a discriminating effect based on national origin.
Under Obama the EEOC has strong-armed private businesses and government agencies into adopting the administration’s leftist agenda and inflated standards of political correctness. Last fiscal year the agency celebrated getting a record $525 million in settlements for reported victims of discrimination in both private and public sector jobs. One of the EEOC’s biggest cases involved a national clothing retailer that specializes in hip casual wear for youngsters and refused to change a rule banning head covers for employees. The agency sued the company for religious discrimination because it wouldn’t allow a Muslim woman to wear a hijab to work. In another victory, a national retailer was forced to pay $2.5 million to black job candidates that had been screened with criminal background checks. The EEOC asserts background checks have a disparate impact on African Americans and the administration has bullied companies into eliminating them.Dogs are better than chimps at interpreting pointing gestures, according to a study published in the online journal PLoS ONE.
Katharina Kirchhofer, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, led a team in the investigation of 20 chimps and 32 dogs presented with the same task: retrieving an object the experimenter wanted, as indicated by the experimenter pointing. The researchers found that the dogs performed well, but the chimps failed to identify the object of interest.
These results emphasize the difference in chimp response to human gaze, which they have been shown to be good at following, versus gestures.
"The fact that chimpanzees do not understand communicative intentions of others, suggests that this may be a uniquely human form of communication. The dogs however challenge this hypothesis. We therefore need to study in more detail the mechanisms behind dogs' understanding of human forms of communication," says Dr. Kirchhofer.The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “satellite,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic. Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000 miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles. Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by amateur radio operators. Those in the United States with access to such equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere.
Officially, Sputnik was launched to correspond with the International Geophysical Year, a solar period that the International Council of Scientific Unions declared would be ideal for the launching of artificial satellites to study Earth and the solar system. However, many Americans feared more sinister uses of the Soviets’ new rocket and satellite technology, which was apparently strides ahead of the U.S. space effort. Sputnik was some 10 times the size of the first planned U.S. satellite, which was not scheduled to be launched until the next year. The U.S. government, military, and scientific community were caught off guard by the Soviet technological achievement, and their united efforts to catch up with the Soviets heralded the beginning of the “space race.”
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The first U.S. satellite, Explorer, was launched on January 31, 1958. By then, the Soviets had already achieved another ideological victory when they launched a dog into orbit aboard Sputnik 2. The Soviet space program went on to achieve a series of other space firsts in the late 1950s and early 1960s: first man in space, first woman, first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on the moon. However, the United States took a giant leap ahead in the space race in the late ’60s with the Apollo lunar-landing program, which successfully landed two Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface of the moon in July 1969.A week before council must decide whether to approve and fund at least $1.3 billion for eight new stations as part of expanded GO service, several construction issues remain unresolved. Resolving them could come with unknown costs, which have yet to be spelled out and do not appear to be included in current estimates for the costs of building those stations. It’s not clear if those issues can be clarified ahead of a vote next week.
Some of the proposed stops in mayor John Tory's revamped SmartTrack plan face construction issues ahead of a funding vote. ( Richard Lautens / Toronto Star )
The stations include six branded as part of a heavily-revised version of Tory’s campaign promise to build a separate heavy-rail service he called “SmartTrack.” “Like any project of this size, there will be detailed technical and engineering work that needs to be done, and we will work with our partners to address them,” Tory’s spokesperson Amanda Galbraith said in an email. “Bottom line, as opposed to finding ways to say no to building transit, will we use our expertise and know-how to find ways to yes.” A proposed Spadina station, an addition to the Barrie GO corridor south of Front St. and just west of Spadina Ave. which is not a SmartTrack station, has the “potential to significantly impact future train operations and storage needs,” the report says, and that “further feasibility analysis is required.”
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Metrolinx currently uses seven storage tracks at the proposed Spadina station location to park trains that could be needed quickly for service, spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins told the Star. Two of those tracks would be needed to build the Spadina station, she said, and Metrolinx would need to identify an alternative storage location “in reasonable proximity to Union Station.” Another non-SmartTrack station planned for Bloor-Lansdowne comes with the caveat that the Bloor Street West rail bridge “may require” widening to accommodate rail infrastructure. The terms of the new deal with the province propose the city contribute $60 million to those two non-SmartTrack stations. The proposed Lawrence East SmartTrack station presents a conflict with the city’s plans to build a single-stop subway extension to the Scarborough Town Centre. The station can’t be built until the existing Scarborough RT station at Lawrence is decommissioned, what’s not likely to happen until the subway is in service. The subway was not estimated to be complete until at least late 2025, but is already behind schedule. Staff wrote that Metrolinx and the city are considering delaying the opening of that SmartTrack station until the subway is finished. And city staff say that a Gerrard SmartTrack station near Carlaw and Pape avenues should be shifted to better serve the local community and connect with a future subway relief line. But that plan is different from the option studied by Metrolinx. Staff wrote “further analysis is needed to determine potential impacts of this shift on Gerrard Square.”
“The SmartTrack and RER stations are at the very early concept stage-and much more study and planning work is required,” Aikins said. “Councillors will not be voting on final designs at this stage.” In their report, staff noted one potentially significant unforeseen snag: That one of the SmartTrack stations proposed at the former Unilever site might physically conflict with the Tory-backed $1-billion plan to rebuild the Gardiner.
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But Aikins, the Metrolinx spokesperson, said in an email Tuesday that “as part of the due diligence process for a new Unilever Station, sufficient clearance was identified between the top of road for the proposed ramps from the eastbound and westbound Gardiner to the bottom of the rail bridge.” After the Star asked the city to clarify, city spokesperson Wynna Brown responded late Tuesday night to say “city staff confirm (Metrolinx) has advised there is sufficient clearance.” As part of the $1.25 billion required to build the SmartTrack stations, staff have assumed the federal government will contribute $417.1 million in promised infrastructure funding, leaving the city alone to fund the remaining share. Council will vote on the plan, which would commit them to fully funding the construction of the six SmartTrack stations along with annual operating and day-to-day maintenance costs, on Nov. 8. RELATED: More GTA news stories on Thestar.com
Read more about:Earlier this week, The Panic Virus, my book on the controversy over vaccines and autism, was released in paperback. While there haven't been many scientific advances in this particular issue since the hardcover edition was published -- the evidence supporting vaccines' paramount place in public health efforts and the total lack of corroboration supporting a causal connection between vaccines and autism remain as strong today as they were a year ago -- there have been new developments in the story. Their coverage highlights an enduring passion of mine: The need for reliable, responsible science journalism.
Last January, Andrew Wakefield, the discredited British gastroenterologist whose 1998 paper sparked the first wave of fears that vaccines might be causally connected to autism, was further disgraced when the editors of the British Medical Journal for a litany of moral, ethical, and professional misdeeds -- including an incident where he paid children at his young son's birthday party to donate their blood for his experiments.) With little left to lose, Wakefield seemed to fully embrace the fringe: In June, he headlined a rally titled "The Masterplan: The Hidden Agenda for a Global Scientific Dictatorship" with a cohort of 9/11 Truthers, One World Government conspiracists, and anti-fluoridationists.
2011 proved equally inglorious for Mark and David Geier, a father-son research team that is almost as lionized as Wakefield himself in anti-vaccine circles. For years, the Geiers have peddled a sham "cure" for autism that involves regular injections of Lupron, a powerful drug used to chemically castrate sex offenders. (In additional to being incredibly painful, the Geiers' "Lupron protocol" is very expensive: Treatment at one of their clinics can cost up to $70,000 or more a year.) In April, an investigation by the Maryland State Board of Physicians found the Geiers' treatment "endangers autistic children and exploits their parents by administering to the children a treatment protocol that has a known substantial risk of serious harm and which is neither consistent with evidence-based medicine nor generally accepted in the relevant scientific community." By the end of the year, Mark Geier's license to practice medicine had been suspended in California, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington State; his son, meanwhile, had been charged with practicing medicine without a license.
These revelations, were, for the most part, reported in a way that accurately emphasized the moral and scientific bankruptcy of anti-vaccine claims. Not surprisingly, none of this diminished Wakefield's or the Geiers' standing among true believers. (Several months after the BMJ report was published, an anti-vaccine leader was quoted The New York Times Magazine as saying, "To our community, Andrew Wakefield is Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ rolled up into one.")
What might be more surprising is the legacy of years of dispatches that created a false equivalency between verifiable facts and Wakefield's and the Geiers' outlandish allegations. These began almost the moment Wakefield held a press conference for his since retracted 1998 paper: Despite the fact that he was virtually alone in recommending the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine be dropped, the London dailies ran stories like "Ban Three-In-One Jab, Urge Doctors" and "Doctors Link Autism to MMR Vaccination." For more than a decade, credulous (or lazy) reporters who were either unwilling or unable to grasp the basic scientific principles at hand regularly regurgitated the most specious anti-vaccine talking points. One of the more cringe-inducing examples occurred in an infamous 2007 story by CBS News's Sharyl Attkisson, who wrote, "There is no definitive research proving a link between vaccines and autism or ADD, but there is also no definitive research ruling it out." That statement betrays a profoundly mistaken understanding of the theory of falsifiability, which states that in order for a hypothesis to be a legitimate subject of inquiry, it has to have a single, corresponding null hypothesis--that is, it needs to be disprovable. Saying that there is not definitive research ruling out a link between vaccines and autism is like saying there is not definitive research ruling out a link between watching CBS News and rectal cancer: It's technically true only because it's functionally meaningless.
Unfortunately, there is no restart button when it comes to public consciousness, and it will take quite a while to eradicate the effects of all of the fear and misinformation that were injected into the population. Don't take my word for this -- look at the data: One poll taken early last year found that only 52 percent of Americans knew vaccines did not cause autism. (Eighteen percent said they believed, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, that vaccines could cause autism; 30 percent said they weren't sure.) In October, Pediatrics reported that more than 10 percent of parents refuse to give their children some vaccines or adhere to "alternative" vaccine schedules that are based on little more than guesswork.
The result has been a flourishing of vaccine-preventable diseases. A year after 10 infants died in California of pertussis (or whooping cough) infections, nationwide outbreaks continued to spread. While many of those were due to under-vaccinated adults who didn't realize they were due for a pertussis booster, there were countless more instances where the disease was spread among deliberately unvaccinated kids. (The best (or worst) example of this occurred at the Blue Mountain School, a small private school about 40 miles southwest of Roanoke, Virginia. It was shut down for a week after roughly half of its students were infected with pertussis; according to local health officials, most of the parents of the infected students had chosen not to have them vaccinated.)
Even more alarming were the measles outbreaks that cropped up in virtually every region of the country, from the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest and from the Gulf Coast to Southern California. Unlike whooping cough, measles infections were spread almost exclusively by unvaccinated children and adolescents. The largest outbreak was in Minnesota, where anti-vaccine activists had targeted a community of Somali immigrants that appeared to be experiencing higher-than-expected rates of autism. That outbreak began when a deliberately unvaccinated child returned from Africa infected with the disease; by the time it had run its course, more than a dozen children had been hospitalized. As of December 8, the U.S. had recorded 221 laboratory-confirmed cases of measles in 2011 -- about four times more than usual and the most in any year since 1996.
***
A few months ago, one of my students in MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing came to my office to discuss what was becoming an overwhelming anxiety: She was worried, she said, that she was embarking on her career at the precise moment when the opportunities for science writers were at an all-time low. I certainly understand her concern: The seemingly never-ending contraction going on in the media industry has resulted in a shedding of specialists in every journalistic medium. That does not, however, mean that the public's hunger for information about science, medicine, and technology is shrinking; indeed, as our continuing struggle against vaccine-preventable diseases demonstrates, the need for reliable, accurate information is arguably greater than ever.
Those realities have created an enormous amount of opportunity for budding science writers, blogging networks, and non-traditional newsgathering operations -- but with those opportunities come responsibility. The fact that a specific story is controversial (or that it is promoted by a particularly outspoken celebrity) does not mean it deserves the oxygen it needs to survive.
Make no mistake: The cost of misinformation is great indeed. In a nation of more than 300 million, a couple of hundred of measles infections might not seem like a lot, but we need only look across the Atlantic to see how these figures can explode in an incredibly short amount of time. In 2006 and 2007, France had an average of 40 measles cases per year. In 2011, the country recorded more than 15,000 cases, including more than 650 cases of severe measles pneumonia, 16 cases of encephalitis and six deaths. A recent WHO report said 90% of measles cases in Western Europe were in "adolescents and adults who had not been vaccinated or for whom vaccination history was not reported."* The greatest risk of all, of course, is to infants, who are both too young to receive the MMR vaccine -- the first dose isn't given until kids are 12 months old -- and are the ones most likely to suffer serious complications. We owe it to them, and to ourselves, to make sure we do a better job in the future.Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Michael Moreci
Artist: Kyle Charles
Release Date: 6th May, 2015
After an absolutely stunning debut series, the second instalment of Michael Moreci’s Roche Limit trilogy starts this week with the first issue of ‘Clandestiny’. Interestingly, Moreci has made the fairly brave decision to set this ‘sequel’ seventy-five years on from the first series, complete with a brand new cast of characters and a brand new dynamic. Thematically, there are definitely a lot of parallels to be drawn between the two titles, but if the first series was ‘Blade Runner’ with its noir-soaked street-level sci-fi, Clandestiny is very much ‘Prometheus’, with a rag-tag band of mercs and scientists thrown together for a mission to a strange planet.
The second series also brings in a brand new artistic team. Gone is the smooth, evocative work of Vic Malhorta, replaced instead by a far more energetic, scratchy style courtesy of Kyle Charles. Charles gives this series a dynamic new aesthetic, with Matt Battaglia putting forth some truly stunning colour work, flooding the cramped interior pages with blues and purples and bathing the exteriors in a pale orange glow. Simply put, this is an utterly gorgeous looking book, dripping with a sense of atmosphere that marries up perfectly with Moreci’s typically confident writing.
From a narrative point of view, the events of the first Roche Limit series put us in an interesting position; namely, knowing a lot more about what the protagonists are walking into than they do. The gap between the two series’ gives events adequate time to settle down, and Moreci makes sure that our latest batch of characters are likeable and intriguing enough for us to become instantly invested in – with Sasha particularly worthy of attention with her complex, hinted-at, heartbreak-filled backstory.
For an opening issue, Clandestiny gets its hooks in early with some brilliantly compelling protagonists and tantalising mystery at its heart, managing to effortlessly fill the colossal shoes of its predecessor. Moreci continues to carve out his reputation as one of the strongest, most versatile voices on the scene today, and the passion he pours into every single page of this series makes for truly riveting reading. A sharply written slice of existential sci-fi, Roche Limit: Clandestiny is your new favourite series, even if you don’t know it yet.
Rating: 5/5.
The writer of this piece was: Craig Neilson (aka Ceej)
Article Archive: Ceej Says
You can follow Ceej on TwitterNew Orleans Saints rookie linebacker Alex Anzalone produced a defensive gem in the preseason opener against the Cleveland Browns.
With less than 15 seconds remaining in the first half, Browns quarterback Cody Kessler threw a pass almost 20 yards down the middle of the field to wide receiver Rannell Hall, who appeared to be open.
But Anzalone, who dropped back in coverage from his weak side linebacker position, reacted to the pass by leaping in the air with his left arm extended. His fingers grazed the ball enough to affect the trajectory, causing it to bounce off Hall's chest and fall incomplete to force fourth-and-10.
Great play, indeed, but the rookie didn't have the full opportunity to enjoy it.
Drew Brees' frustration highlights observations from Day 14 of Saints training camp Fan fest on hand to |
town have jobs, such as crafting, fighting, and gathering materials. You can decide whether you want to create a powerful empire or a buzzing trading center – the choice is yours! The game is also open to mods that introduce an infinite realm of customization. As with other games like SimCity, there is no shortage of things to do in Stonehearth!
Read more about Stonehearth | Instant Digital Download
5 | Imagine Earth
Imagine Earth is a city building (or should I say, planetary?) simulatior that takes place in space. This is a real-time simulation game with a heavy focus on climate change. You must adapt to a new planetary ecosystem and its natural limitations to be successful. One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make is whether you want to push for unbridled corporate success or care for the wellbeing of your people and environment. You must thus find the perfect balance between sustainability and growth as you search for new energy sources in order to avoid yet another climate collapse. Imagine Earth is arguably one of the freshest and best simulation games available for the PC.
6 | Cities: Skylines
Cities: Skylines is without a doubt one of the best city building games of the modern era. Similar to SimCity, this simulation is easy to pick up but hard to master. You work as the city’s mayor and must manage healthcare, taxes, education, and much more. Citizens react according to your choices and will complain if irritated. As one of few city building games like SimCity, you can develop your urban sandbox empire as you like by creating neighborhoods, industrial, and commercial areas. This game is so detailed and customizable that you can even change the names of businesses and even… cows. The game allows for extensive modding that unlocks Cities: Skyline’s full potential. Some critics have even claimed Cities: Skylines to be “more like SimCity than SimCity”. That says a lot about its status as one of the best city building simulation games like SimCity ever made.
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7 | Startopia
Startopia is often hailed as a cult classic. This early 2000’s game has the player rebuilding a network of space stations destroyed after the apocalypse. To succeed, you need to gain the interest of various alien races. These aliens provide their knowledge and create new technologies that will improve your space stations. Conflict arises when each race wants you to build their ideal station, even as you retain creative control. Startopia also features a sandbox and multiplayer mode for those interested in collective space micromanagement.
Read more about Startopia | Instant Digital Download
8 | Lethis – Path of Progress
Dive into the Victorian Steampunk universe of Lethis – Path of Progress. This city building game takes place during a period of rapid urbanization. You’ll be tasked with constructing and managing Lethis while keeping citizens happy. As with games similar to SimCity, this title features wonderful and charming graphics as well as a light-hearted soundtrack. You can grow and expand your city by building farms, factories, neighborhoods, and more. Each socio-economic class has their own needs; the poor want basic cutlery while the rich want jewelry. Upset citizens will riot and undermine progress. Players looking for more games like SimCity will adore this uniquely themed city building game!
9 | Stronghold HD
Stronghold HD is the right choice for you if you’re searching for classic building simulator games like SimCity. This old-skool castle management simulator is now available in fully remastered HD. The task at hand is to unite medieval England and take back the land stolen from you. The game features various missions such as capturing enemy castles, breaking sieges, and accumulating gold. You get to design your own castle as well as decide how to divide your limited resources among your people, economy, and military. You’ll also be managing taxes, harvesting resources, creating weapons, and assembling troops. Perfect for players looking for games like SimCity with a medieval twist!
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Also check out the Complete Stronghold Bundle Collection (non-HD)
10 | Project AURA
Project AURA takes place after severe climate change destroyed the earth and most of human civilization (not too far from the truth?). At the end of the 21st century, remaining humans built cities on seas impervious to the dangerous atmosphere. Due to food and supply shortage, humanity decided to take refuge and hibernate using cryo-preservation. You take control of this newly awakened colony of disaster survivors and must create a prosperous habitat from scratch. You’ll need to develop technology to improve the colony’s research, infrastructure, and production. Best of all, you’ll even get the chance to explore what remains of the 21st century – a little added exploratory bonus for gamers looking for more games like SimCity!
What’d you think about my list of Games Like SimCity? Feel free to drop a comment below and list other games like SimCity I may have missed out on!This spring, the Environmental Protection Agency plans to finalize rules to curb methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said at a breakfast for reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor Tuesday.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is of special concern, advocates for climate change say, because it traps planet-warming heat around 80 times faster than carbon dioxide. Last month, the EPA announced that it planned to expand its regulations of methane emissions.
“You will see that these rules continue our commitment to achieve the US goal of reducing methane emissions by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels,” Ms. McCarthy said. “We’re going to be moving that forward.”
Experts say a small number of oil and gas facilities are responsible for most methane leaks in the United States. Left over fluids from hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), a method for extracting natural gas, have some of the highest levels of methane.
But methane emissions have proven challenging to measure. On Tuesday, the administrator said the EPA would carry out an information collection request to help accurately determine the extent of emissions throughout the country.
She also emphasized the need to cut emissions from other sources of greenhouse gas, such as agriculture and livestock production and food waste.
“We’re doing some really neat things, like the food recovery challenge, which is looking at how we address the overall UN [United Nations] goal that we embraced to try to reduce food waste,” McCarthy said. “That is a significant strategy for methane reduction as well.”
The EPA also has been in conversations with faith leaders about what they can do to fight climate change, McCarthy said.
“We thought it would be a nice opportunity for us to talk with faith leaders about how they can reduce greenhouse gases, in this case methane, by looking at how they work with their community and divert what would otherwise be wasted food to food pantries,” she said.
Underlining some of the EPA’s most recent successes, the administrator pointed to a new rule for oil refineries.
“The refinery rule was actually quite a remarkable accomplishment because it looked at sources of emissions from refineries that we had not regulated before and got more stringent on the ones we’ve regulated,” said McCarthy.
The agency helped develop a technology that was inexpensive and effective at ensuring that communities living around refineries are protected, McCarthy said.
“This is a clear indication that new technologies are allowing us to do a much better job,” she noted.
During the breakfast, she also lauded President Obama's leadership in calling attention to climate change.
“I think the president has brought visibility to this issue in a way that no president has before by being so embracing of the science and so clear about the breadth of the threat that climate poses,” she said.
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On Thursday, McCarthy will travel to Ottawa, Canada, to discuss how the US and Canada can cooperate in the fight against climate change.
“We’re going to keep moving forward on climate change,” McCarthy said. “We’re going to keep reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”Critics of Florida's self-defense law object to its recognition of a right to "stand your ground" in public places, which eliminated the duty to retreat from an assailant. Yet many of these critics seem to believe they have a duty to stand their ground and never retreat, using George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin as a weapon to attack Florida's law, no matter what the evidence shows.
The emphasis on the right to stand your ground is puzzling in the context of the Martin case, since Zimmerman's defense does not seem to rely on it. The 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer, who was released on bail this week after being charged with second-degree murder in connection with the February 26 shooting in Sanford, told police the unarmed teenager knocked him down with a punch to the face and pinned him to the ground, repeatedly smacking his head against the pavement. By Zimmerman's account, then, he had no opportunity to retreat.
Florida's law also has been blamed for delaying Zimmerman's arrest, and it did require that police have probable cause to believe the shooting was unlawful. But this is the same standard that applies to arrests for all other crimes, and whatever obstacle it may have posed proved temporary.
One unusual aspect of Florida's law that will be apparent in this case is that Zimmerman has a right to pretrial hearing at which he can try to convince Judge Kenneth Lester, by "a preponderance of the evidence," that he acted in self-defense. If he can meet that standard of proof, which requires showing it is more likely than not that his use of force was appropriate, the charge against him will be dismissed. But even if he went to trial, he would be (or at least should be) acquitted with that much evidence in his favor, since the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not acting in self-defense—which, as Northern Kentucky University law professor Michael J.Z. Mannheimer has pointed out, would be true "in virtually every state."
Zimmerman's defense under Florida's law is that he was attacked and "reasonably believe[d]" shooting Martin was "necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm." Contrary to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is leading a national campaign against Florida-style self-defense laws, that does not mean people "make their own decisions as to whether someone is threatening or not" and therefore have "a license to murder." The threat assessment has to be reasonable, meaning someone who uses deadly force has to show it was justified by the circumstances.
Even if the Trayvon Martin case does not really illustrate the shortcomings of Florida's law, it is possible that eliminating the duty to retreat in public places, combined with reinforcing the "castle doctrine" (which applies to home invasions) and extending it to vehicles, has encouraged avoidable escalations of violence. The law's opponents note that the annual number of justifiable homicides in Florida (excluding police shootings) nearly tripled after the law was passed in 2005, from an average of 12 between 2000 and 2004 to an average of 35 between 2006 and 2010.
Still, you would expect to see an increase in homicides deemed to be justified even if the law were working exactly as intended. The crucial question in assessing the law's impact, which the task force appointed last week by Gov. Rick Scott presumably will ask, is whether these homicides should be deemed justified.
In the meantime, it is worth noting that Florida's violent crime rate, which fell by 12 percent in the five years before the "stand your ground" law was enacted, fell by 23 percent in the five years afterward. Since 1987, when Florida adopted a nondiscretionary carry permit law that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence blames for "year after year of carnage," the state's violent crime rate has been cut nearly in half.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason and a nationally syndicated columnist. Follow him on Twitter.Best Answer: First, let me wish Your Excellency a very happy and prosperous new year. I am Sugato Mitra, a 41 year old man from Durgapur in West Bengal. As a very ordinary citizen of this great nation, I consider it an immense privillege of mine to be presented with an opportunity to answer a question which happens to cross the mind of someone who is not only the Honourable President of India but also happens to be one of the greatest intellectual minds of this country.
A look at the very elementary picture of terrorism reveals certain things:
1. A handful of immensely wealthy, influential and powerful people provide the leadership. In many instances they lead a justifiable movement. In an equal number of instances they have a personal axe to grind in the garb of mass movement. Some of them are prepared to come out and discuss their grievances. Others prefer to remain away from the public eye.
2. The foot soldiers are almost invariably youth of impressionable minds. It is also commonly seen that they come from ordinary or poor families.
The governments of different countries faced with the problem of terrorism has to do some serious and honest soul searching. The discussion below, tries to combine the aforesaid two aspects in an effort to find a solution to terrorism.
The question of origin of the terrorist movement has to be addressed first. Why did a terrorist movement arise? Was it because a certain section of the population justifiably demanded something, but was denied the same? In that case, how does the fulfillment of their demands fit into the overall national interest? If conceding to their justified demand does not affect national interests adversely, there is no harm in agreeing to them. But if those are contrary to the overall national interests then there is no question of conceding. But the issue should be considered objectively and impartially.
This seems to be particularly pertinent in the Kashmir problem. Here we see not only Kashmiris demanding their own independent homeland, but also a neighbouring country abetting the terrorist movement against India. Here Pakistan clearly has an axe to grind and in all probabilities ultimately want to annexe Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan and all Pakistan sponsored Kashmiri leaders should be firmly ignored in solving the problem.
The Government of India should address the people of Kashmir directly, especially the Kashmiri youth. The message should ring loud and clear: we want our Kashmiri brothers and sisters to be with us now and forever. India doesn't want to bribe Kashmiris with special concessions to be a part of this country. India wants every Kashmiri to be equal partners in the country's progress to prosperity. Every effort should be made to initiate progress in J&K through setting up of institutes of excellence and modern industries. The mind of the Kasmiri youth should be weaned away from the narrow confines of terrorism and divisiveness and exposed to modern liberal thinking through these institutes. When he or she is adequately trained, there should be adequate modern industries where he or she can put his hand on modern machines and applications. Hopefully, the Kashmiri youth will thereafter forsake the gun and terrorism and separatism as his or her aspirations in life, which are no different from any other normal youth, marches towards the path of fulfilment. Terrorism and its associated perils will be an unviable option compared to the peace and tranquility of a normal human life.
The same approach needs to be implemented in North East India as well. Development should be the dominant ingredient in the government's efforts to tame terrorism. Development for the masses, especially the youth and harsh repressive measures for the handful of masterminds can adequately tame terrorism.
Your Excellency, as you have rightly pointed out, the human population is growing and scarce natural resources are under pressure. If a system of equitable distribution could be worked out, it would leave greater number of people satisfied. But sadly this doesn't happen practically with the result that a lot of us feel deprived and aggrieved. This is particularly relevant to India and its exploding population. If the pressure of population on resources decreased, attrition would lessen consequently and quality of life of the average Indian improve considerably. That would also mean a drastic reduction in terrorist activities and chances thereof. Population control in India should not only be a slogan but a visible and effective national movement.
Adding to our woes, powerful nations want to corner a major share of the scarce natural resources. Terrorism originating from the Middle East has its roots in Western countries trying to control and corner the oil reserves located there. Kuwait was attacked by Iraq for its oil. The US started the Gulf War against Iraq to free Kuwait. And now Iraq is the latest hotbed of terrorism. Of course there is the Palestinian problem as a direct consequence of Israel's occupation. Israel can not be wished away, but it is Israel's responsibility to be the initiator of peace in the region with meaningful and acceptable efforts.
The UN of late has unfortunately come out as a pretty ineffective forum to implement peace. It has to be made effective. India is aspiring for a permanent seat in the Security Council. If she succeeds, India should hopefully provide solutions to end attritions accross the world and end terrorism. But right now responsible nations must unite against terrorism. The group should not only be composed of nations facing this threat, but also those still out of its tentacles. Terrorism should be tackled globally and not individually. When the World Trade Center came crashing down, the whole world condemned. But sadly, such reactions of universal solidarity are seen when terrorism kills innocents in India.
Sanity and responsibility are still dominant in the world. The need of the hour is unity of sane and right thinking people cutting across national barrier and ideologies. When they unite, greedy and aggressive regimes will be forced to take a backseat. Let there be greater exchanges between the youth of all countries who want peace in their own country and also internationally. Let ideas flow freely. Voices should be raised when a powerful nation tries to bully a weak nation into submission and thereby open another front for terrorism. Such nations, however powerful, should be shunned by one and all. And let the condemnation be equally loud and clear when terrorism strikes and kills innocents.
A check on the population growth, quality education and living standards, development and employment opportunities for the youth and respect for humanity and universal human values will ultimately wipe out terrorism one day. This may appear Utopian right now. But I am optimistic of seeing this day arrive soon. And with this fervent hope, Your Excellency, I end my humble submssion.
Source(s):
Modest · 1 decade ago
208 Thumbs up 24 Thumbs down Report AbuseA few years ago, a book debuted featuring short biographies of people who had made an impact on Christian history. The book spanned four centuries. Of the 50 people spotlighted over those 400 years, only four were women.
“Women’s voices have not been as public and powerful as those of men throughout much of history, but this does not mean they were not influential,” says Karen Swallow Prior, author of Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More. “Writing and reading about women in history helps us all (women and men) to better understand the past in order to better understand our present and, as a result, improve the future.”
Women’s stories matter, not only for the inspiration and encouragement they offer, but also because the preservation of these stories presents us with a fuller, richer, and more accurate history. From the era of the early church—when women gathered to pray with the disciples in the Upper Room—to today, when they teach, lead, and minister to multitudes, women have always been an integral part of Christian community. Preserving and celebrating women’s history is a way for us to preserve our whole church history.
With that in mind, I offer here the stories of five historical figures that every Christian should know, celebrate, and emulate:
Katharina Luther (1499–1550)
After reading some of Martin Luther’s writings that had been smuggled into her cloistered convent, Katharina von Bora decided to risk punishment by death and flee monastic life. In the dark of night on Easter eve, Katharina and 11 of her fellow nuns crept past the cloister walls and into a waiting wagon that carried them into the unknown. Two years later, desperate to survive in a society hostile to women, she refused to marry a suitor she didn’t like and asked Martin Luther to marry her instead. Martin and Katharina were married for nearly 21 years, until he died in 1546.
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once claimed Katharina Luther was nothing but a plank in Martin’s theological platform. Kierkegaard couldn’t have been more wrong. In dismissing Katharina so categorically, he made a caricature of a woman who in reality was a bold risk taker, determined survivor, savvy businesswoman, astute advisor, trusted confidante, devoted wife and mother, and a woman of unwavering faith. Martin may have married Katharina in order to put into practice what he preached, but it didn’t take long for the great Reformer to realize he had wed an intelligent, industrious, radical reformer in her own right.
Margaret Fell (1614–1702)
Like Katharina Luther, Margaret Fell may be best known as the wife of a famous religious leader—she married Quaker founder George Fox 11 years after the death of her first husband—but her story and historical contributions easily stand on their own.
In dozens of letters, essays, and pamphlets, Fell convincingly laid out the fundamental tenets of Quakerism and campaigned relentlessly for the abolishment of Quaker persecution. She was imprisoned twice in England’s Lancaster Castle (the first time for four years, the second time for a year) when she refused to cease leading Quaker meetings in her home. While in prison, she wrote tracts in defense of Quaker principles, as well as four books, including her most famous, Women’s Speaking Justified, in which she defended the right of women to serve as public preachers.
In her 88 years, not a single person swayed Fell from her service and loyalty to God—not a judge nor a jury; not the king, nor his council; not even her own seven children, who watched their mother be led to prison twice for her refusal to compromise her beliefs. Five months before her death, she wrote, “I shall stand for God and Truth,” a testimony she lived by her entire life.
Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915)
As an itinerant minister and evangelist in 19th-century America, Amanda Berry Smith had three notable strikes against her. She was a woman. She was uneducated. And she was black.
Born a slave and the oldest of 13 children, Smith was preaching regularly in Methodist and African Methodist Episcopal churches in the Northeast by the time she was in her early 30s, despite the fact that neither denomination supported female preachers. To earn a living, she worked 20-hour shifts as a washerwoman.
Smith also preached in the Methodist holiness camp meetings that were spreading up and down the East coast, and, because of the color of her skin, was scorned, ostracized, and gawked at as a curiosity. “Sometimes I would slip into a tent,” she wrote about her camp meeting experiences. “Then I would see [white people] peep in, and if they saw me they would say, ‘Oh! Here is the colored woman! Look!’”
In spite of the daily abuse and humiliation she endured, Smith stayed focused on her mission, which was to bring people, including her persecutors, to Christ. “Lord,” she prayed daily, “help the people to see.”
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955)
Born the 15th out of 17 children to former slaves in South Carolina, Mary McLeod Bethune was the only African American in 1,000 students at the Moody Bible Institute’s Mission Training School in Chicago. She dreamed of serving as a missionary in Africa, but upon applying to the mission board of the Presbyterian Church, she was told there were no openings for “Negro missionaries” in Africa.
Undeterred, Bethune shifted her focus to the education of American black children. “Africans in America needed Christ and school just as much as Negroes in Africa.... My life work lay not in Africa, but in my own country,” she later acknowledged. With $1.50 as a down payment, Bethune opened the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in Florida in 1904. She had six female students and her own son. Discarded boxes and packing crates served as desks and chairs, and Bethune’s own seat at the head of the classroom was a barrel turned upside down.
Two years later, more than 100 girls were enrolled. Bethune established a board of trustees composed of the area’s most upstanding white male citizens, among them James Gamble (co-founder of Procter and Gamble), who later admitted he had assumed Bethune was a white woman when he first received her appeal letter. Today, the school enrolls 3,500 students on an 80-acre campus and is known as Bethune-Cookman College.
Gladys Aylward (1902–1970)
When 26-year-old Gladys Aylward was told by the director of the China Inland Mission that she was neither young enough nor smart enough to join a mission team, her dreams were crushed, but not for long. After two years of hard labor and penny-pinching, Aylward bought herself a one-way ticket to China on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, packed her Bible and two suitcases, tucked her passport into her corset, kissed her parents goodbye, and departed from a London train station to China.
Aylward met up with long-time missionary Jeannie Lawson in the mountain village of Yangchen, and together they opened an inn for travelers that later became an orphanage. By 1938, more than 100 children lived there. When war broke out with Japan, Aylward served as a spy for the Chinese, and when the bombing reached her village, she led the orphans to safety on a 100-mile trek through the mountains, nearly losing her own life in the process. Known throughout China as Ai-weh-deh—the Virtuous One—Aylward lived a life of service defined by determination and perseverance.
The stories of the women who have walked before us are an integral part of women’s history and also of history as a whole. “I hope we will get beyond the idea of ‘Christian women leaders’ being a special subset of Christian community,” says religion scholar Diana Butler Bass. “Women are the majority of Christians around the world—we are the heartbeat of living faith.”
Michelle DeRusha is the author of three books: Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk (Baker Books), 50 Women Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Heroines of the Faith (Baker Books), and Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith(Convergent). She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, with her husband and their two boys. Connect with Michelle at her website and on Instagram and Facebook.The Trump administration on Tuesday released an aggressive plan to stop illegal immigration, warning that all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States are subject to deportation at any time.
Two memorandums signed by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly laid out a series of policies intended to increase immigration enforcement, speed deportations and discourage new asylum seekers. Among the provisions: the hiring of thousands of new border patrol and immigration enforcement agents, the creation of a new office within Department of Homeland Security to work with the victims of crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants, and an expansion of the number of unauthorized immigrants who can be deported through an expedited process.
The practical impact of the orders is not yet clear. Administration officials, in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, said the moves were not a prelude to mass deportations, which would in any case likely require additional funding from Congress. Many details — including the fate of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants granted temporary protected status by former President Barack Obama — remain unresolved, and some of the new policies will likely face legal challenges.
In the meantime, here is more about what we know — and don’t know — about President Trump’s policies:
Trump meant what he said
The memorandums amount to the clearest evidence yet that Trump plans to make good on his campaign promises to crack down on undocumented immigrants living in the U.S.. And they represent a clear departure from the approach taken by Obama, who after overseeing a surge in deportations early in his administration, worked to reduce them during his final years in office.
The memorandums, which build on the executive orders on immigration Trump signed during his first week in office, drew immediate criticism from pro-immigrant groups. They are likely to be popular with Trump’s core supporters, who made his pledge to build a wall along the Mexican border into a rallying cry during and after the presidential campaign. How the policies will play with the broader public is harder to say: As FiveThirtyEight contributor Dan Hopkins wrote in January, Americans have generally grown more liberal on immigration since 2012, and most oppose mass deportations. But most Americans also oppose “sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities in certain circumstances, and they were divided on Trump’s controversial ban on travel from seven majority Muslim countries.
Trump is retaining, at least for now, one Obama-era policy that has generally proved popular: The 2012 program granting temporary protection to some of the so-called Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Trump has called the issue of the Dreamers “a very difficult subject for me,” and Kelly’s memorandum explicitly leaves in place the policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Its long-term fate, however, remains unclear, as does the fate of the roughly 750,000 participants in the program, some of whose two-year work authorizations are now expiring.
Heightened enforcement
During his first term in office, Obama drew fire from immigration supporters for increasing deportations, particularly along the Mexican border. Later in his administration, however, Obama changed tack, sharply reducing deportations by focusing on immigrants convicted of serious crimes or who had entered the country recently. Undocumented immigrants who were accused only of immigration-related offenses, such as using fake documents in order to work, were usually spared deportation, as were those convicted of traffic violations and other more minor offenses.
Trump and Kelly look set to reverse that shift — and then some. Immigration authorities will continue to focus on immigrants accused of crimes, but the new memorandums substantially expand the list of offenses that are likely to lead to deportation. The administration will prioritize deportation of undocumented immigrants accused — not necessarily convicted — of all “chargeable criminal offenses,” potentially including immigration-related violations. And the memorandums make clear that anyone in the country illegally can be kicked out of the country at any time.
To enact the tough new policies, the DHS will hire 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The agency will also look to expand the number of local law enforcement agencies working with the federal government to enforce immigration law. And DHS will release to the public a weekly report on local law enforcement agencies, documenting the number of undocumented immigrants they release from custody — in effect an attempt to shame so-called sanctuary cities.
Immigrants and crime
During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly highlighted victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. Tuesday’s memorandums take that approach from the stump into the bureaucracy: The DHS will create a Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office that will work with victims of such crimes. “Criminal aliens routinely victimize Americans and other legal residents,” the memorandum reads.
Most research, however, has found that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit violent crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans. That isn’t surprising — non-citizens, even those here legally, face possible deportation if they are convicted of a violent crime, meaning such crimes carry a higher risk than they do for the U.S. born. (The children of immigrants commit crimes at roughly the same rate as other U.S.-born citizens.)
The undocumented population isn’t increasing
Despite Trump’s focus on illegal immigration, the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. isn’t increasing — in fact, illegal immigration has slowed to a relative trickle. According to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Research Center, there were about 11 million people in the U.S. illegally in 2014, the latest data available. That’s down more than a million from 2007. In recent years, the number has been roughly flat — meaning as many undocumented workers are leaving the U.S. as entering it.
Most people in the U.S. illegally have been here a while. Some two-thirds, 66 percent, have been in the U.S. a decade or more, according to Pew’s analysis. Just 14 percent have been here less than five years. In the early 2000s, when illegal immigration was at its peak, those two numbers were roughly equal.
Undocumented immigrants, like immigrants in general, are concentrated in large cities, particularly on the coasts and near the Mexican border. But they live throughout the country — a separate Pew report recently estimated that there are about 20,000 undocumented immigrants in Boise, Idaho, for example. Many, though by no means all, undocumented immigrants work in low-wage sectors such as agriculture and the fast-food industry. (Trump’s initial choice to serve as labor secretary, fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder, drew conservative opposition in part because of his pro-immigration stance. Puzder has since withdrawn his nomination.)
A focus on the Southern border
These memos suggest DHS under Trump views illegal immigration as principally an issue of border crossings from people who live in countries south of the U.S. The memorandums call for the hiring of 5,000 additional Border Patrol agents and require all federal agencies to track any spending of U.S. dollars that benefit Mexico. (Trump could highlight any such spending in his campaign to get Mexico to pay for a border wall.) And they direct immigration enforcement authorities to send people crossing the border back to Mexico — even if they aren’t Mexicans.
This is an outdated view of the nation’s immigration challenges. While Mexicans represent about 52 percent of the undocumented population, according to the Pew Research Center, the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico has declined from 6.9 million in 2007 to about 5.8 million as of 2014. A rising share of undocumented immigrants, particularly those who came to the U.S. recently, are from Central America and Asia, and many did not cross the Mexican border to get here. According to data from the Department of Homeland Security, more than half a million people entered the country legally in the 2015 fiscal year and then overstayed their visas. The largest share of them came from Europe, Canada and South America.DELAND — Having secured the Libertarian Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate, Paul Stanton has a new goal: 9 percent.
If he can reach 9 percent in a reputable poll of more than 815 likely Florida voters before Sept. 30 — a tall order in a race with well-funded, familiar competitors Marco Rubio and Patrick Murphy — Stanton will earn a place next to them at the Leadership Florida debate at Broward College in Davie Oct. 26, as well as possibly others.
If he falls short of the debate stage and on the Nov. 8 ballot, the DeLand computer programmer has already made history, winning the first Senate Libertarian primary ever in Florida. And in an election year when candidates are pledging to be "a Senator who fights with them and for them," to fight terror and "stand up to ISIS," Stanton aims to offer something different.
"Florida voters deserve a peace candidate," Stanton said. "Even if I don't win, Florida voters deserve the option to vote for peace."
IRAQ WAR SHAPES VIEWS
The nervous 31-year-old who moved to DeLand about a year ago cuts an unlikely figure among Florida politicians. For a recent interview at his recently purchased house, a 52-year-old, 4-bedroom, concrete-block pool home with an enclosed patio, Stanton wears a sport coat over a "Live Free" T-shirt. His day building data-analytics tools for Frontier Communications requires him to campaign mostly at night and on weekends.
Stanton's interest in politics developed from his experiences with the Army in Iraq and after returning home from the war.
He took the armed-services vocational aptitude battery on Sept. 11, 2001, when the hijackings and attacks on the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon radically reshaped his country.
"That was the biggest determining factor in my willingness to join the Army," he said.
He was in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 where he was responsible for personnel security for a bomb squad in the 101st Airborne Division.
"The war was awful," Stanton said.
One day his team was called to the site where an IED had been discovered. "I ordered this gunner to aim toward the most likely avenue of attack," Stanton said.
With the big gun aimed at a nearby house, a group of children emerged. The team gave them candy and toys, as instructed in such circumstances, but Stanton said his gunner made a comment that stuck with him.
"If (the Iraqis) were in our country and aiming guns at our kids, he would have wanted to blow them up, too," Stanton said. "That's the sad truth of things."
Stanton's anti-war sentiments melded with another experience he had returning home from Iraq.
As he flew home, he carried his equipment, including a large bayonet and gun, sans bullets, but the Transportation Security Administration wouldn't let him keep a tube of toothpaste.
Later, he read of controversial body-scanning technology at some airports and believed it was another violation of citizens' constitutional rights. He wanted to protest at the Fort Wayne airport by handing out copies of the U.S. Constitution.
"I was a veteran who had taken an oath to defend the Constitution, so I thought I would hand out Constitutions," Stanton said.
Airport officials, though, told him he could only protest in the "animal relief" area — where dogs and cats are allowed to go pee outside — so he sued.
The airport later changed its regulations.
CALL TO LIBERTARIAN PARTY
Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who brought Libertarian ideals to the Republican party, initially appealed to Stanton's burgeoning political ethos. He went to a Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011 to hear Paul, who lost three times trying to become president. While there, Stanton met Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee this year, at a cocktail party.
"I had a nice chat with him. He completely won me over," Stanton said. "All of his Libertarian views came from a place of deep compassion for people and it showed."
During Johnson's first run for president in 2012, Stanton "came out of the Libertarian closet," he said. But the Johnson campaign managed just 1 percent against President Obama and Mitt Romney.
Fast-forwarding to 2016, Johnson was again on the ballot against unpopular Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, surging to an average of 8.2 percent in the most recent RealClearPolitics poll aggregator, including a high of 12 |
and that normally forces wages much higher.
There was a small rise in the number of workers born outside the European Union, but a small drop in the number of workers born in other EU countries.
Mr Freeman said those figures "should be treated with caution", however, because they were not adjusted for seasonal changes.
The job figures are based on the Labour Force Survey in which the ONS talks to about 40,000 households, or 100,000 individuals, every three months.
As it is a survey, the results are estimates and have a margin of error.
For example, the ONS is 95% confident that its estimate of a fall in unemployment of 7,000 is correct to within 80,000, so the drop is described as not being statistically significant.
'Experience and knowledge'
Separately, an ONS "flash" estimate indicated that UK productivity grew for a fourth successive quarter in the fourth quarter of 2016 - but at a slightly reduced rate.
It reported that output per hour worked rose 0.3% quarter-on-quarter - the weakest improvement since the fourth quarter of 2015. It was down from gains of 0.4% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter, 0.5% in the second and 0.4% in the first.
"The UK has a lot of catching up to do on the productivity front and is markedly lagging its performance before the 2008-09 downturn," said Howard Archer, chief UK and European Economist at IHS Global Insight.
He said that part of the UK's recent poor labour productivity performance had been due to the fact that employment held up well during the downturn and then picked up markedly.Top secret US National Security Agency (NSA) documents disclosed by the Guardian have shocked the world with revelations of a comprehensive US-based surveillance system with direct access to Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft and other tech giants. New Zealand court records suggest that data harvested by the NSA's Prism system has been fed into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance whose members also include the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
But why have Western security agencies developed such an unprecedented capacity to spy on their own domestic populations? Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies have increasingly spied on political activists, especially environmental groups, on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis - or all three.
Just last month, unilateral changes to US military laws formally granted the Pentagon extraordinary powers to intervene in a domestic "emergency" or "civil disturbance":
"Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances."
Other documents show that the "extraordinary emergencies" the Pentagon is worried about include a range of environmental and related disasters.
In 2006, the US National Security Strategy warned that:
"Environmental destruction, whether caused by human behavior or cataclysmic mega-disasters such as floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, or tsunamis. Problems of this scope may overwhelm the capacity of local authorities to respond, and may even overtax national militaries, requiring a larger international response."
Two years later, the Department of Defense's (DoD) Army Modernisation Strategy described the arrival of a new "era of persistent conflict" due to competition for "depleting natural resources and overseas markets" fuelling "future resource wars over water, food and energy." The report predicted a resurgence of:
"... anti-government and radical ideologies that potentially threaten government stability."
In the same year, a report by the US Army's Strategic Studies Institute warned that a series of domestic crises could provoke large-scale civil unrest. The path to "disruptive domestic shock" could include traditional threats such as deployment of WMDs, alongside "catastrophic natural and human disasters" or "pervasive public health emergencies" coinciding with "unforeseen economic collapse." Such crises could lead to "loss of functioning political and legal order" leading to "purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency...
"DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance."
That year, the Pentagon had begun developing a 20,000 strong troop force who would be on-hand to respond to "domestic catastrophes" and civil unrest - the programme was reportedly based on a 2005 homeland security strategy which emphasised "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents."
The following year, a US Army-funded RAND Corp study called for a US force presence specifically to deal with civil unrest.
Such fears were further solidified in a detailed 2010 study by the US Joint Forces Command - designed to inform "joint concept development and experimentation throughout the Department of Defense" - setting out the US military's definitive vision for future trends and potential global threats. Climate change, the study said, would lead to increased risk of:
"... tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural catastrophes... Furthermore, if such a catastrophe occurs within the United States itself - particularly when the nation's economy is in a fragile state or where US military bases or key civilian infrastructure are broadly affected - the damage to US security could be considerable."
The study also warned of a possible shortfall in global oil output by 2015:
"A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity. While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions."
That year the DoD's Quadrennial Defense Review seconded such concerns, while recognising that "climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked."
Also in 2010, the Pentagon ran war games to explore the implications of "large scale economic breakdown" in the US impacting on food supplies and other essential services, as well as how to maintain "domestic order amid civil unrest."
Speaking about the group's conclusions at giant US defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton's conference facility in Virginia, Lt Col. Mark Elfendahl - then chief of the Joint and Army Concepts Division - highlighted homeland operations as a way to legitimise the US military budget:
"An increased focus on domestic activities might be a way of justifying whatever Army force structure the country can still afford."
Two months earlier, Elfendahl explained in a DoD roundtable that future planning was needed:
"Because technology is changing so rapidly, because there's so much uncertainty in the world, both economically and politically, and because the threats are so adaptive and networked, because they live within the populations in many cases."
The 2010 exercises were part of the US Army's annual Unified Quest programme which more recently, based on expert input from across the Pentagon, has explored the prospect that "ecological disasters and a weak economy" (as the "recovery won't take root until 2020") will fuel migration to urban areas, ramping up social tensions in the US homeland as well as within and between "resource-starved nations."
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was a computer systems administrator for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he directly handled the NSA's IT systems, including the Prism surveillance system. According to Booz Allen's 2011 Annual Report, the corporation has overseen Unified Quest "for more than a decade" to help "military and civilian leaders envision the future."
The latest war games, the report reveals, focused on "detailed, realistic scenarios with hypothetical 'roads to crisis'", including "homeland operations" resulting from "a high-magnitude natural disaster" among other scenarios, in the context of:
"... converging global trends [which] may change the current security landscape and future operating environment... At the end of the two-day event, senior leaders were better prepared to understand new required capabilities and force design requirements to make homeland operations more effective."
It is therefore not surprising that the increasing privatisation of intelligence has coincided with the proliferation of domestic surveillance operations against political activists, particularly those linked to environmental and social justice protest groups.
Department of Homeland Security documents released in April prove a "systematic effort" by the agency "to surveil and disrupt peaceful demonstrations" linked to Occupy Wall Street, according to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).
Similarly, FBI documents confirmed "a strategic partnership between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the private sector" designed to produce intelligence on behalf of "the corporate security community." A PCJF spokesperson remarked that the documents show "federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."
In particular, domestic surveillance has systematically targeted peaceful environment activists including anti-fracking activists across the US, such as the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, Rising Tide North America, the People's Oil & Gas Collaborative, and Greenpeace. Similar trends are at play in the UK, where the case of undercover policeman Mark Kennedy revealed the extent of the state's involvement in monitoring the environmental direct action movement.
A University of Bath study citing the Kennedy case, and based on confidential sources, found that a whole range of corporations - such as McDonald's, Nestle and the oil major Shell, "use covert methods to gather intelligence on activist groups, counter criticism of their strategies and practices, and evade accountability."
Indeed, Kennedy's case was just the tip of the iceberg - internal police documents obtained by the Guardian in 2009 revealed that environment activists had been routinely categorised as "domestic extremists" targeting "national infrastructure" as part of a wider strategy tracking protest groups and protestors.
Superintendent Steve Pearl, then head of the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (Nectu), confirmed at that time how his unit worked with thousands of companies in the private sector. Nectu, according to Pearl, was set up by the Home Office because it was "getting really pressured by big business - pharmaceuticals in particular, and the banks." He added that environmental protestors were being brought "more on the radar." The programme continues today, despite police acknowledgements that environmentalists have not been involved in "violent acts."
The Pentagon knows that environmental, economic and other crises could provoke widespread public anger toward government and corporations in coming years. The revelations on the NSA's global surveillance programmes are just the latest indication that as business as usual creates instability at home and abroad, and as disillusionment with the status quo escalates, Western publics are being increasingly viewed as potential enemies that must be policed by the state.
Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmedRep. Reichert defends refusal to meet with constituents Former sheriff says town hall meetings would threaten his safety
U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert has been derided for dodging the public out of a newfound fear of crowds. But in a Facebook Live meeting with Seattle public television, the Mercer Island Republican made it very clear that he will not be showing his face anytime soon.
During the course of the one-hour interview with KCTS 9's Enrique Cerna, Reichert repeatedly called for civil and "respectful" discourse in order to move dialogue forward. The U.S. representative said town hall events around the country are no longer places of civility and respect.
"Now it's another group of people who are understandably concerned; they're afraid... but my view of town halls today, it's degenerated into a shouting, yelling, screaming match," Reichert said.
The representative said he would not endanger himself, his staff or his constituents in order to do a town hall. He reiterated his commitment to meeting with "anyone and everyone," but only in small groups – eight people, where he can have a "civil discourse." According to Reichert, his office has received some hurtful calls and it hasn't inspired him to open himself up to an "unproductive" meeting with 500 people.
"Some of the phone calls we're getting, matter of fact, have caused me to come to this conclusion. One day my staff of four people in Issaquah answered more than 700 phone calls. Now, you would think that maybe 50-50 were negative... in fact that was not the case. 85 percent of them were people who were (negative)."
According to the Representative he's still taking calls and meeting wherever he can, with smaller groups. But Chris Petzold, founder of the Eighth District Indivisible group, said that she hadn't heard of any Indivisible group members who have talked directly to Reichert in more than a month.
Though they have an eight-person meeting scheduled with him on March 3, they still hope he opts for a larger meeting at some point. During the interview, many 8th District Indivisible groups were protesting outside of Reichert's Issaquah office.
Protesters gather outside Rep. Dave Reichert's (R-WA) office in Issaquah Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Some of Reichert's constituents in the 8th District say he is avoiding them by skipping Town Hall meetings and refusing phone calls. less Protesters gather outside Rep. Dave Reichert's (R-WA) office in Issaquah Thursday, Feb. 23, 2017. Some of Reichert's constituents in the 8th District say he is avoiding them by skipping Town Hall meetings and... more Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Photo: GENNA MARTIN, SEATTLEPI.COM Image 1 of / 29 Caption Close Rep. Reichert defends refusal to meet with constituents 1 / 29 Back to Gallery
Reichert did not allay concerns of the thousand people who tuned in during his KCTS 9 interview, though he sought to make clear that he does not agree with President Trump on many things, like the immigration ban or cutting funding to the National Endowment of the Arts.
He also said that he will not support a healthcare bill that does not include replacement – which, according to the congressman, is coming in the next couple of weeks.
"There is a process, and the first step of the process is this reconciliation bill which will come up in the first two weeks in March. And that is going to be the main repeal and replace bill," Reichert said.
"Preexisting conditions language, those will be in the bill... children under the age of 26 will continue to be covered under their parents' healthcare plan, Medicare will not be changed under the replacement language."
During the interview, Reichert said he could not comment on Steve Bannon's position in the White House ("We need to see whether or not he's going to perform in a way" that's accountable to the American people) and he stood by his vote to not call for President Trump's tax returns, calling the request "politically motivated."
He also hoped constituents would trust his record that he will work to protect their interests.
"When we go forward when there is any contradiction to the Constitution, to our civil rights, I am going to stand up – I will be a voice, I will call attention to it and and I will say 'you know this is not the way the American people want this to be accomplished," Reichert said.
"I wish I had the answer. I think it really is, the bottom line is to take a deep breath, let's all calm down, let's have a conversation, let's find a way forward... I just want to make America better; I just want to bring people together."
Cerna ended the interview by handing the Representative a hefty stack of the thousands of questions that constituents had sent in for Reichert, along with a flash drive so his staff could have some "good reading."This year's 51st issue of Weekly Shonen Magazine is revealing on Wednesday the main cast, staff, and January premiere for the television anime of Kouji Seo's Fūka manga. The main cast members are:
Kazuyuki Okitsu as Kazuya Nachi
Yūsuke Kobayashi as Yū Haruna
Saori Hayami as Koyuki Hinashi
Lynn as Fūka Akitsuki
Sōma Saitō as Makoto Mikasa
Mikako Komatsu as Sara Iwami
Mikako Takahashi as Mayu Haruna
Saori Ōnishi as Hibiki Haruna
Kaede Hondo as Chitose Haruna
Yōko Hikasa as Tomomi-sensei
Keizou Kusakawa (KanColle, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's) is directing the anime at diomedea (Squid Girl, Handa-kun). Aoi Akashiro (Endride, KonoSuba) is in charge of series composition, and Yoshino Honda (The Lost Village, Astarotte's Toy animation director) is designing the characters. Takurō Iga (Aria the Scarlet Ammo Double A, Yuyake Dandan shorts) and West Ground (The Asterisk War: The Academy City on the Water, KanColle theme song composition) are composing the music.
The series will air on the MBS, Tokyo MX, BS11, and WOWOW channels in Japan. The magazine also published the anime's second key visual and main character designs.
The anime's official website began streaming a teaser video in August.
The story centers on a young man named Yū Haruna who has just switched schools. He's a bit shy, and he's constantly glued to his smartphone so he can check Twitter. He meets a girl named Fūka Akitsuki, who doesn't even have a cell phone, is free-spirited, and naturally fascinates others. Yū recently has been getting back in touch via Twitter with his childhood friend Koyuki Hinashi, who is now a popular singer. One day Yū invites Fūka to one of Koyuki's concerts, and there the three meet for the first time. The story follows the love triangle between a love that started through electronics, and a love that didn't start through electronics. Fūka is the daughter of the protagonists from Seo's earlier manga Suzuka.
Seo launched the manga in 2014, the same day he ended his Kimi no Iru Machi (A Town Where You Live) manga. Kodansha shipped the 12th compiled volume of Fūka on August 17, and the 13th volume will ship on December 16.A few short hours after the House GOP posted Speaker John Boehner’s 1,603-page $1.1 trillion omnibus bill text on its website, the website failed.
The bill text–both the PDF and the XML versions–went down around 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, for unspecified reasons. Speaker Boehner’s spokesman Michael Steel hasn’t responded to inquiries as to why the bill is no longer available for the public to see.
Instead of the bill being available online, the website reads: “Server Error.”
“401 – Unauthorized: Access is denied due to invalid credentials,” the website now reads. “You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.”
The Rules Committee website which serves as a gateway to get to the bill text is still up.
Interestingly, the process for the introduction of the omnibus spending bill has been largely nontransparent. Critics from both the left and the right have hit Congressional leaders like House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY), Boehner, and others for not releasing the bill text until very late Tuesday–it first posted online at about 8:20 p.m. on Tuesday–after originally promising to have the bill text available on Monday.
While reporting on a new campaign finance loophole inserted into page 1,599 of the 1,603 page bill, New York Times reporter Nick Confessore said via Twitter: “In a two year cycle, you and your spouse could give about $130,000 to a party committee. Now you can give $1.3 million.”
That’s a significant change to campaign finance law that has nothing to do with funding the government. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fought to include some campaign finance changes in the bill, but not these specific ones. McConnell aides did tell the Washington Post he didn’t push for these campaign finance restrictions to be loosened.
McConnell-connected operative Brian Walsh, who’s been on the payroll of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for the last two years as a consultant after leaving post-2012 election, criticized the way Confessore framed his Tweet. “Or you can give millions in secret to outside groups. Raising contribution limits to the parties strengthens transparency,” Walsh tweeted back at the Times scribe.
In response Confessore tweeted: “Okay, so debate in in public instead of changing fundamental election rules in a secret deal.”
That’s exactly what this process has been: A “secret deal.” Nobody except for the top negotiators on either side of Capitol Hill knew what was in the bill before 8 p.m. tonight. And since the bill is so big, there’s no possible way any lawmaker could read it before the House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bill on Thursday.
That’s eerily similar to how Obamacare passed Congress, and Nancy Pelosi’s now-infamous slogan that was originally intended to quell criticism at the time but backfired: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Now, just like how the Obamacare website crashed when that law was getting implemented, the House Republican website hosting the text of the bill has crashed. It’s only fitting that earlier on Tuesday, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber testified before the House of Representatives–hours before Boehner attempted to get members to vote on this omnibus bill without reading it.
UPDATE 2:19 A.M. — The XML version of Boehner’s omnibus text has reappeared online, but still no explanation of why it disappeared has been given by anyone in House GOP leadership. It can be viewed at this link: http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20141208/CPRT-113-HPRT-RU00-HR83sa.xml
UPDATE 3:01 A.M. — The Rules Committee website, available at this link — http://rules.house.gov/bill/113/hr-83 — which serves as a gateway to the bill can’t fix the server error or website glitches behind Boehner’s omnibus, so staff have added a new link to what they’re terming “Alternate PDF” which takes those who click it to a new home for the PDF online. That link is, for now, working: http://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/20141210/102799/BILLS-113rcp113-59pp.pdfImproved play from the likes of Improved play from the likes of Wilin Rosario (No. 20) and Dexter Fowler (No. 24) have spurred a strong start by the Rockies. (AP)
We’re just three weeks into the 2013 baseball season, barely more than 10 percent of the way through, but already we’re seeing some unexpected performances that could prove to be more than flukes. Here, are 10 of the most unexpectedly positive performances in the early going, five by teams, five by individuals, with a look at what they’ve done and whether or not the nature of those performances is likely to continue as we get deeper into the season. Tomorrow we'll have 10 negative surprises from the first three weeks.
Team Performances
Colorado Rockies: 13-5 (.722), 1st place in NL West
Last year, the Rockies finished in last place, 30 games out of first, with the second-worst record in the National League. Through the first three weeks of the 2013 season, they are tied with the suddenly slumping Braves, who have lost three in a row and four of their last five, for the best record in the NL.
They’ve done this despite minimal roster turnover. Only four members of Colorado's current 25-man roster were not on the team last year, two of those men are bench players (infielder Reid Brignac and catcher Yorvit Torrealba), one (righthanded starter Jon Garland) didn’t play for anyone last year and the last is set-up righty Wilton Lopez, who currently sports a 9.00 ERA.
Of course, that accounting glosses over the healthy returns of Troy Tulowitzki, an MVP-caliber player who lost most of 2012 to a groin injury, and lefty starter Jorge de la Rosa, who made just three starts last year after spending most of the season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Both are leading the charge in the early going this season, though even better than de la Rosa has been 25-year-old Jhoulys Chacin (3-0, 1.46 ERA), who just hit the disabled list with a lower back strain.
The Rockies are getting it done on both sides of the ball. Their offense, led by Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez, Michael Cuddyer, Dexter Fowler (team-high seven home runs) and sophomore catcher Wilin Rosario is second in the majors with 5.78 runs scored per game. Their pitching, led by Chacin, de la Rosa (2-1, 2.82 ERA), Garland (2-0, 3.32 ERA) and strong relief work from lefty Rex Brothers and closer Rafael Betancourt (7-for-7 in save chances), has been a tick better than league average in allowing just 4.22 runs per game, a stellar performance for a Colorado staff.
Is it real? The Rockies can hit. They were third in the NL in run scoring last year, and with Tulowitzki back, Rosario a year older and Fowler experiencing a breakout, they should be better this year. The question is, will the pitching hold up? Chacin’s injury isn’t a positive indicator, but de la Rosa posted a 111 ERA+ for the Rockies in the two-plus seasons before his surgery. Garland was a reliably league-average starter before his career was interrupted by shoulder surgery in 2011, and he’s still just 33. There’s certainly the potential for disaster, and while the Rockies are still unlikely to contend all season, it wouldn't be a surprise to see them finish around or even a tick above.500, which would be something close to a 20-win improvement from last year and a major feather in the cap of rookie manager Walt Wiess. They’ll have a major test this week as the Braves come to town for a three-game set starting Monday night.
Boston Red Sox: 12-6 (.667), 1st place AL East
The Red Sox finished last in the AL East last year with the third-worst record in the American League (69-93,.426) and never once got more than five games above.500. This year, it took them just 14 games to get to six games over and prior to Sunday’s doubleheader sweep by the Royals, they had won seven games in a row despite the turmoil their city faced last week. They are fifth in the AL in run scoring and second, behind only the Rangers, in run prevention, and are tied with Texas for the best record in the junior circuit. They’ve done all of that despite injuries to David Ortiz, who made his season debut on Saturday with a rousing f-bomb and a pair of singles, intended shortstop Stephen Drew and starter John Lackey, who looked great for four innings before tearing his bicep, and the early failures of spring training sensation Jackie Bradley Jr and newly-acquired closer Joel Hanrahan (okay, it was just one blown save, but it was really ugly).
Is it real? Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester won’t keep up their current pace (combined 7-0, 1.29 ERA), but if they stay healthy, there’s no reason they can’t both be among the better pitchers in the league, and the rest of the rotation could well improve on its early-season performance, be it due to reinforcements in the form Allen Webster, who made a strong major league debut in a spot-start on Sunday, and Rubby De La Rosa, or from Lackey delivering on the promise of those first four innings. The bullpen could well even out and maintain the same performance, and the offense should be able to at least hold the line with Ortiz back in the fold and Bradley back in the minors given that Will Middlebrooks hasn’t done much other than hit four home runs and Dustin Pedroia’s power hasn’t shown up yet. Injuries have been Boston's bugaboo the last few seasons, and there’s always that risk, particularly with the aged Ortiz and fragile Jacoby Ellsbury, Lackey and Mike Napoli around, but if the Sox can stay healthy, they could well be for real.
New York Mets offense: 5.82 runs per game, best in majors
Only four NL teams scored fewer runs than the Mets last year, and one of them, the Astros, is no longer in the league. So how, after spending the winter failing to fill a largely empty outfield, have the Mets become the major’s most dangerous lineup this April? It’s largely the work of four men: David Wright (of course), leftfielder Lucas Duda, catcher John Buck and second baseman Daniel Murphy (though utilityman Justin Turner has helped out off the bench) and some well-timed hits (New York has hit.310/.400/.503 with runners in scoring position, which works out to an adjusted OPS 44 percent better than the league-average in those situations).
Is it real? David Wright’s.311/.447/.557 performance isn’t out of line with his ability. That’s real. Duda, who is hitting.273/.475/.659, has legitimate power and has shown improved patience. He’ll have his slumps but could indeed have a career year in this, his age-27 season. Buck, whose time keeping the catching position warm for Travis d’Arnaud has been extended by d’Arnaud’s broken foot, has established power, too, but the 32-year-old’s team-best seven home runs are already a third of the way to a new career high. Maybe he could have another season like his career-best 2010 (.281/.314/.489, 20 HR), but even that seems unlikely as he’s never hit above.247 in any other season. Murphy can hit for solid averages (.294 career) with some patience and doubles power (41 doubles per 162 games in his career), so his current.348/.389/.576 line isn’t completely out of character, but he does have trouble staying healthy. Ike Davis and Ruben Tejada should perk up to compensate for some of the regression experienced by the others, but the main issue is the clutch performance. The best OPS+ with runners in scoring position last year was the Tigers’ 116. The Mets are at 144. That’s not real.
Oakland A’s offense: 5.26 runs per game, best in AL
The A’s won 94 games and the AL West last year, and though they only scored 4.4 runs per game on the season, they scored 5.2 runs per game after the All-Star break thanks in part to Manager of the Year Bob Melvin’s expert platooning, a big second half from rookie leftfielder Yoenis Cespedes, and some surprising performances from players such as Brandon Moss and Josh Donaldson. Thus far this year, Melvin is still working those platoons and Moss is holding his own, but Josh Donaldson is scuffling, Josh Reddick, who slumped badly down the stretch last season, can’t buy a hit (he’s 3-for-his-last-37) and Cespedes has been on the disabled list for more than a week with a strained muscle in his left hand.
Instead it’s shortstop Jed Lowrie (.382/.462/.632) and team home-run leader Coco Crisp (.328/.434/.703, 5 HR) that are leading the way with help from the platoon bats of lefty Seth Smith (.388/.464/.571) and part-time catcher Derek Norris (.357/.500/.500).
Is it real? The shape of it clearly isn’t. Crisp, who has reached double-digits in home runs once in the last seven seasons with a high of 11, is not a power hitter. Lowrie isn’t going to produce anywhere near that level even if he does manage to stay healthy. Smith and Norris’s small-sample warnings are even louder than those that should be going off throughout the rest of this piece given their part-time exposure. That said, that 5.26 runs per game this season is a match for that 5.2 runs per game in the second half last year. Cespedes has already shown he’s ready to return on Sunday. Reddick should come around. In addition, Chris Young hasn’t gotten going yet, the team’s 125 OPS+ with runners in scoring position isn’t as outlandish as the Mets’ figure and Melvin does have a knack for putting his players in positions to succeed. Oakland won’t be among the league leaders in run scoring if it finishes the season with Crisp and Lowrie as its best hitters, but an above-average performance with Cespedes leading the charge no longer seems so far-fetched.
Pittsburgh Pirates' run prevention: 3.67 runs allowed per game, second stingiest in NL
Pittsburgh's starting rotation of A.J. Burnett, Wandy Rodriguez, James McDonald, Jeff Locke and Jonathan Sanchez doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. However, while Burnett (2.63 ERA, 13.1 K/9), and Rodriguez (2-0, 0.56 ERA, 0.38 WHIP) are off great starts, the rotation isn’t what has the Pirates among the league-leaders in run prevention. It’s their bullpen and their defense. Pittsburgh's relievers have a combined 2.03 ERA, third best in the majors (behind Atlanta and Texas) in 66 2/3 innings, the third most by any relief corps in the majors (behind Houston and Toronto). Its fielders, meanwhile, have converted balls in play into outs at a higher rate than any other team in the majors, and itslead over the second-place Braves grows even larger when you adjust for the contours of their respective ballparks (using Baseball Prospectus’s Park Adjusted Defensive Efficiency).
Is it real? The Pirates bullpen is talented, but it won’t be able to hold up if manager Clint Hurdle and the starting rotation continue to demand more than 3 2/3 innings per game from it, which is more than any team but the Rockies got from its bullpen over 162 games last year. The defense, however, should benefit from a full season of Starling Marte in leftfield, the addition of Russell Martin behind the plate in place of an aging Rod Barajas, Garret Jones spending even less time in the outfield and the continued maturation of Pedro Alvarez at third base. Last year, the Pirates allowed just 4.16 runs per game. This year, they should shed Sanchez quickly and could call up Gerrit Cole and/or Jameson Taillon by season’s end. Their ability to keep runs off the board is for real.
Player Performances*
*from teams other than those above
Chris Davis, 1B, Orioles
Season Stats:.403/.486/.855, 7 HR, 21 RBI
Davis leads the majors in OPS, OPS+ and slugging and the American League in all three triple-crown stats (batting average, home runs, RBIs).
Is it real? The power is. Davis has averaged 30 home runs per 162 games in his major league career and hit 33 for Baltimore last year in 139 games. He won’t hit the 63 home runs he’s on pace for right now, but even 40 wouldn’t be terribly out of character for a hitter with his raw power in his age-27 season, particularly given that he only needs 33 more in 144 games to get there. Given that Miguel Cabrera led the league with 44 homers last year, that would put Davis in the fight for the home-run title. Don't expect him to compete in the other categories he’s currently leading, though. Davis is a hacker who has hit.264 in his career, and the man he has driven in the most this season, after himself, is Adam Jones, another hacker off to a hot start who owns a career.324 on-base percentage.
Brandon Crawford, SS, Giants
Season Stats:.317/.403/.524, 3 HR, 13 R, 166 OPS+
The Giants’ good-field, no-hit shortstop has been San Francisco's best hitter this season.
Is it real? No. Crawford hit.288/.351/.409 last September, which was his best performance in any single month of his major league career, not counting his five-game debut in May 2011. He hit.266/.331/.403 in his minor league career, and scouts have never seen him as much more than a glove-first shortstop. He’s 26, so it’s not as though he has a ton of untapped potential at the plate. He hit just four home runs in 143 games last year. That September line above represents his upside. If he is able to do that over a full season it would be a surprise and a dramatic improvement over his first two major league seasons. What he's done thus far is a complete fluke.
Paul Maholm, LHP, Braves
Season Stats: 3-1, 1.03 ERA, 0.87 WHIP, 8.5 K/9, 3.13 K/BB, 4 GS
Maholm didn’t allow a run in his first three starts this season, turned in a quality start in the fourth and has been one of the majors’ best pitchers despite a long track record of mediocrity.
Is it real? In his first six seasons with the Pirates, Maholm posted a 4.48 ERA (95 ERA+) and 1.45 WHIP while striking out just 5.6 men per nine innings, good for a 1.83 K/BB ratio. He’s shown steady improvement over the last two seasons, however, posting a 3.66 ERA (102 ERA+) and 1.29 WHIP for the Pirates in 2011, pushing his strikeouts above 6.0 per nine innings with the Cubs early last season, then having a strong stretch run for the Braves after a deadline deal sent him to Atlanta, posting a 113 ERA+, 1.19 WHIP and striking out |
published as a pamphlet (New York: Benj. R. Tucker, 1903).
AIC.1 Having to deal very briefly with the problem with which the so-called trusts confront us, I go at once to the heart of the subject, taking my stand on these propositions: That the right to cooperate is as unquestionable as the right to compete; that the right to compete involves the right to refrain from competition; that co-operation is often a method of competition, and that competition is always, in the larger view, a method of co-operation; that each is a legitimate, orderly, non-invasive exercise of the individual will under the social law of equal liberty; and that any man or institution attempting to prohibit or restrict either, by legislative enactment or by any form of invasive force, is, in so far as such man or institution may fairly be judged by such attempt, an enemy of liberty, an enemy of progress, an enemy of society, and an enemy of the human race.
AIC.2 Viewed in the light of these irrefutable propositions, the trust, then, like every other industrial combination endeavoring to do collectively nothing but what each member of the combination rightfully may endeavor to do individually, is per se, an unimpeachable institution. To assail or control or deny this form of co-operation on the ground that it is itself a denial of competition is an absurdity. It is an absurdity, because it proves too much. The trust is a denial of competition in no other sense than that in which competition itself is a denial of competition. The trust denies competition only by producing and selling more cheaply than those outside of the trust can produce and sell; but in that sense every successful individual competitor also denies competition. And if the trust is to be suppressed for such denial of competition, then the very competition in the name of which the trust is to be suppressed must itself be suppressed also. I repeat: the argument proves too much. The fact is that there is one denial of competition which is the right of all, and that there is another denial of competition which is the right of none. All of us, whether out of a trust or in it, have a right to deny competition by competing, but none of us, whether in a trust or out of it, have a right to deny competition by arbitrary decree, by interference with voluntary effort, by forcible suppression of initiative.
AIC.3 Again: To claim that the trust should be abolished or controlled because the great resources and consequent power of endurance which it acquires by combination give it an undue advantage, and thereby enable it to crush competition, is equally an argument that proves too much. If John D. Rockefeller were to start a grocery store in his individual capacity, we should not think of suppressing or restricting or hampering his enterprise simply because, with his five hundred millions, he could afford to sell groceries at less than cost until the day when the accumulated ruins of all other grocery stores should afford him a sure foundation for a profitable business. But, if Rockefellers possession of five hundred millions is not a good ground for the suppression of his grocery store, no better ground is the control of still greater wealth for the suppression of his oil trust. It is true that these vast accumulations under one control are abnormal and dangerous, but the reasons for them lie outside of and behind and beneath all trusts and industrial combinations, reasons which I shall come to presently, reasons which are all, in some form or other, an arbitrary denial of liberty; and, but for these reasons, but for these denials of liberty, John D. Rockefeller never could have acquired five hundred millions, nor would any combination of men be able to control an aggregation of wealth that could not be easily and successfully met by some other combination of men.
AIC.4 Again: There is no warrant in reason for deriving a right to control trusts from the State grant of corporate privileges under which they are organized. In the first place, it being pure usurpation to presume to endow any body of men with rights and exemptions that are not theirs already under the social law of equal liberty, corporate privileges are in themselves a wrong; and one wrong is not to be undone by attempting to offset it with another. But, even admitting the justice of corporation charters, the avowed purpose in granting them is to encourage co-operation, and thus stimulate industrial and commercial development for the benefit of the community. Now, to make this encouragement an excuse for its own nullification by a proportionate restriction of co-operation would be to add one more to those interminable imitations of the task of Sisyphus for which that stupid institution which we call the State has ever been notorious.
AIC.5 Of somewhat the same nature, but rather more plausible at first blush, is the proposition to cripple the trusts by stripping them of those law-created privileges and monopolies which are conferred, not upon trusts as corporate bodies, but upon sundry individuals and interests, ostensibly for protection of the producer and inventor, but really for purposes of plunder, and which most trusts acquire in the process of merging the original capitals of their constituent members. I refer, of course, to tariffs, patents, and copyrights. Now, tariffs, patents, and copyrights either have their foundations in justice, or they have not their foundations in justice. If they have their foundations in justice, why should men guilty of nothing but a legitimate act of co-operation and partnership be punished therefore by having their just rights taken from them? If they have not their foundations in justice, why should men who refrain from co-operation be left in possession of unjust privileges that are denied to men who co-operate? If tariffs are unjust, they should not be levied at all. If patents and copyrights are unjust, they should not be granted to anyone whomsoever. But, if tariffs and patents and copyrights are just, they should be levied or granted in the interest of all who are entitled to their benefits from the viewpoint of the motives in which these privileges have their origin, and to make such levy or grant dependent upon any foreign motive, such, for instance, as willingness to refrain from co-operation, would be sheer impertinence.
AIC.6 Nevertheless, this point in the hunt for the solution of the trust problem, the discerning student may begin to realize that he is hot on the trail. The thought arises that the trusts, instead of growing out of competition, as is so generally supposed, have been made possible only by the absence of competition, only by the difficulty of competition, only by the obstacles placed in the way of competition, only, in short, by those arbitrary limitations of competition which we find in those law-created privileges and monopolies of which I have just spoken, and in one or two others, less direct, but still more far-reaching and deadly in their destructive influence upon enterprise. And it is with this thought that Anarchism, the doctrine that in all matters there should be the greatest amount of individual liberty compatible with equality of liberty, approaches the case in hand, and offers its diagnosis and its remedy.
AIC.7 The first and great fact to be noted in the case, I have already hinted at. It is the fact that the trusts owe their power to vast accumulation and concentration of wealth, unmatched, and, under present conditions, unmatchable, by any equal accumulation of wealth, and that this accumulation of wealth has been effected by the combination of several accumulations only less vast and in themselves already gigantic, each of which owed its existence to one or more of the only means by which large fortunes can be rolled up, interest, rent, and monopolistic profit. But for interest, rent, and monopolistic profit, therefore, trusts would be impossible. Now, what causes interest, rent, and monopolistic profit? For all there is but one cause, the denial of liberty, the suppression or restriction of competition, the legal creation of monopolies.
AIC.8 This single cause, however, takes various shapes.
AIC.9 Monopolistic profit is due to that denial of liberty which takes the shape of patent, copyright, and tariff legislation, patent and copyright laws directly forbidding competition, and tariff laws placing competition at a fatal disadvantage.
AIC.10 Rent is due to that denial of liberty which takes the shape of land monopoly, vesting titles to land in individuals and associations which do not use it, and thereby compelling the non-owning users to pay tribute to the non-using owners as a condition of admission to the competitive market.
AIC.10 Interest is due to that denial of liberty which takes the shape of money monopoly, depriving all individuals and associations, save such as hold a certain kind of property, of the right to issue promissory notes as currency, and thereby compelling all holders of property other than the kind thus privileged, as well as all non-proprietors, to pay tribute to the holders of the privileged property for the use of a circulating medium and instrument of credit which, in the complex stage that industry and commerce have now reached, has become the chief essential of a competitive market.
AIC.11 Now, Anarchism, which, as I have said, is the doctrine that in all matters there should be the greatest amount of individual liberty compatible with equality of liberty, finds that none of these denials of liberty are necessary to the maintenance of equality of liberty, but that each and every one of them, on the contrary, is destructive of equality of liberty. Therefore it declares them unnecessary, arbitrary, oppressive, and unjust, and demands their immediate cessation.
AIC.12 Of these four monopolies the banking monopoly, the land monopoly, the tariff monopoly, and the patent and copyright monopoly the injustice of all but the last-named is manifest even to a child. The right of the individual to buy and sell without being held up by a highwayman whenever he crosses an imaginary line called a frontier; the right of the individual to take possession of unoccupied land as freely as he takes possession of unoccupied water or unoccupied air; the right of the individual to give his IOU, in any shape whatsoever, under any guarantee whatsoever, or under no guarantee at all, to anyone willing to accept it in exchange for something else, all these rights are too clear for argument, and any one presuming to dispute them simply declares thereby his despotic and imperialistic instincts.
AIC.13 For the fourth of these monopolies, however, the patent and copyright monopoly, a more plausible case can be presented, for the question of property in ideas is a very subtle one. The defenders of such property set up an analogy between the production of material things and the production of abstractions, and on the strength of it declare that the manufacturer of mental products, no less than the manufacturer of material products, is a laborer worthy of his hire. So far, so good. But, to make out their case, they are obliged to go further, and to claim, in violation of their own analogy, that the laborer who creates mental products, unlike the laborer who creates material products, is entitled to exemption from competition. Because the Lord, in his wisdom, or the Devil, in his malice, has so arranged matters that the inventor and the author produce naturally at a disadvantage, man, in his might, proposes to supply the divine or diabolic deficiency by an artificial arrangement that shall not only destroy this disadvantage, but actually give the inventor and author an advantage that no other laborer enjoys, an advantage, moreover, which, in practice goes, not to the inventor and the author, but to the promoter and the publisher and the trust.
AIC.14 Convincing as the argument for property in ideas may seem at first hearing, if you think about it long enough, you will begin to be suspicious. The first thing, perhaps, to arouse your suspicion will be the fact that none of the champions of such property propose the punishment of those who violate it, contenting themselves with subjecting the offenders to the risk of damage suits, and that nearly all of them are willing that even the risk of suit shall disappear when the proprietor has enjoyed his right for a certain number of years. Now, if, as the French writer, Alphonse Karr, remarked, property in ideas is a property like any other property, then its violation, like the violation of any other property, deserves criminal punishment, and its life, like that of any other property, should be secure in right against the lapse of time. And, this not being claimed by the upholders of property in ideas, the suspicion arises that such a lack of the courage of their convictions may be due to an instinctive feeling that they are wrong.
AIC.15 The necessity of being brief prevents me from examining this phase of my subject in detail. Therefore I must content myself with developing a single consideration, which, I hope, will prove suggestive.
AIC.16 I take it that, if it were possible, and if it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places the same concrete things at the same time, there never would have been any such thing as the institution of property. Under those circumstances the idea of property would never have entered the human mind, or, at any rate, if it had, would have been summarily dismissed as too gross an absurdity to be seriously entertained for a moment. Had it been possible for the concrete creation or adaptation resulting from the efforts of a single individual to be used contemporaneously by all individuals, including the creator or adapter, the realization, or impending realization, of this possibility, far from being seized upon as an excuse for a law to prevent the use of this concrete thing without the consent of its creator or adapter, and far from being guarded against as an injury to one, would have been welcomed as a blessing to all, in short, would have been viewed as a most fortunate element in the nature of things. The raison dêtre of property is found in the very fact that there is no such possibility, in the fact that it is impossible in the nature of things for concrete objects to be used in different places at the same time. This fact existing, no person can remove from anothers possession and take to his own use anothers concrete creation without thereby depriving that other of all opportunity to use that which he created, and for this reason it became socially necessary, since successful society rests on individual initiative, to protect the individual creator in the use of his concrete creations by forbidding others to use them without his consent. In other words, it became necessary to institute property in concrete things.
AIC.17 But all this happened so long ago that we of today have entirely forgotten why it happened. In fact, it is very doubtful whether, at the time of the institution, of property, those who effected it thoroughly realized and understood the motive of their course. Men sometimes do by instinct and without analysis that which conforms to right reason. The institutors of property may have been governed by circumstances inhering in the nature of things, without realizing that, had the nature of things been the opposite, they would not have instituted property. But, be that as it may, even supposing that they thoroughly understood their course, we, at any rate, have pretty nearly forgotten their understanding. And so it has come about that we have made of property a fetish; that we consider it a sacred thing; that we have set up the god of property on an altar as an object of idol-worship; and that most of us are not only doing what we can to strengthen and perpetuate his reign within the proper and original limits of his sovereignty, but also are mistakenly endeavoring to extend his dominion over things and under circumstances which, in their pivotal characteristic, are precisely the opposite of those out of which his power developed.
AIC.18 All of which is to say in briefer compass, that from the justice and social necessity of property in concrete things we have erroneously assumed the justice and social necessity of property in abstract things, that is, of property in ideas, with the result of nullifying to a large and lamentable extent that fortunate element in the nature of things, in this case not hypothetical, but real, namely, the immeasurably fruitful possibility of the use of abstract things by any number of individuals in any number of places at precisely the same time, without in the slightest degree impairing the use thereof by any single individual. Thus we have hastily and stupidly jumped to the conclusion that property in concrete things logically implies property in abstract things, whereas, if we had had the care and the keenness to accurately analyze, we should have found that the very reason which dictates the advisability of property in concrete things denies the advisability of property in abstract things. We see here a curious instance of that frequent mental phenomenon, the precise inversion of the truth by a superficial view.
AIC.19 Furthermore, were the conditions the same in both cases, and concrete things capable of use by different persons in different places at the same time, even then, I say, the institution of property in concrete things, though under those conditions manifestly absurd, would be infinitely less destructive of individual opportunities, and therefore infinitely less dangerous and detrimental to human welfare, than is the institution of property in abstract things. For it is easy to see that, even should we accept the rather startling hypothesis that a single ear of corn is continually and permanently consumable, or rather inconsumable, by an indefinite number of persons scattered over the surface of the earth, still the legal institution of property in concrete things that would secure to the sower of a grain of corn the exclusive use of the resultant ear would not, in so doing, deprive other persons of the right to sow other grains of corn and become exclusive users of their respective harvests; whereas the legal institution of property in abstract things not only secures to the inventor, say, of the steam engine the exclusive use of the engines which he actually makes, but at the same time deprives all other persons of the right to make for themselves other engines involving any of the same ideas. Perpetual property in ideas, then, which is the logical outcome of any theory of property in abstract things, would, had it been in force in the lifetime of James Watt, have made his direct heirs the owners of at least nine-tenths of the now existing wealth of the world; and, had it been in force in the lifetime of the inventor of the Roman alphabet, nearly all the highly civilized peoples of the earth would be today the virtual slaves of that inventors heirs, which is but another way of saying that, instead of becoming highly civilized, they would have remained in the state of semi-barbarism. It seems to me that these two statements, which in my view are incontrovertible, are in themselves sufficient to condemn property in ideas forever.
AIC.20 If then, the four monopolies to which I have referred are unnecessary denials of liberty, and therefore unjust denials of liberty, and if they are the sustaining causes of interest, rent, and monopolistic profit, and if, in turn, this usurious trinity is the cause of all vast accumulations of wealth, for further proof of which propositions I must, because of the limitations of my time, refer you to the economic writings of the Anarchistic school, it clearly follows that the adequate solution of the problem with which the trusts confront us is to be found only in abolition of these monopolies and the consequent guarantee of perfectly free competition.
AIC.21 The most serious of these four monopolies is unquestionably the money monopoly, and I believe that perfect freedom in finance alone would wipe out nearly all the trusts, or at least render them harmless, and perhaps helpful. Mr. Bryan told a very important truth when he declared that the destruction of the money trust would at the same time kill all the other trusts. Unhappily, Mr. Bryan does not propose to destroy the money trust. He wishes simply to transform it from a gold trust into a gold and silver trust. The money trust cannot be destroyed by the remonetization of silver. That would be only a mitigation of the monopoly, not the abolishment of it. It can be abolished only by monetizing all wealth that has a market value, that is, by giving to all wealth the right of representation by currency, and to all currency the right to circulate wherever it can on its own merits. And this is not only a solution of the trust question, but the first step that should be taken, and the greatest single step that can be taken, in economic and social reform.
AIC.22 I have tried, in the few minutes allotted to me, to state concisely the attitude of Anarchism toward industrial combinations. It discountenances all direct attacks on them, all interference with them, all anti-trust legislation whatsoever. In fact, it regards industrial combinations as very useful whenever they spring into existence in response to demand created in a healthy social body. If at present they are baneful, it is because they are symptoms of a social disease originally caused and persistently aggravated by a regimen of tyranny and quackery. Anarchism wants to call off the quacks, and give liberty, natures great cure-all, a chance to do its perfect work.Bitcoin Founder
A Florida judge is set rule Friday July 1, 2016 on whether Bitcoin is actual currency in a money laundering case. The decision could reshape how regulators nationwide deal with the digital currency. (Dominic Lipinski/PA via AP, File)
Is Bitcoin actually money? American Banker reports a Florida circuit court judge will rule on the question Friday (July 1) as part of a "first-of-its-kind money-laundering case."
The report says Michel Espinoza was arrested at a Miami Beach motel in February 2014 after agreeing to sell $30,000 worth of bitcoin to an undercover police officer. Espinoza faces charges for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and for violating Florida money laundering laws.
The defense argues Espinoza was not breaking the law because the bitcoin he was selling was not actual currency, the report says.
The Brown Derby on Tulane Avenue just got a Bitcoin ATM The future of money -- as some see it -- is wedged between Coke cases and a fountain drink machine.
American Banker reports regulators and companies that deal in the digital currency have both been grappling with the question at the heart of the case for years -- how to manage a digital asset that holds value even though you can't actually hold it in your hand.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Teresa Pooler is set to rule Friday on the case. If she rules bitcoin is indeed a currency, the ruling would only apply in the state of Florida, though other states could look to the decision to guide their own regulations, the report says.Ladies and gentlemen, remember this date: June 17th, 2016. Why? Because on that day, the game officially changed.
Google’s Chrome OS powers a fleet of laptop and desktop computers that offer users a fantastic alternative to Windows machines. Chromebooks and Chrome desktop PCs are just as good as Microsoft-powered computers when it comes to browsing the web, streaming movies or music, or even light work. Windows is probably your best bet if you need to run custom Windows software in an enterprise environment, but Chrome is a fantastic alternative for home users looking to save some money without sacrificing much in the way of performance.
And now, Chrome OS is a better option than ever before thanks to the addition of Android app support.
DON’T MISS: New free tool lets you send Gmail attachments that self-destruct
Google confirmed back in May that it intended to bring the Google Play store and support for Android apps to Chrome computers, and now it’s finally happening. Google’s François Beaufort has posted on Google+ (via Engadget) to let people know that the Play Store is currently rolling out to the Asus Flip Chromebook, with support for additional models coming soon.
What does that mean for users? It means that in the blink of an eye, their machines will gain access to more than a million Android apps available in the Play store. One of Chrome’s biggest barriers has always been a lack of apps, and now that barrier has been overcome in a big way. What’s more, developers will start to build apps with Chrome in mind, potentially opening the door for a whole new class of Android app.
Wondering if your Chrome OS computer will get support for Android apps? Here’s a complete list:
Manufacturer Device Acer Chromebook 11 C740 Chromebase 24 Chromebook 11 CB3-111 / C730 / CB3-131 Chromebook 15 CB5-571 / C910 Chromebook 15 CB3-531 Chromebox CXI2 Chromebook 14 CB3-431 Chromebook 14 for Work Asus Chromebook C200 Chromebook C201 Chromebook C202SA Chromebook C300SA Chromebook C300 Chromebox CN62 Chromebit CS10 AOpen Chromebox Commercial Chromebase Commercial 22″ Bobicus Chromebook 11 CDI eduGear Chromebook K Series eduGear Chromebook M Series eduGear Chromebook R Series CTL Chromebook J2 / J4 N6 Education Chromebook J5 Convertible Chromebook Dell Chromebook 11 3120 Chromebook 13 7310 Edxis Chromebook Education Chromebook Google Chromebook Pixel (2015) Haier Chromebook 11 Chromebook 11e Chromebook 11 G2 Hexa Chromebook Pi HiSense Chromebook 11 Lava Xolo Chromebook HP Chromebook 11 G3 / G4 / G4 EE Chromebook 14 G4 Chromebook 13 Lenovo 100S Chromebook N20 / N20P Chromebook N21 Chromebook ThinkCentre Chromebox ThinkPad 11e Chromebook N22 Chromebook Thinkpad 13 Chromebook Thinkpad 11e Chromebook Gen 3 Medion Akoya S2013 Chromebook S2015 M&A Chromebook NComputing Chromebook CX100 Nexian Chromebook 11.6″ PCMerge Chromebook PCM-116E Poin2 Chromebook 11 Samsung Chromebook 2 11″ – XE500C12 Chromebook 3 Sector 5 E1 Rugged Chromebook Senkatel C1101 Chromebook Toshiba Chromebook 2 Chromebook 2 (2015) True IDC Chromebook 11 Viglen Chromebook 11American singer Katy Perry is being trolled after she posted a picture of Goddess Kali on Instagram
current mood A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) on Apr 18, 2017 at 6:57pm PDT
@katyperry I feel so proud that Katy knows about my religion! — Haren nayar (@Harennayar) April 19, 2017
Poor Katy Perry. The American singer is facing the wrath of Indian trolls after posting a picture of the Hindu Goddess Kali on Instagram. She captioned it "current mood." Uploaded on the photo-sharing platform roughly 11 hours ago, the post has been liked over 194,000 times. But one look at the comments section reveals a series of abusive and hateful messages left by Indian Instagram users.This person was quick to see the hate that would soon be hurled Ms Perry's way:"You do realise it can have adverse effects. She is a goddess. I suggest you remove it before the ones who get offended start retaliating. I am sure your intention is clear. Do the damage control before the damage happens," warns Instagram user khalidwani.Here are just some of the kinds of comments being left on the post:"How ridiculous this? You don't have permission to upload a picture of our goddess on this f**king social media and embarrassing our culture," writes Instagram user the_j_stark."You're making fun of our goddess...Delete your account," writes another user."Everyone just report this post," writes user aham_aktiwari.But many people are now countering the negative comments"I'm an Indian and guess what? I'm not offended by this (I know!). Just thought of letting it be known, if anyone cares that is. Lest the world starts thinking every Indian on social media has anger issues. Well, now you know. Not all of us. But yeah, most of us," writes Instagram user learnerdy."I don't understand, what's in there to be offended, I am a very proud Indian but not at all offended by this," writes someone who goes by the username medude28.Instagram user ishagupta981 adds: "Come on everyone...it's nothing to get offended about..she meant she is angry and furious as the goddess in the pic. She didn't disrespect. I'm also Hindu and a proud Indian."Ms Perry has posted the same picture and caption on Twitter as well, where it is being met with similar - though markedly less hateful - reactions.This person has a simple request:"Umm ok? No hate but please respect our goddess? You would hate it if we started using your religious symbols like this so don't do it to us...culture appropriation," writes Instagram user gold_dancergirl.Ms Perry has around 63.4 million followers on Instagram and is among the top 20 most followed people on the platform.With 97.1 million followers, the pop singer is the most followed person on Twitter.On Monday, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel's fiancee, Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr, was similarly trolled on Instagram. Click here for more trending storiesLeave this field empty if you're human:
I’ve been obsessed with this Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding lately, and I’ve been making it on repeat. They are the perfect snack to have whenever I need a quick pick-me-up or something on the go. I’ll prepare enough mixture for a batch of eight chia puddings, put them in the fridge overnight, and then, just like that…I have delicious and healthy snacks to eat whenever or to bring with me wherever. Easy peasy!
An awesome thing about these particular chia puddings is that one of the ingredients is vanilla protein powder, so they have a great amount of protein in them! Each serving (one eight ounce mason jar) has twelve and a half grams of protein. Therefore, if you eat two, you get twenty five grams of protein! SCORE. A snack that truly feeds you.
My Protein Powder of Choice
My husband and I have been using Clutch Protein Powder for the last six months, so this is the protein that my little chia puddings carry. I am a freaking FAN of this supplement. It is the cleanest protein powder I’ve been able to find thus far; it also tastes great, mixes wonderfully, and never ever ever hurts my stomach or makes me bloated.
Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding Toppings
Adding a few berries and bananas to your Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding will add some great flavor and texture to your snack. My current favorite berries are blueberries and raspberries, so I’ve been adding a ton of those in (plus banana slices!). Add whatever fruits you love, as this Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding recipe goes well with most!
Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding Shelf Life
This Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding recipe will remain fresh in your refrigerator for about three days, so make sure you eat them no later than by the third day. If you don’t think you can eat the eight puddings this recipe yields, then divide the recipe by half or by a quarter, so that nothing goes to waste.
Hope you all enjoy your Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding as much as we do at home!! XO
Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding Save Print Prep time 10 mins Cook time 8 hours Total time 8 hours 10 mins This Vanilla Protein Chia Pudding recipe will satiate any craving! A very nutritious and easy to make Paleo recipe to enjoy any time of the day! Author: Mariel Lewis Recipe type: Breakfast Cuisine: American Serves: 8 8-oz mason jars Ingredients 4 scoops vanilla protein powder
12 tablespoons chia seeds
4 tablespoons creamy peanut butter (or any nut butter you like!)
¼ cup honey (optional)
4 cups unsweetened carton coconut milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Banana slices and berries, to top Instructions Add coconut milk, vanilla protein powder, honey, peanut butter, and vanilla extract to a high-speed blender, and blond on high until smooth. Divide mixture into your eight mason jars evenly, and add in 2 tablespoons of chia seeds into each jar. Use a spoon to incorporate the chia seeds with the mixture. Seal jars and shake each one well, before placing them in the refrigerator. Refrigerate overnight. (Give mason jars a nice shake, 45 minutes after refrigeration, to make sure chia seeds don’t sink to the bottom and are able to mix thoroughly -- you can do this a few times to ensure proper blending. If chia seeds are being stubborn, open up jar and use a spoon to mix). In another mason jar, or small bowl, layer the chia seeds with your topping of choice. I had mine with bananas and blueberries. Enjoy! Nutrition Information Serving size: 8 oz mason jar -- Calories: 228 Fat: 9 g. Carbohydrates: 18 g. Sodium: 103 mg. Fiber: 7 g. Protein: 19 g. 3.5.3226National treasure Claude Choules - Australia's oldest man and the world's last surviving World War I veteran - has died, aged 110.
Mr Choules was a man who made the best of life and devoted himself to his family and country.
His fighting spirit helped him survive two world wars, and also live long enough to become the oldest man in WA and the last World War I veteran living in Australia.
His achievements and longevity also won him a starring role in a British documentary watched by millions.
But for Mr Choules, the mounting milestones and media interest from around the world in his later years increasingly paled in comparison to the importance of family.
His daughter, 80-year-old Anne Pow, said it was the good times he shared with family that he would talk about most, not the wars he described as “useless” and “destructive”.
The former naval explosives expert, who was also the last living person to have fought in both world wars, lived his last years in Gracewood Hostel in Salter Point, Perth, WA.
Born in Wyre Piddle, near Pershore Worcestershire, he was married for 80 years to Ethel, a Scottish children's nurse, who lived to 98.
From the age of 14, Mr Choules served in Britain's Royal Navy in WWI and witnessed the surrender of the German Imperial Navy in 1918 while serving aboard HMS Revenge.
In 1926, he was seconded to the Australian navy, in which he served through World War II until 1956. But Mr Choules always told his children that, though war featured moments of high danger, it was boring for much of the time.
He had a 41-year career as an explosives expert and then retired to cray-fishing in Safety Bay.
Mr Choules wrote an autobiography, The Last of the Last, which was released in 2009 and made him the world's oldest first-time published author at the age of 108.
There had been a flurry of interest in Mr Choules from around the world since he became Britain's last surviving World War I veteran in July 2009, but he didn't care much for the records.
In early 2010, his daughter Anne Pow explained how her father was focused on family rather than war stories.
``He doesn't do interviews anymore -- it's too exhausting for him,'' Ms Pow said.
``And the sort of questions he's always asked, he's not so interested in any more.
``He's had: `What do you think about the war?' questions over and over again and he's bored with all that now, not interested.
``When we talk about the past, it's about something we've shared as a family that's interesting to him.
``People always ask, `What do you put your long life down to?' and he says, `I just keep breathing.'
``He's very much a man of his time -- a very good man. He was a wonderful father and still is.''
The memories of his remarkable life are fortunately not completely lost, with the BBC documentary ‘Harry Patch - The Last Tommy’ immortalising them on film in 2006.
The television feature was named after British veteran Harry Patch, who died in 2009, but Mr Choules is very much the star.
Just 11 minutes in, the story moves to WA where Choules and his grand-daughter Jennifer Hesford attend the opening night of an exhibition of war paintings in Perth in 2006.
The display includes a portrait of Mr Choules, painted by his grandson Lindsay Pow, based on a photograph taken during the first world war when he was 15.
"You were so young," Jennifer says.
"I went straight into the navy - I never had a job anywhere," Mr Choules replies.
At just 14 years old, the young Briton lied about his age in order to join Britain's Royal Navy in 1916.
The painting reminded Choules of the six months he spent after the war at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys where he guarded 74 ships of the interned German fleet.
In June 1919, the German Commander decided to scuttle his ships after discovering the fleet was to be handed over to the Royal Navy.
Choules was on board HMS Revenge preparing for torpedo training.
"We had the torpedo in the tube all ready to fire and the ship was on the firing course and suddenly the captain's cease fire gong rang," said Mr Choules.
"Everybody panicked - we could tell by the vibration of the ship that we were increasing speed and we knew there was a panic on somewhere.
"We thought it must be in Scapa Flow where the Germans were.
"As we went through the entrance we could see the German ships - some of them had sunk and others were going over and sinking.
"We could see ships going all over the place.
"We said: ‘Thank Christ for that’, we had been here for nearly six months waiting for our war service leave, now we can all go home and get our service leave - the bastards are gone."
Mr Choules turned to the navy for security and purpose.
"You grew up in the navy and the navy was like your family," said Jennifer.
"The navy was my life," said Mr Choules.
"I lost my mother when I was about four - I can just remember my mother."
By the end of the war Mr Choules’ father was also dead.
"His family broke up so young," says Jennifer.
"He was only a little boy when his family split up.
"I think the navy took over the role of family for many years."
But it was the family that he created with his wife of 80 years, Ethel, that he was most deeply devoted to.
The love story between Mr Choules and Ethel began on a boat voyage from Britain – he was travelling down under to join the Australian Navy.
"I saw two girls leaning over the rail and looking at |
that I did not like, that did not look good overall,” Ms. Jackson said. “But we’re toward the end of the election, I guess bickering is just how it’s going to be.”
She said she was most turned off by the moment when Mr. Obama asked the moderator, Tom Brokaw, for time to give a follow-up answer, and Mr. McCain interjected that if Mr. Obama received extra time, he should get it too.
“That seemed really immature and snappish to me,” she said.
Ms. Jackson, who is black, said she related more to Mr. Obama, especially his reference to his single mother at the end of the debate. But she added that she is craving strong leadership most of all, and “could definitely be swayed” if she saw that from Mr. McCain. She said she did not sense that last night, and planned to vote for Mr. Obama.
Both women, as well as the third audience member, were especially emphatic about their feelings on the two men’s performance after the debate. All three said that Mr. McCain shook hands with several audience members and then left fairly quickly. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, stuck around to shake far more hands, pose for pictures, sign autographs, and answer more questions, including from people who had been on stage but did not get a chance to ask their questions. Only when Secret Service agents told them it was time to go did the couple leave (upon which they headed for a post-debate fundraiser at Al and Tipper Gore’s house nearby).
“McCain leaving right afterward was pretty shocking to me – even some of the big McCain fans among us were really surprised he did that,” Ms. Jackson said. “I thought the Obamas came off like real people much more in the end.”
Ms. Trella added: for, “I was very impressed that the Obamas stayed til the very end, shook everyone’s hand, and just seemed very accessible. I think they won some people over by just sticking around and seeming happy to talk more.”For other people named John Gorrie, see John Gorrie (disambiguation)
John Gorrie (October 3, 1803 – June 29, 1855) was an American physician, scientist, inventor of mechanical cooling, and humanitarian.[1][2]
Early life [ edit ]
Born on the Island of Nevis in the Leeward Islands of the West Indies to Scottish parents on October 3, 1803, he spent his childhood in South Carolina. He received his medical education at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Western District of New York in Fairfield, New York.
In 1833, he moved to Apalachicola, Florida, a port city on the Gulf coast. As well as being resident physician at two hospitals, Gorrie was active in the community. At various times he served as a council member, Postmaster, President of the Bank of Pensacola's Apalachicola Branch, Secretary of the Masonic Lodge, and was one of the founding vestrymen of Trinity Episcopal Church.
Gorrie Monument in Apalachicola, Florida.
Dr. Gorrie's medical research involved the study of tropical diseases. At the time the theory that bad air — mal-aria — caused diseases was a prevalent hypothesis and based on this theory, he urged draining the swamps and the cooling of sickrooms.[3] For this he cooled rooms with ice in a basin suspended from the ceiling. Cool air, being heavier, flowed down across the patient and through an opening near the floor.
Experiments with artificial cooling [ edit ]
Since it was necessary to transport ice by boat from the northern lakes, Gorrie experimented with making artificial ice.[2]
After 1845, he gave up his medical practice to pursue refrigeration products. On May 6, 1851, Gorrie was granted Patent No. 8080 for a machine to make ice. The original model of this machine and the scientific articles he wrote are at the Smithsonian Institution. In 1835, patents for "Apparatus and means for producing ice and in cooling fluids" had been granted in England and Scotland to American-born inventor Jacob Perkins, who became known as "the father of the refrigerator." Impoverished, Gorrie sought to raise money to manufacture his machine, but the venture failed when his partner died. Humiliated by criticism, financially ruined, and his health broken, Gorrie died in seclusion on June 29, 1855. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery.[4][5]:195
Another version of Gorrie's "cooling system"[citation needed] was used when President James A. Garfield was dying in 1881. Naval engineers built a box filled with cloths that had been soaked in melted ice water. Then by allowing hot air to blow on the cloths it decreased the room temperature by 20 degrees Fahrenheit. The problem with this method was essentially the same problem Gorrie had. It required an enormous amount of ice to keep the room cooled continuously. Yet it was an important event in the history of air conditioning. It proved that Dr. Gorrie had the right idea, but was unable to capitalize on it.[6] The first practical refrigeration system in 1854, patented in 1855, was built by James Harrison in Geelong, Australia.[7]
Monuments and memorials [ edit ]
Schematic of Gorrie's ice machine.
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]March for Choice 2016
Not long to go to this year March for Choice, taking place on Saturday September 24th. This one day represents months of planning by all the volunteers which make up the Abortion Rights Campaign.
We will assemble at 1:30 pm at The Garden of Remembrance, on Parnell Square, close to the Rotunda hospital where medical professionals are restricted in the care they can give their patients by the 8th Amendment.
We will be joined by groups and individuals who have travelled from all over the country to support those who are forced travel for abortion each year, as well as Students, Unions, Doctors, Midwives and other civil society organisations.
At 2pm the March will start, proceeding down O’Connell St passing the GPO where many fought and died for the dream of an Ireland in which people could choose their own destiny. That dream will not be fulfilled until we have self determination and choice, with access to free, safe and legal abortion for all in Ireland.
We will turn left at the quays marching towards The Custom House. This is where many of the confiscated packets of abortion pills, ordered by women unable to travel, end up. Here we will be joined by Parents for Choice. Please join us here if you wish to take part in the march but are unable to walk the full route.
We will then cross the Liffey moving towards the back entrance of Trinity College Dublin. The Trinity Students Union was one of those taken to the High Court in 1991 for giving out abortion information. This Students Union along with the many more with a Pro Choice mandate will be marching with us.
We will then proceed onto Pearse St, passing by the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) head office. Since its founding, when contraception was still illegal, the IFPA has worked hard to get information to people and to provide services. As we pass by the Dart station we will think of the 1,000s of people who have had to travel each year. We march to end these journeys.
We will then approach Merrion Square and our National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street, which must send women away from its care each week due to our inhumane laws & the 8th Amendment.
Finally we will end of our March outside the Dáil Éireann, to hear from speakers, who will remind us that while the March maybe over for another year, the fight will go on until we Repeal the 8th Amendment and legislate for Free Safe and Legal abortion in Ireland.
Come Join us on the 24th of September as we Rise and Repeal the 8th!There is a restraint and perfect sense of balance that exudes from the very first note of Not An Exit, a new track from Los Angeles based duo Twin Oaks. Floating along on a plaintive acoustic strum, minimal percussion and the stirring vocals of Lauren Brown, the track weaves and meanders along, echoing the quiet but constant trickle of a stream that is only ever heading towards something far greater than itself. It’s not just nature that this track brings to mind however; the sense of longing and restlessness more reminiscent of someones breath on your neck than the wind in your hair.
A second track also released this week is just as mesmerising; the slow-build nature of Cellar plays out like a deep and weighty conversation that only ever seems to rear its head at 3 o’clock in the morning. Time stops, or at least becomes irrelevant, as thoughts and words are released left to disappear into the night or lay like a cloak upon you.
Twin Oaks are set to release an EP later this year. Follow them on Facebook for more updates.
http://twinoaks.bandcamp.com
http://twinoaksmusic.com/
Words by Tom JohnsonThe release of a detailed audit of Pamela Wallin's expense claims is deepening political problems for the Harper government, with the Saskatchewan senator accused of billing more than $121,000 in questionable expenses since taking office.
The Senate committee that ordered the independent audit confirmed Tuesday that it would refer the matter to the RCMP as it unveiled a report that listed dozens of travel claims Ms. Wallin made to the Senate for trips auditors said were related to personal and partisan events.
Ms. Wallin's Conservative Party-related events, in particular, add to the government's difficulties as it tries to gain control of a growing sense of public mistrust with the way the Red Chamber works. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to address the Senate spending issue in a Speech from the Throne when Parliament returns, a sign that he hopes to calm the nerves of aggrieved party supporters frustrated by the recent spending revelations.
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At the same time, some senators are raising questions about how much weight should be placed on an individual's qualifications and ability to contribute to public policy when they are appointed, according to a Conservative senator who asked not to be named.
Both Liberal and Conservative governments have used Senate appointments to reward party supporters, a strategy the senator acknowledged may not always produce the best policy makers.
Ms. Wallin and embattled Senator Mike Duffy – who was given $90,000 by Mr. Harper's then-chief of staff to repay improper expenses this year – are not long-time members of the Conservative Party. But the two former TV journalists brought an element of star power that they leveraged to become key party fundraisers and spokespeople once they entered the Senate.
The audit released Tuesday indicates that Ms. Wallin told auditors she was asked to be a "different kind of Senator," who was more active in the community and in representing the Red Chamber. She said she spoke with another Conservative senator about some of her roles outside the Senate, such as her earlier position as chancellor at the University of Guelph, and confirmed that related travel expenses could be reimbursed.
Ms. Wallin was ordered Tuesday to return $82,979 in improper claims, in addition to the $38,369 she has already repaid. Several of the claims identified by auditors are for travel to party-related speaking engagements, while others involve trips Ms. Wallin made to Toronto or stops in that city while she was en route to Saskatchewan.
Despite a reminder that was issued to all senators shortly before the 2011 federal election period, Ms. Wallin billed the Senate for three events related to partisan election activities in April of that year, including a rally in support of the Conservative Party in Saskatoon two weeks before the election.
An internal document distributed to senators shortly before that election notes that their campaign expenses must be authorized in advance by the candidate's official agent and paid for by that campaign.
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Officials in the Prime Minister's Office and at Conservative Party headquarters did not respond to requests for information about who authorized Ms. Wallin to travel for partisan events, and about when the government and the party became aware that the senator had billed the Red Chamber for related expenses.
"No," Andrew MacDougall, Mr. Harper's director of communications, replied by e-mail, when asked whether the government knew of or approved charging expenses for party-related events to the Senate.
"Our Government will not tolerate the waste or abuse of taxpayer money," he wrote. "We expect that any inappropriate expenses will be repaid."
Fred DeLorey, spokesman for the Conservative Party, responded to a similar question and a request for an interview with this statement by e-mail: "These expenses were submitted by Senator Wallin. Questions about them should be addressed to her."
Ms. Wallin has called the audit "flawed and fundamentally unfair," but promised Monday to repay whatever money the Senate says she owes with interest. She could not be reached for comment after the audit was made public Tuesday.
NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus, whose party wants to abolish the Senate, said the audit raises new questions about whether other members of the Red Chamber have used Senate resources to pay for political campaign work. "It really raises the question, is it believable that she was the only one misusing the system in this way," he said.
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With reports from John Ibbitson and Josh Wingrove in OttawaMuch has been written about the impact of Rabbi Barry Freundel on the Orthodox world. In a community that sees the mikveh as essential to their practice of Judaism, this is a fundamental tear in the fabric that weaves together ideals of halakhic observance with the messy realities of daily life. But much less commented upon are the ways in which this tragedy has implications beyond the Orthodox world.
Jewish feminists of all stripes, and mikveh activists like Mayyim Hayyim in Boston have been working to help reimagine mikveh. In my own life and rabbinate, I’ve been to the mikveh with women after abortions and miscarriages. I’ve seen its healing powers provide a balm to those struggling with illness or dramatic life changes. I’ve had the privilege of celebrating brides, b’not mitzvah and mothers of b’nai mitzvah with a spiritual dip. For many, the power of this ritual exceeds rational expectations and is profoundly meaningful.
Unfortunately, this scandal has reinforced preexisting negative assumptions about mikveh which abound in the liberal Jewish communities I inhabit. Part of this emerges from a feminist critique of the laws which link women’s menstruation with the need for purification. There are concerns about privacy, cleanliness, and irrational outmoded rituals. The extent to which Freundel’s alleged corruption focused around mikveh has put the healing and spiritual potential of this ritual even further from the reach of liberal Jews. Since news broke, I have been part of many conversations, on line and in person, where people are seeing Freundel’s actions as vindication for having avoided the ritual in their lives to date. Others, looking for life cycle rituals, have voiced trepidation about going to the mikveh in the future. The loss of trust and the positive potential of this ritual has been compromised beyond the narrow confines of the Washington, Orthodox community.
Additionally, while the majority of non-Orthodox commentators have been thoughtful in their reactions, I have been troubled by the tendency of some to wonder why any Jewish women stay in the male-dominated Orthodox world. Some cite the exclusively male rabbinate as reason enough for women to leave. Others suggest that given the more egalitarian options in the Jewish religious landscape, women should be moving out of Orthodoxy.
This line of thinking is highly problematic. Whatever denomination or affiliation a particular Jew holds, it is important to recognize that other streams of Jewish life have their own value. If we are intellectually honest, most of us can recognize that there is no perfect religious community. But more troubling than the dismissal of Orthodoxy as a valid approach to Jewish living is the victim-blaming implied by such critiques. Let us be clear: None of the victims of Rabbi Freundel’s alleged misdeeds bears any fault or blame for what has happened. We should not underestimate the intelligence, passion or thoughtfulness of the women in Rabbi Freundel’s community. That these women might have chosen less male-dominated forms of Jewish living does not by any means lessen Rabbi Freundel’s responsibility or the obligation of the RCA to live up to its own standards and those of secular law. They bear the entire responsibility. No one should expect or put up with abuse of power or sexual abuse.
Finally, the focus on Rabbi Freundel and the RCA should not obscure that the abuse of women or rabbinic power is not unique to the Orthodox. Seeing abuse as primarily an Orthodox problem minimizes the pain and suffering of those who have been sexually harassed or abused by non-Orthodox rabbis and Jewish leaders in non-Orthodox settings. The limited circles of Jewish power and community often have a chilling effect on women’s ability to stand up to abuse, no matter the denomination. Furthermore, I have worked with converts from all denominations who have had rabbis charge exorbitant fees for conversions or required favors be performed, exploiting their spiritual vulnerability. Across the board, Jews have to condemn sexual and religious exploitation within our communities.
As it should, Rabbi Freundel’s arrest has rocked the Kesher Israel community and the Orthodox circles that held this man in great esteem. Yet the implications are much broader. We should take the opportunity to open conversations about what are often taboo subjects. Rabbi Freundel’s alleged actions have shined a light on mikveh, abuse of power in the Jewish community, and the challenges of conversion. None of these issues is unique to the Orthodox world.
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mikveh Your browser does not support the audio element. Pronounced: MICK-vuh, or mick-VAH, Alternate Spelling: mikvah, Origin: Hebrew, Jewish ritual bath.
mitzvah Your browser does not support the audio element. Pronounced: MITZ-vuh or meetz-VAH, Origin: Hebrew, commandment, also used to mean good deed.Many tiny house dreamers want to build their own tiny house, but may be deterred by their lack of construction skills. In addition, fully customized tiny homes can be more than many people’s budgets. Tiny House Builders builds and sells simple, fully completed, mobile tiny houses that allow the owner/builder to customize the house to whatever style they want at an affordable price. The company accomplishes this with three levels of each of their products. Level One is a complete set of building plans instructional narrative, and step by step instructional photos. Level Two consists of a complete modular building “kit”. It arrives at your door with the completed floor system mounted on its own mobile chassis and the building shell in “panelized” form. Level Three is a complete building shell that can be further customized by the owner.
The first product sold by the company is the Wallowa. This tiny house is 8 feet by 12 feet and includes 2×4 framing, a standard home size entry door, two windows, double wall construction, cedar lap siding with cedar trim, and metal roofing guaranteed for 35 years. The interior clear ceiling height is 6 feet 8 inches, and the interior loft height at the peak is slightly over 3 feet 8 inches. The overall height with the building on its mobile chassis is 13 feet 5 inches, just under the legal limitation. Level One ($429) includes a complete set of detailed building plans, actual photos of construction and an instructional video. Level Two ($9,850) and Level Three ($15,975) allow the owner to design and build their own interior including wall covering, floor covering, plumbing, electrical, appliances and cabinetry.
The Wallowa has several options including a gable overhang porch, additional side windows and a loft. These options can be added onto Levels 2 and 3 for an additional price.
The second tiny house is the Bitterroot. The exterior dimensions are 7 feet by 16 feet and the interior ceiling is 6 feet 8 inches and it is also 13 feet 5 inches on its mobile chassis. The Bitterroot, with its narrower footprint is better suited to extended towing and the loss of width is compensated by the additional length. The Bitterroot’s Level One, Two, and and Three package and options are the same as the Wallowa. The prices for the Bitterroot are: Level One ($429), Level Two ($12,650) and Level Three ($17,890).
Tiny House Builders’ parent company, Enviro-Mechanical Specialists, Inc. (EMS) is long known for their expertise in providing a broad range of services to the Green Building industry. The company’s philosophy is that “less is more” and that we should do everything possible to reduce our consumption of natural resources.
Photos courtesy of Tiny House Builders
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]Footage from Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE’s deposition in a lawsuit the GOP nominee filed regarding a restaurant deal at his Washington hotel could soon be released to the public, according to Politico.
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Back in June, Trump testified about prominent chef Geoffrey Zakarian pulling out of a lease to open a restaurant in Trump’s new hotel, opening in September at the Old Post Office Building.
Both Zakarian and D.C. chef José Andrés have backed out of plans to develop restaurants at the real estate mogul’s new establishment because of Trump’s past controversial comments about immigration.
Trump pushed back against both popular chefs, saying their decision to be “politically correct” have “caused me damages.”
"If they would have gotten out very quietly, I think it would have been better for everybody. They caused me damages," Trump said, according to transcripts filed in D.C. Superior Court.
"They made such a big deal out of it. And they didn't have to. … They wanted to be they thought politically correct by doing what they did. I think they made a mistake."
D.C. Superior Court Judge Brian Holeman, who’s presiding over the case, has denied a request from the real estate mogul to seal the deposition video, making the release of the video appear likely.
The footage features Trump being questioned about his inflammatory remarks about an Indiana-born federal judge’s Mexican heritage.
Trump acknowledged his comments about U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, but one of his lawyers objected to the questioning and asked how this was related to the case at hand.
"You're trolling for something that, frankly, might eventually be leaked to the media. … Bring these questions into a relevancy zone,” Trump lawyer Rebecca Woods said.
But Zakarian’s lawyer retorted: "We have no intention of leaking anything to the media.”Please consider making a donation toand help our mission to make the world a better place.
Many of these photos were taken by photographer Steve Axford of New South Wales who covers everything from micro fungi to volcanoes. Visit his website for more amazing photos!
The mystical world of mushrooms captured in photos...
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Little Boy Gets Help From Dad Using Doorbell CameraJust how deeply is the international art market enmeshed with the tax-dodging maneuvers of the superrich? We may be about to find out.
The so-called “Panama Papers” are poised to blow a huge hole in the veil of secrecy that has covered the doings of the world’s economic elite. Obtained from a secret source by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Coalition of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the trove may represent the largest data leak in history, consisting of more than 11 million documents detailing the inner workings of controversial Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, one of the world’s foremost facilitators of offshore tax havens.
Related: What You Need to Know about the Latest Panama Papers Revelations
The Guardian, summarizing the staggering range of unsavory activities revealed by a first pass through the data, has the following to say:
In the files we have found evidence of Russian banks providing slush funds for President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle; assets belonging to 12 country leaders, including the leaders of Iceland, Pakistan and Ukraine; companies connected to more than 140 senior politicians, their friends and relatives, and to some 22 people subject to sanctions for supporting regimes in North Korea, Syria, Russia and Zimbabwe; the proceeds of crimes, including Britain’s infamous Brink’s-Mat gold robbery; and enough art hidden in private collections to fill a public gallery.
What might this last reference mean? An article from the first round of reporting up on the ICIJ site by journalist Will Fitzgibbon details Mossack Fonseca’s role in facilitating the use of shell corporations to hide assets during divorce.
For instance, Fitzgibbon looks at the messy divorce of Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian potash magnate who has been in the news on account of his spectacular legal battle with “Freeport king” Yves Bouvier, who is accused of defrauding Rybolovlev of millions in the past decade through the sale of blue-chip paintings.
Fitzgibbon’s article suggests that even as the Russian billionaire was plowing massive amounts of his fortune into art investments, he was using offshore entities to shield himself from having to share these investments with his spouse, Elena:
[I]n 2002 Mossack Fonseca had incorporated Xitrans Finance Ltd in the British Virgin Islands. The offshore company, no more than a post office box in sunny Tortola, was a mini-Louvre museum when it came to its assets; Xitrans Finance Ltd owned paintings by Picasso, Modigliani, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Rothko. It also bought Louis XVI style desks, tables and drawers made by some of Paris’s grandest furniture makers. As the marriage broke down, according to notes from a court hearing sent via email to Mossack Fonseca in January 2009, Dmitri used Xitrans Finance Ltd to move these luxury items out of Switzerland to Singapore and London, beyond her reach. While Xitrans Finance Ltd was held by the Rybolovlev family trust, according to Mossack Fonseca’s records, only Dmitri Rybolovlev held shares in the company, despite Elena’s claim that Xitrans bought assets “on behalf of herself and her husband.”
In the end, this type of skulduggery may be the very least of the financial schemes to be revealed. The revelations are just getting started: around 400 journalists from more than 100 international media outlets have their hands on the data, and are combing it for stories.
“Mossack Fonseca’s fingers are in Africa’s diamond trade, the international art market and other businesses that thrive on secrecy,” according to the ICIJ website. To observers, the unsavory proximity of art collecting to tax evasion has become clearer in recent years.
For instance, when Credit Suisse pled guilty in 2014 to facilitating tax dodging, the news came out that the Swiss bank had sent reps “undercover” to Art Basel in Miami Beach to recruit wealthy patrons into conspiring to tax evasion. (Credit Suisse, incidentally, appears to be one of the top clients of Mossack Fonseca’s services.)
What more will we learn as journalists dive into the Papers? How might their revelations change the way that the public and governmental agencies view the art world and other “businesses that thrive on secrecy?” ICIJ says that the full list of companies and people implicated in the Panama Papers will be released in “early May.”
Follow artnet News on Facebook:”Please, the world needs to know: We are captives, we don’t have water or electricity here in Aleppo but it is nothing compared to the fear we have toward the Islamists. Why is no one doing anything to save us?”
A young Assyrian Christian woman in Aleppo, Syria, spoke these words to me during a phone call a few days ago. She is stuck in the country with her three small children.
In wake of the ISIS invasion of Iraq, reports (long overdue) are emerging about the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the country. Yet ISIS is committing the same atrocities against non-Muslims in Syria, too.
Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, has been emptied of almost all Christians. Ten days ago, ISIS – who now call themselves the Islamic State (IS) – distributed fliers to Christians that read: “Convert, Pay Jizya, Leave or Die.”
The Christians fled in droves before the Saturday deadline for their decision.
The scant few who remained were weak, old or injured and could not flee. A man who lost his leg in a bombing a couple of days prior to the deadline was forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, according to his relatives.
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Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, also has been nearly emptied of Assyrians, Armenians and other non-Muslims.
These are the words spoken to me by the father of the three children stuck with their mother in another phone call: "It’s happening right in front of their eyes and no one is lifting a finger to stop it. Please be our voice, we beg you -- make them do something to save us from being slaughtered.”
The husband has fled to Sweden. He had a plan of bringing his family later. But for now, he has left them behind, and they are in severe danger.
After our conversation, I thought at first, what kind of man is he to leave his family behind? Then I realized I’ve interviewed thousands of refugees who have been similarly deserted in countries like China, Thailand, Chad, or have had friends and family who have drowned in their attempts to flee. Maybe this young man was threatened by the Jihadists and decided to flee rather than risk his entire family’s life.
And who I am to judge him, while I’m enjoying the freedom and safety of Sweden, where I myself arrived as an 8-year-old?
Then I reminded myself of this: I have been trusted to be the voice of some of these people; the unheard minorities of this world, who are being persecuted, slaughtered and forcibly removed from their birthplaces. That is the task I have somehow been given, and I take that responsibility very seriously. Someone has to do it.
Right now in Syria and Iraq, girls are being kidnapped, raped and killed. Young men have been beheaded in front of cameras because of their faith. For a decade now I have been watching these gruesome video clips that find their way to me. This is the kind of footage that will never leave you. Nor will the desperate voices of the victims.
So I must continue speaking out for Mary, a young woman in her mid-20s, who was dragged out of her house in Southeast Syria for being an Assyrian activist. She was pushed to the ground in the middle of the street and shot in the head. Then the terrorists shouted that they would murder the entire family of anyone attempting to touch the corpse. The same night dogs started to eat her body.
And I will continue talking about the Assyrian and Armenian girls who are kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam and marry Jihadists, as one Iraqi and Syrian city after another is being emptied of Christians.
Before Syria's civil war broke out, more than 200 Assyrian families and 1,000 individuals lived in Tabqa, a city in northern Syria. Nearly all of them have left the country; some of them are stranded all over the world, abandoned by cynical smugglers who failed to get them to Europe. Only three Assyrian families had remained in Tabqa. The rebels told them that they would not be harmed. The remaining Assyrians were poor and were trying to maintain what little they had.
One of them was 26-year-old Ninar Odisho. Ninar was brutally murdered by the terrorists. The reason he was killed could be found on his body. The Jihadists had burned a cross into his face. Every day I get reports of atrocities. Our nation, our Christian legacy and our way of life are being eradicated. Assassinated.
The prideful tone in which the perpetrators speak whenever I have interviewed them --both Al Qaeda and IS --– is equally shocking. These are mostly disgruntled young men who were teetering on the edges of society in their own homelands, often in European suburbs, and now believe they have the power to do whatever they want in the name of Islam. They can claim any house in IS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria as their own, and tell the owners to either leave or risk being killed. They can take any woman as their wife.
Why? Because no one is stopping them.
At least 700, 000 non-Muslims -- Christians, Mandeans, Yezidis and others -- have left Iraq by now. No one knows how many have left Syria.
IS is also persecuting Muslims. They have killed Sunni Mullahs in Mosul to show that they do not tolerate any interpretation of the Koran other than their own hijacked and distorted version, and that they will accept no religious authority other than their own homemade version.
In other words, everyone other than them is a target: especially the more immediate rivals to their religious and communal authority, other Muslim sects such as the Shia and the Alawites.
They will cut off your tongue if they don’t like what you say, and sever your fingers if they catch you smoking. According to sources in Mosul yesterday, a man was brutally attacked and tortured because he was wearing jeans, which to the IS is tantamount to wearing an U.S. Army uniform.
So, what is the rest of the world doing about this?
Well, world leaders are funding the opposition in Syria, including many of the same extremist groups that they claim America will combat in Iraq by supporting the Iraqi government.
I am struggling to make any moral or human sense of it all.
And here’s a good question: Why is the most powerful country in the world silent as Christianity is wrenched of its roots?
As for me, I came to a point where I have concluded it’s not enough to bear witness anymore.
On June 19 of this year, a young Assyrian who was forcibly deported from Sweden back to Iraq called me from a basement in Mosul. He was whispering. He told me to listen to the surrounding noise: men screaming “Taqbir!” and “Allah u Akbar!” It was ISIS invading his city.
The next morning I went on Facebook and Twitter and asked my friends for help. I started a worldwide campaign. It is called A Demand For Action. We have sent e-mails to politicians, NGOs and media outlets all over the world. We will not stop making the voices of the victims in Iraq and Syria heard until they receive a permanent solution.
In the Nineveh Plains, just south of Iraqi Kurdistan, Assyrians and other minorities constitute the demographic majority and are currently very vulnerable. We need a safe haven, if Christianity and its followers are not to be eradicated from their place of origin for good.
Last week, yet another village in Iraq was attacked by IS. The Christians of the Middle East have faced many massacres over the past century. We are now facing the prospect of a new genocide against Christians in Iraq and Syria.
American and other nations’ leaders must show their support and act now.
Nuri Kino is a Swedish-Assyrian freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is co-author of the political thriller, “The Line in the Sand.”A youth pastor in Florida was arrested Tuesday in connection with the murder and dismembering of a 16-year-old boy in 1994, as FBI investigators reportedly scoured through two properties he owned.
Ronnie Leon Hyde, 60, was held without bond on murder charges at the Duval County jail. Crews used a backhoe to dig for evidence at his Jacksonville Beach home, Fox 30 reported.
Here's a picture of the agents raiding this home on 4th Ave and 9th St. @ActionNewsJax pic.twitter.com/dCnGuq2qIq — Kaitlyn Chana (@KaitlynANjax) March 7, 2017
AFTER EXPLOSIVE CASEY ANTHONY INTERVIEW, HER FATHER'S 'HEART HURTS'
In June of 1994, investigators found a man's torso -- without a head, hands or legs -- behind a Lake City gas station. It wasn't until 2015 that DNA tests identified the victim as 16-year-old Fred Laster.
The #FBI released this picture of the dumpster at Columbia County gas station where the teen boy was dismembered. @actionnewsjax pic.twitter.com/8u7IA7KTCL — Kaitlyn Chana (@KaitlynANjax) March 8, 2017
Laster's family had reported him missing in 1994. His sister told police her brother was last seen with Hyde -- a youth pastor and family friend.
The sister also said she and a sibling had stayed the night at Hyde's home the previous year, WJXT reported.
The investigators laid out boxes of possible evidence on blue tarps in the street outside, Fox 30 added.
BREAKING: Pastor Jack Millwood of Crosswater Community Church gives me statement following arrest of registered counselor Ron Hyde @FCN2go pic.twitter.com/KuHj0IXxlg — Shelby Danielsen (@NewsShelby) March 7, 2017
Hyde is also a mental health counselor, WJXT added. It's unclear if he has an attorney.
Click for more from Fox 30.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The US said the new government was a "major milestone" for Iraq
The US has hailed the creation of a new government in Iraq as a major milestone and a crucial step towards defeating the militant group, Islamic State (IS).
Secretary of State John Kerry said Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's cabinet had the "potential to unite all of Iraq's diverse communities".
Posts have been shared between the Shia Arab majority, Sunni Arabs and Kurds |
fuscation),
go ahead and read the
first part of this post.
Throughout the next three paragraphs we will discuss three methods which
do not obfuscate, but make debugging harder.
Finally, we present the source and binaries of the methods explained here.
In a few days to a week, a crackme (which combines the six methods
discussed so far), will be released, so make sure you understand
everything
This technique is actually not meant to obfuscate source code further,
instead it’s a simple, but very effective, method which detects
modifications to our machine code. In other words, when a Reverse Engineer
is analyzing your binary dynamically (that is, using a debugger), then the
Reverse Engineer will usually set so-called Software Breakpoints
[1]. When a Software Breakpoint
is set on a particular address, the byte at this address will be replaced
by an interrupt three instruction (“int 3″, or 0xcc in machine code.) Note
that it is possible to use other machine code representations to achieve
the same effect, but 0xcc is by far the most commonly used one.
Now we know this, we can implement a very easy check which hashes a part
of memory. If we, for example, hardcode the correct hash, then we can
check the calculated hash against the hardcoded hash. If they don’t match
then that means that the memory was altered, e.g. a Software Breakpoint
was set. From here on one would usually do something like terminating the
process, or crashing it by reading from an invalid address, etc.
As usual, a snippet says more than a 1000 words, so here we go.
void calculate_data(int in, int *out) { // stores five times the input `in' into `out' *out = in * 5; } FORCEDINLINE void calculate_data_obf(int in, int *out) { static unsigned long hash = 0; // calculate the hash of the calculate_data function // and whatever is behind it (e.g. main) unsigned long h = calculate_hash(&calculate_data, 0x200); // first time we check? if(hash == 0) { // then set the hash hash = h; } // hash doesn't match? else if(hash!= h) { printf("memory has been altered (in: %d, out: 0x%08x)!
", in, out); return; } // hash checks out, call the original function. calculate_data(in, out); } void overwrite_function() { // windows only, doh. DWORD old; VirtualProtect(&calculate_data, 1, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE, &old); // overwrite the first instruction of `calculate_data' with a // return instruction, this way the `out' variable will not // be set. *(unsigned char *) &calculate_data = 0xc3; } #define calculate_data calculate_data_obf int main(void) { for (int i = 0, out; i < 25; i++) { calculate_data(i, &out); printf("%d -> %d
", i, out); // the 10th time we will patch the function if(i == 10) { overwrite_function(); } } }
The interesting stuff happens in the calculate_data_obf function,
as you can see. In this function a hash is calculated based on the machine
code of the calculate_data function. The first time the hash is
calculated, it will be stored. If the function is called at a later time,
and the hash doesn’t match, then a printf call is executed and the
original calculate_data function call is omitted.
Before we proceed, let’s take a look at the output of this program.
$./memory_integrity 0 -> 0 1 -> 5 2 -> 10 3 -> 15... snip... 9 -> 45 10 -> 50 memory has been altered (in: 11, out: 0x003afcf8)! 11 -> 50 memory has been altered (in: 12, out: 0x003afcf8)! 12 -> 50 memory has been altered (in: 13, out: 0x003afcf8)!... snip... 23 -> 50 memory has been altered (in: 24, out: 0x003afcf8)! 24 -> 50
What happened here is the following. The first ten times the calculated
hash was correct, however, the 10th iteration we called the
overwrite_function method which overwrites the
first byte of the calculate_data function. This results in an
invalid hash being calculated by the calculate_hash function, and
we land at the printf call.
Although the
snippet above uses a hash calculated the first time it is ran, one would
normally use a hardcoded value, or even better, do a mathematical
calculation with it and use the result as address to read from, etc.
This technique can be really effective when used correctly, e.g. one could
do memory checks on other memory checks so a Reverse Engineer cannot
easily alter hardcoded hashes, etc.
You can make it as complex as you like
Yet another method to defeat Breakpoints, this time targetting Hardware
Breakpoints [2]. Hardware
Breakpoints are different compared to Software Breakpoints. Where Software
Breakpoints alter the machine code, Hardware Breakpoints alter the Debug
Registers. Besides that, Debug Registers are specific to one thread
(they’re registers after all), there is only place for four breakpoints
(per thread), and you can only read or set them using an API.
Unfortunately this brings us some limitations, for example, because we
need an API to read the Debug Registers, these registers can be spoofed
(by hooking that particular API.) In a future post we will be discussing
techniques to bypass these kind of hooks (as far as usermode goes), but
for now we will stick to the normal API.
So, now we have learned the basics about Hardware Breakpoints, time for
some example code.
void calculate_data(int in, int *out) { // stores five times the input `in' into `out' *out = in * 5; } FORCEDINLINE void calculate_data_obf(int in, int *out) { // check if any hardware breakpoints were set CONTEXT ctx = {CONTEXT_DEBUG_REGISTERS}; // Debug Register 7 contains the flags (type of breakpoint // and amount of bytes), so checking that against nonzero // provides enough information for us if(GetThreadContext(GetCurrentThread(), &ctx) == FALSE || ctx.Dr7!= 0) { printf("No Hardware Breakpoints please.
"); return; } // no hardware breakpoints were found, let's // continue with the real function. calculate_data(in, out); } #define calculate_data calculate_data_obf int main(void) { for (int i = 0, out; i < 25; i++) { calculate_data(i, &out); printf("%d -> %d
", i, out); // the 5th time we set a hardware breakpoint if(i == 5) { CONTEXT ctx = {CONTEXT_DEBUG_REGISTERS}; ctx.Dr0 = (DWORD) &calculate_data; ctx.Dr7 = 0x00000001; SetThreadContext(GetCurrentThread(), &ctx); } } }
This example has the same structure as the example snippet from
Method IV, so most of the code should be
fairly obvious. The only difference is that this example checks for Debug
Registers in the inlined obfuscation handler, and that it enables a
Hardware Breakpoint after the fifth iteration. If you’d like to know more
about the magic value that initializes Dr7 please check out
these few functions.
The Dr0 Debug Register contains the address that we want a
hardware breakpoint on.
We will omit the example output, as it is very similar to that of Method
IV’s.
It should be noted as well that the example snippet above will not work
out of the box, in order to actually use the Hardware Breakpoint an
Exception Handler should be installed. In order to do this one could use
SetUnhandledExceptionFilter
or
AddVectoredExceptionHandler.
From there code to process the thrown exceptions (Hardware Breakpoints
throw exceptions when they’re hit) can be implemented.
Besides Software and Hardware Breakpoints there is yet another method to
trap memory access (that is, execution as well as reading and writing.)
This
technique utilizes the Access Protection
[3]
of a page. In windows, pages
usually have a size of 4KB, and one can specify different access
protection for each of these pages. It is, for example, possible to set a
page to read only, execute only, exception on access, etc.
Therefore we have to check these access protections. As the code is, yet
again, fairly easy, we go straight to the example snippet.
void calculate_data(int in, int *out) { // stores five times the input `in' into `out' *out = in * 5; } FORCEDINLINE void calculate_data_obf(int in, int *out) { MEMORY_BASIC_INFORMATION mbi; // by default the code section is read+execute if(VirtualQuery(&calculate_data, &mbi, sizeof(mbi)) == FALSE || mbi.Protect!= PAGE_EXECUTE_READ) { printf("Oboy, you're doing it again!
"); return; } // continue with the real function. calculate_data(in, out); } #define calculate_data calculate_data_obf int main(void) { for (int i = 0, out; i < 25; i++) { calculate_data(i, &out); printf("%d -> %d
", i, out); // the 12th time we change the memory protection if(i == 12) { // set the page to read + write + executable DWORD old; VirtualProtect(&calculate_data, 0x200, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE, &old); } } }
Well, as expected, printf is called after the 12th iteration,
because the page protection is incorrect. It is interesting to note that,
when changing the access protection to e.g. PAGE_NOACCESS, the process
will actually throw an exception and crash (because we didn’t install an
exception handler.) This is because the main function is located on
the same page as the calculate_data function (or atleast in the
binary we built), therefore the no access page is triggered (after
returning from VirtualProtect), resulting in
an uncatched exception. (Note that this is exactly what a Reverse Engineer
would want, because after setting up an exception handler this would
result in something similar to single-stepping
[4].)
Unfortunately, this method uses an API as well, which means a Reverse
Engineer could spoof the access protection of the particular page.
However, it presents a very nice method, assuming it is difficult for an
attacker to spoof the access protection (e.g. if it’s only possible from
the kernel, because we execute the system call directly instead of just
calling the API.)
Source and Binaries for all Forced Inline posts can be found
here.To some, it's as if Chris Quinn never left, considering at 31 he's back with the Miami Heat.
For while, even after he was traded by the Heat in 2010, it felt like he never left, considering what he experienced in one of his ensuing adventures, when the scrappy guard spent the 2011-12 season with Khimki Moscow Region.
"We had to have a driver, my family did, because of how crazy the drivers were over there," he said during a break from his latest basketball turn, as a Heat assistant coach. "It was hard for me to figure out even what the driving laws were, left turns from the right lane. Defensive driving was at its premium. Our drivers definitely earned the money."
From the unpredictable roads of Moscow to the capricious streets of Miami, Quinn has navigated himself back to a place that felt like home from the moment he joined the Heat in the 2006 offseason after going undrafted out of Notre Dame that year.
"We've always kept in touch," said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who was an assistant for the start of Quinn's playing tenure with the Heat. "And when I coached Chris, I always thought he would eventually make a good coach one day. I viewed him as a coach on the floor, somebody I really respect to get every ounce out of his ability to end up playing almost seven years in this league.
"And we kept in touch over the years. In fact, this past year, when we were in Chicago, we got together for dinner and I told him then that, 'Hey, one of these days if this is truly what you want to do, let's continue to talk. Down the line I may be coming after you.' And it happened a little bit sooner than we even thought about back then."
At the time of the conversation, Quinn was transitioning to coaching, having signed on to Chris Collins' staff at Northwestern University as director of player development after being cut by the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 2013 offseason.
"Ever since I left here, Coach Spo and I have always kept in contact," Quinn said. "When I got into coaching last year, I kind of looked at him as a mentor. I would always rattle ideas off of him. Obviously I gained a lot of respect for him while I was here and just kept the relationship going and when the opportunity presented itself, it was an opportunity I was very excited about."
Just as Spoelstra did, when he began his climb through the Heat's video department, Quinn thought it was never too early to take his next step.
"I was approaching the part of my career where I could go back to Europe or figure out what I was going to do next," he said. "It was hard for me to think about my life without basketball being involved in some way. The love for the game, I think, carried over. For me, it was just always something I've been a part of, something I continue to love."
So here he stands, in a hybrid position, with player-development responsibilities with both the Heat and their NBA Development League minor-league affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, where he spent part of this past week instead of with the Heat in Brazil.
"We always said when he was here, we always thought Quinny would be a coach," guard Dwyane Wade said, "somebody who would work around the game, maybe even be in management one day."
For now, Quinn finds himself coaching players older than himself, including his former backcourt partner Wade.
"When Coach brought it to my attention, that he was thinking about it, I was very pro Quinny in him coming back," Wade said. "He's only 31, but you've got to use the NBA platform to move to the next phase of his life. I'm very happy for him that he can start at a young age."
Having spent three seasons with the Heat, having played for Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs, having experienced the depths of the NBA with the New Jersey Nets and Cavaliers, and then having toiled in Russia, Spain and the D-League, seasoning is not a concern.
"It's not an issue to me," the married father of two said. "Obviously I'm early in my coaching career and I'm learning and growing every day."
IN THE LANE
NAME GAME: No, the nickname jerseys won't be back for the Heat this season, with the varieties for 2014-15 limited to home white, road reds and blacks, a "Pride" combo that meshes the back-in-black with the white-on-white, Christmas editions and Noche Latina versions. All the jerseys carry a tag on the back that denotes the Heat's three NBA championships. Last season the Heat and Brooklyn Nets gifted the NBA with nickname jerseys, a novelty act that grew tiresome a few minutes into their first appearance. Now the Heat are Big Three-less and the Nets are spending less. Brooklyn General Manager Billy King recently said, "This year it's more of, 'Let's just play basketball.' " Amen. Oh, and no sleeved jerseys for the Heat this season, although sleeves still will make the occasional appearance around the league.Imgix — Image Processing as a Service Reviewed
Nick Parsons Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 9, 2016
Today we’re reviewing Imgix. This blog post is part of our review series where we uncover best-of-class SaaS solutions for developers. Reviewing other API services helps us come up with ideas for improving Stream, our API for building scalable and personalized feeds. You can try an interactive tutorial of Stream here.
Approximately 60%+ of the average webpage’s weight is image content, so serving the best image in the smallest payload is an increasingly critical concern for both businesses and developers. More often than not, developers skip the crucial steps necessary to optimize and deliver images to their end users causing a degraded user experience, resulting in an additional loss of potential revenue from a website due to suboptimal image assets. According to KISSMetrics, every additional second of load time for a page will increase its bounce rate by 7%.
Image Optimization
Why is building an image oriented application so difficult to do? Let’s look into a few of the optimizations that come into play:
Properly sizing the image for the HTML tag containing the image e.g., A user uploads an avatar image that is 1200x800 and it needs to be resized to a thumbnail that is focused on their face. Allowing the browser to down-size the large image will cause significant bandwidth costs to transfer the image and incur more memory usage in the browser. Additionally, who knows if the image is centered on their face.
e.g., A user uploads an avatar image that is 1200x800 and it needs to be resized to a thumbnail that is focused on their face. Allowing the browser to down-size the large image will cause significant bandwidth costs to transfer the image and incur more memory usage in the browser. Additionally, who knows if the image is centered on their face. Providing images that are closest in geographic proximity to the user e.g., using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Developers will usually serve an image directly from their server, which is seldomly geographically closest to the user. Occasionally, developers making an effort to meet this criterion will upload image assets to Cloud Storage served such as an Amazon S3 bucket, however, even S3 is not a proper CDN without Amazon CloudFront.
e.g., using a Content Delivery Network (CDN). Developers will usually serve an image directly from their server, which is seldomly geographically closest to the user. Occasionally, developers making an effort to meet this criterion will upload image assets to Cloud Storage served such as an Amazon S3 bucket, however, even S3 is not a proper CDN without Amazon CloudFront. Compressing and stripping images of extraneous data e.g., EXIF data is generally important when editing photos or holding data about the location where the photo was taken, which orientation the camera was in, and so on. This data, however, can bloat the image size, causing unnecessary bandwidth. Removing the EXIF data can decrease the image size by up to 64kb.
e.g., EXIF data is generally important when editing photos or holding data about the location where the photo was taken, which orientation the camera was in, and so on. This data, however, can bloat the image size, causing unnecessary bandwidth. Removing the EXIF data can decrease the image size by up to 64kb. Serve an optimal image format to the browser e.g. Modern browsers are capable of rendering many image types, some of which manage better compression algorithms with “lossless” quality such as the WebP format. It can be time-consuming to manually convert images to alternate formats, and some developers and designers worry about quality of image compression.
Building a scalable infrastructure in-house to handle these and other such optimizations (and traffic) can be a lengthy and cumbersome process. This is exactly why Imgix is our go-to for image processing.
A Real World Scenario
Let’s use a theoretical project where our application has the following criteria:
All images must load quickly on a mobile device.
All images must be downsized from their original size, which will be stored in an S3 bucket.
All images must be provided in two sizes so that high-resolution displays don’t render blurry images.
With just a few clicks of a button, we can have a new account setup with Imgix with an environment specific to the application we are building.
Rather than manipulating images on our own server and manually uploading them to an S3 bucket, we simply point Imgix to our S3 bucket using the provisioned key and secret from Amazon. All images will then be proxied from our server through the Imgix service, allowing us to use a simple URL to add filters and change formats on the fly!
For example, the following URL would provide us with an image the meets the criteria set above:
https://your-app.imgix.net/cat.jpg?w=200&h=200&fit=facearea&faceindex=1&dpr=2&fm=webp
If we examine the components of the URL, it’s easily understood that:
https://your-app.imgix.net is the Imgix source URL that we set up on our dashboard /cat.jpg is the file that we are fetching from S3 (or the Imgix proxy in our case).?w=200 specifies that the width should be 200 pixels. &h=200 specifies that the height should be 200 pixels. &fit=facearea controls how the output image is fit to its target dimensions. &faceindex=1 selects a face to center an image on, but only when the fit parameter is set to facearea. &dpr=2 makes it possible to display images at the correct pixel density on a variety of devices such as Apple Retina displays and Android devices. You must specify a width, a height, or both for device pixel ratio to work. The default is 1. The maximum value that can be set for dpr is 8. &fm=webp specifies the output format to convert the image to. Valid options are gif, jp2, jpg, json, jxr, pjpg, mp4, png, png8, png32, and webp.
(in the example above, the “facearea” and “faceindex” parameters are preset terms used by Imgix to do facial position location within an image)
The first time the image is called with these parameters, Imgix will cache the resulting image on one of their geographically positioned CDN servers; subsequent calls with the same parameters will not need to reprocess the image. Imgix will then propagate the image to all other CDN servers around the world, as shown on the following map.
Initial Setup
Getting started with the Imgix API is extremely straightforward. Sign up for an account at https://webapp.imgix.com/sign-up (they’ll even credit $10 towards your account), and, follow the Getting Started documentation on the Imgix website.
Dashboard
Imgix put some serious effort into designing a user-friendly experience with their dashboard. You can easily add new origin sources (such as other S3 buckets, or your own self-hosting), monitor utilization and activity, bandwidth usage, and invoices all from a single interface — all without introducing complex queries or an unintuitive navigation.
Pricing
Imgix has simplified pricing with only two tiers from which to choose:
The Standard plan, $3 per 1,000 master images accessed each month, plus 8¢ per GB of bandwidth.
The High-Volume plan, for high bandwidth customers with complex integration needs, additional support, and discounted pricing starting at $500/month. This plan also offers an SLA and custom pricing.
Hardware Decisions
So what exactly makes Imgix great?
In our opinion, their hardware and sheer amount of compute power for image manipulation. No player in the game has come close to offering a scalable solution that is as fast and reliable as Imgix.
At scale, maximizing efficiency and performance in image processing is critical for success. Imgix chose to operate their own hardware and datacenters and manage their own network infrastructure. Best of all (you won’t believe this), they incorporated Mac Pros into the the Imgix rendering infrastructure.
By going with Mac Pros for rendering, Imgix is capable of providing excellent reliability, maintainability, and performance.
Software Choices
All of the graphics processing is built in C, Objective-C, and Lua, to handle the insane number of images Imgix has to process every day (over 1 Billion images per day). These low-level languages provide what Imgix needs to meet speed, agility, and autonomousness requirements.
To be lightning fast, and as smart as possible, Imgix leverages quite a bit of open source technology. Ansible handles configuration management while Consul manages service discovery. Prometheus is used for monitoring, which plugs into the company PagerDuty account.
Front-end services are completely separate from the core infrastructure. They are built using Angular, Ember, or Tornado depending on the task. These services provide web interfaces to configure and administer Imgix accounts.
Separate Docker containers are used for development, testing, and production for each front-end project, with CircleCI handling the testing cycle for internal services, in addition to Travis CI for our open-source projects and libraries.
Engineering at Imgix
The engineering team is highly skilled and proven effective at scale. Their combined backgrounds include operations and engineering teams from YouTube, Google, Dropbox, Foursquare, and Yahoo.
Downsides & Alternatives
For some, Imgix isn’t always the go-to API for image processing. There are a few obstacles that we have faced developing on their API:
There’s no free tier to try their service. They do allow for a trial period in which they provide a $10 credit towards your account (you can cancel anytime). This makes ImgIx less suited for hobbyists projects or small open-source projects.
If you’re not using one of their provided SDK libraries, the URL parameters are difficult to work with manually with over 80 combinations of filters and transformations. We’d like to see a simple REST endpoint that accepts a JSON payload for developers who don’t want to generate long URL’s.
For Imgix to process an image, you must either serve the image from your own CDN or sign a URL using a MD5 hash. This blocks developers from using image assets from third-party websites as you can’t dynamically sign URLs without leaking your API details from Imgix.
Larger customers processing thousands or millions of images hosted on other CDNs, S3 or GCS will incur secondary bandwidth costs as Imgix pulls those images the first time.
You have to contact support in order to use your own custom URL or domain name. Not a deal breaker, but the provisioning process takes some time and as a developer, you probably want to move quickly and this kind of self-service feature would be nice to see.
There are alternate services that you can look into if Imgix doesn’t suit your needs. Some competitors to Imgix include, but are not limited to:
Final Thoughts
We’ve taken you through a technical deep dive on image optimization, the Imgix architecture, and their software choices. Armed with that knowledge, we hope you understand why we highly recommend using Imgix for all of your image serving needs. At the very least, you should use it to significantly decrease load times for your end users. ;)
Imgix provides a no-hassle, quick and easy setup process to get you on your way by providing an agile, scalable image oriented product in your sector.Tiffany’s or knockoffs? The Gingrich campaign won’t say. But at this point, it no longer matters, according to political strategists of both parties. What matters, they say, is that the Tiffany story is sticking to Mr. Gingrich, helping to define — or perhaps redefine — him in the critical early days of his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Photo
As House speaker, Mr. Gingrich preached the virtues of fiscal conservatism; now he is struggling to explain how spending large sums on jewelry fits in with that philosophy. And while a spokesman for Tiffany confirmed Tuesday that Mr. Gingrich had paid the debt in full, with no interest, parrying questions about a six-figure jewelry bill is hardly what his campaign needs at a time when many Americans are out of work or have lost their homes.
The episode also reinforced what campaign strategists like to call “negatives” — in Mr. Gingrich’s case, questions about his personal life, which includes two divorces and a six-year secret affair with Mrs. Gingrich, then Callista Bisek, when she was a House aide and he was speaker.
The Gingrich campaign had hoped that, after 11 years of marriage, he could present himself as a stable family man. Now Mr. Gingrich is the butt of yet another round of late-night television infidelity jokes. “Five hundred thousand at Tiffany’s?” the comedian Stephen Colbert asked. “There’s a simple explanation. The guy clearly buys his engagement rings in bulk.”
In Iowa, where Mr. Gingrich drew big crowds last week, The Iowa Republican, a political Web site, ran a scathing commentary titled “How a Fiscal Conservative Spends $500K at Tiffany’s.” The site’s editor, Craig Robinson, a former political director for the state Republican Party, said the essay was submitted by a political activist who was “completely turned off” by the expenditures.
“It’s bizarre; I don’t think he’s ever going to live it down,” Mr. Robinson said. “There aren’t many $500,000 homes in Iowa, so we can’t even fathom $500,000 in credit card debt, let alone to a high-end jewelry store.”
On CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Gingrich called the credit line a “standard, no-interest account.”
Photo
The Tiffany spokesman, Carson Glover, said the company offers customers a “revolving credit card agreement” with state-specific rates; those who hold such cards are eligible for up to 12 months of interest-free borrowing if they spend more than $1,000 on an engagement ring or $5,000 on other merchandise.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Mr. Gingrich, of course, is hardly the first politician to become a sudden symbol of spending excess. In the 2008 campaign, Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, presented herself to voters as an ordinary “hockey mom,” only to face revelations that the Republican Party had spent $150,000 on a designer wardrobe. Mr. Edwards styled himself “the son of a mill worker,” an image contradicted by his pricey haircut.
Mr. Gingrich’s situation “is sort of a twofer, which is why it is particularly damaging,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist. It raises questions about his commitment to fiscal restraint, Mr. Lehane said, and also “plays into a prevailing story line about lack of discipline and being reckless, which has been a consistent part of his political and public life.”
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Mr. Gingrich, who has grown wealthy in recent years by publishing books, making movies and delivering speeches, says it is not recklessness at all; on “Face the Nation,” he said that he owes no money except for his mortgage payments on one rental property in Wisconsin, his wife’s home state.
“If the U.S. government was as debt-free as I am, everybody in America would be celebrating,” he said. “I think I have proven I can manage money.”
But out in Iowa, Mr. Robinson says buying jewelry on credit somehow feels different from buying a refrigerator or a new washing machine. Rich Galen, a former Gingrich aide, agrees.
“It’s not something that normal people do,” Mr. Galen said. “I understand he’s made a lot of money and he’s done very well, and God bless him for it, but that’s sort of a departure from the Newt Gingrich that I knew.”Thanks for 25 great years!
Thyme After Thyme has decided to close their doors and greenhouses. We have had a wonderful thyme and we hope you have too!
We would like to thank our friends, family, and especially our customers and employees. We have been blessed with so many things-A great staff, a loyal following and some great big dogs.
Everyone will be missed and what each of you brought to shape and form this great business. Each facet helped create the gem that it became over the years.
Cedar, Zippity do dah, Turnup, and Tiger Lily will miss you all and the kindness and attention you have given them through the years. They will have to adapt to a new life style and routine too.
Thank you again for your patronage through the years and allowing us to grow into your gardens. What will happen to the plants? We hear this a lot! We have several non-profit places we are going to donate
to...
The State Botanical Gardens
Sandy Creek Nature Center
Athens Land Trust
Council of Aging
Keep Athens Beautiful
Local Schools
And other community organizations.
Take care and keep planting.
(If you have any questions, you may email us via the contact page.)Media playback is not supported on this device British Grand Prix in 90 seconds
The next grand prix in Germany will mark the halfway point of this year's Formula 1 world championship.
It was at this event last year, albeit in Hockenheim rather than this year's venue the Nurburgring, that Ferrari swapped the positions of their drivers, leading to uproar over team orders.
My position has not changed since then in that 'team orders' can come in many guises even before the season starts, and are unpoliceable.
The regulators have in any event revised the rules and such commands to drivers are no longer illegal. Only 'fan power' and public opinion can have an influence now.
Red Bull took the moral high ground last year when saying that they would always let their drivers race, citing the collision between Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in Turkey as proof.
At Silverstone on Sunday, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was the race winner, just as he was in Hockenheim last year, but the 'team orders' call this time came from Red Bull to Webber to hold station.
To be clear, it wasn't about letting somebody through to win the race against the regulations, it was holding station in second and third. Webber, as pure a racer as there is on the track right now, chose to ignore them.
He is moving towards the end of his career and as far as we know still a free agent for next season, and needs to finally get on terms with Vettel.
With a significant pace advantage in the closing stages, he wasn't keen on wasting his chance.
Frankly, I would have been suitably deaf, too, in his position. He summed it up perfectly: "If Alonso had a problem we were fighting for victory."
I don't think his competitive nature will do his credibility any harm within Red Bull or other teams, although he may find a new clause or two creeping into his next contract.
Alonso is on tremendous form and it will be interesting to see what he can achieve in the next 10 races Martin Brundle
It's easy to argue that it was only over three points, the difference between second and third, but it's about so much more than that.
Let's be clear, three points has been a comfortable winning margin in some recent championships, and with the resurgence of Ferrari and so many other unpredictable events to come, who knows how the championship will go?
Red Bull didn't need to see their two cars spinning in unison down the track to let McLaren and Ferrari score yet more points, but for a young team and brand founded on extreme sport, if they wanted the moral high ground this time the call should have been: "Sebastian, Mark is faster than you."
But Vettel is their main man and their future, the driver who must fend off Alonso in a Ferrari and any other pretenders to his throne for some time to come. Hence the wording of the radio call.
It's pathetic that, when a team has a problem, some media and fans call for instant dismissals.
Media playback is not supported on this device Mark Webber
We were recently filming a McLaren pit stop challenge on BBC F1 with Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button versus David Coulthard and me. It so happens that we were being shown the ropes by the right-front wheel-gun man. I won't name-check him for obvious reasons, but I know him and he was immense, regularly doing 2.2 seconds.
That whole procedure is one of total choreography under extreme pressure on a car approaching at 60mph literally boiling in temperature with brakes measuring several hundred degrees centigrade close to the wheel-nut.
So something went wrong in one of Button's stops at Silverstone, a mistake I frequently made myself in my attempts, and it was misinterpreted by the lollipop man.
These things happen in the heat of the moment. It's not good, and they will be taking plenty of pain, but some people shouldn't sit in an armchair at home or the comfort of the media centre and call for their heads. Or that of the team principal.
Nobody was saying that when Hamilton won in China nor when Button blitzed the entire field in the closing stages of the Canadian Grand Prix a month ago.
It's a bigger picture at McLaren and of course they can't keep turning up with a car which needs to play catch-up all season long.
Their drivers are scouting around for faster cars and a bigger pay cheque, but mostly so they don't have to do so much PR work. I'll keep my head down on that one because we are lucky to have access to them on BBC but at least they seem to enjoy our jet-skiing and such like.
Those expecting Ferrari to fall back again from the next race in Germany, where off-throttle blowing will be allowed again, might be surprised Mark Hughes BBC F1 commentary box producer Read more here
Ferrari were very quiet on the whole blown diffuser issue in Silverstone, letting others do their bidding for them. They have been threatening to deliver a very solid result for a few races now - remember Monaco - and they had quite an update in Silverstone, which proved very effective.
No wonder Red Bull were concerned, that track layout is absolutely made for them.
Alonso is on tremendous form and it will be interesting to see what he and Ferrari can achieve in the next 10 races.
I thought the DRS overtaking device worked perfectly in Silverstone by allowing faster cars on their way without making overtaking too easy for those on similar pace. I doubt it is a mathematical process to apply to other tracks as there are so many factors coming into play especially the preceeding corners and tyre performance on the day.
In the end, the |
), which in many instances has proved to be very effective, and which I earnestly suggest. Besides our lessons in class, we also have a blog, where anyone can post an article and comment off of it, and a discussion group, where usually they just ask questions, share info and what not. This has been great: we consider our blog our classroom on-line and the discussion group our main hall! I think it would be wonderful to create a network of educators in the field, a WaSP for higher-level education.
WaSP: Thank you for taking the time to respond in such detail, Vito.
Vito: I hope our educational experience might be of some help to others!
Bio: Dr. Vito Evola received his degree at the University of Palermo, Italy in Foreign Languages and Literatures and has taught Web-related courses at the School of Modern Languages for the Web (Palermo) since 2002. He also teaches Cognitive Sciences, and is particularly interested with users’ cognition and the Web. He confesses he also enjoys American coffee during his late-night projects!
Referenced Links:I’ve talked about comics a lot on this site. I love them, especially superhero stories. But so far, I’ve mainly talked about Marvel comics. I’m definitely a Marvel guy, they just click with me more than the DC heroes, plus I have a subscription to the Marvel Unlimited service which lets me check out loads of crazy old Marvel comics. And honestly, there’s a lot of gaps in my DC knowledge, mainly because they don’t have a similar service that would let me plow through crazy back issues of the characters. And there’s one character in particular that I would love to dive into. Batman. For most of my life I would have probably said he was my favorite superhero, and now he’s really only second to Daredevil. But, to be honest, I haven’t read that many Batman comics. I love the Batman movies, the 60’s show, and the 90’s animated series. And what I’ve read of Batman comics I’ve generally really enjoyed. But it’s a pittance of the thousands of comics that Bruce Wayne has graced. So I’ve decided to change that, and really get into the character. And of course, since I like ridiculous projects that I can chronicle on this site, I decided to go about reading Batman comics in the most complicated way possible. I’m going to randomly select them, with no context for the issues surrounding them, and just enjoy completely random issues, as if I had just pulled out books from a quarter box at a comic shop. I’m narrowing my focus, for now, with just Detective Comics, and have plugged the issues into a random number generator, and will just grab whatever story that gives me. From issue 27 (Batman’s first appearance) to the destruction of the company with the formation of the New 52 in issue 883, I’ll take a look at whatever weird story I come across from the Dark Knight.
And here’s the first go!
My first results was issue #552, which had a Batman story in it called “A Stump Grows in Gotham.” And really, right from the cover I was excited. I’m sure my first issue could have been a really weird one from the 50’s or something, but nope, I got a fun one from the 80’s that features Batman punching some dudes in a cemetery. How could that not be fun? And fun it was, although I was kind of worried for a while.
The issue starts off with Alfred reading a newspaper, that had a front page story about how some land developers wanted to chop down a tree. Slow news day. But it was apparently written by his daughter, which I assumed would have been explained in previous issues, but hey, maybe I’ll get there someday. Being confused by missing information that’s readily available in previous issues is kind of the gist of this series. Anyway, we learn about the tree, and that it’s been cut down and turned into lumber that will be used to make coffins. But whatever, let’s get to Batman!
There we go. Batman is patrolling Gotham, looking for a Bostonian thug, named Cutter, who is visiting Gotham. Apparently Cutter is just wandering around, approaching all the gangsters in town, and trying to convince them that if they give him $1,000 a month for the rest of their lives, he’ll kill Batman for them. As if no one in Gotham had had that idea before. But Batman overhears this plan, and decided to screw with Cutter in a wonderful prank. He heads to the Batcave to make a potion that will make it look like he’s dead. He then colors his hair red, and does something to “change the structure” of his face. He then wanders off into the night, as a weird ginger, and comes across Cutter. He has a lame fight with him, where Batman takes a quick dive, and makes it look like he just broke his neck on the tree he fell on. So Cutter grabs Batman’s body, sees that he’s a weird redhead he doesn’t recognize, and goes to find a coffin. He gets the coffin that was made from the tree from earlier, and calls up all the gangsters, telling them to come see what he accomplished. So all the gangsters meet in the cemetery, to see if Cutter made good on his promise. And as they all gather around, this happens:
Hell yes! Batman just bursts out of a coffin, and immediately starts kicking everyone’s ass. Cutter did him a favor by gathering all the shitty gangsters in Gotham who would be willing to kill Batman in one place, so he decided to fake his death and dye his hair to beat them up. He comes flying out of the coffin and just stars beating them all, until every single gangster has been knocked unconscious and tossed in the grave that they dug for him. I guess Batman will then call the cops? I’m not sure, it’s not really brought up, he maybe just did this to kick their asses. Robin shows up and mentions that he got them all on tape, so there’s evidence against them, but Batman really just seemed to want to mess with them more than anything. Which is great.
Now, the issue then had a weird backup story with Green Arrow, where he got himself arrested and put in a jail full of refugees from El Salvador just to bust them all out. It was kind of amusing, but this is about Batman, so who cares about Green Arrow. And what a fun Batman story it was. I had always assumed the 80’s were a pretty dour time for the Caped Crusader, and who knows, maybe further installments of this series will show that to be true, but I definately didn’t expect such a goofy story from this issue. Batman made himself a ginger, faked his death, and burst out of a coffin to beat the bejesus out of some gangsters…for fun? That’s some great superheroics right there. I can only hope that I keep getting stories of this caliber in the future.
The plan is to put one of these up every Sunday, and I’ll try to stick to that. Who knows, maybe I’ll make them more frequent, and maybe I’ll add in other series, like the main Batman one, but for now I think just sticking to Detective Comics is the best bet. So see you next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-website!
Detective Comics #552: “A Stump Grows in Gotham,” was written by Doug Moench and drawn by Pat Broderick and Bob Smith, 1985.
Advertisements(CNN) — Cue the sweaty palms.
Travelers will soon be able to walk across the world's longest and highest glass-bottom bridge, which spans two cliffs in China's Hunan province.
This week, workers were photographed installing the bridge's first piece of glass.
Set against dramatic landscapes in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, the bridge is 430 meters long, six meters wide and hovers over a 300-meter vertical drop.
Construction on the bridge was originally expected to be finished at the end of 2015.
It's now set to open in May this year.
World's highest catwalk?
Designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan, the glass-bottom bridge will also feature the world's highest bungee jump and serve as a runway for fashion shows.
Hanging above Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, it will be able to hold up to 800 people at once.
Digital renderings of the bridge highlight the architectural firm's vision -- to build a glass structure that fades into the clouds.
Stunning as the view is, tourists will likely tread carefully.
In October last year, cracks appeared in a mountainside glass walkway in Yuntaishan Scenic Park, in China's central Henan province, just two weeks after opening.
The incident sent visitors running and screaming in panic, according to witnesses.A new United Nations report projects that the world population could reach nearly 11 billion by 2100, about 8 percent more than predicted just two years ago. The projected increase largely stems from the fact that the fertility rate in Africa has declined more slowly than expected, with demographers now forecasting that the number of people on the continent could nearly quadruple this century, from from about 1.1 billion today to about 4.2 billion. “The fertility decline in Africa has slowed down or stalled to a larger extent than we previously predicted, and as a result the African population will go up,” said Adrian Raftery, a professor of statistics and sociology at the University of Washington, who helped develop the statistical method used in the report. The total world population passed 7 billion in 2011. According to the new report, 8 of the top 10 increases in national populations by 2100 will occur in Africa, led by Nigeria, where the number of people is expected to jump from 184 million to 914 million.It's time for the previous generation to get angry about minor tweaks to something they stopped giving a toss about 30 years ago, as the makers of the Beano have revealed a massive reworking of lead bad boy Dennis the Menace.
The rethink of the appearance of the menace has come about because of the modern world, with new 3D/CG animated TV series Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed starring the made-over Dennis. He's like a teenager now, with an expressive face, YouTuber hair and eyes the size of pork pies. And good lord, look at the STATE of Gnasher now:
Blunt teeth. Smells of dog shampoo. House trained. Chipped. Vaccinated. Obedient and almost certainly both physically and metaphorically castrated. He won't be biting anyone. It's not going to be like the plotlines of the comics in the 1950s, when Dennis was routinely beaten with an axe handle by his dad and called a worthless piece of shit by his mum at the end of every strip.
The good news for the future perceptions of the kids is there's a black girl and a girl nerd in a wheelchair in this new, shiny, inclusive, non-menacing Beano universe...
...although the makers say they've taken the liberty of de-Britishing the setting and backgrounds a little, to make it easier for the programme to be sold around the world. Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed will appear on CBBC in the near future. [Beano via The Times]Under rules designed to help poorer youngsters into higher education, universities which wish to hike up their fees next year must put 30 to 35 per cent towards waiving costs for students on low incomes.
With virtually all universities defying the Government to more than treble fees, middle class pupils will, as a result, be required to pay an extra £2,700 to £3,150 a year towards the cost of subsidising their peers.
They will then be forced to pay back far higher loans, even if they are earning significantly less than a successful graduate originally from a poor background who goes on to enjoy a lucrative career.
The arrangement was drawn up by the Liberal Democrats, who were heavily criticised over their tuition fees about-turn, and is designed to counter criticism that higher fees will put poor students off applying to universities.
In an Opposition Day debate today, however, Labour will claim that as a result, youngsters from relatively modest backgrounds will end up subsidising those whose parents are only slightly worse off.
Under the “access agreements,” which universities wishing to charge more than £6,000 a year are required to draw up, fees must be cut for any student whose parents earn less than £25,000.
So far, despite ministers’ claims that top fees would be levied only in “exceptional circumstances,” 70 per cent of universities which have set out their intentions have said they will charge the maximum £9,000, with many of the rest levying close to the upper ceiling.
That means that in most cases, a youngster with parents earning only £26,000 a year will be required to pay around £3,000 more in fees to pay for the education of a fellow student from a family on £24,000.
John Denham, the shadow business secretary, said: “The Government has lost control of fees, with £9,000 becoming the norm, not the exception.
“On top of this incompetence, the Government is now trying to make students from middle income families pay to cut the fees of others.
“Progress … on social mobility must be maintained, but the Government has chosen to put the burden unfairly on the shoulders of hard working squeezed middle families.
“Students do not pay until they graduate, but the Government is imposing a system where graduates with the same class of degree in the same subject from the same university doing the same job will owe very different debts.”
New research suggests that half of students will be turned off top universities by the imposition of £9,000 tuition fees.
In a survey of current final year undergraduates, 51 per cent said they would not have enrolled if fees were almost three times higher than current prices.
Figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service show record numbers of students are applying for courses this year in order to beat the fee rise.
Applications are expected to be up by around 14,000 in the summer as students scrap gap years to get into university this autumn.
More than 700,000 are expected to apply with almost a third missing out on places.Several #GamerGate communities and the recent Crash Override Network leaks were shut down and barred from being posted on the social media network, Imzy. The reason for the company taking action against the communities and the leaks? Well, because they stated that it violated their terms of service regarding harassment.
An online user going by the handle of Netscape shared images where the three communities he ran on Imzy called GamerGaters, GamerGate Debates and #TorrentialDownpour were all archived following a notice from Imzy after posting up the Crash Override Network leaked chat logs. The logs were made available at the end of August, revealing that the anti-abuse organization has partaken in harassment, doxing and sabotage.
According to an image shared from his Imzy profile, the communities were shut down on September 9th along with his account.
As noted by Imzy in the e-mail, the reason for the systemic archiving of the communities and the removal of the Crash Override Network leaks was due to harassment. The notice reads…
“Your post Zoe Quinn and CON associates planned to attack Milo Yiannopoulos with libel lawsuits was removed by the community leaders for the following reason: The nature of this post is against our anti-harassment policy.”
According to Imzy’s community policy, they mention that users should not engage in harassment, stating…
“Don’t harass others. Harassment is defined as “a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such person and serves no legitimate purpose” or “words, gestures, and actions which tend to annoy, alarm and abuse (verbally) another person” (Source Black’s Law Dictionary). Do not engage in or provide a platform for harassment of users or communities. Harassment will not be tolerated.”
Netscape was curious as to how posting about the Crash Override Network leaks – showing that the supposed anti-harassment organization was engaging in targeted harassment – could be labeled as harassment?
I attempted to reach out to Imzy for an explanation of why they removed the post and why the other related #GamerGate communities were shut down, but as of the writing of this article they have not responded.
This isn’t the first time that Imzy censored posts relating to #GamerGate. Back on August 22nd they also
censored other content relating to #GamerGate, with Netscape posting a thread about it on Kotaku In Action. As the image below reveals, a post related to SJWs and censoring video games was removed on the grounds that it was inciting harassment on another platform, namely Twitter.
So far there is still no explanation from them how making a post containing factual data of an organization participating in harassment falls within their community policy as being targeted harassment. It seems obvious that certain kinds of information just isn’t tolerated on some platforms, no matter how factual or truthful the information is.Chinese table tennis players may seem invincible, but how well can their head coach play?
With China's 3:1 victory over the Japanese men's table tennis team on Aug. 17 in Rio, China has once again swept the Olympic table tennis golds. Chinese players have won 28 of the 32 Olympic gold medals given out since the sport's inclusion in the games in 1988.
China's formidable dominance in the sport has led Cai Zhenhua, vice director of China's General Administration of Sports, to claim proudly that, “if nothing vital goes wrong, there will be no question of China continuing to be the leader of the sport for the next ten years, based on our time-tested training system and a reservoir of potential athletes.”
Another result of the Chinese players’ unmatched performances is that their head national coach, Liu Guoliang, has been brought into spotlight. Of course, Liu wasn't always a coach. In 1996, Liu claimed two Olympic gold medals; in 1999, he became the first Chinese table tennis player to achieve a grand slam. Considered one of China’s greatest table tennis players of all time, he was once a true household name.
However, after retiring in 2003 and eventually being appointed coach of the Chinese men’s team, he more or less faded from public sight. Some young people in China nowadays don’t even know his name, with one young netizen reportedly asking online whether "the fat man" (Liu) talking to the Chinese players during a match was a government official.
Despite being largely out of the spotlight for the past decade, Liu is still a talented athlete. Recently, a Chinese television show invited Liu to show off his table tennis skills on air. On the show he played against retired table tennis star Wang Tao, a 1992 Olympic gold medalist for men's table tennis singles and doubles. Wang currently coaches the Bayi Club in the China Table Tennis Super League.
Liu Guoliang (L)and Wang Tao (R) played on a moving table, with the two halves of the table moving farther and farther back until finally the two players were more than 8 meters apart. They nevertheless achieved continuous volleys without letting the ball fall. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.
Liu extinguished the flame of a candle with a precise hit of the ball. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.
Liu was also challenged to play with a paddle that had a hole in the middle. Liu missed several swings in the beginning, but quickly adjusted his technique. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.
Using a tiny paddle hardly larger than a ping pong ball, Liu finished seven volleys against a TV presenter playing with a regular pad. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.
Liu broke an egg with a precise hit of the ball. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.
Liu and Wang played on a super small, low table. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.
Wang hit off of blocks on a revolving table. Photo shows a screen grab from the program on iqiyi.com.When selecting a Newsmaker of the Year for 2018, the Winnipeg Free Press delegated the job to their readers. Apparently the newspaper has nobody on staff with enough news sense to be capable of sifting through the year's stories to determine who had the biggest influence on Manitobans.
So the FP went with the readers' choice---Tina Fontaine, who was described as the "heartbreaking catalyst for change."
The fact that she had been dead for four years was not a strike against her. It was the death of the fragile 15-year-old girl whose body was discarded in a blanket in the Red River that made her what she is today -- an icon of the missing and murdered aboriginal women movement.
"... Tina's story was a primary driving force behind a public inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, which the federal government granted in 2016," wrote Niigaan Sinclair, the author of the Newsmaker 2018 story.
Sinclair normally writes an opinion column for the Free Press wherein he delivers one-note rants against every known and imagined wrong by white people against natives.
In true segregationist fashion, the Winnipeg Free Press couldn't allow a white reporter to write the story about Tina Fontaine, so they gave the job to their in-house red writer. But while opinion columnists are allowed to ignore or even make up facts, news writers are not.
And that's where we came in.
The Niigaan Sinclair story is a classic example of fake news.
A story based on a biased narrative with any contrary facts ignored, or, better still, denigrated.
It's exactly the sort of "journalism" that's driven away thousands of newspaper readers. They haven't stopped reading newspapers because they can't find ads for used cars in the classifieds; they quit the paper because the biased reporting no longer reflects them or their communities.
And that's the sort of reporting that Winnipeg Free Press editor Bob Cox is committed to saving thanks to his campaign for federal government subsidies to newspapers. The papers won't have to worry about publishing fake news and turning off readers anymore; government subsidies will keep the papers profitable with or without readers.
The Tina Sinclair Newsmaker story was presented as a news story, not opinion. So when we read it we were careful to check the factual bases of the story.
"By all accounts, the 15-year-old from Sagkeeng First Nation was a bright, happy teenager. Her aunt Thelma Favel said she was always respectful, and loved to bake with her family. She was separated from her mother but cared for by Favel, her ill father, and other members of her family. She loved children and planned a future working with them." wrote Sinclair.
On what planet?
Maybe when Tina Fontaine was a pre-teen, she was all these things. But by the time of her death she was a chronic runaway, a thief, a doper, a prostitute---everything you don't want your daughter to be.
She wasn't planning a future working with children. She was planning what hovel she could crash at with her boyfriend and how to get drugs to get high.
The story was even illustrated with a photo of an angelic Tina Fontaine in a sweet pose highlighting her innocence. That photo was obviously taken years before she disappeared. The Free Press won't run the last photo of Tina Fontaine, showing the hair partially regrown over the half of her head she had shaved, the big hoop earrings, and the punkish red jacket she was wearing.
"Then, as the public learned about how Tina was failed by the health-care system, police and federal, provincial and municipal governments, the story of Tina's life, and her death, became a condemnation of Canada," harangued Sinclair.
We addressed this canard three years ago here:
blackrod.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-system-worked-still-tina-fontaine.html
The system worked perfectly. Every time she fell, there was a safety net to catch her. The problem was her. She refused all help. She had been raised in such a dysfunctional environment that she rejected the good for the attractions of the bad.
Sinclair, of course, mentions "the police who could have helped Tina just before she was killed". You mean the police officers who were made scapegoats for following former-Police Chief Devon "Mack Daddy" Clunis' police of non-intervention with teenage prostitutes? When they met Tina Fontaine she had just hopped into a stranger's truck to pick up some quick money.
Contrary to legend, she was NOT MISSING at the time. She wasn't reported missing until the following day! When police stopped the truck they could not hold her because of the police chief's policy of not interfering with prostitutes while going after their customers instead.
But why let truth enter the realm of fake news?
The hook for making Tina Fontaine the year's newsmaker was the trial of the man accused of murder in her death. He was found not guilty by the jury. Sinclair's story fails to mention the Crown brought the charge to trial even though there was no evidence against the man.
Sinclair quotes Arlen Dumas, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, as saying the verdict was 'not acceptable'.
"How can we talk about reconciliation when the very nets that we're asked to participate in do not fulfil what they're supposed to fulfil?"
What's not acceptable about justice being done. The man wasn't convicted because there was no evidence against him. No, really, there was no evidence.
A real newspaper would have used this as an opportunity to examine how the aboriginal community sees the legal system. A real newspaper would have delved into what their understanding is of the presumption of innocence and the state's duty to get a verdict from a jury convinced "beyond a reasonable doubt". Do the "chiefs" reject the hundreds of years of jurisprudence based on Judeo-Christian principles? A real newspaper would have asked what sort of justice system would satisfy the aboriginal community and protect the public at the same time?
A real newspaper would have examined the decision by police brass to spend months trying to trick the accused man into confessing to Tina Fontaine's murder by techniques straight out of the Stasi guidebook--- bugging his home 24-7 and actually acting out various scenarios with police officers to engage him and get him to say something incriminating.
It was all a total waste of time and money, something you would think would interest journalists.
The Winnipeg Free Press carries pages and pages of house ads for themselves every day. The weekend newspaper is packed with multi-page stories of little interest. So the problem is not of lack of space. It's lack of will coupled with a lack of news sense.
Take the trial of Tina Fontaine's alleged killer, for example. A big problem of the prosecution was that there was no cause of death. She wasn't shot, stabbed, strangled or beaten to death that the coroner could see. In short, there was no evidence of murder.
So how did she die?
The answer was blatantly obvious. It was even discussed during the trial. A real newspaper would have explored the likely cause of death. But that would have destroyed the agreed-upon narrative. How could she be among the murdered aboriginal women is she wasn't murdered?
Read the stories of the trial and you will see repeated references to "the 71-pound" girl. A normal 15-year-old girl weighs about 115 pounds. Tina Fontaine was only two-thirds the weight of a healthy girl of her age.
The toxicologist who testified said Tina Fontaine was drunk and stoned on pot when she died. He found no evidence of the other drugs she was exposed to at the residence she was staying---cocaine, meth or gabapentin (a prescription drug to control seizures which can also cause seizures and suicidal thoughts).
But its obvious that offered that smorgasbord of drugs, Tina Fontaine was a walking time bomb. Weighing a third less than a normal girl at 15, she was susceptible to an overdose of one or more of those drugs at any moment.
Faced with the body of a dead underage girl, someone wrapped it in a bed covering and disposed of it in the river rather than answer questions by police.
But none of that fit the narrative for the Winnipeg Free Press Newsmaker of 2018.
Labels: Bob Cox, Devon Clunis, Fake News, Free Press, MSM, police, Tina FontaineFreed Ukraine opposition leader Julia Tymoshenko, newly-elected Ukrainian prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Ukrainian opposition figure Vitali Klitschko are to attend the European People’s Party conference in Dublin this week, it has been confirmed. All three are due to address the conference which takes place in the Convention Centre, Dublin on Thursday.
Mr Yatsenyuk assumed the role of prime minister last Thursday following the ousting of Victor Yanucovich. A close ally of Mr Tymoshenko, he held the position of Economy Minister and Foreign Minister in Ms Tymoshenko’s government between 2005 and 2007.
Ms Tymoshenko (53) was freed from prison in Ukraine ten days ago after a law was passed in the Ukrainian parliament, paving the way for her release.
Mr Klitschko (42), a former professional boxer, has been one of the leading figures in the Kiev uprising.
Ms Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party is one of a number of non-European Union parties that are a member of the European People’s Party, the centre-right political grouping in the European Parliament of which Fine Gael is a member.
The EPP is due to select its candidate for European Commission president ahead of May’s European elections. To date, three candidates have declared their interest in the position - former Latvian prime minister Valdis Dombrovskis, EU internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier and former Luxembourg prime minister and head of the euro group Jean-Claude Juncker, who is seen as the favourite, with the support of Angela Merkel’s CDU party. The candidate is expected to be selected by lunchtime on Friday.
As the Congress gets underway on Thursday morning, EU leaders will gather in Brussels for an emergency summit to discuss Ukraine, with most EPP leaders members expected to fly to Dublin directly from Brussels. The Taoiseach will hold a press conference with Angela Merkel in government buildings at lunchtime on Friday.
Among the EU leaders who will attend the conference are German chancellor Angela Merkel, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, Portuguese leader Pedro Passos Coelho, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, and Finnish prime minister Jyki Katainen.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban will also attend, but former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is not on the attendance list.
The conference is being hosted by Fine Gael, a founding member of the EPP which applied to host the congress last year.Wednesday on Laura Ingraham’s nationally syndicated radio show, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan warned that if White House chief strategist Steve Bannon were to depart the Trump administration, it would mean the end of economic nationalism, one of the elements of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
After Buchanan had expressed his concern over National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster foreign policy “ideas,” Ingraham asked Buchanan to react to a Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized Bannon for his reported policy differences with McMaster.
Buchanan warned that if Bannon were to depart the Trump administration, which the Journal editorial seemed to suggest should happen, it would have consequences.
“The economic nationalism – I think that would go pretty much out the window,” Buchanan said. “Trump is pretty committed to border control. I think he realizes that is indispensable to his political survival and reelection. But I would be concerned about the foreign policy interventionism, quite frankly, if Bannon were thrown out. But the fact – I haven’t read The Wall Street Journal today, I got up a little late. But I think it also a sign that Bannon must be influential if The Wall Street Journal is clawing the walls.”
Buchanan urged Trump to be loyal to Bannon, calling him a needed “voice.”
“Look, you got to be loyal to your people,” he added. “You need Bannon’s voice in there, quite frankly. He’s the custodian of the populist conservative traditionalist ideas, which are more than half of Trump’s coalition, and also they’re the critical element that got him elected.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorElbert Green Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Hubbard is mostly known as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, New York, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Born: June 19, 1856, Bloomington, Illinois, United States
Died: May 7, 1915, Republic of Ireland
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.
God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.
Folks who never do any more than they are paid for, never get paid more than they do.
An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.
If you suffer, thank God! It is a sure sign that you are alive.
Enthusiasm is the great hill-climber.
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.
Never explain―your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
Responsibility is the price of freedom.
One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
The love we give away is the only love we keep.
Happiness is a habit—cultivate it.
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do.
It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.
The line between failure and success is so fine... that we are often on the line and do not know it.
True life lies in laughter, love and work.
Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.
For more Facebook covers7 Questions With Andreas Larsen
When we set about to give this site a refresh we looked into several different fonts. Exploring the GitHub Font showcase we stumbled upon Gidole. We really liked the crisp and clean look, that it was open source, and free to use.
In return the font creator is asking users to make a donation to the Ethiopian Red Cross Society. That nailed it for us, as two of our products (Collaborate and LegalServer) each focus on helping non-profits do business efficiently.
Gidole is designed by Andreas Larsen. We shot him a couple questions to find out more about the font, his charity and other projects.
What's your thoughts behind designing Gidole?
I've always had a thing for typography and liked DIN for it's geometric simplicity but often felt it was a bit too “mechanical” and that other modern fonts drawing inspiration from it – such as e.g. Roboto and San Francisco still were too unfriendly.
I'm a big fan of the ultra legible Clear Sans with it's slightly narrow letters and generous apertures (the opening at the end of an open counter in letters such as e.g. “a” and “e”).
What was your process for designing Gidole?
I started drawing curves around circle using Illustrator but quickly started using the open source font editor FontForge.
Gidole was my first font and I having no design education I quickly turned online for feedback. Some friendly people at typophile helped a lot, then later on /r/typography and now mainly on issues on GitHub.
My initial sketch looked like this:
The hardest parts of the design process was getting the curves and curve-to-straight-transitions just right. Switching to Euler spirals instead of bezier curves in FontForge made it a lot of that easier. Image is screenshot of the backbone of the letter h drawn using spiral mode where you don't have to mess with handles but simply select different point types (curve point, tangent point, corner point etc).
Why did you decide to open source the font?
For multiple reasons. I had previously made themes for jailbroken iOS that I made as donationware and it raised quite a bit of money to charitable organisations so I wanted to try that again and set up a donation page for Gidole. I also wanted to learn as much as possible and experts are more inclined to help an amateur. I'm using open source software, fonts, graphics etc. daily so it's also a sense of giving back to the great online community.
What's the story behind the name?
It's the name of the small city where we lived in Ethiopia for 4 years when I was growing up. I have many happy memories from Gidole and it was simpler times - which is somewhat the same emotions I'm trying to invoke with the font: simplicity and friendliness.
Have you released other fonts and are there any new ones in the pipeline?
I made Monoid last year. It shares many design features with Gidole and was an experiment in combining the best of qualities of bitmap and vector fonts for coding. It has ligatures, contextual letter-spacing and other weird stuff. It's also open source and very well received. Fastcompany wrote about it and it's one of the default fonts on CodePen.
I'm currently improving Gidole (perfecting some characters and spacing) and adding more characters to it (greek, russian, vietnamese and more). I also hope to be able to add more weights and styles.
I also want to make a Gidole inspired interpretation of the ~282 fidels that are used to write amharic. So far I've only drawn the first letter in my name እንድርያስ but I hope to complete the entire script this year. Something similar hasn't really been done before so we'll see where it ends up.
I use my Twitter @larsenwork for project updates.
In your opinion what qualifies as a good looking font and who are some of your opening fonts and font designers?
A font should look effortless so that it doesn't distract from it's main purpose: to enable reading.
These are some of my favourite:
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by: 1644 on October 19, 2017 11:42am rob: By your definition of commercial, every lessor of residential property, and least furnished residential property, is violating zoning laws. What difference does the length of the rental make? A lessor for a night or two places far fewer burdens on city services and neighbors than a long-term lessor. Its for health code violations, I am unaware of any health problems that have arisen from short term rentals. As Lauren and cyclist state, there are lots of positives for the city and neighbors in short-term rentals.
posted by: robn on October 19, 2017 11:55am 1644, The root of the word “residential” is “residence”....meaning that the occupant (homeowner or long term renter) lives there and has a social contract of good behavior with neighbors.
Hey there’s a gal right down the street from me that does AirBNB and there’s never been a problem; but if there were, what I’m arguing would be the basis of my legal relief.
posted by: brownetowne on October 19, 2017 12:28pm I have to say that it warms my heart to see an Alder walking the neighborhood to address resident concerns. I can state that my Alder hasn’t been seen or heard in the 29th ward for years and won’t attend blockwatch or mgmt team meetings. I can understand neighbors who would prefer a home be occupied by a single resident instead of a variety of airbnb guests, but it doesn’t seem likely that anybody would be staying there and being loud or trashing the property since there is a mutual rating system where the host rates the guest and vice-versa. I’ve probably stayed in 10 airbnb places over the years and all were well kept, quiet, and low-key places to spend a night or two.
posted by: robn on October 19, 2017 12:39pm It’s interesting because unlike the taxi-uber tension that has a tremendous amount to do with safety as well as the civil rights viewpoint that transportation equals freedom, the hotel-AirBNB seems more benign. It is indeed self policing (either bad hosts or bad guests can be blackballed my their own system). I imagine a host abusive to neighbors could be reported to the company and possibly banned. On the subject of parking I agree with one commentator who wrote that’s its everybody’s and nobody’s and therefore a non issue.
posted by: Bill Saunders on October 19, 2017 1:32pm Didn’t Mayor Harp go on record a few years ago as being ‘for’ Air BnB’s?
posted by: 1644 on October 19, 2017 2:02pm Robn;
:
1. Are apartments not residences? I would think anywhere people live would be a residence. One’s domicile and residence may be the same, or they may not be. The words and concepts are not synonymous.
2. I would think an Airbnb in a dense apartment building, with shared walls, and folks arriving and departing at odd hours for early/late flights, etc., would be more disruptive than an Airbnb in a single family, detached home.
3. Should the state regulate the length of leases? Should month to month leases be outlawed to allow you enough time to get to know your neighbors?
4. You may be an exception, but in general, if one wants to live in a neighborhood where one knows one’s neighbors, one needs to live in the 1950’s and the era of stay-at-home mothers. Today, both parents are at work during the day, the kids are at day care or school, or structured activities (rather than roaming the neighborhood as I did) and tasks like lawn care are outsourced. Neighbors go to different workplaces, schools, churches, and run in different social circles. I literally don’t know the family who lives across the street from me, though he has been there for 5 years or more. Previously, a cat lady lived there, and I didn’t know her either. In some of the single family homes in my neighborhood, I have never seen anyone outside, though the places are occupied and have been for years by the same folks.
posted by: noname on October 19, 2017 2:43pm When the owner first purchased and began renovations several years ago he told neighbors he was moving into this home at 103 Lawncrest but that never happened. The reason he cannot sell this house is because he has it listed for $100,000 over the market value in this neighborhood which I have lived in for 30 years. Yes, over the last few months, several different groups of people have been short-term renting and some have been noisy and trash has been an issue. I live close enough to make an accurate determination. All these factors are related to declining property values in this community which was at one time family friendly and owner occupied single family homes.
posted by: robn on October 19, 2017 2:43pm 1644, I included renters with homeowners in my comment. Re-read it. As for your 1950’s comment; well, I’m sorry you feel so disconnected from the people around you. I know my neighbors and they know me.
posted by: 1644 on October 19, 2017 3:17pm Robn: Okay, you included “long-term” renters. How long is long term? Should month-to-month leases be banned?
In reply to your question about a remedy, you have the same remedy with short term renters and you do with a troublesome long-term neighbor. You have a right to quiet enjoyment of your property. On a short term basis, if your neighbor has an unruly party that disturbs you, you can call the police, who will break up the party. On a long term basis, you may make a zoning complaint about trash, or bring a suit for nuisance. Your gal down the street is liable whether wild parties, trash, etc., are caused by her or by her tenants. Personally, I tolerate a few loud gatherings b by long-term neighbors without complaining. And you gal might inadvertently rent to some troublesome people. But nearly every landlord wants quiet, well behaved tenants. Those that are not are blacklisted on the review panels. Personally, I would rather deal with the occasional (once every few years) short term tenant than a troublesome owner or long-term renter.
posted by: NHVCyclist on October 19, 2017 3:32pm I agree with what 1644 said re: calling the police when necessary, as well as LCI, building department, or whatever other department should be informed. This is a case where the city needs to do a better job enforcing EXISTING regulations. Check SeeClickFix - this city is rampant with unaddressed issues caused by ong-term tenants (and their often-absentee landlords) and even homeowners themselves. The Police, LCI, etc are slow to, or never, address many of these.
We have EXISTING regulations that cover any issue that short-term renters would cause. Those regulations should be enforced regardless of who is occupying the housing, and for how long. (This comment may post awkwardly late because for some reason mine need approval
[Ed.: All comments are reviewed before we post them.]
posted by: robn on October 19, 2017 3:33pm 1644. My 1:39 comment was sort of talking my self into agreeing with you. For the sake of argument though, most month to month leases are not held by people just staying for a month. Its called that but is really just an open ended contract structure not fixed to a 12 month period.
posted by: 1644 on October 19, 2017 7:02pm Robn: Yes, most month to month renters do stay longer, except for my friends who asked me to help them move into a third floor walk up, and then, within the month, decided they didn’t like it and asked me to help them move out. :)
BTW, many Airbnbs, especially whole house rentals, have minimum stays of a week or so. Here’s some one in Madison renting out a single room for $32/night, but requiring a 12 night minimum. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/20947175?location=Madison, CT, United States&s=AfY6QqED
posted by: LookOut on October 20, 2017 11:14am very happy to see that “Leave them alone” response is leading all other options combined. This is a non-story. Government regulation/intrusion is the last thing we need. If you have any doubt, research the budget of New Haven LCI department and then ask yourself how much they have done to address blight. Blight has improved but it is always a result of development and almost always the result of private development.
posted by: Smitty on October 23, 2017 10:53am @ NoName…..I’m not an expert nor a homeowner so enlighten me if I’m missing something but Maybe its $100,000 over because he renovated and increased its value….The homeowner mentioned in the article that this is why his neighbors are mad…Why does it bother u? U have a home so why would it be your issue since u have a home to live in already? Ok you are also mad (bothered or whatever word u prefer) because he “said he would live in the home but does not”....What effect does it have on you? Its his home (what is the point of ownership if u cannot do what u want with your property and as long as you’re not breaking laws)...It appears that he has provided a valid legal reason for not currently inhabiting the property as he also mentioned in the article. and @ Laureen106…wow makes me wonder if ppl are just exaggerating their complaints for personal reasons…. @rob I agree it should be a self policing issue (not a website issue)....IF in fact there is noise pollution and the owner of the property has not been proactive in keeping the property clean; then this needs to be addressed. I assume that now that its an official complaint he will take the necessary steps to address his neighbors concerns No matter who lives there its the owners responsibility. Even if the owner himself was living there and trashing the property…Same difference same solution
posted by: Dwightstreeter on October 23, 2017 12:21pm Regulation of AirBnB rentals is a solution in search of a problem.
It is fall down laughing time to read of these relatively minor housing problems that have brought the full force of NH gov’t to propose a massive “fix”, one that will definitely involve extracting new fees and/or taxes from owners, when all the issues laid out are already subject to local regulation.
How many articles have we read about all sorts of housing around town that had unmet maintenance needs, festering crime and a depressed group of tenants - but NOTHING was done. For decades!
Now, mirabile dictu, some minor flaps and the Mayor is ready to move new legislation to the front.
Chalk this up as another pressure on the middle class real estate owners because Yale is feasting off the people of New Haven like something vile and swollen in a Hogarth painting.
If such unnecessary legislation is proposed, people should light their torches and grab their pitchforks and overwhelm City Hall with first hand opposition to further exploitation of the people trying to survive in a 2-3 job economy.
This is NOT about safety or health or anything else that isn’t already covered.
It’s about making up for the $9.5 million being paid for crooked cops, with more to follow.
posted by: Dwightstreeter on October 23, 2017 12:27pm @ThreeFifths: In NYC the problem is large, absentee owners of lots of vacant apts. doing short term rentals. When owners are absent, there is no investment or oversight of a property. That is NOT the situation when a homeowner rents out a room or even does a few months if out of town. People are vetted.
There will be gentrification in New Haven. The only question is whether our politicians protect the interests of people who don’t know how or can’t afford to protect themselves.
As we’ve seen from the inept Dwight Management District, locals cannot be depended on to do that.
Those annual free dinners from the Chapel East Special Services District pay off big time when the City or a developer want something.
posted by: Livelovetravel on October 23, 2017 3:57pm Have any of the people complaining actually read anything about Airbnb and their policies?
I currently rent an apartment in New Haven where I have an extra room that I post for booking through Airbnb. My landlord is aware and has approved this situation.
I’m recently unemployed and without the funds generated through Airbnb I wouldn’t be able to make ends meet.
Airbnb is a secure, legal and legitimate business. We hosts pay taxes on income generated. Airbnb also makes hosts pay, in states where you are legally required to pay other fees to the government, pay those fees.
Airbnb is huge. Don’t you think they have things under control. They win lawsuits brought against them for good reason. So, maybe what New Haven needs to get under control are people who have nothing better to do but complain and needlessly worry about nothing. Maybe get off your butts and clean up some trash in your own yard???
Several people host Airbnb in my neighborhood. All of our homes and yards are spic and span. Naysayers get off your soapboxes and go do something good for the community. Not inhibit good people like me from making an honest bit of money. Ignorance equals fear. Or perhaps you don’t want anyone else to make a living? What was that about gentrification??
Lastly, Airbnb is a great way for people visiting New Haven to get a safe, clean place to stay. Most of the people I have hosted are Yale related. There are no places to stay downtown for $50-$60 a night. Long Wharf hotels maybe… how safe is that to then walk to your destination downtown? should they Uber? Who is going to now complain about Uber drivers using their own vehicles to make some money? Same thing no?
posted by: THREEFIFTHS on October 23, 2017 7:28pm posted by: Livelovetravel on October 23, 2017 4:57pm Have any of the people complaining actually read anything about Airbnb and their policies? I have. NO VACANCY
The dirty secret of Airbnb is that it’s really, really white
Alison Griswold June 23, 2016 The selfie was the first thing to go viral.
Stefan Grant posted it to Twitter last October, a brightly lit image of him grinning into the camera alongside another young black man with a broad smile and two thumbs up. Behind them are trees, the outline of a house, and a pair of policemen, also smiling. “Yo!” the caption reads. “The Air B&B we’re staying at is so nice, the neighbors thought we were robbing the place & called the cops!” https://qz.com/706767/racist-hosts-not-hotels-are-the-greatest-threat-to-airbnbs-business/ Harvard Study: Black People Get Screwed on Airbnb http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35077448 We find that non-black hosts are able to charge approximately 12% more than black hosts, holding location, rental characteristics, and quality constant. Moreover, black hosts receive a larger price penalty for having a poor location score relative to non-black hosts. These differences highlight the risk of discrimination in online marketplaces, suggesting an important unintended consequence of a seemingly-routine mechanism for building trust http://valleywag.gawker.com/harvard-study-black-people-get-screwed-on-airbnb-1505185859
AirBnB racism claim: African-Americans ‘less likely to get rooms’ A survey of more than 6,000 hosts in five US cities concluded that names that sounded African-American were about 16% less likely to get a positive response to a request for a room when compared against white-sounding names like Brad or Kristen.
In a statement, AirBnB admitted it faced “significant challenges” over the issue.
posted by: Livelovetravel on October 23, 2017 8:22pm Why do people have this need to make everything about racism????
PLEASE don’t respond. I won’t feed into this.On June 27, Blizzard approached hundreds of Overwatch players with the intention to build a scouting report for the upcoming Overwatch League. Players were chosen based on skill rating, tournament finishes and “other distinguishing qualifications indicative of top-tier talent, including but not limited to membership on an established professional Overwatch team.”
The purpose of this scouting is to cater to future OWL franchise owners. The League, which reportedly has the monstrous buy-in fee of $20 million, is prognosticated to attract some of the biggest fishes in traditional and electronic sports. In fact, if Richard Lewis’ report is to be trusted—and his usually are—Blizzard have already secured the first two slot owners: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, hailing from the rich world of NFL. With no confirmation just yet, endemic organizations Cloud9 and Immortal, the latter of which secured a new investment injection from sports and entertainment giant AEG, are also rumored to potentially enter the fray, being one of the few that can actually afford the reported buy-in.
UPDATE 11/07: ESPN report names Immortals, NRG, New England Patriots, New York Mets as the next OWL buy-ins
Blizzard are laying the red carpet for the franchise owners, on whose checkbooks OWL’s survival effectually lies
This is where Blizzard’s scouting initiative comes in play. With OWL investments in the eight figures, franchise owners will want to hook in the best there is, if they are to be on the front lines of reaping that potential $720 million revenue which Morgan Stanley projects. What Blizzard are doing is laying the red carpet for these owners, on whose checkbooks OWL’s survival effectually lies. If more outsiders like Kraft and Ross are to enter esports—and one could expect they are—a spreadsheet with top players’ stats, achievements and personal information is certainly welcome, a bright marker to guide what will possibly be the biggest talent cherry picking in the industry.
Expectedly, the news of this scouting didn’t sit well with endemic teams and other industry insiders. Upon announcement, for example, I engaged in a lengthy discussion with North’s Marketing Manager Phillip Rasmussen regarding the extent to which Blizzard’s move was unethical.
Blizzard helping new owners in OWL feel up if players already contracted would want to jump ship. Damn that's some questionable shit. https://t.co/zsx7gF2ouo — Phillip Rasmussen (@PHedemark) June 27, 2017
Before we proceed, one must understand the nature of the scouting and it begins with the realization that we haven’t had this exact precedent in esports before. No game has jumped from having a small endemic scene to having a massive, world-wide, city-based franchise league. Even Riot’s League of Legends took half a decade before parts of it came to employ a franchise system. There is no precedent in sports either, because at the end of the day, no traditional sport is owned by a developer company like Blizzard. NBA does not own basketball, and NHL does not own hockey, but Blizzard very much can do whatever they want with Overwatch and any of their other games.
Artwork by: Blizzard
Second of all, coming to the scouting itself, what it does is simply gauge interest which, if anything is a pro forma question: It’s natural that every pro player will want a piece of the OWL fame. The scouting also asks for one very important permission: for personal details to be shared. It does not imply any contractual offers and agreements and doesn’t even guarantee a spot in OWL.
While many frowned at Blizzard’s involvement and questioned integrity, it might actually be better than the alternative.
While many frowned at Blizzard’s involvement and questioned integrity, it might actually be better than the alternative. This scouting would have happened either way by the OWL franchises and with no overseeing body—which Blizzard could and should be in this instance—poaching of players would be a grim reality. Not all Overwatch rosters are inseparable units like Rogue, or EnVyUs—teams which have kept their core intact for the past year. Many teams rely on singular star players, who would be easily plucked at the whisper of franchise cash, leaving their endemic home hollow. With Blizzard as a mediator, the company and its self-proclaimed love for endemic communities can in theory prevent and control such malicious practices. Blizzard’s scouting is not poaching in the traditional sense, nor does it have to lead to one. It’s merely a gatherer of information, there’s technically nothing wrong with that and it shouldn’t be condemned.
However…
Even if in a vacuum the scouting is not strictly illegal or unethical, it makes sense for endemics and industry insiders to be upset. In their eyes, it’s a dick move with an even worse timing.
Blizzard’s phrasing in their scouting report announcement suggests that Overwatch League might encounter delays and launch later than the anticipated Q3 of 2017. By that time, many more rosters are likely to have disbanded, and I wager that a few more might follow LDLC’s example of straight up calling out Blizzard, LDLC's complete lack of OW relevance in current climate notwithstanding. The number of free agents will have dramatically increased and although it is likely that the very best will remain signed to their endemics—though no such guarantee exists—for the most part it will be open picking season for the OWL owners, who won’t have to bargain with endemic organizations for the players they like. This, of course, means no money flowing into the endemic pockets.
The scouting should’ve been done earlier, and it should've involved the endemics.
It is therefore no wonder that there’s a sour taste in these organizations. Blizzard’s secrecy around OWL forced a lot of these teams to abandon the scene, even though it is them—and not Blizzard—which are the building blocks. In fact, Blizzard’s obsession with full control that often rivals that of Riot Games is actually stifling, as it limits the growth of the third-party tournament climate.
Therefore, whatever pure intentions the scouting report might have had are now muddied by the decrepit state of the scene in present day, but the thing is this could’ve easily been avoided, had the scouting been packaged better. It should’ve been done earlier, it should’ve included existing endemics and should’ve come with buy-out clauses in regards to player contracts. This would’ve allowed more endemics to keep their rosters as even if they were to miss OWL, a good performance at OWC and other tournaments might’ve allowed them to cash out of OW on the back of talent they’ve nurtured.
As it is now, how can one blame the public for not taking this in a nice way?My Kitchen Nightmares Experience
Crazy Amy and Nutso Samy
Greg Taylor Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 10, 2013
I have always been a fan of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. When I found out that he was filming in nearby Scottsdale, AZ, I wanted to see what the show was really like.
I made reservations for two at the restaurant he was trying to save, and Kristina and I went to Amy’s Baking Company for dinner. For the show when you make reservations you have no idea if it’s the before or the after and what type of experience you are in for. We were definitely the before.
I had heard of Amy’s Baking Company, not because of their cuisine but because of their epic Yelp social media meltdowns. [Here’s a link to the original Yelp thread that started it all off.]
We went with open minds in hopes of having a decent meal.
First off, there were cameras everywhere capturing everything. With this being reality television, I knew there would be, but not sure about how natural it would feel. It was quite unnatural.
As much as you try not to notice the cameras, it’s close to impossible.
The service was ok, the food was ok, the owner’s behavior was shocking in the respect that he was insane.
We ordered some appetizers and I asked for a side of marinara sauce and he rolled his eyes at me and said it would be $2 extra. BFD. Just give me what I want and let’s not make a big deal out of it.
The dinner was ok — just ok for $80. I found the introduction of jalapenos into Italian food was odd, but whatever. (Ramsey actually makes a similar comment in the show.)
Now for the good part: We did witness the couple sending back a salad, which made Samy insane. This behavior that you see (or will see) on the show is 100% true to form and not doctored for TV.
There is an epic blowout about a pizza that we must have left right before it happened because we recognize the diners.
I was contacted via email to go to a meeting with Chef Ramsey to discuss our dining experience as a group, but it was abruptly cancelled the morning of the meeting and now I know why.
These restauranteurs are crazy and I was blown away how they treat their employees. Their food is ok (at best.) Amy & Samy can call me a moron for saying so, but it is what it is.
Watch this episode here on FOX when it airs and see for yourself.
Kitchen Nightmares Part One
Kitchen Nightmares Part Two
Kitchen Nightmares Part Three
[Thanks for reading, I’ve also written other posts on other topics that can be found here, or check out my articles about WordPress.]As a general strike is mooted to coincide with Europe-wide action, the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union is warning that one day outings will not be enough to deter deep public sector cuts
Spain's fifth general strike hasbeen set for September 29th amidst massive public sector cuts and attacks on job security passed by the ruling Socialist Party - and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is calling for it to be made indefinite.
Following a one day public-sector strike earlier this month the union is warning that “gesture strikes” will not be enough to force the government to change course.
In a statement after the June 8th event they said: “The government’s plans to stabilise the economy through reducing the public deficit by 11% have placed the cost of the economic crisis on the shoulders of the disadvantaged.
“It is evident that the proposals are designed to satisfy banks and employers by compromising with the neoliberal designs that prevail in the EU.”
“If there had been earlier mobilisations the government would not have dared to present the measures announced and would have had to cut elsewhere. It would have had to seek income where the money really is – on the bench, through corporate taxes, inheritance, hedge funds etc.
“We believe it is a mistake to continue ‘negotiating’ labour reform, which is simply a concession to employers. The only possiblility for correcting this situation is to fight this economic aggression through social confrontation, to continue and expand protests to all sectors.”
“These great evils can only be treated with great remedies, and such remedies do not include, of course, a 24-hour general strike which, assuming that UGT and CCOO (the two major reformist unions in Spain) dared to actually convene one, would act only as a giant safety valve for employee discontent.
“An indefinite general strike paralysing the country until the government withdraws anti-worker and anti-social actions would by contrast act as a binder for workers to recover their class consciousness and act together, with an eye to the destruction of the capitalist system through social revolution which is the only truly effective medicine against congenital diseases of the system.
Larger TUC-style unions called the public-sector strike on June 8th, which the left claimed got 75% of public sector workers out (state sources put it 16%) and saw tens of thousands of people on the streets in protest. The public sector accounts for around 2.5 million jobs in Spain. However the measure has made little impact on narrowly-passed plans to slash 5% from public sector pay, part of a 15 billion euro package of austerity measures being implemented in the next few years.
Other measures include the uncoupling of pension payments from inflation, an end to tax breaks for new parents and cuts in public investment and development aid of up to 6 billion euros. The Party is also taking the opportunity to “free up the labour market” by making it easier to hire and fire workers, a measure which would be likely to help drive a general strike outside the public sector.
Its actions, taken as Spain is threatened by international markets over its debt ratio, are widely seen as a betrayal of the electoral promises which put the Socialist Party (PSOE) and Jose Zapatero into power in 2004 on the back of widespread discontent with the right, though anarchist groups in the country have pointed to the situation as emblematic of party politicians’ inability to represent working people.
In an editorial for the periodical CNT, the union noted: “Economic crises are inherent in the capitalist system and will, unfortunately for humanity, regularly occur as long as the system exists.
“At the end of the day, the problem lies in the balance of power between two social classes with conflicting interests - the bourgeois class, which holds exclusive ownership of the means of production and distribution, and the proletarian class, which has no more than their manual and intellectual labour to sell as dearly as possible. The salary of the employee, and therefore the worker himself, is just another cost of production like machinery, electrical power or fuel.
“And when the worker is considered this way, not as a human being but as a cost to be cut without a second thought, you can do with them what you will, without remorse. That is neither more nor less than what capitalists do with us now.
“We can not remain silent before these measures announced by the government, which will result in yet more desecration of labour right to add to a long list of infamies imposed since this pompously-named “democracy” came into existence. Lowering the salaries of officials and freezing or eliminating pensions, among other measures, are not appropriate ways to solve the so-called crisis, and will have the determined opposition of the CNT.”
- Discussion thread on libcom.org
- An edited version of this article first appeared in Freedom anarchist newspaperWith two matches remaining of the 2011 Torneo Clausura, there are six clubs currently fighting to avoid the upper of the two relegation playoff spots in the notorious Promedio, Argentina’s three-season-long, points-average table which is used to decide which sides are relegated. Quilmes, Huracán and Gimnasia La Plata are the clubs battling between themselves to decide which two will go straight down and which will have the prize of the bottom playoff spot – where they’ll fight for survival against the third-placed team from this season’s B Nacional – but six more, including two of the ‘Big Five’, River Plate and Independiente are hoping to avoid the final playoff place. All of those six bar Olimpo could confirm their safety this weekend, with the right combination of results. An explanation of Argentina’s ridiculous system, and the results needed by each side to stay up this weekend, is right here.
Relegation in Argentina is decided not over one season, but over three. This system is designed, in essence, to prevent big clubs being punished for a single bad season, although the same system is used to decide the relegated teams in every tier of the Argentine pyramid. The number of points a team won in their current division during the last three seasons is divided by the number of games they’ve played in that time. If they’ve been in the Primera for the whole of that period, 114 matches will have been played at the end of the season; if it’s two seasons (either consecutively, or with a season in B Nacional, the second division, in between) it’ll be 76; if a side were only promoted last season they’ll have played 38 by season’s end.
The bottom two sides in this points-per-game table, known in Argentina as the Promedio (‘average’), are relegated automatically to the division below, to be be replaced by the top two from that flight. Note: that’s the top two from the current season, not the top two from the other division’s equivalent Promedio. The next two teams from the bottom have to play off against the third- and fourth-placed teams from the division below; 18th plays 3rd, 17th plays 4th. These playoffs are two-legged, and the side from the lower division have to earn an aggregate victory; a draw results in the side from the higher division keeping their place.
With two rounds remaining of the Clausura, a dramatic season has seen more attention than ever paid to the workings of the Promedio, thanks to the plight of River Plate – the club the Promedio was reintroduced, in the 1980s, in order to save. After several bad seasons River needed to mount title challenges in order to rescue themselves this time round, and although they’ve severely struggled for goals due to an underwhelming strikeforce, they were doing fine until a recent slump in form which has seen them no longer depending solely on their own results to avoid the playoff (or Promoción). River are in a Copa Sudamericana qualification spot, but if they also finish in the Promoción position, they won’t be allowed to enter the Sudamericana whether or not they stay in the top flight.
River’s cause at the moment is complicated by the good campaign being enjoyed by Club Olimpo, of Bahía Blanca. As Olimpo have only been in the top flight for the current season during the last three, each win they get sees the three points earned divided by fewer matches – and thus those points are worth more in the Promedio. That’s why although Olimpo currently occupy the remaining playoff place, it’s not actually in River’s hands. If River win their remaining two games and Olimpo do the same, Olimpo will leapfrog them, and River will be facing a tie against the fourth-placed side from B Nacional. Olimpo’s final two games are considerably easier than River’s. Olimpo play at home to Newell’s Old Boys tomorrow night, and end the campaign away to Quilmes – who may very well already be relegated automatically by that point. River, meanwhile, are in worse form, and have a visit to Estudiantes on Sunday. Estudiantes have had a poor campaign, but River haven’t looked confident at all lately, and they finish the season at home to Lanús, who if results go to form this weekend will be battling for the Torneo Clausura title.
River can, however, survive this weekend with the right results, as can four of the other five sides in the battle. With Olimpo’s losses hurting them more than other side’s losses – in the same way that their wins are worth more than other teams’ – the bahienses are the only team who know they’ll still be fighting for survival on the last weekend whatever happens this weekend. Here’s a complete rundown of all the possibilities for survival this weekend.
Independiente and Tigre play each other on Saturday night, with the latter at home. A point will be enough to ensure survival for Independiente. Equally, if one of River or Olimpo fail to win their matches, Independiente would stay up even with a loss. Tigre’s situation is slightly more complicated; if Olimpo win tomorrow, Tigre will need to beat Independiente, and then hope River don’t win the following day. If on the other hand Olimpo lose on Friday night, Tigre (and, as already mentioned, Independiente) will be safe even before kicking a ball.
All Boys came up last year, like Olimpo, and enjoyed a brilliant Torneo Apertura which has seen them keep their heads above water even though their form has dropped off somewhat in the Clausura (especially in the first couple of months of 2011). Their situation is simple: if Olimpo lose, All Boys stay up. If Olimpo don’t lose, All Boys will play Gimnasia on Saturday evening needing a draw to stay up regardless of other sides’ results. If Olimpo win and All Boys lose, they’ll still stay up should River lose against Estudiantes on Sunday.
Arsenal de Sarandí play Colón away on Saturday, and like the others an Olimpo loss tomorrow would save them. If Olimpo don’t lose, there are other options for Arsenal: a draw would then be enough as long as Estudiantes beat River; or with a win Arsenal would stay up if either River fail to beat Estudiantes, or Tigre lose against Independiente.
River Plate can only confirm their safety this weekend by beating Estudiantes, and then only if Olimpo have already lost to Newell’s. Any other combination of results from those two games will see the fight go to the last weekend.
Olimpo know that their fate can only be decided one way this weekend: if they lose and River win, Olimpo will be condemned to the Promoción. A draw or a win against Newell’s, and they’ll have a chance of survival on the last weekend regardless of all the other results.
This post is adapted from this very useful one on La Nación’s sports website canchallena.com today.
You can follow the ins and outs during the 2011 Torneo Clausura, as well as the country’s vast foreign legion and the latest news from the selección during the 2010-2011 season direct from Buenos Aires with HEGS on Twitter. If you’ve not signed up yet you can do so here. You can also join the official HEGS Facebook group, to keep up to date with the latest posts on the blog and discuss things with other fans. You’ll find it here. Also remember to bookmark Hand Of Pod, our Argentine football podcast, or if you prefer you can subscribe to it on iTunes here.
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2019/02/05 STAR-H5R5-L4QG 5,000 UEC UNLIMITED Activate the code here Use this referral code to get 5000 UEC. You should check out this guide about the best starter ships if you haven't decided which ship to buy.A new crimeware kit for sale on the criminal underground makes it a simple point-and-click exercise to develop malicious software designed to turn Mac OSX computers into remotely controllable zombie bots. According to the vendor of this kit, it is somewhat interchangeable with existing crimeware kits made to attack Windows-based PCs.
KrebsOnSecurity has spilled a great deal of digital ink covering the damage wrought by ZeuS and SpyEye, probably the most popular crimeware kits built for Windows. A crimeware kit is a do-it-yourself package of tools that allow users to create custom versions of a malicious software strain capable of turning machines into bots that can be remotely controlled and harvested of financial and personal data. The bot code, generated by the crimeware kit’s “builder” component, typically is distributed via social engineering attacks in email and social networking sites, or is foisted by an exploit pack like Eleonore or Blackhole, which use hacked Web sites and browser flaws to quietly install the malware. Crimeware kits also come with a Web-based administration panel that allows the customer to manage and harvest data from infected PCs.
Crimekit makers have focused almost exclusively on the Windows platform, but today Danish IT security firm CSIS Security Group blogged about a new kit named the Weyland-Yutani BOT that is being marketed as the first of its kind to attack the Mac OS X platform.
The seller of this crimeware kit claims his product supports form-grabbing in Firefox and Chrome, and says he plans to develop a Linux version and one for the iPad in the months ahead. The price? $1,000, with payment accepted only through virtual currencies Liberty Reserve or WebMoney.
The CSIS blog post contains a single screen shot of this kit’s bot builder, and references a demo video but doesn’t show it. I wanted to learn more about this kit, and so contacted the seller via a Russian language forum where he was advertising his wares.
The author said he is holding off on including Safari form-grabbing capability for now, complaining that there are “too many problems in that browser.” Still, he was kind enough to share a copy of a video that shows the kit’s builder and admin panel in action. Click the video link below to check that out.
ZeuS and SpyEye are popular in part because they support a variety of so-called “Web injects,” third-party plug-ins that let botmasters manipulate the content that victims see in their Web browsers. The most popular Web injects are designed to slightly alter the composition of various online banking Web sites in a bid to trick the victim customer into supplying additional identifying information that can be used later on to more fully compromise or hijack the account. According to the author, Web injects developed for ZeuS and SpyEye also are interchangeable with this Mac crimekit. “They need to be formatted and tagged, but yes, you can use Zeus injects with this bot,” he told me in an instant message conversation.
Fans of the movie series “Alien” will recognize the name Weyland-Yutani as the fictional corporation that was sent ahead to establish habitable bases and dwellings on extrasolar planets in advance of the arrival of new human colonies. If this crimekit takes hold, or is an indicator of a broader interest in attacking Mac users, we could soon witness cyber crooks starting to colonize the Mac user community as well. The author of this Mac crimekit said he knows of several other independent coders who are working on Mac malcode projects that aren’t quite ready for prime-time, although he declined to elaborate on that claim.
Each time this subject comes up, I am struck by how fervently the Mac community denies that Mac users might ever have to deal with anywhere near the level of malware that currently besieges the Windows world. The Mac, these apologists explain, is far more secure than Windows, and that is why we have not seen malware writers attack the platform with the same vigor and interest. As one commenter on this blog reasoned, OS X simply doesn’t allow programs to be installed without user permission. My response is, assuming for the moment that the above statement about the Mac’s superior security is true, the operating system does nothing to stop the user from being tricked or cajoled into installing malware. What’s more, social engineering attacks are one of the primary ways that Windows users get infected today, so why would it be any different for Mac users?
Consider the scourge of rogue anti-virus attacks: Each day, thousands of Windows users are tricked into running and installing a bogus security “scanner” foisted on them by some hacked Web site. The attackers’ goal with these “scareware” muggings is to not only trick the user into installing malicious software, but also paying for it with their credit cards!
Earlier today, MacRumors.com carried a story about a new threat discovered by Mac security software vendor Intego that uses social engineering in a bid to install scareware known as “MACDefender.”
The nice thing about social engineering attacks is that defending against them doesn’t require buying or installing some type of security software. As I noted in a column last week, it merely requires the user to accept the notion that “security-by-obscurity is no substitute for good security practices and common sense: If you’ve installed a program, update it regularly; if you didn’t go looking for a program, add-on or download, don’t install it; if you no longer need a program, remove it.”
Tags: Blackhole Kit, chrome, crimekit, crimeware, CSIS Security Group, eleonore, firefox, form-grabbing, Intego.com, Liberty Reserve, mac os x, MacRumors.com, safari, spyeye, webmoney, Weyland-Yutani BOT, zeusChelsea have been eyeing up a move for Brazilian centre-back Dede to replace aging John Terry
The Vasco Da Gama centre-back, who is also being chased by Liverpool and Manchester United, is set to be sold this summer with his club in the middle of a cash crisis.
Club skipper Terry, 32, has one more year on his contract and Dede is regarded as a long-term replacement.
Scouts have been monitoring Dede, 24, who has seven caps and is regarded as a player Brazil will build their defence around in the future. Long-term admirers Liverpool are ready to offer about £15m but Chelsea are ready to beat that bid and, with a strong Brazilian contingent at the club in the shape of Oscar, Ramires and David Luiz, they are confident of winning the race.
Oscar and Ramires have formed a sensational triumvirate with Juan Mata, whose masterful string-pulling has led Rafa Benitez to call for him to be named the PFA’s Footballer of the Year.
Polls close on Friday, with the winner being announced at the gala dinner on Sunday week.
Tottenham’s Gareth Bale is favourite to claim the award for the second time in three years, but Benitez believes his little Spanish maestro should be in with a shout.
Chelsea go into their 60th game of a marathon season tonight – at Fulham – in fourth place in the Premier League, ahead of Tottenham only on goal difference.
Benitez said: “He has scored 18 goals and made 29 assists and he has done that playing two games every week for months. He has been so good.
Rafa Benitez has called for Juan Mata to be named PFA Player of the Year
I would like to see Frank break the record, for sure. Rafa BenitezThe Israeli navy's gunboats opened fire at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, local sources said.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an she was "not familiar" with either of the incidents. Israeli army incursions inside the Palestinian territory have long been a near-daily occurrence, as the Israeli army regularly opens fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen and farmers along the border areas if they approach Israel’s unilaterally declared “buffer zone,” which lies on both the land and sea sides of Gaza. Israeli army incursions inside the Palestinian territory have long been a near-daily occurrence, as the Israeli army regularly opens fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen and farmers along the border areas if they approach Israel’s unilaterally declared “buffer zone,” which lies on both the land and sea sides of Gaza. The practice has in effect destroyed much of the agricultural and fishing sector of the blockaded coastal enclave. The practice has in effect destroyed much of the agricultural and fishing sector of the blockaded coastal enclave.
Separately, Israeli troops opened fire at Palestinian agricultural lands east of al-Qarara in Khan Yunis.Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
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Bobbi Kristina Brown’s anguished relatives have agreed to take her off life support — but want to wait until Wednesday so she can die on the same date as her tragic mom, Whitney Houston, sources told The Post.
Bobbi’s grandmother Cissy Houston floated the idea of a Feb. 11 death over the weekend during discussions with the Brown family at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
The Browns gave their blessing to pull the plug at the stroke of midnight to align the date with the 2012 passing of the legendary singer at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
The move is a symbolic way to keep the mother and daughter together for eternity, according to a Brown family source.
Bobbi Kristina, 21, the only child of Houston and singer Bobby Brown, has been in a medically induced coma since she was found unresponsive in a bathtub in her Roswell, Georgia, home Jan. 31.
The Brown and Houston families have been bickering since Bobbi Kristina was rushed to the hospital, but they have now come to grips with the fact that she cannot be saved, the source said.
“This is the only thing they can agree on — that she’s gone [brain-dead], and there’s nothing more than can be done for her,” the source said.
The agonizing choice to finally pull the plug on the young woman was made by both sides, the source said.
Filmmaker Tyler Perry, who was close to Whitney, played a key role in brokering an uneasy peace between the families, the source added.
He has already been tabbed to make all the funeral arrangements, the source said.
“You wouldn’t think of him as being someone who’d be a peacemaker, but he’s someone both sides really respect,” the Brown source said.
Perry also has been joined in Bobbi Kristina’s room at Emory University Hospital by record producer Jermaine Dupri and |
be our fate "unless we try to prevent this danger by separating those books which we must throw out or leave in oblivion from those which one should save and within the latter between what is useful and what is not."
So what did those poor deluged people do? Well, they adopted several strategies. First, they practiced various ways of marking important passages in books: with special symbols, with slips of paper, and so on. Then they came up with various ways of organizing books: There were now so many that figuring out how to arrange them became quite a puzzle, so the learned began debates on this subject that would culminate in the creation of the great Dewey Decimal Classification.
One of the most widely quoted sentences of Sir Francis Bacon—it comes from his essay "Of Studies"—concerns the reading of books: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention." This is usually taken as a wise or sententious general comment about the worthiness of various texts, but Ann Blair shows that Bacon was making a very practical recommendation to people who were overwhelmed by the availability of books and couldn't imagine how they were going to read them all. Bacon tells such worried folks that they can't read them all, and so should develop strategies of discernment that enable them to make wise decisions about how to invest their time. I think Bacon would have applauded Clay Shirky's comment that we suffer not from "information overload" but from "filter failure." Bacon's famous sentence is really a strategy for filtering.
Blair also points out that certain enterprising scholars recognized that this information overload created a market for reference works and books that claimed to summarize important texts—We read the books so you don't have to!—or promised to teach techniques for the rapid assimilation of knowledge. But serious scholars like Meric Casaubon denounced the search for "a shorter way" to learning, insisting that "the best method to learning... is indefatigable (soe farr as the bodie will beare) industrie, and assiduitie, in reading good authors, such as have had the approbation of all learned ages." No shortcuts allowed.
All this should sound familiar: Casaubon might be a professor today warning students against Wikipedia, and it turns out that every era has its intellectual hucksters willing to sell knowledge on the cheap to the panicky or lazy. But perhaps especially noteworthy is Bacon's acknowledgment that there is a place for what Katherine Hayles would call "hyper attention" as well as "deep attention." Some books don't need to be read with patience and care; at times it's OK, even necessary, to skim (merely to "taste" rather than to ruminate). And as Shreeharsh Kelkar, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has pointed out, "To be successful today, it not only becomes necessary to skim, but it becomes essential to skim well."
Except in those cultures in which books have been scarce, like Augustine's Roman North Africa, the aims of education have often focused, though rarely explicitly so, on the skills of skimming well. Peter Norvig says: "When the only information on the topic is a handful of essays or books, the best strategy is to read these works with total concentration. But when you have access to thousands of articles, blogs, videos, and people with expertise on the topic, a good strategy is to skim first to get an overview. Skimming and concentrating can and should coexist." Norvig is research director at Google, so he might be expected to say something like this, but I still think he's right—except, I would argue, concentrating has rarely received equal billing with skimming.
Rarely have young people been expected to have truly deep knowledge of particular texts. Instead, education, especially in its "liberal arts" embodiments, has been devoted to providing students with navigational tools—with enough knowledge to find their way through situations that they might confront later in life. (Even the old English public schools flogged their students through years of Latin and Greek not because Latin and Greek were intrinsically valuable, still less useful, but because the discipline of such study would have a salutary effect on young men's characters. And these are the terms in which survivors of that system typically praise it.) This is one of the ways in which the artes liberales are supposed to be "liberal," that is, "liberating": They free you to make your own way through the challenges of life without requiring external props.
All this is to say that the idea that many teachers hold today, that one of the purposes of education is to teach students to love reading—or at least to appreciate and enjoy whole books—is largely alien to the history of education. And perhaps alien to the history of reading as well. A chief theme of Jonathan Rose's magisterial The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes is that the culture of reading among those classes was more dynamic, more impassioned, before the study of English literature was incorporated into the general curriculum of English schools (in the wake of the Education Act of 1870).
Rose's book is largely a celebration of autodidacticism, of people whose reading—and especially the reading of classic texts, from Homer to Dante to Shakespeare to the great Romantic poets—wasn't imposed on them by anyone, and who often had to overcome significant social obstacles in order to read. "The autodidacts' mission statement," Rose writes, was "to be more than passive consumers of literature, to be active thinkers and writers. Those who proclaimed that 'knowledge is power' meant that the only true education is self-education, and they often regarded the expansion of formal educational opportunities with suspicion."
The academic study of literature is a wonderful thing, and not just because it has paid my salary for most of my adult life, but it is not an unmixed blessing, and teachers will rarely find it possible simply to inculcate the practices of deeply attentive reading.
Over the past 150 years, it has become increasingly difficult to extricate reading from academic expectations; but I believe that such extrication is necessary. Education is and should be primarily about intellectual navigation, about—I scruple not to say it—skimming well, and reading carefully for information in order to upload content. Slow and patient reading, by contrast, properly belongs to our leisure hours.
Yes, I know that the word "school" derives from scholia, meaning leisure. I have tried that one on my students, with no more success than anyone else who has ever tried that one on students. When we say that education is a leisure activity, we simply mean that you can only pursue education if you are temporarily freed from the responsibility of providing yourself with food and shelter. Maybe this freedom comes from your parents; maybe it comes from loans that you're going to devote a good many years to repaying. But somebody is buying you time to read, think, and study. This is not just a legitimate but a vital point, one that every student really should remember. But it can only be misleading and frustrating—trust me, I've learned from experience—to call this leisure, because leisure for us has come to mean "what we do in our spare time simply because we want to." From this kind of leisurely encounter, education, however wonderful, must be distinguished.
There is a kind of attentiveness proper to school, to purposeful learning of all kinds, but in general it is closer to "hyper attention" than to "deep attention." I would argue that even reading for information—reading textbooks and the like—does not require extended unbroken focus. It requires discipline but not raptness, I think: The crammer chains himself to the textbook because of time pressures, not because the book itself requires unbroken concentration. Given world enough and time, the harried student could read for a while, do something else, come back and refresh his memory, take another break... but the reader of even the most intellectually demanding work of literary art would lose a great deal by following such tactics. No novel or play or long poem will offer its full rewards to someone who consumes it in small chunks and crumbs. The attention it demands is the deep kind.
I am not at all sure that deep attention to anything in particular can be taught in a straightforward way: It may, perhaps, only arise from within, according to some inexplicable internal necessity of being. Some people—many people—most people—will not experience that internal necessity of being in books, in texts. But for people like Erasmus (with his "cry of thankful joy" on spying a fragment of print) or Lynne Sharon Schwartz ("Can I get back to my books now?"), books are the natural and inevitable and permanent means of being absorbed in something other than the self.
But then there are the people Nicholas Carr writes about in The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, and Carr himself: people who know what it is like to be lost in a book, who value that experience, but who have misplaced it—who can't get back, as Lucy Pevensie for a time can't get back to Narnia; what was an opening to another world is now the flat planked back of a wardrobe. They're the ones who need help, and want it, and are prepared to receive it.
I had become one of those people myself, or was well on my way to it, when I was rescued through the novelty of reading on a Kindle. My hyper-attentive habits were alienating me further and further from the much older and (one would have thought) more firmly established habits of deep attention. I was rapidly becoming a victim of my own mind's plasticity, until a new technology helped me to remember how to do something that for years had been instinctive, unconscious, natural.
I don't know whether an adult who has never practiced deep attention—who has never seriously read for information or for understanding, or even for delight—can learn how. Some current college students will not have had those experiences, and it would be futile and painful to expect them to read as most of their teachers have read.
But I'm confident that those who have had this facility can recover it: They just have to want that recovery enough to make sacrifices for it, something they will only do if they can vividly recall what that experience was like. And it may be that one of the better services teachers can provide for students today is to awaken those good memories whenever they exist.Plato on Writing
Socrates [to Phaedrus]:... The story is that in the region of Naucratis in Egypt there dwelt one of the old gods of the country, the god to whom the bird called Ibis is sacred, his own name being Theuth. He it was that invented number and calculation, geometry and astronomy, not to speak of draughts and dice, and above all writing. Now the king of the whole country at that time was Thamus, who dwelt in the great city of Upper Egypt which the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes, while Thamus they call Ammon. To him came Theuth, and revealed his arts, saying that they ought to be passed on to the Egyptians in general. Thamus asked what was the use of them all, and when Theuth explained, he condemned what he thought the bad points and praised what he thought the good. On each art, we are told, Thamus had plenty of views both for and against; it would take too long to give them in detail. But when it came to writing Theuth said, 'Here, O king, is a branch of learning that will make the people of Egypt wiser and improve their memories; my discovery provides a recipe for memory and wisdom.' But the king answered and said, 'O man full of arts, to one it is given to create the things of art, and to another to judge what measure of harm and of profit they have for those that shall employ them. And so it is that you, by reasons of your tender regard for the writing that is your offspring, have declared the very opposite of its true effect. If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.'
Plato (c. 429-347 B.C.E), "Phaedrus" (c. 360 B.C.E.), 274c-275 b, R(eginald) Hackforth, transl., 1952.Protodracus africanus (First Serpent of Africa)
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Protosauria
Suborder: Protodracomorpha
Family: Protodracidae
Genus: Protodracus
Physical Description: Roughly 2.5 meters long (8 feet), roughly 20-25 kg estimate (44-55 lbs)
Location: Modern-day South Africa
Diet: Presumed omnivore with carnivorous tendencies, opportunistic scavenger
Description: Protodracus was an archosauromorph that existed during the late Permian Period in what is today South Africa. It is among the earliest known archosaur-like animals as well as one of the earliest known dragon ancestors if not 'the' dragon ancestor. The species has a number of traits that sets it apart from other archosaurs though it still largely retains the same build as their early fellows.
Likely believed to have evolved from a common ancestor to the protorosaurs due to a shared physical build, the earliest protodracus fossils did not include the extra set of limbs. The oddity did not occur until roughly the beginning of the Permian Extinction Event, whereby the fossils were discovered to have been buried near scattered deposits of uranium and radium ore. It is believed that, perhaps either due to a meteor strike or due to volcanic activity, the local populations of the species were exposed to enough of the substance that a few mutations began to occur, though the only one that seemed to stay with the species for overly long was the extra set of limbs. As time went by and as the region became steadily more volcanic and unstable the mutation began to outnumber those that weren't mutated, suggesting that it later became an adaptation in response to the constant shifting in the Earth's crust.
Due to their close linkage to other archosaurs the protodracus proved to be a specialist in survivability. Its powerful tail could double as a paddle, allowing it to swim competently in the water in order to escape from danger. Its long neck could be used to acquire food from an extended range and keep it from being exposed to danger. Its claws were well suited for grabbing tough surfaces, making it an ideal climber on various forms of terrain; with the extra pair of limbs likely providing a buffer in the event that pieces of the terrain begin to fall away due to the instability of the ground. One final adaptation discovered includes a swelling in the area where normally such animals would have a gall bladder, suggesting that it was heavily pronounced inside of protodracus. This is likely an adaptation to allow for the consumption of meat that had been heavily bathed inside of the toxic salts that fell alongside ash clouds from volcanoes or meteor strikes, allowing for a wider palette of available food.
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Been meaning to make this for a while. I had thought up a while ago that something I really wanted to try and do was make a sort of natural history encyclopedia of various animals of mythology; either for a fantasy project or just for fun. Having a stab at what others of arguably more credible knowledge have done before; namely explaining through science how an animal like a dragon could have lived; has been one of my little hobbies that I've had for a while but never really took further than just a few notes on MS Word.
Probably the biggest obstacle to explain a dragon is why they have the extra set of limbs. Vertebrates naturally have only about four limbs total whereas most arthropods have an average of around 8-10+ depending on the species. While some fish have an extra set of fins none of the ones that we know of today were included among our immediate ancestors, and even if they did they likely would have done away with the needless set a long time ago (if you've ever seen the makeup of the Tiktaalik reconstruction you'd see what I mean; it's likely that even if it's ancestor could have had another pair of fins they were disposed of due to the lack of necessity in having an extra set of limbs for a job that only required four). One way that Animal Planet solved this problem via their "Dragons - A Fantasy Made Real" documentary was by explaining that during the Cretaceous extinction event marine dragons developed a mutation that evolved an extra set of limbs...though their reasoning was by no means sound and was only half-baked as a way to save film time. My personal explanation, and one that I like, was that during the early Permian a species likely had become exposed to some form of toxic radiation; nothing too catastrophic as to ruin them, but enough to force their DNA to begin to mutate wildly, including having embryos grow an extra set of limbs. When the working limbs proved to be useful (such as clinging tightly to a branch or a rock while the rest of your world is literally falling apart beneath your feet) the species began to incorporate that into their greater genepool rather than get rid of it, creating a worthy adaptation rather than a baneful mutation.
There are other obstacles to explain, of course; how they could have flown, how they breathed fire, how big they could get and what they had to hunt in order to survive; but I'll save those for another entry in this series. Until then, enjoy!
-Kerian
P.S. I seriously need a working tablet...-n-The hits keep on coming: MediaVest has lost Walmart, one of its largest North American accounts. In the last six months, the Publicis Groupe network has lost lead North American media duties on its two other major clients: Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble.
In 2014, the Bentonville, Ark., retailer spent $907 million in U.S. measured media, according to Kantar Media. For the first nine months of 2015, Walmart invested $401.5 million in media.
MediaVest was fired late last week, sources said. It could not immediately be determined if the account is going into review or moving elsewhere.
A Walmart rep confirmed the split: "We have made the decision to end our relationship with MediaVest. We thank them for their strong partnership over the past nine years. We are taking a different direction and looking for new ways to use media to connect with our customers."
She declined to share further details about what is happening to the business.
Last month Tony Rogers, who has served as Walmart's CMO in China, was promoted to U.S. chief marketing officer, succeeding Stephen Quinn who retired.
MediaVest won the account in 2007 after the retailer rescinded an earlier decision by former marketing head Julie Roehm, who left the company under a cloud following the review. (Walmart is said to have believed Roehm's behavior during the process was inappropriate, accusations she has denied.) MediaVest replaced Roehm's earlier choice of Carat. At the time, Walmart spent $580 million on measured media.
According to Starcom MediaVest Group, the agency staffs 95 people on its Walmart team. They are primarily based in New York, with two in Chicago, one in California and one in North Carolina.
"We're proud of the talent dedicated to this business and the award-winning, results-driven innovation we delivered for Walmart over the years," said a MediaVest PR exec."We continue to partner with Walmart as they transition to their new model and wish them the best in their future direction."For more fascinating stories like this one, follow the Daily Grail on Facebook, and on Twitter, and/or keep up with on Google+.
A long time ago – circa 1930 – in the area of Mineral County, WV, there was a little town called Shaw. You won’t find it on any modern map though, because it no longer exists. Where Shaw once stood is now a small lake. Jennings Randolph Lake to be precise, but it wasn’t a natural disaster that condemned Shaw, it was the American Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Residents of Shaw were asked to pack up their lives and leave, as the government had decided to install a dam on the Potomac River, which flowed through the small town.
An entire town told to pack up and leave in the name of progress. The people of Shaw were largely unhappy about this proposition, as could be expected, but several of those residents were less worried about their own wellbeing than they were about a strange rock known locally as ‘The Indian Rock’, that was to be buried under meters of water with the completion of the damn project.
It might seem strange that people would be so concerned about a rock, but this was no ordinary rock. One-time resident of Shaw, Ms. Betty Webster Bishop, recounts her memories of the rock via both the Army Corps of Engineers website, as well as a commemorative website honouring the history of Shaw.
“Our Sundays were for worship and rest. The one allowed activity was a walk in the woods. It was on one of these walks that my Mother discovered ‘her’ rock, as we often referred to it. She loved God and all aspects of nature, with a special fondness for rocks, large and small. This big rock, the subject of this story, was her ‘pot of gold’ at the end of the rainbow. She never tired of taking visitors to see it, whether local or out of town. She called it ‘The Indian Rock’, but we later referred to it as ‘Mom’s Rock.’ It was located a short distance up the hill. All who came were granted the privilege of visiting Mom’s ‘Indian Rock’. We felt it belonged to us and we reveled in the sharing of it. Many spoke of it and the awe it inspired, even after many years, and the many miles that separated us.”[1]
Betty’s story is heartwarming and engenders nostalgic longings for a simpler time. The full version, which I encourage you to read, tells of her Mother’s discovery of the rock and how it came to be known, at least to them, as “Mom’s Rock”, and of how Betty brought its story to the world via a letter to the Saturday Evening Post (December 1984). That letter was precipitous, and led to the best answer at the time for what, exactly, this rock might actually be. But this is getting ahead of the story.
Waffle Rock, as it’s now called, is a large block of sandstone lodged into the ground just outside the visitor center at the lake in question. On one side of the rock appears a regular waffle-like geometric pattern of raised, darker stone that creates pockets or deep pits on the rock’s surface. This odd formation has caused many to speculate on what might have caused such a strange pattern. As is apparently a common failing of the editorial standards in the world of paranormal blogging these days, if you search for ‘Waffle Rock’, you’ll find numerous websites offering pretty much the exact same story, which generally goes as follows:
“This is a boulder on display at Jennings Randolph Lake in Mineral County, West Virginia. There have been numerous theories and speculations as to its origin, ranging from a pictograph made by prehistoric man, an Indian carving, the impression of the skin pattern of a giant lizard, or evidence of a visit to earth by an early travelers [sic] from outer space. After examination of the phenomenon, Corps of Engineers geologists and those of other agencies have concluded that it is a natural geological formation. Although such formations are not common, similar patterned boulders were found on the east side of Tea Creek Mountain in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Dr. Jack B. Epstein of the Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the interior, explained that the waffle rock is part of the Conemaugh geologic series that was deposited about 300 million years ago during the Pennsylvanian period. It is surmised that the waffle rock is a large loose boulder that fell from a parent outcrop somewhere higher up the slope, many decades ago, before the present trees grew.”[2]
That being the extent of the readily available information on the rock, one can almost forgive the Internet’s rather quick descent into wild speculation, but the somewhat obscure accounting by Ms. Webster Bishop does provide more material to sink one’s teeth into. In response to her December 1984 letter to the Saturday Evening Post, a letter-to-the-editor was published in the April 1985 edition, from a Col. Martin W. Walsh Jr. Corps of Engineers Commander (Baltimore MD).
Col. Walsh offered some interesting commentary about the rock:
“Speculations range from the impressions of the skin pattern of a giant reptile, to evidence of space travelers on earth. Upon examination by geologists from the U. S. Corps of Engineers and other agencies, it was concluded that the rock is a natural geologic formation.”[3]
Apparently Col. Walsh went on in his letter to describe the process by which such patterning could form naturally, suggesting that sand deposited by ancient streams consolidated into sandstone layers with rock above and below being compressed into the large folds that make up the pattern. It’s believed that this occurred between 250 and 300 million years ago, during the formation of the Appalachian Mountains.
Of course, there are those who are less than enthusiastic about these conventional, natural explanations. Many claim – namely the Rense.com correspondent identified as “Jeff” and the author of s8nt.com’s piece on the matter – the scientific explanations don’t account for all of the features present in the rock. Aside from the usual ancient alien talk, many believe that the pattern is actually an early form of hieroglyphic or primitive writing, and that the rock is the result of Neolithic art by pre-Columbian peoples.
That’s a little short sighted though.
The rock on display at the West Virginia Outlook on Jennings Randolph Lake is but a small piece of the original rock. It was moved there to save the geologically significant piece of history from the dam project; likely in no small part because of pressure exerted by the original residents of Shaw. Photographs of the whole rock show clearly that the pattern, or the structure of the pattern does not run all the way through the rock, but rather can only be seen on one side. And Dr. Epstein (mentioned above) offers an explanation more plausible than aliens or dragons, or even ancient art.
As outlined in Epstein’s official USGS fact-sheet on the Waffle Rock; when layers of sandstone were formed during the Appalachian Orogeny (the epoch during with the Appalachian range was formed), approximately 250 million years ago, the lower layers of the bedrock experienced compression forces as the Appalachian range heaved and folded. Those different forces, which pushed that lower layer in different directions, resulted in a unique folding of the sandstone which formed joints or fractures that just happen to look like the pattern shown on the Waffle Rock.
“Four sets of joints are apparent in the waffle rock. Sets a and b are roughly perpendicular to each other; sets c and d are at an acute angle to each other. The stress that formed the joints, as well as the folds in the rocks, bisects the angle between joints c and d…”
The mechanism that causes the waffle pattern to appear to be of a different material is similar to that which formed the Klerksdorp Spheres. Following the formation upheaval of the bedrock, iron ore particles filtered through the sediment and rock, and leached out of the material below, settling into the spaces between sand particles, which ultimately acted like a cement or glue. Once settled, the compression of the sandstone by the ongoing movement of the surrounding rock turned the iron ore into Hematite (as with the Klerksdorp Spheres), which is darker, harder and of a different consistency than sandstone.
This process is sort of like a perfect storm of conditions, which resulted in the rare but not unique form we see in the Waffle Rock as it sits near Jennings Randolph Lake (also called Bloomington Lake). Another example of the Waffle Rock (which was also taken from Jennings Randolph Lake) sits at the entrance to the US Geological Survey Headquarters in Reston, Virginia. And as it turns out, there are many undocumented examples of identical stone patterning in several other places around the world. (Undocumented because, to the trained eye, they aren’t particularly remarkable)
It seems likely that there will be people who refuse to accept that the Waffle Rock is a natural formation. Hell, there are still people who think the Earth is flat. But since Dr. Epstein was good enough to provide his expert analysis and opinion on this subject, perhaps we should bow to his superior knowledge on the subject.
But whichever camp you find yourself in, if you’ve found any of this interesting, I urge you to read Betty Webster Bishop’s story on ShawWV.com, if only to keep some part of that history alive.A young Russian couple living in California is struggling to understand the events of the past few weeks, which began with a trip to the hospital and continued days later with police forcing entry into the couple’s home to take their child.
Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex brought their five-month-old boy Sammy to Sacramento’s Sutter Memorial Hospital after he began exhibiting flu symptoms. He had been diagnosed with a heart murmur at birth, according to News 10, a local ABC affiliate.
Sammy was admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, at which point his mother witnessed a nurse administering the baby with antibiotics, apparently without instructions from the doctor.
“I asked her, ‘For what is that?’ And she’s like ‘I don’t know.’ And then I said ‘You’re working as a nurse and you don’t he know what you’re giving my baby?’” Anna struggled to explain through her tears.
Mrs. Nikolayev added that a doctor said the child should not have been given antibiotics, although they did want to perform heart surgery on Sammy immediately. At that point, Anna said, the couple decided to rush Sammy out of the hospital in search of a second opinion on his condition.
“If [they made] one mistake after another, I don’t want to let my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” she said.
The parents traveled directly from Sutter Memorial to Kaiser Medical Center in Sacramento, where doctors released Sammy to the care of his parents.
“I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents,” a note from a doctor said. Anna and Alex were forced to show the note to police, who came to the second hospital, presumably after staff at Sutter Memorial called 911.
“The police showed up there. They saw the baby was fine,” Anna told News 10. “They told us that Sutter was telling them so much bad stuff that they thought this baby was dying in our arms. So police saw the report from doctors and said, ‘Okay, you guys have a good day,’ then walked away.”
But just one day later, police showed up at the Nikolayevs’ home with Child Protective Services (CPS) representatives. Alex met the authorities outside, wondering what multiple squad cars were doing at his house.
“I was pushed against the building, smacked down,” Alex said. “I said, ‘Am I being placed under arrest?’ He smacked me to the ground and yelled out ‘I think I got the keys to the house!’”
Alex later told reporters, “It doesn’t seem like parents have any rights whatsoever.”
During the commotion in the driveway Anna had set up a camera pointing at the door. At least four police officers, who did not have a warrant, are shown on film barging into the home followed by CPS workers demanding Sammy.
“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me, okay?” one policeman can be heard telling Anna.
Explanations have been hard to come by. Law enforcement referred media requests to CPS, who refused to offer a definitive statement other than claiming Sammy was taken because of “severe neglect,” a vague definition the Nikolayevs have denied.
“We conduct a risk assessment of the child’s safety and rely heavily on the direction of health care providers,” CPS said.
The Nikolayevs and their attorney, Joe Weinberger, expressed disbelief that Sammy was still in the hospital without their consent during an interview with the ABC affiliate.
“It’s absolutely amazing to me how a government can reach out and snatch a child after a doctor said there’s not an issue,” Weinberger said. “As we’ve seen, there is no emergency situation in this case...I can’t imagine having my baby ripped from my arms.”
Attorney Weinberger provided RT viewers with more details into the case, saying that the entire case against the Nikolayev family was “manufactured.”
“They were provided with medical evidence that said that the baby was fine to be taken home and despite this, they manufactured an excuse to take this baby away,” Weinberger said
The initial physician who examined the child, Weinberger believes, is partly responsible for the situation.
“I think what it comes down to is that parents didn’t appreciate the opinion of the doctor in a hospital and wanted to seek a second opinion,” attorney said.
But the lawyer also admits that the parents are partly responsible for the CPS course of action.
“The mistake that they made was without signing out the child, they left the hospital and went to a different hospital and in my opinion what they did upset the initial physician and he decided to make a call to the Child Protective Services and say that there’s a child who is in imminent danger of death. What he did not know at that time was that they had gone to a second hospital and a different doctor said- no, it is not an issue.”
A court hearing is scheduled for Monday, April 29.fought crime, paired with a human partner. Which sounds just like the basic premise of Roger Rabbit, leading the viewer to wonder — inasmuch as Roger had tremendous name recognition at the time, why create new characters instead of just doing a TV series about him? A possible explanation lies in the fact that Disney wasn't the full owner of the Roger Rabbit character. The entertainment behemoth had a partner in producing the 1988 film that made Roger a household word, Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment (which also, in conjunction with Warner Bros., produced Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs). Bonkers was produced and therefore owned entirely by Disney. Whether that's the true explanation or not, the rise of Bonkers as a Disney star did coincide with the decline of Roger Rabbit. Bonkers was first seen in a theatrical cartoon titled Petal to the Metal, which came out in 1992. In it, Bonkers was a toon actor like Roger, paired with Jitters A. Dog, just as Roger had been paired with Baby Herman. Both worked for Wacky Studios, one of Tinseltown's major producers of cartoons. Bonkers was voiced by Jim Cummings (Taz, Winnie the Pooh) and Jitters by Jeff Bennett (Johnny Bravo, Dad in Dexter's Laboratory). Bonkers and Jitters also appeared in several segments of Disney's TV toon compilation, Raw Toonage. But Bonkers had lost the acting gig by the time his regular show started, which was Feb. 28, 1993, on The Disney Channel. There, he followed in the footsteps of American Flagg, also a washed-up actor when his series opened, and went into police work. As a cop with the Tinseltown Police Department, Bonkers shared a patrol car with Officer Miranda Wright, whose voice was provided by Karla DeVito (who has relatively few other credits in voice work). Jitters worked for the department too, as the guy who handed out the neat equipment. Another holdover from the acting days was Fawn Deer, whom Bonkers was hopelessly in love with, a fact of which she was utterly oblivious. Her voice was provided by Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson). Starting Sept. 6, 1993, Bonkers was also syndicated as part of The Disney Afternoon, a two-hour block of programming that included, at various times, DuckTales, Goof Troop, TaleSpin and several other Disney half-hours. This time, he was partnered with a "human" named Lucky Piquel (also voiced by Cummings), tho in this show the humans as well as the toons were animated. With no ability to squash, stretch, or do any of the other things toons can do but humans can't, Lucky was always being upstaged by his more versatile partner. This didn't do him a bit of good in pursuing his greatest goal, promotion to a better job within the department. These episodes were shoehorned into continuity before the ones with Miranda, who was depicted here as the department secretary, merely aspiring to actual police work. Other characters included a snitch named Fall Apart Rabbit (so called because he was literally falling apart — pieces of his body would fall off and have to be put back on), voiced by Frank Welker (Dynomutt); Al Vermin (a crime boss shaped like a huge cockroach), voiced by Robert Ridgely (Thundarr the Barbarian); Dyl Piquel (Lucky's gorgeous wife, and no relation to a similarly-named character in Rugrats), voiced by April Winchell (Tanya in Mighty Ducks); and Grumbles Grizzly (Bonkers's next-door neighbor), voiced by Rodger Bumpass (Squidward in Spongebob Squarepants). A total of 61 episodes were made, 19 in which Bonkers was partnered with Miranda and 42 with Lucky, plus a scattering of short segments from Raw Toonage. Also, Bonkers appeared in a Marvel comic book that collected several Disney Afternoon series, which was published in 1994 and '95. There was some merchandising, but not a real avalanche of it. Bonkers made nowhere near the impact Roger Rabbit had. This may have been because his show lacked the spectacular melding of live action with animation that had stunned audiences when Roger made his debut. Or it may have been that people already associated toon-human interaction with Roger, and weren't interested in substitutes. Or it may have been "just one of those things". For whatever reason, Bonkers isn't seen very much nowadays. Nor did Disney ever start promoting Roger again. — DDM BACK to Don Markstein's |
attack, this was a defensive stance. The figure slammed into Adam with a deafening crash.
Asphalt cracked, eardrums burst and healed, and dust flew into the air. Blake was tossed backwards off the bridge, but her catlike reflexes allowed her to react quickly. She created a shadow clone underneath her and used it as a springboard to launch herself up. She tossed her gun-blade and hooked it onto the railing, using the ribbon to swing herself back onto the bridge.
Her friends had not fared any better than she had. Everyone had been sent flying by the shockwave the impact had created. Larger Grimm had been smashed against the blockade while the smaller Beowolves had been outright killed.
Red light cut through the suffocating Dust and silhouetted two figures. The first was Adam who was on a knee, holding his sword between him and the other figure on top of him. The newcomer was crouching on the blade itself, gripping it tightly.
Blake couldn't believe what she was seeing; the sight was too unreal. Adam's blade absorbed any attacks that struck it, and he used that power to strengthen his attacks. But this guy, who fell from higher than any Bullhead had flown, had landed straight onto the blade with astonishing accuracy and was now holding onto the blade itself. She had seen the blade tear through Aura and flesh like tissue paper when it was uncharged, yet it didn't seem to be doing anything to the newcomer.
Who the hell is this?
Adam Taurus
Who the hell is this? Adam's mind whirled with the same questions that plagued Blake. He could see his dumbstruck expression behind the mask reflected in the silver helmet the figure wore.
"Nice blade, by the way. Did you collect it in all the colors or was only red available?"
Adam knew that his blade had absorbed most of the energy, or otherwise both he and the armored figure on top of the blade would be smears on the ground. He could feel the energy swirling in his blade, but for the first time there was something blocking it.
He slammed his mental probes into the barrier in an attempt to get at the energy, but it didn't give at all. He was about to try again when the figure started laughing.
"You know? This is pretty goddamn ridiculous isn't it? The entire thing, you, me, this entire war. What a waste of time and effort to satisfy our petty goals."
"What?!" Adam had never felt so confused before in his life.
"Never mind that. Now I don't care how strongly you feel about anything, but a little birdie informed me you intended to hurt these wonderful ladies here."
Adam felt the temperature drop. The figure's each word dripped with menace. He desperately retried to get into the energy the blade contained. His blade was a core part of his fighting style and without it he would just be a talented swordsman.
"Heh, Aura. Don't even get me started on the bloodshed thanks to that thing. Seriously, it's ridiculous! Who knew wanting to help the little guy would lead to a full scale war?"
Adam opened his mouth but the man kept talking.
"And now I have to fight this goddamn fight just to make sure the universe doesn't unravel. But what do I see? A little shit who thinks he can hurt my friends to satisfy his own psychopathic urges."
"What are you talking about? How do you know me?"
"As I said, a little birdie told me. Well, a larger than average bird, but a bird nonetheless. Now, both of us know what's in that sword, and I think we both know it's just itching to get rid of the energy.
So where does that leave us? I let go of this sword, the energy consumes me, I die. I keep a hold of it, we can stay in this position with the mildly homoerotic undertones, which ain't good any way you cut it. So we need another option. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
"Answer me! Who are you? If you think you can beat me without a fight, you are sorely mistaken. The entire White Fang now answers to me, Adam Taur…"
"Yeah, yeah I literally couldn't care less. I'm going to count to three before letting go. What you do from there is your choice. 3. 2. 1."
The figure let go and dropped to the ground. His mirrored visor stared at him emotionally, his entire stance casual as could be. Adam felt the blood roaring in his ears as he put the blade back into its sheath. He had come here to humiliate and kill Huntsmen, and he had almost reached that goal. But this patronizing prick had ruined it all with his over-the-top entrance and the humiliation he heaped upon Adam.
The energy inside the blade was far greater than ever before and Adam let his aura merge with it. It was time to show this man what Adam was capable of. He concentrated the forces inside the blade into a point with his aura. His world turned black and red as his blade cut into the man's chest, only to return to its normal state as the man grabbed the blade with a free hand.
The blade had cut through the figure's shoulder and gotten to near his ribs when the man had stopped it with his bare hands.
WHAT?!
"The thing with aura enhanced attacks is that aura is a two-way street. You can always find the source of the aura given enough skill, and boy, do I have skill. So now we see a problem here. The blade wants to get rid of the energy, but I have bottled it up in your blade which is currently in my body. The energy inside has been modified with your aura, so you are part of this even if you let go of the hilt."
Adam stared dumbfounded as the man spoke about controlling aura like he had it on a leash. Even the most advanced aura users Adam had met didn't speak in such certain terms about these advanced techniques.
"What do you think will happen if I let go of the aural block I put on the blade? Why don't we find out?" The man sounded cheerful, like he was proposing a picnic. Adam felt pain lance through his bodies as the energy in his sword rebounded upon him.
He felt it tear through his body like wildfire, reaching every corner of his body in seconds. He tried to keep his composure but failed when his mind felt the flames licking at it. He howled and fell to the ground, trying to vent the rebounding energy back out.
He could still see the man standing in his position, the blade embedded deep in his chest. Flames erupted from the wound and started consuming the left side of his body. Adam gasped as the fire in him burn brighter.
His skin started splitting and peeling. The fat under the skin started to melt and he could see his hands start to lose their shape. His nerves were beyond fried, and his world consisted of nothing but a deep imprint of pain and nothing more.
Pyrrha Nikos
Pyrrha was frozen in horror as she watched the charred corpse of the armored stranger collapse onto the black haired man's body, turning them both into an impromptu pyre.
That wasn't all that shocked her, however. She recognized the armor the figure wore, it was very similar to the kind Jaune wore, and what the Promethean had worn when he attacked them back in Atlas.
She looked at Ren and Nora, the looks in their eyes confirming her suspicion. It was the same type of armor, which meant that either the Prometheans had decided to help them, or it was someone who was close enough to Jaune to get access to his armor and come to rescue the team, sacrificing himself in the process. Not likely. Then who was he?
A black feathered bird cocked its head as it stared at the scene. Not one of the fighters on the highway had noticed that it hadn't moved an inch throughout the fight, even when the figure had fallen from the sky. While everyone's attention was occupied by the slowly dying fire, the bird leaped off the lamppost and started flying towards Beacon.
AN: Yeah this chapter is a little graphic, but whatever. Any questions you guys have probably will be answered in the next chapter, so stay tuned!
What'd you think of the chapter? Anything I can fix? Anything you especially liked? Please review and PM me with this stuff, I love to get them and it helps me write better. Thanks for reading!The recently reintroduction of conscription in Ukraine has been unpopular, with many young men unwilling to join a badly-resourced army to fight separatist forces in the country’s east.
However, thousands of volunteers in several dozen paramilitary units appear ready to pick up the slack.
Ukraine had compulsory military service until early this year, although many 18-year-olds avoided enlistment, citing health reasons or religious objections. Conscription was reintroduced in May by interim president Oleksandr Turchynov in response to the ongoing crisis.
After training for one year – or nine months for university graduates – conscripts can return to civilian life, but are required to remain available in the reserve. That means that the armed forces, currently numbering around 130,000, could be massively boosted by reservists, but the military remains badly resourced and trained.
Kevlar helmets and modern communications equipment are considered luxuries, and volunteers have been collecting money to buy and deliver kit to units in the east.
The defence ministry even ran a funding appeal in which donations of five hryvnas (50 US cents) could be made by SMS text. The appeal netted hundreds of thousands of dollars to help soldiers who often lack body armour.
The response to the call-up has been less than enthusiastic.
“People don’t come to our office,” an official from the military enlistment office in Zhytomyr in northwest Ukraine, told local journalists in April. “Yesterday we sent out 350 notices and no one came. The people who do come are 45 years old, with all their ailments. I don’t want them joining the army.”
Some people bribe doctors to dodge army service.
“My sister told me about a mutual acquaintance who got a notice as a reservist,” Volodymyr Parasyuk, a well-known Euromaidan activist, wrote on his Facebook page. “But instead of joining the army, he bribed the doctor, who invented a fantastic disease especially for him.”
There are, however, many others who are willing to engage in the fighting in the east.
Interior minister Arsen Avakov announced on June 16 that 30 volunteer battalions had been formed, with a total of 5,600 combatants. Of this number, around 3,000 were already serving in eastern Ukraine.
Some units like the Azov Battalion have been subordinated to the interior ministry and incorporated into the reconstituted National Guard – at least in theory.
“Azov are men who organised themselves to fight for the freedom of Ukraine,” declares the battalion’s official Facebook page. “We don’t need a command from above to defend us from gangsters, separatists, ‘little green men’ [Russian soldiers without insignia] and other devils.”
The page goes on to make it clear that “the Azov men cannot be stopped at the command” of the Kiev authorities.
Dmytro Lynko, 26, signed up to fight with the Azov unit a month ago. Since he had previously avoided conscription, his firearms experience was limited to funfair shooting galleries.
“I decided to join Azov because a lot of my friends from Maidan had done the same,” he told IWPR. “I didnt plan to join the regular army because they might send me to rearguard service. I am a patriot and I wanted to go and fight from the time Crimea was occupied, but there were no military operations at that point.”
Lynko was quickly promoted to the rank of company commander, and his most recent battle was in Mariupol, in the Donetsk region, when the city was held by separatists.
After Ukrainian troops regained control of Mariupol earlier this month, Lynko returned to Kiev for a short spell of leave, but he plans to return and fight on.
The volunteer battalions draw their funding from either the state or from private donors, with each fighter receiving about 400 dollars a month.
The best-paid unit is said to be the Dnipro battalion, formed in April 2014 with backing from the interior ministry from Igor Kolomoysky, a wealthy businessman who is governor of the Dniepropetrovsk region.
Privates in this well-supplied battalion are paid 1,000 dollars a month and officers between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars.
Then there is the Donbas territorial defence battalion, numbering around 900 fighters, many from the eastern regions, who have sworn to lay down their arms only when the separatists are completely defeated.
In an interview with the Ukrainian Channel 24 television network, a Donbas member who identified himself only as “Doberman” explained his motivation.
“I was born in Georgia, spent ten years in the Georgian police, and then I met a girl from Ukraine, married her and we have a son,” said the 39-year-old, his face hidden by a black balaclava, a Kalashnikov rifle in his arms, and a soiled flag of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic under his feet.
“I've been living in Ukraine for five years and I’m ready to defend the integrity and independence of this country. Actually it isn’t a war, but... an indirect invasion,” he said, adding that he had tried unsuccessfully to join the army. “Then I started to search for some other ways to fight. So I found myself in Donbas and I’m really happy.”
Oleg Shynkarenko is a Ukrainian journalist based in Kiev.Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, who had warned as early as 2007 of US-Israeli-Saudi plans to use Al Qaeda as proxies to overthrow the Syrian government, has published another groundbreaking report titled, “Whose Sarin?” In it, Hersh states (emphasis added):
Barack Obama did not tell the whole story this autumn when he tried to make the case that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack near Damascus on 21 August. In some instances, he omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts. Most significant, he failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack. In the months before the attack, the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.
The lengthy report goes on in detail, covering the manner in which Western leaders intentionally manipulated or even outright fabricated intelligence to justify military intervention in Syria – eerily similar to the lies told to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the escalation of the war in Vietnam after the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Image: The Syrian Arab Army is decisively winning the the war through conventional means and would only invite the one possible method of changing that, foreign invention, through the use of chemical weapons. Commonsense, the evidence, and even the liars who would say otherwise, all point to NATO-backed terrorists as the culprits behind chemical weapon use in Syria’s ongoing conflict.
….
The report also reveals that Al Nusra, Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, was identified by US intelligence agencies long ago for possessing chemical weapons. These are the same terrorists Hersh warned about in his 2007 article titled, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” which prophetically stated (emphasis added):
“To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”
Hersh has now warned the public of both a conspiracy by the West to use terrorists to overthrow the sovereign government of Syria (which has unfolded exactly as was predicted years ago), as well as their use of chemical weapons. He has also exposed the systematic manner in which the West has lied about the August 21, 2013 gas attack in Damascus.
As Hersh summed up his latest report, he asked a fundamental question those still insisting the Syrian government was behind the attack have failed to answer:
The administration’s distortion of the facts surrounding the sarin attack raises an unavoidable question: do we have the whole story of Obama’s willingness to walk away from his ‘red line’ threat to bomb Syria? He had claimed to have an iron-clad case but suddenly agreed to take the issue to Congress, and later to accept Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical weapons. It appears possible that at some point he was directly confronted with contradictory information: evidence strong enough to persuade him to cancel his attack plan, and take the criticism sure to come from Republicans.
The West abandoned its plans for military intervention in Syria because the world rejected its narrative, and despite assurances that the West had air tight intelligence, after many months still, the lid is tightly closed. It is clear that the West desired military intervention in the worst way, and had it possessed real intelligence linking the attacks to the Syrian government, it surely would have revealed it. As Hersh points out, they never had such evidence to begin with and depended entirely on their ability to sell yet another pack of lies to the public.
Armchair “Experts” to the Rescue
But even with the West’s capitulation in Syria, and months passing without a shred of credible evidence produced, hacks among Western media continue to perpetuate the original narrative. Among these are of course corporate-financier funded think-tanks and propaganda fronts like the Brookings Institution, Foreign Policy Magazine, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), and establishment papers like the Guardian. In the middle of it all is couch-potato self-proclaimed weapons expert, Eliot Higgins, a representation of the West’s propaganda 2.0 campaign.
UK-based Higgins lost his job and now spends his days combing social media sites for “evidence” he then analyzes and reports on. The Western media, with its propagandists expelled from Syria and many of its “sources” in Syria exposed in humiliating attempts to fabricate and manipulate evidence, quickly picked Higgins up and elevated his armchair blogging to “expert analysis.” Since then, Higgins has joined the already discredited “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” another UK-based individual, as the basis upon which the West’s Syrian narrative spins.
The Guardian’s Brian Whitaker, who has maintained a particularly suspicious proximity to Higgins and his work, recently published a startling condemnation of venerated Pulitizer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh. In a hit piece titled, “Investigating chemical weapons in Syria – Seymour Hersh and Brown Moses go head to head,” “Brown Moses” referring to Eliot Higgins’ alias, Whitaker claims:
In the blue corner, Seymour Hersh, one of America’s most famous and highly paid investigative reporters. In the red corner, Eliot Higgins, who sits at home in an English provincial town trawling the internet and tweets and blogs about his findings under the screen name Brown Moses.
On Sunday, in a 5,000-word article for the London Review of Books, Hersh suggested Syrian rebels, rather than the regime, could have been responsible for the chemical weapons attacks near Damascus on August 21.
On Monday, Higgins responded on the Foreign Policy website, demolishing the core of Hersh’s argument in a mere 1,700 words.
While seeking to re-ignite the “whodunnit” debate about chemical weapons, Hersh’s article unwittingly revealed a lot about the changing nature of investigative journalism. Hersh is old-school. He operates in a world of hush-hush contacts – often-anonymous well-placed sources passing snippets of information around which he constructs an article that challenges received wisdom.
The Hersh style of journalism certainly has a place, but in the age of the internet it’s a diminishing one – as the web-based work of Higgins and others continually shows.
Whitaker is desperately attempting to keep the wheels on the establishment’s new propaganda 2.0 vehicle – manipulating social media, much the way Hersh describes intelligence being manipulated, to create any outcome necessary to bolster a predetermined narrative. What he doesn’t address is the fact that Higgins’ work almost entirely depends on videos posted online by people he does not know, who may be misrepresenting who they are, what they are posting, and their motivations for doing so – such is the nature of anonymity on the web and why this evidence alone is useless outside of a larger geopolitical context. Both Whitaker and Higgins, who maintain that the Syrian government was behind the attacks, fail to address another glaring reality. A false flag attack is designed to look like the work of one’s enemy. In other words, terrorists in Syria would use equipment, uniforms, weapons, and tactics that would pin the crime on the Syrian government. All Higgins has proved, thus far, is that the superficial details of the operation made for a convincing false flag attack. Claims the Militants Can’t Produce or Properly Handle Chemical Weapons are False Whitaker hails Higgins’ Foreign Policy piece arrogantly titled, “Sy Hersh’s Chemical Misfire,” but in reality, all Higgins does is point out specifics of the attack, some of which are confirmed, some of which are implied – all of which could either have been the work of the government or militants. The question Higgins fails to answer is what motivation would the government have had to carry out the attacks with the UN based just miles away and with government forces already decisively winning the war with conventional weapons? The only possible scenario that would lead to the Syrian government losing this conflict now would be foreign military intervention – and the best way to make that happen would be by using chemical weapons. Toward the end of Higgin’s piece, he, like his friends at the Guardian, attempt to claim Al Nusra, contrary to Hersh’s report, are most likely not capable of producing sarin. He states (emphasis added): I asked chemical weapons specialist Dan Kaszeta for his opinion on that. He compared the possibility of Jabhat al-Nusra using chemical weapons to another terrorist attack involving sarin: the 1996 gassing of the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. “The 1994 to 1996 Japanese experience tells us that even a very large and sophisticated effort comprising many millions of dollars, a dedicated large facility, and a lot of skilled labor results only in liters of sarin, not tons,” Kaszeta said. “Even if the Aug. 21 attack is limited to the eight Volcano rockets that we seem to be talking about, we’re looking at an industrial effort two orders of magnitude larger than the Aum Shinrikyo effort. This is a nontrivial and very costly undertaking, and I highly doubt whether any of the possible nonstate actors involved here have the factory to have produced it. Where is this factory? Where is the waste stream? Where are the dozens of skilled people — not just one al Qaeda member — needed to produce this amount of material?” Of course, to call Al Nusra a nonstate actor is not entirely truthful. Al Nusra and other extremist networks inside of Syria have had the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel’s backing since at least as early as 2007. Since 2011, Qatar and Turkey have also played immense roles in supporting Al Nusra – with NATO-member Turkey providing them sanctuary and even logistical support. Higgins and his “expert” ask where the factories, waste streams, and skilled people are – the answer is most likely somewhere within one of the many axis nations supporting Al Nusra. They certainly have the capacity to both manufacturer the gas and transport it into Syria – or conversely – provide Al Nusra with the supplies and personal to do it inside of Syria. Higgins and his “expert’s” attempt to make Al Nusra sound like cave dwelling simpletons running on a shoestring budget, when even the US State Department admitted by 2012 that the terrorist organization was operating at a national level, carrying out hundreds of attacks across the country. In an attempt to cover up the growing influence the Western-backing of Al Qaeda was creating within Syria, tales of vast “Twitter donations” were spun to explain how Al Nusra was expanding faster than so-called moderates who were receiving billions of dollars in equipment, training, vehicles, and weapons by the West and its regional allies. In reality, that torrent of cash and supplies was going intentionally into the hands of Al Nusra and other extremist groups. Clearly, if anyone in Syria, beside the government, was going to produce and deploy chemical weapons, it would be Al Nusra. Higgins, Whitaker, and other journalists have also maintained the West’s official narrative that not only are they sure the government did it because the “evidence” suggests so and because the militants do not possess chemical weapons, but also because the militants fighting the government don’t possess the training to carry out the attacks. Higgins has done a masterful job proving that all the militants would need is a flatbed truck and a metal tube to launch the ordinance implicated in the attacks. As far as training in handling chemical weapons, CNN itself revealed the United States had long since taken care of that. CNN’s December 2012 report titled, “Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons,” stated that: The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials. Syrian Electronic Army E-Mails Exposes A Deceitful, Depraved Western Media While perhaps Higgins and company missed that CNN report, it is now revealed that at least Higgins, and several other journalists were told by an American contractor on the ground inside of Syria, that militants had gained access to chemical weapons and more importantly, were planning to use them in a false flag attack – this months before the August 21 attack in Damascus. The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) has released e-mails this week between American contractor Matthew Van Dyke and members of the Western media, including Higgins. The e-mails indicated that militants had chemical weapons and were planning to use them in an attack to frame the Syrian government – serving as impetus for wider foreign intervention. SEA’s emails have been confirmed by Higgins himself in a series of self-incriminating tweets where he goes, point-by-point, attempting to provide explanations for the damning revelations. Image: It’s true – but… The back-peddling Eliot Higgins aka Brown Moses may just be presiding over his early retirement as an establishment propagandist – thanks not to some Western NGO dealing in transparency, but the Syrian Electronic Army, listed by the FBI as “terrorists.” …. The e-mails reveal multiple correspondences regarding chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorists aimed at using them in a false flag operation, Higgins’ and Van Dyke’s mutual “benefactor” located in Virginia, “near DC” (Langley, Virginia?), and job offers for Higgins from NGOs and a defense contractor involving “open source intelligence,” the new buzzword used by Higgins and Whitaker in regards to the new form of propaganda they both participate in.
Being a Propagandist is Lucrative
The e-mails illustrate prior knowledge of chemical weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who fully planned on using them in a false flag operation. Higgins and others had this information, and now, have Seymour Hersh’s report as well, yet they still pose the argument that the militants had neither the ability nor the means to carry out the attacks. In fact, it appears that the Western media and underlings like Higgins went out of their way specifically to discredit the notion from even being considered. In other words, a concerted cover-up.
The e-mails above, and others in the large cache also reveal the possible motivation for these lies. So-called journalists and researchers peddling the West’s narrative appear to have a wide range of lucrative offers presented to them, as well as funding for them to continue doing the work they are already involved in. This of course is only the case so long as their narratives mesh with the institutions, corporations, and individuals cutting the checks.
Why would Higgins even mention the possibility of a false flag attack, when all that would do is alienate him from the establishment he is so eagerly trying to be a part of? His recent piece in Foreign Policy and the Guardian’s ceaseless promotion of his work are favors that demand reciprocation – in the form of toeing the line and selling a narrative Higgins and others know is deceitful.
That Higgins, the Guardian, and Foreign Policy are prepared to throw veteran journalist Seymour Hersh under the bus to protect their interests, gives us a look into the depths of depravity within which this “new” media Whitaker celebrates, operate.
Worst of all for the West, is that the transparency and accountability they claim to uphold, had to be kept in check by the SEA – an organization wanted by the FBI as “terrorists.” We would be led to believe by the likes of Whitaker, Higgins, and Van Dyke that the Syrian government and their supporters are the villains, but in their own words and actions we see the truth.
….
Note:
The full extent of SEA’s leaked e-mails exposes Van Dyke and the journalists he associates with as utterly depraved, deceitful, unprincipled individuals each driven by untethered greed and narcissism. The e-mails also reveal that “aid ships” are used to bring in weapons and foreign fighters, that the Syrians are almost entirely behind the government and that the so-called revolution was “fake.” Van Dyke is exposed as having conspired to kill a man and his entire family over a trivial personal dispute and much, much more. Readers are encouraged to comb through the archives, and to follow SEA on Twitter @Official_SEA16.
Disclaimer: The contents of this article is of sole responsibility of the author. The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article.When someone thinks “neighborhood watch,” it is unlikely that an army of drones hovering over a residential suburban home is what comes to mind. For one Mississippi man, though, that is exactly the kind of security he is trying to get.
In fact, Robert Estes of Southaven, Mississippi, told local WMC News that he is looking to “change the drone industry” with his new idea: a fleet of airborne drones outfitted with infrared thermal imaging that fly thousands of feet high.
His custom-built drones can even pick up movement inside a house or a car.
READ MORE:California man uses surveillance drone to keep an eye on cops from above
“You can do good things with this, or you can do bad things with this,” Estes said, acknowledging that drones are not inherently a force for good, particularly when it comes to privacy.
Still, Estes insists his fleet of drones can be used to help the local community. He said his aerial vehicles have already been deployed in for emergency trainings, infrastructure inspections, and missing persons searches, which allow him to survey a 100-acre field easily.
Dude with tons of custom-made drones: “You can do good things with this, or you can do bad things with this" http://t.co/ZrsYWZQbZw — Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) November 7, 2014
Additionally, his actions are legal under the Federal Aviation Administration’s current guidelines, which allow personal drones to fly anywhere under 400 feet in the air. The FAA continues to work on laying the groundwork for drones operating American airspace, though over the summer a report showed full integration would have to wait until after Congress’ September 2015 deadline.
In Southhaven, though, some neighbors are already concerned over Estes’ moves.
“I don't need someone looking inside my house,” Dorothy Murray, a mother of six, said to WMC. “It's an invasion of my privacy.”
Private force of surveillance #drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras for "neighborhood watch." http://t.co/nq3LteSl5g#privacy — Harley Geiger (@HarleyGeiger) November 7, 2014
That sentiment was echoed last year by USA Today’s Don Campbell, who argued Americans should be more concerned about personal drone use than they had been up until then.
“When you read or sunbathe in your backyard, which, in my case, is enclosed by a 6-foot wooden fence, you're looking for peace and quiet — and privacy,” he wrote. “You don't expect a drone to hover overhead like a dragonfly, fulfilling someone's voyeuristic cravings. If you wanted to be observed, you'd move your lounge chair to the front yard.”
READ MORE:Supreme Court justice warns of drones creating 'Orwellian' future
The Supreme Court also weighed in on the issue recently, when Justice Sonia Sotomayor cautioned drones could end in an “Orwellian world.”
“There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that’s happening on what we consider our private property,” she said in September.
“That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom. Because people think that it should be protected just against government intrusion, but I don’t like the fact that someone I don’t know…can pick up, if they’re a private citizen, one of these drones and fly it over my property.”An injured student is evacuated from the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, after an attack by Taliban gunmen on on Dec. 16, 2014. Many of the children who survived are in need of psychotherapy. File Photo by Sajjad Ali Queshi/UPI | License Photo
Pakistani soldiers take a position near the site of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar on Dec. 16, 2014. Now students and teachers are getting weapons training to increase security at schools in the region. File Photo by Sajjad Ali Queshi/UPI | License Photo
Relatives of injured students react as they arrive at a hospital dealing with the victims of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Dec. 16, 2014. File Photo by Sajjad Ali Queshi/UPI | License Photo
The Army Public School was attacked by the Taliban last December, killing more than 100 children, the school principal and several teachers. File Photo by News Lens Pakistan
Pakistani orphan children from light candles and hold pictures of children killed in the Peshawar School attack during a protest rally against the Taliban in Islamabad on Dec. 17. File Photo by Sajjad Ali Queshi/UPI | License Photo
Barbed wire was added around this government school in Pakistan after an Army school was attacked by the Taliban in December. Photo by Malik Achakzai/News Lens Pakistan
Barbed wire was added around Khyber Medical College in Peshawar after an Army school was attacked by the Taliban in December. Photo by Malik Achakzai/News Lens Pakistan
Students are escorted from the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, after an attack by Taliban gunmen on Dec. 16, 2014. Many of the children who survived are traumatized. File Photo by Sajjad Ali Queshi/UPI | License Photo
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (News Lens Pakistan) -- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan's northwest is running a weapons training program for students, teachers and lower-level staff in response to the December attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.
Provincial Information Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani announced Jan. 13 that teachers and other staffers would be allowed to keep their own guns while at school so they could hold off militants until police arrived. They will receive training in proper use of the weapons.
The government, he said, wants to improve security at 35,000 public schools, colleges and universities. He said the province's 65,000 police officers cannot secure all those facilities.
The December attack left more than 100 children and staff dead, and 126 others wounded. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.
Saleem Marwat, district police officer in Swat, northeast of Peshawar, said police would train 2,000 watchmen as part of the program to use guns, but emphasized that protection of schools and students would not be left solely to them.
"The police and army are in the region, and on a quick response we can come for the security of children and teachers," he said during a training session.
According to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police department, 10,727 school security guards were to be trained in the first quarter of this year across the province while 10,610 more guards are awaiting training.
RELATED Terror victims in Pakistan await government aid
In addition, eight female teachers from the Frontier College for Women, a government college, received training in using guns.
Samiullah Jan, 27, a watchman in a government school in Swat was one of the trainees.
"I had seen guns, but hadn't fired one. It's the first time I fired one. Now if God willing, I will be ready to confront the rivals attacking my school," he said.
The fear of another school attack persists, but weapons training may not help parents and children who fear schools are unsafe.
Eleven-year-old Ikhtiar, a student of Warsak Model School and College next to the Army Public School, is being kept home from the school by his mother, who he said became scared after the December attack.
"I think of myself, how I should get myself escape if such thing happens in my school," he told News Lens Pakistan. Ikhtiar is reluctant to show his fear but when he goes outside at night he asks an elder to accompany him.
His mother, though, is even more concerned that schools could be a target since hearing about the weapons training initiative and the fact that teachers would now be armed.
"These |
have my sympathies for all Pakistan nationals seeking medical visa for their treatment in India. All that we require is his recommendation for the grant of medical visa to Pakistan nationals."With this morning's tweet, the External Affairs Minister has pressed home a point that she made earlier this year in parliament. Rejecting Pakistan's move to declare Gilgit-Baltistan in PoK as a new province, she had said "the government is committed to a resolution by both houses of parliament that says the whole of Kashmir belongs to India.As the Internet of Things or IoT becomes popular in mainstream consciousness, connected objects and devices are the holy grail for most companies and researchers. Researchers at Microsoft may have taken the first step in building an IoT ecosystem for 3D printing.
At this year’s SIGGRAPH conference for computer graphics and interactive machinery in Anaheim, California, Lead researcher Andy Wilson and his associate Karl Willis presented a paper that proposed a technique to embed information into objects during the digital fabrication process. The project - called InfraStructs - “pioneers techniques for reading unique identifiers embedded within 3D printed objects.”
In simple words, this means that you can introduce all sorts of information in multiple formats into an object during its production process. As an example, Wilson says users can integrate URLs into an object during the production process. These URLs can be used for further processing or instructions when that object encounters other 3D printed objects.
The applications of this technology are wide-ranging. For example, mobile robots are constrained in their motion and object detection currently. This is due to the complexity of negotiating their way around objects of varying sizes and complexity. As an example, Wilson says it would be difficult for robots to detect power receptacles. A 3D printed ecosystem, where each object contains significant information about other objects, will help improve the robot ecosystem. Similarly, the technology can also be used for further authentication.
If the technology sounds vaguely familiar, then it is.
A variety of similar new technologies, such as Radio Frequency Identification Codes (or, RFID) and QR codes, clutter the aisles department stores or enable security access to office workers. However, these technologies require the addition of an external device or “disruption of visual appearance” as Wilson puts it. For example, RFID technology requires additional security cards or keys. Similarly, QR codes proliferate through the use of stickers. What’s more, they require placement of devices at specific angles and proximity for processing. This introduces friction into the process.
According to Wilson, InfraStructs eliminates these requirements because information is already encoded into an object during the production process. Thus, interaction between objects is independent of external devices or appendages.
For all their disadvantages, however, RFID and QR codes can be tacked onto existing objects. This approach has its benefits in a world consisting of multiple products and systems. InfraStructs, however, requires object reinvention with embedded identifiers.
Part of the problem is due to the absence of popular applications of Terahertz technology, the internal imaging technology used to construct identifiers. Other imaging technologies have popular mainstream applications. Multispectral imaging, for example, has a similar use case to Terahertz and is used in popular technology applications such as Kinect to detect motion. Similarly, millimeter wave scanning technology is used in airport scanners (Yes, the very same infamous TSA scanners). Terahertz technology, in contrast, is yet to find a significant popular application.
However, Wilson and his team have outlined a potentially useful application of their technology for 3D printing service companies, such as Shapeways and iMaterialise. They can use InfraStructs to streamline operations and make their processes efficient. For example, their current processes involve manufacture of dozens of 3D printed objects, which, subsequently, require manual sorting. Embedding objects with the sender’s information and address could automate and simplify the sorting process. There are two ways this can be done, according to Wilson. For example, users can integrate this information during the design process itself by using a simple Save As function to include their information and a unique identifier.
Alternately, 3D printing service companies can add unique identifiers during further object processing.
Shapeways, are you listening?For the second time in two games, the Bulls have won in overtime thanks to a last second three pointer. On Thursday, it was CJ Watson draining the tying three against the Miami Heat while Derrick Rose sat on the bench. Sunday night, it was Rose hitting the game tying three.
(This would be the perfect time to make a Lebron James joke, but, I’ll control myself.)
With last night’s 100-94 victory, the Bulls have beaten the Pistons 15 times in a row. Although the Pistons aren’t very good, 15 in a row over any one team is fairly impressive.
Derrick Rose shook off a lot of his rust that was apparent in the Miami game on Thursday. He played 41 minutes in the 53 minute game, coming an assist short of a double-double and scoring 24 points.
But by the end of the game, it looked like Rose just went 12 rounds with Tyson. Hobbling off the court with a bloody nose, Derrick Rose had made his statement.
Late in the game, Charlie Villanueva, gave Derrick a hard foul right on his nose, splitting open the bridge. As we all know, Derrick Rose is usually a very quiet and humble character. Rarely do we ever see any sort of emotion out of him except for excitement after a big play, but last night we saw the angry side of Derrick Rose, getting in Villanueva’s face and getting real upset.
I thought Rose was just upset at the lack of Villanueva’s eyebrows, but I guess that wasn’t the case:
“I was mad,” Rose said. “I’m sick and tired of people trying to take cheap shots at me. You got to say something. He didn’t even aim for the ball. At least go for the ball. I felt like he didn’t and that’s the reason why I got mad a little bit.”
The rest of the Bulls starters played well, except Luol Deng, but especially Joakim Noah. He decided to do his best Dwight Howard impression last night and put up 20 points with 17 rebounds while Luol Deng scored 2 points with 8 rebounds, but still offered excellent defense. Korver scored 13 off the bench.
For the Pistons, it was Rodney Stuckey leading the way in scoring racking up 32 points, including some key three pointers near the end of the game. Brandon Knight and Greg Monroe both scored 13, as did Villanueva off the bench.
Up next for the Bulls are the Washington Wizards tonight, at home, at 7pm on Comcast SportsNet.Call of Duty: Ghosts - expected to be this year's Call of Duty title - has been outed by UK retailer Tesco.
The retailer listed the game for Xbox 360 and PS3 this afternoon, along with the alleged box art. It has since pulled both listings, however.
Infinity Ward's logo is featured prominently on the box art, suggesting the Modern Warfare developer is back for Ghosts, and also appears to show a character putting on the mask worn by Ghost in Modern Warfare 2.
Call of Duty: Ghosts has previously been rumoured to be the name of this year's Call of Duty.
Earlier this year, YouTuber Drift0r claimed that he had been supplied information about Call of Duty: Ghosts from a "very legitimate source", alleging that the game could be "branching out of the Modern Warfare series" and "moving into a different direction".
The title is rumoured to be set in the future similar to last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, but uses current generation weaponry.
Activision has yet to formally reveal this year's Call of Duty title, but an announcement, Drift0r states, is expected around May 1, 2013.
An Activision representative gave VideoGamer.com a "no comment" when contacted about the leak.
Source: Tesco DirectNew National Standards of Food Safety in China by 2015
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Chinese health officials have revealed that they hope to set up national standards of food safety, which can help safeguard the general public, by 2015.
New National Standards of Food Safety in China by 2015
At a press conference, Su Zhi said that China had now formulated more than 2,000 national, 2,900 industry and 1,200 local standards that are related to food and additives.
"However, problems still exist in the present standards of food safety due to the restricted development of food industry and ability of risk assessment," Su said.
The standards will be set up by the end of 2015. According to the plan of setting up national standards of food safety, China will further improve the management mechanism of food safety and establish a normative and transparent working model.
The plan also asks for all related departments to study the national standards and urges food manufactures to follow the standards.
The ministry will publish a report on the standards relating to more than 5,000 kinds of food, as well as revising the regulations on food pollutants and pathogenic bacteria, Su added.
Source: ANI At a press conference, Su Zhi said that China had now formulated more than 2,000 national, 2,900 industry and 1,200 local standards that are related to food and additives."However, problems still exist in the present standards of food safety due to the restricted development of food industry and ability of risk assessment," Su said.The standards will be set up by the end of 2015. According to the plan of setting up national standards of food safety, China will further improve the management mechanism of food safety and establish a normative and transparent working model.The plan also asks for all related departments to study the national standards and urges food manufactures to follow the standards.The ministry will publish a report on the standards relating to more than 5,000 kinds of food, as well as revising the regulations on food pollutants and pathogenic bacteria, Su added.Source: ANI
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by Kathy Jones on August 19, 2012 at 3:42 PM General Health NewsIsraeli authorities have arrested a 19-year-old suspect in connection with dozens of hoax bomb threats to Jewish community centers in the United States and around the world. ABC News reports that the unnamed suspect is a dual U.S.-Israel citizen.
Other reports indicate that the suspect is Jewish.
The arrest was “part of an ongoing international investigation that has been taking place for several months with other police and security agencies in America and Europe,” Arutz Sheva reports.
Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said the suspect was “the guy who was behind the [Jewish Community Center] threats,” according to CBS News’ New York affiliate. The threats were also made in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as the U.S.
The suspect allegedly used technology in an attempt to hide his location. No motive for the hoax threats has yet been reported. The Jerusalem Post reports that the suspect is thought to be responsible for “most” of the threats.
The threats, causing panic at Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centers, were often blamed by Democrats and the some journalists on supporters of President Donald Trump.
When the president suggested that some of the antisemitic hate crimes could be hoaxes, the Huffington Post claimed he was echoing “white nationalists and far-right conspiracy theorists.” (Later, and in a subsequent address to Congress, President Trump explicitly condemned the wave of antisemitic threats.)
However, the arrests thus far suggest that most of the threats were indeed hoaxes. Earlier this month, another man was arrested for false threats against at least eight Jewish community centers. The suspect was a left-wing former journalist, who allegedly used the threats as part of a campaign of revenge against a former girlfriend.
One arrest last month concerned a suspect who allegedly vandalized Chicago’s Loop Synagogue and was apparently caught on surveillance video camera. The man, already facing a March trial on unrelated charges, was charged with a hate crime.
In December, a synagogue was vandalized with feces in Santa Monica, California. No arrest has yet been made in that case.
Almost all of the other hate crimes in recent weeks and months have been false bomb threats. Now, Israeli police believe they have identified the person responsible for most of those threats, which sparked panic worldwide.
Israeli minister of public security, Gilad Erdan, was quoted by ABC News as congratulating the Israeli police in solving the crime: “I congratulate the Israeli Police on leading a complex international investigation, together with law enforcement agencies from around the world, which led to the arrest of the suspect. We hope that this investigation will help shed light on some of the recent threats against Jewish institutions, which have caused great concern both among Jewish communities and the Israeli government.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Photo: fileAN: Got some help from some legendarily legendary legend dude called JDUBZ. He is a cool Beta Reader and really helped out. Thanks bro!
ARC Three: The Other Days
Chapter Twenty: Fear Toxin
"I...I didn't…"
"Subaru?"
Batman had been giving Subaru a concerned look, along with Rem who was trying to comprehend what had happened.
"Subaru-kun? What is the matter?"
"How do I…?
Subaru was trying his best to collect his thoughts. He had been killed alongside Rem in the previous loop. The entire village went insane at the arrival of the man known as "Scarecrow", and he was unable to stop him. If his past memories were correct, then he had now been sent back around the time before he and Rem left to purchase more snacks.
"...Twenty Minutes."
Return by Death had sent him back only twenty minutes prior to Scarecrow's attack on Dunharrow.
"But...Why?!"
He couldn't wrap his head around it. Why did it send him back only less than an hour prior to his own death? In the past, Return by Death had sent him hours to even days in advance, so why was it that this time gap was such a small one. Could he even prepare in twenty minutes? Where was Scarecrow at this point? Did he have the means to stop him and prevent more deaths?
What was it that Natsuki Subaru could do? A normal young man, with no strength of his own, going up against a super-villain?
"Subaru, snap out of it!"
Batman reached over and firmly grabbed his shoulder. The impact brought him back to his senses.
"Batman-san?"
"Tell us what's wrong."
Subaru quickly tried to form a plan in his head. He knew he couldn't outright lie to him, but he wasn't sure how he'd be able to tell him that a crazed psychopath with a hallucinogenic gas was going to attack twenty minutes from now. But he had an idea…
"It's just...on the way here, I could've sworn I saw something weird. It was a man."
"A man?"
"Yes...a man with an orange eye, a brown trench coat and a face that looked like a disgusting sack mask."
"...Subaru...Did he have a clawed hand?"
"...Yes."
Batman stared at Subaru with a look of utter disbelief in what he said, but he knew he wasn't lying. Batman clenched his fists as he rose from his seat.
"No...he followed me here?!"
Emilia also rose from her seat as she reached out to Batman.
"Batman-san?"
"...We need to move right now!"
Everyone became surprised at his loud declaration. Rem and Ram quickly moved closer to him as he began explaining things better.
"That man Subaru saw, is an old adversary of mine. He goes by the name Scarecrow."
"Scarecrow? Like those creepy mannequins that farmers use to chase away birds?"
"Yes. He's a very vile person and quite dangerous."
Rem slightly shook as she began understanding the severity of the situation.
"He's well versed in psychological torture and very dangerous, because that's how he fights."
"How he fights?"
"He's created a poisonous formula known as 'Fear Toxin', it's a dangerous hallucinogenic drug that makes you see your worst fears. It also slows brain movement and essentially makes you weaker."
"Unbelievable."
The group quickly realized that they were up against someone that was quite formidable and a clear threat to them.
But there was something Ram herself didn't comprehend.
"But if Barusu did see this Scarecrow earlier, the question still remains...What does he want?"
"Simple…"
Batman turned his shoulders, in order to better face his allies.
"He likes to see people experience sheer terror and watch them either fall into insanity or die while screaming. Scarecrow is enamored with the facial expressions of fear. It's his obsession."
"So why is he here?"
"The village."
The group gathered together as Subaru explained to them that he saw Scarecrow head to the other side of the town. It was then agreed that Scarecrow had to be stopped.
Batman, Rem and Subaru would head out to confront Scarecrow and minimize civilian casualties.
Roswaal, Emilia and Ram would try to convince as many citizens especially in the northern side to escape.
"Subaru, if things go wrong take Rem and head back to the others."
"I'm not gonna abandon you! We won't have to run away if we work together and kick this guys ass!"
"This isn't a game Subaru! Scarecrow will do everything in his ability to kill us! We have to take this seriously!"
Subaru straightened himself out and pulled out several throwing stars from his pocket.
"I am. And we will win, you can count on that!"
"Tread lightly."
"Okay."
Rem motioned to them as she pulled out her Morningstar, the three of them marching forward as the others began working on the evacuations.
Rem had been hopping around the rooftops, looking for anything suspicious. Batman was also using the rooftops searching for his nemesis. Subaru was on the ground as he also was searching, but also trying his best to warn people about the impending danger.
Then he saw it.
"Oh no!"
Several canisters rolled on the ground as they released Fear Toxin all over the general area. Subaru covered his mouth with his sleeve as he backed away. Batman glided over the sky as he saw the situation unfold. He threw several Batarangs into the area as he saw something leap out from the gas cloud.
"Ohhhhhh….so you did follow me to this new world. How exciting!"
Scarecrow glared up at Batman as he pulled out a handgun from his holster and fired it in his general direction. Batman fired his grappling hook in another direction and zipped past the bullets. Rem leaped into the air and aimed her Morningstar at him. He quickly jumped into a window of the nearest house and escaped impact from Rem's weapon. Subaru rushed over to the house and kicked down the door.
"You should knock first boy."
Scarecrow charged at Subaru, he jumped back and tossed several throwing stars. Two of them impaled themselves in his shoulder.
"Hahhhhhh…"
Scarecrow spun his body as he roundhouse kicked Subaru away back into the streets. Scarecrow laughed maniacally at the sight before him.
"HUHUHUHUHAHAHA! What's this Batman?! You got a new Robin?"
He then quickly pulled out his handgun and aimed it at Subaru.
"After what happened to the last ones? You can be quite careless."
As he fired, Subaru was suddenly wrapped in a chain and lifted into the air. Rem had saved him and was now carrying him in the air. They landed on an adjacent rooftop that Batman had been standing on. Batman tossed several explosive Batarangs towards the house in an attempt to drive him out.
Explosions rang out as the house imploded by the shockwaves of the Batarangs. After several seconds, Scarecrow still hadn't emerged. Just then, from the other side of the now destroyed house, Scarecrow turned the corner and emptied his entire magazine at them. The three moved out of the way as they tried to separate and corner him. This plan failed as Scarecrow pulled something out of his pocket.
A grenade filled with Fear Toxin. He lopped it at Subaru. Subaru tried to smack it away. But it still exploded.
"Subaru-kun!"
"Subaru!"
Subaru began to panic as he realized he had inhaled some of the gas. He coughed and coughed, trying his best to get it out of his lungs as fast as possible. But soon, he realized that his vision was getting blurry and everything had an orange hue to it.
"Crap, this is bad! It's in my system!"
Batman jumped down to try and get Subaru away from there, but he noticed in time that Scarecrow had appeared behind him. Batman blocked a blow from a farmer's scythe he had with him. Batman also noticed that Scarecrow had his mouth closed shut.
"Ptui!"
"Gah!"
Scarecrow spit out a large amount of Fear Toxin at his face so quickly, that he had no time to block. Batman now realized he was now infected as well.
Batman tried his best to kick away Scarecrow away, but he quickly spun away while unleashing a barrage of slashes with his scythe. Rem launched her Morningstar to the ground to separate the two, she noticed too late that Subaru had collapsed on the ground.
"AGHHHHHH!"
Subaru backed away from Batman as he screamed. In his vision, Batman had become a literal hybrid between a Wolgarm and Human. Subaru tossed several throwing stars at him, Batman quickly dodged them and scrunched his face in fear.
Subaru's screams slowly morphed from agonizing yelps...into laughter.
"AGHHHHHH-HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
His face turned white, his hair green and a hideous grin stretched across his face. His mouth ripped open as blood gushed forward.
Rem tried to jump down and save them but Scarecrow had tossed several canisters into the air and fired his gun at them. They broke apart, splashing Fear Toxin all over the blue haired girl.
"AGH!"
"Everyone needs to stop this resistance and just be good little test subjects."
Scarecrow then turned around as he looked over the side of the town, which now was engulfed in Fear Toxin. Screams and crying could be heard, shattering windows and finally a massive fire broke out. Several people were running out of a building while on fire, their charred bodies running through the smoke. Subaru saw one running towards him and panicked. Their awful screams of pain and terror reverberated in his head. He tossed a throwing star at them, hitting in directly in the face. They fell over and as they were granted a merciful death.
Subaru tried to get up and run for it.
Scarecrow almost teleported behind him and stabbed him with his syringe fingers, injecting him with more Fear Toxin.
Batman and Rem were busy dealing with civilians who were attacking them, Rem did her best not to kill any of them, but simply knock them out. Batman used a judo throw on a larger citizen and forced him onto the ground. He punched him twice in the face, as blood and teeth flew out of his mouth. Batman tossed two Batarangs at an approaching civilian, who had a rather large shovel aimed at him. The Batarangs did their job and knocked him out.
Batman looked over and saw Scarecrow towering over the twitching Subaru.
"Subaru!"
Scarecrow dropped his scythe and retrieved his handgun. Aiming downwards at Subaru's head.
"Now be a good boy and die for me."
He readied the trigger.
"Scream a bit though…!"
Scarecrow then noticed several objects flying towards him and quickly dodged them in the nick of time. He did several flips in the air before he landed. He looked over to see that the objects were shards of ice.
"FULA!"
Suddenly a large slicing gust of wind charged towards him, he barely moved his body out of the way as it sliced through a wall that he was leaning on.
"What?!"
But a large wound opened across his chest and his vest fell off of him.
He leered over at where the shot came from and furrowed his eyes at the ones responsible.
Emilia, Puck, Ram and Roswaal had arrived.
Scarecrow made a face indicative of annoyance towards the arriving party. But he slowly began to smile.
"Yes. It is quite desirable to have so many people willing to put their lives on the line for my work! I couldn't be more ecstatic!"
Scarecrow waved his arms around in a wild spinning manner, twisting his flexible body in an almost happy manner. But he stopped and stared back at them with a vicious expression.
"But if you're going to be using magic...then maybe I should get my hands dirty as well."
"What?!"
Scarecrow raised his right index finger to the sky. At the tip of of his syringe nail, a small black orb of light fluttered around it. The sight of which made Scarecrow smile with anticipation.
They could only watch in shock at what was happening.
"I-it can't be…"
"Oh but it is Batman…!"
Ram tensed up as she glared at him.
"This man...is a spirit user?!"
"Why didn't you tell us he used spirit magic?!"
"He never did in the past. He must've learned in the month since we got here!"
"By the color of it's light...it has to be Yin magic!"
"Things just went from bad to terrible in just a few seconds!"
Scarecrow slowly marched towards them while his spirit hovered around him.
"Did you think I'd waste this whole month in stagnation while in this new world?! I am an adaptable individual and one who will go on and strive to be ahead of all of you! ESPECIALLY YOU BATMAN!"
He charged forward, retrieving his scythe from the ground as he howled insanely.
Subaru shook his head, now free from the hallucinations. He reached for a throwing star, trying to toss it. Everyone followed suit, aiming their own attacks-
"SHAMAK!"
A massive black cloud of smoke engulfed them. Everything went dark as everyone tried to grasp at what happened. Roswaal smirked at what he considered a foolish attempt to escape.
"Fula!"
He swiped away at the air, as the wind itself blew away the smoke.
"How trivial. Suuuuuch a morose way of-!"
"-Yesssss."
Ram turned to her side, seeing Scarecrow staring right at her. Only a few inches away from her face.
Scarecrow attempted to slice open her throat with the scythe, only for Ram to dodge and fire a blast of wind magic. She missed as he jumped to the ground on all fours. He smiled as he stood back up and used his fingers to open his chest wound further.
The wound opened more and sprayed blood all over Ram's face. Blinded, she tried her best to slice him away with the wind but she missed and nearly hit Emilia. Luckily, she was pushed out of the way by Subaru.
"Ahh! You bastard!"
Ram spun her body around and kicked him in his sides, sending him flying through a nearby door. Rem took advantage of the situation by swinging her Morningstar at the house, destroying it completely.
Batman turned to Ram and ran towards her.
"Ram! Get that blood off! It's infected with Fear Toxin!"
Ram stumbled around as the toxin began affecting her. Unbeknownst to everyone but Batman, Scarecrow constantly injected himself with new batches of Fear Toxin, in a bid to make himself immune to it. But it gave him the side effects of his oranges eye, nerve damage and of course terrible skin conditions. It also made his blood toxic, now that it was filled with his homemade poison.
Ram struggled to keep her mind in check. But she felt slower than usual, her vision had an orange hue to it.
"Ram?"
Ram heard Roswaal's voice, but it sounded muffled. When she turned to look at him...she saw his face was melting away. Revealing flesh, bones and his eye dangling from it's socket.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
Ram was now screaming uncontrollably as she fired random wind attacks in all directions.
Batman tried to stop her but was unable to get close.
"Ram stop!"
"Nee-sama please!"
No one was able to get through to her and things got worse when Puck let out a shout.
"Here he comes!"
Scarecrow now sprinting out of the rubble while his Yin spirit flew next to him.
Rem grabbed Subaru to try and get away. Batman reached for his Freeze Gun, while Roswaal and Puck readied their attacks.
"EL SHAMAK!"
A dark wave engulfed them, Subaru felt a sensation of free falling. As if he wasn't even part of the world any longer. Then like a mirror shattering, the illusion broke away.
"Oh shit."
Only to reveal a cloud of Fear Toxin heading straight towards him.
Rem and Batman jumped over the cloud and to a taller building, trying to find the others. They saw Ram stumble through the gas cloud, shaking uncontrollably.
"Nee-sama!"
Just then, Scarecrow charged at Ram and pierced her from behind with his syringe claws, lifting her small frame from the ground, before tossing her into a nearby wall. After she hit the ground, her body contorted and she shook violently. The whites of her eyes showed.
"NEE-SAMA! WHAT'S HAPPENED TO HER?!"
"She's overdosed on Fear Toxin! She's having a seizure!"
Batman used his grappling hook to swing over and pick up Ram. He gave her to Rem and told her to stay put and take care of her sister.
"But Batman-san-!"
"Please stay with her! I'm getting Emilia and the others so please...take care of Ram."
"..."
Batman glided away as Rem hold her sister close, holding back the tears.
Subaru tried to regain his bearings as he attempted to find the others. His vision was erratic and he was sweating profusely. But then he thought of something…
"I could try. Please let this work!"
He took a deep breath and let out a yell.
"I can Return by D-!"
The orange hued world disappeared from sight and two ink black hands emerged and grasped his heart. He let out a grunt as he gripped his chest.
When he came back to his senses, he realized that the shock of his heart being crushed healed him from the Fear Toxin.
"I-I'm back!"
Subaru grabbed his throwing stars and ran around the gas as he did his best to find his friends. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scarecrow rushing towards a nearby house. He began to give chase.
The fire continued to spread, bodies littered the streets and smoke enveloped the sky. Even if half of the town was saved the other half was enveloped in chaos.
In the end, the plan to save Dunharrow, was unsuccessful.
Scarecrow made it inside the house, his hideout, and began prepping some canisters of gas to be used. Subaru, giving chase, rushed forward and tossed four throwing stars at him. They hit his back, impaling themselves as he hardly flinched.
"That's quite annoying!"
He quickly spun around and tossed his scythe. It nicked the side of Subaru's face, and left a deep cut on his right cheek. Subaru ran around as Scarecrow pulled out his handgun.
It was knocked out of his hand by a Batarang. Batman leapt through the window and kicked him into a wall. Scarecrow quickly got up and took a kung fu fighting stance as he smiled at Batman.
Just then, something crashed through the wall behind him, sending him flying into the table he was working on. Batman and Subaru froze, as they saw that his left arm was on the ground, detached from the rest of his body.
From the hole, emerged Rem.
"Rem! I thought I told you to wait for us!"
"...dead…"
"Huh?"
"Nee-sama is dead."
Batman looked at her with a look of disbelief. He shook his head over and over again. He looked at her and saw that she had tears falling from her eyes. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Hard enough that his gums began to bleed.
Subaru fell to his knees and tried his best to hold back his tears as he whimpered slowly.
Rem turned her attention back to Scarecrow. Raising her palm towards him with a blank expression.
"Huma."
Two ice spears shot out and stabbed him in his abdomen.
"Ugh. This is quite troublesome. But sadly, I have no fear of death and I can no longer feel pain. So you won't see me beg for mercy…"
"For the deaths you have caused today. For the pain you inflicted on these kind people, Emilia-sama, Roswaal-sama, Subaru-kun and Batman-san….and…"
She gripped her chain tightly as she roared with her horn shining brightly.
"FOR THE DEATH OF MY BELOVED SISTER! I WILL TEAR YOU APART SCARECROW! NO ONE WILL FIND A SINGLE PIECE OF YOU LEFT!"
Scarecrow smiled at this…
"I have a better idea."
He reached over with his clawed right hand and pulled out a large sack.
"How about...Plan B? Hmmmmm?"
He opened it and revealed it contained a large amount of red stones.
"Those are-!"
"DIE AND FALL INTO DESPAIR! SHOW ME THE FACES OF FEAR AS YOU REACH THE END OF YOU LIVES!"
The red stones began to glow, smoke rose from the sack.
Batman jumped back.
Rem reached over for Subaru.
Subaru fell backwards.
Scarecrow laughed like a madman.
Emilia was leaning on a wall crying with her hands clutching her head, with Puck trying to soothe her troubled mind.
Roswaal was emotionless, leaning on a wall while apologizing to his teacher.
Ram was in an eternal sleep…
"I'll see you all in hell…"
The stones erupted, shining a blinding light. Rem used water magic to create an ice shield...it did not hold. Shattering away, she held onto Subaru tightly.
"Subaru-kun!"
"Rem!"
They evaporated away, leaving not a single trace.
Batman flew away from the shockwave landed hard in the Diamond Lake, losing consciousness. He would awake a little later, letting the tide take him away...he didn't care where.
"I'm sorry...everyone."
Roswaal cradled Ram's body as they both evaporated away.
Puck put up a powerful ice shield and saved Emilia. While Puck had kept Emilia alive with the shield, the trauma she had suffered that day had destroyed her. Emilia became a shell of her former self, and was haunted by the memories of her friends dying for the rest of her days.
Dunharrow, the town of the Diamond Lake. Was wiped off the map.
"Subaru-kun?"
Subaru opened his eyes to a familiar sight, the radiant blue haired oni.
"Rem?"
"Yes, this is Subaru-kun's Rem...are you alright?"
Subaru was unable to speak, his throat felt clogged and he began to tremble.
"Hey Subaru...you okay?"
"Barusu. Have you gone and soiled yourself or something?"
Subaru looked around and saw his friends staring at him.
The imposing Batman, the haughty Ram, the fanatical Rem, the beautiful Emilia, the adorable Puck and the eccentric Roswaal. All go them had their eyes glued on Subaru.
"Ah...ha...hahaha."
Subaru started to laugh. But he was also clearly crying.
The second loop was finished. Scarecrow was still there, lurking in the shadows, prepared to destroy everything Subaru held dear.Ayanokouji Kiyotaka has just enrolled at Tokyo Koudo Ikusei Senior High School, where it's said that 100% of students go on to college or find employment. But he ends up in Class 1-D, which is full of all the school's problem children. What's more, every month, the school awards students points with a cash value of 100,000 yen, and the classes employ a laissez-faire policy in which talking, sleeping, and even sabotage are permitted during class. But among all the students who lead such self-indulgent lives, there is one who disagrees with it all and chooses to remain solitary, avoiding contact with others: the beautiful Horikita Suzune. She has figured out that, even though the school gives students huge amounts of money, it also offers many means of "assistance for students with no money." One month later, Ayanokouji, Horikita, and the students of Class D learn the truth of the system in place within their school...South Korea is hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics, which means that their national men’s ice hockey team will take part in the tournament. It also means that with Canada, the Czech Republic and Switzerland in their group, they’re probably going to give up 100 goals – 90 of them to Canada.
The unfortunate fact is that South Korea is in its infancy as a hockey nation. As of 2014, there were only 2,100 registered hockey players in South Korea, including just 120 adult males, according to the New York Times. They have three franchises in the Asia Hockey League.
So what do you do if you’re a national hockey team in need of quality players?
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You import them from Canada, of course.
[Join a Yahoo Daily Fantasy Hockey contest today]
National team goalie Matt Dalton, for example, was born in Clinton, Ont.. His rather interesting hockey career saw him bounce from the NCAA to the Boston Bruins system to the KHL |
2013
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2012. Retrieved June 18, 2013 </ref> Nevertheless, the bill still passed by a vote of 228-196.<ref> [ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/house-passes-bill-banning-abortion-after-20-weeks/</
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/06/house-passes-bill-banning-abortion-after-20-weeks/</ { | class="wikitable" style="margin:0.5em ; font-size:95%"
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July 2013
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** [[ United States House SS&T Subcommittee on Oversight }}
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Alger Hiss
I have undone your two unexplained deletions of material on the Alger Hiss article from Sept 24 and 25th, 2013. Please do not delete content from an article without giving a valid reason either in the edit summary box, or preferably, on the talk page. Such changes can be considered vandalism.173.52.252.170 (talk) 20:07, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
October 2013
Hello, I'm Wikipelli. I wanted to let you know that I undid one of your recent contributions, such as the one you made with to Dabo Swinney, because it didn’t appear constructive to me. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Wikipelli Talk 17:51, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
November 2013
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man for the job,' says [United States House Committee on Appropriations|Appropriations Committee] ] Chairman [[David Obey|Dave Obey]], 'and he understands the House, he understands the committee, he
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Hello, I'm SQGibbon. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Frak (expletive), but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. SQGibbon (talk) 18:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
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January 2014
Hello, I'm Wikipelli. I wanted to let you know that I undid one of your recent contributions, such as the one you made with to UH, because it didn’t appear constructive to me. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. Wikipelli Talk 19:59, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
March 2014
Hello, I'm K6ka. I wanted to let you know that I undid one of your recent contributions, such as the one you made with to Home Alone, because it didn’t appear constructive to me. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. K6ka (talk | contribs) 17:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
April 2014
Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to Ken Calvert, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you. Arbor8 (talk) 15:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
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Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to blank out or remove portions of page content, templates, or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did at Ken Calvert, you may be blocked from editing. Thank you. Arbor8 (talk) 17:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
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May 2014
Hello. Your recent edit to Robinson Secondary School appears to have added the name of a non-notable entity to a list that normally includes only notable entries. In general, a person or organization added to a list should have a pre-existing article before being added to most lists. If you wish to create such an article, please first confirm that the subject qualifies for a separate, stand-alone article according to Wikipedia's notability guideline. Thank you. ☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(talk) 14:20, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
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Hello, I'm Cheeseman Muncher. I noticed that you recently removed some content from United States presidential election in West Virginia, 2008 without explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; I restored the removed content. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks! Teh Cheezor Speak 21:20, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
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Please do not remove content or templates from pages on Wikipedia, as you did to United States presidential election in West Virginia, 2008 with, without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary. Your content removal does not appear constructive and has been reverted. Please make use of the sandbox if you'd like to experiment with test edits. Thank you. Jamesx12345 21:24, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to remove portions of page content, templates or other materials from Wikipedia, as you did to United States presidential election in West Virginia, 2008 with, you may be blocked from editing. Jamesx12345 21:30, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
July 2014
Hello, 143.231.249.138. We welcome your contributions to Wikipedia, but if you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Corpus Christi, Texas, you may have a conflict of interest.
All editors are required to comply with Wikipedia's neutral point of view content policy. People who are very close to a subject often have a distorted view of it, which may cause them to inadvertently edit in ways that make the article either too flattering or too disparaging. People with a close connection to a subject are not absolutely prohibited from editing about that subject, but they need to be especially careful about ensuring their edits are verified by reliable sources and writing with as little bias as possible.
If you are very close to a subject, here are some ways you can reduce the risk of problems:
Avoid or exercise great caution when editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with.
articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with. Avoid linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).
to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam). Exercise great caution so that you do not accidentally breach Wikipedia's content policies.
Please familiarize yourself with relevant content policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.
For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. Kaldari (talk) 17:53, 11 July 2014 (UTC)
Please do not introduce incorrect information into articles, as you did to Choco Taco. Your edits appear to be vandalism and have been reverted. If you believe the information you added was correct, please cite references or sources or discuss the changes on the article's talk page before making them again. If you would like to experiment, use the sandbox. Thank you. Ibadibam (talk) 21:07, 14 July 2014 (UTC)
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Continuing Vandalism
The vandalism from this IP is steadily increasing. At what point should the IP be blocked? Almost all of the edits are being rolled back within minutes thanks to the congress-edits account. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tenthrow (talk • contribs) 15:18, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Representative, stop vandalizing Wikipedia.
Check their IP, it's coming from the house of representatives, and I personally say they be IP banned and all edits reverted. Bumblebritches57 (talk) 19:01, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=617044904&oldid=604844827
Bumblebritches57 (talk) 19:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I think it would be fine to allow edits from registered user accounts using this IP, but the anonymous edits are getting out of hand. Is it possible to block anonymous edits from this IP 143.231.249.138 but still allow edits from registered users? To the effect that further vandalism could be dealt with on a registered user level? I am not familiar with the granularity of IP Bans. The only reason I can see that this IP is allowed to continue editing is that is associated with Congress. If the IP belonged to a McDonald's with public wifi, it would have been banned a year ago. Tenthrow (talk) 13:14, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Even if it was from McDonald's, I doubt that it would be perma-blocked. In that case, it is virtually guaranteed that it won't always be the same person editing with that IP address. As far as I am aware, the majority of IP edits are with constructive intent rather than the intent to vandalize. In any case, with WP:SIP rules applying, an indefinite block of this IP address would be unacceptable. Dustin ( talk ) 14:50, 16 July 2014 (UTC) Apparently most of the other Congressional staffers editing Wikipedia are transphobic otherkinphobic conspiritard Republicunts shilling for the heteronormative patriarchy. And it seems like a lot the Wikipedia administrators are as well. No wonder this site is so biased. 143.231.249.138 (talk) 18:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Please add more info/cites to Draft:CongressEdits
Great start! But please review the further sources I added to the bottom, draw facts from them, and footnote said sources to said facts. MatthewVanitas (talk) 21:27, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
July 2014
Banned for exposing the truth? Are you one of the Kremiln's gremlins? Wake up sheeple! 143.231.249.138 (talk) 13:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Aren't there better things to do on US House computers or is the do-nothingness getting to you? Hcobb (talk) 13:12, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
Different person here. I would just like to make clear that this IP adress is shared by a large agency that has 435 different offices. Unlike the poster above, I have only been making edits fixing grammar (the serial comma should be a standard Wikipedia policy). Also, the claims by the other user at this IP that Alex Jones is an agent of Russian government are completely absurd. Jones clearly works for Stratfor. Is this all part of some massive disinformation campaign? 143.231.249.138 (talk) 13:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)The incident was swiftly condemned as "deplorable" by officials but still cast an unwelcome shadow over a convention where Republicans are eager to prove they are a modern and inclusive party.
Security guards were called to the convention's main hall on Tuesday afternoon after reports that two people were racially abusing a black employee of CNN, the cable television news network.
At least one of the attendees was ejected from the hall by security and police officers but no arrests were made and no charges will be brought.
It was not clear whether the two people were among the 2,286 official delegates who nominated Mitt Romney as the Republicans' presidential candidate but the party issued a statement saying "this kind of behavior will not be tolerated".
“Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable," a spokesman said.
CNN confirmed the incident but refused to release details of the victim or her account of what happened.
"CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum," the network said. "CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment."
The incident came shortly before a speech by Mia Love, a 37-year-old mayor from Utah who is running to become the Republicans' first black congresswoman.
While the Republican Party has become more diverse in recent years - featuring a number of prominent minority figures like Condoleezza Rice and Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American senator from Florida - it still struggles among black voters.
A recent poll found zero per cent support for Mitt Romney among African-Americans compared to 94 per cent for President Barack Obama.By Daniel Kelley
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A former death row inmate, now serving a life sentence for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, will deliver a graduation speech at a liberal arts college in Vermont at the request of students there.
At a Oct. 5 ceremony, Goddard College in Plainfield will play a speech recorded by Mumia Abu-Jamal at the Pennsylvania prison where he is incarcerated.
Abu-Jamal, a former black nationalist convicted of first-degree murder after a trial that has been criticized by Amnesty International and others, has become a well-known commentator on the American justice system while in prison.
He was initially sentenced to death after his conviction in the 1981 killing of Officer Daniel Faulkner, but the sentence was commuted to life without parole in 2011.
Goddard, known for its flexible academic programs that are often designed by students, holds dozens of graduation ceremonies each year. The 23 students receiving their degrees on Oct. 5 chose Mumia to serve as speaker.
"Choosing Mumia as their commencement speaker, to me, shows how this newest group of Goddard graduates expresses their freedom to engage and think radically and critically in a world that often sets up barriers to do just that," said Bob Kenny, the president of Goddard.
The school, which has about 700 students enrolled, awarded Abu-Jamal a bachelor's degree in 1996.
Abu-Jamal's jailhouse writings about the justice system have made him a celebrity around the world. His case has attracted the support of death penalty opponents, foreign political leaders and Hollywood stars.
Abu-Jamal has served as a speaker at the graduation ceremonies of other schools in the past, and not without controversy.
His recorded voice was played at the 1999 commencement address at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Some students walked out in protest, while others turned their back.
An address the next year at Ohio's Antioch College drew widespread protest.
(Reporting by Daniel Kelley; Editing by Frank McGurty and Eric Beech)“The message to Iran is, ‘Don’t even think about it,’ ” one senior Defense Department official said. “Don’t even think about closing the strait. We’ll clear the mines. Don’t even think about sending your fast boats out to harass our vessels or commercial shipping. We’ll put them on the bottom of the gulf.” Like others interviewed, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the diplomatic and military situation.
Since late spring, stealthy F-22 and older F-15C warplanes have moved into two separate bases in the Persian Gulf to bolster the combat jets already in the region and the carrier strike groups that are on constant tours of the area. Those additional attack aircraft give the United States military greater capability against coastal missile batteries that could threaten shipping, as well as the reach to strike other targets deeper inside Iran.
And the Navy, after a crash development program, has moved a converted amphibious transport and docking ship, the Ponce, into the Persian Gulf to serve as the Pentagon’s first floating staging base for military operations or humanitarian assistance.
The initial assignment for the Ponce, Pentagon officials say, is to serve as a logistics and operations hub for mine-clearing. But with a medical suite and helicopter deck, and bunks for combat troops, the Ponce eventually could be used as a base for Special Operations forces to conduct a range of missions, including reconnaissance and counterterrorism, all from international waters.
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For President Obama, the combination of negotiations, new sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil revenues and increased military pressure is the latest — and perhaps the most vital — test of what the White House calls a “two track” policy against Iran. In the midst of a presidential election campaign in which his opponent, Mitt Romney, has accused him of being “weak” in dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue, Mr. Obama seeks to project toughness without tipping into a crisis in the region.
At the same time he must signal support for Israel, but not so much support that the Israelis see the buildup as an opportunity to strike the Iranian nuclear facilities, which Mr. Obama’s team believes could set off a war without significantly setting back the Iranian program.
A key motivation for “Olympic Games,” the covert effort to undermine Iran’s enrichment capability with cyberattacks, has been to demonstrate to the Israelis that there are more effective ways to slow the program than to strike from the air.
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But this delicate signaling to both Iran and Israel is a complex dance. Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that the administration must strike a fine balance between positioning enough forces to deter Iran, but not inadvertently indicate to Iran or Israel that an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites is imminent or inevitable.
“There are a lot of expectations to manage,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview. “People need to know you’re serious, but you must also leave room for peaceful resolution. It’s very important not to take steps that send the wrong messages here.”
There is little evidence that the increased pressure is having the desired effect. Negotiations with Iran are at a stalemate, though a group of Iranian, American and European experts are expected to meet in Istanbul on Tuesday to review a recent American proposal and Iranian response. So far, though, Iran has strenuously resisted all efforts to force it to give up enrichment of uranium, starting with production of a type that is considered relatively close to bomb grade.
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Responding to the tightening of Western sanctions, Iran on Monday announced that it would consider proposed legislation to disrupt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz as well as missile tests, in a drill clearly intended as a warning to Israel and the United States.
The Iranian legislation calls for Iran’s military to block any oil tanker en route to countries no longer buying Iranian crude because of the embargo. It was unclear whether the legislation would pass or precisely how Iran would enforce it.
Senior Pentagon and military officials acknowledge that Iran has the capability to close the strait, at least temporarily, and the additional mine-clearing forces can be viewed as both concrete and spoken evidence of Washington’s commitment to make sure any closing is as brief as possible.
The most significant Iranian threat to shipping came during its war of attrition with Iraq in the 1980s. Iran attacked tankers and other commercial traffic to disrupt Iraq’s oil revenues and threaten shipments from other Arab states viewed as supporting Baghdad. Iran also laid significant numbers of mines in an attempt to block transit, prompting mine-clearing operations and attacks on the Iranian Navy by American warships.
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Defense Department officials stressed that the recent reshaping of American forces in the Persian Gulf region should not be viewed as solely about the potential nuclear threat from Iran.
“This is not only about Iranian nuclear ambitions, but about Iran’s regional hegemonic ambitions,” the senior Defense Department official said.
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“This is a complex array of American military power that is tangible proof to all of our allies and partners and friends that even as the U.S. pivots toward Asia, we remain vigilant across the Middle East.”
While American ground troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, a force equivalent to an extra Army combat brigade has remained in Kuwait, officials said. It could have many roles to contain regional instability, but Iran is a primary concern.
While it always is difficult to read Iran’s intentions, senior American Navy officers have noted that Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf have refrained recently from provocative behavior.
“Things have been, relatively speaking, quiet,” said Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, assessing actions by Iranian Navy vessels over “the last couple of months.”
But that was without the pressure of the new sanctions; already Iran is exporting far less oil every day than a year ago: about 1.5 million barrels a day versus 2.5 million before the gradual imposition of earlier sanctions.
While Iranian vessels have avoided any confrontations with allied warships in recent weeks, Iran expects to equip its ships in the Strait of Hormuz soon with shorter-range missiles, a Revolutionary Guards commander said on Friday, according to the semiofficial Mehr news agency.
With an eye on the threat of a belligerent Iran, the administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
The United States and 19 other countries will hold a major mine countermeasure exercise in the Persian Gulf in September, said a senior military officer who noted that countries in the region were taking more steps in their own defense, including buying American-made air defense systems and other weaponry.Documentary filmmaker Lee Hirsch hoped to start a national movement dedicated to stopping the practice of bullying in the United States, but he never quite expected his documentary, Bully, to have such a galvanizing effect. However, he probably didn't anticipate the marketing skills of Harvey Weinstein, head of the Weinstein Company, the film's distributor whose brilliant campaign to combat the movie's "R" rating by the MPAA resulted in creating a national discourse on the film's subject before it even opened.
Hirsch refused to cut graphic language hurled at the bullying victims portrayed in his movie ("Bullying isn't pretty and language is a part of it," he told me) and Weinstein backed himeventually opting to release the film without a rating where it has quickly packed theaters.
Although the movie is now rated PG-13, Weinstein's righteous grandstanding and Hirsch's artistic stance have granted Bully the attention one has hoped for itand for the everyday heroes the movie spotlights. Said heroes include Alex, the-12-year-old outsider, Kelby; the 16-year-old lesbian, and the othersincluding the families of those who took their too young lives after the onslaught of bullying became too much.
Hirsch, not surprisingly, is articulate and passionate about his subject.
Windy City Times: I have to tell you that, as a middle-aged gay man and a victim of bullying myself, I wasn't sure that I could make it through your movie. It brought back the horror of junior high schoolthe worst time of my life. For gay kids, bullying is like a double whammy.
Lee Hirsch: Well, I'm really glad you made it through the movie. I think what's extraordinary about this film is that it's giving voice to a lot of people that haven't felt like they had license to talk about these experiences before and that's really awesome; that's something very special, and I'm really energized by what you just shared. That's meaningful and thousands of people are coming to this film from a similar perspective, and that's doubly meaningful.
WCT: I'm curious: You, too, have been the victim of bullying and you do carry those psychological scars throughout your lifeso how do you sit through the movie over and over again? It must be so painful. Or is it cathartic to see people "get it?"
LH: Truth be told, I don't sit through it a lot anymore. I sit through the beginning and the end. I've seen it a lot but it is cathartic. The thing that's really interesting is that each time I do watch it I get something different from it and it's very personal and it has a lot to do with my relationships with the subjects in the film.
I notice something different and it informs my experience and makes it deeper. Or I think about where they were in terms of where they are now; particularly with Alex and Kelby and I get sort of emotional. It's like the little things that strike me now with the film. But it is always cathartic to be with an audience after the screening; I really appreciate those opportunities.
WCT: Obviously, you've been in all the urban cities with the movie but (and here's a stereotype coming into play) maybe they're a more enlightened audience, but what about these more rural areaswhat's the response there?
LH: Well, we just showed it in two of the cities where it was made and we thought 400 people would come; 1,600 people turned out and we had the most robust conversation. Here's the thing: Bully is not a political film. It is not divisive. It is not a red-state or a blue-state film. Yes, it's possibleI made a documentary that doesn't cater to the left or the right. It's about something that's totally above that. In a time when our country is really divided I actually think this film has the potential to bring communities together without that being an issue and that's been my experience and I'm pretty psyched about that.
WCT: You're seeing all audiences have a change of heart after seeing the movie?
LH: I'm seeing the enthusiasm for the subject and it's not just in New York and L.A. We're getting this response everywhere. It's a movie that everyone can come to and have a conversation around.
WCT: Let's talk a little bit about Kelby, the young lesbian featured in the movie. Talk about an amazing young person and her parents, equally, so. And yet, here again, she and her family are forced to move out of town to get away from the prejudice.
On one hand we seem to have more sensitivity about violence towards gays and lesbians, and less tolerance for those who perpetrate hate crimes. On the other hand, when you see something like this, it's obvious that bullying is where homophobia starts and maybe we haven't come so far.
LH: I think it certainly plays a role and I think when boys are bulliedregardless of their orientationthey're called fags. Girls are sluts and boys are called fags. It's designed to be as hurtful as possible and, absolutely, that's where it starts. And here again, this is why language matters, you know? Words matter.
I will tell you something that's inspiring. Kelby's whole thing when I met her was, "I want to make a stand; I want to make it so other kids don't have to go through what I went through" and she's no longer in that town but she probably wouldn't have been there, anyway. She's 19 now but at the end of my shooting periodthis didn't make it into my film but I shot itthis eighth-grade boy came out in that town and wasn't being bullied and was doing really okay and had lots of friends and support, and Kelby and I talked a lot about how she had really paved the way for that and that her courage had paid off. So, I share that because I think that change is possible everywhere and that communities can be transformed and hopefully these stories will help along that way.
WCT: Thank you so much for sharing that, Lee. That truly is inspiring. I'm very curious about somethingthere's a point in the film with Alex where you decided to break the fourth wall and intercede when you filmed him being physically hurt by one of the bullies. What we don't see is the reaction when you showed the footage to the parents and to school officials. Why? I kept waiting for you to confront in that Michael Moore style.
LH: Well, I'm not Michael Moore!
WCT: No, of course not; of course not.
LH: But that's why this film is going to play in all kinds of communities and speak to all types of political persuasions. I feel like you just asked two questions. You know, like anything, when you're with a family and you're shooting them there's a trust and a relationship and there are things that you don't shoot. It's not in the film because I didn't shoot it because it wasn't appropriate. I wasn't working at that moment; I was being a friend.
WCT: I certainly get that, but what about the school officials or people who could have made a difference?
LH: Well, I didI mean I shot the minute the parents walked in that morning and I revealed as much as I was able to.
WCT: Well, I guess that's just my wanting someone to call out that assistant principal or that bus driver, who both know damn well what's going on and do little or nothing. The indifference is frustrating.
LH: You're completing the stories now.
WCT: [Laughs] I am, I ambut isn't that what people do when presented with a subject like this? There's just a feeling of an overwhelming frustration that comes over you.
LH: Oh, it's infuriating and certainly very frustrating for that family and for those communities that those officials made those choices.
WCT: Well, did you talk to those officials, to the parents of some of those bullies? Or did you make a choice not to?
LH: It's a big narrative you're asking me about and, in another school we shot in, there's a radically different culture and they're actually doing a great job. We just didn't have a story there and, ultimately, film is about story that you can sort of stand by.
We filmed lots of people that are doing great stuff and really great work and there are people in Alex's school that are trying really hard to make a difference; the whole district is trying to make a difference. But the reality is that this is how it happened and for me it was just much more powerful to tell really all of these stories from the perspective of the kids and families. That was my choice. That's what I knew and understood.
See www.thebullyproject.com.When Dallas Eakins was the Maple Leafs director of player development a few years back, he slipped into a rink in small-town Finland unbeknownst to a sixth-round draft pick. The prospect, Leo Komarov, has been called “a very interesting young man” by Dave Poulin, the Leafs executive. And if Komarov is not a 25-year-old version of the beer-commercial Most Interesting Man in the World, he’s certainly worldly. The Estonian-born son of Russian parents, he grew up in Finland attending a Swedish-language school, all the while dreaming of playing in North America’s best hockey league.
The Leafs' Leo Komarov works out during Tuesday's practice at the Mastercard Centre. ( DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR )
He speaks four languages. He’s as comfortable talking about video games and Internet poker as he is about European politics and U.S. gun control. And on the ice, he’s just as compelling a concoction. If a coach so wishes, Komarov is happy to be a battering ram and opposing-crease agitator. But if duty calls, he is also a skilled enough tradesman to have spent part of the NHL lockout manning a KHL forward line with no less than Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. Flashing back to that rink in Finland, Eakins remembers the multilingual forward showing a facility with the universal lexicon of in-game lovelessness.
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“By the time there was about seven minutes left in the first period the whole other team was chasing Leo around trying to kill him,” Eakins said. “They didn’t care about anything else — they were going to get him. And he wasn’t doing anything dirty. He was going to the net and he was hitting hard. But they didn’t like that he was hitting certain players. Teams get discombobulated when Leo does what he does.” If the would-be rookie sounds like a fan favourite in the making, hold that thought. Whether or not Komarov will be discombobulating fellow NHLers come Saturday night will be determined in the coming few days. As of Tuesday afternoon, Komarov was one of 31 players at Maple Leafs training camp. By Friday afternoon at 3 p.m., every club in the league is required to submit a final roster containing the names of 23 players. Leafs coach Randy Carlyle called the impending choices the most difficult decision-making process he’s ever been a part of as a pro. Said Poulin: “It’s a challenging thought process for everyone in the league.” It’s definitely an unprecedented rush to team-making judgment. Though the league partook in a 48-game season in the wake of the 1994-95 lockout, Poulin, who saw his final run as an NHL player coincide with that campaign, pointed out that the circumstances were quite different. In that case, full training camps had been held and teams had been picked before the lockout commenced.
Here, training camp is being crammed into the span of a week, with intra-squad scrimmages subbing in for the usual preseason slate. It’s not exactly the kind of proving ground Komarov envisioned when he signed a one-year contract to play for the Leafs back in May. But he sympathized with those who’ll make the difficult decisions ahead. There are six full forward lines in camp this week, for instance. Those 18 wingers and centres will be reduced to 13 or 14 soon enough. “The coach has got a big problem this year,” said Komarov on Tuesday. “A lot of guys are here and only a couple of days to choose the team. It’s going to be hard for the coach. It’s going to be harder for the players. But I’m used to it. I love everything like this. It’s a big competition out there.”
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The competition is fierce, indeed. Even seemingly entrenched players aren’t necessarily guaranteed a spot. Take David Steckel, the faceoff specialist of a checking-line centre. He was one of Carlyle’s go-to guys at the tail end of last season. But where, for instance, will he find a place in the final 23 now that the Leafs have gone and signed an apparent facsimile in Jay McClement? It’s but one of the many questions facing the Toronto braintrust. Where Komarov fits in is another. On Tuesday, Komarov played with Matt Frattin and McClement; he also worked with the penalty kill unit. But it’d be a mistake to see him as a grind-line specialist given his Moscow-based work with Ovechkin and Backstrom. It’s hardly a stretch to imagine him providing some space-clearing oomph for the likes of Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin. Perhaps his fiery antagonism would be enough to keep the slump-prone Leafs out of the kind of midseason snooze that could prove deadly in the lockout-shortened format. Still, there’s always a question mark beside the name of a player who has zero NHL games to his name. Will Komarov make it? Eakins, who coached the player for 14 games with the AHL Marlies earlier this season, acknowledged there are no guarantees. But the coach suggested this much was for sure. “Let’s say he gets a chance (in the NHL) and he’s on the ice against Sidney Crosby — he |
it" we mean learning about family, friendships, staying safe, healthy relationships, puberty, sexual health and more.
Sex education matters in primary schools because four-year-olds ask where babies come from, five-year-olds browse the internet and six-year-olds want to be popular with their friends. Sex education matters at home because children want their parents to be the first people to talk to them about growing up, sex and relationships. Yet many parents say they lack confidence to answer their children's questions frankly. Sex education matters in secondary schools especially because this is a time when young people come under new pressures from their peers and are reaching for more independence and considering their own views on love, romance and what is acceptable or unacceptable for them.
Today, the consensus of support for SRE is bigger and broader than ever before. SEF represents diverse voices from more than 75 religious, family, youth, disability, health and education organisations. All our member organisations believe sex education matters. For example, Kids, a charity working with young disabled people, joined SEF because clients said their experiences of SRE were "too late" and they were "talked at rather than listened to".
Around 20,000 young people took the time to answer a UK youth parliament survey about SRE; more than a third said their SRE was "bad" or "very bad". That was in 2008 and young people are still saying the same today.
There are signs that SRE is improving but progress is too slow and too patchy. In some primary schools the only SRE is one lesson about puberty taught in the summer term before moving to secondary school and sometimes that will be for the girls only. In other areas primary and secondary schools have worked together to plan a comprehensive curriculum that grows with the child and builds vocabulary and knowledge at an appropriate pace.
It is encouraging that MPs from all parties attended a recent Westminster Hall debate to talk about personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education with loud support for making relationships education part of every child's learning. Ann Coffey MP said "the knowledge that PSHE gives children will help prevent further Rochdale and Jimmy Savile scandals" and she is right. The evidence shows that young people who have had comprehensive SRE that starts early and is taught by trained educators are more likely to have sex for the first time at an older age, with a partner of a similar age and use contraception.
To highlight the consensus that sex education matters and to press for the political support needed to get good quality SRE in all classrooms, we are running 12 months of online discussion and debate.
Lucy Emmerson is co-ordinator of the Sex Education Forumby
I am a fifth generation Montanan and an advocate for protection of the Northern Rockies ecosystem.
Congressman Bruce Westerman (R-AK) and Greg Gianforte (R-MT) claim that the way to fix the problem of wildfires in the West is to log more trees, ignoring the reality of global warming and the effects it is having on fire seasons in the West.
As they have for millennia, Montana’s fire-dependent forests burn when we have hot, dry and windy summers In fact, certain species of pines require fire to release their seeds and reproduce. Like much of the West, Montana experienced worse drought this summer than during the Dust Bowl of the 30s. Some parts of the state suffered extreme drought levels not seen since 1929 and according to the National Weather Service, the “Garden City” of Missoula in forested Western Montana experienced the driest July since record-keeping began in 1893. The result? Severe drought, very high temperatures, and strong winds were responsible for the large wildfires this summer and no amount of logging would have changed that.
Bucking all of the latest science, Westerman and Gianforte suggest we could stop wildfires by clear-cutting more ancient forests, bulldozing more logging roads, and weakening environmental laws and has introduced legislation to accomplish his scientifically unsupported theories. Westerman and Gianforte promote their extreme logging bill, HR 2936, as their answer to forest and fire management. Not only would it allow massive clearcuts of up to 10,000 acres with no environmental analysis, their bill would limit the First Amendment rights of Americans to challenge federal government actions, including logging proposals that do not follow the law.
When logging proposals fail to protect our land, water quality and native wildlife as required by law, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies turns to the courts to force the federal agencies to follow the law – and we win those court challenges 82% of the time.
Given that record of success, it’s no wonder Westerman and Gianforte want to stop citizens from challenging timber sales. Citizen involvement is all that stands in the way of the timber industry further slashing the carbon-sequestering Western forests that currently absorb an astounding 10% of the nation’s entire carbon dioxide emissions, thus limiting the global warming that is increasingly the driver of the wildfires.
The flaw in Westerman’s and Gianforte’s call for more logging is that the latest scientific research shows that protecting old growth and mature forests from logging is an efficient way to slow down wildfires. Old forests contain large trees that are difficult to burn. These large trees provide shade, keep the forest floor cool and damp, and stop the high winds that fan the flames into crowning fires.
Given current science, if Congressmen Westerman and Gianforte really wants to limit Western wildfires they should work with his congressional colleagues to pass the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA) sponsored by Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the House and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in the Senate.
America still has 23 million acres of roadless lands in the Northern Rockies. These areas are mostly unlogged since bulldozing in new roads was prohibited by President Clinton’s “roadless rule.” NREPA would designate these lands as wilderness, which will make them off limits to logging and road-building. Protecting these public lands would also ensure the vital habitat needed by a growing list of threatened and endangered wildlife and plant species.
We are now experiencing “the world’s sixth great extinction event” due to habitat destruction and climate change. Amazingly, the Northern Rockies still sustain all the native species that were here when Europeans first arrived. NREPA will ensure that those species, such as lynx and grizzly bears, will still be around for future generations.
Members of Congress routinely promoting industries that are “politically friendly” is not unusual — and that’s just what Congressmen Westerman and Gianforte are doing. But spending millions in subsidies for timber corporations to clearcut our national forests will actually increase large wildfires in the West. We cannot let Westerman and Gianforte destroy the national forests owned by all Americans, the abundant clean water they produce, and the native ecosystems they sustain.Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor has hired an attorney and issued a statement just two days after shooting and killing Australian native Justine Damond in the alley behind her home as she talked to his partner through the window of their police vehicle.
Damond was in the fact the person who called police in the first place to report a possible assault in the alley.
Details about the shooting as few and far between right now as investigators remain tight lipped about their progress. However, it appears this incident surprised even Noor’s partner. According to a local media report by KARE11:
According to police sources, Noor shot across his partner and out the window of the squad car, striking Damond. When Noor opened fire, his partner was “stunned,” according to the source.
Damond’s death has officially been ruled a homicide by the local coroner and it was revealed by other sources that she was shot multiple times. Dispatch audio documents some of the exchange between the two officers and their dispatcher immediately after the shooting.
According to the Daily Mail:
The call begins just before 11.28pm on Saturday night, when an officer can be heard saying there is a ‘female screaming behind the building’.
The officer says they are performing CPR after ‘shots fired and one down’ and call for other units, including medical, to come to ‘Code 3, Washburn and 53rd St’.
‘No suspects at large,’ the cop tells the dispatcher after around a minute.
Here is the full statement released by Officer Noor:
‘Officer Noor extends his condolences to the family and anyone else who has been touched by this event. He takes their loss seriously and keeps them in his daily thoughts and prayers.’
‘He came to the United States at a young age and is thankful to have had so many opportunities. He takes these events very seriously because, for him, being a police officer is a calling. He joined the police force to serve the community and to protect the people he serves. Officer Noor is a caring person with a family he loves and he empathizes with the loss others are experiencing.’
‘The current environment for police is difficult, but Officer Noor accepts this as part of his calling. We would like to say more, and will in the future. At this time, however, there are several investigations ongoing and Officer Noor wants to respect the privacy to the family and asks the same in return during this difficult period.’
In an interview on Good Morning America Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges expressed her concern that the officer’s body cameras were turned off during the shooting, despite the fact that they should have been on while the officers were responding to an active call.
‘You know, I fought hard to make sure that we have body cameras. They’re a very powerful tool, they’re not an infallible tool, but they’re an important tool in 21st century policing and I don’t know why they weren’t turned on.
‘I don’t know what happened. That’s one of the key questions that we have as the investigations move forward.’
Damond’s family in the United States as well as Australia have both issued statements celebrating her life as well as demanding answers and justice for the shooting.Apple’s iPhone X is many things to many people but the key identifying feature of the notch for the FaceID sensors is something unique from Apple. It’s something that doesn’t put the user first.
If there’s one thing that Tim Cook and his team like to do, it is to go on about how it provides technology “in a way that only Apple can.” The ubiquity of wireless charging in the high-end Android space has been going on for years, but only now has Apple jumped on board. While it does use the Qi standard, it is using an older and slower version. You want faster charging? That will come with Apple’s proprietary system that will come out in 2018. Which is, in a way, technology delivering in a way that only Apple can.
But it’s not ‘new’ technology, so the iPhone X has to lean on another gimmick, that of facial recognition. While there are moments where FaceID will be a better choice than TouchID, I still feel there are far more situations where you would rather use TouchID. But Apple has decided that FaceID is the future, and this problem is the answer to a question.
I’m not sure that the question being answered was one set by the public. The implementation and draconian protection of the notch that holds the sensors feels like an edict from the marketing and design departments, rather than the team working on the human computer interface.
Take the shape of the iPhone X. This was something picked up by The Verge not long after the announcement of the latest smartphone from Cupertino. Up until that model, every iPhone had the circular home key and bezels in roughly similar proportions. That meant that a black outline of the bezels and a white circle under a white screen creates an iconic look. Marketing materials, website images, and in-app iconography could clearly identify that ‘this is an iPhone’.
With the move to ‘all screen’ smartphones and minimal bezels showing in the front-on profile, that iconography is lost in a sea of smartphones with the same design shape. From Samsung and Xiaomi, to Huawei and LG, and beyond, the smartphone is losing distinctiveness.
Not with the notch. Now the iPhone has something that makes it both ‘all screen’ and ‘all iPhone’. The notch is the identifier, and who cares how awkward and MacGyvered it looks.
The obvious solution - use the OLED properties to create a black strip including the notch for a solid status bar with signal strength, battery reserves and other indicators - has been disallowed by Apple. Because every iOS app goes through the App Store and has to meet Apple’s design criteria, the edict is to leave it alone. The notch must remain as Apple intended:
Don't attempt to hide the device's rounded corners, sensor housing, or indicator for accessing the Home screen by placing black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Don't use visual adornments like brackets, bezels, shapes, or instructional text to call special attention to these areas either.
If it interferes with your app, if it creates awkward issues around scroll bars, text flow, landscape views, tough. Apple’s awkward notch is clearly vital to Apple, so do not minimize its impact.
Web designers have essentially been told the same, with an update to webkit adding in CSS code for ‘safe areas’ on the screen. In other words Apple’s funky design means that this edge to edge screen is actually a screen within some areas that you should never touch. Again Apple’s design instincts force everyone to follow its own vision… even if that vision is flawed.
The problem with all of these arguments is that they ride roughshod over the biggest concern that I have. How Apple is handling the Notch makes for a poor user experience.
That’s not to say that users will not become accustomed to it. The problems will always be there. Regular usage will mean that it is worked around, it will be accommodated, and it will become normalised…. but it will always be a tiny point of unacknowledged pain in use.
The notch might make for a poor user experience… but it makes for a great marketing experience. Is this what Apple is now? You should be able to draw strength from limitations, but when the limitations are self-inflicted and the simple solutions that improve the product are restricted, then the exercise becomes less about overcome adversity and more about projecting a message to the world.
And that message feels like “look at us! We’re Apple! We’re special!” If special is putting the marketing and branding before the consumer, then I agree.
Now read more about Tim Cook’s changes to the iOS UI with the iPhone X…This email has also been verified by Google DKIM 2048-bit RSA key
Re: Topper for New Hampshire
Truth Sent from my iPhone On Apr 19, 2015, at 4:20 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote: I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans, but I think we should use it once the first time she says I'm running for president because you and everyday Americans need a champion. I think if she doesn't say it once, people will notice and say we false started in Iowa. On Apr 19, 2015 3:58 PM, "Jake Sullivan" <jake.sullivan@gmail.com> wrote: > We are. Will insert something in next couple hours. > > > > On Apr 19, 2015, at 3:48 PM, Jennifer Palmieri < > jpalmieri@hillaryclinton.com> wrote: > > I think this looks good, but thought we were going to take one of the > small biz policy ideas - like access to credit - highlight that in her > remarks? > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Apr 19, 2015, at 3:46 PM, Dan Schwerin <dschwerin@hillaryclinton.com> > wrote: > > Based on Iowa experience, she'll use it as a guide but stay reasonably > close. > > On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Robby Mook <re47@hillaryclinton.com> > wrote: > >> These are TPs that she will use as a guide or is she going to deliver >> this as written? >> >> On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 2:53 PM, Dan Schwerin < >> dschwerin@hillaryclinton.com> wrote: >> >>> Here's what I'm thinking for NH topper. Took some of her language from >>> the Fruit Company transcript, added in the bowling alley story and NH >>> specific stats. Thoughts? >>> >>> >>> *HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON* >>> >>> *REMARKS AT WHITNEY BROTHERS* >>> >>> *KEENE, NEW HAMPSHIRE* >>> >>> *MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2015* >>> >>> >>> >>> I’m delighted to be here at Whitney Brothers, a great family-owned and >>> operated small business in the classic New Hampshire tradition. I just had >>> a chance to see some of the high-quality, high-skilled work here, marrying >>> new technology with 100 years of dedication and craftsmanship. >>> >>> And of course I love that you’re designing furniture specifically for >>> the needs of our youngest children and their parents. When I had Chelsea, >>> a crib was just a crib. But today, as I’ve learned since my granddaughter >>> was born, so much more care and expertise goes into everything for our >>> babies. So thank you for being pioneers in an area that’s so important to >>> every new family. >>> >>> I wanted to come here on my first day in New Hampshire because small >>> businesses like Whitney Brothers are the backbone of this state’s economy >>> and a key to jumpstarting growth and innovation across our country. [Small >>> businesses employ more than half of all of New Hampshire’s private sector >>> workers – and they create two out of every three new jobs in the state.] >>> >>> When I was growing up, my father ran a small business in Chicago – and I >>> mean very small. He printed fabric for draperies and then he went out and >>> sold them. Sometimes he could hire a few day laborers to help, sometimes >>> my mom and my brothers and I pitched in. But mostly he was doing >>> everything himself. He was a real waste-not want-not, pay-as-you-go, no >>> complaining kind of guy. So I learned early on just how tough it is to >>> make a business like this work. >>> >>> >>> >>> I’m sure you all have your own stories and experiences about this. When >>> I was in Iowa last week, a young man told me about what it was like trying >>> to buy the bowling alley where he had worked as a teenager. >>> >>> >>> >>> He had experience, talent, a college degree, and a plan to build a great >>> business. But he also had a lot of student debt. Not because he was >>> irresponsible and living beyond his means. Because he did was he was >>> supposed to do. He got an education. He invested in his own future. But >>> all the banks saw was debt. So it was a real struggle. >>> >>> >>> >>> And that’s the opposite of what we want to see in this country – which >>> is more young people being able to start businesses, create jobs, and live >>> their dreams. >>> >>> >>> >>> Here in New Hampshire and across our country, Americans have come back >>> from tough economic times. Our economy and our country are in much better >>> shape because families did whatever it took to make it work. >>> >>> >>> >>> Unemployment is down, and in most places homes are worth something real >>> again. Americans are starting to think about the future again. Going back >>> to school. Changing jobs. Starting a business. Doing the right things to >>> get ahead. >>> >>> >>> >>> But as that young man in Iowa experienced, all the breaks still seem to >>> go to those already at the top. There’s something wrong when it’s so easy >>> for big corporations to get a tax break but so hard for small businesses to >>> get a loan. >>> >>> >>> >>> America ranks 46th in the world in how hard it is to start a new >>> business. We should be number one. It takes longer to start a business in >>> the United State than in France. >>> >>> >>> >>> Now, New Hampshire is one of the best places in the country to start a >>> business. You’ve got fewer onerous regulations that defy commonsense, like >>> excessive occupational licensing that keeps young people from entering new >>> fields. And your terrific governor, Maggie Hassan, created a program to >>> help people who lost their jobs in the recession get back on their feet and >>> start new businesses. That’s an idea we should be looking at expanding >>> across the country. >>> >>> >>> >>> So I want to hear directly from all of you about your own experiences >>> and your own dreams -- about the obstacles and the successes that you’ve >>> encountered and what we can do to help more small businesses thrive. >>> >>> >>> >>> I’m running for President because you and Americans everywhere need a >>> champion. And I want to be that champion. So you can do more than just >>> get by -- you can get ahead and stay ahead. And starting a small business >>> seems less like a gamble and more like an opportunity. >>> >>> I’m taking on four big fights: >>> >>> First, we need to build an economy for tomorrow, instead of yesterday, >>> where being middle class means something again. And that starts right here >>> with small businesses like Whitney Brothers, creating good jobs and helping >>> people get ahead. >>> >>> Second, we need to strengthen our families and communities, because when >>> families are strong, America is strong. >>> >>> Third, it’s time to fix our broken political system. I want to get >>> things done, so I’ll work with anyone who has a good idea. But I’ll also >>> take on the powerful forces trying to take us backwards. We need to get >>> rid of all the unaccountable money, even if it takes a constitutional >>> amendment. >>> >>> Fourth, I’ll protect our country from the threats that we see, and the >>> ones that are on the horizon. >>> >>> All four of these fights will put us up against some pretty powerful >>> opposition. But I’ve spent my whole life fighting for children, for >>> families, standing up for America. And I think people know... I don’t >>> quit. >>> >>> For me, this really is about doing everything I can to make sure that >>> every child -- not just my grandchild, but every child -- has a chance to >>> live up to his or her God-given potential. That’s what I was raised to >>> believe by my church and my family, and that’s what I’ll be fighting for in >>> this campaign. >>> >>> >>> >>> I’m going to work my heart out to earn every vote -- starting with >>> yours. >>> >>> >>> >>> Thank you for helping me start this campaign here in New Hampshire. >>> Now, I’m eager to hear from you how these challenges are impacting your >>> lives and your businesses, to share some of my ideas, to ask you some >>> questions, and to answer some of yours. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> >A Tamil Nadu folk singer and anti-alcohol campaigner was arrested on sedition charges in Tiruchirappalli on Friday for allegedly uploading defamatory content on social media against chief minister Jayalalithaa and making insulting remarks on her at a village function.
The arrest of Shiva Raj aka Comrade Kovan, the 54-year-old lead singer of Peoples Art and Literary Association (PALA), is viewed as another instance of intolerance against artistic freedom at a time of growing protests by academics, scientists and artists across the country.
But police officers said they have clinching evidence to nail the little-known theatre personality and singer, who appears on stage in a dhoti and a deep-red turban and plays a traditional drum.
“He uploaded electronic content like videos, lyrics which were seditious, provoked people against the state; these were highly defamatory of the government and chief minister Jayalalithaa,” a top police officer said.
“The content had slanderous references to DMK chief Karunanidhi as well.”
A member of the ultra-Left cultural organisation Makkal Kalai Ilakiya Kazhagam, he was whisked away to Chennai soon after his arrest at his Trichi home around 2:30am.
Kovan has been a nagging pain for the administration because of his sustained campaign for total prohibition in the state and closure of government-run TASMAC liquor shops.
An officer said the lyrics of his song, Moodu Tasmacai Moodu (shut down TASMAC), were highly seditious and slanderous.
The alleged defamatory videos were uploaded in some Tamil websites and these went viral in messaging mediums such as WhatsApp.
The action against Kovan follows the recent arrest of youths owing allegiance to a Left-leaning social outfit, who have allegedly damaged some state-run liquor outlets.
Kovan has been organising skits and similar events with sharp anti-government views, demanding a total ban on alcohol, a major issue in a state where National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data show more than 1,500 people died because of spurious or illicit liquor between 2005 and 2014.
The demand for a complete ban on the sale of liquor has triggered a series of protests in the state this year, gaining strength after a Gandhian anti-liquor activist died in the middle of a demonstration in Kanyakumari.
(With inputs from agencies)
First Published: Oct 30, 2015 17:15 ISTIf you’re into all-grain brewing a little automation goes a long way. [Tom Hargrave] had his eye on a Recirculating Infusion Mash System (RIMS) but the price tag kept him from pulling the trigger. Recently he bit the bullet and built his own small and inexpensive RIMS for use with the 10 gallon cooler he uses as a mash tun.
Mashing is the part of brewing process that collects sugars from the milled grains. Water needs to move through the grain mash and should be kept within a narrow temperature window. This RIMS hardware does that automatically by combining a pump, the heating element from an electric water heater, and a temperature sensor. The wooden disc fits on the top of the mash tun and tubing lets the pump move the liquids as needed. The one thing missing from this build is the PID controller to automate the process. After the break we’ve embedded a video from a separate project that shows off how the PID control would work with a system like this one.
If you’re into automated home brewing you’ll also like this mini-batch brewing setup.Chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Sudanese Nubians who lived nearly 2000 years ago shows they were ingesting the antibiotic tetracycline on a regular basis, likely from a special brew of beer. The find is the strongest yet that antibiotics were previously discovered by humans before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928.
"I'm going to ask Alexander Fleming to hand back his Nobel Prize," joked chemist Mark Nelson, who works on developing new tetracyclines at Paratek Pharmaceuticals and is lead author of the paper published June in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Nelson found large amounts of tetracycline in the bones tested from the ancient population, which lived in the Nubian kingdom (present day Sudan) between 250 A.D. and 550 A.D. and left no written record.
"The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time," Nelson said in a press release August 30. "I'm convinced that they had the science of fermentation under control and were purposely producing the drug."
"This discovery will provide a whole new framework for understanding the relationship between microbes and antibiotics," said anthropologist Dennis Van Gerven of University of Colorado at Boulder. "There might have been other populations that were also doing the same thing, anywhere that there were these microbes. This is going to drive other scientists to start this search, and that is incredibly important."
Scientists have suspected this population was ingesting tetracycline since they first noticed a florescent yellow-green appearance of the bones under ultraviolet light, indicative of tetracycline.
"When we reported that in 1981, it was met with a lot of skepticism," said anthropologist George Armelagos of Emory University, who made the original discovery and is co-author of this new study. "If you were unwrapping an Egyptian mummy and suddenly it had Ray-Ban sunglasses on it, that's what it was like with us."
Tetracycline latches on to calcium and gets deposited in bones, which is how it can be detected it in fossils. The ultraviolet light technique said little about how much tetracycline there was in the bone, and it was hard to convince others it wasn't simply a produced of microbial contamination of the bones, or a one-time beer event.
Nelson was able to solve the problem by dissolving the bones in hydrogen flouride, the nastiest acid on the planet, he said. He was able to clearly identify the amount and identity of the tetracycline in the bones. It was in all the bones, including those of a four-year-old child.
Armelagos, who specializes in reconstructing ancient diets, proposed that the Nubians made the tetracycline in their beer. There is evidence they knew how to make it, he says. Tetracycline is produced by a soil bacteria called streptomyces, which is how it was discovered by modern society in the 1940s. Streptomyces thrives in warm, arid regions such as that of ancient Nubia, and likely contaminated a batch of beer.
They must have known how to propagate the beer because they were doing it to make wine, Nelson says. There was also so much of it in their bones that it is near impossible that the tetracycline-laced beer was a fluke event.
To make sure that making the antibiotic beer was possible, Armelagos had his graduate students give it a try.
"What they were making wasn't like a Bud Light but a cereal gruel," Armelagos said. "My students said that it was 'not bad,' but it is like a sour porridge substance. The ancient people would have drained the liquid off and also eaten the gruel."
The Nubians likely noticed the antibiotics cured them of bacterial infection. It may have had negative effects as well: If taken in too large quantities the antibiotic can also cause iron deficiency because it latches on to the iron in the body.
Streptomyces produces a golden-colored bacterial colony that would have floated on top of the beer and likely encouraged its propagation. Gold was revered by the ancient cultures.
When and why the antibiotic beer secret was lost is a mystery. It is not the first technology to disappear with the disappearance of cultures. Armelagos is continuing to look for the tetracycline in the bones of different cultures. He says he has already found preliminary evidence it is in bones of people who date to as late as 1300 to 1400 A.D.
Armelagos hopes this find might also help explain why animals have been found with antibiotic resistance in Northern Africa where there is no previous evidence of antibiotics being used.
About a quarter of the grain in Africa is still made into beer, Armelagos says.
*Images: 1) Ancient Egyptian figures show workers grinding, baking and fermenting grain to make beer and bread./**Andreas Praefcke. 2) Green florescence in Nubian skeletons indicating tetracycline-labeled bone./Armelagos. *
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Follow us on Twitter @jessmcnally and @wiredscience, and on Facebook.A Russian official says that the United States and Moscow are negotiating to set up a joint cybersecurity working group.
Andrey Krutskikh, a top adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin on information security, was cited in Moscow’s RIA news agency on Thursday as saying that talks on the joint group were ongoing.
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President Trump raised eyebrows when he said following a meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, that the two had discussed setting up “an impenetrable cybersecurity unit” to protect against hacking related to elections.
After receiving broad criticism, Trump walked back the statement, saying it “can’t happen.”
Last week, a White House official told reporters that the unit could be pursued in the future but indicated that it would be meant to start a dialogue about norms in cyberspace and would not involve sharing intelligence.
“What was broached at that [Group of 20] conversation, as I understand it, was an opportunity to continue a dialogue — one that had in the past existed between the two countries, and I think one that we could pursue in the future with the appropriate reservations and the appropriate expectations, that we at least start with what is acceptable behavior in cyberspace and what norms and expectations that we'll have moving forward,” White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Moscow directed hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in an effort to influence the 2016 presidential election — a matter Trump said he raised twice during his meeting with the Russian president. Russia has repeatedly denied having a hand in the effort.
Trump has come under increased scrutiny in recent days after it was revealed that he and Putin had a second, previously undisclosed conversation on the sidelines of the summit in Germany earlier this month.
The federal investigation into Russian interference — which includes looking at potential ties between Trump's campaign and Moscow — has dogged the first months of Trump's presidency.By Nathen Amin
The Exile
The rise of Henry Tudor from relative obscurity to become king of England is a tale that although renowned probably deserves greater attention than it has been afforded. Having been pursued through south Wales in the late-spring of 1471 after the Lancastrian capitulation at Tewkesbury in May, Jasper Tudor once more succeeded in escaping his enemies and managed to reach Tenby Harbour, where a boat was awaiting him to take him back to France. This time he had with him his 14 year old nephew Henry. Together they set out for the open sea and for France where they would seek refuge with their Valois relations. Fortune had different plans for the pair however. The Tudors were blown of course and were forced to alight at Le Conquet in the extreme west of the independent Duchy of Brittany. Unsure what would greet them as they made their way inland from the scenic Breton Coast and towards the Breton court at Nantes, the Tudors had begun their twelve year exile in the Duchy of Brittany.
Refugees
The Tudor uncle and nephew met with Francis II in Nantes and shadowed the court to Vannes having successfully been granted a degree of asylum within the Dukedom, albeit as privileged prisoners as opposed to free citizens. Littered with many impressive structures across his lands, the Duke’s first action was to have Henry and Jasper placed within the picturesque Chateau de Suscinio in the southern part of Morbihan around October 1472, just over a year after they first washed up on Duke Francis’ shores. Situated on the protruding Rhuys peninsula and overlooking the Gulfe de Morbihan, this idyllic and rural Chateau was an impressive structure with a large and imposing gate guarded by two huge cylinder towers divided by a typical drawbridge across the moat. Further improving both the defences of the chateau and the scenic view from atop the ramparts was the lake that is situated just beyond the moat. Escape would have been difficult. Henry and Jasper’s stay here would initially have been comfortable and liberal as they were welcomed guests of Duke Francis. The Chateau was built as a kind of pleasure palace for the dukes on the coast and was naturally a pleasant retreat. It can be assumed that both Tudors would have revelled in hunting on the plentiful lands that surrounded the chateau as well as fishing in the bountiful Atlantic Coast which begun only a few hundred metres from their apartments.
Although things had begun in this fashion it was not a situation that would last. Their increasing status as pawns in the great diplomatic three-way tussle between the squabbling Bretons, French and English would gradually see the Tudors situation become more restricted. The English demanded they were treated as monitored prisoners whilst the French commanded they were put under stricter control so as to stop them being captured by the English. King Edward clearly wanted to extinguish this distant but last remaining line of the House of Lancaster and to finally secure his own House of York beyond all doubt whereas King Louis wanted the Tudors to use as a bargaining chip against England. Louis XI was also the first cousin of Jasper Tudor as his father King Charles VII was the brother of Jasper’s mother Catherine of Valois, the dowager Queen of England whom had scandalously married her servant Owen Tudor after her husband Henry V’s death.
This, Louis believed, meant he had right to the guardianship of his kinsmen. Duke Francis, undoubtedly with some reluctance after initially extolling himself as a gracious and respectful host, was forced to accept such terms and the Tudors movements subsequently began to be more limited. Finally the access to the sea was seen as more of a curse than a blessing as it was seen to be too exposed to the possibility of English attack. The Tudors stay at this scenic chateau was abruptly cut short and they were urgently relocated and perhaps of more concern to the pair, separated. Jasper was sent to the Chateau de Josselin whilst young Henry was placed in the formidable confines of Chateau de Largoet in Elven.
Prisoners
Josselin is situated in the heart of Brittany and the scenery surrounding the Chateau would have been dramatically different to the view Jasper Tudor would have become accustomed to in Suscinio. The Atlantic Ocean had been replaced by the conjoining green masses of grassy hills and tall trees as far as the eye could see. The chateau is in the heart of a medieval town with the historic town walls running parallel to the roads. It was the ducal home of the preeminent Rohan family.
Standing at the base of the fortress wall, the height of the three connected towers that compromise today’s modern Chateau is truly astonishing and would surely have been a behemoth of the Middle Ages. One can only imagine the effect it would have had on Jasper as he stood beneath the towers for the first time, particularly as the castle would still have had many of its other towers still intact. Jasper was moved here at some point between 1473 and 1474 and would have either entered through the opulent gate in the town square or perhaps through the smaller gate through which visitors today enter the Chateau in the centre of the town itself. The castle would have been intact at this period, with nine towers and complete walls merely reinforcing this formidable structure. After it was slighted at a later period only four of the towers remain today but from the courtyard one still gets a feeling how impressive this fortress would have been. On the right hand side is the modern day Chateau and |
the project through the planning process. He supported its change of use from office to residential and sponsored legislation that made the building eligible for historic tax credits.
Now, a dozen years later, Peskin said the Ritz owners have “had their day in court. The board committee correctly found that their concerns were not valid. The DaDa Bar has actually been in their neighborhood for 10 years. It’s right around the corner. I hope that the Ritz residents will take the time to become patrons at the DaDa Bar.”
A lot at stake
Ritz condo owner Norman Chung said that the many elderly people in the building have a lot at stake in continuing to oppose the liquor license transfer.
“Any stranger at the bar could walk into the garage, and there would be no one there to protect us,” he said.
For the Mechanics’ Institute, the DaDa Bar lease is economically vital. The nonprofit library and chess room that has been in the Post Street building since 1910 has more than 4,000 members, but their $95-a-year membership fee covers only 7 to 9 percent of expenses. The rest of the organization’s budget comes from its endowment, fundraising and rents from the building, which is leased out to between 40 and 50 small tenants, a mix of writers, nonprofits and professionals.
Scanlan said his immediate concern is making sure DaDa Bar employees have a new venue to go to when their lease expires in October.
“What they are proposing is a perfectly legitimate business in a properly zoned location,” he said. “There shouldn’t be this kind of protest.”
J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineenA West Coast man is 'freaked out' afer coming face to face last night with what he claims was a UFO, parked on the road outside the entrance to Shantytown.
Mathew Robert, a mechanic from Rutherglen, insists he is not alone and that three other cars were also confronted by the night-time visitor on Rutherglen Road, south of Greymouth, about 8.45pm.
When the car-‐shaped object suddenly lifted into the sky in a blinding light, he and the other drivers left in such a hurry they left skid marks on the road.
"I was changing a CD as I was driving and when I looked up I saw what looked like a car without its lights on, stopped in the middle of the road outside Shantytown. I slammed on my brakes and my eyes were still trying to focus, when suddenly the thing just lit up and shot into the sky," Mr Robert said.
"When I came to my senses I noticed that there were three other cars that had stopped on the other side of the road as well. It's weird that no one else has come forward because those people obviously would have seen the same thing I did."
He claims that immediately following the incident he lost all cellphone reception, his vision was blurry and his eyes watery for about an hour afterwards.
Mr Robert was driving into Greymouth at the time to pick up his partner, Charlotte Rose, from work at the hospital. He arrived there bug-‐eyed and agitated.
Ms Rose said he was visibly shaken.
"I just looked at him and I could tell something bad had happened, he was freaked out and his eyes were watery," Ms Rose said.
Coincidentally, Mr Robert had been looking at the night sky in real-time via his smartphone on an app called the Night Sky a few minutes previous.
"I was sitting at home before I went to town and I was looking at satellites and other things on my phone. Suddenly, what looked like a satellite started going crazy and moving all over the sky and I was trying to follow it with my phone."
Mr Robert said he hoped the witnesses from the other cars would also come forward and confirm what he saw. One vehicle was a Mitsubishi Chariot and another a Honda Accord. He did not have a description of the third vehicle.A New Democrat government would create a new parliamentary office to provide solid scientific advice and analysis to politicians, and would encourage scientists to speak their minds, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said Wednesday.
Speaking near Iqaluit at what he called Ground Zero of climate change, Mulcair slammed Conservative Leader Stephen Harper for muzzling federal scientists.
"At a time when the prime minister should have been fighting climate change, Stephen Harper created a climate of fear within our scientific community," Mulcair said.
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"We will remove the muzzle from Canadian scientists. We will end the climate of fear in the public service."
The NDP leader accused the Conservative government of firing more than 4,000 federal researchers in the past four years and stripping others of the right to share their work.
The office of the parliamentary science officer would help restore respect for the country's scientists and put scientific evidence at the core of the fight against climate change, which Mulcair called the defining issue of our generation, and an issue critical to the North.
"I never thought that, as an elected official, I would ever one day have to say that I actually believe in science," he said on the shore of Frobisher Bay in the community of Apex.
"But that's where we are under Stephen Harper."
A parliamentary science office would allow for evidence-based decision making rather than Harper's "decision-based evidence making," Mulcair said.
The Liberals have also committed to setting up a chief science officer for Canada.
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As part of his plan, Mulcair pledged $100 million in help for 25 northern and remote communities to wean themselves from the "dirty diesel" generators on which their electricity depends.
"It's a paradox, because you're in some of the most pristine places on the planet Earth," he said.
In place of imported diesel, which accounts for a large part of the Nunavut's energy costs, would come small-scale hydro, wind, solar and other green-power projects, he said.
Mulcair has previously outlined plans to introduce a cap-and-trade system and put a price on carbon to reduce Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions. Provinces which meet or exceed the targets with their own initiatives would be allowed to opt out.
The NDP leader, who also used his time in Iqaluit to promote his pledge to help northerners defray the cost of their food, planned to spend the next few days in Montreal.
On Friday, he will take part in a French-language debate — the fifth debate of the Oct. 19 campaign.A few weeks ago a clinic in Mumbai claimed to have identified a dozen patients with a strain of tuberculosis (TB) resistant to all known treatments. TB is a highly contagious lung infection that kills about 1.5 million people each year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), so the development of a totally untreatable form of the disease would be cause for alarm. "It conveys that there is no hope, that not a single drug works," says Madhukar Pai, a tuberculosis researcher at McGill University in Montreal.
Fortunately, it does not appear that the Mumbai cases are completely untreatable. After evaluating the cases last week, India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported that the patients actually had "extensively drug-resistant" tuberculosis, a form of the disease that is difficult to treat, but not incurable. Although three of the 12 patients have died, the other nine are reportedly being treated with antibiotics used to treat extensively drug-resistant TB, such as clofazimine and rifabutin.
Still, the case has prompted WHO to schedule a meeting in March to discuss the merits of creating a new "totally drug-resistant” category of tuberculosis. Most likely, "extensively drug-resistant," or XDR, will remain the top level of tuberculosis threat. For one thing, current laboratory tests for determining drug-resistant TB are not reliable enough to rule out all TB drugs conclusively, particularly three of the six classes of second-line drugs. "The tests aren't highly reproducible," says Peter Cegielski, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's drug-resistant TB program. "You can even get different results from the same patient specimen."
WHO cannot designate a new disease category without clear, quantifiable diagnostic criteria. For example, XDR-TB is defined as tuberculosis that is resistant to the main first-line TB drugs—rifampin and isoniazid—and to two or more of the second-line drugs for which there are reliable susceptibility tests.
There are also new tuberculosis drugs on the horizon, including two that will likely be available to patients in the next few years, making the timing of adding a "totally drug-resistant" TB category impractical.
That doesn't mean, however, that it is impossible for an untreatable form of TB to exist. "It's reasonable to discuss it," Cegielski says. It also does not mean that public health workers can rest easy. Drug-resistant TB remains a huge problem worldwide. Not only does it take months or, in some cases, years to treat, but once drug-resistant strains develop, they can be passed from person to person.
What the recent Indian case really highlights, rather than the potential for total drug-resistance, is the need for consistent tuberculosis management worldwide, says Carole Mitnick, a public health researcher at Harvard University who specializes in the treatment of drug-resistant TB. "It reflects the lack of equal access to quality care and treatment," she says.
For example, tuberculosis medications are highly restricted in some countries, such as Brazil, but are more freely available in others. In India, where there are about two million new TB cases a year, it is possible to get some TB drugs from pharmacies without a prescription, says McGill's Pai, who is from India and has studied TB treatment there. "A lot of patients won't take the full course [of antibiotics], and then they start a new drug. That's the pattern that leads to drug resistance," he says. A study published in PLoS One last year found excessive private market sales of TB drugs in several countries, including India and Indonesia, implying misuse.
The new, soon-to-be-released TB drugs have been specifically developed to address drug-resistant strains, but experts warn that without proper disease management, patients will become resistant to the new treatments before they can do much good.
Some Indian news reports have criticized the Mumbai clinic for causing unnecessary panic, but the fact that it is identifying and reporting such cases is a good sign, Cegielski says. "In the past 10 years, there has been this tidal wave of developing countries discovering drug-resistant TB cases," he adds. The problem itself is not new, but now it is better documented thanks to increased awareness and improved access to drug-resistant screening technologies. "There are still probably more cases of highly drug-resistant tuberculosis than we know about," Cegielski says.
Tuberculosis may not be as pressing a concern in the U.S., where in 100,000 people there are only about 3.6 cases (pdf), compared with 280 in Southeast Asia and 450 in Africa, according to WHO. But in the age of drug-resistant TB, every nation is vulnerable. As the nonprofit Stop TB Partnership said in a recent campaign, "TB anywhere is TB everywhere."Gabe Fernos’ urge to compete has driven him – quite literally – to attain one of the most respected honors in his profession. The 48-year-old driver for Spokane Transit Authority was named the best driver in North America after finishing first in his class last week at the 2014 International Bus Roadeo in Kansas City, Missouri.
“I’m in it for the long haul and looking to compete many more times,” Fernos said. “Once you go, you want to win. And once you win, you want to win again.”
A driver with 22 years of experience with STA, Fernos outdrove his opponents in the 38th annual event that tests bus operators’ ability to maneuver vehicles through pylons and barrels while racing against the clock. On May 4, Fernos scored 664 out of a possible 700 points in claiming the title in the 40-foot bus division. He competed against 53 other operators from the U.S. and Canada.
The “roadeo” was sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association with the organization’s Bus and Paratransit Conference and held in the parking lot outside Kansas City’s Kemper Arena. Winners were announced May 6. Fernos, a native of Puerto Rico, began driving for STA in 1992 after serving in the U.S. Army from 1984 to 1991. A mechanic in the service, Fernos said he wanted to do something else when he applied for a job as an operator.
“As a little kid, my next-door neighbor was a driver and I would see him go to work and come home in his uniform,” Fernos said. “When the opportunity presented itself, I thought it would be a nice way to earn a living.”
He added, “I feel good doing it and we provide a great service. We get people moving and get them from point A to point B.”
Fernos is a married father of three whose wife, Becky, also is a veteran. He normally drives a 60-foot articulated bus with an accordion middle section from Spokane to Cheney and the campus of Eastern Washington University.
Downsizing to a 40-foot bus for the competition was a snap. He won the local and state 40-foot finals this past year.
At the international roadeo – his seventh trip there – Fernos won by a slim, five-point margin over Daniel Schmidt of Richland. Schmidt had won five international titles; Fernos’ best previous finish in the international was fourth, in 2009.
Gabe Beliz, another operator with Richland’s Ben Franklin Transit and a student of Schmidt’s, won the 35-foot roadeo title for the second straight year against 16 rival drivers. STA chief Susan Meyer called Fernos’ title “a tremendous accomplishment for him and evidence of his tremendous skill as a coach operator.”
Fernos said his STA uniform gives him confidence to handle obstacles.
“Everybody has a bad day here and there, but when you put on that uniform, you are responsible not only for yourself but your company and profession – a very old profession,” Fernos said. “You respect others in uniform and it kind of makes people feel safe. They understand you are in charge of the bus and in charge of, not them, but their well-being.”EMBED >More News Videos Meteorologist Amy Freeze has the latest details on Hurricane Jose preparations on Long Island.
EMBED >More News Videos Anthony Johnson reports from Belmar on how New Jersey is preparing for the storm.
Jose has weakened to a tropical storm as it stirs up dangerous surf and rip currents along the Long Island and New Jersey shores.Forecasters said the storm was unlikely to make landfall, but expect the rough surf and rip currents will continue along the East Coast of the U.S. for several days.A tropical storm warning was posted for coastal areas further north, in Rhode Island and Massachusetts but a tropical storm watch was discontinued for Long Island.Jose's center was about 195 miles south of Nantucket Island, Mass. Wednesday morning with winds of 70 miles per hour. It is forecast to pass well east of New Jersey's coast Wednesday.Eastern Long Island was expected to be the hardest hit in our area, and crews geared up for heavy rain and wind. Dix Hills is serving as the base for emergency operations.Amy Freeze reports from Montauk:PSEG Long Island has bolstered its ranks with out-of-state crews to help work on any power outages and downed trees.The head of state emergency management, Kevin Wisely, said that officials are especially keeping an eye on conditions in eastern Suffolk County.Gov. Andrew Cuomo says efforts have been made to improve communication following Superstorm Sandy.Cuomo says it's better to "err on the side of caution" amid unpredictable weather patterns.He says people should prepare their property and "use common sense" - and, if the storm gets bad, "just stay home."In New Jersey, officials say a fishing pier at the shore that was rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy has suffered damage from high waves caused by Hurricane Jose.And they fear the damage at the Belmont Fishing Club pier in Belmar may worsen during high tide.Belmar Mayor Matthew Doherty says a support beam has already detached and pilings were knocked loose in the morning waves.Construction on the pier was completed in 2015 after it was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy. Stephanie Engelstad, business manager for the private club, says they will have to wait until the storm is over to review the new damage.Anthony Johnson reports from Belmar:Wave heights are expected to top out between 10 and 15 feet, with the strongest winds over eastern Long Island gusting up to 50 mph. Farther west, including the New York City area, winds can gust over 30 mph at times into early Wednesday.Authorities are warning people to stay out of the ocean because of dangerous rip currents. Big waves caused by Jose swept five people off a coastal jetty in Rhode Island and they were hospitalized after being rescued.---Some information from The Associated PressMichelle Chong might be known more for her comedic turns on shows such as The Noose.
But her Facebook post on July 22 discussing what she felt S’poreans lacked provoked more nervous collar tugging than hearty laughs.
Here it is.
In case you can’t read it.
I honestly think Singapore would be a better place if people really just take pride in their work. I think we have so much potential to be special, to set trends, to be leaders, to be extremely good at something. We have a high literacy rate and are fairly bilingual and well-travelled. We have access to information and resources and we don’t have to worry about civil wars, famines, natural disasters, guns, drugs, political unrest and homelessness (majority of us anyway). But I am starting to think and feel that people here generally don’t care about what they do, which is something I don’t understand. If they don’t take ownership or have any pride in their work and just have a “pass up homework” heck care attitude, how do they get any enjoyment or fulfilment out of their jobs? Won’t they just be miserable all the time? Because It’s not really about the money is it? Monetary rewards are great and all, but I know I get fulfilment when audiences love what we create for them. Likewise, I get very upset when things go wrong (especially when they didn’t have to) and we constantly try to improve. In the past year, I’ve had a post-house ruin my production at the last stage, causing it to have sound distortion and the colours all washed-out at the media screening. Luckily the content saved it from being bashed. I also had a ID company who left me tiles that could be peeled off from the wall and a constant sewage stench because they didn’t bother to seal up the pipes, amongst other shoddy work. In the course of my work, I experience and come across many instances where people really just don’t care about what they do. They don’t check their work, don’t care about how it turns out, don’t take that extra step to value-add or think about how to make it better, don’t want to improve etc. It’s a “why should I bother? It’s not like I’m getting paid very much for this job” or “please lah it’s just a job right?” or “do extra for what? I’m still getting the same salary right?” attitude. I’m not saying we don’t or can’t make mistakes, but maybe just have a little more pride in what we do?
And there were many who agreed, with some even providing relevant anecdotes.
Others provided reasons why they felt there might be a dearth in pride for the average Singaporean worker.
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The best response though came from this intrepid insurance agent who somehow brilliantly pivoted his comment into an advertisement for himself.
And Chong approves as well.
This one really champioern.
Image from trailer of Lulu
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4 real life versions of comic book superpowers you used to read about in your childhoodMeerut, India - On a midweek afternoon in Meerut's centuries-old Gudri Bazar, a buffalo meat trader called Gufran Farooq displays the blade of a cleaver against his palm. There are no bloodstains, he points out: the knife is far too clean. So is the marble counter-top, the kheema (meat) grinder, and the S-shaped hooks hanging from the bar above.
"The situation is serious," he says. "Everything in my life has come to a standstill." He nods towards the lane, which lies strangely quiet between the shuttered shopfronts. "The stray dogs are getting thin."
For more than six weeks, no buffalo meat has been bought or sold in Meerut's markets. Across Uttar Pradesh (UP), northern India's fractious behemoth of a state, slaughterhouses have been closed down by a new government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Meerut, which lies on the western plains of the state, just 70km away from India's capital, is divided, and marked by a history of inter-faith conflict. Residents explain its geography as a patchwork of Hindu areas and Muslim ones. Religious identity crops up - spoken or carefully unspoken - in almost every political conversation.
In Hindu parts of town, locals seem reticent about the slaughterhouse ban, maybe because it isn't their issue. Buffalo butchers such as Farooq are Muslim.
Instead, they point to other recent shifts: cleaner streets, faster-flowing traffic. But one BJP supporter tells me, on condition of anonymity, that a slaughterhouse crackdown can only be a good thing. Why? "We are vegetarians," he smiles. In fact more than 70 percent of India eats meat.
The government insists that only illegal abattoirs have been affected by their policy: the slaughterhouse shut-down, they say, is representative of a vigorous commitment to law and order.
The distinction - legal versus illegal - is a curious and complicated one to draw in a largely informal economy. More than 83 percent of India's business goes unregulated, untaxed and unrecorded.
Like many larger sectors, the meat industry straddles the informality divide. But no other informal or semi-informal sector is facing similar sudden, punitive scrutiny.
OPINION: India's politics of meat
'They want to make Muslims jobless'
Speaking from his office in the state capital Lucknow, Maulana Khalid Rasheed, imam of the famous Eidgah Aishbagh mosque, says: "It is not the fault of the people employed in the sector, but of the successive governments [of UP] that have failed to properly regulate the industry."
Ramesh Dixit, a political analyst and former professor of politics at Lucknow University, tells Al Jazeera: "The local [meat] trader is Muslim, and he's being targeted."
The idea of government is to push these Muslims out of business... That is why they want to victimise them, and terrorise them - all in the name of cows. Ramesh Dixit, political analyst
It's big business, says Dixit, and the government would rather see it in the hands of corporate enterprise. "The idea of government is to push these Muslims out of business; they want to make Muslims jobless. That is their design. That is why they want to victimise them, and terrorise them - all in the name of cows."
Across India, BJP-led states have seen the scope of their beef laws - and the penalties for violation - swell.
Farooq and his anxious neighbours say their businesses are legitimate. Cow slaughter has been illegal in UP since 1955, but they deal in buffalo. They don't know where to turn.
A divisive choice
Before the Hindu cleric popularly known as Yogi Adityanath moved into the chief minister's official residence in late March, the premises were ritually purified with cow's milk. Aides stripped the mansion of all leather furnishings. A stable block was built on the grounds: the new chief minister had asked for a few favourite cows from his temple in Gorakhpur to be sent to him in Lucknow.
Like all devout Hindus, Adityanath, born Ajay Mohan Bisht to a family from a privileged caste in neighbouring Uttarakhand state, holds the cow as sacred. Enshrining the protection of the cow has been a particular crusade of his: a member of parliament since 1998, he has twice tabled a bill banning cow slaughter throughout the constitutionally secular republic.
Even after an emphatic victory for the BJP in this year's elections, the appointment of Adityanath to the state's top post came as a surprise to most political commentators. The BJP, in power at the centre since 2014, campaigned in UP under a slogan of progress and unity: "sabka saath, sabka vikas" - together with all, development for all. Adityanath, with his track record of inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric, seemed like a strikingly divisive choice for the state.
Adityanath has earned his reputation as a rabble-rousing Hindu nationalist hard-liner. A 1999 police report filed against him and 24 others lists the following crimes: attempting to murder, carrying deadly weapons, rioting, defiling a place of worship, trespassing on a Muslim graveyard and promoting enmity between two religious groups.
In 2007, Adityanath was jailed for 11 days after he and his band of devoted followers, the Hindu Yuva Vahini, were arrested for attempting to stir up communal violence in Gorakhpur - his power base.
OPINION: BJP's Uttar Pradesh win - A turning point for Modi?
'The whole community is worried'
Among UP's Muslims, Adityanath's political elevation has seeded "a kind of silence, a kind of fear", according to Imam Rasheed. "The whole community is worried," he explains. "We are worried because of the track record of Mr Yogi Adityanath and the language he has used about Muslims in the past."
About 20 percent of UP's 220 million inhabitants are Muslims, and according to government data, the state has India's highest rates of interfaith conflict.
Chandra Mohan, the BJP spokesperson for UP, says "Yogiji" will be a chief minister for everyone. But Rasheed is watchful. Adityanath's government is the first not to include a single Muslim cabinet minister, he points out. (The council of ministers does include one Muslim in a more junior post: Mohsin Raza is Minister of State for Minority Affairs).
The imam laces his fingers and declares himself resolved to "wait and see". After all, he appreciates Adityanath's demands for punctuality and honesty in the civil service and agrees with his choice to waive loans extended to drought-hit farmers.
But early indications for his own community, Rasheed concedes, are troubling: "The manner in which they have started to target the meat industry is very worrying, as far as Muslims are concerned … It has sent a negative message."
Behind Meerut's historic clock tower, the butchers and biryani sellers of Kotla market sit idle - sipping tea and making small talk. The police come by from time to time, they say, to make sure they aren't trading.
A local journalist confirms that in mid-April, he saw two uniformed police officers pull up on a motorbike. "Don't you know you're not allowed to sell meat?" he recalls one of them asking.
Station House Officer MK Upadhyay disputes this. Closing down market stalls, he says, is up to the Municipal Corporation; the police have had nothing to do with it. In the slaughterhouse closures, he explains, their role has been limited to security, not enforcement.
The traders pass around a smartphone and hit play on a video shot at a commercial slaughterhouse on Meerut's outskirts on March 22, the same day that the crackdown notice was issued in Lucknow.
In it, a man in a blue vest and crisp white skullcap stands at the centre of a crowd, addressing khaki-clothed officers. He is Haji Shahid Akhlaq, the abattoir's owner and a former member of parliament from the Bahujan Samaj Party, a significant political force in the state. On the screen, Akhlaq appeals to the police: even five-star hotels serve meat, he says, even Hindus eat meat.
Commentators argue that the new slaughterhouse policy is overspill from an increasingly muscular Hindutva (an ideology seeking to establish the hegemony of Hindus) cow-protection campaign, for which Adityanath has been something of a poster boy.
But BJP spokesperson Mohan explains the crackdown in economic rather than ideological terms. It was conceived at least in part to protect UP's all-important dairy sector, he tells Al Jazeera: "Milk products are constantly going down because of illegal slaughterhouses."
It's a reasoning that seems to exclude the symbiosis of the meat and dairy sectors. It's also misleading: official data suggests that numbers of both buffalos and cows in the state are on the rise; UP's milk production has grown by 17 percent since 2012.
READ MORE: India crackdown on slaughterhouses stirs Muslim unease
Rising meat prices
During the same period, the total value of buffalo meat exported from India has expanded by 27 percent, generating more than $4bn last year. As much as 43 percent of that meat came from UP, processed in the sort of high-tech integrated plant that Akhlaq has run for the past 14 years.
Export-oriented buffalo-meat units dot the Hapur Road on the outskirts of the Indian capital, New Delhi. These are not higgledy-piggledy open storefronts on ancient alleys, but modern, mechanised operations.
At Al-Faheem Meatex Pvt, the gates scroll open for Maersk trucks and ganache-glossy Jaguars; the driveway is wide and lined with Bismarckia palms.
Haji Imran Yaqoob, the managing director, explains that he ships frozen meat to Vietnam and countries in the Middle East; his business has nothing whatsoever to do with the local market. Local traders have been hard-hit, he concedes, but his own business has chugged on uninterrupted.
Neither of these things are true of Akhlaq's business. His pleas to the police on March 22 had little effect. His plant was shuttered - on spurious grounds, he told local press: an anomaly between his unit's construction plans and real-life set-up - and is yet to reopen.
The shutdown of the Akhlaq slaughterhouse has had a major impact on the local meat market. After all, for the past three years Akhlaq's abattoir has been plugging a crucial infrastructure gap in Meerut: a legal venue for buffalo slaughter.
Meerut has grown. What was once the liminal between rural and urban is now residential space, and nobody wants to live next door to a knacker's yard. Three years ago, the municipality closed up the only legitimate slaughterhouse accessible to its many butchers.
Although UP law says that local government must build and maintain slaughterhouses to enable the hygienic supply of meat, no viable facilities have been provided to the many thousands of Muslim butchers since then.
Kunwar Sen, the health officer for Meerut, says that a new "model slaughterhouse" is in the works, but that its date of readiness remains "speculative". Asked to speculate, one department staffer guessed it would be available to local butchers in three months; another estimated a year. The facility has yet to receive approval from the pollution department.
Like many others, Farooq has remained in business by sending his buffalos out to Akhlaq's, where they have been "processed", free of charge, and returned to him in four pieces. He describes it as an act of charity on Akhlaq's part, but it is charity that should never have been needed.
WATCH: What's the BJP's agenda in Uttar Pradesh? – Inside Story
'A fear prevailing'
Farooq means to do things right. When the campaigning BJP leaders promised their voter base that they would come for the slaughterhouses, his first thought was to get his paperwork in order. "I sensed that if BJP won, I would be a target."
A full month before his annual trading licence expired, he submitted his application for renewal. Licence renewal is typically a fairly perfunctory routine; a matter of a few days, perhaps a week. But well over a month after handing in his documents - his old licence now invalid - Farooq still hasn't heard back from the municipal authorities.
He is far from alone in this uncertainty. Muhammad Shaheel sells chicken. Ever since buffalo vanished from the market, Shaheel sells more of it, and at a higher price per kilo. But it's not a happy bargain.
"Under the Akhilesh [Yadav] government we were comfortable. Since the Yogi government, there's" - he hunts for the correct word - "a fear prevailing." It feels, he says, like the police might come at any minute to tell you that your licence is all wrong. He's heard that he's expected to renovate the open-fronted alleyway shop, which was his grandfather's before it was his: install a plumbed-in sink, a dark-glass door.
He can't imagine being able to afford the refurbishment. Shaheel hopes that he'll receive his certification regardless: "That much, at least, we have to trust the government."
Health officer Sen tells Al Jazeera that his staff will soon begin site inspections. Some shops will need to shift, he says; some butchers will need to upgrade at their own expense. And yes, he concedes, perhaps, in the end, there will be fewer meat sellers in Meerut's market.
Farooq emphasises that he doesn't disagree with the policy in principal. "What is illegal should be stopped," he says. "But licences should be renewed. The police are troubling us."
He takes pride in the rhythms of his trade. At the bustling village livestock fairs where he typically sources buffalos, it takes him just seconds to spot a good, healthy bull. What are the signs? I ask him. He looks puzzled. "This is my ancestral trade," he says, as though a good eye is genetic.
The slaughter is quick: he says bismillah before running his blade across an animal's throat. It matters that, when he wasn't the one doing the killing, the slaughter at Akhlaq's was halal.
"If I wanted to, I could go to the corner, and just cut a buffalo, illegally," he says. "But I want to do [my work] within the parameters of the laws laid down by government."
Without a licence, and without a legally sanctioned venue for slaughter, that simply isn't an option.
READ MORE: Meat crackdown leaves shortage in India's Uttar Pradesh
Reports of vigilantism
In fact, even before the shutdown - even before the authorities pinpointed a flaw in Akhlaq's blueprints - it had been a while since business was business as usual.
Reports of gau raksha (cow protection) vigilantism - including a recent murder in BJP-led Rajasthan state - have made headlines across India in recent years. The high water mark of gau raksha violence in UP may still be the 2015 lynching of a Muslim man, not too far from Meerut, over rumours that he had eaten beef which was later exposed as goat meat.
But buffalo industry workers say that hold-ups of buffalo transport convoys have become commonplace. Formerly sprawling rural livestock markets contracted as farmers stayed away to avoid harassment at roadblocks.
There are 70,000 of us in Meerut, and if we organise, we can do a lot of damage. When a man is hungry, there is nothing he can't do. Nadeem Qureshi, Buffalo butcher, Gudri Bazaar
"Buffalos don't come with paperwork," says Farooq, but both "Hindu groups" and the police have stopped his weekly Meerut-bound live animal transports on multiple occasions, demanding proof of legitimacy. The police, he claims, will accept a bribe to back off.
Civilian vigilantes frighten him more: horror stories of raided trucks, thrashed drivers, and stolen livestock circulate quickly among the meat-sellers. In Kotla, I'm shown a video of bloodied and dazed buffalo transporters, allegedly (and unverifiably) shot by vigilantes during a recent raid nearby.
The impacts aren't limited to the poor Muslims of Meerut. At Al Faheem Meatex, vigilante looters are eating into profits, and Asad Khan, the sales manager, says the trouble has intensified since the election.
Typically, the plant's army of maroon-capped labourers process 500 to 600 buffalos a day. Since the new government came in, Khan says, they can only procure half that volume. Their suppliers - independent middlemen - pay farmers 20,000 to 30,000 rupees per animal, says Khan. "They can't keep risking that price continually." Some of them have already gone out of business.
"The police won't help because the government has changed in UP," adds managing director Yaqoob. There is no plan B for revenue generation: Al-Faheem's managers can only hope the government will take action against the vigilantes before they are forced to make layoffs.
Jatinder Arora, a Hindu, manufactures cricket balls out of Portuguese cork and UP buffalo leather. To produce an annual average of 36,000 balls, Arora's workers dye, cut, shape and stitch about 100 hides each month. But lately the hides are hard to come by. "No one wants to carry the leather from Hapur to Meerut. There is fear of the road - fear of being stopped."
In the weeks since the election, he has found that he's already having to accept a lower quality of hide to keep the production chain fed. He worries that leather prices are about to skyrocket. But he supports the BJP, and expects that "everything will be stabilised after some time".
Asked about the vigilante groups, BJP spokesperson Mohan affirmed that the government's priority is law and order - before dismissing the concern altogether. "Since the Yogi government came in, there has been no cow or buffalo-protection vigilantism in UP. At all. Reports of this sort of activity are all negative propaganda."
'All the power is with the BJP'
In early May, Adityanath made a public pledge: By the time his first 100 days in office had elapsed |
, their long dresses touching the streetcar tracks beneath their feet.
Even then, the hands of time spun around the Motch Jewelers clock with its front row seat at Pike & Madison where it watched this downtown rise and fall.
Banks and businessmen, shops and restaurants, streetcars and carriages, have all come and gone, and come and gone again. But there was a depressing time five decades ago when it looked as though all those things had gone forever.
Suddenly, the center of Northern Kentucky's universe drifted southward, bypassing Pike Street for Interstate 75, and Covington for Florence where a new mall welcomed excited shoppers, many of whom would spend their dollars at marquee brands that once proudly shared Madison Avenue or nearby addresses. A last-ditch effort by the City of Covington to slow the rapid flight from the region's urban core is now recalled with great disdain: Old Towne Plaza eliminated vehicular traffic on the first block of West Pike Street and installed a walkable city center that aimed to attract the shoppers and diners and workers who once so easily came here.
When that plan failed, the plaza was removed, and though cars were permitted to drive through again, there were fewer than before.
Decades of doubt and depression would follow.
But light is starting to shine at Pike & Madison once more, and while rebuilding a legacy as grand as the downtown Covington of yore will take many more years, for the first time since that plaza was dug up and tossed aside, serious signs of new life are emerging.
In a big way.
Much of it culminates in a celebration on Friday when multiple storefronts celebrate their grand opening. At 2 West Pike Street, that unique building with the rounded facade that travels with pedestrians and drivers from Madison to Pike Street, Renaissance Covington will open its first standalone office. Earlier in the fall, the downtown promotional and booster group, known primarily for embracing hip trends in the new urban lifestyle like pop-up shops and creative placemaking through activating otherwise dormant spaces, separated itself from the City of Covington. Though it will receive city funding for the next five years and city staffers will retain seats on the nonprofit's board, Renaissance Covington will assist aspiring entrepreneurs directly at street level.
The organization's executive director, Katie Meyer, joined The River City News for a podcast interview about the upswing at this important intersection:
Renaissance Covington will be first floor neighbors at 2 West Pike Street with Durhan Dept., the new retail establishment launched by Austin Dunbar who has operated Durham Brand & Co. on the second floor. Stretched across the windows of the second floor, for all to see, are the words: The Old Has Gone & The New Has Come.
Ain't that the truth?
"We craft work for clients around the world and create goods for ourselves and decided to get serious open a brick and mortar destination for our city and abroad," said Dunbar.
On why he chose Covington to locate his business, Dunbar said, "Everything in my life is focused in Covington -- where I live, raise my family, work and play. Investing in the community I call home makes sense for what I stand for and the city I believe in."
Developer Kelly Charlton purchased 2 West Pike Street and renovated the upper floors to include new apartments and Dunbar's branding firm. The storefronts were redone and now call Renaissance and Durham Dept. tenants. Charlton has now turned her focus to another Pike Street building and more businesses are populating these spaces.
Around the corner, on Madison Avenue, the Law Offices of Shannon Smith and Body By Bree fitness studio will also open their doors to visitors on Friday. Two living spaces are also included in the stunning building that is 605 Madison Avenue.
"Our motto is 'Client Focused. Results Driven.' We work hard to make sure every client receives a return communication the same day or within 24 hours - our clients and customer service are an absolute priority," said Smith, the attorney. "We also make being the best in our field a priority which is why we take continuing education courses and obtained a certified estate and trust specialist designation."
"There is a strong community here and [the city is] in the midst of a revitalization which is attracting a diverse group of businesses, many of which we have had the pleasure to work with. I saw a passion in local business owners and citizens and could not wait to be part of it and help other owners realize their dreams."
Smith and trainer Bree Singer have been working on the building that houses both their businesses and their home.
"The motto of the Studio is, 'Fitness is beyond the physical.' We believe fitness is not just about aesthetics, it is the foundation of health and happiness," said Singer. "Fitness is a life long journey which is why we provide not only conventional work outs and nutrition plans, but innovative fitness programs."
Covington is also a source of inspiration for the fitness instructor.
"Nothing sets my soul on fire more than passionate people and good old fashioned hard work. The passion I have for building my business I saw in other local business owners and citizens. I recognized that the area is on the upswing and something great is happening here," she said.
Also on Friday, Point Perk will open at 43 West Pike Street, in the unique building that sits at the tip of West Pike where it hits Washington Street. The new mission-driven coffee shop is brought to town by the Point/ARC, the nonprofit that empowers those with intellectual developmental disabilities.
Though Friday's celebration is about these new buildings, the energy stretches beyond their storefronts. Right on these immediate blocks of Madison Avenue and Pike Street, new development is erupting. Where shoppers once flocked for fine clothing and accessories in the towering Coppin's Department Store, guests will soon sleep overnight when The Hotel Covington, a $21.5 million boutique hotel project, opens next summer. The former Citizens Bank building is now home to a new Barnes & Noble student bookstore that serves the students of Gateway Community & Technical College and its ambitious urban metro campus that is bringing back to life nearly a dozen properties downtown. Next door to that, the old YMCA that currently houses the Commonwealth of Kentucky's local offices for its Cabinet of Health & Family Services will soon be vacant again as those offices move to a new building in Latonia and Gateway prepares to renovate it for administrative space.
On the other side of Madison, the Mutual Building, a prominent property that sat mostly vacant for decades but that was once home to landmark jewelry stores and popular eateries, now has a dozen upscale apartments fully rented and new storefronts ready for tenants. The River City News moved its offices there and is joined by flow - a shop for men and Cutman Barber Shop. A Jimmy John's sandwich shop franchise will soon open on street level, too, giving downtown Covington its first new fast food chain in years.
The renaissance in downtown Covington is nascent and fragile, but it is unmistakably real. There will be ribbons cut on Friday to welcome these new arrivals, and those who choose to join in the revelry can also enjoy dinner at popular KungFood Chu's AmerAsia, Riverside Korean, Inspirado, or Wabi Sabi. They can browse new furniture at the newly expanded Sims, or see what's playing at the Madison Theater music venue or Backstage Cafe. Afterwards, cheers to the New Covington with a glass at the always packed Braxton Brewing Company, the most exciting new addition to downtown in decades, a thriving new business that joins its neighbors that survived the downturn and remain to see the upswing like Klingenberg's Hardware and Old Towne Cafe.
It is no small task to rebuild a fallen downtown.
But brick by brick, and storefront by storefront, downtown Covington has quietly embarked upon an earnest comeback.
On Friday, it plans to roar about it for a while.
And then on Monday, it's back to work, to taking the next steps of many more to come restoring and redefining the intersection of Pike Street & Madison Avenue, and spreading that newfound energy and passion to all corners of Northern Kentucky's capital city.
Point Perk opens its doors at 3 p.m. on Friday, while Renaissance Covington, Durham Dept., the Law Offices of Shannon Smith, and Body By Bree will open at 4 p.m.
Written by Michael Monks, editor & publisher
Top photo by The River City News; All other photos appear courtesy of the Kenton County Public LibraryLast week, Riason Naidoo, the South African National Art Gallery’s first black Director of Art Collections, circulated an email alerting the arts community to his sudden and surprise axing from a position he had successfully held at the flagship art institution for five years. Naidoo is taking legal action and has since been threatened with an interdict if he makes any further statements. To those of us on the outside, the fine art world may appear to be a genteel and elitist milieu, but in reality it is a highly contested minefield brimming with animosities, petty bickering and much political jostling on the one hand and government indifference on the other. By MARIANNE THAMM.
Riason Naidoo felt the first sting of the so-called “white art establishment” in Cape Town in 2010, soon after being appointed as the country’s first black Director of Art Collections at the SANG when he curated the massive and ambitious 1910–2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective exhibition to coincide with the Fifa World Cup.
The SANG’s original plan had been to hang a “football exhibition” but Naidoo had felt, with the expected influx of tourists, that this would not reflect South Africa’s history and was not “a barometer of the country and what is going on”. The Fifa World Cup, he reckoned, provided a unique opportunity to showcase 100 years of South African art not only to South Africans but the world.
It was a bold and risky endeavour. Naidoo had only six and a half weeks to curate works from the extensive, existing SANG collection. In that short period he also managed to obtain works from 48 other lenders from across the country to complete the exhibition that took up the entire National Gallery.
In order to create space to hang all of the works, the new director mothballed (with permission from trustees of course) around 80 paintings from the Sir Abe Bailey Bequest – most of them featuring images of horses and hunting in 19th Century Britain. Bailey, a South African mining tycoon, had bequeathed a collection of 400 paintings, the biggest ever of British sporting art and worth several million Pounds, on permanent loan to the gallery with the proviso that a percentage of the works would always be placed on permanent display.
In their place Naidoo exhibited contemporary South African works including Mary Sibande’s “Conversations with Madam”, a life-sized model with fake hair as well as photographer Mikael Subotzky’s photographs of Ponte City.
In other words Naidoo had touched certain people “on their gallery” and they were having none of it.
A scathing review of the exhibition by critic Lloyd Pollak titled “SANG’s reputation trashed for 2010 show” was published in The Art Times. The controversy was picked up internationally four months later by David Smith of The Guardian in a piece titled; “Gallery director defends decision to swap Gainsborough for Africa works”.
Local critics Mary Corrigall and Sue Williamson weighed in, coming out to bat for Naidoo and his spectacular curatorial debut.
Williamson reminded readers that Naidoo’s appointment in 2009 after the decades-long tenure of Marilyn Martin marked “a movement away from the all-white curatorial team at the SANG [that] had long been seen as a necessary part of the post-Apartheid transformation of the museum”.
She added that Naidoo came to the SANG with a diverse background in lecturing, curating and writing and that his most recent accomplishment had been a five-year stint working on the historic Timbuktu papers archives culminating in the ceremonial opening of the Ahmed Baba Library in January 2009.
Corrigall wrote, “I hardly think that a negative review in the SA Art Times is any reflection of the views in the South African art world. The views expressed in the SA ART Times are those of its editor, Gabriel Clarke-Brown. Had Smith actually bothered to interview anyone else in the art world he might have discovered that not everyone shares Clarke-Brown’s point of view.”
1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective saw an unprecedented influx – 67 percent increase – of visitors to the gallery, a success by anyone’s measure.
After the exhibition, Naidoo was invited to present talks at several international institutions including the Tate Modern, London (2010), the Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar (2011), the ACASA Triennale, Fowler Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles (2011), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012) and the Dak’art biennale, Senegal (2012).
A second hissy fit was unleashed a year later when the SANG hosted another hugely popular exhibition by curator Andrew Lamprecht. Titled Tretchikoff: A People’s Painter, the showcase ran for five months, from May to September 2011, and saw a 106 percent increase in visitor numbers.
Once again it was the “art establishment” who were horrified that the hallowed halls and walls of the South African National Gallery could be sullied by Tretchikoff, the “King of Kitsch” and one of this country’s most successful commercial artists (Under the same roof as the Gainsborough, can you believe it!)
Writing in the Financial Mail, Parkash Naidoo later opined, “though he enjoyed enormous financial success as an artist and had a huge public following, Tretchikoff was never fully embraced by an often snobbish art establishment, and even today many are still split over whether this Russian émigré should be considered an SA artist at all.”
Iziko Museums, is a public entity and a NPO that is subsidised by the Department of Arts and Culture (DACT) and governed by a council appointed by the Minister of Arts and Culture. It is an umbrella body for 11 of the province’s museums including the SANG and the Old Town House collection. Iziko receives its budget from DACT (92.6 percent of it went to salaries in 2013/14) and is naturally, under these circumstances, required also to raise its own funds. The current CEO is Rooksana Omar.
Over the next few years Naidoo began to find himself having to perform his job facing obstacles on three fronts – ever-diminishing budgets, a chorus of old establishment critics ready to pounce and thirdly, increasing apparent government indifference.
In frustration and protest in 2007, curator Haydn Proud put together an exhibition titled “Why Collect?”. Proud hung empty frames on the walls of the gallery and quoted facts on state spending in other areas including the R52 billion spent on the Arms Deal, R13.3 billion in 2007 on the 2010 Soccer World Cup compared with the R141 000 allocated to Iziko SANG to purchase works of art in 2006.
The position did not improve subsequently.
The Iziko Exhibition-Resources budget was slashed from R163,000 in 2009/10 to R150,000 in 2011/12 to a meagre R18,000 in 2012/13 and R18,540 in 2013/14.
The Exhibitions budget, which was R623,900 in 2000/10, increased to R723,700 in 2010/11, before being radically cut back to R238,200 in 2011/12, to R152,864 in 2012/13 and R143,170 in 2013/14.
The important Acquisitions budget fluctuated from R300,000 in 2009/10, to R450,000 in 2010/11, to R400,000 in 2011/12, to ZERO in 2012/13 to a mere R50,000 in 2013/14.
If we are to apply the historian Hendrik Willem Van Loon’s quote that “The arts are an even better barometer of what is happening in our world than the stock market or the debates in congress,” then…
…We are in serious trouble.
The problem with the SANG is not only the need to maintain the current collection but to restore lost artistic voices as well as secure enough funding to acquire the works of contemporary black artists. Part of the problem has been getting a post-apartheid government to understand and invest in the huge significance the SANG plays in the development of South Africa’s vital, visual art heritage.
Department of Arts and Culture officials, many in the art world have complained, have a “poor understanding” of the SANG and its role, and seldom visit the institution.
“The purpose of acquisitions and the relationship between the institution and the way it ought, if it had more funds, to more fully support the careers of emerging artist-practitioners, especially those from disadvantaged communities,” wrote Emile Maurice, a resident fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape on an Archival Platform blog about a public discussion hosted by Iziko as to why some artistic voices remained hidden post 1994.
In these dire circumstances then it is vital that the Director of Collections, an extremely influential position, explore dynamic and alternative financial partnerships to secure and showcase these voices as well as raise the profile and status of the gallery, something Naidoo has clearly managed to accomplish in his five years in the position.
In his open letter announcing that Iziko had not renewed his contract, Naidoo expressed the belief that he had accomplished much “under some challenging conditions especially with regard to limited resources.”
And this has indeed been the case. The SANG did profile, as he points out, several significant local and international exhibitions as well as attempting to show its permanent collection “in different and interesting ways” during his tenure.
“It was also important for us to address the imbalances of the past by acknowledging important and often overlooked artists in local art history via retrospective and group exhibitions,” said Naidoo.
These included Alexis Preller: Africa and the Sun (2009), A Vigil of Departure: Louis Khehla Maqhubela 1960-2010 (2010), Ernest Cole: Photographer (2011), Peter Clarke: Listening to Distant Thunder (2011), Uncontained: Opening the Community Arts Project Archive (2012), Against the Grain: Five Sculptors in Wood (2013), Peter Clarke: Our artist, Our Poet! (2012) – Dak’art, Senegal, Peter Clarke: Wind Blowing on the Cape Flats (2013) – INIVA, London, Opening ‘Plato’s Cave’: The Legacy of Kevin Atkinson (2013) to the current George Hallett: A Nomad’s Harvest (2014).
The SANG also raised more than R2,5 million for A Portrait of South Africa: George Hallett, Peter Clarke & Gerard Sekoto (2013) shown in Paris from 29 October – 27 November 2013.
Naidoo was able to also make significant acquisitions “in terms of redress” of artists like Noria Mabasa, Billy Mandini, Lionel Davis, Peter Clarke, Ian Berry, Samson Mudzunga, Fanie Jason, Nhlanhla Nsusha, Dan Rakgoathe, Vuyile Voyiya, George Pemba, Helmut Starcke and Cedric Nunn.
It seems puzzling, given the general consensus that Naidoo has done well, that Iziko has not seen fit to renew his contract and that it has not given any apparent reasonable justification for the sudden decision. Surely in terms of firstly, fair labour practice, Iziko should have informed Naidoo of its intention to axe him?
Daily Maverick sent a list of questions to Rooksana Omar in relation to Naidoo’s termination of contract. Omar’s email returned an “out of office” reply. Our questions were then forwarded by her PA to acting CEO, Bongani Ndhlovu, as well as the communications co-ordinator, Melody Kleinsmith, who had not replied at the time of writing.
Earlier in the week Omar did respond to queries by the online art magazine, ArtThrob, by releasing a statement reading “Riason Naidoo was employed by Iziko Museums of South Africa on a fixed term contract. From the outset, Riason was aware that his contract would expire at the end of April 2014. Iziko has no further comment.”
The response leaves much to be desired. The SANG is a public institution and the board and CEO is also accountable to the public. It is not healthy for an institution of such vital importance to the country’s fine art heritage to create this kind of unease within the arts world without explanation.
Naidoo has subsequently filed a complaint with the CCMA and it appeared as if hostilities escalated this week when he was threatened with an Interdict if he should make any further public statements.
Those on the outside of the matter are left wondering: why the fear and loathing? DM
Photo: Riason Naidoo (Picture SANG)
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Please or create an account to view the comments. To join the conversation, sign up as a Maverick Insider.Carolee Schneemann’s influence, both acknowledged and unacknowledged, is widespread, and the artist documents this beautifully in a binder she has kept for 20 years called “Influence, Plagiarism, I Forgot.” It juxtaposes her work with images she comes across in art and pop culture, and last month it was all printed as a magazine by the Artist’s Institute in New York.
Ms. Schneemann is infamous for using her naked body to challenge boundaries in her groundbreaking interdisciplinary performances and films of the 1960s and 1970s, such as “Meat Joy” (1964).
The magazine’s side-by-side comparisons include a 1974 picture of Ms. Schneemann, drawing on surrounding walls while dangling naked in a harness, next to an image of the artist Matthew Barney suspended from ropes in his studio more than three decades later. Another pairing shows a photo of Lady Gaga wearing her meat dress next to a photo from “Meat Joy,” in which performers revel ecstatically with paint, raw chicken, fish and sausages. “Her range of visual connections is great,” said Jenny Jaskey, director of the institute, which dedicated its six-month season last year to exhibitions and events related to Ms. Schneemann. “It’s high, it’s low.”
The magazine’s publication comes on the heels of Ms. Schneemann’s first major museum retrospective, this year at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg in Austria. (The show travels to Frankfurt in 2017.) And on view in New York is a two-part exhibition of Ms. Schneemann’s lesser-known works from the 1980s to the present, at P.P.O.W. and Galerie Lelong.The creator of the much-loved Stars Wars droid R2-D2 has been found dead at his home in Malta.
Tony Dyson, 68, had not been seen for a number of days by his friends, who contacted the police out of concern for his well-being.
His body was discovered by police officers in his apartment on the island of Gozo. There is no suspicion of foul play.
Scroll down for video:
Mr Dyson pictured working on one of the first R2-D2 robots for Star Wars
Tony Dyson, pictured at one of many conventions he attended in later years, had not been seen for days
Police confirmed a 68-year-old British man was found dead in Gozo at 7:35am in his apartment.
Mr Dyson was best known for being the designer behind the blue and white droid R2-D2 as well as his work in several other popular Hollywood films, including Superman 2 and Moonraker.
Known for his great sense of humour, Mr Dyson had been living in Malta since the 1990s and had appeared at the island's own comic convention.
One of the convention organisers, Christopher Muscat, spoke warmly of Mr Dyson, describing him as 'one of the friendliest guests we've ever had.'
'When we actually met we were all surprised by his energy. Joking and smiling to all. He insisted on taking photos with everyone,' he told Malta Today.
The robot - pictured with his on-screen companion C3-PO - would go on to become one of sci-fi's most popular creations and has appeared in all seven Star Wars movies to date
Known for his great sense of humour, Mr Dyson had been living in Malta since the 1990s and had appeared at the island's own comic convention
The Emmy-nominated film SFX supervisor's greatest creation, R2-D2, has appeared in all of the Star Wars films and is considered one of the series's finest characters
The Emmy-nominated film SFX supervisor's greatest creation, R2-D2, has appeared in all of the Star Wars films and is considered one of the series's finest characters.
A man who always took time to sign autographs and answer questions, Mr Dyson was also quick to encourage other people to get creative.
'Be playful. Never stop playing. If you look at life the way it really should be – enjoyed – then you become very creative,' he told the Times of Malta last December.
Mr Dyson also worked with Sony, Toshiba and other well-known electronics firms.
One of the convention organiser's, Christopher Muscat, spoke warmly of Mr Dyson, (pictured) describing him as 'one of the friendliest guests we've ever had'
Mr Dyson also worked with Sony, Toshiba and other well-known electronics firms
The Emmy-nominated film SFX supervisor's greatest creation, R2-D2, has appeared in all of the Star Wars films and is considered one of the series's finest charactersNME spoke to the frontman outside The Church Studios in north London
The Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown has confirmed to NME that the band are definitely recording new material, following rumours that they had this month been working on the long-awaited follow-up to 1994’s ‘Second Coming’.
Brown spoke to NME outside producer Paul Epworth’s north London recording facility The Church Studios to say that new music from the band would be coming “soon”. He added that the new material was sounding “glorious”. Watch Brown’s comments below:
As previously reported, the band were spotted at Church Studios in Crouch End a few days ago. One fan stated on social media that the group told her new music could be coming “before June”, however both Mani and John Squire allegedly denied this, telling another punter in a pub nearby that they were merely “rehearsing for gigs”.
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NME also took a trip to the studio in North London on Wednesday night (March 23) where drummer Reni (real name Alan Wren) eventually turned up outside to pose for pictures with fans and sign autographs. When asked by NME if the band were recording a new album, he joked: “I’m recording,” before adding: “I can’t tell you anything because I’ll get my arse kicked”.
Recent tabloid reports claimed that the group’s third album would arrive this summer to coincide with their upcoming live dates, which include four headline shows at Manchester’s Etihad Stadium.
The Stone Roses’ bassist Mani said in 2013 that the band had been “working on a few bits” but there had been no official word on new music since then.
READ MORE: 50 things you didn’t know about The Stone Roses
In addition to their Manchester headline shows, The Stone Roses have gigs lined up in Dublin, New York and Japan, as well as a headline slot at T In The Park.
See the Stone Roses’ current live schedule in full below.
Tokyo, Nippon Budokhan (June 2, 3)
Manchester, Etihad Stadium (June 15, 17, 18, 19)
New York, Madison Square Garden (June 30)
T In The Park (July 8)
Dublin, Marlay Park (July 9)
READ MORE: Are The Stone Roses Recording Right Now? Here’s What’s Going On At That London Recording Studio
https://link.brightcove.com/services/player/?bctid=4815720882001Why Doesn't Answers in Genesis Tell You the Truth?
February 26, 2009
About a month ago I wrote a brief article regarding a sermon Charles Haddon Spurgeon preached on July 17, 1855. What makes this sermon notable is that Spurgeon made his view of creation clear. He believed planet Earth is millions of years old. Here is the passage on creation from the sermon titled "The Power of the Holy Ghost":
"In the 2d verse of the first chapter of Genesis, we read, And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be-certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came, wherein man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator gave up the world to confusion." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Sermon delivered on Sunday, June 17, 1855 at New Park Street Chapel.
The timing is interesting. Note the date. This sermon was delivered some four years before Darwin published his Origin of Species in 1859. Yet Spurgeon, universally acclaimed as a conservative, Bible-believing preacher was already preaching some form of old-earth creationism from his pulpit at New Park Street Chapel.
My initial article caught the attention of someone else who was shocked about Spurgeon's statement. He wrote his own article on Spurgeon's sermon, expanding on what I had said earlier. My point was that Spurgeon would have been characterized as a "liberal evolutionist" if young-earth creationist organizations were consistent in their criticism of old-earth creationists. According to them, Bible teachers and preachers who accept an ancient universe are guilty of compromising with modern science and atheistic Darwinism.
Imagine my surprise when I noticed that Answers in Genesis recently began putting Spurgeon's sermons on their website! They called their program, which began on January 29, 2009, "Charles Spurgeon - Reloaded." AiG says it was designed so that the "...version you read adheres as closely as possible to the original intent-but updated so that the sermons can be enjoyed for years to come." I thought to myself, "Hmmm...This should be interesting..."
I curiously waited for "The Power of the Holy Ghost" to show up on the AiG website. It arrived right on schedule, but guess what I found when I read the sermon? Compare the original with AiG's "updated" version to see the difference for yourself.
Here is the original again:
In the 2d verse of the first chapter of Genesis, we read, "And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may becertainly many millions of years before the time of Adam. Our planet has passed through various stages of existence, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came, wherein man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator gave up the world to confusion. Full text of original edition is available online here.
Here is Aig's "updated" version of the same passage:
"In Ge 1:2, we read, And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' Our planet has passed through various stages in creation, and different kinds of creatures have lived on its surface, all of which have been fashioned by God. But before that era came, when man should be its principal tenant and monarch, the Creator initially created the world as a chaotic mass on the first day of creation." Full text of AiG's "updated" edition is available online here.
Did you catch what is missing? This sentence was entirely removed:
"We know not how remote the period of the creation of this globe may be-certainly many millions of years before the time of Adam."
Poof! Gone. Like it never existed.
Spurgeon's sermon has been sanitized for the AiG audience. Apparently, the reality of Spurgeon as an old-earth creationist is too much for AiG to allow the viewing public to know about. They even rewrote a portion at the end to change Spurgeon's statement that "the Creator gave up the world to confusion" to make it appear that Spurgeon said merely that "the Creator initially created the world as a chaotic mass on the first day of creation." And presto! The editors turned Spurgeon into a young-earth creationist, even though he said no such thing.
This handy-dandy doctored version of Spurgeon's sermon expunges anything young-earth advocates might find offensive. But it also reveals something about AiG. They are willing to literally rewrite history when it serves their own agenda.
I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised about AiG's dishonesty. People have been complaining about shenanigans like this from AiG for years. But it does raise a question in my mind. If they are willing to brazenly misrepresent Spurgeon's views, even to the point of deleting "sensitive" parts and re-writing Spurgeon's words to make it appear he preached nothing but young-earth creationism, then what else might AiG be lying about? I mean, if they are willing to do this with something as widely available in public as Spurgeon sermons, are they trustworthy in more obscure and technical matters such as scientific research? Would they fudge on those details if they didn't line up with their young-earth doctrine?QUEBEC CITY, Canada — Like a songbird calling another out, one male humpback whale may make another change his tune.
Studying humpbacks with methods adapted from bird research has uncovered the first known instances of what look like whales responding musically to each other’s songs, says Danielle Cholewiak, a researcher for the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary based in Scituate, Massachusetts. Cholewiak and colleagues detected melodic adjustments when a solo singer encountered another singer nearby and when researchers played their song remixes for whales.
Male whales may be using music to tell another male, “Hey, I’m talking to you,” Cholewiak reported Oct. 14 at the Society of Marine Mammology’s biennial conference.
Cholewiak “showed short-term acoustic interactions between males — that was the new thing,” said Adam S. Frankel of Marine Acoustics Inc., an independent consulting firm in Arlington, Virginia.
Among humpback whales, only males boom out long strings of repeating phrases of hums and whups and chirps. The sounds can make a boat vibrate, said Salvatore Cerchio of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City, who worked with Cholewiak on the new study. Scientists use the word song to describe this patterned male vocalization, just as they do for elaborate bird serenades.
Male songbirds sing at each other to claim their territory or seduce females. Though humpbacks don’t defend territories, they certainly have rivalries. Typically three to eight males surround a female and battle for the position closest to her. “These guys are streaming blood,” Cerchio said. “The gentle giant is a myth.”
But observations so far haven’t helped scientists understand whether humpbacks use songs the way birds do. Tests haven’t shown male or female humpbacks consistently swimming toward or away from recorders playing songs. And scientists have yet to see humpbacks mate.
So instead, Cholewiak took a different approach, boating around a breeding ground recording and analyzing songs.
“I was drooling over what she was able to do,” says Sharon Nieukirk of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon. Whales rarely cooperate with field biologists’ experimental plans.
Cholewiak undertook the song analysis while at Cornell University, which has a renowned flock of birdsong researchers. She adapted measurements used in bird studies to analyze the humpbacks’ songs. For example, the whales repeat a phrase of notes several times in one block, or “theme,” before moving on to another, and Cholewiak looked at how often the whales switched among these themes.
To record whales, Cholewiak spent four winters on the small island of Socorro in the Revillagigedo Archipelago off the Pacific coast of Mexico. She dropped recorders weighted with sandbags into the ocean to eavesdrop on whales. After months, she transmitted an acoustic signal that released the recorders so they popped to the surface. Analyzing the recordings, Cholewiak could determine where the singers were and reconstruct their movements.
In the sea of sound recordings, she found 14 cases in which a male sang alone for at least 45 minutes and then continued for another 45 minutes after another male started singing. Cholewiak noticed two changes in song when humpbacks sang together.
Overall, the first singers switched more often among various musical themes when a second singer hung around. Also, the first males adjusted their songs so that the pair was more likely to sing the same theme simultaneously. When males meet, Cholewiak concluded, songs |
downloading a new app. So, from a practical point of view – no, these companies have not done enough. Had customers been fully informed of the implications, it is likely fewer would have signed up."
Sync.ME has yet to reply to a request for comment from IBTimes UK.The latest April U.S. game sales have revealed Guerrilla Games'debuting outside the Top 20 and selling 58,000 copies for the month, NPD has told Gamasutra, as it slows to 677,000 lifetime U.S. sales.As part of the exclusive statistics provided to Gamasutra in its April 2009 NPD analysis, the key PlayStation 3-exclusive title, which debuted on February 27th, is still selling solidly, but at reduced numbers compared to its first two months.Even releasing so late in February, the title reached No.5 on the February 2009 NPD chart, selling 323,000 units, many of them likely in pre-orders from major retailers such as GameStop.In March, it continued strong sales, making No. 7 on the chart with 296,000 units sold in the United States, but an overall slow April has majorly reduced its sell-through, dropping it out of the Top 20.As part of its responses to March's NPD numbers, Sony announced that sales of the title had reached 1 million worldwide, and was the fastest Sony-published title in the U.S. to reach 500,000 unit sales.The company particularly commented that�has garnered the biggest initial success at retail of any first party PS3 title to date, and will continue to drive incentive for hardware sales throughout the year."However, overall April 2009 sales were down 17%, with the PlayStation 3 selling just 127,000 units for the month, compared to 340,000 units of the Wii and 175,000 units for the Xbox 360.Therefore, it seems that the global recession and the hardware's slowdown -- as well as the slowdown of the built-up wave of pre-orders for-- has slowed the system-seller outside of the Top 20, at least for now.Vice President Joe Biden came out swinging in a strongly-worded statement late on Monday regarding the preemptive strike of 47 Republican senators against a potential nuclear deal with Iran.
“This is no way to make America safer or stronger.” Vice President Joe Biden
The GOP lawmakers all signed onto a letter released Monday saying their would reject any diplomatic agreement reached between the Obama administration and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time,” they wrote.
Biden, who prior to getting elected vice president served over three decades in the Senate, said he was deeply offended by the stance some of his former colleagues took. “The letter sent on March 9th by forty-seven Republican Senators to the Islamic Republic of Iran, expressly designed to undercut a sitting president in the midst of sensitive international negotiations, is beneath the dignity of an institution I revere,” he said in a statement late on Monday.
RELATED: GOP enter dangerous territory over Iran
The vice president’s statement echoed similar sentiments expressed by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest during a press briefing on Monday. He described the letter “as the continuation of a partisan strategy to undermine the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy and advance our national security interests around the globe.”
“The rush to war or at least the rush to the military option that many Republicans are advocating is not at all in the best interest of the United States,” he also told reporters.
“This letter sends a highly misleading signal to friend and foe alike that that our Commander-in-Chief cannot deliver on America’s commitments-a message that is as false as it is dangerous.” Vice President Joe Biden
“Honorable people can disagree over policy. But this is no way to make America safer or stronger,” he added.
Other senators who signed on included Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Only seven Senate Republicans decided not to sign the document, including Lamar Alexander, Dan Coats, Thad Cochran, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, and Lisa Murkowski.
“In thirty-six years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which Senators wrote directly to advise another country-much less a longtime foreign adversary – that the president does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them,” Biden wrote. “This letter sends a highly misleading signal to friend and foe alike that that our Commander-in-Chief cannot deliver on America’s commitments-a message that is as false as it is dangerous.”
He added: “The decision to undercut our president and circumvent our constitutional system offends me as a matter of principle. As a matter of policy, the letter and its authors have also offered no viable alternative to the diplomatic resolution with Iran that their letter seeks to undermine.”
Additional reporting by Michele RichinickDisclaimer: This story is purely fictional. Any resemblances with reality are merely a coincidence.
A/N: So I've been working on this story for so many months now that I can't even remember. I finally think it's worth posting so I hope you all guys like it. Also, I would like to credit the person who made the image cover for the story (I forgot to mention it in tumblr). I found the image in google and retouched it but still. So, whoever made it: thank you for your beautiful job and I hope you don't mind me borrowing it for a little. Finally, If you'd like to leave me a review to let me know your thoughts on the story so far, I'd be thrilled, really haha. Enjoy!
"HOLD ON TIGHT!" Hook yells at the top of his lungs and turns the helm starboard abruptly.
He barely gives Emma time enough to react before the ship turns around ninety degrees all of a sudden and causes the people aboard to lose balance completely. She manages to grip a rope just in time but neither Mary Margaret nor Gold is that lucky. They both land ungracefully in a heap on the floor and have a hard time picking themselves up again with the ship being pulled so strongly toward the vortex of the portal.
That is where they are heading, straight into the lion's den to save Henry, her son… and Regina's.
Out of the corner of her eye, Emma catches sight of the former Evil Queen, who has her hands wrapped around a rope and holding on so tightly to it that her knuckles are turning white. She looks rather pale but Emma can't tell if it's due to the frantic swaying of the ship or something else entirely.
Regina must have sensed her fixed gaze on her because she turns her head to the side and their eyes lock for what seems to be a very long minute. Emma is downright expecting a disapproving look, since it's coming from the Mayor, so she frowns when she's greeted by another kind of look. One she does not have the time to identify because Hook breaks her out of her absorption with yet another yell, "Here we go, lads!"
Hook steers the wheel and grins excitedly at the prospect of returning to Neverland again. The ship heads straight to the portal and, once the bowsprit makes contact with the green swirling waters of the ocean, it begins its descent towards the unknown.
Emma has to shut her eyes closed a moment later because the whirling motion of the portal creates a whipping wind that lashes almost painfully against her face. She also discovers that the sound of the water combined with the sucking motion of the portal makes hearing almost impossible.
She's practically incapacitated without being able to see or hear, yet she doesn't need any of those two senses to know when something's gone wrong. And something has gone wrong because there's a sudden pull from below, as if a gigantic hand had just gripped the bottom of the ship and yanked it downwards abruptly. Then someone shouts something she cannot quite hear, which prompts her to crack an eye open to see what's going on. But when she does, all she sees is a searing white light exploding all around them, and then her whole world fades to black.
I
When Emma opens her eyes again she does so with a start.
She doesn't recognize her surroundings and that is enough to make the former bounty hunter spring to her feet in complete alert. She pays no mind to the pain in her abdomen or the fire raging in her throat.
Emma needs to find out where she is but, more importantly, where the rest of her family is.
Taking a look around, Emma notices she's standing on a beach and that she's trapped between the sea and a lush green forest at her back.
There's no sign of any other living soul in that beach and Emma's heart is beginning to beat faster in her chest, the thought of being alone in that strange place too much for her to bear.
She takes an involuntary step forward and realizes that her feet weight more than normal. Gazing down, Emma sees that she's drenched from head to toes.
Her green eyes travel back to the never-ending mass of water before her and she sees something that catches her attention.
The blonde dashes toward the shoreline with her heart hammering in her chest. She does not dare to break eye contact with what it would appear to be a dark haired head floating above the surface of the water.
She dashes toward the sea.
Her feet struggle to carry her through the crashing waves and, eventually, she has to dive in order to go on.
Emma braces as fast as she can, trying to not let the waves carry her away, but it proves to be a hard task with the waves growing larger and hitting harder against her face. She has to stop swimming every two seconds and stick her head out of the water to take big gulps of air.
She's tired and fighting against the tide is becoming almost impossible, but she is not about to give up. It's not in her nature to give up on the people she loves and she's not going to start today.
She dives just in time to dodge another wave and comes to the surface a second later, gasping for air and frantically kicking with her feet to keep on floating.
Emma searches around with her eyes for the person she'd seen from the shore and spots the black haired head resting against a wooden board just some meters away.
"Mary Margaret!" Emma lunges forward and swims until her hands come in contact with a solid surface. She wraps her left hand around one side of the board and uses her free one to brush the wet and errant dark locks away from Snow's face. "Mary-" Emma gasps both in surprise and in horror when she sees that it is not Mary Margaret but Regina who she's looking at and that the woman has a large and bad looking gash on her forehead.
There is blood oozing from the wound and it covers all the right side of Regina's unusually pale cheek. The water is keeping the wound open and the blood flowing freely.
Emma presses two fingers to Regina's neck and checks for a pulse. She sighs in relief when she realizes that the other woman is alive, albeit unconscious.
"Regina," Emma draws her attention back to the shore as she absently nudges the other woman by the shoulder. "Please, wake up." But Regina doesn't stir nor shows any sign of having heard her.
It dawns on Emma that she is going to have to carry her back to the shore, so she tries to calculate the distance between the shoreline and them.
It doesn't look good.
"Come on, Regina!" Emma grunts and tears the brunette away from the wooden board.
The moment she's freed, Regina's body begins to sink down so Emma drapes an arm below her chin and holds her head above the surface. She drags them both through the surf with whatever strength she has left and, when they are near enough to the shore, Emma lets the own waves spit them out.
Emma lands on her back with Regina's unconscious body splayed half on top of her. Her chest is heaving and she's desperately trying to catch her breath again.
When she recovers somewhat, Emma props herself up on her elbows and takes Regina by the shoulders to roll her over onto her back.
Emma checks the brunette for any other injuries, aside from the gash on her forehead. She notices that there are some bruises on her arms and on the right side of her neck but, other than that, the older woman seems to be fine.
The wound on her forehead hasn't ceased to bleed since she pulled Regina out of the water. If anything, it's bleeding more profusely now, and it's staining the right side of the brunette's cheek again.
She'll have to bandage it somehow.
Emma takes a look around, trying to determine if there is anything she can use as bandage, but all she sees is a vast ocean at her back, white sand at her feet and a lush green semi-tropical forest in front of her. There is absolutely nothing remotely close to civilization here, just wilderness.
And no bandages.
Emma looks down at her own drenched clothes. Well, it'll have to do.
She rips the fabric of her shirt and uses it first to clean Regina's cheek a little and then wraps it around the brunette's head. She ties the ends into a knot and, when she's done, Emma contemplates her handiwork. It's improvised and messy but it'll do.
Emma sits back on her heels and turns her head over her shoulder. Where on earth are they? Is this Neverland?
Suddenly, there's a groan and the body beneath her begins to stir.
Emma whips her head around again, eyes widening as she sees the brunette stirring. "Regina?"
Regina blinks up a few times, clearly disoriented. She shows no sign of having heard Emma call her name. Instead, she takes a hand to her forehead and groans in pain again.
"What the hell happened?" Regina growls, her voice deep and throaty. Her eyes switch from her now blood stained hand to Emma's green ones. She raises a questioning eyebrow to the blonde.
"You're hurt," Emma answers vaguely and Regina's eyebrow rises even higher. Emma feels the need to elaborate further. "It's nothing serious, though... I bandaged it already."
Emma slides her palms down her soaked jeans and stands up. Then, she outstretches her hand for Regina to take but the woman throws her a death glare. Emma takes the hint and drops her hand, smacking it loudly against her thigh.
"Thank you for stating the obvious, Sheriff." Regina replies and moves to get on her feet, but she moves so fast that her head spins dangerously and she sways on the spot.
Emma leaps forward and catches her before she can fall to the ground again.
"Where are we?" Regina drawls, her head resting momentarily on Emma's shoulder and her eyes closed, trying to make the blurry shapes in her vision become focused once more.
Emma sighs because the situation seems to be getting worse and worse by the second. "I was hoping you could tell me."
Regina blinks a few more times, until the two blurry horizons in her vision merge into one. Then, she pushes Emma away by the shoulders – as if the blonde hasn't just saved her from toppling head first to the ground - and takes a proper look around.
No. She doesn't recognize this place at all but, somehow, the thought doesn't disturb her as much as it does Emma.
Regina has been to different lands during her rule in Fairytale Land, so she's long past the fear of finding herself in a complete different place. Which is most certainly not the case for Emma who, until some months ago, didn't know anything else than the busy streets of a city.
"Well, we'll clearly not in Storybrooke anymore." Regina quips and takes a few steps forward, gazing suspiciously at the thick and lush forest that marks the limit between the beach and the vegetation.
It's a nice place, to be honest. The sea at their back is a clear and almost transparent blue, the sand below them is so white that it could very well be talc, and the trees standing tall just a few steps away from them are mostly palms and bushes.
If only they weren't on a quest to save their kidnapped son and, now, the rest of the crew as well, Emma would probably refuse to leave this place.
"Funny," Emma says. She can't believe the woman's sass is still intact after almost drowning. One would almost expect the rest of the world to act more seriously but, then again, we're talking about Regina. The rules don't commonly apply to her. "Did we make it? Is this Neverland?"
Regina turns on her heels to look at Emma. The expression of annoyance the blonde had just been wearing a second ago is now replaced by a look of such hope that the former Evil Queen feels almost bad for shattering when she dryly answers, "No."
As foreseen, Emma's face falls and her shoulders slump. She's beginning to grow restless and Regina's perfectly put together stance is not helping at all.
Regina takes a step closer to the blonde, until she's practically breathing in her face. "I don't know where we are, Miss Swan."
Emma's heart stops beating for a few seconds and all the color seems to drain from her face, "What?"
"You heard me, dear."
A million thoughts battle for dominance in Emma's head, trying to make themselves be heard. They seem to weight a ton because she starts to feel light headed. Yes, they are heavy thoughts. Very, very heavy…
"Miss Swan!" Emma shakes her head, coming to. "Are you even listening?" Regina asks, her cheeks flushed in anger. Leave it to Emma Swan to tune out while she is talking. "I swear you are like a child sometimes," Regina runs a hand through her wet brown locks and lets out a puff of air, trying to calm herself.
"Sorry," Emma mumbles, tracing a random path with her foot on the sand.
"Yes, well. Try not to zone out again while I'm speaking. As I was saying, I don't think this place is Neverland but there is only one way to find out."
"Which is what?"
"By entering the forest," Regina replies, her voice enigmatically low. At Emma's quizzical look, she decides to add, "It shall be easy to prove if this is Neverland or not."
"How so?"
"Well, dear. If you enter that forest and you get tackled by a bunch of filthy savages in the form of children, then you're in Neverland."
II
It seems, Emma realizes, that they only time she and Regina can get things done without bickering for hours like an old married couple, is when their son is in danger or Storybrooke is about to be blown off the map. Thankfully – or not, really – this time is one of those two occasions. So, when Emma suggests entering the woods and moving up to higher ground, Regina simply nods her head and follows her close behind.
It's almost an hour later that they reach the peak of a hill, the highest they could find.
"David!" Emma calls at the top of her lungs for the hundredth time. She's been looking for her family all the way uphill, but no one had answered back so far. "Mary Margaret!"
Emma waits for an answer, her eyes travelling back and forth desperately, but is met with only silence. She sighs and drops her hands in defeat, smacking them loudly against her nearly dried jeans. Then, she looks up at the sky and notices that it's already dusk. Night will fall upon them soon and they still have no ship, no Henry and no shelter.
Regina won't like spending the night out in the open like some wilding.
Where is Regina, anyway? Emma looks around for the brunette and finds her standing in what looks to be a cliff, just some meters away from where she is.
Emma walks up to join the older woman and notices that it is in fact a cliff, one that overlooks the sea and a beautiful beach with large stones guarding the shoreline. What she also notices is that Regina seems tense and that she hasn't even acknowledged her presence yet.
Maybe she's a fool for worrying – after all, Emma doesn't think Regina would give it a second thought if it was the other way around – but the look on the brunette's face and the way her eyes are fixed on the shore below makes Emma's stomach twirl and she has the sudden need to say something.
"What are you looking at?" Emma asks, moving over to stand beside the brunette and following Regina's line of sight.
Her own green orbs land on the calm and deserted beach so many meters below the cliff and she wonders what is it about that place that has the normally stoic brunette looking suddenly so pale.
"There," Regina points to the beach with her finger.
Emma narrows her eyes and tries to focus on finding something odd or that looks out of place, anything at all, so that she can understand why it seems like she's missing the big elephant in the room.
But she doesn't find anything.
It's just a beach, a plain old beach with large stones and dark sea waves bathing its shores.
Suddenly, Emma's heart leaps in her chest as she trains her eyes more intensely on the dark waves dying upon the shoreline. She finally realizes that the beach they are overlooking is not part of the island they're currently on.
It's another place entirely.
Emma turns to Regina, her eyes widening in sudden fear. "What is that place?"
"That, dear," Regina begins without averting her eyes from the beach, "is Neverland."
"Neverland…" Well, Emma thinks, at least they found the goddamn place. Now it's just a matter of making their way down to that beach because, unless Regina can do some of her hocus pocus and fly them safely to the shore, jumping off the cliff is not a plausible alternative.
She chances a look at the setting sun and ponders on what to do next. It's getting dark already and, by the look of it, getting down to that shore is going to be a long trek downhill.
Emma wants to go after Henry right now, every cell in her body is screaming for her to get a move on, but the rational part in her is telling her otherwise.
She used to be a bounty hunter, in what seems to be like a million years ago, so she knows by experience that chasing someone under the veil of darkness in an unfamiliar place is never the best course of action.
Especially if there are trolls - and whatnot - lurking about in the woods.
"C'mon, Regina," Emma turns around and begins her way back to where they came from, but Regina's voice halts her in mid stride.
"Where are you going?"
The brunette has her arms crossed, whether to warm herself or to further show her displeasure at her and the situation they're currently in, Emma doesn't know.
"It's getting dark," Emma says, pointing with her head to the horizon, where the sun has already set.
Regina unfolds her arms and takes a few steps closer to the blonde. "We need to find Henry."
"And we will, but in the morning."
It doesn't take a genius to notice that, out of the two of them, Emma is being the rational one. In her desperation to find Henry, Regina is missing the larger picture… terribly.
"No," she says, shaking her head and squaring her shoulders, which would normally make her utterly terrifying but now just makes her look like a stubborn child. "If you want to go and sleep while my son is in danger then you're welcome to it, Sheriff, but I'm going after him."
Emma sighs in aggravation. Of course Regina isn't going to make it any easier on her. "Regina… don't be foolish. Henry needs both his mothers and believe me, if you go after him right now, you will most probably trip with a rock in the dark and break your neck. And no matter how much I would like to see that sometimes, I don't think Henry would appreciate it if you died on my watch."
Regina snorts and suddenly moves into Emma's personal space, clearly sizing her up. "Oh, so now you're in charge?"
"Yeah," Emma takes a step forward, breaths almost touching, not letting Regina get the upper hand. "Apparently I am, since I'm the only one thinking clearly right now."
"Ok, sheriff." Regina begins with a lopsided smirk on her features, "Since apparently you're the brains now, what do you suggest we do?"
Emma takes a moment to ponder on their options. "Well, since it's already dark and we don't know where we are, I suggest we prepare for the night and, first thing in the morning, we'll go after him."
For a whole of five minutes, Regina stays eerie silent. She just stares at Emma with her features perfectly schooled, making it literally impossible for the blonde to make out what's going on in that brain of hers.
Emma is at the point where she doesn't think Regina will answer when, finally, she does, "Very well," is all the brunette says, voice devoid of all emotion.
Emma's mouth falls agape. She was not certainly waiting for the older woman to agree with her proposal, at least not at her first try. She was convinced she'd have to either pull forth some very convincing arguments to reach an agreement, or knock the brunette unconscious in order to get her to sleep. So she's incredibly surprised when Regina seems to come to reason without putting up a fight first.
"Ok, great." Emma says, sitting down on the floor without any more preambles. When she sees that the other woman is still standing above her with no indications that she's going to move any time soon, Emma pats the patch of grass next to her and says, "Unless you're some sort of human-bat that can sleep while standing, I suggest you lie down on the floor."
"Don't try me, Sheriff," Regina says in a menacing tone but she complies nonetheless.
The brunette sits uneasily on the grass, as far away from Emma as she can without falling off the cliff. Regina lies down on her left side, her back facing Emma.
"Goodnight, Regina." Emma says but the brunette doesn't reply. She shakes her head incredulously and turns around too, both women facing opposite sides.
Emma is thankful that they, at least, ended up on a semi-tropical island because, otherwise, sleeping out in the open would certainly prove to be a very difficult task without any kind of blanket or body warmth. And, with Regina as her only companion, she is sure that it's going to be a whole lot easier to skin a pack of wolves to use their skin as blankets than to get the brunette to scoot closer to her.
Emma shuts her eyes closed and wishes for the morning to arrive soon.
III
When Regina opens her eyes, she finds that the first vestiges of light are beginning to appear on the horizon. The sun is not up yet but the sky is turning a beautiful shade of pink already. It's a wonderful sight, if she has to be honest, and she has the sudden impulse to comment it with the blonde but, when she turns around, Regina realizes that she's alone.
Emma is gone.
Regina's throat constricts in pure anger and her eyes turn into slits. It is so Emma Swan to flee when things like this happen. She should have known that Emma would leave her behind and search for Henry without her. She should have done the same, she should have waited until the blonde was asleep and go after Henry herself.
She had been an idiot to trust the Sherriff but, then again, when wasn't she a credulous fool? Every time Regina had trusted someone else with something important, they had betrayed her in the worst possible way. Snow, Jefferson, Whale, Rumple, and the list went on and on. And, now, she'd have to add Emma Swan's name to that list.
Regina springs to her feet and takes in the forest in front of her. Maybe if she is fast enough she can catch up with the blonde, maybe even outrun her.
The brunette sighs and mentally reprimands herself for always falling in the same stupid trap. She walks toward the shrubbery and, she's about to cross the straight line that the trees make, when a voice stops her abruptly.
"Where are you going?"
It's Emma Swan's voice.
Regina turns on her heels and looks at the blonde woman in confusion.
What is she doing here? Isn't she supposed to be half way downhill by now?
Regina looks back at the forest and then at the younger woman again.
"You thought I'd gone after Henry without you," It's not a question, it's a statement, and Regina suddenly feels very exposed and stupid. "Geez, Regina." Emma runs a hand through her tousled blonde locks and moves closer to her. "I knew you'd want to go after him before sunrise, so I thought I'd look for something to eat since you most probably wouldn't even care to acknowledge the fact that you haven't eaten in more than a day," Emma lifts her hands to show the brunette the bananas she's holding in her arms. "Here, eat." Emma angrily throws Regina a banana and walks past her, heading into the forest.
Regina catches the fruit as she can and stares blankly at the empty place Emma left behind. What the hell did just happen?
IV
"I'm… Emma, I'm…" Regina mumbles under her breath, again and again, eyes downcast and struggling with her mind to get the words past her lips.
It's not like she hasn't apologized to the woman before because she can perfectly recall a time when she did, clear and loud. It's what happened after that apology that taunts Regina's mind.
For one like her, apologies are a display of weakness; the wanting of forgiveness just another way of giving in to the will of another. Asking for forgiveness and waiting to be forgiven is a game in which Regina is not used to be a player, let alone a winner.
But she now knows, if the last few months in Storybrooke have taught her anything, that sometimes it's necessary to give in… to trust. To trust that in her display of weakness she will not be submitted or hurt for it.
In other words, she has to trust that the blonde woman will not hurt her again once she says the words and admits her faults.
"Emma," Regina calls, this time louder. She's looking at where she steps, so she doesn't see that the other woman has come to a halt in front of her. Regina bumps into her and she staggers back a few steps, somehow managing not to lose her balance. "What the hell do you think…" but she trails off when she notices the look in Emma's eyes. "What?"
Emma points with her head to the vast sea extending in front of them. From where she's standing, Regina can also see a faint purplish glimmer in the air.
The brunette narrows her eyes and moves closer to the edge of the island, trying to decipher what the purplish glimmer is.
They have finally managed to find the lowest terrain in the island that is the closest to the visible shores of Neverland. What they were not expecting to find is that, on top of the sea separating the two lands, there is a purplish veil that clearly divides one land from the other.
The division is a clear straight line, so incredibly clear that you can easily tell where the blue transparent waters from this island end and where the dark sea of Neverland begins.
"No," Regina whispers feeling her heart sinking in her chest, "That can't be possible."
"That's magic, isn't it?" Emma asks, logically the last to put two and two together when magic is concerned, but rapidly catching up.
"Yes," Regina forces through gritted teeth, glaring at the purplish veil.
"And why does it look like a magic wall… wall of magic… whatever?"
Regina turns her head to look at her. She gives Emma a look so hard and unforgiving that Emma feels like she's facing the Mayor all over again.
"Because, Sheriff, that's precisely what it is," Regina spits. "A wall," she gestures with her hand to the veil, "A wall that acts as a division from this land and the next."
Emma takes a moment to let the new information sink in before replying. "Okay… so that takes building a boat and sailing off to Neverland off the 'to do' list, right?"
Regina reassumes her glaring at the veil. "Indeed, it does."
"But you can still puff us out of here, right?" Emma asks, for some reason feeling a tad more anxious than she did before.
Regina suddenly turns to look at Emma. Gone is the steely look from her eyes. What Emma sees swirling in those brown orbs now looks a lot like…
Fear.
The brunette doesn't utter a word, though. She flicks her wrist in a way that Emma has seen her do before and, then, extends her palm out to the sky.
Emma doesn't know what to expect but she's sure that, whatever Regina tried to do, didn't work.
Regina furrows her eyebrows as she stares at her open palm.
She tries again.
Once more nothing happens.
She tries to cast the simplest of spells.
Nothing. Nada.
Regina looks up from her stretched out hand to Emma's green eyes. The brunette's expression says it all.
Emma's eyes widen as realization hits her square in the face, "There's no magic here."When Dan Scheffey turned 50, he threw himself a party. About 100 people packed into his Manhattan apartment, which occupies the third floor of a brick townhouse in the island’s vibrant East Village. His parents, siblings, and an in-law were there, and friends from all times and walks of his life. He told them how much they meant to him and how happy he was to see them all in one place. “My most important family,” says Dan, who has been single his entire life, “is the family that I’ve selected and brought together.”
Dan has never been married. He doesn’t have kids. Not long ago, his choice of lifestyle would have been highly unusual, even pitied. In 1950, 78 percent of households in the United States had a married couple at its helm; more than half of those included children. “The accepted wisdom was that the post-World War II nuclear family style was the culmination of a long journey—the end point of changes in families that had been occurring for several hundred years,” sociologist John Scanzoni wrote in 2001.1
But that wisdom was wrong: The meaning of family is morphing once again. Fueled by a convergence of historical currents—including birth control and the rising status of women, increased wealth and social security, LGBTQ activism, and the spread of personal communication technologies and social media—more people are choosing to live alone than ever before.
Gift Culture Media / Getty Image
Pick a random American household today, and it’s more likely to look like Dan’s than like Ozzie and Harriet’s. Nearly half of adults ages 18 and older are single. About 1 in 7 live alone. Americans are marrying later, divorcing in larger numbers, and becoming less interested in remarrying. According to the Pew Research Center, by the time today’s young adults reach age 50, a quarter of them will have never married at all.
The surge of singlehood is not just an American phenomenon. Between 1980 and 2011, the number of one-person households worldwide more than doubled, from about 118 million to 277 million, and will rise to 334 million by 2020, according to Euromonitor International. More than a dozen countries, including Japan and several European nations, now have even larger proportions of solo-dwellers than the U.S. (Sweden ranks highest at almost 50 percent.)2 Individuals, not couples or clans or other social groups, are fast becoming the fundamental units of society.
Also in Sociology Why We Keep Playing the Lottery By Adam Piore To grasp how unlikely it was for Gloria C. MacKenzie, an 84-year-old Florida widow, to have won the 0 million Powerball lottery in May, Robert Williams, a professor of health sciences at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, offers this...READ MORE
The rising tide of solo dwellers is creating, sustaining, and perhaps even strengthening, the ties that bind us.
And yet, in the stories we tell each other about the workings of community, it is often the married couples and the traditional families who are holding us together. In the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 opinion legalizing same-sex marriage, for instance, Justice Anthony Kennedy discounted the country’s 107 million singletons when he declared marriage “a keystone of the Nation’s social order.” We tend to view single people—especially those who live alone—as isolates, holed up in their apartment, lonely and loveless, more social repellent than social glue.
Research by social scientists paints a very different picture. Most singles, studies show, are more like Dan Scheffey than their miserable or narcissistic caricatures. They host salons, take classes, go to rallies, organize unions, care for aging friends and relatives, help raise kids, and cultivate large, diverse social networks—often with more zeal and commitment than the married demographic they’re displacing.
Rather than tear us apart, the rising tide of solo dwellers is creating, sustaining, and perhaps even strengthening, the ties that bind us.
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement, selected years, 1970 to 2012.
The belief that nuclear families are essential to the social operating system has long infused our collective psyche. In late 19th-century France, Emile Durkheim, an eminent figure in sociology, proclaimed that marriage integrates people into society while single life alienates them. Because they lack social support and a sense of belonging, Durkheim argued, single people were more likely to kill themselves.
More than a century of statistical scrutiny tells us that any link between singlehood and asocial behavior, including suicide, has been vastly overstated, if one exists at all.3 And yet the stereotype persists. In our own research on the perceptions of single people, my colleagues and I presented study participants with pairs of near-identical biographical profiles, differing only in marital status. Participants routinely judged the married people as kinder, more loyal, and more caring. They tended to view the singles as shyer, lonelier, and more selfish.4
Not only are these biases false—they may be backward.5 In multiple national surveys involving representative samples of thousands of citizens, participants answered questions about their social life. How often did they socialize with friends, neighbors, or coworkers? How often did they give rides, help with errands, or pitch in with housework or repairs? Did they also offer advice, encouragement, or emotional support? Did they receive similar support in return?
There |
Our server was Alicia and she was very attentive. Food came out quick, egg white omelette was great, the hotter salsa was also good, coffee kept coming and all and all, a great experience.oh yea, chips and salsa included!
Found a great place for breakfast! Where to start, food was great, service was great, portion sizes are great and coffee is amazing! Down side, parking is tough, the place is a bit small so you'll have a short wait time but, other then that check it out. I'll definitely be coming back.Lakshmi Mittal's'mega-mine' is believed to be the largest mineral extraction project in the region but threatens unique wildlife
Britain's richest man is planning a giant new opencast mine 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle in a bid to extract a potential $23bn (£14bn) worth of iron ore.
The "mega-mine" – which includes a 150km railway line and two new ports – is believed to be the largest mineral extraction project in the Arctic and highlights the huge commercial potential of the far north as global warming makes industrial development in the region easier.
The billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who is behind the project, wants to exploit a commodity whose value has doubled due to soaring demand from China and India.
But the wildlife group WWF, describes the planned mine as a "game changer" and a test case that could affect all future industrialisation of the far north. "It is certainly... of a scale that would be massive anywhere in the world," said Martin von Mirbach, a director of the Arctic programme at WWF in Canada. WWF is demanding the company proceeds with extreme caution.
Documents seen by the Guardian show that Mittal's company, the world's biggest steel-making group, ArcelorMittal, admits the operations will be undertaken in an area inhabited by unique wildlife including polar bear, narwhal and walrus.
The company has just spent nearly $600m (£373m) alongside a US private equity firm buying Baffinland Iron Mines, to seize control and develop the Mary river deposits in the Nunavut region of the Canadian Arctic.
Mittal has already outlined an ambitious plan to use more than 2,000 workers to build 24 bridges, stretches of road, warehouses, fuel depots, landfills and an airstrip as well as the docks at Milne Inlet and Steensby.
The railway alone will take four years to construct and will need its own roads and quarries for iron ore, which the company says is "an essential commodity for ongoing growth and development of our society" particularly the developing economies of China and India.
The project will also provide jobs for locals and increased revenues for the local government of Nunavut while contributing to "strengthening Canada's sovereignty in the north".
But an environmental impact statement prepared for Baffinland Iron Mines accepts the area is home to terrestrial mammals including caribou, Arctic fox and hare.
The statement outlines how marine mammals are also found in abundance in the region including polar bears, narwhals, beluga whales and blowhead whales while migratory birds include snow geese, rough-legged hawks and gyro-falcons.
The operators say they will work hard to prevent contamination from sewage, wastewater and explosive equipment-washing but they admit: "building sections of the railway into the edge of several lakes will be unavoidable … some fish habitat will be lost."
It also says "accidental kills of caribou could occur as a result of project activity" and that "small numbers of ringed seal mortalities could occur as a result of icebreaking activity."
The company admits any large diesel spill "would have significant environmental effects" but says this kind of event is unlikely. Baffinland also argues it will pay more than $2.8bn in taxes to the government of Nunavut over 21 years and that it will spend $1.7bn on labour.
A spokesperson for ArcellorMittal said that the project is currently in the environmental assessment process during which NGOs, governments and individuals are invited to review the plans.
"Included in the environmental impact statement (EIS) are detailed management, mitigation, and monitoring plans, which will allow for potential impacts to be minimised. All aspects of the project, through construction, operation and closure will be evaluated and will adhere to the conditions established for the project through this process," the spokesperson said.
WWF says it is up to the local Inuit to decide whether the project goes ahead but the wildlife group wants to help ensure the plans are developed in the most sensitive way.
"This is a test case on the potential for carrying out large-scale industrial development in the Canadian Arctic in an appropriate way. We would like to see better information about a project whose scale would be massive wherever it was in the world," said von Mirbach.
"The biggest impact will be from shipping with a ship every 32 hours, year-round. This might not be much off Norway but here with an average of between 0-10 ships a year, it's significant. It is hard to know what impact it will have on narwals and walruses," he added.ELI, West Bank — Singing and dancing greeted a triumphant Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Eli, then a young settlement of 959 residents, shortly after first becoming Israel’s prime minister in 1996. “We will be here permanently forever,” he declared in nearby Ariel that day, promising to renew the internationally contentious construction of Jewish communities across the land Palestinians plan as their future state. Struggling for settlers’ support ahead of Israel’s March 17 elections, Mr. Netanyahu returned last month to Eli, now a boomtown of more than 4,000 people that sprawls across six hilltops amid Palestinian villages and farmland. This time, he did not speak about new building, but his presence was a statement in itself: Eli is among dozens of isolated settlements whose expansion and entrenchment threaten the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Steady growth of settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, which most world leaders consider violations of international law, complicates both the creation of a viable Palestine and the challenge of someday uprooting Israelis, who are now raising a second and third generation in contested areas. Along the road from Eli to Ariel one recent afternoon, a Palestinian man grazed a few cows and sheep on a grassy hillside, and scores of teenagers in white Islamic head scarves walked home from school. Inside the settlement’s gate, where a new shopping complex opened last year, bulldozers were at work on construction of a $3.8 million, 300,000-square-foot community center. A sign at the entrance announced, “Eli: A Big Place to Grow.”
As Mr. Netanyahu seeks a fourth term, his record on settlements is a central element of his troubled relationship with Washington, alongside the divergence on how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program. Construction in the West Bank is also at the heart of mounting European criticism of Israel. In the campaign, Mr. Netanyahu is navigating between his center-left challenger, Isaac Herzog, who promised to freeze construction beyond the so-called settlement blocks near Israel’s pre-1967 lines, and rightists who say the prime minister has not built nearly enough. An analysis of planning, construction, population and spending data over the past two decades shows that Mr. Netanyahu was an aggressive builder during his first premiership in the 1990s, when the West Bank settler population rose at roughly three times the total Israeli rate. But since returning to Israel’s helm in 2009, Mr. Netanyahu has logged a record similar to the less-conservative leaders sandwiched between, with those settlements swelling about twice as fast as Israel overall.
Annual population growth of West Bank settlements Benjamin Netanyahu Ehud Barak Ariel Sharon Benjamin Netanyahu Ehud Olmert 8% 6% 4% 2% ’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 ’12 ’13 Source: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics Annual population growth of West Bank settlements 2% 8% 4% 6% ’96 Benjamin Netanyahu ’97 ’98 ’99 Ehud Barak ’00 ’01 Ariel Sharon ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 Ehud Olmert ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 Benjamin Netanyahu ’11 ’12 ’13 8% 2% 4% 6% Source: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics In those recent years, however, Mr. Netanyahu has taken several steps that make drawing a two-state map particularly problematic, and has declared: “I do not intend to evacuate any settlements.” He has taken more heat over settlements than his predecessors, analysts said, in part because of his broader intransigence on the Palestinian issue and the use of construction as a retaliatory tool. But Mr. Netanyahu is also a focus of international ire because of the cumulative effect of decades of settlement growth. With negotiations stalled between the Palestinians and Israelis, the number of settlers in the West Bank now exceeds 350,000 — including about 80,000 living in isolated settlements like Eli and Ofra that are hard to imagine remaining in place under any deal. In addition, there are another 300,000 Israelis living in parts of Jerusalem that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war and later annexed in a move most of the world considers illegal. “The reality of all those years of construction, to which Netanyahu is now adding his significant share, has created a sense of urgency and of panic,” said Aaron David Miller, who advised six American secretaries of state on the Middle East.
Construction starts in West Bank settlements Benjamin Netanyahu Ehud Barak Ariel Sharon Ehud Olmert Benjamin Netanyahu 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 ’96 ’97 ’98 ’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 ’11 ’12 ’13 ’14 Source: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics Construction starts in West Bank settlements 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 ’96 Benjamin Netanyahu ’97 ’98 ’99 Ehud Barak ’00 ’01 Ariel Sharon ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 Ehud Olmert ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 Benjamin Netanyahu ’11 ’12 ’13 ’14 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 Source: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics “Each of those other prime ministers who were builders were also able to placate Washington and cooperate with it because they were involved in some significant effort to actually negotiate and conclude an agreement. Netanyahu has drawn a blank or a zero on that,” Mr. Miller added. “If you have no strategy, and what you’re doing is increasing settlement activity, the perception is, frankly, that you’re not serious.” First elected in 1996 on a promise to reverse a four-year freeze on settlement expansion in all but a few areas, Mr. Netanyahu endorsed the concept of two states for two peoples upon regaining Israel’s top job in 2009, saying in his famous Bar Ilan speech: “We have no intention of building new settlements or of expropriating additional land for existing settlements.” Mr. Netanyahu now explains his building initiatives as an inevitable accommodation to natural growth and says they have not materially affected the map, only added, as he put it, “a few houses in existing communities.” He rebuts any suggestion that settlements are the core of the conflict, noting that Arabs and Jews were fighting in this land long before they existed. “From 1920, when this conflict effectively began, until 1967, there wasn’t a single Israeli settlement or a single Israeli soldier in the territories, and yet this conflict raged,” he said in a May interview with Bloomberg View. “What was that conflict about? It was about the persistent refusal to recognize a Jewish state, before it was established and after it was established.” Still, the American who led the latest round of failed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Martin S. Indyk, has said that Mr. Netanyahu’s “rampant settlement activity” had a “dramatically damaging impact.” The Palestinians plan to file a case in the International Criminal Court in April contending that settlements are a continuing war crime. A recent report from the anti-settlement group Peace Now showed that government-issued bids for building — the last of many steps that precede construction — have grown steadily since 2009 to reach 4,485 units last year. Two-thirds of new construction over the last two years, the Peace Now report shows, was on the Palestinian side of a line drawn by the Geneva Initiative, an international working group that produced a model agreement in 2003. “What I see is much more emphasis on construction in the most problematic settlements, which are the potential deal-breakers for a two-state solution,” said Hagit Ofran, director of Peace Now’s Settlement Watch project. “It was a taboo beforehand. The official policy of Israel was, we are not building new settlements, we are heading for peace. The Netanyahu government just left this policy.” Spending on settlement activity during Mr. Netanyahu’s current tenure averaged $252 million annually, according to reports that Israel is required to provide to Washington, compared with an average of $243 million in the six previous years. Another new study, from Israel’s Macro Center for Political Economics, found that the government spent about $950 supporting each West Bank resident in 2014, more than double its investment in people living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem; in isolated settlements, it was $1,483 per capita.
The West Bank is 2,100 square miles of rolling hills, dotted by some 200 Jewish settlements surrounded by security fences. They include the city of Ariel, with its own university and regional theater; planned communities of cookie-cutter houses with red-tile roofs; and hilltop outposts where a few dozen people live in trailers. Most of the growth has been in three settlement blocks near Jerusalem and Tel Aviv slated for land swaps with the Palestinians in a future peace deal. But while Palestinian leaders have accepted the concept of swaps, neither they nor the United States have ever agreed on a delineation of such blocks.
WEST BANK Modiin Illit The biggest and fastest-growing settlement is Modiin Illit, an insular, ultra-Orthodox enclave just over the 1967 line that is widely expected to stay in Israel. In 2009, the community recorded 60 births a week; today, it has more than 60,000 residents.
Modiin Illit 1997 Aerial photography from Peace Now Most men in Modiin Illit study the Torah full time; hundreds of young mothers work in a decade-old business center providing paralegal research or credit-card customer service. Strollers often outnumber cars on the streets. The population in isolated settlements, which are outside anyone’s conception of blocks, has grown 15 percent since 2009 and is now double what it was when Mr. Netanyahu first took office in 1996. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly stated that he has not created any new settlements, but that is a question of semantics. Not far from Eli is a little place called Leshem, which opened two years ago with 104 families. The government calls Leshem a new neighborhood of the decades-old settlement up the road, Alei Zahav. But Leshem has its own kindergarten, its own community council and a website that pitches it as “a new and sparkling settlement.” More of its modular, flat-roofed beige homes — distinct from the signature red-tiled slopes of Alei Zahav — are under construction. There is an even bigger building boom a few miles east, in Bruchin, one of three outposts retroactively legalized in 2012 at the government’s prodding.
WEST BANK Bruchin Over the past six months, earth-toned stone walls have been erected in Bruchin to mark 50 suburban-style plots, increasing the settlement’s size by half. A dozen of the two-story homes are finished but for the siding and the paving of a new road; 100 families are on a waiting list to move in.
Bruchin 1997 Aerial photography from Peace Now Last month, Israel’s phone company started laying lines to connect the community, which was long off-limits. “We are now a small settlement,” said Yisrael Saadia, Bruchin’s manager. “We want to be a big settlement.” Back in 2005, the Israeli government itself identified about 100 outposts, including Bruchin, that had been established illegally. Since 2011, 19 of them have obtained government approval, and six more are in the pipeline, according to a forthcoming report by the Israeli group Yesh Din and the Rights Forum, which is Dutch. If such outposts are the most contested, one place where there is a broad consensus that settlements will stay is the Etzion block, stretching south from Jerusalem along Route 60. There were Jewish communities there before Israel’s establishment in 1948, and Mr. Herzog of the center-left Zionist Union recently campaigned in the block, declaring that “it must be part of Israel for eternity.” But in this area, too, Mr. Netanyahu’s initiatives have deepened the dilemma for peacemakers.
WEST BANK Efrat Efrat, with nearly 10,000 residents, is to Israelis the capital of the Etzion block. Palestinians, though, do not accept it as part of the block at all, because it is on the eastern side of Route 60 — their side of the Geneva Initiative map. Annexing it would be far more complicated. Yet over the past four years, tenders have been published for more than 1,100 new units in Efrat, and land cleared for a new neighborhood that would extend the settlement even further east. “What you’re doing is actually affecting the delineation of the blocks, but unilaterally,” said Gilead Sher, who heads a group, Blue White Future, that is pushing to evacuate some settlements and shore up others. Of Mr. Netanyahu, he added, “He speaks about the two-state solution, but he does whatever there is in his capability to delegitimize the two-state solution.”
The settlers themselves hardly see Mr. Netanyahu as a savior. His recent sojourn to Eli was to beat back a challenge from the rightist Jewish Home party, which won 71 percent of Eli’s votes in the 2013 election, compared with 13 percent for Mr. Netanyahu’s ticket. Settlers felt betrayed by his acquiescence, in 2009, to the Obama administration’s demand for a 10-month settlement freeze. Despite the drumbeat of settlement announcements that have outraged the world in the last two years, they complain that new plans have not advanced during that time. Dani Dayan, a leader of the settler council, said Mr. Netanyahu sees settlements as “a tool of policy,” not as a matter of principle, and has “good intentions” but “doesn’t always translate them into acts.” “Like many other issues, Netanyahu is in favor, but he’s the master of maneuver,” Mr. Dayan said. “I cannot say there was a strategic change by Netanyahu. He left the situation more or less like it was six years ago, in a somewhat larger scale.” Early in his first term Mr. Netanyahu signed the Hebron agreement, withdrawing Israelis from 80 percent of the biblical city, something Mr. Dayan said settlers perceive as his “original sin.” Around the same time, though, he approved Har Homa, a new neighborhood in southern Jerusalem that the Palestinians — along with the United States and Europe — contested fiercely for blocking access between Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, which they claim as their future capital. “Write it down,” he said in 1998. “You will see houses at Har Homa, many houses, by the year 2000.”
WEST BANK Har Homa Har Homa has more than 25,000 residents today. They live in stone apartment blocks studded by modern playgrounds, drawn by bigger spaces for less money than are available elsewhere in the city. A listing for a five-bedroom apartment with two balconies (asking price $611,000) includes “views over Bethlehem” as a prime selling point.
Har Homa 1997 Aerial photography from Peace Now Mr. Netanyahu also irked Washington in 1997 by adding 300 new homes in Efrat. Speaking of the entire West Bank, he said that year: “This is the land of our forefathers, and we claim it to the same degree that the other side claims it.” Since retaking office in 2009, Mr. Netanyahu has somewhat softened his public stance. “Of course some settlements won’t be part of the deal; everyone understands that,” he said a year ago. But he has also described Ariel, perhaps the most contested part of the blocks, as the “heart of our country.” And he has promised to “strengthen the Jewish settlement in Hebron” — fighting words to the Palestinians.
“What is preventing a solution to the conflict is the refusal to recognize Israel as the state for the Jewish people, certainly not building in Gilo," Mr. Netanyahu said in 2013, referring to a Jerusalem neighborhood near Har Homa. “Does anyone think that Gilo will not stay as part of Israel?” It was the announcement of 700 new apartments in Gilo that Secretary of State John Kerry saw last year as the last straw that scuttled his peace initiative: “Poof, that was sort of the moment,” he said afterward. Mr. Netanyahu shrugged it off, saying a few months later: “The French build in Paris, the English build in London and the Israelis build in Jerusalem.” But here in Eli, where campaign banners for the Jewish Home outnumber those for the Likud, the mayor says the settlement has grown despite the government, not because of it.
Children played in Eli, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Eli sprawls across six hilltops amid Palestinian villages and farmland. A few months ago, 64 families moved into Eli’s first four-story apartment buildings. Next on the drawing board: six stories, with elevators. But Eli’s three schools remain in trailers, lacking approval for construction. After-school activities for 600 children, a library used daily by 300 families, and yoga and ceramics classes for older residents all take place in bomb shelters. “Every brick we want to move, it’s a fight,” said Nitza Farkash, one of the settlement’s 25 employees. Named for a biblical high priest, Eli opened in 1984 and has become the heart of what Israelis call religious Zionism, with a 500-student pre-military yeshiva where Mr. Netanyahu recently spoke in a room lined with Talmudic texts. An aerial photograph from 1997 shows half of its six hilltops barren; now they have homes, synagogues and sports fields. The mayor, Kobi Eliraz, says Eli covers 1,500 acres, double its 1997 footprint. “All the years we thought big — not like a small town. We want to be a big city,” he said as he drove along Eli’s 15-mile ring road. “From when there was a single caravan here, the founders that came, they had a big view and a big vision to see all Eli like Tel Aviv.”GamingBolt recently got a chance to interview several developers from Ubisoft Massive. The team is currently working on this generation’s most anticipated title, Tom Clancy’s The Division. Given that Ubisoft Massive have their roots in PC gaming, we asked their thoughts about DirectX 12 and whether they it will bring a massive change for PC and Xbox One games development.
“DirectX 12 brings PC and Xbox development closer, which makes development easier and faster, allowing us to focus more on features,” Anders Holmquist, who is the Technical Director of The Division said to GamingBolt. He also revealed that it will improve the performance and visual quality even further. “It also lets us work closer to “the metal”, the actual hardware, which means we can push performance and visual quality even more.”
Tom Clancy’s The Division is due for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC sometime in 2015. Given that DirectX 12 releases in late 2015, it will be interesting to see if the developers will use the API in the Xbox One and PC version of The Division. If the game launches before the API is available, they can possibly release a DX12 patch for the same however this is an assumption on our part. For more on the game, check out our hub page here or read our in-depth wiki here.Allow us introduce French bus driver Francois Gissy, quite possibly the ballsiest person we’ve ever featured on TopGear.com.
Last weekend Francois rode his rocket-powered bicycle to a jaw-dropping, white-knuckle-inducing, sphincter-puckering speed of 207mph. Yes, you read that right. Two hundred and seven miles an hour. On a push bike.
But that’s not the impressive bit. Thanks to a Hulk-like grip, he managed to go over the double tonne in just 4.8 seconds, which is over 10 seconds quicker than the Hennessey Venom GT - the car that currently holds the record for the production car 0-200mph sprint - can manage.
Admittedly, Francois’ velo of choice is a bit different to your standard Boris Bike. Without wanting to sound like a MENSA science club, Gissy’s bike utilizes a TOWIE season’s worth of hydrogen peroxide which is passed over metals. When this combines with oxygen in the atmosphere, it creates an almighty amount of go that leaves a Ferrari Scuderia wondering which way it went at Paul Ricard’s long straight in the South of France.
When the fuse is lit, 4.5 kN of thrust - the equivalent of 560 horsepower - and 1.9Gs worth of acceleration shoots Francois at the horizon quicker than you can say many naughty words. Never has the advice ‘hold on tight’ been more prevalent.
Check out the run - and Gissy’s amazing hair - in the video above. Then let us know if you think the pedal pushers have finally chalked one up against us petrolheads.This game is a brightly colored class based (online only) third person shooter. While there is cartoon violence, it's done as tastefully as one can create cartoon zombies with guns, plants with guns, zombie eating plants, and the rest of the cast of this game.
The game is an addictive and fun game! The game gives "bonuses" in a point structure to encourage players to use their points to unlock "cards" which have special abilities, player outfits, and more. During the game, the player is given leveling goals to which they must do certain objectives in order to level up. These goals are things like "Score 25 hits with your main weapon", "Destroy three Peashooters from a higher position", and many more. These goals encourage a simple reward system to unlock special abilities and skills to further game play and keep the player involved.
While the majority of the game is "third person" or the perspective of a camera following the player, there is also a "Boss Mode" which allows one player on each team to be the strategic support lead for the team. If you choose this, you will see the map in an overhead 2D view and be able to provide supply and airstrikes on your chosen locations at key times in the game. A good boss can turn the tide of the game, but this option is not for everyone and the gameplay feels very different than the "shoot 'em up" this game is at heart.
If you're an adult/teen and have played Team Fortress 2, Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, and other games like these you will love this.
Lots of young kids are playing this game too...
FOR PARENTS: It's important to realize that the microphone current defaults to "ON" when you play online, and ALL games are online. With this, not all players are children! Depending on their interactions I've already heard both adults and kids use expletives and vulgar language...that being said, you CAN mute online players each time you start a game, and I recommend doing so! HOWEVER, if a new player joins in they will NOT be muted.
PROBLEM: Sadly, the developers did NOT put in a "no voice communication" type of switch in the options or have the "MUTE ALL" option remain active when a new player joins. For this major flaw, they lose one big star in my review! Some players may not want to hear a new player join a game in which they had previously muted everyone it, just to suddenly hear a new player join and start using profanity. It's just not "safe" for kids.
I think any casual gamer will enjoy this game. It can provide some in depth tactics and team play if desired. This game will receive a lot of negative reviews from parents who preordered the game based only on the PvZ name, and did not pay attention to any screenshots or in game footage. It does rightfully deserve a lower score for not being kid friendly though!
I highly recommend that you look at some clips on Youtube or something to see how the game appears and looks while you are playing it since it's very different from the other Plants VS Zombies games.We began rolling out the update in a soak test to those of you who bought your Moto X (2nd Gen.) at select retail partners in Brazil. We have been working on putting the software through carrier and regional testing in other countries and for other devices, so please stay tuned for more.
Google’s latest build of Lollipop 5.1 provides stability enhancements and squashes some bugs. At Motorola, we’re also throwing in a new Moto Action we believe is both useful and fun. In addition to twisting twice to launch camera, waving once to silence an incoming call, or passing your hand above the screen for Moto Display, you can now do one more thing.How many times have you fumbled through your settings or awkwardly opened an app to turn on the flashlight? When you typically need a flashlight, you need one quickly. Chop twice for flash allows you to make a natural chopping motion (that’s right, like when you’re chopping an onion) to turn on the flashlight. Then simply chop twice again to turn it off.We hope you enjoy the update. Learn more about 5.1 for Moto X (2nd Gen.) here and get other information at our software updates page. Let us know what you think about it on Facebook Google+, and TwitterIn the last post, we covered the following:
What purity is and what it isn't.
We looked at functions and function composition.
We've looked at how reasoning is easier if you only have functions.
In this post, we'll explore:
SQL as a pure language, which is a familiar language to almost everybody.
How pure languages deal with the real-world and doing side-effects, which are obviously practical things to do.
Evaluation vs execution, the generalization of pure vs impure languages.
In the next post, we'll explore the performance and declarative-code-writing benefits of pure functional languages in particular detail, looking at generated code, assembly, performance, etc.
In a familiar setting: SQL
In the last post, we established that pure languages (like Haskell or PureScript) are unable to make observations about the real world directly.
So, then, the question is: How do pure languages interact with the real world? Let's look at SQL first, because everyone knows SQL, and then use that as a bridge towards how it's done in Haskell and other general purpose pure languages.
Imagine a subset of SQL which is pure. It's not a big leap: SQL is mostly pure anyway. I don't like it when people write an article and ask me to imagine a syntax that's in their heads, so here is trivial a PEG grammar, which you can try online here.
Select = 'SELECT'Fields'FROM'Names Where? Names = Name (','Name)* Fields = Exp (','Exp)* Where ='WHERE'Exp Exp = Prefix? (Funcall / Condition / Name) (Connective Exp)? Funcall = Name '(' Exp ')' Condition = (Funcall / Name) Op Exp Prefix = 'NOT'Connective ='AND'/'OR'Op ='='/'<>'/'<'/'>'/'*'Name = [a-zA-Z0-9]+
The following is an example of the above grammar.
SELECT sin(foo), bar * 3 FROM table1, table2 WHERE foo > 1 AND NOT bar = floor(foo)
This language is pure. The result of evaluating one of these expressions is the same every time. You can swap the order of commutative expressions like floor(foo) = bar and it doesn't change the meaning of the program. floor(x) * sin(y) = sin(y) * floor(x).
You get a description of the work you want to be done, and then the database engine (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, etc.), usually creating an optimized query plan based on what it knows about your query and the database schema and contents, executes the query on the database, returning a collection of results.
You didn't write instructions about how to get the database, where to look on the database, how to map indices across tables and whether to do an index scan or a sequence scan, allocating a buffer, etc.
And yet, above, we clearly are giving the SQL engine a little program (not a turing complete one), that can compute conditionals and even functions ( floor and sin ) that we specified freely.
Because our little program is pure, SQL is capable of basically rewriting it completely, reducing it into a more normalized form without redundancy, and executing something far more efficient.
Look at what PostgreSQL is able to do with your queries. Here I do a query which works on an indexed field on a table with 37,626,086 rows. PostgreSQL knows both the query and my data, and plans accordingly, able to estimate the cost of how much work we'll have to do.
ircbrowse=> explain select * from event where id > 123 and id < 200*2; QUERY PLAN ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Index Scan using event_unique_id on event (cost=0.56..857.20 rows=309 width=87) Index Cond: ((id > 123) AND (id < 400))
(The 200*2 was evaluated statically.)
Simply based on a static analysis of the SQL program.
Evaluation vs execution
The SQL example is a specific case of a more general way of separating two concerns: evaluation and execution (or interpretation). On the one side you have your declarative language that you can evaluate, pretty much in terms of substition steps (and that's how you do your reasoning, in terms of the denotational semantics), and on the other you have a separate program which interprets that language in "the real world" (associated with operational semantics).
I'm sure any programmer reading this easily understands the informal denotational semantics of the SQL mini language above, and would feel comfortable implementing one or more ways of executing it.
In the same way, Haskell and other pure languages, construct declarative descriptions of work which a separate program can execute.
Evaluation
What's evaluation, as differentiated from execution? To do your language's regular evaluation steps, as you might do on paper. If you've read your Structured and Interpretation of Computer Programs by MIT, you'll know this as the substitution model. Here's an example.
If you want to count the length of a linked list, you might do:
length [ 1, 2, 3 ]
And length is implemented like this:
length [] = 0 length ( x : xs ) = 1 + length xs
So let's evaluate the expression, step-by-step:
length [ 1, 2, 3 ] 1 + length [ 2, 3 ] 1 + ( 1 + length [ 3 ] ) 1 + ( 1 + ( 1 + length [] ) ) 1 + ( 1 + ( 1 + 0 ) ) 1 + ( 1 + 1 ) 1 + 2 3
Even if you don't know Haskell, I think the simple substitution steps to evaluate the expression are straight-forward and make sense. That's evaluation.
A Terminal mini-language
Let's look at a data type that models a list of terminal actions to perform. I realise that if you don't know Haskell or ML, the below is mostly nonsense. I'll also bring in JavaScript as a "lingua franca", so that the idea translates nicely.
(If it looks concise in Haskell and verbose in JavaScript, it's because JavaScript was designed for imperative, OO-style programming, and Haskell was designed for pure functional programming.)
data Terminal a = Print String ( Terminal a ) | GetLine ( String -> Terminal a ) | Return a function Print(string, next) { this.line = string; this.next = next; } function GetLine(cont) { this.f = cont; } function Return(a) { this.a = a; }
It can describe printing to stdout, getting a line from stdin, or returning a result. An example might be:
Print "Please enter your name: " ( GetLine ( \ name -> Print ( "Hello, " ++ name ++ "!" ) ( Return () ) ) ) new Print( "Please enter your name: ", new GetLine(function(name){ return new Print("Hello, " + name + "!", new Return(null));}))
Think of this like an abstract syntax tree. It's the description of what to do. When there is a function in the AST, that's a callback. The callback is just another pure function that returns a new action to be interpreted.
The expressions above can be evaluated, but they perform no side-effects. It's a piece of purely functional code which generates a data structure. Our substitution model above still works.
Hammering the point home, consider a greeting action like this:
greeting :: String -> Terminal () greeting msg = Print msg ( GetLine ( \ name -> if name == "Chris" then Print "That's my name too." ( Return () ) else Print "Hello, stranger!" ( Return () ) ) )
The greeting function itself is pure. It takes a message string, and constructs a Print using that. That's done by evaluation. Also, the sub-expression (
ame ->...) is another pure function that takes a name and conditionally produces one action or another.
Now, onto execution.
Execution
We can write a number of ways to interpret this AST. Here is one pure implementation. It takes as input (1) some action list to run and (2) lines of input, then it returns a value and some output lines:
data Result a = Success a | Failure String deriving Show interpretPure :: Terminal a -> [ String ] -> Result ( a, [ String ] ) interpretPure action stdin = case action of Return a -> Success ( a, [] ) Print line next -> case interpretPure next stdin of Success ( a, stdout ) -> Success ( a, line : stdout ) Failure e -> Failure e Get |
project you may wait for another bubble for prettly long. Partially selling it while it is climbing making your ROI (return of investment) like 5 or 10 or 20x is great. Don't be greedy and wait for 100x returns: yes it happened several times, but you usually fail when you wait too much. It's better to reinvest your profits in some fresh project. Remember to put aside some meaningful sum for hedonism purposes. ;)
Never sell with a loss:
In booming crypto market, even a dead coin is alive in some sense. Maybe someone picks up and continues development? Whenever I sold with a loss, and it happened few times - I regretted it. You're in red? Forget about it. Wait. HODL. You will probably be in green sooner or later if there's any value and utility on what you have invested. Booming crypto market will definitely last for few more years, because this industry is not even remotely big as it should be. Amount of disruption it brings in online computing and finances is unprecedented. 120 bn USD market cap of all cryptocurrencies is nothing but a laughable sum when you know just that one corporation, namely Apple, is 5x bigger. And cryptocurrencies market's going to be 10x bigger than that... Soon. So 50x rise in few years is totally plausible scenario.
Invest only what you can afford to lose:
You probably already know this one. Investing is just smarter form of gambling. Don't make any possibility that you ruin your life financially because of wrong investments. Taking loans is a big no-no. Leveraged trading is also a big no-no, unless you have some relable insider information.
Do not day-trade:
TA (Technical Analysis) that is usually used when people try to day-trade is more of a pseudo-science than science, especially in wild cryptocurrencies market. It's in a sense a self-fulfilled prophecy that may work good in huge traditional markets like USD/EUR or USD/Gold. And it works better there because majority is using it. Not saying there is not some connection between math applied to price movement, psychology of masses and market sentiment, but to master it you have to put great deal of effort: read the news, watch the graphs 24 hours/day which is stressful and usually leads to losses, at least in my case. Yes I tried it and concluded that business is for very special kind of people. It's better to invest early in promising carefully picked projects and sell it with 10x ROI one year later and re-invest.
Ledger Nano S and backups
What a piece of pure fetish hardware it is. You can keep most of the important coins on it (Bitcoin, Ethereum (along with every ERC-20 token out there), Litecoin... etc). Monero support coming soon. Your private keys never leave the device, all you have to know is your PIN for spending. Quality product done well. Backup your private keys and passwords for sites (and ledger seed phrase) to 2 or 3 USBs, storing them on secure separate locations. Make copies of the same file 2 or 3 times per USB. Pack it all with strong RAR password. Do not keep your private keys on machine which is online if you don't have to. Do not write your passwords/mnemonic seeds on papers which you can easily lose. Use decent password managing program like KeePass is.
Sidelining:
If you're investing in some already launched crypto, the you should buy it when marketprice is not moving a lot in either direction, for some time. Zoom out the graph and analyze it. It's called sidelining, and buying in that phase is accumulation. This article is essential for correctly timing the market.We all think that living in Seattle is great (or at least, hopefully most of us do)...but a new study from RoadSnacks.net has ranked the 10 worst suburbs of our grand city, based on unemployment, media income, population density, home values and high school drop outs. The rankings are as follows:
Algona. Population: 3,090 / Median Income: $57,098 / Median Home Value: $185,500 Midland. Population: 8,526 / Median Income: $42,929 / Median Home Value: $163,000 Pacific. Population: 6,845 / Median Income: $55,907 / Median Home Value: $211,800 Lakewood. Population: 58,890 / Median Income: $44,667 / Median Home Value: $217,200 Tukwila. Population: 19,573 / Median Income: $44,820 / Median Home Value: $246,600 Fife. Population: 9,346 / Median Income: $57,500 / Median Home Value: $225,400 Sumner. Population: 9,548 / Median Income: $52,275 / Median Home Value: $230,700 Elk Plain. Population: 13,947 / Median Income: $65,830 / Median Home Value: $186,600 South Creek: Population: 2,045 / Median Income: $49,943 / Median Home Value: $215,600 Wauna: Population: 4,392 / Median Income: $75,953 / Median Home Value: $259,000
RoadSnacks compared 113 suburbs to come up with this list using the above factors from the Census' 2010-2014 American Community Survey.
Poor guys - we feel bad! We bet each and every one of these 'burbs have a special something that us city folk know nothing about.The theatrical world of penis envy took an unexpected turn this week when surgeons in South Africa announced that they had successfully transplanted the penis of a dead person onto a young man.
The story started when a 21-year old man, whose penis had been “amputated” three years previously, sought medical help. He reported that, during an “initiation ceremony” a few years earlier, an inept surgeon who intended to perform a circumcision cut off not just foreskin but the entire penis.
The unnamed patient is not alone. According to The Guardian, in one province where the ceremony is commonly performed among teenagers, usually in secret, this complication—a penis accidentally severed or else removed to treat severe local infection and gangrene—occurs in 250 men a year. Now there’s a vote for tighter regulation.
The South African surgical team reported that during the nine-hour operation they were able to connect the donor penis to the patient despite the three-year interval since amputation. Details of the donor are few but surely his death had to have been quite recent, given the need to transplant any tissue from dead to living as quickly as possible to assure preservation of vital anatomy and function.
Details of the recipient’s sex life though are pretty loudly trumpeted. He is a full go, per the surgeons, who noted that he developed an erection during a recent minor operative procedure that involved removing a urinary catheter. In all ways, he “accepts the organ as his own.”
Leaving aside the societal and ethical issue of ceremonial initiations involving genitalia in young adults and the inevitable debate on how-is-this-different-really-than-American-newborn-foreskin-pruning; leaving aside even the needed material this will provide Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien, et al during their parched spell as they try to find something funny to say about Hillary Clinton and email, this switcheroo may be the start of something quite bad.
We already have a disturbing problem with a black market in human parts that extends well outside of New Jersey. There is international trade with kidneys and the like being harvested from China’s prisoners to implant into transplant tourists and wealthy locals.
So if indeed the South Africans have taken a step forward in organ transplant—and the first heart transplant was performed there almost 50 years ago, so they do have a track record of surgical audacity—it is difficult to imagine the world not working the progress forward first in humanitarian, then in much more selfish directions. The number of people needing a penis transplant for medical reasons, beyond the few hundred in South Africa a year and a handful who have suffered trauma, is unlikely to drive a market.
But vanity surely can. The world long ago embraced cosmetic surgery as something you can get, guilt-free, if you can afford it. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry led by Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, South Korea, and of course the US. Breasts, lips, eyelids, and much more each are remolded by a surgeon’s touch by the hundreds every day.
Data on surgical enhancement of the penis for cosmetic reasons though has a different geographic distribution (pdf). For this procedure, the Germans lead the world undergoing 10 times more procedures than any other country.
The current status of surgical penis enhancement lies somewhere between the primitive and the barbaric, so the notion of a complete replacement part rather than a reconstruction or rearrangement is not far-fetched. Of course the pain of the procedure as well the fact that it is a literal castration seems like a pretty scary thought, one that might dissuade many from moving forward.
But if indeed the penis transplant technique is improved, we soon may have to consider an entire eco-socio-psycho-Dr. Phil-anthropomorpho-societal implications of the intervention, such as who gets what, when, and where. And how to handle the black market. And whether Medicare should pay (they pony up $20 million a year for penis pumps already).
Yes, the news from South Africa might signal the introduction of Big Penis, a new kid in town to stand shoulder to shoulder with Big Pharma and Big Oil. But this will be an industry exclusively for and about men, monitored by men, contributed to exclusively by men, administered by men for the greater good of men. Now that is really a scary thought.Donald Trump opened up about his presidential bid with Washington Post reporters, telling them that his wife Melania didn’t want him to run. In fact, Trump says that Melania questioned his motives for running, as they have “such a great life” without the presidency. Trump explained to his wife that he had to do it because he knew he could fix many of the nation’s issues.
TRUMP: “She’s going to campaign. She’s never done this before. So that will be exciting, Melania is coming up.” pic.twitter.com/sRLEPWv5ue — slone (@slone) April 4, 2016
The Washington Post interviewed GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump about his presidential campaign with Trump revealing his wife Melania had no intention of being the First Lady. In fact, Trump opened up about the conversation he had with Melania when he was considering a presidential campaign and recalled how she told him not to run.
“She said, ‘We have such a great life. Why do you want to do this?’ I said, ‘I sort of have to do it, I think. I really have to do it…..I could do such a great job.'”
I will be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin- tomorrow at 7pmE with @MELANIATRUMP. Join us! #WIPrimary #Trump2016 https://t.co/L0PmEwdRxn — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2016
Though Trump notes that Melania was not encouraging a presidential bid, he says that she later told him that, while she hoped he wouldn’t run, if he did she knew he would win.
“I hope you don’t do it, but if you run, you’ll win.”
Though Melania initially had hoped that her husband would focus on the business and just live their lives, Trump says she was fully aware of the reasons he chose to run and is very accepting of his presidential campaign. Donald, known for being somewhat brash in speech, says that after a series of controversial tweets and speeches, his family is stepping up to tell him to be “more presidential.” Trump says that his son Donald Jr, daughter Ivanka and wife Melania have all told him to tone back his rhetoric.
“My family said to me — and Don [Jr.] has said this, and Ivanka, and my wife has said this — ‘Be more presidential.'”
The candid interview gave Donald Trump the ability to show a different side of his personality. While standing up for his controversial comments and speeches. Trump told the Washington Post that sometimes you have to “break the egg initially” seeming to indicate that his rhetoric is all part of his plan to win the presidency. He says he will continue his brash speeches until he wins the GOP nomination, at which point he will back off and prove to the public that he knows how to “be presidential.”
“I have two leftovers. I call them leftovers. They haven’t been very nice to me. I will beat them. After I beat them I will be so presidential. You’re going to be so bored, you’re going to say this is the most boring human being I’ve ever interviewed. I think if I act very presidential I’ll be dull, but that will be fine.”
Melania Trump is now fully on board with the campaign and will be campaigning with her husband for the first time this week in Wisconsin. Trump made the announcement that Melania would be joining him in Wisconsin via Twitter.
First time seeing a large sign like this for Mrs Trump @MELANIATRUMP @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/bBBD7c4N56 — John Santucci (@JTSantucci) April 3, 2016
Do you think having Melania on his campaign tour will help Trump in his bid for the GOP nomination? Do you think Trump will become “more presidential” if he wins the GOP bid?
[Image by Joshua Lott/Getty Images]This is The Week In Data, our data journalism roundup. Here you’ll find the most-read FiveThirtyEight articles of the past week, as well as gems we spotted elsewhere on the Internet.
MOST READ
ELSEWHERE ON THE INTERNET
Abuse to prison pipeline: Girls, particularly girls of color, have largely been absent from debates about criminal justice reform in the U.S., even though statistics continually underline their vulnerability. Not only are girls in the juvenile justice system likely to be victims of sexual abuse, but 80 percent have at least one mental health disorder (for boys the figure is also high: 67 percent). [Quartz]
Is your state living in 1930 or 2060?: This interactive map shows how national demographic trends play out at the state level. Using historic Census Bureau data and projections for every year through 2060, you can match state demographics to national ones by year. So, for example you can see that the population of Texas, which is a third Hispanic, currently looks how the U.S. as a whole is expected to look 45 years from now. By contrast, since New Hampshire is 92 percent white, it currently looks more like the country did in 1930. [TIME]
A show about nothing: The sitcom “Seinfeld” is known for its surprising consistency over the nine seasons it aired. But fans will appreciate this detailed analysis of lines per character and median number of scenes per episode that reveals how the show did change, albeit subtly. [Slate]
Structural racism: Decades of racist attitudes and policies underpin the segregation in America’s most racially divided cities. But it can be hard to spot the physical divides that once carved up those neighborhoods and keep them carved up today. This series of maps show how railroads, highways and other man-made lines separate Americans by race. [The Washington Post]
Not too young, not too old: A study from the University of Utah has challenged the popular theory that people who are older when they get married are less likely to divorce. This new research suggests that the divorce probability curve is in fact U-shaped — your chances of divorce are lowest when you’re in your late 20s and early 30s. Get married in your early 20s, and your chances of needing a divorce attorney go up — ditto if you get married in your late 30s. [Slate]
Time flies: It’s a simple point made sharper with numbers and a sleek interactive graphic: The older you are, the faster time seems to pass, because a single year makes up a smaller fraction of your total life. This is why you shouldn’t tell a 4-year-old to wait until next year — you’re essentially expecting her to be patient for a period of time that represents 25 percent of her life. [Maximilian Kiener h/t Nathan Yau]Submitted by cpowell on Thu, 2017-08-31 13:02.
By Martin Arnold
Financial Times, London
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Six of the world's biggest banks have joined a project to create a new form of digital cash that they hope to launch next year for clearing and settling financial transactions over blockchain, the technology underpinning bitcoin.
Barclays, Credit Suisse, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, HSBC, MUFG, and State Street have teamed up to work on the "utility settlement coin," which was created by Switzerland's UBS to make financial markets more efficient.
The move comes as the project shifts into a new phase of development, in which its members aim to deepen discussions with central banks and to work on tightening up its data privacy and cyber security protections....
... For the remainder of the report:
https://www.ft.com/content/20c10d58-8d9c-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d
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http://www.gata.org/node/16FALLS Twp., Pa. (CBS) — The search is on for a specially equipped van stolen from a driveway in Falls Township, Bucks County.
Dave Schilling always taught his boys to stay strong. So it’s not often the father of four boys gets emotional. That is until he talks about his 13-year-old David.
“Quite active, I’m ready to break down, it’s tough, I’m sorry,” Schilling said.
Watch the video…
David was born with Cerebral Palsy. He relies on his wheelchair to get around, but this 13-year-old doesn’t let that minor detail get in his way, even participating in sports with his brothers including his twin, Dylan.
Schilling explained, “David’s his power. David comes out to every event to provide him with support in every which way.”
That’s why this family is heartbroken. The minivan they bought to take David around was stolen right from their driveway. The minivan was equipped with a power wheelchair lift.
“Previously, I had a manual lift that was just very inconvenient for us as a family for when I’m not around. My wife said there’s no way I can pick that up so we needed the power lift gate,” Schilling said.
It’s described as a 1994 Chevy Astro Van with a Pennsylvania tag: HNV 2899. It’s white in color with green pinstripes.
“If it gives him that extra mile in terms of help him out and make him happier in life, this is what I want. It’s not the best looking appearance-wise, but dollars and cents, it’s very valuable for me, but not just for me, my son, David,” Schilling added.
For that, the family calls the stolen van, priceless and prays it will be returned.
In the meantime, Schilling’s boss with Citizens Public Adjusters is offering a $1,000 reward for anyone with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible.
Falls Township Police are investigating.
Reported by Elizabeth Hur, CBS 3One of several dozen mummies recovered from a burial site in Hungary. The mummies' tissue has aided research into the genetic origins of colorectal cancer. Photo by PLOS ONE/Tel Aviv University
TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- A gene mutation associated with colon cancer has been discovered in an 18th century Hungarian mummy. The finding suggests colon cancer's genetic roots predate modern risk factors.
In 1995, some 265 mummies were excavated from a Dominican burial site in Vac, Hungary. The site was used between 1731 and 1838. A combination of low temperatures, ventilation and low humidity allowed for excellent tissue preservation.
Recent DNA analysis of the preserved tissue revealed a mutation of the Adenomatous polyposis coli gene, or APC gene -- a gene linked with the deadly gastrointestinal disease.
"Colorectal cancer is among the most common health hazards of modern times," Rina Rosin-Arbesfeld, a researcher at Tel Aviv University, said in a press release. "And it has a proven genetic background."
"We wanted to discover whether people in the past carried the APC mutation -- how common it was, and whether it was the same mutation known to us today," Rosin-Arbesfeld continued. "In other words: Is the increase in the incidence of cancer the result of man's manipulation of nature alone?"
Researchers say the discovery -- detailed in the journal PLOS ONE -- may pave the way for further exploration of pathological origins in preserved tissue.
"Very few diseases attack the skeleton, but soft tissue carries evidence of disease," researcher Israel Hershkovitz said. "It presents an ideal opportunity to carry out a detailed genetic analysis and test for a wide variety of pathogens."
Modern habits, including the consumption of processed foods and lack of exercise, have been strongly linked with colorectal cancer. The disease has also been linked with the APC gene.
"Our data reveals that one of the mummies may have had a cancer mutation," researcher Ella H. Sklan said. "This means that a genetic predisposition to cancer may have already existed in the pre-modern era."
Because the gene mutation was found in only a single specimen, researchers say they won't be able to draw concrete conclusions. Further exploration and a larger genetic sample size are needed.Says it’s "absurd" to say there’s enough data to establish a link between playing football and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
The owner of America’s Team says science hasn’t cemented a link between playing football and chronic traumatic brain injury.
Jerry Jones got into the tender topic on March 22, 2016, during the NFL’s annual meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, Dallas Cowboys spokesman Rich Dalrymple told us by email. We’d reached out to Dalrymple after seeing a March 23, 2016, news story in The Washington Post quoting Jones saying he’s not convinced medical and scientific research have established a link between football and brain disease.
According to the Post, Jones was asked to clarify whether there is, in his view, enough data to establish such a link. "No, that’s absurd," Jones told reporters. "There’s no data that in any way creates a knowledge. There’s no way that you could have made a comment that there is an association and some type of assertion. In most things, you have to back it up by studies. And in this particular case, we all know how medicine is. Medicine is evolving."
Dalrymple emailed us a partial transcript indicating Jones was responding to a question about if data shows an established link between football and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, a specific progressive degenerative disease of the brain:
REPORTER: "No data, in your mind, to have a relationship between CTE and playing football?"
JONES: "No, that's absurd. There's no data that in any way creates knowledge. There's no way that you can have made a comment that there's an association or some type of assertion."
Contrasting NFL comments
We asked Dalrymple how Jones reached that conclusion. Dalrymple said Jones hadn’t said then and Dalrymple didn’t think there would be follow-up.
What Jones said in Florida lined up with a February 2016 response by Dr. Mitch Berger, who leads the NFL’s subcommittee on former players and long-term effects of brain and spine injury. At the time, Berger was asked by Bruce Arthur, a Toronto Star columnist, if he believes the link between football and CTE had been established. He said, "No."
But the next month, at a March 14, 2016, roundtable discussion held by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Rep. Jan. Schakowsky, D-Ill., asked Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety, if the link between football and neurodegenerative diseases such as CTE has been established
"The answer to that question is certainly yes," Miller replied. An ESPN recap characterized that response as "the first time a senior league official had conceded football's connection to the devastating brain disease."
Boston University leads research
So, has science established a link between football and CTE?
It seems so. For instance, it’s been three years since the publication of "League of Denial," the book by ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru that walked through research signaling that players who take a pounding on the gridiron--much like boxers, as established decades before--risk brain damage.
According to the book, the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine, home to neuropathologist Ann McKee, had quickly grown to be recognized as the nation’s leading authority of football-related brain effects--including CTE.
The center, which says it collaborates with other institutions, partners and academic researchers to "expand our understanding of CTE," says on its website: "CTE has been known to affect boxers since the 1920s. However, recent reports have been published of neuropathologically confirmed CTE in retired professional football players and other athletes who have a history of repetitive brain trauma.
"This trauma triggers progressive degeneration of the brain tissue, including the build-up of an abnormal protein called tau," the center says. "These changes in the brain can begin months, years, or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of active athletic involvement. The brain degeneration is associated with memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia."
McKee said at a press conference before the Super Bowl in 2009 (seven-plus years ago): "I have never seen this disease in the general population, only in these athletes. It’s a crisis, and anyone who doesn’t recognize the severity of the problem is in tremendous denial."
More recently, a March 16, 2016, ESPN news story by the "League of Denial" authors said McKee has diagnosed 176 CTE cases in five years, including 90 of 94 former NFL players whose brains were examined; 45 out of 55 college players; and six out of 26 high school players. "It's overwhelming that this is occurring in professional players; we're just seeing it over and over," McKee said.
National research perspective
We tried to run Jones’ statement past McKee, hearing back from the center’s Chris Nowinski, a former pro wrestler and author of "Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis."
By email, Nowinski pointed us to a web post by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, last updated in March 2015, stating the institute’s first "consensus workshop" of CTE scientists the month before had concluded that "thus far, this pathology has only been found in individuals exposed to brain trauma, typically multiple episodes. How common this pathology occurs at autopsy and the nature and degree of trauma necessary to cause this neurodegeneration remain to be determined."
Nowinski also noted the March 16, 2016, ESPN news story both noting the scientific consensus and stating that brain bank studies had lately detected CTE "in a large percentage of former high school football players and other athletes" and scans newly showed "signs of the disease in NFL players decades after their retirement.
All that said, ESPN reported, Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, cautioned that much remains unknown about CTE such as how common it is, when and why symptoms develop, and how the disease -- associated with depression, dementia and memory loss -- spreads inside the brain.
The story summed up: "Although many questions remain unanswered, the research appears not only to reinforce the connection between repetitive head trauma and CTE, but also suggests that the disease may be prevalent among people in the general population who played contact sports, not just former NFL players."
Finally, the story noted an independent analysis of brain tissue from people who had played contact sports and those who had not. Researchers including Kevin Bieniek, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Mayo Clinic's Department of Neuroscience, reviewed 66 brains of people who had played contact sports -- primarily high school and college football, but also boxing, rugby, wrestling and soccer. They also examined the brains of 198 control subjects who hadn’t been exposed to contact sports.
And in the end, they spotted CTE signs in the brains of 21 people who played contact sports -- at a rate of almost one in three -- but no such signs in the brains of the people who had not played contact sports.
Other scientists
We asked a Johns Hopkins medical expert, Kostas Lyketsos, to analyze Jones’ claim.
Through Kristin Mears, spokeswoman for the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Lyketsos emailed this statement: "In my view, there is good evidence to support ‘a link’ between playing football and long-term consequences of traumatic brain injuries such as developing CTE. The science, however, is still very limited in terms of the strength of the link and many other important aspects of this link. The research that would be necessary to clarify these issues is costly and will take a long time to complete."
We also connected with Dr. Vassilis Koliatsos, a Johns Hopkins professor of pathology, who said by phone there’s a risk of CTE from any contact sport, including boxing, rugby and ice hockey.
"The problem is not whether there is a risk," Koliatsos said, "but how much of a risk there is. The answer is we really don’t know." He said it would help to have a study following people over time bolstered by PET scans to look for tau buildups in the brains of living people. "What we have now is backward data, brains from people who did poorly. We don’t know about people who have done fairly well. That is the scientific issue," Koliatsos said.
Our ruling
Jones said it’s "absurd" to say there’s enough data to establish a link between playing football and CTE.
In fact, scientists have reached consensus establishing this link, though research remains to be done on the degree to which football players and others involved in high-contact activities risk CTE.
We find Jones’s "absurd" claim absurd. Pants on Fire!
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.
https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a39f3e05-4c74-4bf8-b78f-18dec3a47e56Microsoft has released a tool that makes it incredibly easy to "sidegrade" from a Windows 10 Pro installation to Windows 10 S with just a few clicks, allowing anyone to try out Microsoft's Store-only version of Windows 10. Microsoft recommends doing this on test hardware, for reasons we'll outline below. And to be clear, Windows 10 S is a version of Windows 10 that's locked to the Windows Store for all your apps and games, and you cannot run programs from outside it.
If you want to try out Windows 10 S on your own hardware, there are a few things you need to take note of. Microsoft doesn't recommend you try this on all hardware because some device drivers don't install or run or Windows 10 S. That can cause problems
The sidegrade to Windows 10 S only works from a Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Education, Windows 10 Enterprise or Windows 10 Pro Education installations. If you're using Windows 10 Home, this upgrade will not work and you will be left with an unactivated version of Windows 10.
If you're using any of the four variants that work with the Windows 10 S sidegrade, you shouldn't need to worry about activation. Under the hood, Windows 10 S is just Windows 10 Pro with a few additional security tweaks, meaning your device will remain activated through the sidegrade.
The sidegrade will remove your already installed programs that you downloaded from outside the Store, however, so keep that in mind.
Switching from Windows 10 Pro to Windows 10 S
Head to Microsoft's site and download the Windows 10 S Installer. Select Run when prompted. (This option should be present with most web browsers.) In the Installer, select Next. The Installer will check your PC and make sure it is eligible for the upgrade, and once that's done you should select Next. The Installer will download and begin installing Windows 10 S, you can now go back to using your PC like normal. Once the Installer is finished, it will give you an amount of time before it needs to restart. Select Restart now to continue the installation. Your PC will restart and continue installing Windows 10 S. Once your PC boots back up, you should be running Windows 10 S!
Depending on your hardware, the time this takes may vary. For most machines, this process shouldn't take more than an hour. Remember, once you're on Windows 10 S, you can sidegrade back to Windows 10 Pro anytime. Here's how to do it.
This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details.Richard Linnett is a freelance writer and the author of In the Godfather Garden: The Long Life and Times of Richie ‘the Boot’ Boiardo, and co-author of The Eagle Mutiny, a chronicle of the only mutiny on an American ship since the Amistad.
On November 14, Fred Harris, the man Jesse Jackson once called the “Godfather of Populism,” sat hunched in a chair, shaking a Navajo rattle and singing a Comanche prayer at his home in New Mexico. The former two-time U.S. senator from Oklahoma learned the chant from his ex-wife’s grandfather, a Comanche medicine man who ate peyote. The night before, at a family gathering celebrating his 86th birthday, Fred sang the song for the first time in years.
“I suddenly realized,” he said, stopping midverse. “I was singing the wrong song. That was a peyote song.”
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He meant to sing a dirge performed at funerals. “It’s kind of an alma mater song, celebrating standing together for the last time.” He hunched over again, shook the rattle and starting wailing like an ancient warrior in mourning.
“Populism” might be the word of the year in American politics. It’s what propelled Donald Trump to the White House, and what Bernie Sanders used to nearly upend the Democratic Party. But long before Trump or Sanders attempted to harness populism to reach higher office, Fred Harris owned the term. He authored two books on the subject, traveled the country railing for economic fairness and ran for presidency on the promise of returning power to the forgotten people.
But now, with populism arguably at its high-water mark in American politics, Fred Harris isn’t excited. In fact, he’s appalled.
When Harris looks at Donald Trump’s campaign, he sees a vision of populism fundamentally opposed to the way he saw the movement. In the 1970s, Harris aimed to build political clout by creating new coalitions across boundaries of race, gender and class, uniting people on the basis of their shared struggle.
“Populism is simply about voting for your own interests instead of against your interests—with the knowledge that your interests are the same as the interests of everyone else,” Harris says.
In electing Trump, Fred Harris believes the people voted against their own interests, choosing a man who will enrich himself and not them. He sees Trump as a leader who has built walls between groups and emphasized their differences in order to gain power—in fact, Harris isn’t so sure that the president-elect’s views can even be called populist.
“It really pisses me off when they talk about populists being racists, and calling George Wallace and Donald Trump populists,” Harris says. “Trump populism is really just demagoguery. It’s not my kind of populism.”
***
The son of an Okie sharecropper, Fred Harris was born in a two-room shack in the Oklahoma dust bowl during the Great Depression. His parents were New Deal Democrats who supported Franklin Roosevelt, the progressive icon who led the nation through the Great Depression, and Harris traces his own populism back to the values they taught him—as well as Oklahoma’s political climate at the time. When Harris was born in 1930, Oklahoma’s 1917 Green Corn Rebellion was a recent memory. Though it’s largely forgotten today, the rebellion was a populist uprising by a coalition of working-class blacks, Indians and whites who organized resistance to the draft during World War I. They transcended differences of identity.
The idea of populism as a way to unite different people toward a common goal clearly informed Harris’ beliefs—indeed, it’s the core spirit behind his 1971 book, Now Is the Time, a populist proclamation that called on college students, militant blacks, suburban housewives and Harris’ fellow “rednecks” to join forces based on their shared self-interested need for jobs. Two years later, he followed Now Is the Time with a second book, The New Populism.
What exactly is “New Populism”?
“Well, it means whatever I say it means, because I dreamed it up,” Harris laughs |
and Hillary Clinton. And in 2016, he won reelection by a slim 0.6 percent in a race against Doug Applegate, who has announced he is running against in 2018.
Since Trump’s election, Issa has been confronted by voters on his close relationship to unpopular Trump policies, particularly the effort to repeal Obamacare.
Proximity to Trump increasingly seems as if it will have a major downside for Republicans facing re-election next fall, and Issa’s actions continue to tie him to this scandalous presidency and historically unpopular president.To my adored friends and family,
We need to talk.
I love that you love my kids. My kids love that you love my kids.
I love that come Christmas, their piles under the tree are teetering towers of enormousness, and not even half of it cost me a cent. Or, more importantly, several hours of rummaging around on the lower shelves of the racks at Toys R Us while people step on my head.
Holly and her family preparing for the Christmas period.
I love that you thought about them long enough to consider them when you were Christmas shopping. I love that you remembered that Matilda is still in her pink phase and that Billy genuinely thinks he’s a dinosaur.
I love that about you. Seriously.
But here’s the thing. And I know I sound like an ungrateful arse. I may well be an ungrateful arse, and a bad mother, for what I am about to say. But someone needs to say it, so here goes.
Not all presents are good presents.
You see, anything you buy for my children will live in my house and impact my life. And call me selfish, call me Grinchy, but to be honest, things are pretty fraught around here at the best of times, and throw in a blaring plastic fire engine with no volume control and life could really take a turn.
So here, so we can all still be friends, are the six things that you should please refrain from buying my kids this Christmas. Believe me, I’m doing us all a favour.PRESS PLAY to hear the sound of preschoolers' first encounter with snow.
When I got an email from my daughter’s preschool, titled "Snow Day!" I was confused. In the Northeast, where I grew up, snow days mean the school is closed. Do South Florida schools use fake snow days as an excuse to close? The message was even more confusing:
Eight tons of SNOW will be delivered to our preschool straight from the North Pole! The cost of bringing in the snow is $1,500.00 so for this special activity the cost per child is only $15.00.
Every year, Marty Enis, owner of Florida Ice Manufacturing, comes down from Westford, Mass., to deliver snow to South Florida schools, malls, and churches from around Thanksgiving through February. He’s kind of like a snowbird, but he comes here to work.
On the day of the event at my daughter’s Little Havana preschool, a truck arrives filled with 3-foot-tall blocks of ice that several men line up on a ramp, and then slide into what looks like an old train engine. That machine cuts up the ice, shoots it through a hose, and in a less than a minute -- presto! Snow.
(Technically, this is not snow, which is frozen water vapor, as opposed to frozen water liquid. But in South Florida, this distinction probably doesn't matter.)
The first group to play is the 1-year-olds. The kids are wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing for the 70-degree weather: puffy jackets, snow pants, hats and mittens. All of the clothing looks completely new.
But after a few minutes of sitting on the snow, the 1-year-olds are crying – a lot.
I ask one parent, Jorge Muñoz of Coral Gables, about his daughter’s reaction: “She’s still wondering what this white stuff is. She doesn’t want to sit on the snow because it’s way too cold, and she’s wondering why she is here.”
My daughter Juno, who’s 2, wasn’t very interested either. My constant suggestions that she touch or play with the snow are met with pleading cries of "nooo" and demands to pick her up as she tries to maintain her balance on the melting snow.
Jorge grew up in Venezuela, where it’s warm year-round. He says they did not sing about snow there: “We’re not as obsessed as Americans about the weather because it’s a non-issue. It’s always warm so why would you even care about it, right?”
So why do we care in warm sunny South Florida? I just didn’t want my daughter to be left out of a class activity. But is the reason for this kind of event driven by people missing some place with cold winters? Or just a feeling that Christmas here should match all the snowy imagery attached to the holiday?
Share your thoughts below, and tell us about the first time you encountered snow.Climate change – two words that are almost always accompanied by paragraphs of dread. Let’s save some time and assume that you agree that this phenomenon is not only the harbinger of some truly disastrous nightmares, but that it’s being driven by human activity. What’s the one thing that you can do, as an individual, to slow down the terrifying pace of climate change?
Trust us, we know how you feel. Reading report after report on how powerful natural disasters are going to get, or hearing about how war, conflict, and famine await us on an inevitably scorched Earth, is enough to make you think that fighting against the incoming tide is utterly futile.
Why bother recycling that plastic bottle, installing a solar panel on your roof, or giving up your car for a bike when huge conglomerates pump out tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere at a blistering rate? Why spend hours arguing with a climate change conspiracy theorist on Twitter when you know that powerful interests have their backs?
Of course, if everyone thought this way, then we really would be doomed to fail. Recycling, reducing vehicular use, eating less meat, and using renewable energy sources, if possible, all help to shrink your carbon footprint. If others follow your example, the planet will be better off.
It is true, though, that unless the most powerful people in the world act on climate change, individual efforts will be in vain – and therein lies the most significant, game-changing action you can take to change the future.
You can vote.
It may sound trite, and there are many justifiable complaints that certain voting systems are biased towards those interested in maintaining their own grip on power. However, voting is inarguably the most effective way of preventing climate change-denying politicians from holding office. It’s also the only way you can empower people that will actually be able to fight against this oncoming maelstrom.
Do not be complacent. Get up, get out there, and vote. ra2studio/ShutterstockRepublican lawmakers have long wanted to kill Obamacare's individual mandate, one of the least popular provisions of the health reform law. Now, GOP senators are trying to do the deed by repealing the mandate in their tax reform bill.
Senators say eliminating the individual mandate would give them an additional $338 billion over 10 years for their proposed tax cuts. Doing so would also fulfill their vow to dismantle Obamacare, at least in part.
Axing the mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty, would likely wreak havoc on the Obamacare market.
Some 4 million fewer people would be covered in the first year the repeal would take effect, the Congressional Budget Office said last week. That number would rise to 13 million by 2027, as compared to current law. Meanwhile, premiums would rise by about 10% in most years of the decade.
Related: Axing Obamacare individual mandate would save $338 billion: CBO
But most importantly, repealing the mandate would remove the stick that Obamacare wields to prod younger and healthier Americans to sign up for coverage. While experts have mixed views on how effective the mandate has been, many feel that removing it would cause the Obamacare market to tilt even more towards sicker and older consumers.
That, in turn, could make insurers think twice about participating in the exchanges, especially since they would still be required to cover those with pre-existing conditions and not charge them more based on their medical history.
Repealing the ACA's individual mandate doesn't sound like something that could be bad for anyone. But, it's the mechanism that allows guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions. — Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) November 14, 2017
There is substantial uncertainty about how effective the individual mandate has been. But, what matters is whether insurers would be willing to participate in a market that guarantees coverage for pre-existing conditions with no mandate. I'm doubtful. — Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) November 14, 2017
A coalition of physician, hospital and health insurance industry associations called on Congress Tuesday to keep the individual mandate. The group, including the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, America's Health Insurance Plans and the BlueCross BlueShield Association, warned the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate that there would be "serious consequences" if Congress simply repeals the mandate while leaving Obamacare's other regulations in place.
"Repealing the individual mandate without a workable alternative will reduce enrollment, further destabilizing an already fragile individual and small group health insurance market on which more than 10 million Americans rely," the coalition wrote. "Eliminating the individual mandate by itself likely will result in a significant increase in premiums, which would in turn substantially increase the number of uninsured Americans."
Related: Individual mandate repeal to be included in Senate's tax bill
The penalty for not having health coverage in 2017 is $695 per adult and $347.50 per child, or 2.5% of one's household income, whichever is greater.It could take decades, at least, to replace cheap, abundant fossil fuels with low-carbon energy sources. In the meantime, many scientists and government officials around the world think the next best option for keeping Earth's rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in check is to prevent the gas from escaping in the first place. This can be done by using a chemical solvent to separate it from the emitted byproducts of power plants and other high-polluting facilities like aluminum manufacturing plants and then burying (technically injecting) it deep underground—a process known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Ideal storage areas include depleted oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coal seams or deep saline formations, because they are all under sufficient pressure to force the greenhouse gas to stay put and are made of porous rock that can soak up CO2 like a sponge.
The Department of Energy estimates that deep saline formations in the U.S. could hold up to 12,000 gigatons of CO2, meaning they are a viable long-term solution because human activities currently emit around 33 gigatons of CO2 per year. Although burying billions of tons of CO2 underground may sound like a daunting, perhaps even dangerous task, engineers have a pretty good idea how to do it, and scientists have reason to think it can work safely on a large scale. The oil and gas industry began injecting various fluids underground in the 1930s; since that time, researchers have been working to understand the effects of the process on the geochemistry of storage sites and the risks it may pose to human safety. A handful of CO2 storage sites, including a Norwegian project beneath the North Sea initiated in 1996, are already active around the world, showing that the concept, on a small scale, can work.
One potential risk that has garnered a lot of research attention is that of an inadvertent leak—especially a hypothetical case in which CO2 seeps into drinkable groundwater supplies. This was the focus of a study published online November 11 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The study authors acquired freshwater samples from four of the nation’s largest aquifers—the Aquia and Virginia Beach aquifers beneath Maryland and Virginia, respectively, the Mahomet Aquifer in Illinois and the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas—each of which overlies a potential sequestration site. Then, in the laboratory, the researchers exposed the experimental water samples to a flow of CO2 designed to simulate a slow leak and observed chemical changes that occurred over the course of more than 300 days. The CO2 caused the pH of the water in all the samples to drop 1–2 units as the gas reacted with the water to form carbonic acid. The drop in pH caused the rock in the samples to weather, increasing the concentration in the water of elements that had been previously part of the rock.
Although the specific chemical changes depended on the unique geochemistry of each sample’s respective site, the authors report that on the whole, CO2 caused concentrations of alkali and alkali earth elements, as well as manganese, cobalt, nickel and iron, to increase—in some cases by more than two orders of magnitude. Concentrations of aluminum, manganese, iron, zinc, cadmium, selenium, barium, thallium and uranium in some samples neared or exceeded maximum contaminant levels set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Additionally, in some cases the amounts of dissolved lithium, cobalt, uranium and barium kept increasing throughout the whole experiment, which the authors say shows the value of long-term investigations such as this one.
Even though these results may seem like cause for alarm, the truth is they aren’t surprising, says Julio Friedmann, the leader of the Carbon Management Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and an expert on CCS. "If CO2 gets into shallow freshwater aquifers, small amounts of trace metals will be freed from the rock volume," he says. "This is something we’ve understood." How a CO2 leak might affect drinkable groundwater was "one of the first questions the community asked 15 years ago," he adds. "It’s the place where we have put most of our experimental emphasis."
Friedmann says he was taken aback by reports that implied the study had identified a new class of risk, when in fact the threat of CO2 leaking into drinking water is well studied. Underground carbon sequestration is regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, which states that groups can't inject anything underground if there is even a small chance it might contaminate usable drinking water sources above the thresholds mandated by the EPA.
The drinking water act divides wells into different classes depending on the depth at which the material is to be injected, whether or not it’s hazardous and other distinguishing factors. On November 22, the EPA finalized regulations for Class VI wells, a category designed specifically for underground CO2 sequestration. According to the press release, "The rule requirements are designed to ensure that wells used for geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide are appropriately sited, constructed, tested, monitored, and closed."
It's in the context of monitoring these areas that the new Environmental Science & Technology results are valuable, says Robert Jackson, a professor of environmental sciences at Duke University and co-author of the paper. The ultimate goal, he says, is to develop a tool that could be used to test potential sites for geochemical signatures that may represent risk factors in the case of a CO2 leak and monitor the sites once they are active.
Regardless of regulations, leaks are bound to happen occasionally, says Jackson. A defective well or an unmapped fault may allow CO2 to escape at some point, and it would behoove regulators to develop a method to detect a leak in time to mitigate it before it became a bigger problem. Jackson says his study's results indicate that in some cases the groundwater chemistry may be able to serve as an early warning, as the concentrations of certain elements rose noticeably just two weeks after the samples were first exposed to the simulated leak. "The notion that you could look at manganese or some other element in groundwater and use that as an indicator of a leak before you could actually find CO2 itself—that's a powerful tool," he says.
Friedmann agrees that the new paper, combined with previously published data, adds to "the earliest parts of an infrastructure" that could be applied toward the development of an inexpensive monitoring tool.
There's still a lot more work to be done in this area, says Susan Hovorka, a senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology. Hovorka's research topic is the monitoring of CO2 sequestration wells. Ideally, she says, researchers could find a clear signal that would be consistent across all sites—a "magic bullet that would let us say, 'Aha! You guys are out of compliance, and this is how we know'." Unfortunately, such a signal has yet to emerge, and "this paper is one of a series that shows you get these subtle, murky, inconsistent indicators" that are site specific, she says.
The best data will come from actual field studies, which will likely increase as more underground storage sites become active. "It's always difficult to know, when you've got lab samples, how to scale them up to the whole aquifer," Hovorka says.
In the meantime, says Hovorka, it's important for the public (and the press) to weigh the risks of underground CO2 sequestration against those of continuing to allow CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere. "Climate change is itself a really big risk to water," she says. "People aren't balancing that risk."Asus confirmed last month that its next-generation ZenWatch was on the way, and would be released in Q3 this year. It has now shown off the Asus ZenWatch 2 for the first time – though not told us very much about it beyond the looks.
It will be available in two sizes, 49mm or 45mm, and offer a total of 18 different looks via three color choices for the watch itself and a range of straps. You can choose between silver, gunmetal and rose gold casings, each with matching stainless steel link bracelets, with leather and rubber strap options too …
NordVPN
The leather strap will be available in khaki, brown, gray, blue and orange, while the rubber one offers a choice of blue, orange, red, and taupe. If you have no taste, there’s also the option of a Swarovski leather strap with embedded crystals. If you’re not happy with the choice of watch faces offered by Asus, there’s a new Watch Face Land app allowing you to design your own.
The Asus ZenWatch 2 has a metal crown, which Asus said provided a “new way to interact with the watch,” leading to speculation that it would be used to scroll content, as on the Apple Watch. However, it turns out that this new way to interact is to … switch it on and off.
Asus said a new magnetic charging connector would “dramatically” improve charging times, but has so far said no more about battery life beyond its earlier statement that it was expecting four days and working toward seven days for subsequent models.
The short video just shows what the watch looks like, with some further details in the press release below. Asus has not announced either pricing or availability, but has previously said that the watch would be released in Q3. The existing ZenWatch (hands-on) retails for $199.Microsoft didn’t do cord cutters any favors with Windows 10.
As revealed a few months ago, the free upgrade for Windows 7 and higher wipes out Windows Media Center, a decade-old program that provides a TV-friendly interface for multimedia files. While most people won’t notice WMC’s absence—Microsoft says the software is barely used for anything other than DVD playback these days—for some users it’s the backbone of their entire living room setup, thanks to its ability to play and record live TV.
Excited as I am about Windows 10 in general, I’ve been torn about whether to upgrade my own desktop PC, as I like the ability to record shows from free over-the-air channels like ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC. So before upgrading, I searched for a Windows Media Center alternative that was easy to set up and use.
So far, I haven’t found anything as simple as Windows Media Center, especially when it comes to setting up TV guide data. Still, broadcast DVR is doable in Windows 10, so if you’re itching to upgrade, here’s how to setup the best Windows Media Center alternative I’ve found:
NextPVR: The most painless of the lot
After examining a bunch of options, I settled on NextPVR as a replacement for Windows Media Center’s DVR features. It’s not the slickest program around, but I found the setup process easier to follow than other programs like Kodi and MediaPortal (which isn’t saying much, by the way).
All you need to get started is a TV tuner for the PC—such as a SiliconDust HDHomeRun or Hauppauge WinTV USB tuner—and an over-the-air antenna. Just follow these steps, and you’ll be fine:
1. Before installing NextPVR, download MC2XML for Windows. You’ll need this program to retrieve TV guide data.
2. In File Explorer, create a new folder at “C:\EPG” and place mc2xml.exe inside. You can choose a different folder, but will need to modify step 7 below.
3. Run mc2xml.exe, and a screen will appear where you can enter a zip code to get local channel listings. Leave the other options as-is, and press OK. (More discussion on this at the bottom of the guide.)
4. In the lineup selection prompt, look for the “Digital Terrestrial Lineup” option and press OK.
5. Download and install the latest version of NextPVR. Don’t launch it just yet.
6. Before launching NextPVR, navigate to “C:\Users\Public\NPVR\Scripts” in File Explorer. Create a new text file, and rename it to “UpdateEPG.bat.”(Make sure you can see the full file name extension, and that there’s no “.txt” on the end of it.)
7. Open UpdateEPG.bat with NotePad or another text editor, and type the following (changing the second line if you used a different folder in step 2):
C: cd “C:\EPG” mc2xml
8. Open NextPVR. It should run Settings on first launch, but you can always get to Settings by right-clicking anywhere on the screen.
9. Head to the “Devices” section, select your TV tuner, click Device Setup, then click Scan. Wait a few minutes while the tuner looks for broadcast channels.
10. Go to the “Channels” section, and click “Update EPG.” You should see a pop-up box telling you that UpdateEPG.bat is running, thereby grabbing the TV guide data you got through MC2XML. This will take several more minutes.
11. In the “Misc” folder, you may need to change the Buffer Directory to a folder of your choosing. Alternatively, you can create a “C:\Temp” folder if one doesn’t already exist on your machine.
12. Go to the Recording folder, and choose where you want DVR shows to be stored.
13. You may need to experiment with the Decoders menu if you’re not getting any audio or video playback. (I’ve had luck using the LAV decoder for both audio and video.)
14. Close the Settings menu, and head to the Live TV section of NextPVR to start watching and recording broadcast TV.
TV guide headaches, lots of possibilities
As if setting everything up wasn’t enough of a hassle already, Microsoft recently made matters more complicated by switching TV guide providers in Windows Media Center. Because MC2XML relies on grabbing that data, you may have trouble getting up-to-date TV listings this way. (I haven’t had any problems so far.)
If this happens, have a couple options:
For $25 per year, you can subscribe to Schedules Direct. After setting up an account, return to step 3 above (you’ll have to delete mc2xml.exe and start with a new copy of the file), select Schedules Direct from the Services menu, and plug in your login details. Repeat step 9 to update the channel guide.
For a $20 “donation,” mc2xml says it’ll let you pull down newer listings from Microsoft. Return to step 3 above, and select Microsoft from the Services menu. I have not tested this myself.
Once you have everything set up, NextPVR can be a pretty powerful program. It offers a several plugins, skins, and utilities, including a way to auto-detect and remove commercials. It supports various media extender devices for watching TV on additional televisions, and you can even use NextPVR as a back-end service for other media center software, such as Kodi.
I haven’t even started experimenting with most of these customizations. My main usage for TV recordings is to stream them on other devices using Plex. For that, the basic NextPVR setup is enough to upgrade my desktop to Windows 10 with confidence.I don’t get sick very often, however when I was in college and living in a cesspool of germs, I did occasionally come down with something that required me to visit the health clinic. After coming down with a bad case of strep, I went to the on-campus health clinic to get a quick lab done and a prescription for antibiotics.
As soon as I was in the room with the nurse practitioner, she took one look at me and got this look on her face that I had seen many times before on other doctor’s faces. I was poor and uninsured for many years and in the various free or low-cost clinics I’d had to go to, I had seen this look on almost every doctor or nurse’s face. It was that “my god she is fat” look.
After asking me my symptoms and some other routine questions, she reviewed my file and immediately asked me to fill out a family history form. I had done this two years before when I had been accepted to the university (it was part of the required health information they gathered along with vaccine information) but filled out another anyway while she waited. I checked the “blood clot” box under family history and she immediately got this panicked look on her face when she scanned the form. I explained that my father had a knee surgery many years ago and had a blood clot and had one again a few years ago after another surgery. I told her that both of these were after a medical procedure and after he was lying down for long periods of time. My father is in his 70s and takes blood thinning drugs as a precaution. Besides these two times, he has never had a problem with blood clots in his normal everyday life.
The NP apparently decided that I had a genetic blood clotting disorder, flagged my medical file and denied all of my future birth control refills. She did this without consulting me, testing me, or taking any other measures. She never even wrote a diagnosis in my file, just something about me having a blood clotting disorder in the past. She just assumed that because I was overweight and on a form of birth control which can increase the risks of blood clot, that I was at high risk without taking a single blood sample. For months after I had to argue with the campus pharmacy to refill my birth control prescription and eventually was forced to have an IUD inserted which ended up expelling a mere 30 minutes later, leaving me in excruciating, nauseating pain for the next 36 hours until I was able to get it removed (I had it inserted on a Friday and had to struggle to get a late Saturday appointment). I spent hours in a waiting room, crying in pain and thoroughly embarrassed because this woman denied me medication I had been using with no side effects for over 5 years. After that I had to drive nearly 40 miles to the closest Planned Parenthood to fill my prescription, where I was never questioned about my choice of method of birth control. All because of one fatphobic doctor whom I paid a health fee to every term made assumptions about my health without ever once testing me for anything more then strep throat.
Thin privilege is never being denied contraception based on your weight. Thin privilege is not having to justify your reproductive choices to a doctor.A northwest side Chicago man faces a mountain of bills and a long road to recovery after a pit bull bit off a portion of his face over the weekend. Bill Lesinski was visiting his downstairs neighbor at their home near O'Hare International Airport on Friday when the dog, named Monster, attacked him. (Published Monday, April 2, 2012)
A northwest side Chicago man faces a mountain of bills and a long road to recovery after a pit bull bit off a portion of his face over the weekend.
Bill Lesinski was visiting his downstairs neighbor at their home near O'Hare International Airport on Friday when the dog, named Monster, attacked him.
"When I crouched down, the dog just lunged at me and grabbed me by the face," said Lesinski. "I have a torn part of the septum, the bottom part of my septum, and they have to reconstruct my whole nose."
That reconstruction will require about six surgeries throughout the next nine to 12 months and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said doctors told him.
The sole proprietor of a towing company, A1Dependable Roadside Assistance, Lesinski said he couldn't yet afford insurance and said he worries about the effect the mauling will have on his business.
"This is really going to hurt my business to where I may lose my business," he said.
Still, Lesinski said he has no animosity toward the dog, which he's known since it was a pup, and his friend. Though he said he believes the dog could have been better raised.
Second City Animal Stories
"This dog has attacked my dogs in the past a couple times. I think that's why the dog attacked me because it smelled my animals on me and when I crouched down the dog felt dominated at that time," he explained. "It's not the dog's fault. I own pit bulls myself. I have for over 20 years. My dogs have never been aggressive or hurt anybody. It's basically how pit bulls are raised."
The dog is currently with Chicago's Animal Care and Control. Lesinski said he wants the dog put down to make sure it doesn't attack another animal or person.
Lesinski said he will set up a fund at TCF Bank near his home in the hopes that donations to help offset his bills will come in.
His neighbor, a man in his 20s who is currently between jobs, said that while he's sympathetic, he says he can't financially help his friend. He hopes Animal Care and Control will give him his dog back after a week-long analysis.WASHINGTON-- (BY LARRY MARGASAK, AP) The House on Thursday passed the first major bill related to the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion, voting to allow families of those killed and injured workers to be compensated far more generously than current law allows.
While families of the 11 killed and the 17 injured would benefit under the legislation, the bill also would apply to all companies operating on the high seas.
The House passed the bill on a voice vote, with no recorded vote. The bill now goes to the Senate.
The legislation has strong political overtones.
Familiar foes representing industry and trial lawyers squared off once again over limiting legal liability. While industry groups complained that firms unrelated to the oil spill would suffer, Democrats portrayed the controversy as a fight between supporters of BP victims and backers of the oil industry and large companies.
President Barack Obama emphasized his party's theme Wednesday at a town hall in Racine, Wis., reminding the crowd that a leading Republican, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, apologized to the blown-out well's principal owner, British-based BP PLC, because the oil company was pressured by the president to establish a $20 billion victims' compensation fund.
A cruise ship trade group, on the other hand, urged Florida lawmakers to oppose the bill and pointedly reminded them of the industry's spending and employment in the state.
In the House on Thursday, with family members of the victims looking on, Democrats argued that current laws inadequately compensate victims and their families.
"The unfairness of these laws is grossly apparent and makes no sense," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "The laws are ancient. They're out of date."
Some Republicans argued that the bill was too broad, though they did not act to block its passage.
"This bill changes maritime law for everyone, not just those involved in the oil spill," said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. "Clearly, we should have explored the consequences of that."
The only agreement on all sides is that companies directly responsible for the Gulf spill should not be allowed to limit damages under outdated laws.
The bill would change two laws from 1920 and a third from 1851, all applying to deaths and legal liability on the high seas. Key provisions would:
_Permit recovery of non-economic damages, including pain and suffering, loss of care, comfort and companionship – not just lost income and funeral expenses.
_Repeal an 1851 limitation on liability, which caps company damages to the post-accident value of a vessel (including an oil rig) and its cargo. Transocean, which owns the Deepwater Horizon platform now at the bottom of the Gulf, has sought to limit its liability to $27 million under this law.
_Prevent parties responsible for oil spills from using bankruptcy to leave victims without adequate legal recourse.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote lawmakers that the bill should not expose industries unrelated to the spill to new damage claims or additional liability. Thousands of claims, including maritime lawsuits related to asbestos, would come under the new legislation, the Chamber said.
Ray DeLorenzi of the trial lawyers' American Association for Justice, said, "When the Chamber and cruise lines aren't foreign flagging their vessels to skirt U.S. regulations and taxes or exploiting cheap overseas labor, apparently they lobby against Gulf Coasters that simply want to hold BP and other corporations accountable."
Terry Dale, president and chief executive officer of the Cruise Lines International Association, wrote Florida lawmakers that his industry opposed the bill because it "makes sweeping changes in maritime law that affect all sectors of the maritime industry."
He wrote that his industry spent $5.8 billion in the state in 2009 and employed more than 115,000 Florida workers.
___Yes, this is an article about No Man’s Sky, because in the end of the day, someone has to say something to all those nay-sayers and non-believers. As much as you may not like the game or something about it, you have to remember that it may be someone’s favourite game for some very valid reasons. Hence the title of the article.
It may not be your Sky, but it’s someone else’s.
Before I start off, I have to say at this point that I have not tried out the game yet. I have though watched a bunch of YouTube videos, listened to the soundtrack a bunch of times and seen people stream it for a couple hours. I am here to talk about the game’s release and not about the game as a game. I am very dissappointed with a lot of things and I figured I shouldn’t wait until the review of the game before I say all these things.
Why am I dissappointed? Well let’s take it from the top shall we?
So many so-called reviewers, take a step forward and talk about the game, believing they too, can have a valid opinion about it.
One would say that as a person writing about games nowdays, you should be afraid of the competition that lurks out there. Be it the fact that there are so many good native English writers or that there are so many people interested in writing about the same thing as you, you have many reasons to be afraid and many ways to get lost in a sea of writers that are either better or worse than you. However, what we have experienced the past few days has given me proof that even when it comes to judging interactive art people are pretty bad. Or at least, makes their worst self come out.
It was quite apparent how unprepared and uneducated people can be when it comes to judging interactive art the moment No Man’s Sky released on PS4 and reviews, streams and all sorts of opinion articles started rolling out. The same kind of people that would talk about Dark Souls 3 using the most intricate of vocabularies to sound cool when showing off how much they loved that AAA game, yes those kind of people, would go to the same kind of extent to explain a game that is simple when it comes to explaining its complexity. No Man’s Sky, being a procedurally generated experience, only has as much to talk about when looking at its core gameplay. The developers of Hello Games themselves explained that they planned to make a game that would provide the player with a solitary space exploration experience and that was it. Sure, updates would make it way more than just that the more the game progresses through time, but what we have right now is what it is.
Now take a moment and realise how far that is from any other game that is also priced at 60 euros. The price is a huge factor too, but we’ll get back to that later. What I want you to focus on here is that the people that either, paid for it, or got it for free, felt the need to judge it in the same way they would judge another title of the same price. Not only that, but because it is an indie game, boldly trying to accomplish something entirely new, they had to go and make all sorts of obscure comments as to how they like it but they feel it’s lacking things.
Lacking things? Really now?
This is who we are. Bold personalities daring to judge the artful creation of a company that put its very lifeblood to see the completion of a long-time running project. Full of bumps and difficulties along the road, No Man’s Sky was pushed back quite a few times. Yet another “The Witness” story where we wait for something that has been hyped for far too long. But not really. Being an indies PR person for IGN in the past and now for my own website, I have been following No Man’s Sky closely and never once did I feel there was not a good reason for a delay on that game’s release. Not only that, but I am also quite surprised that it came out with so much well-developed and well-tested content. You can judge them all you want for being late when it comes to the arrival of the full game, but for an indie company, Hello Games has done an exquisite job thus far. No major bugs or issues. Nothing as big as Batman-being-ported or anything like that.
But jumping back on the judgement that the game has seen the past few days, it is crazy seeing how clueless most people talking about it are. I am not going to even mention of how surprised I am at how little people know about space since I know education is turning from bad to super bad in pretty much every country around the world, but when it comes to video games, I expected a little bit more |
remain unresolved, not the least of which is whether the automakers would need to buy back the batteries from car owners, or whether dealers would simply lease the battery rather than sell it, which would allow the car company to reclaim it for secondary uses later on.
This week, GM announced a new system that came from its partnership with power electronics and automation giant ABB. The system pairs a battery designed for the Chevrolet Volt with a commercial inverter for interfacing with the power grid. The system employs five to 10 used batteries and could provide a few hours of backup power for homes or small businesses. It could also be used by utilities to help keep the electrical grid working smoothly. Meanwhile, Nissan, as part of a joint venture with the Japanese industrial company Sumitomo, recently announced a system that uses solar panels to charge up batteries. The batteries could then be used to charge electric vehicles, such as the Nissan Leaf, even at night. The system already supplies power to seven charging stations at Nissan’s headquarters in Japan, and the company plans to eventually sell smaller charging systems.
But how long the used batteries would last is still in question. The GM-ABB system is being designed to deliver 15 years of use for utilities who want backup energy storage, which can be used to smooth out fluctuations on the grid caused by the variability in power output from solar panels and wind turbines. Over the next few years, GM plans to extensively test the batteries, as well as the electronics that would connect the system to the grid. Pablo Valencia, GM senior manager for battery life-cycle management, says GM will add more battery cells than the system really needs as a way of ensuring that it can deliver adequate energy for 15 years. He thinks the system can last that long because most of the loss in energy capacity happens in the first few years, “then it levels off.”
According to battery researchers, as electrodes and electrolytes age, they undergo changes in structure and chemistry that can make their performance harder to predict. That’s one reason that warranties on electric-car batteries are limited to eight years. Although lab tests give researchers some idea of how long the batteries will last, no Volts have been on the road long enough to adequately test the batteries’ durability.
The economic benefits of reusing the batteries aren’t clear, either. Pamela Fletcher, global chief engineer for the Volt, says it’s too early to say which options GM might find viable. One challenge is that since the latest EVs just went on sale, their used batteries won’t be available in large numbers for eight to 10 years. If the cost of new batteries decreases significantly over that time, as expected, it will be harder for used batteries to compete. Although the used batteries will already have been paid for, there will still be costs involved: they’ll have to be removed from the cars and repackaged for grid use, and automakers may also need to pay the car owners for the batteries.At 37 years old, Chuck Noll was a very young head coach when he arrived in Pittsburgh, 1969.
A former guard for the Cleveland Browns, forced to retire due to epilepsy, Noll turned to coaching where he found success with the AFL's Los Angeles Chargers and then the Baltimore Colts.
When the Steelers were looking for a new head coach, his resume impressed Dan Rooney, who by that time had succeeded the Chief in running the day-to-day operations of the Steelers. In Noll's interview with Dan, "the man himself" impressed Rooney even more.
He wasn't the first guy in line for the job, that was Joe Paterno. However, He declined the Chiefs offer in order to stay at Penn State University.
So when Noll arrived in Pittsburgh on Monday, January the 27th, and assumed the reigns of a team that had known nothing but the most abject of failure its entire existence, he couldn't possibly have guessed.
He couldn't have guessed that the franchise's greatest player, the cornerstone of his dynasty would be drafted just 24 hours later. He couldn't have known that Franco Harris was going to snatch a ball inches from the ground, and in doing so change the way a city thought about football and the Steelers.
I don't think in his wildest dreams he would have imagined that in the next 23 years he would help construct a Steelers wing to the Hall of Fame, or that his team would carve out a space in the history books so large that even today, they are regarded as the greatest of all time.
Of course for Noll, it all started with the fundamentals and technique. After assuming his role as head coach, Noll promptly told the team that reason they had lost so much is because, quite frankly, they weren't very good.
So he began to purge the roster, and by the time 1974 came around, you could count the number of players remaining from that first year in one hand.
Replacing those who didn't make the cut were a legion of players drafted, developed and instructed by Noll and his coaching staff.
Between Noll, Art Rooney Jr., and Bill Nunn, the Steelers pulled of a string of Drafting success that is unrivalled in NFL history. Within Noll's first five years as head coach, the Steelers drafted nine Hall of Fame players, including four in the 1974 draft.
Those nine players would form the core of a dynasty, and establish the Steelers model, which placed an emphasis on drafting and developing, as the envy of the NFL. The 1979 Super Bowl winning Steelers team was in fact comprised entirely of players drafted and developed by the Steelers, a feat that is still unmatched today, or likley to be any time soon.
After completing one of the best rebuilding jobs the NFL has ever seen, Noll's Steelers set about dominating their opnonents, winning back-to-back Super Bowls in 1974-75, and then again in 1978-79.
In the space of one decade, Noll turned the hapless Steelers from a laughing stock into one of the NFL's premiere franchises, an aura which remains with them to this day. Noll became the first, and only coach ever to win four Super Bowls, whilst the Steelers remain the only franchise ever to win four in six years.
Noll coached the Steelers for 23 years, retiring in 1991 with a record of 209-156-1, and a playoff record of 16-8. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest coaches in the history of the NFL.
The reputation of Noll the coach is well established, he was committed to drafting the right kind of players, focusing on technique, preparation and the meticulous detail involved in winning a match. He was also one of the all time great winners.
Noll as a man however was more enigmatic. With his players he was distant, aloof, cold even.
He did not try to get close with players, it was just not his style. L.C Greenwood was a key cog in the famous Steel Curtain defensive line, and played 13 seasons with the Steelers. He recalled only ever having one conversation with Chuck Noll his entire career, the day Noll told him he was getting cut from the team.
He never launched into fiery speeches in the locker room or on the sidelines.
Per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "He wasn't one who put his arm around you and pumped you up," said former running back Rocky Bleier. "His way was, 'I don't have time to motivate you. My job is to take self-motivators and show them how to become better.' He wasn't very comfortable at having to go pat guys on the back or jack them up. He will not go down in the annals of history as a great, halftime rah-rah guy."
Noll didn't believe in "false chatter", as he called it. He didn't want players that had to be motivated by him or anyone else to play their best, because if that were the case they didn't really want to be there. He wanted self-motivated players, guys he could teach and train without having to pump their ego before every game.
Of course, Noll did have his moments.
Prior to the 1974 AFC Championship game, John Madden proclaimed that the Raiders and the Dolphins were the two best teams in the NFL. Noll, very uncharacteristically, told his team in no uncertain terms that the best time in the NFL was in the room with him, a moment that sticks with Mean Joe Greene to this day.
In 1987 When Noll felt the Houston Oilers were deliberately trying to injure his players, he marched across the field and threatened to punch then head coach Jerry Glanville.
Chuck Noll as a man has never been comfortably understood the media or his players, which is not surprising considering he was a man of high intellect and many diverse interests.
I was some 22 years away from being born when Chuck Noll and the Steel Curtain began to tear up the NFL, so when I first looked back upon Noll's era it was the glare of an academic looking for facts and details.
What I found there was the genesis of the Steelers I know and love today. They may have been founded in 1933, but the Pitsburgh Steelers didn't begin living and breathing until January 1969.
When we talk about Steelers nation and the "Steeler way" we are taking about a sense of camaraderie and a way of life that Noll created. When you think about the aura that surrounds this franchise, and the feeling that it stands for something more than just football, family, working hard, opportunity whatever, that all began when Chuck Noll set foot in Pittsburgh 45 years ago.
To be a Pittsburgh Steelers fan is to be a part of a rich, unrivalled history full of larger than life characters, winning and most of all a certain belief in the way things should be done.
That to me is Chuck Noll's greatest legacy.When Bob Knight took a job with ESPN as a college basketball analyst in 2008, the career shift reminded one of the Groucho Marx line about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member. The Hall of Fame basketball coach joined the same group of people he once described as "one or two steps above prostitution." He became one of the "damn people from television" he famously critiqued.
On Thursday night, his run as one of the "damn people from television"—at least as far as being a damn person from ESPN—is officially over. SI.com has learned ESPN will not renew its contract with Knight. His last broadcast for the network will be Thursday night's NIT's championship between Stanford and Miami, which tips at 9 p.m. ET.
When contacted by SI.com on Thursday afternoon, ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys declined comment.
• MORE CBB: Final Four power rankings
Knight, 74, was hired by ESPN in February 2008 shortly after he announced his resignation from Texas Tech. During his time with ESPN, he worked in a number of capacities, including as an on-site analyst (notably with Brent Musburger on Big 12 broadcasts) as well as appearing on select shows and platforms, including ESPN's Selection Sunday Specials, SportsCenter, ESPN Radio and ESPNEWS. He was an interesting and distinctive voice early on, but he had some hiccups as a broadcaster, including in 2012 when he remarkably declined to utter the word "Kentucky" on air, opting instead for that "team from the SEC." He took on fewer games in the past couple of years—he called American Athletic Conference games this year with Mike Patrick and Len Elmore—but still had a propensity to tell people to get off his lawn.
Prior to Knight's hire by the Bristol-based network, ESPN enjoyed favored nation status with him. Longtime supporters such as Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps shouted his virtues to audiences for years. Of course, part of Knight's ESPN legacy also included walking off the set of ESPN's Cold Pizza when asked about the resignation of his successor at Indiana University, Mike Davis, verbally smacking ESPN reporter Jeremy Schaap during a 2000 interview, and later calling Schaap a "chicken----little ----sucker" in Jim Miller's best-selling book on ESPN, These Guys Have All The Fun.
"He's always been the type of person that if you were flipping through the channels and you saw him in a long-form interview or a press conference or during one of his games, you stopped and watched it," ESPN executive vice president Norby Williamson told Sports Illustrated upon hiring Knight. "There are very few people like that. It was a fairly easy decision. Our goal is to inform and entertain sports fans, and when you look at somebody of the stature of Bob Knight, he is one of the most compelling sports figures of the last half century. I realize a lot of people are going to say he is a very polarizing figure. But again, I go back and look at the body of work, the intellect, the success, the graduation rates, the programs he has run. When you put everything together, it is an easy decision to hire Bob Knight for your college basketball coverage."
Could Knight catch on with another sports network? Nothing is impossible when it comes to sports television executives handing out cash. He's one of the major names in the history of the sport, and the inventory of live games out there is plentiful. But he also comes with considerable baggage.Using optical data of a recently detected gamma ray burst afterglow, astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University and Gemini Observatory, have learned about the chemistry of a galaxy 12.7 billion light-years away. The team discovered that the galaxy contains only one-tenth of the heavy elements found in our Solar System.
NASA’s Swift spacecraft detected this gamma ray burst (GRB) – a flash of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies – on June 6, 2013. It was labeled GRB 130606A and classified as a long GRB since the event lasted for more than four minutes.
At a distance of 12.7 billion light-years, GRB 130606A is one of the most distant gamma-ray bursts ever found.
The team quickly organized follow-up observations by the MMT Telescope in Arizona and the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii.
“We were able to get right on target in a matter of hours. That speed was crucial in detecting and studying the afterglow,” explained Dr Ryan Chornock of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, lead author of a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (preprint at arXiv.org).
A GRB afterglow occurs when jets from the burst slam into surrounding gas, sweeping that material up like a snowplow, heating it, and causing it to glow.
As the afterglow’s light travels through the dead star’s host galaxy, it passes through clouds of interstellar gas. Chemical elements within those clouds absorb light at certain wavelengths, leaving ‘fingerprints.’ By splitting the light into a rainbow spectrum, astronomers can study those fingerprints and learn what gases the distant galaxy contained.
All chemical elements heavier than hydrogen, helium, and lithium had to be created by stars. As a result those heavy elements, which astronomers collectively call ‘metals,’ took time to accumulate. Life could not have existed in the early Universe because the elements of life, including carbon and oxygen, did not exist.
The team found that the GRB galaxy contained only about one-tenth of the metals in our Solar System. Theory suggests that although rocky planets might have been able to form, life probably could not thrive yet.
“At the time this star died, the Universe was still getting ready for life. It didn’t have life yet, but was building the required elements,” Dr Chornock said.
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Bibliographic information: Ryan Chornock et al. 2013. GRB 130606A as a Probe of the Intergalactic Medium and the Interstellar Medium in a Star-forming Galaxy in the First Gyr After the Big Bang. ApJ, accepted for publication; arXiv: 1306.3949< Previous 1 of 10 Next > Chief Eddie Ugbomah Ugbomah (left) with the Executive Director of the Nationa Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) Adedayo Thomas and actor St. Obi during his (Ugbomah) innauguration as Patron of the Special Taskforce on piracy in Lagos.
A pioneer in the country’s showbiz industry, veteran filmmaker, Chief Eddie Ugbomah, has been in the forefront of motion picture production and music promotion in Nigeria. Till date, he’s still listed as the only African to have shot 13 films on celluloid. An Officer of the Order of Niger (OON), the former Director General of Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) and an adviser to the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFCVB), believes that, though the creative industry is one of the greatest revenue sources in a country like the US, the sector remains untapped in Nigeria due to government’s inability to develop a policy to harness the abundant opportunities to create wealth. In this interview with CHUKS NWANNE, the ever-vocal filmmaker spoke on a wide range of issues bedeviling the industry, with focus on the proposed plan by the Federal Government to ban Nigerian artistes from shooting films abroad
As one of the founding fathers of showbiz in Nigeria, what’s your take on the creative industry today?
The creative industry, particularly the movie and music, which I’m one of the pioneers, has suddenly jumped into coma; it’s just drowning. And if you look at it, it’s self-made punishment, which is sad.
Like they are crying now, which I’ve been crying more than 20 years ago, entertainment is bigger than oil. Look at groups like The Beetles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals… look at the millions they are making for England. America is using film to threaten the world. Today, everybody wants to be an American; everybody wants to speak like the Americans. It’s the power of their communication, not their nuclear power.
In Africa, Nigeria is a leading light when it comes to filmmaking. How come we’ve not taken a cue?
What did we do with entertainment in Nigeria? I fought Olusegun Obasanjo government (as Head of State) with the support of only one person, Ola Balogun. They got fed up with my harassment and made a decree that banned foreigners from getting involved in making movies in Nigeria. They also stopped giving foreign exchange to make films outside. At that time, many of these fake advertising agencies were using film as a front to siphon money from rich Lebanese and Nigerians.
In the name of shooting documentary and commercials, they would quote bills so they can collect money from Central Bank of Nigeria. I know a multi- millionaire advertising agency man who made money by siphoning money from people. Later, the Buhari-Idiagbon regime came in and enhanced the Decree. He said that, ‘anybody, who wants to make a Nigerian film, unless a Nigerian, should make it in Nigeria and no more foreign exchange. That was how the tricks dropped.
Were there any gains from enacting that decree at the time?
Well, one thing we gained, especially myself, Ade Love, Hubert Ogunde and others, was that our films were being shown; at least, at the National Theatre. Because, these Lebanese… if you meet them to show your film, they will agree and give you six months notice; they will frustrate you. But when this Decree threw them out, we were able to hawk our films like biscuits for people to come and see.
We showed them in halls, schools and stadiums, but at least, we were showing Nigerian films made in Nigeria. It became a boom; that’s what these young people are enjoying today, which they didn’t want to know how people like us fought for it. Now, you look at where they are today, to me, they are in the middle of nowhere; the industry is nowhere.
Why did you say so?
Ben Bruce and myself spoke seriously to former president Goodluck Jonathan and he gave $200 million to the industry; NEXIM Bank won’t let us access the money. They were asking for our father’s name, our mother’s name, our bank account, our lands… they didn’t even think of those with reputation that the economy might have frustrated, people like me.
I was one of the first to apply and I was the first to be refused; they didn’t give me, you can imagine. I was always expunged from the list and they say, ‘oh, he’s a troublemaker.’ Now, I want to ask them, 145 of them were given N5 million each to make film more than one and half years ago, where are the movies?
Are you saying they didn’t invest the money in shooting movies?
Ask them, did they make the films? They chop the money because they are bankrupt already. They used it to pay rent and marry new girlfriends or just enjoy themselves. Today, you can’t use N5 million to produce a movie; it’s nothing. They are shouting about fighting corruption, many of them (filmmakers) are going to be probed very soon. Even at that, they shared another N400 million to people and they say, some people don chop before, we never chop. So, they are giving them money just because they come from the right political party or right godfather or right connection.
In your opinion, that’s not how to support the industry?
No, the industry is in the gutter; badly managed. When I was shouting and talking, nobody took me serious. To worsen the situation, how can Multichoice, now joined by Iroko TV, be making films in Nigeria and airing it here without censorship? Can you take any film into America or London today and show it because you’re a cable TV? Even when Aljazeera wanted to enter US, they had to buy the Vice President of US TV station before they were allowed into the US. But here, anything goes.
But it seems government is beginning to show genuine interest in the creative industry, at least with the creative industry summit hosted by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture
I laugh at all of you, what are you talking about? Go outside and do something; the money is out there waiting for you. Government, we don’t need your money; what we need are the encouragement and level playing ground.
For instance, the government can say, ‘everybody that invests in Nigerian films, we give you 10 per cent discount in tax.’ People will rush out because they will get a tax rebate. Every cinema house that shows Nigerian films, you give them rebirth. Multichoice, which has been exploiting this country for over 20 years, there are over 20 million decoders in Nigeria. Give only N200 per decoder to the entertainment industry; they will be making N60 million per month without sweating it. So, what are they saying? The money is there, let them go and pick it.
Look at Nigerian banks; they are always advertising on CNN every day. In case you don’t know, it’s Nigerian banks that are keeping Arise TV. What have they given to the arts and artists they use in those commercials? What money have they brought home from all those adverts? All they have to do is to just give one per cent of their profit to the creative arts like they do all over the world.
Could you give examples of countries where such is obtainable?
They do it in Britain; they have a special fund for the arts brought in by corporate companies; the British Film Institute is the one that shares the money to the art. Yes, the government gives them support, but they don’t give so much because the owners don’t want the government to control their content.
Look at America; their government put billions in movies indirectly. For instance, when they are shooting a movie in America, the government gives them those Jet bombers, ships and original soldiers mixed with artists free. That’s to warn you that if you mess with America, they will deal with you; it’s a big investment. Nigeria has the same power with film in Africa, we should explore it.
Some people are of the opinion that lack of a physical structure for Nollywood like they have for Hollywood in the United States, is a challenge to the industry. Do you agree with that?
Let me tell you, I brought some people from America with money to open a film village in Delta State. I spent two days talking with the former governor of Delta State. I went to see him with the investors and he entertained us. He said I should write him a budget for the project, but I told him, ‘don’t bring a penny; let’s use the American money to build the film village.’ All we wanted was a land; Nigerian media carried it.
He agreed, with RMD (Richard Mofe Damijo), who was his Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, to give us land to build the film village; I can show you all the documents here. But Uduaghan was busy fighting to become a senator and for his boy to be governor; he didn’t do anything.
And what happened to the project?
Now that Okowa came in as governor, he called me again to apologise; that was February last year. He said it was a good idea that they would like to do it. He sent one of his directors to me. We went back to Delta and did a presentation to them and everything. What were the commissioners doing? Twelve of them were busy fighting that, ‘Eddie should have come to see me at home so that I can push it.’ See you for what?
They are the ones supposed to be pampering me, sending me air ticket and hotel booking. But no, we paid our bills; that thing flopped. It happened with Fashola too; he was to give us a land at Seme Border so we can build this world-class resort for filmmaking. The idea is that when you are shooting film, you don’t have to see people on your set. If you are shooting a film here and okada passes, you cannot stop them. There’s no light, so, you have to use generator; you have the issue of generator noise to deal with. But if you have a studio, it will be generating it’s own power.
What kills most of our films is sound; our stories are not too bad. We are the one the world is waiting for. The world is waiting for African cinema to start from Nigeria, but our shooting system is zero.
Most Nollywood movies are shot mostly in Asaba these days, but it seems Delta State Government is yet to take advantage of the opportunity that it presents?
They don’t know because they don’t want to listen. When you put a surveyor as Commissioner for Arts and Culture, what do you think he’s going to talk? I volunteered to go there; they should have been so grateful to drag me down there to help deal with the situation. I planned to open an entertainment academy there, but things are not working.
I want to ask you a question, show me where’s Nollywood? Now, I have some Brazilians coming to Nigeria to visit me because of the launching and induction of Movie and Music Makers Hall of Fame because we don’t have a historical centre. Most of these young musicians today don’t know who is Njemanze Nwoba; they don’t know EC Arinze, Agu Norris and the rest. They don’t know because there’s no historical centre for them to go and read about them and things that happened before they were born.
That’s why you see some of those boys, when they make little money, they will start threatening everybody. ‘I can do whatever I like; it’s my money.’ Which money? It’s we, who cleared that roads you are enjoying today. Some of them go on tour abroad and they earn dollars; they change it with the Mallams and not banks. So, they are not patriotic too; they should shut up.
How was it like growing the movie industry?
It was a tough challenge, but we were able to push things. Without Kenny Ogungbe and D1, who turned Nigerian music around to the extent that we are no more craving for the likes of Michael Jackson and Cliff Richard, you won’t have an industry to play in today.
And without me deciding to promote black artistes from 1966 when Nigerians were worshiping Cliff Richard, The Shadows, The Blues, all white groups before I brought Millie Small from London to tour Nigeria. From there, I brought Chubby Checker, James Brown, Danny Williams, name it! I was the one, who changed the face of Nigerian music. Then, I started to encourage Nigerian musicians to go and perform abroad, both in my clubs and others; I did it. Today, Nigerians celebrate Bob Marley every year, we made Bob Marley; Nigeria made Bob Marley. The money they paid Chris Blackwell, his manager by then, were the money he used to set up Island Record. Even this millionaire today, Richard Branson, he was our record seller. Richard of Virgin Atlantic was selling records for Island Record in the streets; when we print, we give him to go and hawk. Today, he’s a multi billionaire through our efforts. Unfortunately, nobody celebrates Eddie Ugbomah.
If Nigeria truly made Bob Marley, how come he never played here?
People are talking about Bob Marley; he refused to come to Africa until when he went to play in Zimbabwe because of publicity. If not, we tried over and over again for him to come and perform in Nigeria. No, he was asking for too much money. He was a Negrophobist, but people are deceived; they don’t get the facts.
Yes, he was a great musician. He was a revolutionary musician, but I cannot compare him with Fela at all. Fela is just too high for him. Have you heard any of these musicians say anything about me? Do they know who originated and civilized them? They don’t know.
And you attribute that to lack of historic centres?
There’s no historical centre for them to go and learn how the industry was made. In fact, we have the same problem in almost all the sectors in the country. I asked a question, who is the father of Obasanjo? Nobody knows the history. Who is the father of Murtala Mohammed, nobody knows. Who is the father of Babangida, nobody knows. Who is the father of Abacha, nobody knows. Maybe Ernest Shonekan can at least give us his family history. It’s an achievement for the children of ordinary Nigerians to end up as Head of State, so, what are they hiding to expunge history?
It seems you believe so much in Nigeria?
This is a great nation; this is a country that does not need oil. Just few days ago, they are now exporting cassava and yam. Is it today that we’ve had them with us? The worst of all, I regretted ever being a Nigerian and being born a Delta man. If I were Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa, with my achievements and know-how, they will be begging me to come and be chairman of a committee and help do something.
I remember one little effort I put when they gave me a budget of N88 million to build a colour lab in Jos. My board and myself finished it with N35 million. We returned the balance to the government. You can ask anybody, it happened in this country; Tony Momoh was there, Babangida was the Head of State. But you know what Nigerians did? They killed it.
Why?
Because they were using film to siphon money. They refused to go there to process their films. Every government in Nigeria was using foreign exchange to process their films in England. The laboratory is there in Jos, why do you need foreign exchange to travel abroad? They watched it die; that place died because Nigerians couldn’t steal money to go abroad. I’ve never worked for the government but, I’ve served the country in many ways. I’ve paid my dues in many ways. And coming back to this powerful but ignored industry, the entertainment, I pity Nigeria.
The Minister for Information recently announced plans by the Federal Government to ban Nigerian artistes from shooting films abroad and it has generated a lot of controversies. What do you have to say on this?
It’s a pity the Minister didn’t beg me to announce such a thing. I’ve been crying about it for centuries, which was why I made sure we make Nigerian films made in Nigeria by Nigerians. But Nigerians killed it; they allowed that film lab to die in Jos. Why should you collect Nigeria’s money to go to South Africa and shoot a stupid video you could shoot here? You can give Nigerians the jobs, let Nigerians gain from you because you made the money here.
I’ve told Lai Mohammed already, ‘don’t talk; you are talking too much.’ Let them make their rubbish in South Africa or Congo or London, when they bring it home, they will meet NBC (Nigeria Broadcasting Commission). NBC will tell them, ‘any station that shows this foreign programme, you are closed down, finished!’ Nobody will tell them to make home content and eat at home. Do you know that the entire African countries do not show any film on their stations than Nigerian films? If we have a place in Nigeria where you have film village, where all Africans will come and shoot, we will be eating forever. South Africa doesn’t make films; they only sell location and technology. We have locations here and we should promote and make use of them.
But sometimes, it seems Nigeria is not properly promoting her destinations?
Let me give them a little bit of excuse, like those kids, who were saying there’s no equipment in Nigeria, there’s no light… they are talking rubbish! American government didn’t build Hollywood, Jewish businessmen built it during the time of recession. The British Government didn’t build Pinewood Studios; that’s where they’ve been shooting James Bond, Julius Caesar and other productions; private people own it. So, why can’t our private persons, who want to make cement for N1000 and sell for N5000, sit down and see the potentials in the creative industry? Everything is oil and gas, oil and gas… why can’t they see the future of this industry? After over 19 years of shouting, nobody listened.
Though there are numerous challenges facing the industry, distribution seems to be a major issue?
There are about 774 local councils in this country, let each of them have a viewing centre, which is in their budget already. Do you know what it means to have your films in 774 local councils in one month? You will make your money back in one week; that’s the trick Americans use. Whether the film is sweet or not, they put the film ‘bang’ in all their cinemas. So, by Friday when journalists carry biro to criticise the film, you have made your money back. Now, the world gets better during recession; that was when American entertainment became big.
Government should beg artistes to create great stories because people want to laugh and forget situations. Look at Hitler; he fought wars with movies; he made a movie creating super human being Germans. Ojukwu used movie to get the support of the world during the Civil War; he was crying in the film about the massacre of the Igbo and the whole world sympathised with him.
What I’m saying is, this is a big power, future job giver and GDP earner that is being ignored. So, don’t speak grammar in Ikeja and Eko Hotel; get outside and do your job.
The artistes have questioned the Federal Government’s right to decide where they shoot their films, could you comment on this?
Sure, because they are not nationalistic; they are not patriotic. I feel sorry for them that they can go out and table a Nigerian; you should be proud to be Nigerian. You should shoot your videos in Nigeria; do everything in Nigeria.
Do you have to wait for government to give you everything? If government gives you everything, they control it. What are those people talking about? You think by putting bottles of drinks on the table and spraying money is music? They are dry; they are empty upstairs, what are they composing? What’s the content of their music? Can’t you see there’s no creativity among them?
But how much is the country losing to filming abroad?
Billions, because some of them think it’s an achievement to have shot their videos in South Africa. There’s one big artiste, I don’t want to give his name; he shot a video in South Africa to compete with his former colleague. You know what happened, when they brought 50 girls just to be shaking their waists at $1000 each, he was like, ‘for what?’ In the night, he just packed his load and entered the first plane to Kenya; he cannot go back to South Africa again. They are exploiting us and they have murdered us here in Nigeria with Multichoice and Dstv.
Are you saying that Multichoice has not supported the Nigerian entertainment industry enough?
They are practically exploiting us. They came in through, my brother, Emeka Mba. And Tony Momoh, who was the Minister of Information asked them to see Eddie Ugboma the Chairman of Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) to decide. I told Emeka, ‘I will never allow these people to come in because, in the next 10 to 15 years, they will destroy our industry.’ Emeka said, ‘no, they are bringing in money; they want to put money into our industry.’ I said, ‘alright, if that’s the truth, let them come.’ He was a young man, about 26 or 27 years old that time. They came to this house to greet and thank me. But what did they do, they found me first and foremost their enemy. So they made sure they cut me off.
Now, they started repackaging Nigerian films; like Amaka Igwe’s Rattles Snake and Mofe Damijo’s film as well. But I said, ‘no, you didn’t come here to package films; you are here to invest money.’ Then they wanted to prove to Eddie, who thinks he’s a celluloid filmmaker that they could shoot on celluloid. They shot few of them, like the one with Olu Jacobs and his wife having twins; Nigerians were celebrating. I said to them, ‘these guys are setting trap for you and when they catch you, it will be hard to go. Gbam, they came in with Doctors Quarters and they were paying N200,000 per episode. Boom, big money; every artiste went berserk. But then, when Kate Henshaw and Jimi Odumosu found out that it was a deceit; they were using them for posters and different advertising materials. They said, ‘no, you are not paying us for those things…’ They sacked them. They dropped Kate Henshaw. Kate took up the case with me and Ejike Asiegbu. We applied to them, but when they slapped us with contracts Nigerians signed, yakata; we could not talk.
Like now till tomorrow |
Bell litigation,” Mischin said on Friday in comments quoted by Brandis in full at the estimates hearing.
“[Brandis] indicated to me that he had a very, very preliminary briefing on it, he hadn’t been able to form a view on it and once he had he would discuss the matter further with me.
“I had a further conversation with him I think in early March, where he told me that as far as he was presently advised, he didn’t think the commonwealth had a basis to intervene.
“I spoke to him again later in March, shortly before the high court hearing, where he told me that on the advice that he had received he felt obliged to intervene on behalf of the commonwealth.”
Brandis said he did not dispute Mischin’s account, explaining “I don’t say it didn’t happen, only that I do not recall it”.
Brandis noted that in his November answer he had said his office was dealing with the Bell litigation and said he “would have” told Mischin that in the 1 February conversation.
Q&A: George Brandis put on the spot over Centrelink fiasco and disability funding Read more
“It does not, in my view, constitute personal involvement to say that my office is dealing with [a matter] and that I would have to make a decision later.”
Brandis said that in February his adviser James Lambie had told him he was dealing with the matter and a decision would be required in the near future about whether the commonwealth should intervene in a high court case about the Western Australian law to resolve the Bell litigation.
“I don’t consider merely being told that a decision in a matter – then being dealt with by my staff – would be required in the future constituted personal involvement at that stage,” he said.
Brandis again denied directing Gleeson about which arguments to run on behalf of the Australian Tax Office. Brandis said he was initially of the view that the commonwealth should not intervene on a particular point but, after a discussion with Gleeson who was “strongly of the view” it should, he yielded.
“There was no constraint on any argument Mr Gleeson might run.”
Brandis accepted that Mischin and the WA treasurer, Mike Nahan, “felt aggrieved” that the commonwealth joined the Bell creditors but said that the former treasurer Joe Hockey had not bound the commonwealth to stay out of the case.
On Wednesday the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, described the Senate estimates hearing as “farcical”.
He accused Brandis of “trying to cover up his involvement in the shameful Bell affair” by saying 22 times in the first hour of evidence that he did not recall events before 3 March.
Dreyfus questioned Brandis’s competence if he was unable to remember the discussion with Mischin.Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE said Sunday that while the Democrats' platform draft includes some major victories for his presidential campaign, there is still work to be done.
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"We won some very important victories in our effort to try to make it clear to the American people that the Democratic Party stands with the working class," Sanders said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"But we lost some very important fights. We're going to take that fight to Orlando, where the entire committee meets in two weeks, and if we don't succeed there, we're certainly going to take it to the floor of the Democratic convention."
The platform draft includes some major victories for the Sanders camp but diverges from his policies enough to give him ammo going into the Democratic National Convention in late July.
The platform draft committee took a first step toward giving Sanders a major concession, voting to adopt language in support of a $15 minimum wage.
The 15-person committee, chaired by Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), finalized its draft of the guiding document Saturday in St. Louis after lengthy negotiations.
The panel also aligned itself with progressive ideas such as abolishing the death penalty and expanding Social Security, The Associated Press reported. The minimum wage language adopted echoes a common refrain from Sanders, calling the current federal minimum of $7.25 a "starvation wage."
The platform also tackled financial reform by calling for "an updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall."
But the panel did block several proposals favored by Sanders and his supporters. It refused to adopt a proposed amendment by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) that would have opposed President Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) — both Sanders and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton have spoken against the trade deal. Instead, the panel backed a measure that acknowledged "a diversity of views in the party" on the TPP.
It also rejected amendments putting a national freeze on fracking, imposing a carbon tax and promoting a single-payer healthcare system."Make no little plans," said President Barack Obama last spring as he rolled out a pitch for a high-speed rail network—yet another presidential initiative to lift America out of recession and chart a new national course. In that spirit, The Atlantic offers a few modest proposals for making the world a better place.
Rent Your Own Home
By Felix Salmon
Unleash the Dogs of Peace
By James S. Gibney
Give Up on Democracy in Afghanistan
By Andrew J. Bacevich
Privatize the Seas
By Gregg Easterbrook
Tell the Truth About Colleges
By Thomas Toch
Welcome Guest Workers
By Kerry Howley
Pay the Artists
By Felix Salmon
End All Taxes—Except One
By Reihan Salam
Civilize Homeland Security
By James Fallows
End the Corporate Income Tax
By Megan McArdle
Redesign the Dollar
By Michael Bierut
End the Vice Presidency
By Matthew Yglesias
Teach Drinking
By John McCardell
Buy to Last
By Ellen Ruppel Shell
Train Detroit
By Bruce SelcraigList of Keywords and Phrases DHS Uses to Monitor Social Networking Sites and Online Media for Signs of Terrorism and Threats.
--Words included in DHS 2011 'Analyst's Desktop Binder'. 27 May 2012 'Snow' 'Blizzard' 'H1N1' 'Vaccine'. Whoops! I'm now under surveillance.We read: Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want... 26 May 2012 The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S. The intriguing the list includes obvious choices such as 'attack', 'Al Qaeda', 'terrorism' and 'dirty bomb' alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like'smart', 'cloud', 'blizzard' and 'Mexico'. Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats. The words are included in the department's 2011 'Analyst's Desktop Binder' used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify'media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities'.
Here is the list.
Source: legitgov.org, May 27 2012WWOS Flashback: Evel Kneivel's '75 crash at Wembley
By Alex Laracy
ABC Sports Online
"Seventy percent were real fans who wanted to be there to see the jump. Twenty percent wanted to come and if there was an accident, they wanted to see it. But they didn't want to see me get killed. Then there's 10 percent of the population that were looking for blood and/or death."
--Evel Knievel If Evel Kneivel's above statements in reference to his fans were indeed accurate, roughly 20-30 percent of those in attendance at London's Wembley Stadium on May 25, 1975 got exactly what they paid for. The rest experienced a combination of excitement, immense fear and a touch of queasiness that perhaps only a classic Knievel death-defying stunt can evoke, with the possible exception of a bare-knuckle heavyweight boxing match. By the time of his Wembley jump, the 36-year old had already established a unique love affair with television viewers, as his four previous appearances on Wide World of Sports still ranked among the top-rated shows in Wide World history. To add to the hype, Knievel's most recent jump up on WWOS at the time -- an attempt to leap the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a sky cycle -- was not only unsuccessful, but nearly fatal. Seconds after his sky cycle cleared the edge of the canyon, his parachute ejected prematurely. As Evel descended into the canyon, it appeared he was heading directly for the river, which would have meant certain death. Luckily, Evel and the sky cycle were saved when they landed on the rocks on the far edge of the river. While Knievel's sanity was constantly in question, no one ever questioned the man's courage and dedication to the sport he loved. Despite his near-death experience in Idaho, Evel returned to his Harley for an even more treacherous jump at Wembley without an ounce of hesitation. "After an accident," said Knievel, "I was planning my next jump, or wanting to keep my word with the promotional people wherever they were in the United States, while they were pushing me down a hallway on a stretcher to the operating room. And having my wife call 'em and saying I'll be there." But once again in front of a jam-packed Wembley Stadium and a near-record number of WWOS viewers, things did not exactly go according to plan for Knievel. With Keith Jackson commentating for WWOS, Knievel performed his customary set of wheelies and spin moves in an effort to get the Wembley crowd of over 70,000 on their feet in anticipation of his attempt to clear 13 double-tiered buses. Knievel, decked out in his custom red, white and blue Elvis-like jumpsuit, then ventured up to the top of the ramp, and promptly gave the thumbs up. He was ready to go. Knievel put his foot on the gas and, reaching close to 90 miles-per-hour on the 140-foot ramp, vaulted roughly 20 feet in the air, barely clearing the 13th bus as the crowd gasped for breath. A smooth flight indeed, but his landing was far from precise. Evel's front wheel bounced more than it landed, and he was instantly launched over his handlebars. Landing head-first into the cement floor, Knievel tumbled violently for fifty yards, his Harley seemingly chasing behind him. As the limp daredevil came to a halt, his bike brutally rammed into him, inducing Jackson to exclaim, "Oh my God!" Knievel lay motionless on the ground with a broken hand, a re-injury of his pelvis, and a compression fracture of a vertebra. A concerned hush rushed over the London crowd as a horde of doctors and security quickly swarmed Knievel. A stretcher was drawn for him. However, the battered veteran insisted on leaving the arena on foot. The weary Knievel then demanded the microphone, and dramatically announced to the crowd that they would be "the last people in the world who will ever see me jump. I will never, ever, ever, ever jump again. I am through." With then-ABC announcer Frank Gifford helping him out of the arena, Knievel was overheard saying, "I'm hurt awful bad, and I think I'm going into shock." Gifford proceeded to plead with Knievel that he has proved enough and to use the stretcher, Knievel refused again, insisting, "I walked in, I want to walk out!" Knievel slowly exited the arena with all of Wembley chanting, "Evel, Evel, Evel...," leaving an indelibly haunting, yet courageous, impression on England, not to mention the Wide World viewers. Somewhat predictably, Knievel's retirement vow did not hold long, as America's love affair with him peaked on Wide World just five months later at King's Island amusement park in Ohio, where he successfully jumped 14 Greyhound buses. The telecast remains Wide World's highest rated, with a 22.3 rating and 52 percent share.
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Evel Knievel's attempt to jump 140 feet over 13 double-deck buses at Wembley Stadium fails.
avi:
RealVideo: | |I’ve always liked Newt. And it looks like he was dead right on this one!
Back in 2011, Newt made headlines for saying we should abolish the looney 9th Circuit court of appeals. Just abolish it altogether.
He may be on to something.
You know the 9th Circuit, the Court who famously declared “Under God” was unconstitutional. And the Court who just struck down Trump’s travel ban.
It wouldn’t be entirely unprecedented either. Jefferson did it.
Here are more details from RawStory, and scroll all the way down for the actual video:
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich declared Thursday that he would work to abolish federal judges if he didn’t agree with their “anti-American” or “dictatorial” rulings. At a GOP debate in Sioux City, Iowa, Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly noted that at least two conservative former attorneys general had blasted Gingrich’s “dangerous” and “totally irresponsible” plan because it would alter the balance of powers. “It alters the balance because the courts have become grotesquely dictatorial, far too powerful,” Gingrich admitted. “I’ve been working on this project since 2002 when the Ninth Circuit court said that ‘one nation under God’ is unconstitutional in the Pledge of Allegiance. And I decided that if you had judges that were so radically anti-American that they thought ‘one nation under God’ was wrong, they shouldn’t be on the court.” “Like Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR, I would be prepared to take on the judiciary if, in fact, it did not restrict what it was doing,” he added. As for those conservative former attorneys general, Gingrich wanted to know if they had studied “Jefferson, who in 1802 abolished 18 out of 35 federal judges?”Chapter 50: Princess Affair
Author Note: Wow Fifty chapters already and now I have like over 30,000 views of this story. This story has become very, very and very popular and everyone is enjoying this story so far. I would like to thank you all for the major support, the views and especially the reviews to this story turning to be a great success knowing how popular is has so far. Anyway here is the next chapter you all been waiting for. ENJOY!
"Wait she liked you?" Mario asked
"Yeah she did, I thought she hate me at first now she likes me. Plus we're friends and we decided to keep it that way" Sonic explained
"Of course and you know she might want you again"
"I don't know, we'll see"
"Well in that case who's this next girl did you sleep with?"
"Well… If I tell you this, don't get mad"
"I won't now tell"
"Seriously please don't get mad man"
"I won't now please tell me who is this girl you slept with?'
"Well um… Oh boy how am I going to put this… it's um…"
"Well"
"It's Princess Peach"
Mario heard of his girlfriend's name then he begin to get angry at Sonic. He then delivers a hard punch across Sonic in the face sending to the floor setting up a scene for everyone to see.
"Say that again" Mario commanded
"I just told you her name didn't I and you said you wouldn't get mad" Sonic softly responded
"SAY IT AGAIN!"
"… Princess peach"
Mario again deliver a punch in the face to Sonic. He then start to pick up Sonic by the collar of his shirt, slamming his face to the table and throws him through the window crashing through it to the ground. Mario went outside seeing Sonic pulling himself up spitting out blood from his mouth. Mario then knee kicks Sonic and head-butted Sonic in the face deliver some more punches against Sonic and Mario then delivers a powerful punch in Sonic's stomach which had Sonic got down on his knees holding his stomach.
"Ok that actually hurt" Sonic said in pain
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DONE YOU SICK SNEAKY LITTLE RODENT!" Mario yelled in anger
"Mario, it's not what it looks like, I'm not dating Princess Peach and you know that" Sonic reminded
"Yeah but you slept with my girlfriend without telling me"
Mario punches Sonic in the face once again having Sonic laid on his back.
"Tell me how long has this been going on?" Mario demanded
"We're not seeing each other" Sonic countered
"TELL ME OR I'LL KILL YOU SONIC!"
"This was before you and Peach were seeing each other"
"Wait what?"
"This was before you guys were together"
"Why didn't you say so?"
"I was trying to before you beat me up"
"I'm sorry for that, I didn't meant to hurt you like that"
"You had every right to do that to me and I understand all of that. Why don't we go have a drink and I'll tell you what happen with me and Peach"
"Good idea"
Meanwhile, at the bar…
Sonic and Mario sat at a table having a cocktail and socializing.
"So what happen with you and my girlfriend?" Mario asked
"Well it happen like this…"
Flashback…
Sonic rode his skateboard to the skating rink for his spare time. When he got there, he performs some tricks and performing some new techniques to accomplish. Sonic spend an hour in the skating rink having a good time. Sonic and left the rink saying goodbye to the other skaters. Sonic head on over to the store grab a bottle of mountain when suddenly he sees Princess Peach exiting out of building when she soon notices Sonic across from her.
"Oh Sonic hi" Peach greeted
"Hey there Peach, how are you?" Sonic greeted happily
"I'm doing ok well… A little sad of course"
"Oh what' that"
"Can we talk over at my castle and I'll tell you"
"Sure thing let's get going then"
Minutes later…
The two arrived to Peach's castle and heads on inside the castle. They then head on over to Peach's bedroom.
"So what's on your mind?" Sonic asked
"Sonic, I broke up with my ex-boyfriend" Peach responded sadly
"Is it Mario?"
"No someone else and we've been dating for 3 months until I caught him cheating with another woman"
"Oh that's bad, are you going to be ok?"
"I guess so"
"I hope so, Peach listen to me. You are a beautiful and a attractive woman and you're better than him. You don't need him. Go out with Mario, he always been there for you, comfort you, making you smile, have you being happy and give you hope and faith in him when he always beats Bowser and save your life and save the world I guess. But anyway he's better than that guy and he will make you feel more happy, he'll give you love, compassion, loyalty, respect and honesty. You will help you and make you feel better"
"Y-you think so"
"Of course and I know it. Straight from my heart and soul"
"Thank you so much Sonic, that means a lot to me"
"You're welcome and I'm glad I can help. Anyway are you feeling any better?"
"A little bit"
"Is that so then I know a way to make you feel better"
"Really what's that"
"You'll see soon enough"
Sonic then pushes Peach to the bed gently and gets on top of Peach. Peach wonder why Sonic push her and puzzling with answers until Sonic lean down to Peach and kisses her neck caressing her body with his hands which brought peach to feel the soft pleasure making her feel good.
"Oh…" Peach moaned
"Feeling any better now?" Sonic asked
"Yes I am at this moment I am, take me right now Sonic. I want to feel you inside of me, I always admire you and grown attached to you. Make love to me right now Sonic"
"Yes your majesty"
Sonic went on to kiss Peach by the neck smothering it. Peach also wrap her hands around Sonic softly moaning to this feeling the sensation rising on her.
"Oh Sonic, it's all yours. My body is all yours" Peach moaned
Afterwards, Sonic got off of Peach and Peach let herself up from the bed and pulling Sonic for a kiss on the lips. Sonic returns the kiss having his hands wrap around Peach's hips. Peach then moan with on to the kiss as seconds passing by, Sonic slide down his hand to Peach's rear and softly gropes it making Peach jumped to surprise. They start to wrestle their tongues as they were tongue kissing each other slobbing and licking each other's tongues before going on with the regular kiss.
"The kiss had lasted on for 12 minutes and Sonic broke the kiss. Peach was now out of her zone and decide to take off her pink shirt off showing her cleavage with a pink bra on. Sonic took off his black fingerless gloves and his shirt off throwing them to the side. Peach walk on over to Sonic and caressing Sonic's chest and kissing him on the lips once again having Sonic returning the kiss. Peach went on to rub on Sonic's crotch feeling his shaft erected to its full size.
After a few minutes of kissing, Peach then turn on her radio playing an old school classic which it's Barry White – I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More Baby. Peach helps Sonic unzip his pants pulling them down and Sonic soon took off his shoes and pants off including his socks. He now had on his boxers on and he then unzip Peach's shorts and she then pull them down showing her pink thong on. She took off her shoes and socks off also. Plus Peach then take off her thong and throwing them to the side smiling sexily.
Peach then got down on her knees and start to stroke Sonic's shaft softly looking up at Sonic. A few seconds later, Peach then went on sucking off Sonic slowly and softly. Sonic soon begin to moan softly but quietly feeling the pressure from Peach's mouth sucking him off softly. Peach bop her head back and forth in rhythm moaning softly.
The pressure and the excitement start to build momentum increase the amount slowly without a doubt Sonic continue to moan quietly but softly into the excitement. After spending 13 minutes, Peach begin to pause by stop sucking off Sonic and just stroke Sonic's shaft slowly and gently looking up to him.
"Did you enjoy it Sonic?" Peach asked
"Yes I did I really enjoyed it"
"Good now let's get to the main course sweetie"
Peach rose herself up pushes Sonic to the bed. She began to get on top of Sonic in a cowgirl position inserting Sonic's shaft inside her pussy. Peach start moving her hips slowly bopping and moving her hips up and down in rhythm slowly onto Sonic's shaft. Peach soon begin moaning to this softly feeling Sonic's shaft drenching in and out of her.
"Mmm… Sonic" Peach softly moaned
Peach rest her hands onto her bed over Sonic's shoulder moving her hips lustfully in pleasure. Sonic had his hands wrapped onto Peach's hips while move her hips onto Sonic. Peach soon slightly increase her pace moving her hips a little faster onto Sonic. Peach's moans start to increase by every chance of excitement rising into her body.
"Yes oh Sonic that's the spot" Peach moaned
Peach then went on kissing Sonic on the lips passionately which did return the kiss for Peach enjoying their passionate moment for the two. Peach went on moaning while kissing the blue blur hero on the lips passionately enjoying the time she's having with Sonic.
After the kiss, Peach broke the kiss for a moment and start to unhook her pink bra throwing it to the side of the bed showing her breasts. Sonic begin to fondle with Peach's breasts gently to it as Peach place her hands onto Sonic's hands where he fondling her breasts gently.
"Oh Sonic…" Peach moaned
During their sexual moment they're having together, Sonic then pulled Peach close to her, groping her butt and then start to thrusts himself fast inside of Peach in rapid speed making Peach moan more.
"Yes yes yes yes yes oh Sonic give it to me. Just like that" Peach moaned
Peach rolled her eyes feeling the sensation rising inside her as the lust then start to take control of her entire body obeying Sonic's command of excitement. They spend 22 minutes in the sexual position until they switch positions as Peach got into a doggy position on the bed as Sonic thrusting himself in Peach. Peach look down eyes close grabbing the bed sheets moaning with excitement enjoying the sexual feeling. Sonic grab hold onto Peach's hips thrusting hard and fast inside of Peach.
"Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh oh Sonic, that's the spot right there right there right there right there" Peach moaned
Peach rolled her eyes sticking her tongue out moaning and breathing heavily of excitement. Sonic also then start to pull Peach's hair while thrusting hard making peach moan even more. Her butt cheeks begin jiggling each and every thrusts from Sonic as Peach moan on to this.
"Oh Sonic… Oh Sonic yes right there"
After spending 48 minutes, they switch positions again as Sonic sat on the edge of the bed with Peach on top of Sonic once again bouncing onto Sonic hard and slow. Sonic wrap his hands around Peach stroking her back and sucking onto her breasts. Peach then begin to moan on to the feeling coming from Sonic. She wrap her hand around his neck moaning softly to it.
"Oh…" Peach moaned
Peach once again went on to bounce and move her hips fast and hard onto Sonic moaning heavily into the excitement. She then pushes herself and Sonic to the bed as Sonic was on his back with peach still on top of Sonic. She begin moving her hips more fast and hard. Sonic grope onto Peach's rear as she lustfully moving her hips and kissing Sonic on the lips passionately for the second time.
As their sex continues on for 2 hours and a half, Peach then went on to suck on Sonic's shaft some more increasing the amount of pressure and excitement for Sonic.
"Ah just like that Peach, I'm getting close" Sonic moaned
"Go on and cum for me Sonic, cum whenever you want I do not mind since I'm enjoying this moment with you" Peach softly said before going to suck on Sonic off
Peach slurp and sucking on Sonic's shaft gently but instead she then went on to suck on it a little fast to increase the pressure more. Sonic soon start to moan to this knowing how good it felt to him lustfully. As time went by as Peach sucking on Sonic for nine minutes then finally Sonic pulls out his shaft stroking his shaft softly knowing he's about to climax.
"Open your mouth peach, here it comes" Sonic commanded
Peach did what Sonic requested her to do opening her mouth and sticking her tongue out looking up directly at Sonic and seconds later, Sonic begin to ejaculating bursting his cum onto Peach's face and mouth. Peach jerked away as more cum start to burst onto her face. She licked her lips and went on to suck on Sonic's shaft some more.
"Ah that felt good" Sonic sighed in relief
"Sonic, I had a good time with you and the sex was wonderful" Peach complimented
"So did I and I'm glad I was able to help you. Either way, I hope we don't do this again since I made you feel better"
"I hope so too and if Mario doesn't want to have some fun, perhaps you coulde entertain me one day once again"
"Hmm… Maybe if you're feeling freaky"
"Perhaps then again thank you so much"
"You're welcome your majesty"
There goes the fiftieth chapter of this story. This story keeps getting more hotter as we all speak huh? Of course I did add Princess peach to sleep with Sonic passionately to this chapter. I hope all of you readers, fans, reviewers and flamers enjoyed it or not. Anyway Read and Review everyone as more chapter is still yet to come on the way.
This is Lil Knucklez signing off!Crusader Kings 2: Stupid friends won’t play, learn from their mistake. Please?
A little while ago I advertised the sale of Crusader Kings 2 at 75% off.
The reason I did that is not just because of my love for the company; don’t get me wrong, I do support Paradox and all their endeavours – I buy pretty much every damn DLC they release because I always know it’s going to be good. I had a more selfish reason to display it though. I want my friend to buy it.
This game is… Good. It is so good. And yet, somehow, it is so damn niche that a lot of people either haven’t heard of it or just simply don’t care! Why?!
Whilst at work the other day – menial phone surveys; hey, a guy’s gotta eat – I was perusing the CK2 forums as I usually do. A member of the cleaning staff put his face next to mine, paused for a moment and then said “Another CK2 fan, eh? Finally!” Thus began a rather long discussion about the game, it’s inherent merits and its general awesomeness. Nice guy. Obviously I was terrified to begin with; I assumed this person was about to the murder me and eat my face. Maybe he still will? Perhaps the game attracts homicidal people? Can’t tell. What I can tell is that the game is so fantastic and yet so damn unknown, that people who do enjoy it are so desperately hoping to lure other people into playing just so they can have someone to damn talk to about it.
I’ve been somewhat successful so far in luring at least one of my friends to the game. I’ve been selling it as a truly glorious medieval dynasty simulator wherein one could accomplish whatever goals you set for yourself in a truly epic history of your own. Instead, I should have just mentioned it has a critically acclaimed and wholesomely accurate ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ conversion mod. Next time it’s on sale, he’s going to buy it; thank christ, someone to talk to about the damn game…
Of course, he playing Heart of Iron before, so he’s somewhat used to Paradox Interactive games. That’s the main problem however; people who aren’t used to it just have no idea what to expect or how to go about learning it.
I started on the original Crusader Kings, and a little bit of Heart of Iron. It was… so hard. I don’t even remember who I played – what countries, what families… It was all a blur of inheritance laws, rebels, embarking mechanics and other confusions. I don’t know how I eventually got good at it, but I did. So, when CK2 was released, I bought it Day 1 and then of course spend the next few weeks horribly confused all over again.
And I loved it.
And so will you. I’m not paid by Paradox or anything like that (unless you really want me to, PI… Call me) but I simply just want more people to talk to about the game! It’s so moddable, so fun, so re-playable that I always have questions: How can I make it so I can play as the founder of the de Normandie dynasty? Is there events? How do I get an invasion army for free at the beginning of the game so I can go raiding? These are things that I’ve had to deduce on my own (well… with the help of the fantastic modding community that exists on the PI forums hint-hint) but which I would love to discuss with friends. At least my girlfriend is picking it up, and dammit I hope she likes it. We could totally play multiplayer together. That’d be awesome.
I just want other people to buy the damn game so I can play it with them!
Or… Maybe I just want to see them lose everything due to accidentally marrying their heir matrilineally. Yeah… that too.
Addendum: I might actually be doing an AAR (After Action Report, kinda like a Let’s Play with more roleplaying) on the CK forums soon, so stay tuned for that!
AdvertisementsIt’s been a few quarters, but welcome back to This Is My Jam, the outlet for NBN writers to share their entertainment obsessions.
I didn’t really think of myself as a big Lorde fan before “Green Light,” the first single off her sophomore album, Melodrama, came out. Sure, I thought I liked Pure Heroine back in 2013, but turns out it took a few years for me to fully come around to my status as a fan. Maybe even a superfan, considering my Twitter basically turned into a Lorde fan account for a minute because of “Green Light” and my re-listening to Pure Heroine.
Time to make up for all the time we went without new @lorde by listening to "Green Light" on repeat for a week straight — JUST IN: Curto (@justinmcurto) March 3, 2017
I just re-listened to all of PURE HEROINE because of "Green Light," and in case you forgot, @lorde was totally best new artist of 2014 — JUST IN: Curto (@justinmcurto) March 6, 2017
Also sorry for literally only tweeting about Lorde lol I'm not even a superfan (I don't think?) — JUST IN: Curto (@justinmcurto) March 9, 2017
But anyway, part of that led to a sort of … research interest, if you will. In “Green Light,” Lorde brings back a motif that’s present throughout her music: teeth. And I’m not just talking about the song “White Teeth Teens” either – turns out, there were five songs before “Green Light” that mentioned teeth. In the name of journalism, I took it upon myself to find every teeth reference Lorde has made in her music and analyze each one.
Am I researching for and writing my anthropology final paper? No, but I can write a dissertation on @lorde's obsession with teeth by now — JUST IN: Curto (@justinmcurto) March 9, 2017
“Royals”
“I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies”
“But every song’s like, “Gold teeth, Grey Goose, trippin’ in the bathrooms’”
Lorde’s teeth obsession has been around from the start – in fact, it begins in her first single, “Royals.” And this is even a double whammy of a song, with two teeth references. The first, in the first verse, refers to the expression “to cut one’s teeth,” which means to start your experience with something. So, cutting her teeth on wedding rings in the movies probably refers to Lorde beginning to think about indulgence and fame by seeing the beautiful weddings that happen in movies. (I mean, who doesn’t want Bella and Edward’s wedding from Breaking Dawn Part 1?)
The second line is in the chorus and talks about a hip-hop lifestyle. The scholars over at Genius say the teeth part here may be a specific reference to “Candy Paint & Gold Teeth,” a song by Bun B, Ludacris and Waka Flocka Flame. More broadly, it’s just another way of saying everyone Lorde sees has money and is living it up, but that’s a life Lorde and her friends will never get to have.
“400 Lux”
“Dreams of clean teeth”
If you’re listening to Pure Heroine, you won’t hear about teeth until the second song, “400 Lux.” This song’s teeth reference calls back similar themes to “Royals” – Lorde wants a celebrity lifestyle, but it’s unattainable. She wants perfect teeth like the celebrities, but won’t get that, because she’ll never be a royal. Oh, and because her boyfriend just bought her orange juice two lines ago.
“Team”
“A hundred jewels on throats/A hundred jewels between teeth”
Again, materialism. Indulgence. Hip-hop. In her second single off Pure Heroine, Lorde seems to be talking about necklaces, or jewels on throats, and grills, or jewels between teeth. And again, this lifestyle of jewels on teeth is all around her – there’s hundreds of jewels.
“White Teeth Teens”
“We got the glow in our mouths/White teeth teens are out/White teeth teens are up for it”
This is probably the teeth reference that gets the most attention, just because of its title. When Lorde’s talking about white teeth teens, she means the popular kids – the kids with money who can afford to have really nice teeth. However, as the song goes on, she lets us in on something big: “I am not a white teeth teen.” Lorde and her friends can tell who the popular people are because of their nice teeth, but they’re not a part of the group because their teeth aren’t clean. Sense a theme yet?
“No Better”
“I see you happy in the front seat/I see you with all of your front teeth”
This is my personal favorite of all the teeth references. It’s actually happy, since Lorde moves away from teeth as an indicator of status and what she can’t have. In “No Better,” she’s just having a great time with her friends – kind of like in “Ribs.” For this teeth reference, she sees one of her friends smiling, with all of their front teeth, because they’re all enjoying life while they have it. A lesson we can all learn from Lorde and her friends.
“Green Light”
“Those great whites, they have big teeth/Hope they bite you”
“All those rumors, they have big teeth/Hope they bite you”
I didn’t know if teeth would carry over into Lorde’s new music, but turns out they did – again, with two references on the first single off her forthcoming album, Melodrama. Both times here, Lorde uses teeth to sort of threaten her former lover. The first time, she talks about how he lied about liking the beach to the girl he cheated on Lorde with. (Side note: Who would cheat on Lorde?) So, she hopes the sharks in the ocean will give him what he deserves. Similarly, she says the rumors he’s spreading will bite him back one day.
So, there seems to be a somewhat clear progression of |
Ajax. I always tell my children that they should follow their dreams and for me to manage this club in Holland is a dream. Some of my happiest times have been in Israel and both myself, my assistant Hendri and my wife are so sad to be leaving a truly wonderful club and a fantastic city and country. It is a time in our lives we will always cherish and will never forget”.Simple Trouble Shooting Application Now Fixes Everything
September 12, 2008
With Joe Cooney's help, we've constructed a simple checklist for trouble-shooting regular problems.
Have you got any further items you regularly find yourself checking off?
Please add more!
check the event log google it reboot run iisreset empty the recycle bin hit ctrl+break kill the aspnet worker process clear temporary internet files touch the config file degauss the monitor remove everything from the startup folder "get latest" and rebuild login as admin run ipconfig /renew check if capslock is on. run a virus scan download the latest CTP disable and then re-enable the network interface restart services (some/most/all) change your password unplug your router, and leave it unplugged for 10 seconds before plugging it back in clear your cookies add current site to your trusted zone disable javascript try to ping the server press 'clean solution' from the context menu in the solution explorer repair the installation run large magnets over all hard drives check the network cable defrag the hard drive try it in a different browser run a spyware scan minimize all windows and check for a modal dialog ensure configuration is correct see what has changed recently run process monitor run chkdsk /v revert all checkins from anyone named 'Gazza' run the windows update service remove and then recreate all Bluetooth partnerships do a hardware reset on your mobile device decompile + monkey punch + duck slap + donkey whack what would jesus do? look for suitable workarounds re-calibrate your Geiger counter check for packet storms best to rule out toxicological contamination early on describe the problem in terms even a child can understand apply duct tape increase the timeout duration increase the maximum threadpool size write to your local minister or government representative try using the Microsoft Online Crash Analysis to submit your crash dump bucket-id disable the customer experience improvement program eat liver of sacred monkey import the decryption certificate to the local client certificate store ensure sql server is setup for mixed mode authentication bypass proxy server for local addresses check the hosts file and the routing tables use filemon to locate any other log files being accessed check the bios update the device drivers for all peripherals attach a debugger, get a memory dump, look at it in a hex reader and post it to a forum cleanse all user inputs put a try catch around it replace the batteries in your wireless mouse and keyboard recompile all dll's uninstall the old version, re- install the new version, apply hot fixes patches and upgrades remove the case from your computer, and aim a fan at it check that you haven't been blacklisted run diagnostic checks on surge protection units add an index remove an index recalculate indexes ensure ftp uses passive mode recalculate statistics reboot in safe mode check kerberos delegation review query plan if 'automatically detect settings' is checked/unchecked, then uncheck/check it kill rogue processes in task manager run memtest.exe boot from your emergency repair disks follow standard knoppix data recovery procedures tweak-UI uninstall adobe pdf reader insert "Debug.WriteLine("up to line 53");" where appropriate set tracelevel to verbose flush buffers % truss -t \!all -t open a.out use cdb or windbg. add in SOS for clr issues. field test any lightning protection devices use a temperature gauge on all hardware components, and compare against safe operating limits from manufacturer run it inside a VM check the DPI. search the knowledge base enable javascript debugging turn off friendly http error messages in IE set the current culture to en-US attach a multi-meter roll back to your most recent backup check for GC pressure empty the MSI cache temporarily allow popups look in your spam folder recompile. wait. recompile. turn off windows firewall run caspol and give everything full trust put yourself in the shoes of the program itself. if you were the program, what would you do? ask hanselman try wireshark. failing that, try fiddler. what does tracert show? check the blueprints and read over the uml. implement the retry pattern. rtfm delete the bios attach anti-static wrist strap on every appendage sit inside a faraday cage insert "alert('here');" where appropriate overwrite every byte in memory the standard five times as pre-scribed by nsa guidelines reinstall the operating system from the original media provided by the supplier add a lock statement blame Irwin the intern blame the guy who left last week blame the ESL guy blame DNS add a sleep statement apply a fudge factor. run a spell checker over your code light some candles. sacrifice chicken. set all DWORD's to 0 in the registry. Then delete the registry drop all databases. unregister and re-register all dlls reboot 3 times drink own urine run prime95 overnight recompile the kernel do the packets hop subdomains, and if so does NAS require a NAS forwarding service -- how about VLAN? track down the original programmers who wrote the system, apply percussive trauma therapy. uninstall java underclock it ignore it post a request for comment on theDailyWTF ask for correlating evidence that the problem even exists sharpen your wooden stakes before proceeding any further melt silver crucifixes onto tips of all bullets fill your water bottle with holy water call tech support check when daylight savings begins simmer ground rhino horn on a bed of whale pancreas plan and enact your fire evacuation plan bathe in holy water increase dosage on all medications. check for interactions. bury heart of an ox at midnight under crossroads on fullmoon clean up your desk check that pump's suction pipe is elevated above bottom of pond. (Float the inlet 18 to 24 inches below the water surface) wear shoes with six inch cork soles wear raincoat, goggles, breathing apparatus climb into an anti static bag always use a condom check pressure reading on gauges number 1 and 2 run it through an oscilloscope check your immunization schedule is up to date check for seismic/tectonic activity, solar flares, tsunami, meteor showers. go and get a coffee. come back and look at it with a fresh set of eyes.
My book "Choose Your First Product" is available now.
It gives you 4 easy steps to find and validate a humble product idea.
Learn more.The Flag Protection Act of 2005 was a proposed United States federal law introduced in the United States Senate at the 109th United States Congress on October 24, 2005, by Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and co-sponsored by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). Later co-sponsors included Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Thomas Carper (D-Del.).[1]
The law would have prohibited burning or otherwise destroying and damaging the US flag with the primary purpose of intimidation or inciting immediate violence or for the act of terrorism. It called for a punishment of no more than one year in prison and a fine of no more than $100,000; unless that flag was property of the United States Government, in which case the penalty would be a fine of not more than $250,000, not more than two years in prison, or both.[1][2][3]
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service summarized the act as follows:
Amends the federal criminal code to revise provisions regarding desecration of the flag to prohibit: (1) destroying or damaging a U.S. flag with the primary purpose and intent to incite or produce imminent violence or a breach of the peace; (2) intentionally threatening or intimidating any person, or group of persons, by burning a U.S. flag; or (3) stealing or knowingly converting the use of a U.S. flag belonging to the United States, or belonging to another person on U.S. lands, and intentionally destroying or damaging that flag.[1]
Although the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson (1989) that flag-burning was protected by the First Amendment, the bill was intended, according to the New York Times, to take the issue back to the Supreme Court, which was more conservative in 2005 than it was in 1989, in order to overturn that earlier decision.[4] Since the law was not passed or even considered by the United States Congress, its constitutionality was never challenged in the Supreme Court.[1]A few years ago in Indonesia, a photographer left his camera unattended. That was tempting for a curious male crested black macaque, who took the camera and began taking photographs—some of the forest floor, some of other macaques, and several of himself, one of which resulted in the now-famous “monkey selfie.”
The macaque, named Naruto, is known to field researchers in Sulawesi, who have observed and studied him for years as they work in the region. Acting as Naruto’s “next friend” (or representative), PETA has filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court in San Francisco against the owner of the camera, photographer David J. Slater and his company, Wildlife Personalities Ltd., which both claim copyright ownership of the photos that Naruto indisputably took. Also named as a defendant is the San Francisco–based publishing company Blurb, Inc., which published a collection of Slater’s photographs, including two selfies taken by Naruto. The lawsuit seeks to have Naruto declared the “author” and owner of his photograph. Our argument is simple: U.S. copyright law doesn’t prohibit an animal from owning a copyright, and since Naruto took the photo, he owns the copyright, as any human would.
Why is this so important, and what does it all mean? If this lawsuit succeeds, it will be the first time that a nonhuman animal is declared the owner of property (the copyright of the “monkey selfie”), rather than being declared a piece of property himself or herself. It will also be the first time that a right is extended to a nonhuman animal beyond just the mere basic necessities of food, shelter, water, and veterinary care. In our view, it is high time.
We are also asking the court to allow PETA to administer the proceeds of “monkey selfie” sales for the benefit of Naruto and his community, without compensation to PETA.
This case exemplifies what PETA has championed for 35 years: Animals deserve recognition of appropriate rights for their own sake, and not in relation to their exploitation by humans.Get the biggest Arsenal 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
Hector Bellerin will be offered a new five year contract to fend off Barcelona and Manchester City.
Arsenal have sounded out Bellerin's representatives and talks will begin in earnest after the international break.
Bellerin, 21, who has still got three years left on his current deal, has quickly become one of the best right backs in Europe with remarkable progression in the past two years.
That has alerted Barcelona which is where he started his young career before moving to Arsenal as a teenager.
City also made contact in the summer which is believed to have infuriated Arsenal and they were told in no uncertain terms he was not for sale.
(Image: David Price)
But despite Bellerin being called up for Spain and Arsenal hinting at a new deal at the back end of last season, the discussions have not gone much further until now.
However, Arsenal are now of a mind to push full steam ahead with a significant pay rise to put him high up Arsenal's pay scale.
But Arsenal know it is also about Bellerin being ambitious and wanting to win things so they will be hoping their big summer spending spree and start to the season proves their intent.
(Image: David Ramos)
Arsenal are also hoping to tie down star duo Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez to new deals as both of their contracts expire in 2018.
Talks are underway with both and they are hopeful both will sign which would be another strong message of intent.As part of a 2-day symposium, Zebulon B. Vance Reconsidered, Yale University Professor of History David Blight, will discuss Vance's life and legacy. This event is free and open to everyone at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 14 in Lipinsky Auditorium.
Vance, who served as a Confederate officer and then North Carolina governor during the Civil War, was imprisoned after the war. Later pardoned, he practiced as an attorney, and then became governor again and then U.S. Senator.
Commemorated with statues (like the one in Raleigh photographed above), monuments and historical sites, including the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville, and the Vance Birthplace near Weaverville, N.C., Vance's legacy is now being reexamined and debated.
David Blight, an expert on history and memory, and the author of many books about the Civil War and Reconstruction eras, is director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.
The symposium will continue on Friday, Sept. 15, with a morning panel featuring eminent retired history professor Gordon McKinney; Steve Nash, assistant professor at East Tennessee State University; Joe Mobley, lecturer at NC State; and Darin Waters, assistant professor at UNC Asheville.
Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., New York Times best-selling novelist Sharyn McCrumb, who has featured Vance frequently enough in her novels that she jokes, "I think I dated him in high school," will offer a talk about Vance.
The two Friday events - the 10 a.m. historian panel and the 2 p.m. talk by Sharyn McCrumb, will both take place in UNC Asheville's Sherrill Center, Mountain View Room 417.
Information for Patrons
All sessions in the symposium are free. However, pre-registration is required for each session. You must present your tickets (printed or on smartphone) to be admitted to the each session. All seating is general admission. Backpacks are not allowed and bags will be checked at the door.
Thank you for your patronage! For more information about events at UNC Asheville, visit events.unca.edu.In 1896, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson, the identical-twin daughters of a worldly Scottish widower, returned to Cambridge from a trip to the Middle East bearing pages from several ancient Hebrew manuscripts that they had purchased from a Cairo bookseller. They showed the parchment leaves to a fellow Cambridge University scholar named Solomon Schechter, who was startled to discover among them an original copy of the Hebrew proverbs of Ben Sira, a second-century B.C. Hebrew book of wisdom. He wrote to his friend Adolf Neubauer, a like-minded librarian at Oxford, with the news. Neubauer replied two weeks later, saying that he couldn’t quite make out Schechter’s postcard but that he and his assistant, Arthur Cowley, had just—“coincidentally”—discovered nine pages of Ben Sira at Oxford. Of course, there was no coincidence about it. Schechter’s postcard had sent Neubauer on a hunt through his own Cairo trove.
Enraged, Schechter set off to Fostat (Old Cairo), where the manuscripts had been found, eventually making his way to the Ben Ezra synagogue—the site, according to legend, where baby Moses had been found in the reeds. Deep within the building, in a hidden repository called a genizah (from the Hebrew word ganaz, meaning to hide or set aside), Schechter uncovered more than seventeen hundred Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts and ephemera.
In 1897, Neubauer and Cowley beat Schechter to publication of the Ben Sira discovery. But Schechter did them one better, and made it back to England with the Genizah mother lode. He and his patron Charles Taylor, who was then Master of St. John’s College, donated the fragments to Cambridge in 1898. They published their account of the discovery in 1899 and facsimiles of the documents in 1901. Schechter and Neubauer would not exchange any more friendly postcards.
Oxford and Cambridge are longtime rivals, but in February, the two universities launched their first-ever joint fundraising campaign in order to save the Lewis-Gibson Genizah Collection—named for the intrepid twins who led Schechter to it and, not incidentally, endowed Westminster College, which owns the collection but can no longer afford to keep it—from division and dispersal. (The New York-born, Oxford-educated financier Leonard Polonsky has already promised £500,000 of the £1.2 million needed.) This uncommon partnership is a testament to the value of the collection, which is the largest assembled from Ben Ezra. (The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, which Schechter would go on to lead as President, holds the second largest.) Ben Outhwaite, the head of genizah research at Cambridge, explained to me how crucial the Cairo Genizah collection is for scholars. “It is not hyperbole,” he wrote, “to talk about it as having rewritten what we knew of the Jews, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages.”
According to Jewish law, religious writings must be interred if they bear the name of God. The Jews of Fostat, though, preserved not only sacred texts but just about everything they ever wrote down. It’s not precisely clear why, but Outhwaite told me that medieval Jews hardly wrote anything at all—whether personal letters or shopping lists—without referring to God. (Addressing a man might involve blessing him with one of God’s names; an enemy might be cursed with an invocation of God’s malice.) David Kraemer, a professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary, explained that Fostat’s Jews spoke in Arabic but wrote in Hebrew—the Holy Tongue—and may have viewed the alphabet itself as sacred.
To this day, synagogues collect expired prayer books and ritual objects, and bury the contents every few years. Historians were doubly lucky with the worshippers at Ben Ezra, who not only deposited written texts into the genizah, but, for some reason, never buried its contents. (Instead, they stored it in what was literally a hole in the wall). As a result, we have a frozen postbox of some two hundred and fifty thousand fragments composing an unparalleled archive of life in Egypt from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries. The community may have been somewhat atypical—many of its Jews were wealthy, living at the center of a mercantile network, and Fostat was safer for Jews than the Land of Israel. Still, scholars can extrapolate a great amount of information from the Genizah documents about life for Jews during the Islamic Period in cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, and Aleppo. No other record as long or as full exists.
For centuries, historians had relied for their understanding of restrictions on Jewish life on Islamic legal documents mandating that Jews carry bells and wear badges and distinguishing clothing. But the contents of the Cairo Genizah show that Jews were allowed a far more vibrant lifestyle, and treated much more tolerantly, than had been assumed. The Fatimid Caliphate, a dynasty that ruled from 909-1171, “embraced the organs of Jewish government even to the point of financially supporting the ancient Academy of Jerusalem, promoting self-governance by the Jewish community and assisting the progress of pilgrims to the holy sites,” Outhwaite said. Jewish merchants partnered with Christians and Muslims; they ran perfume shops and silk weaveries together. Hundreds of letters buried in the genizah show that Jewish merchant princes set sail from Egypt or Yemen to India and returned along the Red Sea and Malabar Coast if they didn’t marry Indian women and settle there. Marriage contracts in the collection show that divorce was common. While very few Jews married Christians and Muslims, there is ample evidence of close relationships with interfaith neighbors, like letters seeking rabbinical advice about husbands who kept apartments for their Muslim concubines. Instances of day-to-day anti-Semitism were less common than imagined.
The Cairo Genizah also preserved telling artifacts of Biblical and Hebrew literature, like a large leaf of the great twelfth-century scholar Moses Maimonides’s Commentary on the Mishnah in his own “very distinctive (i.e. messy) handwriting,” an exceptional tenth-century vellum copy of the Jewish sage Saadya Gaon’s translation of the Bible into Arabic, and an autographed poem by the Spanish Hebrew poet Joseph ibn Abitur. It contained Torahs and Talmuds from all over the world. Beyond these canonical works, the Genizah reveals profane and even occult texts related to superstition and magic; it holds spells for erotic conquest, and others for inflicting bodily harm. (One leaf had this enchantment to make a woman sleep with you: “Take your trousers and put them on over your head, so that you are naked. Say: ‘So-and-so son of So-and-so is doing this for So-and-so daughter of So-and-so, in order that she will dream that I sleep [with] her and she sleeps with me.’”)
But it is the social history of Fostat’s Jews that the Genizah colors in most splendidly. We see what people bought and ordered, and what got lost in shipments between Alexandria and the Italian ports. We learn what clothes they wore: silks and textiles for the middle classes, from all over the known world. The Genizah includes prenuptial agreements and marriage deeds from the eleventh century listing the full inventory of a woman’s trousseau. It also contains the oldest-known Jewish engagement deed, from 1119, which was invented to grant a woman (and her dowry) legal protection as the time period between betrothal and marriage changed in medieval Egypt.
Some of the liveliest contents add a human dimension to what Outhwaite calls “dry history.” There’s a letter written by a woman to her husband who, fed up with living under his in-laws’ roof (and, worse, paying them rent), moved out. So as not to break Jewish laws regarding husbandly duty, he returned every Shabbat to her bed, but his wife was not pleased. She promised to find a more suitable place to live, but vowed to starve herself until he agreed to return.
Documents in the Genizah also bring to life periods of persecution. Eyewitness accounts of the First Crusades, at the turn of the eleventh century, testify to atrocities committed. One woman who fled from Jerusalem to Tripoli recorded the gore: “I was with him on the day I saw them killed in terrible fashion…. I am an ill woman on the brink of insanity, on top of the hunger of my family and the little girl who are all with me, and the horrid news I heard about my son.”
Solomon Schechter might have objected to Oxford’s crowing about its “skillful” selection of Genizah material, glossing over the fact that Cambridge bested it in the treasure hunt. (When he discovered the lost original of Ben Sira, he wasn’t aware that Neubauer and Cowley were scheming, with the help of an Oxford Assyriologist and a dodgy German count, to buy up Cairo Genizah goodies.) But he wouldn’t have minded the joint university effort to keep intact his collection, which has been of immeasurable importance to scholars. Economic historians of the Mediterranean developed a “reputation model” based on activities of Maghrebi Jewish traders recorded in the Genizah, and recent books by scholars including Marina Rustow, Arnold Franklin, and Jessica Goldberg have probed the Genizah to write on relationships between Jews, Karaite Jews, and Muslims in the region.
Other than the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are Biblical manuscripts, the documents in the Genizah are some of the oldest records of Jewish life in existence (the two oldest Haggadahs in the world, for instance, were found there). The mid-century German-Jewish historian and ethnographer S. D. Goitein made the Cairo Genizah the subject of his life’s work, and reimagined the Middle Ages in his monumental “A Mediterranean Society.” More recently, in 2011, Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole published “Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Genizah.” Perhaps the most notable recent scholarly development is The Friedberg Genizah project, a major international effort to catalogue, transcribe, translate, and digitize the Genizah’s holdings. As David Kraemer told me, the Friedberg Genizah Project is “first time [the Cairo Genizah cache] has been back together since its origins.” It will live in the modern age’s equivalent of an infinite storeroom: the Internet.
Photograph: Cambridge University Library.From the BLS:
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 280,000 in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and health care. Mining employment continued to decline.
...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised from +85,000 to +119,000, and the change for April was revised from +223,000 to +221,000. With these revisions, employment gains in March and April combined were 32,000 more than previously reported.
...
In May, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 8 cents to $24.96. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.3 percent.
emphasis added
Click on graph for larger image.
The first graph shows the monthly change in payroll jobs, ex-Census (meaning the impact of the decennial Census temporary hires and layoffs is removed - mostly in 2010 - to show the underlying payroll changes).Total payrolls increased by 280 thousand in May (private payrolls increased 262 thousand).Payrolls for March and April were revised up by a combined 32 thousand. This graph shows the year-over-year change in total non-farm employment since 1968.In May, the year-over-year change was almost 3.1 million jobs.This is a solid year-over-year gain. The third graph shows the employment population ratio and the participation rate.The Labor Force Participation Rate increased in May to 62.9%. This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force. A large portion of the recent decline in the participation rate is due to demographics.The Employment-Population ratio increased to 59.4% (black line).I'll post the 25 to 54 age group employment-population ratio graph later. The fourth graph shows the unemployment rate.The unemployment rate increased in May to 5.5%.This was above expectations of 220,000 jobs, and combined revisions were up... a strong report.I'll have much more later...Paul, writing after Christ had ascended and the Holy Spirit had been given at Pentecost, made it clear in the scriptures below that he was still looking and waiting for something. Jesus’ work was incomparable, immense and powerful, but more-so in the sense of preparation and potential rather than immediate fulfillment, like an acorn compared with a towering, mature oak tree. We need to be patient and careful, waiting for divine illumination to relate to spiritual things, because Truth is only accessed by revelation, and if the foundation is faulty, so is everything built on it.
For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. (Gal 5:5 KJV)
So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ… (1Cor 1:7 KJV)
For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look (wait) for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Php 3:20-21 KJV)
So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look (wait) for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Heb 9:28 KJV)
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23 KJV)
In getting to the (super awesome) point, I want to highlight something extremely important which seems so trivial it’s easy to miss: not once in all these verses does Paul mention personally awaiting or looking for something. Instead, he includes himself in a group which is looking and waiting, using terms like “we,” “our,” “you (all),” “them,” and “ourselves…” Paul writes of himself individually in many other places1, but not in reference to waiting for Christ or the transformation of the body.
Ok, so why does that matter? Well, look at Phillippians 3:20-21 and Romans 8:23 (MLV) again, and see if you notice anything unusual:
“For our citizenship exists in the heavens; out of which we are also waiting for a Savior, the Lord Jesus the Christ. He will fashion the body of our humbleness, * that * it may become transformed to the body of his glory according to the working of which he is able to even subject all things to himself.”
“And not only they, but we ourselves also who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves are groaning in ourselves, waiting for our sonship, that is, the redemption of our body.”
Do you see it? Until very recently, I didn’t. In both verses (and others I didn’t list), Paul is discussing awaiting the transformation and redemption of “our body.” Our body? Think about this; wouldn’t it be strange if a patient told their doctor: “you know doc, something’s wrong in our body“? We’d think that person was mentally ill or possessed, but that’s precisely what Paul wrote! He didn’t say our bodie s, but our body. Is it becoming clearer? Our (plural) body (singular)! One body, consisting of many individuals. What Paul was awaiting wasn’t the transformation and/or redemption of his individual body, but for the entire church, the spiritual body of Christ, of which he was just one member, to be transformed and redeemed as a whole. Paul wrote very very plainly that each and every believer (plural) makes up the body of Christ (singular), and that each individual is just a part of Christ’s corporate body. This is Paul’s understanding of “our body.”2 What Paul was actually awaiting was the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy that he himself would raise his body up after 3 days. Jesus didn’t mean his physical body, but his spiritual body, the Church. If you want to see this proven from scripture in a really cool way, check out this article. Paul wrote very very plainly that each and every believer (plural) makes up the body of Christ (singular), and that each individual is just a part of Christ’s corporate body. This is Paul’s understanding of “our body.”2 What Paul was actually awaiting was the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy that he himself would raise his body up after 3 days.. If you want to see this proven from scripture in a really cool way, check out
( Edit : someone read this and said that emphasizing Paul’s use of “our body” instead of “our bodies” is semantics, but it’s not! Paul did use the plural phrases “your bodies” and “our bodies” plenty of times in other places, and in those cases, he was in fact referring to individual, physical bodies. Here are a few examples:
1 Corinthians 6:15 : “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?”
Romans 12:1 : “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice…
2 Corinthians 7:5 : “For indeed, when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest…”
Like Paul, we have to come to see our individual bodies and our personal “ministries” as important only as they contribute to the much larger and more important whole. An eye or hand are only useful as part of a body. This takes our individual importance down a few notches, which is a very good thing for most of us. As I’ve said before, God’s purposes and plans are much, much bigger than your or I personally, and we need to change our way of thinking to match up with God’s heart. In Christ, the seed of transformation has been planted and the full potential of the matured body is there. I believe the right season is finally arriving for this growth to take place, and the result is going to be a new body, one that has never been seen before, save perhaps for a brief period shortly after Pentecost.
Thank you for reading. I hope this pointed you to the Father and His Kingdom.
1 Corinthians 3:10, Phillippians 1:16, many more. 1 Corinthians 12:4-31
AdvertisementsLinks and References
• Kettlewell, HBD. (1955). "How Industrialization Can Alter Species." Discovery. 16(12): 507-511.
• Hooper, J. (2002). Of Moths and Men: The untold story of science and the peppered moth. WW Norton & Company.
• Rudge, DW. (2003). "The Role of Photographs and Films in Kettlewell's Popularizations of the Phenomenon of Industrial Melanism." Science & Education. 12: 261-287.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, most moths in the UK were an off-white color, highly adapted to hiding from predators, such as birds, by resting on pale, mottled grey tree trunks. But the Industrial Revolution polluted the environment, raining soot down on the countryside. As a result, white moths became highly visible on the now blackened tree trunks. Black moths, on the other hand, such as the peppered moth (which had previously been quite rare), suddenly had a competitive advantage. They were well camouflaged on black tree trunks, and their numbers grew exponentially. By the early twentieth century, they were the dominant moth form in polluted areas of the UK.The above story is considered the classic example of "evolution in action." It shows how an environmental change can give one form of a species a selective advantage, leading to its dominance. Its validity rests upon experiments conducted by researcher H.B.D. Kettlewell during the 1950s, which demonstrated that white moths do have an advantage over dark moths on pale trees, and a disadvantage on dark trees, and vice versa.But what made the story of the peppered moth particularly popular was the visual evidence. In 1955 Kettlewell published a pair of photos showing the relative camouflage of the black and white moth forms in the two settings. In the top photo it is easy to see the black moth on the pale, lichen-covered bark and to imagine how a bird could pick it off, but the white moth is almost invisible. In the bottom photo, by contrast, the black moth is almost invisible while resting on a soot-blackened tree.Since the mid-1960s most Biology textbooks have included the story of the peppered moth, accompanied by Kettlewell's two photos (or ones very similar to them). The ubiquity of the images made it that much more shocking when the public learned the photos were staged. Finding black and white moths posed beside each other in a natural setting would have been almost impossible, so to create the photos Kettlewell pinned dead moths to tree trunks. Moth experts knew the photos were staged because live moths would not have had extended wings. But no textbook ever disclosed this detail to readers.The staging of the photos was first raised as an issue by intelligent-design advocate Jonathan Wells in his 2000 work. But the controversy reached a more mainstream audience in 2002 when science writer Judith Hopper discussed it in her popular account of the science of the peppered moth,The staging was an issue, critics argued, because it over-simplified the peppered moth story and made it seem that the camouflage of the moths was a self-evident advantage. However, it wasn't clear that moths rested on tree trunks during the day, as the pictures implied. Some evidence suggested they preferred to remain higher in the tree canopy and beneath branches where their coloration would have been less of an advantage. Also, it wasn't clear that birds were the main predator of moths. Bats also ate moths, and since bats use echolocation to navigate, the coloration of the moths would not have made a difference. Critics also questioned the methodology of Kettlewell's experiments.Scientists still vigorously defend the peppered moth story as an example of evolution in action. They also defend the use of the staged photos in textbooks, arguing that, although they're not entirely accurate, they offer an invaluable way of presenting the concept of natural selection to students in an easy-to-comprehend form.Nevertheless, the pair of images has become one of the most famous and controversial examples of staged photographs in all of science.An international team of ornithologists has discovered a new species of ground-warbler on Luzon Island of the Philippine archipelago.
“The ground-warblers are very unique birds. They’re only known from the northern Philippines, and they have no close relatives,” explained Pete Hosner, a graduate student at the University of Kansas and a lead author of the paper describing the new bird in the Cooper Ornithological Society’s journal Condor.
“As the name suggests, they’re ground-walking songbirds and it appears that they can barely fly. They tend to inhabit dense forest understory, where they feed on insects. Their song is extremely high in pitch, and ventriloquial – it’s almost impossible to locate the source of the sound in the forest – they always sound like they are far away, even when they are almost at your feet.”
The new species is named the Sierra Madre Ground-Warbler. Its scientific name, Robsonius thompsoni, honors Max Thompson, a retired professor from Southwestern College in Winfield and a research associate in the University of Kansas’ Biodiversity Institute.
The bird looks similar to the other two species of ground-warblers in the Philippines, the Bicol Ground-Warbler and the Cordilleran Ground-Warbler, so it wasn’t recognized as an independent species at first.
“The three species of ground-warblers now recognized are essentially identical in size, shape and juvenile plumage coloration held in their first year of life, but they differ from one another in adult plumage coloration,” Pete Hosner said.
“The reason that this new species remained undescribed for so long was that the adult plum |
, too. It feels particularly lengthy when one persistently believes in normal alternation. One waits, autumn after autumn, that according to statistics it must be the turn of a real winter now. But no - again we have a hopelessly watery and icy winter halfway up in Finland and in the northeastern part of the second half, it is insanely snowy - and everywhere an inordinately stormy fake winter. I won't talk about storms anymore this time, it is an other matter, said Kipling - or something like that.
It appears to be decisive that does the winter of Southern Finland warm up three or five degrees from previous and how evenly thaw is divided. In all of my early life - life number 1 before the year 1988 and also in temperate winters - the pattern was that there were periods of thaw only a few days long amid the frost. Snow sunk and roads might have softened for a day but didn't get soggy or reach ice fields before the next cold and snowfall. In life number two it's the opposite. Brief periods of frost and rare falls of dry snow are not enough to curb the diabolical ice on tracked and grooved roads and yards.
I want to forget the adventures of a professional fisherman on permanently uncovered and slippery ice, I can't bare to think about the winter of these days on both ground and sea at the same time. I'll just state from on the ground that for forty winters, I was accustomed to transporting belongings and making trips via a bicycle, up to a thousand kilometres. Only pulpy snow has been a problem sometimes. The icy period when a thick layer of ice covers the ground, lasted for two weeks in November, at best. But there has been progress. Of the months of the previous winter, October was the harshest and the most snowy, and then it was an oldfashioned weather of frozen snow. In the whole watery November-April, during half a year, there were overall three weeks when a two-wheeled vehicle could be controlled by a regular driver. Pedestrians weren't too well off either, as the two hundred meters to mailbox across a neighbor's yard was accomplished only just by crawling there. Icespike gadgets either break up or won't fit on the large felt-lined rubber boots, needed by toes frostbitten long ago.
The conservation of heating energy on a warm winter is surely a good thing, but the warm winter of living verges on the edges of tolerance. It is distressing to note that the countryside, and especially unmotorized economy, suffer the greatest losses. A vehicle with four wheels manages to fairly stagger onwards, but bicycle, moped, skis and kick sled are not included for various reasons. Public transport has disappeared. Soon one must be prepared to lug sugar, salt, butter and flour - everything that is needed in a self-sufficient home in addition to fish, root vegetables and vegetables, berries and mushrooms - to cottage in September, because the next time one will get shopping is after May Day. Indeed, "life is objectively miserable at the countryside" - I read that statement from somewhere a while ago.
Precisely because of the decisive change in day to day life, I have made it a habit to rectify conversations about the climate change. The question isn't about the previous climate at all, but of a completely new one. I call it Atlantic climate, although I'm not pleased to let the despicable name of the Atlantic, that sends its low pressures, slip over my lips.
The most bitter thing about this is that - like I have understood from what I've read - the climate change may be an achievement of human, this robber and bungler.
1993
Translated 18.1.2006
From Gunslingers To Environmental Disasters
In the aftermath of affirming the new hunting regulation, I desire to examine the changes that have taken place in the attitudes and practice of conservation and hunting. During the nearly fifty years that my perspective covers, they have been enormous. But the country's fauna, condition and environment, and the richness and species of its animals have also changed tremendously. After all, Finland has turned upside-down in less than fifty years.
When I was a very young and fanatical conservationist and unlike my father, not much a committed devotee of plants but rather of animals and especially birds, hunters represented the greatest danger to me. My first public appearance for protection of nature was a speech or presentation at the school's student body's festivity at the end of the forties, and it was directed against duck-hunters. On the verge of hunting season, I had seen an interview of two shotgunners in a paper where they anxiously pondered, "I wonder how many ducks there are this year" and I was filled with contempt. My own ornithologist's career had begun with the water birds of Tavastia; I had observed ducks since their spring migrations, counting the numbers of nesting couples, eggs and broods, and received an award at the winter festivities of Luontoliitto for a paper titled "Of Water- and Coastal Birds at some Tavastian Lakes." So I was shocked that those jerks didn't know anything about ducks before they went shooting them on August 20th. Now that I think about it, official follow-up on the duck population was probably almost non-existent at the time. The foundation for preservation of game, afterwards Riistanhoitos��ti�, was just taking its first steps.
However, during those times I, like the whole brotherhood of naturalists, was worried the most about predators. Beasts of prey down to marten were slaughtered to the verge of extinction. Predatory birds had suffered ever since the end of the last century, but managed to recover during the years of war, when guns were reserved for other tasks. Soon after the war, guns began blazing more furiously than ever throughout the country, and hawks and owls were stuffed and moved as ornaments onto houses' bureaus.
In the 1950s, birds of prey suffered greatly in Finland. During those years, an ornithologist had to keep even an osprey's nest strictly secret even in enlightened Tavastia; otherwise, a punishment expedition set out from some village's corner. It is an exciting blessing of fate that the forest road - a road that doesn't lead to a house - had not been invented even in rangers' fantasies. Journeys miles long through rugged forest terrain and the disadvantageous ratio of investment to profit gave the birds the minimal protection. When the network of forest roads was created and every tree with a nest could be driven to with a car, environmental education had already accomplished what it sought. Had there been such roads in the forties and fifties, many extinctions would have been witnessed.
When young, I was an energetic and temperamental person, and so I began pestering the state's conservation official in order to quell the persecution of birds of prey by the ten most famous taxidermists in the country. In fact, most of the birds were protected by law even before the wars; it was just that respect for law was nonexistent. Through their permissions for arsenic, taxidermists were registered. On the other hand, the conservation official Reino Kalliola was a jovial and calm old-fashioned gentleman, who rewarded rather than punished, and believed in the efficiency of his splendid, literarily fabulous - and still unbeaten - nature books. Perhaps his zeal was also chilled by the fact that his one-man office took care of all the matters in the country that nowadays are being handled by the environmental ministry, water- and environment administration, the conservation offices of provinces and committees and secretaries of counties.
A little perseverance was needed, but Kalliola did place police officers to investigate and authorized whom else but me as an expert for the inspection. While writing this at the beginning of September, I notice that it has been, almost to the day, 40 years since that. I remember it from driving after the trip - with a bicycle, of course - to my observation areas in Tyrv�nt� and S��ksm�ki, and ringing the last fledglings of stock doves in the aspen woods of Haukila as an epilogue to the great bird summer of 1953. Over the course of the decades, 28 nest holes of large birds and countless little crevices of starlings and tits had accumulated in those giant aspens.
The preparators' storages and their records were beyond all expectations. Honey buzzards, common buzzards, long-eared owls, marsh harriers - dozens, hundreds. The policemen didn't show any extra keenness. When we were stumbling through presumably the only freezing room of the capital, in a large taxidermist's warehouse at S�rn�inen, the old officer Jalonen was yawning as much as he could in the cold until he suddenly noticed with his detective's eye a squirrel in summer fur: it had been killed during closed game season! I also remember his reply: "That's right!" After all, squirrel was a useful fur animal back then, and that reply also included an opinion of my honey buzzards and owls.
The police of V��ksy were more compassionate, and as the trip back from the preparator of Uraj�rvi stretched far beyond the evening hours and as I didn't have a tent with me then or for years to come - I slept in haybarns - I asked for, and was granted, a night's stay in a lock-up. Oddly enough, it was the only night in jail for me ever since, and I couldn't even take advantage of that. Surprisingly, during the morning hours a mate from the next cell started conversing through the wall; he was quite kind and loyal and said that he knew a great workplace for me, too. Only during the recent years, when the foreplays and low-cost imports by the European Commission have ruined my fisherman's economy, I have come to regret that I didn't inquire further about the job and perhaps missed my fortune.
But then things developed towards the direction pointed at Kalliola and Yrj� Kokko. Their successors, those skillful and diligent educators about nature: Suominen, Korkolainen, Paulin, Montonen, Hild�n, Hautala et al, took action and charged onward with literature, newspaper articles, photographs and films. And in a quarter century, the people of Finland were brainwashed to tolerate, or even love, not only their lynxes and bears but also hawks and eagles. Only a few sullen geezers somewhere in the backwoods remained shaking their fists and placing eagle traps.
My relationship with hunters got healthier after the persecution of birds of prey died out. The event was surely sped up because of the recruiting of biologists from a strongly conservationist fraternity, which had received its basic education in environmental circles and Luontoliitto, to positions in hunting organizations and game research. The pivotal magazine of the organizations, Mets�st�j�, has almost rivaled Suomen Luonto in favoring conservation for the longest time. Of course, the deep masses of hunters are not nearly as exemplary as their leaders are; in fact, duck hunting is still the parade of the trash of hunters, where many obscenities take place. The fate of water birds is still altogether merciless and similar to fowl, the protection of ducks isn't even discussed. Nevertheless, it is an exceedingly enticing thought that one year, water fowl will be wholly protected, and then we'd see what level their numbers would settle.
However, the peace with hunters was first and foremost compulsory. The country had the patience to prosper; industrialization and an efficient economy came with a horrendous cost on nature, and in the 1960s the focus of environmentalism shifted sharply and inevitably from preventing straight-out killing of animals and plants to saving their environment. The primeval aspen woods of Haukila that I reflected upon have been absent of trees for a long, long time, just like other aspen woods of the 1950s. The stock dove faced extinction long ago in Tavastia, my home, although not because of hunters but weed killers and foresters. When the fauna of Finland got into rigorous retraining where few survived and many were suppressed, environmentalists and hunters often noticed that they were in the same front against a common enemy. It was senseless to protect a bird lake from hunting if agriculture's nutrient effluents and industry's nitrogen fallouts caused it to become completely overrun by vegetation.
1993
Translated 25.2.2006
Animal History Of The New Age
In the last survey of mine, naturalists and hunters of Finland ended up declaring peace, albeit a forced one, and the beasts of Finland survived the worst ordeal. Long past were those times when - according to a mournful anecdote told by Reino Kalliola - lynx was attempted to get protected for the first time and the amendment was introduced to the president. "Isn't the lynx a beast?" Paasikivi asked skeptically. The presenter in question had not made himself familiar with the arguments of conservation and perplexed, he admitted the case being so. "Dismissed", said Paasikivi, and lynx still had to wait for many years.
But what should be noted from the current condition of Finland's fauna? To a great misfortune, life hasn't taught me much of the so called lower groups of animals: invertebrates. Within them, many examples of environmental damage, ruin and doom can be seen. Luckily, a growing number of researchers have got acquainted with the matters of these smallest brothers and sisters of ours, and are charting and creating conservation programs for the direst need. My point of view equals that of a layman: I see warmblooded animals before all others.
I'd say that the most remarkable of changes in near history is that animal populations are less stable than in my youth. There are unbelievably sudden peaks and lows in them: one never knows, which spring is silent for which species. Environmental changes caused by man do not always provide explanation, although often they do: the fauna of modern times is fully at the mercy of the man. Till my youth or at least childhood, zoologists traced the causes for varying in prevalence almost always to climate changes.
As strange as it is, instability is sometimes apparent even at individual level. In my youth, when I started to ring not only fledgelings at the nests of tawny owls, but also mothers, then at the next spring seven out of eight mothers were alive and nested in the same hole. Nowadays, it seems like almost half of owl mothers change annually. Presumably the young, just born age classes are so numerous in the abundant and high quality bird-houses of this welfare state that mortality has to rise analogously and old owls are being prematurely displaced by the younger ones. Not a pleasant outcome of research to an aged ornithologist, at any rate.
Another characteristic is the renaissance of large animals - a very stunning surprise that nobody could have thought of predicting during the first 60 years of this century. Again, I'm thinking mostly about birds here but of course bear, lynx and most importantly, moose, are included. When the pioneer of conservation, Rolf Palmgren, painted menaces of extinction at the 1920s grounded on the development by then, the moose shared the top place with the swan in the list. Now we can see the glorious triumph of swans, both in the mainland of whooper swans and coasts of mute swans. Crane population is well and growing. In fact, the crane is an unique example of an animal that has been able to swap its lost environment to a new one: to replace dried marshlands with coastal flood meadows and even with tillage, or at least with the compound biotopes of scarce woodland hollows and low-lying cultivated fields. However, it can be assumed that the crane would have nested at damp fields and beach meadows before as well, if the masters of past generations - who were scrupulous of their lands - had not fended harmful birds harshly, without negotiations.
When straightout killings come to an end, it apparently leads to the march of the largest and strongest animals surprisingly quickly - if the environment can bear it. These animals reside at the top places of the food chain, and many aren't preyed by anything else than the man - if not by the wolf or bear. Who knows: will bear snatch a molting goose or a crane fledgling? At least the eagle will not outmatch a crane. I was once observing with binoculars in Kesonsuo of Ilomantsi how a crane drove a golden eagle away from ground to air and chased it far, trying to poke it with its beak alternately from both sides - one of the most terrific bird observations of my life.
The population of the bean goose has amended, even more so for the greylag goose, and the eagle owl has performed an explosive return. Every summer, we can read protectors' triumphing announcements of the white-tailed eagle's success over just the last few years. The giant of gulls, the great black-backed gull, is in more favourable a wind than any other species of the genus. In my youth, the mightiest of crow birds, the raven, was extremely rare in Southern Finland, the miracle of the deepest heartlands - and now it has spread to the whole country. The ghostly cousins grey heron and bittern are the freshest newcomers of avifauna (and the white stork is being waited for!).
The golden eagle who has problems both with the atavistic use of guns in the North and dwindling populations of prey is somewhat of an exception among large birds, but even it hasn't suffered the worst in the last few years. That also snowmobiles are being counted as one of the problems of the golden eagle gives an idea why wood must be knocked on when discussing all large animals: the current moment is fine, future holds nothing but clouds in it. Researchers of the white-tailed eagle always remember to note that when holiday population broke over a certain limit at an archipelago, it meant the beginning of a decline.
The third epochal change is the severe growth of predatory animal population. The situation has turned completely upside-down from the 1950s I described before - predators are heavily emphasized in our fauna, even so that it would be good even for a conservationist to examine his ideas. Large predators are of course still scarce but they all have risen from the worst depression, except for maybe the wolverine. Bear is a significant ecological factor near the eastern border, and lynx is correspondingly so here and there in Savo and Tavastia. By the way, how the fair success of large mammals can be explained although wooded terrain has been raped and bared, and tiled with car roads? I presume that one major reason is the same that, on the reverse, has caused a great loss in avifauna: the dense thickets of nurseries growing on clear felled areas. The man has nothing to gain from that wretchedness, not berry or mushroom picker, hunter or hiker; bears lynxes and wolves, too, can lie down there unbothered - nevertheless that they have to seek prey from more productive hunting grounds.
The weasel, of which my only own observations from the 1950s are from the Viena primeval forests of Kuhmo's Jonkerinj�rvi, has grown to be a remarkable factor all around in Finland's forests. It is now an exciting example of a new predator at foreign areas. Be it produced in foreign continents or like weasel, a son of the land who has returned from emigration, first it expands greatly and strikes an unnaturally deep gap into prey populations before the relations between it and the prey settle to somewhat tolerable levels. At the moment, the weasel roams about in biotopes that are wholly different from its former history at vast woodlands; where it even steps on the toes of the polecat and mink (or European mink, if we stick to the good old patterns). I have myself seen a weasel that V�ino Ahde caught from a small rocky island at L�ngelm�vesi, and another that was trapped in the barn of Juhani Kartano's yard. When the ornithologists of Valkeakoski checked out a tawny owl's nest of theirs in a narrow row of birches between Vanajanvesi and a large open field, a weasel leapt out of it. It appears that it's a long way to a reasonable state of affairs with the mink and raccoon dog, as well. They are altogether new predators that storm upon their prey as additional strain in great numbers - simultaneously with the old beast, fox, who has retained its place.
Of predatory birds, the peregrine falcon has caused the most grief as nothing could've saved it between the 1950s and 60s: it was one of the quickest known far-reaching extinctions. However, for an unfathomable reason, a fragmentary population was preserved in Lapland. In addition to that, only the merlin and kestrel are in a downward spiral, as well. The kestrel gives a very poor image of Finnish agriculture because it has survived reasonably elsewhere in Europe. On the other hand, the hobby has been erroneously offered to be marked as endangered; it has more like grown in numbers during my time. When I last rowed my long trips along great lakes in Eastern and Northeastern Finland, I found 18 nests of predatory birds from the strands and islands, and they all were hobby's.
Hen harriers have greatly improved their positions in their heart region Ostrobothnia, and a bit elsewhere as well. Marsh harriers were the first to spring up to my mind when I wrote that man isn't always accountable for changes in populace. It is thoroughly mystical why they abandoned the splendid grasses of ocean coasts at the gulf of Finland and moved to the measly patches of reeds of inland lakes and ponds. The most grand victor is the sparrowhawk, a bit similar case to the weasel. There was a deep buckle in its numbers, too, likely because of environmental toxins as it didn't happen at the time of game wardens' hostility towards predators, but later during the 1960s and 70s. But it was followed by prosperity unlike anything seen before. When I spent three weeks in August-September in the 1980s at a workplace of my youth - a bird station at Signilsk�r - after a 20 years break, sparrowhawk was the bird species greatest in numbers during the whole period. It indeed triumphed over even the willow warbler, flycatchers, redstart and tree pipit in populace, which were in their main moving season at the time. I wouldn't ever have expected to witness such a display. Banding little birds with a net was nearly impossible: sparrowhawks struck them dead before banders could reach them.
Owls still live in lightier times, or what metaphor should I use. In any case, the tengmalm's, tawny and ural owls rejoice because of the nationwide network of birdhouses. There are all too much of birdhouses at a multitude of places, and the lumber used for houses destined to be empty would be better used elsewhere. However, when saying this I get shivers: what is the situation after a few years if the absence among the youngest generations of ornithologists, noted on many occasions, continues? What will happen if there soon won't be any diligent crafters of birdhouses? The populace of the black woodpecker is agreaably even surprisingly strong at the moment, but it may be a temporary phenomenon brought by consecutive overly mild winters. And besides, the whittlings of this master carpenter do not benefit anyone but tengmalm's owls. Owls are in the same position as the osprey that will face utterly grievous times if the coming generations of naturalists will not maintain and renew birdhouses.
When I was young - once again this starting -, eagle owl was at the verge of extinction. In the fifteen villages in Tavastia that I had roamed throughout there were three or four birds left, and through the whole 1950s I couldn't reach a nest or fledglings at a single territory, even though I was the most relentless researcher of birds of prey of the time. Of all the bird photographs of my life, I imagine perhaps V�r F�gerv�rld's monochrome photograph the strongest, where an eagle owl descends on a grand rocky cliff. An eagle owl at its nest was the utmost dream of mine for many years. When welfare-Finland was born explosively sudden and its municipal junkyards fattened by squandering offered food for thousands of rats, eagle owls first conquered these joyous fields and then with the fat broods spawned there, the whole of Tavastia. Their manners among their lesser were shocking, and my relations to the giant owl chilled to below zero.
At the other end of the owl league, the piercing-eyed devil, pygmy owl, went through the same. It was an exclusive rarity of the great heartlands during my active years of 1950s and 60s, but the next decade its population grew up to at least five times of what it was. Nowadays, I encounter pygmy owl nests and broods more often than in my youth although I spend maybe one per cent of the time in woods I spent back then. There likely aren't many geographical positions in Tavastia, where one wouldn't hear pygmy owl's falsetto shrieking from somewhere at an autumnal daybreak.
I hold the eagle owl as a mistake of the Creator and I can't stand its storages in my birdhouses that are regularly left uneaten and rot at spring: beneath a layer of bullfinches, then a pretty row of siskins, topped by five glinting blue tits. I can not understand such a sanctimonious nature worshipper who thinks that everything in nature is fabulous and indisputable. If we criticize man and his crimes, we can criticize other parts of nature as well. Evolution isn't perfect nor infallible. If evolution only had continued on and there wouldn't be a black tunnel of ecocatastrophy ahead of us, in time it surely would have stripped the eagle owl of its unneeded welfare supplies.
1993
Translated 30.3.2006
Ethics Of Environmentalism
A hundred years ago birdbooks divided birds of prey to "clawing" and "extremely clawing". The old statistics about blood money and its victims were impressive. I stated earlier that predatory animals and birds were going through miserable times still at the 1950s. The period of time, when hunters recognized predators as the main cause for both the fluctuation and constant diminishing in game population, was long. Analogously a fisherman who came upon an empty fish trap, first laid the blame on gulls, ospreys and black-throated divers. Actually, a kind of an ancient idea prevailed, which was that - exaggerating a little - the Creator had given a certain amount of game and fish at the beginning of time, which were slowly being devoured away by predators - and of course when according to fishermen, by the other fishermen.
A clear image of the renewal and production of game and fish populations, the share of young age classes and how much each step in the food chain can be taxed: it is a historically new phenomenon in the consciousness of the average man. Only after my youth have zoologists been able to carve out a natural law that predators actually can't permanently cull their prey populations, as they would destroy themselves then. This is about the predominating truth, at least when researchers speak to the public.
Now that the Finnish terrain is swarming with predators on top of and beside each other, it is time to revamp the question of predatory animals. Maybe the ponderings of old game wardens had something worth the while in them. That article of faith about the balance between beast and prey surely holds when the predator uses only a single species of prey, but it has likings like we all do. The eagle owl can first eat off all the smaller owls, common buzzards, goshawks and ospreys from its territory, which it often does. After that, it moves on living in leisure and taking a toll on moles and rats that are abundant, and can't be all found and have their population decimated. The mink swims from islands of razorbills and black guillemots to another killing their offspring to the last cub, and then easily begins eating three-spined sticklebacks and the young of perches at shoals.
Here, we arrive at the dilemma of nature's balance. No matter how vigorously Yrj� Haila denies the concept of balance in nature it still exists, even though relative and always changing. And the disruptions caused by man in this harmony are reality. I have already told about the abnormally numerous broods of the eagle owl at junkyards. Another unnaturality, which is accountable for that there are suddenly more eagle owls than ever before in Finland's woodlands of the past, is clear felling of forests. It has multiplied the spacious hunting areas suitable for eagle owls, and their chances to spot and catch common buzzards from the edges of openings and ospreys from their nests in the dim that can be seen from miles away. The other well-performing beast, goshawk, is at a totally opposite position in this matter: it nests in old, grand woods, hunts in dense woodland terrain and stalks upon medium sized prey animals, that are diminishing in numbers: it loses at everything.
When I would like to say - and I do - that the full protection of the eagle owl was an obvious mistake, I state a resigning implication to the sentence. Our nature is so disrupted, its harmony so flickering because of the intensifying, quickening and varying actions of man that a measure of conservation or discipline would often require a speedy rectification and for that, a correction - research and especially the legislation could not keep up.
We will arrive at the greatest disaster, however, if man's own doings are not even attempted to be amended. We will be left far away from the largest sum of life, which is the highest goal of all environmental protection. The new hunting law and particularly the naturalists' discussion of it do not stand merely for progression in this respect. Those who were aiming to protect all or nearly all animals (except game) were gravely mistaken. I read a proposition from ornithologist's own magazine that the crow should be protected by law as well: it isn't harmful to humans, is it.
This point of view is altogether fresh. It wholly denies caretaking of nature and leaves animals to mete it out with each other - relations that the man is constantly manipulating and stirring up by favouring one and putting the other in an unfortunate position. It is not the triumph of conservation or understanding of nature that I see here, but estranging from nature. How did an aphorism by Sylvi Kekkonen go - it is a short way from tolerance to ignorance. I think they are often synonymes.
The definitions "harmful animal" and "harmful bird" express concern for nature, and impossibilities have surely been reached sometimes. There was a time when the red-backed shrike was an outlaw throughout the country because it ate little birds, lizards and bumble bees. There was no other flaw in the argument except that the bird doesn't benefit from the economy, rubbish-heaps, etc. of the man. Although it benefits from the man-made half-culture landscape in which it lives, its prey does too.
The environmental principle, which has been followed in the earlier legislation, is very clear. An animal that lives off man through the critical part of the year by using the waste of man's economy, and eats its lesser, fledglings or eggs for a part of the year, is a harmful animal that must be averted. It is then a part of the death sowed by man, which has to be prevented by man, as well. The fox, crow, magpie, jay and herring gull are typical harmful animals like that. When the wintry parasite of rubbish piles, the jay, moves on to - starting from crossbills - to a diet consisting solely of blackbirds' and little birds' eggs and fledglings at springtime, it's all the same if man would eat them himself.
Setting the jay as protected was an apparent mistake, and protecting the raven, which has prospered well because of the slaughter waste of elks and carrions for feeding eagles, is dubious as well. The major reason for protecting colonies of herring gulls was to shield other birds of the archipelago from unacquainted game wardens: the herring gull itself deserves anything but protection. It is questionable if the balance of this protection ends up positive. Anyhow, the diminishing of game wardens' springly crow hunts and contests of harmful birds is regrettable.
In the last number I presented an assumption that by mending - rejuvenating - environments we could achieve millions of more birds in the country, as long as the winter-time milieus could bear this increase. Perhaps another one would be in place: I feel that predators; our own and the ones imported from elsewhere, are actually so plentiful at the moment that they permanently stifle our bird populations. One who follows how bird nests do during summertime, can state anywhere that very few of them survive, except for birds nesting in holes. I have estimated that only the success of just the last re-run broods of late summer will save many little birds from complete ruin, even though only a small part of the population takes part in nesting then. It appears that some graceful hand of destiny controls the yearly rhythm of such professionals like the jay and magpie so that they easen up in sweeping the nests at July.
If I think about, for example, my own altogether typical South Finnish yard and its surroundings, I see that the chances of wagtails, the chaffinch, spotted flycatcher, blackbirds, yellowhammer and swallow to get their fledglings up on wings are nearly non-existant. There are almost no safe spots in the crossfire of crows, magpies and jays, cats cruise through the lot every day, the squirrel as their companion scours every log and corner of buildings, and the sparrowhawk flits every now and then. The tawny owl stalks and the sharp-nosed raccoon dogs and badgers sniff around at night.
At my home, a spared bird nest was a sensation that required utmost ingenuity. A robin managed to get a brood out to the world in last summer from a nest that was located inside the porch of the stable, in a fold of a canvas loosely hanging from a beam supporting the ceiling. No predator could descend unto it from above or jump from beneath, and the flapping canvas could not withstand the grip of the magpie or great spotted woodpecker. The robin tricked even me, and the nest would have remained unfound without a series of coincidences. The acute bird woman Anu Murto - known by many radio listeners - came to S��ksm�ki to make a program about Joel Lehtonen's "Lintukoto", and was to stay in my sauna meant for nets for the night. Fortunately - in regards to this story - I wasn't home then and the sauna was locked and Anu slept like the baby Jesus in the hays of the stable, and discovered the robin.
I ask most humbly to be allowed to note that when predators do not undermine their prey populations even in long term, it is very fundamental in respect to the sum and richness of life how death is timed. It is an entirely different matter when a young bird dies in throes of a predator in its nest of birth on June than to hunger, cold, snow and ice only until the food competition within the species on February.
I have been estimating the numbers of nest thieving birds very attentively on my bicycling trips in many European countries. Concerning the crow, magpie and as well as jay, Finland holds the top positions. Only Estonia, which has unbelievably many crows, wins in regards to them. On the basis of an uncertain feeling, I'd say that there aren't as many little birds in Estonia's terrain of settlements and fields' edges as the magnificent environment there would imply. Germany, that wondrous and precise country of order, makes an unparalleled exception. Not anywhere in my life have I seen as few crows and magpies as I did in the last summer's cycling trip in Eastern Germany - even jackdaws were pinched down to a few individuals in two cathedrals at the cities' centres. All those three species added together, plus jays, were easily outnumbered by common buzzards. Correspondingly, there were more birds at yards and gardens; more serins, finches, icterine warblers and woodpigeons nesting in yard limes than anywhere else.
Unscrupulously stern rules must be applied to foreign predators, both imported and immigrated. We can probably tolerate forging the fauna and flora and planting of alien species as long as they do not harm the original ones. But if some domestic species' existence is threatened by securing the plantings - goshawk because of pheasants, lynx because of white-tailed deers -, the verdict of the environmentalist is absolute.
The sentence is absolute for beasts of prey that do not belong to Finnish nature: the mink and raccoon dog, an unbearable burden in addition to the domestic beasts. Recently, even they have received defenders; definitions are then finally upside down. When they are being stood for in the name of environmentalism - and likely also those escaped caged foxes that some year devastated the whole bird conservation area of Krunn at Bothnian bay -, then the animal protector is obviously an enemy of conservation and the game warden his ally. Years ago, some half-mad granny called the whole nation to arms to wipe every single viper off the face of earth in letters to the editor. I'd propose an efficient war against the mink and raccoon dog.
1993
Translated 12.4.2006
The Suppressed Nightmare of Conservation
I have presented reflections, thoughts and opinions about "classic conservation": the relationship between man, animal and environment. This time I have overlooked the worldwide environmental problems. I have attempted to point out how man has caused troubles in nature, even tragic ones, on a much more mundane level and closer matters than by causing dispersion of ozone layer, climate change and erosion. I have told greatly about the relations between beast and prey and lastly about the tragedy of predators that man has transported from the other side of the world into Finnish nature. The worst still remains. The worst beast in Finland is a domestic animal, the angel of death imported from Egypt: the cat.
I already criticized the animal protection movement for defending the |
UDOR United SportsCar Championship put sports car racing on the North American motorsports map, and we are very excited to be able to bring that racing to our members. In addition, IMSA fans will now have a new way to connect to the series and feel what it’s like to race wheel to wheel at some of America’s most historic race tracks in ultra-competitive cars.” While this partnership is a first for IMSA and the TUDOR Championship, it is a renewal of sorts. GRAND-AM Road Racing and iRacing.com began a multi-year partnership in 2010 centered around GRAND-AM’s Rolex Sports Car Series. The Rolex Series and American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón merged to become the TUDOR Championship prior to the 2014 season. “IMSA is looking forward to partnering again with iRacing.com for the launch of the IMSA iRacing.com Online SportsCar Championship,” said IMSA Vice President of Marketing David Pettit. “Over the past several years, iRacing.com has established itself as a leader in sim racing. The TUDOR United SportsCar Championship represents an exciting new era in sports car racing and we are certain the IMSA iRacing.com Online SportsCar Championship will bring that same sense of excitement to online racing and sim racers everywhere.” iRacing enables motorsports and gaming enthusiasts around the world to race against one another online in more than 40 precisely-modeled cars on 65 laser-scanned road courses, ovals and speedways in officially-sanctioned and private league competition. iRacing delivers the most realistic racing experience you can have on your PC or Mac from the comfort and convenience of your home. With literally thousands of official races every week, there is always someone to race against at iRacing. ABOUT IMSA The International Motor Sports Association, LLC (IMSA) was originally founded in 1969 with a long and rich history in sports car racing. Today, IMSA is the sanctioning body of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, the premier sports car racing series in North America. IMSA also sanctions the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge and the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, as well as four single-make series: Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama; Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Michelin; Ferrari Challenge North America; and Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America. IMSA – a company within the NASCAR Group – is the exclusive strategic partner in North America with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) which operates the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a part of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The partnership enables selected TUDOR Championship competitors to earn automatic entries into the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans. ABOUT IRACING The company was founded in 2004 by Dave Kaemmer and John Henry and subsequently released iRacing.com in August 2008. Kaemmer was co-founder of Papyrus Design Group, developers of award-winning racing simulations including “Grand Prix Legends” and “NASCAR 2003.” Henry is principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club, as well as co-owner of NASCAR’s Roush Fenway Racing. iRacing.com has developed dozens of formal partnerships in the motorsport industry to help create the most authentic racing simulation in the world including with NASCAR, IndyCar, SRO Motorsports Group, International Speedway Corporation, Speedway Motorsports, McLaren Electronics, Williams F1, Volkswagen, Ford, the Skip Barber Racing School and General Motors.
[/accordion_item]A colonel with the Canadian Armed Forces is facing various charges, including sexual assault, involving five other members of the forces.
According to the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, the five members are based at Gagetown in New Brunswick and Valcartier in Quebec.
READ: Halifax-based sailor charged with sexual assault involving another Canadian Forces member
The charges stem from incidents between January 2005 and December 2014.
Col. Jean-François Duval, a member of the Canadian Defence Academy in Kingston, faces the following charges:
2 counts of sexual assault under the Criminal Code
1 count of indecent acts under the Criminal Code
2 counts of scandalous conduct under the National Defence Act
2 counts of disgraceful conduct under the National Defence Act
3 counts of prejudicing good order and discipline under the National Defence Act
The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service investigates serious matters involving National Defence property, employees and armed forces personnel.
WATCH: Sexual assault rampant in Canada’s military
“Independent of the chain of command in policing matters, the Military Police plays a central role in responding to allegations of criminal, harmful and inappropriate sexual conduct in the Canadian Armed Forces,” said Lieut.-Col. Kevin Cadman, commanding officer of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service, in a statement.
“The rank of the accused plays no factor in investigating the facts of the matter. We respect the judicial process and thoroughly investigate all reported sexual assaults through gathering the facts, analyzing the evidence, and when appropriate, laying applicable charges.”
The case will go through the military justice system, which may involve a court martial.
Follow @RebeccaLauHey Canadian Santa, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
You totally knocked this out of the park! I've had a ton of fun sampling EVERYTHING you sent me. Because, why wait when you have all this deliciousness just sitting there, waiting for you to try them all? I certainly didn't, mostly because I have absolutely no self control at all, and because I was too excited. I may have also totally ruined my appetite for dinner but I'm adult, I'm allowed to eat dinner a few hours later on a weeknight if I want to.
I've been following this package ever since you sent it and while I am a bit miffed that your package to me came a lot faster than my package to Canada, I am more than ecstatic that I didn't have wait so long for my goodies to arrive.
It was the perfect to come home to after a rather dreary, wet and cold day. A rather large box (almost eight pounds! O.O) was on my porch and since I had already gotten an email notification that my snack exchange package had been delivered earlier today, I knew what it was immediately! I couldn't wait to open it!
What was in the box was:
A bag of President's Choice, Loads of Ketchup Chips. These were so full of ketchup flavor! Way more intense than the bag that my sister and my brother-in-law brought me back from their last trip to Vancouver. And since I happen to adore ketchup (I am a heathen who puts ketchup on everything), I know these won't last long. It'll be probably be all gone by the end of tomorrow.
A bag of President's Choice Loads of All Dressed Chips. Ruffles recently All Dressed Chips to America but for some reason, these seem to taste better. But for the life of me, I still can't really pinpoint the exact flavor of "all dressed." It's like a bunch of different flavors all mixed into one.
A bag of Hostess Hickory Sticks. I wonder if this Hostess is the same Hostess that makes Twinkies in the US? I wouldn't think so... The bag said "Simulated Flavour Potato Sticks" which had me scratching my head but after tasting them, they taste a bit like Pringles, only in flat stick form. I feel sorry for parents with little kids though -- these must get everywhere.
A box of Dare Ultimate Maple Leaf. Do Canadians really eat cookies shaped in as maple leaves and flavored with maple syrup? These crisp cookies were very strongly flavored of maple syrup and was maybe a bit too sweet for me.
A bottle of President's Choice (is this brand really popular in Canada or something?) 100% Pure Maple Syrup. What package from Canada wouldn't be complete without a bottle of maple syrup? This is the only thing I didn't sample yet -- I'll have to go and make some waffles so I can pour all this syrup on it! Here in the US, we grade our syrup with letter grades but apparently in Canada they use numbers. This bottle is Canada No. 1 Medium. I wonder what that corresponds to in the US...?
A box of Smarties. I had heard Canadian Smarties were different from the American kind and boy was I glad they were! I absolutely DESPISE American Smarties. They were the bane of my childhood Halloween haul. But Canadian smarties are more like M&M's, candy coated chocolate! Delicious!
A bag of Coffee Crisp containing four bars. These were delicious! I have a love affair with all things coffee and I love wafers in candy so these were perfect for me.
A bag of Maltesers. I totally squealed when I saw my Santa had included these in the box. I don't think I've mentioned this anywhere before, but seeing all the snack posts in the gallery, and seeing so many Maltesers being sent from UK Santas, I couldn't help but be curious as to what these Maltesers taste like. My Santa must be psychic or something. But now I know what Maltesers are a lot like Whoppers, but the flavor is completely different. It's been a while since I had a Whopper, but I couldn't help but remember that the Whoppers insides tasted better than the inside of the Maltesers. But the chocolate of the Maltesers was better than the chocolate on the Whoppers but this can't be a surprise to anybody.
A bag of Hawkins Cheezies. On first inspection, I thought they looked a lot like Cheetos. On first taste, they taste like inferior Cheetos. Less cheesy, and less flavorful.
A box of Jos Louis. These were delicious! They're like chocolate covered red velvet cakes with a cream filling in the middle. And not too sweet, which I loved! They reminded me a lot of Little Debbie's Swiss Rolls in that there's this hard (comparatively) chocolate shell that gives way to a soft chocolate cake with a cream filling inside.
One last note -- I've got to give it for my Santa Shawn for choosing things that were individually wrapped. That just made it so much easier for me to pop them open and have just one without feeling too guilty.
Thank you so much, Santa! You've made me incredibly happy! I'll be sure to be enjoying these for days to come! The chips will be gone before the weekend though -- that's just the way I roll but everything else I'll work my way through more slowly. This has been a great exchange!!On Thursday August 21st, Philip Rosedale announced that Tony Parisi has joined High Fidelity.
Precisely what Mr. Parisi’s position at HiFi is, isn’t stated, but Mr. Rosedale does say:
Tony has just joined us as an advisor, and is also working with us on some secret High Fidelity stuff that is coming soon. He’s a perfect person to add to the High Fidelity team.
Tony Parisi is the co-creator of the VRML and X3D ISO standards for networked 3D graphics, and a 3D technology innovator. He’s a career CTO / software architect and entrepreneur, has and is serving on a number working groups, and may also be familiar to some as one of the SVVR Creating the VR Metaverse panel in April 2014. More recently, he was featured in a Drax Files Radio Hour feature-length interview, which I also reviewed (and am embedding again at the end of this piece, as it really is worth listening to if you missed it the first time around).
Tony’s full bio can be found here, and while the work he’ll be doing at HiFi is currently “secret”, Philip Rosedale does expand on why his involvement is a good fit for the company:
What we are building at High Fidelity is a bigger project than any one designer or company. To bring virtual reality to everyone will mean a broad set of standards and open systems, and Tony has been designing and championing big pieces of those standards for his whole career, most recently with WebGL.
There can be no doubting Tony’s background and understanding of the potential for consumer-focused VR – again, just listen to the interview below for proof of that.
So interesting times at High Fidelity just got more interesting!
(Nice touch on the updated website as well, with the video header.)
AdvertisementsA Croatian children’s show host suffered a terrifying fainting episode while on-camera this week; coincidentally while explaining the importance of oxygen.
“Good morning and welcome to school hour,” HRT’s Zlata Muck reportedly told her young audience in Croatian. “Today, the first 35 minutes of our show will be dedicated to one of the most important elements on Earth: oxygen.”
As she began to elaborate on oxygen’s importance, Muck mumbled several more words and began to stagger before falling backwards and hitting her head against the prop wall behind her. After she hits the ground, she can be heard groaning off-camera.
Thankfully, Muck suffered no injuries or complications from the syncopal episode. Local Croatian media outlets have speculated that the young host was merely experiencing a side effect of being three months pregnant.
The dramatic fainting episode was ultimately edited out of the latest broadcast of Školski sat.
Watch below, via HRT:
[h/t TheBlaze
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>> Follow Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comEmbattled Clippers owner Donald Sterling was slated to receive a second Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People before the controversy over statements he allegedly made to his girlfriend erupted.
“Why are you taking pictures with minorities?” the man who is allegedly Donald Sterling demanded in the recorded conversation. “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?”
“You can sleep with [black people],” he allegedly said. “You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it [online] and not to bring them to my games.”
In a statement, Alice Huffman, the President of the NAACP California State Conference, said that “[i]f these allegations are proven true, we are extremely disappointed in Mr. Sterling. Recent remarks like these, and those of Cliven Bundy, remind us that racism is not a footnote of our past, but a reality of our present that we must confront head on.”
“As the investigation is in progress,” she added, “we urge the LA Branch of the NAACP to withdraw Donald Sterling from the honoree list at its upcoming Gala. We also suggest that African Americans and Latinos should honor his request and not attend the games.”
The May 15, 2014 event will also celebrate the contributions of the Reverend Al Sharpton and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, both of whom publically condemned Sterling for his comments on Saturday.
Sterling was also honored by the NAACP with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009, and a NAACP President’s Award in 2008, despite the fact that at the time, he was embroiled in a lawsuit with former general manager Elgin Baylor, who accused him of embracing “a vision of a Southern plantation-type structure.”
UPDATE 10:53 A.M. EST:
The NAACP has tweeted that Donald Sterling will not be receiving a lifetime achievement award from its Los Angeles chapter:
#DonaldSterling will not be receiving a lifetime achievement award from the LA Branch of the NAACP. #MTP — NAACP (@NAACP) April 27, 2014
[Screen capture of Donald Sterling via YouTube]On the 28th of October, NEO visited Korea for a community meet up in Seoul. The meet up was one of many events recently held by NEO in an effort to bring more developers and blockchain enthusiasts into the NEO community. In attendance was Johnson Zhao, who is the international development director for NEO. We caught up with Johnson to find out what happened at the meet up and ask him about all things NEO.
Dean – NEO News Today: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. You’re the first member of the NEO team we’ve interviewed on NEO News Today, so we’re excited to have you. For those of our readers who don’t know who you are, what is your role at NEO?
Johnson Zhao: I’m actually in transition from Onchain to NEO. My new role is international development director for NEO.
Dean: How long have you been involved in blockchain technology, and how did you come to join Onchain / NEO?
Johnson: I joined Onchain almost a year ago, and I’ve been into blockchain for almost two years. I started off in the Ethereum community, and obviously Antshares in China at that time was big, but I got into Onchain first.
I’m not a coder, and whilst I can understand the technology in theory I’m not into developing projects. I was in financial services for over 10 years before I joined this new field, so my initial interest was to bring blockchain to all the sectors I was familiar with. For example, smart contracts for anti-money laundering or KYC.
Dean: NEO visited Seoul on the weekend for a community meet up. NEO enthusiasts would love to hear a brief report of what happened at the event.
Johnson: The first speaker was Da Hongfei, and he started with a story about some people we ran into in a burger restaurant who happened to be Bitcoin and NEO fans. They recognised Hongfei and had a photo. Those two boys were from Australia, and they were travelling in Seoul.
Then he went through NEO’s history, how we went through the ICOs and how we are right now in market cap, in Slack, in Reddit, how our coding style is and how many forks on GitHub we have.
Hongfei then discussed some community contributions such as the NEON wallet, NeoTracker.io and Morpheus, and also multi language documents. He also mentioned that in the future for community governance there will be the NEO Council, the NEO China team, City of Zion and more to come.
He then spoke about Red Pulse, one of the first token projects on NEO, which we call the ‘Bloomberg’ of blockchain, and also Qlink, which is a decentralised mobile network. A few more projects integrating with NEO that are very important to emphasise are Elastos, which is a blockchain powered internet, HPB (high performance blockchain) using NeoContract, and also Bancor and Loopring currency protocols.
Following this he ran through our roadmaps for Q4 and Q1 next year.
Hongfei went on to share with the community some information about Onchain. Most people might know, but Onchain is a for-profit VC backed company, and NEO is a non-profit community project.
Lastly, he shared the “Giveback Plan”. The program allows our seed round, ICO1 and ICO2 to receive a ‘giveback’ based on the token sale, the contribution period, and the RMB value at that time. I think we’re the first ones to do it. [An official announcement was made by NEO on the Sponsor Giveback Plan, which you can read about here]
Other speakers were Tony Tao, Secretary-General, NEO Council Secretariat, also speakers from Red Pulse and Qlink, and a higher graduate Peking University student, Miles Graham, who is contributing to the NEO community. He shared a bit about his view as a comparatively new person to the space on different markets in China and Korea and so on.
I can compile some of the talking points and slides from these presentations to make available to your readers.
[These documents can be accessed here.]
Dean: I think the number of events held by NEO in the form of development workshops and community meet ups is really encouraging to NEO enthusiasts. The majority of these events are held in Asia at the moment, but do you have plans to expand these more throughout the West?
Johnson: You know, during the Seoul meet up, there were more than just Koreans. There were Americans, Japanese and Swedish, and we ran into the Australian fans. But Malcolm is going to cover a lot more of Europe because of his natural linguistic connection and also his VISA convenience. We have a global plan, but we have limited hands and resources.
Dean: You were joined by both Red Pulse and Qlink at the Seoul meet up, who are both building their applications on NEO. And as you mentioned, other projects like Elastos, HPB and Bancor are integrating with NEO also. It must be encouraging to see such ambitious projects turning to NEO as their platform of choice. How do these relationships usually begin? Is NEO actively seeking projects to work with, or are you finding more developers are bringing their ideas to you?
Johnson: Good question. I think if you’re in the industry for long enough – long not meaning five to ten years, there is no ten year history – maybe even just a couple of months, you understand how people interact. People find each other. Sometimes we seek projects. Sometimes projects come to us.
During our visit to Seoul recently we also spoke to quite a few promising projects. Solid people who are very cautious and have ambitious plans. So they aren’t announcing anything, but I can see in those Korean people that they are very interested in NEO and would like to do something through us. I’m sorry I cannot share details right now because they have not decided anything yet, but the conversation is always open.
We also have Red Pulse who has accomplished something upon NEO. So Red Pulse is literally recommending NEO to everyone because they experienced how smoothly it went through.
Dean: If you were to pick one thing that you were most excited about on the NEO roadmap, what would that be?
Johnson: The cross chain protocol and the decentralised exchange, at least for the short term. Short term meaning within one year.
Dean: I like asking this of everyone close to the NEO project, but what is your personal vision for NEO five years from now?
Johnson: Honestly, five years is a long time. I think if you look at bio-scentific development and chips, everything is not very predictable. Even if you look at machine learning in Google AlphaGo, they’re progressing in a way you cannot believe because the algorithm teaches itself a lot faster than before the first shock. I think it’s an unstoppable trend that everything is going digital. And hopefully onto blockchain to be irreversible and trusted. I think in general, that’s the trend. I can’t estimate how big NEO will be, or how big Bitcoin or Ethereum will be.
But I think that conceptually, the core consensus algorithm is still progressing and evolving, and the blockchain performance is going to be even better than it already is. We’ll be able to process even more transactions than we can currently.
As for real life use cases, I can only say please expect more in the months to come. There could be more projects coming up that can be integrated with NEO, that could be very fundamental for the future, and more interest in a killer app.
Dean: Thank you so much for your time, and we’re all very excited to see what NEO has in store for the future!Ford motor company has apologised for an advert that portrayed Italy's former PM Silvio Berlusconi at the wheel of a car with three bound and gagged woman in the boot.
The advert, created by JWT (part of the WPP group) for the Figo in India, ran under the tagline: "Leave your worries behind with Figo's extra-large boot." The reference to Berlusconi's sexual affairs and bunga-bunga parties is clear as is the resemblance of one girl to Ruby the Heart-stealer.
A creative team at JWT India published the advert on website Ads of the World without approval.
Ford told Business Insider that it deeply regretted the incident. "It should have never happened," a spokesman said. The advert has been taken down.
"Together with our partners, we are reviewing approval and oversight processes to help ensure nothing like this ever happens again."
WPP Group said that the posters were "distasteful and contrary to the standard of professionalism and decency within WPP group".
"These were never intended for paid publication and should never have been created, let alone uploaded to the internet," the company said.
"This was the result of individuals acting without proper oversight and appropriate actions have been taken within the agency where they work to deal with the situation."
The advert caused embarrassment at a time when Italy is already embroiled in a diplomatic row with India for over two Italian marines who have been accused of shooting dead two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala.Child Support You Owe it, Pay it On Facebook
Have you seen the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” page On Facebook yet? We hadn’t either until a female supporter of this organization pointed it out to us and we think it contains some very valuable information that non-custodial families need to consider in their activism towards equally shared parenting, a more fair court system, and custodial parents who use their children to gain child support and social services benefits over allowing their ex-spouse to be an equal parent.
NC Fathers is an organization that advocates for all non-custodial parents, regardless of gender. It is very rare for us to get involved in a gender war with other groups, because quite frankly it does nothing. But the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” page On Facebook is one issue that needs addressing and unfortunately we find ourselves focusing just on non-custodial fathers in this case. However, with that said, if anyone reading this article finds a active organization of men that advocate for sole custody for fathers, or publicly slanders mothers then by all means bring it to our attention and we will act on it.
View our comprehensive list of family courts reform issues
To contact Facebook regarding the information contained in this blog, please use the following information:
Facebook Corporate Office Headquarters HQ, 2012 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, Corporate Phone Number: 1-650-853-1300 or email press@fb.com
Interestingly, the owner of this page seems to be advocating for her son. So what happens when her son becomes a man and father, meets a girl who gets pregnant by him, leaves him, works via the courts to dispose of him, then demands child support over equal parenting, and gets on social media to excoriate him? Great way to advocate for your sons ladies.
In looking at the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” page On Facebook, the first think that jumps out at you is the advocacy for violence and turning children against their fathers. Our organization, along with others will be filing an official complaint with Facebook’s headquarters very shortly in an attempt to take this page down, and we hope you will work with us to do it. Let’s take a look at many of the example memes you will find on the site:
Here is a meme that teaches children to hate their fathers because mom is a member of a Facebook page that claims he owes child support, so let’s use the child to drown dad. Thought women didn’t commit domestic violence?
Advocating for physical and sexual mutilation of men because mothers feel that they can’t pay child support. And Facebook is allowing this group of almost 10,000 members to advocate for that?
Another meme advocating that it is OK to tell a bedtime story to a child and a mother using her anger towards her ex-husband to malign her children.
Women in paternal families, how do you feel about the Mother’s of your grandchildren advocating for defecating on your son?
Another example of mothers on the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” Facebook page openly advocating for physical and domestic violence. And these mothers call themselves the better parent?
Advocating for the use of gun violence on a non-custodial dad because you have a child support conflict with him. Great, and they say Women never make jokes about domestic violence?
Do you think the admins and supporters of this Facebook page would advocate that custodial fathers commit domestic violence on Mothers? I’m guessing not.
Look, our organization has no problem with advocating for the enforcement of child support when a parent is purposefully absent in a child’s life and has no desire to be a parent even if that parent had the opportunity. The problem with this is I can guarantee you 90% of the people on the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” Facebook page would be the first in line to prevent their ex from having equal parenting if he wanted to in an effort to get child support. And, there are many reasons for a parent not paying child support that does not get addressed. And very little about this gets talked about.
This is one problem, the other problem is that Facebook’s terms of service forbids any type of gender discrimination. One would think that this Facebook page is against ALL parents who do not pay child support right? Not this organization, they are only interested in excoriating fathers who aren’t paying child support but giving mothers a free pass. How that helps all children who are supposed to be receiving child support is beyond us.
Here are some screenshots to make our point. Keep in mind that these screenshots are open to the public:
Here is a man who simply argues that parents who do not pay child support are not always men. This first comment by the admin of this Facebook Page is to call HIM a deadbeat parent:
Apparently this organization believes that there is not one mother in the world who has never payed child support:
Here is an instance of one of the admins on the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” Facebook page giving legal advice, a VERY strict boundary in the Facebook terms of service, yet nobody is calling them out on it:
More advocacy for domestic violence to collect child support:
Notice how on the memes below, the page admins have nothing to say:
Here is the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” Facebook page admins encouraging a mother to break what is clearly language spelled out in all child custody orders to not disparage the other parent in public. We have over 40 names and cities of women posting this stuff on the public Internet and Facebook Page, and will have a blog for each (like the one above) that no doubt the father will find eventually and be able to use in court. Sharon Dawson Holdstock, per your court order and regardless of your child support claims, are you supposed to be excoriating Mark Francis Webb from Braintree in Essex per your court order on the public Internet?
Another clear violation of Facebook’s Acceptable Use Policy:
Any one of these MEMES is grounds to have this Facebook page closed. This one should help Lawrence Bruce file an action in court against Sarah Clare when we get a blog up. And we have 38 screenshots and counting.
Lila Blake, are you supposed to be excoriating Alan Webster on the public Internet and Facebook? Alan, get up with us.
Cindy McPhail, are you supposed to be excoriating Louie Perry (your child’s father) on the Public Internet and Facebook per your court order?
Alisa Keckler Boodt, per your court order, are you supposed to be openly excoriating and slandering Daniel Davies on the public Internet just because you feel you have a child support complaint? Daniel Davies, contact us.
Niese Bock, are you supposed to be on the public Internet excoriating your child’s other parent, or are you supposed to handle this via the courts? Perhaps Santo Locicero needs to be contacted about a slander lawsuit against you?
Here is a word to the unfortunate many women who are finding themselves non-custodial parents and screaming about father’s rights organizations who are clearly re-defining the child custody laws, before you go screaming about these fathers, you need to look no further than the MANY groups on Facebook like the “Child Support You Owe it, Pay it” to see why there is an International movement in this area. I personally have never seen a father’s Rights group in existence today that advocates for sole custody of children to men as the default presumption in the family courts. For you mothers that don’t like hearing it, it is usually the mother’s rights advocating for it and it is causing women in paternal families and men into a movement about to redefine everything. With that in mind, it is important for non-custodial mothers to take issue with this Facebook page and others like it so that the family courts will stop the gender warfare and get down to establishing courts that empower both parents and not focus on getting child support over disparaging another parent.
Contact us to learn more about how you can officially make a complaint with Facebook over this page, because it is most certainly violating the social network’s terms of service and I believe many of the non-custodial parents names that we have captured have a contempt of court violation for many of the supporters of this page which we plan to expose in further blogs for them to find on the search engines.
Use the comment section below to give us feedback on this interesting organization and be sure to contact Facebook:
Facebook Corporate Office Headquarters HQ, 2012 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, California 94025, Corporate Phone Number: 1-650-853-1300 or email press@fb.com
AdvertisementsSoft-bodied cephalopods such as the octopus (Fig. 1a) show remarkable morphological departures from the basic molluscan body plan, including dexterous arms lined with hundreds of suckers that function as specialized tactile and chemosensory organs, and an elaborate chromatophore system under direct neural control that enables rapid changes in appearance1,8. The octopus nervous system is vastly modified in size and organization relative to other molluscs, comprising a circumesophageal brain, paired optic lobes and axial nerve cords in each arm2,3. Together these structures contain nearly half a billion neurons, more than six times the number in a mouse brain2,9. Extant coleoid cephalopods show extraordinarily sophisticated behaviours including complex problem solving, task-dependent conditional discrimination, observational learning and spectacular displays of camouflage1,10 (Supplementary Videos 1 and 2).
Figure 1: Octopus anatomy and gene family representation analysis. a, Schematic of Octopus bimaculoides anatomy, highlighting the tissues sampled for transcriptome analysis: viscera (heart, kidney and hepatopancreas), yellow; gonads (ova or testes), peach; retina, orange; optic lobe (OL), maroon; supraesophageal brain (Supra), bright pink; subesophageal brain (Sub), light pink; posterior salivary gland (PSG), purple; axial nerve cord (ANC), red; suckers, grey; skin, mottled brown; stage 15 (St15) embryo, aquamarine. Skin sampled for transcriptome analysis included the eyespot, shown in light blue. b, C2H2 and protocadherin domain-containing gene families are expanded in octopus. Enriched Pfam domains were identified in lophotrochozoans (green) and molluscs (yellow), including O. bimaculoides (light blue). For a domain to be labelled as expanded in a group, at least 50% of its associated gene families need a corrected P value of 0.01 against the outgroup average. Some Pfams (for example, Cadherin and Cadherin_2) may occur in the same gene, however multiple domains in a given gene were counted only once. Bfl, Branchiostoma floridae; Cel, Caenorhabditis elegans; Cgi, Crassostrea gigas; Cte, Capitella teleta; Dme, Drosophila melanogaster; Dre, Danio rerio; Gga, Gallus gallus; Hsa, Homo sapiens; Hro, Helobdella robusta; Lch, Latimeria chalumnae; Lgi, Lottia gigantea; Mmu, Mus musculus; Obi, O. bimaculoides; Pfu, Pinctada fucata; Xtr, Xenopus tropicalis. Full size image Download PowerPoint slide
To explore the genetic features of these highly specialized animals, we sequenced the Octopus bimaculoides genome by a whole-genome shotgun approach (Supplementary Note 1) and annotated it using extensive transcriptome sequence from 12 tissues (Methods and Supplementary Note 2). The genome assembly captures more than 97% of expressed protein-coding genes and 83% of the estimated 2.7 gigabase (Gb) genome size (Methods and Supplementary Notes 1, 2, 3). The unassembled fraction is dominated by high-copy repetitive sequences (Supplementary Note 1). Nearly 45% of the assembled genome is composed of repetitive elements, with two bursts of transposon activity occurring ∼25-million and ∼56-million years ago (Mya) (Supplementary Note 4).
We predicted 33,638 protein-coding genes (Methods and Supplementary Note 4) and found alternate splicing at 2,819 loci, but no locus showed an unusually high number of splice variants (Supplementary Note 4). A-to-G discrepancies between the assembled genome and transcriptome sequences provided evidence for extensive mRNA editing by adenosine deaminases acting on RNA (ADARs). Many candidate edits are enriched in neural tissues7 and are found in a range of gene families, including ‘housekeeping’ genes such as the tubulins, which suggests that RNA edits are more widespread than previously appreciated (Extended Data Fig. 1 and Supplementary Note 5).
Based primarily on chromosome number, several researchers proposed that whole-genome duplications were important in the evolution of the cephalopod body plan4,5,6, paralleling the role ascribed to the independent whole-genome duplication events that occurred early in vertebrate evolution11. Although this is an attractive framework for both gene family expansion and increased regulatory complexity across multiple genes, we found no evidence for it. The gene family expansions present in octopus are predominantly organized in clusters along the genome, rather than distributed in doubly conserved synteny as expected for a paleopolyploid12,13 (Supplementary Note 6.2). Although genes that regulate development are often retained in multiple copies after paleopolyploidy in other lineages, they are not generally expanded in octopus relative to limpet, oyster and other invertebrate bilaterians11,14 (Table 1 and Supplementary Notes 7.4 and 8).
Table 1: Metazoan developmental control genes Full size table
Hox genes are commonly retained in multiple copies following whole-genome duplication15. In O. bimaculoides, however, we found only a single Hox complement, consistent with the single set of Hox transcripts identified in the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes with PCR16. Remarkably, octopus Hox genes are not organized into clusters as in most other bilaterian genomes15, but are completely atomized (Extended Data Fig. 2 and Supplementary Note 9). Although we cannot rule out whole-genome duplication followed by considerable gene loss, the extent of loss needed to support this claim |
ಬೇಳೆ Marathi: उडीद uḍid
Malayalam: ഉഴുന്ന് uẓunu
Telugu: మినుములు minumulu and Uddhi Pappu in Rayalaseema
and Uddhi Pappu in Rayalaseema Tulu: urdu bele
Urdu: اورد دال urad dāl Its name in selected Indic languages, however, derives from Sanskrit masa Bengali: মাসকালাই ডাল mashkalai ḍal
Nepali: मास mās
Punjabi : دال ماش dāl māsh Other names include: Oriya: ବିରି ଡାଲି biri ḍāli
Sinhala : උඳු undu
Myanmar: မတ်ပဲ matpe
Vietnamese: đậu muồng ăn
Varieties Edit
Pant U-13
JU-2
Type-9
Barkha
Gwalior-2 Mutant varieties:CO-1 and Sarla. Spring season varieties:Prabha and AKU-4. First urad bean variety developed in - T9(1948).
See also EditGarner: Independent forensics lab on way to becoming model The new forensicsoperation in Houstonhas come a long wayto regaining public trust
A little over six months ago, the city of Houston, beset with controversy over problems with the Houston Police Department's crime lab, started down a tough, new path. The journey is one that will be watched closely by the forensic community nationally and internationally for its ambition and its scope.
The crime lab and forensic operations for decades been a part of HPD - sometimes with less-than-stellar results. Botched work ultimately would lead to the exoneration of three Harris County men. Earlier this year, the lab and forensics operation became an independent entity: the Houston Forensic Science Center Inc. The idea behind independence was to follow the call of a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences that said forensic operations should be independent of law enforcement and prosecutors to ensure science could be done without bias or the perception of bias. Across the country, others took steps in that direction. In Washington, D.C., the city's forensic operations became part of the health department. In a few states, such as Virginia and Arkansas, the forensic labs were established as departments outside the state police and state attorney's offices.
But Houston's move was unprecedented. Here, in Texas' largest city and the fourth-largest in the nation, the mayor decided to make a complete and clean break. The Houston Forensic Science Center would answer to a board of directors. Not to police. Not to prosecutors. Not even directly to the city. As a forensic scientist with some 30 years in the field, having overseen the construction and build-out of labs around the world, the concept so intrigued me I decided to ditch my retirement to help make this idea reality.
Now, just six months into the journey, Houston is well on its way to turning this experiment into a model for other cities and jurisdictions. Some highlights:
1 The eight disciplines in which we operate - DNA/biology, latent prints, controlled substances, toxicology, crime scene, firearms, forensic audio/video and digital forensics - are expanding.
1 Four of the disciplines were recently awarded high-level, international accreditation, and the Forensics Science Center is well on its way to getting similar accreditation for its other sections.
1 The center has been awarded two significant grants, including $1.26 million from the National Institute of Justice that will be used to purchase high-tech DNA-analyzing equipment that will help us increase our capacity.
1 We are seeking to offer our services to other law enforcement agencies, decreasing our reliance on the city for revenue.
1 A hefty project undertaken by the Houston Police Department to test more than 6,600 untested sexual assault kits is nearing closure. And the multidisciplinary team created to handle the project is seeking ways to continue its work to ensure that such a backlog never again exists and that rape victims are better served by the justice system.
And this is just the beginning. As others struggle with a similar backlog of untested kits, they can look to the Forensic Science Center for answers, and even help, on how to resolve the problem. When other labs and forensic operations are questioned about whether their scientists may be biased, they can come here to learn how to clear up those perceptions. We can assist others in understanding and overcoming the difficulties an organization and its personnel face when the transition is made from a law enforcement agency to a science-based civilian organization. We are learning as we grapple with some of these issues that they can be some of the least predictable, but most sensitive problems. While we ease this burden, we continue to expand our operations and invest in cutting-edge technology, determined to be a leader in the forensic field.
The road ahead of us is long as we work to regain the trust and confidence of the city's residents. We will need the continued support of the mayor and City Council to ensure the Forensic Science Center has the backing and funding it needs to make this experiment a success. We need to raise awareness in the city and regionally to increase our external revenue and so area residents understand how crucial it is for one of the nation's most rapidly growing cities to have a respected, efficient and viable forensic operation.
While there will certainly be bumps in the road, and the cultural transitions for those involved may not be easy at all times, justice is better-served when the forensic work can stand up to scrutiny. We're already there.
Daniel Garner is director of the Houston Forensic Science Center.Methamphetamine (METH) is an addictive psychostimulant whose societal impact is on the rise. Emerging evidence suggests that psychostimulants alter synaptic plasticity in the brain—which may partly account for their adverse effects. While it is known that METH increases the extracellular concentration of monoamines dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine, it is not clear how METH alters glutamatergic transmission. Within this context, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of acute and systemic METH on basal synaptic transmission and long-term potentiation (LTP; an activity-induced increase in synaptic efficacy) in CA1 sub-field in the hippocampus. Both the acute ex vivo application of METH to hippocampal slices and systemic administration of METH decreased LTP. Interestingly, the acute ex vivo application of METH at a concentration of 30 or 60 µM increased baseline synaptic transmission as well as decreased LTP. Pretreatment with eticlopride (D2-like receptor antagonist) did not alter the effects of METH on synaptic transmission or LTP. In contrast, pretreatment with D1/D5 dopamine receptor antagonist SCH23390 or 5-HT1A receptor antagonist NAN-190 abrogated the effect of METH on synaptic transmission. Furthermore, METH did not increase baseline synaptic transmission in D1 dopamine receptor haploinsufficient mice. Our findings suggest that METH affects excitatory synaptic transmission via activation of dopamine and serotonin receptor systems in the hippocampus. This modulation may contribute to synaptic maladaption induced by METH addiction and/or METH-mediated cognitive dysfunction.
Drugs of abuse, including METH, can cause long-lasting changes in neuronal systems [27], [28], and alter synaptic plasticity [29], [30]. There have been a number of reports on the effects of cocaine on hippocampal synaptic transmission [24], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], and although there are some reports concerning the effects of METH on synaptic transmission in the striatum [36] and hippocampus [37], the specific nature and pharmacology of METH-evoked changes in hippocampal plasticity are ill-defined. Here we examined the systemic and acute effects of METH on baseline synaptic transmission and long-term potentiation (LTP) in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. LTP is the potentiation of synapses caused by an induction event, such as high frequency stimulation, and is a ubiquitous model for studying long-lasting changes in the nervous system [38], [39], [40], [41], [42]. We discovered that acute ex vivo application of METH increased baseline excitatory synaptic transmission and decreased LTP at CA1 synapses. Furthermore, systemic administration of METH also decreased LTP. Our findings suggest that the effects of acutely applied METH on synaptic transmission appear to be mediated through the activation of both serotonergic and dopaminergic receptor systems. Some of this work has been published in abstract form [43].
The functional states of the hippocampus are under the control of many neuromodulators, including DA, 5-HT and NE. This mnemonic cortical structure receives DA input from the ventral tegmental area [17], NE input from the locus coeruleus [18], and 5-HT input from the raphe nuclei [19]. Although the hippocampus is not commonly thought to be involved in addictive behaviors, recent evidence demonstrates its involvement in psychostimulant responses and addiction. Activation of the subiculum (the main output of the hippocampal formation) has been directly implicated in the reinstatement of cocaine seeking behavior [20]. Indeed, it has recently been discovered that rats will self-administer METH directly into their hippocampus [21]. Developmental disruption of hippocampal connectivity results in increased self-administration of cocaine [22] and METH [23]. Hippocampal synaptic plasticity is bi-directionally modulated by cocaine self-administration [24]. Inactivation of hippocampal output attenuates cocaine seeking elicited by associative cues, as well as by cocaine injection [25], [26]. Because the hippocampus is implicated in the reinstatement of psychostimulant self-administration, and may even contribute to the rewarding properties of METH [21], it is critical to study the potential effects of METH in this brain region.
METH is a substrate for the dopamine transporter and profoundly increases the concentration of extracellular monoamines dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT), and norepinephrine (NE) by redistributing these neurotransmitters from synaptic vesicles to the cytosol, in addition to inducing reverse transport and competing for transmitter uptake at their cognate transporters [8]. METH also affects extracellular glutamate levels [9], [10], [11]. METH is pharmacokinetically distinct from other psychostimulants- its effects are longer lasting compared to other psychostimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine, with a plasma half-life in humans of approximately 12 hours [12], [13]. Likely due to its lipophilicity, METH is widely distributed in the human and rat brain, a property it does not share with other psychostimulants such as cocaine [14], [15], [16].
Methamphetamine (METH) is one of the most addictive drugs in existence. The illicit use of METH is a serious societal and public health problem that is rapidly accelerating [1]. Indeed, the 2006 Treatment Episode Dataset indicates the percentage of addiction treatment admissions due to METH/amphetamine abuse has risen from three percent in 1996 to nine percent in 2006 [2]. Although METH can be prescribed (to be taken PO, by mouth) to treat ADHD and obesity, drug abusers administer much larger doses [3], through faster administration routes than those used clinically. Sixty-five percent of those admitted for METH/amphetamine abuse reported smoking as the route of administration, eighteen percent reported injection, and 11 percent reported inhalation, [2]. The adverse effects of METH abuse are both short (e.g., cardiac arrhythmias, hyperthermia, insomnia, confusion [4], [5] and long-term (e.g., neurotoxicity, psychosis, cognitive impairments, addiction, changes in brain structure and function [3], [6], [7]. The neural mechanisms that underlie these behavioral responses are not completely known. Lack of such knowledge impedes evidence-based development of pharmacological intervention not only to treat addiction, but also to reverse damage caused by methamphetamine use.
Mice were injected with 10 mg/kg METH i.p. twice daily, at 7 AM and 7 PM for five days. Mice were then sacrificed for LTP assessment approximately 16 hours after their last injection of methamphetamine. No drugs were applied to slices taken from the systemic-exposed animals.
Drugs used in this project are commercially available (except for METH) from Tocris or Sigma-Aldrich. In all cases drugs were added to the aCSF for perfusion to slices. In METH only experiments, the drug was applied at t = 25 and washed out at t = 57, with tetanus at t = 55. Drug free control experiments for METH treated slices were also tetanized at t = 55. In co-application experiments, the first drug was applied at t = 25, the second at t = 55, both washed out at t = 87, with tetanus at t = 85. In control experiments for METH co-application experiments, drug was added at t = 25 and washed out at t = 87, with tetanus at t = 85. Slices taken from animals administered METH i.p. were tetanized at t = 25, and were not exposed to METH in the recording chamber.
Data were acquired with Clampex 10 and analyzed with Clampfit 10 software (Molecular Devices). The initial slope of the fEPSP (which provides a measure of the strength of excitatory synaptic transmission) was measured by fitting a straight line to the first millisecond of the fEPSP immediately following the fiber volley, and was monitored in real-time in every experiment. A stimulus-response curve was then determined using stimulation intensities between 10–130 µA. Baseline stimulation parameters were selected to evoke a response of 40–60% of the maximum slope. Baseline stimulation was then commenced at a frequency of 0.033 Hz for the entire length of the experiment. The paired-pulse protocol used in the systemic METH experiments consisted of two pulses at baseline intensity separated by 50 milliseconds. Control synaptic responses were normalized by dividing all slopes by the average of the 10 fEPSP slopes 5 minutes pre-tetanus. Since high dose METH caused a transient increase in baseline synaptic transmission, high dose METH synaptic responses were normalized by dividing all slopes by the average of the 10 fEPSP slopes 5 minutes pre-METH application. SCH23390 + METH responses were normalized by dividing all slopes by the average of the 10 fEPSP slopes 5 minutes pre-SCH23390 application. The tetanus event in the acute drug application studies consisted of four 100 Hz pulses with a 30 second inter-stimulus interval. The tetanus event in the systemic studies consisted of three 100 Hz pulses with a 30 second inter-stimulus interval. LTP was quantified as the normalized fEPSP response at 55–60 minutes post-tetanus. All baseline value comparisons were made 15–20 minutes post-drug application. Collected data was analyzed for statistical significance with an unpaired t-test, a paired t-test, or a one-way ANOVA followed by a Fisher's LSD post-hoc test, where applicable.
Extracellular recording electrodes (borosilicate glass, ∼1 µm tip) filled with aCSF were placed in the stratum radiatum of CA1. We chose to assess field excitatory post-synaptic potentials (fEPSPs) because they provide a reliable and stable measure of excitatory synaptic transmission. Dendritic fEPSP responses were evoked with a bipolar tungsten stimulating electrode (Rhodes, Inc) placed on either the CA3 or the subicular side of the recording electrode in the stratum radiatum. Responses were amplified using the Axoclamp-2A amplifier (Molecular Devices, Inc). The electrical stimulus consisted of a single square waveform of 0.3 msec duration given at intensities of 10–130 µA generated by a Grass S88 stimulator equipped with stimulus isolation unit PSIU6.
At higher concentrations, METH increases baseline synaptic transmission and decreases LTP. ( A ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Blue diamonds show results from drug free slices (A), red triangles (B–F) are from METH-treated slices. Error bars show ± SEM. Insets are 30-msec sweeps taken from representative experiments illustrating the average of fEPSPs 0–5 min prior to (solid line) and 55–60 min post-tetanus (dotted line, horizontal dashed lines are 1 mV apart). At 0.1 µM METH, LTP was 1.58±.08 [n = 13(5)] (Fig. 1B); at 1 µM METH, LTP was 1.50±.07 [n = 13(7)] (Fig. 1C); at 10 µM METH, LTP was 1.58±.07 [n = 14(8)] (Fig. 1D); at 30 µM METH, LTP was 1.37±.06 [n = 15(4)] (Fig. 1E); and at 60 µM METH, LTP was 1.32±.24 [n = 4(2)] (Fig. 1E). ( G ) Concentration-response for the effect of METH on LTP magnitude. * = P<0.05, ** = P<.01, *** = P<.001; different from drug free. Error bars depict mean ± SEM.
Acutely prepared hippocampal slices (400 µm) were obtained from anesthetized (Isoflurane) adult (2–4 months of age) mice. Transverse brain slices were dissected in ice cold, oxygenated (95% O 2 /5% CO 2 ) artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF) containing (mM): NaCl (125), KCL (2.5), KH 2 PO 4 (1.25), MgSO 4 (1.2), CaCl 2 (2), NaHCO 3 (25), and dextrose (10). The CA3 region was surgically removed from all slices ( Fig. 1A ). Slices were then transferred to a submerged recording chamber, which continuously superfused aCSF (saturated with 95% O 2 /5% CO 2 ) at a rate of 1.5 ml/minute, with temperature maintained at 30°C. The slices were allowed to recover from dissection for at least an hour in the recording chamber before experiments were begun.
(JAX: C57BL/6J) were housed in the AAALAC-certified animal care facility (ACF) at Meharry Medical College. Mice were maintained in an environment with ambient temperature between 22–24.5°C with a 12∶12-hour light/dark cycle and ad libitum access to food and water. For each experimental treatment mice were randomly assigned to different treatment groups. All experimental procedures complied with the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and were conducted with the approval of the Meharry Medical College Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
( A ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. The red triangles are from METH-treated mice; the blue diamonds show results from vehicle-treated subjects. Error bars are ± SEM. ( B ) Summary plot of paired-pulse facilitation measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. The red triangles are from METH-treated mice; the blue diamonds show results from vehicle-treated subjects. Error bars are ± SEM.
In addition to the acute drug exposure experiments, we tested the ability of METH to alter hippocampal synaptic plasticity in mice exposed to systemic METH. It has been shown that i.p. injection of METH decreases LTP of population spikes in CA1 [37], therefore we further assessed the effect of systemic METH exposure on hippocampal function by examining LTP of synaptic responses. Consistent with the acute-exposure studies, systemic exposure of METH resulted in deficient LTP. In vehicle-injected subjects, LTP was 1.43±.05 [n = 8(2)], whereas in METH-treated mice LTP (assessed 16 hours after the last METH injection) was significantly decreased to 1.22±.07 [n = 6(2)] ( Fig. 7A ). Stimulation of the CA1 Schaffer collaterals in quick succession (from tens to hundreds of milliseconds) results in the facilitation of the second synaptic response [67]. This phenomena is referred to as paired-pulse facilitation (PPF), and is thought to be due to an increase in the probability of glutamate release [68], [69] due to residual presynaptic calcium [70], [71], [72], [73]. Paired pulse facilitation was not altered by METH exposure ( Fig. 7B ), suggesting systemic METH does not induce a lasting change in the probability of action-potential dependent presynaptic neurotransmitter release.
We examined whether the effect of METH on baseline synaptic transmission could have a serotonergic etiology, as well as a dopaminergic component. A serotonergic mechanism for the increase in baseline synaptic transmission is possible, since serotonin can reduce inhibition of excitatory synaptic transmission in the CA1 region of the hippocampus via activation of 5-HT1A receptors [65]. We observed that pretreatment with serotonin 5-HT1A competitive antagonist NAN-190 (0.5 µM) blocked the effects of METH (30 µM) on synaptic transmission. The magnitude of fEPSPs 15–20 minutes after NAN-190 and METH application was 0.99±.01 [n = 6(4)] ( Fig. 6B, t = 50–55 compared to t = 70–75). These results suggest METH-mediated effects on glutamatergic transmission can be modulated by the serotonergic system in the hippocampus. It has been shown that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor fluvoxamine, which increases extrasynaptic serotonin, decreases LTP by a mechanism mediated by 5-HT1A receptors [66]. To test whether the inhibitory effect of METH on LTP also is mediated via activation of 5-HT1A receptors, we measured METH-mediated decrease in LTP when NAN-190 is co-applied. LTP in the presence of NAN-190 (0.5 µM) was 1.67±.11 [n = 8(6)], not significantly different from LTP in METH (30 µM) slices pretreated with NAN-190 (1.51±.06 [n = 6(4)] ( Fig. 6A,B )). This data suggests a serotonergic component to the modulatory effect of METH in the hippocampus.
( A,B ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. The red triangles (B) are from NAN-190 (0.5 µM) and METH (30 µM) treated slices; the blue diamonds (A) show results from NAN-190 (0.5 µM) experiments. Error bars are ± SEM. Insets are 30-msec sweeps taken from representative experiments illustrating the average fEPSP 0–5 min prior to (solid line) and 55–60 min post-tetanus (dotted line, horizontal dashed lines are 1 mV apart).
( A,B ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus of D1 +/− mice. The red triangles (B) are from METH (30 µM) treated slices; the blue diamonds (A) show results from drug-free experiments. Error bars are ± SEM. Insets are 30-msec sweeps taken from representative experiments illustrating the average fEPSP 0–5 min prior to (solid line) and 55–60 min post-tetanus (dotted line, horizontal dashed lines are 1 mV apart). ( C,D ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus of D5 +/− mice. The red triangles (B) are from METH (30 µM) treated slices; the blue diamonds (A) show results from drug-free experiments. Error bars are ± SEM. Insets are 30-msec sweeps taken from representative experiments illustrating the average fEPSP 0–5 min prior to (solid line) and 55–60 min post-tetanus (dotted line, horizontal dashed lines are 1 mV apart).
Since no known D1 or D5-selective receptor antagonists exist, in order to further characterize the effects of METH, we utilized D1 and D5 receptor haploinsufficient mice. D1 or D5 dopamine receptor knockout/haploinsufficient mice [61], [62], [63], [64] have eliminated/reduced D1 or D5 dopamine receptor expression, respectively. We found that METH increased baseline synaptic transmission in D5 receptor haploinsufficient mice only, and was ineffective in D1 +/− mice. Normalized fEPSPs were increased 15–20 minutes after 30 µM METH in D5 +/− slices to 1.07±.01 [n = 6(3)] ( Fig. 5D, P <0.05). Baseline synaptic transmission was not significantly enhanced compared to 15–20 minutes after METH in D1 receptor +/− slices to 1.03±.01 [n = 9(5)] ( Fig. 6B, P <0.05). We also assessed LTP in D1 and D5 receptor haploinsufficient mice under drug free and METH-exposed conditions, finding no significant differences. LTP in drug free D5 receptor +/− mice was 1.27±.07 [n = 6(3)], while the addition of METH had no significant effect, resulting in an LTP magnitude of 1.23±.03 [n = 6(3)] ( Fig. 5C,D ). LTP in drug-free slices derived from D1 receptor +/− mice was 1.51±.11 [n = 9(5)], while the magnitude of LTP in the presence of METH decreased to 1.33±.08 [n = 9(5)] in D1 +/− slices ( Fig. 5A,B ).
( A,B ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. The red triangles (B) are from SCH23390 (5 µM) and METH (30 µM) treated slices; the blue diamonds (A) show results from SCH23390 (5 µM) experiments. Error bars are ± SEM. Insets are 30-msec sweeps taken from representative experiments illustrating the average fEPSP 0–5 min prior to (solid line) and 55–60 min post-tetanus (dotted line, horizontal dashed lines are 1 mV apart).
D1/D5 receptor agonists can induce an LTP-like potentiation in the CA1 area of the hippocampus [54], [55]. Others have demonstrated that the application of D1/D5 agonist increases LTP in the CA1 [56], [57], [58]. Since METH profoundly increases the concentration of extracellular dopamine, it is feasible that application of METH may have induced dopamine release to mediate a dopamine-receptor dependent increase in baseline synaptic transmission. To test the involvement of D1-like dopamine receptors, we utilized D1/D5-selective dopamine receptor antagonist SCH23390. Interestingly, SCH23390 increased baseline synaptic transmission when applied alone, an effect not observed with shorter application times (5–10 minutes) at the same concentration [56]. The magnitude of normalized fEPSPs 15–20 minutes after 5 µM SCH23390 application was 1.12±.03 [n = 7(4)] ( Fig. 4A, t = 20–25 compared to t = 40–45, P<0.05). Furthermore, the addition of METH to the slices pretreated with SCH23390 did not induce a further increase in fEPSPs ( Fig. 4B ), suggesting that D1/D5 receptor activation is involved in the METH-mediated increase in baseline synaptic transmission. Consistent with previous findings [59], [60], we found that blockade of D1/D5-like receptors with SCH23390 decreased LTP. LTP was not significantly decreased by METH in slices pretreated D1/D5 antagonist compared to slices treated with SCH23390 alone. LTP in the presence of SCH23390 was 1.40±.10 [n = 7(4)], and 1.33±.07 [n = 8(4)] with SCH23390 plus METH ( Fig. 4A,B ).
( A,B ) Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. The red triangles (B) are from eticlopride (1 µM) and METH (30 µM) treated slices; the blue diamonds (A) show results from eticlopride (1 µM) experiments. Error bars are ± SEM. Insets are 30-msec sweeps taken from representative experiments illustrating the average fEPSP 0–5 min prior to (solid line) and 55–60 min post-tetanus (dotted line, horizontal dashed lines are 1 mV apart).
Since METH increases the concentration of extracellular dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine [8], we considered the likelihood that METH's effects on baseline synaptic transmission and/or LTP could be mediated via these receptor systems. Interestingly, in the CA1 of rat hippocampus cocaine [31] and GBR12935 [53] (drugs with increase the concentration of extracellular monoamines) increase LTP by activation of D2-like dopamine receptors. Therefore, we assessed whether a D2-like receptor antagonist (eticlopride) could be effective in blocking the effects of METH. We found that eticlopride (a D2-selective receptor antagonist), at a concentration that effectively blocks a cocaine-mediated increase in hippocampal LTP [31], neither altered baseline synaptic transmission on its own, nor affected the METH-mediated increase in synaptic transmission when co-applied with METH. The normalized magnitude of fEPSPs 15–20 minutes after 1 µM eticlopride and 30 µM METH application was significantly increased to 1.16±.02 [n = 4(4)] ( Fig. 3B, t = 50–55 compared to t = 70–75, P<0.05). D2-like dopamine receptor blockade also did not attenuate the effects of METH on LTP. LTP in the presence of eticlopride alone was 1.57±.09 [n = 3(3)], while METH still decreased LTP in slices pretreated with eticlopride (1.30±.04, [n = 4(4)] ( Fig. 3A,B, P <0.05)).
LTP induction in the CA1 region of the hippocampus is predominantly mediated by NMDA receptors [48], [49], [50]. It has also been observed that METH enhances NMDA-mediated synaptic transmission [51]. To examine the possible involvement of NMDA receptors in our observed METH-induced increase in baseline synaptic transmission, we applied METH to slices pretreated with 50 µM of the NMDA receptor antagonist dl-2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (DL-APV), a concentration shown previously to block NMDA-mediated currents [52]. DL-APV applied alone did not change fEPSP slopes ( Fig. 2B ) or affect the ability of METH (30 µM) to increase excitatory synaptic transmission. Thus, fEPSPs observed 15–20 minutes after application of DL-APV plus METH are significantly increased to 1.14±.04 [n = 8(4)] ( Fig. 2B, P <0.05). These changes in fEPSP are similar to those evoked by METH alone ( Fig. 1E ), suggesting that the METH-evoked increase in synaptic transmission we have discovered is NMDA receptor independent.
Also, METH effects on baseline synaptic transmission are not dependent on NMDA receptors. ( A ) METH increase in synaptic transmission is not long-lasting, and does not require stimulation. Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Results are from METH-treated slices. Stimulator turned off from t = 15 to t = 30. Error bars show ± SEM. ( B ) The effects of METH on baseline synaptic transmission are not altered by blockade of NMDA receptors. Summary plot of normalized fEPSP slope measurements recorded in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Result are from DL-APV + METH-treated slices. Error bars show ± SEM.
Some forms of plasticity require glutamatergic activation [47]. To assess whether the observed increase of baseline synaptic transmission we observed was dependent on glutamatergic activation, we assessed the effect of 30 µM METH on fEPSPs with the stimulator turned off during the first 15 minutes of drug application. Under these conditions, METH increased fEPSPs 15–20 minutes after drug was added to the perfusion bath ( Fig. 2A ). Following a wash out period (as in Fig. 1, but without tetanus) we found that the effect on synaptic transmission is transient, decreasing to pre-drug baseline within ∼60 minutes ( Fig. 2A ). These results indicate that the correct normalization point for studies where METH induces an increase in synaptic transmission is before METH application, since the effect is gone within 60 min.
Using ex vivo slice preparations derived from the CA1 region of the mouse hippocampus, we first assessed the impact of METH on synaptic plasticity. After establishing fEPSPs (average amplitude at baseline for all experiments was ∼2 mV, see sweeps in Fig. 1 ), we examined the effects of acute METH application on LTP. METH was administered to the slices over the range of 0.1–60 µM. The rationale for these particular concentrations derives from previous in vivo studies demonstrating that a 4 mg/kg i.p. injection of METH results in a concentration of about 10 µM in the mouse brain [45], whereas a 1 mg/kg i.v. infusion also results in a similar concentration in rats [46]. For humans, a dose of 30 mg i.v. is estimated to result in a concentration of 14 µM in the brain [14]. METH abusers commonly inject dosages of tens to hundreds of milligrams [3] ; therefore, we investigated a wide range of METH concentrations that included low and high concentrations of METH that are within a clinically-relevant concentration range. In drug-free control slices, we observed that robust LTP was produced and maintained throughout the 60-min post tetanus. LTP magnitude 55–60 minutes post-tetanus in control slices was 1.82±.08 [n = 10(5)] (all n values are represented in the format [n = number of slices (number of animals)]) ( Fig. 1A ). METH significantly decreased LTP compared to control at concentrations ≥0.1 µM ( Fig. 1 ). At 30 µM and 60 µM, METH also increased baseline synaptic transmission. As shown in Fig. 1E, the magnitude of baseline synaptic responses in the apical dendritic area of the CA1, measured as changes to the fEPSP slope, increased during a 30 min application of 30 µM METH. The magnitude of normalized fEPSPs 15–20 minutes after 30 µM METH application (t = 20–25 compared to t = 40–45) was significantly increased to 1.12±.01 [n = 15(4)] ( Fig. 1E, P <0.05), the fEPSP slope increased from −1.15±.10 to −1.29±.11 millivolts/millisecond (P<.001, paired t-test). The magnitude of normalized fEPSPs 15–20 minutes after 60 µM METH application (t = 20–25 compared to t = 40–45) was significantly increased to 1.20±.05 [n = 4(2)] ( Fig. 1F, P <0.05). These changes in synaptic transmission observed at 30 µM and 60 µM METH did not occur at lower drug concentrations ( Fig. 1A–D ). Our data demonstrates that METH can increase glutamatergic transmission in the absence of tetanic stimulation. Since both 30 µM and 60 µM METH produced consistent and significant effects on both synaptic transmission and LTP, we chose to use the more clinically relevant concentration of 30 µM in all subsequent acute-exposure experiments.
Discussion
The present study provides insight about the unique effects of METH in the hippocampus. First, acute ex vivo application of METH to hippocampal slices increases baseline synaptic transmission, independent of NMDA receptor activation. Second, these effects are mediated via activation of serotonergic and dopaminergic receptor systems (also see figure S1). Third, both systemic and ex vivo METH decrease hippocampal LTP; the systemic results in accord with a previous report from Dr. Chirwa's lab [37]. These findings contribute to our understanding of the impact of METH on hippocampal function.
We found at 30 and 60 µM METH increased baseline synaptic transmission in our preparation. This effect was not diminished by the blockade of NMDA receptors with DL-APV, indicating the observed increase in fEPSPs caused by METH is NMDA receptor-independent. Interestingly, METH also increased fEPSPs in the absence of stimulation (Fig. 2A). This may suggest the increase in synaptic transmission we have observed is induced by the action-potential independent release of monoamines [8], [74], however, action potentials occur in hippocampal slices independent of electrical stimulation [ |
kindergarten grandchildren. But recently, there has been a new addition: a photograph of me, their grandson, being placed under arrest in a Jewish Black Lives Matter protest, part of a civil disobedience led by seven Jewish people of color, myself included. In the background of the photo, a protester blows a shofar, the ram’s horn—a call for renewal, repentance, for justice.
I didn’t expect them to put up the photo when I emailed them about the protest last summer. But there it was, taped conspicuously to the front door, when I arrived for Rosh Hashanah 5777. Fittingly, it’s a year the Jewish left is calling the year of Jewish Resistance.
Baldwin is right. There are no white people, only those who choose to collude with whiteness. I take heart in the fact that the moral choice—to acknowledge white privilege while working to dismantle the system that confers it—remains open.
This article was originally published on Unruly, a racial justice blog by the Jews of Color Caucus organized in partnership with Jewish Voice for Peace.Bitcoin crossed $1,800 Thursday for the first time ever, although it pulled back to around $1,780.35 as of Friday morning. Jim Cramer talked Bitcoin this week in his monthly Trading Strategies roundtable with four of TheStreet's top columnists.
Panelists noted that people are using the so-called "cryptocurrency" to store value. For instance, the panel speculated that people in Venezuela -- where the economy seems on the brink of collapse -- might turn to Bitcoin rather than gold because governments can seize precious metals but not Bitcoin.
The panel also discussed Bitcoin ETFs, which are one of the only ways to short the currency.
Click here to watch the entire Trading Strategies roundtable, or here to see detailed advice on how to play markets this month. You can also get Jim Cramer's latest insights on markets every trading day at Real Money, our premium site for active traders.
(This item has been updated with the latest Bitcoin prices.)Filmmaker Michael Moore responded to Britain’s vote to leave the European Union by begging Brussels to consider the U.S. as its replacement.
“Europe, u are better off w/o Brits! Now that there’s a vacancy, take us! We want what Europe has: free health care, free college, real beer!” the director tweeted early Friday.
Mr. Moore directed the documentary “Sicko” in 2007, which touted communist Cuba’s health care as a model that U.S. politicians should look to for legislative inspiration.
“Hail Trumptannia! Fear Wins Out In UK. Britain votes to ‘build a ‘wall’ by leaving EU. Hatred of immigrants, xenophobia, nationalism reign,” Mr. Moore continued.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump soon weighed in on the referendum while speaking at Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland.
“I think it’s a great thing that’s happened. It’s an amazing vote, very historic,” Mr. Trump said. “People are angry all over the world. They’re angry over borders, they’re angry over people coming into the country and taking over and nobody even knows who they are. They’re angry about many, many things in the U.K., the U.S. and many other places. This will not be the last.”
Prime Minister David Cameron reacted to the outcome by announcing his resignation. He plans to step down by October.
“The British people have made the very clear decision to take a different path and as such I think the country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,” Mr. Cameron said during a Friday press conference from 10 Downing Street. “I do not think it would be right for me to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.”
Reaction to Mr. Moore’s public desire to have the U.S. absorbed into the European Union was swift.
“Move to someplace ‘better’ than the nation of your birth. You embarrass us,” responded Alo Konsen.
“YOU want what Europe has. I prefer sovereignty and freedom,” added another.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Big Data in Leases: When the Landlord Wants the Data
In my previous post, I discussed some ideas for drafting a lease to make sure that the tenant owns the farm data created during the lease. Another scenario arises when the landlord wants control of the farm data generated by the tenant. This might be the case where the landlord makes land management decisions, such as what to plant, how much fertilizer to apply, when to spray pesticides, etc. In this type of situation, different provisions need to be included in the lease than suggested in my previous post.
When a landlord wants to own the farm data during and after a lease, I recommend at least three provisions be added to the lease: (a) a definition of “Farm Data”; (b) a provision establishing who owns “Farm Data”; and (c) a provision establishing what happens to “Farm Data” at the end of the lease. Here is how this might look:
Landlord and tenant recognize that tenant’s farming of the leased farmland during the term of the lease will generate agronomic data, including information related to soil, water, seed variety, crop health, crop maturity, disease, nutrients, fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, yield etc., in various digital forms, including files, imagery, records, video, photos, etc. (“Farm Data”). Tenant assigns all rights to Farm Data to landlord and relinquishes tenant’s rights in the same. Tenant shall cause all Farm Data to be transferred to landlord on or before December 31st each year by a mutually acceptable method of data transfer. Landlord is the exclusive owner of all Farm Data generated on the leased farmland during the lease term. Landlord shall have all rights associated with Farm Data ownership, including deletion, transfer, sale, and disclosure rights. At the conclusion of the lease, landlord shall retain ownership of all Farm Data. Tenant shall delete any copies of Farm Data under tenant's possession, custody, or control.
These provisions are for discussion purposes only. You should contact your attorney to make sure your lease has the exact provisions you need.ABC News host Jonathan Karl on Sunday suggested that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was guilty of hypocrisy because he slammed President Barack Obama for the automatic spending cuts in the so-called sequester — even though congressman had personally praised it in the past.
“Don’t forget it was the president who proposed the sequester, it’s the president who designed the sequester,” Ryan told Karl, adding that he had concluded that Congress was not going to be able to avoid the automatic cuts because Democrats refused to accept Republicans’ proposal for “smarter cuts in other area of government.”
“Congressman, I’ve heard you say this, and this has been a talking point for Republicans for a long time,” Karl interrupted. “But let’s look at your own words, what you said right after the law putting this in place was passed in August of 2011. These are your words. You said, ‘What conservatives like me have been fighting for for years are statutory caps on spending, literally legal caps in law that says government agencies cannot spend over a set amount of money and if they breach that amount across the board sequester comes in to cut that spending. You can’t turn it out without a supermajority. We got that into law.'”
“Now, it sounds to me there like if you weren’t taking credit for the idea of the sequester, you were certainly suggesting it was a good idea,” Karl pointed out.
“So those are the budget caps on discretionary spending. Those occurred. We want those,” Ryan insisted. “The sequester that we’re talking about now is backing up the super committee. Remember the Super Committee — in addition to those caps — was supposed to come up with 1.2 trillion in savings. The Republicans on the Super Committee offered even higher revenues in exchange for spending cuts as part of that. It was rejected by the president and the Democrats. So no resolution occurred and therefore the sequester is occurring.”
“The Senate Democrats on Friday did come out with a plan to replace these cuts,” Karl noted. “It’s half spending cuts and half tax revenue increases.”
“The president got his tax increases last year,” the former vice presidential nominee asserted. “What is the goal that we are trying to achieve here? We want economic growth, we want job creation, we want people to go back to work, we want to prevent a debt crisis from hurting those that are most vulnerable in society from giving us a European-like economy. In order to do that, you’ve got to get the debt and deficit under control, you’ve got to grow the economy. So if you take tax loopholes [away] to fuel more spending — which is what they are proposing here — then you are preventing tax reform, which we think is necessary to end crony capitalism.”
“And you’re saying, no tax increases — period — to pay for this?” Karl wondered.
“That’s right,” Ryan agreed.
Watch this video from ABC’s This Week via Think Progress, broadcast Feb. 17, 2013.Baahubali 2 has done the unthinkable. It has given us the moment that all Indians have been waiting for. The film that has been crashing records every now and then has become the first film to cross the big billion mark at the box office.
The SS Rajamouli film starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Sathyaraj, Anushka Shetty and Ramya Krishnan has turned out to be the biggest Indian film ever. The craze, the hype and the euphoria has been tremendous right from Day 1 and finally, we can see all of it culminating into something huge.
The film raked in Rs 200 crore worldwide gross on its opening day itself and in a matter of 8 days, it has crossed the Rs 1000 crore mark too. Baahubali 2 is the first Indian film to achieve this. So it's a moment of huge pride and victory for all Indians as Baahubali 2 takes the legacy of Indian cinema way ahead and puts it right ahead of other films on the global map.
The film raked in over Rs 600 crore nett in India alone. That also means that the gross figure for Baahubali 2 in India alone stands at around Rs 800 crore. Not just in India, the film has outperformed all other Indian films in the overseas markets too. The film has raked in over Rs 200 crore gross across the world, from all its versions.
The film has already crossed the Big Billion mark at the global BO and it has set new standards of filmmaking for Indians. While the 1000 crore club looked like a distant dream, Baahubali 2 has now become the official founder member of the brigade. Let's celebrate!About 2000 men, women, and teenagers currently wait on America's "death row." Their time grows shorter as federal and state courts increasingly ratify death penalty laws, allowing executions to proceed at an accelerated rate. It's unlikely that any of these executions will make the front page, having become more or less a matter of routine in the last decade. Indeed, recent public opinion polls show a wide margin of support for the death penalty. But human rights advocates and civil libertarians continue to decry the immorality of state-sanctioned killing in the U.S., the only western industrialized country that continues to use the death penalty. Is capital punishment moral?
Capital punishment is often defended on the grounds that society has a moral obligation to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens. Murderers threaten this safety and welfare. Only by putting murderers to death can society ensure that convicted killers do not kill again.
Second, those favoring capital punishment contend that society should support those practices that will bring about the greatest balance of good over evil, and capital punishment is one such practice. Capital punishment benefits society because it may deter violent crime. While it is difficult to produce direct evidence to support this claim since, by definition, those who are deterred by the death penalty do not commit murders, common sense tells us that if people know that they will die if they perform a certain act, they will be unwilling to perform that act.
If the threat of death has, in fact, stayed the hand of many a would be murderer, and we abolish the death penalty, we will sacrifice the lives of many innocent victims whose murders could have been deterred. But if, in fact, the death penalty does not deter, and we continue to impose it, we have only sacrificed the lives of convicted murderers. Surely it's better for society to take a gamble that the death penalty deters in order to protect the lives of innocent people than to take a gamble that it doesn't deter and thereby protect the lives of murderers, while risking the lives of innocents. If grave risks are to be run, it's better that they be run by the guilty, not the innocent.
Finally, defenders of capital punishment argue that justice demands that those convicted of heinous crimes of murder be sentenced to death. Justice is essentially a matter of ensuring that everyone is treated equally. It is unjust when a criminal deliberately and wrongly inflicts greater losses on others than he or she has to bear. If the losses society imposes on criminals are less than those the criminals imposed on their innocent victims, society would be favoring criminals, allowing them to get away with bearing fewer costs than their victims had to bear. Justice requires that society impose on criminals losses equal to those they imposed on innocent persons. By inflicting death on those who deliberately inflict death on others, the death penalty ensures justice for all.
This requirement that justice be served is not weakened by charges that only the black and the poor receive the death penalty. Any unfair application of the death penalty is the basis for extending its application, not abolishing it. If an employer discriminates in hiring workers, do we demand that jobs be taken from the deserving who were hired or that jobs be abolished altogether? Likewise, if our criminal justice system discriminates in applying the death penalty so that some do not get their deserved punishment, it's no reason to give Iesser punishments to murderers who deserved the death penalty and got it. Some justice, however unequal, is better than no justice, however equal. To ensure justice and equality, we must work to improve our system so that everyone who deserves the death penalty gets it.
The case against capital punishment is often made on the basis that society has a moral obligation to protect human life, not take it. The taking of human life is permissible only if it is a necessary condition to achieving the greatest balance of good over evil for everyone involved. Given the value we place on life and our obligation to minimize suffering and pain whenever possible, if a less severe alternative to the death penalty exists which would accomplish the same goal, we are duty-bound to reject the death penalty in favor of the less severe alternative.
There is no evidence to support the claim that the death penalty is a more effective deterrent of violent crime than, say, life imprisonment. In fact, statistical studies that have compared the murder rates of jurisdictions with and without the death penalty have shown that the rate of murder is not related to whether the death penalty is in force: There are as many murders committed in jurisdictions with the death penalty as in those without. Unless it can be demonstrated that the death penalty, and the death penalty alone, does in fact deter crimes of murder, we are obligated to refrain from imposing it when other alternatives exist.
Further, the death penalty is not necessary to achieve the benefit of protecting the public from murderers who may strike again. Locking murderers away for life achieves the same goal without requiring us to take yet another life. Nor is the death penalty necessary to ensure that criminals "get what they deserve." Justice does not require us to punish murder by death. It only requires that the gravest crimes receive the severest punishment that our moral principles would allow us to impose.
While it is clear that the death penalty is by no means necessary to achieve certain social benefits, it does, without a doubt, impose grave costs on society. First, the death penalty wastes lives. Many of those sentenced to death could be rehabilitated to live socially productive lives. Carrying out the death penalty destroys any good such persons might have done for society if they had been allowed to live. Furthermore, juries have been known to make mistakes, inflicting the death penalty on innocent people. Had such innocent parties been allowed to live, the wrong done to them might have been corrected and their lives not wasted.
In addition to wasting lives, the death penalty also wastes money. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it's much more costly to execute a person than to imprison them for life. The finality of punishment by death rightly requires that great procedural precautions be taken throughout all stages of death penalty cases to ensure that the chance of error is minimized. As a result, executing a single capital case costs about three times as much as it costs to keep a person in prison for their remaining life expectancy, which is about 40 years.
Finally, the death penalty harms society by cheapening the value of life. Allowing the state to inflict death on certain of its citizens legitimizes the taking of life. The death of anyone, even a convicted killer, diminishes us all. Society has a duty to end this practice which causes such harm, yet produces little in the way of benefits.
Opponents of capital punishment also argue that the death penalty should be abolished because it is unjust. Justice, they claim, requires that all persons be treated equally. And the requirement that justice bc served is all the more rigorous when life and death are at stake. Of 19,000 people who committed willful homicides in the U.S. in 1987, only 293 were sentenced to death. Who are these few being selected to die? They are nearly always poor and disproportionately black. It is not the nature of the crime that determines who goes to death row and who doesn't. People go to death row simply because they have no money to appeal their case, or they have a poor defense, or they lack the funds to being witnesses to courts, or they are members of a political or racial minority.
The death penalty is also unjust because it is sometimes inflicted on innocent people. Since 1900, 350 people have been wrongly convicted of homicide or capital rape. The death penalty makes it impossible to remedy any such mistakes. If, on the other hand, the death penalty is not in force, convicted persons later found to be innocent can be released and compensated for the time they wrongly served in prison.
The case for and the case against the death penalty appeal, in different ways, to the value we place on life and to the value we place on bringing about the greatest balance of good over evil. Each also appeals to our commitment to"justice": Is justice to be served at all costs? Or is our commitment to justice to be one tempered by our commitment to equality and our reverence for life? Indeed, is capital punishment our duty or our doom?
(Capital punishment) is... the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated.. can be compared... For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.
--Albert Camus
If... he has committed a murder, he must die. In this case, there is no substitute that will satisfy the requirements of legal justice. There is no sameness of kind between death and remaining alive even under the most miserable conditions, and consequently there is no equality between the crime and the retribution unless the criminal is judicially condemned and put to death.--Immanuel Kant
For further reading:
Hugo Adam Bedau, Death Is Different: Studies in the Morality, Law, and Politics of Capital Punishment (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987).
Walter Berns, For Capital Punishment (New York: Basic Books, 1979.)
David Bruch, "The Death Penalty: An Exchange," The New Republic, Volume 192 (May 20, 1985), pp. 20-21.
Edward I. Koch, "Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life," The New Republic, Volume 192 (April 15,1985), pp. 13-15.
Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad, The Death Penalty: A Debate (New York: Plenum Press, 1983).
This article was originally published in Issues in Ethics - V. 1, N.3 Spring 1988Plucking an old jazz album from his imposing wall of wax, Mike Grellman points to a smoke-stained edge on the front cover. The day he bought the record, Grellman asked the store’s owner about the stains on it and a few other rare albums in the bin.
“The guy’s wife found a receipt for one of his LPs, and tried to set fire to his collection,” he says.
The world’s most dangerous hobbies: Skydiving. Mountain climbing. Audiophilia.
A Sonic Bunker
Walking through his ranch-style suburban home, Grellman starts counting off the number of doors between the master bedroom and his listening room, our destination. “One, two, three, four.” Evidently, this amount of insulation is required to keep his marriage intact. When we reach his hi-fi lair, a renovated double garage, Grellman goes into detail about how he tore apart and rebuilt the walls to create a suitable listening environment. It was unclear if he tackled this project before or after the moving boxes were unpacked.
Two speakers are centered in the room, each weighing 500 pounds and standing about five feet high. Tethered to each speaker is a thick black cable leading to twin monoblock amplifiers on the floor, each with an array of dimly glowing vacuum tubes poking out the top. These dedicated speaker amps are connected to another half dozen or so amps and preamps on shelves along the side wall, which power the turntable and other front-end components. Along the back wall are the records — several thousand of them, some rare and valuable, but many others from the dollar bins.
“Sit on the crack,” Grellman instructs me, pointing to a small couch with two cushions centered about 10 feet in front of the speakers.
Grellman is a Rolling Stones fanatic, and he leads off with a live-in-the-studio version of Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain.” Every fluctuation in Jagger’s voice and each pluck of Richards’ guitar strings sounds amazingly alive and detailed, with a deep, airy soundstage that only grows bigger as more instruments enter the mix. The system quickly sucks you in and demands your attention. It’s a far more vivid musical experience than anything I’ve encountered outside of a nightclub.
“On a late night after a bad day, with a glass of wine and good power, this reminds me of seeing the Stones in a smaller venue in 1981,” Grellman says. “You get that feeling you got, and it’s closer to that event to anything I’ve ever had. This system puts me there.”Trucks Full Of Cash: U.S. Firms Make Plans For Greece Euro Exit
Enlarge this image toggle caption Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images
European leaders have vowed to do all they can to keep the eurozone intact, but U.S. companies are making contingency plans in case Greece is forced to leave the currency union.
The New York Times said major U.S. banks and corporations are "preparing for what was once unthinkable" — Greece's exit from the eurozone:
"Bank of America Merrill Lynch has looked into filling trucks with cash and sending them over the Greek border so clients can continue to pay local employees and suppliers in the event money is unavailable. Ford has configured its computer systems so they will be able to immediately handle a new Greek currency."
The newspaper adds:
"JPMorgan Chase... is taking no chances. It has already created new accounts for a handful of American giants that are reserved for a new drachma in Greece or whatever currency might succeed the euro in other countries."
And Peter Frank, who advises corporate treasurers as a principal at Pricewaterhouse, tells the Times:
"Companies are asking some very granular questions, like 'If a news release comes out on a Friday night announcing that Greece has pulled out of the euro, what do we do?' In some cases, companies have contingency plans in place, such as having someone take a train to Athens with 50,000 euros to pay employees."
European leaders have insisted that the continent's debt crisis can be managed and the eurozone can remain intact. On Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi is expected to outline a bond-buying program aimed at lowering borrowing costs for debt-strapped governments including Spain and Italy.
Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, and its head, Jens Weidmann, oppose a big escalation in the ECB's bond-buying strategy. They say it risks breaching the EU treaty provision barring the ECB from directly backing governments, the Associated Press reports. Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, has indicated she's open to the ECB's plans.
"It's difficult for the ECB to do anything dramatic on Thursday, but they've got to give the impression they're willing to," ING rate strategist Padhraic Garvey told Reuters.An overabundance of stray cats and kittens is forcing the Hamilton Burlington SPCA to offer a special adoption rate until Friday, and the city's Animal Control department to take to social media to entice more cat rescues in order to avoid euthanizing them.
The SPCA's special fee is an effort to increase adoptions so the SPCA, as a major animal rescue agency, can then create space to take in more cats from Animal Control, which is forced to euthanize strays when it in turn reaches capacity. The SPCA does not euthanize the animals and is a no-kill shelter.
Animal Control for its part, is putting out the word through social media that Friday is a 'euthanization' day, in hopes more groups will come to the cats' rescue.
Animal Control supervisor Jim Gillis said the last time the city did this, 37 cats were rescued.
The SPCA is full to capacity with 100 cats and kittens -- as usual at this time of year because of the influx from spring kitten births and a decrease of foster families and potential adoptive families because they are on summer vacation, said Karen Reichheld, the SPCA's manager of animal care.
Eleven more SPCA cats are being housed at the Ancaster PetSmart store where they are also available for adoptions, Reichheld said.
The full house means the SPCA can't take in any more cats or kittens from Animal Control where strays are taken and where pet owners who no longer want them, surrender the cats.
The SPCA has taken $100 off the fee for feline adoptions to encourage more of them. The fee for kittens is $95 and for cats, $75. The prices still include the costs of spaying or neutering, vaccines, flea treatment, michrochipping and six weeks of pet insurance.
"Adoptions have slowed to an almost complete stop," Reichheld said. "It's just the reality of summer time...this is typical of the season."
Last summer the SPCA held a three-day special rate adopt-a-thon in which 94 cats were adopted, she said. The SPCA this year wanted to stretch it to five days but since Sunday, there hasn't been much of a change in the adoptions, Reichheld said.I recently saw an ad for a "Jiaozi Fusion Night" at a local expat bar. The place was offering jiaozi, a classic variety of Chinese dumplings, stuffed with Western ingredients such as tomato sauce and cheese. It read: "Ever wondered what a jiaozi stuffed with pepperoni and mozzarella with a side of marinara sauce would taste like?"
Let me answer that: Hell no.
At no point in my myriad dumpling explorations have I ever wondered what a jiaozi with pepperoni and mozzarella would taste like. I have never thought: "This is incredible, but it could really use some shitty cheese." No. I do not need to go into a celebrated food tradition with my Western ingredients and fuck it up all imperialistically.
Jiaozi are tasty, nugget-sized bits of meat, vegetables, and whatever else, really, inside a rice-flour wrapper. Many people just call them "dumplings." But a China Pro Tip for all you newbs: Ditch the word "dumpling," because you're using it wrong.
I remember the first time I said the word "dumpling" around my Chinese best friend. It was my first time in Shanghai, and I'd just had a sheng jian bao. More importantly, I was naïve.
"These are great dumplings," I said, expecting her to respond with cheerful affirmation.
"They're not dumplings!" she snapped. "They're sheng jian bao!"
At this early stage in my Chinese life, I was still dumb enough to argue with her.
"But I looked it up online and it literally translates to 'dumpling,'" I said.
Yes, technically we would translate sheng jian bao as "dumplings," but that's mostly because we don't know any better. There are so many varieties of dumpling in Shanghai alone that to use the same name for all of them is not only ignorant, but insulting to the men and women cranking out amazing, highly specialized varieties every day.
To help you sound like less of an idiot, I've put together the following guide to the varieties of "dumpling" you'll find in Shanghai.
Jiaozi
Let's start with the basics. These are the dumplings of your Western imagination, the dumplings you may find at your local Chinese takeout joint, and maybe the dumplings you think all dumplings look like. Yellow-white rice-flour dough holds ground pork together in a vaguely football-ish shape.
Jiaozi are as multi-varied as they are ubiquitous. On my block alone, I can find jiaozi filled with pork, lamb, vegetables, SPAM, and mushrooms. Pork is the most common.
While we're at it, let's go over how this works. Step one, your waitress or vendor will ask you how many you want. This is the number of orders, not how many individual dumplings you want, dummy. Do not say "nine" unless you want nine full plates of dumplings for you and your group of, like, 12.
Next, the actual eating process. On your table will be a stack of tiny bowls, a canister of vinegar, and a jar of hot chili flakes. Pour the vinegar into one of the bowls and sprinkle with some chili flakes. Dip your jiaozi in the bowl and enjoy.
Xiaolongbao
Xiaolongbao—a.k.a. soup dumplings—are jiaozi's daintier, more elegant sister, as well as the global celebrity of Shanghai dumplings. Customers, some from opposite ends of the world, form long queues outside renowned xiaolongbao joints such as Din Tai Fung and Jia Jia Tangbao.
But waiting in line is only the first part of this challenge. The second part of the challenge is eating the damn thing. If you proceed hastily and recklessly, there will be a puddle of burning hot soup on your pants. I advise caution.
Only a thin wrapper separates you from the dangerous mix inside: meat surrounded by steaming soup. Cooks actually place a cube of meat aspic inside the xiaolongbao before pinching the wrapper closed. The gelatin melts into a soup as the xiaolongbao are set to steam.
Here's the secret to eating these successfully: Start by biting a tiny hole in the wrapper and sucking out the soup. Once the soup's out, you can eat the rest without fear of burning yourself. Don't casually dangle the xiaolongbao over your lap. Crucial advice: Eat over your plate.
This is one of the best culinary experiences in all of Shanghai. And if you want the real Shanghai experience, get crab xiaolongbao. The Shanghainese love crab.
Even still, some of my fellow China-dumb expats still see the scorching soup situation as a bit of a turnoff.
"I'm sure some people love the masochistic side of it," said my coworker, rolling his eyes at me.
Shumai
If all the dumpling varieties held a beauty contest,would win. Each shumai's top is pinched into a lovely flower shape, and the wrappers are suggestively translucent.
No worries about soup here; shumai are firmer, drier and more straightforward to eat. The kind I always get are stuffed with—surprise—pork, but have bits of chopped bamboo shoot, too.
Baozi
Here in China, I frequent a shop called Juicy Meat Buns. The logo is literally a cartoon dude licking his lips all #bootyhadmelike.
The technical term is baozi, although the aforementioned vaguely sexual English name works too, because these things get me excited. Baozi are a breadier style of dumpling—the wrapper is like a fluffy, savory biscuit that sops up all the juices floating around inside.
Once again, fillings vary—everything from carrots and bamboo slivers to bok choy and tofu—but pork is standard.
Wonton
You probably know this one (congratulations!). The wontons that you'll find in China are far better than any wonton you know back in the States. Cooks have greater creative liberty with wontons, since they play around with both the fillings and the soup.
In Central China, a type of wonton served in a bowl of vinegar is both popular and aggressively sour. But in the Shanghai region, wontons are generally served in unintimidating, savory meat stocks.
Sheng Jian Bao
This is the fried, fast food favorite of Shanghai dumplings, often eaten for breakfast. Like xiaolongbao, you'll have to watch out for steaming soup on the inside. But unlike xiaolongbao, you can pick up a meal's worth of these for, I kid you not, the equivalent of one US dollar.
Halal Jiaozi
For all the aforementioned dumpling varieties, pork was the most common filling. That's what makes halal jiaozi so unique—the lamb meat between its rice-flour sheets. Yes, that "halal."
Halal joints dot Shanghai, catering both to China's Muslim minority and the white girls like me who just like the food.
Trying each variety of these seven varieties of Shanghai dumpling has truly been a revelation. Except the SPAM dumplings. You'll notice I left those out.
This post previously appeared on MUNCHIES in January 2015.ONE afternoon in the summer of 1950 the great physicist Enrico Fermi went to lunch with three of his colleagues at the mess hall of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
During the walk over they had been joking about flying saucers but as they sat down to lunch the conversation had moved on to more Earthly matters. Indeed, it was so mundane that years later no one present could even remember what they were talking about
Then, apropos of nothing, Fermi interrupted with a single simple question: “Where is everybody?”
Suddenly everyone at the table laughed because they all instantly knew what he meant. Enrico Fermi had just asked the most important question in the universe.
Fermi’s question was based on what every scientist at the table understood. That based on the sheer numbers alone there was an extremely high probability of life existing on other planets. And yet there was no credible evidence of such aliens existing.
Before the conspiracy theorists start spluttering, it is worth noting that Fermi worked on the United States’ top secret Manhattan Project during World War II and is known as “the architect of the atomic bomb”.
In other words, this was a guy with pretty good security clearance. If there were aliens hanging out in the pool room at Area 51 he would have known about it.
But here they were at the centre of scientific knowledge in the most powerful country on Earth and the closest proof was a New Yorker cartoon about little green men stealing trash cans.
It wasn’t that Fermi didn’t believe in aliens — on the contrary, he knew that statistically speaking they had to exist. He just wanted to know why nobody had found one.
Years later that question has become known as “the Fermi paradox”, and it just got a whole lot harder to answer this week after NASA revealed it had discovered seven Earth-sized planets in a single solar system. Three of these are in the famous “Goldilocks zone”, meaning they are not too hot and not too cold to sustain life.
And they are not alone. According to an analysis of data from the Kepler space mission in 2013, there could be as many as 40 billion habitable planets in our galaxy alone. In 2015, a NASA scientist estimated there were a billion just like Earth.
So, as Fermi asked, where is everybody?
It may be that none of them has produced life, but this is almost statistically impossible. Or it may be that none of them has produced intelligent life.
Are we to think that out of a possible 40 billion worlds in the course of 13 billion years since the Milky Way was formed, ours is the only planet upon which species have evolved? Or that we are the most advanced?
Again, this is statistically improbable. The most likely explanation for why we haven’t encountered any aliens is that the distances are simply too vast and, as far as we are currently aware, physically impossible for a carbon-based life form to travel.
For example, to reach our new Earthly neighbours orbiting TRAPPIST 1, we would have to travel at the speed of light for 39 years. And we are a civilisation that cannot even manage to fix the M5.
But there is also a far darker matter at the heart of the extraterrestrial debate.
First, let us remember that Earth is about 4.54 billion years old, humans are only 200,000 years old and our first orbital flight was in 1961. In other words, it took us 4,539,800,000 years to exist and another 199,944 years to get to space.
And so if we are to make contact with any other civilisation even remotely like ours, not only do we have to travel inconceivably vast distances but the timing has to be pretty spot on.
But it is not waiting for other civilisations to evolve that is the real problem. Oh no, that is the good part.
The real problem is that any civilisation capable of space travel is almost certainly also capable of wiping itself out.
Consider this: Just a year after the Soviets put a man into space the world was brought to the brink of nuclear holocaust by the Cuban missile crisis.
Around a |
. Toys R Us still sells about 20% of the toys bought in the U.S., according to an analyst at Jefferies LLC.
mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;
Twitter:@TechDiego
760-529-4973At least 13 people have been killed on their way to a wedding in Yemen by a suspected United States drone strike, local officials have said.
The air strike occurred on Thursday in the village of Qaifa, in Yemen's central al-Bayda province.
A military official told Associated Press news agency that initial information indicated the drone operators mistook the wedding party for an al-Qaeda convoy. He said tribesmen known to the villagers were among the dead.
Another security official said al-Qaeda fighters were suspected to have been travelling with the wedding convoy.
Media reports said that the strike left charred bodies on the road and vehicles on fire.
Yemen is among a handful of countries where the US acknowledges using drones, although it does not comment on the practice.
The US considers Yemen's branch of al-Qaeda to be the most active in the world.
Human Rights Watch said in a detailed report in August that US missile strikes in Yemen, including armed drone attacks, have killed dozens of civilians.
On Monday, missiles fired from a US drone killed at least three others travelling in a car in eastern Yemen.It’s official: Verizon and Redbox parent company Coinstar will enter the streaming media world and battle Netflix, Amazon and the rest of the digital video market for customers.
Bloomberg reports that Redbox Instant by Verizon, a joint venture initially announced earlier this year, will be available between late November and mid-December. The video service will work on mobile devices, game consoles and set-top boxes. Users will be able to subscribe for a monthly fee that will also include a limited number of DVDs from kiosks.
Apart from the subscription service, there will also be a separate online movie sale and rental feature.
About 500 Verizon employees are currently testing out the service, which will initially offer newer movies that are currently available for sale and rental, the report said. Pricing has yet to be announced.
Redbox currently has more than 2 billion discs at 38,500 kiosks around the country.
First DVDs, then coffee and now digital streaming. What’s next for Redbox?New Delhi: India’s gross domestic product (GDP) numbers are very dependable and there is no “rigging" taking place with regards to data, World Bank’s chief economist Kaushik Basu said on Saturday.
Basu, former chief economic advisor, also said a small slippage in the government’s fiscal deficit target would be fine in the current economic scenario. “...actually India’s GDP numbers are very dependable...You know, there are countries where it is possible to rig these numbers. First of all, that does not happen in India. The system is very open. I have seen this during my time period.
“Even now, there are lots of people involved (in the process). There is no one at the top who can say that change this number or change that number. So that kind of rigging is not taking place," he said, adding that the process is very transparent.
“Given the transparency, you have reason to have enough confidence in the growth figures," he said. Basu was responding to questions surrounding the GDP numbers being put out by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). It has projected a growth rate of 7.6% for the current fiscal, the highest in the last five years. There have been talks in certain quarters that the higher growth figures of CSO are not in tandem with what is visible on the ground.
Some experts have attributed the higher numbers to change in methodology for calculating national income. “My view on Indian GDP is, given the difficulties of measurement in developing countries, (in India it is) actually being done very well," he said in an interview to Karan Thapar on To The Point programme on India Today, a TV news channel.
To a question on deviating from the fiscal deficit target, Basu said in the backdrop global slowdown and the need to push growth, small fiscal slippages will be “fine". “My view is in a situation like this, a small slippage is no huge fall and I think global observers will understand that it is coming from India’s urge to keep its growth rate up. “...much more is at stake on India meeting its growth rate targets than a small slippage and I am stressing, a big slippage is going to cause concern but a small slippage, I think, will be fine" Basu said.
The comments are at variance with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan’s views on the matter. Rajan had recently warned against generating economic growth through additional debt, saying that any deviation from the fiscal consolidation path will hurt stability of the economy. He had said that macroeconomic stability during global turmoil cannot be risked and the government and RBI should continue to bring down inflation.
The government had last year postponed reduction in fiscal deficit target by a year. The government is targeting a fiscal deficit of 3.9% of GDP in the current fiscal.In an effort to keep the iPad’s price the same, Apple may have had to cut profit margins compared to previous models, The Wall Street Journal reported. UBM TechInsights on Thursday estimated the company’s newest iPad cost about $310 to manufacture the 16GB, 4G LTE model, which retails for $629. Based on those estimates, Apple’s gross profit margin is 51%, 5 points less than the iPad 2’s 56% margin at the tablet’s launch. The cost increase is largely due to the new iPad’s Retina display, which UBM estimates to cost Apple about $70 compared to the $49.50 display found on the iPad 2. The 4G LTE chips also add $21 compared to $10 for 3G chips, and the A5X processor chip is estimated to costs $28, compared to $22 for the previous-generation A5.
ReadCopyright by WSPA - All rights reserved Skip J-Range (WSPA)
WSPA Staff - ANDERSON Co., SC (WSPA) -- The autopsy is complete for a Georgia woman who was shot at a gun range earlier this week.
The coroner identified the woman as Sarah Bonner, 24, of Lawrenceville.
Bonner died early Thursday from a single gunshot wound to the head, Anderson County Coroner Greg Shore said.
Bonner was hospitalized in critical condition after the shooting Monday at Skip J-Range. Deputies are investigating and have not released specific details on what exactly happened, but say investigators have not ruled out an accidental shooting.
The coroner says the bullet was sent to the Anderson County Sheriff's office and will be sent for a ballistics test to see which gun fired it.Whenever matters of sexbots are concerned, or of artificial wombs and the like, we will inevitably be confronted with the accusation of escapism, that these are simply fantastical desires of those not competent enough to deal with present reality. That is fine and dandy as far as I’m concenrned, these things do not bother me.
I would wager that when these technologies become available, and then ubiquitous, not in a roxxxy sort of way but in an post uncanny valley, ex machina sort of way, 99% of the same people that ridicule those who envision these technologies would grudgingly utilize them. It is the nature of these things, there are always going to be those looking with excited eyes toward what is just beyond our grasp, and those mocking them for it. Despite all of this, the slow march of technological development continues, slowly but surely making the distant future appear just a little less so than before. Human beings on the verge of such technologies inevitably make predictions about how we respond to them and in terms of human sexuality it seems our response will be simply
Can I have sex with it?
An article titled Touching robots can arouse humans, study finds explored the state of arousal when human beings were asked to touch various parts of a robots body (including where it’s genitalia would be assuming they were anatomically similar to humans). Before I go on, I will add the disclaimer that the following studies have very small sample sizes, I am not at any point making the claim that these studies are the end all be all on these subjects, but I will use these studies to illustrate the questions they raise and to call for a more thorough inquiry. The study states the following.
Californian researchers have established that an intimate caress of a humanoid robot can produce a physiological response in a human. They challenged volunteers with a robotic creature less than two feet high that possessed eyes, ears, torso, legs, arms and a voice – and a chat-up line rich in come-hither invitations. “Sometimes I’ll ask you to touch my body and sometimes I’ll ask you to point to my body,” it told volunteers. It was found that a touch where the robot’s buttocks or genitals would be produced a measurable response of arousal in the volunteer human, the scientists report. “Our work shows that robots are a new form of media that is particularly powerful. It shows that people respond to robots in a primitive, social way,” said Jamy Li, a mechanical engineer at Stanford University in California, who led the study. “Social conventions regarding touching someone else’s private parts apply to a robot’s body parts as well. The research has implications for both robot design and the theory of artificial systems.” The study is one of a series of freshly-published presentations to be made at the 66th annual conference of the International Communication Association in Japan, in June. And it demonstrates that there is more to a humanoid than just looks: even a touch can provoke a human response. The ten human volunteers – four female, six male – in the experiment simply responded to commands from the voice of an Aldebaran Robotics Nao robot that had been programmed to tell participants to touch any of 13 parts of its body, using their dominant hand. On the non-dominant hand, the volunteers wore a sensor that measured skin conductance, which is itself an indicator of physiological, and perhaps emotional, arousal. In 26 trials, the scientists found that a touch upon what they politely call the “less accessible” regions of the robot was more arousing than touching the creature’s hands or feet. No such response was measured when volunteers were asked only to point. “Social robots can elicit tactile responses in human physiology, a result that signals the power of robots, and should caution mechanical and interaction designers about positive and negative effects of human-robot interactions,” the researchers conclude. The covering of the toy-like automaton was plastic, with no textural or temperature differences anywhere. If it was skin contact that produced arousal it would happen wherever the volunteer made contact. In fact the response was higher for “body parts with low accessibility.” The research raises questions that have yet to be answered. “In future, robots with human forms may assist us in personal and public spaces,” the scientists say. “What kinds of relationships will people develop with these robots? While they are clearly not human, social conventions such as body accessibility may apply to robots as well.”
Interesting, it is well known that the human species is decidedly not a species that relegates its sexual desires exclusively to it’s own, the development of the human species after all can be at least in part described as a result of different closely related hominids engaging in cross species sex and reproduction with one another creating the various iterations of modern humans, it is known that Europeans and Asians contain different percentages of neanderthal DNA for example.
The Scientific definition of the term “species” reads as follows,
BIOLOGY
a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial. This definition can become somewhat murky at times since there are what most people call distinct species that can in fact interbreed with one another, We can observe that a male stallion can impregnate a female donkey producing a sterile hybrid known as a hinny, and the reciporcal pairing of a male donkey with a female horse produces a mule, both of which are born sterile, thus a distinction toward the definition of a species should be made that it is a group of living organisms capable of exchanging genes that result in viable offspring, who themselves can go on to create more viable offspring. This was only partly the case if a study on the incorporation of neanderthal DNA into the human genome is to be believed, the study titled DNA points to Neanderthal breeding barrier states the following.
Incompatibilities in the DNA of Neanderthals and modern humans may have limited the impact of interbreeding between the two groups. It’s now widely known that many modern humans carry up to 4% Neanderthal DNA. But a new analysis of the Neanderthal Y chromosome, the package of genes passed down from fathers to sons, shows it is missing from modern populations. The team found differences in immunity genes on the Neanderthal Y chromosome that could have led to miscarriages. The results have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The small amount of DNA in present-day people is the legacy of breeding between the two populations 50,000 years ago – after our species Homo sapiens expanded out of its African homeland and began to colonise Eurasia. But the new analysis reveals the Neanderthal Y chromosome is distinct from any found in humans today. “We’ve never observed the Neanderthal Y chromosome DNA in any human sample ever tested,” said co-author Prof Carlos Bustamante, from Stanford University in California. “That doesn’t prove it’s totally extinct, but it likely is.” The researchers say it is possible that Neanderthal Y chromosomes were initially circulating in the modern human gene pool, but were then lost by chance over the millennia. Another possibility is that they included genes that were incompatible with other genes found in modern humans. Indeed, the researchers found evidence to support this idea. Several of the Y chromosome genes that differ in Neanderthals function as part of the immune system. Three are “minor histocompatibility antigens,” or H-Y genes, which resemble ones that transplant surgeons check to make sure that organ donors and organ recipients have similar immune profiles. Because these Neanderthal genes are on the Y chromosome, they are specific to males. In theory, a woman’s immune system might attack a male foetus carrying Neanderthal versions of these genes. If women consistently miscarried male babies carrying Neanderthal Y chromosomes, that would explain its absence in modern humans. So far this is just a hypothesis, but the immune systems of modern women are known to sometimes react to male offspring when there’s genetic incompatibility. Prof Bustamante said: “The functional nature of the mutations we found suggests to us that Neanderthal Y chromosome sequences may have played a role in barriers to gene flow, but we need to do experiments to demonstrate this and are working to plan these now.” As stated, the following study is just a hypothesis, but assuming it is true it sets a precedent for an account of human breeding that includes a “lord of the rings” like situation to put a little bit of flair on it, where populations of different hominids, (including neanderthal men with human women), were breeding with homo sapiens and producing both viable and non viable offspring that eventually helped to shape the different variances of the modern human genome as we know it today. The recent discovery of the bones of an archaic species of hominid known as the Denisovans in sima de los heusos (which translates to the pit of bones in Spanish) in the Spanish mountain cave yielded extracted DNA of the ancient hominid which closely resembled neanderthals but was distinct enough to be classified as another species entirely. Modern Day Human populations particularly a population of pacific islanders, the Melanesian peoples contain about 3 to 5 percent of Denisovan DNA within their genomes, The human species is not, it seems, above a bit of hanky-panky with very closely related species of hominids that are in fact, not the same species as us, or in other words, inter species sex, kind of a mild form of bestiality if you will. So then, Now that we have dispatched any lofty aspirations that our species is a result of extended breeding with our species and only our own species, lets take a trip back to the modern age and ask the questions no one dare confront, that is, how “degenerate” are we?, how sexually depraved are we?… and when I say degenerate, I mean it in its literal sense, how likely are we to engage in sexual behaviors that couldn’t possibly hope to generate other viable human beings? this is what I intend to mean by “de-generate” sex. Well, that’s a tricky question to answer. The human species is as far as we know the organism with the most complex and nuanced sexuality ever developed in the fires of evolution, some human beings are interested in vanilla sex only, things like simple missionary positions and not much else, some human beings are into BDSM and violent sexual simulation, some humans are actually into bonafide violent sex up to and including only being able to get off when actual violence is done to their willing or even unwilling partners. Like it or not, the darker aspects of human sexuality, those of serial killers, necrophiliacs and pedophiles are still aspects of human sexuality that need to be included in our documentation of it. Furthermore, there have been studies that measured the sexual stimulation based on gender in reaction to the viewing of both primate and human sexual activity, and for clarification I mean that the subjects in this study were given videos of monkeys having sex with other monkeys, and humans having sex with other humans, which found that women actually had a sexual reaction to both the human and primate sex while men registered none in reaction to the primate sex. Women who viewed lesbian porn were also shown to have had a sexual response despite claiming heterosexual as their sexual orientation whereas mens sexual responses aligned much more closely with their stated sexual orientation. Admittedly, female homosexuality is much more accepted than male homosexuality in most societies, most heterosexual men do not mind the “lipstick lesbian” who is a little bicurious and willing to make out with another women, but admit to having an aversion to the site of two men kissing. An article titled The One Thing That (Sadly) Most Women Agree Makes A Man Undateable, gives some insight into the other side of the equation, how women perceive homosexual or bisexual men, when it says (emphasis mine); While women believe that they occupy a wide spectrum of sexuality that extends beyond the confines of “gay” and “straight,” they don’t hold that same mindset when it comes to men, according to a new Glamour survey. The magazine’s researchers polled more than 1,000 women, between the ages of 18 to 44, about their own sexual identities and experiences for the survey, which was released Feb. 11. While 63 percent of those surveyed said they’d opt out of traditional labels like “homosexual,” “heterosexual” and “bisexual,” the same percentage also said they wouldn’t date a man who has slept with another man. Glamour also found that 47 percent of women say they’ve been attracted to another woman, and of that group, 31 percent have had a sexual experience with another woman. Also, only 3 percent ranked sex as the most important aspect of a relationship. This post is not meant to pass judgement on this, human sexuality of both the male and female variety are what they are, but one has to wonder if women are not exhibiting a “have their cake and eat it too” mentality by selecting for men that are only heterosexual whilst wishing to be much more fluid in their own sexuality. In case you think that this is purely a western phenomenon, for those of you interested here is a link to a list of 25 countries where it is legal to be a lesbian, but illegal to be a gay man, there seems to be some cross cultural prevalence here. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions, but lastly, we will return to the sexbot issue. An article titled What Women and Men Want from Sex Robots, is the first (to my knowledge) attempt to actually start documenting how women and men actually feel about the upcoming techno-sexual revolution that a believable sex robot for commercial consumption would likely trigger. I again want to caution you to take into account the very small sample size of these studies, but it is interesting if only for the questions raised and the novelty of the study. The article states: More than two-thirds of men recruited for a sexbot study say they would give sex robots try. About two-thirds of women in the same study say they would not try a sex robot. Those findings come from the first exploratory survey of human attitudes toward sex robots. Such research has huge implications beyond whether humanity ends up using robots for sexual satisfaction—it can also reveal gender differences in how people view modern human relationships. Debates about sex robots typically focus on either the crude robotic sex toys of today or Hollywood’s science fiction fantasies such as “A.I.” or “Ex Machina.” One U.K. researcher made headlines by calling for a ban on sex robot technology. But there has been surprisingly little effort to find out what people think about robots and sex in the real world. That is why researchers at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts set out to discover out what people think sex robots should look like and what uses of such robots would be considered appropriate. They hope their research can help create a future where robots prove more beneficial than harmful for human psychology and relationships. “I think it’s very important to realize that sexbots and companion robots are all instances of social robots that have an effect on people,” says Matthias Scheutz, a computer scientist at Tufts University. “Especially when it comes to the potential of these machines to cause emotional harm to humans.” Previous attempts to poll public opinion on sexbots have usually asked just several basic questions about whether or not people would have sex with a robot. Scheutz and Thomas Arnold, a research associate at Tufts University, went for a more complex survey by having people rank answers to a wide variety of questions on a 7-point Likert scale with 1 meaning “completely inappropriate” and 7 meaning “completely appropriate.” The university researchers recruited 57 males and 43 females through the Amazon Mechanical Turk online service in an effort to get a more representative national sampling of the U.S. population. Their work was presented at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI 2016) on March 9. More Like Masturbation Than Human Sex Men and women shared a common understanding of sex robot capabilities and how sex with a robot should be classified in comparison with human relationships. For example, both male and female participants agreed that sex with a robot was more like masturbation than sex between humans. But men typically had greater enthusiasm than women for the different possible uses of sex robots. One of the greatest differences in opinion came up regarding use of sex robots for sex offenders. Women showed disapproval on average by giving an “inappropriate” rating of 3.7 on the 7-point scale, whereas men gave a more favorable “appropriate” rating of 4.88 on average. Men and women also diverged in their “appropriate” versus “inappropriate” ratings for the case of using sex robots to practice abstinence. On the other hand, both women and men generally agreed that using sex robots was more appropriate than hiring a human prostitute. They also agreed on sex robots being appropriate for use by disabled people and for reducing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
Very interesting, women and to a lesser degree men, disapprove of sex offenders having access to sexbots, despite the possibility that such a thing could be used to prevent these crimes, although the argument could be made that doing so could potentially exacerbate them…
“We need a larger discussion on relationships and intimacy,” Scheutz says. “Some differences really may be the results of more complex differences between male and female attitudes toward human relationships.” Significant gender differences in ratings sometimes appeared even when both men and women were generally in agreement. For example, men gave higher “appropriate” ratings to using a sex robot instead of cheating on a partner, to improve self-esteem, for making porn films, for group sex involving both humans and robots, to engage in unusual sex practices such as rough sex or sadistic behavior, and for sex education. Women also gave ratings that classified such uses as “appropriate” on average, but with lower levels of approval. Men and women most closely agreed on using sex robots to maintain a relationship between humans, to assist training for the sake of preventing sexual harassment, and in isolated environments where normal human relationships are not available. The latter suggests that people probably won’t begrudge Mars mission astronauts or Arctic researchers their more intimate moments with future robots.
I find it interesting that people would want to regulate sex bots in the first place, in a free and open society, shouldnt an individual no matter what the reason, be free to exchange capital for goods and use them as he/she pleases as long as it is not harming others?
Pushing the Boundaries of Sex Robots In terms of sex robot form and appearance, both men and women strongly agreed that sex robots should not look like a human child. That finding may reflect general disapproval of pedophile behavior. But more significant gender differences emerged for every other possible form of sex robots presented in the survey. Once again, men consistently gave higher ratings than women to every possible form of sex robots. Sex robots that look like an adult human received the highest approval ratings from both men and women. Men gave a very high “appropriate” rating of almost 6.5 on the 7-point scale. Women also gave such sex robots a reasonably high rating of almost 5.2. The adult human form of sex robots was followed in descending order of approval rating by “a fantasy creature,” “any recognizable life form,” “a celebrity” and “one’s current partner.” All those sex robot forms generally received an enthusiastic approval rating of more than 5 from men. But women gave a much more tepid response with most ratings hovering between 4.5 and 4. The average rating from women even dipped slightly below 4—more disapproval than approval—for sex robots that resembled celebrities. It’s not entirely clear whether the female ambivalence about celebrity sex robots directed more toward Jude Law’s Gigolo Joe character from “A.I.” or the idea of men lusting after robots shaped like Hollywood’s latest female stars. The differences of opinion were even greater for other possible sex robot forms. Men gave fairly high approval ratings above 5 for sex robots shaped like “one’s deceased spouse” and “one’s friend.” Women seemed to disapprove of such sex robots with average ratings between 4 and 3. Besides the child sex robots, only two other sex robot forms drew universal disapproval from both men and women. Sex robots shaped like “one’s family member” had ratings of 3.3 from men and just below 2.2 from women, which suggests neither gender seems to approve of sex robots resembling siblings or parents. Similarly, sex robots shaped like animals drew general disapproval with an average “inappropriate” rating of 3.7 from men and an even lower rating of 2.6 from women.
Well folks I’ll leave you to analyze…Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association, is scheduled to meet with the NFLPA and members of Congress this week. (Photo: Matt Marton, USA TODAY Sports)
WASHINGTON -- Advocates of expanded rights and benefits for college athletes will be meeting this week in Washington with executives from the NFL Players Association and making a lobbying tour of Capitol Hill, organizer Ramogi Huma said Monday.
The events are meant to coincide with the NCAA convention, which begins Thursday just outside of Washington. The upcoming convention will be the first at which schools from the five wealthiest conferences – the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten, Pacific-12 and Southeastern -- have a significant measure of autonomy in rules-making. Those schools are scheduled to vote on proposed rules changes that could create more benefits for athletes.
Huma is the executive director of the National College Players Association, an advocacy group. He also is a co-founder and president of the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA), a labor organization that has petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to allow Northwestern University football players to unionize.
Huma said his groups will be visiting Wednesday with NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, assistant executive director George Atallah and staff counsel Sean Sansiveri, who Huma described as being heavily involved in the NFLPA's policy on brain trauma.
NFLPA communications director Carl Francis confirmed that Huma's groups will be meeting with union officials.
"We literally want to strategize with them," Huma said. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel. The NFLPA is a well-established union used to dealing with a multi-billion-dollar industry. There have been a lot of developments in the last year, and we really want to look at what's going on on a macro level."
Huma said that among the people joining him for the meetings will be former Northwestern football player Kain Colter, a leader of the unionization effort; former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, the lead plaintiff in an ongoing antitrust suit against the NCAA and Tim Waters, political director for the United Steelworkers, which has been supporting CAPA.
Huma said his groups have a number of appointments set with Congressional offices for Thursday, but he declined to identify which ones.
As the schools begin considering rules changes that have been called for by a number of U.S. senators and congressmen, Huma said, "We want to make clear that any type of reform should not exclude college athletes' rights."A year after her father took hostages and committed suicide by cop, Lucy kept freezing in the supermarket aisle.
“I couldn’t breathe, literally, my husband would often have to come pick me up from whatever aisle of the store I was stuck in and drive me home,” the traumatized daughter confided in a letter she wrote to her attorney that he provided to The Daily Beast.
The woman who had been happily married for 25 years was now sitting on a psychiatrist’s couch and popping a daily regimen of meds that she called the “pharmaceutical cocktail.”
They included Abilify, which was supposed to aid in treating her post-traumatic stress disorder.
“So began a life that was hazy, kind of disconnected,” she described in the letter.
Lucy blames the drug for her insatiable hunger for gambling that saw her drive at all hours of the night to Cripple Creek, a legion of Wild West-themed casinos in Colorado.
“I started going all the time,” she wrote. “I never even won, never came back with so much as a dime in my pocket,” she confessed.
Lucy burned through unemployment checks, pawned her mechanic husband’s automotive tools, and lied about needing money to buy baby formula.
As she puts it in the letter, “Nothing was off-limits when it came to getting the money I needed to keep up the ruse.”
Fanatical about the casino, and filling time in-between with lottery scratchers, Lucy’s urge to roll the dice was so desperate she admitted how she mastered her very own disappearing act.
“I’d stuff my bed at night to fool my husband that I was asleep when actually I was spinning the slots,” she admitted in the letter.
Like Lucy, thousands of patients who had been prescribed Abilify say in a mass tort lawsuit the drug created compulsions for sex and gambling, and that the drug makers knew of the serious side effects (as evidenced by warning labels in Canada and Europe) but waited years not to warn U.S. consumers.
“There will probably be over 1,000 cases,” Stephen Hunt Jr., of the Alabama-based law firm Cory Watson, who is repping some of the gamblers and sex-obsessed victims airing their Abilify horror stories after his firm and others began a national ad campaign.
Representatives reached by The Daily Beast for both Otsuka and Bristol-Myers Squibb, the companies behind the drug, cited policies to not comment on ongoing litigation.
Aripiprazole, as Abilify is known off-brand, is an antipsychotic created by Otsuka in 1988 to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The drug acts on dopamine receptors in the brain that are responsible for motor functions (like tremors), executive functions (like memory), and reward systems (like addiction).
Otsuka teamed with Bristol-Myers Squibb to market the drug in the U.S. in 2002. Five years later it was dosed as an add-on for depression. Otsuka America described it “like a thermostat to restore balance.”
Thomas J. Moore has done extensive research and published papers about drugs similar to Abilify and their adverse effects; some of them involve pathological gambling and hypersexuality. He is a senior scientist at the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit watchdog organization that seeks to prevent mistakes in medicine dispensing and prescribing.
Moore studied 1,580 cases over a decade that included several impulsive behaviors such as pathological gambling, excessive sexual activity, and compulsive shopping. In a 2014 paper he found, “the associations were significant, the magnitude of the effects was large, and the effects were seen for all 6 dopamine receptor agonist drugs.”
He explained it in layman’s terms to The Daily Beast.
“The drug triggers a pathological urge to gamble constantly, sometimes among persons with no previous interest,” he said of Abilify’s effect on dopamine receptors. “It might be people starting to spend $300 a week on lottery tickets, and in other cases people will gamble away tens of thousands of dollars.”
Several complaints by users of Abilify say the companies inexplainably failed to warn patients after Canada and Europe hit the brakes and updated their warning labels.
The case, according to numerous attorneys we spoke to involved in the litigation, is likely to draw on precedent from a former case decided eight years ago by a federal jury that forced Pfizer to pay a retired Wisconsin police officer $8.2 million in damages for failing to label their Parkinson’s drug Maripex (which was one of the six drugs studied by Moore in his paper) that also caused “pathological gambling.”
Back in 2011, one drug-pushing television ad circa 2011 featured a cautious voice over announcing: “Abilify is not for everyone.”
Then came the cringing laundry list of side effects plucked from the fine print. Abilify is a no-no for kids and teenagers and it can induce suicide, coma, and seizures and be lethal for any elderly person battling dementia or fighting diabetes.
The actress in the advertisement portraying a lost soul who finds her smile in 90 seconds, isn’t phased. “Adding Abilify has made the difference for me,” she beams.
Many Abilify patients describe in various testimonials and case studies published in medical papers that the pill’s pull on them created a “hypnotic state” while another said it was “mentally crippling.” For some of the admitted compulsive gamblers while on the drug, the casino delivered a “euphoric feeling” and for one it was a “reason to live.”
One woman’s life was thrown into a “tailspin” while taking Abilify.
It wasn’t gambling fever that caught her when she began popping Abilify. The woman was hooked on sex.
“I started talking to men online, thriving on the attention,” she wrote in vivid detail in a letter to her lawyer, adding that she created a risque Facebook page to lasso lads. “I had about 100 messages from men trying to hit on me.
“I started becoming obsessed with sexual fantasies and with taking pictures of myself to send to a few select ‘friends’… I just couldn’t stop with the pictures and fantasies.”
The cat and mouse play advanced and when she offered her digits to a male “friend” they began sexting each other. Then it all ended.
“My husband caught me,” she said.
The pictures didn’t remain private to just her male “friends” either. She was called before her boss and shamed for the explicit photos.
In addition, she claims to have gone on excessive shopping sprees, buying cars and an addition to their garage, all paid for by loans. She and her husband filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and saw their vehicle get repossessed and are still in arrears with the IRS for thousands of dollars.
It wasn’t until her husband caught an Abilify commercial citing its health ramifications that she saw hope and together they “realized that my compulsive and obsessive behaviors were a result of taking the drug.”
She suggests that since she’s been off Abilify “worries don’t dominate my mind and my behavior” and that she’s having “real conversations” with her husband.
In sum, she is left agonizing over how her name has been permanently stained. “The drug has destroyed my life, my reputation, and the lives of those I love.”
Last week, Patrick Parks of Delaware, Ohio, sued Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka America in federal court for turning him into a degenerate gambler.
The newest case comes after the first compulsive behavior federal civil case filed on Jan. 12 of this year by a couple Brad and Denise Miley of Maple Grove, Minnesota. They claim it was Brad’s Abilify intake that caused them to suffer more than $75,000 in gambling losses.
Like the Mileys, Parks claims in the papers that he “was prescribed and took the prescription drug… around May 2013” and in turn “began compulsively gambling shortly thereafter...”
Once he got off Abilify in August 2014 Parks apparently steered from casinos and “stopped compulsively gambling.”
Parks didn’t realize his excessive urge to burn through more than $75,000 was because of the prescribed Abilify meds until Nov. 18, 2014, the complaint reads.
As with a stack of similar complaints from California to Florida, Parks’s master complaint blames the parent companies for “fraudulently concealing” and failing “to warn advise, educate or otherwise inform Abilify users or prescribers in the United States about the risk of compulsive gambling or other compulsive behaviors,” according to the complaint.
It goes on to blame Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka America for deceptively holding back warnings from patients.
Abilify was approved in the U.S. in 2002 but, according to many of the complaints filed, it “wrongfully and unjustly profited at the expense of patient safety and full disclosure to the medical community by failing to include language about gambling in the United States labeling and by failing to otherwise warn the public and the medical community about Abilify’s association with gambling—despite opportunities to do so.”
The complaint cites how in the fall of 2012 the European Medicines Agency pushed for an updated label of Abilify to transparently add to the “undesirable effects” so they included that “reports of pathological gambling have been reported among patients prescribed Abilify, regardless of whether these patients had a prior |
harboring a secret plan to replace US President Donald Trump with Vice President Mike Pence.
Clinton stated privately this month that she is quietly pushing for a Pence takeover. She stated that Pence is predictable hence defeatable. — Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) 14 марта 2017 г.
Two IC officials close to Pence stated privately this month that they are planning on a Pence takeover. Did not state if Pence agrees. — Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) 14 марта 2017 г.
Assange specified that Clinton and her confidants within the US intelligence community spoke about nothing less than a Presidential impeachment.
It should be noted that both the officials close to Pence and Hillary Clinton spoke of moving towards an 'impeachment' not other action. — Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) 14 марта 2017 г.
The assumption has immediately sparked a heated debate among observers and prompted sharp criticism from Vice President Pence.
"I find all of that dialogue to be absurd and frankly offensive," Pence told CNN on the same day, commenting on the issue.
It appears that the famous American TV series "House of Cards" is about to become a reality. Is Assange's assumption credible and is it possible that Hillary Clinton and her supporters will succeed in replacing Trump with Pence?
House of Cards' Impeachment Scenario
Sputnik asked Charles Ortel, an investigative journalist and Wall Street analyst who exposed General Electric's fraud before its stock crashed in 2008, to comment on the matter.
"I would like to think that the 'House of Cards' scenario suggested by Assange and others is far from viable, though I have no doubt that many establishment players in Democrat and Republican parties, in the media, in academia, and in government bureaucracies would be delighted to oust President Trump, one way or another," Ortel told Sputnik.
© AP Photo / Sven Hoppe US Vice President Mike Pence, center, his wife Karen, second from left, and his daughter Charlotte, left, are lead by Holocaust survivor Abba Naor, second from right, as they visit the former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau near Munich, southern Germany, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017, one day after he attended the Munich Security Conference.
"Mike Pence seems to be an honest, devout, conservative who has little in common with Hillary Clinton or her various backers," the Wall Street analyst said, "In many ways, I think our Vice President will prove an equally formidable foe to the Clintons, to the Obamas, and to others in the Soros-financed attempt to push the Democrat party towards the radical left."
Meanwhile, Christian Datoc of the Daily Caller drew attention to the fact that Assange's announcement came following reports that President Trump authorized the CIA to perform drone strikes on terrorists Monday, thus broadening the agency's powers.
It seems rather strange given rumors that former CIA officials could have been behind the leaks targeting the Trump administration.
"By handing unilateral power to the CIA over its drone strikes at this time, the White House signals that bullying, disloyalty & incompetence pays," Assange tweeted.
By handing unilateral power to the CIA over its drone strikes at this time White House signals that bullying, disloyalty & incompetence pays — Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) 14 марта 2017 г.
Does it mean Trump is in full retreat?
"No," the Wall Street analyst responded, "I think President Trump is merely trying to untie the hands of line operatives, who had been shackled by the Obama Administration's penchant to embrace cumbersome, bureaucratic rules of engagement generally, and in combat zones."
"So far, what I see in President Trump is an attempt to bring common sense management approaches to one of the largest (and least well managed) organizations in the world — the US federal government, with its many departments. To me, it makes eminent sense to set clear objectives with department heads, and then leave these persons with running room to lead their personnel and help them actually meet the objectives. That approach has worked for Mr. Trump in the business sector (and for many others)," Ortel explained.
Hillary Clinton Unwilling to Go Down Without a Fight
Still, it is clear that Hillary Clinton is unwilling to do down without a fight, regardless of her resounding defeat in the US presidential election. The mainstream media continue to drop some big hints about Clinton's thoughts to run for New York mayor.
For its part, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is quietly continuing its investigation into Clinton's emails.
The question arises as to why Trump hesitates to deliver on his election promise and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton?
"Under our system, career prosecutors and IRS [Internal Revenue Service] officials (at federal level), and their equivalents at the state level, are responsible for moving investigations along, deciding whether to prosecute, and then winning convictions, should they proceed with indictments," Ortel said.
© AFP 2018 / JIM BOURG / POOL Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton looks on during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri on October 9, 2016.
"The 'email' and potential 'pay-to-play' scandals are likely to be far harder to prove, in my opinion, than the solicitation and operating scandals that I see, having looked in detail at public records concerning the many Clinton 'charities'," he explained.
According to the analyst, one general impediment to proceeding has been the slow pace at which the new administration has been able to get its designees confirmed and working in key roles within the Federal Government.
"Here, I am amazed that the Trump Administration has failed to clean house at the Internal Revenue Service, where the Chief and the Head of the Tax-Exempt Organizations Department (the key position overseeing charities) should long ago have been replaced," Ortel highlighted.
"I believe that President Trump may have (correctly) concluded there is no need for a special prosecutor — just let the many rumored investigations proceed," he added.
The Wall Street analyst noted that "across the political spectrum in the US, people on the left and on the right do believe that no one is 'too big to jail'."
"Others have served long prison sentences and paid massive fines over much smaller charity frauds," Ortel, who is conducting a private investigation into the Clinton Foundation, noted.
Why 'Swamp-Dwellers' Continue to Rock the Boat
Meanwhile, Trump's political opponents continue to throw sand in his gears.
Observers say that the US President enjoys popular support in the US and that he can rely on the US people. But can the American people's support outweigh the destructive efforts on the part of influential Democratic sponsors?
"In 2017, political parties have much less power than they once did, given the ease, speed, and low cost with which people can communicate with one another," Ortel responded.
On the other hand, he stressed that the US bipartisan establishment has not boasted any substantial achievements in terms of the economy or geopolitics since 1999.
"President Trump and his team are disrupting the one (large) corner of the American economy that seemed immune to threats posed by powerful and inexpensive technology (to public sector wages) and that, to date, has remained out of effective control," Ortel underscored.
"So, swamp-dwellers in both parties have and will fight hard, because they understand that the swamp, once drained, will not likely get refilled — the DC lobbyists, lawyers, mainstream media, think-tankers, and academia are all threatened," he pointed out.
© REUTERS / Rodrigo Garrido WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears on screen via video link during his participation as a guest panelist in an International Seminar on the 60th anniversary of the college of Journalists of Chile in Santiago, Chile, July 12, 2016
Is WikiLeaks Really Trump's 'Preferred Intelligence Service'?
In addition, WikiLeaks' exposures have repeatedly played into the Trump team's hands.
That made Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations claim that WikiLeaks, which he called an "anti-American group," has become "the preferred intelligence service for a conspiracy-addled White House."
Do these claims have real grounds?
Most unlikely, Ortel believes.
"If I were a Bernie Sanders supporter, I would have been more than a little upset by the ways in which the Clinton wing of the Democratic party hobbled the Vermont Senator's chances of securing the Presidential nomination. So, I can easily imagine that one or more of those inside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) may have been responsible for the DNC and Podesta leaks last year," the analyst told Sputnik.
As for the latest CIA dump, there are, apparently, many contractors within the agency which are concerned about the mismanagement of the organization's powerful technological tools and the degree to which intelligence officials guard and use sensitive data.
"I imagine there are many contractors who might have decided to send what has come out so far, into the public domain," Ortel noted.
"As for Wikileaks' releases that seem to hurt [Hillary] Clinton and may help Trump, the Clintons have been operating on a national scale since January 1993 and they have inserted numerous allies into the federal and multi-lateral governments. It stands to reason that WikiLeaks (and others) may have much more to mine on the Clintons, than they might have on President Trump and his group of, chiefly, outsiders," the Wall Street analyst elaborated.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.So our team here at Red Hat have been working intensively with our counterparts at Intel to merge and stabilize the patches to enable Wayland support in GNOME and at the same time looking into what further improvements are needed in the stack. Enabling Wayland support means essentially turning the GNOME Shell into a Wayland compositor as we are not going to be using the sample compositor Weston. Porting to Wayland isn’t just about replacing X calls with Wayland calls, in many cases there is also functionality that was in X that will be done as a separate library for use with Wayland or settings that used to be handled by X that now needs to be stored elsewhere. The development work is starting to come together now and tarballs are being released with initial Wayland support or core modules such as Mutter.
The goal we are still pursuing is to have a tech preview ready for Fedora 20. So what do we mean with a tech preview? Well there will be a quite a few things missing or maybe not working as expected. What we hope to have ready is a system where you can have the option of a Wayland session available in GDM, so that instead of logging into your normal X based session you log into one running Wayland instead. Once in that session you should be able to launch and run some applications, but stability is likely to not be great and we don’t know how well XWayland will work by then, so you will also likely having limited mileage with applications that still rely on X. The goal for the tech preview is not to create something an end user is likely to find very useful, rather it is about lowering the barrier for developers and contributors to get involved and start preparing for the Wayland future.
But we do think that it will at least be in a state where developers can easily start playing with it and where the community can help us find issues and bugs, so that we can reach our goal of having a full featured and stable GNOME running on Wayland ready for Fedora 21.
As a sidenote, our top priority is to make sure that the transition from X to Wayland becomes something an end users doesn’t really need to care about. So the final switch to Wayland over X will only happen once we are as sure as we can be that our users will not be negatively affected by the change. So if we default to Wayland or X for Fedora 21 is still an open question, we hope to default to Wayland of course, but staying with X as the default for one more release is not considered unreasonable if it will help us ensure a smooth transition experience for us users. We have of course also not forgotten that many of our users use the binary graphics drivers so we are working on making sure we have an answer ready for that going forward.
You can find details on the status of the tech preview if you go to this website.As containerization goes mainstream, many are finding new applications and use cases for container technology. Jan Pazdziora, senior principal software engineer at Red Hat, faced the limitations of traditional Docker when he wanted to containerize FreeIPA. This led to creation of his Docker-freeipa open source work.
Jan has a talk coming up on the project at this year's LinuxCon Europe. Jan has rich experience in open source, and we had a productive time discussing topics ranging from complex use cases for Docker, to open source software as a whole, and the future of Perl.
The topic of your talk, "Complex Applications in Containers," is both intriguing and a little puzzling, as we don't usually expect Docker to be used this way. Can you please tell us a bit about it?
When exploring the container technology and the possibility of using it for parallel installations of FreeIPA for testing and other purposes, I certainly tried to "follow the book" and properly isolate individual pieces into separate containers. However, the server comprises of multiple interconnected components, configuring numerous OS-level components and libraries. For example, the Kerberos configuration is used for authenticating communication among the individual parts, so it needs to be available to all of them. I would need to bind-mount many configuration directories and files into many containers, something which is easy do wrong with plain Docker.
Furthermore, the configuration program ipa-server-install that sets up all the components plays an important role in the overall value of the FreeIPA project by making the setup consistent and easy to achieve from admin's point of view. It assumes all parts get configured and run on a single machine. We could have waited with the containerization effort until it gets refactored to support installation on multiple hosts, rewritten the logic using Docker tools, or just used the configuration tool directly and adapted the environment within the container. Since the setup tool makes a heavy use of systemctl calls when enabling the individual services and restarting them, using systemd in the container was the initial plan.
Eventually, we went with a custom systemctl to emulate just enough of the systemd functionality needed for the services we need. That gave us the most control while keeping the solution lean.
What do you think of the state of containerization? What needs to be done before containers are seen as mission critical and enterprise ready?
It depends on the use-case. For some of them, containers are already there and organizations and companies use them. For certain deployments, additional plumbing will likely be needed to give people building the solutions easy and flexible control over combining the containers and the host environments for secure setups. It's important to remember containers are actually multiple different technologies that may not all be utilized in a particular deployment.
You can have containerized application which just uses cgroups to set resource limits, filesystem namespaces to use a particular libraries or JVM version, and perhaps SELinux for container isolation, but does not need UID or PID namespacing. Unlike virtual machines, the boundaries of containers can be more flexible, and sometimes blurred.
The work on Docker-freeipa is actually part of the effort of making containers enterprise ready—bringing identity management into containerized environments—and not just the server side being able to run FreeIPA in the container. The project also contains client-side branches with System Security Services Daemon (SSSD), and we actively explore ways of consuming external identities and authentication in containers.
Docker security is a huge concern. What still needs to be done to plug security holes in Docker?
I believe some of the issues stem from the fact that people view Linux container technology and Docker containers as functionally equivalent to virtual machines, just with lower footprint, rather than as enhanced chroot environments. The carelessness with which they run processes based on random images downloaded from various sources is a result of perceived ease of use, and it will need to be addressed both with education and raising awareness, and with tools making it much more obvious what is being downloaded and run, and how. For deeper insight into security aspects of Docker, Dan Walsh is much more qualified, as he actively works with Docker's internals.
As you said, the traditional approach of Docker has been to deploy each component in an independent container and link them together. As the applications are becoming complex, this is becoming a limitation, which is the problem you are trying to solve with Docker-freeipa. Do you think there is scope for a "Docker orchestration service" that bundles the mini-containers and creates an uber-container?
If an application consists of four containers and you need for all of them to be running to deliver some value to the users, people will be searching for ways to describe the relationships between containers via some more persistent ways than --link and -v options to Docker run commands. Docker Compose, Kubernetes Pods, or similar projects might be the answer.
Whether the orchestration itself should run as a container or is just a definition in a file and runtime state of some daemon, I don't dare to speculate.
You have immense experience in the world of identity management. Traditionally dominated by proprietary products, open source solutions such as OpenAM and OpenIDM have been slowly making an impact. Is open source identity management production-ready? Do you have any examples of how open source IM is being deployed?
There are different levels of identity management software. People usually confuse them because this is a complex area. OpenAM and OpenIDM are more Web-application-level technologies on top of infrastructure and clouds. I would not comment on those technologies and their readiness for the enterprise. It is probably better to get opinion of someone closely working with those projects.
The infrastructure and clouds under the hood need platform-level identity management capabilities. In case of Windows, this has been traditionally solved by Active Directory and a whole ecosystem of related integrated components product offerings. In the open source world, FreeIPA that can nicely integrate with Active Directory by the way of cross-forest Kerberos trusts takes this role. It is definitely production-ready and has been deployed in multiple production environments. Red Hat offers a supported version called Identity Management (IdM) in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Over the last several years we have seen a steady growth of production deployments on Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS platforms.
Organizations use them to centrally manage access to Linux machines and services running on them, sometimes for dozens of thousands of users. The client-side SSSD installed on hosts then enforces the policies, using the PAM (pluggable authentication modules) and other native mechanisms. Often the authenticated users are coming from Active Directory realms and the IdM solution bridges the two worlds, giving the enterprises the freedom to deploy individual parts of their infrastructure using technology best suited for the task.
You have also been a contributor to CPAN. Perl has attracted many programmers with its low entry barrier and has been rightfully called the "duct tape of the Internet." Much has been said about Perl being no longer relevant and a dying language. As a long-time advocate, what are your thoughts on the future of Perl?
With cloud services, as well as with containerization, it is possible and expected that solutions will be created as combinations of various components that are able to process and exchange data using some open protocols or formats. While I don't expect to again see Perl used wherever you look like it was back in the CGI days, components written in Perl 5 (or 6?) can live and provide value for decades to come.
There are new projects started that use that language from time to time, and it's nice to see the old friendly code from time to time in people's git repos. And maybe the next huge social network is being developed somewhere in Perl right now.
Can you tell us a bit about your role at Red Hat? How much of your time do you spend on other open source project contributions as part of your official work?
At Red Hat, I'm responsible for integration of identity management technologies to our products. This allows our customers to have users from external identity management systems like IdM or Active Directory, or users from external organizations via federation using SAML or other protocols, to use those products with single sign-on, central access control, or similar expected possibilities. Another part is then security of complex systems where we try to avoid passwords being used for various systems and database accounts and search for ways of using more maintainable mechanisms—GSS-API and Kerberos or SSL certificates.
Since Red Hat's philosophy is "upstream first" and our products are open source, we obviously try to enable those features in upstream projects first as a rule. I might not have huge number of contributions in other open source projects because I lately focus on evangelizing and enabling and helping others to do those contributions, rather than pushing pull requests myself. But I have git-clones and svn-checkouts of over 80 projects on my disk and I work with those on daily basis.
LinuxCon Europe 2015
Series
This article is part of the LinuxCon Europe Series for LinuxCon in Dublin. LinuxCon Europe is where where developers, sys admins, architects and all levels of technical talent gather together under one roof for education, collaboration and problem-solving to further the Linux platform. LinuxCon Europe will be held October 5-7, 2015, in Dublin, Ireland.The South Dakota Republican Party passed a resolution on Saturday calling for the impeachment of President Barack Obama.
Delegates at the party's annual convention in Rapid City voted 191-176 in favor of the measure, which claims that the president has "violated his oath of office in numerous ways," according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
Specifically, the resolution cited the trade of five Taliban detainees for U.S. Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, as well as Obama's much-maligned campaign promise that people would be able to keep their existing health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and a recent EPA proposal that would curb emissions from coal power plants.
"Therefore, be it resolved that the South Dakota Republican Party calls on our U.S. Representatives to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States," the resolution reads, according to the Argus Leader.
Allen Unruh, the delegate who sponsored the resolution, said he had a "thick book on impeachable offenses of the president." He called on South Dakota to "send a symbolic message that liberty shall be the law of the land."
Talk of impeaching the president even made a return to Capitol Hill this week, when, after a discussion about immigration reform, Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Penn.) claimed that the House could "probably" impeach Obama if the matter was brought to the floor.Ukrainian Ministry of Defense: Kyiv is ready to accept lethal weapons from the United States Thursday, July 20, 2017 3:00:36 PM
Kyiv is ready to accept lethal weapons from the USA if Washington makes such a decision, said Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak on Wednesday.
Earlier, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces, General Paul Selva said that the US Department of Defense was still considering the issue of supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine.
"Ukraine is ready to accept lethal weapons from the USA if such a decision is made," Poltorak wrote on his Twitter page.
In early May, the US Senate approved a draft federal budget until September 30, 2017, which provides for financial assistance to Ukraine in the amount of at least $410 million, including military support. The Pentagon could spend $150 million on "providing assistance, including military training, equipment, lethal weapons for defense purposes, logistics assistance," as well as "reconnaissance community assistance for the military and for the national security forces of Ukraine."
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.KEVM, a framework developed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with support from IOHK, has won this year’s IC3-Ethereum Crypto Boot Camp, a blockchain development event and competition.
The team has modeled the world’s first complete, fully executable formal semantics of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and produced the KEVM framework, which allows for formal execution, analysis, and verification of EVM smart contracts.
“The pressing need to address repeated security vulnerabilities and high-profile failures in Ethereum smart contracts hasn’t been adequately addressed by existing formal verification and program analysis tools,” said Prof. Grigore Rosu of the UIUC’s Siebel Center for Computer Science and CEO of Runtime Verification. Until now, no fully-formal, rigorous, comprehensive, and executable semantics of EVM existed, leaving a lack of rigor on which to base such tools.
“KEVM allows us to formally verify properties of EVM-based smart contracts in a correct-by-construction and cost-effective manner. It is significant because Ethereum users need the guarantees of formal verification to safeguard against financial losses due to software bugs,” he said.
“This work serves as a foundation for the development of new smart contract analysis tools; more importantly, it gives us invaluable insight on how to design better programming languages for smart contracts.”
IOHK said it chose to invest in the search and development of a formal semantics of the EVM based on the K framework due to K’s language-independent nature, wide potential application, and its success in academia, where K has been used to formalize several real-world languages such as JavaScript, Java, C, Python, and PHP.
“This research has given us a great degree of insight into what one should do to redesign the EVM to make it more secure, faster, and more efficient. It will now be easier to build tooling for the EVM, such as verified compilers,” said Charles Hoskinson, CEO and founder of IOHK, an engineering company that builds cryptocurrencies and blockchains for academic institutions, government entities and corporations.
“This white paper is the result of our first wave of research into this area. Based on this research, IOHK will begin building prototypes and our hope is to have an EVM 2.0 ready next year, as part of Cardano, a product we are currently building.”
Held at the Connell University, the IC3’s second annual Ethereum Crypto Boot Camp brought together professors, Ethereum Foundation contributors and top students and developers for an immersive week-long coding and learning experience in blockchains and smart contracts.
The boot camp featured daily keynote presentations by smart contract and blockchain experts such as Vitalik Buterin, founder of the Ethereum Foundation, Dr. Ittay Eyal from IC3 and Cornell University, Casey Detrio from the Ethereum Foundation, Andrew Miller from IC3 and UMD, among others.
The team behind KEVM competed against nine other teams tasked with solving with solving some of the problems currently facing the Ethereum ecosystem.Microsoft’s Windows RT-powered Surface has been… polarizing to say the least, leaving many a gadget fiend pondering the prospect of buying the more powerful Surface Pro instead.
The Redmond-based company has been keeping quiet when it came to the Pro’s more salient details, but Microsoft has finally come forward with some new info — the Surface Pro will be available in 64GB and 128GB models in January 2013, which will cost users $899 and $999, respectively.
Honestly, I’m looking forward to seeing just how much of that internal memory will actually be available to users from the get-go, especially considering how things played out on the RT version. If you’ll recall, users who picked up the base 32GB Surface RT ended up only ended up with about 16GB of free space, despite originally being assured that they would have closer to 20GB to play with.
As previously noted, both models will ship with a Surface pen for more precise touch input, but users looking for a faster way to bang out essays and angry missives may still want to purchase a Touch or Type Cover. Some of the Surface Pro’s other particulars have been public knowledge for a while now — it’s a bit heavier than the RT model (though still less than 2 lbs), but it packs an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 1080p display into that handsome VaporMG chassis. Other enhancements over the Surface RT include a full-size USB 3.0 port, a Mini DisplayPort jack, and (naturally) a beefier battery to run the show.
This is certainly a gutsy move for Microsoft — these price points put the Surface within striking distance of existing (not to mention well-reviewed) Windows 8 convertibles like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga. As Gizmodo points out too, the price of a 64GB Surface Pro and a keyboard cover inches past that of an 11-inch MacBook Air, which may mean the Surface Pro could be left in a sort of no man’s land between lightweight laptops and more traditional tablets. Don’t get me wrong, I think the Surface Pro has a shot at success (I’ve grown rather fond of my own Surface RT), but we’ll soon see how the company’s hardware fortunes turn out.Scientists find that climate change has helped push first frosts later across the country
US winter has shrunk by more than one month in 100 years
The length of the US winter is shortening, with the first frost of the year arriving more than one month later than it did 100 years ago, according to more than a century of measurements from weather stations nationwide.
The trend of ever later first freezes appears to have started around 1980, according to data from 700 weather stations across the US going back to 1895 and compiled by Ken Kunkel, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
Sea levels to rise 1.3m unless coal power ends by 2050, report says Read more
Kunkel compared the first freeze from each of the 700 stations to the station’s average for the 20th Century. Some parts of the country experience earlier or later freezes every year, but on average freezes are coming later.
The average first freeze over the last 10 years, from 2007 to 2016, is a week later than the average from 1971 to 1980.
This year, about 40% of the Lower 48 states have had a freeze as of 23 October, compared to 65% in a normal year, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private service Weather Underground.
In Ottawa, Illinois, the average first freeze for the 20th century was 15 October. The normal from 1981 to 2010 based on NOAA computer simulations was 19 October. Since 2010, the average first freeze is on 26 October. Last year, the first freeze in Ottawa came on 12 November.
Quick guide Tropical storm Harvey and climate change Show Hide Is there a link between the storm and climate change? Almost certainly, according to a statement issued by the World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday. “Climate change means that when we do have an event like Harvey, the rainfall amounts are likely to be higher than they would have been otherwise,” the UN organisation’s spokeswoman Clare Nullis told a conference. Nobody is arguing that climate change caused the storm, but it is likely to have made it much worse. How did it make it worse? Warmer seas evaporate more quickly. Warmer air holds more water vapour. So, as temperatures rise around the world, the skies store more moisture and dump it more intensely. The US National Weather Service has had to introduce a new colour on its graphs to deal with the volume of precipitation. Harvey surpassed the previous US record for rainfall from a tropical system, as 49.2 inches was recorded at Mary’s Creek at Winding Road in Southeast Houston, at 9.20am on Tuesday. Is this speculation or science? There is a proven link – known as the Clausius-Clapeyron equation – that shows that for every half a degree celsius in warming, there is about a 3% increase in atmospheric moisture content. This was a factor in Texas. The surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is currently more than half a degree celsius higher than the recent late summer average, which is in turn more than half a degree higher than 30 years ago, according to Michael Mannof Penn State University. As a result there was more potential for a deluge. Are there other links between Harvey and climate change? Yes, the storm surge was greater because sea levels have risen 20cm as a result of more than 100 years of human-related global warming. This has melted glaciers and thermally expanded the volume of seawater.
Last year was “way off the charts” nationwide, Kunkel said. The average first freeze was two weeks later than the 20th century average, and the last frost of spring was nine days earlier than normal.
Overall the United States freeze season of 2016 was more than a month shorter than the freeze season of 1916. It was most extreme in the Pacific Northwest. Oregon’s freeze season was 61 days – two months – shorter than normal.
Global warming has helped push the first frosts later, Kunkel and other scientists said. Also at play, though, are natural short-term changes in air circulation patterns – but they too may be influenced by man-made climate change, they said.
'We will be toasted, roasted and grilled': IMF chief sounds climate change warning Read more
This shrinking freeze season is what climate scientists have long predicted, said University of Oklahoma meteorology professor Jason Furtado.
A shorter freeze season means a longer growing season and less money spent on heat. But it also hurts some plants that require a certain amount of chill, such as Georgia peaches, said Theresa Crimmins, a University of Arizona ecologist.
Crimmins is assistant director of the National Phenology Network. Phenology is the study of the seasons and how plants and animals adapt to timing changes.
Pests that attack trees and spread disease aren’t being killed off as early as they normally would be, Crimmins said.
In New England, many trees aren’t changing colours as vibrantly as they normally do or used to because some take cues for when to turn from temperature, said Boston University biology professor Richard Primack.
Research, said natural variability, especially an El Nino, made last year exceptional for an early freeze, but “it represents the kind of conditions that will be more routine in a decade or two” because of man-made climate change.
“The long-term consequences are really negative,” said Primack, because shorter winters and hotter temperatures are also expected to lead to rising seas that cause worse flooding during heavy storms.
Associated Press contributed to this reportA third senior American official said there was enough other intelligence and indicators immediately after Mr. Shahzad’s death for the Americans to conclude that the ISI had ordered him killed.
“Every indication is that this was a deliberate, targeted killing that was most likely meant to send shock waves through Pakistan’s journalist community and civil society,” said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the information.
A spokesman for the Pakistan intelligence agency said in Islamabad on Monday night that “I am not commenting on this.” George Little, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, declined to comment.
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In a statement the day after Mr. Shahzad’s waterlogged body was retrieved from a canal 60 miles from Islamabad, the ISI publicly denied accusations in the Pakistani news media that it had been responsible, calling them “totally unfounded.”
The ISI said the journalist’s death was “unfortunate and tragic,” and should not be “used to target and malign the country’s security agency.”
The killing of Mr. Shahzad, a contributor to the Web site Asia Times Online, aroused an immediate furor in the freewheeling news media in Pakistan.
Mr. Shahzad was the 37th journalist killed in Pakistan since the 9/11 attacks, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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Pakistan’s civilian government, under pressure from the media, established a commission headed by a Supreme Court justice to investigate Mr. Shahzad’s death. The findings are scheduled to be released early next month.
Mr. Shahzad suffered 17 lacerated wounds delivered by a blunt instrument, a ruptured liver and two broken ribs, said Dr. Mohammed Farrukh Kamal, one of the three physicians who conducted the post-mortem.
The anger over Mr. Shahzad’s death followed unprecedented questioning in the media about the professionalism of the army and the ISI, a military-controlled spy agency, in the aftermath of the Bin Laden raid.
Since that initial volley of questioning, the ISI has mounted a steady counter-campaign. Senior ISI officials have called and visited journalists, warning them to douse their criticisms and rally around the theme of a united country, according to three journalists who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.
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Mr. Shahzad, who wrote articles over the last several years that illuminated the relationship between the militants and the military, was abducted from the capital three days after publication of his article that said Al Qaeda was responsible for an audacious 16-hour commando attack on Pakistan’s main naval base in Karachi on May 22.
The attack was a reprisal for the navy’s arresting up to 10 naval personnel who had belonged to a Qaeda cell, Mr. Shahzad said.
The article, published by Asia Times Online, detailed how the attackers were guided by maps and logistical information provided from personnel inside the base.
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Particularly embarrassing for the military, Mr. Shahzad described negotiations before the raid between the navy and a Qaeda representative, Abdul Samad Mansoor. The navy refused to release the detainees, Mr. Shahzad wrote. The Pakistani military maintains that it does not negotiate with militants.
Mr. Shahzad prided himself on staying out of the mainstream press, preferring, he wrote in a preface to his recently published book, “Inside Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” to challenge the “conventional wisdom.”
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He had submitted articles to Asia Times Online, which claims 150,000 readers, since 2001, when he was a reporter in Karachi uncovering corruption in the public utility, the editor of the Web site, Tony Allison, said.
He broke into the limelight two years ago with an interview with Ilyas Kashmiri, a highly trained Pakistani militant allied to Al Qaeda. Mr. Kashmiri is believed to have been killed in a drone attack in early June.
According to associates, Mr. Shahzad cultivated contacts inside the military and the intelligence agency and members of militant groups, some from his student days in Jamaat Islami, a religious political party.
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Some of his stories were threaded with embellishments. Soon after the Bin Laden raid, Mr. Shahzad wrote that Gen. David H. Petraeus visited the chief of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and informed him, an account the White House strongly disputes. Pakistani journalists questioned the authenticity of some of Mr. Shahzad |
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Six employees remain unaccounted for.
All of the men are employed by Value Added Oilfield Services (VAOS).
The six workers still being held in captivity include four Filipinos, a Czech and an Austrian.
The men had been kidnapped from the al Ghani oilfield on March 6.Buses filled with Zwarte Piet protestors were stopped by a group of about 35 white people stationed on the A7 highway outside Heerenveen, Friesland on Saturday. The protesters were on their way to the official Sinterklaas arrival in Dokkum about 50 kilometers away, where they had approval from city officials to march against the character.
"It seems like the extreme right really blocked us from exercising our freedom of speech, and none of them were arrested," said one Kick Out Zwarte Piet member to NL Times. The protestor, Otto, wishes to keep his real name anonymous for fear of attacks by extremists.
"There were about 30 white men, and a few white women, and some of them got out of their vehicles and were banging on the windows of our buses," Otto said, calling the situation "scary."
"Zwarte Piet shows how extreme Dutch people can become when you try to criticize racism or Dutch society. What happened proves our point," he noted.
By blocking the highway, the counter-protestors created a situation police called "life threatening and punishable" a spokesperson told local broadcaster Omroep Fryslan.
"The extreme right wing people kept us there with motorcycles, and cars in a coordinated effort for 45 minutes," Otto explained. Police arrived after about 15 minutes, but instead of immediately escorting the activists to Dokkum, they stood around chatting with the counter-protest for a half hour, Otto added.
"Finally, police agreed to guide us to Dokkum," using a winding route west through Friesland instead of a direct route on the A7, he continued. But by that time it was too late.
Officials refused to let Kick Out Zwarte Piet move forward with their march through the area because the rally was not able to start at their pre-approved time, Otto lamented.
"Given the situation that has arisen, the safety of the demonstrators and the public can not be guaranteed," police said in a published statement. They said that was the reason the protest was not allowed to move forward by a deputy mayor in Dongeradeel, the municipality that presides over Dokkum. The Sinterklaas arrival took place at 12:30 as scheduled, and included Zwarte Piet characters in blackface makeup, and some who were smeared with makeup meant to look like soot.
The three buses, with a total of over 150 on board, were then escorted by riot police squads towards Amsterdam, where two of the buses originated. The third came from Rotterdam, where some protestors also rallied on Saturday against racism in the Netherlands.
"This shows that the police breaks their promises. We did everything we could by the book. Kick Out Zwarte Piet had meetings with the mayor and police and did everything right," Otto said. He then questioned whether or not authorities covertly coordinated with the counter-protestors to block the activists from rallying at the agreed upon time and place.
On Friday, an open letter from Dongeradeel mayor Marga Waanders, the police and the prosecutor's office called on counter-protestors to put a stop to any planned blockade of Kick Out Zwarte Piet.
Zwarte Piet is believed by many groups in the Netherlands to have deep connections with racism and slavery, particularly because the character is often portrayed by white people wearing blackface makeup. The Zwarte Piet character often has large bright red lips, nappy hair, and large gold hoop earrings, and he is frequently portrayed as either a bumbling fool. The traditional outfit he wears has been likened to clothing worn by black children given as slaves by wealth Dutch people in the 17th century, prompting the Amsterdam Sinterklaas party organizers to create a new costume for this year's event.
"It's a crazy day. I don't know how to feel. Everyone is safe, so that's important." Otto said.2013 WCS Europe
Introduction by curi
Hero powers play a huge role in Hearthstone. In an average ten turn game, each player will use their hero powers four or five times so which one you use can make a big difference! Hero powers are so important that they have a significant effect on the balance between heroes, as well as helping determine the type of decks each hero should play.
The hero powers are listed by how strong they are, but more important is the discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Of course, the kinds of decks that each hero power works best with are also explored. Hero powers play a huge role in Hearthstone. In an average ten turn game, each player will use their hero powers four or five times so which one you use can make a big difference! Hero powers are so important that they have a significant effect on the balance between heroes, as well as helping determine the type of decks each hero should play.The hero powers are listed by how strong they are, but more important is the discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Of course, the kinds of decks that each hero power works best with are also explored.
The Ugly(Situational Powers)
The bottom tier of hero powers are pretty much useless half the time, and usually not that amazing even when they do something. Two of them never even effect creature fights at all. It's really hard to make a good deck with such a weak hero power. You need low mana creatures to play at the start when your hero power is weak, but you also need a higher mana curve than other heroes because you can't rely on using your hero power much to spend your mana. How is that going to work? So far I don't think anyone has a good answer.
#7 Lesser Heal
So far we've mostly seen hero powers that are usually reasonably useful. The final three hero powers are a lot more situational. Consider Less Heal
Comparing to the card Holy Light Heal Holy Light
There are a few upsides to Lesser Heal Lesser Heal Shapeshift Fireblast Soulfire Eviscerate
Lesser Heal Lesser Heal Lesser Heal
Note that healing yourself is only effective in games where you would have died otherwise. If you heal yourself three times, that usually only benefited you if you end the game at six health or less. Because Lesser Heal
#8 Steady Shot
Steady Shot
Steady Shot Steady Shot
Most top players will agree that Hunter and Warrior are currently the worst heroes. Their biggest problem is they have the worst hero powers. Due to the weakness of the Priest, Hunter and Warrior hero powers, a good strategy is to use cards like Novice Engineer Loot Hoarder
#9 Armor Up!
What's worse than doing two damage to your opponent and never affecting any creatures? Gaining two armor and never affecting any creatures. If things go well, you shouldn't get attacked too much, so a purely defensive hero power is not very appealing.
The best way to use Armor Up! Armor Up!
The other main possibility would be to play a slow anti-aggro deck and after you deal with your opponent's threats you can heal up like a Priest. This isn't very attractive, but at least it's something. It's the most useful against Mages with burn spells. Unfortunately, most of the Warrior's cards are more suited to aggressive decks.
The bottom tier of hero powers are pretty much useless half the time, and usually not that amazing even when they do something. Two of them never even effect creature fights at all. It's really hard to make a good deck with such a weak hero power. You need low mana creatures to play at the start when your hero power is weak, but you also need a higher mana curve than other heroes because you can't rely on using your hero power much to spend your mana. How is that going to work? So far I don't think anyone has a good answer.So far we've mostly seen hero powers that are usually reasonably useful. The final three hero powers are a lot more situational. Consider Less. Sometimes it's turn two and you can't do anything and have to pass the turn without spending your two mana. No other hero power is that bad on turn two.Comparing to the card, Lesshas the same mana cost for two healing instead of six. So we can say it's only worth a third of a card. Butisn't a great card in the first place. So this comparison doesn't look very good.There are a few upsides to. First of all, you can heal yourself two per turn. As long as hero powers are only being used on the heroes,is almost as good asand almost twice as good as. Second, healing up can help you deal with burn Mages which are currently a powerful deck to worry about. You can also heal yourself up if you stabilize the board against any aggro deck, which prevents them from having several turns to topdeck aorfor the kill.is also a very strong hero power if you have creature combat and your creatures typically live for multiple turns. If you are doing the attacking, choosing the minion engagements, and healing up one of your surviving creatures each turn, you're probably going to win the game. Also, you need to be using creatures with at least three health for this to work well. Be careful that you will need some mana left over afterto keep playing cards so it's not effective in the first few turns. In the right situations,can be one of the best hero powers. Unfortunately, Priests have a hard time making them happen. Priests don't have a strong enough early game to reliably get the initiative and also get creatures out with enough health for the healing to work well and allow for highly efficient combat.Note that healing yourself is only effective in games where you would have died otherwise. If you heal yourself three times, that usually only benefited you if you end the game at six health or less. Becauseis too situational, and too hard to get much benefit from, it's in the bottom three.never has any effect on creature combat. This is a huge downside. Unless you kill your opponent, it didn't end up helping you at all. It helps in games you win, but it never helps prevent you from losing.dictates aggressive Hunter decks. Unless you're focused on killing your opponent, it's pretty useless. If you do focus on killing your opponent, thenhas the possibility of being useful, but it's still a risky proposition.Most top players will agree that Hunter and Warrior are currently the worst heroes. Their biggest problem is they have the worst hero powers. Due to the weakness of the Priest, Hunter and Warrior hero powers, a good strategy is to use cards likeandto give you more things to do on turns two and three when your hero power is almost always bad.What's worse than doing two damage to your opponent and never affecting any creatures? Gaining two armor and never affecting any creatures. If things go well, you shouldn't get attacked too much, so a purely defensive hero power is not very appealing.The best way to useis by putting a lot of weapons in your deck. For other heroes, attacking creatures with your weapon too much can get you killed. For warrior, it can still get you killed, but at leastdoes something useful by letting you get a couple more attacks on creatures with your weapon.The other main possibility would be to play a slow anti-aggro deck and after you deal with your opponent's threats you can heal up like a Priest. This isn't very attractive, but at least it's something. It's the most useful against Mages with burn spells. Unfortunately, most of the Warrior's cards are more suited to aggressive decks.The 68th annual Emmy Awards telecast is just hours away. But don’t panic, here’s everything you need to know about how to tune in.
Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, this year’s show will air live on ABC at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
No TV, no problem! You can also watch the Emmys live stream online. TV subscribers can stream the awards on ABC.com by signing in with a participating TV provider account. TV providers include AT&T U-verse, Charter Spectrum, Cox, DirectTV, Dish Network, Optimum, and Verizon.
You can also watch the ceremony on a mobile device through the ABC App. Simply download the app from an app store, log in, and hit “live TV.” You can also watch the stream on a set-top by using the ABC App.
The show will be preceded by a red carpet special beginning at 3:30 p.m. PT/6:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Other networks, including E!, will also air red carpet coverage and pre-coverage beginning at 1:30 p.m. PT/4:30 p.m. ET.
The awards will be available on-demand on Monday.
Here’s the the full list of Emmy nominations. HBO’s “Game of Thrones” leads the pack with 23 noms, followed closely behind by FX’s “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” which nabbed 22.
Here’s the full list of Emmys 2016 winners.MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States has shown that Russia is the true target of its planned missile defense shield by signing a deal with Poland during an international crisis over Georgia, Russia’s NATO envoy told Reuters on Friday.
U.S. chief negotiator John Rood (L) and Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Kremer sign a missile shield preliminary deal at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw August 14, 2008. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel
Poland agreed on Thursday to host elements of a U.S. global anti-missile system after Washington agreed to boost Poland’s own air defenses.
“The fact that this was signed in a period of very difficult crisis in the relations between Russia and the United States over the situation in Georgia shows that, of course, the missile defense system will be deployed not against Iran but against the strategic potential of Russia,” Dmitry Rogozin said in a telephone interview.
Washington says the missile system is aimed at protecting the United States and its allies from long range missiles that could in the future be fired by Iran or groups such as al-Qaeda.
The Kremlin says that is untrue and has long opposed the shield, though Russian generals boast it could never stop the fire power of Russia’s giant missile arsenal.
Moscow and Washington have been trading barbs over Georgia, an ally of the United States aspiring to join NATO, after Russian troops routed Georgian forces which had tried to take control of a Georgian separatist region backed by Moscow.
Russian units then went into several towns in Georgia proper, provoking the ire of Washington, with top U.S. officials invoking memories of the Soviet Union’s occupation of Eastern Europe during the Cold War.
CONFLICT “PRETEXT FOR AGREEMENT”
Polish analysts argued that images of the conflict helped push Warsaw to agree to the shield deal after months of talks.
They also said it risked putting more pressure on ties with Russia just months after Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk vowed to improve his country’s historically strained relations with its big neighbor and former overlord.
“It can now be expected that this will be the beginning of the end of Polish-Russian talks. This agreement can be seen as a purely anti-Russian agreement,” said Kazimierz Kik, a sociology professor at Swietokrzyska Academy.
“It’s making Poland part of the U.S. defense system and, in my view, pushes Poland along a well-worn road of mistakes — looking for allies afar and enemies nearby,” he added.
Russia says the conflict — Moscow’s first major foreign military operation since the collapse of the Soviet Union — has been misrepresented by the West and that Georgia has been treated as a victim rather than the aggressor.
Rogozin criticized the United States for failing to support Russia in the crisis and said relations could be harmed.
“I consider that the United States is not acting in a cautious manner in this situation,” Rogozin said, when asked about U.S.-Russian relations and the situation in Georgia.
“Instead of getting full moral and political support in the struggle against real aggression and ethnic cleansing, we have heard a mass of unpleasant words and threats. That will, of course, not strengthen our relations.”
Russia’s top brass said on Friday that the United States was aggravating relations by signing the agreement with Poland.
“It can only be regretted that in this most difficult situation, the American side is aggravating relations with Russia,” Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of Russia’s General Staff, told a news conference.UPDATE: When reached via email on Wednesday, Google declined to comment.
Google is set to debut a new interface for its Maps app, according to a report.
Google Operating System, a blog that provides unofficial news about the search giant, said the update will get rid of Maps' current sidebar, and will display location information in pop-ups that appear on top of a full-screen map. The new design places greater emphasis on the map itself, rather on navigational tools such as the direction arrows and zoom functions.
Another new feature of the revamped app will reportedly let users filter local search results to venues that are recommended by top reviews or people in their Google+ circles.
The blog also includes alleged images of Maps' new interface, which appears more immersive, and suited to touchscreen mobile devices. Check them out, below.
While Google Operating System did not say when users will see the overhauled interface, the blog hinted that it could debut at Google I/O, the company's annual developers' conference, next week.
Last October, Google added some visual improvements to Maps by introducing terrain and color gradations to illustrate vegetation.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
What do you think of Google Maps' reported redesign? Tell us in the comments, below.
Homepage Mashable composite, images via iStockphoto, pingebat; Images courtesy of Google Operating SystemMany people assume vaping encourages people to smoke cigarettes.
But now scientists claim this is just a myth - and that evidence to even suggest such a link is 'weak'.
Despite having long been considered a gateway, a team of US researchers wanted to analyse the findings of previous studies.
They highlighted several shortfalls that appear to show a link between e-cigarettes and traditional tobacco products.
For example, they said many use misleading measurements for what they consider to be'smoking', including just one puff over a course of six months.
Despite having long been considered a gateway, a team of US researchers claim that evidence is 'weak' to suggest e-cigarettes encourage people to smoke tobacco products
Dr Lynn Kozlowski, of the University of Buffalo, pointed to research that shows as use of e-cigarettes have shot up, overall smoking rates have decreased.
Writing in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, she said: 'The evidence from the prospective studies is weak at best.
'The national trends in vaping and cigarette smoking do not support the argument that vaping is leading to smoking
'There is little evidence that those who have never smoked cigarettes or never used other tobacco products and first try e-cigarettes will later move on to cigarette usage with great frequency or daily, regular smoking.
Pointing to other previous studies, Dr Kozlowski also noted how no research has been designed to follow up smoking intensity.
She also pointed to the fact that many have avoided looking into details of e-cigarette flavourings that contain no nicotine.
A 2015 survey found that only 20 per cent of students who had used the gadgets reported it containing nicotine.
E-cigarettes contain a liquid form of nicotine that is heated into vapour to be inhaled, avoiding the harm caused by tobacco smoke.
Dr Lynn Kozlowski, of the University of Buffalo, said: 'The public deserves accurate information on the health risks of e-cigarettes versus cigarettes'
Health experts agree that the devices are much safer than smoking tobacco – and the gadgets are designed to help people quit smoking each year.
The evidence from the prospective studies is weak at best Dr Lynn Kozlowski, of the University of Buffalo
But many are concerned about unresolved safety concerns. In November, the World Health Organisation called for a global ban on using e-cigarettes in public places.
It warned of the dangers of 'passive vaping', which growing evidence has linked to lung damage, heart complications and stillbirth in pregnant women.
E-CIGARETTES ARE SAFER Electronic cigarettes are far safer and less toxic than smoking tobacco, a major British study found in February. Scientists warned nearly two thirds of smokers wrongly believe e-cigarettes are as dangerous as smoking. And they blamed US campaigners for exaggerating the harms as part of a'moral crusade' against the nicotine devices. Researchers at University College London found people who switched from tobacco to 'vaping' gadgets saw the levels of cancer-causing toxins in their body drop by up to 97.5 per cent in six months.
However, a major British study last month found that electronic cigarettes are far safer and less toxic than smoking tobacco.
Dr Kozlowski added: 'The public deserves accurate information on the health risks of e-cigarettes versus cigarettes.
'From the best evidence to date, e-cigarettes are much less dangerous than cigarettes. The public has become confused about this.'
And the constant focus on the potential risks of e-cigarettes to children has caused many to become confused over the dangers.
Dr Kozlowski said that this is likely 'discouraging adult smokers from using e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool'.
This comes after scientists at the University of Michigan warned last month that e-cigarettes are a 'one-way bridge' to smoking tobacco.
The study found using the gadgets desensitised teenagers, meaning they were four times as likely to go on to smoke cigarettes.Just got into this wonderful series (finishing up s1 att), guess who's me fave?
Currently working on a fic with a pretty typical plot featuring Geordi and Data, but I've found I spend quite a bit of time pondering Data's functions through Geordi. This came from that.
While I understand that props and their design aren't cheap (and that you could say that the appeal of Data is his journey to humanity, not how he works), I'm always dissatisfied with the portrayal of how he and his "brothers" dissasemble. It looks too simple for how complex the Soong androids are, so I try coming up with explanaitions to myself. Granted, I have no knowledge in mechanics/engineering and little more than that in computers so it's all made up.
And then I got bored, so I drew it out. I won't go into detail on how I think it would work, since I do that (at length) in the fic. Was still good challenge though, I've never done cybernetic stuff, before.
Data's head is too big and his nose too small. It didn't look that way in the rough version. Argeth.Nokia jumped some 10 per cent on the news of Motorola’s acquisition by Google. The obvious question is why?
The obvious answer is that having seen Motorola get snapped up, Nokia might be next. RIM, maker of the BlackBerry was also up but not by as much. But who would buy Nokia and why? Step forward Microsoft.
At first glance it seems to make little sense. Microsoft has the world’s largest phone maker (depending on how you measure it) tightly locked up and we are expecting the first Nokia Windows Phone device any day now. Nokia is already in Microsoft’s pocket so what would Steve Ballmer get by buying the troubled Finnish giant?
And to make it even more unlikely, look at the size of the company. Although Nokia shares are in a precipitous decline, and are some 45% off, Nokia still has a market cap of around $14 billion. Applying the premium Google paid for Motorola Mobility a back of an envelope calculation values Nokia at around $30 billion. That is a pretty sizable ticket for a company with a falling share price, a declining market share and an untested product line.Add Franklin Graham to the growing list of Vladimir Putin’s American Religious Right cheerleaders. Religion News Service reports today that Graham defended the Russian leader in Decision Magazine, writing that his law on “homosexual propaganda” is “simply to protect children.”
Graham says that Russia is a better model of godliness and morality than America because of the Obama administration’s “gay-lesbian agenda” that “is contrary to God’s teaching.”
He also defended Russia’s support for Syria’s brutal Assad regime.
“Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue—protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda—Russia’s standard is higher than our own? In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues,” Graham writes. “Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.”
He concludes with a warning that the US is entering in its own phase of communism and will experience God’s judgment.Years ago I read Streamed Lines: Branching Patterns for Parallel Software Development, and many of the thoughts have stayed me. Think of it as a catalogue of Design Patterns for version control workflows. There are so many ways to efficiently use branches to both collaborate and isolate work. Lively discussions can be had on how to best organize a repository, and having a great overview of the options makes for more informed discussions.
I have previously described how I’ve been using small hack && ship commands to simplify and streamline my personal git workflow. Recently I’ve switched to using the Git Flow setup as my branching and release workflow.
Setting up git-flow
Installing the git-flow toolset on OS X is trivial using the homebrew installer:
$ brew install git-flow
The git-flow project also has instructions for installation on Linux and Windows.
Installing git-flow adds a few helpful commands to the git environment for creating and managing branches for features and releases. A fresh git repository is born with a master branch. In the default git-flow setup, this is where the current production release lives. Furthermore, a branch called develop is created, this is where development takes place. Note that git-flow is just a series of shortcuts to having a development branch and a production branch with sensible ways of shuttling changes back and forth. After installing the git-flow package, configure your local repository for git-flow use with:
$ git flow init
You can most likely accept the defaults by pressing enter at each question - this also makes it easier for others to initialize git-flow in their working copy, as all are using the same defaults. The only change from running the init command is two [gitflow] sections in your.git/config file looking like this:
[gitflow "branch"] master = master develop = develop [gitflow "prefix"] feature = feature/ release = release/ hotfix = hotfix/ support = support/ versiontag =
It’s no more magic than that. Consult the built-in help with:
$ git flow
If you’ve got the bash-completion package installed, you can use tab-completion for git-flow commands and arguments. Highly recommended.
Working on a feature
Start work on a feature - say feature 77 from your issue-tracker:
$ git flow feature start 77-speedup-yak-shaving
This creates a new regular local git branch called feature/77-speedup-yak-shaving based on the current develop and places you on it. Want to share your work in progress with others? Use:
$ git flow feature publish 77-speedup-yak-shaving
This pushes the branch, and sets up your local branch to track the remote branch in one easy step. The regular git push and git pull --rebase work as you would expect here. There is nothing special about branches created by git-flow, they are just conveniently named and managed.
All done with a feature? Rebase your feature on the current develop branch, then merge it in:
$ git flow feature rebase $ git flow feature finish 77-speedup-yak-shaving
With these two steps, you end up on develop with your feature merged in. Run your test-suite, and push to a central repository as appropriate.
Releasing to production version and hotfixes
Production releases are handled quite nicely in git-flow:
$ git flow release start 2011_year_of_the_yak
This creates a new branch called release/2011_year_of_the_yak, based on the current develop branch. Here you can fix any HISTORY or VERSION file, commit, and the finish up the release with:
$ git flow release finish 2011_year_of_the_yak
By finishing the release, you now get a tag called 2011_year_of_the_yak, and the temporary release-branch is removed. You end up back at the master branch.
A hotfix is simply a feature branch which is based on the latest production release, and which is automatically merged to both develop and master. Extremely handy.
Rebase considered harmful?
Some developers prefer to only ever merge, but I’m a big fan of rebasing local work before publishing. I’ll leave you with this:
If you treat rebasing as a way to clean up and work with commits before you push them, and if you only rebase commits that have never been available publicly, then you’ll be fine. If you rebase commits that have already been pushed publicly, and people may have based work on those commits, then you may be in for some frustrating trouble.
From Pro Git, chapter 3Have you heard? Did you know, “the fix is in” when it comes to so-called “conservative media outlets” coverage of the Trump administration? Hey, Jim Acosta said it live on CNN yesterday so it HAS to be true. They only report the facts on CNN right? Oh, wait I forgot to tell you one important qualifier: don’t believe it. It’s, “Fake News.”
I was fully aware that the mainstream media would go into meltdown mode when I was called on first during President’s Trump Wednesday press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Furthermore, when I didn’t specifically ask about the timeline of what Trump may have known specifically about the Flynn information and his aides’ conversations with Russia, I figured I was in for a beating. I should have brought smelling salts with me to the East Room of The White House. I could have handed them out to all of them personally.
Look, let’s begin with this: the fact that the president called on me and not on any of the traditional media outlets is really what is bothering all of them. They feel entitled to ask a question but the last time I checked, I only see the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. I don’t see the, “Mainstream Media Entitlement Clause” inside. Did I miss it? Maybe it’s in the Federalist Papers. Or maybe not. I get it. They feel shut out and they’re frustrated. The media landscape has flipped on its head, their brains are exploding and their bias is showing like never before. That’s the underlying issue.
Now, as for their beef with the question I asked, it’s so easily explainable. First of all, I did ask about Russia and Flynn! Did they not listen to my question or did they think I was going to read from the Bible when the president called on me so they tuned me out? Sure, I didn’t ask what THEY wanted me to ask but I’m not in the business of satisfying traditional media outlets. I’m in the business of serving our viewers because I work for CBN News. We have one of the largest cable news audiences in America and Israel is a, “Tier A” issue with them and sitting before me is the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel at a press conference about…wait for it…wait for it…Israel/U.S. relations! You think I’m going to ask a question about something totally unrelated when our audience wants answers on an issue near and dear to them? Folks, that would be journalistic malpractice.
Having said that, you still can’t ignore the Russia/Flynn story completely so you try to thread the needle. That’s exactly what I did. In one question, I brought up the Iran nuclear deal (extremely important issue for our audience not to mention the world!); the settlements controversy (big issue) and I mentioned the Russia/Flynn news. I knew that simply mentioning Russia/Flynn in my question would get the president to say something on the topic. Indeed, I was right.
Here’s another point to make that’s crucial in the context of this conversation: notice the difference in spelling between CBN and CNN. One consonant makes a world of difference in terms of worldview (biblical vs. secular). That should not be lost in the context of this discussion.
Now, regarding the comment on live national television by Jim Acosta that the, “fix is in,” let’s discuss this more fully. First of all, in case you didn’t read about it, here’s his quote:
CNN’s Jim Acosta: "In the last three news conferences, Wolf, all of the questions to the American news media have been handled by conservative press. I think, Wolf, there's no other way to describe it, but the fix is in…This president does not want to answer questions, critical questions about his associates, his aide's contacts with the Russians during the course of that campaign, just as his national security adviser is being run out of the White House on a rail…They may think this is being cute, or being strategic in trying to shield the president from questions, but those questions can only be shielded for so long."
First of all, let’s define the definition of the term, “the fix is in.” Here it is from Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
“The outcome of something, such as a game or contest, is being controlled or affected in a dishonest way.”
Oy-gevalt! Where do I begin? What Jim Acosta said on CNN Wednesday is insanely ridiculous (I used those words in a southern, ‘Bless your heart’ tone). Acosta’s beef may be with The White House and not necessarily outlets like CBN but to lump us in and attach that phrase to us is reckless, downright wrong and insulting. If the, “fix was in” then there would have been dialogue about how to ask the right question. There was never any of that. As a matter of fact, in ALL of my interviews with Donald Trump I was never once asked what the questions or subject matters would be. Secondly, if the, ‘fix was in” then why in the world are we interviewing Barack Obama (four times), Harry Reid multiple times, Al Franken, etc? That doesn’t sound like a conservative media outlet that has a “fix” in for anybody. Plus, I’ve asked Trump plenty of uncomfortable questions regarding transgender rights, the pro-life issue, traditional marriage and how some evangelicals have a problem with his tone and remarks at times.
President Trump is looking for media outlets that will give him a fair shot. Barack Obama interviewed with me four times because he knew I would be tough but fair. Maybe Acosta and his fellow comrades (bad word choice?) need to look in the mirror and realize that it’s deeply “rich” of them to complain against bias conservative outlets. Now that takes the cake! (Millenials, Google that expression). Oh, and while we’re on this subject, let me ask one question: why didn’t we hear any complaints from the traditional mainstream media outlets when the Obama administration rarely (if at all?) called on so-called non-traditional conservative media? Why wasn’t the “fix” in then? Where was Jim Acosta and his mates then? It’s a blatant double standard. And that’s not “fake news.” That’s TRUTH. I’m going to drop the mic now. I’m out.There’s a paradox with self-improvement and it is this: the ultimate goal of all self-improvement is to reach the point where you no longer feel the need to improve yourself.
Think about it: The whole goal of improving your productivity is to reach the point where you never have to think about how to be more productive. The whole point of pursuing happiness is to reach the point where one no longer has to think about being happy. The whole point of improving your relationships is so that you can enjoy some drama-free cunnilingus in the McDonald’s drive-thru without almost crashing the car.
(Still working on that last one.)
Self-improvement is therefore, in a weird way, ultimately self-defeating.
The only way to truly achieve one’s potential, to become fully fulfilled, or to become “self-actualized” (whatever the fuck that means), is to, at some point, stop trying to be all of those things.
One of the beautiful things about Tyler Durden in Fight Club is that he seems to understand the implicit vanity and self-absorption that comes with the desire to improve oneself.Now, before we go all Fight Club and punch each other in basements and blow up bank buildings, I do believe that there is an important role for self-improvement and all of the millions of podcasts, books, seminars, and articles that you obsessively consume. I promise.
But, as usual, a lot depends on why you care about self-improvement. So, let’s put our shirts back on and take a look.
How to Approach Self-Improvement
There are two approaches to improving yourself:
1) The self-improvement junkie. Self-improvement junkies feel like they need to jump on every new seminar, read all the latest books, listen to all the podcasts, lift all the weight, hire all the life coaches, open all their chakras, and talk about all their childhood traumas — both real and imagined — incessantly. For the self-improvement junkie, the purpose of self-improvement is not the improvement itself, rather it’s motivated by a subtle form of FOMO (fear of missing out). The junkie has this constant gnawing feeling that there’s still some magic tip or technique or piece of information out there that will create their next big breakthrough (again, both real or imagined).
Self-improvement for the junkies becomes a kind of glorified hobby. It’s what they spend all of their money on. It’s what they do with their vacations. It’s where they meet their friends and network.
For most people, this isn’t necessarily that bad of a thing. You could certainly spend your time and money on worse things (oh, hello meth and cocaine, didn’t see you there).
2) The self-improvement tourists. Other people only come to self-help when shit has really hit the fan. They just got slapped in the face with a divorce or someone close to them just died and now they’re depressed or they just remembered they had $135,000 in credit card debt that they somehow forgot to pay off for the last 11 years.
For self-help tourists, self-help material is like going to the doctor. You don’t just show up to the hospital on a random Tuesday saying, “Hey Doc, tell me what’s wrong with me.” That would be insane.
No, you only go to the hospital when something is already wrong and you’re in a lot of serious pain.
These people |
being forbidden to do so.” Forbidding someone from doing this can either be verbal or written notice. When signage is used it must meet the following stipulations:
Sign(s) need to posted where they can be reasonably seen
Can be placed on or in the building or part or portion of the forbidden place.
In layman’s terms, signage of reasonable size and placement communicating “no trespassing” should be sufficient. Guilty persons are charged with a misdemeanor and can be fined and/or imprisoned.
Missouri
No trespassing laws in Missouri are detailed in sections 569.140 to 569.155. Upon entering and remaining without proper authorization a person is found guilty of first degree trespass. This is considered a Class B misdemeanor. This occurs only when the property is fenced or enclosed in a way to exclude intruders, it is communicated verbally or posted in a manner which is reasonably likely to be seen. So like many some other states a simple no trespassing sign of good size and a clear message will suffice. Similar to Illinois, purple paint to mark streets and posts can also be used and is detailed here.
Montana
Criminal trespassing laws for Montana are outlined in Montana Code Section 45-6-201. Entering and remaining without the license or privilege to do so constitutes trespassing in Montana. Though privilege to do so in Montana’s case can be the simple failure of the landowner to “post notice denying entry onto private land.”
This signage must meet the following requirements:
“(a) notice must be placed on a post, structure, or natural object by marking it with written notice or with not less than 50 square inches of fluorescent orange paint, except that when metal fence posts are used, the entire post must be painted; and
(b) the notice described in subsection (2)(a) must be placed at each outer gate and normal point of access to the property, including both sides of a water body crossing the property wherever the water body intersects an outer boundary line.
(3) To provide for effective posting of private land through which or along which the public has an unfenced right-of-way by means of a public road, a landowner shall:
(a) place a conspicuous sign no closer than 30 feet of the centerline of the roadway where it enters the private land, stating words substantially similar to “PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING OFF ROAD NEXT ___ MILES”; or
(b) place notice, as described in subsection (2)(a), no closer than 30 feet of the centerline of the roadway at regular intervals of not less than one-fourth mile along the roadway where it borders unfenced private land, except that orange markings may not be placed on posts where the public roadway enters the private land.
(4) If property has been posted in substantial compliance with subsection (2) or (3), it is considered closed to public access unless explicit permission to enter is given by the landowner or his authorized agent.”
Nebraska
Nebraska trespassing laws are laid out in the 2008 Nebraska Revised Statutes in 28:520 – 28:522. Criminal trespassing is constituted by entering and or secretly remaining in buildings or land that one is not “licensed or privileged” to enter. There are different degrees of criminal trespass in Nebraska as outlined in the sections noted above. Signage, “when posted in a manner prescribed by law or reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders” elevates the crime to second degree. Thus, visible signage denoting “No Trespassing” ensures that intruders will be subject to tougher penalties.
Nevada
Criminal trespassing laws in Nevada are part of Chapter 207 of Nevada’s Revised Statutes. NRS 207.200 states that anyone who willfully goes upon or remains on land where they not authorized to be is guilty of trespassing and will be charged with a misdemeanor. This occurs after having been warned, which means some kind of generic no trespassing signage needs to be present.
Further, more stringent signage regulations are outlined for land with agricultural purposes. These are:
“by painting with fluorescent orange paint:
(1) Not less than 50 square inches of the exterior portion of a structure or natural object or the top 12 inches of the exterior portion of a post, whether made of wood, metal or other material, at:
(I) Intervals of such a distance as is necessary to ensure that at least one such structure, natural object or post would be within the direct line of sight of a person standing next to another such structure, natural object or post, but at intervals of not more than 1,000 feet; and
(II) Each corner of the land, upon or near the boundary; and
(2) Each side of all gates, cattle guards and openings that are designed to allow human ingress to the area;
(b) If the land is not used in the manner specified in paragraph (a), by painting with fluorescent orange paint not less than 50 square inches of the exterior portion of a structure or natural object or the top 12 inches of the exterior portion of a post, whether made of wood, metal or other material, at:
(1) Intervals of such a distance as is necessary to ensure that at least one such structure, natural object or post would be within the direct line of sight of a person standing next to another such structure, natural object or post, but at intervals of not more than 200 feet; and
(2) Each corner of the land, upon or near the boundary;”
New Hampshire
Laws for trespassing in New Hampshire are outlined in New Hampshire’s Revised Statutes. The details of the laws are specifically found in Section 635:2. The person is guilty of trespassing when they knowingly enter or remain in any place they are not authorized to be in. Any trespassing in a “secured premises” warrants a misdemeanor. This means that it needs to be fenced, posted, enclosed so as to exclude intruders or have warning that is “reasonably likely to come to the attention of the intruder.” This means that signage can ensure that the property or land is considered a “secured premises.” Subsequent violations of the law will result in a class B felony when the perpetrator causes damage exceeding $1,500 in value.
New Jersey
New Jersey trespassing laws are outlined in Section 2C:18-3 of the New Jersey Statutes. Trespassing is defined as someone who “enters or surreptitiously remains” in any building or land that he/she is not privileged to do so. Notice is given by actual communication from an authorized person, fencing or an enclosure designed to exclude intruders, or posting in a way that is “reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.” Thus, signage with the verbiage of “No Trespassing” of good size should constitute fair warning. Depending on the facility or land this offense can be a crime of the fourth degree or a simple petty disorderly persons offense.
New Mexico
No trespassing laws in New Mexico are outlined in Chapter 30 Article 14 of New Mexico’s Statutes and Court Rules. Similar to many other states simple trespassing is defined as knowingly entering and remaining on property without verbal or written permission to do so. Criminal trespassing merits a misdemeanor and can also mean the loss of a hunting or fishing license. Removing no trespassing signage also results in a misdemeanor.
Specific signage laws in regards to no trespassing are outlined in 30-14-6. Real property requires that notice be placed along the exterior boundaries of the property or other access points in a visible manner. Unfenced property requires signage to be posted every 500 feet along the boundary of the property. This signage needs to meet the following requirements:
“(1) be printed legibly in English;
(2) be at least one hundred forty-four square inches in size;
(3) contain the name and address of the person under whose authority the property is posted or the name and address of the person who is authorized to grant permission to enter the property;
(4) be placed at each roadway or apparent way of access onto the property, in addition to the posting of the boundaries; and
(5) where applicable, state any specific prohibition that the posting is directed against, such as “no trespassing,” “no hunting,” “no fishing,” “no digging” or any other specific prohibition.”
New York
The state of New York’s criminal trespassing are detailed in Article 140 within the Penal section of the New York Codes & Statutes. In New York, regardless of intent, criminal trespassing is constituted by entering and remaining when the intruder is neither licensed nor privileged to do so. Signage plays a critical role in trespassing as unposted or insufficient notice can absolve trespassers of guilt in certain situations. Signage needs to be based in a conspicuous manner on the property to ensure that proper notice is given. Based off the circumstances, trespassing can result in misdemeanors of varying degrees and even a felony for the worst cases.
North Carolina
North Carolina trespassing laws are contained in Chapter 14 of North Carolina’s General Statutes and more specifically in Article 159. Trespassing punishments vary based on circumstances but the act itself is defined by entering or remaining without authorization. For most situations signage “that is posted, in a manner reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders, with notice not to enter the premises” is sufficient notice. Though for “posted” property with the intent to prevent hunting, fishing, trapping or the removal of pine needles/straw the signage requirements are much more stringent and laid out below. These are found in § 14-159.7.
“For purposes of posting property under G.S. 14-159.7, the owner or lessee of the property may use either of the following methods:
(1) The owner or lessee of the property may place notices, signs, or posters on the property. The notices, signs or posters shall measure not less than 120 square inches and shall be conspicuously posted on private lands not more than 200 yards apart close to and along the boundaries. At least one such notice, sign, or poster shall be posted on each side of such land, and one at each corner thereof, provided that said corner can be reasonably ascertained. For the purpose of prohibiting fishing, or the taking of fish by any means, in any stream, lake, or pond, it shall only be necessary that the signs, notices, or posters be posted along the stream or shoreline of a pond or lake at intervals of not more than 200 yards apart.
(2) The owner or lessee of the property may place identifying purple paint marks on trees or posts around the area to be posted. Each paint mark shall be a vertical line of at least eight inches in length, and the bottom of the mark shall be no less than three feet nor more than five feet from the base of the tree or post. The paint marks shall be placed no more than 100 yards apart and shall be readily visible to any person approaching the property. For the purpose of prohibiting fishing, or the taking of fish by any means, in any stream, lake, or pond, it shall only be necessary that the paint marks be placed along the stream or shoreline of a pond or lake at intervals of not more than 100 yards apart. (1949, c. 887, s. 2; 1953, c. 1226; 1965, c. 923; 1975, c. 280, ss. 2, 3; 1979, c. 830, s. 11; 2011-231, s. 2.)”
North Dakota
No trespassing laws in North Dakota are found in 12.1-22-03 under criminal trespass. Any person knowing that they do not have privilege nor license enters or remains is guilty of criminal trespassing. Depending on the situation penalties can range from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class C felony. Like many other states, sufficient notice (i.e. signage) is defined as “posting in a manner reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.”
Ohio
Trespassing in Ohio law is outlined in 2911.21 of Ohio’s Statutes. While penalties may differ a little bit based off where the trespassing occurs, it is considered a “misdemeanor of the fourth degree.” In order to give notice, signage or “posting” must be “in a manner reasonably calculated to come to the attention of potential intruders.”
Oklahoma
Oklahoma defines criminal trespassing in Oklahoma Statutes 21-1835. It states that any person who “willfully or maliciously” enters without permission is guilty of trespassing. Penalties of trespassing include fines and possible imprisonment of varying amounts and time. Oklahoma defines “posted” (i.e. to give notice) as “exhibiting signs to read as follows: “PROPERTY RESTRICTED”; “POSTED – KEEP OUT”; “KEEP OUT”; “NO TRESPASSING”; or similar signs which are displayed. Property that is fenced or not fenced must have such signs placed conspicuously and at all places where entry to the property is normally expected.”
Oregon
Oregon’s trespassing definition and penalties are found in Oregon Statutes 164 under the Burglary and Criminal Trespass section. Trespassing occurs when someone enters and remains unlawfully on a property or premises in which they don’t have permission to be on. Offenders can be found guilty of crimes of varying degrees based on the type of property and situation. There is no specific language on signage, a “posted” definition or proper notice.
Pennsylvania
Criminal trespassing laws in Pennsylvania are found in Title 18 – Crimes and Offenses Section 3503. Pennsylvania’s wording is almost verbatim of many other states in that “a person commits an offense if, knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so,” enters and remains on property. Trespassing is contingent on the circumstances and guilty parties can be charged with misdemeanors or felonies. Similarly, wording for signage or “posted” notice is very similar in that it must be “posted in a manner prescribed by law or reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.” In other words, make sure to have an obvious sign stating that there is no trespassing and you will have legal recourse.
Rhode Island
Rhode Island’s no trespassing laws are found in Rhode Island’s Statutes in sections 11-44-26 to 11-44-28. Trespassers are those who willfully trespass and remain on the land with no purpose to do so and lacking permission. This must occur after having been forbidden to do so by those authorized. The statute doesn’t state whether this can be verbal or some kind of written notice but it is assumed that it could be either. Thus, presumably some kind of no trespassing signage that is visible would be sufficient. Penalties may result in a fine of up to $1,000 and imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both.
South Carolina
South Carolina outlines its criminal trespassing in its statutes in various places including 16-11-640. In essence they are the same as many of the other states in that a person entering and remaining when having no permission to do so will be guilty of trespassing. Offenders will be subject to varying levels of crimes, fines and potential imprisonment.
As for signage, agricultural lands require posting of notice in conspicuous places on the four borders of the land. Further, even enclosed places must have “clearly visible signs prohibiting trespass upon the premises.”
South Dakota
South Dakota no trespassing laws are similar to other more rural states and are detailed in Chapter 22-35 of South Dakota’s Codified Laws. The state definition is: “Any person who, knowing that he or she is not privileged to do so, enters or remains in any building or structure surreptitiously, is guilty of criminal trespass.” This person will be guilty of criminal trespass and will be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor. Notice must be given to the offender before the act, either verbally or in “posting in a manner reasonably likely to come to the attention of trespassers.”
Tennessee
Tennessee trespassing laws are explained in full in Tennessee Code 39-14-405. The law states that a person commits trespassing by entering or remaining on property without the proper consent. This offense is a Class C misdemeanor. Signage requirements are that the property owner must have signs that are visible at all major points of access or entry to the property and that they are reasonably likely to be seen by any person entering the property.
Texas
The state of Texas details its no trespassing laws in its Penal Code in Title 7 Chapter 30. Criminal trespass is defined as a person entering or remaining on or in property without “effective consent.” To be considered trespassing there must be verbal or written notice. If unfenced, written notice can be done in two ways. These are:
(C) a sign or signs posted on the property or at the entrance to the building, reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders, indicating that entry is forbidden;
(D) the placement of identifying purple paint marks on trees or posts on the property, provided that the marks are:
(i) vertical lines of not less than eight inches in length and not less than one inch in width;
(ii) placed so that the bottom of the mark is not less than three feet from the ground or more than five feet from the ground; and
(iii) placed at locations that are readily visible to any person approaching the property and no more than:
(a) 100 feet apart on forest land; or
(b) 1,000 feet apart on land other than forest land;
In most cases guilty offenders will be charged with a misdemeanor.
Utah
Utah trespassing laws are defined in the Utah Criminal Code in Title 76 Chapter 6 Section 206. Trespassing is the entering and remaining on property without consent. Along with a few other stipulations, notice must be given verbally or “in a way that will reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.” Guilty parties will be charged with a class B or A misdemeanor.
Vermont
Vermont Statutes lay out the details of no trespassing laws in the state. Unlawful trespass is found in Title 13 Chapter 81 Section 3705. When proper notice is given, trespassers who enter or remain on any land or place shall be subject to up to 3 months in prison and a fine of $500, or both. Sufficient notice can be done verbally or through “signs or placards so designed and situated as to give reasonable notice.”
Virginia
Virginia no trespassing laws are detailed and varied and are found in the Code of Virginia Title 18.2 Sections 119 – 135. The law states that any person without authority who enters or remains on property or premises will be guilty of criminal trespassing. Consent can be given orally or in written fashion. Signage forbidding such entry should be placed on the “premises or portion or area thereof at a place or places where it or they may be reasonably seen.” Guilty parties will be charged with a Class 1 misdemeanor. Trespassers may be guilty in several different situations including hunting, fishing or trapping. In particular, property owners using signage for these situations need to place:
“signs prohibiting hunting, fishing or trapping where they may reasonably be seen; or (ii) placing identifying paint marks on trees or posts at each road entrance and adjacent to public roadways and public waterways adjoining the property. Each paint mark shall be a vertical line of at least two inches in width and at least eight inches in length and the center of the mark shall be no less than three feet nor more than six feet from the ground or normal water surface. Such paint marks shall be readily visible to any person approaching the property.
B. The type and color of the paint to be used for posting shall be prescribed by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.”
Washington
The Washington Criminal Code contains Washington trespassing laws. Details can be found in Title 9A.52. In Washington, to enter and remain unlawfully without privilege or license constitutes trespassing. Trespassing in such a manner is considered a misdemeanor. Signage plays a key role particularly in situations where land is unused or otherwise not enclosed as notice can be given by being posted in a conspicuous manner. In other words some kind of basic no trespassing sign posted in an obvious and visible manner will be sufficient to give the property owner legal recourse.
West Virginia
West Virginia’s no trespassing laws are explained in Chapter 61 Article 61-3B. West Virginia’s definition of criminal trespassing is, “willful unauthorized entry upon, in or under the property of another.” In most instances this is punishable by a misdemeanor and a fine but in some cases this can be a felony. Signage requirements for “posted” land are as follows:
“‘Posted land’ is that land upon which reasonably maintained signs are placed not more than five hundred feet apart along and at each corner of the boundaries of the land, upon which signs there appears prominently in letters of not less than two inches in height the words “no trespassing” and in addition thereto the name of the owner, lessee or occupant of the land. The signs shall be placed along the boundary line of posted land in a manner and in a position as to be clearly noticeable from outside of the boundary line. It shall not be necessary to give notice by posting on any enclosed land or place not exceeding five acres in area on which there is a dwelling house or property that by its nature and use is obviously private in order to obtain the benefits of this article pertaining to trespass on enclosed lands.”
Wisconsin
Wisconsin no trespassing laws are found in the crimes against property section which is Chapter 943. They are specifically found in 943.13 – 943.15. To enter or remain on “enclosed, cultivated or undeveloped land of another…without the express or implied consent of the owner or occupant” is how Wisconsin defines trespassing. In most cases this is considered some Class of a misdemeanor and may involve a forfeiture. Wisconsin gives lots of details on signage in regards to trespassing or “posted” land.
Notice can come through signs if it meets the following:
“1. If a sign at least 11 inches square is placed in at least 2 conspicuous places for every 40 acres to be protected. The sign must provide an appropriate notice and the name of the person giving the notice followed by the word “owner” if the person giving the notice is the holder of legal title to the land and by the word “occupant” if the person giving the notice is not the holder of legal title but is a lawful occupant of the land. Proof that appropriate signs as provided in this subdivision were erected or in existence upon the premises to be protected prior to the event complained of shall be prima facie proof that the premises to be protected were posted as provided in this subdivision.
943.13(2)(am)
2. If markings at least one foot long, including in a contrasting color the phrase “private land” and the name of the owner, are made in at least 2 conspicuous places for every 40 acres to be protected.”
Property owners must also use a sign that is at least 5” x 7” that is “located in a prominent place near all of the entrances to the part of the building to which the restriction applies or near all probable access points to the grounds to which the restriction applies and any individual entering the building or the grounds can be reasonably expected to see the sign in order to prevent firearms from being carried in various situations and settings.
Wyoming
No trespassing laws in Wyoming are found in the Wyoming Statutes in Title 6 Chapter 3 Article 303. It states that a person is guilty of trespassing when they enter or remain on or in the land or premises of another person without authorization to do so, or after being notified of such. This is punishable by a misdemeanor and can carry imprisonment of not more than 6 months and a fine not exceeding $750, or both. Notice can either be given personally from the owner or agent or through “posting of signs reasonably likely to come to the attention of intruders.”Ever suffer through the painfully slow bottleneck of public WiFi? Sure you have -- Airports, coffee shops, even your neighbor's unprotected home network are limited by the current WiFi spectrum. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski says it's a problem, and wants to clean up the mess. Speaking with Gary Shaprio at CES, Genachowski revealed that he's been working with the DoD and other Government agencies open up more bandwidth for WiFi. Areas like New York City have an abundance of spectrum set aside for TV licenses, he says, airwaves that could serve the public better for WiFi or cellular networks.
"The rest of the world is watching us," he told Shapiro. "We have to get it right......we need to have a nationwide, unlicensed, continuous, same-frequency platform for innovation." To do that, the FCC will need to wrench spectrum from the hands of broadcasters, and redistribute it. "We can reorganize it and ensure everybody gets a good share." It's an uphill battle, but one the chairman recognizes as important. "We predict a WiFi traffic jam, and we need to fix it......WiFi is such an integral part of our broadband ecosystem, and we need to make sure that we pay it sufficient attention." Check out the rest of Shaprio and Genachowski's dialog in our ongoing liveblog.Yes, it isn't the first ball camera we've seen, nor is it the first camera to hawk 360-degree panoramas. But, the Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera marries these two concepts together, and packs them into a sturdy-looking sphere made mostly of foam. This shields the 36 fixed-focus phone camera modules, each capable of taking two megapixel snapshots. These are then stitched together to create full panoramic works like the shot above. Somewhere within that squishy core is an accelerometer to measure the apex of its flight, and where the camera array will capture its image. The big question is, can it survive a few rounds of keepie-uppie? You can take a closer look at the ball camera's 36 x two megapixel images in the video below. Now, do you think there's any chance of getting one for the next Engadget meet-upBAGHDAD - The al Qaeda breakaway group that has seized much of northern Syria and huge tracks of neighboring Iraq formally declared the creation of an Islamic state on Sunday in the territory under its control.
The spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, made the announcement in an audio statement posted online. Islamic extremists have long dreamed of recreating the Islamic state, or caliphate, that ruled over the Middle East for hundreds of years.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, commander of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIs), is shown in a U.S. State Department wanted poster handout image. U.S. State Department/Reuters
Abu Mohammed al-Adnani said the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is the new leader, or caliph, of the Islamic state. He called on those living in the areas under the organization's control to swear allegiance to al-Baghdadi and support him.
"The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas," al-Adnani said.
Al-Baghdadi rose through the ranks of the organization before becoming emir some time in 2010-2011. The group relies on a handful of senior decision makers, but al-Baghdadi has the final word, according to the intelligence official. Most of its funding comes via robbery, extortion and smuggling, with a small percentage coming from donations. ISIS has also reportedly looted banks in some of the cities its seized.
Al-Adnani said that with the creation of the caliphate, the group was changing its name to just the Islamic State, dropping the mention of Iraq and the Levant.
Iraqi military's anti-ISIS offensive stalls in Tikrit
The Iraqi military's offensive against ISIS stalled over the weekend during an assault on the jihadist-held city of Tikrit, reports CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata.
While the situation is fluid, the military's largest-yet offensive was pushed back and is the latest in a series of failures against the militants, D'Agata reports.
Questions surround Iraqi army’s advance on Tikrit
It was unclear what immediate practical impact the caliphate declaration would have on the ground in Syria and Iraq, or among the wider global jihadi community.
Former CIA Director Michael Morell told "CBS This Morning" earlier this month that ISIS' first goal is "to set up that caliphate and, it's not just in Iraq and in Syria."
"Their second goal then is to use that as a safe haven to attack the United States," he warned.
Solving the Rubik's cube of Iraq violence
Despite that prospect, the creation of a safe haven isn't the only concern for U.S. intelligence officials, Morell said. They also have concerns about ISIS sparking a very bloody sectarian war that could create a massive humanitarian crisis and even more chaos in the region along Shia and Sunni sectarian lines.
U.S. advisers have been part of the recent offensive against ISIS, according to Iraqi officials, helping to coordinate resources. U.S. officials also announced recently they are flying armed drones over Iraq.
Despite the threat of a caliphate safe haven, and the Iraqi military's thus-far ineptitude against ISIS, there is unlikely to be much immediate wider American involvement in the conflict.
Both the Obama administration and members of Congress have expressed repeated concerns about the functionality of the Iraqi government, currently headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Lawmakers of both parties increasingly say al-Maliki needs to depart from office if there's any chance of a political reconciliation to stabilize the country and curb the growing threat from ISIS.
"He needs to put together a government. We know that Sunnis and Shias alike have come out against him, but if you're going to want the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shias working together, it cannot work with Maliki," said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday. "He's going to continue to go to others to prop him up. We see the Russian planes coming in, and he continues to go to Iran."
Joe Manchin: U.S. "military might" will not fix Iraq
In separate interviews on "Face the Nation" Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, reached the same conclusion.
"I don't think this can happen with Maliki in power. The good news is they have to finalize their government at the end of this month, and I do think the Shias are starting to move towards that direction to a new leader," McCaul said.
Manchin, for his part, predicted that Iraq's Shiite prime minister will not "change his ways," and went so far as to predict that his fall from power could lead to a change in national boundaries within the Middle East.
"The lines that were drawn 100 years ago won't be the lines when it's all finished. And we, for some reason, don't want to accept that," Manchin said.
Barrasso also said it's possible that Iraq breaks into three different states drawn along religious lines, especially because the current destabilization gives the Kurds an opening to establish a long-sought independent area.
"I think it's in the best interest of the United States to have a stable Iraq, but we're not there now," he said.
Flash Points: Why are foreign fighters gathering in Iraq and Syria?
CBS News Senior National Security Analyst Juan Zarate, a national security adviser under former President George W. Bush, said recently the threat has the potential to reach U.S. soil.
ISIS "is not just a threat in Baghdad or even Syria. It's a real threat to the West, because it's able to recruit fighters, train them, send them out, and then possibly redeploy them back West," Zarate said.
The concern is that the foreigners recruited by ISIS could become more radicalized after their time on the battlefield and return home to "attack their fellow citizens in the West," Zarate said Wednesday.
The fighters "turn in [their] passport, get paid for it, the passports then get reconfigured and sold to others heading back west," he said. "There's an entire infrastructure to getting people in and out, money in and out, and it's very easy then to have people hidden in that mix. The challenge then is: who's coming out to potentially attack [other] countries?"Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
Two days after Donald Trump’s election victory, I expressed the following sentiment in a post titled, Draining the Swamp? Wall Street is Already Loving Donald Trump:
To conclude, this article is primarily written for all my readers who are either Trump supporters, or who reluctantly voted for him. My message to you is that we need to hold this man’s feet to the fire. The election is over, and you got your desired outcome. Now is not the time to be a cheerleader. Now is not the time to behave exactly like Obama zombies did after he became an obvious betrayal. What allowed Obama to do all the bad things he did, was the fact that his supporters made endless excuses for him. Don’t make excuses for Trump. If you do, your life will get a lot worse and this country will decay far more into an authoritarian oligarchy than it already has. It is up to you to make sure he doesn’t become the Wall Street puppet I always feared he would be.
This message has become increasingly important with each passing day, and with every new cabinet disappointment. Mnuchin is not the only one. Trump picked the sister of Blackwater’s Erik Prince for Education Secretary (for more on Prince, see: America’s Top Rogue Mercenary – Blackwater’s Erik Prince is Under Federal Investigation) and Mitch McConnell’s wife for Transportation Secretary (see: Trump Fills the Swamp with Elaine Chao, Mitch McConnell’s Wife, for Transportation Secretary). The swamp is being filled rapidly, and the sooner we admit it, the better.
Those who recognize Trump’s betrayal most quickly will be average Americans who have been preyed upon by some of his cabinet picks. One of these people is Teena Colebrook.
The AP reports:
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Donald Trump named his Treasury secretary, Teena Colebrook felt her heart sink. She had voted for the president-elect on the belief that he would knock the moneyed elites from their perch in Washington, D.C. And she knew Trump’s pick for Treasury Steven Mnuchin all too well. OneWest, a bank formerly owned by a group of investors headed by Mnuchin, had foreclosed on her Los Angeles-area home in the aftermath of the Great Recession, stripping her of the two units she rented as a primary source of income. “I just wish that I had not voted,” said Colebrook, 59. “I have no faith in our government anymore at all. They all promise you the world at the end of a stick and take it away once they get in.” Less than a month after his presidential win, Trump’s populist appeal has started to clash with a Cabinet of billionaires and millionaires that he believes can energize economic growth. The prospect of Mnuchin leading the Treasury Department drew plaudits from many in the financial sector. A former Goldman Sachs executive who pivoted in the early 2000s to hedge fund management and movie production, he seemed an ideal emissary to Wall Street. When asked on Wednesday about his credentials to be Treasury secretary, Mnuchin emphasized his time running OneWest which not only foreclosed on Colebrook but also thousands of others in the aftermath of the housing crisis caused by sub-prime mortgages. For Mnuchin, the fundamental problem stems from the Great Recession. His investor group was the sole bidders to take control of the troubled bank IndyMac in 2009. The group struck a deal that left the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission responsible for taking as much as 80 percent of the losses on former IndyMac assets and rebranded the troubled bank as OneWest. The combination of OneWest’s profitability, government guarantees and foreclosure activities drew the ire of activist groups like the California Reinvestment Coalition. It found the bank to be consistently one of the most difficult to work out loan modifications with even though OneWest never drew a major response from government regulators. By June of 2014, five years after taking over OneWest, Mnuchin sold the bank for $3.4 billion at a tremendous profit.
For much more on this topic see: There Will Be Swamp – Steve Mnuchin Confirms Treasury Secretary Nod.
Over five years, she tried unsuccessfully to adjust her loan with OneWest through the Treasury Department’s Home Affordable Modification Program. But she said that One West Bank lost paperwork, provided conflicting statements about ownership of the loan and fees and submitted charges that were unverified and caused her loan balance to balloon. By the time she lost her home in foreclosure in April 2015, the payoff balance totaled $517,662. Colebrook said she is still challenging the foreclosure in court.
Trump won’t be draining any swamp. It pains me to say this, because as I noted in my first post-election article, Americans Roll the Dice With President Donald Trump, I was hoping Trump would do the right thing and become a great President:
Donald Trump has a historic opportunity to be a great President. Barack Obama was presented with a similar opportunity eight years ago and he immediately squandered it by surrounding himself with miserable, status quo economic and foreign policy insiders. He ditched the people who believed in him and voted for him, and in doing so cemented his legacy as that of a man who coddled oligarchs, kept banking criminals out of jail and further incinerated the Middle East. He’ll also be seen as the man whose tremendous disappointments as commander-in-chief led to the emergence and elevation of Donald Trump.
It looks like Trump is immediately filling his administration with swamp creatures, just like Obama did before him. The time for cheerleading is over. The time for accountability is now.European branch of shipping firm to be wound up with loss of positions in Aberdeen.
Oil: Aberdeen-based Andrews Survey, part of the Harkand Group, will continue to trade (file pic). © STV
Almost one hundred jobs will be lost in Aberdeen after oil and gas shipping firm the Harkand Group called in administrators.
The European branch of the business will be wound up, administrators Deloitte said, with 171 jobs going in total.
Harkand provides vessels to support offshore oil platforms and Deloitte said the global depression in oil prices has led to the company posting losses.
The administrators said they hoped to find a buyer for the branches of the business in Texas and Africa but the European arm could not be saved. |
Xbox 360, your Xbox 360 game will run on it; however, if you have a PC, there's no guarantee your specs will be up to snuff.
The point of having a gaming PC, on the other hand, is to be able to upgrade and power-up your hardware in order to play cutting edge games. So there's an inherent conflict between the PC and the console, and I'm still not 100% sure how Valve will reconcile it.
Nonetheless, news that Valve hardware is on the way for 2013 still has me excited. The fact is, Valve has made several key steps on their way to the hardware's release that help paint a much more clear and sensible picture of what the developer and publisher is after.
The Big Picture
One of the most visible steps Valve has taken toward bringing its digital distribution service to the living room is the new Big Picture mode.
“We’re confident in some things that customers want,” Valve’s Greg Coomer told Kotaku earlier this year. “They want a full-screen experience. They want to be in the living room. They want to use a game controller. They wanna have a social gaming experience. And we have this platform that lets us ship a significant portion of that experience.”
At the time Coomer made those comments, he was speaking directly to the software side of the equation. Making Steam big-screen accessible, however, is only one piece of the puzzle.
Kotaku's Jason Schreier caught up with Valve boss Gabe Newell at the VGAs and asked him about the hardware itself. Newell's admission that the company would be developing hardware for release next year comes after much speculation.
"I think in general that most customers and most developers are gonna find that [the PC is] a better environment for them," Newell told Kotaku. "Cause they won't have to split the world into thinking about 'why are my friends in the living room, why are my video sources in the living room different from everyone else?' So in a sense we hopefully are gonna unify those environments."
Valve Controllers, Wearable Computing
Long before Big Picture mode was revealed, other pieces in the puzzle were already coming together.
When Valve's patent for a video game controller with "moddable" parts was discovered, rumors of the Steam Box gained new momentum.
The above concept work for the patent filing shows a controller similar to the Xbox 360, but with removable pieces that can be switched around at will.
When you look at this controller and then at the remarkable Lotus control scheme in Big Picture mode you start to see how all the stars for a living-room-centric Steam experience were aligning.
Valve is also working on "wearable computing," something Newell has made a big deal out of in the past.
Touch-computing is a fad, according to Newell. The future is in things like wrist-bands with highly-accurate motion controls.
“Post touch, depending on how sci-fi you want to get, is a couple of different technologies combined together. The two problems are input and output,” he said at the Seattle Casual Connect conference, adding that "we will have bands on our wrists, and you’ll be doing something with your hands, which are really expressive.”
This statement came on the heels of Valve's Michael Abrash's big wearable computing reveal. Obviously, between Big Picture mode, wearable computing, moddable controls, and all the other R&D experimentation the company is up to, something big was in the works.
Add to the pile Valve's own 3D gaming goggles, and you can get a sense of just how serious the company is about its hardware development. Things like wearable computing and 3D goggles make more sense in a living room environment where gamers aren't necessarily so confined to desks and monitors.
Steam Linux
The final piece to the puzzle, though, is still about the software itself.
When Newell declared Windows 8 a "catastrophe" and Valve announced their adoption of Linux, a Steam-based console seemed all but inevitable. Big Picture mode, Linux, lots of hardware accessories, and a bunch of people at Valve talking up the importance of living room-based gaming...the next logical step is a machine to pull it all together.
Steam itself is hugely profitable for Valve, but as Amazon has shown with its Kindle service, the entire ecosystem isn't complete without hardware. If Valve wants to compete directly against Microsoft and every other company in the gaming industry, including Apple, they need an ecosystem of their own, and a platform that includes both software and hardware.
But just because the system will likely be Linux-based doesn't mean we should expect anything too open-source. From what Newell told Kotaku, it sounds less open than the upcoming Android-based Ouya console.
"Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment," he said. "If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that's what some people are really gonna want for their living room.
"The nice thing about a PC is a lot of different people can try out different solutions, and customers can find the ones that work best for them."
The Market
Here's that question of balance again.
There needs to be a balance between couch-convenience and PC power. There also needs to be a balance between price and specs which may be just as hard to achieve. PC gamers will pay top dollar for powerful machines, but what will the audience for a Steam Box be willing to fork over for the machine?
And what is the market for this machine in the first place? Console gamers might feel little reason to switch from their preferred platforms, and PC gamers might gravitate toward standard, open PCs that are more easily attuned to their own needs.
That being said, Valve has always displayed a pretty strong sense of what consumers want and how to deliver. If they launch the system alongside Half-Life 3 and some other first-party gems, this could make huge waves. Though I doubt Half-Life 3 will be a Steam Box exclusive, it could still release as part of a package deal.
Furthermore, the emphasis on a standardized PC running Steam Big Picture could breathe new life into PC development. That alone could be a game changer for the video game industry.
One also imagines that the machine would be much more regularly updated than its console counterparts.
Rather than have complicated specs determine whether a game would run on your machine, games could run on Steam Box 2 and up, or Steam Box 3 and up (similar to iOS games.) This standardization and simplification of PC gaming would be a huge benefit to many consumers and developers alike, while not really impacting more "hardcore" PC gamers.
With next-gen consoles likely being announced next year by Microsoft and Sony, and start-ups like Ouya on the horizon, 2013 is certainly shaping up to be a very, very interesting year.
[Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly said Big Picture was still in beta. I somehow missed the fact that it had left beta earlier this month.]
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.Those crazy iFixit people were up with the Dawn Patrol this morning, attacking an Xbox One with screwdrivers and spudgers to see what Microsoft's shiny new console looks like on the inside. The iFixit team had to hunt around a bit to find an initial entry point, but they ended up starting by removing the system's large grille, which exposed a set of clips.
Immediately inside the plastic case is a metal shield; attached to this are the One's Wi-Fi assembly and a small speaker. After removing those, the shield can be unscrewed and set aside, allowing access to the actual guts of the machine.
iFixit lauds Microsoft's decision to attach the system's Blu-ray drive and hard disk drive to the motherboard with standard SATA connectors. Commodity parts are in evidence—the system uses a 2.5-inch Samsung Spinpoint 5400 rpm SATA II HDD. When the iFixit crew attached the HDD to a computer, they found the 500GB disk contained a GPT partition map with five partitions: Temp Content, User Content, System Support, System Update, and System Update 2. The 500GB drive had about 472GB of free space. The system was fresh out of the box and had never been powered on.
After pulling out the drives, iFixit turned its attention to the large heat sink and fan assembly mounted atop the unified AMD Jaguar CPU+AMD Radeon GPU chip. Again, iFixit gives praise to Microsoft's engineers for using an easily replaceable cooling solution. With the heatsink/fan removed, the motherboard is laid bare for examination. One interesting component is an 8GB chunk of eMMC NAND flash memory, the purpose of which Microsoft discussed last month with Eurogamer. In the words of Microsoft Technical Fellow Andrew Goossen:
We use it as a cache system-side to improve system response and again not disturb system performance on the titles running underneath. So what it does is that it makes our boot times faster when you're not coming out of the sleep mode—if you're doing the cold boot. It caches the operating system on there. It also caches system data on there while you're actually running the titles and when you have the snap applications running concurrently. It's so that we're not going and hitting the hard disk at the same time that the title is. All the game data is on the HDD. We wanted to be moving that head around and not worrying about the system coming in and monkeying with the head at an inopportune time.
iFixit gives the console an 8 out of 10 for repairability, mostly owing to the Xbox One's lack of nonstandard screws and lack of glued-down components. Whether or not you'd be cracking open the system yourself to replace components is another matter, but at least you could if you wanted to. It also appears to be relatively easy to replace the system's HDD with a much faster SSD—at least from a hardware perspective. No doubt someone will post a YouTube tutorial of the procedure shortly, showing if it's possible to restore the operating system onto a fresh SSD.P osted by
Stuart Mactaggart,
October 5, 2014 Email
Stuart Mactaggart On Twitter:
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Ottawa Fury FC showed strong determination on Saturday evening as they earned a point on the road in Texas against the San Antonio Scorpions. An injury time goal from defender Ryan Richter secured the point for Ottawa as they continued their fine road form while playing their third game in seven days.
The Opening 45 Ottawa started the game off somewhat slow compared to their previous two matches, however they slowly worked their way into the match as the half progressed. San Antonio got the go ahead goal early on as they scored for the first time in the opening fifteen minutes this season. The goal came off a free kick that was able to bounce in the eighteen yard box and past Peiser, resulting in an ugly goal against for both the keeper and defense.
Tempers began to flare after the goal as four yellow cards were given out in the span of fifteen minutes, three to Fury players and one to San Antonio. Ottawa seems to prefer to play a very physical style football and show a lot of passion in their game, something that was very evident as the half went on. Peiser helped keep Fury in the game just before half time making some clinical saves. What's this? The yellow cards festival? #GoFury #OttawaFuryFC ⚽ — Ollie. (@OllieSubtil) October 5, 2014
The Second Half Ottawa started to creep into the match in the second half as they slowly took control of the play and created several chances through Ubiparipovic. Dantas and Donatelli were introduced in the half and gave Fury the spark of creativity they were looking for. Jarun was taken off and replaced with Oliver with fifteen minutes left as Ottawa threw everyone forward to look for an equalizer. Despite Peiser having to come to the rescue on a few occasions, the second half was mostly Ottawa’s as it became clearer and clearer as the half went on that they were going to find a goal.
Just as Fury have done in several games this season, they were able to find a late injury time goal to help rescue a point and keep the playoff hope still alive, although very distant. Richter was able to put the ball into the back of the net following several point blank shots being saved by Scorpions keeper Saunders, giving Ottawa a well deserved point.
Although the playoff chase is all but over for Fury (with the club needing to win their remaining matches and hope for losses elsewhere) there is no doubt that Marc Dos Santos has the squad working incredibly hard every match as they look to finish as high in the standings as possible. There is no question that despite the loss to Minnesota and draw vs San Antonio this week, Ottawa have a very strong and determined squad that is capable of competing against any team in the NASL.
Man of the Match Ryan Richter
Ryan Richter earned Man Of The Match honors through his 90th minute equalizer. However, he also played a terrific game start to finish as usual, providing experience and skill at the back, and keeping one of the NASL’s most offensive teams to just one goal at home.
Honorable Mention
Honorable mention should be given to Ubiparipovic, who created a lot of chances that just lacked a finishing touch.Investigators are appealing for witnesses after a 70-year-old woman using a walker was killed while crossing a Mississauga road.
Peel Regional Police said the woman was struck by a grey 2007 Ford Freestyle while crossing Lakeshore Road East east of Shaw Drive around 8:45 p.m. Friday.
She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said the vehicle remained at the scene and that the driver is co-operating with investigators.
Anyone who witnessed the incident or saw what happened prior to the collision is asked to contact the force’s major collision bureau at (905) 453-2121, ext. 3710.
Information may also be left anonymously by calling Peel Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), by visiting www.peelcrimestoppers.ca or sending a text message to CRIMES (274637) with the word ‘PEEL’ and then your tip.While Floridians were busy re-electing Barack Obama, voters in Puerto Rico yesterday participated in a referendum posing a fundamental question to their political status with the United States: statehood or no statehood?
The first question on the two-part referendum asked voters if they wanted to change their relationship with the United States, then asked how they would like to change it. The choices were U.S. statehood, independence or "sovereign free association" -- a status that would give more than four million Puerto Ricans more political autonomy.
While 53 percent of reported voters (75,188) chose to not continue their 114-year-old relationship with the U.S., 47 percent (67,304) favored the status quo.
Continue Reading
But it was the response to the second question that got everyone's attention: 65 percent of voters favored statehood, followed by 31 percent favoring sovereign free association and only four percent wanting independence.
Update: 54 percent of Puerto Rican voters opted to change their
political status with the United States, and a final tally of 61 percent
of the electorate chose statehood for the second question on the referendum.
Both Obama and Mitt Romney supported the referendum, with Obama pledging to respect the will of the people if there was a clear majority. While only 31 percent of ballots had been counted by Tuesday morning, the statehood question was being favored by an imposing 60 percent so far.
So will Puerto Rico finally become the 51st state? Puerto Ricans have been recognized as U.S. citizens since 1917, almost 20 years since the 3,515 square mile island was acquired by the U.S. military in the Spanish-American War. The political status of the Caribbean island has been under considerable debate ever since.
As the reality of Puerto Rican statehood comes closer, Miami Puerto Ricans might strike a more ambivalent tone.
"Puerto
Rico cannot be independent, but I don' t know if it's a good idea to
become a state," says Aina Calimano, 29, a Puerto Rican native and
mother of two who works as an audiologist in Kendall. "I think
the people think that it will be better because they think they will
receive more benefits without doing anything. Eighty percent of the
people over there don't know English. They want to be a state but they
don't know anything about speaking another language. I like the idea
that we are U.S. citizens but not a real state."
Several referendums were held in the past -- in 1967, 1993 and 1998 -- but a statehood majority has remained elusive.
Although Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, it's citizens are not represented in Congress, nor is Puerto Rico represented in the electoral college and therefore citizens cannot vote in the presidential election. The closest thing they have to representation in the U.S. federal government is a non-voting Resident Commissioner in the House of Representatives, a position that has as much influence as a court jester. Pedro Pierluisi (D) is the incumbent.
Citizens can still elect legislators and a governor. And interestingly, Puerto Ricans look to have narrowly chosen challenger Alejandro Garcia Padilla of the Popular Democratic Party -- which opposes statehood -- over incumbent Luis Fortuno by 48 to 47 percent.
To become a full-fledged state, the measure would still need a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress.
Florida's growing Puerto Rican community -- a group that helped give Obama the lead in Florida -- will be watching the results closely.
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.© unknown
Washington - President Obama, U.S. congressmen and their aides held an emergency four hour-long meeting Wednesday to decide what action to take to stem a sudden and unprecedented mass enlightenment of the US population that threatens to destabilize the Government and create a fiscal crisis.Details have emerged that behind closed doors Obama received a number of private phone calls from his financial overlords. In no uncertain terms Obama was threatened to do whatever it took - leaving all options on the table - to get the American people back to sleep or face devastating consequences to his financial savings portfolio. It is rumored that amongst the threats, Obama would be forced to exchange his investment fund share holdings for shares in BP that were about to be dumped by forewarned insiders. Alarmed in the extreme, Obama packed his teleprompters away and starting signing a myriad of papers that were thrust in front of him.The emergency action plan came too late to prevent millions of citizens jubilantly celebrating their new-found awareness. People from all walks of life suddenly realized they have been lied to all their lives on just about everything by their psychopathic, conscienceless leaders of major corporations, government and security agencies.Residents in all major cities across the United States awoke complaining that they were experiencing an inexplicable mental clarity that was causing them to realize the way they were about to spend their day was utterly pointless, a potential health threat and would only add energy and finances to a powerful wealthy elite that had been ruling their lives since as long as they could remember.Congress was thrown into chaos when a majority of staff decided to simply stop showing up for work until their bosses resign; in a move of solidarity, energy companies turned off the power to government buildings and military bases, while water companies shut down their water supply; repair people refused to carry out repairs for the politically well-connected and television network staff refused to report the lies they are routinely ordered to tell by their editors.One Chicago resident's report was consistent with many similar accounts coming in from across the country. Joe, 42 told us how he had become aware of the diversionary, divide and conquer machinations of the psychopathic oligarchs, especially in relation to abortion, health care, immigration, global warming, peak oil, 9/11, fake terrorism, both current wars and past wars, 'necessary police actions', empire building and resource plundering, left vs right, evolution vs creationism, fundamentalists vs everybody else!"Wow! I sort of felt things weren't right but to suddenly be able to see the true nature of all the lies we've been bombarded with by media and Big Government is just mind-boggling," Joe exclaimed."The public seems to have finally understood that they're so sick and going bankrupt because of the FDA/AMA medical mafia and Big Pharma's Gestapo death grip over absolutely everything! I've noticed how food companies, Monsanto and Big Pharma's share prices have exploded over the past few years," said Joe. "I can see it's because they have bought Congress and have a complete monopoly over our food supply, health and non-existent consideration for others' well-being."Reports are flooding in of people deciding to buy or trade for goods with hand crafters in their own region instead of shopping at Wal-Mart. Rather than buying GMO foods at the supermarket chain stores, they've formed co-ops with their neighbors, bought fresh food in bulk and are getting together to can foods, smoke meats and pickle vegetables - followed by a barbecue. Feeling so connected and enthused by that, ordinary people across the nation are organizing all kinds of meetings to learn all the old skills that their grandparents knew that made them independent.People are leaving the cities in droves and, en masse, have established themselves on previously restricted government land. This resulted in a veritable frenzy of house-building and barn raising parties followed, once again, by barbecues where home-made pickles were enjoyed by all.The reasons for the mass-awakening are as yet unclear. One possible explanation has been given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where officials have discovered that the normally high levels of fluoride added to the nation's drinking water were "accidentally omitted." It's suspected that workers at water plants are responsible. Government Health officials have advised all citizens to carry on working as normal, eat lots of fast-food and stay glued to their TV sets in the hope that any thoughts generated in people by seeing the reality of the situation will be pacified by toxins, apathy and a return to the steady atrophy of their brains.Citizens have been urged by the Obama administration to report anyone they witness behaving in a non-consumer-capitalist manner to Homeland Security who, with the help of FEMA, will permanently detain anyone found more than 5 meters from a Television screen.News International executives may hope that the departure of Andy Coulson will take the heat out of the phone-hacking story, but it has almost certainly come too late. Although the interception of perhaps thousands of public figures' messages took place during his editorship, it has recently become clear that Coulson was simply a prominent distraction.
Of course, the Labour leadership seems satisfied with the scalp because it allows Ed Miliband to make predictably disparaging remarks about David Cameron's judgment, but the real case against News International is being made by the former Labour deputy prime minister, Lord Prescott, who has cast doubt on the investigation by the Metropolitan Police and the follow-up by the Crown Prosecution Service. The apparent failure of both organisations, together with the cover-up by News International, are the radioactive elements of the story. They are what Ed Miliband should be focusing on.
What is so striking about this affair is that we know so much. There is a long list of well-known people who are suing News International, which has already spent millions of pounds to prevent the issue being aired in court. Despite Murdoch's insistence that News International has zero tolerance of criminal activity and will do everything in its power to comply with police investigations, the company is still paying the legal costs of Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective who ran the hacking operation and is the one man who knows the identities of all the executives who were aware of his activities. Names are surfacing: first it was Ian Edmondson, the news editor of the News of the World who was suspended before Christmas, and now Greg Miskiw, a former assistant editor.
The gossip mill is throwing up more names, and quite by chance last week I met a well-known person whose phone was hacked but who decided on balance that News International was just too powerful and vindictive to take on. When a company is so influential that it skews the legitimate means of redress in a civil society, that society should take note, ask if it serves the people's best interests and question whether it should be allowed to increase that power, in this instance through a merger with BSkyB.
News International has shown a shocking arrogance since the imprisonment of royal correspondent Clive Goodman for listening to the phone messages of Prince William and Prince Harry, and more particularly the absence of the moral standards that we expect to inform the judgment of a large public company.
It has also displayed an absence of leadership, which may or may not be corrected by the appearance of Rupert Murdoch in London this week. It is suggested by insiders that Murdoch is in thrall to Rebekah Brooks, the managing editor of NI and former editor of the Sun and News of the World, and will do anything to save her. Yet the hard fact is that under her leadership this scandal has been allowed to fester. Chequebook journalism has been elaborated into chequebook management, and that must be a concern for the directors of the company.
The affair has been mistaken for a Westminster spat over Andy Coulson's future, or a story that only interests journalists obsessed with their own industry, but in truth it is much more important, for the reasons that John Prescott has been consistently articulating since he learned that his phone had been targeted.
At the heart of everything is Rupert Murdoch's considerable personal power, which he wields to menace any government that stands in the way of his commercial ambitions or offends his basically conservative agenda. Around News International there exists a kind of dark energy that is capable of influencing matters without Murdoch executives even having to lift the phone to deliver a threat. People know what the company wants and tend to step aside, which partly, I suspect, explains the failure of the police to investigate the case with anything resembling enthusiasm. That may also apply to the Crown Prosecution Service, though last week it began to act with much more vigour.
There appears to be some sort of unspoken agreement between the police and the company that the Met would not press home the investigation. But the fact remains that criminal activity of a very disturbing kind, widespread and seemingly embedded in the News International culture, has not been properly investigated. We must ask how long phone hacking has been a standard practice at the News of the World and whether it was in fact used by previous editors.
There are many decent journalists working for News International, and Murdoch owes it to them to clean house. If he doesn't act now it certainly will become a disaster for the company. Meanwhile, the political parties – indeed the whole of British society – must see this as an opportunity to examine the role played by Murdoch in our national life and assess whether it might be desirable to limit and control an organisation that is a law unto itself.Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi reiterated his call Thursday for the election of a president as soon as possible, stressing that any attempt to prolong the presidential void is against the stipulations of the Constitution.
“The Lebanese Constitution stipulates that in the event of vacuum, the parliament should convene immediately to elect a president … This is the true interpretation. We reject the current situation because it violates the Constitution and we will not accept any other interpretation,” the patriarch said.
Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and the Free Patriotic Movement, Hizbullah and some of their allies have been boycotting the electoral sessions, arguing that boycott is a “constitutional right.”
“The patriarchate does not have candidates. It does not recommend a certain candidate, it does not support a candidate and it does not veto any candidate,” al-Rahi stressed.
“They were first betting on the end of the war in Syria, then on whether (Syrian President Bashar) Assad stays in power or not. They then made bets on the nuclear agreement between the Americans and Iran and other issues,” the patriarch lamented.
“We call on them not to make bets on foreign forces or on a mirage. Go to parliament and elect a president – this is our stance today,” al-Rahi added.
Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri launched late in 2015 a proposal to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his suggestion was rejected by the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah.
The Hizbullah-led March 8 camp, as well as March 14's Lebanese Forces, have argued that FPM founder MP Michel Aoun is more eligible than Franjieh to become president given the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.
Y.R.The world’s second largest solar manufacturer, Yingli Green Energy, has raised "substantial doubts" over its ability to continue "as a going concern".
In its delayed annual report released on Friday evening, the company said its level of debt, sequential losses, its inability to raise new finance and other industry risks, including trade disputes, mean the company faces an uncertain future.
“In the past we have relied primarily on borrowings from commercial banks to fund a significant portion of our capital expenditures and working capital needs, and we expect to continue doing so in the future. Substantial doubt exists as to our ability to continue as a going concern. We have also incurred significant net losses in recent years," the report states.
The filing, released after markets in the US closed has confirmed many of those fears.
“If we become unable to continue as a going concern, we may have to liquidate our assets, and the values we receive for our assets in liquidation or dissolution could be significantly lower than the values reflected in our audited consolidated financial statements. Our lack of cash resources and our potential inability to continue as a going concern may materially and adversely affect the price of our ADSs and our ability to raise new capital or continue our operations,” the filing said.
Rumours had been circulating that Yingli was experiencing difficulties since the company delayed publication of its annual report last month.
“Like we saw with Suntech a few years back, we’re again seeing the potential failing of another industry leader," said Ash Sharma, senior director, solar research at IHS. "Yingli was the largest module supplier in both 2012 and 2013 before being surpassed by Trina. Throughout that time it made some questionable strategic decisions, such as sponsoring the FIFA World Cup and its unsuccessful move upstream into polysilicon manufacturing. Both of which ultimately proved costly and possibly contributed to the dire position it is now in. Yet again we’re seeing that no company within the solar industry is too big to fail.”
The company said that it is in negotiations with a major shareholder over the possibility of a loan and/or a private share placement, that could raise as much as RMB600 million (US$96.7 million). The company also hinted at a potential windfall from local authorities. It recently received nearly RMB600 million for the land use rights of the plot of land next to its existing polysilicon facility. According to the annual report, the local government "may at its sole discretion” return any funds its makes from the land over and above the RMB600 million to Yingli. The company predicts the site could be worth RMB1.42-2.22 billion leaving Yingli with additional funds of between RMB820 million (US$132 million) and RMB1.62 billion (US$260 million).
The Chinese government has in the past said it would permit consolidation in the solar sector, indicating that struggling firms would not be bailed out. Jifan Gao, CEO of Trina Solar, has previously talked about the need for consolidation while Chinese PV analysts have long predicted it.
The company made a US$209 million loss in 2014.
Debts
The SEC filing provides details on the company’s debt levels and concedes that it could restrict its growth and ability to meet its repayment obligations.
“We have a significant amount of debt and debt service requirements. As of December 31, 2014, we had RMB10,112.1 million (US$1,629.8 million) in outstanding short-term borrowings (including the current portion of medium-term notes and long-term debt), RMB1,713.3 million (US$276.1 million) in outstanding medium-term notes (excluding RMB2.34 billion that have or will become due in 2015) and RMB2,858.2 million (US$460.7 million) in outstanding long-term debt (excluding the current portion).”
Yingli also revealed its current actual manufacturing capacity, with modules on 4GW, 3GW for ingots and wafers and 3.2GW for cells.
Downstream
The annual report also provided an update on the company’s downstream ventures. It has a 1.6GW pipeline in China with projects to be sold upon completion.
It conceded that it is still considering how to develop its downstream business by selling to third parties, retaining its own projects or forming joint ventures.
Its overseas portfolio totals 300MW.
This story hase been updated to include additional commentary and details from the annual report.An Israeli assault on Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure and personnel would be far more extensive than many realise. The prospect that it will happen in the next few months is increasing.
The voices in Washington calling for a military strike on Iranian nuclear plants are growing in number and strength. The cautious attitude of the Barack Obama administration itself in relation to such a course means that direct military action by the United States itself remains on balance unlikely (see Joe Klein, "An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table", Time, 15 July 2010). But current trends in the middle east suggest that the prospect of Israeli action against Iran in the next few months is coming closer (see "Israel vs Iran: the risk of war", 11 June 2010).
These include oft-repeated reports that Iran is rearming Hizbollah in southern Lebanon, and that Syria is supplying Hizbollah with some of its Iranian-made M-600 ballistic-missiles. The M-600 is a solid-fuel missile with a range stretching over much of Israel - a much more potent weapon than those fired in the Israel-Lebanon war of July-August 2006 (see Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “The Hizbollah project: last war, next war”, 13 August 2009)
Israel’s current concern over a resumption of conflict with Hizbollah, however, is overshadowed by its analysis of the benefits, costs and consequences of an attempt to strike a decisive blow against Iran. Binyamin Netanyahu, concluding his visit to the United States with an interview on Fox News, described Iran as “the ultimate terrorist threat” and said that for Iran to think it can maintain its nuclear ambitions would be a mistake.
Here, the Israeli prime minister expresses by implication two sentiments that are entrenched across much of Israel’s political opinion. The first is that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively military, and that it represents an existential threat to Israel. The country’s own powerful nuclear arsenal, first developed in the late 1950s, has little or no place in this analysis.
The second is that the United States - notwithstanding the Washington chorus - cannot be relied on to constrain Iranian nuclear ambitions by force; at some stage Israel will have to go it alone (see Jim Lobe “Hawks Sharpen Claws for Iran Strike”, Asia Times/IPS, 12 July 2010).
This current moment raises three vital questions for anyone concerned with security and stability in the middle east: whether Israel has the military capability to launch an effective strike on Iran, what form military action would take, and what Iran’s reaction would be.
The Israeli capability
A new report published by the Oxford Research Group (ORG) - Military Action Against Iran: Impact and Effects (15 July 2010) - which seeks to clarify these issues and offer recommendations. Its starting-point is that Israel in the past few years has transformed its ability to undertake air-strikes across great distances - and certainly as far from its territory as Iran. It has also worked diligently to build relations with two states bordering Iran - Azerbaijan to the north, and the Kurdish region of Iraq to the west; both might prove useful in the event of action against Iran.
The extensive and sophisticated equipment Israel now possesses includes: over 120 long-range F-15I and F-16I strike-aircraft, purchased from the United States; an expanded and upgraded fleet of tanker-aircraft; a large fleet of drones, some capable of being armed with weapons; bunker-busting bombs that can be attached to its planes; medium-range ballistic-missiles, and (probably) submarine-launched cruise-missiles.
These capabilities mean that Israel can now undertake military action against Iran to an extent that even in 2006 would have been impossible (see “Israel’s shadow over Iran”, 14 January 2010). Moreover, it can do so without overflying Iraq, thus avoiding direct infringement of United States-controlled air-space and the direct implication of Washington in the operation.
The US would know almost at once that an Israeli attack was underway, and the widespread use of its manufactured weapons would be noted across the region; but an ability to deny close involvement, including to its own and other western publics, would be welcome. This is even more so since the Israeli action will involve far more than “a war against real-estate”: attacks on specific nuclear facilities such as the uranium-enrichment centres at Natanz, the uranium-processing plant near Esfahan, and the new Arak research-reactor.
An Israeli security perspective, for example, is concerned almost as much with Iran’s development of medium-range solid-fuel missiles as with its nuclear projects; so missile-research, development and production sites would be key targets. Moreover, the people who design, develop and build the nuclear and missile programmes - and the facilities that train these specialists - are as significant as the physical infrastructure; so housing-complexes around nuclear and missile plants, key research-centres, factories, and even university departments training scientists and engineers would also be in the line of fire.
In practice, then, military action will be much more generic than specific; it will certainly involve raids in and around greater Tehran; and it will be seen as more an act of war against the country as a whole than a limited dropping of bombs in remote locations.
The Iranian calculation
Many western Gulf states might, at elite level, privately welcome Israeli action against Iran. Their substantial Shi’a minorities, and indeed a majority of Arabs across the region, will take a very different view. Many, Shi’a and Sunni alike, will be bitterly opposed to what they see as another attack by a powerful western state on a Muslim country and people.
The key variable, however, is the attitude of the Iranian state itself to an Israeli attack. In domestic terms, the state would have great freedom of manoeuvre: an Israeli raid would have the automatic political |
eventually find its way to Chicago. But I have to get on that train, and I'm a nervous wreck.
11:30 a.m. I'm finally comfortably settled in one of the roomiest reserved coach seats I have ever seen on a passenger train. I am stretched out on two seats, totally comfortable.
You just got to love American trains. These hulking machines have plenty of room to move around. There's never a problem with legroom on Amtrak! Sure, our great national dinosaurs might tool around at an average speed of 90 miles an hour while the rest of the world is zipping around at 200. But hey! What's the rush? Where's the fire?
And anyway, in the unlikely event of a railroad accident, you better believe I'd want to be traveling at 90 mph in a massive, Amtrak train then a lighter bullet train going 200. American trains are solidly built. That's why many of the Amtrak cars are still running strong after almost 50 years!
One other thing: The US is an enormous country, and we're lucky to have a rail service at all at this time in history. The people of this country have spoken with their wallets, and they have said, quite clearly, that they'd much rather fly to their domestic locations than take the train.
However, most intelligent people realize the importance of having an alternate public transportation system around, should the airplane system go down (as it did for several days on 9/11). When those planes hit the Twin Towers, Amtrak continued to run on schedule and hardly missed a beat.
Our passenger rail system is a national treasure and should be designated a mobile historic National Park.
And we don't need to build a new rail system for this country. That would be way too expensive. If some rich guy wants to pay for it, let him do it, but I don't think that's the way we should spend the taxpayer's dollar.
We need to fix what we've got, or we're going to lose one of the most beautiful passenger rail systems on this planet.
Hiring a redcap was one of the smartest things I have done on this trip. The line to gate 8, the departure gate at Toronto Union Station, was enormous with hundreds and hundreds of people eagerly waiting to get on the train. I found a redcap at a waiting area and said I'd give him $10 if he could get me on the train before everybody else. He said, "no problem" but said I had to wait for him for about 10 minutes while he attended to some other business.
The redcap, who called himself John Henry, returned in a timely fashion and was pleased that I had not lost my cool when everybody around me was losing theirs. But I always trust these railroad men: If they say they're going to do something, they will.
John Henry piled my stuff on his huge, heavy duty dolly and, headed to the midpoint of the line. He cut through it and found an alternate entrance onto to the train. As he guided me through the maze of impatient passengers, he cheerfully greeted his fellow baggage handlers, conductors, and attendants by calling them “honey” and “darling.”
In New Mexico, I find that people regularly address each other as "sweetheart," "honey," "darlin'" but not so much here in the Northern climates. So he proved to be delightful company.
John Henry and I made our way onto the empty train, and he loaded my bags safely on board. This Amtrak train, unlike the VIA, was a double-decker and I asked John Henry to help me find a nice seat on the second level, which he cheerfully did.
I scanned the train to find a seat with a beautiful view and an electrical outlet and settled into it, hoping to plug my heating pad in during the trip. After I was complete unloaded, I discovered that my seat was obstructing the outlet, so it was impossible to plug anything into it. Oh, what the hell, I sighed as I settled into the large well-worn Amtrak seat: Can’t win ‘em all! It just felt good to be heading home to familiar surroundings.
I gave John Henry an American ten dollar bill after I was seated and said “God Bless You,” a comment I use sparingly.
Come to think of it, the only other time I used that expression on this trip was when I was at the Deerfield Beach station in Florida. My tennis elbow was acting up, so I had my forearms swaddled in a brace.
A Cuban lady took pity on me after seeing my pathetically splinted hands and helped me load my bags onto the Tri-Rail commuter train.
When I said “God Bless You” to her, she embraced me and gave me a big bear hug and said she loved me.
And now the train takes off, precisely on schedule, and I’m in a massive double-decker with an empty seat at my side. Talk about lucky! Yeah, I’ll take an Amtrak train any day.
I’m beginning to think that Amtrak makes Americans take one leg on the Canadian VIA rail so that we know exactly how lucky we are to ride in these old cars. Those Amtrak double-deckers offer a superior train experience over single-level trains.
In a sense, taking this "short-haul" VIA trip is almost like taking an airplane flight with the stewardess wheeling her cart through the car with her drinks and snacks and those well-worn squashed seats and flaky announcements. You can have "short-haul" VIA.
But that was just the Ottawa-Toronto leg of VIA. The cross-country route looks very lovely and, if one can afford a sleeper, it looks like paradise, especially going to a place like British Columbia.
The train is really moving now, making good time. We’ll probably be held up by customs so it’s a good thing we’re making tracks. Unlike the Amtrak Adirondack, which went from Albany to Montreal, this train, from Toronto to Chicago, has issued me not one, but two tickets. That is because the conductors, from Toronto to the US are Canadian. When we get to the border, we will have American conductors, and both need separate tickets.
It is overcast outside, and a blanket of freshly fallen snow covers the desolate corn fields. It is the dead of winter and not very picturesque either.
I'm seeing factories, parking lots, and broad surfaces of asphalt filled with empty trucks, semis and tankers waiting to be filled: All the stuff that makes a civilization tick but not necessarily the sort of things that the local tourism department puts in their brochures.
An announcement just came over the PA that food can be bought in the café car. That means there is no formal dining car. Bummer.
Good thing I ate a stack of pancakes this morning at the motel. I’m not particularly hungry now and my stomach is feeling much much better. I may take another diarrhea pill although that pill may account for the reason I suddenly feel very very tired. Or maybe it’s all just catching up with me, this whole trip.
In any case, I may be able to take a nap, something I seldom can do. I barely can keep my eyes open.
2 p.m. Stratford, Canada. The snow is coming down, and it’s pure white. The snow isn’t falling very heavily, but it will probably accumulate over time.
Stratford, Ontario? This city triggers a memory of my brother-in-law Paul and me driving cross country in his old Datsun when I was 14 or so years old. As the train pulls out of the station, I see Shakespeare Street, and I think that this is where the famous Shakespeare festival is based. Paul and I stopped in this town and saw a cool musical production of “Billy the Kid” during the summertime, decades ago.
I have a seatmate now. He’s a big guy and I haven’t even said hello to him yet. I’ll call him the Linebacker. Thankfully the seats are big enough to accommodate him.
It's very white out there. Almost blinding.
I may have reached my physical limit for traveling, and I may not want to go to Milwaukee. I think that in the end, I may not have much control over my fate in the next day or so. I need to be careful because there is always the risk of screwing up my arm with all my bags and transfers from one mode of transportation to another.
OK, this is where we stand: Sometime around 10:30 tonight I will be in Chicago.
Chicago: The windy city. The city of big shoulders. My hometown. It will probably be cold and I will be all alone.
If there is a God in Heaven, with a little luck, Marco Santi, Jim’s friend, will be waiting for me in a nice warm car outside of Union Station. I told him I might be a little late, held up with baggage or maybe customs, but so far there are no delays.
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Google search is simple: just type whatever comes to mind in the search box below and hit ENTER or click on the Google Search button. Google will then search the entire chucksville.com website for pages or documents that are relevant to your query!Observations from Sunday night's 96-90 exhibition victory over the Atlanta Hawks at AmericanAirlines Arena:
-- Josh Richardson had quite the spring in his step.
-- He was a swat-a-holic on the defensive end.
-- With Tyler Johnson just as energetic.
-- In this first preseason look, the kids were all right.
-- Even Rodney McGruder.
-- And that's what this is all about, building and providing confidence.
-- Those three did just that at the start of this six-game preseason schedule.
-- With Bam Adebayo clearly on the waiting list this preseason, not entering until 5:50 remained.
-- So perhaps don't count out McGruder when it comes to the Heat's regular-season starter at small forward.
-- He was in Sunday's opening lineup, as were Hassan Whiteside, Goran Dragic, Dion Waiters and James Johnson.
-- Erik Spoelstra cautioned before the game, "I'm still working on the rotation now."
-- McGruder started 65 games into the season.
-- And yet might start a few more this season.
-- Winslow was the Heat's first sub off the bench, at power forward, after James Johnson was called for three early fouls.
-- And promptly drained a 19-foot jumper upon entering.
-- When Tyler Johnson entered in place of Dragic, Waiters shifted to point guard.
-- Kelly Olynyk then entered at center, in place of Whiteside.
-- Richardson, followed, at small forward, in place of McGruder, with Winslow staying at power forward.
-- The first 10 was rounded out by Wayne Ellington entering for Waiters, with Tyler Johnson and Winslow then the ballhandlers.
-- The Heat played five-out with that second unit of Olynyk, Winslow, Richardson, Ellington and Tyler Johnson, something not as possible with Adebayo.
-- Okaro White entered midway through the second period, when Spoelstra pushed past 10 with his 19-player preseason roster.
-- Of going into his 10th season as Heat coach, Spoelstra said of Heat President Pat Riley, "When I first got the job, Pat mentioned to me, 'You're going to blink and 10 years are going to go by like that.' I thought, 'Yeah, sure.' Here I am, going into my 10th year.' It really goes by fast."
-- He added, "There isn't a day that goes by that I don't feel incredible gratitude for being part of this organization and working for Micky Arison and Pat, who've brought great stability that you don't see in pro sports. We've been able to weather a lot of different storms. I've been able to grow tremendously as a coach because of their great faith in me."
-- Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer on the Heat, "They do a lot of things that make it difficult on your defense."
-- Of Hawks guard Dennis Schroder being arrested on battery charges last week, Budenholzer said, "We don't want any of our players or Dennis to be put in this kind of situation. I think it's an opportunity for him to learn. He's going to continue to grow. He has the ability to become a leader on this team."
-- As long as there's an Ersan Ilyasova, he'll be hitting 3-pointers against the Heat.
-- Heat players embraced breast-cancer survivors at halftime before heading into the locker room.
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/askiraIt’s an exciting day for science, because paleontologists in Argentina have dug up something absolutely remarkable!
According to a report released today by Princeton University, a research team unearthed a 60-foot-long fossil of a newly discovered species of dinosaur that lived 78 million years ago and was composed of a single bone!
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“Based on our study of the preserved specimen, we can determine that this creature had no skull, no ribs, and no legs,” said researcher Steven Brentwood, whose team made the discovery. “It was unable to walk, swim, or fly, but rather moved around by rolling from place to place.”
Coolest dinosaur ever? A paleoartist has reconstructed what this awesome beast would have looked like when alive:
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Incredible!
According to Brentwood, the nearly immobile 20-ton dinosaur was an easy target for hungry predators such as Carnotaurus, the Argentinian T-Rex, but having one bone proved a successful defense mechanism.
“Swallowing any part of it was impossible,” said Brentwood. “It was essentially like trying to eat a big log.”
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Unfortunately, this incredible defense mechanism came at the cost of side effects that led to the species’ early extinction.
“Even the slightest amount of rain was capable of drowning these creatures,” said Brentwood. “Beyond that, they’d often wind up getting trapped in valleys or at the bottoms of hills. Reproduction was difficult, because even if they survived mating, they rolled over their own eggs.”
“We believe the specific creature we found died of starvation, because these dinosaurs were only able to catch prey that walked into their mouths,” added Brentwood.
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Incredible! We can’t wait to learn more about our new favorite prehistoric beast!No joke, there I was, on a mountain ridge in the middle of a dark night in Afghanistan. Another American soldier and I were attached to a French Marine sniper team, which was part of a company setting overwatch for another French unit. When the sun rose, we would be in place to cover the other unit as they entered a known Taliban village.
When we started the mission, lightning was flashing overhead. We knew at some point we would get soaked, but it was no big deal. Cold, wet nights are part of the infantry experience, and for this mission I was rolling with the infantry. So I resigned myself to another crappy night in the Army.
We started our infiltration into the mountains well after dark. A lieutenant led us into a huge wadi, which is a deep ravine carved by a river. Just a few inches of water stood at the bottom of the wadi, and we barely wet our boots as we crossed. An hours-long climb and hike along multiple peaks followed. As an attachment and not an infantryman, I was lucky to not have a huge load to carry. I wore a plate carrier with four thick ceramic body armor plates, carried a heavy M14 Designated Marksman rifle and combat load of ammo and grenades, along with a light radio, extra water and binoculars. My entire load was only about seventy-five pounds; my French sniper buddy Zed carried about 150 pounds, which was also his body weight. So I had nothing to complain about.
We arrived at our overwatch position, a rocky mountaintop. Riflemen and antitank missile crewmen moved to their positions, and I waited with the snipers while their team leader picked a good vantage point. I watched the organized chaos on the mountaintop as everyone hurried to get in place before the sky began to lighten.
BOOM!
The mountaintop turned bright white as something exploded about 25 meters away from me. I exclaimed “Whoa!” and ducked, then realized it hadn’t been a bomb. It was lightning, closer than I had ever been to it.
As I rose from my reflexive crouch, something cold smacked me in the cheek. I winced and looked around. The first raindrops slapped the mountaintop. As I rubbed the sore spot on my cheek I thought, Damn, that was a fat raindrop. A quiet chuckle rose from the French Marines, the sound of collective resignation. Here it comes, we’re going to get soaked.
Another freezing raindrop slapped my cheek. I jerked back in pain, thinking Why do the raindrops hurt that badly? Another hit me on the arm, and I heard loud, snapping impacts. I looked down and saw small white objects like pebbles reflecting weak moonlight.
Oh, crap. That’s hail.
An instant after I thought that, the sky opened up and tried to kill us. The tiny hailstones I saw on the ground were smashed by hundreds of golfball-sized stones and heavy rain. I heard my sniper friend Zed yell in pain and snapped my head sideways just in time to see him dive to the ground in a fetal ball. Behind him, French Marines scrambled like they were under artillery fire. I felt a dozen spikes of pain as hailstones pounded my arms, legs and shoulders.
My soldier and I rushed around in desperation for cover. We were on top of a wide open mountaintop, with nowhere to hide. A few seconds of searching revealed the obvious: we had to just huddle, cover up and take it.
We sat a few feet from a clump of French Marines. I threw a shamagh over the back of my neck, hunched over and pulled my rifle, hands and feet in tight. My helmet protected my head, my body armor and pack covered my back, and the plate carrier straps covered most of my shoulders. But the tips of my shoulders were still exposed, and I couldn’t get the toes of my boots in close enough. Plus, there was no way to cover my lower back and sides of my legs. Every few seconds I took a hit on an exposed body part, which made me clench my teeth and whimper helplessly.
Freezing rain drenched my entire body. I shivered violently. My soldier, Karl, sat less than two feet from me but the rain and hail was so heavy I could barely see him. Every few minutes I called out, “Karl, you good?” He would answer, “I’m good.” Then I would usually answer, “This sucks.”
About ten minutes in, Karl laughed and exclaimed, “You know, this is a good time for a rousing singalong,” and started singing Frere Jacques. I appreciated the attempt to lighten the mood, but was so cold, wet, in pain and miserable I couldn’t join in the song. I focused on protecting my rifle and tried not to count the seconds until the storm passed.
Finally, twenty five minutes after it started, the hail and rain stopped. Karl and I rose, checked ourselves for damage more severe than bruises, and searched for the sniper team leader so we could continue the mission. Frenchmen emerged from under ponchos or rucksacks and accounted for their soldiers. I found the team leader, who told me “The mission may be cancelled.”
I was surprised. Being caught in the storm had been a bad experience, but I didn’t see why it would ruin the mission. At that point, the entire experience seemed kind of funny. I asked him what the problem was, and he answered, “A Marine has been injured.”
I looked around and didn’t see anyone who seemed to be injured. I wondered, What happened? Did someone take a hailstone in the head, or fall down the mountain? I pressed him for more information, and his answer removed all the humor from the situation. He said, “One of the Marines was hit by lightning. They are performing CPR on him now.”
I was shocked. The lightning strike 25 meters from me had hit someone. I never asked about it, but I suspect the lightning left the Marine unconscious, barely alive and alone during the entire hailstorm. I told my soldier what had happened, and a few minutes later the team leader came back to tell me, “The mission is cancelled. The Marine has died.”
The hours that followed were a constant flow of bad news, misery and frustration. We received orders to climb down from the mountain and go back to the road, where vehicles would pick us up. In the dark we headed down slippery rock faces onto fields that had been transformed to freezing mud. Our long line of drenched soldiers struggled through farmland that looked more like rice paddies. Many of us, including me, fell into mud or frigid brown water several times during the three kilometer hike back.
At one point during the move, French Marines ahead of me passed a message back. When the message got to my friend Zed, he shook his head in frustration, turned around to me and said, “One of the French soldiers in the village was swept away by a flood. They are trying to find him now.”
Jesus Christ, I thought. That soldier was almost certainly dead. First we had a man killed by lightning, then another man missing and probably drowned. The mission almost couldn’t get worse.
Twenty seconds later, it got worse. Another message was passed to Zed. When he turned to me, furious anger was plain on his face. “Another soldier was swept away by the flood. They are both missing.”
We kept moving. Eventually we reached the giant wadi we had crossed at the beginning of the mission. Back then, just a few hours earlier, the wadi’s stream had barely wet our boots. Now, boiling rapids that looked 40 feet deep roared through the narrow ravine.
The company commander stopped us at the wadi. Hushed, tense exchanges sounded over the radio. I couldn’t tell what exactly was going on and didn’t know why we weren’t searching for the missing soldiers ourselves (later I discovered they were swept away in a different place than I thought). The weather was still too dangerous for helicopters to fly, so soldiers near the village were conducting the search themselves. I spent an hour huddled with French officers outside an old man’s compound, straining to hear radio traffic over the constant roar of rushing water. At one point, everyone fell silent as a group of Marines stumbled toward the wadi, awkwardly carrying something on a poncho. It was the body of the Marine who had been killed by lightning.
Just after the Marines and I saw the corpse of their friend, we received new orders: go back up the mountain we had just climbed down from. Inside I cursed and groaned and wondered why someone had given that stupid order. Outwardly I was just another silent, exhausted, freezing soldier in a long line of silent, exhausted, freezing soldiers. In light of the deaths of at least one and probably three soldiers on that mission, my misery meant two things: jack and shit. Nobody cared how I felt, not even me. So I ate my thoughts, stumbled back across the freezing, muddy fields and struggled back up the mountain.
We got to the top about twenty minutes before the sun broke the horizon. Those minutes were some of the coldest of my life. The sniper team leader gave me a good-natured laugh when he saw me lying behind my M14, shivering like crazy as steam rose from my soaked uniform.
When the sun finally lit up the valley, I watched French soldiers in the village search for their two missing men. Since there were no helicopters, we were their overwatch. Eventually, four pairs of helicopters arrived and circled at different heights to search for the two men. The air warmed enough that I stopped shivering. And, of course, we finally received confirmation of what we already suspected. One soldier was found dead. A few minutes later they pulled the second body from the water.
French helicopters airlifted the soldiers, living and dead, from the village. We struggled down the mountain and across the field again, with French attack choppers circling over our heads. I followed the sniper team across a narrow footbridge over the raging flood in the wadi to our waiting vehicles. Climbing into the back of our personnel carrier was one of the sweetest moments of my life.
We returned to our firebase. We had lost three soldiers killed, but not by the Taliban. We hadn’t even seen any of them. It was as if Afghanistan itself had fought us that night.
After the mission, as I lay in my cot recovering from the pain and cold, I remembered what an Albanian interpreter in Kosovo had said one day. It was spring, and I had just returned from the Skopje, Macedonia airport. I mentioned how odd it was that Kosovo was still covered in snow, even though there was none just on the other side of the border in Macedonia. The interpreter had given me a sad smile and said, “Even God hates us.” After returning from that mission, I understood how he felt.
I wasn’t close friends with any of the men we lost on that mission. Two I had never met, one I had spoken to a few times. His nickname was “Ash” and he was strong, intelligent and known to be a fantastic soldier. We had talked about American and French weapons, our military backgrounds, and our experiences in Kosovo. He was always friendly and approachable. After the mission, I found out Ash had jumped into a rushing, flooded wadi in an attempt to save another soldier who had been swept away. Ash was loaded down with armor, weapons and gear, and he was a big guy to begin with. He must have known he was too heavy to swim, that he would probably die in that wadi. But he jumped in anyway, because another soldier needed help. I’m not religious, but I think a biblical quote is in order here.
“Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friend.”
Yann Hertach, Kevin Lemoine and Gabriel Poirier, rest in peace.
Chris Hernandez is a 20 year police officer, former Marine and currently serving National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and Iron Mike magazine and has published two military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve and Line in the Valley, through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at chris_hernandez_author@yahoo.com or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).
http://www.amazon.com/Line-Valley-Chris-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00HW1MA2G/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=09XSSHABSWPC3FM8K6P4
http://www.amazon.com/Proof-Our-Resolve-Chris-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B0099XMR1E/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0S6AGHBTJZ6JH99D56X7It was only when I bumped into Murray Walker the other day that I became aware of the fevered imminence of the new Formula One season. Walker will be 93 this year but there is still that excited urgency in his voice, the same fervour.
When a man ages his voice can become as thin as Oliver Twist’s gruel, or as croaky as a frog with laryngitis. With Walker, though, the exhilaration is still there. He has changed very little, and because in his broadcasting pomp he took the precaution of sprinkling his commentaries with some inimitable blunders he doesn’t sound old when he does so now. His is still the most famous voice in Formula One.
F1: Murray Walker and Eddie Jordan to join Steve Jones on Channel 4 team Read more
Walker will again be on our TV screens on race weekends, not commentating but doing interviews with drivers for Channel 4. “Last year I watched every second of every race on both channels,” he said, eyes gleaming. “And practice too.
“It’s been my life all my life, because my father was a racer. I’m still working at my hobby. If you’re lucky enough to be part of this circus, you’re working with enormously talented, young and ambitious people who are the best at what they do, even if it’s the chap who blows up the tyres. And it’s a very challenging and satisfying environment to work in. And hopefully it keeps you young,” he added, pausing in the hope of a compliment.
He is bemused when other people are critical of the sport, including the F1 chief executive, Bernie Ecclestone, a stripling of 85. “It’s very sad and unnecessary,” Walker said. “Bernie has some agenda of his own – maybe he’s trying to talk it down so he can buy the sport from CVC. It’s incumbent on people to be positive rather than negative about Formula One, especially when you realise what a colossal audience it has.
“I must be the only person in Britain who doesn’t follow football but how many football matches attract crowds of 100,000? Formula One gets that number many times a year. It’s a great sport, enormously spectacular and gigantically exciting. It is to me, anyway, and always has been.”
Murray forecasts another strong year for Mercedes. “F1 last year wasn’t any more boring than it was in the early 1950s when Alfas were winning everything, or in the middle 1950s when Mercedes were winning once more. What about 2000-05, when you knew Michael Schumacher and Ferrari were going to win?
“Something will happen to stop Mercedes winning. I don’t know what it is and I don’t know when it will be. But they can’t go on winning for ever. I hope Ferrari are going to give them a run for their money this year.”
We are all hoping for that. At testing in Barcelona there were signs Ferrari may have closed the gap on the German giants. OK, so Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen looked really quick when on the new ultra-soft tyres from Pirelli, while Mercedes were happy to pound away, lap after lap, on the harder compounds. But there is a real optimism within Ferrari that progress has been made, even though there were a few glitches at the beginning of the second testing session.
Vettel said: “All I can say is that the first impression was good and everything that we’ve built during these two weeks felt very positive. I am very happy with the feeling in the car. It is difficult speaking about performance and comparing it to the others. But in terms of our own performance we are very happy with the step we’ve made.”
Ferrari won the first of their 16 constructors’ championships in 1961, when Walker was a mere 37 years old. They may narrow the gap this season but the smart money is still on Mercedes to secure a hat-trick.Everyone who played Epic Mafia knew Eris, or at least knew of him. In real life, he was a 32-year-old computer programmer, who lived alone with his border collie in upstate New York, but in the tight-knit online gaming community of Epic Mafia, he was a celebrity, the impresario of the site’s many forums, constantly flirting, philosophising, gossiping. In the seven years since the site had launched, he had formed many intense friendships with people he had never met, but who had come to depend on him. Eris had the gift of easy intimacy. He asked real questions. He wanted to know you. And best of all, he was always right there when you needed him: online.
“Many people will probably wonder why I’ve decided to do this,” read the beginning of the suicide note that Eris had scheduled to appear on his Tumblr on 27 April 2015, two days after his death. “I was sexually abused as a child … and have dealt with the consequences of that my entire life. Imagine going through life with an ever-present shadow hanging over you, worrying if you too might be like the people who destroyed your childhood and life.”
Eris’s suicide note was unusual for a number of reasons. For one thing, it included an apology to the many players he had abused online over the years. Eris was one of Epic Mafia’s most popular members, but he was also its most notorious troll. Most of his transgressions were juvenile. He liked to post innocent-looking links that led to a photo of a My Little Pony doll he had jerked off on. He could also be malicious and vengeful. On the Epic Mafia forum, Eris once responded to a post by an African-American player by posting a picture of King Kong. In the heat of an online feud, he had been known to hack into people’s accounts and delete them. And he routinely doxxed other players, using his programming skills to reveal details about their offline identities – their weight, their age, even photographs of their home.
His defenders insisted that Eris’s activities were innocuous. Most of these revelations never left the forums; they were more a token of his affection – he cared enough to dox you! – than the kind of thing that would damage someone’s reputation. But others felt he went too far. After a prolonged argument with one of Epic Mafia’s game moderators and another player, Eris submitted their Skype addresses to AddMeContacts.com, so they would be flooded with contact requests from strangers. The other player was a 17-year-old girl, which stoked accusations of sexual harassment. Eris claimed it was a harmless prank, and just retaliation for the pair logging in to one of his websites without permission, but many players were not sure who to believe; in the world of Epic Mafia, lying was not just part of the game, lying was the game.
Compared with the web’s most popular multiplayer games, Epic Mafia is not all that epic. Although 400,000 accounts have been registered, the number of players rarely rises above 4,000 per day. The site’s founder, a software engineer who goes by the handle Lucid, holds a full-time job at Uber and describes Epic Mafia as only “slightly profitable”. (He did not want to disclose numbers.) Yet it is based on what is probably the world’s most popular modern parlour game. In its 30-year history, the original Mafia game has spawned a television series in Latvia, a chain of bricks-and-mortar gaming clubs in China and a world championship event in Las Vegas.
Death of a troll Read more
Mafia was created in a Soviet dormitory in 1987, by a psychology graduate student named Dimma Davidoff, but today it (and its sci-fi spin-off, Werewolf) is a popular pastime with the entrepreneurial set – particularly those involved in tech and venture capital in Silicon Valley. (“It has infected almost every significant tech event around the world,” said a 2010 article in Wired. “During lunch at San Francisco’s giant Game Developers Conference, or in the bars after closing at ETech, games of Werewolf break out spontaneously.”)
There are no boards, dice, or cute moulded pieces in Mafia, only one player’s word against another’s. The parlour game begins with people being randomly divided into two groups: Mafia and Innocent Civilians. The Mafia are known to one another; theirs is the power of knowledge. Civilians are ignorant of anyone else’s role, but hold a large majority; theirs is the power of numbers. An omniscient moderator leads players through the two alternating phases of the game – day and night. During the “day”, the players interrogate one another until a majority decides upon a Mafia suspect to send to the gallows. At “night”, the civilians must close their eyes, while the Mafia reveal themselves to each other by remaining “awake” and silently indicate to the moderator who they wish to “kill”. A player’s true identity is only revealed upon their death, and the game continues until the civilians succeed in rooting out all of the mafiosi, or the mafia outnumber the remaining civilians.
There are no boards, dice, or cute moulded pieces in Mafia, only one player’s word against another’s
As the death toll rises, so too does the feeling of paranoia and desperation. This is by design. When Davidoff was growing up, most Soviet games were inspired by the “us v them” dynamic of the cold war, but Davidoff wanted Mafia to serve as a metaphor for the darkest years of the communist regime, when anyone – your boss, your neighbour, your lover – could be an informant. The real enemy, he believed, was to be found within. Change the word “Mafia” to “KGB” and you have life under Stalin, writ small.
It is hard to imagine an immersive experience like Mafia, with its elements of improv theatre and courtroom drama, working online. To lovers of the live game, Epic Mafia might seem like a letdown. Unlike the high-powered tech whizzes who play the parlour game, the people who play Epic Mafia tend to be high-school and college students looking for a good way to waste time. Players are represented by raisin-sized avatars bearing names like Hipsteresque and MrStealYoGrill. Deathblows are delivered or averted via a live-message interface. The aesthetic is aggressively Web 1.0; |
ued with wisdom and insight that comes from age.
While I did have some issues with the difficulty, and particularly some troublesome technical glitches that caused some annoying stuttering during cutscenes and battles, I still feel there's a lot to admire about this title. It's definitely something that will stick out in Ubisoft's current 2014 lineup, as they've got a number big budget titles set for release. But I tell you, it's very refreshing to see so much faith in a title that's got so much charm and heart.
You are logged out. Login | Sign upMacon women’s college seeks to atone for Ku Klux Klan’s legacy
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Bob Andres/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Karen Huber, Associate Professor of History at Wesleyan College, holds a 1913 yearbook titled “Ku Klux”. BOB ANDRES /BANDRES@AJC.COM
Like other first year students corralled in Wesleyan College’s auditorium in Macon, Dana Amihere didn’t know what to make of the spectacle unfolding on stage.
It was fall 2006 and the freshman had been awakened in the dead of night. A group of sophomores stood on stage yelling, screaming and cheering as part of a hazing ritual that seemed part pep rally, part seance, she said. But one feature struck Amihere, an African American, about the young women on stage tormenting the first year students: They wore purple, hooded robes.
“They looked just like Klan robes,” she said. “It was kind of like bells and whistles going off.”
Amihere had no idea at the time how close she was to the truth.
» The AJC covers the racial transformation of Georgia
For more than a century, the nation’s oldest college chartered for women has had historical links to the Ku Klux Klan that have never been formally acknowledged. Its class names in 1909, 1913 and 1917 were the Ku Klux Klan. The 1913 yearbook is named the “Ku Klux.”
A sketch of a masked night rider on horseback galloping under crescent moon graces the title page. The 1910 yearbook contains a prominent sketch of a female figure in white hood and robe holding a burning cross.
The striking images signal the dawn of decades of overt racism at Wesleyan that belies the school’s identity today as one of the most diverse small colleges in the country. The school for years identified with the Klan through class names and fomented extreme hazing rituals and traditions that carried forward into the late 20th century, often involving racist symbolism such as nooses, hooded costumes, blackface and figures hung in effigy.
For decades, successive generations of school leaders seemed to downplay the troubling history, but now they are preparing to formally acknowledge Wesleyan’s Klan history, as well as ties to slavery.
The acknowledgement follows an incident in January where classes were canceled for a day after racist graffiti appeared on dorm walls. Someone wrote the N-word in black marker and targeted an international student with offensive language.
“We probably should have done it 20 years ago but we didn’t,” said Vivia Fowler, who formally takes the helm as Wesleyan president on July 1 after serving as vice president of academic affairs the past decade. “So we’re doing it now….We can’t ignore what happened in the past.”
Wesleyan College Provost Vivia Fowler, the college’s incoming president, plans to formally acknowledge the school’s ties to the Ku Klux Klan and slavery. BOB ANDRES /BANDRES@AJC.COM Photo: Bob Andres/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The institutional atonement will include a public statement (read the statement) and a revision of the school’s history on its website and other materials — a project launched in February 2016 by President Ruth Knox, who steps down June 30. The school will also recognize the role African Americans played on campus dating back to its founding in 1836.
Over the past decade or so, a handful of colleges and universities, including Emory University, have also attempted to reconcile their connections to slavery or historical racism and apologize for it.
For Amihere and others, Wesleyan’s acknowledgment should have come years ago.
“This is something that’s been known for decades,” she said. “The administration has scratched at the surface of acknowledging racism before. I commend the efforts being made now, but I think that they’re long overdue.”
Knox, who has been Wesleyan’s president for 15 years, said it’s a fair criticism of the school for not acting sooner.
“It’s not that we’ve been hiding anything,” Knox said. “We haven’t known exactly what that history involves and it became crystal clear that we needed to do that and so that’s what we did.”
Knox has commissioned a Wesleyan professor to write a history of race on campus and the school is digitizing its yearbooks and other archival materials for the web. Fowler and Wesleyan’s leaders will decide whether to issue a formal apology once the commissioned history is complete.
Professor Karen Huber is conducting the study and provided a partial timeline of her findings to the AJC.
In addition to outlining the Klan ties, the research will identify the school’s founding president as a slaveholder and defender of the pro-slavery Methodist movement in the South. It also outlines the school’s use of low-paid, African-American domestic laborers on campus well into the 20th century.
“I think that it’s important for us to acknowledge that this history exists,” said Huber.
The fountain is in a central part of Wesleyan College, which was moved from its original site in Macon to its current location north of the city in 1928, and is site of rallies and gatherings. For generations, elite white families from across the South sent their daughters to Wesleyan — the first chartered women’s college in the country founded in 1836. But wrapped in its traditions is a racist legacy that the school has never confronted. BOB ANDRES /BANDRES@AJC.COM Photo: Bob Andres/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rocky transition to diversity
In many ways, Wesleyan is just as it appears — a safe, cloistered women’s college of 700 students that sits on a 200-acre campus in the northern suburbs of Macon. The school moved to the current campus — which includes a 104-acre arboretum and a 24-stall horse barn to house the school’s nationally recognized equestrian team — in 1928 after being housed in downtown Macon for its first 90 years.
The school’s distinguished alumnae include Georgia’s only two Miss America winners as well as two of the Soong sisters who attended the school in the early 1900s and later went on to become prominent political figures in 20th century China. The first five black students to graduate from the school were in the 1971 class.
A framed poster near the dining hall commemorates the first five African-American Wesleyan graduates.
Today, roughly 31 percent of Wesleyan students come from foreign countries, many of them from China. About 34 percent of American students are white and 35 percent are minorities. African Americans comprise the largest minority group, about 24 percent of the student body.
“Wesleyan today is a minority serving institution,” Huber said. “We serve a very different group of students than what Wesleyan at the turn of the 20th century served.”
Dana Amihere, a journalist with The Dallas Morning News, graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon in 2010. She was shocked to learn of the Ku Klux Klan’s history at the school. TOM FOX / THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Amihere’s account, that transition has not always been easy.
In her sophomore year, Amihere and other African-American students awoke one morning to find someone had written the N-word on notes and stuck them to the apartment doors of some black students.
“It’s pretty unnerving to have that thing happen where you live,” she said.
By the time Amihere became editor of the school paper during her junior year, she had researched the school’s past. She wrote an article linking the hazing rituals she experienced her freshman year to past racism on campus. The article included photos from the 1950s that showed figures hung in effigy as part of the hazing tradition from that era.
The use of nooses, hoods and scare tactics evoked the Klan, she wrote. She called for Wesleyan to acknowledge the “school’s sinister past.” Even though nooses had been removed from the hazing ritual, Amihere believed the current hazing had too many echoes of the past.
“I wanted students and faculty to realize it’s a little more than a harmless tradition,” she said. “It’s exclusionary and makes some people on campus uncomfortable because of what it evokes.”
Amihere, now a journalist in Texas, said some people on campus, including top administrators, didn’t seem to appreciate the critique of school traditions.
“It was unwelcome,” she said. “People would come up to me on campus and say, ‘What’s wrong with you?’”
Knox said she can’t recall reading Amihere’s article at the time it was published. Knox, a 1975 graduate of the school, said the remnants of the initiation traditions experienced by Amihere ended several years ago. Knox said her record shows she cares about diversity.
“It hurts my heart that people don’t agree with that,” she said. “I talked about diversity as our greatest strength when I was inaugurated in 2004. I’ve been talking about it ever since.”
School newspaper coverage of the hazing ritual known as “Rat Week” from the mid-1950’s shows students with painted faces and nooses around their necks at Macon’s Wesleyan College. COPY PHOTO Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Students push for reexamination
For years, some alumnae and longtime supporters tried to deny the current class naming system had origins in the Klan. Some perpetuated a story that the Tri-K Pirates were a literary reference, not rooted in the racist history.
“There has been a narrative that evolved to dispel that connection between the Tri-K Pirates and the Ku Klux Klan,” said Fowler. “And that has been one of them — that Tri-K stands for circle of friends and not Ku Klux Klan.”
The willingness of students to look the other way has changed. The August 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., ushered in a new wave of social justice activism on campuses across the country.
The Black Student Alliance at Wesleyan held a forum with faculty and staff that fall calling for the school to root out racism on campus. Students expressed concerns about the low number of black faculty members and the limited availability of African American education courses, according to the school newspaper’s account of the Oct. 20, 2014, meeting.
A sketch of a masked night rider on horseback galloping under crescent moon graces the title page of the 1910 Wesleyan College yearbook.
The article carried the headline, “Black Students Alliance: We Want Action!”, and outlined how students linked modern grievances to the school’s past.
“Racial discrimination on campus is not a new issue, especially given Wesleyan’s history,” the article said. “As a byproduct the Southern 19th century, racial violence and belief can still be seen today.”
Fowler said questions come up every four years when a new class comes to campus and takes the Pirate name.
This time, however, leaders seem to be taking more action to address them.
“Students of all races appropriately ask us about the past and we have to be able to tell them, acknowledge the past, and also acknowledge that that’s not who we are now,” Fowler said.
An image from the 1915 Wesleyan College yearbook. COPY PHOTO Photo: Bob Andres/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Klan origins date to 1900s
The first signs of students identifying with the Klan on the Wesleyan campus appeared in October 1908.
A story in the Macon Daily Telegraph described a procession of students wearing hoods and masks walking to campus as they initiated two new students into the Klan.
The account describes a hazing ritual of “these two unfortunates, blindly groping their way to campus.” One of the women, an Ohio native, went through the ordeal of singing Dixie as part of her initiation into the Ku Klux Klan of the 1909 class.
“This was, perhaps, the most unique feature in the history of Wesleyan, no former class having had such an organization,” the article said.
The 1913 class was the next to get the Ku Klux Klan name as did the class of 1917. It was the beginning of a tradition of recycling the name every four years to give each class its own identity. The other class names that resurface even today are the Green Knights, the Purple Knights and the Golden Hearts.
The Klan name in the early 1920s was replaced with the Tri-Ks, which later morphed into the Tri-K Pirates — a name that carried forward every four years through the early 1990s when the class name was changed to the Red Pirates.
The Klan had become mostly dormant at the turn of 20th century, but it was still a presence in the popular culture, said Elaine Parsons, a history professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh who has written a book about the white supremacist group.
She said the Klan imagery intermixed with the yearbook photos of young women of Wesleyan in white dresses may seem disturbing today, but it speaks to how mainstream the group was at the time.
“It’s super racist,” she said. “The Klan at this time starts largely to switch to white gowns. It’s this idea that whiteness had this fundamental purity to it.”
School newspaper coverage of “Rat Week” from the mid-1950’s show students with nooses. COPY PHOTO Photo: Bob Andres/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
D’Andrea Dixon, who went to high school in Jonesboro and graduated from Wesleyan in May as part of this year’s Red Pirate class, had researched some of this history when she presented it to school administrators and faculty a few years ago.
Her presentation included slides from the Ku Klux yearbook of 1913 and images of students carrying and wearing nooses on campus during hazing rituals that lasted into the late 20th century.
“I was shocked,” said Dixon, who is an African American. “I did not expect to see students walking around with nooses on their neck from the class of 1982. But there it was.”
During her presentation, Dixon pressed school leaders to acknowledge this past and to drop the class names because of their racist origins. She said she felt her concerns and presentation irritated school leaders.
“All of these things are trickles of that history that has carried over into the 1990s,” said Dixon, who was voted woman of the year by her classmates. “When you don’t talk about something, when you don’t let a wound heal it festers.”
This drawing of a hooded and robed figure is from the 1910 yearbook, one of the first representations of Klan imagery. BOB ANDRES /BANDRES@AJC.COM Photo: Bob Andres/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shocking discoveries
In 2015, Professor Huber’s students began a deeper examination of Wesleyan’s history. The group presented its findings in a forum at the library.
Christina Micola von Furstenrecht, a history undergraduate, recalls how the research impacted the students.“I was shocked to find a lot of the stuff, and I know the girls that were in the class with me the were shocked to find the extent of material that we found.” BOB ANDRES /BANDRES@AJC.COM
Christina Micola von Furstenrecht, who is white, recalls how the research impacted the students.
“I was shocked to find a lot of the stuff, and I know the girls that were in the class with me the were shocked to find the extent of material that we found,” said Micola von Furstenrecht. “It was almost overwhelming when it came time to decide what we were going to display.”
Fowler said she and President Ruth Knox commissioned Huber to push the research further and conduct a more in-depth study about the school’s past.
“Originally we thought about putting a statement on our website that acknowledges some things in the past that we wish had not happened and pledging to move forward in a different way,” she said. “We decided that really was not going to be enough and we really needed to do the research properly.”
Huber’s study was already underway when the racist graffiti scrawled on the wall in January led to more calls for change. Kennedy Jones, a student from Jonesboro High School, was one of the students whose door was the target of racist language.
Wesleyan student Kennedy Jones visits the stairway where racist language appeared (now painted over with white paint) and started a racially charged incident at the school. BOB ANDRES /BANDRES@AJC.COM Photo: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After the incident, she said, black students and other minorities called for a more active voice on campus. Campus leaders created a diversity and inclusion board for students that received school funding to foster education and conversations on campus.
Jones said the school needs to do more to acknowledge the past. She wants photos from the yearbooks blown up and displayed for all to see because so few people on campus have a clear understanding of the Wesleyan of 100 years ago.
“Having that on display and facing a harsh truth I think will not only help Wesleyan but current students, prospective students who are coming, alumnae so they can see this is what Wesleyan came from but this is where we are now,” Jones said. “Look how we’ve evolved and facing those truths.”
Tonya Parker, a 2001 Wesleyan graduate, who joined the school in 2016 as its first assistant dean of students for diversity and inclusion, said tensions were high when she stepped on campus.
Tonya Parker, Assistant Dean of Students for Diversity and Inclusion at Wesleyan College.
She said she spent months trying to build trust and ease suspicions. The issues raised at Wesleyan speak to a broader American problem, she said.
“I think nationally we have to say, ‘Yeah we have a horrific past of slavery, racism and things and there are effects of that,” Parker said. “And we’re still dealing with things like that.”This article has been updated
As neuroscientists explore the therapeutic prospects of brain stimulation, the amateur community are hoping the technology will enhance their mental faculties or well-being.
Lincoln walks into the neurohacker meeting I am attending in a garage in San Francisco. He takes off his flat-brimmed baseball cap, exposing two small, red burns on the side of his face. The day before, he tried a brain-stimulation method called transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) for the first time. “It was pretty intense,” he says.
Lincoln had one electrode on his right temple, and another at the bottom of his left deltoid. When turned on, 2.5 milliamps of current flowed into his brain, through his medial prefrontal cortex, down to his shoulder. At least, that's what this set-up was intended to do, he says. The idea was that the stimulation would help Lincoln, a software programmer who has meditated regularly for several years, to achieve a mystic state. That didn't happen, although he says he did feel a heightened awareness. After 40 minutes of stimulation, he also experienced twitching in his legs.
Neurobiologist Flavio Frohlich receives transcranial direct-current stimulation. Image: Morgan Alexander
Neuroscientists who have been studying the use of low-intensity electrical current to stimulate the brain have produced tantalizing results that have, not surprisingly, encouraged amateur use. They have shown boosts in learning, memory and performance on mathematical tests, as well as early success in treating depression and helping the recovery of those who have had a stroke. Brain stimulation is easy to do at home, either by building a tDCS set-up using some simple wiring and a battery, or buying one ready-to-use from any of the ten or so companies selling them online. Some users are seeking cognitive enhancement, whether it's to achieve mindfulness or a memory boost; others are trying to treat mental illnesses such as depression.
If stimulation is easy, neuroscientists warn, doing it right is not. Companies selling these devices direct to consumers are “smartly circumventing government regulation” in the same way that the supplement industry is, says Flavio Frohlich, a neurobiologist at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. “People may well be damaging their brains.”
There is a disconnect between carefully done, quantitative research on tDCS, and more exploratory use at home or even, researchers say, in the laboratories of less-experienced scientists. Improper use and some ambiguous meta-analyses — as well as evidence of harm or negative results — have fed into a backlash against the technology within the neuroscience community. Brain-stimulation specialists are calling for a more nuanced understanding of the technology and its uses. Researchers are excited about the possibilities of brain stimulation for cognitive enhancement and therapy. They just want to take their time to validate it.
Bioelectric boost
Electric stimulation has come in and out of fashion since the eighteenth century, when Italian physician Luigi Galvani famously made frog's legs jump with an electric current, and naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt stuck wires in his back with the aim of understanding the excitability of nerves and muscles. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, physicians administered shock therapy to patients, inspiring fictional characters from the monster in Frankenstein to the horrifying Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Today's researchers have tamed both the method and, they hope, the image of electrical stimulation.
A gentler version was popularized by research at the University of Göttingen in Germany led by neurophysiologists Walter Paulus and Michael Nitsche, who began experimenting with low levels of electrical brain stimulation in 1999. Although a typical dose of electroconvulsive therapy (which is used sparingly to treat depression) might approach 1 amp, the tDCS revived by the Göttingen group uses a tiny fraction of that — typically only 1 to 2 milliamps. That is low enough to be done with a standard 9-volt battery.
This weak stimulation cannot directly make neurons fire — instead, it generates a diffuse electrical current that changes their membrane potential. Neurons under the anode, the positive electrode, become more likely to fire when they receive signals from other neurons. Neurons under the cathode, the negative electrode, become less likely to fire. It is very difficult to target a specific region of the brain, especially with simple home set-ups that use wet sponges as the contact points.
In their early work, Paulus and Nitsche used tDCS mainly to study motor learning and working memory. But soon, many other researchers began exploring its potential for cognitive enhancement. They reported that brain stimulation acts a bit like caffeine, and may help people to learn faster. “It seems to give you any kind of benefit you want,” says Frohlich.
Such cheerful pronouncements earned tDCS a label of 'too good to be true'. And indeed, the technique has now reached the backlash point in its hype cycle. Many of the positive tDCS studies have been criticized for a lack of rigour; more carefully controlled experiments are starting to show negative results. Last year, Frohlich and his colleagues wrote a report suggesting that stimulation can actually be detrimental to IQ scores. His team gave a standard IQ test to 40 people, who then received either sham or real tDCS of 2 milliamps for 20 minutes over the left or right prefrontal cortex, or both sides. When people took the IQ test again, everyone's scores were higher (because of the well-known retest effect), but those who were stimulated actually had a smaller increase than the placebo group1. The subpar performance came in a particular part of the test that assessed fluid intelligence — the ability to solve new problems on the fly.
A few meta-analyses of tDCS studies have brought the entire field into question — and that includes lab-based research as well as the amateur use. One analysis by a group at the University of Melbourne, Australia, concluded that tDCS had “little-to-no reliable” effects2. The authors, whose analysis has been sharply criticized by the brain-stimulation community, declined to speak to Nature for this feature.
Nitsche and other prominent brain-stimulation specialists say that the methods used in this — and other — meta-analyses have been poor. In particular, they contend that it does not make sense to pool the results from studies that used different experimental set-ups and equipment, even if they looked at similar cognitive tasks. Marom Bikson, a bioengineer at the City University of New York, says that it would be like doing a meta-analysis of clinical trials for two drugs, only one of which works. The positive and negative results would cancel each other out, but it would be absurd to then conclude that neither drug works. What is important is not to average out the results from different electrical stimulation set-ups in a meta-analysis, but to do work that is reproducible, he says.
Brain stimulation is complicated, says Bikson. Frohlich's IQ-deficit finding, for example, shows that there may be off-target effects that researchers miss. And the poor spatial resolution of tDCS means that researchers should design experiments carefully to make sure that they are definitely targeting the part of the brain they're interested in, says Frohlich. Thus, even when a study leads to positive results, researchers may misinterpret the outcome unless they have carefully validated which area of the brain they are stimulating.
Stimulating misunderstandings
In the scientific community, Frohlich's work is respected by both tDCS proponents and doubters. The do-it-yourself community, however, seems to have adopted a more defensive response. One of the most popular blogs, DIY tDCS, pointed to the negative coverage under the headline “Why your brain stimulator is probably not making you stupider”, pointing out the differences between the set-ups for home users and those used in Frohlich's study. Whether that is the case or not, unavoidable inconsistencies in the use of the home devices — from the intensity of the current to the placement of the electrodes — are troubling for researchers and brain hackers alike.
However, warnings about tDCS seem to be trickling down, at least in the San Francisco hacker community. At a weekly meet-up of the local branch of the international NeurotechX hacker organization, of which Lincoln is a member, I am chatting with six programmers gathered around folding tables and couches. They are talking about a 3D printed electroencephalogram (EEG) cap that is available online, and working on open-source software for brain–computer interfaces.
Computer-science graduate student Damien talks about the excitement of “exploring your own brain” using EEG feedback. But stimulation? No way, say most of them. “It hasn't been proven that it's harmless,” says software engineer Marion, who hosts the meet-up. This group takes a read-only approach, recording the brain's electric signals, but not stimulating them. When Lincoln walks in with the burns on his face, I am not the only one to raise an eyebrow — the side effects he noticed and the uncertainty about what really happened in his brain reinforces their scepticism. Lincoln says he wouldn't use that particular set-up again, especially not with the same company's tDCS device, but he might try another set-up.
It's difficult to know what people are actually doing at home, and how many home users there are. A tDCS forum on the social-news website Reddit (known as a subreddit) had around 8,000 members at the beginning of 2016, but not all readers are necessarily users of the technology. Posts include tips on electrode placement, links to media coverage of scientific results and some alarming questions, such as one from a reader who asked whether childhood epilepsy makes tDCS more risky as an adult.
L: The burns Lincoln received from a DIY kit. R: Others have more success using a different set up. Image: L: Katherine Bourzac; R: Caputron Medical
Anita Jwa at Stanford Law School in California, whose research focuses on the intersection between law and neuroscience, was the first researcher to survey home users3. Jwa says that tDCS users do not meet up in person very much, as far as she knows, and that the online community has a self-regulating aspect; the reader who asked about epilepsy, for example, was told to ask his doctor or simply not to take the risk. On the basis of surveys posted on two popular websites: the tDCS subreddit and DIY tDCS, Jwa found that users were mostly in their 20s and 30s and 94% were male.
Home tDCS users, says Jwa, tend not to see themselves as experimentalists who are adding to the pool of knowledge. “Most users are doing it for cognitive enhancement,” she says (see 'Boys' own brain buzz'). Most people who sought cognitive enhancement wanted to boost attention, learning or working memory.
Speaking the brain's language
While repeating the mantra 'don't try this at home', neuroscientists admit that people treating themselves for illnesses such as depression are trying to make up for the real shortcomings of mainstream medicine. “People are desperate, they are driven to these things out of a lack of effective tools,” says Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco. Gazzaley is working on combining brain stimulation with brain-training video games for cognitive enhancement.
What's especially frustrating for neuroscientists is that brain stimulation has real promise for treating conditions and for cognitive enhancement — the very things that companies are implying their machines do (while taking pains to avoid making actual medical claims, which would trigger government regulation). Ultimately, validated devices and stimulation procedures will replace what's available today. When researchers come up with something better, “the snake oil will go away”, says Gazzaley.
“People are desperate, they are driven to these things out of a lack of effective tools.”
To get there, some researchers are seeking a better understanding of the mechanisms behind tDCS. “We need to find out how it works so we can make it better,” says Frohlich. Bikson agrees, but adds that the technique is too promising to stop and wait for a full mechanism in the meantime.
For those with a biophysics bent, the mystery about the mechanisms is a great motivation. Cognitive scientists Ludovica Labruna and Richard Ivry, of the University of California, Berkeley, fall into this camp. They hope to use a better-understood brain-stimulation method to try and illuminate the workings of tDCS.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) uses a focused magnetic field to cause small numbers of neurons to fire. TMS's direct effect is much easier to measure in humans than tDCS's more mysterious influence. Because of this, researchers know that all kinds of things can influence a person's sensitivity to TMS, including skin conductivity, skull thickness and even subtle differences in brain anatomy.
Labruna shows me how TMS sensitivity can be quantified. She tapes an electrode near the web of skin between my index finger and thumb. This electrode will measure the voltage in my hand when she stimulates my brain with a TMS paddle. Labruna locates the part of my motor cortex that controls this particular muscle in the hand, then cranks up the TMS. The machine can focus a magnetic field of about 3 tesla in a small area of the cortex; TMS sensitivity is measured by determining what percentage of this maximum magnetic strength is required to provoke a threshold potential of 1 millivolt in a muscle. After a few tries, my hand jerks like a puppet. My sensitivity is medium–high — whether it's because my skull is thin, or something else, I respond when the field's intensity is only 42% of its maximum (most people respond at about 50% maximum intensity; some very sensitive people respond at about 29%, others not until about 60%).
In preliminary results presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in October 2015, Labruna, Ivry and their colleagues showed that the more sensitive a person is to TMS, the more readily they respond to tDCS, and the better they do in a motor-learning task compared with both those who had a sham stimulation and those who were less sensitive to TMS. The researchers are now designing an experiment that will test whether this correlation holds in tDCS experiments that look at other types of cognition.
Alternate reality
“We need to find out how it works so we can make it better.”
Although tDCS has been getting most of the buzz, there are other kinds of electric brain stimulation that may work better, or at least have different applications. Some researchers, for example, are using alternating current, which targets brain oscillations, instead of direct current, on the basis of the theory that this may be a more natural way to stimulate the brain.
Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) emerged in 2006, when researchers in Germany showed that stimulating the brains of healthy people at 0.75 hertz (at the lower end of the frequency range of delta waves) during the early stages of sleep encouraged this rhythm and enhanced memory retention4. Other frequencies are associated with different cognitive states: theta (5–8 Hz) with working memory and gamma (>30 Hz) with memory maintenance, although these associations are broad and highly dependent on where in the brain the patterns are measured.
When you close your eyes and relax, the brain's oscillations are about 10 Hz (within the alpha frequency of 7.5–12.5 Hz). In a preliminary study, Frohlich and his colleagues measured a person's alpha frequency with an EEG, then applied an alternating current at a matching frequency. They found that this enhanced creativity5.
Like tDCS, the mechanism of tACS is not clear. One theory is that it might be more targeted because the rhythmic simulations interact with existing brain activity only at a particular frequency. The effects of tACS are also thought to be more short-term than those of tDCS, says Roi Cohen Kadosh, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, UK. That still needs to be proved, but it's an exciting hypothesis, says Frohlich. Whatever the kind of current, the brain isn't a simple machine, he cautions, and it isn't possible to turn a function on like a light switch. “We have to speak the language of the brain and understand how the brain responds,” Frohlich says.
Despite the backlash against tDCS, many neuroscientists have no doubt that transcranial electrical stimulation will come to be an important tool for cognitive health and well-being. “The brain uses both neurotransmitters and electric fields to communicate,” says Sarah Hollingsworth Lisanby, director of the division of translational research at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Therefore, she says, we should use both channels for therapy. Moreover, she adds, non-invasive stimulation may be a way to intervene earlier in the development of mental illness — perhaps even to prevent it.
Bikson thinks in a similar way. The commonality between brain stimulation for cognitive enhancement and for therapy is that both involve learning. You are “trying to teach the brain”, he says, “either a new trick — or not to be sick.”
Change history 17 March 2016 It was wrongly implied that Marom Bikson thought that understanding the mechanism of tDCS was not important. The text has now been corrected.
10 May 2016 Anita Jwa was incorrectly referred to as the only researcher to have studied home users. The text has now been corrected.
References 1. Sellers, K. K. et al. Behav. Brain Res. 290, 32–44 (2015). 2. Horvath, J. C., Forte, J. D. & Carter, O. Neuropsychologia 66, 213e36 (2015). 3. Jwa, A. J. Law Biosci. 2, 292–335 (2015). 4. Marshall, L., Helgadóttir, H., Mölle, M. & Born, J. Nature 444, 610–613 (2006). 5. Lustenberger, C. M., Boyle, R., Foulser, A. A., Mellina, J. M. & Frohlich, F. Cortex 67, 74–82 (2015). Download references
Author information Affiliations Katherine Bourzac is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco, California. Katherine Bourzac Authors Search for Katherine Bourzac in: Nature Research journals •
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About this article Publication history Published 02 March 2016 DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/531S6aWHEELED TRAVELLED: Carterton octogenarian Nancy Blackman gets around on her trusty Raleigh bicycle
There is a saying nothing lasts forever, but try telling that to Nancy Blackman.
The Carterton octogenarian's faithful Raleigh bicycle is still proving to be her preferred mode of transport, even after 67 years.
While spare parts are nigh on impossible to find Mrs Blackman says her trusty black bike is still serving her well.
She was given the bike brand new as a 15-year-old. Living east of Carterton near Parkvale she biked the metal road into town everyday to go to work.
Nearly 70 years later she is still biking a similar distance from the north of Carterton to the south where she helps with "granny reading" at South End School.
Mrs Blackman owns a car, but only uses that for trips out of town.
"I much prefer pedal power," she says. Her late husband rode a three- speed. Mrs Blackman says she has always been content with the single gear.
"These days some bikes have 10 gears."
The big advantage of a bike over a car is that they are "quick and easy".
The bike has been stolen once, taken from outside of church, only to resurface a couple of days later, found leaning on a power-pole.
While motorists are not as courteous as they once were and the roads are a lot busier with traffic, Mrs Blackman says cycling is still relatively safe.
In all the years that she has been pedalling she has only had a couple of spills, and they were usually the fault of inconsiderate motorists.
As for advice for any young budding cyclists, or people of a similar age: "Keep to the left and keep your eyes open."My friend and I ordered our coffee, and began to discuss whatever |
-America and Africa are not different, they go hand in hand."
We've noticed, in our efforts to make the magazine and website as diverse and representative of the whole Latina experience as possible, how truly difficult it is to find prominent Afro-Latina actresses and models to grace our covers and fashion shoots. In that spirit, we gathered a group of notable Afro-Latinas who have made inspiring contributions to our community.
Be sure to check it out below and let us know: What do you think about racism in our community? Have you ever been discriminated against because of your facial features, skin tone or hair type?
by Mariela RosarioMcDonald's is going green — swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep hunter green — to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe.
About 100 German McDonald's restaurants will make the change by the end of 2009, the company said in a statement Monday. Some franchises in Great Britain and France have already started using the new color scheme behind their Golden Arches.
"This is not only a German initiative but a Europewide initiative," Martin Nowicki, McDonald's Germany spokesman, told The Associated Press.
The Oak Brook, Illinois-based burger behemoth has more than 32,000 restaurants in 118 countries and has long been targeted by activists as being environmentally unfriendly.
Still, in recent years the company has warmed to "greener" practices, including environmentally friendly refrigeration and converting used oil into biodiesel fuel.
"With this new appearance we want to clarify our responsibility for the preservation of natural resources. In the future we will put an even larger focus on that," Hoger Beek, vice chairman of McDonald's Germany, said in the statement.
In Germany, McDonald's has seen significant growth despite the global economic crisis, opening 42 new restaurants this year for a total of 1,350.
The chain plans to open another 40 new restaurants across Germany in 2010, encouraged by a worldwide revenues of $23.5 billion.SEATTLE—The area subreddit r/Seattle, an online community composed of more than 75,000 subscribers that is a part of the larger Reddit website, has been identified by many as an excellent place to meet other locals, share news and discussion in a forum-style setting, and participate in the jackboot authoritarianism of an out-of-control moderation staff’s draconian rule.
“It’s great,” says r/Seattle subscriber Daniel Torres. “As a photographer, it allows me to share my work with a wider audience. Visitors on the subreddit especially enjoy my photographs of the city’s skyline from Gas Works Park. As long as you don’t talk about the moderators or ask any questions at all, it’s a really chill place.”
Reddit is a content aggregate where links from outside sources are provided by the website’s users, similar to an online bulletin board. Once something is submitted, other users can “upvote” or “downvote” the item to help increase or decrease its visibility. Users can then leave comments on the item to discuss how it makes them feel or engage in lighthearted debate. r/Seattle subscribers are free to submit any link they wish, as long as they haven’t previously been banned from the community for undefined offenses without warning.
“It used to be a pretty bad place,” Harriet Palmer, 26, said. “Back in 2010, there were topics about all kinds of things. Politicians getting their word out and upcoming events and lost dogs and stolen bicycles and a bunch of junk about Seattle itself. Moderation was very lax, and it showed. It was the sort of garbage that really clutters up what could be used for talking about walking trails in the Cascades, you know? I don’t want to hear about some dumb award the city just received.”
Palmer continued: “And then the current mods stepped up, forced out those that disagreed with them and rid the sub[reddit] of all the other junk. Now it’s a wonderful safe-haven for pictures of sunsets and links to Seattle Times articles.”
But those troubled days aren’t all behind r/Seattle.
Despite the recent reform to better the community, a number of users still wish to discuss upcoming events happening around town and will make posts about activities that interest them. This is expressly against the rules. Fortunately, the moderators are quick to respond: first, deleting the offending post and then shadowbanning the user. (Editor’s note: A “shadowban” is a fun term for users who require their posts to be approved manually before they are displayed, effectively preventing them from joining the discussion unless the moderators allow them to do so.)
As a show of good-will, moderators will then direct these rule-breaking users to purchase advertising rights on the subreddit, at which point they can submit their original post again.
The sterilization really makes for a warmer community.
“There’s a lot of talk about the Seattle Freeze being real,” Torres said, describing the idea that Seattle residents are cold to newcomers to the area. “But I just don’t see it on r/Seattle.” He explained that any threads created by new residents or visitors are immediately downvoted or removed outright and never appear on his feed, preventing him from seeing them.
“The sterilization really makes for a warmer community.”
Users of the website are encouraged to forget banned users ever existed and to regard their complaints of mistreatment—if you see one before it’s deleted—as the ongoing drone of the unclean. If you should find yourself on the receiving end of a ban, you are invited to contact the moderation staff at any time to voice your complaint. They will explain to you that you are beneath them using condescending language, threaten you with further punishment on a site-wide level because you are harassing them through private messages, and then remind you that you cannot avoid the ban by creating a separate account because that violates another website rule which they will pursue the punishment thereof. You will be then cordially invited to go fuck yourself.
At press time, it was learned there are definitely no other Seattle-specific subreddits and that you absolutely shouldn’t go looking for them.
Seattle online community leading example of regional engagement, cultural diversity, tyrannical dictatorshipCredit: 247Sports
For Joe Dickinson, New Year’s Day essentially is a time of reflection.
Among the reasons is that he has the luxury of watching a number of the nation’s premier quarterbacks, many of whom he trained intensely long before they entered the collegiate ranks.
“You’re just happy that you can give something back to the game,” Dickinson told Bleacher Report during a recent telephone interview from Jacksonville, Florida. “It makes you feel very proud obviously. It makes you feel you’re still a part of the game. I stay in touch with a lot of them.”
Having served as quarterbacks coach for several high-profile coaches during his well-publicized tenure on the sideline, Dickinson is currently the lead quarterback instructor and camp director for DeBartolo Sports University, a position he’s held since 2007. He frequently conducts quarterback camps and private training nationwide. And since 2007, he has trained more than 1,100 quarterbacks, ranging from amateurs to professionals.
Since joining DeBartolo Sports, Dickinson, 57, has had a profound impact on a plethora of up-and-coming quarterbacks, many of whom ultimately signed national letters of intent with major Division I programs.
This year was no exception. The quarterback coaching guru trained an assortment of America’s most sought-after passers in the 2014 class.
So far, at least seven high school quarterbacks who trained under Dickinson at DeBartolo Sports have inked with major colleges: David Cornwell (Alabama), Rafe Peavey (Arkansas), Landon Root (Northern Illinois), Travis Smith (Wake Forest), Colin Feller (Miami, Fla.), Tristan Threatt (Harvard) and Alexander Diamont (Indiana).
His class of 2015 quarterbacks appears promising, considering Shawnee (Okla.) High highly touted prospect John Jacobs III last week made a verbal commitment to play at East Carolina University next fall.
So how to explain the continuous success of Dickinson, who—according to former San Francisco 49ers offensive lineman Randy Cross—has had a major impact on the way that today's collegiate game is played?
For starters, Dickinson, a Wayne, Oklahoma, native, has enjoyed a career where he has been afforded opportunities to work alongside college football's finest coaches, most notably former Oklahoma and Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl-winning coach Barry Switzer. Dickinson served as a graduate assistant to Switzer from 1983 to 1985 during which he helped the Sooners to the 1985 national title.
“I’m a big fan of the way Joe coaches and handles quarterbacks,” said Cross, whose son, Brendan, trained under Dickinson before playing quarterback for Wake Forest. “There are people who have PR firms and all sorts of sponsors and stuff for quarterbacks. But the way Joe does it, he has invented the new way to throw. He knows it from a fundamental standpoint, from a mechanical standpoint.”
Cross, who starred for the 49ers and won three Super Bowls between 1976 and 1988, also said Dickinson’s contributions are still impacting the way the college game is played today, although he doesn’t remotely assist college coaches.
“College football coaches are recruiters,” Cross said. “They don’t have time to coach guys up. So they need guys like Joe Dickinson. He can help with footwork. He can help with throwing. He can help with film study, especially for young players who must know how defenses are set up. I think his insight is unique.”
Prior to joining the DeBartolo Sports staff, Dickinson enjoyed a prosperous collegiate coaching career that spanned nearly three decades.
From 1986 to 1989, he was the running backs coach at the University of Tulsa before assuming an offensive coordinator position at Marshall University in 1990. Consequently, he took his play-calling skills to nearby Northern Illinois, where he served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 1991 to 1995, which allowed him to oversee the nation’s leading rusher, LeShon Johnson, who amassed 1,976 yards on 327 carries while finishing sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
Dickinson moved back to his native Oklahoma in 1996 for a second stint with the Sooners. He started as the running backs coach from 1996 to 1997 before being promoted to offensive coordinator for the 1998 season. To his credit, he helped the Sooners to their best finish since 1995, but he left the program four seasons later after the arrival of OU's current coach, Bob Stoops.
Dickinson later accepted a running backs coaching position at Tulane before joining the staff at Central Oklahoma from 2003 to 2006.
Having devoted a majority of his life to helping enhance the lives of athletes, Dickinson has never grown tired of his craft as arguably one of the best quarterback coaching minds in the game.
“I’ve played (football) in high school and college and I’ve always wanted to coach,” Dickinson said. “I’ve never thought of it as a job. It’s a great sport. It’s allowed me to do a lot for kids. It’s the best sport that teaches the lessons of how life is.”
Dickinson, one of the sport's brightest minds, relishes football, especially when he’s watching the annual New Year’s Day bowl games.
Andre Johnson, a senior writer for MemphiSport, is a regular contributor for Bleacher Report. To reach Johnson, email him at andre@memphisport.net. Also, follow him on Twitter @AJ_Journalist.Ontario has a particular and hard to follow motorways and highways network. The numbering pattern remains difficult to understand while travelling throughout the province.
Ontario Motorways are usually concentrated in the southern part of the province. The remaining of the highway network enters the same category and goes with ascending numbers (currently between 2 and 148). These last does not necessarily have a limited access for automotive with crossroad intersection on its length and are most common in Northern Ontario or in Rural areas.
The Road Network of Ontario is divided into the King's Highway network and the secondary road network. The former includes the '400-series' expressways and all other motorways serving the various regions of the country while the second includes the County Roads, the '500-series' and the former highways downgraded to local authorities.
In Ontario, the Trans-Canada Highway has a full and formal status on several routes throughout the province. There are various spur that deserve and links various regions and cities in the province.
'400-Series' Expressway
The '400' Number expressways are found in Eastern Ontario, Central Ontario, Greater Toronto Area and Southwestern Ontario. It is "illegal" to hitchhike on the 400 series highways, though there are ample on ramps along most routes.
King's Highway
County and Major RoadsIn olden days, before the Star Trek holodeck and movies like TRON and The Matrix, philosophers used to wonder whether life was but a dream. Nowadays they’re more concerned that reality could be just a computer simulation.
Sure, that’s not very likely. But you can’t rule out the possibility. Computers simulate all sorts of things, and some scientists have seriously suggested that nature’s supposedly rock-solid reality is really just some smart alien teenager’s science fair project.
Most people respond to that suggestion with a shrug. What does it matter? You have to row, row, row your boat anyway. As Gottfried Leibniz pointed out over three centuries ago, all that matters is that the world behaves real enough so that sound reasoning won’t deceive you. In other words, there’s no way to distinguish a real world from a simulation that convinces everybody they’re real.
Oh, that’s such limited thinking. If you contemplate how superior programmers would go about simulating a universe like the one humans inhabit, perhaps it wouldn’t be impossibly difficult to tell rock-hard reality from software simulation.
In fact, physicists are already simulating universes with their computers. It’s just that the simulated universes are pretty darn small, as Silas Beane and colleagues write in a recent paper online at arXiv.org. Using the equations for quantum chromodynamics — the math governing the strong force that holds atomic nuclei together — physicists routinely simulate how subatomic particles called quarks interact in order to see how nuclear matter should behave.
Simulations are easier than solving the equations exactly — that would require infinite precision. Instead, a computer simulation performs calculations on a “lattice” — a set of points, all very close together, to approximate laws that actually operate at infinitesimally short distances. In these lattice simulations, points are fractions of femtometers apart (one femtometer being a quadrillionth of a meter, aka very tiny). The “universe” explored in such simulations is typically several femtometers across.
A universe so small is not likely to be of much interest to anybody who cares about anything bigger than a quark. But that size is limited merely by present-day computing power.
“It stands to reason,” write Beane and colleagues, “that future simulation efforts will continue to extend to ever-smaller pixelations and ever-larger volumes of space-time.”
Using assumptions about the growth of computing capability, the researchers forecast that a simulation the size of a human body might be within reach in 130 years or so. Since such a simulation would describe the activity of a body’s worth of atoms (it’s no big deal to add electrons to the math describing nuclei), human thought and behavior could appear. In a few more centuries, or millennia, computing power could simulate a universe of any size you want, as long as you aren’t constrained by shortsighted budget cutters.
“If there are sufficient high-performance computing resources available, then future scientists will likely make the effort to perform complete simulations of molecules, cells, humans and even beyond,” write Beane, of the Institute for Nuclear Theory in Seattle, and University of Washington collaborators Zohreh Davoudi and Martin Savage.
Still, you could be just a simulated automaton, but nobody would ever know. Except now, Beane and colleagues have gone a step further and figured out that such a simulation might very well leave signs that human scientists could detect, even if they are merely simulated scientists.
One promising possibility involves details about the distribution of high-energy cosmic rays in the cosmos. In a universe governed by the full-scale equations (no lattice-simulation approximation), you’d expect to see a symmetric range of directions of such cosmic rays traveling through space. But if a lattice simulation is generating reality, the distribution of directions would be skewed. If future observations measure enough high-energy rays to determine whether such a discrepancy exists, “reality” could be exposed as a cruel hoax.
Some perplexing physics problems might be explained by the simulation hypothesis. For years physicists have pondered the mysterious acceleration of the universe’s expansion, apparently caused by a small amount of “dark energy” residing in the vacuum of space. Experts used to think the vacuum should have precisely zero energy. But if the universe is a computer simulation, Beane and coauthors point out, a slight non-zero amount of vacuum energy might occur as a result of rounding errors in the computations.
For even more fun, consider the possibility that patterns in the glow of cosmic microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang contain messages from the simulation’s programmers. OK, maybe it’s a stretch. But if such messages exist, the prospect might exist that humans could send messages back to the programmers.
And maybe a simulation would offer an additional benefit: In a universe governed by infinitely precise laws, human freedom would be an illusion. In a lattice simulation, laws would be less rigid, perhaps providing the simulated inhabitants with free will. Or so you could dream.The Asean Morning News Roundup presents a selection of reports on what you need to know from around the Asean Economic Community (AEC).
Call for Swift Finalisation of RCEP
THAILAND should work towards a swift finalisation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to offset the prospect of protectionism in global trade, the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) says.
– The Nation
Infrastructure funding needs in Asia to rise sharply to maintain growth: ADB
Infrastructure needs in developing Asia and the Pacific will exceed US$22.6 trillion (Bt789 trillion) through 2030, or $1.5 trillion per year, if the region is to maintain growth momentum, according to a new flagship report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
– The Nation
Airasia X becomes first Asian low-cost airline to fly to the US
AirAsia X (flight code: D7) has received clearance from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to fly to the US.The airline is the first Asian low-cost carrier to secure approval to operate scheduled passenger flights to the US.
– The Nation
ASEAN responds to the challenge of biodiversity loss
An event that showcased ASEAN’s efforts in biodiversity conservation was held at the sidelines of the 13th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity on 16 December in Cancun, Mexico.
– The Nation
AirAsia eyes sharp growth
AIRASIA GROUP says it will push for higher passenger loads while keeping a tight lid on costs to sustain earnings this year and mitigate the effects from rising oil prices and volatility in currencies.
– The Nation
The Asean Post brings on board new managing editor
Gareth Corsi has been appointed as the managing editor of The Asean Post. He was previously the associate editor at currentbiz.io.
— Marketing Interactive
Asean leading the battle against forces of anti-globalisation
Kavi Chongkittavorn’s latest column is highly valuable in its assessment that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has the diplomatic duty and power to counter the backlash against globalisation sweeping some Western countries.
— The Nation
ASEAN PMI inches up to 50.3 in February
The Nikkei ASEAN Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, rose slightly to 50.3 in February from 50.0 in January.
— Nikkei Asian Review
Malaysia to be China firms’ platform for Asean markets
China could be looking at turning Malaysia into its hub for the Asean markets, said HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd chief executive officer Mukhtar Hussain.
— South China Morning Post
Canada Adds to Pressure on Cambodia Over Political Parties Law
Cambodia’s government is continuing to feel the fallout from its decision to amend the political parties law ahead of elections in June and next year.
— VOA
Cambodian Government Cites Trump in Threatening Foreign News Outlets
In a sign that President Trump’s criticism of the news media may be having a ripple effect overseas, a government spokesman in Cambodia has cited the American leader in threatening to shutter foreign news outlets, including some that receive money from Washington.
— The New York Times
Report Highlights Surplus of Gated Real Estate
In another indication of Phnom Penh’s oversaturated real estate market, a report released on Tuesday says that a third of individual houses in gated communities launched for sale last year have yet to sell, in addition to tens of thousands of units still in various stages of completion soon to hit the market.
— The Cambodia Daily (paywall)
Government Soliciting Money to Fund $62M Project For Farmers
A government project aimed at helping farmers make better profits from small-scale agricultural businesses is looking to secure more than half of the $62 million cost through international funding, the Economy and Finance Ministry announced on Tuesday.
— The Cambodia Daily (paywall)
Exports driving shift in Thai trade
Cambodian exports to Thailand surged by 46 percent last year compared with 2015 while imports from the neighbouring country decreased slightly, according to statistics provided yesterday by the Ministry of Commerce.
— The Phnom Penh Post
KDIC moves closer to assets
Investigators from South Korea’s state-run deposit insurer have announced that they will open a dedicated branch office in Phnom Penh next month to advance efforts to recover Cambodian property assets linked to bankrupt Korean savings banks.
— The Phnom Penh Post
Senate feeling ‘violated’ by UN
Cambodia’s Senate yesterday swiftly rubber-stamped widely criticised amendments to the Law on Political Parties, but not without first promising to “take action” if the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights interfered in domestic affairs.
— The Phnom Penh Post
Accounting, finance skills most sought after
Job applicants with accounting and finance skills stand a better chance of being hired by Cambodian employers seeking to fill vacancies in their companies, according to a report released yesterday by online career portal Everjobs.
— Khmer Times
100 Benzes to hit streets
Star Auto (Cambodia) Co. Ltd, the authorized general distributor for Mercedes-Benz in Cambodia, is aiming big. The company wants to sell around 100 luxury Mercedes-Benz cars this year, which represents a fivefold increase compared with their sales last year.
— Khmer Times
Japanese banking giant opens branch
Tokyo-based Mizuho, one of largest banks in Japan, is to open a branch in Cambodia in response to rising investment from the world’s third-largest economy in the kingdom.
— Khmer Times
Cambodia Scores 157th in World for Open Data
Cambodia has scored dismally in a global development index, the 2016 Open Data Inventory, which assesses the accessibility of official national statistics from government and private sector websites in 173 countries.
— The Cambodia Daily (paywall)
Public Perception of Government Anti-Corruption Efforts Diminishes
Though a smaller proportion of Cambodians reported bribing public officials last year, more people indicated the government was doing a poor job fighting corruption than five years ago, according to a new report.
— The Cambodia Daily (paywall)
American Mining Company Suspends Work in Dispute with Indonesia
An American mining company has suspended work at the world’s largest gold mine in West Papua, New Guinea in a dispute with the Indonesian government.
— Voice of America
Indonesian maid ‘had kidney stolen in Qatar’ in suspected case of organ trafficking
An Indonesian domestic worker has claimed her kidney was stolen without her knowledge while she worked in Doha, Qatar, three years ago.
— Telegraph.co.uk
Iran, Indonesia to Open Joint Bank Account
The establishment of a joint bank account between Iran and Indonesia will foster financial cooperation and facilitate bilateral transactions, said the Central Bank of Iran’s governor.
— Financial Tribune
Honda to Invest $360m in Indonesia by 2022
Honda Prospect Motor, the local car manufacturing unit of Japan’s Honda Motor, will invest Rp 4.8 trillion ($360 million) over the next five years in Indonesia to expand its engine, frame and polymer injection production line capacity at its plant in Karawang, West Java.
— Jakarta Globe
DuPont gets Indonesian approval for bakery enzymes
DuPont Danisco has received regulatory approval by the Indonesia food watchdog for a range of bakery enzymes.
— FoodNavigator-Asia.com
Bandung Bomber Is Afiliated With Islamic State: Police
Yayat Cahdiyat, the suspect who allegedly detonated a low-explosive device near Pandawa Park in Bandung, West Java, on Monday morning (27/02) is affiliated with the radical Islamic State movement, a National Police spokesman said on Tuesday.
— Jakarta Globe
Indonesia to Woo Saudi King With $25b Investment Opportunities
Indonesia will dangle $25 billion worth of investment opportunities, mainly in infrastructure projects, to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud when he visits Jakarta and Bali this week as the country seeks to increase ties with Saudi Arabia.
— Jakarta Globe
KPK Wants to Cooperate With Universities, Introduce Anti-Corruption Curricula
The national antigraft agency seeks to introduce anticorruption curricula to educational institutions, its deputy chairwoman said in a seminar at Atma Jaya University in Yogyakarta on Monday (27/02).
— Jakarta Globe
Shareholders Tell Miner Freeport to Get Tough With Indonesia
Shareholders are pressuring miner Freeport-McMoRan to stand up to the Indonesian government over changes the Southeast Asian country wants to make in the US miner’s contract, Freeport’s chief executive officer said on Monday (27/02).
— Jakarta Globe
Indonesia’s startups continue to attract investors
Startups are not only about big money but it is more about sustainability. After dominating the investment market for the past few years, startups continue to attract investors this year.
— The Nation
Astra’s ’16 Profit Up on Bigger Auto Market Share, Improving Commodity Prices
Indonesian diversified conglomerate Astra International booked a 4.8 percent increase in net income last year, as rising car sales and improving global commodity prices made up for a slump in the company’s bank and heavy machinery businesses.
— Jakarta Globe
State Intelligence Agency Appoints Former Jakarta Military Chief as New Deputy Chief
Maj. Gen. Teddy Lhaksamana, the former Jakarta military command chief, was appointed as the new deputy chief of State Intelligence Agency, or BIN, on Tuesday (28/02), replacing Lt. Gen. Torry Djohar Banguntoro.
— Jakarta Globe
Indonesian suspect partied night before assassination
The night before the assassination, Siti Aisyah partied with her friends ar a wellknown night club in Kuala Lumpur.
— The Nation
French Renewable Energy Group set up in Indonesia
French delegates established on Tuesday a new business group representing French companies that aim to tap into the huge potential in Indonesia’s renewable energy sector.
— Jakarta Post
Indonesia And France Sign Agreement on Space Program
Foreign Affairs Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi, held a bilateral meeting with the French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean Marc Ayrault at the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters on Tuesday, February 28, 2017.
— Tempo.co
Indonesia to receive US$225 million in dam safety funding
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors on Feb. 27 announced it has approved US$125 million in financing to support the second phase of the Dam Operational Improvement and Safety Project (DOISP) for Indonesia. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is co-financing the project with an additional $125 million.
— Hydro World
Chances rare for Indonesian women peacekeepers
Despite increasing evidence that women play a vital role in post-conflict resolution and peacekeeping operations, Indonesian women are still not given enough opportunities to participate in such missions.
— Jakarta Post
Hardline Indonesian cleric testifies at Jakarta governor trial
The head of an Indonesian Muslim hardline group insisted on Tuesday (Feb 28) that Jakarta’s Christian governor had committed blasphemy as he gave evidence at the city leader’s trial.
— Channel NewsAsia
Indonesia needs stronger participation by its youth
The United Nations categorizes young people as those between 10 and 24 years of age. In Indonesia, Law 40 of 2009 categorizes young people as 16-30 years old. Youth participation is a right protected by the law according to Chapter III on the function, direction and strategy for youth services of Law No 40. Article 7 mentions increased participation and an active role for youth in developing themselves, society, and the nation.
— Asia Times
PNG group unfairly held by Indonesia last year
A Papua New Guinea man says he and several countrymen were subject to unfair incarceration in West Papua by Indonesian authorities.
— Radio New Zealand
Three common facets of Indonesian international schools
Education in Indonesia has undergone many diverse phases of change. One of the most notable developments in the 21st century is the growth of international and national plus schools throughout the country.
— Jakarta Post
Indonesia’s PMI returns to contraction in February
The Nikkei Indonesia Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, or PMI, fell to 49.3 in February from 50.4 in January.
— Nikkei Asian Review
Cop claims trial to robbing Indonesian
A police corporal claimed trial in a Sessions Court to robbing an Indonesian while armed with a pistol.
— The Star Online
Tourism agencies urged to plan for activities ahead of Visit Laos Year 2018
IN ANTICIPATION of 2018 being a Visit Laos Year, the Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism has called on tourism agencies to start preparing activities for inclusion in the official programme.
— The Nation
GDP expected to grow at 6.8 percent: IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that Laos’ Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will grow at 6.8 percent this year, less than the government’s projected rate of 7 percent.
— Vientiane Times
Laotian Soldiers Are Digging Trenches in Cambodia, Official Says
Laotian soldiers have begun digging trenches in Cambodia to ensure that construction of a disputed road cannot restart, while authorities from both countries have continued to lock horns over the dispute, an official said on Monday.
— Cambodia Daily (paywall)
GEF grant to enhance agro-climatic monitoring
The Global Environmental Facility has provided more than US$5.4 million (about 44.4 billion kip) to support a project strengthening agro-climatic monitoring and information systems to improve climate change adaptation and food security in Laos.
— Vientiane Times
KOICA completes digital maps of Vientiane
A joint cooperation project between Laos and the Republic of Korea on the digital mapping of Vientiane, covering 4,600 hectares on a scale of 1 to 2,000 was completed recently, with a handover ceremony held in Vientiane yesterday.
— Vientiane Times
Phongsavanh keen to build Thai links
REPRESENTATIVES from Laos’ Phongsavanh Group discussed business proposals during a recent visit to Khon Kaen.
— The Nation
Trade with CLMV countries grows to $10 bn: Sitharaman
India’s trade with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam or CLMV countries has grew from USD 1.5 bn to more than USD 10 bn in the last 10 years, said Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday
— SME Times
Historic auction earns 11.6 billion kip; PM’s car draws highest bid
A historic auction of 14 luxury cars withdrawn from government leaders has earned 11.6 billion kip with the BMW driven by Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith attracting the highest bid at the public sale held at the National Convention Centre yesterday.
— Vientiane Times
PM outlines focal work for March to spur development
Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith has advised authorities in charge to urgently and effectively apply the one-stop service in line with the amended Investment Promotion Law, which was passed by the National Assembly in November last year.
— Vientiane Times
Cigarettes Market Provides Extensive and Highly Detailed Current and Future Market Trends in the Laos Market
“The Report Cigarettes in Laos, 2016 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. – MarketResearchReports.biz”
— South China Morning Post
Saudi Aramco to take 50% stake in Petronas’ refinery and cracker project
The Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) will take up a 50% stake in the refinery and cracker project in the Pengerang Integrated Complex (PIC) in Johor under the US$7bil deal with Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas).
— The Star Online
AirAsia warns of fake ticket sales on social media
AirAsia and AirAsia X have warned the public not to fall victim to deceiving advertisements by unauthorised travel agents on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram who claim to sell heavily discounted flights for AirAsia and AirAsia X.
— The Star Online
Malaysian palm oil price recovers from near four-month low
Malaysian palm oil futures recovered late on Tuesday, tracking stronger soyoil prices after hitting their lowest level in nearly four months earlier in the day.
— The Star Online
Azalina: Saudi Aramco’s Rapid investment proves Opposition wrong
Opposition claims that the Saudi Arabian Oil Company will pull out of the Refinery and Petrochemicals Integrated Development (Rapid) project in Pengerang, Johor, fizzled out with Saudi Aramco signing an MoU with Petronas today, said Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said.
— Malay Mail Online
Singdollar hits record high against ringgit
The Singapore dollar yesterday touched a record high against the Malaysian ringgit – and at least one analyst believes the rate could be headed for RM3.30.
— New Straits Times
Exabytes acquires HT Internet to offer complete website solutions
Web hosting services and eCommerce solutions provider, Exabytes Group has acquired 100 per cent in HT Internet Sdn Bhd to offer more comprehensive online solutions to its customers as a group.
— New Straits Times
Thailand, Southern Rebels Agree to Framework for Limited Ceasefire
Negotiators from Thailand’s military government and a panel representing insurgent groups achieved a small breakthrough in exploratory talks by agreeing Tuesday to a framework for a limited ceasefire in the Thai Deep South, according to officials from both sides.
— Benar News
North Korea spy agency runs arms operation out of Malaysia, U.N. says
It is in Kuala Lumpur’s “Little India” neighborhood, behind an unmarked door on the second floor of a rundown building, where a military equipment company called Glocom says it has its office.
— Reuters
MY food delivery startup Delivereat gets $450,635 from Gobi-MAVCAP fund
Malaysian food delivery startup Delivereat has bagged $450,635 (MYR 2 million) in a Pre-Series A funding round lead by Shanghai-based venture capital firm Gobi Partners‘ Gobi MAVCAP ASEAN Superseed Fund that is focused on Southeast Asia’s tech startups.
— Deal Street Asia
The Latest: N. Korea sends diplomats to Malaysia to get body
North Korea has sent a high-level delegation to Malaysia to seek the return of the body of leader’s Kim Jong Un’s slain half brother.
— ABC News
North Koreans Arrive In Malaysia Seeking To Claim Kim Jong Nam’s Body
The body of Kim Jong Un’s slain half-brother has become the subject of a diplomatic turf war between North Korea and Malaysia, where he was poisoned earlier this month with a powerful nerve agent.
— The Two-Way
N. Korean diplomats seek Kim’s brother’s body as Malaysia prepares to charge women for airport murder
North Korea sent a high level delegation to Malaysia on Tuesday to demand the body of leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother, the victim of a deadly nerve-agent attack that many suspect the reclusive regime of orchestrating.
— The Telegraph
Construction sector third largest contributor to accident cases, minister says
The construction sector is the third biggest contributor to the 31,943 accident cases referred to the Social Security Organisation (Socso) last year.
— Malay Mail Online
Over 100 Myanmar workers arrested in Thai immigration crackdown
Thai authorities arrested more than 100 Myanmar nationals working in Maesot and the surrounding area on February 27 as part of a crackdown on illegal immigration, Eleven reported today.
— Coconuts Yangon
Myanmar accuses UN envoy of bias over Rohingya violence
The Myanmar government has hit out at UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee’s latest comments on people who have fled Rakhine state, saying it disagrees with her statements and finds them “unfortunate”.
— Channel NewsAsia
Parliament approves German loan for locomotives project
Yesterday Parliament approved the Ministry of Transport and Communications proposal to take out a Euro 5 million loan from the KFW known as German Government-owned Development Bank to upgrade the Locomotive Shed (Ywahtaung) under the Myanmar Railways (MR).
— Eleven
Myanmar: 160 killed in clashes with rebels in Shan
Clashes with ethnic rebels in Myanmar’s southeastern Shan State have killed more than 160 people including 74 soldiers, according to the military Tuesday.
— Anadolu Agency
Myanmar citizens in Singapore cast their votes for the 2017 by-elections
Myanmar eligible citizens residing in Singapore have begun voting early for the upcoming 2017 by-elections.
— Eleven
Myanmar slowly making life easier for foreign investors
AN ISSUE that foreign investors often struggle with in Myanmar is the inability to import and sell their products directly.
— The Nation
Himalaya Airlines makes Myanmar its fourth international market
Himalaya Airlines launched its second new route of 2017 on 24 February. Having started service to Kuala Lumpur on 10 February, the carrier has now added Yangon (RGN) in Myanmar to its network from Kathmandu (KTM).
— anna.aero
Myanmar education offers Thailand a lesson in pluralism
In a sign of what the future may offer, two major reports on Myanmar’s education system released by Save the Children and the Asia Foundation underline what can be achieved by ethnic communities educating themselves. The reports detail the rise of ethnic basic-education providers (EBEP) in Myanmar, a local response to the policy of ultra-nationalist “Burmanisation” – equivalent to ongoing “Thai-ification” here.
— Prachatai English
Addressing drug problems in Myanmar
This policy briefing was drafted by a group of local and international organisations with indepth knowledge and extensive experience of drug-related issues in Myanmar. It is structured around a set of five strategic interventions, each of which comes with concrete recommendations that are adapted |
said in a statement.
The Australian government had committed AU$70 million to the AU$200 million joint public-private sector fund, alongside AU$30 million of royalties from the CSIRO's Wi-Fi patent portfolio, and an additional AU$100 million from the private sector.
Beau Leese, co-founder of Intersective and former CSIRO head of Strategy and Innovation, said the new investment will allow the company to "double down" on data science research, and expand into international markets such as India, the US, and Vietnam.
The University of Sydney is already a customer of Intersective, using its Practera platform to deliver "experiential education" such as "mentored business simulations that adapt based on real world feedback", Leese said.
"I think successful innovation constantly requires thinking that runs counter to accepted wisdom. Main Sequence Ventures is looking at problems and technologies and teams that don't fit the mould, but may have a shot at breaking it -- very much the mindset we were looking for in an investment partner," Leese added.
"[It] provides businesses with an investor more willing to back deeper R&D and more complex commercial pathways than many standard venture firms.
"While there is nothing wrong with online retail or food delivery apps, there are enormous value opportunities in sectors like education, health, energy and resources that may require a different investment mindset to realise."
Related CoverageThe rights ‘revolution’ for pro sports stars in Japan – Part 1
In this article Takuya Yamazaki, private practice lawyer and member of FIFA’s Dispute Resolution Chamber, provides a fascinating insight into the development of professional sports players’ rights in Japan focusing on baseball and football. Part 1 provides the legal background before detailing the legal hurdles Japanese baseball players have had to overcome.
Changes to the rights of professional players from 2000
The purpose of sports law relates fundamentally to the sports associations belonging to a unique sector of society. To a certain extent the autonomy of these sports associations is recognised in law yet on the other hand, under the constitutional rule of law, there are limits on this autonomy. Such limits being: the principle of respect for human rights and the relative balance to be struck by the national legal system. It can be said that one important mission of sports law is to provide a check and balance between ‘sports associations` autonomy’ and the ‘rule of law’.
Historically in Japan, sport was recognised as physical education. Thus, in Japan the practice of sports was often based on the hierarchical relationship between teacher and student. This relationship is also rooted in Confucian culture and the samurai spirit, with the rule that it is essential to value superiors. As a result, athletes could not object to the actions of these superiors even though they excessively restricted human rights. Thus, human rights continued to be widely restricted as often nobody could voice their opinions (for athletes, objecting was seen as a protest against authority, and as such they risked their sporting activities being discontinued). Correspondingly, even if such issues occurred, they were frequently dealt with internally by the sports world. Given the small possibility that sports disputes were resolved using legal dispute resolution mechanisms, few instances of human rights violations in sports were unmasked.
However, in recent years significant changes have occurred regarding the situation for players’ rights in Japan’s two representative professional sports leagues: baseball and football. Since 2000 onwards, in professional baseball (Nippon Professional Baseball ‘NPB’) these changes include: the introduction of the players’ agent system in relation to negotiating players’ contracts; holding a strike against the unilateral plans of the NPB team owners to reduce the numbers of teams; and systematic reforms to the rookie draft system and the reserve system (restrictions on player transfers). In professional football (‘J-League’) such changes include: wide-ranging reforms to the FIFA rules regarding international player transfers and agents; the Kazuki Ganaha doping incident; the abolition of the domestic transfer compensation system; and the Japan Pro-Footballers Association (‘JPFA’) becoming an official labour union.
Within this trend of establishing players’ rights in Japan, in many cases reform has been brought about based upon negotiations, litigation and other means. Accordingly, as the professional sports business has developed in Japan, it has become expected that the players’ position should be equal to that of the clubs. It can be said that, in particular, this trend is prompting a realisation of the ‘rule of law’ in the sports world.
The ‘soft law’ controlling sports
In essence, the sports world and sports business have no specific statutory laws, rather so-called ‘soft laws’. In particular, with transactions amounting to billions of dollars, principal rights in the sports business such as the broadcasting rights and production rights of well-known sporting events do not even receive statutory protection as quasi-property rights. These are merely rights derived through contracts, trade practice and the internal regulations of sports leagues and associations, with many business practices through various individual contracts based on these regulations.
Due to these characteristics, frequently the content of such collective ‘norms’ and ‘practices’ is weighed heavily in favour of the sport organisers (e.g. the baseball or football clubs themselves), and such content is often highly anti-competitive. Here it is necessary to examine this ‘soft law’ of the sports world in relation to the rule of law.
In Europe and America, based on the principle of private autonomy, rules were established by sports associations that restricted the rights of players. In reaction to this, professional athletes and players’ associations made history by utilising ‘hard laws’, such as labour law and antitrust law, to defeat and reform such restrictions.
Ultimately, the ‘rule of law’, which seeks to ensure a balance between such players’ rights and the ‘soft law’ determined by sports associations, expects to guarantee equal negotiating positions between the stakeholders (i.e. the clubs and the players) including the conclusion of a collective agreement and the introduction of a fair dispute resolution system.
With the continuing modernisation of professional sports in Japan, the period from 2000 onwards has also marked the beginning of historic developments in the rights of sports players, finally catching up to those in Europe and America. Currently in Japan, there are still many instances of sports management unilaterally formulating rules without any consultation with the players and the establishment of an equal labour relationship still seems like a long way off. Nevertheless, despite these factors, progress has been made over the past decade and this will be examined in greater depth in this article.
The rights of professional baseball players
For professional baseball in Japan the past decade or so has seen many developments in terms of players’ rights. The developments over this period can be summed up as having set the stage for players to negotiate equally with the clubs.
The introduction of the agent system
The first step in setting the stage for equal contract negotiations between clubs and individual players was the introduction of the players’ agent system from the 2000 offseason. Since 1993, the Japan Professional Baseball Players’ Association (‘JPBPA’) called upon the clubs, on numerous occasions, to introduce this system. However, every time these calls were strongly opposed and rejected by the clubs. The JPBPA became very frustrated and determined that even if they continued to negotiate with the clubs they could not expect to make any further progress.
With the understanding that they did not need to get the approval of the clubs to legally introduce an agent system, the JPBPA from the 2000 offseason established a system of registration, which they adopted from the American Major League Baseball Players’ Association (‘MLBPA’). The JPBPA notified the clubs of this development with the club owners initially outraged, but in the end they reluctantly accepted the introduction of the agent system from the 2000 offseason because they had no legal grounds under Japanese law to deny players the right to negotiate through agents.
Nevertheless, despite the NPB allowing the agent system to be introduced, they unilaterally imposed some restrictions universally viewed as unacceptable: (1) agents are limited to only representing one Japanese player; and (2) in principle (although not always in practice), even when negotiations are conducted through an agent, players have to be present at these. As a consequence, the current situation is that even now many players are not represented by agents. However, as time passes resistance from the clubs is gradually dissipating, with their attitudes becoming less steadfast.
Establishing labour negotiation rules and the strike
In order to facilitate labour negotiations between the JPBPA and the NPB, on 29 March 2002 the JPBPA claimed redress against unfair labour practices to the Tokyo Labour Relations Commission (‘TLRC’) under the Japanese Labour Union Act. Following this two years later, significantly the NPB agreed a settlement agreement on 3 March 2004 with the JPBPA that established rules for labour negotiations.
Up until that point the clubs had never negotiated with the JPBPA and unilaterally decided on matters concerning players’ rights, including increasing the number of games and amending the uniform (standard) players’ contract. However this system was reformed by the aforementioned agreement and the stage was set for fundamental formal labour relations.
Three months after the settlement, it suddenly emerged that the owners of two of the professional baseball teams, the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes (‘Kintetsu’) and the Orix Blue Wave (‘Orix’), intended to merge without even consulting the JPBPA. Following this a huge problem occurred when the powerful NPB club owners announced their intention to merge yet another two teams into one, thereby reducing the 12 team professional league to 10 teams (this became known as the ‘professional baseball restructuring problem’).1 As this restructuring would create significant player cuts from the rosters, the JPBPA vociferously opposed the owners’ plans. Over the next 3 months the JPBPA negotiated with the clubs demanding that the merger plans be put on ice. However these demands were not fully satisfied and the association resolved to hold a two-day strike on 18 and 19 September 2004, the first in Japanese sports history.
The JPBPA strike was wholeheartedly supported by the Japanese public, in particular professional baseball fans. Therefore although the Orix-Kintetsu merger occurred, in the end the owners backed down in the face of a barrage of opposition from the JPBPA and public opinion, and on 23 September 2004 made an agreement with the JPBPA to maintain the twelve-team format.2 To this end, a new team, the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles entered professional baseball.
During the struggle between the JPBPA and the clubs over the team reduction issue, various measures under the Japanese Labour Union Act were taken by the JPBPA. The aforementioned agreement executed on 3 March 2004 played a significant role in those actions.
The NPB has constantly questioned the JPBPA’s legal status. Even following the JPBPA’s acquisition of labour union status from the TLRC in 1985 the NPB provided its own unique view, “Professional baseball players are self-employed workers and are therefore not ‘employees’, so the JPBPA is not a labour union.” Also, prior to the JPBPA’s strike in September 2004, the NPB proclaimed that, “If the JPBPA, which isn’t even a labour union, holds a strike, we shall claim damages.”
It was clear that the JPBPA had labour union status because of the agreement executed by the JPBPA and the NPB through the TLRC’s mediation in March 2004. However, as there were no previous legal precedents, prior to the strike in August 2004 the JPBPA filed for a provisional ruling against the NPB to make sure that they had labour union status and therefore had a legal position to bargain with the NPB on the merger plan. As a result the courts have recognised the JPBPA as a labour union.3 This became a very important legal foundation for holding the strike.
After the strike was held the baseball restructuring problem came to a conclusion on 23 September 2004. Following this, from 2005 a structural reform committee was set up by the NPB and the JPBPA where systematic reforms to the rookie draft system and the reserve system (restrictions on player transfers) were discussed.
The inadequate dispute resolution body and various cases
In Japanese professional baseball, the arbitrators in salary arbitration hearings and on the arbitration body in doping disputes are selected by the clubs, which is seen as highly inequitable. This point illustrates perfectly the problem of impartiality/neutrality of the dispute resolution body.
Over this past decade or so there has been various complaints of maladministration concerning for example: the 2000 offseason salary arbitration hearing of Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi (against the Nippon Ham Fighters); the 2010 offseason hearing of Hideaki Wakui (against the Seibu Lions); and the suspensions imposed for doping violations in 2008 on Luis González of the Yomiuri Giants and Daniel Rios of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. In each of these cases, there were various strong points made by the players’ lawyers, and yet no arbitrators found in favour of the players.
Part 2 will set out the current regime for Japanese baseball players and how their image rights are treated, followed by an analysis of Japanese football players’ legal status and rights.
1 The idea for this merger between Kintetsu and Orix in Japanese baseball was arguably influenced somewhat by the 1998 merger of the Yokohama Flügels and Yokohama Marinos in Japanese football (please see footnote n.10 below). Basically, Kintetsu, due to its dire economic situation at the time, wanted to exit baseball and withdraw its financial support from the team.
2 The JPBPA strike gained overwhelming support from the Japanese public, with many baseball fans questioning the owners’ team reduction plans. Kintetsu initially explained that its merger with Orix was due to the club’s bad financial position; however, despite a subsequent takeover offer for Kintetsu from the IT firm, Livedoor, this was rejected by Kintetsu. From that point it became clear that the true reason behind the merger was not just simply Kintetsu’s dire financial situation; as a result, the club’s explanation drew scathing criticism from many baseball fans for its opacity and unreasonableness.
The NPB (Japanese professional baseball) is contested by 12 teams in 2 leagues, 6 teams in the Central League and 6 teams in the Pacific League. In fact, the real truth about the above matter, is that the owners of 2 Pacific League teams (the Seibu Lions and the Orix Blue Wave) wanted to play ‘Inter-league games’ against the very popular Yomiuri Giants of the Central League. Thus, when these parties approached the Giants’ owner, Yomiuri Shinbun (a newspaper company), the president of the company named Mr. Tsuneo Watanabe accepted their plan with reservations that they would restructure the NPB on a 10 team 1 league format, and thereby reduce the number of teams.
Moreover, amid the negotiations between the clubs and the JPBPA in July 2004, the president of the Giants’ owner Tsuneo Watanabe, when questioned by the mass media on whether he would directly speak to the JPBPA’s then president, Atsuya Furuta, Watanabe retorted, “Don’t insult me, he is a mere player (why do I need to talk with such a mere player).” Such contemptuous remarks about the players have drawn massive opprobrium from large swathes of the media and fans. Ultimately, this became a big factor in the loss of public support in the clubs.
3 Tokyo High Court judgment, 8 Sep. 2004, ‘Rodo Hanrei’, no. 879, page 90.
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Related Articles7 Falcons Fans Show Up To Greet Team Upon Their Return From The Super Bowl (PICS)
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When the Atlanta Falcons left for the Super Bowl a few days ago, this was the scene:
That was incredible. Thank you Atlanta for the send-off! #InBrotherhood pic.twitter.com/aRyosQllSX — Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) January 29, 2017
After the team squandered away a 25-point lead in the second half of Super Bowl 51 and lost to the New England Patriots in OT, fans decided not to come out and greet them upon their return to their facility at Flowery Branch.
The @AtlantaFalcons had a small crowd of people to greet them as they arrived back in Flowery Branch. pic.twitter.com/FNbT0wrPoM — Jason Durden (@JasonDurdenWSB) February 6, 2017
As @AtlantaFalcons caravan makes its way N2 Gwinnett, a handful of loyal fans are waiting in FloweryBranch just2say, “Thank you.” #fox5atl pic.twitter.com/jvoO52oZoc — Portia Bruner (@PortiaFOX5) February 6, 2017
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Share ThisNearly 600 light years away, a planet shows us the unexpected.
Being four times the size of Jupiter and orbiting a star much larger than our Sun, HD76920b is discovered to orbit its star on a very extreme elongated orbit, more likely appearing to be a comet at a first sight.
The planet gets very close to the star, and then moves away almost twice as far as the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It’s situated in the constellation of Volans (the flying fish constellation).
“The planet gets very close to the surface of the star, and then moves away almost twice as far as the distance between the Earth and the Sun. It’s the first time we’ve found a planet on an orbit anything like this around one of these evolved stars. And that’s really interesting and exciting to us, because it tells us something about how planets form and how they interact with one another,” said study co-author Jonti Horner of the University of Southern Queensland.
For unknown reasons, planets like this are discovered being alone inside of its system, trapped with their own star, fact that will help us understand the movement of these cosmic objects in the future – scientists think.
“There are no other stars, there’s no other big planet or object obviously further away that would have caused it to become this eccentric,” said Dr O’Toole of the Australian Astronomical Observatory.
Researchers made up calculations and found out that the planet will be devoured by its star in almost 100 million years, which is “reall soon, on a cosmic scale” said Dr Horner.
Refference: abc newsA couple of years ago I made a map attempting to show the various relationships between the many worlds and realms that make the Great Wheel of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2e cosmology. This version fixes some errors and missing elements (such as demiplanes), as well as include more information so that the chart can be of better use.The idea was to cram the three main groups of realms -Outer Planes, Inner Planes, and the crystal spheres of the Prime Material- into a single chart, though this required the map to be made considering relationships and connections between the realms, rather than exact distances and relative positions.Hopefully this will be of use to some Dungeon Masters out there who still enjoy using the fantastic Multiverse that TSR created and the countless settings it includes.Part of the texture was made using Ayelie Stock's excellent Old Paper Texture 04, which can be found here: ayelie-stock.deviantart.com/ar… Made in Photoshop.The Erich Gutenberg College is a trade school in Mülheim, an economically underdeveloped district in Cologne. Two-thirds of the students here are first- or second-generation immigrants, and most are Muslim. A few days after the incidents in Cologne on New Year's Eve, in which a large crowd of men with supposed immigrant backgrounds harassed and sexually assaulted women in the city's main train station, a female teacher stood in front of her class at the school and tried to talk to her students about that night's events.
She was horrified by their reaction. "What exactly do you want?" one of the students shouted. "That's what women can expect if they walk around there at night!" No one in the classroom protested. The girls were silent. "They have their thoughts on the issue, but they often say nothing," says the school's principal, Rolf Wohlgemuth. After the incident, he went into the teacher's classroom and tried to explain to the students that the government protects the rights of everyone, including women. He is skeptical that the message will have a lasting impact on all the students.
Three weeks have passed since New Year's Eve in Cologne. About 800 women have filed complaints with the police since then, and the shockwaves from Cologne are still affecting politicians in Berlin. The police are still searching for more suspects, even as the country remains mystified by their motives. Cologne could go down in history as a turning point in Germany's refugee debate, but there is also another, more fundamental dimension. Even though the Cologne perpetrators constitute only a tiny, criminal minority within the migrant and refugee population, the most important aspect of the attacks is that their victims were women, bringing women's rights to the forefront of the integration debate.
The attacks sparked a major debate in Germany and raised important questions about gender roles in society. Critics have noted that many Muslim societies have patriarchal inclinations that define gender roles between men and women far more narrowly than in the West. Did the attacks in Cologne cast light on tensions between these patriarchal tendencies and Western notions of society and equal rights for women? The Economist tackled the issue in mid-January its article "Migrant Men and European Women." In an interview with SPIEGEL, leading German thinker, writer and Islam scholar Navid Kermani posed the question of whether Germany will succeed in its integration challenge. Meanwhile, the left-leaning weekly newspaper Die Zeit asked: "Who Is the Arab Man?"
It's a question that many women in Germany are asking themselves in the wake of Cologne. There is myriad anecdotal evidence of German women experiencing the culture clash firsthand. There are reports of men who refuse to shake hands with women. Some female teachers have to deal with fathers of students who refuse to speak to them, or parents who don't want a woman teaching their child. And there are instances in the business world where men refuse to work with women and demand that a woman's male superior be appointed as their point of contact in dealings. "This macho culture can already be found in Germany," says Ahmad Mansour, a Palestinian-Israeli who works as a psychologist focused on integration issues.
New Debates about Islam
Representatives of official Muslim religious organizations claim that discrimination and violence against women have nothing to do with Islam. "Islam assumes that woman and man are equal before God and the law," says Aiman Mazyek, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. It is true that Islam and patriarchy are not inevitably intertwined, and because Islam has no supreme leader like the pope who can establish a binding interpretation, the religion permits a liberal interpretation of the Koran. In reality, however, the global Muslim mainstream has very different notions of equality than the West, and the Koran is often used to justify patriarchal and misogynistic convictions.
In predominantly Muslim regions, the state of women's rights is especially troubling. Polling indicates that the majority of Muslims do not take it for granted that men and women have the same rights. The Pew Research Center in Washington surveyed 38,000 Muslims between 2008 and 2012. More than half -- and a whopping 87 percent in the Middle East and North Africa -- held the view that a woman should always obey her husband. In fact, only a quarter of those questioned in the Middle East and North Africa felt that daughters and sons should inherit equal shares of their parents' money, and only a third said that women have the right to get divorced.
Lamya Kaddor is tired of the debate over Islam. The liberal Islamic scholar has been working as a mediator for years. She explains Islam to non-Muslims in Germany, and she explains non-believers to Muslims. There has been much to explain since Sept. 11, 2001, when al-Qaida terrorists flew airliners into the World Trade Center in the name of Allah. The discussion about terrorism was followed by a series of debates, on forced marriages and honor killings, female genital mutilation, Salafists, the construction of mosques and now, once again, the image of women. "Now I'm starting to explain what Islam is all over again," says Kaddor.
The 37-year-old teaches Islamic Studies in Dinslaken, in northwestern Germany. The image of women held by many migrants is indeed a problem, she says. They have come to a free country from "oppressed societies," she says. "Then they have to wait 15 months to find out whether or not they can stay. This is too long. It allows people to fall back into old patterns," says Kaddor.
'Where I'm From, This is Handled By Men'
Many women come into contact with these patterns in Germany, not just in the form of sexual harassment, but in situations where it becomes clear that they are not being accepted in their professions and social roles. Most of the women SPIEGEL spoke with about the subject were unwilling to be quoted by name, fearing that they could be labeled as xenophobic, and they stress that difficulties are the exception, and that most Muslim men essentially have no problem with women.
"Muslim offenders often have a problem accepting female judges," says one judge from Hamburg. She claims they treat her with contempt, and use gestures or facial expressions to show that they do not respect a woman in her position. A female flight attendant says she "often has problems with Muslim men working as ground personnel." To avoid unpleasant situations, she says, crews often decide to send a male coworker instead.
Female German Federal Police officers who process immigrants at the border with Austria say that men ignore or berate them. Some spit on the ground in front of them, says one officer. "That sometimes requires a more robust effort."
The personnel manager for a company in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg remembers how a male employee snapped at her, saying that she, as a "German woman," had no business telling him what to do. On another occasion, an employee asked to meet with a male colleague instead of her. "I have nothing against you," he said, "but where I'm from, this is handled by men."
Maresi Lassek, president of an elementary school in the northern city of Bremen for 20 years, remembers "how fathers kept their hands clasped behind their backs" to avoid having to shake her hand. An elementary school teacher from the Odenwald region south of Frankfurt speaks of "outlandish experiences," and says: "I often had the feeling that fathers didn't take me seriously, because I'm a woman." A teacher from Hamburg says that fathers tried "to avoid us women and converse with our male colleagues instead." And when Annelie Hobohm, who teaches illiterate children in a Hamburg school, asks everyone in the class to clean up, the boys sometimes refuse to sweep the floor. Cleaning is women's work, they say.
Sineb El Masrar was born in Hanover in 1981, the daughter of Moroccan immigrants. She's also a member of the German Islam Conference and a pioneer in the Islamic women's movement. Her book "Emancipation in Islam -- a Reckoning with Its Enemies," is set to be published in Germany next month. "There is a misogyny, a hatred for women," she says.
A Dichotomy in Images of Women
El Masrar says that the history of Islam, up until the present, has been shaped by the patriarchal oppression of women. She argues that the Cologne assaults were spurred by a number of things: crowded living conditions for migrants in hostels or small apartments, their lack of prospects and the neglect they experience when they lack the support and supervision of the family.
But there is also another reason, says El Masrar: "A culture that makes all things sexual taboo." The men came from an environment in which there is no tender sexuality, she explains. "Everything that's connected with tenderness and sex is placed in the context of prostitution."
She speaks of a schematic image in which women are either saints or whores, in which there is no room for self-determined women. For some Muslim men, says El Masrar, it is irritating and frustrating that not every woman in Germany is available, "just because she's walking in a miniskirt." Some, she explains "react by becoming extremely religious, while others become aggressive."
El Masrar points to Moroccan men as an example, noting that many experience frustration not only in Europe, but also in the country of their origin. "Sex is taboo, on the one hand," she says, "but on the other it's downloadable everywhere." There are even sex hotlines in Arabic, she says. The men act out their insecurities on the street, where women are harassed and propositioned. But women in the country have been fighting back for some time. In a movement similar to #Aufschrei (#Outcry), a German Twitter initiative to raise awareness about sexism and sexual harassment, women in Morocco have taken to the streets to protest "against all that ass and breast grabbing, the whispers and the perversions that women face."
Young men are also beginning to seek alternatives to narrow patriarchal role models. Asmen Ilhan is a case in point. A few years ago, the young man from Berlin caught himself pigeonholing the girls in his class into either "sluts" or "non-sluts," into girls who had a boyfriend, went out at night or wore tight pants, and girls who behaved in a way deemed appropriate by the Turkish community.
At the Carl-von-Ossietzsky High School in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood, the question of which girls were considered "sluts," and which ones were not, was an important one -- both for the boys who kept a close eye on their sisters, even though they themselves were making out and having sex with girls, and for the girls, who were better off staying away from men altogether. No one would have been shocked to hear someone yell in the schoolyard: "I'll kill my sister if anyone touches her." And it would have been hard to tell whether statements like that were meant seriously.
Program to Change Minds
Ilhan was always caught in the middle. His parents came to Germany from Turkey in the late 1970s, and he was born in Berlin. To Germans, he was a Turk, and to Turks he was a Kurd. He was never accepted as a traditional Muslim because his father is an Alawite. His mother is involved in the women's movement within the immigrant community: a word like "slut" would never have been allowed at their dinner table.
But different rules applied in the classroom. Girls were expected to be pure and quiet and boys strong and loud, the latter fixated on their predetermined role as guardians and future breadwinners. Ilhan had already gotten used to this division, if only to fit in, but when he was 16, he began having doubts.
At the time, a friend invited him to join a group that met regularly to question their concept of how girls and boys should behave. The group members were at odds with a culture in which the honor of an entire family depended on whether a daughter was still a virgin at her wedding, and in which boys were obligated to defend that honor -- whether they liked it or not.
Ilhan and his friends became part of a project, called Heroes, in which young men from immigrant families campaign for women's rights. It has already trained 35 young men. Those who become "Heroes" are given a certificate to hang in their rooms. The program includes various role-playing games: In one, a strict father sends his son to bring home his sister, who is hanging out with friends, in another, a family forbids a son from marrying his Swedish girlfriend. The boys also play the role of the girl.
Heroes has held more than 1,000 of these role-playing workshops in schools and youth centers in the last seven years. Even the German president has visited the award-winning project. A photo taken on the day of the president's visit hangs on the wall, across from a poster with a quote from Albert Camus: "Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."
A Bizarre Understanding of Honor?
"Cologne brought our issues to the fore," says theater teacher Yilmaz Atmaca, one of the co-founders of the Heroes project. Ilhan, now 23, studies psychology and works as a group leader. Seven boys from the program got together in the first week of January to try to come up with an explanation for the Cologne sexual assaults. In their view, the assaults reflect a bizarre understanding of honor. "I'm afraid that the perpetrators felt that women who were wearing Western clothes and were out alone at night had no honor. This is precisely the attitude we want to prevent with our work." At the same time, the young men also felt attacked. They have been campaigning for women's rights for years, "and now people are suddenly saying across the board that the Arab man is a threat."
Muslim men are not the only ones who feel unsettled since Cologne. Many people in Germany are concerned about the tension between the desire to stand up for women's rights and the desire to show solidarity for refugees. Is it acceptable to lower our standards on emancipation in deference to foreign customs? The Federal Employment Agency is also grappling with this question. It trains its employees in both "intercultural sensitization" and "gender sensitivity." The problem is that "intercultural competency" and "gender competency" are not always compatible. What happens, for example, when a Muslim customer refuses to shake a female coworker's hand? Should the woman accept this as being correct from an intercultural perspective, or should she take the standpoint of gender sensitivity and insist on a handshake? "There can be contradictions between a consultation that focuses on sensitivity to migrants and one that emphasizes gender sensitivity," says Eva Peters, director of a project that provides advanced training advice.
For Julia Klöckner, opposition leader for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the decision was clear. About four months ago, she chose not to meet with an imam who refused to shake her hand. It was a bold move, but one that raises a necessary question about the limits of tolerance. She was making the point that women cannot be expected to accept discrimination out of consideration for cultural differences.
This meeting of these cultures is, obviously, not always problematic. A 41-year-old management expert who volunteers to teach German at a refugee hostel in Essen, for instance, has nothing but good things to say about her students. They include construction workers and auto mechanics from Afghanistan, as well as pharmacists from Syria. Her students are always helpful, polite and respectful, she says. "Every time we meet, they are friendly when they greet me and say goodbye, they thank me after the lesson, and they offer to carry my bags when they are heavy. And they also respect my privacy. No one has ever called me at an inappropriate time."
On a Saturday in the Advent season, in the lead up to Christmas, the group organized a cooking evening. Men and women chopped vegetables together, stirred the pots and seasoned the food, and finally served up Syrian appetizers and an Afghan rice dish -- united in the proud recognition that their backgrounds and cultures were being honored in this way. As the volunteer teacher put it: "These Muslim men are more appreciative than many Germans I know."
By Christiane Hoffmann, Julia Jüttner, Sarah Kempf, Ann-Kathrin Müller, Cornelia Schmergal, Katja Thimm, Andreas UlrichHalf the state’s households struggle to afford the roof over their heads. Homeownership-once a staple of the California dream – is at its lowest rate since World War II. Nearly 70 percent of poor Californians see the majority of their paychecks go immediately to escalating rents.
Related Articles When adult children move home: It’s not a nightmare, if you do it right
Bay Area housing crisis: advocates call for action and creative solutions This month, state lawmakers are debating a long-delayed housing package. Here’s what you need to know about the scope of one of California’s most vexing issues:
Just how hard is it to buy a home in California?
Hard. Really hard. Both compared to how hard it is in other states, and how hard it was for previous generations of Californians to buy homes.
While it’s always been more expensive to be a homeowner in California, the gap between us and the rest of the country has grown into a chasm. The median California home is now priced 2.5 times higher than the median national home. As of 2015, the typical California home costs $437,000, easily beating the likes of Massachusetts or New York (only Hawaii had more expensive houses).
Despite relatively low mortgage rates, exploding housing prices have caused California’s homeownership rate to dip significantly. Just over half of California households own their homes-the third lowest rate in the country, and the lowest rate within the state since World War II.
It’s not just housing prices that are affecting homeownership rates. Studies have found that student debt loads, rising income inequality and changing housing preferences among younger Californians are also at play.
For more Bay Area housing affordability, home sales and other real estate news
follow us on Flipboard.
Rents didn’t dip during the recession, and now are soaring
Rental costs across the state are some of the highest in the country. While listed housing prices dipped dramatically in the wake of the Great Recession, rents in California remained relatively stable before soaring in recent years in hot markets.
Across the state, the median rental price for a two-bedroom apartment is about $2,400, the third highest in the country. But statewide figures water down how absurd the situation is getting in urban coastal markets, where the vast majority of Californians live. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco reached more than $4,000 this year.
“It may cost more to live here, but they pay you more”
That’s somewhat true – median earnings for Californians are higher than the national average, and are significantly higher in certain regions like the Bay Area with tremendously pricey costs of living.
But on average, income over the past two decades has not kept pace with escalating rents.
The |
your browser to http://localhost:3000/. If everything is working correctly you should see this screen.
After you login to your Instagram account, go ahead and create a postcard by filling out the form. If successful you will see this message.
You can click that link to see a preview of your Instagram postcard, or head over to the Lob Dashboard for a more detailed view of your postcard.
Errors?
If you are running into problems, try adding error reporting into your application. Add this code to your index.js file:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 // development error handler // will print stacktrace if ( app. get ( 'env' ) === 'development' ) { app. use ( function ( err, req, res, next ) { res. status ( err. status || 500 ) ; res. render ( 'error', { message : err. message, error : err } ) ; } ) ; }
and then create a file in the views folder called error.jade with the following code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 extends layout block content h1 = message h2 = error. status pre #{error.stack}
Wrapping Up
So now that you have a fully functional Instagram Postcard application, what’s next?
From here you have lots of options to extend and possibly monetize your postcard printing app. While this tutorial only covered postcards, the Lob Print API provides many other products like posters, greeting cards, and photos that will work with this tutorial in much the same way.
With very minimal changes to the HTML template you could easily create:
An Instagram poster collage that displays similarly tagged photos.
A simple photo printing app lets people create a set of photos.
The sky is the limit, but if you ever need any help, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or contact us directly. Always happy to help.National study finds boomers find it more economical, social to dine out.
Boomer-age diners eat at Dixie Crossroads restaurant in Titusville, Fla. At left side of table is Joe Cusano, 50, and Karen Bush, 51, from Boston, Mass. Across from them, at right, is Paula, 59, and Bob Bush, 59, of Maine. Bob is Karen's brother. The server is Jan Brannen. (Photo: Tim Shortt, Florida Today) Story Highlights Study finds in U.S., people older than 49 are eating out more than younger diners
Industry experts say unemployment has hit younger people hard
National Restaurant Association says boomers and older diners make excellent regulars
Johanna Karas took a look at her budget and decided that between the hassle of shopping for groceries and cooking for one, she might as well eat out.
So whether she's dining solo or with friends, the 74-year-old widow does just that, taking meals at local restaurants three or four times a week.
The Melbourne, Fla., woman has a lot of company at tables nationwide. For the first time in the United States, people older than 49 are eating out more than younger diners, according to a study released this year by the NPD Research Group, a market research company.
Chalk it up, at least in part, as one more recession-based trend. Industry experts say unemployment has hit younger people hard: Younger adults are more than twice as likely as those 55 and older to be unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So that may have something to do with the 12 percent dip since 2008 in the number of nights they're dining out a year. In contrast, the older baby boomers and "mature traditionalists," the generation ahead of the boomers, upped their restaurant visits by about 6 percent, the NPD study found.
"I figure I'm worth it," said Karas, a Walmart cashier who ate at Grills in Melbourne on a recent day off. "Treating myself is a nice thing to do. And I'll take something home if I don't finish it and have it the next day."
These culinary news tidbits don't surprise Dixie Crossroads manager Clay Townsend.
While the famed Titusville, Fla., restaurant isn't back to 2008 numbers, "sales are going back up, probably about 5 percent for this year," for the first time since the recession started, Townsend said.
And older customers are an important part of the Dixie Crossroads clientele, he said.
"They're more established income-wise, with more disposable income," he said.
"They tend to cherish what a special moment it can be, eating out in a restaurant with family and friends — enjoying that situation and moment in time without crippling their budget."
The National Restaurant Association says boomers and older diners make excellent regulars. And restaurants, in turn, are responding with comfortable seating. Large-type menus and good lighting. Health-conscious offerings. Choices that embrace tastes from around the globe but down-home "comfort food," too.
Johanna Karas, 74, a regular at Grills in Melbourne,Fla., says eating out can be easier and cheaper for her than buying groceries and cooking. (Photo: Britt Kennerly, Florida Today)
Karas frequents Carrabba's, Pane E Vino, and Duffy's Sports Grill.
By the time you factor in gas and food cost and time spent, she said, it can be just as economical — and more fun — for an older person to eschew cooking.
"We don't cause problems," she said, laughing. "And we can be good tippers."
At Pineda Crossing Bar & Grill in Melbourne, older customers have been a staple since the eatery opened in 1996.
"I think since the recession hit, what the study shows is true," said Cathy Popp, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Bob. "Younger people who used to go out and start partying by eating dinner and going on somewhere else aren't doing that like they did."
And while Popp's husband was at first resistant to the early-bird specials so loved by much-older diners, they're offered now.
The restaurant "would be lost without Indian River Colony Club," home to many Air Force retirees, said Popp, adding that she's gotten so close to older customers, it's like losing family when one dies.
"When we first opened, a lady in that age range discovered us and single-handedly brought us the entire Suntree Country Club," Popp said. "And then the people from Indian River Colony Club all adopted me.... We have really strong regular customers."
It's the same at Dixie Crossroads, Townsend said.
"Many of our servers have very deep relationships with our guests," he said. "A lot of regulars who come in, we know all about them, their family and their history, and they value that recognition."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1bxYs2fAmid a busy week in politics, the publication this week of new data showing that average household income per person has fallen in each of the last four quarters has passed somewhat unremarked upon. As the chart below shows, annualised income fell by 0.3 per cent in the second quarter of this year relative to the first, following declines of 0.5 per cent, 0.8 per cent and 0.8 per cent again in the three preceding quarters.
As a result, annual income per person is now estimated to be 2.3 per cent lower than it was a year ago. While not quite as tight as the living standards squeeze that took hold immediately following the financial crisis, declines of such magnitude are unheard of in normal times.
Of course, the fact that the turning point for income growth came in the third quarter of 2016 – immediately following the EU referendum in June – will strike some as no coincidence. After all, we know that the spike in import-led inflation that flowed from the sharp post-referendum devaluation of sterling has acted as a headwind in 2017. Most visibly, it has blown real-earnings growth back into negative territory and heightened the impact of the government’s four-year freeze in working-age benefits.
With uncertainty continuing to weigh on investment decisions within firms and with softening consumer confidence, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Brexit (in the near-term at least; the ultimate impact of Brexit remains entirely unknown at this stage) is playing a key role in the apparently sizeable decline in living standards that has occurred over the past year.
Yet that is far from all of the story. Look again at the growth figures on the chart and what stands out is the positive spike that arrived in the middle of 2015. In the year immediately prior to the referendum, income per person rose by a healthy 3.5 per cent. Viewed over this longer timeframe, some of the slowdown in 2016-17 might simply represent a reversal of the above-trend gain recorded in 2015.
Indeed, this is precisely what has happened. Faced with the prospect of increases in dividend tax from April 2016, many firms paid additional dividends in the 2015-16 tax year. Along with potentially lowering subsequent dividend payments in 2016-17, this move also increased the self-assessment tax payable on such payments in the first quarter of 2017 – further depressing income growth at the start of this year.
We can’t put a precise figure on this effect, but helpfully the latest ONS data comes with a methodology change that provides some clues. This revision improves the way in which the ONS records dividend payments. As the next chart shows, it has both substantially increased the magnitude of dividend payments flowing to households (with a particular increase in the recording of dividends paid to owner-managers of incorporated businesses) and shone a light on the tax-related shift between 2015 and 2016.
As a thought experiment, we can strip the dividend payments out of the headline household statistics in order to better understand the underlying trend in income growth. This is imperfect of course – recent increases in dividend payments will in part have acted as a replacement for wage income – but it is a useful exercise. That’s because it is perhaps more indicative of the experience of the majority of UK households, where dividend payments have little if any presence.
The final chart shows the difference this makes. We still see strong growth in 2015-16 followed by a contraction in 2016-17, but the contrast between the two periods is now less marked. Income per person falls by 1.2 per cent in the year following the referendum – roughly half the scale of decline reported in the headline measure.
Tax-related shifts in the timing of dividend payments therefore appear to tell at least some of the story of the fall in living standards experienced over the past year. But they don’t explain all of the fall. ‘Project fear’ may have been discredited, but the near-term numbers still look quite scary.
The bigger picture here is that household income per person remains no more than 5 per cent higher today than it did a decade ago. The decade before the crisis delivered growth in the region of 30 per cent. It’s easy to fixate on the impact on Brexit, but it shouldn’t blind us to other domestic challenges that have led to a tough ten years for living standards, let alone the last 12 months.
Looking forward, incomes are set to fall further before they rise. Inflation remains on course to outpace earnings growth for the remainder of 2017. Absent any change in government policy, the real-terms values of public sector pay and working-age benefits face erosion over the next few years. And the outlook for productivity growth – ultimately the main engine of sustainable long-term growth in earnings and incomes – remains highly uncertain.
The OBR looks set to adopt a more pessimistic stance by downgrading its productivity projection at the forthcoming budget. That decision is being driven not by an assessment of lower productivity in a post-Brexit world (previous OBR outlooks have already incorporated some such assumptions), but rather by the conclusion that post-crisis productivity stagnation is more permanent than previously thought. That would be bad news for the Chancellor’s fiscal outlook, and – if borne out – bad news too for household incomes.
Faced with such gloom, the Prime Minister’s conference speech – for all its problems – was right to remind us of the country’s non-Brexit fundamentals. Fixing the broken parts of the UK’s economy – from productivity to housing to skills – would have been the central challenge even in the absence of Brexit. Delivering Brexit is an additional task for the coming years rather than an alternative one. The concern is that – as with the speech itself – the government’s focus will be too easily derailed by unwelcome distractions.A Hull City player sports the rainbow laces in the game against West Brom
The Premier League showed their support for the LGBT community as players and match officials alike donned Rainbow Laces.
As well as the multi-coloured laces, the captains' armbands were in rainbow colours as part of the Rainbow Laces takeover.
Perimeter advertising at every Premier League match included messages supporting the campaign and every game was opened with a giant Premier League Rainbow Laces flag.
Manchester City's Fernandinho, Chelsea's Gary Cahill, Tottenham's Hugo Lloris and Liverpool's Jordan Henderson were among players to don rainbow-coloured captain's armbands.
Jordan Henderson wore a rainbow-coloured captain's armband during Liverpool's win over Sunderland
The assistant referee in the Leicester City v Middlesbrough gets involved with the rainbow laces
Swansea's Jack Cork also wore the rainbow armband
A number of Premier League clubs also changed the background on their social media accounts to rainbow colours.
Watford captain Troy Deeney and Stoke counterpart Jon Walters posed with their special captain's armbands ahead of the Nissan Super Sunday clash at Vicarage Road.
As well as signing up to Rainbow Laces, the Premier League has become a member of TeamPride, a coalition of organisations committed to making sport everyone's game by encouraging fans, players, sports clubs and organisations to show their support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Premier League executive chairman, Richard Scudamore, said: "The Premier League is all about exciting, passionate and unpredictable football that is for everyone, everywhere.
Chelsea captain Gary Cahill shows his support
The arches of Wembley Stadium were lit up in rainbow colours (Pic: @wembleystadium)
Fernandinho of Manchester City wore a rainbow-coloured armband
"The Rainbow Laces campaign complements the work clubs are doing to promote inclusion and diversity in their stadiums, and across all levels of the sport.
"Our support for the campaign, and the decision to become members of TeamPride, is further recognition that the LGBT community is a vital and integral part of our community."The ability to toggle between 3G and EDGE could be making a comeback for iPhone users in the next update to iOS 5. Apple released the third beta of iOS 5.1 to registered developers late on Monday, which hails the return of the "Enable 3G" switch within the device's network settings. Additionally, other evidence found within the beta indicates that Siri may eventually show up on the iPad and iPod touch.
Apple removed the Enable 3G toggle when it released iOS 5 to the public in October. Previous to this change, users took advantage of the switch in order to save battery life on their devices; switching 3G off would help extend the battery a bit longer in situations where 3G wasn't necessary, or the 3G network wasn't working properly. The loss of the switch irked a number of iPhone users, so its triumphant return—assuming Apple doesn't remove it before iOS 5.1's final release—will certainly be a welcome one.
That's not all that's contained within the latest beta. As noted by Cult of Mac, a reference to dictation has appeared for the iPad and iPod touch, causing some to conclude that Siri is coming to those devices soon (we are slightly skeptical on this point, but we're willing to wait and see). And, as posted by MacRumors, the iOS 5.1 beta 3 also introduces a new API to developers that will let them mark certain types of content that they don't want to be backed up, which should save on syncing time.
Update: Some iPhone users are pointing out that they already have the Enable 3G toggle in their public installs of iOS 5.0.1. This does indeed seem to be the case for those who own iPhones that are older than the 4S, but we were able to confirm with three separate iPhone 4Ss that they do not currently have this option. It's possible that Apple only disabled this option for the iPhone 4S and not older devices as part of iOS 5.Do People Accuse You Of Being Highly Sensitive?
“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.” ~Edgar Allen Poe
As long as I can remember, my hyper-sensitivity has been a running theme in my life.
When I was a child, I could easily pick up on the subtle undercurrents going on in my house. When the mood shifted from normal to tense, I was quick to notice it and quick to try to set things right. My mom called me “the little peacemaker.”
When things did get tense or volatile in my household, I felt overwhelmed with the intensity of the negative emotions whirling around me. It made me extremely anxious, and if I couldn't do anything to make things right again, I'd find a way to escape — through books or play or spending time with a friend.
If any of that tension or anger were specifically directed at me, I was quick to change my behavior or apologize in order to regain emotional equilibrium. I got my feelings hurt easily and was thrown off-balance when someone would say something biting to me.
I felt other positive emotions quite deeply as well. I felt intense love for my parents, became strongly attached to my friends, enjoyed hugs and physical affection, and was easily touched by moving stories, art, or music. I could sense someones' mood or needs and instinctively knew how to pull the right groups of people together.
As I grew older and lived on my own, I discovered other interesting sensitivities. I was highly sensitive person and more sensitive than most of my friends to medication, caffeine, crowded and noisy environments, and making life changes. And my intense feelings around conflict, arguing, and violence never abated.
But also as I grew older, I learned I had to adapt to a world that wasn't filled with equally sensitive people if I was going to thrive and be happy. I had to manage my sensitivity where appropriate and learn new skills for reacting and responding to situations that turned up my emotional juice. Does any of this remind you of yourself — or someone close to you? If so, you aren't alone. And you aren't crazy or weak or “too sensitive.”
Being highly-sensitive (also known by its scientific term as SPS, Sensory-Processing Sensitivity) is a normal trait found in 15-20% of the population.
Dr. Elaine Aron is a psychologist, researcher, and pioneer in the study of the innate temperament trait of high sensitivity. She is the author of the books The Highly Sensitive Person. Dr. Aron has found that not only is high sensitivity a normal trait, it is also innate. In fact according to Dr. Aron, “biologists have found it to be in most or all animals, from fruit flies and fish to dogs, cats, horses, and primates.” However, the brains of highly sensitive people actually work a bit differently than other people's brains. The sensitivity trait actually reflects a survival strategy of keen observation before action. Here are some other interesting facts about highly sensitive people listed on the Highly Sensitive Person web site:
You are also more easily overwhelmed. If you notice everything, you are naturally going to be overstimulated when things are too intense, complex, chaotic, or novel for a long time.
You are more aware than others of subtleties. This is mainly because your brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. So even if you wear glasses, for example, you see more than others by noticing more.
This trait is not a new discovery, but it has been misunderstood. Because HSPs prefer to look before entering new situations, they are often called “shy.” But shyness is learned, not innate. In fact, 30% of HSPs are extraverts, although the trait is often mislabeled as introversion. It has also been called inhibitedness, fearfulness, or neuroticism. Some HSPs behave in these ways, but it is not innate to do so and not the basic trait.
Sensitivity is valued differently in different cultures. In cultures where it is not valued, HSPs tend to have low self-esteem. They are told “don't be so sensitive” so that they feel abnormal.
Some of the traits of a highly sensitive person include:
feeling easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input
keenly aware of subtleties in my environment
easily affected by other people's moods
feeling very sensitive to pain, physical or emotional
needing to withdraw during busy days, into bed or into a darkened room or any place to have some privacy and relief from stimulation
particularly sensitive to the effects of caffeine
easily overwhelmed by things like bright lights, strong smells,coarse fabrics,or sirens close by
enjoys a rich,complex inner life
feeling uncomfortable by loud noises
having a nervous system that sometimes feels so frazzled that you just have to go off by yourself
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highly conscientious
easily startled
easily rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time
readily knows what needs to be done to make it more comfortable in a physical environment (like changing the lighting or the seating)
quickly annoyed when people try to get you to do too many things at once
trying hard to avoid making mistakes or forgetting things
making a point to avoid violent movies and TV shows
becoming unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around you
reacting strong when hungry, disrupting concentration or mood
feeling shaken up by life changes
noticing and enjoying delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, works of art
finding it unpleasant to have a lot going on at once
making it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations
feeling bothered by intense stimuli, like loud noises or chaotic scenes
when competing or being observed while performing a task, you become so nervous or shaky that you do much worse than you would otherwise
as a child, being seen as sensitive or shy by parents and teachers
It was a great relief to read Dr. Aron's research and realize that my sensitivity doesn't make me an emotional oddball. In fact, being highly sensitive has many benefits, not the least of which is feeling the good, happy, meaningful things in life even more intently.
Have you suffered from emotional or verbal abuse? Click here to get your free Emotional Abuse Test. Find out your emotional abuse score.
But we sensitive types live in a world of people who don't necessarily understand or appreciate our strong feelings. If you are hypersensitive, here are some tips for living in a less-than-sensitive world:
1. Learn to manage the way you react to your emotions. Highly sensitive people should allow extra time for feelings to pass before reacting to what others say or do if it feels hurtful or negative. Remind yourself that what sounds harsh or hurtful to you may not have been intended this way. This is especially true in work environments where overly sensitive reactions are not often appropriate.
2. Minimize exposure to chaotic situations or people who push your buttons, create drama, or have angry or volatile temperaments.
3. Get enough sleep and exercise regularly so you are properly rested and energized to cope with emotionally charged situations and to support emotional equilibrium.
4. Avoid too much caffeine and pay attention to medications and how they affect you. Also pay attention to how certain foods, your hormones, and the weather impact your mood, as you are bound to be more sensitive during these times.
5. Eat healthy meals regularly and prevent yourself from getting too hungry. HSP's need to keep blood sugar levels steady with a healthy diet to prevent irritable, edgy feelings.
6. Avoid or minimize your time in crowded, highly-stimulating environments like crowded malls or concerts. If necessary, visit these places in off-hours or go to smaller, less-crowded venues.
7. Don't over-schedule your time or allow others to “steal” too much of your time. Feeling pressured and overwhelmed will flood your emotions and prevent you from getting anything done at all. Learn to say no or to delegate.
8. Practice asking for what you want. Highly emotional people are so sensitive to the needs of others that they fear asking for what they want or need because they don't want to “cause trouble.” But your built-up resentments over this will emerge in anger or sadness eventually.
9. Create a peaceful, relaxing environment for yourself in your home and office. HSP are especially affected by their surroundings. Make sure your living space, especially your bedroom, is a relaxing, harmonious space.
10. Disengage from the negative beliefs you might have around being a sensitive person. It is hard for people who aren't highly-sensitive to understand the deep emotions and reactions of their sensitive friends or family members. You can teach the people in your life that being sensitive isn't a flaw — it can be an amazing gift allowing you to experience life at a very profound level.
If you have a highly sensitive person in your life, simply recognizing how this trait is part of HSP's genetic make-up will help you understand why they respond the way they do.
You can enhance your relationship with your sensitive spouse, child, or friend by supporting their efforts to create an environment that isn't over-stimulating, and by being cognizant of the intensity of their feelings.
In general, hyper-sensitive people will be quite responsive to your moods and needs. But eventually this responsiveness drains their energy. Frequently ask the sensitive person what they need from you and be proactive in meeting their needs so they feel heard and respected.
Are you a highly sensitive person or do you have someone close to you who is? What has been your experience and how have you handled any issues that have arisen as a result?December 2014 Featured Article Winner
Jack Tenorman was Eric Cartman's and Scott Tenorman's father who appeared (and died) in the Season Five episode, "Scott Tenorman Must Die."
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Background
After Cartman bought Scott Tenorman's pubic hair in "Scott Tenorman Must Die," thinking that it was the means by which to reach maturity. Finding out that he was mistaken, he makes several fruitless attempts to get revenge on Scott.
After several failed attempts, Cartman creates an elaborate scheme in which he uses Scott to convince his parents to "save" a pony from being slaughtered at Farmer Carl Denkins ranch. In the meantime, he told Denkins that Jack and his wife were both a pair of demented pony-killers who should be shot on sight. When Scott's father Jack and his mother attempted to save the pony, they were shot dead by Denkins. While he filed a report to Officer Barbrady, Cartman gathered their bodies and then proceeded to grind them up and feed them to Scott as chili.
The fact that his parents were murdered and that he later ate them, drove Scott Tenorman completely insane. In "200" and "201," it is discovered that during his time in a mental institution, Scott began to research Cartman's history in the hopes of exacting revenge upon him. During his research, Scott discovered that his own father Jack Tenorman had played right tackle for the Denver Broncos during his younger years, and that during the night of the Drunken Barn Dance, he had sex with Cartman's mother Liane resulting in her getting pregnant with Eric.
It is unknown whether or not Jack was ever aware of the pregnancy. However, Liane seemed to have informed the rest of the town. Due to the fact that the Denver Broncos had been having a really good year, they all believed that revealing that Jack Tenorman having a bastard child who wants to meet him could be enough to distract him from the football season. As such, when Eric years later, attempted to discover the truth about his father in "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut" and "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut," the entire town covered up the truth and altered the paternity results, and told Eric that his mother was in truth his father, due to her being a hermaphrodite.
After discovering this, Scott Tenorman resurrected the Ginger Separatist Movement that Cartman had once formed, in order to use them in an elaborate scheme to reveal the truth to Cartman in the hopes of demoralizing him. Scott's plan unfortunately worked, but not in the way he intended: Cartman was horrified by what he learned, but not because he had caused the death of his father and fed him to his half-brother unaware that Jack was his father, but instead because he was half-Ginger.
Appearance
Jack Tenorman was a team member of the Denver Broncos, so it was assumed when he played football professionally, he wore the team uniform. When he wasn't playing football, he wore a teal shirt with a black tie and black trousers. He had red hair, red eyebrows, and a red mustache.
Trivia
Before the revelation of Jack Tenorman being Cartman's father, it was believed that Liane was the father, as she supposedly had both female and male genitals at the time of the Drunken Barn Dance.
Jack Tenorman has red hair, but normal colored Caucasian skin and no freckles on his face, making him a "daywalker" ginger, like Kyle.
It was hinted that a Denver Bronco was Cartman's father in the episode "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut." They are again hinted at in "Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut," in which the announcer is heard asking, "Who is Eric Cartman's father? Is it the Denver Broncos?"
Prominence
ReferencesBack in June, Iman shared a touching throwback photo of David Bowie in honor of what would’ve been the couple’s 24th wedding anniversary, and on Monday, the gorgeous model took to Instagram to share another beautiful family tribute. This time she posted a photo of her and Bowie’s daughter Alexandria “Lexi” Zahra Jones, wishing her a happy 16th birthday. Just as we expected from the daughter of such a striking couple, Lexi is gorgeous.
In the simple black-and-white photo, Lexi is giving us a little bit of her mom’s model glamour with a perfect cat eye and fierce facial expression that Iman accurately describes as “Classy with a hint of sassy.”
While Iman rarely shares pics of her daughter, she’s obviously given Lexi some professional tips on posing and catching the light because this selfie is on point. Then again, when you’re the product of a supermodel/rockstar match made in heaven, we’re pretty sure it’s genetically impossible to take a bad selfie.
I mean…c’mon:
There’s levels to being this damn flawless:
For now, Lexi’s mostly tucked away from the spotlight, but after viewing this gorgeous pic, we can’t help but hope she follows in her mom’s fabulous fashion footsteps. We have full confidence that Lexi would kill it as a model.James Drury
How Does Where You Live Compare To Other Parts Of London?
LuminoCity 3D showing house prices in London. Click the map to go to the site.
Which parts of the capital have the worst air quality, which areas are the most crowded, where is the highest concentration of IT jobs, and where are the greenest households in the city?
If you've ever pondered questions such as this you need to check out the latest project from the clever people at UCL's Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA).
Created by Dr Duncan Smith, LuminoCity3D is an interactive map which collates a wide range of data sets for the UK, including population, growth, housing, travel behaviour, employment, business location and energy use.
The good-looking, dynamic results enable you to examine things such as: which areas have seen the highest levels of new buildings; where the greatest concentration of large households are; how areas break down by occupation (did you know that most administrative workers live in the south and east?); and much more.
It's fascinating to see the phenomenal level of population growth in London, as well as how much employment has changed — and where the hot spots of employment density have sprung up over the last 10 years.
The map shows why people on low incomes don't all live in the cheap bits of London — there isn't enough housing, as we reviewed recently.
Londoner's 'green' credentials are also highlighted — it'll come as no surprise that London has the highest levels of public transport use, but what's also interesting to note is that it also has both the highest and lowest domestic energy use households in the country.
What's also noteworthy is just how many Londoners are actually born outside the UK — as high as 95 per cent in some areas.
In his blog post, Dr Smith says the data can be helpful in planning and running cities better by examining best practice and examining current patterns and trends. WARNING: It's also a rabbit hole from which you may only emerge after having lost hours comparing where you live to your friends' neighbourhoods, or getting into a kind of Top Trumps battle between London and other cities.
Previous visualisations from CASA:Getting to know you: Hayanah Pickering from The King and I
Opera Australia and John Frost’s production of The King and I is currently playing in Melbourne at the stunning Princess Theatre and this national tour marks the professional music theatre debut of many up-and-coming performers. AussieTheatre is thrilled to be featuring an interview series entitled Getting To Know You to introduce these new artists to their music theatre audience!
Hayanah Pickering
Today we chat with Hayanah Pickering, a multitalented performer who also holds a degree in Psychology from UNSW. Hayanah grew up in a family of music and theatre lovers and developed a passion for the stage at a young age. She trained at The Actors Centre Australia and Screenwise Film and Television School and has worked as a performer at Dreamworld, Movieworld and with the hit children’s entertainment group The Wiggles..
Getting To Know You
What is your role in the production?
I play Angel George in the Small House of Uncle Thomas ballet, and also one of the royal wives throughout the rest of the show.
When did you know you wanted to become a performer?
I started dancing from a very young age and always loved performing. I couldn’t wait to be back on stage. While I had been involved in a number of dancing jobs and events through my teens, I didn’t actively pursue a full time career in performing until after I had finished an unrelated degree at uni. While I was completing my degree, performing remained my passion and I knew then that that’s what I needed to do with my life.
Where did you train?
I went to local dance schools when I was younger, and was involved in a number of community theatre productions which taught me a lot. I learnt the most “on the job” through gigs and various performing jobs. I later went to two drama schools, Actors Centre Australia and Screenwise in Sydney, to expand my skills and work towards becoming a more well rounded performer.
What was your reaction when you discovered you had been cast in this show?
At first I was so shocked I couldn’t believe I’d heard correctly. I then ran outside (I was working at a part time job in an office at the time) and called my parents to tell them the news.
Your first musical theatre job has you performing with award winning veterans of the stage and screen – including Lisa McCune, Marty Rhone, Jason Scott Lee and Lou Diamond Phillips – what have you learnt from working with such an experienced cast?
It’s such a privilege to work with all of these wonderful artists. Each time I watch them rehearse, it’s a lesson in performing just because I see the work, care and dedication they put into each scene and song, yet they make it look so effortless during shows. Every part of their performance has meaning and depth dehind it. They’re also such lovely, nice people who really care about the rest of the company, so they’ve also shown me the value of being a generous performer both on and off the stage.
Hayanah Pickering as Angel/George in The King and I. Image by Oliver Toth
The King and I features an incredible 15 minute Jerome Robbins ballet in Act 2 – how do you keep yourself fit and ready for the performance every night?
Generally, I go to the gym to keep fit, as well as take regular dance classes. I also like to mix things up a bit when I can and take up various activities such as Oz-tag, tennis, acrobatics, soccer. I always have a list of new activities I want to try to keep things interesting and also to stay fit. While on tour it’s a bit more difficult but just regular stretching and little home or gym workouts really help.
Describe the production for us in three words.
Three words I would use to describe this production of The King and I are lavish, evocative, stunning
What has been the most exciting/memorable moment so far?
I struggle choosing “the most” exciting or memorable moment. I have two that really affected me. The first was the first time I stood on the stage in the theatre during rehearsals and looked out into the seats. It was a sudden moment where I thought, this is it, I’m here and about to perform in a professional show that I’ve watched since I was a little girl. The second was the standing ovation after the first performance. That was an indescribable feeling.
Is there anything you have learned during this contract about the music theatre (or theatre) industry which surprised you?
The most surprising thing I have found, during my first experience in a professional musical has been how understanding people have been to first-timers. There is so much for everyone to do but, with everyone working hard and being so busy, more experienced people in the company (both on the performing side and the non performing side) have still found time to be so caring of the newbies.
What is your go-to ‘belt it out in the shower’ song?
I don’t really have a single song I like to belt out at home. I like to mix it up depending on how I’m feeling at the time. Sometimes it’s a music theatre song, sometimes it’s a bit of Beyonce or a pop song.
For more information about The King and I and to |
and Three Mile Island reactor accidents, the Washington Public Power Supply System financial collapse, and other misadventures. These upbeat accounts point to new technology, legislation, energy realities, and management teams as reasons for optimism. Skeptics portray these opportunities as mirages, obscuring the unresolved problems that undermined nuclear expansion plans a generation ago. They point to insurance, financing, proliferation, siting, accident and attack vulnerability, staffing, nuclear waste, and other uncertainties as reasons for pessimism.
When offered by partisans, neither account is entirely trustworthy, nor entirely believed by those issuing it. Rather such accounts represent the posturing of advocates who hope to spin self-fulfilling prophesies and create an aura of inevitable success–or failure.
Working the crowd is essential for a technology such as nuclear energy, which depends on the public’s acceptance to host plants, invest in industry firms, and support government subsidies and loan guarantees. Proponents want the world to believe that the public will increasingly be open to an energy source that directly produces no greenhouse gases, while opponents want the world to believe that the public will increasingly fear accidents, cost overruns, the uncertain future of nuclear waste, and the diversion of weapon-grade material to bomb making.
In truth, neither side really knows what the public fears or wants. Unless supported by sound empirical evidence, claims about public opinion are just speculation. In the case of nuclear energy, there’s surprisingly little research describing the public’s concerns about nuclear energy in any real depth. Moreover, predicting future public concerns requires predicting how nuclear energy will emerge as an issue through legislation, protests, hearings, accidents, terrorist diversions, oil embargos, climate change-linked disasters, or other currently unknowable events.
One can, however, predict how the industry will be judged by the public when it responds to events (or creates them). If the industry is seen as responsible and genuinely concerned with the public’s welfare, as well as its own, then it will be judged fairly. The following principles, drawn from research and experience, specify what it takes to be seen as such a partner. Adhering to them doesn’t guarantee public acceptance or an end to vigorous public debate over nuclear energy. But it does increase the chances of having fewer, but better conflicts, ones that focus on legitimate differences in the interests of the industry and the public, made up of diverse constituencies with their own distinct interests and views (e.g., plant neighbors, environmental justice communities, and elected officials).
Following these principles won’t be easy for an industry that has often viewed communication as a one-way process. It will need to move beyond a “decide-announce-defend” communication strategy to an approach that begins by listening to the public and moving in a more acceptable direction. In fact, the industry’s relationship with the public must be paramount. That means worrying at the highest levels of management about whether the industry actually has a story worth telling, in the sense of bringing genuine benefits and acceptable risks to society. The principles listed below are, in effect, corollaries of adopting the strategy of achieving this aim:
Senior management must be committed to treating communication as a strategic activity, not an afterthought. Organizations are busy places, consumed with meetings, paperwork, and intrigue. They don’t naturally invest in listening to outsiders unless their senior management treats communications with the public as a strategic matter, essential to its success. People are poor judges of what others think about them, especially when they have different life experiences–as when members of a technically sophisticated industry, such as nuclear energy, imagine the beliefs and motives of a nontechnical public and vice versa. Organizations that forgo direct two-way communication with the public (especially when they disagree) are choosing to fly blind, relying on intuition, rather than evidence, regarding the conditions necessary for public acceptance.
Management must consider communication in all activities. A firm’s public face can be shaped by any of its actions. For the nuclear industry, those actions include how it maintains plants, disposes of waste, conducts siting processes, lobbies for permits, participates in electoral politics, deals with neighbors in routine times and emergencies, and treats workers. Communication must be a strategic part of each activity: Have we listened to the public’s concerns? What is our duty to inform? What is our story? Is it one that can be told with pride? If not, can we change our operations so that there’s a better story to tell? Without such awareness, firms can unwittingly send messages that undermine their cause. For example, a labor dispute might raise doubts in the surrounding community about worker morale and plant safety. Issue advertising might make people wonder what an industry is hiding and why it’s trying so hard to sell itself.
Management must assume stewardship over the life cycle of its technology. A firm’s reputation depends not only on its own actions, but also on the actions of the organizations that provide it with ancillary services, such as independent audits, regulatory oversight, materials transport, waste handling, and personnel screening. Even when these partners are beyond a firm’s direct control, their actions communicate on its behalf. If they can’t be completely trusted, then the firm must either supplement their management or ensure that they are subject to effective regulatory oversight.
Management must press for industry-wide discipline. Industry associations are designed to address diffused responsibilities such as those requiring stewardship (e.g., materials transport, nuclear waste disposal, and storage). They can, however, face pressure to act in ways that undermine their effectiveness. One such pressure is keeping their members happy–including members whose behavior undermines the industry’s overall credibility. A second such pressure is the temptation to exaggerate the external threats posed by “irrational” citizens or “evil” anti-nuclear opponents. An industry association that sounds these scary tropes can hardly treat the public as a respected partner or be seen as such.
Management must separate public affairs communications from public health communications. Any firm needs a public affairs office to advocate on its behalf. Any firm that creates health risks also needs a public health communications office to tell the public what it needs to know in order to understand the risks that it faces. Public affairs communicators worry about defending the firm; public health communicators worry about defending those affected by its actions. Successful public health communicators also defend the firm by demonstrating its competence and honesty.
Management must staff its public health communications adequately. Effective public health communications require four distinct kinds of expertise:
subject-matter specialists such as nuclear engineers, radiation physiologists, and evacuation coordinators who can provide the best available facts;
risk and decision analysts who can identify the most critical facts and characterize their uncertainties;
behavioral scientists who can design and evaluate communications; and
system specialists who can make the communication process work.
It’s not hard to imagine what can go wrong when people are asked to go beyond the limits of their expertise. Few behavioral scientists know anything about radiation physics. Few nuclear engineers know how to explain technical concepts to lay audiences. Few risk analysts know how laypeople think about uncertainty. But together, these specialists have the skills needed for effective public health communication.
Management must learn from experience. Effective managers ensure that they receive clear signals regarding their firm’s successes and failures. Evaluating the quality of a firm’s communications requires assessing how well it has understood the public that it affects and how well the public has understood it. Those assessments require applied social science, conducted with the methodological rigor of peer-reviewed research. Firms cannot learn if they contract with researchers who lack the needed technical expertise and produce research that could not survive academic peer review, or if they create incentives for biased results–e.g., by having the same people create and evaluate their communications or by rewarding those who make management feel good, regardless of what the public thinks.
Management must value its intangible assets. Effective communications require adequate resources. These resources are minor relative to the overall expenses of a capital-intensive industry such as nuclear energy. They’re even minor relative to the cost of vanity advertisements, a common form of corporate communication. The return on this investment, however, may be undervalued because it’s intangible–protecting and enhancing a firm’s trustworthiness. Management needs to remember that the intangible asset of trust bears tangible returns in the form of reduced uncertainty about public acceptance and regulatory approval, as well as reduced executive time putting out avoidable fires.
Good communication cannot guarantee success. It can, however, reduce the risk of needless conflicts that arise when otherwise acceptable stories are not understood by the public, when solvable problems are not addressed, or when people feel like they are not being treated respectfully. Good communications might even suggest ways to accommodate public concerns–e.g., managing plant sites for wildlife, instituting confidence-building safety measures, creating employment opportunities, or shifting transportation routes. On the other hand, communication research also can reveal insoluble problems–at least for some plant designs, at some sites, under some regulatory regimes, in some financial climates. That, too, is worth knowing. If the industry does not have a story that will bring the public to its side, then it will either need to change itself so that its story is acceptable or rely on strong-arm tactics, exercising political clout, to achieve its ends–a strategy that presents its own set of issues and problems.
Strategic communications, following these principles, provide the best chance to win the battle for hearts and minds and the clearest signal for whether that battle will succeed. Those betting on the industry’s future can see how serious it is about its partnership with the public–by whether it invests in top-down, one-way communication or open, two-way dialogue–and place their money accordingly.Delegates protesting against the Trans-Pacific Partnership at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters
The Trump administration has laid out its plans for trade on the White House website.
The administration says it will tackle trade deals including the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership and will push for trade policies that "will be implemented by and for the people and will put America first."
"Blue-collar towns and cities have watched their factories close and good-paying jobs move overseas, while Americans face a mounting trade deficit and a devastated manufacturing base," the plan says. "With tough and fair agreements, international trade can be used to grow our economy, return millions of jobs to America's shores, and revitalize our nation's suffering communities.
"This strategy starts by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and making certain that any new trade deals are in the interests of American workers," the statement continued. "President Trump is committed to renegotiating NAFTA. If our partners refuse a renegotiation that gives American workers a fair deal, then the president will give notice of the United States' intent to withdraw from NAFTA."
The administration added that it would "crack down on those nations that violate trade agreements and harm American workers in the process."
Wilbur Ross, the nominee for commerce secretary, said at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that NAFTA would be an early priority for his department. He said he was "pro-trade," but only as long as it is "sensible trade."
Protectionism has become popular as American workers worry about losing jobs to other countries. And politicians across the political spectrum zeroed in on these anxieties during the 2016 campaign as they vied for the top job in the White House.
Trump made the debate over free trade one of the central topics of his campaign after criticizing China, Mexico, and Japan. He argued in favor of ripping up trade deals, said NAFTA was "the worst trade deal in the history of the country," and called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, "a rape of our country."
President Donald Trump takes the oath of office as his wife, Melania, holds the Bible and his son Barron looks on. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
About 89% of Americans said they thought that the loss of US jobs to China was a somewhat or very serious issue, according to Pew Research statistics cited by Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Ethan Harris and Lisa Berlin. Moreover, only 46% of Americans said they thought NAFTA was good for the economy.
There is some empirical evidence to back up those grievances. In January 2016, the labor economists David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson published a paper showing that increased trade with China did, in fact, cause some problems for US workers.
From the paper's meaty abstract (emphasis ours):
"China's emergence as a great economic power has induced an epochal shift in patterns of world trade. Simultaneously, it has challenged much of the received empirical wisdom about how labor markets adjust to trade shocks. Alongside the heralded consumer benefits of expanded trade are substantial adjustment costs and distributional consequences....
"Adjustment in local labor markets is remarkably slow, with wages and labor-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences. Exposed workers experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income.
"At the national level, employment has fallen in US industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but offsetting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize."
However, trade is not the only factor that has affected American jobs in general and the manufacturing sector in particular. Automation has also been a contributor.
In a recent note to clients, Capital Economics' Andrew Hunter included a chart comparing manufacturing output with manufacturing employment.
Manufacturing employment has been trickling downward since the mid-1980s and started dropping at a faster rate around 2001 — which coincides with China entering the World Trade Organization. Meanwhile, manufacturing output has been increasing since the mid-1980s and is now near its pre-crisis high.
In other words, firms have overall been able to increase output with fewer workers over the years, which is likely at least partially because of automation.
Capital Economics
"It's true that many of the manufacturing sectors that account for the bulk of the jobs lost over the past 15 years are also the ones subjected to the most competition from Chinese exports," Hunter wrote. "But US manufacturing has also experienced high productivity growth, with the computers and electronics industry, which has lost the most jobs, seeing the fastest productivity growth of all."
And here's what that could mean going forward, again from Hunter (emphasis ours):
"The upshot is that reversing the five million manufacturing jobs lost since 2001 will be difficult. For a start, if Trump were to pursue protectionist measures targeting China specifically, US firms would simply switch to other low-cost suppliers elsewhere. The only way to eliminate the goods trade deficit would probably involve an all-out global trade war.
"In any case, many of the manufacturing jobs have instead been lost because of faster productivity growth, which can't be reversed. Accordingly, even if Trump were to carry through with his threats of using protectionist policies to try and close the trade deficit, a return of manufacturing employment to 2001 levels is unlikely.
"Furthermore, the damage caused by the kind of blanket tariff on US firms offshoring production, which Trump recently proposed on Twitter, would probably far outweigh any boost to domestic manufacturing employment."
Alexander Kazan, a strategist at Eurasia Group, said in a video for the Eurasia Group Foundation: "From a political perspective, I don't think the focus on trade is misplaced. It's effective because it has an 'other.' It has a competitor or an enemy. People can picture this.
"When you talk about technology, it's much more amorphous. It's this sense that we all lose. So I think politically it's less effective."Hulu finally sent me an invitation to sign up for Hulu Plus yesterday, and I wasted no time in taking them up on their offer. I'm mostly interested in the service as a way to get Hulu on my Playstation 3 (due out later this month) but figured I could use my iPad or my PC in the interim. I wanted to know if Hulu Plus was worth $9.99/month. I should admit upfront that I'm not normally a Hulu user. The idea of sitting at a computer watching TV isn't really appealing to me; I spend enough hours in my office chair as is. I want to flop on the couch and watch the big screen when it's TV time. (Yeah, I know I could connect a PC to the TV but I haven't gotten around to that yet.)
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My first surprise with Hulu Plus was that, just by browsing, it took me a good ten minutes to find a show that was available on Hulu Plus and not available on regular Hulu. All the shows I was interested in seemed to be available for both. Did you know you can watch the entire Stargate SG-1 series on Hulu? You can! But you know what's even stranger? You can't watch it on Hulu Plus. Yes, that's right. You pay $9.99/month to get less (in some cases) content then you would using the free service. Now to clarify, if you're accessing Hulu from the web you can watch these'missing' shows whether you're signed on as a Hulu Plus member or not. But the iPad application (and presumably any non-PC device that supports Hulu Plus) is missing some content. Another show I looked at was The Royal Pains (I grew up in the Hamptons so I get a kick of this quirky dramedy about a 'concierge doctor' living among the rich and famous). Hulu on the web offered the 4 most recent episodes, but the Hulu Plus app on the iPad doesn't offer the show at all. So You Think You Can Dance is another example. Seven episodes available to non-members on the web, zero on the iPad. Eventually I did find some content that was exclusive to Hulu Plus. Dancing With the Stars (49 episodes on standard Hulu, 93 on Plus), Desperate Housewives (32 standard, 119 Plus), Cougartown (5 standard, 24 Plus) and so on. So there is some reason to pay for Hulu Plus. I'd just really expect Plus to have everything that standard Hulu offers, plus more. That just makes sense, right? But nope, that's not the case. I understand that all of this is due to licensing issues, but as an end user I really don't care; Hulu needs to go back to work and get 'device licensing' for all the content it offers on the PC. I also need to point out that the iPad app is pretty rough. I couldn't find a way to add shows to my Queue from the iPad app (though if you add them from the web they do sync over) and the search form is a black hole. Once you open search you can't leave it except by following a search result. If you get no results, you're stuck until you search again for something that returns results. That's just sloppy. If you use Netflix Streaming on a variety of devices you might be used to watching half a show on one device, then going to a second device and picking up right where you left off. Hulu doesn't offer this, either (though it will save your place on the iPad). In addition to all these shortcomings, remember that you're still going to be seeing ads when you tune into Hulu Plus. On the bright side, there are over 150 TV series on offer on the iPad Hulu Plus app. Sadly the only 'Browse' option shows you all 150+, or you can browse by network. But if you're looking for categorizations like "Drama" or "Comedy" you need to head back to the web. In addition to Browse you've got "Featured," "Most Popular," and "Recently Added" listings. In the Movies section you'll find over 130 titles, mostly indie films and some full length anime features. Whether or not Plus is worth it depends a lot on your taste in TV. My sister-in-law would go nuts at having all those episodes of Dancing With The Stars at hand! Most of the Plus content is listed on the Hulu site, so you should start by checking there. Personally I was disappointed to find that there's still some great Hulu content that I can only watch on my computer, even though I'm shelling out $9.99/month. For me, I have to say Netflix Streaming is a far better deal at this point. Content there isn't as timely, but there's more of it, it's ad-free and it's easier to find something to watch. In our house, Hulu Plus isn't anywhere near ready to replace Netflix. I'll be watching to see how quickly Hulu adds new content in order to determine if it's worth keeping Plus as a second service. If things don't improve, I don't believe that it is.Exploring An Abandoned Hospital – Granada’s San Juan de Dios
It’s not every day you get the opportunity to wander through an abandoned colonial hospital but in Granada many unusual things are possible. Filled with cracks and crumbling the old building felt ominous as I approached. To my surprise there was an armed, uniformed security officer standing at the door-less shadowy entrance. Thinking I’d be barred from entry I snapped a few photographs of the exterior. He watched and as I began to walk away he yelled for my attention and waved me inside with a friendly smile on his face; as if proud to have me as a guest.
As I walked inside I immediately noticed just how tattered the ruins of this hospital were. With the original long gone a makeshift wood and tin roof had been thrown up. Many of the interior walls had crumbled making it difficult to figure out where rooms began and ended. As I walked into what appeared to be a courtyard there was a horse grazing on the grass growing up through deep cracks in the floor.
A concrete staircase to the now non-existent second floor was still intact; chancing fate I carefully went up the steps to get a better view. Built in 1905 the old building is now more than 100 years old and any plans to save it appear to be failing.
Wandering through the old ruins I tried to imagine this was once a modern hospital filled with doctors and nurses. San Juan De Dios certainly holds a strange aura and along with the Granada Cemetery was one of the most fascinating things to explore in the city."Test Your Might" redirects here. For the song with this lyric, see Mortal Kombat (song). For other properties with this quote, see Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat is an arcade fighting game developed and published by Midway in 1992 as the first title in the Mortal Kombat series. It was subsequently released by Acclaim Entertainment for nearly every home platform of the time. The game focuses on the journey of the Shaolin monk Liu Kang to save Earthrealm from the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung, ending with their confrontation in the tournament known as Mortal Kombat. It introduced many key aspects of the Mortal Kombat series, including the unique five-button control scheme and gory finishing moves.
Mortal Kombat became a best-selling game and remains one of the most popular fighting games in the genre's history, spawning numerous sequels and spin-offs over the following years and decades, beginning with Mortal Kombat II in 1993, and together with the first sequel was the subject of a successful film adaptation in 1995. However, it also sparked much controversy for its depiction of extreme violence and gore using realistic digitized graphics, resulting in the introduction of age-specific content descriptor ratings for video games.
Gameplay [ edit ]
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game in which players battle opponents in one-on-one matches. The fighter that completely drains the opponent's health bar first wins the round, and the first to win two rounds wins the match. Each round is timed; if both fighters still have health remaining when time runs out, the one with more health wins the round. Two players can start a game together, or a second player can join in during a single player's game to fight against him/her. If a game was in progress at the time, the winner continues it alone; if not, the winner begins a new game.
Mortal Kombat uses an eight-directional joystick and five buttons, including two punch and two kick buttons (each further divided between high and low). Attacks can vary depending on the player's distance from the opponent. All player characters have a shared set of attacks performed by holding the joystick in various directions, such as leg sweep and an uppercut; the latter attack knocks the enemy high into the air and causes a large amount of damage. Most special moves were performed by tapping the joystick, sometimes ending with a button press. Unlike previous one-on-one fighting games, few moves require circular joystick movement. The game's blocking system also distinguished itself from other fighting games, as characters take a small amount of damage from regular moves while blocking. However, the dedicated block button allows users to defend against attacks without retreating and blocking characters lose very little ground when struck, thus making counterattacks much easier after a successful block.
Mortal Kombat further introduced the concept of "juggling", knocking an opponent into the air and following up with a combination of attacks while the enemy is still airborne and defenseless. The idea became so popular that it has spread to many other games. Another of the game's innovations was the Fatality, a finishing move executed against a defeated opponent to kill them in a gruesome fashion.[1]
In the single-player game, the player faces each of the seven playable characters in a series of one-on-one matches against computer-controlled opponents, ending in a "Mirror Match" against a duplicate of the player's chosen character. The player must then fight in three endurance matches, each of which involves two opponents. As soon as the player defeats the first opponent, the second one enters the arena and the timer resets; however, the player's health meter does not regenerate. After the third endurance match, the player fights the sub-boss Goro, followed by a final match against Shang Tsung.
Between certain levels, players can compete in a minigame called "Test Your Might" for bonus points, breaking blocks of various materials by filling a meter past a certain point through rapid button presses. The first material the player must break is wood, followed by stone, steel, ruby, and finally diamond, with each successive material requiring more of the meter to be filled up and thus awarding more points. Two players can compete in the minigame at once and the last two materials are only accessible through two-player mode. The minigame would return in various forms in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, and Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition.[2]
Plot [ edit ]
The game takes place on a fictional island in Earthrealm, where a tournament is being held at Shang Tsung's Island, on which seven of its locations serve as stages in the game. The introduction to Mortal Kombat II explains that Shang Tsung was banished to Earthrealm 500 years ago and, with the help of the monstrous Goro, is able to seize control of the Mortal Kombat tournament in an attempt to doom the realm.[3] For 500 years straight, Goro has been undefeated in the tournament, and now a new generation of warriors must challenge him. The player receives information about the characters in biographies displayed during the attract mode. The bulk of the game's backstory and lore was only told in a comic book,[4] but some additional information about the characters and their motivations for entering the tournament is received upon completion of the game with each character.
The storyline of the first Mortal Kombat was later adapted into Paul W. S. Anderson's film Mortal Kombat, including an animated prequel titled Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, released direct-to-video. Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero was made as a prequel to the first game, focusing mostly on the eponymous character. An alternate climax of the first game would be featured on the action-adventure game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, which tells an alternate version of the events between the first and second Mortal Kombat tournaments.
Characters [ edit ]
Mortal Kombat character selection screen, showing character selection screen, showing Kano and Sub-Zero
Mortal Kombat includes seven playable characters, each with their own Fatality and all of whom would eventually become trademark characters and appear in sequels. The game was developed with digitized sprites based on real actors.[5][6] The protagonist of the game is the Shaolin monk and Earthrealm's chosen champion Liu Kang, played by Ho-Sung Pak, who enters the tournament to defeat the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung.
Elizabeth Malecki plays the Special Forces agent, Sonya Blade, who is pursuing a mercenary from the Black Dragon organization, Kano (played by Richard Divizio). Carlos Pesina plays Raiden, the god of thunder and protector of Earthrealm, while his brother Daniel Pesina plays the Hollywood movie star Johnny Cage and the Lin Kuei ninja clan assassin Sub-Zero, as well as the game's two other ninja characters. The blue color of Sub-Zero's outfit was changed to yellow to create the vengeful specter Scorpion, a former ninja from rival clan who along with his family has been killed by Sub-Zero prior to the tournament, and to green for the game's secret character, Reptile (though the costume used for motion capture was actually red).[7] Mortal Kombat would become famous for such palette swaps that would continue to be used later games the technique to create new characters.
The four-armed Shokan warrior, Goro serves as the sub-boss of the game; being a half-human, half-dragon beast, he is much stronger than the other characters and cannot be affected by their projectiles and throw attacks. The character's sprites are based on a stop motion model which was created by Curt Chiarelli. Shang Tsung, the game's main antagonist and final boss (also played by Ho-Sung Pak) who can transform into any playable character in the game at any time during a battle.
When fighting on the Pit stage, the player could qualify to fight the secret character Reptile, who uses the moves of both Scorpion and Sub-Zero, by meeting a special set of conditions.[8] Players could not choose to play as Goro, Shang Tsung, or Reptile in the original game, where also neither of them has a Fatality, but eventually could play as all three in sequels. The Masked Guard in the Courtyard stage was portrayed by Mortal Kombat developer John Vogel.[9]
Development [ edit ]
Mortal Kombat creators Ed Boon and John Tobias have stated that Midway Games tasked them with the project of creating a "combat game for release within a year", which the two believed was intended to compete with the popular Street Fighter II: The World Warrior.[10] According to Tobias, he and Boon had envisioned a fighting game similar to Karate Champ but featuring large digitized characters even before that, and the success of Street Fighter II only helped them convince the management to their idea.[11] Boon said the development team initially consisted of four people—himself as programmer, artists John Tobias and John Vogel, and Dan Forden as sound designer.[12]
According to Richard Divizio and Daniel Pesina, Mortal Kombat had actually began when Tobias along with Divizio and the brothers Daniel and Carlos Pesina planned to create a ninja-themed fighting game, however this idea was rejected by Midway's entire management.[13] Instead, Midway sought to make an action game based on the upcoming movie Universal Soldier and featuring a digitized version of martial arts film star Jean-Claude Van Damme,[14] but he was already in negotiations with another company for a video game that ultimately was never released. Divizio then convinced Tobias to return to their original project.[13] In the end, Van Damme was parodied in the game in the form of Johnny Cage (with whom he shares his name's initials, JC), a narcissistic Hollywood movie star who performs a split punch to the groin in a nod to a scene from Bloodsport.[15] Tobias credited other inspirations as having come from the Asian martial arts cinema.[4][11]
Boon later said, "since the beginning, one of the things that's separated us from other fighting games is the crazy moves we've put in it, like fireballs and all the magic moves, so to speak."[16] According to Tobias, the game's ultraviolent content had not been originally intended and was only implemented gradually as the development progressed.[17] The concept of Fatalities in particular evolved from the "dizzied" mechanic in earlier fighting games. Boon said that he hated the "dizzied" mechanic, but that it was fun to have one's opponent get dizzied and get in a free hit. Boon and Tobias decided they could eliminate the aggravation of getting dizzied by having it occur at the end of the fight, after the outcome had already been decided.[18] An early version of the game used two more buttons for middle punch and kick attacks.[19]
Mortal Kombat was reportedly developed in 10 months from 1991 to 1992, with a test version seeing limited release halfway through the development cycle.[10][20] As a demo version of the game, which featured only six characters (all male),[21] became internally popular within Midway offices, the team was given more time to work on it, resulting in the addition of Sonya to the roster.[4] Footage for the game's digitized characters was filmed with Tobias' personal Hi-8 camera.[22] The final arcade game used eight megabytes of graphics data, with each character having 64 colors and around 300 frames of animation.[23]
The team had difficulty settling on a name for the game. Ed Boon has stated that for six months during development "nobody could come up with a name nobody didn't hate." Some of the names suggested were Kumite, Dragon Attack, Death Blow and Fatality. One day, someone had written down "combat" on the drawing board for the names in Boon's office and someone wrote a K over the C, according to Boon, "just to be kind of weird." Pinball designer Steve Ritchie was sitting in Boon's office, saw the word "Kombat" and said to him, "Why don't you name it Mortal Kombat?", a name that Boon stated "just stuck."[24] John Tobias recalled this a bit different, saying it "came about during the trademark process in naming the game. We really liked Mortal Combat as a name, but it couldn’t get past legal."[11] Since then, the series has began frequently using the letter K in place of the letter C when it has the hard C sound.
Release [ edit ]
Although the arcade version of Mortal Kombat was never localized in Japan, it still had an official release there in 1992 by Taito who published North American imports of Midway's game.[25] This is the sole Mortal Kombat game with an involvement from Taito.
The launch of Mortal Kombat for home consoles by Acclaim Entertainment was one of the largest video game launches of the time. A flood of TV commercials heralded the simultaneous release of all four home versions of the game on September 13, 1993, a date dubbed "Mortal Monday".[26] In the same year, an official comic book, Mortal Kombat Collector's Edition, was written and illustrated by the game's designer artist John Tobias and made available through mail order, describing the backstory of the game in a greater detail. The comic was advertised during the game's attract mode and would later be sold normally around the country, although it was quite difficult to get a copy outside of the United States. The comic was also later included as a series of unlockable bonuses in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
Mortal Kombat: The Album, an album by The Immortals featuring techno music, was released in May 1994. It features two themes for the game, "Techno Syndrome" and "Hypnotic House", as well as themes written for each character. "Techno Syndrome" was adapted for the 1995 movie soundtrack and incorporated the familiar "Mortal Kombat!" yell from the Mortal Monday commercials.[27] Jeff Rovin also penned a novelization of the first Mortal Kombat game, which was published in June 1995 in order to coincide with the release of the first movie. There were also lines of action figures based on the game's characters.
Home versions [ edit ]
Mortal Kombat, showcasing the difference in violence levels Sub Zero's Fatality move in the SNES (top) and Genesis (bottom, with blood cheat applied) ports of, showcasing the difference in violence levels
Four official ports were released in North America as part of the "Mortal Monday" campaign in 1993. The Super NES (SNES) and Sega Genesis versions were the home console ports, while handheld console ports were released for the Game Boy and Game Gear. While the SNES version's visuals and audio were more accurate than those of the Genesis version, it features changes to the gameplay and due to Nintendo's "Family Friendly" policy, replaces the blood with sweat and most of the Fatalities with less violent "finishing moves".[28] The sweat effect, which was a palette coloration added after Nintendo's decision to censor the game, could be reverted to the original red blood color via a Game Genie code input as "BDB4-DD07." On the Genesis version, the blood and uncensored Fatalities were available via a cheat code, spelled out "ABACABB",[29] a nod to the Abacab album by the band Genesis who shared their name with the North American version of the console. This version was given an MA-13 rating by the Videogame Rating Council.
The Game Boy version was largely cut down from its arcade counterpart. It had laggy controls and a limited button layout. It also omitted Reptile and the bloodier Fatality moves. However, players could play as Goro via a code.[30] Johnny Cage was apparently intended to be a playable character, but was cut out; bits of his character data remain in the data files.[31] The Game Gear version was similar to the Game Boy version, but with major improvements (color, faster gameplay, and tighter control). Like its 16-bit counterpart, the game was censored unless a cheat code (2, 1, 2, Down, Up) had been entered, but lacked Kano and Reptile. A Master System port based on the Game Gear version was released for PAL regions in early 1994. According to Phylene Riggs of Acclaim, an NES port was also planned at one point, but cancelled before it entered the programming stage.[32]
Ports for the PC (DOS) and the Amiga were released in 1994. The DOS version is the most accurate port of the arcade version in terms of graphics and gameplay. It came in both floppy disk and CD-ROM format, with the CD-ROM version having the original arcade music and sound effects. The Amiga version was only released in Europe, with controls limited to either one or two action buttons, and it a minimal soundtrack with music arranged by Allister Brimble.
The Sega CD version of the game was released featuring a video intro of the Mortal Monday commercial. This |
. Once they sighted the SOC again, the appropriate intervention option given the totality of the situation was verbal intervention with *****. *****. The Review Team spoke with many members who indicated that a call of a suspicious person with a firearm was not unusual for Codiac. While the initial response and approach to the subject displayed appropriate risk assessment and decision making (pistols drawn and pointed toward subject), the perception that this may be another routine call may have been a factor in that no member was in a position to return fire. 1.1 It is recommended that additional training on lethal force over-watch be provided to members. Cst. Gevaudan was forced to tactically reposition because he was under fire with limited concealment. Without intimate knowledge of these surroundings, he could not have known that his chosen path would result in him being more exposed to additional rounds from the SOC. Cst. Daigle was the first to reach the corner of the garage at 15 Bromfield, followed by Cst. Nickerson, seconds later. Csts. White, Mitchell, Martel and Cpl. Maclean were moving around 15 Bromfield as shots were being fired. Cst. Nickerson saw a portion of Gevaudan's run but did not see the shooter. Csts. Johnstone and Doiron were near the corner of Mailhot and Bromfield. Cst. Gevaudan broadcast he was being shot at and was now unaccounted for and not responding to radio calls. Members quickly ascertained the shooter was using a high powered firearm capable of firing multiple rounds in rapid sequence (they had just heard multiple gun shots). Tactically, armed with service pistols and one shotgun, they were at a disadvantage due to the superior fire power and range of the shooter's weapon. At this point, it would have been appropriate for the members to seek cover, conduct a risk assessment and establish a rescue plan for Cst. Gevaudan and a plan to neutralize the threat. The time between the shooting of Cst. Gevaudan and Cst. Ross is just under two minutes. After the initial shots the shooter heads towards Mailhot. The members who went to the front of 15 Bromfield were now fully occupied with seeking cover and locating Gevaudan. Ross, who had just arrived in his PDS vehicle, was quickly able to engage the shooter. Upon reaching Bromfield, Ross was immediately directed down Mailhot by a member near the corner of Bromfield and Mailhot. Cst. Ross saw the shooter and attempted to stop him. There were still people on Mailhot near the SOC and this may have affected how Cst. Ross chose to approach the shooter. The Ops NCO began to dispatch more members based on shots being fired at Cst. Gevaudan. A broadcast in plain language stating that the suspect had just shot a member with a high powered rifle was not made, even after the road supervisor reached Gevaudan. This critical information could have changed the response and risk assessment of other members arriving at the scene as back up. None of this second wave of members utilized HBA even though a member had been shot. It is clear from the Ops NCOs question on the radio, "who's injured?" that he was unaware a member had been killed (members were still performing first aid on Gevaudan). This led to confusion around how many ambulances were required and where. The road supervisor, having lost his radio, did not hear Cst. Ross' broadcast. This combined with applying first aid to Cst. Gevaudan, left him unable to assess the overall tactical situation. The Ops NCO had less information, knowing only what was broadcast on the radio. Without situational awareness the ability of any supervisor to effectively intervene at this point was minimal. There was a tendency for members to avoid using plain language on the radio due to a lack of encryption and a desire to avoid broadcasting details to the public. Moncton has avid monitors of police transmissions and unfolding calls were routinely posted to a news chasing group on social media. RCMP training instructs members to use 10 codes (despite their being widely available in the public domain) for this purpose. Members should be encouraged to use plain language in crisis situations. The recommendation relating to the use of plain language is found in section 7: Operational Communications. After the shooting of Cst. Ross, the term "active shooter" started to be used by members and the telecoms operators who were calling in additional resources and informing senior managers of an "active shooter". Active shooter is associated to RCMP IARD training ***** IARD training. ***** and moving from cover to cover. Even after seeing or learning that Cst. Gevaudan had been shot, members continued to track the shooter in an effort to stop him, despite the danger he clearly posed to police. One member who did not feel IARD was the appropriate tactical response was Cst. White, a Basic Firearms Instructor (BFI) and IARD instructor. Immediately after leaving Bromfield Court he moved on his own down Mailhot, from cover to cover opting for speed. After closing the 260m distance to Cst. Ross' vehicle in a couple of minutes, he saw the shooter further down the street. Cst. White's decision not to attempt lethal force with his pistol when he observed Bourque on Mailhot was tactically sound. Given the distance involved (about 90m) and only being armed with his pistol, Cst. White would have been at a severe disadvantage in an engagement with the SOC. He effectively took cover behind the PDS vehicle and radioed his situation, thus giving other responding members the current location of the shooter. Once the road supervisor arrived, he requested ERT in recognition of the shooter's firepower and the tactical limitations of general duty first responders. The recommendation relating to the ***** Member Training and Officer Safety Skills. Cst. Martine Benoit drove to the area with lights and sirens activated via Mountain Road. She turned onto Hildegard Drive just as the OCC reported the suspect was at Hildegard and Mailhot. The tactics and risk assessment of both she and Cst. Nick Gilfillan were based on this information. Cpl. Cloutier directed them to attend the scene of the shooting; however, there was no discussion of specific roles for them. A witness pointed out where the SOC had entered bushes down the road. She parked her vehicle at the intersection and assessed the situation. She had just decided it was best to stay in her car when she began to take fire. At this point she employed the best reactionary tactics possible *****. Benoit calmly radioed that she was being fired upon at and the shots were coming from in front of her vehicle, giving other responders a good indication of the shooter's location. Once her vehicle was disabled she clearly transmitted this fact and asked if it was safe to get out of her car. She then requested assistance. She was concise in her request and conveyed pertinent information to inform her own risk assessment and that of her colleagues. Cst. Eric Dubois answered Cst. Benoit's call for assistance. He drove to her location and stopped his vehicle next to hers where he felt it would provide additional cover from the shooter. He then made a sound tactical decision by getting himself and Cst. Benoit to the back of the police car thereby placing the entire vehicle between them and the shooter. While attempting to spot the shooter's location by raising his head periodically from behind cover, Dubois was injured by bullet fragments or secondary projectiles. He subsequently attributed his being hit to having popped up from the same location too consistently. Dubois ran to the fire station after seeing the gunman cross Hildegard and assuming he had left the scene. Cst. Benoit made the decision to stay behind cover and called for someone to get her. Both members' assessments were reasonable at the time. Cst. Benoit had not seen the suspect leave and was not convinced he had finished shooting at them. Cst. Gilfillan recognized that Cst. Benoit needed assistance in order to move to cover at the fire station. He drove his police vehicle alongside the vehicle where Cst. Benoit was taking cover. Once she was inside his vehicle, he was able to safely return to the fire station. While the shooting occurred at Hildegard and Mailhot the initial responders continued to follow the broadcast sightings of the shooter. Csts. Mitchell, Doiron and Martel traveled as a team down Mailhot to Kenview Drive, then up toward the back of the fire station, which was the reported location of the shooter shortly after they began their pursuit. Cst. Mitchell commandeered a civilian vehicle with the intent of camouflaging herself, moving more quickly, and potentially running down the gunman. Her decision to commandeer the vehicle was a sound tactical decision and it shows that she had realized that police were the gunman's sole targets. Cst. Mitchell at no time came in contact with the gunman and she transported Cst. Dubois to the hospital. Cst. Goguen, from Southeast District, unknowingly drove directly to the shooter's location as Bourque was in the process of firing multiple rounds at police vehicles parked at the intersection of Hildegard and Mailhot. Southeast District uses a different radio frequency and is dispatched through the OCC at "J" Division HQ in Fredericton. Members are able to use a scan feature which allows them to hear radio broadcasts from other channels which are overridden by any simultaneous broadcasts on their own channel. Cst. Goguen believed her scan button was not functioning properly and had insufficient information to make an informed risk assessment. She heard gunshots, started to turn her car around and was hit by the gunfire. After being shot she drove to safety a few blocks away on Penrose Street, where members transported her to hospital. Cst. Goguen's quick reaction to reposition her vehicle was a factor in saving her life. The shooting of Cst. Goguen added to the chaos of the situation. As she was dispatched on a different channel, no one on Codiac's radio channel was aware Cst. Goguen had been shot. Codiac's OCC only learned she had been under fire when someone found her bullet riddled car. They mistakenly believed and shared that she had been shot on Penrose Street where her car was parked, adding to the confusion regarding the gunman's movements. During the period of 19:51 to 20:05, overall tactical awareness was poor. The OCC was overwhelmed by calls about SOC sightings, positioning of incoming back-up and dispatching medical care for wounded members. Members on the scene continued to move toward the sound of gunfire and no individual member took charge over the radio leaving OCC dispatchers to do their best to continue to coordinate operations from their vantage point. Accurate risk assessments were difficult as members were calling for ambulances to multiple locations. Sightings were being reported based on caller location (as opposed to suspect location), then broadcast out of order. There were wounded members in need of medical attention. There were two erroneous reports broadcast about shots fired on Lonsdale and the SOC being seen at the (non-existent) corner of Lonsdale and Mailhot as well as a report of him being on Foxwood moving towards Ryan when he had, in fact, already crossed Hildegard and was moving towards Mailhot. Based on the radio traffic, it would have been nearly impossible to form an accurate tactical view of the situation. The current locations being broadcast by members were interspersed with stale or inaccurate information from 911 callers being relayed by the OCC. It is around this time that the Hildegard Fire Station became a staging area. Members dispatched from Codiac and Southeast District after the first shooting were told to go there. Cpl. Whittington, Cst. Gilfillan, Cst. Verret and others arrived there after the shooter had left and traveled beyond the intersection of Mailhot and Hildegard. By this point, members had established that the shooter was only targeting police officers. Those gathered at the fire station made sound *****, donning their HBA and positioning themselves to engage the shooter whose whereabouts were unknown. Given they were already inside the "shooting area", this was the most appropriate action. Some members went to fire station as it was the last known location of the suspect. As they gathered there other members joined and others were dispatched to the fire hall believing this was a location to stage. Since the shooters' whereabouts were unknown it was not a safe location and some members were not aware of their role once they arrived at the fire hall, or who would be directing them once they got there. Upon hearing shots being fired further down Mailhot and hearing the erroneous broadcast that a civilian was down in the same area, members' risk assessments and subsequent response should have changed drastically. This was the case for several members who began tracking toward that location, including Cst. Gilfillan who suggests others don HBA. He was the first member to recognize this critical officer safety component. Video of the fire station from the period after Cst. Benoit was retrieved from her vehicle until Cst. Larche was shot shows a lack of coordination and supervision. At least six members were present. Many vehicles and pedestrians can be observed passing by. No direction was given by any member to block either end of Hildegard. It is not until Forensic Identification Section (FIS) Cpl. Denis Leblanc heard about the situation that he responded and offered to block westbound traffic on Hildegard Drive. Unfortunately, no one decided to block the other end of Hildegard at Ryan Street. The recommendations relating to supervision are found in section 3: Supervision During the Entire Incident. The response of the four Major Crimes Unit (MCU) members began immediately after the first shots. They returned to the office to get shotguns and made their way toward Hildegard in four cars. The Codiac detachment members and supervisors were not previously aware MCU was working and the Ops NCO did not hear the radio broadcasts indicating they were responding to assist. The OCC broadcast confirmation they were on the way, but no one at the scene or supervising gave them a duty. During the drive toward Hildegard, Cst. Larche broke off from the two cars ahead of him and went to Mailhot and Isington. There was no discussion on the radio about this action, and the other members of the Major Crime Unit do not know why Larche made this decision. Cst. Larche told the OCC where he was and that he would be out of the vehicle. He got out with a shotgun and immediately began scanning the area for the SOC. The gunman was concealed by the trees in close proximity to where Larche was standing by his vehicle. The gunman identified Larche as a police officer because he was wearing SBA and began shooting at him. All shots were fired from less than 20m. It must be noted that Doug Larche was very seriously wounded before he could fire his shotgun. After being knocked down by the first bullet(s) he did not give up; he struggled back to his feet and drew his pistol to engage the gunman. Cst. Larche fought until the end, firing seven rounds, the last after being hit by what proved to be the fatal shot. Cst. Larche was shot at 20:05. At that time, the only members south of Hildegard were Cst. Larche and possibly Cst. White who was tracking on his own. All the other members deployed to the scene were occupied in various capacities. Tactically the situation was not under control. The shooter proceeded into the woods on the south side of Ryan Street as the members tracked down Mailhot, eventually reaching Cst. Larche. Cst. White reached Cst. Larche after civilians had already covered him. White then moved Cst. Larche into a nearby residence and remained with him. Once at the end of Mailhot, members began to radio their positions in to the OCC and take the best cover they could facing the woods. Members did not advance further into the woods in pursuit of the SOC. This was a tactically sound decision.
Section 3: Supervision During the Entire Incident Question from the Commissioner: Does the manner in which this incident was supervised suggest any areas for improvement? On June 4, 2014, supervisors in Codiac were confronted with a situation that in many ways exceeded what supervisors are trained to deal with. They were faced with a crisis situation that evolved quickly, was operationally challenging and highly emotional. The level of supervision required to manage an incident is directly proportional to its scope. As a paramilitary organization the RCMP works within a rank structure where increases in rank come with corresponding levels of responsibility. Supervisory Structure of Codiac Detachment Codiac detachment has an Officer in Charge (OIC) at the Superintendent level, and an Inspector who is the Operations Officer. The Codiac system of general duty supervision involves uniform officers assigned to two watches who work 11.20 hour shifts. The two watches have Staff Sergeants in charge who work during day time hours that jointly cover the full seven days. The S/Sgts. manage two Sgt. Operations (Ops) NCOs who cover the core working hours, 06:00 to 04:00. The Ops NCO manages Corporals whose job is to supervise two groups of Constables. One group, the responders, answers calls for service and cover the shifts 24/7. This group does not carry investigations past their assigned shift. Matters requiring follow-up investigation are assigned to the other group of Constables, the Further Investigation Team (FIT) who manage lower level investigations involving persons and property related offences. These Constables do not work 24/7, however, are in uniform and expected to complement the responder group for serious matters. Supervisory Structure in Codiac During the Incident On the evening of June 4, supervision in Codiac consisted of the following: Operations NCO, Cpl. Jacques Cloutier was the acting Sergeant. He was scheduled to work until 04:00 hrs. The Ops NCO is the manager of operations and is accountable for providing overall operational direction. The Ops NCO is responsible to keep a strategic view of events during the course of the shift whereas Team Leader Corporals are more tactically focused. The Ops NCO is tasked with making decisions on the activation of support sections and seeking additional resources as required (GIS, MCU, Air Services, Ground Search and Rescue, etc.). The Ops NCO monitors all calls for service through CIIDS and has the final authority on the management of member deployment. The Ops NCO supports the Team Leaders by providing direction and uses their expertise at the scenes of major incidents to ensure overall direction is being followed at the tactical level. In Codiac, the Ops NCO primarily works from the office and does not normally attend calls for service. Team Leaders, Cpl. Peter MacLean and Cpl. Lisa Whittington were the first line of supervision. Cpl. MacLean was the evening supervisor, working until 21:00 and Cpl. Whittington was the night supervisor working until 06:00. Both Team Leaders were on shift and in the office at the time of the initial call. The Codiac Operational Communications Centre does not have a formal supervisory function, but they play a critical role in the management of police response. During the incident, OCC dispatchers provided direction based on incoming information. The Codiac OCC consists of two dedicated 911 call takers, one dedicated fire dispatcher and an assistant dispatcher. There is also one dedicated RCMP dispatcher along with an assistant dispatcher for a total of six staff working any given shift. The main RCMP dispatcher communicates with RCMP members via the single live monitored radio channel. The assistant dispatcher picks up the overflow from the main dispatcher. Resources available in addition to the uniform presence included a four person Major Crimes team who were working on an unrelated matter in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles. This team, which included Cst. Doug Larche, was led by a Cpl. who did not take on a substantive supervisory role. This is standard practice as support resources fall under the established command structure for general duty calls. The neighbouring Southeast District had four members working with an acting Cpl. in charge. He did not take on a substantive supervisory role either as he too fell under the established command structure. Initial Call The initial call was well managed and coordinated by the OCC, Cpl. Cloutier, Cpl. MacLean and Cst. Doiron and lasted approximately 20 minutes, until the suspect was located near Bromfield. Cpl. Cloutier ensured all available resources were dispatched and that Cpl. MacLean was assigned to attend in person as the road supervisor. Cst. Doiron was the first officer to arrive on scene and made a sound tactical decision in requesting additional resources, assisting with the establishment of a perimeter and providing situational awareness. Cpl. MacLean provided direct supervisory oversight, he ensured the perimeter was held, requested PDS, obtained a more accurate assessment of the suspect, advised members against venturing deep into the woods until PDS arrived and instructed civilians to leave the area. Cpl. MacLean's supervisory actions were a very good example of how this type of call is initially managed. It must be noted however, that not a single member responded wearing available HBA and only one deployed with a long gun. Codiac detachment has a policy on containment and perimeters wherein *****. The OCC did a commendable job having members contain the suspect and isolate him in the wooded area. Cpl. Cloutier was at the office monitoring the radio, telephone, and the CIIDS terminal. He was also coordinating PDS and ensuring members had left the office to assist in the response. Cpl. Cloutier relied on information from the scene and did a very good job of assembling resources. He was also responsible for monitoring all other calls for service in the detachment area. Cpl. Cloutier's ability to effectively manage this incident was impacted by a lack of adequate mapping *****. A recommendation in relation to this can be found in the section on the OCC. Locating and Following the Suspect The amount of frontline supervision during this phase was minimal as the road supervisor was still enroute to the scene. As the perimeter was being established and members were positioning, the suspect was located by Cst. Daigle. He radioed the position of the suspect and, knowing backup was on the way, decided to follow him on foot in an effort to keep him in sight. At this point the road supervisor was aware that PDS would be delayed, thus he did not direct Daigle to hold his position as he had done earlier. The road supervisor was making his way to the scene to provide direct supervision and was allowing Cst. Daigle to direct the approach of members. This was appropriate given Cst. Daigle could see the SOC. Engaging the Accused The members' approach to the SOC evolved rapidly and unexpectedly. It was a challenge for the road supervisor to provide direct supervision given he was just transitioning from his vehicle to go to the scene on foot. He had broadcast that he was enroute over the radio to ensure members were aware of his location. Unfortunately his portable radio had accidentally detached from his belt as he exited his vehicle and he was not in possession of a cell phone. During this critical time he had no communication with the other members. 3.1 It is recommended that members be in possession of a cellular phone and police radio while on duty, as a required part of Service order #1. Shots Fired The road supervisor was moving into position to meet with Cst. Daigle and Cst. Gevaudan when shots were fired. This was a rapidly evolving and dynamic situation where the SOC was moving toward a busy neighbourhood leaving little opportunity for discussion between members and supervisors as to how they would tactically handle the situation. *****. This would have been valuable information for providing tactical advice. Once the shooting of Cst. Gevaudan occurred, radio communication intensified. Poor situational awareness during the moments that followed can be attributed, in part, to poor radio protocol. Members were not using plain language, which caused confusion as to the severity of the situation. This made it made it difficult for supervisors to give direction. Supervisors indicated a reluctance to talk over the radio because they did not want to tie up vital airtime, potentially preventing a member in direct danger from being able to communicate. The Ops NCO was over-tasked monitoring radio traffic, making calls and other logistics with nobody to delegate to. Had he been in a position to delegate some of these duties it may have offered him the opportunity to better manage the incident. The level of supervision during this phase should have transitioned to one of command and control. Urgency of action took precedence. As Cst. Dave Ross approached the scene his situational awareness may have been limited to his brief telephone conversation with the Ops NCO and the OCC before any shots were fired. He likely heard the broadcast location of the SOC and "shots fired" and "he is shooting at me". Cst. Ross radioed "I have a visual and will be on takedown in a second." Disrupted radio chatter immediately followed this transmission and another member stated more shots were fired. Cst. Ross was killed as he drove toward the suspect in his police vehicle. The road supervisor would not have heard Cst. Ross' broadcast because he did not have a radio and was the first member to find Cst. Gevaudan after he was shot and killed. He immediately began providing first aid to Gevaudan therefore he was not in a position to assess the overall tactical situation at that point. The Ops NCO had less information, knowing only what was broadcast on the radio. Without situational awareness, the ability of any supervisor to effectively intervene at this point was minimal. However, as time passed no supervisor obtained a clear understanding of what was occurring therefore could not provide direction. ***** it could be understood given the emotional gravity of the situation and lack of training and experience in dealing with this type of tragedy. A radio broadcast that explained Cst. Gevaudan had been shot by the suspect in plain language, thus providing critical situational awareness to the other members, did not occur. This could be explained by virtue of the fact that members including the road supervisor were putting their lives at risk in a highly emotional effort to provide first aid to Cst. Gevaudan in what was a tactically dangerous location. 3.2 It is recommended the RCMP examine how it trains frontline supervisors to exercise command and control during critical incidents. For a recommendation related to plain language, refer to section 7. There were eight members assembled near the scene of the shooting either performing first aid on Cst. Gevaudan or providing cover. Cst. White and the road supervisor decided to leave the group and pursue the accused. Although the actions of both members were very brave, at this point the road supervisor transitioned from his role of supervisor to first responder without discussing a tactical plan with the six Constables before he left. Nobody established a command presence during this period. Members were acting on their own accord without a unified tactical plan. Order could have been established if a supervisor had obtained a situational update and requested members report their positions. Most members at this time were on foot. Nobody at a supervisory level had an overall view of where resources were positioned and this remained the case for the next hour or more. Members were taking heroic and commendable action as individuals and in small teams, however, they were not coordinated with a common plan and direction. As the situation evolved and additional resources became available to the Ops NCO, a scribe should have been assigned to record decisions, resource allocations, member positions and other important information. This would have facilitated a smoother transfer of command to the CIC and an accurate record of events. At this point two members were shot and killed but many members involved were unaware their colleagues were dead. This impacted their risk assessments. Once the Fire Department arrived and they took over CPR on Cst. Gevaudan, the remaining six Constables assembled in two teams of three and advanced in search of the accused using IARD contact formations. No supervision was sought or provided to these teams and they were not coordinated as a whole. The Ops NCO was still unaware that two members were dead. An uncoordinated situation persisted. At 19:51 the road supervisor asked over the radio for "ERT, we are going to need everything we got". Hildegard Drive Shootings Although the shootings of Csts. Gevaudan and Ross occurred only two minutes apart, the time between the shooting of Csts. Ross and Larche was 18 minutes. During this period, Csts. Dubois and Goguen were wounded and Cst. Benoit was fired upon on Hildegard Dr. There was an opportunity for supervisory direction to the members present during this time. The road supervisor says in his interview with the Review Team that he was leaving it to the OCC to direct members because they had the mapping system and the vehicle location data. *****. Although the OCC was doing an exceptional job in coordinating the members on scene, a senior NCO with tactical experience posted to the OCC during this critical incident would have been in the best position to coordinate resources with real time, accurate information. Recommendation 7.9 in the Operational Communications section addresses the need to post a Senior NCO to the OCC. The road supervisor was the supervisor with the best situational awareness and may have been able to provide tactical direction from the scene. The Ops NCO, who was alone in the office for the hectic half hour after shots were fired, was flooded with radio, telephone and other concurrent activity that was necessary to bring in additional resources. He did not have adequate situational awareness to provide proper tactical direction. The night supervisor was assigned by the Ops NCO to attend at approximately 19:47. She was dealing with a prisoner at the time and had to secure him before responding. She was heard on the radio responding at 19:55 with her siren activated, asking to be sent a copy of the dispatched file. She drove up Mountain Road and onto Hildegard; because she was aware Hildegard was where the members were. Once there, she parked at the fire station. Several significant developments occurred on Hildegard Drive, where the opportunity to take some supervisory action would have been possible. However, the road supervisor was not fully aware of the planning and action taking place as members were taking it upon themselves to act. The road supervisor did not play an active role in the supervision of the incident. Video of the fire station area from the period after Cst. Benoit was retrieved from her vehicle until Cst. Larche was shot shows a lack of coordination and supervision, while at least six members were present. Many vehicles and pedestrians are observed passing by. No direction is given to block either end of Hildegard. It was not until FIS Cpl. Denis Leblanc hears about the situation that he responds and offers to block westbound traffic on Hildegard Drive. Unfortunately, no one decided to block the other end of Hildegard at Ryan Street. Supervisors at this point should reasonably be expected to direct perimeter control and teams. Members were not provided guidance and took it upon themselves to act. Many members participated in courageous and selfless acts and placed themselves in danger. Advance to Isington and the Shooting of Cst. Larche The response of the four Major Crime members began immediately after the first shots. The Codiac detachment members and supervisors were not aware MCU was working and the Ops NCO did not hear the radio broadcast that they were responding to assist. The OCC did note they were on the way, but no uniformed supervisor was aware. Cst. Larche broke off from the two cars ahead of him on Hildegard and drove to Mailhot and Isington where he left his vehicle and was killed after encountering the suspect. The accused was observed after the shooting fleeing into the woods behind Isington Avenue toward Ryan Street This would have been the point last seen for the next several hours. Post Shooting Manhunt and Later Sightings This phase of the incident should have brought stabilisation and enhanced coordination to this crisis, as the intensity of the observable threat diminished. Although no additional shots were fired, resources remained in a state of disarray, with members responding in an uncoordinated manner to reported sightings of the accused and not holding their perimeter positions. Many members were not briefed and took it upon themselves to locate and respond to evolving situations without any person in charge being aware. The OCC and others were assigning members to general and non-specific perimeter locations, however, no direction was provided over the radio for members to report positions, nor was anybody keeping track of these locations, their identities, additional firepower on site, or the duration of the shifts. Some members worked in excess of 24 hours without a replacement. The fatalities were not known to some of the members or supervisors who responded to the initial call until approximately 21:00, others did not know the full extent until many hours after this. A roll call or situation update was not conducted to establish if all resources were accounted for. Members on duty did not receive a detailed update from a supervisor about the threat they were facing. The awareness members had was circulated by word of mouth. At the point last seen, adjacent to Ryan Street and Wheeler Boulevard, there were members with marked police vehicles who were exposed without knowing the shooter was last seen nearby. Members from other Districts, Detachments, Municipal agencies and "H" Division were starting to arrive and there was no mechanism to track and coordinate these resources. Challenges with tracking police vehicles from outside Codiac Detachment will be dealt with in Section 7 of the Review. Command evolved from the initial Ops NCO, with the arrival of the Codiac Operations Officer at 20:20 and both managed different aspects of the situation from the same office. The Ops Officer became the Incident Commander at that point, a scribe was appointed and people were given specific tasks. The execution of those tasks was not monitored and various people were continuing to conduct unassigned tasks without direction. The command structure was not clear to those on the ground. Both the Ops NCO and Ops Officer were extremely busy and the situation in Codiac detachment was intense and emotionally draining. Both men must be recognized for their dedication and the effort they put forth under extreme circumstances. Supt. Tom Critchlow, a trained Critical Incident Commander and former Operations Officer at Codiac detachment, was not working but heard about the situation and went to Codiac to lend assistance and he stayed to provide advice to the Ops NCO and Ops Officer, *****. Even though Command transferred from the Ops NCO to the Ops Officer, an official briefing and transfer of Command did not take place and the Ops NCO believed he was in charge until he went home at 06:00 on June 5. The Ops NCO's actions and decisions were not recorded. Insp. Leahy was the assigned Critical Incident Commander (CIC) who had to travel to Moncton from the Fredericton area. The actual time command was transferred to the CIC is somewhere between 00:30 and 03:00 on June 5. A more precise time could not be established. The CIC indicated he permitted the Ops NCO and Ops Officer and Supt. Critchlow to continue commanding the incident from Codiac detachment while he worked on getting his Command Post (CP) up and running at the Moncton Garrison. He did not feel that he was in a position to take over until such time as his CP was established. He feels that his CP was not ready to assume overall command until about 03:00, at which point things began to normalize. As outlined above with regards to the lack of recorded information, it was difficult for the CIC to obtain information he required on what had occurred. An example of the confusion that was taking place related to a credible sighting that came in at 00:39 near the point where Bourque was last seen. An ERT response ensued but was not well communicated, as some of those in command were unaware of the ERT response and did not have a record of it. Although it is indicated there was an absence of clear direction from commanders who were performing various functions, some members took it upon themselves to take a leadership role. Members interviewed by the Review Team commented on two specific examples involving a coordinated effort to establishment a perimeter as well as a staging area for ambulances. The morning of June 5, members were provided with relief. In many cases, members were sent home without a debriefing. Proper debriefings would have provided valuable information to the Commanders who took over. Dealing with the Influx of Responders At least two supervisors made the call for additional resources from other police agencies and districts. A large number of members were eventually on site in Moncton and the command structure was not in place to deal with the influx of resources. This could have proven very dangerous; given the accused was in close proximity to the perimeter members who were positioned near the most recent sightings. Several members described not receiving or seeking direction and just "drove around", many of whom were not tracked by the Moncton OCC. Requesting additional resources with no plan tHere is an easy way to add some color to your winter wear. Make this scarf and wear it with a glowing smile as bright as the colors that come with Carron Cakes Gelato ( only available here ). You will love this yarn.
As you crochet this shawl, you will look forward to unraveling and crocheting to the next color and the next. If you do not know, we love bright colors over here.
This pattern is separated into two parts: The shawl and the edging. I’ve made the shawl with Carron Cakes Gelato made by Yarnspirations ( only found here ). The shawl measures to be approx. 50 inches from end to end and 22 inches from basis to point. You’ll need the following yarn:
1 skeins (color: Gelato) only found here
3.0 mm crochet hook, and scissors.
A pom pom maker (size medium to small)
Easy Pattern Stitches and terms used:
chain (ch)
slip stitch (ss)
single crochet (sc)
double crochet (dc)
chain space (ch-sp)
Shawl:
Start with 4ch, ss the last one to the first ch.
R1: Crochet 4ch, (counts as first dc + 1ch), dc3, ch3, dc3, ch1, dc1.
R2: Turn your work. Crochet 4ch (counts as first dc +1ch), dc3 in the ch-1 sp of the previous round,
ch1, dc3 in the ch-3 sp of the previous round, ch3, dc3 in the ch-3 sp of the previous round, ch1, dc3, ch1, dc1.
R3-R27: Repeat round 2, and increase a granny cluster in the ch-1 sp at the beginning and end of every row.
Edging for the angle edges:
SC 1 into the top of each 3 dc, SC 1 into next chain, Ch 3, SC into the last ch. Repeat until the end.
Edging for the straight edge: SC along the edge of the shawl.
Pom-Poms:Create 2 |
question. Moreover, the notice of intent to sue came at a particularly bad time for the coal industry and for Kentucky’s regulatory agencies, right when their momentum to hamstring the EPA’s authority was really starting to gather steam. Examples of recent anti-EPA efforts include:
Passage of a bill by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee designed to eviscerate EPA’s authority to enforce the Clean Water Act; Recent calls from at least three Republican presidential candidates to abolish the EPA altogether; A bill that was introduced in the Senate last February that really would abolish the EPA.
In the midst of Big Coal’s anti-regulatory crusade, however, Kentucky coal companies have given Americans another unmistakable reminder of exactly why it is that we really, really need an EPA — and why polls show that the agency enjoys the overwhelming support of Americans [pdf] from across the political spectrum.
The new evidence that was provided by environmental and community groups of fraudulent reporting of pollution discharges by companies — allegations that were written off by Kentucky regulators as “transcription errors” — is beyond embarrassing for a state that is complaining to Congress, judges, and anyone else who will listen about how the EPA is overstepping its authority to protect waterways. The premise of the most recent anti-EPA bill is that a bunch of jack-booted thugs from the EPA are coming in and mucking things up for the state agencies, who already have their regulatory houses well in order.
In testimony before the House committee that passed the bill last week, Len Peters, the secretary of the Kentucky Environment and Energy Cabinet (the agency that enforces environmental laws in Kentucky), told members of Congress:
“Coal can be and is being mined in an environmentally responsible manner—we continue to make improvements, and the industry has been willing to do things better… We strongly believe the EPA’s objections to recent proposed draft permits for Clean Water Act 402 permits for surface mining operations in Kentucky were arbitrary.”
Furthermore, it was Peters’ agency that refused to sanction one of these same companies for dumping waste into streams without even bothering to obtain a permit [pdf] and called allegations by environmental groups that the state did a poor job of investigating their complaints “bordering on specious“.
But the new analysis of reports submitted by coal companies over the last few years leaves the coal companies and state regulators with a lot of explaining to do.
In a previous analysis, the water team at Appalachian Voices showed how monthly reports provided by coal companies of specific conductivity measurements in the discharge from mountaintop removal mines were extremely suspicious (specific conductivity is a measure of salt in water and is an indicator of a host of pollutants such as toxic metals and other dissolved solids). In brief, reports submitted after the April 1st announcement by the EPA of a new guidance on conductivity levels in the discharge from coal mines (shaded red in the chart below) showed a remarkable drop from levels reported before the EPA announcement (shaded green). In fact, standard statistical tests showed that the chance that these trends could be explained by random transcription errors or natural variation was nearly one in a googol (that’s a 1 with a hundred zeros after it).
After the previous lawsuit filed in October led the state to require companies to use new labs to monitor their mine discharge, the reports from these new labs (shown in blue), revealed even more stunning changes from the previous measurements. Moreover, conductivity was far from the only water quality measurement that showed jaw-dropping changes after the new water testing lab was hired — reported levels of manganese and total suspend solids showed similar trends. The previous reports were particularly hard to believe for anyone who has seen the water coming off of these mountaintop removal sites (see video from the Appalachian Water Watch team below).
Fortunately, this time the reported values pass the smell test, as they reflect the characteristics of independent measurements taken by scientists at universities and federal agencies. Unfortunately for the coal companies, these more realistic measurements reveal an enormous number of violations of all required monitoring parameters. Exceedances included everything from average monthly total suspended solids (TSS) levels up to 15 times higher than allowed by the permit, average monthly manganese and iron levels more than three times higher than allowed, as well as numerous pH, alkalinity and acidity violations.
No Laughing Matter
By almost any standard, the actions of Kentucky politicians and agency officials since the EPA first began its more stringent reviews of mountaintop removal permits have been absurd. For instance, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported this story on one Kentucky politician’s efforts to exempt the state from EPA enforcement:
“The EPA don’t understand mining,” House Natural Resources and Environment Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, said at his committee’s hearing. Gooch’s committee unanimously approved his House Bill 421, which would exempt coal mining from the federal Clean Water Act and other EPA regulation if the coal is used inside Kentucky and does not cross state lines. The lone critic at the hearing, environmental lawyer Tom FitzGerald, told lawmakers that about 20 percent of the sediment produced by coal mining goes into rivers that flow outside Kentucky’s borders.
Gooch went on to provide his opinion of just who should be considered the real experts on water quality, which, of course, is not scientists at the EPA but politicians like himself:
“The EPA — these are not elected officials,” David Gooch said. “They are career bureaucrats who sit in their ivory tower in Washington, D.C., and decide what the science should be.”
Things got even wackier when another Kentucky politician introduced legislation to declare Kentucky a “sanctuary state” for coal mining after hearing about “sanctuary cities” declaring themselves exempt from federal immigration law.
These shenanigans from Kentucky politicians and regulators would be hilarious were the stakes not so high for the people who live in communities impacted by mountaintop removal mines. But as more and more science comes out on the health impacts of living near mountaintop removal mines, the picture for residents of Appalachian coal communities get more and more bleak.
Just last week, researchers at Washington State University and West Virginia University published a peer-reviewed study entitled, “The Association between Mountaintop Mining and Birth Defects among Live Births in Central Appalachia, 1996-2003.” The study showed that six types of birth defects occurred more frequently in areas near mountaintop removal mines, as compared to non-mining areas. The main types of birth defects included: circulatory/respiratory, central nervous system, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, urogenital and problems from “other” types of defects.
Melissa Ahern of Washington State University, one of the authors, explained:
“[The study] shows that places where the environment — the earth, air and water — has undergone the greatest disturbance from mining are also the places where birth defect rates are the highest.”
This study came on the heels of another study published last month in the American Journal of Public Health that concluded, “Residents of mountaintop mining counties reported significantly more days of poor physical, mental, and activity limitation and poorer self-rated health compared with the other county groupings.”
And just yesterday, a study was published in the journal Population Health Metrics that helps put these health impacts in perspective as they relate to the lawsuit filed today against ICG and Frasure Creek. An analysis of life expectancy data released with the study showed that:
All of the eight counties in Kentucky where ICG and Frasure Creek operate mountaintop removal mines are among the bottom 10% of US counties in terms of life expectancy All but two have seen a decrease in life expectancy over the past 10 years Two of the counties, Perry and Pike, which happen to be the two biggest coal producing counties in Kentucky, were both among the bottom 10 (out of 3,147 counties) for trends in life expectancy between 1997 and 2007. While nationwide life expectancy increased by 1.5 years over the decade, average life expectancy in these two counties actually decreased by about a year. All eight of the counties have lost population over the 20 year period of the study
Finally, while coal companies and supporters in Congress argue that EPA regulations are destroying jobs, while mountaintop removal mines create them, any objective analysis of actual data reveals that the opposite is true. Because underground mines employ more miners than mountaintop removal mines for every ton they produce, it turns out that EPA’s stricter enforcement appears to be leading to an increase in mining jobs — far from the alleged “Assault on Appalachian Jobs” that the EPA is accused of by members of Congress. As shown in the chart below, the number of mining jobs in Appalachia has increased by 3.5% since the EPA first began its enhanced review of mountaintop removal permits and that number is up by a whopping 8.5% since the start of the recession. By comparison, the overall US economy shed 5% of its workforce over that same period.
Americans Say: Let the EPA do its Job!
A poll [pdf] released earlier this year by NRDC found that:
Americans want the EPA to do more, not less. Almost two thirds of Americans (63 percent) say “the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water,” versus under a third (29 percent) who think the EPA already “does too much and places too many costly restrictions on businesses and individuals.” Americans do not want Congress to kill the EPA’s anti-pollution updates… More than three out of four Americans (77 percent) — including 61 percent of Republicans – say “Congress (should) let the EPA do its job.” The majority of Republicans – and all Americans – oppose the former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s plan to dismantle the EPA.
What today’s action by environmental and citizens groups shows is that the EPA needs to do a lot more to protect water quality of Appalachian streams and the health of Appalachian communities, not less. While some members of Congress and politicians in Kentucky and West Virginia will no doubt continue to make a fuss, the EPA would be neglecting its core responsibility if it backed off its recent enforcement actions one iota. The evidence that the state of Kentucky is unwilling or unable to enforce the Clean Water Act is overwhelming and cannot be ignored.
Fortunately for the EPA, two thirds of Americans support them doing a better job of holding polluters accountable. The EPA should listen to Americans and to their own scientists, not coal companies or disgruntled politicians. And beyond the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act, it’s time for the Obama Administration to strengthen its spine, stop playing politics, and put an end to mountaintop removal forever.
Click here to send a message to your member of Congress asking him or her to let EPA do its job and to oppose any efforts to roll back the agency’s authority.Alchemy cafe kitchen hand Connor Watson. Photo: Margot Taylor
Pressure is mounting in commercial kitchens in Wanaka as a chef shortage forces businesses to reduce menus and chefs to work 80-hour weeks.
Cafe and restaurant owners spoken to by the Otago Daily Times said there had been a shortage of chefs in the town for about 18 months but the problem was escalating.
Wanaka Ale House head chef Rebecca Stevenson said the restaurant was relying on an agency in Christchurch to source chefs.‘‘It is hugely expensive.
"We are having to pay the hourly rate, plus provide them with accommodation which, for the better of the business, we have to do but, ultimately, we can't sustain it.''
She had been working in the industry for about 30 years but was "almost done'' because of the necessity to take on extra hours to make up for the lack of staff.
"An average working week is 60 hours.
"On a busy Christmas/New Year, like I did 80 hours for more than two or three weeks in a row.''
The restaurant was considering reducing opening hours because of the problem, Ms Stevenson said.
A Wanaka cafe owner who did not want to be named was close to tears when asked about the shortage.
The owner said the shortage was "incredibly difficult.''
Not a chef herself, she had been forced to take on much of the cooking in the cafe.
Alchemy cafe head chef Jan Tomlin said she had worked in the industry for 40 years and had never experienced such a shortage before.
"Just about every business in Wanaka is advertising for chefs,'' she said.
At Florence's Foodstore and Cafe, a blackboard outside explained the menu would be reduced some days due to the shortage.
Cafe owner Sharyn Mathias said since the business opened three and a-half years ago it had become increasingly difficult to employ chefs.
"Every year it has just got a bit harder.''
Mrs Mathias said she believed there was often extreme pressure on new graduate chefs, who were entering the profession to find they were managing kitchens on their own.
Restaurant Association of New Zealand Southern Lakes branch president Grant Hattaway said the shortage was not unique to Wanaka.
He said the problem had been "exacerbated'' by a boom in the tourism industry.
"It is an issue and if it is not fixed it will slow down the tourism industry.
"People come here having heard good things about New Zealand wine and food, beverages, and if they don't really get the quality that's going to fall short of their expectation and well, it will be counterproductive to tourism.''
Celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay had created a misconception of the realities of working in kitchens, he said.
He believed pay was not the main reason people left the industry.
"You have got to meet the market and the rates have certainly gone up significantly.
"That's just the reality.
"It is tough on businesses, not just chefs.''
Speaking about a similar chef shortage in Wellington and Queenstown, Tourism Industry Association chief executive Chris Roberts recently told Radio New Zealand a good chef was "now priceless.''.
"I think we have to raise the profile and the status of tourism-related jobs like chefing,'' he said.
Tourism Industry Association NZ hotels chair Penny Clarksaid in Queenstown the shortage was getting worse because many chefs could not afford to live there.
She worried the country would get a bad reputation if it could not get enough chefs to produce quality food.
margot.taylor@odt.co.nzHackett wouldn't be the only man feeling the shortage of women in Junee. In addition to an award-winning chocolate and liquorice factory, this Riverina town boasts 133.4 men per 100 women – the state's highest ratio of men to women (what demographers call the "sex ratio"). But before you pack your bags, ladies, it's probably worth mentioning the likely reason for this gender imbalance: Junee's all-male correctional centre. It's the largest prison in regional NSW. Junee's abundance of men is one of hundreds of statistical quirks captured in the annual National Regional Profile, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this week. From the shire with the most campervans to the community where women give birth at four times the national rate, this is a glimpse of "the Lucky Country" you won't find in tourist brochures.
Worst women drought If the men of Junee think it's tough to meet a women, they might spare a thought for the men of Wiluna, in Western Australia. In this mining town poised at the edge of the Western Desert, about 950 kilometres north-east of Perth, there are a mighty 270.7 men per 100 women. In fact, Australia's sex ratio is weighted in the opposite direction: nearly 99,000 more women than men live here. Although more boys are born than girls both globally and nationally (about 105 boys per 100 girls), higher mortality rates among young men and women's longer life expectancy mean that, from the age of 26, women outnumber men in Australia. Occupational shifts and differences in the way men and women transition to adulthood explain why regional Australia tends to have more clusters of men than women, said Martin Bell, professor of human geography and director of the University of Queensland's Centre for Population Research.
The people of Halls Creek, WA, die at three times the rate of other Australians. "Young women tend to leave rural and farming areas to seek education and fortune in the city more than men do," he said. This leaves higher proportions of working age men in mining or agricultural areas.
Worst men drought Since women don't tend to cluster in the same way men do, the gender disparity weighted towards women is less stark. Nonetheless, if the men of Wiluna or Junee are looking to improve their odds of meeting a woman, they might consider heading to Peppermint Grove, Perth, where there are only 82.7 men per 100 women. Dubbed the "Monaco of WA" by Premier Colin Barnett, Peppermint Grove is Australia's most advantaged local government area, according to the latest ABS index. The average wage in this waterfront location is nearly $93,600, nearly twice the national average ($52,000). Peppermint Grove is "a bit of a blip" on the demographic radar, says Curtin University demographer Amanda Davies. "You don't have a young population moving in there, which would tend to even out that demographic profile, so what we could be seeing is more older women living in that suburb," she said.
Where kids are king Children rule the roost in the Indigenous community of Doomadgee, near the Gulf of Carpentaria in Queensland. Here, children under 15 make up more than one in three residents (36.3 per cent), compared with one in five nationally. Queensland is also home to Australia's youngest local government areas, Cherbourg in the state's south-east and Yarrabah in the north-east, both with a median age of just 22.5, nearly 15 years younger than the national median of 37.3 years. Both areas are also Australia's most disadvantaged local government areas, which is no coincidence, Professor Bell said. Larger family sizes and higher fertility are closely linked to disadvantage. "Even in the non-Indigenous population, it's people who have lower levels of education, who marry earlier and who live in areas with relatively high unemployment and higher proportions of … blue collar jobs, who tend to be disadvantaged economically," he said. Where old is gold
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the seaside resort town of Victor Harbor, South Australia, is Australia's oldest local government area, with a median age of 56.9. More than one in three residents (36.5 per cent) are older than 65. Most campervans On the subject of older folk (the connection will become clear in a moment), Nungarin, about 280 kilometres east of Perth, is the nation's campervan capital, with 26.3 campervans per 1000 residents. To put that figure in context, Nungarin has a population of 228, so we're not exactly talking about a flotilla of campervans. Nonetheless, it's impressive that Nungarin has twice as many campervans as men in their 20s (six campervans versus three men aged 20-29). Nungarin Shire's senior administration officer, Kerry Thorniley, says her campervan is loved and used by the whole family. "It's like camping but you've got a nice soft bed to sleep in," she said. Dr Davies said campervans were emblematic of the ageing rural population as well as Australia's "grey nomads" - the phrase used to describe retired Baby Boomers who spend their time travelling the country in mobile homes.
This concept of "leisure-oriented retirement... is unique to the Baby Boomer population", which enjoys an unprecedented level of wealth compared to earlier generations, she said. "So campervans are quite a good indicator, really, of what's unfolding in that generation." Most deaths Halls Creek, in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia's north-east, has the country's highest death rate. At 16.4 deaths per 1000, the people of this roadhouse town (eight in 10 of whom are Indigenous) die at three times the rate of other Australians. It is the state's most disadvantaged local government area, and has long been associated with poor health, particularly depression and alcoholism, domestic violence and assault. "What it's showing us with certainty is that there are major inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia," Dr Davies said.
"These people are also living in rural areas where access to employment, healthcare and education are lower. You have a compounding effect." But there are stirrings of change in Halls Creek. Domestic violence, assault and alcohol-related emergency department presentations have plummetted since alcohol restrictions were introduced in 2009, according to a West Australian Drug and Alcohol office report, released in February. Most births On the other side of Western Australia, about 2500 kilometres from Halls Creek, lies the country's most fertile local government area. Mukinbudin's birth rate is quadruple the national average (7.7 births per woman, compared with 1.9 nationally). Dr Davies said the area's domestic migration figures suggest the community is not only retaining but also attracting young families.
"Agriculture remains the largest employment sector but the development of mining activities in the region that are drive-in, drive-out certainly would have attracted younger families." she said. The high fertility rate may also be linked to a larger than usual Indigenous population. Indigenous women tend to have more children (2.3 births per woman) and have them at younger ages than non-Indigenous women. "The age at which you start childbearing is a very strong predictor of how many children you ultimately have," Professor Bell said. Coincidentally (or not), Mukinbudin is also home to the most motorcycles per person, with 102 motorcycles per 1000. (Motorbikes. Babies. Makes sense.) Most cramped
If there's one thing Sydney offers that no other Australian region does, it's that sense of being close to your neighbours. Nine of the 10 most densely populated local government areas in Australia are in greater Sydney, with the Waverley local government area, home of the iconic Bondi Beach, ranked number one with a population density of 7650 people per square kilometre. Nationally, Australia has three people per square kilometre. Long-term unemployed More than nine in 10 people on Newstart unemployment benefits in the Western Australian shire of Upper Gascoyne have been receiving this support for more than a year, according to ABS figures. To put that in context, only 262 people live there, so that's 27 out of the 29 people on Newstart. Statistically, we wouldn't take much from it, but outlying indicators like this are "significant for the people who are there", Dr Davies said.
"It's an indicator … of what life is like for people there. It's very bleak," she said. Mining has generated significant jobs growth in the Gascoyne region. However, many have gone to fly-in, fly-out workers, which also explains why Upper Gascoyne also had the highest proportion of residents (one in three) move to the area in the past year, according to the latest census figures. "You would have expected the area's large employment growth to have flowed on," Dr Davies said, but this suggests the local Indigenous population haven't reaped the full benefit of mining in their region. Most bankruptcies Tourism brochures might tell you the Gold Coast is famous for fun, but this mecca of surf and sun also claims the dubious honour of the highest number of bankruptcies, with 1320 business and non-business bankruptcies declared in 2013.If you were a little horrified to find that #GoldenShowers is trending on Twitter today, we’re here to help explain why. And yes, it involves President-elect Donald Trump.
BuzzFeed reported Tuesday that a dossier “making explosive — but unverified” allegations has been circulating for weeks among elected officials, intelligence agents and reporters. It alleges that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Trump for years. (Update: Trump has called the allegations “fake news.”)
CNN reported Tuesday both President Barack Obama and Trump were given a two-page synopsis of the report, which sounds pretty awkward, when you hear what it’s about. It includes what BuzzFeed calls “specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians.”
Also Read: Charlotte Church Rejects Trump Inauguration Gig: 'I Think You're a Tyrant'
Those include this one:
“According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) in front of him.”
(Update: In a news conference Wednesday, Trump indirectly addressed the “golden showers” claim, saying, “Does anyone really believe that story? ‘I’m also very much of a germaphobe, by the way. Believe me.”)
The report also said Trump’s behavior in Russia over the years had provided authorities there with enough “embarrassing material” on the president-elect to “blackmail him if they so wished.”
Also Read: Read Patton Oswalt's Trump-'Golden Showers' Play-by-Play on Twitter
Is it true? Like BuzzFeed said, it’s “unverified, and potentially unverifiable”… but it’s also so outrageous an image that it’s taken over Twitter in the last few minutes.
And now we’ll probably be unable to avoid thinking about it as we watch Obama deliver his farewell address in just a couple of hours. Ugh.Indian manufacturer Micromax began inviting the press to a hardware launch this week, where the Micromax YU line will be announced. As almost everyone is aware after the last weeks worth of back and forth, the phone will be powered by CyanogenMod software.
The first phone in the YU line which will be launched this week is expected to have some fairly impressive specs and though other manufacturers like to slowly tease their hardware, Micromax hasn’t yet done so. We’ve found a bit more information about the what will actually be under that hood, when it arrives on Amazon for sale, as well as how much the phone will cost and how accessible it will be.
Hardware wise, the first phone in the Micromax YU line to be launched will come with a 5.5″ 720P display, and is powered by a 64-bit Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 processor. The Snapdragon 615 of course includes a built-in LTE modem, though whether this will be active remains to be seen.
Storage wise, the phone will have 16GB on-board with microSD Card Slot. Camera wise the phone will have a 13MP sensor on the rear camera and 5MP Front-facing camera.
Full Specs:
5.5″ 720P Display
MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 Processor
2GB RAM
16GB On-board storage with microSD Card Slot
13MP Rear Camera using a Sony sensor and 5MP Front-facing camera
2500mAh battery.
Micromax will launch the phone with some customisations to the software, most likely similar to that included on the Micromax Canvas A1 Android One handset which launched earlier this year. The Canvas A1 came with Amazon, Hike Messenger, M!Live and AskMe Android apps installed, but they should be fairly easily removed, after all it will still be CyanogenMod software.
The team at Cyanogen Inc delivering updates to the YU line only as part of their exclusive deal with the manufacturer. The deal which caused a little friction between OnePlus and the team, however we hope that has now been ironed out.
Though the phone will launch in India, it will be available worldwide through Amazon, though we haven’t been advised what the pricing will be like at this stage.
Update:
Post has been updated to include new information on the phone specsThe NH Labor News has always been pushing to highlight how workers are continuing to be screwed by corporations and low wages. Today a new group who call themselves the Young Invincibles are pushing back for young workers.
Young Invincibles is a national organization committed to amplifying the voices of young Americans, aged 18 to 34, and expanding economic opportunity for our generation. Young Invincibles ensures that young Americans are represented in today’s most pressing societal debates through cutting-edge policy research and analysis and innovative campaigns designed to educate, inform and mobilize our generation to change the status quo.
The Young Invincibles just released their first report about the unemployment problems facing young workers in NH. They highlight that the national unemployment level for workers between 16.2% which is over twice the national average (7.6%). In NH, the unemployment for these young workers is 14.0% (NH unemployment rate 5.5%).
These numbers are bad enough but it is not the worse part. Nationally workers have continued to see their paycheck to decline. For younger workers in NH the numbers are even worse. Young Granite State workers are making on average $3000 dollars less per year since 2005.
The report also highlighted full time employment of these younger workers has dropped eight percent (8%) since 2005. Studies show that the inability to gain early work experience dims career prospects for a lifetime; if we do not act now, this crisis could have far-reaching economic consequences for all Granite Staters.
Matt Murray is the creator and an author on the NH Labor News. He is a union member and advocate for labor and progressive politics. He also works with other unions and members to help spread our message. Follow him on Twitter @NHLabor_News
Like this: Like Loading...IOI - one of the largest palm oil companies in the world - is having a difficult time right now.
Not only has it recently lost its sustainability certification, but as a result its customers are leaving in droves. And with good reason: a new report from Greenpeace International shows how IOI's operations have led to the destruction of forests and peatlands in Borneo, despite repeated promises to protect these areas.
A Greenpeace investigator documents the devastation of a company-identified 'No Go' area of peatland in the PT Bumi Sawit Sejahtera (IOI) oil palm concession in Ketapang, West Kalimantan. This area of the concession suffered extensive fires in 2015.
Since the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) withdrew IOI's sustainability certification in March, its share price has tanked and its credit rating has been placed under review. Most damning of all, every one of the major brands featured in our recent palm oil scorecard that was buying palm oil from IOI is in the process of cancelling their contracts.
The most recent of these is General Mills which, after receiving tens of thousands of emails from Greenpeace supporters, announced last week it will be phasing out its purchases from IOI. General Mills also stated that it won't consider renewing its custom until the palm oil giant demonstrates real progress in protecting and restoring the areas it has damaged.
This aspect is key because IOI has made many commitments to good environmental management but has failed to carry them out on the ground.
The new report lists a string of broken promises, most notably a commitment in January 2014 to refrain from draining all areas of peat on its land. But there is clear evidence that since then canals have been dug to drain peat in PT Bumi Sawit Sejahtera (PT BSS), one of IOI's concessions in West Kalimantan, part of Indonesian Borneo. Dry peat is extremely flammable, and it's no surprise that large parts of this concession went up in smoke in both 2014 and 2015.
Drone footage documents a primary drainage canal cutting through an identified ‘No Go’ area of buffer forest in the PT Bumi Sawit Sejahtera (IOI) oil palm concession in Ketapang, West Kalimantan.
The impacts of this drainage extend far beyond the boundaries of the PT BSS concession. Surrounding areas also drain and dry out, making them more vulnerable to fire and subsidence as the peat collapses in upon itself. Yet IOI fails to recognise the damage being inflicted on the whole landscape.
IOI has also ignored efforts by the Indonesian government to prevent a repeat of last year's devastating fires, including ministerial instructions to block drainage canals and refrain from planting oil palms in burnt areas. Field investigations in April revealed that in PT BSS, canals still flow freely and the green fronds of newly-planted palms wave above the scorched earth.
An oil palm sapling brushes against the charred remains of a tree in the PT Bumi Sawit Sejahtera (IOI) oil palm concession.
IOI is clearly concerned about loss of its RSPO certification and the customers it's losing hemorrhaging as a result. It has even resorted to legal threats, launching a case against the RSPO itself, despite being a founding member with a seat on the board.
Earlier this week, it dropped the case raising the distinct possibility that it hopes to use today's RSPO European Roundtable in Milan as an opportunity to lobby for its suspension to be lifted so it can woo back its customers.
IOI has produced a new action plan which it claims addresses the RSPO complaints. Yet it's little different from existing policies and plans. It's lacking on many levels, including: weak proposals for mapping peat and forest areas; no measurable goals or timelines; no plans for ending peat drainage and restoring drained areas; and no plans to publish maps of all its concessions.
Young Orangutan hanging on a liana at Nyaru Menteng Orangutan reintroduction project near Palanga Raya, Central Kalimantan.
Many of the customers IOI has lost are also insisting that if it wants their business again, IOI has to go beyond the comparatively weak standards of the RSPO. Given its track record, many are deeply suspicious of any new commitments or policies produced by IOI, so it needs to demonstrate it can put words into practice and make changes on the ground - blocking canals, restoring drained peatlands, and producing public maps of the forests and peatlands in its concessions.
Until that happens, the RSPO should keep IOI's suspension in place and buyers should definitely beware of any claims IOI makes about its commitments to protect Indonesia's forests.
Annisa Rahmawati is a Forest Campaigner for Greenpeace Indonesia.PhDs are hard. It has been tough to find a week to mess around with software, etc, that isn’t research related. I thought I would put out at least one piece of content this year, so here goes.
I have been running both a desktop and a Surface Pro X for a few years now, and see no reason why that won’t continue into the future. If I could get away with not using Windows I would, but essentially the entire point of using a Surface is OneNote which is definitely amazing, and also totally free now (OneNote 2016 standalone download for desktop). Also, plenty of entities in academia and industry use windows environments, so in the interest of daily productivity, it’s not going away. It’s highly unlikely that there will be remotely comparable open source alternatives to OneNote with stylus support unless some entity like Canonical debuts some tablet hardware. Therefore, it seems likely I will be running dual boot setups well into the future. VMs are ok, but have their limitations, regardless of choice of host OS, especially when it comes to support of cutting edge hardware (my desktop has a PCIei NVMe drive, etc). I spent some time this spring attempting to configure a VM box with some old hardware, and can safely say that, for my purposes, dual booting is much less demanding. Other academics and engineers will likely find it useful as well.
I’ve been asked multiple times about my setup, so I am writing this quick little guide for setting up a dual boot Arch Linux and Windows configuration running on UEFI hardware that works with Secure Boot enabled (signed kernels, loader, etc). Pieces of these instructions are sourced from forums/wikis across the web, but none of it is available in one place and most of them leave out crucial steps without elaboration. This guide will make minimum assumptions regarding background knowledge, and should work for distributions other than Arch with regards to the bootloader setup. I will cite where it makes sense to.
I will provide instructions for both single disk (Linux and Windows on same disk) and multi disk (Linux and Windows on different disks) setups. The only significant difference is the bootloader used. Some helpful webpages:
In summary, I am outlining two schemes here that are not completely addressed elsewhere:
Dual boot Arch/Windows on Surface Pro X with Secure Boot enabled.
Dual boot Arch/Windows on a desktop with Arch on a SATA SSD and Windows on a PCIe NVME drive.
using systemd-boot only. A Microsoft signed bootloader and hashing tool, available here enable compatibility with Secure Boot. All loaders sit on the same ESP (EFI partition). This should also give people ideas on what they might have to do with other, more exotic configurations. For a more general overview of loading OSs and kernels in a UEFI system, see this resource written by Rod Smith.
1 Overview
Based on past experience, I prefer to install Linux first and on the first few partitions, and then install Windows afterwards. I mostly do this to have explicit control over the size and order of partitions (see partitioning section below). For single disk PCs, Windows 10 should find your existing EFI partition and add its bootloader and some recovery stuff to /boot/EFI. For multi disk PCs, Windows 10 will be installed to a separate drive and, presumably, have no knowledge of the Linux drive, which will be used as the boot drive. The multi disk configuration has worked for me with a variety of bootloaders (grub2, refind) in the past, but with Windows 10 sitting on an Intel 750 PCIe drive, only refind, and with some tinkering, has worked well.
If Secure Boot functionality is desired, the setup will vary depending on motherboard vendor. If running on Surface Pro hardware, there is no option to enable secure boot out of the box for alternate operating systems (Linux, etc). One must either use Microsoft-prepared loader and hash tool (to generate signatures for kernels), or wipe the keys and certificates that ship with the platform and generate their own (see Creating Keys section of the Secure Boot entry in the Arch wiki). I see no reason why, for personal use, using the Microsoft loader and keygen is undesirable, so that is the method outlined here.
Regarding installation media, I use a live USB of the latest Arch build (see this entry on bootable media) and a bootable USB of Windows 10 which can be created either by an existing Windows 10 installation, or just download the ISO from here. Note that this requires a Windows 10 OS key for full activation. From windows, rufus can be used to create bootable media. There are a plethora of methods to create a live USB of either OS from common Linux distros, from using packages to manual partitioning and file copying.
Regardless of which hardware platform is being used, start by turing Secure Boot OFF. It |
“They” were officials of the UCI, cycling’s governing body. And the positive test was indeed “taken care of.”
Later, Hamilton would get a vivid reminder of Armstrong’s pull with the UCI: during 2004, after notching some impressive results (including beating Armstrong at the Liège-Bastogne-Liège classic and at the Dauphiné Liberé), Hamilton was summoned to a meeting at the UCI. He was told by chief medical officer Mario Zorzoli that he’d delivered some unusual blood-test results and that they were watching him. A few weeks later, he says, Floyd Landis pulled up beside him in a race and dropped a bombshell: “You need to know something,” said Landis, then still riding for Postal. “Lance called the UCI on you.”
Which brings us to the great irony of this book: if Armstrong did call the UCI, he set in motion the chain of events that would lead to Hamilton’s positive test for blood doping. He did, in fact, have someone else’s blood in his blood, probably because of a botched transfusion. Hamilton was ultimately banned from the sport for two years (and, later, for life). But the call also led, in a way, to his harrowing confessional, which I believe.
I believe it for the following reasons. One, it fits the facts we already know (the EPO found in Armstrong’s 1999 samples, for starters). Two, it’s incredibly, exhaustively detailed—far more than Landis’ revelatory emails, which started off the federal and USADA investigations in 2010. In his matter-of-fact, New England-y way, Hamilton lays it all out: how he got seduced (willingly) into doping, how it worked, how team doctors rationalized it (“This is for your health”).
The biggest cheat in the book is Hamilton himself. He makes clear that his transformation into a Tour contender was fueled by extensive use of blood transfusions. He also makes clear that doping does not equal a shortcut; for it to work, you have to train twice as hard. Otherwise you’re wasting your money—as much as $50,000 a season, plus bonuses paid to the doctors when you win.
AS A JOURNALIST, IT was really weird to try to write about cycling during the Armstrong era. I’d worked in “real” journalism in Washington, D.C., and then in Philadelphia, and I had interviewed drug dealers, murderers, soon-to-be-indicted con artists, developers, politicians, and worse. Nobody gave you less than a pro cyclist circa 1999 through 2005.
Coyle himself noticed it during his interviews with Hamilton. “When he talked about bike racing or the upcoming Tour de France, however, Hamilton’s personality changed,” he writes in an author’s introduction. “His playful sense of humor evaporated; his eyes locked onto his coffee cup, and he began to speak in the broadest, blandest, most boring sports clichés you’ve ever heard.”
Yep. Especially when it came to Team Armstrong, you got the feeling that everyone was guarding some sort of huge secret. Their dealings with the press were tinged, increasingly, with paranoia. They kept blacklists, enlisted other journalists to keep tabs on each other, and generally behaved like the Sopranos. Critics, starting with Greg LeMond, were dealt with brutally.
So it’s probably going to suck to be Tyler Hamilton for the next few weeks. Because he lied in the past, his credibility is going to be assailed. Armstrong defenders will call him bitter, a snitch, or worse; many sports columnists will line up for another round of righteous pontificating about Armstrong’s heroism, most unburdened by having actually read the book.
Don’t believe Armstrong’s supporters this time, and be aware that The Secret Race actually has a merciful undercurrent. It’s an “attack” on Armstrong only in the sense that it reveals many uncomfortable truths. But it is also an invitation of sorts. By making clear that doping was endemic to the sport, and that Armstrong was far from the only cheat, Hamilton leaves the door open for his ex-teammate and ex-friend to save himself. All it would take is a press conference.
The most moving parts of the story come at the end, when after years of lying to everyone Hamilton has to face up to the truth—and tell his mom. A few days later, he went on 60 Minutes.
“Here’s what I was learning,” he writes of that painful period leading up to his confession. “Secrets are poison. They suck the life out of you, they steal your ability to live in the present, they build walls between you and the people you love. Now that I’d told the truth, I was tuning into life again. I could talk to someone without having to worry or backtrack or figure out their motives, and it felt fantastic.”
Bill Gifford has covered bike racing for many publications, including Outside, Bicycling, and Slate.What’s cheapest for a trip: Lyft, Uber, taxis or another ride service?
Several apps and websites let passengers compare fares. Some calculate estimates based on published rates; others tap directly into the services of Uber and Lyft through technology called an application programming interface that those companies offer to developers for free.
But Uber and Lyft don’t want their technology used to compare them with rivals — and both spell that out in the fine print for developers. That’s stirred debate about whether they’re engaging in monopolistic practices, or have every right to set parameters for the use of their technology.
Now, a small Oakland company with an app called Ride Fair that compares Uber and Lyft surge pricing says Uber is trying to shut it down by removing its access to the API. Last year, Uber shut down a similar app called UrbanHail by yanking its API use.
“Since it seems the main purpose of your app is price comparison, there isn’t really a good way for you to come into compliance,” Uber wrote in a letter to Ride Fair. “We have to ask you to immediately discontinue using our API for this purpose and listing Uber in your marketing materials and app store listing. Essentially you need to remove Uber from your app.”
Ride Fair developer Phil Wall was chagrined to receive that email six months after releasing the app, which has a modest 3,000 or so downloads. He and business partner Steve Blackwell built the free app as a public service and don’t make money from it, he said.
“This in no way is impacting Uber’s business, but they’re acting like bullies to mess with small developers,” he said. “It seems totally weird to make a public API and then use access to it as a weapon.”
Uber said it’s well within its rights to determine how its technology is used, pointing out that developers know its conditions, such as not comingling its prices with those of competitors, up front.
“Like many other technology companies, our API has a few guardrails in order to preserve the integrity of the Uber experience for users across all apps,” Uber said.
Lyft declined to comment. Developers said it has been laissez-faire about access to its API, although in 2013 it asked a comparison app called Corral Rides to remove Lyft data, according to Fortune. It has not complained to Ride Fair, according to Wall.
Like other companies, Uber offers its API to build its business, allowing developers to create apps that summon rides or add features to enhance riders’ experiences. That includes, for example, integration with the Spotify or Pandora music services, according to Chris Messina, who until January was Uber’s developer experience lead but emphasized that he does not speak for it. “Uber does not make an API just for charity,” he said.
At the same time, he said, “there was always a debate inside the company about how to best balance Uber’s interest and the developer ecosystem’s interest.”
Uber does allow Google Maps to display ride prices for Uber and Lyft for any given route. While Google doesn’t release user numbers, Maps obviously has enormous market share. Messina said Uber and Google negotiated a higher-level deal that encompasses other things, such as Uber using Google Maps.
Ben Edelman, a lawyer and professor at Harvard Business School, said he thinks Uber and Lyft’s barring of price-comparison apps is “an obnoxious restriction” that raises monopoly concerns.
“Comparison shopping is the bedrock of capitalism,” he said. “Let consumers look at all the options in the marketplace, think about them and make an informed decision.”
Edelman said he could see a scenario in which public-advocacy lawyers could challenge the provisions in court as contrary to the public interest.
Back to Gallery Uber threatens to shut down price-comparison app 3 1 of 3 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 2 of 3 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 3 of 3 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle
Besides Google Maps, several other sites and apps offer Uber and Lyft price comparisons.
Kendall Saville said his FareEstimate site averages around 25,000 users a month. It uses both Uber and Lyft APIs, but he hasn’t heard any objections from Uber. “Lyft has actually reached out to see how I use the API and if there was anything they can do to improve it for me, which I thought was nice,” he said in an email.
Saville thinks sites like his help consumers by allowing them to make more informed decisions. “Before my website, I constantly compared routes by manually checking both apps,” he said. “So I believe it's going to happen even if Uber cuts our API access.”
Another site, RideGuru, which has over 1 million users a month, generates price estimates for Uber, Lyft and a range of other ride-hailing services worldwide through proprietary algorithms, rather than the companies’ APIs, said CEO and founder Ippei Takahashi.
That approach means RideGuru can show prices for companies that may not even offer APIs, he said. “We are in a unique position here, because we can be the true aggregator and a comparison site, covering the smallest to the largest players in the market.”
Meanwhile, Uber has not yet followed through on its threat to yank Ride Fair’s API access, Wall said.
“Users really like to be able to push a button and see prices,” he said. “I believe in price transparency.”
Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaidAn expanding special counsel probe into the Trump campaign's alleged Russian ties has saddled many of President Trump's current and former associates with hefty legal fees and left them few options for footing the bill.
More than a dozen people, including the president and vice president, are known to have hired attorneys to help them navigate special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and several additional probes in Congress. Some have complained about the burden of paying for their legal bills without assistance from the wealthy president whose campaign is in the crosshairs of federal investigators.
"It's very expensive and nobody's called me and offered to help," Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser who has been contacted by congressional investigators, told the Washington Examiner.
"The problem is, it's very specialized representation, so it takes a certain type of attorney, and they're quite competent. And you'll pay for competency," Caputo said.
The former Trump communications adviser said he has hired a New York-based attorney near his hometown of East Aurora, N.Y., which has helped him save moderately on costs by allowing him to confer locally rather than travel back and forth to Washington, D.C.
But Caputo said he still had to liquidate his children's college fund to pay the tab for his lawyer.
And his mounting legal fees, which could grow larger depending on whether Mueller's team reaches out to him, are not the only sources of financial strain Caputo said the Russia investigation has imposed on him.
"I have the associate costs of being in the spotlight of a bogus investigation, so I have security costs now," Caputo said, noting that his family has received "death threats" as a result of his media exposure. "We've had to install security. I've had to take security precautions at both my home and at my office, and with my children, so these all add up very quickly."
Caputo described the Russia probe as politically motivated and argued Trump's opponents will not stop until "there's a smoking crater where he once stood."
"This can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for people, and that's where destroying people comes in," Caputo said.
Another former campaign hand said Trump "has hung us out to dry" by leaving associates to drown in their attorneys' fees.
"Multibillionaire Donald Trump has a moral obligation to pay the mounting legal bills of his advisers who are facing four-, five- and six-figure costs just for doing their jobs," said a former Trump adviser who had to pay thousands of dollars of his own money for legal representation.
"After all, the reason Trump advisers have any legal bills at all is because Trump and key spokespersons like Hope Hicks and Kellyanne Conway repeatedly misled the public over Russia contacts, no matter how benign," the former adviser told the Washington Examiner. "Such lies gave congressional and federal investigators, let alone the media, probable cause to destroy our lives at will. Some reward for loyal service to President Trump."
The former adviser, who declined to be named to speak candidly about finances and his involvement in the investigation, said he hired an attorney after multiple congressional committees contacted him about his time on the Trump campaign. The lawyer cost him $500 an hour, the adviser said, and quickly racked up thousands of dollars in costs after helping him prepare documents to turn over to Congress and accompanying him to two lengthy interviews with congressional committees.
"I entertained the idea of billing the re-election campaign for my legal bills," the former adviser said. "But then, I don't want to incur the wrath of the White House."
A spokesman for Trump's re-election campaign did not respond to a request for comment about whether the campaign has helped pay for the lawyers of former Trump associates. The Republican National Committee, which has faced pressure to help current and former Trump aides with their legal bills, declined to comment.
A source familiar with the situation said staffers who have left the White House, such as former chief of staff Reince Priebus, are "on their own" when it comes to representation in the special counsel probe. Trump has hired several attorneys to shepherd him through the investigation, and one — Ty Cobb — has even moved into the West Wing to oversee his response to the probe.
Priebus is among several aides who Mueller has requested to interview over his involvement in crafting a misleading statement about a meeting Donald Trump Jr., the president's son, took with a Russian lawyer who claimed during the campaign to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Although all participants in the meeting — which Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Paul Manafort, his former campaign manager, also attended — say the lawyer offered no dirt on Trump's Democrat rival, the statement Trump Jr. initially released in July falsely suggested the meeting had always been intended to focus on Russian adoptions.
Priebus has hired an attorney to guide him through the investigation, Law360 reported this week. Trump's former chief of staff did not respond to a request for comment.
Donald McGahn, White House counsel, hired the same lawyer this week to advise his own interactions with Mueller's team.
The two are just the latest figures in Trump's orbit to hire attorneys as the Russia investigation has broadened.
Kushner, communications director Hope Hicks, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Vice President Mike Pence are among the growing group of Trump associates to lawyer up in recent weeks, and each could incur thousands of dollars in legal fees that their government salaries and conflict of interest restrictions could make difficult to pay.
However, the administration's top watchdog recently tweaked its guidelines in a way that may help the aides who don't have pre-existing deep pockets to reach into if their legal bills become burdensome.
The Office of Government Ethics now allows lobbyists to contribute anonymously to the legal defense funds of White House staffers, a practice that the federal watchdog previously discouraged. While the OGE did not officially change its rules on such donations, it clarified them to make plain that aides can accept anonymous help from lobbyists who want to assist administration officials with their bills.
Legal defense funds could be of little use to former aides and those who don't have the profile to attract donations, however. And it's unclear whether Trump, the RNC, or the campaign could use the funds to help White House staff afford their legal bills.
The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment about whether it had offered to help pay the legal fees for anyone caught up in the investigation.How did I go for years without eating a single beet? Beets have recently become one of my favorite vegetables–in part because I can’t get over their gorgeous magenta hue! They’re mild, subtly sweet, and quite versatile. I love throwing them in a stir fry, making crispy beet chips, or just eating them raw with a little lime juice and sea salt!
Beets are amazingly healthy, too: Betacyamin, responsible for beets’ beautiful color, stimulates liver function and helps oxygenate the blood. Beets are also packed with antioxidants, calcium, iron, magnesium, and fiber. Add carrots and ginger, and you’ve got one heck of a detox smoothie!
Raw almond butter and hemp hearts (shelled hemp seeds) add an extra boost of protein to keep you feeling full and nourished while ripe pear sweetens the blend.
Beet Carrot Ginger Protein Smoothie
Ingredients:
(Makes about 16 oz., 1-2 servings depending on how much you want to drink!)
1 small beet, peeled and roughly chopped
2 carrots, scrubbed and chopped
1 1/2 cup non-diary milk (I used coconut milk)
1 1″ knob of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 ripe pear, cored and quartered
1 tbsp. raw almond butter
1 tsp. raw hemp hearts
(If you’re interested in upping the protein, you can experiment with adding a scoop of hemp protein powder.)
Directions:
1. Blend vegan milk, beets, carrots, and ginger until smooth. Add pear and almond butter, and blend to desired consistency.
2. Pour into glass and top with hemp hearts. Enjoy!
Photos: Mary HoodNOTICE:
Crusader Kings II (Windows - Mac - Linux)
(Windows - Mac - Linux) Europa Universalis IV (Windows - Mac - Linux)
(Windows - Mac - Linux) Hearts of Iron III (Windows - Mac)
(Windows - Mac) Victoria II (Windows)
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Activation key must be used on a valid Steam account, requires internet connection.Featuring the cream of the crop from the Paradox stables,features some of our critically lauded and commercial hits.Offering the depth, gameplay freedom and flexibility you’ve come to expect from Paradox, this strategy collection should be the first choice for the gamer who loves their experiences stoic, with high replay value and with unshakeable gravitas. This collection provides incredible value with four celebrated games in one bundle.This collection includes the following games:OS:View the individual games for details about system requirements.LSD (left) and 25I-NBOMe (right) in LSD Field Test Kit - Final
Photo by Erowid A side-by-side comparison of the results using the NIK pouch LSD test kit on LSD and 25I-NBOMe. The LSD-soaked paper clearly turned purple while the 25I-NBOMe showed no reaction to all three stages of the test.
Step-by-Step Documentation of Using Field Tests on LSD and 25I-NBOMe #
LSD Field Test: Pen Test #
LSD "Pen Test" Field Test
Photo by Erowid A commercial LSD field test kit called a "pen test" and a small bottle of liquid sold as LSD. LSD "Pen Test" Field Test
Photo by Erowid An LSD field test sold by Amazon.com containing one "pen" and two pads. The pen contains two breakable capsules inside it that are broken in a slow sequence. When dropped onto paper containing LSD, the paper changes color.
LSD Dropped onto Paper
Photo by Erowid A drop of the liquid LSD (LSD in alcohol solution) is placed on a piece of dull white paper and left to dry before beginning the field test. LSD "Pen Test" Field Test - Wiping
Photo by Erowid Step 1 is to wipe the spot that has the suspected LSD with the pad that came with the kit. (This turns out to not be very effective.)
LSD "Pen Test" Field Test - Wiping Continued
Photo by Erowid The testing pad is designed with a waxy cover over the top to protect the test from contamination and, probably, to keep harsh chemicals from getting on other things after the test is conducted. LSD "Pen Test" Field Test - Chemical 1
Photo by Erowid Step 2 is to break one of the inner capsules in the pen and dripping the liquid onto the putative spot of LSD.
LSD "Pen Test" Field Test - Chemical 2
Photo by Erowid Step 3 is to break the second inner capsule inside the pen and drip the liquid onto the same putative spot of LSD. LSD "Pen Test" Field Test : Reaction
Photo by Erowid After both chemicals from the pen are dripped onto the wiping pad, if LSD is present, the pad should turn purple. In our experience, the wiping pad method resulted in no distinct color change, as shown in this photo. We presume that not enough LSD transferred between the original spot and the wiping pad.
LSD "Pen Test" Field Test - Reaction Experimentation
Photo by Erowid After getting no reaction on the wiping pad, we dripped the pen directly onto the dried LSD spot. The pen (at this point) had both chemicals already mixed together, and is not following the procedure given in the instructions. LSD "Pen Test" Field Test - Reaction Experimentation Continued
Photo by Erowid This photo shows that the wipe "residue" procedure that the kit recommends fails to show LSD, but using the pen chemicals directly on a drop of liquid LSD results in the expected purple color change.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test #
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test
Photo by Erowid Using an NIK LSD Field Test to check for LSD. This photo depicts the test and a small bottle of liquid sold as containing LSD. This NIK test is a pouch-type kit where the reactions and chemicals are all contained in a plastic pouch. NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Use
Photo by Erowid Putting a drop of putative LSD liquid onto the test kit strip. The pouch test includes three separate chemicals in isolated vials inside a single pouch. The instructions are surpisingly complicated, but the basic procedure is to drop the suspected LSD onto one of the included paper strips, then put the strip into the plastic pouch with the vials. Seal the plastic pouch, then break the interior vials one at a time, noting the reactions at each step. A positive test for LSD is one that turns the LSD-soaked paper purple after the second vial is broken but does not change additional color when the third vial is broken. We found this more effective than the pen test, though more complex. The total amount of toxic plastic waste from this kit was a little larger than with the pen test, but it kept the harsh chemicals contained in a sealed plastic pouch. For parents and law enforcement, that might be particularly valuable. For us, it meant more stuff we weren't entirely clear on how to environmentally dispose of after we were done with the test.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Use Continued
Photo by Erowid With this 3-chemical pouch-type field test for LSD, the plastic closure clip is removed from the pouch before the end of the paper test strip is cut off and inserted into the pouch. NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Use Continued
Photo by Erowid The end of the paper test strip is cut off and inserted into the pouch.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Breaking Vial
Photo by Erowid The pouch is sealed with a plastic clip and then the first internal vial broken to release the first chemical reagent into the pouch to soak the suspected LSD test strip. NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Results
Photo by Erowid After first reagent vial was broken inside pouch, no color change was seen.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Second Reagent
Photo by Erowid Then the second vial is broken, releasing the second chemical reagent into the pouch. NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Second Reagent, Continued
Photo by Erowid The paper with the suspected LSD shown in the bottom of the NIK LSD test pouch. A distinct color change was observed immediately, and the color was purple, though not as dark as that depicted in the literature. This photo does not show the color well, but by eye it was very obvious.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Color Change
Photo by Erowid The purple color was more obvious against a white background. NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Color Change Continued
Photo by Erowid Up close, after a couple of minutes, the color change on the LSD-dropped paper is very obvious and is the correct shade of purple according to the documentation. The suspected LSD liquid appears to contain LSD.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Third Reagent
Photo by Erowid Breaking the third chemical vial in the test pouch. NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test - Final
Photo by Erowid After breaking the third vial in the pouch, there was no obvious change in color. The instructions indicated that this was a positive result for LSD. However, it is important to note that all such field tests can only rule out or rule in substances. That is, they are not definite identification tests. What this test tells us is that the substance we tested reacted consistently with LSD's reaction to the testing reagents in the NIK pouch. It can not positively (100%) identify that the substance is actually LSD.
NIK LSD Field Test: Pouch Test with 25I-NBOMe #
25I-NBOMe in NIK LSD Field Test
Photo by Erowid First, we put a drop of 25I-NBOMe on paper and let it dry. (We also did the same procedure using the include NIK paper strips with the same results.) 25I-NBOMe in NIK LSD Field Test
Photo by Erowid A drop of 25I-NBOMe on paper tested with an NIK LSD Field Test. Paper with drop was cut and inserted into pouch. Finally, we tried the NIK LSD Field Test kit with 25I-NBOMe that had been verified by lab testing. The 25I-NBOMe was put into a solution at a concentration of 1 mg per 0.1 ml, which should be similar in concentration to the liquid LSD we tested.
25I-NBOMe in NIK LSD Field Test - First Reagent
Photo by Erowid After the first reagent vial was broken, no color change occurred. 25I-NBOMe in NIK LSD Field Test - Second Reagent
Photo by Erowid After the second reagent vial in the pouch was broken, no color change was observed. This is the step where the LSD-soaked paper turned purple.
25I-NBOMe in NIK LSD Field Test - Third Reagent
Photo by Erowid After the third reagent vial in the pouch was broken, no color change was observed. 25I-NBOMe in NIK LSD Field Test - Conclusion
Photo by Erowid Indeed, if anything, the paper in the pouch looked a little grayer than it was initially, but the observing group all agreed to call it "no change".
While working on an article for the July issue of Spotlight on NBOMes: Potent Psychedelic Issues, we decided to look into whether LSD-detection field tests could be used to differentiate between LSD and NBOMEs. With NBOMe compounds being sold on blotter and sometimes being misrepresented as LSD ("acid"), we wanted to run LSD field tests against lab-verified 25I-NBOMe and confirmed LSD. After asking around, we were presented with the opportunity to meet someone who had both substances.We first compared the two using a handheld UV lamp, with the results described in the article "LSD Glows under Ultraviolet (UV) Light". The results of that comparison were that LSD glows brightly under long- and short-wave ultraviolet light, while 25I-NBOMe does not. Though we did not have any other NBOMe compound to compare with, we believe based on the opinions of multiple analytical chemists that the results with other NBOMes would be the same: NBOMes don't glow under UV light.The field tests we used were purchased from Amazon.com. They were "pouch" style NIK LSD Test Kit (D): "LSD Reagent System" and the LSD Residue Detection Test: Pen Test (shaped like a writing pen).Both the pen test and the NIK pouch kit successfully changed color in the presence of LSD and did not change color when used on 25I-NBOMe. The pen test was faster to use, but following the pen test's "wipe" instructions failed to cause a change color even with known LSD.More than 21,000 Washington residents were born in one of the seven countries — Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen — affected by President Trump’s temporary travel ban.
President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning entry to the United States by citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries sparked chaos at many airports this weekend, including Sea-Tac. For local families traveling from banned countries, it was a harrowing experience.
But that sense of anxiety was not only confined to the travelers caught up in the unfolding drama. It also was felt in the communities of the more than 21,000 Washingtonians who are immigrants or refugees from the seven banned countries: Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen.
“We are fearful,” said Mehdi Nakhjiri, of Kirkland, who was born in Iran. He has lived in the U.S. since 1973, and is a dual citizen.
“We are not used to this language,” he said of some statements on Muslims by the current administration. “This new narrative is very scary.”
Nakhjiri, a structural engineer for Boeing, is one of more than 7,000 state residents who were born in Iran. Of the seven banned countries, only Somalia has a larger representation in the state, at about 7,800 people.
There are also about 3,500 living in Washington who are natives of Iraq. From each of the other four banned countries, there are less than 1,000 in the state.
All together, 70 percent of the state residents born in the banned countries live in King County.
The executive order bars entry to the U.S. for 90 days by visitors from the seven designated countries. The order indefinitely blocked refugees from Syria from entering the U.S., while refugees from elsewhere in the world are also blocked for 120 days.
The restrictions do not apply to green-card holders or legal permanent residents from the countries covered by the executive order.
Those with any travel plans are facing uncertainty.
Nakhjiri thinks he may be directly affected by political fallout from the ban. He has an upcoming trip to Iran planned, but says that the government there now is considering retaliatory measures in response to Trump’s executive order.
“They are talking about banning citizens of the United States to travel to Iran. It’s tit-for-tat,” he said. “And who do you talk to? The governments aren’t responding to each other.”
He isn’t sure how that might affect a dual citizen of the United States and Iran, such as himself.
Nakhjiri also thinks it’s likely that his brother, an orthopedic surgeon who lives in Sweden, will have to cancel a planned trip to a conference in the United States.
“He is scheduled to give a talk here in March,” he said. “There are talks about requiring European citizens with origin from one of those seven countries that are banned to require visa to come to the United States.”
Nakhjiri is also concerned about possible economic repercussions from Trump’s executive order for Boeing, where he works. The company has a several billion-dollar jet deal with Iran Air, which now looks doubtful.
Trump says his executive order is an anti-terrorism measure intended to keep America safe. He blames the media for reporting it as a Muslim ban.
Nakhjiri disagrees.
“In my judgment, this is religious persecution, pure and simple,” he said. “It contradicts the core of American values.”I
f conversations about the state of live theater were plugged into a word cloud generator, right next to “Hamilton” in the biggest font would be phrases like “limited resources” and “aging audiences.”
Theater has had a high-profile past year, but not everybody can be a “Hamilton.” For nonprofit theaters producing art that isn’t a Disney-brand spectacle, the long-term prognosis is marked with uncertainty and the looming necessity of adapting old models to new audiences and technologies.
The Berkeley theater scene is mostly made up of nonprofits and UC Berkeley’s theater department and student organizations. These spaces are characterized by a focus on intimacy and freedom to experiment. Their models make for great art or, at the very least, new and ambitious art, but never much money.
Stephanie Weisman, founder and artistic executive director at The Marsh, is blunt about the issue: “We need more money — that would be great.”
Low funds are a given, but Weisman is quick to follow up her statement with the kind of plucky resolve that characterizes both Little Orphan Annie and most theater administrators. “I actually feel very positive (about the future of theater),” she said confidently.
While The Marsh is atypical of standard nonprofit theaters — it lacks a subscriber base because rather than a season, it mounts hundreds of shows a year — its priorities are typical of the East Bay.
It emphasizes affordability, social progressivism, artistic exploration and active efforts at inclusion — all traits that characterize theater in Berkeley as a whole.
A more standard case of what troubles nonprofit theater can be seen with what’s happening to the Aurora Theatre Company and its neighbor, Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
“One thing to know about Aurora’s audience and many theater audiences is that we really rely on subscribers to be our base audience and sell a lot of our seats, and I think we’ve all been learning that younger patrons aren’t as interested in subscribing,” explained Aurora’s marketing manager Rebecca Longworth.
Longworth attributes this to a “cultural shift” in how people consume media. It’s not that millennials are philistines; it’s simply hard to commit to an entire season at one institution when faced with a constant barrage of competitive distractions — First Fridays, Netflix, actually studying — as well as the pitiful nature of their bank accounts.
“You’re creating art, you’re not creating science … you’re putting people in a room that you think are going to create something great, but it relies on a whole lot of intangibles.”
Theater professionals like Longworth are trying to figure out what their next step is. Robust social media presences are a necessity. Some theaters offer discounts and rush tickets — at Berkeley Rep, there’s a significant discount for anyone under 30. Berkeley Rep also does Instagram-ready photo booths when it feels right for the show.
That being said, nobody seems caught up in pursuing patronizing gimmicks. “It’s really about bringing a consistent level of artist to the stage as opposed to thinking about how many young people will get to the show,” said Peter Yonka, Berkeley Rep’s marketing director. As Yonka put it, people are too quick to generalize what millennials will and won’t like.
There’s no formula for making theater that draws big crowds. “You’re creating art, you’re not creating science … you’re putting people in a room that you think are going to create something great, but it relies on a whole lot of intangibles,” Yonka said.
It’s an exciting alchemy, but terrifying if the future means relying on the mercy of single-ticket buyers rather than subscriber bases who have already placed their trust in an organization. The alternative to subscribers and donors, of course, is government funding, but if that was insufficient before, the prospects of increased federal spending under a president who allegedly plans to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts are slim.
For now, theater administrators in Berkeley are focusing more on diverse programming and greater inclusivity than on elaborate schemes to incorporate technology. There’s an emphasis on affordability and a laid-back attitude toward notions of proper theater decorum. “Come as you are,” said Yonka. Birkenstocks are the norm, engaged audience reaction is encouraged — though taking videos will still get you kicked out.
That’s the attitude of theater’s next generation, too. “If you’re supporting the theater and enjoy it, you can do whatever you want,” said Alex Scoolis, BareStage Production’s marketing director and a senior TDPS major.
The theater community in Berkeley is optimistic, in the way that people with modest expectations and good work ethics tend to be.
“Theater survived the rise of movies, and then television and home video, and then the internet. Technology is just more layer for the arts to explore, challenge, incorporate and/or transform,” wrote TDPS director of communications and development Melissa Mae Schultz in an email, voicing her personal view on the matter, not an official TDPS stance.
Confidence comes easier with a stable job. “You have to expect shitty pay and shitty coverage and you have to…do it for free for so many years in order to be respected and hired,” Scoolis pointed out. It’s hard to imagine a more diverse theater dependent on a generation that could afford to work for free.
There’s work to be done, but it looks like it’ll be done collaboratively. “The theater community is really small, we all know each other and we work together a lot,” Longworth said. Any friendly competition rests on a foundation of support — in such close quarters, what’s good for one theater is good for the next.
Looking ahead to an uncertain future, Longworth admitted, “I don’t exactly know what it looks like yet,” but then added, “I think that it’s going to be really fraught and nerve-wracking, but also exciting.” Whatever shape that path forward takes, no theater will be traveling alone.
Miyako Singer covers theater. Contact her at [email protected]. Tweet her at @miyasinger.On May 12 2012 Ontario man Scott William Michael Hone born Sep 12 1985,was caught on nanny cam in Oshawa violently assaulting his 5 month olddaughter. The child had already been sick since birth and had just been |
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Dean Neu and Norio Sawabe, Accounting for the public interest: aHumble apologies for the complete lack of posts this month. Family holiday, a lack of new number ones due to “the 5th week” curse, plus work on a new project for Comic Black Book, have all taken up my spare time.
Speaking of that new project. Geeks n’ Booze will be a new fortnightly LIVE show streamed on Comic Black Book’s Twitch channel, hosted by myself. Wednesday evenings from 9pm GMT, myself and fellow members of the CBB community will be discussing a main subject and also giving our recommendations on what you should be reading and watching.
The show should of started tonight (20th September) but with me constantly coughing my guts up we’ve decided to postpone till next Wednesday (27th September). So please come and join us for some banter and booze.
The previous post picks
The Hard Place (I keep saying The Hard Way) is a comic that oozes street. Rummel’s art and Kirchoff’s colours hit your eyes so hard that you would believe you’re literally in Detroit. Not much action takes place within the first issue but Wagner knows how to introduce you to the main protagonist. Like with Plastic, Wagner has a way of really making you feel for the lead and with A.J Gurney you truly want him to get on the straight and narrow. Something you know is not going to be quite so easy.
Generations: The Unworthy Thor and The Mighty Thor. Listen I’ll be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed with this at all. Yes, I ranted on about event comics and how Jason Aaron is one of best writers around at the moment. But no. Odinson just came across as a dick and the ending just left it open to ANOTHER event that I will not be purchasing.
This Week’s Picks
Dark Ark (Aftershock Comics)
Story: Cullen Bunn, Art: Juan Doe, Letterer: Ryane Hill
Cullen Bunn is recognized by most readers for his work with the big 2 of Marvel and DC. For me, it’s his comics on BOOM, Oni Press, Dark Horse and now Aftershock.
Bunn’s horror stories are regularly missed by the masses and that’s something that has to change. Seek out titles like Regression (Image Comics), Harrow County (Dark Horse Comics) and the incredibly creepy The Unsound (BOOM! Studios). The latter being a comic that is currently riding high on my top ten of 2017.
The moment I saw the cover for Dark Ark I was instantly pulled in, blood red sky, tentacled beast and demonic looking figurehead. Bunn seems to be delivering us a reverse Noah’s ark story, where the unnatural beasts of the earth are being saved from an imminent flood. I love me some biblical stories that are twisted in a different direction, see Clive Barker and Mark Miller’s Next Testament and Jason Aaron’s The Goddamned to get the same obsession.
“The wickedness of mankind has moved the Creator to destroy the world by way of the flood. Noah has been tasked with building an ark to save his family and the animals of the world. But this is not Noah’s story. For darker powers have commanded the sorcerer Shrae to build his own ark and save the unnatural creatures of the world—such as the vampires, the dragons, the naga, and the manticore. But what will happen on a vessel crawling with monsters, where insidious intrigue and horrific violence are the rule of law?”
Also, is it just me or is Bunn churning out a tonne of comics lately? The guy must be a machine. X-Men: Blue, The Unsound, Regression, Unholy Grail and that’s just a select few from this year, there’s more!!
A final reason to pick this one up is the art. Juan Doe is the artist and his previous work was on the sci-fi epic World Reader. A comic that I still need to catch up on but if you haven’t seen the art then feast your eyes on the below image.
Due to how much I love Cullen Bunn’s horror stories and Juan Doe’s art, I am making Dark Ark my top pick of the new #1 comics this week.
Gasolina (Skybound/Image Comics)
Story: Sean Mackiewicz, Artist: Niko Walter, Colorist: Mat Lopes
Horror comics… lots and lots of horror comics. That was something I was close to complaining about a few months back. But in all honesty I can’t, because the quality of horror themed comics hitting the shelves lately is exceptional.
The Belfry, Aliens: Dead Orbit, Harrow County, The Unsound and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. Yes that’s right, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is haunting as hell!
From reading an interview with writer Sean Mackiewicz, Gasolina for once doesn’t make a play of the vampire mythos which seems to be doing the rounds currently. Instead it mixes a grounded human story involving a Mexican drug cartel, while adding a supernatural twist to bring out the horror theme.
Niko Walter heading up the art is a relative newcomer to me. But seeing his art in early previews of the comic Demonic he definitely has the skill for some incredibly gruesome art.
“Fugitives. Rebels. Newlyweds. In their journey south from El Norte, Amalia and Randy have played many roles in order to survive. Now, they must become unlikely leaders in the fight against a new cartel who uses inhuman tactics to ignite the most monstrous war Mexico – and the world – has ever seen.”
Well that’s it for another week, let me know in the comments below what you picked up this week.
Oh and remember…
READ MORE COMICS!!All residents within a quarter mile radius of Tesoro Refinery are asked to shelter in place. Please avoid the area https://t.co/gq7BaZl7uD — LASD Carson Station (@CarsonLASD) August 26, 2016
An explosion and breach of a sulfur tank at the Tesoro Refinery in Carson led to a shelter-in-place for nearby residents Friday afternoon.The small explosion around 1 p.m. led to the breach, which emitted sulfur into the air. A fire also started but was quickly extinguished. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department asked residents who live within a quarter-mile of the facility at 2300 E 223rd St. to shelter in place.The shelter-in-place order was lifted after 6 p.m.County and refinery officials said the levels of chemicals released into the air were not considered toxic to local residents and the shelter-in-place order was made just as a precaution.Alameda Street between Sepulveda Boulevard and 223rd Street was closed for several hours, reopening Friday evening.No serious injuries were reported.The first live recruiting period of April begins on Friday and the Providence coaching staff is gearing up for the beginning of the offseason recruiting grind by doing an in-home visit with Top-100 2018 guard Noah Locke on Thursday afternoon, a source told pcbb1917.com. Locke was ranked 95th in the class of 2018 in the latest Rivals.com rankings update out on Tuesday. He will run with Team Melo on the Nike EYBL grassroots circuit. The Friars have made it clear to Locke that he is a priority recruit for them in the class of 2018 and this in-home visit right before the beginning of the first live period cements that.
Providence certainly has plenty of options in their backyard in the class of 2018, but assistants Jeff Battle and Ivan Thomas have deep ties in the Mid-Atlantic. Thomas has been the lead assistant recruiting Locke who attends McDonogh HS in Owings Mills, MD. Locke was at Providence’s Elite Camp in June and the Friars extended an offer while the 6’2 guard was on campus. He also attended Providence’s game at Georgetown in mid-January.
Locke recently told Corey Evans of Rivals.com “I really like [Providence]. I like their coaching staff. They stay in contact with me. They really make it known that they want me to come there. They seemed like a family when I went on a visit.”
Providence currently has one open scholarship for next season and five available spots for the 2018-19 season, which is when players like Locke would be entering college. Keep an eye out for my recruiting guide for the first April live period that will be out later in the week with a bevy of Providence targets across the classes of 2018 and 2019 who will be in action this weekend. I’ll also have more information on where Providence’s assistant coaches will be and who they will be watching. To hear that information first, consider pledging over at Patreon.com to get access to a private recruiting Slack channel.
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Liked it? Take a second to support pcbb1917.com on Patreon!Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones "The Australia Post board is independent, it makes its own commercial decisions so this is not a decision of the government," he said. "As the Prime Minister and a taxpayer, I've spoken to the chairman today. I think that salary, that remuneration, is too high. "I know it's a big job, it's a big company. I know the company has been able to improve its position but, in my view, and I say this as someone who spent most of his life in the business world before I came into politics, I think that is a very big salary for that job. "I'm entitled to my opinion, just like every other Australian is, and I think many would agree with me."
Illustration: Ron Tandberg An Australia Post spokesman said Mr Fahour's pay "takes into account the size and complexity of the organisation, which has an annual turnover of more than $6 billion". "Mr Fahour's remuneration in financial year 2016 included a performance-based short-term bonus in line with Australia Post returning to profit. The previous year he did not receive a bonus. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he believes Mr Fahour's salary is too high. Credit:Andrew Meares "Total executive remuneration has not increased since 2014 when the executive last received their full eligible performance bonus."
The company published detailed information about executive salaries up until its 2014-15 annual report. The last time Mr Fahour's salary was listed was in the 2013-14 annual report, when he received a salary of $1.7 million and a bonus of $2.6 million. In 2016, Australia Post refused to reveal how much it paid Mr Fahour, blocking a freedom of information request from Fairfax Media. A request for his 2015-16 salary was refused because it related to "the commercial activities of the corporation" and "would involve the unreasonable disclosure of personal information". A further $2 million he was due in net superannuation payments was "mutually agreed" to be turned into a pre-tax $2.8 million donation to the Islamic Museum of Australia, founded by his brother Moustafa Fahour. The boss of Britain's Royal Mail Service earns £1.5 million ($2.4 million), compared with about $500,000 for the Canada Post chief executive and $545,000 for the US Postmaster General.
Labor senator Doug Cameron said Australian companies were pushing "Bangladesh" wage rates and conditions for workers, but Wall Street pay and conditions for executives. "I just can't for the life of me understand why any public servant would need to be paid over $5 million," he said. "I have appeared in estimates with Australia Post and I can't see over $5 million worth of value out of any individual." Liberal James Paterson, chairman of the committee responsible for releasing the information this week, said it was clearly in the public interest. "A lot of other organisations, the NBN, for example, publishes this information and listed companies in Australia are required by law to publish it, so I don't see why a publicly owned entity like Australia Post should have less disclosure obligations than a private company," he told the ABC.
"It is an extremely generous salary package and it makes him the highest paid public servant effectively in Australia, even more than the NBN CEO, who received about $3.6 million last financial year." One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the revelation was disgusting and pledged to take action. "No Australians would support this. No one," she said. Follow us on Facebook Follow Tom McIlroy on FacebookThe guys at Factcheck.org have taken a look at some of Hillary Clinton’s claimed foreign policy achievements:
* Clinton claims to have “negotiated open borders” in Macedonia to fleeing Kosovar refugees. But the Macedonian border opened a full day before she arrived, and her meetings with Macedonian officials were too brief to allow for much serious negotiating.
* Clinton’s activities “helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.” Irish officials are divided as to how helpful Clinton’s actions were, and key players agree that she was not directly involved in any actual negotiations.
* Clinton has repeatedly referenced her “dangerous” trip to Bosnia. She fails to mention, however, that the Bosnian war had officially ended three months before her visit – or that she made the trip with her 16-year-old daughter and two entertainers.
* Both Bill and Hillary Clinton claim that Hillary privately championed the use of U.S. troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That conversation left no public record, however, as U.S. policy was explicitly to stay out of Rwanda, and officials say that the use of U.S. troops was never considered.by Brett Stevens on June 27, 2011
We are fortunate to have Daryl Davis, author of Klan-Destine Relationships, to interview here on Amerika.org. Daryl is a brave fellow who as an African-American interested in issues of race, has contacted a number of members of the Ku Klux Klan and interviewed them, often before tipping them off to his ethnicity.
A good number of these Klansman later became friendly with Daryl, and from the stories they told and his own experiences, he formed the basis of what would become Klan-Destine Relationships. In addition, Daryl is a fully accomplished musician who has played with more famous names than this writer is able to recognize (see the pictures page for Daryl next to Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, among others).
Thanks to his generosity in answering our questions, we are able to offer you a short interview with Daryl Davis on the topics of nationalism, race, racism and of course, how these ongoing issues might be resolved.
Daryl, thank you for being with us today; you’re live on Amerika.org!
Thanks again for considering my perspectives to be included in your blog. I appreciate the opportunity and will do my best to provide you with answers that best define my opinions. I would preface these forthcoming answers with the fact that I am speaking solely for myself and I do not portray myself to represent those who may agree with me. My answers to your questions are based upon my own academic knowledge, empirical experiences and personal conjecture derived from said knowledge and experiences.
For your book, “Klan-Destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan,” you confronted a number of Klansmen under friendly circumstances, without telling them in advance that you are African-American. How did introducing them to the person first, and then the ethnic background, change how they reacted to you?
As a Black child, I had been the target of occasional racist incidents by some White perpetrators. These incidents have always remained fresh in my mind, even today at my present age of 53. But it was a couple of personal encounters in 1974 and 1982 that I had with Matt Koehl, who took over the leadership of the American Nazi Party when George Lincoln Rockwell was murdered, that played a key role in my quest of wanting to learn more about racism, supremacy (White and Black), and separatism.
From the age of 15, I began spending a lot of time in libraries and bookstores, purchasing every book and publication I could find. I sought out conversations with every person who would give me the time of day, regardless if they were racist or not, but who had opinions, knowledge and experience in these areas. Over time, I educated myself in this subject matter. I don’t wish to be at the risk of stereotyping, but I must say, it got to the point of where I could accurately predict the thought process of many of practitioners these ideologies.
That being said, it was not my intent to deceive or trick anyone by not foretelling them of my pigmentation. Rather, it was my goal to secure a candid, spontaneous answers to my interview questions. I acquired and supplied my White secretary with the phone numbers and had her make the initial calls to the prospective interviewees. My presumptions, many of which were later confirmed to be accurate, were that some of these people with whom I wanted an interview, would not have spoken with me, had they had the foreknowledge that I was Black. I did not want to take the chance that they might be able to tell the color of my skin by certain inflections in my voice over the phone and therefore refuse my request for an interview. However, I knew they would have no doubt by her voice, that this woman calling on my behalf, was absolutely White. I knew that most of these people would not automatically assume that a White woman would be working for a Black man writing a book on the Ku Klux Klan. In their minds, there would be a presumption that her boss was White.
It was also my assumption that they might have different answers for a White interviewer than they would have for a Black interviewer asking the same questions, if they had time to prepare their answers knowing the interviewer was Black. So, I would let them decide once they saw me, if they wanted to follow through with the interview. I instructed her not to reveal my color unless asked. Most did not ask and agreed to meet me for an interview. Some invited me over to their homes, not knowing I was Black. Others met with me at predetermined locations, such as hotels, restaurants, parking lots. All were completely shocked, but most complied with my interview while a few refused at this point. One of the Klansmen who initially refused, later approached me and requested that I interview him.
I think their initial reactions to me being Black were predictable, but that’s where predictability ended and individualism entered. While many of the people I interviewed shared the same common beliefs of White superiority and Black inferiority, no one can say that each Klanmember is cut from a standard cookie cutter. They all come from various walks of life, educational backgrounds, levels of intellect, socio-economic status and religious denominations. We often found ourselves having more in common with each other than we had in contrast. There were times I was surprised by some of their answers as they were by some of mine. The fact that I knew a great deal about the Klan, and in some cases more than some of them did, afforded me a higher degree of respect in their eyes after their getting over the initial shock of my being Black. I do believe that by introducing them to the person first, sight unseen, over the phone, and allowing them to form their own preconceived notions, prior to facing my ethnic background, did in the end, work to all our advantages. They met and interacted with someone they did not accurately predict and the spontaneity of our encounters has led to many long-lasting friendships.
When people join a group like the Klan, we can talk about their underlying psychology or their political influences, but often it is more instructive to try to figure out what they value. What kind of society do you think these Klansmen, that you have spoken to, desire? What is their ideal place to live in?
Well, as I said in the previous answer, a Klanmember is not cut from a standard cookie cutter. Based upon their own environment, social and educational achievements (or failures), levels of acceptance or tolerance, can determine what their ultimate desires may be in terms of the ideal place in which to live. At the very least some KKK members (White separatists) will tolerate or might even accept co-existence with other races in this country as long as there are separate schools, residential neighborhoods, work places, churches, etc. Some on the extreme end of separatism, have shown me a map of the United States with certain States designated for Blacks, certain others designated for Whites, and others for Hispanics and remaining races and ethnicities.
Just over the line from the extreme KKK separatists, are the KKK extremists (White supremacists). These are ones who tell me that this country is, “For Whites only. All non-Aryans (or “mud races†as they refer to non-Whites) must leave this country or be exterminated in RAHOWA (Racial Holy War). Some supremacists at the extreme end of supremacy will not talk with me.
You are quite an accomplished musician, having performed with a number of “big names” in blues and rock, and a number of rather large venues including the Kennedy Center. What made you desire to go into music, and was your own ethnic background a consideration in choosing a predominantly African-American form of music?
Thank you for the compliment. I actually started out late in life compared to most musicians who took lessons and played as children. Up until about 11th grade, I wanted to be a spy. I was fascinated with James Bond. To this day, I still have my James Bond briefcase that fires plastic bullets and my 007 decoder belt from my childhood!
During my junior year of high school, I thought about people that I most admire. Two names came to mind; one was Elvis Presley and the other was Chuck Berry. What was it about these two gentlemen that prominently stood out in my mind?
It was the fact that they each had made millions upon millions of people all over the world happy with their music. These were people who may never see them in person, let alone meet them. But, they would hear their music and dance and be happy. Who has never heard Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog or Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode? Some people have been fortunate enough to see Elvis and Chuck perform live, but most have only seen video clips or filmed performances. Most people who admire these two artists, have never met them.
Back in the day, as we know, many concert halls and live music venues did not allow Blacks. If they did, they were segregated with ropes going around the seating sections with signs hanging that read, “Seating For White Patrons Only†or “Colored Seating Only.†Should you go to see Frank Sinatra, Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman or whoever back in the 1940s and you sat in your seating section as designated by the color of your skin or you were subject to arrest if you cross-sat with a member of another race, regardless of whether or not the other person was your close friend. This was law and it was strictly enforced.
Most concert goers abided by this rules. These Jim Crow laws were still in place in the 1950s as well. But midway through this decade, two phenomena happened. The first was the invention of Rock’n’Roll by Black artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley and others. It was quickly adopted and popularized by White artists such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and others.
The second was that for the first time in the history of this country when any of these Rock’n’Roll or Rockabilly artists performed, Black kids and White kids would bounce up out of their seats, knock down the ropes and start dancing and boogying in the aisles together. This had never happened before. Naturally, the powers that be a/k/a the White Establishment, blamed it on the sexual and Satanic rhythms of Black music. City officials all over the country began cracking down on it, banning “Rock’n’Roll shows from taking place in their towns because of the “race mixing†that would ensue resulting from this Black music. When Black and White kids would start dancing together at these shows that managed to take place, the police would arrive and end the concert. It was called everything from race music, jungle music to nigger bop.
White artists like Elvis Presley, were considered a disgrace to the White race for advocating, promoting and performing this music. On top of that, he was wiggling around and gyrating his lower body “like a nigger.†How could, and why would, a White man “lower himself to the level with a nigger?†Some of the Establishment even went so far as to call this advent in Black music, a Communist plot to disrupt America and corrupt White youth.
White youth it seemed, couldn’t get enough of it and record companies began getting their White artists to “cover†these songs by the original Black artists. Since the most revenue in music came from the pockets of White youth and they were gravitating toward this Black music, something had to be done to avert little White girls from idolizing and screaming over a Black performer. This is why record companies got people like Pat Boone to record songs like Little Richard’s Tutti Fruiti and Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill. This was where the term “cover song†first originated. It meant a White artist “covering†a Black artist’s song. While the Establishment realized they couldn’t get away from this bizarre new music, the best thing they could do, was to have their own kind perform it rather than have their kids become enamored with Black purveyors of this despicable noise Black people called music.
But here’s the irony. The establishment hated Elvis Presley. They kicked him off television for shaking his hips and “dancing like a nigger.†But within a couple of years when they saw how much money they could make from this same music, the very people who condemned Elvis, now embraced him and claimed the music as their own, appointing him the King of Rock’n’Roll. Yeah, the White man who was called a sellout, a disgrace, a corrupter of White youth and a nigger lover, was now being called a King and the inventor of this music known as Rock’n’Roll. Go figure that one!!! Forget the real inventors who were Black, like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Bo Diddley.
The fact that it was created by Blacks really had nothing to do with my choice of deciding to play that genre created by members of my ethnicity. I liked the style and the power that it has to bring people of all races and walks of life together, be it on a dance floor or at a concert. When I decided to become a musician as a teenager in my junior year of high school, I taught myself to play and had friends of mine who could play, show me different things on the piano and guitar. I purchased books and taught myself to read music. I wanted not to imitate but to emulate what Elvis and Chuck had done, in terms of making many people happy through the power of music. Since they and their contemporaries were my idols, I decided to study not only them, but also whoever they listened to. Where did this Rock’n’Roll come from. That’s how I discovered the Blues and Boogie Woogie. I made it my mission to meet Chuck and Elvis and I accomplished that goal. I also met many of their contemporaries and their predecessors to whom they listened, like Pinetop Perkins, Johnnie Johnson, Muddy Waters and other great Blues and Boogie Woogie artists.
I went to Howard University and graduated with my degree in music in 1980. My major was Jazz Performance and my minor was voice. What my college training taught me was how to analyze and write the music I had taught myself to play and sing. The emphasis there was on Jazz and Classical music. Today in addition to Rock’n’Roll, I also play Country, Jazz, Swing, Boogie Woogie, Bluegrass, R&B and some other musical genres as well.
In 1983, I was a new member, not to mention the only Black member, of a Bluegrass/Country band. The places we placed were predominantly patronized by Whites. One of these places was an all-White truck stop lounge in Frederick, Maryland. To be clear, I don’t mean that Blacks were not allowed entrance. They simply chose on their own not to come there and it was a good choice, because they were not welcome. We’ll here I am in this place for the first time and after the first set the band went on break. I was walking across the dance floor to sit at a table with the bandleader and my bandmates when someone walked up behind me and put their arm around my shoulder. I stopped and turned around to see who was being so familiar with me. I could see all the other bandmembers and I didn’t know anyone else at this place.
It was a White gentleman in his mid to late 40s and he said, “I really like your all’s music.†I thanked him and shook his hand. He went on to say, “I seen this here band before, but I ain’t never seen you. Where’d you come from?†I replied that I had just joined the band a couple of months prior to this gig. “You know, this is the first time I ever seen a Black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis,†he goes on. I was truly naïve and taken aback in disbelief at his statement. I asked, “Where do you think Jerry Lee Lewis learned how to play?†He said Jerry Lee invented that style of playing on his own. I explained that Jerry Lee learned to play that style from the same sources from which I too had learned, Black Blues and Boogie Woogie pianists. Jerry Lee’s first cousins, Mickey Gilley and the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart all used to watch these Black pianists perform at a Black club in Ferriday, Louisiana. This gentleman did not believe me and simply refused to believe that Jerry Lee Lewis could have possibly learned anything from a Black pianist and laughed at my telling him that. Even after I told him that I knew Jerry Lee and he was a good friend of mine and he told me himself where he learned to play, this guy still would not accept it. I don’t believe he even bought that I knew Jerry Lee. But he wanted to buy me a drink.
I don’t drink, but I agreed to go to his table and have a cranberry juice with him. When the waitress returned with our drinks, he paid her and took his beer and cheered my glass proclaiming that this was the first time he had ever sat down and had a drink with a Black man. Again, I was taken aback. It was the first time he had ever heard a Black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis and now it was the first time he had ever had a drink with a Black man. This gentleman was having quite a night of firsts!
I was 25 at the time and had sat down and had beverages, meals, and conversation with thousands of White people and couldn’t imagine how it was that this guy who had been around at least 20 years longer than me, had never sat down with a Black person before. So I asked him why. He revealed to me that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. At that point, it was my turn to laugh, because I didn’t believe him. Why on Earth would a Klansman put his arm around my shoulder, praise my piano playing and want to buy me a drink? I stopped laughing when he pulled out his Klan card and handed it to me. Again, this demonstrates the power of music to bring unlikely people together in camaraderie. Matt Koehl planted the seed with me and this guy was the first blossom and this experience would later serve as an important catalyst in my writing KLAN-DESTINE RELATIONSHIPS.
As the child of a successful diplomat, you lived in many places around the world and saw children of different ethnic backgrounds interacting pleasantly, before you returned to the United States and were exposed to racist abuse. Do you think the diplomatic community provides a representative sample of humanity?
I think the diplomatic community provides a representative sample of what humanity could be, certainly not what it currently is. I grew up as an American embassy brat. Combining my travels abroad as a child of parents in the U.S. Foreign Service, with my travels as an adult musician performing gigs nationally and internationally, to date, I have been in 51 different countries on 5 continents. I have seen many examples of different cultures getting along in harmony, but I’ve also seen tribal and religious strife as well.
Some of my elementary and junior high school years were spent overseas where I would attend international schools. All the kids from the various embassies in these countries, attended the international school as well. So consequently, in the 1960s overseas, I was in classes with Nigerian, Japanese, Russian, French, German, Danish, Chinese, Italian and whatever other kinds of kids were there, usually as a result of their parents being with the embassies of their respective countries. We all went to school together. At the same time back home here in the States, my peers were in class with all Whites or all Blacks, or just Blacks and Whites, depending upon whether or not that particular school was integrated or segregated. Additionally, at that time in our history, there was not the large amount of racial and ethnic diversity that we see in our classrooms today.
So, at the end of our tour of duty, we would return home, here to the United States where I would attend school for 9 months to a year or so, until our next assignment on the other side of the world. I was therefore in a very unique position as a child to be able to see opposite sides of the spectrum while at the same age. When I was overseas, sometimes in third world countries, I was living in the future. My classrooms there, represented what wouldn’t come to the United States for another 20 years. The multicultural environment of our American classrooms of today were experienced by me 20 years before it happened here. Overseas, I was literally living in the future of what was to come in my own country. This is the sample of which I am speaking. It worked in the diplomatic community over there and is now common place over here, but it still needs a lot of tweaking.
Do you think a multiracial/multicultural society can function? If so, do you have any examples of any throughout history or in the present time that you’d like to share?
I guess it depends upon the definition of multiracial/multicultural. One definition of these terms is people from a multitude of different or various races and cultures co-existing in the same societal environment. Another definition refers to the physiological and ideological characteristics of someone who is the offspring of mixed race ancestors and cultures. For example, a girl whose mother is Vietnamese and Buddhist and her father is Italian and Catholic, could also be considered to be multiracial/multicultural.
I believe a society containing inhabitants fitting either definition can indeed function as long as there is a uniform and universal respect for humanity in general. There are those in our society who believe in a need to maintain the purity of their own race & culture, and therefore do not endorse cross-pollinating or miscegenation. Some have this belief out of their own feelings of racial superiority, while some others share the belief but do not feel that other races are inferior, but are in fact equal. However they simply wish to preserve their own history. The common fear of both these groups is that their history will become extinct and their society will become uniracial and unicultural. Society is indeed heading in that direction. There was a time when you could look at someone of mixed ethnicity and tell the two backgrounds that produced them. Today, there are many more people with so many different background characteristics, it is hard to tell without asking them.
Personally, |
was also possible for black people to rent their own land or work in government, and agricultural workers on plantations could make complaints to the royal administration about working conditions. These ex-slaves might have also sometimes had a choice about what plantation they would work on — but they could not choose not to work, and they could not legally leave a plantation they were "attached" to. Many ex-slaves were probably forced to work on the same plantations they had worked on as slaves.
The population's staunch resistance to working on plantations — owned by whites or otherwise — made it too difficult to perpetuate the system, despite its profitability. Christophe and other leaders enacted policies allowing state land to be broken up and sold to citizens, and the plantation system largely gave way to one in which Haitians owned and farmed smaller lots.
Jean-Pierre Boyer [ edit ]
In 1817, a Haitian ship seized a Spanish slave ship bound for Cuba which had entered Haiti's waters, and, acting on standing government orders, brought it ashore. All 171 captive Africans were liberated and joyfully accepted into Haitian society, and President Jean-Pierre Boyer himself served as their godfather. The ship's captain, and later Cuban officials, protested to Boyer that his trade was legal, but Boyer maintained that the 1816 constitution decreed there could be no slaves in Haitian territory, and no reimbursement could be given for their value. Slave ships had also been seized and their human cargo freed under previous leaders Christophe and Alexandre Pétion, and slaves who managed to take control of ships and arrive in Haiti were given asylum. Slavers quickly learned to avoid Haiti's waters.
In 1825 France sent an armada to Haiti and threatened to blockade the country, preventing trade unless Boyer agreed to pay France 150,000,000 francs to reimburse it for losses of "property" — mostly its slaves. In exchange, France would recognize Haiti as an independent nation, which it had thus far refused to do. Boyer agreed without making the decision public beforehand, a move which met with widespread outrage in Haiti. The amount was reduced to 90,000,000 francs in 1838, equivalent to USD $19 billion in 2015.[58] Haiti was saddled with this debt until 1947,[39] and forced to forgo spending on humanitarian programs such as sanitation.[59] In 1838, an estimated 30% of the country's yearly budget went to debt, and in 1900, the amount had risen to 80%.[59] Haiti took out loans from Germany, the U.S., and France itself to come up with this money, further increasing its debt burden[59] and those countries' centrality in the Haitian economy.
Under pressure to produce money to pay the debt, in 1826 Boyer enacted a new set of laws called the Code Rural that restricted agricultural workers' autonomy, required them to work, and prohibited their travel without permission. It also reenacted the system of Corvée, by which police and government authorities could force residents to work temporarily without pay on roads. These laws met with widespread resistance and were difficult to enforce since the workers' access to land provided them autonomy and they were able to hide from the government.
The United States passed laws to keep Haitian merchants away from U.S. soil because slaveholders there did not want their slaves getting ideas about revolt from the Haitians. However, the two countries continued trade, with Haiti purchasing the weapons it needed, albeit at disadvantageous prices. The U.S. embargo of Haiti lasted 60 years, but Lincoln declared it unnecessary to deny the country's independence once the institution in the U.S. began to be ended. He encouraged newly freed slaves to emigrate there to attain a freedom he did not deem possible in the U.S.
US occupation [ edit ]
In July 1915, after political unrest and the mob murder of Haiti's president Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, United States marines invaded Haiti. Prior to the occupation peasants had staged uprisings to resist moves by US investors to appropriate their land and convert the style of agriculture in the area from subsistence back to a plantation-like system—the idea of going back to anything like the plantation system faced fierce resistance. Haitians had been afraid that US investors were trying to convert the economy back into a plantation-based one since US businesses had been amassing land and evicting rural peasants from their family land. Rural Haitians formed armies that roamed around the countryside, stealing from farmers and raping women. The motivation of the US occupation of Haiti was partly to protect investments[69] and to prevent European countries from gaining too much power in the area. One stated justification for the occupation had been the practice of enslaving children as domestic servants; however the US then reinstituted the practice of forced labor under the corvée system.
As had occurred under the regimes of Dessalines and Christophe, unfree labor was again employed in a public works program, this time ordered by the US Admiral William Banks Caperton. In 1916, the US occupiers employed the corvée system of forced labor allowed by Haiti's 1864 Code Rural until 1918. Since the Haitian resistance fighters, or Cacos, hid out in remote, mountainous areas and waged guerrilla-style warfare against the Marines, the military needed roads built to find and fight them. To build the roads, laborers were forcibly taken from their homes, bound together with rope into chain gangs and sometimes beaten and abused, and resisters were executed. Peasants were told they would be paid for their labor and given food, working near their homes — but sometimes the promised food and wages were meager or altogether absent. Corvée was highly unpopular; Haitians widely believed that whites had returned to Haiti to force them back into slavery. The brutality of the forced labor system strengthened the Cacos; many Haitians escaped to the mountains to join them, and many more lent their help and support. Reports of the abuses led the commander of the Marines to order an end to the practice in 1918; however, it continued illegally in the north until it was discovered — no one faced punishment for the infraction. When corvée was no longer available, occupiers turned to prison labor, sometimes having men arrested for the purpose when they had too few laborers. The occupation lasted until 1934.
Modern day [ edit ]
Haiti has the second-highest incidences of slavery in the world, behind only Mauritania. (Estimates from the Walk Free Foundation.)
Slavery is still widespread in Haiti today. According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, Haiti has an estimated 237,700 enslaved persons[80] making it the country with the second-highest prevalence of slavery in the world, behind only Mauritania.[81] Haiti has more human trafficking than any other Central or South American country. According to the United States Department of State 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report, "Haiti is a major source, passage, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex slavery."[83] Haitians are trafficked out of Haiti and into the neighboring Dominican Republic, as well as to other countries such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, and North American countries as well.[84][85] Haiti is also a transit country for victims of trafficking en route to the United States.[80] After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, human trafficking has drastically increased.[86] While trafficking often implies moving, particularly smuggling people across borders, it only requires "the use of force, fraud, or coercion to exploit a person for profit," and it is understood to be a form of slavery.[87]
Children [ edit ]
Internally displaced women and girls living in refugee camps after the 2010 earthquake are at particularly high risk for enslavement.
Child trafficking is a substantial part of the human trafficking crisis in Haiti.[84] One major form of child trafficking and child slavery, affecting an estimated 300,000 Haitian children, is called the restavek system, in which children are forced to work as domestic servants.[88] The restavek system accounts for the lion's share of human trafficking in Haiti.[87] Families send the children into other households, exchanging their labor for upbringing.[89] Impoverished rural parents hope for education and a better life for their children in the city, sending them to wealthier (or at least less poor) households.[91] Increasingly, children enter domestic servitude when a parent dies.[91] Paid middlemen may act as recruiters, fetching the children for the host families.[87][91][92] Unlike slaves in the traditional sense, restaveks are not bought or sold or owned, could run away or return to their families, and are typically released from servitude when they become adults; however, the restavek system is commonly understood to be a form of slavery.[87]
Some restaveks do receive proper nutrition and education, but they are in the minority.[92] Restaveks' labor includes hauling water and wood, grocery shopping,[92] laundry, house cleaning, and childcare.[91] Restaveks work long hours (commonly 10 to 14 a day) under harsh conditions, are frequently denied schooling, and are at severe risk of malnutrition and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse.[91] Beatings are a daily occurrence for most restaveks, and most of the girls are sexually abused, which puts them at an elevated risk for HIV infection.[94] Those who are thrown out or run away from their host homes become street children, vulnerable to exploitation including forced prostitution.[84] Those who return to their families may be unwelcome as an added economic burden or shamed and stigmatized for having been a restavek.[88] The trauma of abuse and the deprivation of free time and normal childhood experiences can stunt a child's development and have long-lasting effects.[88][91]
The term restavek comes from the French "to live with", rester avec. The practice has been around since the end of the revolution[96] but became common in the 20th century as a way for rural people to cope with poverty. The number of restaveks increased after the 2010 earthquake, when many children became orphans or were separated from their families.[91] The U.S. Department of State estimated in 2013 that between 150,000 and 500,000 children were in domestic servitude, accounting for most of Haiti's human trafficking.[83][98] About 19% of Haitian children ages 5 to 17 live away from their parents, and about 8.2% are considered domestic workers. In one survey, restaveks were present in 5.3% of households by their heads' own admission.[99] In one study, 16% of Haitian children surveyed admitted to being restaveks.[91] It is estimated that an additional 3,000 Haitian children are domestic servants in the Dominican Republic.[98]
Children are also trafficked out of Haiti by organizations claiming to be adoption agencies, into countries including the U.S. – but some are actually kidnapped from their families.[100] This practice was particularly widespread in the chaos following the 2010 earthquake.[100] While women migrants were vulnerable during this time, the situation of children was underscored because of the phenomenon of irregular adoptions (one facet of human trafficking) of supposed "orphans" through the Dominican Republic.[101] International outcry arose when on January 29, 2010, ten members of the American New Life Children's Refuge were arrested trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country to an orphanage—but the children were not orphans.[87] Traffickers pretending to be workers from legitimate charitable organizations have been known to trick refugee families, convincing them that their children would be taken to safety and cared for.[102] In some cases, traffickers run "orphanages" or "care facilities" for children that are difficult to distinguish from legitimate organizations.[103] Children may be smuggled across the border by paid traffickers claiming to be their parents and subsequently forced into laboring for begging rings or as servants.[84] Child trafficking spurred UNICEF to fund the Brigade de Protection des Mineurs, a branch of the national police that exists to monitor cases of child trafficking, to watch borders and refugee camps for such activity.[102] Children in refugee camps are in particular danger of other kinds of trafficking as well, including sexual exploitation.[103]
Sex slavery [ edit ]
Although a majority of the modern-day slavery cases in Haiti are due to the practice of the restavek system, trafficking for sexual exploitation in Haiti is a widespread and pressing issue.[83][98] In recent years, Haiti has become a magnet for sex tourists.[86] Sex slavery includes the practices of coercion, forced prostitution, and trafficking for any sexual purposes.[86] Sheldon Zhang defines sex trafficking as "migrants [who] are transported with the intent to perform sexual services...and in which the smuggling process is enabled through the use of force, fraud, or coercion."[104] Most victims are trafficked for prostitution, but others are used for pornography and stripping. Children tend to be trafficked within their own countries, while young women may be trafficked internally or internationally, sometimes with the consent of their husbands or other family members.[83]
Suspicion was raised in 2007 that UN peacekeeping forces (deployed in 2004 to quell political instability) were creating an increased demand for sex trafficking after 114 UN soldiers were expelled from Haiti for using prostitutes.[105][106] In its 2007 yearly report, the US State Department found an increase in sex trafficking into Haiti of women and girls to work as prostitutes for peacekeepers.[105] It was the first mention in such a report of women being trafficked into Haiti from the Dominican Republic for sex work.[106]
Haitian–Dominican border [ edit ]
Satellite image showing the border between Haiti (left) and the Dominican Republic (right).
For decades Haitians have been crossing the Haitian-Dominican border for various reasons, including voluntary and involuntary migration, long- and short-term residence in the Dominican Republic, legal and illegal entry, smuggling, and human trafficking.[107] Haitians move across the Haitian-Dominican border in search of opportunities and they are highly vulnerable to exploitation.[101][107] In fact, the Dominican Republic has one of the worst records of human rights abuses, including human trafficking, against migrant workers in all of the Caribbean.[107] Haitians in the Dominican Republic are widely disparaged as a migrant minority because of the countries' proximity.[107] During the dictatorial reign of Jean-Claude Duvalier in the 1970s and 80s, he sold Haitians at bulk rates to work on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic.
Most people who move across the border are women and girls. The migration of Haitian women to the Dominican Republic is intrinsically linked to the "feminization of migrations" which is in turn part of the "new Haitian immigration," brought about by changes in labor markets as well as by the fragile situation of women and their families in Haiti.[101] Women migrants are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking, violence and illicit smuggling.[101] When attempting to cross the border, Haitian women are at risk of being robbed, assaulted, raped and murdered, at the hands of smugglers, delinquents and traffickers, both Dominican and Haitian.[109] Given this threat of violence, women turn to alternative, unofficial routes and dependence upon hired buscones (informal scouts), cousins and other distant family to accompany them across the border.[109] These hired smugglers who have promised to help them, often through force and coercion, trick them instead into forced domestic labor in private homes in Santo Domingo, the capital of Dominican Republic. Hired buscones also sell women and children into the sex slave trade within the Dominican Republic (brothels and other venues) or into sexual slavery as an export.[101][109] Often, mothers need their young children to help provide for the family, which puts the children in vulnerable positions and allows them to fall prey to predators and traffickers.[101] The number of children smuggled into the Dominican Republic is not known, but a UNICEF estimate placed the number at 2,000 in 2009 alone.[110] Haitian officials report that there are three main fates met by children trafficked out of Haiti: domestic work, prostitution, and organ harvesting.[111]
Women from the Dominican Republic have also reportedly been trafficked into Haiti to be sex slaves.[84]
Government action [ edit ]
The 2014 U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report placed Haiti on the Tier 2 Watch List.[115] Tier 2 Watchlist placement is given to countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's (TVPA) minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards, and the number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or significantly increasing.[83] Some of Haiti's efforts to combat modern-day slavery include ratifying several key conventions, including the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UHDR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention Concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, and the ILO Minimum Age Convention.[80] In 2014 Haiti ratified the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children.[112] Conventions such as these, if enforced, could help to combat human trafficking.[87] In 2000, Haiti signed the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, but has not ratified it.[113] Haiti has not ratified the Convention on Domestic Workers.[114]
Anti-restavek action [ edit ]
In accordance with these international conventions, Haitian law prohibits abuse, violence, exploitation and servitude of children of any kind that is likely to harm their safety, health, or morals.[80][98] Additionally, it declares that all children have the right to an education and to be free from degrading and inhumane treatment.[80] Enacted in 2003, Article 335 of the Haitian Labor code prohibits the employment of children under the age of 15.[98] Furthermore, an Act passed in June 2003 specifically outlawed the placement of children into restavek service.[91][98] The law states that a child in domestic service must be treated in the same manner as the biological children of the family; however it does not contain any criminal sanctions for those who violate its provisions.[80] Despite the enactment of these laws, the practice of restavek persists and grows.[98] Political instability and lack of resources hinder efforts to curtail trafficking in children.
Prosecution and protection [ edit ]
The government took steps to legally address the issue of trafficking of women and children by submitting a bill to Parliament, in response to its ratification of the Palermo Protocol which required it.[117] In 2014 the law CL/2014-0010 was passed, criminalizing trafficking with penalties of up to 15 years of imprisonment.[115] However, enforcement remains elusive.[91] Impediments to combating human trafficking include widespread corruption, the lack of quick responses to cases with trafficking indicators, the slow pace of the judicial branch to resolve criminal cases, and scant funding for government agencies.[83]
People displaced by the 2010 earthquake are at an increased risk of sex trafficking and forced labor.[80] The international protections in place for the internally displaced, primarily the 1998 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, do not apply to earthquake survivors who have crossed an international border.[109] There is nothing protecting the externally displaced, which creates significant protection gaps for those most vulnerable to trafficking – girls and young women – who are treated as migration offenders rather than forced migrants in need of protection.[109] No temporary protected status has been created or granted in the Dominican Republic.[109]
Haitian Police
Since the 2010 Haiti earthquake, international aid and domestic effort has been focused on relief and recovery, and as a result few resources have been set aside for combating modern day slavery.[80] There are no government-run shelters to aid human trafficking victims. The government refers victims to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for services like food and medical care.[118] The majority of victim services are provided by Haitian NGOs such as Foyer l'Escale, Centre d'Action pour le Developpement and Organisation des Jeunes Filles en Action that provide accommodation, educational and psycho-social services to victims.[80] Additionally, the IOM has been cooperating with local NGOs and the Haitian Ministry of Social Affairs, the Institute for Social Welfare and Research or the Brigade for the Protection of Minors of the Haitian national police, to tackle human trafficking.[80]
Prevention [ edit ]
The government has made efforts to prevent and reduce human trafficking. In June 2012, the IBESR (Institut du BienEtre Social et de Recherches) launched a human trafficking hotline and conducted a campaign to raise public awareness about child labor, child trafficking, and child sexual abuse.[83] The government made a hotline to report cases of abuse of restaveks.[110] In December 2012, the government created a national commission for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor, which involved launching a public awareness campaign on child labor, and highlighting a national day against restavek abuse.[83] In early 2013, the government created an inter-ministerial working group on human trafficking, chaired by the Judicial Affairs Director of the Foreign Affairs ministry, to coordinate all anti-trafficking executive branch initiatives.[83]
Contributing factors [ edit ]
Slums in the area of Bas-Ravine, in the northern part of Cap-Haïtien
The 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report identified several individual and structural factors that contribute to the persistence of human trafficking to, through, and out of Haiti, as well as throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.[83] The Haitians at gravest risk of victimization by human traffickers are its poorest people, particularly children.[84] In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere,[87] over half the population lives on less than a dollar a day and over three quarters live on less than two dollars a day.[59][80] Severe poverty, combined with a lack of social services such as education and basic healthcare, increases a child's vulnerability to modern slavery.[59][80] Factors that increase a child's likelihood of becoming a restavek include illness or loss of one or both parents, lack of access to clean water, lack of educational opportunities, and having access to family in a city.[87] In addition to poverty, individual factors that can lead to exploitation include unemployment, illiteracy, poor educational opportunities, a history of physical or sexual abuse, homelessness, and drug abuse.[83] These individual factors "push" people toward pathways of human trafficking and modern-day slavery.[83] Oftentimes men, women and children accept slave-like work conditions because there is little hope for improvement and they need to survive.[98] Some cross national borders in search of positive opportunities, but instead find themselves a part of the exploited work force.[86] Additionally, factors that make people easy targets for traffickers make enslavement more likely. One group at high risk for sexual enslavement and other types of forced labor is internally displaced persons, particularly women and children living in refugee camps,[118] which offer little security. The estimated 10% of undocumented Haitians, whose births go unreported, are at especially high risk of enslavement.[84]
Human trafficking along the Haitian-Dominican border persists because both sending and receiving countries have a huge economic stake in continuing the stream of undocumented migration, which directly leads to trafficking.[107] Trafficking is a profitable business[119] for traffickers both in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. As long as large economic and social disparities such as poverty, social exclusion, environmental crises, and political instability exist between the two countries, the trade will continue.[107]
There are also structural factors outside of the individual that explain the persistence of modern-day slavery in Haiti. The U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report has identified the following eight structural factors that contribute to human trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean: (1) the high demand for domestic servants, agricultural laborers, sex workers, and factory labor; (2) political, social, or economic crises, as well as natural disasters such as the January 2010 earthquake; (3) lingering machismo (chauvinistic attitudes and practices) that tends to lead to discrimination against women and girls; (4) existence of established trafficking networks with sophisticated recruitment methods; (5) public corruption, especially complicity between law enforcement and border agents with traffickers and smugglers of people; (6) restrictive immigration policies in some destination countries that have limited the opportunities for legal migration flows to occur; (7) government disinterest in the issue of human trafficking; and (8) limited economic opportunities for women.[83] The restavek tradition is perpetuated by widespread tolerance for the practice throughout Haiti.[88][91][92] Other contributing factors to the restavek system include poverty and lack of access to contraception, education, and employment in the countryside.[92] Poor rural families with many children have few opportunities to feed and educate them, leaving few options other than servitude in the city.[92]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Dubois, L. (2012). Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.Quark is a fresh cheese, traditionally made with unpasteurized milk, although versions available in stores may be made with pasteurized milk, out of concern for consumer safety. In any case, the cheese only keeps for around a week, requiring people to use it quickly. Fortunately, quark is incredibly versatile, being useful in everything from dips to cheesecakes. This cheese has a mild, slightly tangy flavor which pairs well with a variety of foods.
Quark is a form of Central European soft cheese which is especially popular in Germany, where a number of dairies produce it. It is possible to find quark in other regions of the world, although it may take a bit of hunting, depending on where you live. When you do find it, it may be a bit expensive, as this cheese is a bit fragile, requiring careful handling along the way to market. Quark cheese can also be made at home, if you are comfortable with the cheesemaking process; this cheese is relatively easy to make.
Traditional quark cheese is pale cream to white in color, very thick, and creamy. Some people mistake quark for cream cheese, a similar product, but quark is a bit thinner than cream cheese, and it is made in a different way. Quark can be spread on bread plain, blended with herbs and spices to make a flavored spread, or it may be used like cream cheese in cheesecakes. It can also be offered as a dessert cheese or made into a rich cheese custard which can be served with fruit or other foods.
Classically, quark is made without rennet, which means that this cheese is safe for vegetarians and observant Jews to eat. It is made by heating milk, mixing it with a culture, and then stirring the milk as it curdles. The stirring keeps the quark cheese creamy, ensuring that it will be smooth, rather than grainy. Once the cheese has thickened, it is hung in a cheesecloth bag to allow the whey to drain off, and then it is typically packed into a small clay or glass pot for storage.
In some parts of Europe, rennet may be added to quark to thicken this cheese, catering to the tastes of people who want a denser cheese. If the consumption of rennet is a concern for you, look for quark cheese which is labeled as kosher or pareve, indicating that it has been certified by a rabbi as safe to eat for observant Jews. Because Jewish dietary law forbids the consumption of meat and milk together, a kosher cheese cannot contain rennet.This gift had me smiling ear to ear. Enclosed was a letter: "Hello Dragod. Included in this package is an assortment of things that are entirely necessary:
One (1) cardboard box, in fair condition.
The damninteresting.com book, "Alien Hand Syndrome."
A Hobo Tool. It includes a knife for shanking people and a can opener for all your can opening needs.
A continuity tester. Last year I spent months searching for one of these. Unlike other claimed "continuity testers" it supplies supplies power to the circuit and lights up when there is continuity. It is hours of fun!
A DVI cable. I may or may not be spying on your every move.
Three (3) bags of genuine Indiana air.
Delicious ramen. One is tonkotsu (pork), and the other is soy. Protip: Crack an egg in the water one minute before the ramen is done for an instant poached egg.
A crazy can of Japanese sardines.
Enjoy! RandomAvenger"
It also included a small rubber duck that squirts water.
I think my favorite parts of this are the bags of Indiana air and the cardboard box. Hours of fun!
Thanks, RandomAvenger.Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press
The conference finals are still just getting started, but we've already learned plenty about the teams still competing for the Stanley Cup.
While the Nashville Predators and Anaheim Ducks have shown they can win in a variety of ways, the Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins appear destined to have a close battle every time out.
Perhaps most importantly, you should expect each series to last six or seven games, with only a few plays separating the teams.
Here is what you need to know going forward from each series.
Note: Full bracket available at NHL.com.
Eastern Conference
Senators Lead 1-0 Game Location Result/Date 1 Pittsburgh Senators 2, Penguins 1 (OT) 2 Pittsburgh Monday, May 15 3 Ottawa Wednesday, May 17 4 Ottawa Friday, May 19 5 Pittsburgh Sunday, May 21 6 Ottawa Tuesday, May 23 7 Pittsburgh Thursday, May 25 NHL.com
It's clear you don't want to face the Senators in overtime. They have needed extra minutes seven times already this postseason and earned wins in six of those contests.
This continued in Game 1 against the Penguins, when a Bobby Ryan goal handed Ottawa the series lead.
While the luck in close games might run out, that's not the best strategy to rely upon.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau has been the star, with eight goals, but the team has gotten a lot of help from plenty of sources this postseason, with 10 different players tallying at least five points. With the way Craig Anderson has played in net, this is a dangerous team.
However, the Penguins are just too talented and too experienced to keep down.
The defending Stanley Cup winners have some of the best offensive weapons in the sport between Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, all of whom have performed well when healthy this postseason. Surprisingly, the top performer has arguably been Jake Guentzel, the rookie who already has nine goals and five assists in the playoffs.
Although the team was limited to just one goal in the first game of the series, fans should expect this group to recover in Game 2.
"There are a lot of things we need to do better," veteran Matt Cullen said, per Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "This is a group that has bounced back every time we hit a bump in the road. I would expect us to bounce back again."
Considering the emotional Game 7 win over the Metropolitan Division rival Washington Capitals just a few days earlier, the slow start to the Eastern Conference Final was understandable.
If Marc-Andre Fleury can perform like he has the past couple of games, the Penguins should be able to turn things around in a hurry and return to the Stanley Cup Final.
Prediction: Penguins win in 6
Western Conference
Series Tied 1-1 Game Location Result/Date 1 Anaheim Predators 3, Ducks 2 2 Anaheim Ducks 5, Predators 3 3 Nashville Tuesday, May 16 4 Nashville Thursday, May 18 5 Anaheim Saturday, May 20 6 Nashville Monday, May 22 7 Anaheim Wednesday, May 24 NHL.com
The Predators appeared on their way to a 2-0 lead in the series after winning Game 1 and taking a two-goal advantage in Game 2. However, the Ducks continued their knack for come-from-behind wins, scoring five of the next six goals to earn the much-needed win.
This has been a major theme throughout the playoffs, per Sportsnet:
Anaheim showed it can overcome a three-goal deficit already these playoffs, so it clearly isn't going to give up.
With the way Ryan Getzlaf, Jakob Silfverberg and others have performed, the Ducks have the offense necessary to beat anyone.
On the other hand, Sunday's game was potentially just an aberration for Pekka Rinne. The Predators goalie allowed just 16 goals in his first 11 games of these playoffs, giving him a 1.41 goals against average with a.950 save percentage to lead the NHL in both categories.
He didn't look the same Sunday, allowing four goals on 26 shots. This go-ahead score wasn't his best moment:
If the Ducks figured him out, it could be the end of the series. If it was just a bad game, however, the Predators should be able to bounce back in Game 3.
The next two games of the series are in Nashville, where the Predators are 5-0 this postseason and were significantly better during the regular season. They won't be able to clinch the series by Game 4, but they can take control by reaching expectations.
Nothing will be easy, but more great defense like we saw during the first two rounds will allow Nashville to reach its first Stanley Cup Final.
Prediction: Nashville wins in 6It's not over yet. Fast and Furious 7 director James Wan has confirmed that although production has been halted, the cast and crew will finish up the film in its entirety.
When Wan was asked by TMZ about the fate of the movie, he said there was absolutely no plans to abandon the project altogether.
PHOTOS: Paul's life in the spotlight
"No change. People are still dealing with it," an insider tells Us Weekly of the situation. "Studio is trying to do the right thing while keeping the franchise going as well."
Earlier this week, Universal Pictures announced in a statement they would be shutting down production on the franchise following Paul Walker's tragic death.
PHOTOS: Stars we've lost in 2013
"Right now, all of us at Universal are dedicated to providing support to Paul's immediate family and our extended Fast & Furious family of cast, crew and filmmakers. At this time we feel it is our responsibility to shut down production on Fast & Furious 7 for a period of time so we can assess all options available to move forward with the franchise," the studio said in a statement to Us. "We are committed to keeping Fast & Furious fans informed, and we will provide further information to them when we have it. Until then, we know they join us in mourning the passing of our dear friend Paul Walker."
PHOTOS: Stars gone too soon
Walker died at the age of 40 from "combined effects of traumatic and thermal injuries" when his friend Roger Rodas lost control of his 2005 Porsch Carrera GT and slammed into a tree and light pole in Valencia, Calif., on Nov. 30. Rodas also died at the scene. Walker had played the role of Brian O'Conner in the first six films of the Fast and Furious franchise.
Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox!
Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!WASHINGTON, D.C. – If only playing video-games or spending hours on Whatsapp where considered work, teenage employment statistics would be just fine.
Unfortunately, the Brookings Institution says teens and young adults are facing the toughest job market since World War II. Anyway, just 26% of teens ages 16 to 19 had a job in 2011, down from 45% in 2000. That probably means those gigs traditionally considered “teen jobs” were taken by older folks with more experience… not to mention frustration.
The great recession hit us hard in the face. However, it looks like teens with more education and skills are better prepared to dodge the punch. That’s one solution. For more options go to Colorado, where the first marijuana career fair opened its doors to crowds with high expectations.
The pot market is booming and hiring. Want some tips for the interview? Forget a resume: just say you’re slow, can’t focus and usually space out, and boom! The job is yours.PASADENA, Calif. — I’ve been reading a good book lately. It’s called Das Reboot: How German Soccer Reinvented Itself and Conquered the World. The author, Raphael Honigstein, tells the story of how the Germans completely rethought their approach to talent development starting in the late 1990s, refined it even more in the early 2000s and reaped the ultimate reward by winning World Cup 2014.
Jurgen Klinsmann is a central figure in the tale whose voice appears throughout the book. When the German federation has trouble finding a suitable coach in 2004, Klinsmann gets the job and shocks the traditional German system by bringing in his American fitness gurus and introducing a technocrat’s way of thinking when it comes to developing talent and exploring new ideas. In many ways, he’s like a McKinsey consultant for soccer.
• WATCH THE GOALS: Chicharito | Cameron | Peralta | Wood | Aguilar
Klinsmann, you see, is a big-picture guy, a strategic thinker, someone who spent time at Mike Krzyzewski’s annual course at the Duke School of Business. When he made his famous appearance on ESPN after the U.S. had been eliminated in World Cup 2010, he sounded most excited when talking about the future of U.S. Soccer.
“The pyramid is upside-down,” was his money quote, a direct shot at the way the U.S. develops its young players.
All of the above suggests that Klinsmann was a perfect candidate to be this country’s technical director, one of his two jobs for U.S. Soccer. Technical directors are big-picture guys, visionaries who can put together a long-term strategy. Klinsmann’s attributes are a good fit for that description.
But, in light of the U.S.’s men’s national team’s on-field direction in the 15 months since the 2014 World Cup, culminating in a fourth-place Gold Cup finish and in Saturday’s 3-2 loss |
by the Popular Assembly of Carabanchel, which houses a café, library, free store, and assembly space. On the third floor the facilitation team huddled before the assembly began drafting an agenda that would meet the needs of all axes. They also arranged translation in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French.
Agora 99 Roundtable. (Photo: Marisa Holmes)
Hundreds of people gathered in the drafty third-floor meeting space, where an Agora flag hung from exposed rafters. Each axis was given time to present their declarations. The debt axis presented and read, “debt has proven to be the most powerful domination tool of the capitalist system.” The democracy group read, “We need a new people’s sovereignty and a constituent process, and by this we don’t mean constitution.” There was a very clear sense that debt was the problem and direct democracy was the solution.
Agora 99 Roundtable. (Photo: Marisa Holmes)
Upon returning to New York I was able to reflect on the state of the movement and how this moment came to be. In the U.S. and Europe the language of debt and democracy had been building for some time.
In May 2012, Strike Debt formed from people engaged in Occupy Wall Street and the Student Debt campaign in New York City. Hundreds of people gathered in open assemblies held at Washington Square Park and discussed the formation of a debt resistance movement.
On September 17, 2012 (the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street), Strike Debt has issued the DROM (Debt Resistors Operations Manual), aimed at education and outreach. The introduction states, “To the financial establishment of the world, we have only one thing to say: We owe you nothing. To our friends, our families, our communities, to humanity and to the natural world that makes our lives possible, we owe you everything. Every dollar we take from a fraudulent subprime mortgage speculator, every dollar we withhold from the collection agency is a tiny piece of our own lives and freedom that we can give back to our communities, to those we love and we respect. These are acts of debt resistance.”
Strike Debt Assembly in Washington Square Park. (Photo: Marisa Holmes)
In March 2012, the Citizens Debt Audit Platform (PACD) began at a conference in Madrid. Activists gathered to decide on core principles and a roadmap for action. They decided on the slogan, “Don’t Owe! Won’t Pay!” The following month the ICAN (International Citizens Debt Audit Network) was formed to increase communication in primarily Europe and the Mediterranean. Now, there are dozens of groups working around debt in Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, UK, Greece, Egypt and Tunisia that are connected and building solidarity.
Emma Aviles from PACD Barcelona, an ICAN member, wrote to me and described the group as ” a de-centralized network of activists aimed at exposing evidence of the illegitimacy of debt and calling for the nonpayment of all illegitimate debts, as well as denouncing the financial and economic system that is at the origin of this crisis, in order to advance together toward a change of the social, economic, political and human system.” The question of what makes a legitimate or illegitimate debt is not easily answered, for it varies depending on the context. Aviles said that illegitimate debts are those that “have a negative impact on the well-being of the citizens or the violation of their economic, social and cultural rights.”
This idea is not new. It predates the 15M and Occupy movements and, at its most basic level, is an idea as old as debt itself. Nick Deardon of the Jubilee Campaign in the UK, a member of the ICAN network wrote to me, “A jubilee is an ancient concept; every so often ancient monarchs in Mesopotamia would cancel the debts of their subjects. They realized if they didn’t do this, debt would go on getting bigger and tearing the structure of society apart. Peasants would have to sell their fields and families to pay the debts. Wealth and power would become concentrated. A jubilee returned the ancient economy to a kind of equilibrium and made amends for the injustice debt had caused.”
It is also not new to talk about debt in the context of neo-liberalism. In addition to the many anti-colonial struggles around debt, there has been international solidarity. For example, CADTM (The Committee for the Cancelation of Third World Debt), another ICAN member, started doing debt solidarity work in the early 1990s and continues to this day. Jerome Duval of CADTM wrote to me, “we try to link each struggle to debt liberation, but we want to go further than debt cancellation and suggest a radical change of the ‘debt system.'”
What is new is the context of the global financial crisis and the new movements that have come about. They are breathing life into an old idea. Strike Debt continues to build their network. Most recently, the group took on the “rolling jubilee,” which launched with a cabaret-style telethon called The People’s Bailout in which people donated money to abolish personal debt. The project to date has abolished over $100,000 in medical debt, and is still going strong. Inspired by the DROM and Rolling Jubilee, dozens of Strike Debt affiliated groups have sprung up around the US forming their own assemblies.
The ICAN members are auditing their governments and financial institutions to evaluate illegitimate debts. The network is planning for a convergence in Greece in January, as well as a meetup at the World Social Forum in Tunis in March.
The 99% are all debtors, whether they live in an indebted country or hold personal debts. We are all affected by the debt system. A global crisis calls for global debt resistance and an embrace of direct democracy. It is a logical progression for 15M and the Occupy movement to make.
The 1% is betting against our future. If we are to have a world that is humane and just, and, really, to have a world at all, we must act democratically in the present and open the space for radical imagination. It is a battle for the future, and the 99% must win.April photo of scientist Haruko Obokata. (EPA/KIMIMASA MAYAMA)
On January 28, a young scientist known for her intelligence and ambition arrived at Japan’s renowned research institute Riken. Expected to deliver remarks about her groundbreaking research on the development of stem cells in mice, she was triumphant. “There were many days when I wanted to give up on my research and cried all night,” the 30-year-old Haruko Obokata said while addressing a phalanx of cameras at the news conference. “But I encouraged myself to hold on just for one more day.”
On Wednesday, she again arrived at Riken’s offices, but this time under very different circumstances. Her co-author had disavowed the two major scientific papers. Riken investigators said she “fabricated” or misrepresented her research. And the lauded scientific publication Nature that published the paper retracted it and is reviewing its method of vetting submissions. So, expression austere, she rushed past 50 reporters waiting outside Riken and disappeared into the laboratory to try and salvage what remained of her career, the Japan News says.
Under video surveillance, she will attempt to recreate the widely-trumpeted findings that allegedly showed stem cells could be made quickly by dripping blood cells into acid. Called STAP — “stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” — the discovery originally blew everyone away. The research purported to establish a new way to grow tissue and treat complicated illnesses such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease with a simple lab procedure. Many called it the third most significant breakthrough in stem cell research.
That was then. Now Obokata, who denies misconduct and contends the STAP condition does exist, is suspected of duping two of the world’s leading scientific bodies. And on Wednesday, she and the other scientists conceded their studies were flawed and retracted them.
“We apologize for the mistakes,” the scientists wrote in the retraction, citing several “critical errors.” “These multiple errors impair the credibility of the study as a whole and we are unable to say without doubt whether the STAP-SC phenomenon is real. Ongoing studies are investigating this phenomenon afresh, but given the extensive nature of the errors currently found, we consider it appropriate to retract both papers.”
Nature as well says it has “considered” what lessons it can draw from retraction. In its statement, it concluded it “could not have detected the problems that fatally undermined the papers.” That said, it plans to amend some of its policies to better discern “image manipulation … Our policies have always discouraged inappropriate manipulation. However, our approach to policing it was never to do more than to check a small proportion of accepted papers. We are now reviewing our practices to increase such checking greatly.”
Problems with Obokata’s research emerged almost immediately. Something seemed off with some of the images in the study, and its language bore too great of a resemblance to another study published a decade before, according to the New York Times.
“As various media outlets including Nature’s independent news team reported, errors were found in the figures, parts of the methods descriptions were found to be plagiarized and early attempts to replicate the work failed,” Nature said.
That initial skepticism gave way to Riken’s own investigation. Its head soon concluded that the problems didn’t just constitute errors — but outright misconduct. The paper, he said, “amounts to phony research or fabrication.”
“Dr Obokata’s actions and sloppy data management lead us to the conclusion that she sorely lacks, not only a sense of research ethics, but also integrity and humility as a scientific researcher,” the investigative committee said, according to the Guardian.
Obokata, who has reportedly fallen into “ill health,” appealed the investigation’s results. But on May 7, Riken confirmed its initial investigation, accusing her of “fabrication” and “misconduct.” “Problems regarding the handling of the image data under investigation go beyond sloppy management,” the report found.
Weeks later, her co-author on the work recanted, saying the cells purportedly used in the study did not appear to be STAP cells after all. “There is no proof as to the existence of STAP cells,” Teruhiko Wakayama said at a news conference. “All the results of the analysis are moving toward denying the existence of STAP cells but I cannot say that the cells absolutely do not exist.”
Obokata is expected to work at Riken for the next five months to prove that they do. An interim report on her progress is expected in late July.
RELATED: Why some ‘breakthroughs’ are wrongBecoming “churchless” doesn’t mean that someone has given up the search for meaning in life. Quite the opposite.
Speaking personally -- as if I had a choice -- I don’t feel that the intensity of my quest for ultimate answers concerning the nature of the cosmos has lessened a bit since I turned away from organized religion and spirituality.
All that has changed is the style of my search. I’m more open now to wandering in the open fields of mysticism and philosophy, being less concerned about staying on a well-defined path.
Still, I enjoy learning about how other pathless (or semi-pathless) wanderers look upon reality from their vantage point. I don’t want to follow in someone else’s footsteps, but it’s nice to meet up with like-minded travelers for a friendly get-together around a literary campfire.
These days, when I walk into a bookstore or browse through my own library I usually head for the Taoism and Buddhism sections. This is where my churchless soul finds the most Yes, Yes, Yes resonance.
So Ray Grigg’s “The Tao of Zen” is right up my reading alley, since it features a discussion of both philosophical systems.
I’ve read the book several times. Each re-reading offers up new insights, with some thoughts popping out of a page with much greater vigor than before.
Browsing through “The Tao of Zen” the past few days, I’ve been struck by the distinction Griggs makes between (1) Zen, and (2) Zen Buddhism. I’ve tended to see these terms as being virtually synonymous. But there’s good reason to argue that genuine Zen has little if anything to do with Buddhism.
And a lot to do with Taoism.
Makes sense to me. I’m a big fan of philosophical, as opposed to religious, Taoism. I also enjoy Zen literature, unless it is heavily tainted with the religious side of Buddhism.
Grigg’s notion is that Zen minus Buddhism equals Taoism. Or at least is virtually identical.
Ch’an [Zen] then, when understood without the overlay of Buddhism -- when its Indian element is removed -- is almost indistinguishable from Taoism. In personality, philosophy, and intellectual character, Ch’an without Buddhism is almost identical to Taoism.
As much as I’m attracted to Buddhism, the most churchless world religion, it’s other-worldly aspect often leaves me with a Huh?
I mean, Buddhist meditation practice emphasizes mindfulness in the here and now. Yet much of Buddhist philosophy stresses the goal of detaching from this illusory world of maya, getting off the wheel of rebirth, and experiencing some sort of transcendent reality.
This reading time around, some previously non-highlighted passages in “The Tao of Zen” got a heavy dose of yellow.
For Taoists such release from ego is a means of reconnecting to wisdom and body of Earth, to the Great Mother; for Buddhists it is a way of disconnecting from the burden of samsara, the “Wheel of Life.”
...For Buddhism, however, enlightenment creates a metaphysical disconnectedness; for Taoists it creates an earthy reconnectedness. At a superficial level the two forms of awakening seem similar. Both cultivate an attitude of separation, of detachment, but at a deeper level they are quite different.
For Buddhism the separation is an objective; for Taoism it is a means. Buddhism separates from the world to transcend it; Taoism dissolves back into the world to become one with it. Later, in Japanese Zen Buddhism, this difference is clearly expressed in the distinction between Buddhist and Zen attitudes.
I’ve always liked the Buddhist adage, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” So nicely non-fundamentalist. You won’t find many Christians advising, “If you meet Jesus, kill him.” They’re eager to have Jesus return, not to get rid of him.
Griggs, though, writes:
Killing the Buddha comes from the Zen in Buddhism, not from the Buddhism in Zen Buddhism. The aphorism illustrates the polarity of difference between Zen and Mahayana Buddhism.
Why is it important for Buddhists to kill the Buddha? Or for Christians to kill Jesus, for Muslims to kill Muhammad, for Jews to kill Moses, for Taoists to kill Lao Tzu, for Sikhs to kill Guru Nanak, or for adherents of any other religion to kill the founder or current leader? (metaphorically, of course -- this is a killing of outwardly directed devotion and intellectuality, not of a body)
Because natural reality doesn’t have well-defined boundaries, whereas human belief systems do. So if we want to know what’s real, we have to kill the artificial concepts and forms that obscure our universal vision.
Both Taoism and Buddhism experience from within systems of understanding that must finally negate and abandon themselves; both practices can only happen when they are free of the constraints of themselves.
Much of Taoist literature is an admonishment against becoming caught in any system, whether moral, political, philosophical, linguistic, or religious. With such freedom, belief is replaced by experience. A traditional Buddhist dialogue reflects the same principle:
The Buddha was asked, “Are you God?” “No,” he said.
“Well, then, what are you?”
“Awake,” said the Buddha.
To become a pure Buddhist, a Buddhist must ultimately renounce Buddhism just as the Buddha renounced self and all attachment. This principle pervades Taoism as well. Taoists cannot live Taoism if they hold to the system called Taoism.
Individuals who practice either Taoism or Buddhism are inevitably inclined toward inconspicuousness and, finally, invisibility as the system that contains them dissolves itself.
Nice.
Churchlessness isn’t viewed as a movement away from “divinity” in Zen and Taoism. Rather, it is a necessary step toward it. Which in the end is realized as being exactly where each of us is now.
But wandering can teach us a lot. Mainly, I’ve found, that no matter how many different places I go to, I always find the same person there.7:03pm: Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told reporters (including MLive.com’s Chris Iott) denied Olney’s report, saying “I don’t know where he got that. That’s not accurate….I can 100 percent guarantee you that our situation has not changed whatsoever.” The Tigers haven’t had any new talks with Scherzer or gotten involved with any major free agents, Dombrowski said.
1:39pm: The Tigers are focused on retaining starter Max Scherzer, ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reports on Twitter. Detroit is “prepared to spend big” to do so, Olney adds.
There had been some speculation that Detroit would not be willing or able to bring both Scherzer and David Price into 2015, but Olney shoots down that notion as well. He says the club intends to keep the recently-added Price for next year.
The report is unsurprising on some levels: the Tigers are, of course, a big-spending, win-now team that has agreed to massive deals with its own players. And it could still use the added rotation arm even after dealing for Shane Greene.
On the other, it is hard to imagine what the Detroit balance sheet will look like if a Scherzer deal is added to it. The club’s enormous commitments to Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander both pose significant long-term risk. After bringing back Victor Martinez for four years and $68MM, the Tigers are within shouting distance of the Dodgers in terms of total future payroll commitments, and would likely overtake Los Angeles by adding Scherzer.Thirty Minor Upanishads, tr. by K. Narayanasvami Aiyar, [1914], at sacred-texts.com
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YOGAṬAṬṬVA-UPANISHAḌ
OF
KṚSHṆA-YAJURVEḌA
I shall now describe yoga-ṭaṭṭva (yoga-truth) for the benefit of yogins who are freed from all sins through the hearing and the studying of it. The supreme Purusha called Vishṇu, who is the great yogin, the great being and the great ṭapasvin, is seen as a lamp in the path of the truth. The Grandfather (Brahmā) having saluted the Lord of the universe (Vishṇu) and having paid Him due respects, asked Him (thus): "Pray, explain to us the truth of yoga which includes in it the eight subservients." To which Hṛshīkeśa (the Lord of the senses or Vishṇu) replied thus: "Listen. I shall explain its truth. All souls are immersed in happiness and sorrow through the snare of māyā. Kaivalya, the supreme seat, is the path which gives them emancipation, which rends asunder the snare of māyā, which is the destroyer of birth, old age and disease and which enables one to overcome death. There are no other paths to salvation. Those who go round the net of Śāsṭras are deluded by that knowledge. It is impossible even for the Ḍevas to describe that indescribable state. How can that which is self-shining be illuminated by the Śāsṭras? That only which is without parts and stains and which is quiescent beyond all and free from decay becomes the jīva (self) on account of the results of past virtues and sins. How did that which is the seat of Paramāṭmā, is eternal, and above the state of all existing things and is of the form of wisdom and without stains attain the state of jīva? A bubble arose in it as in water and in this (bubble) arose
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ahaṅkāra. To it arose a ball (of body) made of the five (elements) and bound by ḍhāṭus. Know that to be jīva which is associated with happiness and misery and hence is the term jīva applied to Paramāṭmā which is pure. That jīva is considered to be the kevala (alone) which is freed from the stains of passion, anger, fear, delusion, greed, pride, lust, birth, death, miserliness, swoon, giddiness, hunger, thirst, ambition, shame, fright, heart-burning, grief and gladness.
"So I shall tell you the means of destroying (these) sins. How could jñāna capable of giving moksha arise certainly without yoga? And even yoga becomes powerless in (securing) moksha when it is devoid of jñāna. So the aspirant after emancipation should practise (firmly) both yoga and jñāna. The cycle of births and deaths comes only through ajñāna and perishes only through jñāna. Jñāna alone was originally. It should be known as the only means (of salvation). That is jñāna through which one cognises (in himself) the real nature of kaivalya as the supreme seat, the stainless, the partless, and of the nature of Sachchiḍānanḍa without birth, existence and death and without motion and jñāna.
"Now I shall proceed to describe yoga to you. Yoga is divided into many kinds on account of its actions: (viz.,) Manṭrayoga, Layayoga, Hathayoga, and Rājayoga. There are four states common to all these: (viz.,) Ārambha, Ghata, Parichaya, and Nishpaṭṭi. O Brahmā, I shall describe these to you. Listen attentively. One should practise the Manṭra along with its māṭrikās (proper intonations of the sounds) and others for a period of twelve years; then he gradually obtains wisdom along with the siḍḍhis, (such as) aṇimā, etc. Persons of weak intellect who are the least qualified for yoga practise this. The (second) Laya-yoga tends towards the absorption of the chiṭṭa and is described in myriads of ways; (one of which is)—one should contemplate upon the Lord who is without parts (even) while walking, sitting, sleeping, or eating. This is called Laya-yoga. Now hear (the description of) Hatha-yoga. This yoga is said to possess (the following) eight subservients, yama (forbearance), niyama (religious observance), āsana
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[paragraph continues] (posture), prāṇāyāma (suppression of breath), praṭyāhāra (subjugation of the senses), ḍhāraṇā (concentration), ḍhyāna, the contemplation on Hari in the middle of the eyebrows and samāḍhi that is the state of equality. Mahāmuḍrā, Mahābanḍha and Khecharī, Jālanḍhara, Uddiyāṇa, and Mūlabanḍha, uttering without intermission Praṇava (Om) for a long time, and hearing the exposition of the supreme truths, Vajrolī, Amarolī and Sahajolī, which form a triad—all these separately I shall give a true description of. O four-faced one (Brahma), among (the duties of) yama moderate eating—and not others—forms the principal factor; and non-injury is most important in niyama. (The chief postures are) four (viz.,) Siḍḍha, Paḍma, Simha and Bhaḍra. During the early stages of practice, the following obstacles take place, O four-faced one, (viz.,) laziness, idle talk, association with bad characters, acquisition of manṭras, etc., playing with metals (alchemy) and woman, etc., and mirage. A wise man having found out these should abandon them by the force of his virtues. Then assuming Paḍma posture, he should practise prāṇāyāma. He should erect a beautiful monastery with a very small opening and with no crevices. It should be well pasted with cow-dung or with white cement. It should be carefully freed from bugs, mosquitoes and lice. It should be swept well every day with a broom. It should be perfumed with good odours; and fragrant resins should burn in it. Having taken his seat neither too high nor too low on a cloth, deerskin and kuśa grass spread, one over the other, the wise man should assume the Paḍma posture and keeping his body erect and his hands folded in respect, should salute his tutelary deity. Then closing the right nostril with his right thumb, he should gradually draw in the air through the left nostril. Having restrained it as long as possible, be should again expel it through the right nostril slowly and not very fast. Thon filling the stomach through the right nostril, he should retain it as long as he can and then expel it through the left nostril. Drawing the air through that nostril by which he expels, he should continue this in uninterrupted succession. The time taken in making a round of the knee with the palm of the
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hand, neither very slowly nor very rapidly, and snapping the fingers once is called a māṭrā. Drawing the air through the left nostril for about sixteen māṭrās and having retained it (within) for about sixty-four māṭrās, one should expel it again through the right nostril for about thirty-two māṭrās. Again fill the right nostril as before (and continue the rest). Practise cessation of breath four times daily (viz.,) at sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight, till eighty (times are reached). By a continual practice for about three months, the purification of the nādis takes place. When the Midis have become purified, certain external signs appear on the body of the yogin. I shall proceed to describe them. (They are) lightness of the body, brilliancy of complexion, increase of the gastric fire, leanness of the body, and along with these, absence of restlessness in the body. The proficient in yoga should abandon the food detrimental to the practice of yoga. He should give up salt, mustard, things sour, hot, pungent, or bitter, vegetables, asafœtida, etc., worship of fire, women, walking, bathing at sunrise, emaciation of the body by fasts, etc. During the early stages of practice, food of milk and ghee is ordained; also food consisting of wheat, green pulse and red rice are said to favour the progress. Then he will be able to retain his breath as long as he likes. By thus retaining the breath as long as he likes, kevala kumbhaka (cessation of breath without inspiration and expiration) is attained. When kevala kumbhaka is attained by one, and thus expiration and inspiration are dispensed with, there is nothing unattainable in the three worlds to him. In the commencement (of his practice), sweat is given out; he should wipe it off. Even after that, owing to the retaining of the breath, the person practising it gets phlegm. Then by an increased practice of ḍhāraṇā, sweat arises. As a frog moves by leaps, so the yogin sitting in the Paḍma posture moves on the earth. With a (further) increased practice, he is able to rise from the ground. He, while seated in Paḍma posture, levitates. There arises to him the power to perform extraordinary feats. He does (or should) not disclose to others his feats of great powers (in the path). Any pain small or
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great, does not affect the yogin. Then excretions and sleep are diminished; tears, rheum in the eye, salivary flow, sweat and bad smell in the mouth do not arise in him. With a still further practice, he acquires great strength by which he attains Bhūchara siḍḍhi, which enables him to bring under his control all the creatures that tread this earth; tigers, śarabhas, 1 elephants, wild bulls or lions die on being struck by the palm of the yogin. He becomes as beautiful as the god of love himself. All females being taken up with the beauty of his person will desire to have intercourse with him. If he so keeps connection, his virility will be lost; so abandoning all copulation with women, he should continue his practice with great assiduity. By the preservation of the semen, a good odour pervades the body of the yogin. Then sitting in a secluded place, he should repeat Praṇava (Om) with three pluṭa-māṭrās (or prolonged intonation) for the destruction of his former sins. The manṭra, Praṇava (Om) destroys all obstacles and all sins. By practising thus he attains the ārambha (beginning or first) state.
"Then follows the ghata (second state)—one which is acquired by constantly practising suppression of breath. When a perfect union takes place between prāṇa and apāna, manas and buḍḍhi, or jīvāṭmā and Paramāṭmā without opposition, it is called the ghata state. I shall describe its signs. He may now practise only for about one-fourth of the period prescribed for practice before. By day and evening, let him practise only for a yāma (3 hours). Let him practise kevala kumbhaka once a day. Drawing away completely the organs from the objects of sense during cessation of breath is called praṭyāhāra. Whatever he sees with his eyes, let him consider as Āṭmā. Whatever he hears with his ears let him consider as Āṭmā. Whatever he smells with his nose let him consider as Āṭmā. Whatever he tastes with his tongue let him consider as Āṭmā. Whatever the yogin touches with his skin let him consider as Āṭmā. The yogin should thus unwearied gratify his organs of sense for a period of one yāma every day with great effort. Then various wonderful powers are attained by the yogin, such as clairvoyance,
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clairaudience, ability to transport himself to great distances within a moment, great power of speech, ability to take any form, ability to become invisible, and the transmutation of iron into gold when the former is smeared over with his excretion.
"That yogin who is constantly practising yoga attains the power to levitate. Then should the wise yogin think that these powers are great obstacles to the attainment of yoga, and so he should never take delight in them. The king of yogins should not exercise his powers before any person whatsoever. He should live in the world as a fool, an idiot, or a deaf man, in order to keep his powers concealed. His disciples would, without doubt, request him to show his powers for the gratification of their own desires. One who is actively engaged in one's duties forgets to practise (yoga); so he should practise day and night yoga without forgetting the words of the guru. Thus passes the ghata state to one who is constantly engaged in yoga practice. To one nothing is gained by useless company, since thereby he does not practise yoga. So one should with great effort practise yoga. Then by this constant practice is gained the parichaya state (the third state). Vāyu (or breath) through arduous practice pierces along with agni the Kuṇdalinī through thought and enters the Sushumnā uninterrupted. When one's chiṭṭa enters Sushumnā along with prāṇa, it reaches the high seat (of the head probably) along with prāṇa.
"There are the five elements (viz.,) pṛṭhivī, āpas, agni, vāyu and ākāś. To the body of the five elements, there is the fivefold ḍhāraṇā. From the feet to the knees is said to be the region of pṛṭhivī, is four-sided in shape, is yellow in colour and has the varṇa (or letter) La. Carrying the breath with the letter La along the region of earth (viz., from the foot to the knees) and contemplating upon Brahma with four faces and four mouths and of a golden colour, one should perform ḍhāraṇā there for a period of two hours. He then attains mastery over the earth. Death does not trouble him, since he has obtained mastery over the earth element. The region of āpas is said to
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extend from the knees to the anus. Āpas is semi-lunar in shape and white in colour and has Va for its bīja (seed) letter. Carrying up the breath with the letter Va along the region of āpas, he should contemplate on the God Nārāyaṇa having four arms and a crowned head, as being of the colour of pure crystal, as dressed in orange clothes and as decayless; and practising ḍhāraṇā there for a period of two hours, he is freed from all sins. Then there is no fear for him from water, and he does not meet his death in water. From the anus to the heart is said to be the region of agni. Agni is triangular in shape, of red colour, and has the letter Ra for its (bīja) seed. Raising the breath made resplendent through the letter Ra along the region of fire, he should contemplate on Ruḍra, who has three eyes, who grants all wishes, who is of the colour of the midday sun, who is daubed all over with holy ashes and who is of a pleased countenance. Practising ḍhāraṇā there for a period of two hours, he is not burnt by fire even though his body enters the fire-pit. From the heart to the middle of the eyebrows is said to be the region of vāyu. Vāyu is hexangular in shape, black in colour and shines with the letter Ya. Carrying the breath along the region of vāyu, he should contemplate on Īśvara, the Omniscient, as possessing faces on all sides; and practising ḍhāraṇā there for two hours, he enters vāyu and then ākāś. The yogin does not meet his death through the fear of vāyu. From the centre of the eyebrows to the top of the head is said to be the region of ākāś, is circular in shape, smoky in colour and shining with the letter Ha. Raising the breath along the region of ākāś, he should contemplate on Saḍāśiva in the following manner, as producing happiness, as of the shape of binḍu, as the great ḍeva, as having the shape of ākāś, as shining like pure crystal, as wearing the rising crescent of moon on his head, as having five faces, ten heads and three eyes, as being of a pleased countenance, as armed with all weapons, as adorned with all ornaments, as having Umā (the goddess) in one-half of his body, as ready to grant favours, and as the cause of all the causes. By practising ḍhāraṇā in the region of ākāś, he obtains
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certainly the power of levitating in the ākāś (ether). Wherever he stays, he enjoys supreme bliss. The proficient in yoga should practise these five ḍhāraṇās. Then his body becomes strong and he does not know death. That great-minded man does not die even during the deluge of Brahma.
"Then he should practise ḍhāraṇā for a period of six ghatikās (2 hours, 24 minutes). Restraining the breath in (the region of) ākāś and contemplating on the deity who grants his wishes—this is said to be saguṇa 1 ḍhyāna capable of giving (the siḍḍhis) aṇimā, etc. One who is engaged in nirguṇa 1 ḍhyāna attains the stage of samāḍhi. Within twelve days at least, he attains the stage of samāḍhi. Restraining his breath, the wise one becomes an emancipated person. Samāḍhi is that state in which the jīvāṭmā (lower self) and the Paramāṭmā (higher self) are differenceless (or of equal state). If he desires to lay aside his body, he can do so. He will become absorbed in Parabrahman and does not require uṭkrānṭi (going out or up). But if he does not so desire, and if his body is dear to him, he lives in all the worlds possessing the siḍḍhis of aṇimā, etc. Sometimes he becomes a ḍeva and lives honoured in |
to a longtime friend's apartment to show off the gun he had just purchased, saying it was for "home self-defense," according to statements the friends gave to investigators.
"When Jared showed him the weapon, he asked Jared to leave because of the fact of it," the report states. "(The other friend) questioned his reason for having such a large-capacity magazine and what he intended to do. He advised Jared stated he would use it for home self-defense."
Among other findings from the documents:
• Zachary Osler was an employee at a store where Loughner bought a Glock before the shooting. He had been Loughner's friend. He was questioned about seeing his former friend shopping inside, sometime before Thanksgiving, and described an awkward encounter. "His response is nothing. Just a mute facial expression. And just like he, he didn't care." Osler told investigators he had grown uncomfortable with Loughner's personality.
• Loughner cried and was unusually emotional during a traffic stop less than three hours before the shooting. The officer who stopped him checked his registration and opted not to ticket him in part because the officer needed to go somewhere else. "The driver's face got kind of screwed up, and he started to cry," the officer said. Loughner told him, "I've just had a rough time."
• Shooting victim Bill Badger described being shot. "When I looked, he was just shooting at the people. And, and everybody started to duck. And just as I ducked, I felt the bullet hit the back of my head. It just burned the back of my head. And the next thing I knew he was coming right in front of me."
• Giffords' intern Daniel Hernandez helped tend to his boss after she was shot in the head. In an interview, he described the chaos: "She couldn't open her eyes. I tried to get any responses for her. Um, it looked like her left side was the only side that was still mobile. Um, she couldn't speak. It was mumbled. She was squeezing my hand."
Loughner had a record of drug and alcohol abuse but no violence. His only citations were for misdemeanors — possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007 and for spraying graffiti on a street sign in 2008. Army recruiters rejected him. He was a high school dropout and had a failed work history that included jobs at a fast-food restaurant and as a dog walker.
By 2010, Loughner had become alienated from friends, an Internet loner posting messages of hate and suicide.
He was suspended from Pima Community College after five contacts with campus police because of classroom disruptions and a bizarre video he posted on YouTube in which he ranted about the "genocide school." By then, he favored satanic music and had begun espousing conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attack and government control of grammar.
He wrote about the ability to manipulate dreams, a favorite pastime.
The Tucson shooting was among several in recent U.S. history that spurred debate over firearms regulation. Giffords, who was hospitalized for months, resigned from her congressional seat because of the severe brain injury.
"The mentally disturbed young man who shot me and murdered six should never have had access to a gun," Giffords said Wednesday in a statement in response to the records release. "No one piece of legislation will end all gun violence, just like no one piece of legislation would have prevented the Tucson shooting. However, I hope that common-sense policies like universal background checks become part of our history, just like the Tucson shootings are."
She has formed a gun-control advocacy group with her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly.
Dennis Wagner reports for The Arizona Republic. Contributing: The Associated Press.
Former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords sits with her husband, Mark Kelly, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 30. (Photo11: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/10PTv3DWASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Tuesday sharply criticized this week's Supreme Court's decision striking down the aggregate campaign contribution limits. Pelosi told reporters Tuesday the Court was embracing a "government of the money."
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Wednesday in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission to throw out federal limits on the overall campaign contributions the biggest individual donors can make to candidates, political parties and political action committees. Pelosi described the decision as "really sad" and a significant blow to the democratic process.
"Is this supposed to be a money war? Is that what this is?" Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. "Nothing again is more disillusioning to the public than the vast display of money spent in campaigns."
"Our founders sacrificed everything -- their lives, their liberty, their sacred honor -- for a democracy. A government of the many, not a government of the money," she added.
Pelosi pointed out that the McCutcheon verdict was not surprising, given the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in 2010, which allowed unlimited spending by corporations and unions. "It adds great insult to a terrible injury to our democracy," she said.
Pelosi renewed calls to enact the Democrats' DARE agenda -- an acronym for "disclose, amend, reform and elect." The campaign was launched in 2012 and seeks to overturn Citizens United by amending the Constitution, establishing small-donor public financing legislation, and requiring currently non-disclosing political groups to disclose their donors when they run political ads.
Pelosi acknowledged that the Supreme Court had put forth even more obstacles for such measures. She also disagreed that the McCutcheon decision put Democrats at a disadvantage, since most of the nation's wealthiest donors tend to support Republicans.SAN JOSE, Calif. & CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, Aug 06, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- CSR plc(CSR) CSRE today announces the latest version of its Bluetooth® Smart solution for the smart home – CSRmesh® Home Automation. The latest software release adds sensor and actuator models to build on the original protocol that was designed for lighting control. This makes it possible for developers to deliver a wider range of home automation solutions including control of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, door locks and window sensors.
Seamless and secure
The new flood mesh solution combines a configuration and control protocol based on CSR’s proven Bluetooth Smart devices, including the CSR101x™ family, and allows for an almost unlimited number of devices to be networked together and directly controlled from a smartphone, tablet PC or wearable device. The system does not require a hub or router to function locally, or an end-to-end IP connection which means it offers a simple and seamless user experience. An encrypted network key, combined with other measures, ensures security against eavesdroppers, as well as man-in-the-middle and replay attacks.
Extended battery life
Importantly, for a positive user experience, CSRmesh for Home Automation significantly extends battery life for sensors and actuators such as door locks. Multiple devices can be easily grouped together with a mains powered proxy device in the group, for example a light bulb, holding data from a battery powered sensor device. This proxy device can then relay that information without ‘waking’ the battery powered sensor. By doing this, manufacturers can reduce the duty cycle of each mesh device to as little as two percent, ensuring long battery life without any impact to the consumer experience. Some battery powered devices, such as security sensors and light switches, need only wake up when they are triggered by user activation such as a window being opened. At all other times the devices would be in sleep mode, providing extremely long battery life.
Seamless End-User Experience
A recent study commissioned by CSR found that consumers are increasingly interested in home automation, but a quarter (26%) are concerned connected devices would be too difficult to set up and too complex to use (25%). A significant amount is also anxious about security, with 26% worried about devices being open to hacking.
“Consumers want a simple, secure smart-home experience that works with a wide range of devices and smartphones. The set-up process has to be simple and low maintenance with minimal need to change batteries,” says Anthony Murray, Senior Vice President, Business Group at CSR. “This latest version of CSRmesh meets increasing consumer demand for a much wider range of home automation applications that are seamless and secure. And it’s significantly more cost-effective than other RF technologies designed for the smart home market.”
Interoperability to prevent fragmentation
The solution can provide whole building coverage, even in RF dead zones, without the need to add relays or set up routing tables for each device. It does this by enabling an almost unlimited amount of Bluetooth Smart sensors and actuators to be simply networked together. CSR is working in the Bluetooth Special Interest Group’s (SIG) Smart Mesh Study Group to help create a global standard for Bluetooth Smart mesh to ensure interoperability of all compatible devices and prevent fragmentation.
Developer ready
To enable developers to get products to market quickly the CSRmesh Development Kit provides a complete set of tools for evaluation and software development, including Android and iOS source code. New example applications for the HVAC market, including those that allow developers to set thermostats, trigger air conditioning or heating, or display the current temperature, are also available.
For more information on the new release a whitepaper with more details on the technology and how it works for key applications will be available in the coming weeks. Register today to receive your copy.
Notes to editors
Supporting content:
CSRmesh explained: http://bit.ly/1l1tSt7
CSRmesh Development Kit demo: http://bit.ly/1oTOTsn
CSRmesh enabled party: http://bit.ly/1BEJUR8
CSRmesh control using Android Wear: http://bit.ly/1BKCzvS
About CSR
At CSR we push every boundary™ to solve challenges and deliver innovations that help customers differentiate and win in the fast-evolving consumer electronics market. Our technologists are improving people’s lifestyles and unlocking the true potential of seamless connectivity and the Internet of Things by developing and integrating silicon, software and services for customers in Voice & Music, Connectivity and Bluetooth® Smart, Automotive Infotainment, Document Imaging and Location. For more information, visit www.csr.com, our blog, YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. For more information on aptX®, the audio codec that has revolutionized the wireless listening experience, visit www.aptx.com
CAUTIONARY NOTE ON FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release contains certain statements (including statements concerning plans and objectives of management for future operations or performance, or assumptions related thereto) that are not historical facts and constitute ‘forward looking statements’ within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 in relation to the CSRmesh® Home Automation, and its performance characteristics in consumer electronic products, including the performance of Bluetooth® Smart products using the CSRmesh® Home Automation, and other future events and their potential effects on CSR. These forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as ‘will,’ ‘can deliver,’ offers', 'allows', 'to enhance,’ ‘enables,’ 'designed to' and other similar expressions regarding the performance characteristics of the CSRmesh® Home Automation, and its performance characteristics in consumer electronics products, including the performance of Bluetooth® Smart products using the CSRmesh® Home Automation, and their potential effects on CSR. Any future release of the CSRmesh® Home Automation or consumer electronics products containing such technology, related products or modifications to such products’ capability, functionality or features are subject to ongoing evaluation by CSR and its customers, and may or may not be implemented and should not be considered firm commitments by CSR or its customers and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. Such forward-looking statements represent the current expectations and beliefs of management of CSR, and are based upon numerous assumptions regarding CSR’s business strategies and the environment in which CSR will operate and therefore involve a number of known and unknown risks, contingencies, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of CSR, including, but not limited to, those detailed from time to time in CSR’s periodic reports (whether under the caption Risk Factors or Forward Looking Statements or elsewhere), which are available at the SEC’s web site http://www.sec.gov. Each forward looking statement speaks only as of the date hereof. CSR does not undertake to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward looking statements contained herein, otherwise than required by law.
Bluetooth® and the Bluetooth logos are trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and licensed to CSR.
Wi-Fi®, Wi-Fi Alliance®, WMM®, Wi-Fi Protected Access®, WPA®, WPA2®, Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ and Wi-Fi Multimedia™ are trademarks of the Wi-Fi Alliance.
Other products, services and names used in this document may have been trademarked by their respective
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Copyright Business Wire 2015International aid groups have criticised South Sudan's decision to sharply increase foreign worker visa fees, warning it would aggravate a humanitarian crisis in the famine-hit country.
South Sudan's government recently announced it would charge $10,000 for foreigners working in a "professional" capacity, $2,000 for "blue collar" employees and $1,000 for "casual workers" from March 1.
"The government and the army have largely contributed to the humanitarian situation. And now, they want to create profit from the crisis they have created," Elizabeth Deng, South Sudan researcher with Amnesty International, said on Saturday.
She said there were hundreds of aid workers operating in the country, and that the new visa costs "could further hinder their critical work on the ground".
South Sudan, formed in 2011 following a split from the north, declared famine in two counties in late February.
The United Nations said on Saturday more than 7.5 million people were in need of assistance in the country.
The crisis has "man-made" origins, according to the UN and humanitarian organisations groups, as a civil war that started in 2013 has forced people to flee, disrupted agriculture, sent prices soaring and cut off aid agencies from the worst-hit areas.
Humanitarian groups also say their workers have been subject to harassment and attacks.
READ MORE: Dying of hunger - What is a famine?
Julien Schopp, director of humanitarian practice at InterAction, which groups 180 NGOs working worldwide, said if the fee rise measure is put into practice, "it will be impossible for humanitarian workers to pay this kind of sum".
Schopp said NGOs were still pressing the government to provide details, notably on whether workers with current work permits would have to re-apply for new ones under the new fee structure.
Michael Makuei, South Sudan's information minister, said on Thursday the new fees for foreign workers were already in effect and confirmed they applied to aid workers.
The UN defines famine as a situation in which at least a fifth of the households in a region face extreme food shortages, acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 percent, and two or more people in every 10,000 are dying each day.Ask any self-respecting “Seinfeld” fan who the worst dancer on the show — heck, in the world — is, and they’ll immediately think of Elaine Benes’ herky-jerk performance from Season 8’s “The Little Kicks.” Benes (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) boogied so awkwardly at a work function, it endangered her professional reputation.
But most people don’t know her dance was inspired by “Saturday Night Live” boss Lorne Michaels.
The story is told by “Seinfeld” writer Spike Feresten, who started out as an “SNL” receptionist, in the new book “Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything” (Simon & Schuster) by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong.
Feresten’s job at “SNL” included manning the door at the show’s notorious afterparties. At one such gathering, he told Armstrong, he saw Michaels “dancing as if he’d never seen another human being dance before. The man heaved and gyrated to a rhythm only he could feel.”
To his delight, Feresten “even got to give Louis-Dreyfus a little dance lesson during production, schooling her in the singular Michaels method.”
“Seinfeldia” tells the complete tale of this New York institution (actually filmed in LA), which finished either first or second in the ratings for five years straight, from 1994 to 1998, and in 2002 was proclaimed by TV Guide the greatest television show of all time.
Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David conceived “Seinfeld” in November 1988.
After performing at the Upper East Side comedy club Catch a Rising Star, the two ventured into nearby Lee’s Market and began riffing on some of its obscure items, like Korean jelly.
“Why, exactly, did it have to come in jelly form?” they mused. “Was there also, perhaps, a foam or a spray?”
“This is the kind of discussion you don’t see on TV,” noted David.
By this time, stand-up comic Seinfeld was a hit on late-night talk shows, and his manager, George Shapiro, had been hounding NBC executives about getting his client a show on the network.
But when he finally secured the much-desired meeting, Seinfeld felt differently.
“He was a little annoyed at this meeting screwing up his whole afternoon,” writes Armstrong. “He’d become a comedian partly to have his days free from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. This meeting was at 5:15 p.m., cutting right into his free time, but he sucked it up and went anyway.”
NBC wanted a show concept from Seinfeld, so he worked with David to develop the idea they had at Lee’s. They quickly agreed the main characters should be Seinfeld and a David-type — who became Jason Alexander’s George Costanza — plus a neighbor.
Luckily, David’s own “eccentric” neighbor was Kenny Kramer, “a jobless schemer with whom David shared a car, a TV and one pair of black slacks in case either had a special occasion.”
As complementary weirdos, David and Kramer couldn’t have been better matched, and that is how “Seinfeld” evolved.
“David and Kramer would leave their doors open so they could wander in and out of each other’s places at their leisure,” writes Armstrong. “Kramer wore a bathrobe as he grazed in David’s refrigerator while David watched Knicks and Yankees games. Kramer would ask the score, then leave again.”
At times, the two sound like a married couple.
“David would cook for comedian friends, promise them dessert — meaning ice-cream bars — then scream at Kramer when he found the bars were missing. ‘It’s embarrassing!’ he would yell. ‘I have company!’ ”
Michael Richards was the perfect actor to play Kramer.
Richards had worked with David on the late-night ABC sketch show “Fridays,” and from Armstrong’s account, he was just as odd as his character.
“On ‘Fridays,’ he was known for his one strange contract demand,” Armstrong writes. “Give him a thousand pounds of dirt on the set, he said, and he’d do the show.” (The dirt was for a one-man tour-de-force sketch featuring Richards as a kid playing with toy soldiers and annihilating them.)
Richards’ performance as Kramer was so frantic that the crew kept extra hinges handy, in case he destroyed a door during one of his character’s manic entrances. It created problems, though, since Richards’ antics made his castmates laugh during filming and break his focus.
Armstrong writes: “When Alexander laughed during a scene... Richards begged, ‘You can’t, please. You don’t know how hard it is for me.’ (Because the laughter meant they had to reshoot the scene.)”
Because of Richards’ intensity and immersion in the role, his co-stars, writes Armstrong, “didn’t feel like they knew him, even later, after years on the set together.”
Alexander and Louis-Dreyfus — both of whom were concerned early on about the show’s lack of conventional plot lines — had their own problems: Each believed they weren’t getting enough screen time.
Alexander — who initially modeled George on Woody Allen, only to realize in Season 2 that he was playing David — was worried that George, Jerry’s best friend and confidante, would have a diminished role due to Jerry’s strong connection with Elaine.
His anxiety peaked in Season 3, when the third episode, “The Pen,” featured only Jerry and Elaine visiting Jerry’s parents in Florida. Alexander and Richards had no roles in the episode.
For Alexander — who, as a Tony-winning actor, had other options — it was the final straw. After the episode’s table read, he pulled David aside. “‘If you write me out again,’ he said, ‘do it permanently.’ David tried to explain the difficulties of servicing every character equally every week. ‘Don’t tell me your problems,’ Alexander snapped. ‘If you don’t need me here, I don’t want to be here.’ ”
‘If you write me out again, do it permanently. … Don’t tell me your problems. If you don’t need me here, I don’t want to be here.’ - Jason Alexander reportedly said to Larry David after his character was left out of an episode
Louis-Dreyfus was no happier, feeling “she wasn’t getting material as funny as the boys.”
All this almost became moot. As the writers and cast sought their unified voice, NBC was ready to cut “Seinfeld” loose.
The network hadn’t been comfortable with the show early on, given its meanness and intentional dismissal of character growth.
Even late-night boss Rick Ludwin and his programming associate, Jeremiah Bosgang — the show’s strongest supporters at NBC — were stumped by the second season’s “The Chinese Restaurant,” which featured the cast waiting for a table at a Chinese restaurant in real time, and nothing else. The two execs couldn’t understand how they would rationalize a plotless episode to their bosses and considered ending production.
Ludwin talked gingerly to David, expressing their concerns, while David vented that the episode was “in the spirit of the show.”
Despite their reservations — and to their credit — the execs allowed the episode to proceed. The day after it aired, the reviews were effusive, and in time, it was seen as “a groundbreaking bit of television.”
As the show became a success, the cast found themselves in strange situations, including a bizarre feud with Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold.
After Louis-Dreyfus inadvertently parked in Arnold’s spot on the CBS studio lot (where the show was filmed), Arnold left a note on her windshield saying, “How stupid are you? Move your f—ing car, you a–hole!”
After she, Alexander and David confronted him, she later found “a Polaroid of someone’s buttocks left on her windshield and the word ‘c–t’ written in soap” there.
The scuffle went public.
“Barr called Louis-Dreyfus a bitch on ‘Letterman,’ then added derisively, ‘They think they’re doing Samuel Beckett instead of a sitcom.”
Asked about the incident later, Alexander commented, “I am willing to bet that she has never read anything Beckett ever wrote.”
An exhausted David, the show’s primary force behind the scenes, left the show after Season 7, with Seinfeld running it solo for the final two. NBC offered Seinfeld an astounding $5 million an episode to do a 10th, but the comic — who already earned $1 million an episode in Season 9 and was tremendously wealthy — felt he and the show had gone as far as they could.
“Seinfeld” ended, after nine seasons, on May 14, 1998, with an episode that found the cast in jail for failing to help a man in need.
The show turned its cast into New York City icons. But, as they learned the hard way, New Yorkers were just as quick to keep them humble as they were to treat them like A-list stars.
“The four core cast members decided to go out for dinner,” Armstrong writes of an outing the group made after being photographed for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 1993. The show had been on the air three years.
“They wanted to sit outside, and they figured people were going to freak out when they saw the four of them together, outside, in New York, right on Columbus Avenue. But no one stopped except for a homeless man asking for money.”These refugees tell of how a Western-style haircut, a pair of jeans or a simple interaction with the opposite sex can lead to punishment by the Hisba, the branch of enforcers carrying out a brutal interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
MYTILENE, GREECE—Among the tens of thousands fleeing war and despair in the Middle East, one group feels a special relief in reaching Europe: those who have escaped areas ruled by Islamic State extremists and the harsh scrutiny of their religious police.
And if one of his customers so much as lifted the veil from her face to look at a pair of shoes, members from the Hisba — or its women’s branch, al-Khansaa — would beat her with a bamboo pole, Ahmed said in an interview with The Associated Press. Like other refugees who used to live in IS-held territory, he spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals against relatives still there.
Ahmed, who owned a women’s shoe store in the Syrian city of Raqqa, told of being berated every few days by members of the Hisba because he was waiting on female customers. His wife or sister should do that, they insisted, while also forbidding him from hiring women not related to him.
For many who lived in the ruined landscape of the Islamic State’s self-declared “caliphate” across parts of Syria and Iraq, constant fear is what finally drove them to Western Europe.
Many of them have lived in Turkey, sometimes for years, before making the journey to Western Europe.
More than 175,000 Syrians and nearly 10,000 Iraqis have made the dangerous sea journey to Greece this year, part of a massive influx fuelled in part by Syria’s civil war, now in its fifth year.
“They are worse than an occupation army and act like they will never leave,” he said. “I couldn’t take it anymore. Something had to be done, and I am doing it now.”
Ahmed left his wife and three children behind in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the caliphate, and said he plans to send for them once he finds refuge in Europe.
His own nerves were shot from worrying about being arrested or flogged, he said, just minutes after landing on the Greek island of Lesbos in a dinghy with 30 other people. They had sailed from Turkey on the first leg of their journey west.
The punishment for violating these rules can range from a warning, time in jail, public flogging, or — for the worse offences — death.
In that time, they grew used to a more liberal society — a far cry from Islamic State rule, where women must cover themselves from head-to-toe in public and cannot leave their homes without being accompanied by a male relative; where smoking is banned and men must rush to mosques at the call to prayer.
Abdullah, a 36-year-old carpenter from the Syrian city of Deir al-Zour, said he found the version of Islam imposed by extremists too severe — even for someone who prayed five times a day.
“They are so strict with the rules and punishment they leave no room for Islam’s prescribed leniency or repentance,” Abdullah said in an interview in the Serbian town of Bujanovac, where he arrived earlier this month with his wife and two children.
Not long after Syrian rebels took over half of Deir al-Zour in 2013, Abdullah and his family fled the fighting to another part of Syria. But he went back often to check on his house, staying for weeks at a time, even as IS fighters drove out the rebels last year and took sole control of that half of the city, while the rest remained in government hands.
“What really forced me to make this trip is the economic and health situation in Deir al-Zour,” Abdullah said. Most doctors have fled, he added, and while basic goods were available in the IS-held neighbourhoods, most people had no money to spend.
After they landed on Lesbos, some of the Syrians and Iraqis were quick to take advantage of their new freedoms.
Couples celebrated by hugging and kissing in public displays of affection rarely seen back home. Some men coped with the heat and humidity by walking the streets shirtless, and they mingled freely with women wearing shorts and tank tops. Many spoke confidently about their rights, even as migrants — though they also expressed worries about potential discrimination from Europeans. There even were street demonstrations on the island against delays in registering the new arrivals before they can get to the mainland.
Ahmed, the shoe store owner who hopes to join relatives in Belgium, arrived in Lesbos with a nephew in the first week of September, about a week after he left Raqqa. He spoke to AP as he took a 5-kilometre walk from the beach where he landed to the island’s capital of Mytilene, the registration site.
He said that as IS militants became the new rulers in Raqqa, many of the city’s young men joined the group in search for protection and prestige. “Some of them spy on the residents for IS,” Ahmed said.
Over time, foreign fighters and other IS members moved into houses among the population, putting more pressure on residents to observe the draconian rules, he said.
“We keep the television’s volume very low, and when my wife steps out on the balcony to hang the laundry to dry, she has to be completely covered,” said Ahmed, alluding to an IS ban on watching channels other than the ones broadcasting recitations of the Qur’an.
For young men, the newfound freedoms outside IS-held parts of Syria and Iraq means having whatever hairstyle or clothes they wanted without being detained or forced to go to a barber for a crew cut. It also includes visits to Internet cafes with no risk of Hisba operatives demanding to check the contents of their social media accounts or their mobile phones.
Abdul-Rahman, a 16-year-old high school student, was detained by the Hisba in the IS-held Syrian town of Manbaj for having a trendy faux hawk haircut. He got away with a warning.
“They asked me questions about basic tenets of Islam. I answered them all correctly and they let me go,” he said with a smile, speaking while waiting for a ferry at Mytilene to take him to the Greek mainland earlier this month.
Another young Syrian, Hassan, said he also was briefly detained by the Hisba in his village of Deir Hafer because he was wearing slim-cut jeans.
“They want our pants to be loose and to end above the ankle,” the 20-year-old said, referring to the IS-imposed style that militants consider modelled on what was worn by the Prophet Muhammad.
Also on the ferry was Omar, a 36-year-old who owned a small eatery in the city of Mosul in northern Iraq that was captured by IS in June 2014.
“Daesh was OK for the first two weeks,” according to Omar, who used an Arabic acronym for the group, but its brutality soon became clear.
The Hisba became active, drove out Mosul’s Christians and began demolishing shrines revered by Sunni Muslims but seen by IS as encouraging idolatry.
When the extremists blew up the shrine of the prophet Younis, known in the Bible as Jonah, Omar said he had had enough.
He and his family, who are Sunnis, left for Baghdad after five months under IS rule. In the capital, the Shiite-led government denied them security clearance to live there.
Now they are headed to Finland.
“Cannot live with Daesh and cannot live in my own nation’s capital,” he said. “Maybe Europe will be kinder.”Conditions Governing Access
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In a statement that was released by the agency in early November 2017, the SEC claimed that celebrities should disclose any compensation they have received for endorsing token sales to avoid violating the anti-touting laws.
"Celebrities and others are using social media networks to encourage the public to purchase stocks and other investments. These endorsements may be unlawful if they do not disclose the nature, source, and amount of any compensation paid, directly or indirectly, by the company in exchange for the endorsement."
Celebrities who promote ICOs
Several well-known personalities have endorsed a number of different ICOs in recent months. In September 2017, undefeated boxing champion Floyd Mayweather has promoted the ICO of cryptocurrency credit startup Centra.
Actor Jamie Foxx, meanwhile, has endorsed the token sale of Cobinhood, which is advertised as a zero-fee virtual currency exchange. Hotel heiress and reality television (TV) star Paris Hilton has supported the ICO of the venture called Lydian. In 2016, Hilton announced that she is venturing into the new millennium of technology, community and social services.
SEC warning
In its warning, the SEC advised that potential investors should not base their decisions mainly on the endorsement of a celebrity. It claimed that the celebrity promotion could be a part of a paid advertisement.U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen asked no questions of the five lawyers who appeared before her last week to argue the constitutionality of Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage.
It seems clear now that she had already made up her mind from the extensive briefing that came before the hearing.
Wright Allen’s 41-page opinion, which was issued Thursday night, began by quoting Mildred Loving, the wife in the Virginia case that brought an end to bans on interracial marriage, and closed by referencing Abraham Lincoln on fairness.
In between was an unapologetic defense of a federal judge’s role in striking down a democratic decision that may intrude on constitutional rights — in this case, the Virginia constitutional amendment approved by a solid majority of the state’s voters in 2006.
“When core civil rights are at stake, the judiciary must act,” Wright Allen wrote. “Notwithstanding the wisdom usually residing within proper deference to state authorities regarding domestic relations, judicial vigilance is a steady beacon searching for an ever-more perfect justice and truer freedoms for our country’s citizens.”
From left, Robert Roman and Claus Ihlemann of Virginia Beach celebrate with Carol Schall, Mary Townley, Tim Bostic and Tony London, a ruling by federal Judge Arenda Wright Allen that Virginia's same-sex marriage ban was unconstitutional during a Friday news conference in Norfolk, Va. (Bill Tiernan/AP)
Such language led quickly to charges of judicial activism and even to calls on the floor of the General Assembly that she be impeached.
“Legislating through the courts against the will of the people is lawless disregard for our representative form of government,” said Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), a sponsor of the constitutional amendment that was struck down.
On the other hand, it was a Valentine Day’s bouquet to the lawyers who have forged the legal crusade to have the Supreme Court find a constitutional right to marriage that states may not withhold from gay couples.
“A beautiful opinion,” said Washington lawyer Theodore Olson during a conference call with New York attorney David Boies. “I hope everyone in this country will read it.”
Wright Allen’s ruling repeatedly embraced the comparison the lawyers often made between the bans on same-sex marriage and the 1967 Supreme Court decision that banned interracial marriage after Mildred Loving and her white husband, Richard, were convicted of violating Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act.
Wright Allen’s work stood out for its forceful, sometimes grandiose prose. Quoting Lincoln’s line about men asking for “fairness, and fairness only,” Wright Allen added: “The men and women, and the children too, whose voices join in noble harmony with plaintiffs today, also ask for fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as it is in this court’s power, they and all others shall have.”
(After several commentators pointed out the mistake, Wright Allen issued an amended ruling to say that it was the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, that contained the proposition that all men are created equal.)
But prose aside, the legal reasoning fell in line with what other federal judges have now said about state bans on same-sex marriage in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down the part of the Defense of Marriage Act commanding the federal government not to recognize same-sex marriages conducted in the states that allow them.
That 5-to-4 decision, written by the justice who has authored the court’s most important victories for gay rights, Anthony M. Kennedy, had two parts. On the one hand, it noted the state’s role in defining marriage and questioned federal intervention.
But it also made striking references to equality and dismissed arguments that Congress advanced to favor marriage between a man and a woman and ban marriage between gay couples, such as tradition and the unique procreative capabilities of heterosexual unions.
Since that ruling, a unanimous line of federal judges in Utah, Oklahoma, Ohio, Kentucky and now Virginia have said the second part of Kennedy’s opinion trumped the first. All have sided with same-sex marriage proponents.
In fact, Drexel University law professor David S. Cohen wrote Friday in Slate, when other courts and other issues are taken into account, the victories for gay rights supporters are even deeper.
“Since Windsor, in these 18 decisions, |
I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
During the race, Moore adamantly denied multiple allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls decades ago, which had dogged his campaign for weeks and kept him largely hidden from voters down the homestretch. But the claims proved too difficult for him to overcome.
Stronger than expected turnout — especially from African-Americans — helped Jones overcome the state's conservative slant, echoing results Democrats have seen in other races this year.
With his voice hoarse after a long campaign that included more than 230 events over the past two months, Jones, 63, thanked supporters for believing in him against the odds as confetti rained down from the ceiling.
"I have been waiting all my life and now I just don’t know what the hell to say," the former federal prosecutor said. "This entire race has been about dignity and respect. This campaign has been about common courtesy and decency."
The unusual election, which proved almost impossible to poll, captivated both national political observers and voters in Alabama.
"This win is not only for Doug, or Alabama, or for America. The world was watching this, and we put on today," Randall Woodfinn, who was elected mayor of Birmingham in October, told NBC News.
Many of the long-suffering Alabama Democrats who gathered here to celebrate with Jones were stunned by the result, expressing disbelief at the political miracle they had just pulled off.
"I never, never, never thought this would happen," said Betsy McGuire, who volunteered for Jones even as most of her friends and neighbors in the suburb of Homewood stuck with Moore.
McGuire, who said she had never done anything political until Trump’s election, initially got involved to help Jones lose more gracefully — winning seemed out of the question — hoping to get to him to around 40 percent of the vote on Election Night. "Then at least Alabama would be in the game," she said.
Michael Griggs said the election broke the stranglehold, at least for a moment, of the small group of wealthy and mostly white power brokers he feels control the state. "For once, the money didn't win," he said.
But Birmingham City Councilwoman Sheila Tyson, who coordinated a state-wide effort focused on organizing black women, said she knew Jones would win two months ago when one woman said she would use her last $20 to buy gas to organize voters.
"Living in a state with so much racism... people are tired of it," Tyson said.
Black women are consistently on the bottom rung of economic indicators, Tyson said, even though they run more households than other groups.
"We knew somebody had to carry him over the line," she said of Jones, "and we knew it was going to have to be us."
The final sprint of the campaign was marked by the appearance of celebrities and national political figures, who had previously stayed away from a state known for being hostile to outsiders.
Trump recorded a robocall for Moore, while former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden ran their own for Jones. Basketball star Charles Barkley stumped with Jones at an election eve rally on Monday and urged Alabamians to "stop looking like idiots" and reject Moore.
Former Trump adviser and Breitbart News leader Steve Bannon flew into the state for a third time Monday to reinforce that he had stuck with Moore when other Republicans turned their back on him, just as Bannon had defended Trump after the release of the "Access Hollywood" tape a month before the presidential election last year.TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on Thursday as part of a visit to the region with the aim of jumpstarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at creating a Palestinian state.
“I’m very pleased to see you again, Jared, with your delegation. We have a lot of things to talk about: how to advance peace, stability and security in our region – prosperity too,” Netanyahu told Kushner before the meeting at the IDF Headquarters in the Kirya compound in Tel Aviv, adding that he thought all of those goals are “within our reach.”
“I’m happy to see you and the effort that you’re leading on behalf of the president, with [Special Envoy to the Middle East] Jason [Greenblatt] and members of your team. I think this is a sign of the great alliance between us and the great goals that guide us,” the prime minister added.
Kushner answered that the White House was “very appreciative of your team and all the efforts that they’ve made.”
“The president is very committed to achieving a solution here that will be able to bring prosperity and peace to all people in this area, and we really appreciate the commitment of the prime minister and his team to engaging very thoughtfully and respectfully in the way that the president has asked them to do so,” he said.
Kushner added that “the relationship between Israel and America is stronger than ever and we really thank Prime Minister Netanyahu for his leadership and his partnership.”
The delegation is set to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday evening. Abbas has been vocal in recent days about his skepticism regarding the Trump administration’s attitude toward the Palestinians.
A Palestinian demonstration took place in Ramallah ahead of the meeting in protest over the perceived favoritism by the White House toward Israel. Leading the protest was a Palestinian in a kaffiyeh holding a sign with a cartoon of Kushner crouching like a dog and being held on a leash by his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is wearing a dress with the Israeli flag and saying “Kushner is our dog.”
The protestors chanted, “The American is not welcome; the dog that serves Tel Aviv.”
Palestinian officials have spoken out against the U.S. for “taking Israel’s side” in the conflict, especially with its insistence that the Ramallah-based government cease making payments to terrorists and their families – a demand that, until now, the PA has refused to comply with.
Abbas is said to be “disillusioned” with the U.S.’s peace efforts and may even be considering dissolving the PA and turning to the UN in another effort to gain full membership status.
On Tuesday, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that the Palestinian leadership emphasized “there will be no peace” without the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with eastern Jerusalem as its capital.
The Palestinian ambassador to Washington, Husam Zomlot, warned in an interview with the National that if the U.S. delegation refuses to meet the terms set by the Palestinians they will resort to other measures including “popular resistance” or turning to the UN.
“If we don’t succeed this time, all the options are Armaggedonist,” Zomlot said.
“For the last three months we have done the talking, the microphone was with us, we explained in detail where we see things going, and now it’s time to listen,” Zomlot said, adding that the “only final solution is the two states based on the 1967 borders” and demanding “crystal clarity from the U.S. before we start the journey, on where we are going and how we will get there.”
Breitbart Jerusalem reported earlier in the week on Abbas’ remarks to a group of leftwing Israeli lawmakers that despite being assured on at least 20 occasions that the Americans supported the cessation of Jewish settlement construction as well as the two-state solution, Trump’s envoys had refused to convey the same message to the Israelis.
“I don’t even know how they are dealing with us, because his entire administration is in chaos,” Abbas said.
“I have met with Trump envoys about 20 times since the beginning of his term as president of the United States,” Abbas added. “Every time they repeatedly stressed to me how much they believe and are committed to a two-state solution and a halt to construction in the settlements. I have pleaded with them to say the same thing to Netanyahu, but they refrained. They said they would consider it, but then they didn’t get back to me.”
He added that it is impossible to know what Trump and his aides have in mind.
A day before Abbas’ meeting with Kushner, Lebanese daily Al Hayat cited unnamed sources in the PA as saying that Abbas is waiting for a written commitment from Greenblatt and Kushner that the U.S. will demand Israel “freeze settlement construction in the West Bank and work towards a two-state solution.” Abbas, however, did not respond to Netanyahu’s previous settlements freezes, which were made multiple times with the hopes of prompting the Palestinians to the negotiating table.
“He believes that the restoration of calm and the stabilized situation in Jerusalem after the recent crisis on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif has created an opportunity to continue discussions and the pursuit of peace that began early in his administration,” the official said.Advertisement
This year, the United States installed wind capacity passed the 50 GW milestone, while solar power continued a meteoric rise as well, now upwards of 6 GW installed. After a couple of years of massive resource assessments and grandiose thinking on renewables, though, 2012 seems to have been a year when we confronted the difficult realities involved with huge renewables scale-up.
With nuclear power phaseouts in Europe and Japan still looming, adding large amounts of renewables in a hurry has become an urgent priority. Some of these countries are starting to see how hard that is, with assessments of Germany's phaseout costs rising into the trillions. Still, that country continues to offer a solid example to the rest of the world: On part of one day in May, Germany met half of its total energy demand from solar power alone. It also has a massive transmission project on the board aimed at bringing 25 GW of offshore wind to the grid.
In the U.S., the offshore wind industry stalled yet again; last year we wrote here about the coming celebration for the first offshore turbine, but I have yet to put on my party hat. This time, though, I am more confident: in 2013 the first offshore turbine in U.S. waters will start spinning. (Probably.) The Department of the Interior has been pushing ahead on various offshore plans, including the release of environmental assessments for huge areas of the East Coast. The DOI also has helped the Google-backed Atlantic Wind Connection, an offshore wind "backbone" of transmission lines, move closer to reality, useful for when those turbines do end up in the water.
In Europe, offshore wind continues to impress. In February, the United Kingdom switched on the world's largest offshore wind farm (at least for a little while, until the much more massive London Array beat it), at 367 MW. More than 5 GW of offshore power are in some phase of construction around Europe, and turbine manufacturers have begun rollouts of the biggest turbines the world has ever seen.
Interestingly, 2012 saw a series of reports that moved from assessments of renewable potential (general summary: it's massive) into how likely we are to realize that potential, and what it would cost. One study recently suggested that 99.9 percent renewable penetration is feasible in terms of both reliability and cost-effectiveness. And a landmark report from the Department of Energy found that a more approachable target of 80 percent renewables by 2050 can be achieved even with today's existing technology.
"Forgotten" renewables also had some big moments in 2012: The first tidal turbines began producing power in Maine, and an International Energy Agency report suggested hydropower (still by far the biggest renewable producer in the U.S.) will double by 2050.
Perhaps most importantly, 2012 may have signaled a shift in the discussion of exactly why we need such huge renewable energy scale-up. Big financial institutions like the World Bank have begun loudly trumpeting calls to action on climate change, especially given that the fossil fuel industry still seems poised to continue big buildouts of coal power. A Mitt Romney energy "plan" involving, basically, all the fossil fuels you can dig up went down with the candidate in November, and a nationwide fossil fuel divestment campaign is gaining steam, suggesting the country is ready to act.
The next few days will play a large, potentially destructive, role in how renewables fair in the U.S. moving forward, given the wind power production tax credit's imminent demise in the protracted "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington. In 2013, renewable energy will continue its rapid expansion, but just how rapid, and just how close we can get to the realistic assessments we have seen this past year, remains up in the air.
Image via Brent DanleyRobert Foster’s college career probably hasn’t gone quite like the former five star was expecting. He was the #1 recruit in Pennsylvania, the #2 WR, and the #23 overall player in the Class of 2013. And he’s yet to really breakthrough. Foster redshirted his first year and same limited action as a back-up in 2014.
With the departure of much of Alabama’s receiving production following that season, things were looking up in 2015, though; and he began the season as one of the Crimson Tide’s top two wide outs (along with ArDarius Stewart). An early injury sidelined him for the majority of the season, but Foster has come back strong this spring. He’ll have to earn playing time in one of the deepest receiving corps in the country, but there’s every reason to believe he can.
Wisconsin
2nd and 9: Foster is out of view on the left of the formation. Jake Coker sends Richard Mullaney in motion right-to-left (to Foster’s side). It’s clearly trying to set up the screen to Foster, and he’s the only target Coker has in mind. The Badgers have the corner who was initially on Foster, a linebacker shaded over to that side, and a safety drops down when Mullaney motions. All this gives Wisconsin a 3-2 numbers advantage, plus Mullaney goes deep and doesn’t even think about blocking anyone. Foster does a nice job of catching the ball with his hands out in front of his body, but he’s immediately smothered for a gain of one.
1st and 10: Foster is wide left with Mullaney in the slot on his side. He motions in close to Mullaney, and Coker takes the snap. It’s a run/pass option for Coker. He sees a linebacker crash down hard, so he pulls it from Derrick Henry and looks to his now primary target of O.J. Howard. Howard was in the backfield in an H-back role, and he ran behind the line before attempting to spill out into the flat. He should’ve been open because of the blitzing linebacker, but #47 LB Vince Biegel saw the fake and identified what was happening. He wraps his arm around Howard and covers him tight, taking away the easy pass. Instead of trying to force a pass, Coker comes off Howard and looks downfield, spotting an open Foster on an intermediate crossing route. Foster hauls it in for a first.
3rd and 11: Bama is in an odd formation. It’s 21 personnel (two RBs, one TE) with both Derrick Henry and Kenyan Drake on the field. Henry is lined up in the slot on the left; and Drake starts in the backfield before motioning wide ride. Coker takes the snap and has a short drop back before turning and firing to Foster, who’s waiting on the WR screen. Henry immediately went towards the sideline to block the CB but whiffs. Ross Pierschbacher came out from left guard but also whiffs on his block. Foster, who again caught the ball in front of his body, has to slip in between the defenders and missed blocks; but LB Vince Biegel gets a hand on his ankle. Foster does a good job getting yards, though. Biegel makes contact at the Wisconsin 42, and Foster is downed at the 37. It’s ultimately ruled 4th and 1, and Henry will burst through the line for the first touchdown of the season.
1st and 10: Alabama has four receivers (including tight ends O.J. Howard and Dakota Ball) bunched close to the line. Foster is to the left with Howard, and Stewart is on the right with Ball. Foster just runs another little crossing route, but he runs it well. He cuts in front of the OLB before niftily slipping behind one of the ILBs. The linebackers on the right lose track of him since he’s behind them, and the safety on that side flows with the cornerback on Dakota Ball. Coker just has to bide his time until Foster hits that open patch; and boom, touchdown. Alabama retakes the lead. Here's another shot.
1st and 10: Foster is wide left. Drake motions right-to-left and takes the "pass" from Coker on the sweep. Foster goes forward a couple yards and just obliterates the safety coming down. He just knocks him off his feet, and the safety goes flying. I love watching this block.
Middle Tennessee
1st and 10: Alabama has trips left with O.J. Howard as the lone receiver to the right and Henry in the backfield. The Blue Raiders technically have three defenders on the three Bama receivers, but the safety has a long way to go if it’s a quick pass. And it is. Foster takes a step before before stopping and turning to Coker, who’s already in the process of throwing it his way. ArDarius Stewart does a great job of walling his guy out of the play; and Mullaney disrupts the corner, who had taken a bad angle to the inside. Foster turns on the jets and wins the race to the endzone. Touchdown Alabama.
1st and 10: Bama is in 21 personnel with Kenyan Drake at the top of the screen next to Stewart. Foster is at the bottom of the screen. Drake motions left and takes the "pass" from Coker. Foster moves forward looking for someone to block, and he picks up the safety, shoving his shoulder into the defensive back’s chest. Not the prettiest block, but it gets the job done and takes the safety (#20) out of the play initially. However, Drake got the edge and starts streaking down the sideline. Foster has the awareness to see this and heads downfield. He helps in the block of the defender ahead of Drake, but #20 catches up from behind and manages to trip Drake up just shy of the goalline. Still, great hustle from Foster.
1st and 10: Foster and Stewart are the wideouts, with Foster on the left side. The cornerback on Foster cheats in. Coker sees this, and he sees him blitz after the snap. This leaves a safety covering him from about 8-9 yards away. Foster breaks well on his quick slant, and Coker fires it to him. Foster does have to double catch it, but he hangs on as the safety makes contact and brings him to the ground. 6 yard gain.
4th and 4: Foster is wide left with Mullaney in the slot on his side while Stewart is wide right with O.J. Howard on the line next to the RT Dominick Jackson. Middle Tennessee drops both safeties deep, and the cornerback on Foster is playing off. Foster runs about four yards and breaks on his slant. Coker throws a nice ball, and only Foster has a shot at it. He catches it with his hands and maintains possession while falling to the ground.
2nd and 15: Bama is in the same formation as before. Foster runs four yards past the line of scrimmage before stopping and turning to Coker, who has to throw with a defender falling into him. The result is a high pass that forces Foster to jump, and he snags it away from his body. Foster jukes the defensive back and gains almost 10 yards after catch, getting stopped just short of the first down.
Ole Miss
2nd and 8: Foster and Stewart are the two wideouts to the right, with Foster inside of Stewart. Howard is at H-back behind TE Dakota Ball, who’s on the line next to Cam Robinson. It’s a run/pass option; and Cooper Bateman correctly keeps it and passes to Howard. Foster does a good job of tracking his man and lays a nice block on #38, taking him to the ground and springing Howard for a long gain.
4th and 2: Foster is wide left, and Mullaney and Stewart are to the right. Mullaney motions to the left. On the snap, Foster takes a step forward, plants, and immediately runs a shallow slant. He’s got a step on the cornerback, but Bateman has poor ball placement, forcing Foster to leave his feet to catch it. This allows the corner time to make the play, and Bama turns the ball over on downs.
3rd and 4: Foster is in tight to the left of the line, and Stewart are Howard are bunched in close to the right. Foster runs a corner route and gets in between the linebacker and cornerback. Bateman throws a high pass; but Foster climbs the ladder and comes down with it, despite taking a hard hit. This is his last catch before the season-ending injury. Here's a replay.
1st and 10: Jake Coker is now in after Bateman’s interception. Both receivers are to the left, with Foster out wide and Stewart in the slot. Coker fakes the handoff to Henry and looks down field to Foster on the post route. It’s a one-on-one match-up against the cornerback, and the defender ends up winning. The corner swats the ball away as Foster’s diving for it. Foster came down hard and tore his rotator cuff, ending his season.It’s among the biggest and toughest tasks in later life: turning your nest egg into a steady stream of income that lasts as long as your retirement. Now, growing numbers of employers and 401(k) plan sponsors are offering would-be retirees more guidance and “lifetime-income” options to achieve that end.
Shutterstock Building one is hard. Tapping one can be even harder.
In all, tax-deferred retirement accounts in the U.S. hold about $11 trillion. The problem: “People have no idea how to get their money out of these plans and make it last a lifetime,” says Jason Chepenik, a retirement-plan consultant in Winter Park, Fla. That challenge is exacerbated by extended life spans and volatile stock markets, which make it difficult to calculate safe withdrawal rates.
But as Kelly Greene reported recently in The Wall Street Journal, employers and financial-service companies are stepping up with new programs to help workers create a steady paycheck in later life. Among the options you might have in your retirement plan at work, or that you might see down the road, are:
Income calculators. These tools can help you project how much income you might receive in later life. For instance, Great-West Financial in Greenwood Village, Colo., recently introduced a service that enables participants in its 401(k) plans to calculate how much money they’re likely to get each month in retirement based on real-time account data and information about assets outside the plan. The tool then compares that result with the saver’s target and suggests ways of closing any gap.
In July, BlackRock /quotes/zigman/249424 /quotes/nls/blk BLK, the world’s largest money manager, with $3.86 trillion in assets, launched what it calls the “Cori” indexes to help consumers calculate how much they need to save to generate a specific lifetime income starting at age 65. A new calculator, based on that index, uses a few numbers to give retirement savers a quick take on where they stand.
Future income with a guarantee. Despite liability concerns (if an insurer should fail), some employers are going ahead with incorporating annuities and other lifetime-income options into their retirement plans because they see them as less risky from a legal standpoint than leaving their workers with inadequate savings. Incorporating annuities into a retirement plan usually means that savers in the plan pay more in investment expenses, though advocates of the approach say savers are likely to pay less than they would if they bought such annuities on their own.
Last year, United TechnologiesU /quotes/zigman/244482 /quotes/nls/utx UTX, based in Hartford Conn., started gradually transferring older workers’ savings into variable annuities as they get closer to retirement, unless they opt out, with the aim of creating a guaranteed lifetime income beginning at age 65. So far, nearly 20,000 workers have invested $680 million in the option, which is run by AllianceBernstein.
Future income – and a guarantee later. Some savings plans are offering participants the option of buying an annuity at the point of, or after, retirement.
Financial Engines /quotes/zigman/115710 /quotes/nls/fngn FNGN, for example, which provides retirement-plan investment advice and management, says it has signed up more than 70 companies, including Motorola Solutions /quotes/zigman/3019739 /quotes/nls/msi MSI, for its “Income Plus” program. That program’s goal is to provide steady retirement income using bond and equity funds, while letting investors set aside enough assets in bond funds to buy an annuity before age 85, if desired.After the initial safe call, Giants manager Bruce Bochy immediately came out of the dugout to talk with the umpire, and despite not receiving a clear signal from the dugout, Bochy elected to challenge the call.
SAN FRANCISCO -- In the seventh inning of Monday's Braves-Giants game, Atlanta center fielder B.J. Upton attempted to steal third base, and although he was originally ruled safe, the call was overturned upon video review.
SAN FRANCISCO -- In the seventh inning of Monday's Braves-Giants game, Atlanta center fielder B.J. Upton attempted to steal third base, and although he was originally ruled safe, the call was overturned upon video review.
After the initial safe call, Giants manager Bruce Bochy immediately came out of the dugout to talk with the umpire, and despite not receiving a clear signal from the dugout, Bochy elected to challenge the call.
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"I knew it was bang-bang," Bochy said. "I'm waiting to get the call. When we got the call, they weren't sure, but at that point in the game, I've got nothing to lose. So I went ahead and challenged the call because it was that close."
Two minutes and seven seconds later, the call was reversed, helping the Giants preserve a tie before scoring three in the bottom of the inning en route to a 4-2 victory.
Upon watching the replay, it became clear that Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval tagged the back foot of a sliding Upton before he was able to reach third base.
However, Upton had a different take.
"I still thought I was safe," Upton said. "I don't know what evidence they had to overturn it. I guess they saw something different in the booth. It was hard for me to tell as the play was going on. But I still thought I was safe."
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez also thought Upton was safe when looking at the play on the AT&T Park scoreboard, but admitted that after seeing it a couple of more times, the umpires got it right.
"From what I've seen in [the clubhouse], it looks like they got the right call," Gonzalez said. "That's what replay is for. It hurts a little bit, but in the end, that is why it is there."Image caption City goalkeeper Joe Hart stopped a fan from confronting Ferdinand after the defender was injured
Nine people have been charged after the match between Manchester City and Manchester United on Sunday.
United's Rio Ferdinand was injured when he was hit by an object thrown from someone in the crowd at the end of the derby game at the Etihad Stadium.
Police are still trying to identify the person responsible for the attack.
However, officers have charged nine people, including one with racially aggravated public order and two with encroaching on the pitch.
Two people are accused of breaching a football banning order, one with a public order offence and three with being drunk and disorderly.
Ferdinand received a cut above his left eye as he celebrated Robin van Persie's late goal.
'Extremely ashamed'
The Dutch striker's deflected free-kick ensured United won the Premier League game 3-2 following a fightback from City, who had been 2-0 down at half time.
As Ferdinand was recovering from the attack, Manchester City fan Matthew Stott ran on to the field towards the defender, but was stopped by City goalkeeper Joe Hart before he could reach him.
Mr Stott, 21, a landscape gardener from Knutsford, Cheshire, is one of the two men now charged with pitch encroachment.
Image caption Ferdinand received a cut above his left eye
In a statement issued through his solicitor, he said: "I would like to apologise to all those affected by my actions yesterday, particularly Mr Ferdinand and the other players.
"I am extremely ashamed of my actions. I have let myself down, my family down, my fellow fans down and Manchester City Football Club.
"I intend to write personally to Mr Ferdinand to express my extreme regret and apologies and also apologise to Manchester United and their fans.
"I would like to thank Joe Hart for his actions when I came on the pitch."
As well as those charged, police said four others were arrested including a 50-year-old man who was held for ticket touting but was released without charge.
'High tension'
A 45-year-old man was summonsed for a racially aggravated public order offence.
An 18-year-old woman was cautioned for being drunk and disorderly and a 33-year-old man remains in police custody after being arrested on suspicion of possessing a Class A drug.
Ch Insp Steve Howard said: "To have just 13 arrests for a crowd of this size and a match of this proportion is a testament to the policing operation we put in place.
"Despite fierce rivalry and high tension there was no major disorder.
"However, we will continue to investigate the coin-throwing incident and are determined to work with the club to bring the perpetrator to justice."
The nine people who have been charged are due to appear before Manchester City Magistrates' Court on 4 January.Manhunt underway for NSW police armourer
Updated
New South Wales police have launched a state-wide manhunt for a senior civilian employee accused of stealing firearms.
Sydney Police Headquarters armourer Alan James Cumberland, 38, is wanted for questioning after a raid on his Tuggerah Lakes home on Thursday.
Officers from the Firearms and Organised Crime Squad uncovered "large numbers" of weapons as well as firearms parts, ammunition of various calibres, machining equipment and prohibited weapons.
"He's been misappropriating weapons and weapons parts from the facility," a police spokesperson said on Friday.
Police say Mr Cumberland was alerted to the raid just before it took place and has spoken to his wife since.
Attempts by detectives to contact and locate Mr Cumberland have been unsuccessful, prompting police to launch an appeal for information of his whereabouts.
Police believe he may be armed as a registered rifle and rifle receiver remain unaccounted for.
Organised Crime Squad Commander Ken Finch says Mr Cumberland's name recently emerged in an investigation of criminal use of guns.
"I'm not suggesting that he has specifically supplied weapons to criminals, but that is part of our investigation that is ongoing and we will need to make a number os inquires in regard to that," he said.
The search of Mr Cumberland's home was one of four conducted as part of investigation into organised crime.
A machine gun, ammunition and cash were seized at a property at Bonnells Bay, and a silencer was located at a property at Lalor Park.
Two men have already been charged in relation to those seizures.
ABC/AAP
Topics: police, law-crime-and-justice, crime, tuggerah-2259, nsw
First postedTeam Alpha Male coach Justin Buchholz has backed bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz to come back stronger from his latest setback.
Cruz was set to face Jimmie Rivera at UFC 219 on 30 December in what was ideally a number one contender fight for new champion TJ Dillashaw's bantamweight title.
However, "The Dominator" suffered a broken arm ruling him out of the year-ending event, with John Lineker stepping in to take on Rivera.
Buchholz, who has long been in the opposing corner against Cruz as a coach, says things are not looking good as of now for the former bantamweight champion.
"I would say it's not looking good for Cruz right now with the amount of injuries he's had and now a broken arm? You know what I mean?" he told IB Times UK in Singapore.
Cruz has long suffered from injuries throughout his career, having undergone surgery thrice for multiple torn ACLs effectively resigning him to just five fights in the last six years.
Despite his setbacks, however, Cruz was able to return in January 2016 and win the bantamweight title against Dillashaw.
He would defend it against Urijah Faber before losing to Cody Garbrandt via unanimous decision at UFC 207 in December 2016, where he later revealed he was suffering from plantar fasciitis on both his feet.
The 32-year-old would proceed to take extra time off just to heal from his condition and eventually return to the octagon as his coach Eric Del Fierro claimed in April that Cruz was in peak form.
It makes the latest setback even more of a blow, but Buchholz believes a broken arm is nothing compared to what Cruz has suffered before, backing him to come back even stronger.
"A broken arm is not [nothing compared to] three ACL surgeries," Buchholz added. "But he came back from that and he's just a gritty competitor. I think it's definitely slowed him down and delayed him but I don't think it's going to stop him by any means.
"I think he's going to come back stronger, that's usually what happens when he does have a lay-off. Cruz is just a consummate professional and great competitor and I don't think it's going to stop him, he's been through a lot worse and he'll come back better."Buried in the minutes of an obscure new quango is evidence of vast corporate capture of the UK government.
Revelations that VW has been systematically cheating the rules which keep us safe from polluted air have put corporate irresponsibility back on the agenda.
Air pollution causes around 60,000 deaths a year, and the New York Times has estimated that around 106 deaths can be directly attributed to the extra pollution from test-cheating VW cars.
It’s now more obvious than ever that corporations can’t be trusted to write their own rules, or to police their compliance with those rules – and that real people suffer when regulators are too hands-off.
And yet, incredibly, the UK government wants us to hand over more power, not less, to corporations.
Selling off our rights
New NEF (New Economics Foundation) research reveals how the entire machinery of government is being reshaped with the express purpose of making it harder to impose new rules on companies. Largely behind the backs of parliament and civil society, this is happening under the cover of a little-known and innocent-sounding initiative called ‘Better Regulation’.
In the words of Michael Fallon, then business minister, “Whitehall is increasingly putting the needs of businesses centre stage”, aggressively pursuing “reforms to environmental regulation, employment law and consumer law” to save them money.
This has profound consequences for our ability to protect the things we all value: not just clean air, but also our rights at work, the safety of our food, and the natural world.
Since 2013, government departments have been subject to a rule of ‘one-in, two-out regulation’: they cannot introduce new rules which will cost business money – for instance, caps on vehicle emissions – unless they scrap existing ones worth at least twice that cost.
It’s rumoured that, under the new Conservative government, this has been upped to ‘one-in, three-out’ – an alarming acceleration of the assault on our social and environmental protections.
The policy has no regard for the costs and benefits of these rules for the wider public: the direct cost to business is the sole arbiter of whether departments can act. By this logic, reducing the ‘red tape’ associated with vehicle emissions inspections would have gained a big tick for saving VW money: the 106 dead would not even enter the equation. That a supposedly advanced democracy finds this an acceptable way to make policy is simply mind boggling.
The parallels with the VW scandal do not stop here.
Who makes the rules?
The so-called ‘Focus on Enforcement’ initiative is actively trying to reduce the ‘burden’ of regulatory inspections, putting business in the driving seat when it comes to deciding how and when they want to be inspected. Its website proudly proclaims that it “puts scrutiny of the way the law is enforced or implemented into the hands of business”.
Rather than closing the kind of loopholes which allowed VW to manipulate test results, we are busily opening more.
And it gets worse. Departments’ adherence to ‘one-in, two-out regulation’ is policed by an unelected quango called the Regulatory Policy Committee – which may sound technocratic, but is actually stuffed with business representatives, including from the energy industry and the City of London. They boast that their scrutiny has provided a “very real brake” on the ability of departments to regulate.
While most in civil society do not even know this body exists, our analysis of their minutes finds that they have regularly invited corporate lobbyists into their meetings to complain about everything from the ‘burden’ of having to offer their employees a pension to the ‘burden’ of voluntary codes of conduct. This is not evidence-based policymaking: this is corporate capture writ large. The message of ‘Better Regulation’ is clear: lawmakers should be accountable to business, and no-one else.
Privilege to the cowboys
This slash-and-burn approach is not just socially and environmentally unjust – it is also economically short-sighted.
Effective regulation is vital to address economic threats like climate change, where what is privately rational is collectively disastrous. It also protects responsible businesses from unfair competition by cowboys: after all, the victims of VW’s fraud include manufacturers who played by the rules and didn’t put their bottom line above our right to clean air.
‘Better Regulation’ actively privileges the cowboys. The most bizarre example of this we unearthed was a consultation on speed limits for Heavy Goods Vehicles which reasoned that, since some drivers were breaking the existing speed limits, we should let them all drive faster to ‘level the playing field’. Like VW’s polluting cars, the consultation acknowledged that this would result in more deaths on our roads – but the change went ahead regardless.
The result of all this is to systematically surrender our right to set the rules of the game to those with a vested interest in cutting corners. Indeed, we are being told that the top priority of policymakers must be to make these people’s lives easier.
The |
ome on Weighing Lives
S18 David Stuckler on Austerity and Death
243 Norman Daniels on the Philosophy of Healthcare
188 Jonathan Wolff on Political Bioethics
117 Thomas Pogge on Global Justice and Health
S21 Angus Deaton on Health and Inequality
287 Leif Wenar on Trade and Tyranny
E13 James Garvey on Climate Change
090 Kate Soper on Alternative Hedonism
Political Values
116 Tzvetan Todorov on the Enlightenment Today
051 Richard Reeves on Mill's On Liberty
F03 Irshad Manji on Islam and Free Expression
206 Alan Ryan on Freedom and Its History
181 Philip Pettit on Republicanism
120 Jonathan Wolff on John Rawls' A Theory of Justice
080 Raymond Geuss on Real Politics
125 Raymond Geuss on Realism and Utopianism in Political Philosophy
043 Anthony Appiah on Cosmopolitanism
300 David Miller on Immigration
008 Anne Phillips on Multiculturalism
M01 Tariq Modood on The History of Multiculturalism
061 Will Kymlicka on Minority Rights
M02 Chandran Kukathas on Varieties of Multiculturalism
062 John Dunn on Locke on Toleration
302 Anthony Gottlieb on Pierre Bayle
M09 Susan Mendus on Toleration
085 Wendy Brown on Tolerance
M05 Anne Phillips on Multiculturalism and Liberalism
M04 Clare Chambers on Justifying Intervention
M08 John Horton on Political Obligation and Multiculturalism
S38 Ted Cantle on Segregation
M10 Nancy Fraser on Recognition and Multiculturalism
M06 David Miller on the Welfare State and Multiculturalism
029 Henry Hardy on Isaiah Berlin's Pluralism
176 Ronald Dworkin on the Unity of Value
238 Roberto Mangabeira Unger on Deep Freedom
Legal Principles and Practices
237 Nicola Lacey on H.L.A. Hart and Legal Positivism
174 Philip Schofield on Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism
M03 Martha Nussbaum on Disgust
P08 Janet Radcliffe-Richards on the Ethics of Sexuality
217 Les Green on Same Sex Marriage
240 Stephen Darwall on Moral Accountability
228 John Tasioulas on Human Rights
066 Matthew Kramer on Legal Rights
209 Tom Sorell on Surveillance
216 John Mikhail on Battery and Morality
211 Jeff McMahan on Gun Control
061 Will Kymlicka on Minority Rights
059 Tim Scanlon on Free Speech
F01 Jonathan Dimbleby on Free Speech and Censorship
M07 Alan Haworth on Free Speech and Multiculturalism
195 Rae Langton on Hate Speech
E10 Richard Posner on Copyright
130 Stephen Neale on Meaning and Interpretation
213 John Gardner on Constitutions
138 Gideon Rosen on Moral Responsibility
173 Nicola Lacey on Criminal Responsibility
150 Catharine MacKinnon on Gender Crime
E06 Richard Norman on What's Wrong With Killing?
158 Victor Tadros on Punishment
292 Gregg Caruso on Freewill and Punishment
155 David Eagleman on Morality and the Brain
S15 Lawrence Sherman on Criminology
Political Organization and Practice
045 Melissa Lane on Plato and Totalitarianism
068 Quentin Skinner on Machiavelli's The Prince
241 Michael Ignatieff on Political Theory and Political Practice
110 Tony Coady on Dirty Hands in Politics
047 Raimond Gaita on Torture
F06 Natalia Kaliada on Free Speech and Belarus
023 Quentin Skinner on Hobbes on the State
215 Noel Malcolm on Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan in Context
113 Catalin Avramescu on the Idea of Cannibalism
037 Richard Bourke on Edmund Burke on Politics
S44 Michael Billig on the Royal Family and Nationalism
213 John Gardner on Constitutions
206 Alan Ryan on Freedom and Its History
181 Philip Pettit on Republicanism
084 Anne Phillips on Political Representation
S29 Ivor Crewe on Psephology
036 Angie Hobbs on Plato on War
P06 Jeff McMahan on Is There Such a Thing as a Just War?
146 Cécile Fabre on Cosmopolitanism and War
112 Jeff McMahan on Killing in War
083 A.C. Grayling on Bombing Civilians in Wartime
248 Seth Lazar on Sparing Civilians in War
089 Chandran Kukathas on Genocide
296 Cécile Fabre on Remembrance
050 David Miller on National ResponsibilityFor more than an hour in last Wednesday's Champions League matches, up and down the continent, every goal had been scored by players from either Argentina or Brazil - an extraordinary example of South America's contribution to European club football.
In comparison to the impressive feats of the players, surprisingly little of that contribution has come from coaches. There have been a few South American success stories on the other side of the Atlantic - Brazil's Otto Gloria and Chile's Fernando Riera spring to mind.
But opportunities have been limited - hence the general surprise when Argentina's Gerardo Martino was rushed into the Barcelona job, an appointment which suggests a desire to keep Lionel Messi content.
The modern dressing room of a major European club is a mini working class version of the United Nations, containing players from all sorts of nationalities and cultural backgrounds
In this case, the fact that the club's biggest star is from Argentina has opened a door. But paradoxically, the fact that European football has become so globalised almost certainly makes it more difficult for South American coaches to find their feet.
There are three main tasks a coach must perform; select the team, determine the strategy and set the emotional tone for the work. All demand adjustments - in a tactical sense, for example, European club football is far quicker than South American. But perhaps the biggest challenge comes in the third of those tasks, which encapsulates the difficult mission of man management.
The modern dressing room of a major European club is a mini version of the United Nations, containing players from all sorts of nationalities and cultural backgrounds. There is nothing in South American society that can prepare a coach for dealing with such human diversity.
Many of the local coaches are essentially group formers - one thing when all the players come from similar backgrounds, but quite another when they are gathered from the four corners of the globe.
I was discussing such topics on a Brazilian radio show last Saturday, when the point was made that the local coaches are so often forced into the role of father figures.
The key word used by one of my fellow debaters was 'carente' - it can translate as 'needy,' in both economic and emotional terms, and the two senses can apply to the backgrounds of some of the players in the local teams. They can be crying out for a paternal figure in a way that is not always the case with European players.
Luiz Felipe Scolari discovered this in his time with Chelsea. He is a champion group former - in Brazil his squads are often referred to as 'the Scolari family,' but he was unable to generate the same unity in London.
Luiz Felipe Scolari struggled to build close relationships with players during his time as Chelsea manager
Indeed, he lamented afterwards that his relationship with some of the players never got beyond a purely professional one. In retrospect, it is hardly surprising that his time at Stamford Bridge was not an overwhelming success.
It is also hardly surprising that the South American coaches most likely to succeed across the Atlantic are those who have played for European clubs, and have picked up experience of multi-cultural dressing rooms. Diego Simeone at Atletico Madrid is one example. Another is Southampton's Mauricio Pochettino, from a tiny Argentine town called Murphy, and transformed into a global citizen by his time in Spain and France.
All this goes to show that Manchester City's Manuel Pellegrini is something a little special. Nothing more than a useful centre-back, his playing career was restricted to Chile. Gerardo Martino is a legend at Newell's Old Boys, the Argentine club where Messi plans to end his career.
Pellegrini the player enjoyed none of that status. But he has gone on to carve out an exceptional coaching career, coming to City after sound work with a succession of Spanish clubs, Real Madrid among them.
A qualified engineer, Pellegrini is clearly a highly educated man. And he had the opportunity to learn from Fernando Riera, Benfica's coach in the early 1960s who was in charge of the Universidad de Chile side Pellegrini played for in the late 1970s.
Who is Manuel Pellegrini? A defender, Pellegrini spent his entire playing career at Universidad Chile, making more than 450 appearances
Retired in 1986 and took his first managerial role the following year at Palestino
Has taken charge of 10 teams in total including Villarreal (2004-09), Real Madrid (2009-10) and Malaga
Won league titles in Ecuador and Argentina and the Intertoto Cup with Villarreal in 2004
But more than the benefits of any formal education, what comes across so often with Pellegrini are his personal qualities, his suave and urbane capacity to remain unflappable.
A typical move was his pre-season opinion that he possesses the strongest squad in the Premier League. It leads to an obvious conclusion; if things go wrong it can only be his fault, since he has been given the tools he deems necessary to complete the job. He is happy to take on such pressure. It is part of what makes him so impressive.
A coach in Brazil who shows similar characteristics is Cristovao Borges, currently in charge of Bahia. A midfielder in the 1980s, he spent years as an assistant, only launching his coaching career just over two years ago at Vasco da Gama when his boss, Ricardo Gomes, suffered a stroke.
After coming close to winning the 2011 title with Vasco, he was appointed Bahia coach on the eve of the current Brazilian Championship. They were seen as sure fire relegation candidates. Instead, they lie solidly in the middle of the table, and their 2-1 win away to second place Botafogo was one of the best displays I have seen from a Brazilian side this season.
His team were compact in defence and incisive down the flanks. They bore the hallmark of a well coached side - it was easy to see what they were trying to do, both at the start and as substitutions had to be made after conceding the first goal.
Calm and ethical - at Vasco Juninho Pernambucano once complained that he was not putting enough pressure on the referees - Cristovao Borges is already 54, and is unlikely to enjoy the same kind of international career as Manuel Pellegrini. He may well be too self-effacing for his own good. But he is one to watch.
Send your questions on South American football to vickerycolumn@hotmail.com, and I'll pick out a couple for next week.
From last week's postbag;
Q. Just wondering if you could share some insight into what extent the game of futsal influences the development of players in Brazil.
Is this the sole reason they are more skilful or are there others?
Charlie Sole
Futsal is clearly important, but I'm a bit sceptical about people trying to present it as Brazil's big secret. There is obvious value in small sided games with lots of contact with the ball - just as traditionally happens in the greatest producer of footballing talent known to man, informal street/park/wasteland football.
Brazil was coming up with skilful players long before the era of mass futsal. Perhaps the truth is this - many of the spaces where informal football was played have been swallowed up by urban expansion, or have become violent, and so futsal is a replacement.
But anyway, I think the main reason that they come up with more skilful players is that different cultures place high values on different aspects of the game. English football is the product of early, labour-intensive industrialisation, where physical strength and reliability were important - hardly surprising, then, that these values have always been a key part of our game.
Q. There seems to be at least one black player in every Argentine team. Is this a conscious decision or something suggested by Fifa/the South American federation?
Rona Ramprasadh
A. No, not at all. It's because Argentine clubs often sign players from Colombia and Uruguay, some of whom happen to be black.
A couple of centuries ago, Buenos Aires was a third black. Then Argentina stopped importing slaves, and the black population diminished; some died of yellow fever, others joined San Martin's army and went to fight in Peru, and then in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the country was transformed by the millions of immigrants pouring in, especially from Italy.
But there is still an African presence in Argentina's DNA. Hector Baley, for example, reserve goalkeeper in the 1978 World Cup, is an afro-descendent.Google provides what’s known as the Leanback library, this provides a set of fragments and components that implement a lot of the standard functionality required for a building TV applications. These include screens such as the BrowseFragment, SearchFragment, VerticalGridFragment, DetailsFragment, ErrorFragment and GuidedStepFragment.
Like mobile applications, we should supporting pagination in our applications. Our lists and grids of content should load more content as we reach the last displayed item, allowing the user to continuously consume content as they desire. For some reason a very small amount of Android TV applications are currently doing this - it’s found on mobile so we should take the same approach here.
To boost engagement with our application and aid the users attention, we should be sure to include dynamic features for our application. Most importantly, the content displayed in our application should be dynamic as like any application, the user will get bored if we’re not feeding them new and exciting content to consume frequently. For example, a media based application should load the latest content when the user opens our app rather than recycling previously used content.
One other option here is to delegate user input to a mobile device - this is where you allow the user to input textual information into the TV system using their mobile device. To do this, your application could detect a nearby device (possibly using the WiFi network the TV is connected to) and display an option to input text by launching the application to allow user input via the users mobile device.
Note: When it comes to searching for content, the Leanback library provides a Search Fragment that implements all of this for us already. However, if you’re not using this approach then it’s important that you implement voice input into your user input flow.
We should provide flexible methods data input for our application, with an important method being voice input. Whilst Android TV has a software keyboard that allows textual input via an on-screen keyboard, it can be tiresome when using a d-pad controller (this is slightly easier when using a gamepad). Because of this, voice input is essential to reduce friction.
Note: In order to allow the use of gamepad as a primary controller, the application must specify this in the manifest file like so:
Android TV is also compatible with gamepad controllers, giving the user access to several more buttons to perform interactions with applications. If an application does use a game controller, then it should allow navigation functionality from standard controller keys found on the d-pad.
Because the user has access to different types of controllers for navigation, we should ensure that we support the relevant key codes used by any non-standard input controller for interacting with our application.
Note: Android TV applications do not use toolbars and/or overflow menus and it is recommended to not use these in your application. Design for efficiency and make use of the provided components for Android TV and the above becomes redundant anyway!
It’s important to ensure that there is always an object on screen which is clearly in focus, this helps to aid navigation when using a D-pad controller. We can use the points above to ensure that this object is clearly indicated.
To help the user when navigating through these elements, the currently focused item should clearly show its focused state. Every item on screen should have a focused state, this means that there will always be an easy visible focused item - allowing the user to easily find their position on screen. Showing these focused items could be achieved by:
Android TV uses focus based navigation to allow the user to navigate through the components on the screen. As the user works their way through the content, items become focused on screen - at this point, the user can use the select button to choose the currently selected item. This approach makes it extremely easy to reach the different components on the screen using the provided controls.
Users navigate through content on the TV system using a 5-way D-pad controller. This consists of both 4 directional buttons and a central select button, the user also has access to a back and home button on their remote. These controls restrict the user to navigating left, up, right and down through content and back through their flow of navigation. You can account for these constraints by laying out content in lists and grids, providing clear paths on both X and Y axis for the user to easily navigate through.
Like all applications we create, strive to keep it simple. As a user, I want to take the minimal steps possible to get from one stage to another — even more so on a TV where I just want to sit down and watch something without having to perform numerous actions to begin consuming content. We can keep our application simple by:
The TV was built for this. Embrace the use of visual imagery and engaging sound, this helps to provide a cinematic experience when using your TV application - after all, this is what the TV was made for! We can achieve this by keeping our User Interface design to a minimum and avoiding the use of text where possible, instead conveying this information with the use of visual delights where possible. It’s all about the viewing.
Unlike other devices we currently use, the TV is not a mobile device - so be sure to remember this when creating for the platform. Content should be your central focus when designing for TV, allow the user to kick back and consume media rather than having to read textual information on screen. And when this media is available, our users also want to be able to access it quickly and easily, meaning it should be no more than a click or two away at any time.
Building on material design allows us to persist the same look and feel across the different platforms that our application is available on.
Material is the core approach when we’re designing for our mobile devices and the same applies to how we should take on the TV. Not only does this provide a sense of familiarity and consistency across our applications on different platforms, but this visual language provides an enjoyable and functional experience for our users. Oh, and it also looks great too.
Where possible, it is a great idea to utilise these components as not only do they conform to material design standards but they provide a lot of standard functionality pre-implemented - allowing us to re-use many components!
We should make use of the large screen available to us, which we can do so by showing beautiful visual backgrounds in our application. Whilst this can easily be done using the BackgroundManager class from the Leanback Library, we also have the ability to change the background on the home screen of the android TV system using our displayed contents data.
When browsing their home screen for recommendations, this background image is also displayed here as the system background when the content cards switch focused state. This is easily achieved by attaching the image source to the data objects that we use when displaying content cards. It’s also best practice that is different from the image used on these cards, so if possible then a different thumbnail image from that shown on the card should be used for the background - this provides a complimenting visual difference when browsing content.
Whilst the background image should be sized at 1920 x 1080 px, we have to account for motion events by adding 5% onto this size, giving us a resolution of 2016 x 1134 px. If the background image does not meet these requirements then the system will automatically scale the background.
Note: There should be no transparency on the background that you use.
The Android TV system provides a recommendations service that allows applications to display new and relevant content in the recommendations row on the users home screen. This helps to reduce the number of steps in which the user may be required to take to begin consuming content from their TV. I know for sure when I sit down in front of my TV, I want to turn it on and find something to watch in as little steps as possible! Making use of this service allows you to provide both great and easily accessible content to your users from outside of your applications context, boosting application engagement at the same time.
Recommendations should be chosen based off of any user data you have around your application. This could be information such as what they’ve previously watching, listened to or viewed from the context of your application. When done so, these recommended items are shown on the first row of the Android TV home screen.
Recommendations that you create should be used to return the user to a previous viewing or recommend them to new / related content to their previous viewings. There are several types of recommendations that we can display to the user - let’s take a look at these in a bit more detail:
Continuation content
These are recommendations that allow the user to either continue watching or listening to content that they were previously consuming, or even moving on to the next item in a collection or series. This again allows the user to pick up where they left off with minimal friction.
New content
This card is used when there is new content available in relation to something that the user has already watched or listened to. For example, your application knows I watch a specific program so it should recommend new content to me for that program when available.
Related content
These cards allow you to recommend new content that you feel is appropriate to your user. If you know that the user watches a certain theme of programs or genres of music, then you can build recommendations for alternative content that they may also enjoy.
So we know the different types of recommendations that we’re going to display, but how should we handle the display of these items on the TV home screen?
When refreshing recommendations that are being displayed on the screen, don’t just reload the previous recommendations that were displayed. Any content that has been opened and played should be removed from the list of recommendations - refreshing content should produce new and appropriate content for the user to consume.
We have the ability to customise our recommendation cards in several different ways, this allows us to give our cards some style and branding when they’re shown. Whilst the card attributes allow use to provide a short title and subtitle, we should use the card imagery to portray the item to the user - the image alone can be enough to educate the user about the content.
You have the ability to group recommendations based on the source of the recommendation, such as grouping content that may be completely new to the user and then separately grouping recommendations of content that they are already subscribed to. These recommendations can be easily grouped by the used of tags, such as as “trending”, “new” or “related” — this allows us to easily group recommended content into recognisable categories.
Whilst we have the ability to assign a weight to recommendations to decide the order in which they’re shown, recommendations for each group are ranked and ordered separately from each other to ensure that more dominant recommendations are not ordered incorrectly.
Iconography can not only make our application more aesthetically pleasing and fun, but it can be used to help to portray information to our users just as well as text. This should be the approach where possible, as we’ve previously pointed out we should approach the TV with visuals over textual content.
Using a single colour for header icons keeps them simple and isn’t too distracting during navigation. Obviously, this is dependant on the navigation background colour in your application and the icons in use.
These icons are all simple. There’s no complex shapes and they’re all material design influenced icons which are taken directly from the Google Material Design Icons resource. You don’t have to use these, but any icons you design should have a material influence to match the overall look and feel of your application.
The icons should relate to the content which they’re displayed with. It should compliment the content it’s being displayed with, no complicate.
Just like mobile applications have their launcher icons, TV applications have what’s known as a banner - this will be displayed in the Android TV app launcher once your application has been installed.
Note: If your app is listed as a game, then it’ll appear in the Games row. You can list your app as a game by declaring so in the manifest:
<application
...
android:isGame="true"
...
>
This banner should be an XHDPI resource and sized at 320 x 180 px. It’s good practice to display the name of application in the image - I feel that this really depends on the application and how identifiable the app is from an icon alone. This way the application is easily identifiable when browsing through the application banners on the home screen.
Note: If your application is available in multiple languages then you must provide a version of the banner image for each language that you’re supporting.
We can use sound within our TV application to enhance the cinematic experience that we provide. Sounds, if used correctly, are a great way of complimenting visuals without the need to use textual notifications. It’s easy to go overboard with sounds and exaggerate their purpose, so designing complimentary sounds is important.
Sounds are a great alternative from displaying visual notifications on screen. Not only can these be obstructing from the current view, but the system components (such as toast and dialogs) don’t tend to be the prettiest when displayed on a TV screen. Playing a sound for events such as when the user tries to interact with a disabled component or reaches the end of a list are great examples of when this could occur.
Providing feedback in the form of sound also allows you to notify the user when they are only partially engaged with the TV - which sometimes tend to be the nature of a users behaviour with a TV. That way, if the user is chatting to a friend or reading a book with the TV as background noise, we can let them aware that something has happened.
To begin with, when designing the screens for your application it’s important to ensure that all interfaces have a landscape orientation. We should also be sure to create layouts that are easy to navigate using the focus based navigation. To do so, we can layout our content using rows, lists, grids and any other layout formats for collections of focusable content that are easy to navigate using the X and Y axis.
It’s good to avoid trying to re-use layouts used on phones and tablets, the TV is a completely different experience so it’s likely that these layouts won’t be appropriate. Other components from these platforms we should avoid are:
Toolbars and Actionbars are not components designed to be used with TV interfaces and shouldn’t be avoided. Other than not being suitable for TV, elements of these bars (such as an overflow menu) would be difficult to navigate
Components that are designed to have touch interaction (such as ViewPagers, ScrollViews) are not intended to be used on TV interfaces and should be avoided as they wouldn’t be easily navigable on screen
Any layouts that we do create should fill the entire screen - we should avoid showing previous views underneath transparent activities when designing layouts for TVs. Again, this point stems off of the fact that we’re now designing for TV and not mobile experiences.
Overscan is the areas of the TV display that are not always ‘safe’ to display content on without obscuring any content. We need to ensure that we account for overscan and that no text or components are in any way obscured by the edges of the TV screen.
We can account for this by adding a margin sized 5% of our screen size, this will help to avoid any content being obscured by overscan. As shown in the example above, a 1920 x 1080 screen would have a 27 px vertical margin and a 48 px horizontal margin.
Note: If using the leanback library, then overscan is automatically accounted for in the framework
When it comes to TV, we need to be aware that the rendering on screen can be pretty imprecise when we compare it to that on our mobile devices. This could be due to the TV settings, filters or any smoothing that may occur on the TV - these can all cause hue or brightness differences to be either undistinguishable or exaggerated on screen, it’s important to bear this in mind.
To help avoid any serious issues with colours we can take the following approaches:
Avoid large empty areas of pure white on the screen, this colour can appear very bright and isn’t a nice view on a large screen. The same applies to any areas where highly saturated colours fill large parts of the screen
Very dark colours should also be avoided as contrast settings can cause these to appear almost unidentifiable to the user
Be sensible with the colours you choose. Using the recommended combination of primary, primary dark and accent colours can help to create a pleasing set of colours to display on screen
Note: When it comes to colours, I tend to use both material palette and coolers for some great inspiration.
Whilst textual content should be kept to a minimum when designing our TV applications, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be using any text at all. In cases where we will be using text, there’s some pointers we can use to ensure that the text we do display is both readable and navigable from the viewing distance of the TV in use. Here are some recommended fonts and sizes to use for typography in your application:
Note: Because Android runs on a wide range of manufacturer devices, we have to bear in mind that these all have different ways of displaying content in terms of contrast, sharpness and colour. Because of this, we should avoid using thin and/or light font faces as this can make our content difficult to read.
As we’ve previously mentioned, text within TV apps should be kept to an absolute minimum when possible. Most users are going to be sitting from a distance that makes it difficult to read text, this behaviour isn’t expected when watching TV anyway! However, when we do need to use text:
We should break the text into small sections so that the text can be easily scanned. Use iconography where possible to aid this behaviour.
Choose the text and background colours carefully. Light text on a darker background is much easier to read on a TV than dark text on a light background.
San-Serif fonts can help to improve the readability of text on the screen - light fonts and fonts that use narrow or broad strokes should be avoided as they will have a negative affect on readability.
If we’re going to be displaying any web content in our applications, we need to ensure that we make use of the standard WebView component provided by the Android framework. There is no web browser on the android TV, so we shouldn’t be trying to launch an browser intent at any point in our application.
For example, we can use the WebView component to allow users to authenticate access from third-party applications such as Facebook or Twitter.
Be creative! On the TV we have access to location services - for apps that make use of the users locations (such as nearby events, train stations or any other location based data), this could be great for allowing users to interact with your services from the comfort of their arm chair. The possibilities are endless!
And that’s all for now!
I hope this summary has been an educational read for now, I’ll be adding to this list as I learn more about crafting for the platform. I’d love to hear of any TV projects you’re working on or any of your own advice for building apps for Android TV! But please, feel free to drop me a tweet to share any of your own experiences!
Check out more of my projects at hitherejoe.comStudents for Bernie Concert The Field House — Saturday, Jan. 30 at 6 p.m.
Update: Killer Mike has been removed from the list of performers for the Students for Bernie Concert due to a death in the family.
Senator Bernie Sanders’ Iowa Headquarters announced late last night that members of the indie pop group Vampire Weekend will be joining rapper and outspoken political activist Killer Mike in Iowa City on Saturday, Jan. 30 to perform and present the Democratic presidential candidate at the Field House on the UI campus.
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Killer Mike has been spouting support for Sanders since early summer, going as far as inviting the senator to his barber shop in Atlanta to discuss (among many other things) social justice, free healthcare and the importance of voter turnout.
Other artists including Foster the People, members of the Dirty Projectors, Jill Sobule, Awful Purdies, Kay Hanley, Michelle Lewis, Hunger Games actor Josh Hutcherson, comedians The Lucas Brothers and more will be in attendance to perform and discuss their reasons for supporting Sanders and build momentum before the Monday night caucuses.
The doors for the free event will open at 5:30 p.m. with the event running from approximately 6:30-9:30 p.m. Attendants can RSVP here.This was reported first by Bob Braun’s Ledger. Thanks to all sources among the residents and employees of Newark. The people of the city care about the city and they let me help:
The drinking water in 30 Newark public schools enrolling tens of thousands of students is not safe, according to state-appointed schools superintendent Christopher Cerf who told principals this morning to use bottled drinking water instead.
There was no immediate indication how long Newark’s school children were drinking from contaminated fountains–for how long their food was prepared in kitchens using lead-tainted water.
“For all we know, we could have been drinking contaminated water for months or even years,” said one staff member who asked not to be identified. “I don’t trust anything Cerf says.”
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka held a new conference in which he told the press, “This is not Flint” and that the contamination problem was limited to public schools. He also asked for private donations of water to the public schools–an extraordinary request for a public official.
All the schools poisoned by the contaminated drinking water were traditional public schools. The only charter school affected was SEEK Academy because it is located inside George Washington Carver School, a public school that was contaminated; the water at all other charter schools is apparently safe.
The message from Cerf to the principals, however, apparently came after children in the schools were served breakfast. Sources in the schools say that, as of 9 a.m., neither food service workers nor nurses were informed that they should not use the water. Later, signs were posted in school kitchens and near drinking fountains warning against consumption of the lead contaminated water.
Overnight, pallettes of drinking water were delivered to some 30 schools in the state’s largest school district. But the water was in liter-sized containers that could not be consumed individually by small children. Cerf, said principals on the conference call, told the school administrators to buy paper cups to use to give the water to children. Several principals reported they scoured local neighborhood stores looking for hundreds of paper cups.
“Ever try to buy 500 paper cups from a local grocery store?” asked one school staff member.
Cerf said the water had recently been tested, but gave no details.
Later in the morning, the school district and the state Department of Environmental Protection issued a joint statement:
“The Department of Environmental Protection has advised the Newark Public Schools system to temporarily utilize alternate water sources in 30 district school buildings after recent testing found elevated levels of lead at various water taps.”
The joint district/state statement tried to play down the impact of the poisoned water.
It tried to reassure parents that, “The DEP and the State Department of Health are working in partnership with the district in its efforts to resolve the issue. This includes a plan for immediate, coordinated sampling of all points of entry and taps for all public schools in the district, including charters.”
The statement continued:
“The Newark Public Schools system has temporarily shut off all drinking water fountains at the schools where elevated levels of lead were recorded. This will remain the case until further tests can be conducted. It is also posting notices in restroom facilities to not drink water from the faucets. Replacement drinking water, from water coolers and bottled water, is available at all impacted schools.
“On Monday, March 7, DEP was notified by Newark Public Schools of the results of recent annual testing. A total of 30 school buildings recorded levels ranging from non-detect to above EPA’s action level for lead, which is 15 parts per billion. The action level represents the threshold requiring additional testing, monitoring and remediation.
“DEP has requested past test results from previous years from the school district to be able to do a complete analysis of the full data set. No building had more than four samples above the action level.
“DEP has confirmed that lead has not been found within the Newark Water Department’s source water. In the vast majority of cases where lead is found in drinking water, it enters through the water delivery system itself when it leaches from either lead pipes, household fixtures containing lead, or lead solder.”
John Abeigon, the president of the Newark Teachers Union (NTU), sent out a message to union members, encouraging them to “assist” school administrators in ensuring the children remain safe.
In a later statement, Abeigon said, “Yes, we are concerned for our children and well as our members who staff these affected schools. Who allowed children to drink this water and for how long is a serious question that must be answered by Federal authorities. Newark is a state operated school district and as such the state EPA cannot be trusted since they answer to the state’s Governor and not the children of Newark.
“This is a direct result of continuing borderline criminal occupation of the city schools by a state appointed administration that is hell-bent on expanding corporate charter schools even if it means neglecting the safety of children and staff in the traditional schools.. Lead levels are tested regularly and results shared with districts whose administrators are trained to read and respond to the results. What happened here? Who received the results over the last several years and what did they do with them? Apparently, the answer, at least for these 30 schools is—nothing. And how can we trust the levels at the other buildings?”
In a letter scheduled to go home in children’s backpacks this afternoon, Cerf insisted that, because of the provision of bottled water and the posting of signs warning against drinking, “the water and food at your child’s school is safe.”
But it was not clear just how long the water was contaminated–and how long Cerf and his state-appointed subordinates knew about the water. The statement from the Department of Environmental Protection said it did not discover the dangerously high levels of lead but its officials were notified of the contamination by the Newark public schools.
Gov. Chris Christie was in Newark Monday, at an appearance in which he warned the Newark mayor, Ras Baraka, that he would “run over him” if the mayor tried to thwart a major expansion of charter schools. Christie also said Bartaka, who is black, has an “attitude” problem. Christie is now vacation in Florida.
The contaminated water is a problem for staff, too. One teacher who is eight months pregnant contacted this site: “I drink the water in the school–and now I don’t know what will happen to my baby.”
Abeigon said water fountains and other sources of water in schools are often equipped with |
frames completed before the next screen refresh, but variation in screen refresh rates makes it impossible with a fixed timer. No matter what the timer interval is you'll slowly drift out of the timing window for a frame and end up dropping one. This would happen even if the timer fired with millisecond accuracy, which it won't (as developers have discovered) -- timer resolution varies depending on whether the machine is on battery vs. plugged in, can be affected by background tabs hogging resources, etc. Even if this is rare (say, every 16 frames because you were off by a millisecond) you'll notice: you'll be dropping several frames a second. You'll also be doing the work to generate frames that never get displayed, which wastes power and CPU time you could be spending doing other things in your application.
This little utility (by Nat Duca) illustrates the point:
Different displays have different refresh rates: 60Hz is common, but some phones are 59Hz, some laptops drop to 50Hz in low-power mode, some desktop monitors are 70Hz.
We tend to focus on frames per second (FPS) when discussing rendering performance, but variance can be an even bigger problem. Our eyes notice the tiny, irregular hitches in animation that a poorly timed animation can produce.
The way to get correctly timed animation frames is with requestAnimationFrame. When you use this API, you're asking the browser for an animation frame. Your callback gets called when the browser is soon going to produce a new frame. This happens no matter what the refresh rate is.
requestAnimationFrame has other nice properties too:
Animations in background tabs get paused, conserving system resources and battery life.
If the system can't handle rendering at the screen's refresh rate, it can throttle animations and produce the callback less frequently (say, 30 times a second on a 60Hz screen). While this drops framerate in half, it keeps the animation consistent -- and as stated above, our eyes are much more attuned to variance than framerate. A steady 30Hz looks better than 60Hz that misses a few frames a second.
requestAnimationFrame has been discussed all over the place already, so refer to articles like this one from creative JS for more info on it, but it's an important first step to smooth animation.
Frame Budget
Since we want a new frame ready on every screen refresh, there's only the time in between refreshes to do all the work to create a new frame. On a 60Hz display, that means we've got about 16ms to run all JavaScript, perform layout, paint, and whatever else the browser has to do to get the frame out. This means if the JavaScript inside your requestAnimationFrame callback takes longer than 16ms to run, you don't have any hope of producing a frame in time for v-sync!
16ms isn't a lot of time. Luckily Chrome's Developer Tools can help you track down if you're blowing your frame budget during the requestAnimationFrame callback.
Consider this example, modified from Paul Irish's excellent video on using Dev Tools to find a performance problem in an animation.
Opening up the Dev Tools timeline and taking a recording of this animation in action quickly shows that we're way over budget when animating. In Timeline switch to "Frames" and take a look:
Those requestAnimationFrame (rAF) callbacks are taking >200ms. That's an order of magnitude too long to tick out a frame every 16ms! Opening up one of those long rAF callbacks reveals what's going on inside: in this case, lots of layout.
Paul's video goes into more detail about the specific cause of the relayout (it's reading scrollTop ) and how to avoid it. But the point here is that you can dive into the callback and investigate what's taking so long.
Once we fix this example, the frames look nice and short:
Notice the 16ms frame times. That blank space in the frames is the headroom you have to do more work (or let the browser do work it needs to do in the background). That blank space is a Good Thing.
Other Source of Jank
The biggest cause of trouble when trying to run JavaScript-powered animations is that other stuff can get in the way of your rAF callback, and even prevent it from running at all. Even if your rAF callback is lean and runs in just a few milliseconds, other activities (like processing an XHR that just came in, running input event handlers, or running scheduled updates on a timer) can suddenly come in and run for any period of time without yielding. On mobile devices sometimes processing these events can take hundreds of milliseconds, during which time your animation will be completely stalled. We call those animation hitches jank.
There's no magic bullet to avoid these situations, but there are a few architectural best practices to set yourself up for success:
Don't do a lot of processing in input handlers! Doing a lot of JS or trying to rearrange the whole page during e.g. an onscroll handler is a very common cause of terrible jankiness.
Push as much processing (read: anything that'll take a long time to run) into your rAF callback or Web Workers as possible.
If you push work into the rAF callback, try to chunk it up so you're only processing a little bit each frame or delay it until after an important animation is over -- this way you can continue to run short rAF callbacks and animate smoothly.
For a great tutorial covering how to push processing into requestAnimationFrame callbacks rather than input handlers, see Paul Lewis's article Leaner, Meaner, Faster Animations with requestAnimationFrame.
CSS Animation
What's better than lightweight JS in your event and rAF callbacks? No JS.
Earlier we said there's no silver bullet for avoiding interrupting your rAF callbacks, but you can use CSS animation to avoid the need for them entirely. On Chrome for Android in particular (and other browsers are working on similar features), CSS animations have the very desirable property that the browser can often run them even if JavaScript is running.
There's an implicit statement in the above section on jank: browsers can only do one thing at a time. This isn't strictly true, but it's a good working assumption to have: at any given time the browser can be running JS, performing layout, or painting, but only one at a time. This can be verified in the Timeline view of Dev Tools. One of the exceptions to this rule is CSS animations on Chrome for Android (and soon desktop Chrome, though not yet).
When possible, using a CSS animation both simplifies your application and lets animations run smoothly, even while JavaScript runs.
For instance, consider this example of a rotating Chrome logo driven by rAF:
// see http://paulirish.com/2011/requestanimationframe-for-smart-animating/ for info on rAF polyfills rAF = window.requestAnimationFrame; var degrees = 0; function update(timestamp) { document.querySelector('#foo').style.webkitTransform = "rotate(" + degrees + "deg)"; console.log('updated to degrees'+ degrees); degrees = degrees + 1; rAF(update); } rAF(update);
If you click the button JavaScript runs for 180ms, causing jank. But if instead we drive that animation with CSS animations the jank no longer occurs.
(Remember at the time of this writing, CSS animation is only jank-free on Chrome for Android, not desktop Chrome.)
For more information on using CSS Animations, see articles like this one on MDN.
Wrapup
The short of it is:
When animating, producing frames for every screen refresh matters. Vsync'd animation makes a huge positive impact on the way an app feels. The best way to get vsync'd animation in Chrome and other modern browsers is to use CSS animation. When you need more flexibility than CSS animation provides, the best technique is requestAnimationFrame-based animation. To keep rAF animations healthy and happy, make sure other event handlers aren't getting in the way of your rAF callback running, and keep rAF callbacks short (<15ms).
Lastly, vsync'd animation doesn't only apply to simple UI animations -- it applies to Canvas2D animation, WebGL animation, and even scrolling on static pages. In the next article in this series we'll dig into scrolling performance with these concepts in mind.
For more on hunting down jank on the web, see jankfree.com.
Happy animating!
ReferencesMatt Forney writes some brilliant articles on leftists and Narcissists. Of particular note, he is a master of the amygdala hijack of feminists, in written form. I am awed, given that he apparently isn’t a natural like Gary Busey, yet his acquired technique is clearly of that caliber. I was reading his article on Narcissism and feminists here recently. He aggregates several pieces of interesting material in it. First, and most amusingly, he quotes a “leftist” commenter on another site who describes his own behavior as “rabbiting.” Tsk, Tsk. The Dread Ilk is everywhere.
Second, Matt links to a feminist, who read one of his amygdala hijacking articles, and immediately had an amygdala hijack herself. The feminist post is here. (Amusingly, in her description of herself, she specifically says that she likes rabbits.)
After she posts how awful Matt’s article is, she goes back to it and actually reads it (note that we have described how Narcissists and Liberals operate on vague perceptions of broad stroke stimuli, rather than laser focused, concrete, amygdala-driven analysis consisting of careful stimuli flagging and relevance weighing. We see crisp, clear ideas and complex relationships, while they see vague, ephemeral shadows, that trigger overwhelming emotions. They have probably learned to only see vague shadows, because of what happens when they look too closely at reality.)
After the feminist goes back and tries to carefully read Matt’s article again, and actually focus on the ideas in the article, she then returns to her post and adds the following edit:
EDIT: GUYS PLEASE BE CAREFUL READING THIS BECAUSE I THINK I’M STARTING TO GET A BLACKOUT FROM SHEER ANGER AND I’M ONLY ON HIS FIRST “REASON”
EDIT 2: HEY, FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, SINCE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO TAG THIS AS, PLEASE JUST… TRY NOT TO READ THAT OK? HE STARTS TALKING ABOUT STUFF LIKE… DEPRESSION AND SELF-HARM AND HOW THAT…. IS A RESULT OF BEING A CONFIDENT GIRL AND STUFF… AND HOW ANTIDEPRESSANTS ARE A SUBSTITUTE FOR “A MAN’S LOVING EMBRACE” AND IT TOOK ME 10 MINUTES TO TYPE THIS BECAUSE I’M DIZZY AND HARDLY BREATHING AND I’M HAVING A BLACKOUT.
That is an amygdala hijack, and it is that overwhelming, uncomfortable physical response which drives a whole host of negative behaviors in our political sphere, from a need to make guns just go away so they can’t be found, to an uncontrollable urge to feed people who disagree with your views into wood chippers and gas ovens. When that sensation is chasing you, there is no limit to what you will do to other people, to evade it. I am increasingly convinced that more evil is wrought by people fleeing that sensation, than all the greed and self-absorption in the world. We need to understand the amygdala hijack, because it is real, it is the source of our problems, and it can even be the solution.
Interestingly, those feminist sites have actually begun to post “trigger warnings” on reposts of manosphere material. Some readers have found that specific ideas (ie themes) trigger their amygdala hijacks, so they have begun to label their posts with “trigger warning tags.” These people who suffer from amygdala triggers actually know that certain themes are so painful to contemplate that they can’t read them, or they will throw-up, have a blackout, hyperventilate, etc.
Talk about a goldmine of tactical intelligence on the leftist cognitive model, and how to create themes which trigger amygdalae. There will be enormous power in the analysis of trigger warnings, as people perfect this art. If you can combine triggering themes with the Gary Busey-esque mechanical stimulation techniques, you will be a leftist amygdala-wrecking machine. Imagine, preparing for a Presidential Debate, with a feminist-compiled list of innocuous themes which perfectly disable liberal feminist brains, to the point that many feminists actaully black out just from hearing these ideas. Now imagine that the Democratic Presidential Nominee opposite you in the debate is Hillary Clinton, who is herself a feminist with exactly that type of cognitive model. That is dog-whistle heaven, and best of all, no observer even has to know you are doing it. Even if she doesn’t black out, in her degraded cognitive state, she will be much more prone to blurt out things like, “What difference does it make?” when you ask about piles of dead American bodies and America’s utterly destroyed economy. When you activate an amygdala, even with a weak hijack, the first thing which happens is cognitive degredation, which is useful in itself – especially in a highly stressful public setting like a debate.
As you read the hijacking article that triggered the feminists, notice how Matt moves quickly, delivering loud, stimulatory, aggressive hijacks like a rapid fire machinegun. Notice how he simplifies associations between criticisms to their basic elements, such as between antidepressant use, and the inability to get a man, and then delivers them with an amygdala-stimulating edge. If you use antidepressants, and you can’t get a man, and both of those concepts are seen as criticisms, then seeing those two things put together critically will trigger the amygdala prior to any conscious thought or analysis in a leftist – especially if the delivery is critical, colorful, and dismissive.
Of course in nature, the negative sensation is designed to drive such women to try being more considerate, and try finding a loving man they can share loyalty with, but instead these women choose to short-circuit the warning by seeking fellow travelers, ensconcing themselves in a bubble of perceptions that there are no good men, and then not reading any articles, or positing any thought about anything which might disrupt that amygdala-assuaging mechanism. (It is kind of a shame, because one can’t help but notice how such girls could find much greater happiness if they would just reach out for psychotherapy to rewire their brains to be less sensitive to criticism.)
Notice also how Matt’s original post unemotionally out-groups his targets, assumes the sale, and reinforces it’s outgrouping theme with simple statements that would easily appeal to an impartial observer. Matt relates a story about how a leftist says they talk to their brother about leftist stuff until the brother is irritated. Leftist reading that thinks, “I talk about politics all the time too, and people get irritated.” Matt then postulates a theme of, ‘Who wants to be around an irritating person? Irritating person must be defective, and the type of person nobody would want to be around, because they are irritating. People like that always end up with no group of friends, because nobody likes them, due to their personal defectiveness.’ It is a brilliant implementation of taking a theme designed to out-group, presenting it simply, masking it as a story, and then presenting it all unemotionally.
I often speak of theme presentation, and there is a reason. Theme presentation allows you to get an idea into the head of a Narcissist or Liberal who would otherwise disregard the idea immediately, without any analysis at all. Milton Erikson, the father of hypnosis, actually specialized in telling stories with themes that mirrored the lives of his patients. He noted that if he told patient X that they shouldn’t cling to their spouse so tightly, the patient would rebel, and reject the idea that they even clung to their spouse. But if he told the patient about a friend whose wife divorced him because he wouldn’t let her hang out with her friends, and added that the friend ended up losing his job, and dying alone and penniless, then the patient would stop clinging to their spouse and adjust their behavior. I suspect his patients had sensitive amygdalae, of the sort that looking too closely at their own lives was cognitively impossible. However, looking at the unimportant lives of outsiders would allow them to unemotionally examine behaviors that they themselves performed, and make changes in how they saw themselves and their behavior.
In essence, by presenting a theme, especially through metaphor or analogy, within a critical piece, Matt is instinctually doing the exact same thing that the greatest master of psychology ever, did all those decades ago, but moderating it to increase the sting. By moderating the degree to which he “themes” his attack, he makes the idea just distant enough from his target that their amygdala lets the idea in, and examines it. However, once inside and examined closely, the idea suddenly links the target with the criticism, and the idea explodes like a little flash bang grenade right inside their head – but by then it is too late. So tell a leftist they are irritating, and nobody would like them, and they will disregard it, probably while laughing like Joe Biden at the ridiculousness of the idea. However, walk them through a story in which they clearly see an irritating person they wouldn’t like, and then show how they are clearly just like that individual in a way even they can’t deny, and you can bypass this defensive mechanism, and shock their brain with the aversive stimuli they are otherwise so effective at ignoring.
The funniest thing is, after he attacks them, Matt’s targets then run off to spread his evil seeds far and wide throughout the internet, out of a compulsive need to find other fellow travelers to tell them that Matt is the evil one, and they are all sane. As you finish his piece, take time to marvel at his understanding of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and false realities, and his even more clever manipulation of it to generate massive blog traffic.
Utterly brilliant.Gordon is on paternity leave back in Kansas City and is expected to rejoin the club on Tuesday, though manager Ned Yost said Gordon likely won't make it in time for Tuesday's game.
NEW YORK -- Royals left fielder Alex Gordon and his wife, Jamie, welcomed their third child to the world Monday, a girl named Joey Lynn.
NEW YORK -- Royals left fielder Alex Gordon and his wife, Jamie, welcomed their third child to the world Monday, a girl named Joey Lynn.
Gordon is on paternity leave back in Kansas City and is expected to rejoin the club on Tuesday, though manager Ned Yost said Gordon likely won't make it in time for Tuesday's game.
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The Gordons also have two sons -- Max and Sam.
Meanwhile, Yost became a grandfather for the third time. His daughter, Jenny, gave birth to a girl named Everly on Friday.
Still waiting on Karns
Yost said the Royals still were contemplating a stint on the disabled list for right-hander Nate Karns, who felt some tightness and fluid on top of his forearm. Karns' spot in the rotation is due up Thursday, but Yost said he is considering right-hander Ian Kennedy there -- Kennedy threw just two innings in a start in game two of a doubleheader Sunday.
The Royals still would need a starter Friday, but that could be filled by rookie Jake Junis, who started on Sunday in the first game of the doubleheader. Junis has been optioned back to Triple-A but could be recalled before the 10-day minimum because of an injury (Karns to the DL).A cereal box. See the boxes of various colors in a row near the bottom. What are those things? Mark R. Jones.
Our latest effort to dispel the mysteries of the modern visual landscape finds us in the supermarket. For previous columns, click here; to submit your own suggestions, e-mail us.
There are lots of good reasons to take a closer look at food packaging. You might be trying to lose weight or to eat more healthily (the first and fourth most commonly broken New Year’s resolutions, apparently). You might wish to avoid eating “anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce,” as Michael Pollan has suggested. You might be scouring food packages—in vain, so far—for Mark Bittman’s dream food label. Or maybe you just want to check that your Twinkies—which may or may not be graced with eternal life—are still fresh.
But whatever draws your gaze to the nether regions of your cereal box or yogurt carton, keep your eye out for a color pattern like the one in the image above. Needless to say, every millimeter of real estate on food packaging is valuable. So what’s so important about these color patterns that they should be included? As always, four guesses:
a) The pattern is called a chromatic bar code (CBC). In many countries, supermarket scanners use color bar codes, which can be read more reliably than the black-and-white sort we use in the U.S. Products sold with the same packaging in the U.S. and these countries will have both a CBC and a black-and-white bar code.
b) The blobs of colors are known as printer’s color blocks or process control patches. They’re used to help control the quality of individual colors used by a printer, so that the tints and hues are correct and consistent.
c) The pattern is called a printed grab block. In automated packing systems, which use machines to package your food, the grab block makes it easier for such machines to correctly maneuver and align the packaging as it is manufactured and shipped.
d) It’s called a printed heat date (PHD). The ink used for the brighter colors fades over time. When there’s no difference between the bright and faded colors, then supermarkets will generally consider the food to be expired, regardless of the printed expiration date.
And the correct answer is…
… b). Process control patches, or printer’s color blocks, are used to check the quality or density of colors that are used on the package. According to Bridget Christenson, PR manager for General Mills:
The color blocks are essentially a tool used to understand how a printer is printing at any moment in time to ensure consistency. The blocks provide very technical information about printing conditions that allow printers to quickly adjust. For example, if something looks too red, the color blocks can help to determine if it’s the Yellow that is too weak or if it’s the Magenta that is too heavy. This keeps printing quality high.
Both man and machine usually check these color splotches. According to Dillon Mooney, technical consultant for Printing Industries of America, “Modern presses have automated the process, but the operator typically makes the final adjustments.” The colors that appear most often are the “process colors” black, cyan, magenta, and yellow. As my diabolical Hewlett Packard printer has on rare occasions proven, these colors can be combined into many other colors.
But what about the package of Cheetos I just ate—take that, Pollan—which features not just the four process colors but also a range of subtle, discriminating orange hues? These are known as spot colors, which are “premixed for consistency,” according to Mooney. The orange on Cheetos’ packaging is a naturally big part of the brand’s image, so it’s applied as its own color. (Is this same ink used to color the actual Cheetos? Probably not, though I don’t know for sure.)
Why do some packages not have any color patches? It’s just a printer/client preference, says Christenson. But keep in mind that colors might have been on a printed portion of the package that was later trimmed off.
While puzzling over these packaging perplexities, I decided to look into a few more. First, the “U” in a circle, followed by a “D,” which you can see here courtesy of Pepperidge Farm Genevas (though cookie-wise I’m more a man from Nantucket…). “OU” stands for Orthodox Union, a Kosher certification. The “D” that follows indicates that the product contains dairy. You can find full descriptions of various Kosher certification marks—and the individual letters that may follow them—online. There are also Halal marks, though in America these are much less common.
Pepperidge Farm Geneva cookies. Mark R. Jones.
What about the ominous cross-hairs that occasionally appear on packaging, seen here on a cereal box’s inside flap? These “are register marks, also called crossmarks or position marks,” says Christenson. They “help make sure the colors are aligned.”
Mark R. Jones.
Finally, let’s look at the “e” that is found on most food packaging in the fabled, genetically-unmodified lands of Europe (and on many European products exported to the U.S.) If you have no idea what it means, don’t feel bad—neither do most Europeans. In an informal survey of about two dozen European friends and family, none had ever noticed this symbol, or had any idea what it meant. Asked to guess, they wondered if it meant that the number reflected the weight of the contents without the container included, or if it denoted something eco-friendly, or if it perhaps indicated that a product was legal for sale across the European Union.
Mark R. Jones.
In fact, the e signifies that the product complies with European Union regulations on the accuracy of the weight or volume measurement on the package. So if a bottle says “500ml e,” then you know that the EU approves of how that 500ml claim is calculated. Also known as an e-mark or “estimated sign,” the e isn’t mandatory, but it acts as a “metrological passport” proving that a package more or less contains the quantity it claims.
Of course, even the most Europhilic American might wonder about the usefulness of a symbol that 1) appears on nearly everything in a supermarket and 2) is a complete mystery to almost all consumers. Reading the relevant European Directives on the e-mark will not, I assure you, make such wondering cease.
If you find yourself wondering about something in the cookie section of a Helsinki supermarket, or anywhere else, take a pic and send it along.
Previously in What’s That Thing?
City Steam
Lump on a Wire
Convenience Store Strips
Wall Socket Buttons
Elevator S Button
Pastoral Doodad
Ominous Gizmo
Dashboard Arrow
Mysterious WiresJust before Starbucks announced higher wages this summer, a vocal group of employees had been clamoring over what they were calling a "labor crisis."
Stores were cutting back on hours, they said, and even with a pay increase, they'd be bringing home less money.
The issue came to light in June after Jaime Prater, a barista in California, started an online petition. It claimed a reduction in hours was "killing morale" and has gotten over 16,5000 signatures.
"I don't think they understand how personal it is for the people who work at these companies when a lot of these people, myself included, are breadwinners" said Prater. "They rely on their income and all of a sudden, they're used to getting, say, 30 hours a week and now you're getting 15 or 20 and you have a car payment due and you have a phone bill due."
Starbucks responded this week with a letter to employees that acknowledged the complaints. It said it had reviewed all reported cases and found issues to be isolated.
In recent weeks, CNNMoney has interviewed five Starbucks employees who say they are worried about losing their health insurance coverage -- the company offers it to those averaging 20 hours a week.
These workers also said they were being asked to maintain customer service standards with fewer people. They spoke of longer lines and dirty stores across the country.
In one case, a store manager at a Starbucks in Florida encouraged the supervisors under him to extend unpaid breaks and send employees home early, according to a former employee who saw a "shift communication" from the manager and shared notes from it with CNNMoney. The store could "cut" two to three hours a day as a result, the letter said. The manager told the employee that the mandate trickled down from "the company."
Starbucks (SBUX) did not comment on the shift communication from the Florida store.
In the employee letter, Starbucks said it "looked into every one of the situations" and found complaints valid in a small percentage of cases. Starbucks says it has addressed "the deficit" directly with the specific stores.
"In most situations, partners had a consistent level of hours, according to the payroll system," wrote Cosimo LaPorta, executive vice president for U.S. retail store operations.
LaPorta put a positive spin on the situation, noting that transactions tend to "build and/or shift" during the fall. This could mean that a lull in summer sales may soon ease, allowing store managers to add back hours they may have trimmed. LaPorta also asked district managers to follow up this week with each store to ensure appropriate staffing.
The company says it treats workers better than most other retail chains. In addition to providing health benefits, Starbucks also prides itself for calling its employees "partners," instituting a relaxed dress code and taking a progressive stance on social issues such as LGBT rights.
But these employees think the company needs to do more when it comes to compensation.
"Being a trans-man, I don't know if there are many other companies that are as progressive," said Maximo Cortez, who works as a barista in Texas. "But it's time for baristas to speak up. We aren't asking for a handout. We're asking to be real partners."
And Prater wasn't satisfied with the letter, saying he still didn't think Starbucks was taking the issue seriously by not providing more details from its review. "It's really insulting," he said.It was a grisly scene encountered by a ranger from the Forest Preserve District of Cook County when answering a call earlier this month about a bucket of puppies at the Penny Road pond near Barrington.
When the ranger drove to the 4,000-acre Spring Lake Forest Preserve southwest of Bateman and Lake Cook roads, he went to a pond off Penny Road and found a five-gallon bucket of dead coyote pups, seven in all.
"According to the incident report, he picked up the five-gallon bucket, and that was when he realized one was still alive," said Dawn Keller, founder and director of the Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation. She runs the facility in downtown Barrington and in Chicago on Northerly Island.
The discovery was made on May 11, and the ranger dropped the surviving pup — which, like its litter mates, was in the one-pound range — at an emergency veterinarian clinic called Golf Rose Animal Hospital in Schaumburg, Keller said.
According to Keller, the clinic has called Flint Creek in the past for wild animals brought in by the public, so a volunteer showed up and took the coyote, its x-rays and the incident report from the Cook County ranger back to Barrington.
"At the point of admission, the puppy was critical," she said. "The leg was shattered, it was dangling and misshapen and it was sticking out slightly because of a hip fracture."
Keller added that Flint Creek staff "started treating it with fluids, anti-inflammatory and pain medication. On the second day, it opened its eyes. Nine days later, last Saturday, the leg was set in a cast, (and) the coyote was eating well and stable at this point."
That's when she started a Facebook effort to get tips reported to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources hotline.
"It was blunt force trauma," said Keller of what caused the injury, adding that she could only imagine what happened to the other coyote puppies. "They were brutalized. This was not some humane killing.
"It takes a special person to brutalize an animal, especially babies. That's not normal. It's really sad."
Officials with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources were not immediately available to comment on Tuesday. Keller said she contacted the IDNR to make sure it was all right to publicize the tip line on their Facebook page.
Keller said if anyone in the Barrington or Barrington Hills area or anyone else knows anything about the incident that occurred on May 11, they are asked to contact the IDNR tip line at 1-877-2DNRLAW (1-877-236-7529).
"We're hoping the leg heals enough that it doesn't have to be amputated," she said. "We're just trying to help investigators. This is not acceptable behavior."Bump
"Aaand, that's how Mercury was defeated!"
With that, Ruby finished her dramatic interpretation of that afternoon's incidents, proudly placing her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest as Nora absolutely ate up every word and Weiss facepalmed with a small huff.
"That certainly sounds like a bizarre adventure," the heiress stated without her usual iciness as more of an admission than a rebuke, to which Jaune nodded in agreement.
"Heh, you can say that again..."
"That sure sounds like a bizarre ad-!"
"Nora. You're not actually supposed to say it again," Ren interrupted smoothly, a small smile on his lips as he placed his hand on the hammer maiden's shoulder. The warm interaction was evident to their fellow teammates, Jaune and Pyrrha trading a smirk as they acknowledged the jade warrior's attachment to his partner.
"Meh, I still think it would've been cooler if you would've done something before springing that Hamon trap - or whatever you call it - on Mercury, Saber-boy... y'know, like strike a pose or something!" Yang now stated with her winning grin, standing closer to the blonde knight than the students present had ever really seen her stand before. Needless to say, that was something that dimmed the smirk on the now slightly-exasperated Mistrali.
Jaune simply chuckled, looking down at his leg and motioning at the limb that had once been all but unusable, "Mangled leg, remember?"
Yang nodded in agreement, but before she could reply, or scoot any closer to her fellow blonde who had clearly begun to captivate her interest, the group was alerted to an eighth voice calling their attention.
"I'm back. Did I miss anything?"
Other than her voice giving away her position, Blake had managed not to alert a single one of the students to her presence; having given herself away so suddenly, she forced herself to face the sudden combined attention from the seven teens with little more than a slight reddening of her cheeks... which went a shade or two darker as she noticed Jaune noticing her new and thankfully untorn leggings that she had just gone back to her dorm to change into. But to the ravenette, it was now... strangely not unwelcome, actually. However, briefly making eye contact, the two quickly broke their knowing gaze before anyone could notice despite Jaune's momentary blush that matched the catgirl's as Yang filled her in.
"Nah, just one of Ruby's famous story time sessions..."
Focusing on her partner's statement, Blake let her conflicting reactions to Jaune's apologetic smile give way to her usual mood, remaining tight-lipped and raising both brows in acknowledgment at Yang in her wordless response, "Hm."
Jaune of course knew what her body language meant, interpreting it accurately since it had been her general response to his initial rambling about RPGs and character builds in general. Being the case, he immediately had to stifle a chuckle; but before his partner could ask what was so funny, the entire group was now set upon by a caffeine-induced speedy entrance which all of them could swear almost even rivalled Ruby's.
"Oho! Ladies and gentlemen what a fine pleasure to see you've all arrived in time what a fine pleasure indeed!"
"Remind me never to give Ruby caffeine," Yang furtively whispered to the student standing next to her as Oobleck took a sip from what four of the girls present knew better than to call a simple thermos, to which the student glared up at the blonde with a deadpan.
"Yang, this is Ruby."
"Doctor Oobleck, we are... surprised you are here to give us company," Weiss began with an almost painfully awkward politeness considering how things went the last time the fast-lipped explorer had lent their team his aide, "We had imagined Professors Goodwitch or Ozpin to give us the official briefing on behalf of Beacon administration..."
"Ah yes well unfortunately Miss Schnee that is not to be the case due to," sip, "complications arriving in Professor Goodwitch's teaching schedule and Professor Ozpin's availability," sip, "meaning that it is up to me to give your teams the proper send-off! Most exciting this is indeed!"
Having been unable to hear Blake's silent scoff at the mention of Ozpin's name, Doctor Oobleck cleared his throat to settle the grainy after-taste of heavily-caffeinated green tea in it before getting down to business.
"Very well. As most if not all of you may know Mister Arc and Miss Rose received identical messages not more than twenty minutes ago which means your teams have each been charged with mounting a recon mission as part of Beacon's heavily classified Independent Mandate Force!"
"The IMF?" Jaune interrupted, a raised brow accenting his slight confusion.
Oobleck paused for a moment, looking up as every student now heard the approaching hum of a Titan-class Bullhead from around the school towers. Larger than its Hunter-class counterpart, this Bullhead sported an extra smaller set of propellers on each wing, granting it greater mobility and enough space to house several Hunter teams on overnight mission flights.
"Excellent observation Mister Arc you are certainly correct!" he shouted over the hum of the airship as it landed by the dock where they were standing before taking another sip of tea and pointing his thermos to something behind the group, "This is a reconnaissance mission passed along the ranks of the Hunter's Association and placed under the jurisdiction of this fine academy and I assure you that we've taken utmost care to ensure your teams are properly protected. Here come the remainder of your Force now!"
Turning back to face eight more students approaching the group, grins were traded and greetings were said as team RWBY was approached first by a certain leader decked in Coco Chanel accessories - including the deceptively impractical fashionable handbag - with the rest of her team in tow. Jaune, however, traded groans with the second leader as his team was approached by the slightly scowling team CRDL.
"Why me..." Jaune sighed as the red-headed leader came up to him, Pyrrha already prepared to draw her weapons as Cardin crossed his arms and was seemingly about to say something.
But if he was, he was interrupted as Oobleck began speaking while the large bullhead side doors began to open.
"Your orders have been given and your destination set! This is ADA, your Automated Defense Airship that will be piloting you to Lambent and keeping a close eye on the surrounding areas to alert you of any danger. I presume each leader has their respective teams' items in their luggage item containers."
The four leaders nodded accordingly towards their packs which they had previously |
's $6400 return tickets, dated February 5, he says the officers accused him of attempting to illegally stay in the US.
"They were very angry," he said. "They threatened us and they said if you keep talking like that you'll be in big, big trouble."
The family, tired and hungry after their 18-hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles via Melbourne, were given minimal food and drink during their time at the airport. "We were given no food, apart from a few biscuits," Mr Rabbi said. A request to meet Mr Rabbi's father, whom he has not seen for three years, was also denied.
"I told them that this is probably the last time I can see him before he dies," he said. "They did not listen to me. They said, 'You must go back to your country.' " A spokeswoman for the US consulate-general in Sydney said US Customs and Border Protection authorities reserved the right to refuse entry to the US.Aug 28, 2015 Ξ Comments are off
If reports circulating in various entertainment publications are true, a White actress won’t be cast in the title role of Disney’s live action remake of Mulan, reports VC Post.
Depending on which report you believe, the part will go to Glee’s Jenna Ushkowitz or Marvel’s Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D’s Ming-Na Wen.
Pop Crush reports that Ushkowitz is in negotiations with Disney to play the title character.
Judging from this quote, the anonymous source Pop Crush is quoting is a big fan of the actress.
”Among the potential talent for Mulan, virtually none possesses the combination of star quality, relevant age, musical talent, and beauty Disney would need for its lead. It’s unsurprising that fans are rallying behind Ushkowitz who, thanks to her long tenure as Tina Cohen-Chang on Glee, has significant credibility with this film’s target audience.”
Another fan favorite for the role has been Ming-Na Wen who played the voice of Mulan in the animated version. Ming-Na definitely has the bigger name of the two actresses mentioned and she has not been shy about publicly stating her desire to play the role.
There has been much fan anxiety that Disney might whitewash Mulan. A petition on Care2Care urging Disney not to do that has so far generated more than 76,000 signatures.Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:
Section 1. Section 13-3601, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:
START_STATUTE13-3601. Domestic violence; definition; classification; sentencing option; arrest and procedure for violation; weapon seizure
A. "Domestic violence" means any act that is a dangerous crime against children as defined in section 13‑705 or an offense prescribed in section 13‑1102, 13‑1103, 13‑1104, 13‑1105, 13‑1201, 13‑1202, 13‑1203, 13‑1204, 13‑1302, 13‑1303, 13‑1304, 13‑1406, 13‑1425, 13‑1502, 13‑1503, 13‑1504, 13‑1602 or 13‑2810, section 13‑2904, subsection A, paragraph 1, 2, 3 or 6, section 13‑2910, subsection A, paragraph 8 or 9, section 13-2915, subsection A, paragraph 3 or section 13‑2916, 13‑2921, 13‑2921.01, 13‑2923, 13‑3019, 13‑3601.02 or 13‑3623, if any of the following applies:
1. The relationship between the victim and the defendant is one of marriage or former marriage or of persons residing or having resided in the same household.
2. The victim and the defendant have a child in common.
3. The victim or the defendant is pregnant by the other party.
4. The victim is related to the defendant or the defendant's spouse by blood or court order as a parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother or sister or by marriage as a parent‑in‑law, grandparent‑in‑law, stepparent, step‑grandparent, stepchild, step‑grandchild, brother‑in‑law or sister‑in‑law.
5. The victim is a child who resides or has resided in the same household as the defendant and is related by blood to a former spouse of the defendant or to a person who resides or who has resided in the same household as the defendant.
6. The relationship between the victim and the defendant is currently or was previously a romantic or sexual relationship. �The following factors may be considered in determining whether the relationship between the victim and the defendant is currently or was previously a romantic or sexual relationship:
(a) The type of relationship.
(b) The length of the relationship.
(c) The frequency of the interaction between the victim and the defendant.
(d) If the relationship has terminated, the length of time since the termination.
B. A peace officer, with or without a warrant, may arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe that domestic violence has been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed the offense, whether the offense is a felony or a misdemeanor and whether the offense was committed within or without the presence of the peace officer. In cases of domestic violence involving the infliction of physical injury or involving the discharge, use or threatening exhibition of a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument, the peace officer shall arrest a person who is at least fifteen years of age, with or without a warrant, if the officer has probable cause to believe that the offense has been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed the offense, whether the offense was committed within or without the presence of the peace officer, unless the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the circumstances at the time are such that the victim will be protected from further injury. Failure to make an arrest does not give rise to civil liability except pursuant to section 12‑820.02. In order to arrest both parties, the peace officer shall have probable cause to believe that both parties independently have committed an act of domestic violence. An act of self‑defense that is justified under chapter 4 of this title is not deemed to be an act of domestic violence. The release procedures available under section 13‑3883, subsection A, paragraph 4 and section 13‑3903 are not applicable to arrests made pursuant to this subsection.
C. A peace officer may question the persons who are present to determine if a firearm is present on the premises. On learning or observing that a firearm is present on the premises, the peace officer may temporarily seize the firearm if the firearm is in plain view or was found pursuant to a consent to search and if the officer reasonably believes that the firearm would expose the victim or another person in the household to a risk of serious bodily injury or death. A firearm that is owned or possessed by the victim shall not be seized unless there is probable cause to believe that both parties independently have committed an act of domestic violence.
D. If a firearm is seized pursuant to subsection C of this section, the peace officer shall give the owner or possessor of the firearm a receipt for each seized firearm. The receipt shall indicate the identification or serial number or other identifying characteristic of each seized firearm. Each seized firearm shall be held for at least seventy‑two hours by the law enforcement agency that seized the firearm.
E. If a firearm is seized pursuant to subsection C of this section, the victim shall be notified by a peace officer before the firearm is released from temporary custody.
F. If there is reasonable cause to believe that returning a firearm to the owner or possessor may endanger the victim, the person who reported the assault or threat or another person in the household, the prosecutor shall file a notice of intent to retain the firearm in the appropriate superior, justice or municipal court. The prosecutor shall serve notice on the owner or possessor of the firearm by certified mail. The notice shall state that unless the person is convicted of a domestic violence offense the firearm will be retained for not more than six months following the date of seizure. On receipt of the notice, the owner or possessor may request a hearing for the return of the firearm, to dispute the grounds for seizure or to request an earlier return date. The court shall hold the hearing within ten days after receiving the owner's or possessor's request for a hearing.� At the hearing, unless the court determines that the return of the firearm may endanger the victim, the person who reported the assault or threat or another person in the household, the court shall order the return of the firearm to the owner or possessor.
G. A peace officer is not liable for any act or omission in the good faith exercise of the officer's duties under subsections C, D, E and F of this section.
H. Each indictment, information, complaint, summons or warrant that is issued and that involves domestic violence shall state that the offense involved domestic violence and shall be designated by the letters DV. A domestic violence charge shall not be dismissed or a domestic violence conviction shall not be set aside for failure to comply with this subsection.
I. A person who is arrested pursuant to subsection B of this section may be released from custody in accordance with the Arizona rules of criminal procedure or any other applicable statute. Any order for release, with or without an appearance bond, shall include pretrial release conditions that are necessary to provide for the protection of the alleged victim and other specifically designated persons and may provide for additional conditions that the court deems appropriate, including participation in any counseling programs available to the defendant.
J. When a peace officer responds to a call alleging that domestic violence has been or may be committed, the officer shall inform in writing any alleged or potential victim of the procedures and resources available for the protection of the victim including:
1. An order of protection pursuant to section 13‑3602, an injunction pursuant to section 25‑315 and an injunction against harassment pursuant to section 12‑1809.
2. The emergency telephone number for the local police agency.
3. Telephone numbers for emergency services in the local community.
4. Websites for local resources related to domestic violence.
K. A peace officer is not civilly liable for noncompliance with subsection J of this section.
L. If a person is convicted of an offense involving domestic violence and the victim was pregnant at the time of the commission of the offense, at the time of sentencing the court shall take into consideration the fact that the victim was pregnant and may increase the sentence.
M. An offense that is included in domestic violence carries the classification prescribed in the section of this title in which the offense is classified. If the defendant committed a felony offense listed in subsection A of this section against a pregnant victim and knew that the victim was pregnant or if the defendant committed a felony offense causing physical injury to a pregnant victim and knew that the victim was pregnant, the maximum sentence otherwise authorized for that violation shall be increased by up to two years.
N. When a peace officer responds to a call alleging that domestic violence has been or may be committed, the officer shall determine if a minor is present.� If a minor is present, the peace officer shall conduct a child welfare check to determine if the child is safe and if the child might be a victim of domestic violence or child abuse.
O. The court shall order a person who is placed on probation for a domestic violence offense to transfer for the duration of the person's probation any firearms that the person owns or possesses to the appropriate law enforcement agency within twenty‑four hours after the person is sentenced or, if the person does not own or possess a firearm, to provide the appropriate law enforcement agency with an affidavit certifying that the person does not own or possess a firearm.� The court shall provide a copy of the order to the appropriate law enforcement agency.� The law enforcement agency shall provide the owner or possessor of a surrendered or seized firearm with a receipt for each firearm.� Within twenty‑four hours after receiving a copy of the court's order, if the law enforcement agency has not received an affidavit or any firearms from the person, the law enforcement agency shall notify the court and request a search warrant for the person's home and vehicle, if appropriate. END_STATUTE
Sec. 2. Section 13-3602, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended to read:
START_STATUTE13-3602. Order of protection; procedure; contents; arrest for violation; penalty; protection order from another jurisdiction
A. A person may file a verified petition, as in civil actions, with a magistrate, justice of the peace or superior court judge for an order of protection for the purpose of restraining a person from committing an act included in domestic violence.� If the person is a minor, the parent, legal guardian or person who has legal custody of the minor shall file the petition unless the court determines otherwise.� The petition shall name the parent, guardian or custodian as the plaintiff and the minor is a specifically designated person for the purposes of subsection G of this section. If a person is either temporarily or permanently unable to request an order, a third party may request an order of protection on behalf of the plaintiff. After the request, the judicial officer shall determine if the third party is an appropriate requesting party for the plaintiff.� For the purposes of this section, notwithstanding the location of the plaintiff or defendant, any court in this state may issue or enforce an order of protection.
B. An order of protection shall not be granted:
1. Unless the party who requests the order files a written verified petition for an order.
2. Against a person who is less than twelve years of age unless the order is granted by the juvenile division of the superior court.
3. Against more than one defendant.
C. The petition shall state the:
1. Name of the plaintiff.� The plaintiff's address shall be disclosed to the court for purposes of service. If the address of the plaintiff is unknown to the defendant, the plaintiff may request that the address be protected.� On the plaintiff's request, the address shall not be listed on the petition. Whether the court issues an order of protection, the protected address shall be maintained in a separate document or automated database and is not subject to release or disclosure by the court or any form of public access except as ordered by the court.
2. Name and address, if known, of the defendant.
3. Specific statement, including dates, of the domestic violence alleged.
4. Relationship between the parties pursuant to section 13‑3601, subsection A and whether there is pending between the parties an action for maternity or paternity, annulment, legal separation or dissolution of marriage.
5. Name of the court in which any prior or pending proceeding or order was sought or issued concerning the conduct that is sought to be restrained.
6. Desired relief.
D. A fee shall not be charged for filing a petition under this section or for service of process. On request of the plaintiff, each order of protection that is issued by a municipal court shall be served by the police agency for that city if the defendant can be served within the city.� If the defendant cannot be served within the city, the police agency in the city in which the defendant can be served shall serve the order.� If the order cannot be served within a city, the sheriff shall serve the order.� On request of the plaintiff, each order of protection that is issued by a justice of the peace shall be served by the constable or sheriff for that jurisdiction if the defendant can be served within the jurisdiction.� If the defendant cannot be served within that jurisdiction, the constable or sheriff in the jurisdiction in which the defendant can be served shall serve the order.� On request of the plaintiff, each order of protection that is issued by a superior court judge or commissioner shall be served by the sheriff of the county. If the defendant cannot be served within that jurisdiction, the sheriff in the jurisdiction in which the defendant can be served shall serve the order.� Each court shall provide, without charge, forms for purposes of this section for assisting parties without counsel.� The court shall make reasonable efforts to provide to both parties an appropriate information sheet on emergency and counseling services that are available in the local area.
E. The court shall review the petition, any other pleadings on file and any evidence offered by the plaintiff, including any evidence of harassment by electronic contact or communication, to determine whether the orders requested should issue without further hearing.� The court shall issue an order of protection under subsection G of this section if the court determines that there is reasonable cause to believe any of the following:
1. The defendant may commit an act of domestic violence.
2. The defendant has committed an act of domestic violence within the past year or within a longer period of time if the court finds that good cause exists to consider a longer period.
F. For the purposes of determining the period of time under subsection E, paragraph 2 of this section, any time that the defendant has been incarcerated or out of this state shall not be counted.� If the court denies the requested relief, it may schedule a further hearing within ten days, with reasonable notice to the defendant.
G. If a court issues an order of protection, the court may do any of the following:
1. Enjoin the defendant from committing a violation of one or more of the offenses included in domestic violence.
2. Grant one party the use and exclusive possession of the parties' residence on a showing that there is reasonable cause to believe that physical harm may otherwise result. �If the other party is accompanied by a law enforcement officer, the other party may return to the residence on one occasion to retrieve belongings.� A law enforcement officer is not liable for any act or omission in the good faith exercise of the officer's duties under this paragraph.
3. Restrain the defendant from contacting the plaintiff or other specifically designated persons and from coming near the residence, place of employment or school of the plaintiff or other specifically designated locations or persons on a showing that there is reasonable cause to believe that physical harm may otherwise result.
4. If the court finds that the defendant is a credible threat to the physical safety of the plaintiff or other specifically designated persons, prohibit the defendant from possessing or purchasing a firearm for the duration of the order.� If the court prohibits the defendant from possessing a firearm, the court shall also order the defendant to transfer any firearm owned or possessed by the defendant immediately after service of the order to the appropriate law enforcement agency for the duration of the order.� If the defendant does not immediately transfer the firearm, the defendant shall transfer the firearm within twenty‑four hours after service of the order.� If the firearm is not transferred to the law enforcement agency within twenty‑four hours, the law enforcement agency shall notify the court and request a search warrant for the person's home and vehicle, if appropriate, to retrieve the firearm. �The law enforcement agency shall provide the person with a receipt for each firearm that is surrendered or seized.� After the order has expired or is dismissed, on application by the owner or possessor of the firearm, the law enforcement agency shall return the firearm to the person unless the person is prohibited from possessing or owning a firearm pursuant to state or federal law.
5. If the order was issued after notice and a hearing at which the defendant had an opportunity to participate, require the defendant to complete a domestic violence offender treatment program that is provided by a facility approved by the department of health services or a probation department or any other program deemed appropriate by the court.
6. Grant relief that is necessary for the protection of the alleged victim and other specifically designated persons and that is proper under the circumstances.
7. Grant the petitioner the exclusive care, custody or control of any animal that is owned, possessed, leased, kept or held by the petitioner, the respondent or a minor child residing in the residence or household of the petitioner or the respondent, and order the respondent to stay away from the animal and forbid the respondent from taking, transferring, encumbering, concealing, committing an act of cruelty or neglect in violation of section 13‑2910 or otherwise disposing of the animal.
H. The court shall not grant a mutual order of protection. If opposing parties separately file verified petitions for an order of protection, the courts after consultation between the judges involved may consolidate the petitions of the opposing parties for hearing.� This does not prohibit a court from issuing cross orders of protection.
I. At any time during the period during which the order is in effect, a party who is under an order of protection or who is restrained from contacting the other party is entitled to one hearing on written request.� No fee may be charged for requesting a hearing.� A hearing that is requested by a party who is under an order of protection or who is restrained from contacting the other party shall be held within ten days from the date requested unless the court finds good cause to continue the hearing.� If exclusive use of the home is awarded, the hearing shall be held within five days from the date requested. The hearing shall be held at the earliest possible time.� An ex parte order that is issued under this section shall state on its face that the defendant is entitled to a hearing on written request and shall include the name and address of the judicial office where the request may be filed.� After the hearing, the court may modify, quash or continue the order.
J. The order shall include the following statement:
Warning
This is an official court order. If you disobey this order, you will be subject to arrest and prosecution for the crime of interfering with judicial proceedings and any other crime you may have committed in disobeying this order.
K. A copy of the petition and the order shall be served on the defendant within one year from the date the order is signed.� An order of protection that is not served on the defendant within one year expires. An order is effective on the defendant on service of a copy of the order and petition.� An order expires one year after service on the defendant. A modified order is effective on service and expires one year after service of the initial order and petition.
L. A supplemental information form that is utilized used by the court or a law enforcement agency solely for the purposes of service of process on the defendant and that contains information provided by the plaintiff is confidential.
M. Each affidavit, acceptance or return of service shall be promptly filed with the clerk of the issuing court. This filing shall be completed in person, shall be made by fax or shall be postmarked, if sent by mail, no later than the end of the seventh court business day after the date of service.� If the filing is made by fax, the original affidavit, acceptance or return of service shall be promptly filed with the court. Within twenty‑four hours after the affidavit, acceptance or return of service has been filed, excluding weekends and holidays, the court from which the order or any modified order was issued shall forward to the sheriff of the county in which the court is located a copy of the order of protection and a copy of the affidavit or certificate of service of process or acceptance of service. On receiving these copies, the sheriff shall register the order.� Registration of an order means that a copy of the order of protection and a copy of the affidavit or acceptance of service have been received by the sheriff's office. The sheriff shall maintain a central repository for orders of protection so that the existence and validity of the orders can be easily verified.� The effectiveness of an order does not depend on its registration, and for enforcement purposes pursuant to section 13‑2810, a copy of an order of the court, whether or not registered, is presumed to be a valid existing order of the court for a period of one year from the date of service of the order on the defendant.
N. A peace officer, with or without a warrant, may arrest a person if the peace officer has probable cause to believe that the person has violated section 13‑2810 by disobeying or resisting an order that is issued in any jurisdiction in this state pursuant to this section, whether or not such violation occurred in the presence of the officer.� Criminal violations of an order issued pursuant to this section shall be referred to an appropriate law enforcement agency. The law enforcement agency shall request that a prosecutorial agency file the appropriate charges.� A violation of an order of protection shall not be adjudicated by a municipal or justice court unless a complaint has been filed or other legal process has been requested by the prosecuting agency. The provisions for release under section 13‑3883, subsection A, paragraph 4 and section 13‑3903 do not apply to an arrest made pursuant to this section.� For the purposes of this section, any court in this state has jurisdiction to enforce a valid order of protection that is issued in this state and that has been violated in any jurisdiction in this state.
O. A person who is arrested pursuant to subsection M N of this section may be released from custody in accordance with the Arizona rules of criminal procedure or any other applicable statute.� An order for release, with or without an appearance bond, shall include pretrial release conditions that are necessary to provide for the protection of the alleged victim and other specifically designated persons and may provide for any other additional conditions that the court deems appropriate, including participation in any counseling programs available to the defendant.� The agency with custody of the defendant shall make reasonable efforts to contact the victim and other specifically designated persons in the order of protection, if known to the custodial agency, who requested notification immediately on release of the arrested person from custody.
P. The remedies provided in this section for enforcement of the orders of the court are in addition to any other civil and criminal remedies available. The superior court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to issue orders of protection in all cases if it appears from the petition that an action for maternity or paternity, annulment, legal separation or dissolution of marriage is pending between the parties.� A municipal court or justice court shall not issue an order of protection if it appears from the petition that an action for maternity or paternity, annulment, legal separation or dissolution of marriage is pending between the parties. After issuance of an order of protection, if the municipal court or justice court determines that an action for maternity or paternity, annulment, legal separation or dissolution of marriage is pending between the parties, the municipal court or justice court shall stop further proceedings in the action and forward all papers, together with a certified copy of docket entries or any other record in the action, to the superior court where they shall be docketed in the pending superior court action and shall proceed as though the petition for an order of protection had been originally brought in the superior court. Notwithstanding any other law and unless prohibited by an order of the superior court, a municipal court or justice court may hold a hearing on all matters relating to its ex parte order of protection if the hearing was requested before receiving written notice of the pending superior court action. No order of protection shall be invalid or determined to be ineffective merely because it was issued by a lower court at a time when an action for maternity or paternity, annulment, legal separation or dissolution of marriage was pending in a higher court.� After a hearing with notice to the affected party, the court may enter an order requiring any party to pay the costs of the action, including reasonable attorney fees, if any. An order that is entered by a justice court or municipal court after a hearing pursuant to this section may be appealed to the superior court as provided in title 22, chapter 2, article 4, section 22‑425, subsection B and the superior court rules of civil appellate procedure without regard to an amount in controversy.� No fee may be charged to either party for filing an appeal.� For the purposes of this subsection, "pending" means, with respect to an action for annulment, legal separation or dissolution of marriage or for maternity or paternity, either that:
1. An action has been commenced but a final judgment, decree or order has not been entered.
2. A post‑decree proceeding has been commenced but a judgment, decree or order finally determining the proceeding has not been entered.
Q. A peace officer who makes an arrest pursuant to this section or section 13‑3601 is not civilly or criminally liable for the arrest if the officer acts on probable cause and without malice.
R. In addition to persons authorized to serve process pursuant to rule 4(d) of the Arizona rules of civil procedure, a peace officer or a correctional officer as defined in section 41‑1661 who is acting in the officer's official capacity may serve an order of protection that is issued pursuant to this section. Service of the order of protection has priority over other service of process that does not involve an immediate threat to the safety of a person.
S. A valid protection order that is related to domestic or family violence and that is issued by a court in another state, a court of a United States territory or a tribal court shall be accorded full faith and credit and shall be enforced as if it were issued in this state for as long as the order is effective in the issuing jurisdiction. For the purposes of this subsection:
1. A protection order includes any injunction or other order that is issued for the purpose of preventing violent or threatening acts or harassment against, contact or communication with or physical proximity to another person. A protection order includes temporary and final orders other than support or child custody orders that are issued by civil and criminal courts if the order is obtained by the filing of an independent action or is a pendente lite order in another proceeding.� The civil order shall be issued in response to a complaint, petition or motion that was filed by or on behalf of a person seeking protection.
2. A protection order is valid if the issuing court had jurisdiction over the parties and the matter under the laws of the issuing state, a United States territory or an Indian tribe and the person against whom the order was issued had reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard.� If the order is issued ex parte, the notice and opportunity to be heard shall be provided within the time required by the laws of the issuing state, a United States territory or an Indian tribe and within a reasonable time after the order was issued.
3. A mutual protection order that is issued against both the party who filed a petition or a complaint or otherwise filed a written pleading for protection against abuse and the person against whom the filing was made is not entitled to full faith and credit if either:
(a) The person against whom an initial order was sought has not filed a cross or counter petition or other written pleading seeking a protection order.
(b) The issuing court failed to make specific findings supporting the entitlement of both parties to be granted a protection order.
4. A peace officer may presume the validity of and rely on a copy of a protection order that is issued by another state, a United States territory or an Indian tribe if the order was given to the officer by any source. A peace officer may also rely on the statement of any person who is protected by the order that the order remains in effect.� A peace officer who acts in good faith reliance on a protection order is not civilly or criminally liable for enforcing the protection order pursuant to this section. END_STATUTEOTTAWA — Federal proposals on how to make the government more open are being kept secret.
The Treasury Board Secretariat has chosen to withhold key memos to minister Scott Brison on reforming the antiquated Access to Information Act.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has promised to amend the access law so that federal information is open by default.
But Canadians aren’t allowed to see the advice from officials on how to reach that goal.
The Canadian Press used the access law to request recent briefing notes and memos to Brison on possible reforms. However, entire pages were withheld for fear of revealing government advice, consultations or deliberations.
It is “really troubling” that the public is denied insight into the process, said Sean Holman, an assistant professor of journalism at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
Some passages in the 17 pages of government records have been declared cabinet confidences, meaning they cannot be disclosed.
The fact that a Liberal government is choosing to exercise this particular exemption, I think, says a lot about the overall state of mind within government about freedom of information — and about what the public has a right to know, and what the public doesn’t have a right to know
But the department could have released the pages containing advice and deliberations, Holman said after reviewing the records, noting the exemption is not a mandatory one that must be applied under the law.
“The fact that a Liberal government is choosing to exercise this particular exemption, I think, says a lot about the overall state of mind within government about freedom of information — and about what the public has a right to know, and what the public doesn’t have a right to know,” Holman said.
“What would be so wrong in letting the public know about what options are under consideration? It would simply result in a debate about those options. The government would be better informed about where the public stands on this particular issue.”
Jean-Luc Ferland, a spokesman for Brison, said ministers were working to improve the law with a mandate to make information open by default. “This will require a consultation with parliamentarians, agents and officers of Parliament, and other stakeholders.”
The pages that were disclosed do confirm that Treasury Board officials see a need to strengthen the right of access.
The Access to Information Act has remained largely unchanged since 1983 and is now out of sync with the digital environment and public expectations, one page says.
The Liberal government made several access reform commitments during the election campaign, including expansion of the law to cover ministers’ offices and administrative institutions that support Parliament and the courts.
A House of Commons committee is now carrying out a wide-ranging review of the legislation. Information commissioner Suzanne Legault, an ombudsman for users of the law, urged MPs last week to take bold steps on reform.
Holman said nothing prevents the Liberal government from encouraging openness by default while the review is being done.
In fact, he pointed out, the former Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark did just that in 1979 after its access bill moved to committee. Clark sent a letter to deputy ministers urging them to “act in the spirit” of the bill even though it would be some time before it took final shape.
The Clark government fell before the bill could become law, leaving it to Pierre Trudeau’s Liberals to usher in the Access to Information Act.Tata's BRABO, The First #MakeInIndia Robot Gets CE Certification. Will Go On Sale In Europe Soon!
Tata's BRABO, The First #MakeInIndia Robot Gets CE Certification. Will Go On Sale In Europe Soon!
Tata Motor's wholly owned subsidiary TAL Manufacturing on Sunday announced that BRABO - the first Made-in-India robot - has received "CE" certification for commercial sale in the European market.
Reuters
The BRABO - showcased at the 'Make in India Week' last year - is a cost-effective solution meant to automate micro, small and medium enterprises.
The robot now complies with essential requirements relevant to European health, safety and environmental legislation, permitting its export to customers in Europe.
"With the CE certification we have raised the benchmark for the BRABO to deliver solutions to global businesses, steering towards automation, including that of labour-intensive industries, freeing up precious manpower time in other areas of business, to transform businesses into technologically advanced ecosystems," Amit Bhingurde, COO, TAL Manufacturing & Solutions Limited, said in a statement.
Don't Miss 94.4 K SHARES 48.8 K SHARES 64.9 K SHARES 19.2 K SHARES 35.3 K SHARES
BCCL
BRABO has been indigenously designed to create efficiencies right from raw material handling until packaging of the finished product and can be programmed to operate 24/7 in all situations.
The robot can be used for varied applications for tasks like pick and placement of materials, assembly of parts, machine and press tending, as a sealing application, camera and vision based jobs etc.
BCCL
"The BRABO is a cost-effective solution and we believe, over time it will become the preferred option for businesses who hope to bring in automation. We are eager to begin our commercial launch in Europe," Bhingurde said.Matt Barkley had a rough senior season. And it's too bad, because he performed well most of the time. The only issue was that Barkley was often performing his best when the rest of his team was not, as Lane Kiffin has pointed out.
In fact, 2012's Barkley had the highest quarterback rating for a college football passer whose team trailed by 15 or more points in all of the mighty cfbstats.com's six-year database.
Here's a list of the best-performing college football quarterbacks under these dire circumstances since 2007. Tragic heroes, all of them.
The sample size is minuscule for most, but it's okay to have fun with numbers.
Follow @SBNationCFB Follow @SBNRecruiting
College Football:
• All in, at last: SB Nation inside Gus Malzahn's Auburn
• Why Big Ten coaches should listen to the hive mind before hiring
• Kiffin says USC's defense cost Barkley the Heisman
• How to recruit 8th graders: Tips for Alabama and LSU
• The best (and we mean worst) quotes from the CombineThe Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers share similar belief systems from building a team through the draft to maintaining cohesion in the front office to relying on a quarterback-attacking 3-4 defense. The NFL's version of the Hatfields & McCoys have been philosophical twins throughout most of the past decade.
Where the Ravens and Steelers differ this year, and differ drastically, is on the offensive line. The Ravens are banking on experience, and the Steelers are going with youth.
Which team is making the right decision for this year? The final standings will let everyone know. While the Bengals will have a say in the division race, the offensive line will go a long way in determining whether the Ravens are better than the Steelers, or vice versa.
There are risks and rewards with both strategies because Baltimore and Pittsburgh are going to the extremes. The Ravens have the oldest offensive line in the NFL, and the Steelers have one of the youngest.
If you want a line with cohesion, you'll take the Ravens. If you want a line with fresh legs and a strong pedigree, you'll take the Steelers. If you worry about a line breaking down, you'll want to stay away from Baltimore. And if you are concerned about rookie mistakes, you'll distance yourself from Pittsburgh.
The Ravens are in the most trouble, if you believe the "Theory of 150" from ESPN's John Clayton. This is how Clayton explains it: "If a team lets its starting offensive line exceed the total age of 150 years for five starters, the clock is ticking on its remaining success." A cumulative age of 150 means an average age of 30 for five starters.
Pittsburgh's offensive line allowed 42 sacks last season -- tied for ninth-worst in the NFL. Charles LeClaire/US Presswire
Baltimore's projected starting lineup is: left tackle Bryant McKinnie (turns 33 in September), left guard Bobbie Williams (turns 36 in September), center Matt Birk (turns 36 this month), right guard Marshal Yanda (turns 28 in September) and right tackle Michael Oher (26). That's a grand total of 159. In other words, the Ravens are the Rolling Stones of offensive lines.
As |
uity stories were hardly common at the time. Alternately, Superman could fail – but, as we have seen, this would thrawt readers’ expectations in a bad way, showing that the powerful Superman beloved by so many kids was really impotent. Or Superman could win and Superman’s comic stories would occur in a world in which the war had already been settled – essentially bringing Superman from the realm of fantasy and into the genre of speculative fiction which imagines and follows alternate timelines (something certainly not done in comics at the time). Essentially, this is the same reason why all the advanced technology seen in super-hero stories cannot filter down to widescale distribution: it would render unidentifiable the world in which the stories occur.
Not only would this have changed the popular character and his stories, but this might well have offended. Imagine the horror of a wife, left at home while her husband faces death on gruesome battlefields, reading these stories, printed in lowly comic books, in which the war had ended at the hands of a colorful character with unrealistic powers. It wasn’t to be.
During later American wars, most super-hero publishers would follow DC’s example during World War II. The Korean War occurred as comics in general were tending towards other genres and super-heroes were tending towards the fantastic. While references to the Vietnam War were made, and the origin of Marvel’s Iron Man was intertwined with it, neither Iron Man nor other super-heroes stopped battling aliens and mad scientists to lift a hand in Indochina. The whole of the Cold War, which played a part in many Marvel characters’ origins, saw occasional super-heroic intervention, but never anything decisive. Later wars, like those in Panama and Iraq, had no chance of super-hero involvement.
When comic book stories, such as JLA #83, questioned 2003’s second war in Iraq, a slew of conservative columnists attacked, often citing “How Superman Would End the War” to show how much American media had changed. Joshua Elder of FrontPageMag.com did just this, slamming the story and concluding that “AOL / Time-Warner [DC’s parent company] may own Superman, but he belongs to America. And we deserve a hero who isn’t a shill for murderous tyrants.”[4]
Of course, the parallel with “How Superman Would End the War” is faulty, and not only because the War on Terror (of which the 2003 invasion of Iraq was seen to be a part) isn’t parallel to World War II (though some, eager to justify war, once depicted Iraq’s Saddam Hussein as a sort of miniature Hitler or Stalin). “How Superman Would End the War” wasn’t a case of super-heroic patriotism during a war: it was a case of super-heroic intervention against dictators before the U.S. had entered the war. In other words, Superman’s intervention in “How Superman Would End the War” wasn’t based on nationalism or patriotism at all, but on his own moral judgment. It was simply a case of a super-hero intervening, on his own, in geopolitics, equivalent not to supporting a war but to a super-hero today suddenly going off, capturing today’s prominent dictators, and delivering them to the Hague for trial.
Not to mention that, by 2003, the super-hero genre had grown up a bit. The 1970s saw super-heroes address social problems, such as drugs and racism. The 1980s saw super-heroes turn to larger issues, and 1986-1987’s Watchmen saw super-heroes seriously alter history, causing the U.S. to win in Vietnam and resulting in a greatly (and subtly) altered present. Alan Moore’s run on Miracleman concluded with the destruction of London and the title’s titular hero taking over the world and remaking it economically, politically, technologically, and socially – leaving his Moore’s successor as writer, Neil Gaiman, to explore this alternate history.
The big-name corporate super-heroes remained less active, comfortable addressing social issues but incapable of changing the world. Continuity between super-heroes had grown much tigher by then, and one character changing the world meant those changes would have to be reflected in other titles – and all the characters, designed for wide-scale licensing and exploitation, would increasingly inhabit an unrecognizable world.
This meant that, while high-profile super-heroes could attempt to change the world, they had to recant. Because actor Christopher Reeve demanded it as a precondition of his return to the franchise, the 1987 film Superman IV: The Quest for Peace saw Superman attempt to rid the world of nuclear missles – only to later urge humans to find new ways to peace, stating that he can’t solve Earth’s problems. This tact was taken by comic book stories as well, as Superman could attempt to stop world hunger, genocide, or fictional foreign dictators, so long as he was brought to his senses. Perhaps the most memorable of these stories was 1998’s graphic novella Superman: Peace on Earth (written by Paul Dini with painted art by Alex Ross), which saw the hero fight famon in Africa – only to once again realize that he can’t fix the world’s problems. Even in his out-of-continuity stories, Superman rarely intervened in historical events – with the notable exception of Mark Millar’s Superman: Red Son.
While the major super-heroes and their universes followed this pattern, more minor super-heroes followed the pattern set by Watchmen. Mark Millar’s run on The Authority (2000-2002), occurring in the WildStorm Universe, saw the titular team intervene in the abuses of nations around the world, causing the richest nations to object. Traditionalist fans objected too, while the title’s sales and critical acclaim shot through the roof. Millar had his characters passionately speak against the way super-heroes enforce the status quo by stopping alien invasions and super-criminals but standing by in the wake of genocides. It was heady, revolutionary stuff.
But all of this, from Watchmen’s use of super-heroes for speculative history and Moore’s heralded conclusion to Miracleman to The Authority’s interventionist super-heroics, can ultimately be traced back to “How Superman Would End the War.” In the sparse pace of two pages, the contradiction of super-heroes existing in the real world, with its real problems, was laid bare. Not only can super-heroes in such continuing corporate stories never cause lasting political change, but they cannot effect lasting popular change of any sort. For two pages, “How Superman Would End the War” ignored all this and turned Superman loose.
The briefness of the story only enhances its effect. Look how quickly Superman saves the world with all the effortlessness grace so trademark of Siegel and Shuster’s creation. Look how readily the super-hero changes everything when placed at last in the real world. Look how Siegel and Shuster could, in two pages, explode the limits and contradictions of their own continuing stories. Look.
It would take half a century for his regular comics to catch up – and, in some ways, they still haven’t.
The story is included in The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told.
Notes
[1] The reasons why Americans would be pro-German were complex. For one thing, a large percentage of Americans were of German decent. And despite Hitler’s aggression (Germany invaded Poland in 1939), this was still the Great Depression, from which there seemed no short-term way out, and Hitler’s national socialism seemed to have solved his nation’s economic problems and galvanized the German people.
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,711787,00.html
[3] A full translation is available at http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/superman.htm.
[4] http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9298I can hear a building over there - Researchers at Western study blind people's ability to echo-locate.
It is common knowledge that bats and dolphins echo-locate, emitting bursts of sounds and then listening to the echoes that bounce back to detect objects. What is less well-known is that people can echo-locate too. In fact, there are blind people who have learned to make clicks with their mouths and to use the returning echoes from those clicks to sense their surroundings. Some of these individuals are so adept at echolocation that they can use this skill to navigate unknown environments, and participate in activities such as mountain biking and basketball.
Researchers at The University of Western Ontario's Center for Brain and Mind (London, Ontario, Canada) have recently shown that blind echolocation experts use what is normally the 'visual' part of their brain to process the clicks and echoes. The study, appearing this month in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, is the first to investigate the neural basis of natural human echolocation.
Senior author Mel Goodale, Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for Brain and Mind, says, "It is clear echolocation enables blind people to do things otherwise thought to be impossible without vision and can provide blind and visually-impaired people with a high degree of independence."
Goodale and his team of researchers first made recordings of the clicks and their very faint echoes using tiny microphones in the ears of the blind echo-locators as they stood outside and tried to identify different objects such as a car, a flag pole, and a tree. The researchers then played the recorded sounds back to the echo-locators while their brain activity was being measured in Western's state-of-the-art 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scanner.
Remarkably, when the echolocation recordings were played back to the blind experts, not only did they perceive the objects based on the echoes, but they also showed activity in those areas of their brain that normally process visual information in sighted people. Most interestingly, the brain areas that process auditory information were no more activated by sound recordings of outdoor scenes containing echoes than they were by sound recordings of outdoor scenes with the echoes removed.
When the same experiment was carried out with sighted control people who did not echo-locate, these individuals could not perceive the objects, and neither did their brain show any echo-related activity, suggesting visual brain areas play an important role for echolocation in blind people.
According to Goodale, this research will provide a deeper understanding of brain function, particularly how the senses are processed and what happens neurologically when one sense is lost.Reeves underlines his point by making clear that he’s uninterested in the kind of social democratic policies that foster greater equality in European countries like Sweden and Finland. “America’s problem is not that we are failing to live up to Danish egalitarian standards,” he writes. “It is that we are failing to live up to American egalitarian standards, based on fair market competition.” The main challenge, he stresses, is to “narrow gaps in human capital formation” so that the “contests” people compete in will be truly fair. “The problem is not that society is too competitive,” Reeves informs us. “It is that it is not competitive enough.” Society has grown unfair, he surmises, partly because the upper-middle class is engaging in “anticompetitive ‘opportunity hoarding.’”
Among the many problems with this strange view of inequality as something like an antitrust issue is figuring out when someone’s gone too far and broken the rules. Dream Hoarders clumsily attempts to demarcate which of the upper middle class’s advantages are legitimate, and which are “unfair” and “anticompetitive.” Reeves sees no problem with affluent parents showering their children with many different types of privileges that they can use to get ahead in our economic rat race. SAT tutors, cello practice, and Mandarin lessons are unproblematic in his view. On the contrary, he sees them as “great, indeed laudable” ways to support “human capital formation.” It’s only when the opportunities of the privileged start to hurt other children, he explains, that it becomes a problem.
A prime example of “opportunity hoarding” occurs when a parent makes a call or writes a check to their alma mater in order to help their kid get into college. (Reeves admits he doesn’t have good data on how common this practice actually is.) Another example is when parents use connections to help their kid score an internship. Amazingly enough, despite his professed interest in fair contests, Reeves does not support banning unpaid internships, concluding that to do so would be “too draconian, illiberal.” He suggests instead that the government fund low-income students who wish to take them, but acknowledges there’s little political support for the idea.
Dream Hoarders clumsily attempts to demarcate which of the upper middle class’s advantages are legitimate, and which are “unfair” and “anticompetitive.”
At first glance, it’s awfully hard to see a distinction between Reeves’s approved “human capital formation” and his disallowed “opportunity hoarding.” After all, in both cases, wealthy parents are leveraging their position to give their children a head start over their peers. Reeves has an answer for this—sort of. He concludes that “opportunity hoarding” only takes place when the opportunity in question is valuable and scarce, and the hoarding itself is “anticompetitive.” He discerns a difference between “parental behavior that merely helps your own children and the kind that is ‘detrimental’ to others.”
Unfortunately, this carefully-parsed dividing line is delicate to the point of collapse. What is, for instance, the most likely result of a cello lesson: artistic enrichment, or a bullet point on a resume? Unless those lessons turn into a lifelong passion or a performance career, their main effect is surely to grant children an edge over rival applicants in the race for academic recognition. The line blurs the other way too: Presumably most parents angling for a legacy admission to an Ivy believe their children stand to grow personally from the experience.3x3x3 Cube First Round Second Round Final 5x5x5 Cube Combined First Final 3x3x3 Blindfolded Final 3x3x3 Fewest Moves Final 3x3x3 One-Handed Combined First Final Skewb Combined First Second Round Final Competitors Aadarsh Madhavan Aady Jain Alan Ma Alex Bird Amber Gysen Aneesh Sawant Anirvin Iyengar Anita Ung Anton Kraev Arta Rasekhi Ben Wakelin Benjamin McNish Bianca Power Bostyn Brace Bradley Matthews Caleb Tay Calven Lipec Cameron Stollery Carlo Piccolo-Cody Chan Charoensuk Christian Zeug David Epstein David Luo David Zemdegs Divnoor Bajwa Edward Hollingdale Elijah Lewis Emmet Hobbs Eric Do Ethan Hickey Ethan Pride Ethan Stevens Feliks Zemdegs Flynn Macrae Gordon Choo Isaac Hla Jack Beckett Jack Cai Jack Dando Jacob McGruddy Jacob McNish James Massey James Shearwood Jason Bradshaw Jason Collins Jayson Nestic Jenny Jian Jody Jones Jordan Budiono Kaylan Erdogan Kieran Murphy Lachlan Aird Lachlan O'Gorman Leo Pham Leyan Li Mannessah Kani Mark Souprounovich Matias Chong Matthew Barnard Max Jian Michael Luo Michael Souprounovich Minh Vu Nguyen Tran Myles Jarman Nathaniel Khalinsky Nicholas Tan Nicholas Trusler Noah Horsley Phoebe Moar Qi Qu (曲祺) Rainie Liu Ramesh Vidyasagar Regan Xu Rhiley D'Cruz Riki Lethbridge Riley Dexter Ryan Cheyne Saby Dawar Salih Kolakovic Sam Chaplin Sebastian Robbins Seleena Clegg Stefan Nikolovski Swami Srinivasan Takuma Ly Tam Quan Thomas Bradshaw Thomas Curnow Tianxing Wang (王天行) Tim Moar Tommy Kiprillis Tyson Cluse Vincent Wong Wesley Allen William Gedicke William Gurnett Zac Meulenkamp Zachariah Khalinsky Zachary Meikle Zeb Zhi [refresh] [show]Photo
After a decade of legal battles, a ski resort in Northern Arizona recently became the first in the world to make artificial snow totally out of sewage effluent. On Dec. 24, Arizona Snowbowl fired up its snow guns for the first time, and to everyone’s surprise, the snow that blasted onto the mountain was yellow.
The discolored snow has sharpened an already fraught conflict.
Snowbowl’s manager, J. R. Murray, said the problem was caused by rusty residue in the new snow-making equipment that carries the wastewater from neighboring Flagstaff, where it is piped directly from the town’s sewage treatment plant.
But Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group, says something seems fishy. “I question whether that explanation is based on tests of the water or conjecture,” he said. “Something’s awry, and the onus is on the Forest Service and ADEQ to protect the public and determine the cause.” (ADEQ is the acronym for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.)
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As I have reported, environmentalists and Native American groups have long opposed the ski area’s snow-making plan, arguing that the wastewater snow poses risks to public health and the ecology of a mountain considered sacred by 13 American Indian tribes.
Mike Fulton, water quality division director of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the agency was “looking hard” into several complaints it had received claiming that the presence of the manufactured snow on the slopes violated state laws on the use of reclaimed water, which prohibit ingesting it. Critics argue, among other things, that wastewater snow is being tracked into eating areas and that children are playing in it and touching their faces with it.
The water used for making snow at the ski area is not drinking water. Studies have found that it contains hormones, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics and other chemicals. There is much debate about whether these chemicals are harmful in small amounts.
Regardless, the discolored snow has meant Snowbowl has to contend with a heightened ick factor. Kaelan Monroe, 11, said he went skiing on New Year’s Day and that the conditions were “kind of disgusting.”
“The snow is crusty and icy and doesn’t look very clean,” he said. But that won’t keep him from Snowbowl, where he has skied since age 3, he said. “I’m not too worried about face-planting in the snow and getting sick,” said Kaelan, who describes himself as a proficient skier.
Arizona Snowbowl operates on public land under a special-use permit issued by the Forest Service. In 2005, the agency approved the ski area’s upgrade plans, including artificial snow-making, after conducting a long environmental impact study.
That study “did not predict that the snow would be yellow,” Mr. McKinnon said.
He said the yellow snow and “a growing list of unforeseen impacts,” including new scientific research that indicates harmful chemicals in the wastewater, have rendered the 2005 study obsolete. “Snowbowl would be smart to update the study before they’re forced to do so in court,” Mr. McKinnon said.
Mr. Murray counters that the excitement over the yellow snow is “a lot to do about a small issue.”
“No one here even cares except for those that oppose us,” he said.
However, a worker hired just before Christmas for making snow said that his impression had been that the management was concerned about the image problem posed by the yellow snow. The worker, Grayson Lookner, said part of his job had been to drain the snow guns when they were not in use and he was told to drag them into the woods so the ski trails would not turn yellow.
He said he worked there only eight days and then resigned because the work was quite hard and he felt a growing unease. “I didn’t feel right about blowing” the effluent “all over a sacred mountain,” he said. Snowbowl confirmed that Mr. Lookner was employed by the resort from Dec. 20 to 28.
With climate change and prolonged drought in arid places like the Southwest, the use of reclaimed water is gaining importance as a conservation tool. Snowbowl officials portray the resort as on the cutting-edge of creative water recycling. Opponents argue that economic interests are driving a federal wastewater policy that puts commerce ahead of ecology.
Snowbowl officials have said that, because of reduced snowfall, the resort needs to make snow to stay in business. And so far snow-making has been a boon for the resort, it says. “The skiing is great! The pipes are now cleansed,” Mr. Murray said in an e-mail.
State environmental officials say they have sent an inspector to Snowbowl and expect to complete an investigation next week. And Mr. Fulton said the agency had already worked with Snowbowl to construct barriers around the ski lifts to prevent overspray from entering the adjacent forest, where endangered plants grow in the fragile alpine tundra.
Potential harm to that that habitat was the focus of a lawsuit that was recently settled out of court.
To date, the discolored snow has not been tested.I’ve started thinking about that promise I made to myself: starting my own legacy. A promise I made in a flight of passion. Rejecting my father. Starting over. Changing. I guess in that moment I forgot that a Legacy is dependent on one major thing.
I want romance, I want a partner. But I can never put the pieces of the puzzle into place to create the proper picture. And when Lilly ran out on me (or at least that’s what I assume happened) it was as if someone took the puzzle and threw it the fountain of Von Haunt Estate. There was no putting it back together.
Gunther demanded that I come out with him to this place called The Bluffs and forget about whatever it was that happened.
I wasn’t thrilled to go, but I always have been a proponent of keeping the mind busy during times like this.
“What is this place,” I had to ask Gunther. Even though I researched the town when I first moved in, looking for traces of my father, I had never heard of the Bluffs. When I got there I figured out why.
You weren’t supposed to know about it. Some natural spring that developed in the ruins of an old castle, the giant red KEEP OUT signs were hidden behind overgrown foliage and layers of spray paint. I’ve never been the rule-breaking type, but this is a rule that demands to be broken.
Gunther had invited a few of his friends along, and the waters seemed to flow with their free-spiritedness. Lilly had been washed from my mind, and I was starting to feel better.
Gunther and I decided to end the evening with a late-night espresso. We arrived at the cafe after the barista had hung up her apron and was mopping the floors. Much to her disappointment, we ordered two espressos and decided to sit outside, hoping that by not disturbing her clean interior our espresso would be of a decent quality.
The conversation steered back to the topic of Lilly and Gunther told me what I already knew.
“You have to clear the air with her. You don’t know what happened, I mean you haven’t even bothered to text her since it happened. Maybe it was an emergency? Maybe she got scared? You don’t know.”
While I appreciated his opinion, his searching justifications reflected my interior monologue: who knew what happened.
“Yeah…” was all I managed to say. But I knew he was right.
I knew Lilly lived next to a park, so to make it easier for her I decided to invite her there. After she had arrived any shred of confidence I might have had about the conversation vanished. I fumbled around a greeting and Lilly must have been able to feel the awkwardness growing.
“About the other day…” she started. No sense of shame was evident in her voice. No sense of remorse. But that didn’t prevent me from cutting her off.
“It’s okay, really. I don’t need to know what happened. Not now. You don’t owe me anything.” I don’t know where that came from. Suddenly my fear of a true answer overcame my curiosity and I tried to shut down the situation as quickly as I could.
“You’re great,” Lilly said.
And that was it. I didn’t have answers, but it was clear that that conversation was over for now.
As we moved beyond that conversation, the rest of the evening passed enjoyably. Having picked a park for Lilly’s convenience, I realized after that it also helped make the evening seem normal, as Lilly and I could connect over our shared angling experiences.
This time, no mysterious cause pulled Lilly away without explanation.
“No fish bitin’ tonight” she said. “I think I’m gonna go home. But, I’m glad you called.”
And with that she left. A sense of intimacy had hidden below the surface throughout the entire evening, but never broke up from the depths. Nevertheless, I felt better. Things with Lilly at least had a future. More than I could say yesterday.
I sat there alone until the sun rose, enjoying the slow lap of the water on the shores and the occasional tug on my line.
As I threw my last cast out, I noticed someone else had joined me at the small pond. It was the not-croissant lady.
Penny. Her name suddenly came flooding back to me again.
She looked over and smiled her recognition. I flashed a grin in return.
It must have been the slight deliriousness that comes after staying awake all night to see the sun rise, but I felt a deep happiness that had crept in to the bottom of my stomach suddenly.
That night Gunther called me and invited me out to a party up at the ancient ruins in town. He said he wanted to hear all about what happened with Lilly at the park.
The ruins have a mysterious aura that makes mundane things like dancing around a fire feel more primal. Perhaps that was why by the end of the night that same deep happiness from that morning had expanded from the bottom of my stomach to fill my entire body.
Or perhaps it was something else.
AdvertisementsTaylor Schilling, above, plays Piper Chapman on the Netflix show. Netflix via Brooklyn Based The memoir "Orange is the New Black" is a lot less scary than the Netflix show it inspired, but one part of Piper Kerman's year in prison sounds terrifying and surreal — the time she had to fly on "Con Air."
Unlike her TV alter ego Piper Chapman, Kerman makes the best of having to do time for a 10-year-old drug offense. It's not so bad in prison, aside from some very creepy groping.
But then she has to be transported from Danbury, Conn. to Chicago's more unpleasant federal jail to testify against another drug defendant. To get there, she had to fly on the "Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System," otherwise known as Con Air.
Air travel via the Federal Bureau of Prisons has a bad reputation among prisoners.
"Oh, baby, the airlift," her friend Pop told her, referring to Con Air, which transports prisoners who have court appearances or are moving to another prison. "The airlift is nothing nice."
Kerman was never handcuffed once at her low-security Connecticut prison. ("I had never been cuffed in my life outside my boudoir," she writes.) But to ride on Con Air, she had to be completely shackled with chains around her waist, handcuffs secured to the chain, and ankle cuffs linked by yet another chain.
Then she rode a bus to what looked like a huge, empty industrial lot. Here's what happened when the plane got there:
And then quite suddenly an enormous 747 landed, taxied briefly, and pulled up among the vehicles. In a moment, I recognized that I was in the midst of the most clichéd action thriller, as jackbooted marshals with submachine guns and high-powered rifles swarmed the tarmac — and I was one of the villains.
On top of dealing with the guys with submachine guns, Kerman had to fly on a plane with cat-calling male convicts who likely hadn't been around women for a while. One of those guys stood up at one point to say he needed the bathroom.
Marshals tasered him right away, Kerman writes, and he "flopped around like a fish."
If this all sounds unpleasant, consider that before Con Air was created in the mid-1980s prisoners often had to take epic bus rides with many stops to get to out-of-town court appearances.
"It was not uncommon to be in and out of county jails for a two- or three-week period while being transferred," then-acting U.S. Marshal William Brookhart told The Los Angeles Times back in 1993. "I don't think there's anybody that likes to be shifted from one county jail to another to another to another."Tesco Bank has enlisted the help of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) following the most serious cyber-attack launched against a UK bank.
The attack against the supermarket giant's banking arm involved the theft of £2.5m from 9,000 customers' accounts, funds that the bank quickly reimbursed. Initially theft against 20,000 accounts was feared but this figure was revised downwards late on Tuesday night.
At the same time Tesco announced that it was restoring normal service. The company had suspended online and contactless transactions from current accounts in the immediate wake of the breach last weekend.
Tesco Bank manages around 136,000 current accounts. Security pundits have variously blamed credential stuffing, an inside job, and exploitation of a third-party supplier retail partner for the breach.
NCSC is working alongside the National Crime Agency to look into the cyber-attack, which is believed to be the biggest of its kind in the history of British banking.
Ian Mann, chief exec of cyber-security service ECSC, said the size of the breach indicates that is it likely that either Tesco's internal systems, or its mobile application, have been hacked.
Tesco Bank's method of access for customers is "weak for this type of system", according to Mann. "Username is your email by default, and you only need digits from a numeric PIN. By requiring limited digits from the PIN on login, they make it virtually impossible to hash (encrypt) the PINs they have stored. This means a compromise of their customer database will reveal all logins and passwords to the attacker."
Nigel Hawthorn, chief European spokesperson at Skyhigh Networks, said: "While the details are still patchy, there's no doubt that this was a hugely sophisticated, coordinated and advanced attack – and as recent months have proven, no organisation is immune from similar attacks going forward. With cloud computing, hackers have so many more points of entry, and organisations need to put security in place to guarantee the safety of data, even if it falls into the wrong hands. In practice, this means putting multiple layers of control around their most sensitive data and closely monitoring access to stop theft on the way out rather than betting on the 'hard shell' approach with a sealed perimeter."
Tesco might face a huge fine under the recently revamped EU data protection rules over the breach, according to Hawthorn.
"When it comes to data security, the silent spectre of EU General Data Protection Regulation is slowly kicking organisations into action, and incidents such as this will only accelerate this trend," Hawthorn said. "One estimate is that Tesco Bank could be fined nearly £2bn under GDPR rules for this incident. The bottom line is that data security is no longer simply an issue for the IT department to tackle, and organisations can no longer sit back and ignore it. The stakes are higher than they have ever been, so when it comes to reviewing your security position, tomorrow may just be too late." ®NORMAN, Okla. -- Oklahoma receiver Dorial Green-Beckham has said that he will declare for the NFL draft, Sooners coach Bob Stoops said Tuesday.
Green-Beckham, who transferred from Missouri in April 2014 after several run-ins with the law, never played a down for the Sooners. He was not allowed to play this season after the NCAA denied the school's request for a waiver that would have made him eligible to play immediately.
Dorial Green-Beckham caught 59 passes for 883 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2013 before he was dismissed by Missouri and transferred to Oklahoma, where he did not play a down. Tim Heitman/USA TODAY Sports
"I knew that was something that could happen," Stoops said Tuesday. "He had great character through here, did well in classes, worked hard for us.
"I believe in young people and helping them improve and move forward in a positive direction. Dorial contributed to us in a positive way."
One of college football's most explosive receivers in 2013, Green-Beckham had a breakout season for the Tigers with 59 receptions for 883 yards and 12 touchdowns as a sophomore. He was one of the nation's top recruits in the Class of 2012, ranking No. 3 in the ESPN150.
ESPN NFL Draft Insider Mel Kiper Jr. rates Green-Beckham as his fifth-highest receiver in his draft positional rankings, but believes that a full season at Oklahoma was best for him to transition to the NFL effectively. Scouts Inc. rates him 10th at receiver.
His admission to Oklahoma came with specific stipulations, including continued rehabilitation and drug testing, according to a source. Green-Beckham also was subject to a zero-tolerance policy that included any failed drug test.
The 6-foot-6 receiver was kicked out of Missouri's program after an initial suspension. His troubles included being investigated for allegedly pushing an 18-year-old female Missouri student down at least four stairs. No charges were filed, and the case was closed after the student and a roommate declined to press charges.
Green-Beckham also had two marijuana-related arrests during his time at Missouri.
Stoops also confirmed that defensive tackle Jordan Phillips will enter the draft after the redshirt sophomore tweeted his intentions to do so on New Year's Eve.
Phillips, a 6-6, 334-pounder, had 38 tackles, including seven for losses, this season. Kiper also has Phillips rated fifth among defensive tackles in his position rankings.
Jake Trotter of ESPN.com and The Associated Press contributed to this report.I have some skills published for Alexa, so here my understanding...
When you use Alexa, it needs to connect to the cloud, where you send whatever you say as a digital signal. How long Amazon will keep this recordings?, good question, not long I guess, they might keep the text?...
"As far as I can tell, most data from the Amazon Echo (e.g. recordings of my commands) are stored in the cloud, according to the Alexa FAQ. However, I couldn't find any authoritative information about what information is stored on the device itself."
Now the device itself is not powerfull enough to store much, may be the Echo or Echo dot, could have some memory but I will think is more to handle internal processes, not so much to record you?
If I ever wanted to sell the Echo, it'd be useful to know what information is on the device, so that I can try to remove it.
you can unlink the hardware from your amazon account, so the info might be kept by Amazon, but not on the echo
What personal information is stored on the device itself? Amazon login credentials? Cached data from skills?"
As commented before, the real data is on the cloud, linked to the Amazon account associated to that echo.
But good question, it could record some things? A teardown shows storage... 4GB Toshiba eMMC NAND flash So yes, it could store something?
Personal information stored?, maybe...
Now, to hack it on the hardware, retrieve what is in there. Your concern?... Might be more difficult?, there are easier ways to record that audio?.
For a hack in AWS, alexa, could happen also, but more difficult?. Your info for sure is collected not only by Amazon, but many others like mobile operators, advertisers, mail providers?...News | DV |
RECRUITED: Bones
Dating back to at least 2011, teenage rapper Bones has released hundreds of songs, fifty plus music videos, and a handful of mixtapes. Where in his early work, under the “Th@ Kid” moniker, it may have been easier to pinpoint his influences, the lines are completely blurred at this point.
When diving into cloud-rap, you'll find that fans of artists like Yung Lean or Lil B enjoy the experience of "being in on an inside-joke" as much as the music itself. Bones is the exception to that rule, simply enough because he's not a cloud rapper. His sound can't be pinned down to a single genre, let alone a sub-genre. Bones provides his own experience, one that at times is painfully introspective.
Sifting through the hundreds of songs over the years, his earlier work could be compared to SpaceGhostPurrp and his Raider Klan cohorts. But even at that, it seems to be more of a happy-coincidence as the teen rapper grew up listening to the likes of Three-6 Mafia and early Cash Money.
Nearly all of Bones songs barely stretch past the two minute mark. With many of them accompanied by a music video he's directed, shot, and edited himself. Just like his music, his visuals are incredibly distinctive. Years ago he was one of the first rappers, if not the first, to use an actual VHS camera to film his visuals. Once again just like his music, you can't pigeon-hole his visual art into one category, it's not just VHS. He utilizes glitches, green-screens, and a handful of other methods which have grown to be just as much of a part of his image as his songs are.
After spending years growing and finding his creative voice and vision, Bones has managed to build up a mini-cult following. 25,000 Facebook fans, 10,000 Twitter followers, 11,000 YouTube subscribers. But once again, unlike his contemporaries, this cult following has a real life presence. This past summer Bones, and way too many of his friends, piled into a van for his own small nationwide tour. In each state he managed to pack a few hundred kids into small venues.
Earlier this month we called Bones for a quick interview to go along with his RECRUITED feature, which you can read below.
How old are you?
19
Where are you form?
I was born in Northern California and when i was 7 i moved to Michigan, so I grew up there.
So you’re back in California now?
Yeah, I left school at 16 and came out here.
What exactly got you into rapping? Why'd you start?
My first CD was Block Is Hot, when I was 5. I listen to all music, but there was something about rap that made me want to do it.
At what age did you start actually writing & recording music?
Nine.
How old were you when you started uploading music videos to YouTube under the "Th@ Kid" moniker?
I was 16, right when i came out to California.
What exactly |
HARRISON, N.J. (March 2, 2015) – The New York Red Bulls announced today that former player and current assistant coach John Wolyniec has been named head coach of New York Red Bulls II, the organization’s USL affiliate, for the inaugural 2015 season.
Recently retired Ibrahim Sekagya and former Columbus Crew goalkeeping coach Vadim Kirillov will serve on Wolyniec’s staff.
“I’m grateful to the organization for this opportunity,” said Wolyniec. “NYRB II represents an important platform in our player development system. Our goal is to create an environment for our young players to have a chance to train and play in a professional setting and get meaningful minutes to prepare them for careers in MLS.”
In 2013, Wolyniec was named Player Development Coordinator and head man of the Red Bulls’ MLS Reserve team. The Staten Island native began his coaching career with the Red Bulls Academy in 2010 shortly after finishing his playing career.
“We’re very excited for John,” said Red Bulls Sporting Director Ali Curtis. “He’s served this organization well as a player and as part of the staff. He has earned this opportunity and we look forward to him leading this team and developing our young talent. John will have an important role in not only developing players within NYRB II, but his responsibilities will also include working in an integrated capacity with both our first team and academy coaching staffs.”
Wolyniec played a total of nine seasons for New York between the MetroStars and Red Bulls. He broke into the league with New York in 1999 before being traded to Chicago. Wolyniec spent time with the Fire and Los Angeles Galaxy before returning to New York in 2003, where he played the next three seasons. After a stint with Columbus and a brief return to Los Angeles, Wolyniec came home to play his final four seasons with the Red Bulls from 2006-2010.
Wolyniec finished his MLS career with 192 regular season appearances, including 101 starts, with 33 goals and 16 assists. His time in New York accounts for 142 of those appearances, tied for fourth-most in club history, as well as 26 goals and 14 assists.
Sekagya retired earlier this month after spending a season and a half with New York. The former captain of the Ugandan national team also played six seasons with Red Bull Salzburg, leading the team to three Austrian Bundesliga titles and an Austrian Cup championship.
Kirillov played professionally in the Soviet Union for FC Spartak Moscow and FC Lokomotiv Moskow in the 1980s. Kirillov joined the Red Bulls Academy staff in February 2013. He served the goalkeeping coach for Columbus from 2007-2011, and also spent time with the U.S. U-14 Youth National Team, and with the men’s soccer program at Adelphi University on Long Island.This is just so hilarious. The media is in complete meltdown over Trump Jr.’s nothingburger meeting with a Russia lawyer. While it’s fun to watch the media melt down over the e-mail exchange and meeting, it’s also funny to watch them react when Hillary Clinton is brought up. Watch this video from MSNBC interview flaming Lindsey Graham. He’s a NeverTrump and you would think would be frothing at the mouth over this Trump Jr. meeting.
Surpisigly though, Graham was calm, cool and collected and didn’t seem to concerned about meeting. Unlike TIMMAY Kaine, he’s not crying treason. But also watch what happens when Graham brings up Hillary Clinton. Towards the end of the video, MSNBC cut’s Graham’s audio feed.
MSNBC cuts audio of Lindsey Graham bringing up Hillary Clinton
If I didn’t know any better, i’d think I was watching CNN. The media usually loves Lindsey Graham like they do John McCain, because they are Democrats masquerading as Republicans. I guess there was no love for Lindsey here.We’ve already seen it set an insane 7:08.679 Nürburgring lap time, but now watch the 2015 Nissan GT-R NISMO on its home turf, this time lapping Japan’s Sodegaura Forest Raceway. In terms of performance, the car outmuscles some of the most sought after sports cars on the planet, including some supercars, yet you won’t have to be a millionaire to own one, or so Nissan promises.
WATCH: Hennessey Chevrolet SS Hits 163 MPH On Texas Toll Road: Video
Key to the car’s performance is a boost in output, with the final numbers registering at 600 horsepower and 480 pound-feet of torque, up from the regular model’s 545 hp and 463 lb-ft. However, more power is not the end of the story as downforce, suspension updates and brake performance are also crucial in achieving the car’s benchmarks. Unfortunately, apart from the GT-R NISMO’s Nürburgring lap time, we still don’t have any official benchmarks to report on.
We should know more when sales of the 2015 GT-R NISMO commence this spring. In the meantime, check out our first drive report for some of our driving impressions.
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See more videos on our YouTube sites: The Car Connection, Motor Authority, and Green Car Reports.Ann Taylor has joined Thales, who are involved with supplying two aircraft carriers that are over budget
A former Labour defence minister has become an adviser to a French arms firm that supplies the government with billions of pounds worth of equipment.
Lady Taylor of Bolton – Ann Taylor – was minister for defence equipment for a year until 2008 and became minister for international defence and security until Labour lost the general election in May.
This month she joined the arms contractor Thales, which is part of the consortium supplying two aircraft carriers that are £1.541bn over budget.
The disclosure comes amid calls for closer examination of the "revolving door" of jobs between the Ministry of Defence and the arms industry.
Peter Kilfoyle, a former Labour defence minister, said: "I think its sad that people think they have to go off and do these things. I don't think that former ministers should be working in this area at all. There's going to be a view here that there is a potential conflict of interest."
Taylor, 63, became leader of the House in 1997. In 2001, she became chair of the intelligence and security committee, which monitors the expenditure, administration and policy of the security service, GCHQ and the secret intelligence service. While at defence from 2007, Taylor was often involved with Thales.
In 2008, she visited Thales' British headquarters in Crawley, West Sussex, to see their £700m Watchkeeper unmanned plane, or "drone", programme which aims to be ready this year. In 2009, she met Thales staff at two arms exhibitions and at an international strategic thinktank. That November she announced that the government was deciding whether it could arm the Thales drones.
The advisory committee on business appointments, which decides if ministers can take up a job after leaving office, announced her appointment to Thales Corporate Services last week. She applied for permission to take the job in September and has been told that she cannot personally lobby ministers or civil servants until May 2012.
Thales is part of the consortium supplying two aircraft carriers that are £1.541bn over budget. The coalition government considered cancelling one, but could not because of penalty clauses. Instead, one of the ships will be mothballed temporarily.
Thales UK, the British arm of the ninth largest defence contractor in the world, has a history of hiring former ministers. Its chairman is the former Conservative arms procurement minister Roger – now Lord – Freeman. Thales' advisory board includes former Labour minister Lord Clark, Lord Powell, Margaret Thatcher's former top adviser, and Sir David Pepper, who was until last October director of the government spy centre GCHQ.
Taylor was shadow leader of the House when the then Conservative minister Roger Freeman put forward proposals for a ministerial code of conduct in 1995 that would force ministers to seek advice from the independent Business Appointments Advisory Committee before taking up a private sector job. She introduced the code when Labour came to power in 1997.
The MoD wastes billions every year through inefficiency and poor management of major projects, according to reports in the Guardian last year.
On yesterday, Sir George Young, the leader of the Commons, said he would examine the "revolving door" between the ministry and defence companies.
Labour MP Denis MacShane called for a 10-year quarantine before ministers, civil servants or uniformed officers could join a defence-related company.
Last week the government appointed Bernard Gray as chief of defence materiel – to tackle the waste and incompetence at the MoD. Gray, a businessman and former journalist, laid bare the inadequacies of MoD procurement in a landmark report last year.
In 2000 it was revealed that Thales had rented two Bristol flats owned by Tony Blair, the then prime minister.
Thales Group generated revenues of £11.5bn last year with 68,000 employees in 50 countries, according to its website.Thales UK employs 8,500 staff based at 40 locations. In 2009 Thales UK's revenues were around £1.5bn.
A spokesman for Thales said any meetings with Taylor when she was a minister were above board. "As a significant player in the UK defence sector it is only natural that we have regular meetings with relevant ministers. Any conversations relating to the aircraft carrier contract will have been conducted by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance."
Revolving doors Whitehall to defence industry
Lord Reid, secretary of state for defence from 2005 to 2006, said in 2008 that he had become group consultant to G4S, the security company that worked closely with the Ministry of Defence in Iraq.
Michael Portillo, (pictured) the secretary of state for defence from 1995 to 1997, became non-executive director of BAE Systems in 2002 before stepping down in 2006.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, the chief of staff from 2006-2009, retired from the RAF last year and will become senior military adviser to BAE Systems in January.
Admiral Sir John Slater, the former first sea lord, left the military in 1998 and became a director and senior adviser to Lockheed Martin UK.
Major-General Graham Binns left the military this year and is chief executive of Aegis Defence Services, a leading security company.
Sir Kevin Tebbit, permanent under secretary at the MoD, is chairman of Finmeccanica UK, owner of Westland helicopters.
David Gould, the former chief operating officer of the MoD's procurement division, is now chairman of Selex Systems, part of Finmeccanica.The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
Why an MMORTS with an endgame?
Most MMOs with a persistent world go on forever. Players get emotionally invested in their online real estate, the items they’ve collected, their reputation, and the alliances they’ve made. So why consider periodically burning it all down and restarting? Well, just as forest fires are an integral part of certain ecosystems, periodic apocalyptic endgames are essential for maintaining a dynamic RTS game. My first time experience of this was alarming, but then I decided that the true value in an MMO lay in making friends, building my reputation and creating epic memories. The second time I was the one who triggered the world ending when my guild started the apocalypse by winning the server. Then I was hooked.
Meaningful Victories
I’ve played WoW, Clash of Clans, and dozens of other MMOs. I love games that are a challenge to master and that feature difficult PvP. The feeling of delivering a serious, lethal blow to an opponent and emerging a champion is an incredible natural high.
But it’s my experience that many of the current games out there offer this feeling in little, unsatisfying doses, or not at all. Most games have quick matches where I fight someone for an hour or two, someone wins and that’s it. Having tasted the satisfaction that winning an empire vs empire campaign over the course of months brings, I can no longer be happy just winning a quick round. I want more intensity, higher stakes. Total world conquest of an MMO with my guild by my side!
A Concrete Goal
MMOs can be a giant timesink. That’s great for kids with nothing else to do, but I’m a busy woman and I can’t spend a lot of time on a game indefinitely. Having an endgame goal that can be achieved in a reasonable amount of time means that I can put my full focus into the game for a while, hopefully emerging as a winner, and then decide whether I want to have another go. There are many MMOs I know I would love, like EVE Online for instance, but their open-ended nature means there’s no natural stopping-point. I know myself too well. If I got really good at say Clash of Clans, I’d want to keep playing every day and not let down my clan. I know I’ll quit eventually, but with a game like Clash of Clans it’ll be a bitter decision out of boredom or necessity. With games with an apocalyptic endgame, I can retire in a blaze of glory, honorably.
Dynamic Competition
Late starters on a base-building strategy game are at a disadvantage unless, like EVE Online, they’re set in infinite space and bases are mobile. People who fall behind in a finite-space world have the near-impossible task of catching up. Eventually the top alliance on a server will dominate, and the competition to be the best will functionally be over, even if a game doesn’t have a formal endgame. Looking at older MMORTS games like Evony or Ikariam, the older worlds always lose population over time and die.
Embrace the Apocalypse
When I was first confronted by the idea of a server-ending apocalyptic endgame, I was sad about the prospect of losing all the stuff I worked so hard to build. But then I figured nothing lasts forever, particularly in virtual online worlds. All I would ever have is the memories and friendships I made, and the tactics I’d learned. A fresh start would give me the chance to do things better, and give me another shot at ultimate victory.
So I think it's a good way to keep MMOs dynamic and lively. But I had to learn to let go of my pixel real estate. We've made the design decision to go with it for our strategy MMO. Will we be able to overcome people's emotional attachment to their online stuff, though?In the end of August our volunteer group found pictures showing various military vehicles (‘Grad’ MLRS units, self-propelled guns, tanks) belonging to the Russian occupation forces on a field camp near the village of Karlo-Marksove located between Horlivka and Yenakiyeve. Besides that, ‘Gvozdika’ 122-mm self-propelled guns were found hidden in nonresidential premises.
Today, in the course of another OSINT investigation, we identified one more base of the Russian occupation forces. It is located in Yenakiyeve where ‘Gvozdika’ units were once hidden in non-residential facilities. The occupants picked an appropriate place for this base – it is just in about 4 km from the training field camp of the Russian terrorist troops.
‘Gvozdika’ self-propelled guns with side numbers 514 and 515 from this article have been already described in our previous topic. Let us remark here that in contrast to the April pictures (in this article) the summer pictures (in the other one) show the guns painted in deep green color.
Inside one of the premises.
Как и полагается для военных баз, для прикрытия атаки с воздуха рядом размещен зенитно-ракетный комплекс “Стрела”. Металлический вагончик на заднем плане стоит на расположенной рядом с базой свалке.
As it is required for military bases, ‘Strela’ [Arrow] surface-to-air missile complex is located nearby, to protect it from an airstrike. The metal trailer in the background is placed on a junk-yard right outside the base.
Luckily for us, the occupants like cheap vanity – both rushists and their combat girlfriends can’t stand the temptation to make a selfie in front of military vehicles.
Here are the fresh pictures taken in the field camp near Karlo-Marksove (Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine). Judging by the weather, they were taken in the beginning of September, 2015.
Original article by @BuTaJIu4eKAfter undergoing a fairly extensive tear-down last winter, the Braves will look to begin rebuilding toward a return to contention in 2017, when they are set to open a new park.
Guaranteed Contracts
*Indians will pay $10MM of the collective obligations to Swisher and Bourn in 2016
Arbitration Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projections by MLB Trade Rumors)
Contract Options
None
Free Agents
Things got ugly in the second half for the club, which all but collapsed down the stretch. In addition to the sales of a few last short-term veterans, the Braves’ summer featured a bad contract swap of Chris Johnson for Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn and — more importantly — the acquisition of Hector Olivera in a deal that sent lefty Alex Wood and prospect Jose Peraza to the Dodgers (among other pieces changing hands). That made for a less-than-ideal 2015 product, but that wasn’t really the point.
We may have been given a hint at the Braves’ endgame when the club parted with the controllable Wood for an unproven, somewhat older player in Olivera. Having spent the winter accumulating as many upper-level young arms as it could via trade, Atlanta gave one up for the chance at five fairly cheap years of Olivera. That move suggests that Atlanta already sees a light at the end of the tunnel of its quick rebuild. After all, Wood certainly could’ve brought back youthful prospects instead.
With a newly resurgent farm system and at least the nucleus of a core in place, the Braves are probably ready to begin adding at the major league level. But having parted with so much MLB-level talent in the last year or so, it’s unlikely that the organization really expects contention in 2016. Instead, the focus will be on 2017 and beyond.
So, what might the club look to do this winter under the leadership of newly-promoted GM John Coppolella and president of baseball operations John Hart? Let’s start with the possibility of further swaps, as it’s hard to rule anything out after Atlanta was willing to part with its long-term control over Evan Gattis and Craig Kimbrel last offseason.
It would take something awfully compelling for the Braves to consider moving Freddie Freeman or Andrelton Simmons, the pair of young infielders who figure to bridge the team’s most recent contender to its (hopeful) future outfit. Frankly, the possibility seems too remote to seriously consider as something that’s on the table.
Righty Julio Teheran, though, has generated more chatter. He’s taken a value hit after an uninspiring 2015, but he’s cheap, young (still 24), and durable (607 1/3 innings since the start of 2013). It’s hard to know how interested Atlanta is in parting with him, but the ask would surely be high in spite of his difficulties.
After all, while the Braves have compiled an impressive volume of young arms, few have established themselves in the big leagues. It would be risky to move on from Teheran, especially after having already sent out Wood. Shelby Miller had a strong season and looks like a great get from the Jason Heyward/Jordan Walden deal. (An extension with Miller could be pursued, at least to buy up his arb-eligible seasons.) The other key piece in that swap, Tyrell Jenkins, is one of several younger arms who’ll look to crack (or stay in) the big league staff in the coming years. Matt Wisler, Mike Foltynewicz, and Manny Banuelos are also recent trade additions in that general mold, and top prospect Lucas Sims is coming up behind that group. Further off are interesting names like Touki Toussaint, Kolby Allard, and Max Fried, among others.
Rounding out the 2016 rotation will involve a mix of depth pieces like Williams Perez and Ryan Weber and, perhaps, a veteran acquisition or two. The club has indicated it will tender a contract to lefty Mike Minor in hopes that he can reestablish himself after a tough run of injuries, but he’ll be hard to count on.
It’s possible to imagine Atlanta adding a mid or long-term arm on the free agent market, though it seems more likely that the club will look to bail out an undervalued asset than to beat the market for a top-end hurler. It wouldn’t be too hard to imagine this opportunistic front office pouncing if someone like Jeff Samardzija or Ian Kennedy find demand lacking, though I’d expect they will value the loss of a draft pick quite highly in weighing such decisions. While Atlanta’s #3 overall selection is protected, the team will probably like the idea of preserving an additional early draft slot (and the pool money that comes with it). Otherwise, there’s certainly some merit to the idea of utilizing the team’s unclaimed rotation spots to draw a pitcher (Doug Fister being the popular, but potentially too pricey, example) who could be looking for a one-year bounce-back deal. And Atlanta should be a popular destination for minor league free agents seeking a chance to prove themselves in the spring.
There’s even more uncertainty in the bullpen, where Arodys Vizcaino reemerged to have a nice year and take over as the closer. After him, though, the team’s most-used and most effective pen arms were traded (Jim Johnson, Luis Avilan) or hurt (Jason Grilli). The team still controls Grilli for two more years (the second via option) and could put him back in the ninth when he returns from injury, both to boost his trade stock and to tamp down Vizcaino’s arb platform. Rule 5 pick Daniel Winkler will need a roster spot to open the year in order for the team to earn his permanent rights, while another Rule 5 selection — Andrew McKirahan — could provide a left-handed option. Unfortunately, southpaw Paco Rodriguez — who was acquired from the Dodgers — is going to be out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery, but Chris Withrow — another Los Angeles import (separate trade) — could be ready and provides some interest. Veteran Peter Moylan could be brought back, and the club can also get some frames out of Brandon Cunniff, who logged the most relief innings last year of any returning pitcher in the organization.
There are a number of other names that could be in the mix, but none seem particularly worth mentioning. Atlanta took advantage of the fact that it had late-inning opportunities to offer last year when it signed Grilli and Johnson, and it could do so again. The club will also just be looking to get innings wherever it can. Last year’s roster ultimately included a veritable who’s who of once-quality pitchers who were looking for big league chances. But there’s also quite a realistic scenario where the Braves make a real investment in a reliever or two via free agency, as the team’s front office has hinted in recent weeks.
Moving back to the position player side of the equation, the infield seems largely set — potentially. Simmons, Freeman, and Olivera will take three spots. Third base prospect Rio Ruiz, who didn’t exactly master Double-A but spent the year there at 21 years of age, could eventually push Olivera off of the hot corner. That would open new questions and new possibilities, but there are some more immediate issues to be addressed.
Jace Peterson probably warrants another audition at second, though he’ll need to improve on a.239/.314/.335 batting effort. It’s possible — perhaps likely — that the team will look to supplement him with a veteran. The team signed Alberto Callaspo and Kelly Johnson as role-playing depth pieces last year, and figures to do something similar this winter. Top prospect Ozhaino Albies may ultimately be an appealing option up the middle, but he’s just 18 and is further off away than was the traded-away Jose Peraza.
Its certainly possible that the organization will consider adding a more significant infield piece this winter. That’s all the more true given reports that Olivera will spend some time in Puerto Rico playing the corner outfield. There are several free agents who might function as bridge players — Howie Kendrick and Daniel Murphy among them — and a variety of hypothetical trade candidates.
The club faces more questions behind the dish, where Christian Bethancourt remains an intriguing but frustrating player. He played only sporadically in the majors, endured a mid-season demotion (though he hit well at Triple-A), and drew questions about his mental approach. In a mid-season interview, Hart explained that he liked the young backstop’s tools, but felt that he was failing to grasp what it took to be a big league catcher. The issue was “not dedication,” said Hart. Instead: “It’s a level of preparedness you need for what [pitching coach] Roger [McDowell] expects and a championship organization expects, especially when dealing with young pitchers.” It’s possible that Atlanta will entertain change-of-scenery offers, though he seems more likely to get another chance. Last year’s primary backstop ended up being veteran A.J. Pierzynski. He remains a candidate to return, particularly after the club resisted the urge to trade him at the deadline, though he’ll test the market first. Otherwise, another elder statesman might be found. The Braves have been mentioned as a hypothetical suitor for Matt Wieters, who attended Georgia Tech, and he certainly could be the sort of (relative) buy-low that the organization would find intriguing. But it’s not yet clear whether Atlanta will be a leading contender for his services, especially since he’ll likely require a signing team to sacrifice a draft pick.
In the outfield, Nick Markakis — last year’s surprise free agent splurge — will handle right. Cameron Maybin figures to see the bulk of the action in center — barring a trade, at least. He was a nice comeback surprise after being included as part of the salary balancing in the Craig Kimbrel deal. Though his production tailed off late, he ended up with a.267/.327/.370 batting line to go with 23 steals and ten home runs. On the other hand, defensive metrics hated his glovework despite historical success.
While there would have to be interest if an appealing offer came in, the club is probably best off sticking with Maybin for the time being. He isn’t too expensive, his option conveys a bit of upside, and he could turn into an even more valuable mid-season trade chip. Maybin is likely just keeping the seat warm for Mallex Smith, who earned a mid-season promotion to Triple-A in his age-22 campaign. He still needs to conquer that level, and is far from a surefire prospect, but a summer promotion could be in order if he does and if there’s a need at the major league level.
Of course, the Braves do have another option in center: the veteran Bourn, who came over in the aforementioned trade along with Swisher. Bourn could help bridge the gap as well. Neither of those players produced last year, and may not last the year if they falter. (Both have options for 2017 that vest at 550 plate appearances, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where that is allowed to take place.) But they’ll do for the meanwhile, and the organization has another fourth outfield type on hand in Adonis Garcia (though he’s not a good bet to repeat his production).
Given that array of outfield options, it’s easy to dream on the team wading into the free agent market. It would be foolish to rule out such an effort, though it’d also be rather shocking to see any nine-figure deals handed out. As with the rotation, it’s possible to imagine the Braves seeing what the market will yield. That could come in the form of a one-year, bounceback signing or a multi-year pact with a mid-level free agent who falls through the cracks.
Entering the winter, there’s an argument to be made that Atlanta should be increasingly aggressive in free agency (after having already shown just that trait on the trade market). After all, if the team hopes to be prepared for legitimate contention in 2017, this robust free agent market might present the right moment to strike.
Having demonstrated a willingness to spend on the mid-tier market last year, in signing Markakis, players his price range certainly seem in play. Costlier additions, though, may not be forthcoming. There’s some open current and future payroll, but not a lot: the club has just under $75MM in commitments for 2016 before accounting for arbitration, and that number drops into the $50MM to $60MM range over the four seasons to follow. Even with the promise of new stadium and TV revenue, it would be dangerous to tie up too much future payroll for an organization that has started a season with a payroll over $100MM only once (2014).
All told, the offseason promises more of the same creativity out of Atlanta, albeit with a nearer-term focus. And we can’t discount the possibility of a big surprise out of this creative front office duo.System Discs & Building Phase Part 1 ““What’s all this poppycock about lifeforms on this planet, Spock? The surface is molten lava. The atmosphere is poisonous.” -- Leonard McCoy System...
Advancements & Building Phase Part 2 “In the Treaty of Algeron, the Federation specifically agreed not to develop cloaking technology.” -- Jean-Luc Picard Building Phase - Part 2...
Command Phase – Part 3 Space Battles & Planetary Invasions “Red Alert! Shields Up!” -- William Riker Command Phase – Part 3 Space Battles & Planetary Invasions...
Command Phase – Part 4 Cultural Hegemony & Warp-Capable Civilizations "We’ve been monitoring your progress toward warp capability. When a society reaches your level of technology and is clearly about to initiate warp travel, we feel the time is right for first contact." -- Jean-Luc Picard...The time to end the death penalty in Kentucky has come.
A report released earlier this month on a two year assessment conducted by the American Bar Association [ABA] found that Kentucky's death penalty system is so broken and unfair that the state should declare a moratorium on executions. A moratorium would be a good start, and if Kentucky voters have any say in the matter, one will be imposed sooner rather than later. A survey conducted right before the report was released showed that strong majorities of likely 2012 Kentucky voters support a death penalty moratorium, and these majorities go across party affiliation, gender, and even geography within the state.
Source: Lake Research Partners survey of 405 likely November 2012 Kentucky voters, Nov. 30–Dec. 4, 2011, margin of error (±4.9%)
But a moratorium doesn't go far enough. The time has come to end the death penalty in Kentucky once and for all. (If you agree, sign this petition that will be delivered to Governor Beshear and members of the Kentucky House and Kentucky Senate.)
While the report credits Kentucky with taking some important steps to improve the quality and fairness of its death penalty process, the shortcomings are enormous. The ABA made dozens of recommendations that included passing new laws, funding facilities for preserving biological evidence, training of law enforcement officers and prosecutors, developing accountability and disciplinary measures for investigators, upgrades to the state's crime laboratories, policies and disciplinary measures to prevent prosecutorial misconduct, an overhaul of the defense services provided to capital defendants... the list goes on for page after page after page. Numerous recommendations include the phrase "provide funding for..."
A sampling from the report of what Kentucky would need to fix:
Kentucky laws and procedures do not sufficiently protect the innocent, convict the guilty, and ensure the fair and efficient enforcement of criminal law in death penalty cases
Evidence in criminal cases, including capital cases, is not required to be retained for as long as the defendant remains incarcerated, despite the possibility of wrongful conviction. Kentucky law and practice also permits destruction of evidence in a variety of instances, including, in some cases, when the perpetrator remains at large
While the Commonwealth’s post-conviction DNA testing statute permits post-trial testing of biological evidence prior to execution under some circumstances, the problem of lost evidence significantly diminishes the utility of the statute
...some of the Commonwealth’s largest law enforcement agencies have no policies that are consistent with the ABA Best Practices on eyewitness identifications and interrogations. In those agencies that have adopted policies, the policies are not uniformly enforced.
Kentucky does not require the accreditation of its forensic laboratories (and only three of its six have voluntarily obtained accreditation), MEO, or any of the 120 county coroner offices. Other KSP Laboratory branches or smaller law enforcement agencies conducting limited forensics are not accredited by any national accrediting body. Kentucky also funds its medical examiner and county coroner systems at levels far below the national average. Testing backlogs persist at KSP Laboratory causing delays in all criminal cases
...there is no mechanism in place to guide prosecutors in their charging decisions to support the even-handed, non-discriminatory application of the death penalty across the Commonwealth
All Kentucky public defenders handling capital cases retain caseloads that far exceed national averages and recommended maximum caseloads. In some cases, Kentucky public defenders provide capital representation while carrying caseloads of over 400 non-capital cases each year. Support staff members, including investigators and mitigation specialists, are routinely overworked and underpaid, carrying caseloads ranging from twelve to twenty-five capital cases at any given time. A 2011 study found that Kentucky public defenders who handle death penalty cases make 31% less than similarly-experienced attorneys in surrounding states constituting the lowest average salaries of examined jurisdictions. Furthermore, the hourly rates and maximum caps on compensation available for contract counsel in death penalty cases are inadequate to ensure high quality legal representation and are far below the rates available to attorneys performing contractual work for the Commonwealth on civil matters
At least ten of the seventy-eight people sentenced to death since 1976 were represented by defense counsel who were subsequently disbarred. While Kentucky’s public defender agencies seek to enforce internal standards governing the proper provision of counsel in all death penalty cases assigned to their agencies, Kentucky has not adopted any statewide standards governing the qualifications and training of attorneys appointed to handle capital cases at trial, on appeal, and during post-conviction proceedings
When an execution date is set prior to the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations imposed for filing a post-conviction petition, it has the effect of significantly curtailing the time that a death row inmate has to prepare and file his/her petition
for post-conviction relief. Inmates not under a death sentence do not face a similar time constraint. Kentucky also does not authorize discovery in state post-conviction proceedings and prohibits inmates from using the Kentucky Open Records Act to obtain materials possessed by law enforcement that may be essential for establishing a death row inmate’s constitutional claims. The lack of discovery during post-conviction review makes it all the more likely that death row inmates will be unable to develop viable claims of constitutional error in light of the truncated time period in which they must prepare their petitions. Furthermore, Kentucky post-conviction courts typically do not authorize any funding for mental health experts to assist potentially mentally retarded death row inmates to accurately determine and prove their mental capacities
for post-conviction relief. Inmates not under a death sentence do not face a similar time constraint. Kentucky also does not authorize discovery in state post-conviction proceedings and prohibits inmates from using the Kentucky Open Records Act to obtain materials possessed by law enforcement that may be essential for establishing a death row inmate’s constitutional claims. The lack of discovery during post-conviction review makes it all the more likely that death row inmates will be unable to develop viable claims of constitutional error in light of the truncated time period in which they must prepare their petitions. Furthermore, Kentucky post-conviction courts typically do not authorize any funding for mental health experts to assist potentially mentally retarded death row inmates to accurately determine and prove their mental capacities A disturbingly high percentage of Kentucky capital jurors who were interviewed by the Capital Jury Project failed to understand the guidelines for considering aggravating and mitigating evidence. For example, 45.9% of jurors failed to understand that they could consider mitigating evidence at sentencing, 61.8% failed to understand that they need not find mitigation “beyond reasonable doubt,” and 83.5% of jurors did not understand that they need not have been unanimous on findings of mitigation
The Kentucky Supreme Court cannot engage in meaningful proportionality review to determine if a death sentence is proportionate in comparison to similar cases and offenders. It does not appear that the relevant data on capital charging practices has been maintained to permit the Court to undertake a searching proportionality review
Without a statewide entity that collects data on all death-eligible cases in the Commonwealth, Kentucky cannot determine the extent of racial or geographic bias in its capital system
Use of the death penalty is plummeting
Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and author of The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report, notes that the nation as a whole is backing away from the death penalty.
This year, the use of the death penalty continued to decline by almost every measure... Executions, death sentences, public support, the number of states with the death penalty all dropped from previous years. Whether it’s concerns about unfairness, executing the innocent, the high costs of the death penalty, or the general feeling that the government just can’t get it right, Americans moved further away from capital punishment in 2011.
The death penalty isn't for victim's families, either
Ben Griffith recently wrote a letter-to-the-editor that was published by the Frankfort State-Journal. In it he said this.
To make the leap that murder victim families are united in wanting a death penalty continues the critical oversimplification of “paying a price commensurate with their crimes” and the pathetic use of a grieving family at a parole hearing to justify another murder. I belong to two different organizations of murder victim families (thousands of us) that feel victim survivors are victimized yet again when murderers are given the gallows. My brother was murdered in 1986 and his murderer was poisoned to death in 1997 by the state of Missouri. That is why I work as a board member of the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. Don’t lay the need to continue executions down at victims’ feet. (You don’t know the voices of all of us.)
What's Next
Legislation that would ban the execution of people with severe mental |
at best, you can simply shift the goal posts. Perhaps to “the transparency and readability of the documentation” as proposed in the second comment.
What was that sound you just heard? The whooshing of a goal post moving. And (the sweeter sound of) the agonized tears of the SJW you’ve just ruined with your derail.
Good job!
LOL
This is a fairly simply strategy to deploy, recommended for brogrammers who are too busy doing Real Tech Work to bother with using a more subtle or thought intensive derail. Consequently this is a fairly common tactic, which is also one of its strengths: the more people who use it, the better it works.
The way it functions is by creating so much noise that it becomes difficult to actually ascertain or find any genuine attempts to discuss or engage the topic. It renders the discussion trivial by drowning it in comments with zero substance or importance.
Here are some examples:
There are many more such comments in the thread (good job on effectively and collectively deploying this strategy!). Who knew we could be so clever and terrifically funny? And people say we have no sense of humour. You sure showed them!
I don’t know about you, but I’m incredibly happy to see that there are so many busy, important brogrammers busily creating software and tech that is changing and improving the world in Real Ways.
God bless America.
Who called the PC Police?
‘Political correctness’ is practically like air for SJWs, so depriving them of it is a sure-fire way to put out the fires they like to start with their endless bleating about “you need to treat other people like human beings”, “respecting people involves using language that isn’t violent or hateful”, or other ridiculous notions they use to disguise their true desire for everyone to be politically correct.
The great thing is that ‘political correctness’ has become a four letter word, making this tactic ridiculously easy to deploy: any time you see a SJW talking about how to use language in ways that demonstrate your respect for all living people, call them the “PC Police”. You literally do not have to do anything else, simply labeling them and the discussion as ‘PC’ will win you allies and friends while reducing their support base.
Here are some examples:
Why does this work? Particularly in a situation like this, where the discussion largely involves the descendants of enslaved Africans, calling them the ‘police’ (or implying it as above) does a great job of shutting down the discussion because of the Black community’s ongoing targeting and oppression by the actual police. So equating them (and most marginalized people) with a pseudo-military group who spends their time harassing, attacking, and otherwise harming their community is a super effective way to trigger this history of community trauma by telling them they are just as bad as the people who oppress them.
Clever trick, isn’t it?
Slippery slope is slippery
This is actually a tough tactic to use correctly. Mainly because the ‘slippery slope’ is a logical fallacy. However, because you are amongst the most rational and logical group of people to have ever existed, you obviously know that invoking a fallacy in your argument leaves it wide open to attack from SJWs.
Here is a bad example of how to use this derail:
Word of advice, if you are going to invoke a logical fallacy in your argument, it is best to not actually name the logical fallacy (or derail). You’ve made your derail too easy to dismiss by anyone with even the slightest understanding of logic and/or rhetoric.
Fortunately, there are some more effective examples in the thread too:
See? Much better. Why are these successful, but the first is not? Primarily because they also deploy the LOL strategy as a way to disguise their slippery slope fallacy as a reductio ad absurdum argument.
Reductio ad absurdum is a logical/rhetorical way of discrediting someone’s argument by demonstrating that their premises (or conclusion) entail a contradiction (this is the ‘absurdity’). However, because we also know that because SJWs aren’t capable of true rational thought (they only mimic it), they can often be confused by a slippery slope fallacy mixed with some LOL, since many of them will not realize that ‘absurdum’ doesn’t actually mean any silly or absurd conclusion.
More Important Things
This derailing tactic is fairly straightforward, all you do is simply point out that this (and ‘this’ can be anything) is a waste of time. Bonus points go to the brogrammers who also directly or indirectly assert that there are more important things to do.
Examples:
This derail works by frustrating anyone with any sensitivity to cognitive dissonance. Consider the first example: in it, the person asserts that it is a waste of time and that people should ‘go solve real problems instead of whining about words’…
Except, that is exactly what is happening. Not only are they apparently not solving a real problem (if the trivial change is trivial, then the change isn’t an actual problem) but they are also, wait for it, whining about words since the current discussion is about a change in terminology. That they are whining about. It is like a recursive derail.
I know you may not quite perceive the cognitive dissonance at play here because, of your many virtues, a near insensitivity to cognitive dissonance is one of your greatest assets. But SJWs are often fatally sensitive to it. Thus, upon reading a statement like this, they’ll:
Scream in frustration. Get stuck on an infinite loop, very much like an android faced with a logical contradiction, and their heads will explode. Dissolve into a puddle of goo. all of the above.
Only the most skillful masters of cognitive dissonance will be able to achieve (4), so be sure to hone your skills by practicing as often as you can.
The Lasting Delight of Vacuums
One of the pseudo-academic goobledygook words that SJWs are constantly bleating on about is ‘context’. This nebulous concept is simply something that SJWs like to invoke to confuse people into buying into their irrational notions. Context, they’ll insist, is necessary for understanding certain social issues or whatever.
Thus, this derailing tactic works by pretending that you exist in an atemporal vacuum. Fortunately for us, this isn’t a difficult perspective to embody, since many of you are white cishet men and thus, have the entire world validating your position as default human. And as default human, you don’t actually have any need or use for context. Whatever you say is the word of god, and that is that.
Here are some examples:
Marvelous, is it not? However, these aren’t actually the best examples of the vacuum derail. The best examples are the ones that make facile appeal to context.
To illustrate:
These are clever and subtle examples of this tactic because they actually appeal to context. Except that the context named here is extremely narrow and limited in scope. These three examples note that within a programming/database environment ‘slave/master’ carry no racial meanings, thus the usage is correct. But you know, as well as I do, that this tactic tacitly requires that you live in a larger socio-political/historical vacuum.
Aren’t vacuums delightful?
Coder by day, historian* by night
*Note: this can be exchanged for whatever domain of knowledge you need to appear authoritative on a topic you are clearly ignorant about.
In many ways, this derailing tactic is similar to the vacuum strategy. However, instead of asserting that there is no context, it asserts that a context exists, but that you know or understand it the best. No really, you do, you probably teach a class at Harvard about it. So SJWs best STFU and listen to you, or else!
Some examples:
Isn’t it amazing that you make the best historian, on top of being a most excellent coder? Is there any limit to your skills and knowledge? Such majesty.
The most effective ways to engage this tactic is to cherry pick facts. As the saying goes: the best lies contain a grain of truth. It is also crucially important that you don’t, in actual fact, know anything about history (or whatever domain of discourse) and have zero intention of ever learning about it.
Remember: you are the majestic, brave brogrammer. If you say it, it is true. If it isn’t already reality, it will soon become so.
Ur crazy!
This should only be considered a strategy of the last resort. Or if you really don’t have time to engage in the issue in any actual substantive fashion. Even so, if you are strapped for time, you really ought to aim for the LOL strategy (note how some of the best examples of that derail were quick one liners).
Here are ways to engage this tactic in a straightforward fashion:
Now, some SJWs might insist that these are actually ad hominem fallacies, but they’d be wrong because they are incapable of rational thought.
If you are feeling up to it, however, you can take a more subtle approach:
We should take a moment to admire the sheer elegance of this supremely logical and rational argument. Imagine how silly SJWs feel for not knowing this obvious truth about the world? Well, they should feel silly.
Keen SJWs who’ve learned to mimic the rational thought of their superiors (eg you) might point out that this comment invokes a false dilemma, but don’t pay any attention to their poor attempts to logic. Even if they learn the words, they rarely (if ever) understand them. Much like parrots.
In any case, the point of this derail is to demonstrate your superiority by refusing to engage in the substance of the SJW’s argument by simply attacking their person. This is why this is the most expedient (but also easiest to dismiss) derailing tactic. Since you are super busy and important, you don’t even have to read, consider, or think about the topic at hand. Simply drop in with a ‘lol, ur crazy!’ and zip out to your full and joyful life. Like the LOL tactic, this is best deployed by as many people as possible.
Conclusion
Phew! That was a lot of material to go through. Don’t worry if you don’t remember them all. Hold onto this guide and consult it periodically. Practice each of the tactics as frequently as you can.
Once you are comfortable with each, you can move on to more advanced tactics by combining two or more of the derails in a single comment!
Soon enough, you’ll have defeated all those misguided Social Justice Warriors, for the good of mankind (where mankind = brogrammers)!next Image 1 of 2
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NASA and the European Space Agency have tested out a prototype system that may one day help enable Internet-like communications between Earth and robots on another planet.
Astronaut Sunita Williams, commander of the International Space Station's current Expedition 33 mission, used NASA's experimental Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol to drive a small LEGO robot at the European Space Operations Center in Germany late last month.
[pullquote]
The European-led experiment simulated a scenario in which an astronaut orbiting another world controls a robotic rover on the planet's surface, NASA officials said.
"The demonstration showed the feasibility of using a new communications infrastructure to send commands to a surface robot from an orbiting spacecraft and receive images and data back from the robot," Badri Younes, deputy associate administrator for space communications and navigation at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement.
"The experimental DTN we've tested from the space station may one day be used by humans on a spacecraft in orbit around Mars to operate robots on the surface, or from Earth using orbiting satellites as relay stations," Younes added.
NASA's DTN architecture is a new technology designed to enable standardized communications over long distances and through time delays, agency officials said. At its core is something called the Bundle Protocol (BP), which is similar to the Internet Protocol, or IP, that serves as the heart of the Internet here on Earth.
The big difference between the two is that IP assumes a seamless end-to-end data path, while BP is built to account for errors and disconnections — glitches that commonly plague deep-space communications.
Data move through the BP network in a series of short hops, waiting at one node until the next link becomes available, NASA officials said.
The space station's current Expedition 33 consists of six crewmembers: NASA astronauts Williams and Kevin Ford, Japanese spaceflyer Akihiko Hoshide and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko, Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy.
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Employees gather after a lunch break inside the heavy electrical manufacturing unit of Larsen & Turbo in Mumbai.
© Thomson Reuters 2013
Indian companies that built most of the parts for the country's recently launched Mars mission are using their low-cost, high-tech expertise in frugal space engineering to compete for global aerospace, defence and nuclear contracts worth billions.Mangalyaan spacecraft was launched last month and then catapulted from Earth orbit on December 1, clearing an important hurdle on its 420 million mile journey to Mars and putting it on course to be the first Asian mission to reach the red planet.The venture has a price tag of just 4.5 billion rupees, roughly one-tenth the cost of Maven, NASA's latest Mars mission. Two-thirds of the parts for the Indian probe and rocket were made by domestic firms like Larsen & Toubro, the country's largest engineering firm, Godrej & Boyce, and state plane-maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.While such companies have a long way to go before they can attract big business in the commercial space sector, years of work on home-grown space projects are helping them carve out a niche as suppliers of precision parts for related sectors like defence, aeronautics and nuclear energy.Those firms with proven space know-how will find themselves with the advantage as India, the world's biggest arms importer, shells out $100 billion over a decade to modernise its military with the country favouring local sources.India in June strengthened a defence policy stipulating that local firms must be considered first for contracts and foreign companies winning contracts worth more than 3 billion rupees must "offset" at least 30 per cent of the deal's value in India."We think over the next two to three years we will be able to convert this into a profit centre," said S. M. Vaidya, the business head of Godrej's aerospace division, which made the rocket's engine and fuel-powered thrusters for the Indian Mars probe.Thanks to the space work, the company's engineers now know how to handle the specific metal alloys and the high-precision welding needed for aircraft and missiles as well as rockets, Vaidya added.Godrej has worked with India's space agency for almost three decades and in recent years started making engine parts for aircraft makers Boeing Co, the Airbus unit of EADS and Israel's state-owned Rafael Advanced Defence Systems Ltd. It is in talks with Boeing to make parts for aircraft frames.India launched its domestic space program 50 years ago and had to develop its own rocket technology after Western powers levied sanctions in response to a 1974 nuclear weapons test, resulting in a "go it alone" development mentality.The Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, has worked to keep import costs low by designing most of the parts for its programme that are then outsourced to the domestic private sector.ISRO must still import some metal alloys used in the space programme that it then gives to its contractors and Indian companies also must buy some of the machinery needed to make the parts from Europe and Japan.India's heavy reliance on domestic companies for its space programme allows it to tap homegrown technicians and engineers who earn half as much as those in the West. Starting salaries for aerospace engineers in India are at most $2,000 per month, according to Indian recruitment consultancy TeamLease. The same role in the United States brings in about $5,300 on average, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers."The commercial value of the business with ISRO is not high, it is the spin-offs that are valuable," said M. V. Kotwal, president of the heavy engineering division at Larsen & Toubro, which has made $5.7 million in parts for ISRO in recent years.L&T has also supplied $240 million worth of parts so far to ITER, an inter-governmental science experiment that is building a thermonuclear reactor in southern France.Godrej earlier this year won a deal to build a frame for the world's largest optical telescope in collaboration with University of California, the California Institute of Technology, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy.Walchand Nagar Industries, a Pune-headquartered company that made 100 million rupees worth of parts for India's Mars rocket, said the project helped it win contracts worth double that amount for a state-run nuclear plant in Gujarat.Cardiff council apologises to family and launches inquiry into how ‘inappropriate content’ was shown on crematorium screen
An investigation has been launched after a pornographic film was accidentally shown during the funeral of a father and his baby son.
Hundreds of people had gathered at the council-run Thornhill crematorium in Cardiff to pay their respects to the pair, who were killed following a car crash.
Mourners were shocked when one screen began to show a pornographic video instead of a tribute to the father, who died on New Year’s Eve. Cardiff council has launched an investigation.
A spokesman said: “The council has forwarded a written apology to the family and is carrying out an urgent investigation. There were four television screens used to display visual tributes as part of this funeral service.
“The television screen which showed the inappropriate content was recently installed, replacing a screen which was broken. We are trying to establish if the new screen - which is a smart television - could have accepted or picked up a broadcast by accident via Bluetooth or across a Wi-Fi network.
“The other three screens, which aren’t smart TVs, were unaffected. We are clear that it isn’t possible for any member of staff to play or download anything on the computer that links to the screens in the chapel. The screen has now been completely disconnected until audio visual engineers carry out a thorough investigation.
“We would like to take this opportunity to send our sincere apologies to the family, their relatives, friends and mourners at the funeral.” One mourner said the film played for several minutes before engineers could shut it down.
The Rev Lionel Fanthorpe, who led the service, said: “I remember looking up at the screen and seeing some type of video come on and a very loud noise.
“I look at my congregations instead of the TV screen, but when I heard this noise and members of the congregation moving towards the screen, I realised something was wrong. Members of the family were very distressed. Thankfully an engineer came to fix it and turn it off. It seems to be some kind of electronic accident.”
A spokeswoman for the family said they would not comment until the investigation into what happened was complete.
The father was killed in the car crash in Cardiff. His pregnant wife was also in the car. Following concern about the health of the unborn baby, he was delivered by emergency Caesarean section but died the same day.
Funeral directors James Summers & Son said: “As the crematorium operator, Cardiff council facilitated the digital display of the images during the service. We have requested they launch a full investigation to explain how such a distressing incident could happen.”
A family tribute issued by South Wales police following the accident described the father as a “very popular man who lived for his family”. It added: “He was a wonderful father and husband who was looking forward to the birth of his son. He will never be replaced.”
A man has since been charged with causing two deaths through dangerous driving, aggravated taking of a vehicle without consent, driving while disqualified, and driving without insurance in relation to the accident.Was this the weirdest political debate ever?
Idaho's Republican governor and his Tea Party challenger were completely overshadowed Wednesday by a biker who claimed God told him he would be president and a longtime Idaho resident with 16 children who said he went to jail for home schooling.
The two eccentric candidates were permitted to participate at the debate in Boise, allowing them to sound off on their views on social and political issues alongside Gov. Butch Otter and state Sen. Russ Fulcher. The four are running in the Idaho gubernatorial Republican primary on May 20.
The format made for some interesting debate, and their performance has gone viral.
Harley Brown came dressed in his biker regalia. In his opening remarks he proclaimed that after a low point in his life, God told him he would become the commander in chief.
“Don’t think I’m crazy, 'cause I’m not,” he said.
Brown said he is running against political correctness, saying it "sucks" and is “bondage.” He said he is also fighting to stop discrimination against bikers, who he said are “cop magnets” who get pulled over as often as Playboy bunnies get hit on.
“You have your choice, folks,” he said. “A cowboy, a curmudgeon, a biker, or a normal guy. Take your pick.” For the record, he thinks Fulcher is the “normal guy.”
The other long shot, Walt Bayes, primarily discussed his anti-abortion views. When asked by a reporter if he could actually do the job of governor, he noted he was willing to go to jail for home schooling and was willing to serve as governor and stop abortions until thrown out of office.
He also said he wants to take back the land in Idaho from the federal government. Hammering his family's anti-government credentials, he said his wife drove for three years without a license because she didn’t want to take her car for an emissions test.
“We’ve got a bunch of eastern idiots running everything,” he said.
The debate was a throwback to the infamous 2010 debate among New York gubernatorial candidates where the "rent is too damn high" candidate Jimmy McMillan and an adult film star stole the show.
Watch the video of the Idaho debate here or just the highlights here.Between Police And Black Lives Matter, Hillary Clinton Walking A Fine Line
Enlarge this image toggle caption Drew Angerer/Getty Images Drew Angerer/Getty Images
As Hillary Clinton began a meeting with police chiefs from departments around the country, she expressed gratitude to those on the force.
"They represent officers who get up every day, put on their uniforms, kiss their families goodbye and risk their lives on behalf of our communities," the Democratic nominee said at the Thursday gathering in New York City.
During the brief part of the meeting that was open to reporters, Clinton referenced Dallas, where five police officers were shot and killed in July. She also talked about Baton Rouge, La., where police fatally shot Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, while he was on the ground.
Clinton said there's a lot of work to do to repair trust between communities and police.
"We need to work together to bridge our divides, not stoke even more divisiveness," she said.
Clinton struck a similar theme earlier this week in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. While campaigning before a largely white audience in Scranton on Monday, Clinton mentioned the protests in Milwaukee, which broke out after police shot and killed a black man there last weekend.
"Look at what's happening in Milwaukee right now," Clinton said. "We've got urgent work to do to rebuild trust between police and communities and get back to the fundamental principle: Everyone should have respect for the law and be respected by the law."
Everyone should have respect for the law and be respected by the law.
Clinton's Republican rival, Donald Trump, also talked about Milwaukee this week. During a campaign stop in the nearby suburb of West Bend, Trump accused Clinton of being anti-police because of her calls for reform of the criminal justice system.
"She is against the police, believe me. You know it and I know it, and guess what: She knows it," Trump told the crowd.
Critics on the left, including groups like Black Lives Matter, have accused Clinton of being too slow to address concerns from African-Americans and their allies — a key part of the Democratic base — about aggressive policing. Clinton herself has acknowledged that tension.
"I know that just by saying all these things together, I may upset some people," she said.
Speaking to the African Methodist Episcopal Church General Conference on the day after the Dallas police shootings, Clinton called for national guidelines on the use of deadly force and better training for police.
"I'm talking about criminal justice reform the day after a horrific attack on police officers," Clinton said. "I'm talking about courageous honorable police officers just a few days after officer-involved killings in Louisiana and Minnesota."
While Hillary Clinton tries to navigate those conversations, Donald Trump is walking another line.
This week, he's been praising police while promising to bring "law and order" to African-American neighborhoods. So far, though, he's been making that case in front of mostly white audiences.18 and Life on Skid Row
By Sebastian Bach
Dey St. Books, 448 pp., $27.99
For anyone who has seen an interview with Sebastian Bach, he of the motor-mouth, hellzapoppin’, frenetic energy and a constant stream of verbal non sequiturs, two things come to mind: One, you want to party with him. And two, you want to punch this guy.
But you gotta give him this: The former singer for hard rockers Skid Row — the voice behind “18 and Life,” “Youth Gone Wild” and “I Remember You” — is definitely not one thing. And that’s boring.
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Dey St. Books
In his wild ride of a memoir, 18 and Life on Skid Row, the former church-choir singer(!) and KISS-loving kid born Sebastian Bierk journeys from stage fright to becoming one of hair metal's wildest front men of the ‘80s and ’90s, one who strove to be the most debauched member in a group of heavy rock-and-roll debauchers. An actual chapter title here is “Bunch of Booze, Mountain of Blow, Quaaludes, and Tennis: My Time with Metallica.”
Skid Row fans looking for info on writing and making music and Bach’s fractured relationships with his former bandmates (the group's current incarnation does not include him) won’t find a whole lot here. But what you will get are wild tales of Bach’s insane level of partying with members of Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Aerosmith, Pantera and others. Keep in mind he was still a teenager when he joined Skid Row!
Chapters detail Bach’s daylong coke bender with Lars Ulrich that improbably found them playing tennis on a rooftop court before an unexpected visit from Bach’s grandmother in the wrecked house; his nearly getting into a fistfight with Jon Bon Jovi; his sitting between Axl Rose and David Lee Roth at L.A.'s Rainbow Bar and Grill, knocking back shot after shot while rejecting the overtures of Poison’s Bret Michaels to join their party; his strip-club shenanigans with Kid Rock and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath; and his partying hard on a plane to Russia with Ozzy Osbourne with other metal bands on their way to play an antidrug, anti-booze concert!
“There are so many stories of me getting hammered on Jack Daniel’s and making an ass of myself. I don’t even know where to begin,” he writes. And after detailing story after story, he often adds — as if in apology — “it was a different time.”
Yes, a different time that once found a hammered Bach at a strip club, in a cage, and completely naked when he decided it would be a good idea to set his pubic hair on fire. And then there are the women, of whom he enjoyed many, including one he duct-taped. My review copy of the book also includes some odd-looking computer-generated editing notes near the regular text that possibly were printed by error. Sample notes include “eating pussy w Matt,” “too high to fuck in Germany,” and “Slash’s house nude boxing.”
Bach also learns hard lessons about meeting your heroes (both Paul Stanley and Ace Frehley thrill, then disappoint him) and business. Instead of getting big checks at the end of a successful yearlong tour supporting Slave to the Grind, members of Skid Row are presented with invoices — the cost of their stage pyrotechnics and hotel/booze bills outstrip their earnings — that add a new word to his vocabulary: "shortfall."
Houston appears once in the book, when Bach is being interviewed on “The Bone” radio station some years back while promoting a solo record. Sitting in front of a large poster of Skid Row for Internet filming, the singer turns the image around to the blank back side and gets into an argument with the DJs about rehashing his past versus promoting new material.
Bach in the title role of "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" on Broadway. He writes it was harder work than fronting any rock band. Photo by Eduardo Patino/Courtesy of Dey St. Books
Since his 1996 ouster from Skid Row, Bach has carved out a pretty respectable career as a solo touring and recording artist, in musical theater (playing title roles in both Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Jesus Christ Superstar), and reality TV (Celebrity Fit Club and the much-loved Supergroup).
Memorably, in Supergroup Bach lobbied hard for the name of the ad hoc band he formed with Scott Ian, Jason Bonham, Ted Nugent, and Evan Seinfeld to be “Savage Animal!" Bach also writes of his confrontations with Uncle Ted on the set over the latter’s liberal usage of the word “nigger” and their opposing views on racial equality.
Bach also spent several seasons playing a rock and roller on Gilmore Girls, and is in Netflix's current reboot as well. He writes that in airports and malls, he’s just as often recognized for this role as for his real singing.
Now (mostly) sober and with the “love of his life,” Bach ends this wild book with an open plea to his former bandmates to re-form the classic lineup of Skid Row. The ticking clock has been brought home to him by the recent death of his pal, Lemmy from Motörhead, along with David Bowie and Prince, he says. But if not, he's always got that gig with Hep Alien.From the King’s Court to beard hats, you have to give the Mariners marketing staff credit for their clever promotions. But their latest idea just might be the hottest.
The M’s have announced their first ever “Salute to Sriracha Night” in honor of the popular hot sauce, Thursday May 22 vs. the Houston Astros at Safeco Field.
For $25, fans get a ticket on the Main Level, a Mariners Sriracha t-shirt and a voucher for one menu item made with the spicy red condiment – either a Sriracha cream cheese hot dog, Sriracha garlic fries, or a Sriracha milkshake. Yes, a milkshake.
“We love Sriracha hot sauce in the office,” says Gregg Greene, Mariners Senior Marketing Director. “We’re always borrowing each others’ bottles. We know people think it’s cool and has some cache and we thought ‘why don’t we do a night to celebrate Sriracha at the ballpark’?”
If you’ve never tried Sriracha, it’s a hot, slightly sweet sauce made from a purée of fresh red jalapeños, garlic powder, sugar, salt and vinegar. The tangy paste is packed in clear plastic bottles adorned with a rooster and a signature green cap.
Although the hot sauce is made in California, one of the owners is a big Mariners fan and will be flying in for the game, Greene says. “We expect a happy, hot section.”
Tickets are available exclusively on the Mariners website.Tonight marked the second night in a row that Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald tussled with CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin over the release of NSA surveillance programs, only this time he was joined by New York Times journalist James Risen (who’s currently involved in a leak case of his own). Greenwald and Risen tag-teamed Toobin to rebut some of the most ridiculous claims made to date around the surveillance debate.
Toobin got Greenwald to clarify that the XKeyscore program revealed on Wednesday primarily targets international e-mails, though Greenwald insisted there’s still plenty of leeway for abuse. Risen added that it’s hard to “separate domestic from international that cleanly.”
Which brings us to logical fallacy number one: Toobin believes that Edward Snowden is a criminal who “should not have done what he did,” but thought that the public discussion is good, and said, “My hat’s off to Glenn for investigative reporting.”
Risen pointed out the blatantly obvious problem with Toobin’s logic.
“We wouldn’t be having this discussion if it wasn’t for him. Why do you think–I mean, that’s the thing I don’t understand about the climate in Washington these days, is that people want to have debates on television elsewhere, but then you want to throw the people who start the debates in jail.”
This is not the first time Toobin has made this assertion, as I noted in a column here last month. Here’s what Toobin said on Morgan’s program mere days after the first NSA revelations came out:
“There are many good reasons to protest this law. I’m troubled by this law. But I think there are right ways to do it and wrong ways to do it. And by a 29-year-old kid just throwing open the safe and giving away documents that people have devoted years of their lives to creating and protecting, that’s the wrong way to protest this.”
It really bears repeating that the national security apparatus wasn’t suddenly going to have a come to Jesus moment and decide to become more transparent all of a sudden. We have a secret court with its own secret interpretation of the law, so the government’s pretty firmly in the “secrecy” camp. Snowden releasing the documents was pretty much the only way the public was ever going to find out about these programs.
But that wasn’t the only logical fallacy Toobin pushed, he also repeated the same ridiculous talking point that basically boils down to, “Boy, that freedom-loving Snowden certainly loves those freedom-hating countries, doesn’t he?” Greenwald shot back that the reason Snowden went to China and Russia instead of staying is because we have “a country full of Jeffrey Toobins” that would bring him up on charges the millisecond he steps on American soil.
The idea that Snowden isn’t going to free countries so boo on him sounds nice in principle, but the free nations he could have gone to happen to be allies with the United States that aren’t going to welcome in a fugitive that the U.S. government charged under the Espionage Act with open arms. Remember how the Bolivian president’s plane was diverted when there were reports Snowden was on board? Portugal and France didn’t want Snowden in their airspace, let alone on their soil. And countries that, say, don’t have as favorable a view of the United States will be more likely to welcome someone who’s making its government look bad.
But there I go, using logic again.
Watch the video below, via CNN:
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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.comI was very disappointed to read Live Action’s article “Shawn Carney on the pro-life movement’s greatest victory” in which he says:
“And it has to be a religious movement because we can’t face this on our own. It’s too overwhelming. And when it’s based on our faith in God it means it’s something that’s never going away. There are few things as clearly religious in our country than the pro-life movement. It is one built of people of faith. And that’s our biggest asset….But that’s a crucial point and it’s the most important point – that this is a religious movement and that it is one made up of sinners.”
In fact, there are many pro-lifers who are not Christian. And it’s attitudes like Carney’s that make it very, very difficult for us to stay in the pro-life movement.
I am an atheist pro-lifer. I am not the only one. Secular Pro-life is an organization that draws nonbelievers from many walks of life. I can honestly say, if that supportive group did not exist, I may have left the pro-life movement long ago. Why? Because it is so demoralizing to be in a movement where so many of your fellow workers simply don’t want you there.
A while back, I posted a poll in a pro-life forum, where I asked pro-lifers if they would march side by side or work with a pro-life atheist. Almost half of them said they would not. They told me that they would not want to be “unequally yoked” with a nonbeliever.
Even worse was the reaction I got when I tried to volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center. They were open and friendly when I told them I wanted to work there. They listened when I told them I had had a great deal of experience discussing abortion on the internet, and had helped numerous women choose life. Then I told them I was an atheist. “Sorry, we are a Christian ministry” the woman said. “We don’t have atheists or nonchristians working here. But you are free to give a donation.”
I asked them if I could have a position where I wouldn’t be called upon to counsel women. Could I do paperwork or answer the phone? The answer was no. They wanted no help from me.
As an experiment, I took up the phone book and called nine crisis pregnancy centers. I did not find a single one that would allow an atheist to volunteer.
It is things like this that sap a person’s strength and bring down their morale. Being a pro-lifer is hard. I get a lot of ostracism from friends and family due to my work at Live Action. I have family members who won’t even speak to me. I have lost friends over the years because they didn’t accept my pro-life work. Getting so little support from pro-lifers is completely disheartening.
I often talk with women who are considering abortion. Yet I find myself reluctant to refer them to crisis pregnancy centers. These are places whose workers feel I am not even worthy to shuffle papers, who wanted nothing to do with me. I usually do refer them to the centers, but I never feel good about it.
As for 40 Days for Life, I tried to listen to one of their webcasts once. They started with a prayer- ok, I understand, they are a Christian group. Then we were treated to fifteen minute of rhetoric about Jesus. They made broad statements such as “We are a movement of Christians…” “As Christians we know…” By the time I |
do anything to protect normal kids from being bullied, but for trans kids, they go to extremes.”
“Did you realize private, faith based, schools and homeschool are gaining popularity, and these folks wonder why?”
The guidelines point out that 31 percent of transgender and gender nonconforming students have attempted suicide. Actually, across the nation, multiple studies have shown that about 40 percent of transgenders have attempted suicide.
“While students often feel excited, happy and relieved to have their gender affirmed at school, transition might also be a time of great stress for them, their family and guardians,” the guidelines state.
School officials are warned to call the student by whatever name and gender pronoun the student chooses, and let them participate in athletics and other activities under the gender they say they are.
One problem could be homecoming kings and queens.
“Schools may wish to consider revisiting existing traditions or establishing new traditions. For example, instead of electing a homecoming king and homecoming queen, some schools have chosen to nominate ‘prom ambassadors’…”
Let them dress how they want, use the restroom they want, the showers they choose and even room on school trips with others who “match the student’s gender identity.”
That could mean assigning a boy and three girls, or a girl and three boys, to a motel room.
The fight that’s already begun, in Pennsylvania, is being fought by the Alliance Defending Freedom.
It sued Boyertown Area School District after the first boy in the case turned around in a boys locker room and saw a girl changing clothes.
The lawsuit charges that without any notice to students or their parents, school officials “secretly opened” their sex-specific restrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex.
See what American education has become, in “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.”
The male student notified school officials, who informed him that they now authorize students who identify themselves as the opposite sex to use whichever locker room they wish. Rather than protect the student’s privacy, officials told him he must “tolerate” the presence of a female and make changing clothes with students of the opposite sex as “natural” as he can.
President Obama’s administration moved to give gender-confused individuals the right to infringe on the privacy of others in public facilities, such as restrooms and locker rooms. Obama even issued executive orders instructing public schools to accommodate students according to “gender identity” or risk losing federal funds.
But the orders were rescinded by President Trump.If you’re a regular reader of BBB, you will have no doubt noticed that we like a little Shadow Child. Shadow Child aka Simon Neale has already had a successful career under his more well known alias Dave Spoon, however in 2012 his new monica came to the fore with releases such as ‘String Thing’ on Dirtybird and ‘So High‘ on Jaymo and Andy George’s Moda Black. These releases not only captured the dancefloor but also the attention of a key artists such as Claude VonStroke, Maya Jane Coles, Skream, B Traits, Eats Everything and Pete Tong to name a few. With this in mind Point Blank Online Music Production School have invited Shadow Child to conduct a LIVE Master Class this Thursday (17th Jan) at 5.30pm.
Simon will be delving into his vast reserve of electronic musical knowledge whilst dissecting one of his own tracks in the process. If you are a producer of any shape or form this is certainly worth a watch.
Shadow Child – Live Master Class (January 17th 5.30pm, UK Time) – Click Here to Watch or stream below:
Learn more techniques such as this via Point Blanks vast selection of online courses.Según indicó Informativo Sarandí, en esta oportunidad, la "banda del gas" provocó el estallido de los vidrios donde se encontraban dos cajeros, uno de RedBrou y uno de Banred, aunque no pudo extraer el dinero. En el lugar, efectivos encontraron una garrafa.
Embed 0400 am fue act la B. Explosivo ante intento de robo a cajero Agraciada y Grito de Asencio. La modalidad de actuacion se reitero nuevamente. pic.twitter.com/FNm4I2ar8B — Ejército del Uruguay (@EjercitoUy) 6 de noviembre de 2017
Subrayado, se llevaron más de $ 3 millones. El hecho se suma a otros dos, uno en el cajero de un supermercado en Manuel Pagola y Chucarro, ocurrido el pasado 30 de octubre y que había sido cargado con $ 2,4 millones y US$ 16.200; y al efectuado este domingo en el cajero de Cebollatí y Barrios Amorín. En ese segundo atraco, informó, se llevaron más de $ 3 millones.
Embed Brigada de Explosivos 02.30 AM trabajó en cajero automático en Barrios Amorim.
Peritaje informa que la explosión se debió a gas inflamable. pic.twitter.com/gP3cqLBELS — Ejército del Uruguay (@EjercitoUy) 5 de noviembre de 2017
La explosión consiste en introducir en el cajero automático una manguera conectada a una garrafa, llenarlo de gas y provocar la explosión. Debido a la facilidad de la maniobra, la Brigada de Explosivos del Ejército no descarta que estos casos puedan repetirse.
En la madrugada de este lunes delincuentes hicieron explotar un cajero en Agraciada y Grito de Asencio. Se trata del tercer intento de robo en poco más de una semana bajo la misma modalidad, la explosión por gas inflamable. El Ejército informó que el hecho ocurrió a las 4 de la madrugada y la Brigada de Explosivos trabaja en el lugar.“Ode to Joy,” the immensely popular online TV drama on the friendship and love lives of five urban women, has come under fire for its depiction of mentally disabled people.
Changsha Thanksgiving Trip Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, a non-governmental organization that helps psychiatric patients reintegrate into society, posted an open letter on its Weibo microblog on Sunday in which it called on the show to stop stigmatizing people with mental disorders.
The offending scenes concern the backstory of Andi, one of the main characters in the show. Reunited with her long-lost father, she finds out he originally left the family because her mother had a severe mental disorder, just like her grandmother.
Andi’s father did not know her mother was pregnant at the time, and he tells her that if he had known, he would have asked for an abortion or strangled Andi when she was a baby, for fear of passing the mental disorder on to her.
The NGO’s open letter said the “Maybe I would have strangled you” line was especially painful. “It seems that it’s better to die if you have mental illness. We feel greatly hurt,” the letter said.
A screenshot from ‘Ode to Joy’ shows a character saying ‘[Maybe I would have] strangled you’ to his daughter, who asked him what he would have done had he found her as a baby, knowing that she might inherit her mother’s mental illness.
Daylight Entertainment, the production company behind “Ode to Joy,” declined to comment on the issue when contacted by Sixth Tone.
The show’s second season is set to begin shooting later this year. The 42 episodes of the show’s first season have so far been viewed more than 11 billion times.
The letter points out that many patients can have a regular life with the help of medication. But, it said, the fear of psychiatric disorders manifested in the drama may cause greater prejudice from viewers toward patients.
“Our hope is that psychiatric rehabilitants can live and work happily in society just like other people,” said the deputy director of the association, known in the mental health community by his pseudonym He Ma.
He used to have a mental disorder, too. In an interview with Sixth Tone, he said most of his family and friends don’t know about his situation. And the reason he keeps it from them is that he doesn’t want to be seen as different from others.
“If they knew, even if they wouldn’t discriminate against me, they would pity or look down on me,” said He. “But we are just ordinary people.”
According to statistics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of Chinese with mental disorders is over 100 million, of which 1.6 million have “severe” disorders. A recent report by medical journal The Lancet showed there are 1.2 million adolescents with depression alone, and that its prevalence is on the rise.
A law on mental health passed in 2013 stipulates that no individuals or organizations can discriminate against, insult, or abuse people with mental disorders. It also bans discrimination in media reports and works of art and literature.
However, for He and others, problems persist. For example, He said many have faced discrimination when looking for jobs.
Zhao Xudong, professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Tongji University School of Medicine in Shanghai, told Sixth Tone that discrimination, coupled with a lack of medical resources, has prevented many from seeking help.
“Many people know that they should go to the hospital, but they dare not do so,” said Zhao.
Additional reporting by Li You.
(Header image: A girl with a mental disorder expresses refusal when nurses ask whether she would like her family to take her home from a mental hospital in Zhejiang province, Nov. 16, 2013. Yan Zhi/VCG)Hullabaloo
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Goldilocks With A Tan
by digby
The second time today I thought I was reading The Onion :
The Necessary Man
Ignore the fake tan. John Boehner could actually be a good speaker of the House.
No that isn't David Brooks, although I'm sure he'll get right on that. It's Newsweak.
Don't you want to know why he'll be such a good speaker?
In truth, Boehner is one of the few players in American politics with the potential to give both Republicans and Democrats what they need in the wake of November’s anticipated GOP landslide. For the left, that means an experienced legislative negotiator on the opposite side of the aisle. For the right, it means a leader who can rack up tangible accomplishments for the party to run on in 2012—while also keeping the new, red-meat caucus from eating him alive.
He's juuuuust right.
And for "the left" that's great news because he's an experienced negotiator, which presumably means that he knows just how to screw us. In Villagespeak, that's just what we need:
...GOP speakers have worked with Democratic presidents before and gotten results. In the mid-1990s, for example, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich buckled down and, over the course of dozens of long, wonky White House bull sessions, hammered out plans to reform welfare, balance the budget, pay off $405 billion in debt, provide health care to uninsured children, and make Medicare and Social Security more sustainable—even though Gingrich was better known for partisan warfare than compromise.
Golly I can hardly wait.(I don't know what the hell they are talking about with Medicare and Social Security, but you sure don't hear anybody touting this great accomplishment.)
This reminds me of some village wisdom from a decade ago:
"Given the present bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush."
How'd that work out for us?
.
digby 9/19/2010 05:00:00 PMProminent energy expert Matt Simmons, founder of energy investment bank Simmons & Company, says sending a small nuclear bomb down the leaking well is “probably the only thing we can do” to stop the leak.
Simmons also says that there is evidence of a second oil leak about five to seven miles from the initial leak that BP has focused on fixing. That second leak, he says, is so large that the initial one is “minor” in comparison.
“A week ago Sunday the first research vessel … was commissioned by NOAA to scour the area,” he said. They found “a gigantic plume” growing about five to seven miles from the site of the original leak, Simmons said.
Simmons said the US government should immediately take the effort to plug the leak out of the hands of BP and put the military in charge.
“Probably the only thing we can do is create a weapons system and send it down 18,000 feet and detonate it, hopefully encasing the oil,” he said.
His idea echoes that of a Russian newspaper that earlier this month suggested the US detonate a small nuclear bomb to seal the oil beneath the sea. Komsomoloskaya Pravda argued in an editorial that Russia had successfully used nuclear weapons to seal oil spills on five occasions in the past.
(Source: RawStory.com)The appointment Friday of a rookie minister to the pivotal parliamentary function of government House leader is the clearest possible signal that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals expect mostly clear sailing in the Commons this fall. In theory, opportunities for neophyte minister Bardish Chagger to drop the ball over her first few months in the job of steering the government’s agenda through the House should be few and far between.
In theory, opportunities for neophyte government House leader Bardish Chagger to drop the ball over her first few months in the job of steering the government’s agenda through the House should be few and far between, writes Chantal Hébert. ( Patrick Doyle / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
After all, her government is coming back to Parliament with as strong a hand as a ruling party can hope for. That starts with a majority sustained by a caucus that is still comfortable taking its cues from the top. To wit, the overwhelming Liberal support on a free vote for the government’s assisted suicide legislation last spring. This is the period in Trudeau’s tenure where hope still sustains individual ambitions. Restless MPs are rarely a feature of first-term governments — especially popular ones. Chances are the Liberals were not waiting with bated breath to find out if the Green party would follow the Conservatives, the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois and start on a search for fresh leadership. In the larger scheme of the upcoming sitting, May’s resignation would not have made any difference to the government or to the workings of the House.
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From the Liberals’ perspective, the fact that the main opposition parties are going to be distracted by leadership campaigns for the rest of the year and beyond is what really matters. In any event, May announced on Monday that she is staying on for the foreseeable future. When all is said and done, the success of the Trudeau government this fall will not be measured on the scale of how many bills it gets passed in Parliament but rather on whether it can craft a lasting consensus on two sensitive files: climate change and electoral reform. Both issues will present the opposition with opportunities to press the government into action (or inaction in the case of the Conservatives) but those opportunities will come with defining choices for the leaderless parties to make. Take climate change. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to move beyond generalities on carbon pricing. A national plan that features both effective action and unanimous provincial buy-in is almost certainly out of reach. But a federal scheme that does not enjoy widespread support among the provinces — starting with the four larger ones — would be politically self-defeating. Striking a palatable balance will undoubtedly test the skills of the government and tell much about its actual determination to meet more rigorous climate-change targets. But it will also be a test for the post-Harper Conservative opposition.
Over the former prime minister’s last term, Conservative opposition to carbon pricing was a given. But the campaign for his succession features candidates with contrary views as to the party’s stance going forward. There also differences at the provincial level with Ontario and Alberta’s Conservatives heading in opposite directions. As long as the internal party debate on climate change is not resolved it may be difficult for the Conservative official Opposition to craft a credible critique of the government’s policy. In comparison to carbon pricing, the debate over electoral reform is playing out on a tiny stage. The file for now is in the hands of a parliamentary committee that is dominated by an opposition majority. But the clock is ticking as switching from one voting system to another is not done overnight.
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This is a Liberal promise that is closer to the hearts of the Green party and the New Democrats than to that of many in the government. On Monday May declared it her top priority for the next sitting of Parliament. At some point she and the NDP might have to decide whether to support a model that falls short of their proportional ideal but that the Liberals will agree to implement, or miss out entirely on the opportunity to do away with a first-past-the-poll system that has tended to shortchange them. In the last sitting of Parliament, it was electoral reform and not a ballooning budget deficit or the delicate issue of assisted suicide or the pursuit of a military mission against ISIS that saw tempers flare in the Commons. If Chagger is to undergo a baptism of fire as house leader this fall it may well be on the same front. Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Read more about:After weeks of speculation that a US attack on North Korea could be imminent, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who played a substantial role in the rhetoric that fueled that belief, sought to play down the idea of an immediate attack, saying that the US is willing to be patient and will not strike so long as the threat is considered “manageable.”
This is in stark contrast to official statements in the past month, with Tillerson having declared diplomacy to have failed, and Vice President Mike Pence having declared the era of patience “over” weeks ago. The US continues to add warships, and anti-missile systems to the theater of operations too, with the Pentagon having just warned Congress of the potential for large-scale consequences for a new Korean War.
Tillerson went on to declare North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to be a “ruthless murderer,” but insisted he was “not insane” and has been making “rational choices.” The US expects this to ultimately result in a choice to capitulate to US demands.
Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris sure doesn’t seem to be on the same page about the situation being well in hand, insisting in his own comments that the situation on the Korean Peninsula is the worst he’s seen, insisting that the US mustn’t take the option of invading North Korea off the table.
Whether this represents a split within the administration on what they intend to do, or just deliberate ambiguity is unclear, though President Trump’s repeated pledges to “take care of” North Korea have put the whole region on alert, and fear of a war about to happen have been echoed by nations like China and Russia as well, so it isn’t just Americans reading too much into the administration’s comments.
Last 5 posts by Jason DitzTickets
Apart from the unique atmosphere, the 2014 Philadelphia Wine + Food Festival will highlight an all-new line up of upscale tastings in a festival environment. With over 600 samplings, guests will have the opportunity to taste exclusive wines from around the world, and pair these selections with modern cuisine from Philadelphia’s best restaurants. Local vendors will also be on-site, providing sampling of their latest products – from charcuterie to gourmet desserts.
VIP Tasting
5:00 – 9:00 PM | $225
VIP Guests will enjoy early access to the event and will receive more intimate experience with the winemakers and winery representatives. VIPs will also have the opportunity to taste a selection of rare wines not offered during the Grand Tasting, and be the among the first to sample dishes from local upscale restaurants and explore the elite wine collection available in the on-site Fine Wine & Good Spirits store. VIP guests will receive a $20 gift certificate to PA Wine & Spirits Stores, for use in the on-site store that evening.
See the VIP Tasting wine list.The Kiwi Way - part one: Steven Adams' journey to the NBA begins in Rotorua where the OKC Thunder star embraces the 'Kiwi way' on his return in 2015.
Steven Adams' story of how he made it to the NBA is told in this documentary video series produced by his NBA team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The video production team followed Adams back to New Zealand in the NBA off-season in 2015 to find out about the colourful basketball centre's past, visiting his hometown Rotorua, his school in Wellington and then back in the USA.
OKC Thunder/ NBA The Kiwi Way - part two: The NBA discovers just how much Steven Adams has changed basketball in New Zealand.
OKC Thunder/ NBA The Kiwi Way - part three: Steven Adams overcomes hardships with a blended focus on basketball and academics, eventually leading to a college scholarship in the US and the NBA.
OKC Thunder/ NBA The Kiwi Way - part four: Steven Adams' New Zealand youth basketball camps bring in a record number of kids.
OKC Thunder/ NBA The Kiwi Way - part five: Steven Adams is drafted into the NBA and New Zealanders have a new team to follow, the Oklahoma City Thunder.A new book by a Chinese dissident planned for publication in Hong Kong and critical of China’s president Xi Jinping has been suspended due to pressure.
Yu Jie, a writer based in the US, wrote in an op-ed for Apple Daily that he finished the book Xi Jinping’s Nightmare two months ago. The book was a critique of the Xi regime. It would have been his second book on Xi, after China’s Godfather, Xi Jinping was published in 2014.
“When I finished the draft, I had a discussion with Open, the company that published China’s Godfather, Xi Jinping, and we reached an initial agreement on publishing,” Yu said. “We completed preliminary work such as editing and cover design on it shortly before Christmas. It would start printing on New Year’s Day.”
On January 3, Yu received an email from Jin Zhong, chief editor of Open, that the publication of his book was to be suspended.
“The difficulty of publishing political books in Hong Kong is already in the international spotlight. People in the industry are feeling great fear and pressure; they want to stay out of trouble so that they won’t be the next one [to disappear]. I received many calls from friends and family trying to persuade me. Because of that, we decided after much deliberation to suspend the publication of your work,” Jin wrote.
“I sincerely ask for your understanding. We published China’s Godfather, Xi Jinping, but circumstances have changed, and I am not able to face the huge consequences,” Jin said, adding that he was “deeply sorry”. Jin confirmed to HKFP that the letter was his.
Jin’s concerns are not without precedent. Hong Kong publisher Lee Bo went missing on December 30. He is a shareholder of Causeway Bay Books, which specialises in books on political gossip banned in the mainland. Yiu Man-tin, a Hong Kong publisher who had earlier planned to publish China’s Godfather, Xi Jinping was arrested in Shenzhen in October 2013 for “smuggling ordinary goods”. In May 2014 he was sentenced to ten years in jail. Jin Zhong then took over the publication of the book.
Yu says that he understood the unprecedented pressure and potential harm that publishers faced. He contacted five or six other Hong Kong publishers, but none were willing to publish Xi Jinping’s Nightmare.
Yu says that the book will be published in Taiwan in late February, calling Taiwan the “last lighthouse of publishing freedom for ethnic Chinese society”. On whether the Taiwanese version will be available in Hong Kong bookstores, Yu says he is “not optimistic”.
Yu, originally from Chengdu, is a prolific writer with more than 30 books to his name, including China’s Best Actor: Wen Jiabao – on the former Chinese premier – and other titles banned in China.
He was under house arrest between 2010 and 2012 before he and his family emigrated to the US.Five finalists have been announced for a new public art project that’s being called the official gateway to Little Armenia.
The permanent installation is intended to acknowledge the cultural diversity and heritage of the Armenian population of Los Angeles—one of the nation’s largest—and serve as a nod to the contributions the Armenian community has made to the city of LA.
“We are on track to create a cultural landmark that will serve as a point of pride for the Little Armenia community,” said Los Angeles City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell.
The artwork will go up on a little patch of land where Hollywood Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue meet, right next to the 101 Freeway.
Proposed art pieces from the five finalist are below, but the designs will also be on display for a final review at a community meeting from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, March 25 at the Hollywood Banquet Hall at 5214 Sunset Boulevard.
Darpas & Karas
Artists Vladimir Atanian, Gor Atanian, and Armen Kazanchyan’s piece will incorporate the “darpas” (gateway) and the “karas” (amphora) as reflections of Armenian culture and community. The piece will feature handmade tiles and red limestone.
The Western Gate to the City of…
Artist Ilan Averbuch’s steel and granite sculptural installation is intended to mimic “a gateway from the fortified walls of an ancient Armenian city.”
Amennurr
Cliff Garten, whose “Lotus” sits at Vermont and Wilshire, evokes community and shared experience with his pomegranate-inspired stainless steel piece.
To be is to belong: There is only the Earth…
Narineh Mirzaeian & Heather Roberge employ aluminum panels and carved tuff stone to draw on the theme of belonging. Their piece extends “a promise of belonging” not just to Armenians, but to all Angelenos.
Իմ սիրտը (My Heart)
Heath Satow uses steel and concrete in his piece, which integrates the image of a pomegranate seed, words and phrases in Armenian, and the Armenians symbol for eternity.An Australian woman has been released from an Abu Dhabi jail and deported after being arrested for posting an image on Facebook of a vehicle blocking two disabled car spots at her apartment block.
Jodi Magi was arrested and jailed on Monday for writing "bad words" on social media, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported.
The 39-year-old artist posted a statement on Facebook on Tuesday night, saying that she had been released.
Obviously, I think a $3600 fine and deportation with a complimentary incarceration period was an extreme reaction to a jpg of a car... Jodi Magi, Australian artist
"After 53 hours in custody, having been shackled at the ankles, strip-searched, blood tested, forced to sleep on a concrete floor without a mattress or pillow and having no access to toilet paper or eating utensils, I can happily say I AM SAFE & OUT OF JAIL AND ABU DHABI!," Magi's statement said.
"If you think what happened to me was insane, spend a couple of days in an Abu Dhabi jail; I have nothing to complain about compared to the vast majority of women I met whose only crime was being poor, marrying the wrong guy, getting pregnant outside of marriage or/and being victims of rampant and systemic police corruption.
"I know 1000% after hearing their stories that I would never have been released in such a speedy fashion without a) my Australian nationality, b) the media coverage (surreal), c) the belated efforts of the embassy and d) all of the support from my friends as well as people I have never even met."
Magi was found guilty at a trial last month, but when she attended an Abu Dhabi court to pay a fine on Monday, she was detained by officials.
The photo at the centre of the case reportedly showed a vehicle without any disabled stickers, blocking two car spots reserved for those with disabilities at Magi's apartment block.
RELATED: Amnesty slams UAE repression
The number plate of the car was reportedly blacked out in the photo, making the vehicle difficult to identify. The photo has been removed from Facebook since it was posted in February.
On Tuesday, Magi defended her post.
"Obviously, I think a $3600 fine and deportation with a complimentary incarceration period was an extreme reaction to a jpg of a car when I did not swear or mention a single name and blocked the registration plate," she said in her Facebook statement, adding that she has travelled to Laos.
On her personal website, Magi said she moved to Abu Dhabi in 2012, where she taught Emirati women graphic design.Slender: The Arrival, Parsec Productions and Blue Isle Studios' sequel to the Something Awful meme-turned-video game Slender: The Eight Pages, is slated to hit Steam on Halloween with new content, according to a newsletter issued by the game's developers.
A specific release date and details about the new content was not provided in the announcement. Released on PC earlier this year, Slender: The Arrival is a collaboration between Blue Isle Studios and the developers of the original Slender title, Parsec Productions.
Slender: The Arrival was developed as the official re-imagining of Slender: The Eight Pages. It consists of the same gameplay found in the original, incorporating improved visuals, more content, more levels and "an engaging storyline."
Blue Isle Studios announced via its website late last month that Slender: The Arrival now officially supports the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.The U.S. Department of Transportation this week released a national “noise map,” tracking decibel levels in cities around the country. The map focuses exclusively on noise caused by transportation, which explains why there is not an angry red splotch around my downstairs neighbor’s apartment and his expensive speakers.
Unsurprisingly, the most transportation-related noise in Dallas stems from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a giant purple streak on the relatively low-decibel orange coating of the region’s many surface streets. Love Field, similarly, brings the noise. Those pink lines crossing the map would be our highways.
Airports and highways, it turns out, are loud.
According to the study the map is based on, about 97 percent of Americans will potentially “be exposed to noise from aviation and Interstate highways at levels below 50 decibels or roughly comparable to the noise level of a humming refrigerator. A much smaller segment of the U.S. resident population has the potential to be exposed to higher levels of aviation and Interstate highway noise.”
The very unlucky one-tenth of a percent that “could potentially experience noise levels of 80 decibels or more, equivalent to the noise level of a garbage disposal,” may want to look into moving. And, as U.S. DOT suggests, planners should consult maps such as this to account for the racket of transportation.
For reference, the dark purple and blue areas of the map could potentially endure noise of 80 decibels and above, the lightest orange about 35. (The loud spot west of Fort Worth, which took me a minute to puzzle out, is the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base.)
Zoom in and around the country’s noisiest transportation hubs at your leisure here.Superwoman is late. This is to be expected. Her interview with the Star was scheduled to begin an hour earlier, but Superwoman has fans — hundreds of them here, pressed up against a security fence in the Brampton SilverCity parking lot — and they all want an autograph.
Lilly Singh, known online as Superwoman, is known for her twice-weekly videos, building a YouTube following in the millions. ( YouTube ) YouTube celebrity Superwoman was mobbed by tween fans during a recent appearance at a Brampton movie theatre. Though she still lives with her parents, Lilly Singh, a.k.a. Superwoman, is an international sensation thanks to her YouTube videos, which she produces professionally. ( Eric Andrew-Gee )
Superwoman obliges, taking the pens thrust at her from the crowd. “Oh my God,” says one girl, maybe a dozen times, after her grey rectangle of bristol board is signed. “I’m gonna cry, I swear to God,” says another, trembling fan.
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Tween after tween, they looked flushed, even a little distraught, at the intensity of the experience. Some are tearful, others wear T-shirts emblazoned with the iconic red-and-yellow “S.” Superwoman is the screen name of 25-year-old Lilly Singh. Born and raised in Scarborough and now living with her parents in Markham, she has become one of the world’s biggest YouTube stars. If you’re older than 16, you probably have no idea who she is. If you’re younger than 16, there’s a decent chance she’s your hero; nearly four million people subscribe to her YouTube channel, on which she posts short, funny videos twice a week. Singh is part of a generation of YouTubers cornering the entertainment market of the future: low-budget, self-produced, alternately intimate and goofy and, most importantly, 100-per-cent digital. Today, she’s helping launch the soundtrack for Dr. Cabbie, a movie about Indian immigrants to Canada in which she has a small part. Thousands have turned out for a glimpse of Salman Khan, the Bollywood heartthrob who co-produced the film. But #TeamSuper, Singh’s social media-based fan club, is well represented.
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A day before the event, she posted an online appeal for viewers to show up and stage a digital insurgency against the impending silver-screen worship. “I really have this desire to make it known that the Internet exists and YouTubers are important,” she says earnestly into a hand-held camera. “And not only are YouTubers important, our followings are incredible.”
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“I want this event to happen, and I want there to be a sea of Superwoman there. Not because of me — because of us.” The call to arms worked. As one of the dozens of signs held aloft in the melting late August heat said: “Superwoman and YouTube brought us here.” Just about everyone with an Internet connection has some use for YouTube. It’s an almost infinitely flexible platform and, with 100 hours of video being uploaded every minute, a storehouse of everything from Maria Callas singing opera to footage of people falling off their roofs. YouTube has been particularly good at targeting adolescent girls. Increasingly, when tweens come home from school looking to veg out, they flip open their laptops rather than reaching for the remote. People between 12 and 17 watch less conventional TV than any other age bracket: about 21 hours a week compared to the 34 weekly hours watched by their parents (people aged 35-49). A 2013 study by the New York Times found a third of millennials watch mostly online video or don’t watch broadcast TV at all. YouTube receives over a billion unique visitors a month, and those viewers aren’t just watching sitcom reruns or old movies. The online video boom has created its own genres, with its own standards of quality and its own constellation of stars. Lilly Singh is one of those stars. She is, in the Internet parlance, a YouTuber. Defining what exactly a YouTuber is can be difficult for those raised on mainstream popular entertainment (for 13-year-olds, the word needs no definition). Generally speaking, they are Brits, Americans and Canadians in their early 20s who make seven- to 10-minute videos with rudimentary, store-bought equipment showing them in their bedrooms chatting about dating and school and friends and online etiquette. Some have cooking themes or give advice on hair and makeup; others have slightly higher production values. Some, like the megastar Jenna Marbles, swear and talk about sex and drinking. Others, like Superwoman, abjure profanity and treat racy subjects obliquely, if at all. But the YouTubers share a clubby sense of camaraderie — they often appear in each other’s videos — and pepper their speech with the same distinctive lingo: “Slayyyy” means ‘good job.’ “My queen” means ‘someone I revere.’ “Ship it” means wanting two people to be in a relationship. It’s the kind of dense, parent-proof jargon that teenyboppers have always employed, and sure enough, adolescent girls make up the fan base of most YouTubers. It’s likely why you haven’t heard any of their names. But those names — Tyler Oakley, Zoella, Hannah Hart, Bethany Mota — are ubiquitous amongst preteen girls across the English-speaking world. (Singh says 80 per cent of her audience is female, except in India, where more of her fans are men.) Based on the evidence available at Brampton SilverCity, Team Super has few members old enough to drive in Ontario, and even fewer with a Y chromosome. As Singh herself wryly put it, “You need to know who your ideal viewer is, and mine is a 14-year-old screaming female. And I’m thrilled about that. I am thrilled.” The source of YouTubers’ popularity can be hard to discern at first glance. They’re not really standup comedians: too earnest and upbeat, plus not always very funny. Most of them aren’t actors, either. The authenticity of their personalities is part of the appeal, kids say. Keza Matsuk, a 13-year-old 8th grader who goes to school downtown and subscribes to 365 individual YouTubers — one for every day of the year — said she likes Superwoman and her ilk because they are “relatable.” “I like that it’s just someone in their bedroom,” Matsuk said. “It’s not some big Hollywood production.” Indeed, a conversation with half a dozen 13-year-olds about YouTube on Wednesday saw the word “relatable” emerge as the defining adjective of their fandom. (The panel agreed that, as Canadians, they could “relate” to Superwoman’s video diaries about braving winter car troubles.) YouTubers understand that their popularity hinges on a perception of normality, and it’s an air they seem to cultivate. Many of Superwoman’s posts deal with travails she has long since outgrown. “Types of Kids at School,” her ethnography of the high school scene, is one of Singh’s most popular videos, with over seven million views and 25,000 comments. But despite her relatively advanced age and widespread fame, Singh has maintained an |
sound-symbolic links.
Task Effects
The robustness of the kiki-bouba paradigm relies in part on the nature of forced choice. When it uses four target stimuli rather than two, participants are less successful at making congruent sound-symbolic matches (Aveyard, 2012). Moreover, the use of three rounds of testing showed that participants use different strategies depending on whether the paradigm is a two- or four-alternative forced choice task. When there were only two choices, participants used a consonantal sound-symbolic strategy instantly, and general accuracy for incongruent trials improved over three rounds of testing, indicating that participants were able to use separate strategies for congruent and incongruent trials after some experience. When the number of choices was increased to four, participants were less aware of the manipulation and were slower to incorporate consonantal sound-symbolism into their decision making, although this did emerge by the third round. The main effect of linking sonorants to curviness and plosives to spikiness is in line with most behavioral research, but introduces some important variables which show how easily this sensitivity to consonantal sound-symbolism can be affected by experimental set-up.
Moving Beyond Shape
While the kiki-bouba paradigm has been very popular for sound-symbolism research into shape, other experimental approaches are more useful for investigating other sensory modalities. Hirata et al. (2011) found an effect of lightness on sound sensitivity. Participants were better able to identify consonants when they heard and saw congruent sound–light pairings (i.e., voiceless consonants with light visual stimuli, voiced consonants with dark visual stimuli) than incongruent sound–light pairings. However, there was no effect of consonant type when participants had to identify whether a visual stimulus was light or dark.
Links between sound and emotion have also been investigated, but these are more likely to rely on indexical interpretations of affective prosody rather than on iconicity in the sense of structural resemblance (Majid, 2012).
Most of the research presented so far has focused on the properties of consonants, but sensory sound-symbolism with vowels is well-attested too, especially for size (Sapir, 1929). Thompson and Estes (2011) and Thompson (2013) investigated sound-symbolism and object size links by addressing the forced dichotomy of two-alternative forced choice matching in a slightly different way from Aveyard (2012). They showed five different sizes of novel object set against a picture of a cow as a point of comparison, and asked participants to choose the most appropriate name from a selection of three-syllable non-words which varied the number of small-sounding (such as [i]) and large-sounding (such as [a]) vowels. Participants chose non-words with increasing numbers of large phonemes for increasingly large objects, which shows that sound-symbolism marks graded cross-modal mappings rather than just marking contrasts. Meanwhile, it appears that the evidence for an acoustic mechanism for sound-symbolism is stronger than that for a kinaesthetic mechanism, a perennial debate which goes back to Sapir (1929) and Newman (1933). Ohtake and Haryu (2013) performed a series of experiments which separated acoustic features of vowels and the size of the oral cavity while asking participants to categorize the size of a visual object. Participants were faster to categorize object size when hearing the vowels [a] and [i] in congruent conditions, i.e., when [a] was presenting with a large object and [i] with a small object. However, there was no effect when participants categorized object size while holding objects in their mouths to simulate the oral cavity shape made when pronouncing the vowels [a] and [i]. This suggests that the main driver of the effect is the acoustic properties of the vowels, rather than their articulatory properties.
The acoustic properties of vowels have also been found to elicit cross-modal correspondences related to taste (Simner et al., 2010). Participants were given taste samples of four taste types—sweet, sour, bitter, and salty—and adjusted four sliders—F1, F2, voice discontinuity, and spectral balance—to create a vowel sound which best fit the taste. Participants consistently assigned lower F1 and F2 frequencies (approximating higher, more back vowels) to sweet flavors and higher F1 and F2 frequencies (approximating lower, more front vowels) to sour flavors, with salty and bitter flavors falling in between. They posit that these patterns may have influenced vocabulary construction for taste terminology. Interestingly, this spectrum does not quite fit along the same lines as most sound-symbolic vowel associations, which tend to run on a spectrum from [i] to [a] as illustrated in Figure 1. Given that Anglophones find it especially hard to describe and discriminate between tastes and smells according to their properties (as opposed to their sources) when compared to other senses (Majid and Burenhult, 2014), perhaps it is to be expected that Anglophone participants may not map sounds onto tastes in the same way as other senses. It is also hard to say what kind of sound-symbolic links drive this effect. It is probably sensory sound-symbolism, but there may be conventional aspects involved; the word sour is pronounced with a lower vowel than the word sweet, which mirrors the associations made by the participants.
FIGURE 1
Figure 1. Diagram of attested cross-modal mappings to linguistic sound represented on typical vowel space.
Differences between back vowels and front vowels have been found in various studies. Cuskley (2013) investigated non-words and visual motion by asking participants to direct the motion of a ball to match a non-word. Participants made the ball travel more slowly in response to back vowels, and made the ball travel more quickly in response to front vowels and syllable reduplication with vowel alternation (the apophonic direction of vowel alternation in reduplicated syllables was not tested; forms such as kigu and kugi were treated as the same). However, whether this mapping is consistent is unclear; Thompson (2013) performed a similar study and found only a small and non-statistical trend toward assigning faster ratings to names containing front vowels.
Maglio et al. (2014) linked front vowels to conceptual precision with two studies on vision and concepts. Participants were asked to perform a geographical analysis of a fictional city. When the city’s name featured more front vowels than back vowels, participants divided the city into smaller, more precise geographic regions, and vice versa, which Maglio et al. (2014) refer to as visual precision. Participants were also more precise when asked to describe the actions of a person when there was a front vowel association. They saw a person writing a list and were told that this person was performing a “sheeb task” or a “shoob task”; when asked to describe the person’s behavior, participants replied with conceptual precision about the action in the front vowel condition (e.g., “the person is writing a list” when performing the “sheeb task”), and replied with conceptual breadth about the action in the back vowel condition (e.g., “the person is getting organized” when performing the “shoob task”). This may actually be an indirect measure of the typical vowel-size correspondences, with the participants associating back vowels with size in general and then applying the size distinction to visual or conceptual precision. Maglio et al. (2014) then performed a series of experiments on high versus low-level thought; these linked front vowels to low-level thought and back vowels to high-level thought. Back vowels in an ice-cream product name made people focus on how good it tastes rather than how easily accessible it is; back vowels in a skin lotion product name made people focus on how effective it is, rather than how attractive the packaging is; and back vowels in a back pain treatment made people focus on how long-lasting the pain relief is, rather than how arduous the procedure is. Maglio et al.’s (2014) research provides interesting evidence that specific vowel changes may elicit different mental representations. This probably examines conventional sound-symbolism rather than sensory sound-symbolism, as vowel size does not map onto literal sensory size but a more metaphorical magnitude of abstract concepts.
Some studies have linked cross-modal associations between linguistic stimuli and color to synesthesia. Moos et al. (2014) investigated vowel sound and color associations in synesthetes and control participants. They found that increased F2 (such as in front vowels like /i/) was associated with increased yellowness and greenness on the color spectrum, while increased F1 (such as in open vowels like /ɑ/) was associated with increased redness. This was found in both synesthetes and non-synesthetes, although far more strongly in the synesthetes, which suggests that grapheme-color synesthesia is at least partially based on acoustic properties of the sounds associated to the graphemes, and provides further evidence that synesthesia may be an exaggeration of general cross-modal associations which most people have. Shin and Kim (2014) likewise investigated color associations in synesthetes by comparing the associations of Japanese, Korean, and English graphemes in trilingual synesthetes. Despite the small sample size, they found that color associations were broadly similar across participants and across languages for graphemes which expressed the same sounds, showing that grapheme-color synesthesia for individual graphemes is based on the sounds which the graphemes express. In experiments with synesthetic Japanese speakers, Asano and Yokosawa (2011) found that consonants and vowels independently influence the colors which synesthetes ascribe to the hiragana and katakana Japanese writing systems, and that this effect was not due to visual form. Their results show a tendency for front vowels and voiceless consonants to be associated with brighter colors, and for back vowels and voiced consonants to be associated with darker colors, which follows the general synesthetic patterns set out by Marks (1978). The fact that most of the participants are synesthetic in these three studies makes it hard to say which type of sound-symbolism is under investigation here, but it is likely to be sensory sound-symbolism.
Summary of Attested Cross-Modal Correspondences
Non-word behavioral experiments have been useful in establishing broadly consistent cross-modal associations between sound and other sensory modalities, and these seem to overlap with synesthetic associations. When presenting full non-words, consonants seem to have greater prominence than vowels in terms of what participants perceive and how they formulate sound-symbolic strategies; however, both consonants and vowels do influence participants’ judgments. Voiced consonants and low back vowels are consistently associated with roundness, darkness in color, darkness in light intensity, and slowness (although in the case of voiced consonants, only by comparison with voiceless consonants). Voiceless consonants and high front vowels are consistently associated with spikiness, brightness in color, brightness in light intensity, and quickness. Moreover, vowel height and size is linked with physical size, with low vowels and back vowels being linked to big objects and high vowels and front vowels being linked to small objects. Taste conflates the two acoustic properties of vowels; sweetness is linked with high back vowels and saltiness is linked with low front vowels. This is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2.
FIGURE 2
Figure 2. Diagram of attested cross-modal mappings to linguistic sound for consonant properties.
Moving Beyond Non-Words
Despite the progress made with behavioral research on non-words, the insights it provides into language processing are limited. Non-word stimuli are carefully designed to provide maximal distinction between the sensory properties of the referent and the linguistic factors of interest, such as consonant voicing, vowel height and backness, and lip rounding. Not only does this introduce experimenter bias concerning which properties of language are sound-symbolic, it also means that the language stimuli used are not necessarily reflective of spoken language if such maximal distinctions do not occur naturally, and any existing findings may be an overstatement of the cross-modal associations that people make with real language. One way to address this problem is to use existing sound-symbolic words to address the question of how sound-symbolism in natural language is (or is not) associated with other sensory modalities; and among existing sound-symbolic words, ideophones are a prime source of information about sound-symbolic mappings (Dingemanse, 2012).
Most experimental work on ideophones has been conducted using Japanese, which has an extensive, commonly-used and well-documented set of ideophones (Kita, 1997; Hamano, 1998; Akita, 2009a). Most studies have found that participants with no knowledge of Japanese perform significantly above chance at guessing the meaning of ideophones. Oda (2000) performed a series of forced choice tasks with Japanese ideophones on two groups of native English speakers. The first group heard a native Japanese speaker read out the ideophones and were asked to focus on the sound before performing the tasks. The second group heard a native Japanese speaker read out the ideophones and were then asked to pronounce the words themselves before performing the tasks. The two tasks were picking the correct ideophone out of three options for one English definition, and matching two minimal pair ideophones to the two English definitions, which were accompanied by illustrations of the texture or movement. Both groups could guess the meaning of the ideophones at an above chance level of accuracy, and this accuracy was modulated by articulation; the group which pronounced the words themselves were significantly better at matching unfamiliar ideophones to English definitions. In opposition to studies such as Ohtake and Haryu (2013), Oda’s (2000) result suggests that articulation does play a role in establishing the form-meaning relationship of ideophones. The question over whether sound-symbolism is driven by acoustic or articulatory mappings is perhaps too reductive; it seems that both mechanisms are involved depending on the nature of the task.
Iwasaki et al. (2007a) conducted similar experiments with Japanese pain vocabulary, and found that non-Japanese speakers could accurately categorize ideophones expressing pain according to the type of pain they express. However, Japanese sound-symbolism is not always entirely transparent to other speakers. In another study, Iwasaki et al. (2007b) found that English speakers with no knowledge of Japanese could make accurate semantic judgments about ideophones which referred to specific sound qualities but the same speakers made very different semantic judgments about ideophones concerning beauty and pleasantness. It is unclear whether this is due to the fact that sound-to-sound mappings do not cross modalities and are therefore more transparent, whether these particular ideophones expressing beauty were just more on the conventional side of the continuum and therefore less obviously iconic, or due to cultural differences over what constitutes beauty.
Iwasaki et al. (2007b) further found that English speakers were relatively better at categorizing ideophones describing manners of laughter (e.g., giggling and chuckling according to semantic dimensions like pitch and gracefulness) than ideophones describing manners of walking (e.g., strolling and lumbering according to semantic dimensions like pace and steadiness). Iwasaki et al. (2007b) attributed this to the same kind of vowel and consonant voicing contrasts which have been found in non-word studies, such as large vowels being linked with large strides and loud laughs. However, it also shows that ideophones are not completely intuitive to speakers of other languages and depend in some part on the specific semantic context provided by the experimental set-up. In a developmental study, Imai et al. (2008) generated some novel ideophones for manners of motion based on Hamano’s (1998) phonosemantic classification of Japanese ideophones, and Japanese adult participants completely agreed with the novel ideophones’ intended meanings. This supports the idea that at least some of the sound-symbolic patterns in Japanese ideophones are sufficiently systematic enough to be productive (Oda, 2000; Yoshida, 2012). When naïve English speakers were tested with these novel ideophones, the intended meanings were still categorized at above chance level, thus confirming previous behavioral research on Japanese ideophones with novel forms. All of these studies with Japanese ideophones show that there is enough sensory sound-symbolism in ideophones for speakers of other languages to be sensitive to the meanings, and that there may be additional conventional sound-symbolism in ideophones which is more informative for native speakers.
The Role of Prosody
Similar above chance categorization patterns have been found with ideophones in various languages, not just Japanese. Mitterer et al. (2012) took ideophones from five languages across five semantic domains, and presented naïve participants with four versions of the stimuli in two-alternative forced choice tasks—the original ideophone recordings, a rich resynthesis using the original recordings’ phoneme durations and prosody, a phoneme-only resynthesis and a prosody-only resynthesis. Ideophones in the original recordings and in the rich resynthesis condition were both categorized at above-chance accuracy, but ideophones in the phoneme-only and prosody-only resynthesis conditions were not. This indicates that both phonemes and prosody are important for cross-linguistic effects of iconicity. This finding is corroborated by evidence that around 80% of ideophones are given special prosodic attention and emphasis in natural speech—prosodically foregrounded (Dingemanse, 2013)—and that certain prosodic profiles in non-words can have reliable semantic associations (Nygaard et al., 2009b).
Some non-ideophonic lexical words also show these effects. Kunihira (1971) conducted experiments using apparently arbitrary Japanese words in forced choice tests and found that English speakers were able to accurately categorize them, even though they were not ideophones. Responses were most accurate when the words were pronounced with “expressive voice,” i.e., exaggerated prosody. This suggests sound-symbolic interpretations can be elicited even for arbitrary words—a viewpoint that reinforces the crucial role of expressive prosody. Nygaard et al. (2009a) used Kunihira’s stimuli in a learning task, and found that English speakers were quicker to learn and quicker to respond to Japanese words paired with correct English translations (e.g., hayai and fast) than when paired with opposite (e.g., slow) or unrelated (e.g., blunt) English translations. Nygaard et al. (2009a) stop short of linking particular sounds or properties of the words to particular meanings, instead suggesting that reliable sound-meaning mappings—regardless of whether this sound-symbolism is sensory (i.e., presumably recognizable across languages) or conventionalized (i.e., recognizable only within a particular language)—“may constrain novel word learning and subsequent word retrieval and recognition by guiding processing to properties and meaning within a particular semantic context.”
The same research group expanded the scope of this research to include antonym contrasts in 10 different languages; monolingual English speakers allocated the antonyms correctly at above chance level in two-alternative forced choice testing, although consistency varied across individual items and may indicate the inherent probabilistic variability in the degree of sound-symbolism in supposedly arbitrary words (Namy et al., submitted; Tzeng et al., submitted). These findings were partially replicated in a study comparing synesthetes and non-synesthetes, which found that both groups guessed certain meanings at above chance accuracy, and that the synesthetes did so more strongly than the non-synesthetes (Bankieris and Simner, 2015). However, there are two crucial caveats with these stimuli. Firstly, six of the 10 languages used in these studies are rich in ideophones and poor in ordinary adjectives (Indonesian, Korean, Tamil, Mandarin, Turkish, and Yoruba), which means that this study may well have indirectly studied ideophones rather than arbitrary antonyms. Secondly, the four non-ideophonic languages (Dutch, Albanian, Gujurati, and Romanian) are all Indo-European; this means that they cannot be treated as independent because of potentially shared linguistic features, and moreover their meanings may be more transparent to native English speakers if they are cognates, especially in the case of Dutch and Romanian. Unfortunately, these studies are not yet publicly available (despite their crucial role in other published work), and so we cannot do more than speculate here.
Developmental Experiments
While the extensive behavioral literature attests that sound-symbolism has persistent and varied effects on language processing and use, a frequent criticism is that these patterns of association are conditioned because of orthographic influences; people might only consider the sound [b] to be rounder than the sound [k] because the letter b is rounder than the letter k. However, studies on early language development have shown that this is not the case. Studies with pre-literate children and young infants rule out such orthographic effects. Developmental experiments with infants also provide a different window into sound-symbolism from learning experiments with adults. Experiments with infants examine existing cross-modal associations and how infants exploit these during early language development, whereas learning experiments with adults examine how sound-symbolism affects memory, and are necessarily influenced by the adults’ first language.
Mixed Results for kiki-bouba Paradigms
The kiki-bouba paradigm, with its sensory sound-symbolism links, can be easily adapted for infants and young children, although results have been mixed. Ozturk et al. (2013) and Fort et al. (2013) tested 4-month-old infants with preferential looking procedures, using fully reduplicated non-words with no word-internal vowel contrasts (e.g., kiki, bubu). Ozturk et al. (2013) presented one shape together with one auditory non-word and measured gaze duration, while Fort et al. (2013) presented two shapes side by side together with one auditory non-word and investigated whether infants preferred looking at a particular shape. The additional complexities of Fort et al.’s (2013) experimental set-up proved to be too much for the infants, as they found no preferential looking effects; they “tentatively argue that the complexity of their design might have masked the infants’ emerging sound-symbolic matching abilities.” However, Ozturk et al. (2013) found that infants looked for longer durations at shapes which were presented with incongruent non-words. Moreover, they found that this only happened for non-words where both vowels and consonants were typically sound-symbolic; the infants would match bubu with the curvy shape and kiki with the spiky shape, but would not make the same distinctions when comparing kiki and kuku or bibi and bubu. The adult control group, on the other hand, only needed either a vowel contrast or a consonant contrast to make cross-modal associations. When taken together, these results suggest that there is an effect of sound-symbolism in infants, but that it needs both consonants and vowels to make the stimuli maximally distinct and that only very straightforward designs may detect the effect. This also appears to show that infants are less sensitive to sound-symbolic contrasts than adults are, which implies that increased exposure to language in fact increases sensitivity to sound-symbolic associations. This is supported by a study on pitch-size associations in 4- and 6-month-old infants, which found that 6-month-old infants make typical associations between pitch and size while 4-month-old infants do not (Fernández-Prieto et al., 2015). The apparent conflict in results between Fort et al. (2013) and Ozturk et al. (2013) shows that iconicity may be strong enough for infants to detect, but not strong enough for this effect to persist through more complicated tasks.
Maurer et al. (2006) replicated Ramachandran and Hubbard’s (2001) kiki-bouba results with 2.5-year-old children, which ruled out orthography as a confound as these children could not yet read. Spector and Maurer (2013) developed this experiment with slightly updated stimuli, using fully reduplicated non-words with no word-internal vowel contrasts rather than the typical kiki-bouba words used in the previous study. The toddlers were presented with two visual shapes, and then asked by an adult to point to the non-word of interest (e.g., “can you point to the koko?”). As predicted, the toddlers associated curvy shapes with rounded vowels and spiky shapes with non-rounded vowels. One possible factor is the direct interaction with an adult experimenter rather than pre-recorded stimuli. Nygaard et al. (2009b) have established that adults use exaggerated and semantically-predictable prosodic profiles when pronouncing non-words in child-directed speech, and this may have provided the kind of prosodic foregrounding which helps to identify ideophones in natural language.
There have also been several developmental studies on the acquisition and use of Japanese ideophones, which show that both Japanese and non-Japanese children are highly sensitive to the sound-symbolic properties of Japanese ideophones. Iwasaki et al. (2007b) cite Ishiguro (1993), who found that children create their own idiosyncratic ideophones before fully acquiring conventional ones, and that children acquire ideophones expressing sound before acquiring ideophones expressing motion, shape, psychological states, or other sensory modalities. This ties in with Iwasaki et al.’s (2007b) and Oda’s (2000) research, which showed that participants with no knowledge of Japanese were more accurate at categorizing ideophones expressing sound, and confirms the prevalence of sensory sound-symbolism in ideophones.
The Sound-Symbolic Bootstrapping Hypothesis
Imai et al. (2008) created novel Japanese ideophonic motion verbs and tested them on Japanese and English-speaking adults (as described in the behavioral section). They then tested 25-month-old Japanese children with a verb learning task, and found that the children could generalize the ideophonic verbs to new situations, but could not do the same for the non-sound-symbolic verbs. Imai et al. (2008) concluded that sound-symbolism provides a scaffold on which children can map semantic and syntactic information. Echoing Gentner and Boroditsky’s (2001) arguments that actions unfold over time and are impermanent whereas objects are stable, which is why children tend to focus on objects and tend to acquire nouns first, Imai et al. (2008) propose that the sound-symbolic scaffolding provided by the ideophonic verbs helps children to isolate the action and therefore facilitates verb learning. Kantartzis et al. (2011) replicated Imai et al.’s (2008) results in experiments with English children using the same novel verbs based on Japanese sound-symbolic patterns. This provided evidence toward a cross-linguistic—or, perhaps more accurately, language-independent—early sensitivity toward sound-symbolism, and also shows that Japanese ideophones contain sensory sound-symbolism and not just conventional sound-symbolism. Kantartzis et al. (2011) also point out that it is unclear what exactly the English children recognize as sound-symbolic; it could be the phonetics, the phonotactics, the prosody, or a combination of all three.
Yoshida (2012) developed the paradigm further and carried out more extensive tests, making several important points. Firstly, sound-symbolism aided verb acquisition in Japanese and English children equally, despite the Japanese children’s greater exposure to and familiarity with the Japanese mimetic-style novel verbs. Secondly, this equal language-independent sensitivity to sound-symbolism exists despite the vast difference in general iconic input between Japanese (where parents make extensive use of ideophones to children) and English (where parents do use a lot of onomatopoeia to children, but they do so more idiosyncratically and less often than Japanese parents do). Thirdly, by including both novel verbs and novel actors in the task, she showed that the sound-symbolic scaffolding proposed by Imai et al. (2008) Imai and Kita (2014) helps children to isolate the action by excluding the identity of the actor, rather than just by focusing on the action. Yoshida (2012) proposes that infants are universally sensitive toward sound-symbolism, but this sensitivity attenuates in adulthood as their native language’s conventionalized forms dictate which possible forms of sound-symbolism are acceptable; this mirrors the well-established pattern of infant sensitivity to cross-linguistic phonemic differences, which attenuates with age. The sound-symbolic bootstrapping hypothesis is also supported by ideophone usage studies, which have shown that Japanese children as young as 2 years old use ideophonic verbs frequently and productively (Akita, 2009b) and that Japanese parents are five times more likely to use ideophones to children than they were to other adults when describing the same scene (Maguire et al., 2010). The finding that ideophones are more geared toward children initially appears to sit uncomfortably with the finding of Ozturk et al. (2013), which suggested that infants were less sensitive to sound-symbolism than adults. However, perhaps a reasonable middle ground is that children are more sensitive to sound-symbolism as long as there are enough sources in the input to make associations from, while adults are less sensitive to sound-symbolism in terms of forming associations but can form associations from a more limited input.
Finally, Laing’s (2014) reanalysis of a longitudinal case study (Elsen, 1991) provides another example of how sound-symbolism bootstraps language acquisition. Laing examined Elsen’s detailed dataset of German infant Annalena and investigated the development and role of onomatopoeic forms. Annalena used onomatopoeic forms extensively, constituting almost 40% of her vocabulary at 11 months, but the relative proportion of onomatopoeia in Annalena’s vocabulary tailed off with age. Annalena systematically replaced onomatopoeic forms with conventional words according to her phonological ability, meaning that onomatopoeic forms were retained longer when their conventional forms were phonologically more difficult. This shows how both sensory and conventional sound-symbolism in infancy works alongside the developing lexicon and can bootstrap phonological development.
Neuroimaging Experiments
Behavioral research into sound-symbolism has been instrumental in telling us that there is a robust effect of sound-symbolism on language tasks, and that this effect can be modulated by various different linguistic changes. However, neuroimaging research is needed to establish how the brain recognizes, processes, and constructs sound-symbolism. There has been far less neuroimaging research on sound-symbolism than behavioral, but the handful of existing studies make interesting suggestions about sensory embodiment, synesthesia, and multisensory integration.
ERP and fMRI Evidence
Some neuroimaging experiments on ideophones have essentially used behavioral paradigms with simultaneous EEG recording to investigate ERPs. Kovic et al. (2010) conducted a novel word learning experiment, which established that participants were quicker to identify novel objects with congruent sound-symbolic non-word names than incongruent or arbitrary non-word names. They then tested two groups of participants; one group learned congruent sound-symbolic names for pointy and round objects (i.e., shick for a pointy object and dom for a round object), the other group learned incongruent sound-symbolic names (i.e., shick for a round object and dom for a pointy object). The experiment presented a name auditorily and then an object visually, and the participants had to decide whether the object and name matched. The first group were quicker to identify correct conditions and quicker to reject incorrect conditions than the second group, which corroborates other behavioral evidence that sensory sound-symbolic congruence has an object recognition facilitation effect. Moreover, objects with congruent sound-symbolic names elicited a stronger negative wave than incongruent ones in the 140–180 ms window after the presentation of the object. This effect was observed at the occipital regions, home of the visual cortex, and Kovic et al. (2010) suggest that the early negativity represents auditory-visual integration during early sensory processing.
Arata et al. (2010) used the kiki-bouba paradigm on 12-month-old infants, simultaneously presenting a shape and a non-word in congruent and incongruent conditions. The infants were found to be sensitive to sound-symbolic matches and mismatches, showing differentiated wave patterns across both conditions after 200 ms post-stimulus. This may have been the P2, an ERP component which has been linked to phonological and semantic analysis. Arata et al. (2010) claim that their results support the claim that infants are synesthetic or like synesthetes (Maurer and Mondloch, 2004), potentially due to having more cortical connections than adults do, resulting in their ability to detect sound-symbolism. Asano et al. (2015) performed a similar experiment on 11-month-old infants, this time presenting the stimuli sequentially; the infants were first shown a spiky or curvy novel object, and then heard the non-word kipi or moma. This study found a later effect, with more negative ERPs in the 400–550 ms window for incongruent stimuli compared to congruent stimuli. Asano et al. (2015) argue that infants use sensory sound-symbolic congruency to anchor novel sounds onto meaning, thus enabling them to establish that linguistic sounds have real world referents.
There are fewer neuroimaging experiments specifically aimed at revealing the brain locations associated with ideophone use and understanding, probably because of the relative lack of knowledge of ideophones outside the field of linguistics. However, a few neuroimaging studies using ideophones do exist. Osaka and his group conducted a series of fMRI studies (Osaka et al., 2003, 2004; Osaka and Osaka, 2005, 2009; Osaka, 2009, 2011), which show that Japanese ideophones activate the relevant sensory cortical areas. Ideophones expressing laughter activate the “laughter module” (Osaka et al., 2003) across the visual cortex, extrastriate cortex, and the premotor cortex, and also the striatal reward area. Ideophones expressing pain (e.g., chikuchiku for a needle-prick kind of pain, gangan for a throbbing headache) activate the cingulate cortex, the part of the brain which also processes actual pain. Ideophones expressing crying (e.g., oioi for wailing, mesomeso for sniveling) activate similar areas to the laughter ideophones, suggesting that crying and laughing are processed as positive and negative equivalents, but they also activate the inferior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex in the same way as the pain ideophones, suggesting that implied crying “involves some degree of concomitant emotional pain” (Osaka, 2011). Ideophones suggestive of gaze direction and manner of walking activate the frontal eye field and extrastriate visual cortex respectively. All of these ideophones activate the visual cortex and premotor cortex, which Osaka’s group argue is responsible for the vividness of the mental imagery conjured up by ideophones. However, the main limitation with these studies is that they all compared ideophones to non-words. As arbitrary words will also activate relevant sensory areas of the cortex when compared with non-words (Zwaan, 2004), this is uninformative about the special properties of sound-symbolism.
Ideophones Versus Arbitrary Words in Natural Language
Two neuroimaging studies have directly compared ideophones and arbitrary words. Lockwood and Tuomainen (2015) used EEG to investigate the difference between ideophonic adverbs and arbitrary adverbs by presenting Japanese speakers with sentences where the only difference was whether the adverb was sound-symbolic or not. Participants performed an unrelated sentence judgment task and were unaware of the nature of the experiment. The ideophones elicited a greater P2 and a late positive complex, both of which are in line with Arata et al.’s (2010) and Asano et al.’s (2013, 2015) findings. Lockwood and Tuomainen (2015) argue that the greater P2 in response to the ideophones represents the multisensory integration of sound and sensory processing. They also claim that while this effect is due to cross-modal associations rather than representative of true synesthesia, the same neural mechanisms may be involved. They speculate that it is the distinctive phonological profile of ideophones which enables, or engages, the multisensory integration process. This is also in line with the conclusions of Occelli et al.’s (2013) behavioral study on autistic participants.
Kanero et al. (2014) performed two fMRI studies where participants watched animations while simultaneously hearing ideophones or arbitrary words with related to a particular modality—motion in the first experiment and shape in the second. They observed that words which participants rated as closely matching the animations elicited greater activation across the cortex than low-match words. The right posterior superior temporal sulcus (rpSTS) was activated specifically in response to ideophone trials, and not arbitrary word trials. Kanero et al. (2014) take this to mean that the right posterior STS is a critical hub for processing Japanese ideophones, and possibly sound-symbolism in general. They argue that this goes beyond simple embodiment, as the rpSTS is not a perceptual or sensorimotor area related to the word meaning. Instead, Kanero et al. (2014) suggest that ideophones have a dual nature; part arbitrary linguistic symbol, part iconic symbol, and that the posterior STS works as a hub of multimodal integration. This is in line with a long tradition in the ideophone literature that emphasizes the combination of iconic aspects (such as vowel size contrasts) and arbitrary aspects (such as conventional word forms) in ideophones (e.g., Diffloth, 1994). However, as ideophones contain both sensory and conventional sound-symbolism, it is difficult to tease apart the separate contributions of each type with native speakers.
There has also been a study which used fMRI and fractional anisotropy (FA) to investigate sound-symbolism in apparently arbitrary words. Using the same antonym stimuli and experimental set-up as Namy et al., (submitted) and Tzeng et al., (submitted), Revill et al. (2014) found that there was increased activation in the left superior parietal cortex in response to words which participants found sound-symbolic compared to words which they did not. Furthermore, they found a correlation between functional anisotropy in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and participants’ individual sensitivity to sound-symbolism. Revill et al. (2014) argue that sound-symbolic words engage cross-modal sensory integration to a greater extent than arbitrary words, and that this cross-modal sensory integration is what facilitates word to meaning |
team's forwards.
Zidlicky has four goals and 19 assists in 63 games this season. Last season, he had 12 goals and 30 assists in 81 games. Overall, he has 82 goals and 308 assists in 762 NHL games for New Jersey, Minnesota and Nashville.
Cole and Zidlicky are expected to join the Wings for Tuesday's practice and be available for Wednesday's game against the New York Rangers (8 p.m., NBCSN). Both Cole and Zidlicky are pending unrestricted free agents.
The Wings have added good, experienced players to their lineup without forfeiting anyone off of the current roster or a first-round pick. Cole and Zidlicky join a lineup that just went 4-1-1 through six straight games on the road, 6-3-2 in a February that featured just two home games, and 15-6-2 since the start of January. The ballpark figure for getting into the playoffs is 95 points, and with 21 games remaining, the Wings already are at 81.
The focus for the deadline was to improve if the price was right. The Wings haven't touched the lineup that has taken them this far. Now, that lineup will benefit from an increase in job competition, and coach Mike Babcock gets what he's wanted since last spring: a right-shooting defenseman.
He will, in fact, have two, as Alexey Marchenko has used February to show he belongs in the NHL.
Contact Helene St. James: hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames.BANGOR, Maine — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins didn’t mince words when asked about the divisive climate of the 2016 presidential race during an appearance Tuesday night at Husson University’s Gracie Theater.
“I actually would be happier to go into hibernation,” the Republican from Bangor said, drawing laughter and applause from those who attended the first installment of the “Dirigo Speaks” series for seniors being presented by AARP and the Bangor Daily News.
“Since that’s unlikely, this has been the worst political climate that I have ever seen and the most disappointing presidential race that I have ever seen,” Collins said.
“The polarization and politicalization of every issue, the insults and the misleading, the flaws of both candidates are very discouraging” she said.
“What worries me is in order for us to solve the very real problems in a democratic way — the state of our economy, terrorism — the problems have never been more serious, and then look at the debates,” she said. “They’re depressing, they really are, and I think it’s a disservice to our country.”
Collins acknowledged that she has had to make some tough decisions, given the state of the presidential campaign.
“It was a very hard decision for me as a lifelong Republican who has always supported our party’s nominee to decide last August that I simply could not support Donald Trump for president,” which she wrote about i n an op-ed piece published in The Washington Pos t.
Collins said there were three major incidents that tipped her over the edge — the first being Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter. The second was when Trump said the judge who was hearing the Trump University case could not rule in an unbiased manner because he is of Mexican-American heritage.
“This judge was born in Indiana. He’s just as American as Donald Trump. And he is a very well-regarded federal judge who actually took on the Mexican drug cartels, by the way, at great danger to himself when he was a prosecutor earlier in his career,” Collins said.
“But the third and really the tipping point for me was when Donald Trump attacked and insulted the Gold Star parents who lost their son in Iraq,” she said. “I just can’t imagine having no empathy for grieving parents, and that just tipped me over the edge.”
Despite that, she said, she could not vote for Hillary Clinton.
“So I feel in a terrible dilemma this year. And I can’t vote for Gary Johnson, either,” she said.
Collins, however, said she does not believe the Republican Party is imploding, even though Trump is its candidate.
“I know that emotions are running really high in this election and I’m going to continue to work with the governor, with the staff, with the administration on the issues that are important to me and to Maine people. That’s my job and that’s what I’m going to do,” she said.
“The party’s going to be just fine. I’m working hard to retain a Republican-controlled Senate, and I believe that people can distinguish between Donald Trump and [Republican senators seeking election next month] like Kelly Ayotte [of New Hampshire], [Ohio’s U.S. Rep.] Rob Portman or Pat Toomey [U.S. senator from Pennsylvania], for example. I think it’s important, no matter who is elected president, that there be a Republican Senate as a check on that person’s power,” she said.
During Tuesday’s event, Collins, chairman of the Senate Aging Committee, also discussed her work in such areas as seniors’ financial security, what’s being done to address price gouging by drug manufacturers and the need to increase funding for biomedical research for such ailments as Alzheimer’s disease.POLICE in several countries have arrested 184 alleged members of an online paedophile ring and rescued 230 children in "the biggest case of its kind", Europol said today.
"Six-hundred-and-seventy suspects have been identified, 184 arrests have already been made and 230 children, the victims of these terrible crimes, have been identified and rescued from further harm," the policing agency's director, Rob Wainwright, told journalists in The Hague.
"We expect these numbers to rise further," he said, adding: "This is already the biggest case of its kind we have ever seen."
Dubbed Operation Rescue, Europol said the probe started three years ago, and targeted an online network, its server based in The Netherlands, with almost 70,000 members worldwide at its height. It has since been taken down.
The suspects were members of an online forum, boylover.net, that promoted sex between adults and young boys.
Europol said the website operated as a forum where members connected without committing an offence. Having made contact on the site, they would then use other channels, such as email, to exchange images and films of children being abused.
"I can confirm that this is one of the most successful police operations in recent years in what is probably the largest online paedophile network in the world," Wainwright said.
In the course of the investigation, the agency sent more than 4000 intelligence reports to police authorities in more than 30 countries.
Countries involved in the operation included Australia, Belgium, Canada, Greece, Iceland, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Spain, Britain and the United States.
The operation is continuing and more arrests are expected, said Wainwright.
Originally published as Police arrest 184 in global paedophile ringMore rain means more pollution Nitrogen input from river runoff is a major cause of eutrophication in estuaries and coastal waters. This is a serious problem that is widely expected to intensify as climate change strengthens the hydrological cycle. To address the current lack of adequate analysis, Sinha et al. present estimates of riverine nitrogen loading for the continental United States, based on projections of precipitation derived from climate models (see the Perspective by Seitzinger and Phillips). Anticipated changes in precipitation patterns are forecast to cause large and robust increases in nitrogen fluxes by the end of the century. Science, this issue p. 405; see also p. 350
Abstract Eutrophication, or excessive nutrient enrichment, threatens water resources across the globe. We show that climate change–induced precipitation changes alone will substantially increase (19 ± 14%) riverine total nitrogen loading within the continental United States by the end of the century for the “business-as-usual” scenario. The impacts, driven by projected increases in both total and extreme precipitation, will be especially strong for the Northeast and the corn belt of the United States. Offsetting this increase would require a 33 ± 24% reduction in nitrogen inputs, representing a massive management challenge. Globally, changes in precipitation are especially likely to also exacerbate eutrophication in India, China, and Southeast Asia. It is therefore imperative that water quality management strategies account for the impact of projected future changes in precipitation on nitrogen loading.
Nutrient enrichment of water bodies, or eutrophication, is a growing global problem. Whereas phosphorus is the leading concern for freshwater systems, excessive nitrogen is the primary cause of eutrophication in estuaries and coastal waters (1). Associated water quality impacts, including but not limited to the occurrence of harmful algal blooms (2, 3) and hypoxia (4, 5), have been widely documented and are on the rise (4, 6). Ecosystem and human impacts are severe (7, 8). Population growth and changes in land management practices are projected to further increase total nitrogen export globally (9) and for the continental United States (10), as is anticipated agricultural adaptation to climate change (11). Various reports have suggested that the water quality impacts of nitrogen loading may also increase in frequency and intensity as a result of future changes in precipitation (5, 12, 13).
Clear evidence substantiating concerns about the role of precipitation is lacking, however, because very little is known about the impact of changes to the physical climate itself—especially the impact of precipitation—on nitrogen export and therefore on eutrophication. This is the case even though precipitation amount, frequency, and intensity are major controls on riverine nitrogen load (14–17). The impacts of changes in future precipitation patterns on nitrogen loading have been examined only for individual watersheds, and such analyses have relied on only one to three global climate models (14, 18–20) or a single average across an ensemble of climate models (21–24). These studies therefore do not provide a basis for understanding impacts at regional to continental scales, or for examining the robustness of conclusions to uncertainty in future climate. At the same time, emerging strategies aimed at managing eutrophication focus on setting nutrient-loading targets (25, 26). Because loading is most directly influenced by nitrogen inputs and by precipitation patterns, it is imperative to understand how changes in precipitation might in turn affect loading (27), thereby confounding management efforts.
Here, we fill this knowledge gap by providing spatially extensive and contiguous estimates of changes in riverine total nitrogen loading (henceforth, nitrogen loading) for the continental United States. These estimates are derived from anticipated changes in precipitation as projected by 21 different CMIP5 (Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5) models, for three climate scenarios (the RCP2.6 “mitigation” scenario, the RCP4.5 “stabilization” scenario, and the RCP8.5 “business-as-usual” scenario), for two future time periods [the “near future” (2031–2060) and the “far future” (2071–2100)], and for 2105 different subbasins within the continental United States. We use bias-corrected and spatially downscaled (1/8°) climate model projections (28) and report changes at scales ranging from the eight-digit hydrologic unit (HUC8) “subbasin” scale (henceforth, watershed scale; fig. S1) to the continental United States. The analysis is made possible by a recently developed empirical model linking several key variables—net anthropogenic nitrogen inputs into a watershed (e.g., fertilizer application), total annual precipitation, extreme springtime precipitation, and land use—to annual nitrogen flux (17) (see supplementary materials). Although we recognize that a number of factors will have impacts on future riverine nitrogen fluxes, we focus here specifically on impacts of changes in precipitation in the absence of other concurrent changes, because these impacts cannot be avoided through management within the affected regions. We therefore keep net anthropogenic nitrogen inputs (henceforth, nitrogen inputs) and land use constant at existing levels throughout the analysis (2007 and 2006, respectively; see supplementary materials). We use the approach proposed by Tebaldi et al. (29) to assess the significance of observed changes and their consistency across the CMIP5 models; we use the term “robust” to denote results where at least 80% of models are consistent on the direction of change and where the change is statistically significant (P < 0.05) for at least 50% of models.
We find that anticipated changes in future precipitation patterns alone will lead to large and robust increases in watershed-scale nitrogen fluxes by the end of the century for the business-as-usual scenario (stippling in Fig. 1C), especially within the Upper Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin, the Northeast, and the Great Lakes basin. Watersheds across much of the Northeast show a robust increase even under the stabilization scenario by the end of the century (fig. S2D). These spatial patterns are especially noteworthy because these regions also have high historical nitrogen fluxes (Fig. 1A) and because they discharge to coastal regions with documented water quality impairments resulting from eutrophication (7, 30). We further find that at the watershed scale, only a small fraction of areas will experience a robust increase in fluxes in the near future for any of the examined scenarios (Fig. 1B and fig. S2, A and C); this can be attributed to intermodel differences and internal climate variability (i.e., natural climate fluctuations that arise even in the absence of changes in radiative forcing).
Fig. 1 Projected changes in mean total nitrogen flux for watersheds within the continental United States for the RCP8.5 “business-as-usual” emission scenario. (A) Total nitrogen flux for the historical period (1976–2005), averaged across 30 years and 21 CMIP5 models. (B and C) Projected change in mean total nitrogen flux for the near future (2031–2060) and far future (2071–2100) relative to the historical period. For (B) and (C), stippling highlights watersheds with a robust change in total nitrogen flux (i.e., more than 50% of the models show a significant change and more than 80% of the models agree on the sign of change). Watersheds with inconsistent projections (i.e., more than 50% of the models show significant change but fewer than 80% of the models agree on the sign of change) are shown in white. Remaining watersheds are shown in color without stippling. The black outlines highlight the upper Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin and the Northeast region (Fig. 2).
For large aggregated regions (see supplementary materials) including the continental United States as a whole, models agree with high consistency (>80%) that nitrogen loading will increase across all three examined climate scenarios and for both the near- and far-future periods (Fig. 2 and table S1), with the only exception being the lower Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin. These changes are robust for the far-future periods and the mitigation and business-as-usual scenarios, with significant changes observed for the majority of models and for most regions including the continental United States as a whole (filled box plots in Fig. 2). Although the projected changes in nitrogen flux at the watershed scale for the mitigation scenario are within the range of natural variability (colored regions with no stippling in fig. S2), aggregation to large regions yields a robust increase. For the stabilization scenario, a smaller projected overall increase in total precipitation relative to the other scenarios leads to less robust changes in nitrogen loading for most regions. In the near future, high interannual variability and the smaller projected magnitude of change lead to the observed consistent but not robust increases across scenarios. For the remainder of the discussion, we focus primarily on the far-future period under the business-as-usual scenario.
Fig. 2 Percent changes in mean total nitrogen load within large regions within the continental United States for the RCP2.6 “mitigation,” RCP4.5 “stabilization,” and RCP8.5 “business-as-usual” emission scenarios. For a given model, total nitrogen load is first averaged for each 30-year period (historical, near future, far future), each scenario, and each region (using an area-weighted average of contributing watersheds), and these values are then expressed as a percent change in projected total nitrogen load within a given region, period, and model. Box plots represent the spread across the examined models (16 for RCP2.6, 20 for RCP4.5, and 21 for RCP8.5) for specific periods and scenarios, with outliers marked as dots. Filled box plots highlight regions with a robust change in total nitrogen load (i.e., more than 50% of the models show a significant change and more than 80% of the models agree on the sign of change). Gray outlines show the two-digit hydrologic unit (HUC2) regions for reference (fig. S1).
The across-model mean projected increase in nitrogen loading within the continental United States is 19% (Fig. 2), with the Northeast (28%), the upper Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin (24%), and the Great Lakes basin (21%) experiencing the largest increases (Fig. 2). To put these numbers in context, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently set a 20% load reduction target relative to 1980–1996 levels for the Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin as a whole (26), with the aim of reducing the size of the massive annual hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico (31). We find here that precipitation changes alone will instead lead to an 18% increase in loading within the Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin as a whole. Offsetting this increase in loading would require a 30% reduction in nitrogen inputs for the region, whereas achieving a 20% loading reduction in light of the confounding effect of precipitation changes would require a 62% reduction in nitrogen inputs (see supplementary materials). For the continental United States, a 33% reduction in nitrogen inputs would be required to offset the 19% nitrogen load increase attributable to changes in precipitation.
The large spread across models indicates that the magnitude of the change in nitrogen load is uncertain, presenting an additional risk for management (Fig. 2). Across-model differences in precipitation projections translate into large uncertainties in the magnitude of nitrogen load change. In addition, we find that a large fraction of this uncertainty is due to internal climate variability (see supplementary materials) (fig. S3) and therefore represents irreducible uncertainty. For large portions of the continental United States, internal climate variability explains more than half of the total intermodel spread for both time periods and for all emission scenarios (see fig. S3, C and D, for results under the business-as-usual scenario). Because current global climate models have been shown to underestimate internal climate variability (32), the actual contribution may be even greater. Furthermore, precipitation downscaling of projected future climate is based on an assumption of climate stationarity (see supplementary materials), the limitations of which represent an additional uncertainty. This result implies that nitrogen loads are expected to increase but that the magnitude of the increase is quite uncertain. For the far future under the business-as-usual scenario, the spread between the first and third quartiles for the continental United States represents increases ranging from 9% to 24%, whereas for the Northeast this range spans an 18% to 39% increase. The full range is broader still (Fig. 2).
We further find that the magnitude of predicted changes in the nitrogen flux is explained by the compounding impacts of changes in the total annual and springtime extreme precipitation, although only the changes due to total precipitation are robust on their own (Fig. 3). The spatial patterns of change in future nitrogen flux (Fig. 1C) are comparable to those that would result only from future changes in total annual precipitation (see supplementary materials) (Fig. 3A). Conversely, accounting only for projected changes in springtime extreme precipitation or changes to the correlation between total annual and springtime extreme precipitation does not lead to robust changes in future nitrogen flux at the watershed scale (Fig. 3, B and C). This conclusion holds true even at regional scales, including for the continental United States, where the magnitude of change is explained by changes in both total and extreme precipitation, with the change in total annual precipitation having the largest impact and leading to a robust increase on its own for most regions (fig. S4). The larger contribution of change in annual precipitation to the change in mean annual nitrogen flux is attributable to the robustness of the projected changes in annual precipitation (fig. S5B) and the larger sensitivity of nitrogen flux to total annual precipitation relative to extreme precipitation (see supplementary materials).
Fig. 3 Contributions to change in total nitrogen flux. (A to C) Contribution of total annual precipitation (A), extreme springtime precipitation (B), and correlation between annual and extreme precipitation (C) to projected changes in mean total nitrogen flux for watersheds within the continental United States for the business-as-usual emission scenario, averaged across 21 CMIP5 models (Fig. 1C). The individual contributions of these three factors were calculated by eliminating the contribution of the two other factors to the total change in the total nitrogen flux (see supplementary materials). Because of the nonlinearity of the total nitrogen flux model, the contributions are not additive (see supplementary materials). Colors and stippling are as defined in Fig. 1.
Overall, we find that regions with high historical loading (which correspond to regions with high nitrogen inputs and high precipitation) and a robust projected increase in precipitation are most likely to experience a large and robust future increase in nitrogen loading, at both the watershed and regional scales. The empirical model used here to relate nitrogen inputs, land use, and precipitation statistics to nitrogen flux is specific to the continental United States, precluding its direct application to other regions of the globe. We may, however, seek analogs in other regions that meet certain criteria and use those as heuristics to identify other regions where similar conditions exist and similar outcomes may be expected. If large increases in nitrogen load are expected for regions with (i) high nitrogen inputs, (ii) high precipitation, and (iii) a robust projected increase in precipitation within the continental United States, the same is likely to be true in other parts of the world. We therefore reexamined the business-as-usual, far-future precipitation projections across the 21 available CMIP5 models globally (bias-corrected and spatially downscaled to 1/4°) to identify regions that exhibit all three risk factors (see supplementary materials). We find that identifying regions with robust projected precipitation increases (fig. S6A) and high historical total annual precipitation (>75th percentile globally; 656 mm year−1; fig. S6B), combined with data on historical fertilizer application rates (as a proxy for nitrogen inputs) (fig. S6C), provides a good approximation of the regions within the continental United States that are likely to experience a large and robust increase in nitrogen flux (stippled region in Fig. 1C versus continental U.S. area in Fig. 4).
Fig. 4 Global regions most likely to experience large increases in total nitrogen flux. The map shows 2015 fertilizer application rate for regions with historical (1976–2005) annual precipitation rates above the 75th percentile (averaged over a 30-year period and 21 CMIP5 models) and projected robust increases in annual precipitation by the far future (2071–2100) for the business-as-usual emission scenario. Global regions in dark orange and red therefore exhibit all three risk factors for increased future loading. Regions in yellow and light orange meet the precipitation criteria but have low nitrogen inputs; hatched regions do not meet one (diagonal hatching) or both (cross-hatching) of the precipitation criteria. The black outlines highlight the continental United States and South, East, and Southeast Asia.
Applying this heuristic approach globally makes it possible to identify other regions where changes in precipitation are likely to engender substantial increases in nitrogen load (Fig. 4). We find that large portions of East, South, and Southeast Asia, including India and eastern China, exhibit conditions that are directly analogous to those in the upper Mississippi Atchafalaya River Basin, Northeast, and Great Lakes regions of the continental United States, and these regions are therefore likely to undergo large increases in nitrogen load as a result of projected changes in precipitation. These regions are also home to more than half of the world’s population (33) and are heavily dependent on surface water supplies (34). As a result, increased eutrophication would have widespread impacts. Among countries in this region, India is especially noteworthy because it exhibits all three risk factors across more than two-thirds of its area, is one of the fastest-developing countries in the world, and has one of the fastest-growing populations (33). The precipitation projections in this region are also highly sensitive to aerosol emission trajectories (35), which are themselves uncertain (36). Portions of Europe (e.g., Italy, southern France, Denmark, northern Germany) also display all three risk factors. Other highly agricultural regions (e.g., central Europe, eastern South America, southern Australia) have comparable fertilizer application rates (fig. S6C) but have either lower historical precipitation or less robust projected precipitation changes. In general, this heuristic approach identifies global agricultural regions that are particularly susceptible to the impacts of precipitation changes.
We conclude that changes in precipitation patterns will have substantial impacts on nitrogen loading within the continental United States. These trends will compound changes due to anticipated intensification of land use (9, 10) or they may negate the benefits of strategies aimed at load reductions (9, 10), thereby exacerbating water quality impairments (37). The same scenario is likely to play out in East, South, and Southeast Asia—in particular, in India and eastern China, which have high precipitation and fertilizer application rates and are projected to experience future precipitation increases. Our findings imply that strategies aimed at managing eutrophication and associated water quality problems must account for the impact of changing precipitation patterns on nutrient loading.
Supplementary Materials www.sciencemag.org/content/357/6349/405/suppl/DC1 Materials and Methods Figs. S1 to S6 Tables S1 to S3 References (38–50)
http://www.sciencemag.org/about/science-licenses-journal-article-reuse This is an article distributed under the terms of the Science Journals Default License.
Acknowledgments: Supported by NSF grant 1313897 (E.S. and A.M.M.) and by the Cooperative Institute for Climate Science, Princeton University, under NOAA grant NA08OAR4320752 (V.B.). We thank K. Findell, J. Ho, M. Lee, Y. Shiga, and three anonymous reviewers for incisive comments on the manuscript and analysis. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme’s Working Group on Coupled Modelling, which is responsible for CMIP, and we thank the climate modeling groups (listed in table S2) for producing and making available their model output. For CMIP, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison provides coordinating support and led development of software infrastructure in partnership with the Global Organization for Earth System Science Portals. For the global analysis, global climate scenarios used were from the NEX-GDDP data set, prepared by the Climate Analytics Group and NASA Ames Research Center using the NASA Earth Exchange, and distributed by the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. Data used in this study are freely available online, as listed in table S3.ENGLAND manager Gareth Southgate has come in for stick after announcing his latest national team squad ahead of November friendlies with Germany and Brazil. And Aaron Mooy is to blame.
Southgate made some bold selection decisions, including handing call ups to Under 21 youngsters Tammy Abraham, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Liverpool’s Joe Gomez.
And it was the selection of Gomez, and not Aussie Mooy which infuriated one unknowing England fan on Twitter.
“Big team bias calling up Joe Gomez just because he plays for Liverpool but ignoring Aaron Mooy even though he’s been great for Huddersfield,” wrote Jonny Sharples after Southgate announced the squad.
Big team bias calling up Joe Gomez just because he plays for Liverpool but ignoring Aaron Mooy even though he's been great for Huddersfield. — Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) November 2, 2017
It didn’t take users long to correct Sharples, with chaos ensuing as fans became confused about Mooy’s nationality.
YOU MEAN THE AUSTRALIAN MIDFIELDER!!!! — Jacob Burston (@CobYNWA) November 2, 2017
Erm... I don't think he's from Austria, mate... — Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) November 2, 2017
Aaron Mooy is Australian. AUSTRALIA. — Hans David Official™ (@hansdavid1997) November 2, 2017
No mate, he plays for Huddersfield, that's in England. — Tom (@TomPopes) November 2, 2017
I don't trust wikipedia mate. — Tom (@TomPopes) November 2, 2017
Gabriel Jesus plays for man City,that’s in England he should be named in English squad too with Aaron Mooy — Magok (@magok4) November 2, 2017
Jesus is from Bethlehem, pal. — Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) November 2, 2017
He's Finnish — owen (@efc_owenshaw) November 2, 2017
He's no finished, he's only 27. — Jonny Sharples (@JonnyGabriel) November 2, 2017
Voldemort? — Simon says (@n7simon) November 2, 2017
Mooy, of course, has been called up by Socceroos boss Ange Postecoglou for two crucial World Cup play-offs against Honduras, which you can watch live on FOX SPORTS 501.
LIVE stream the Socceroos v Honduras on FOX SPORTS. Get your free 2-week Foxtel Now trial and start watching in minutes. SIGN UP NOW >
Aaron Mooy has been in form for Huddersfield, scoring against Manchester United. Source: Getty Images
Mooy will be in action for Australia against Honduras. Source: Getty Images
Also called up by England was Manchester United winger Ashley Young, four years after his last cap while some shock exclusions include Chris Smalling, Jack Wilshere and Reds duo Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Daniel Sturridge.
FULL NOVEMBER ENGLAND SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Joe Hart (West Ham), Jack Butland (Stoke), Jordan Pickford (Everton)
Defenders: Ryan Bertrand (Southampton), Danny Rose (Tottenham), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Phil Jones (Manchester United), Harry Maguire (Leicester), John Stones (Manchester City), Joe Gomez (Liverpool), Kyle Walker (Manchester City), Kieran Trippier (Tottenham), Ashley Young (Manchester United)
Midfielders: Eric Dier (Tottenham), Fabian Delph (Manchester City), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Crystal Palace), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Harry Winks (Tottenham)
Attackers: Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Jesse Lingard (Manchester United), Dele Alli (Tottenham), Harry Kane (Tottenham), Tammy Abraham (Swansea), Jamie Vardy (Leicester)News
Interferon shows promise as flu therapy
5 Sep 2016
A molecule the body produces naturally in response to virus infection could be a viable flu treatment in the future, suggest researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London.
Their study in mice has found that the antiviral, called interferon lambda (IFNλ), can control flu infection without sparking further inflammation.
The team, led by Dr Andreas Wack at the Crick, tested interferon lambda and a second interferon called alpha (IFNα) in mice to explore their potential as therapies for the influenza A virus. The results were recently published in EMBO Molecular Medicine. They were funded by the MRC, the Crick, the Danish Council for Independent Research and a BBSRC-GlaxoSmithKline studentship. They worked with colleagues from Aarhus University in Denmark and the respiratory therapy team at GlaxoSmithKline in the UK.
There are between three and five million cases of severe illness caused by influenza virus each year around the world, and up to 500,000 deaths. Influenza A is capable of causing devastating pandemics.
The researchers used a mouse model that responds to flu in a similar way to humans to investigate whether either interferon could stimulate an antiviral response that helped fight flu infection.
They found that interferon alpha reduced viral load but made disease symptoms worse because it increased inflammation and tissue damage in the lung.
In comparison, mice treated with interferon lambda when flu symptoms set in recovered better and showed increased survival over mice given no treatment or interferon alpha. This is because the negative side effects seen in mice treated with interferon alpha were absent. 80% of mice survived when given interferon lambda compared with 50% of untreated mice and 20% of mice given interferon alpha.
The scientists tested the effect of interferon lambda on human cells in the lab and found the same response patterns as in mouse cells. The next step is to test the therapy in people who have flu.
Dr Wack is optimistic: “We know interferon lambda has a decent safety profile as it has already been tested for safety in humans. It passed phase 1 and 2 clinical trials as a hepatitis C therapy before better treatment options were found for that disease. If it were to be considered as an influenza treatment, this means the starting point to test it would be relatively advanced.”
The team hope interferon lambda’s existing safety profile means that if a new pandemic influenza strain hit the population in the near future, it might be considered as a treatment option. The team suggest that it may also be useful to treat other families of viruses that cause respiratory disease.
Dr Wack’s research group will move into the new Crick Laboratory in the coming weeks from the Crick’s Mill Hill Laboratory. It was in Mill Hill in 1957, when it was the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), that interferons were first identified by Dr Alick Isaacs and Dr Jean Lindenmann. NIMR became part of the Francis Crick Institute in 2015 along with Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute.
The interferon study received core support from the Francis Crick Institute and funding from the Medical Research Council, the Danish Council for Independent Research and a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council-GSK funded studentship.
Image by mcfarlandmo on Flickr under licence CC BY 2.0
CategoriesMajor North Sea Gas Leak Sees Total Fined Over £1.1 Million
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A major North Sea gas leak, on board Total’s offshore Elgin platform, has resulted in a fine of over £1.1 million for the oil and gas company.
Tuesday’s (22nd Dec) fine comes after a court hearing Thursday (17th Dec), in which Total pleaded guilty to charges related to the gas leak.
The sentencing saw, Aberdeen Sherif Court fine, the French based oil and gas major, £1,125,000 (US$1.7 million).
Total North Sea Gas Leak
The gas leak occurred on the Elgin platform, 150 miles (241km) east of Aberdeen, back in March 2012.
At the time the offshore platform was manned, with 238 offshore workers onboard, however most staff were evacuated safely back to shore, leaving a skeleton crew of 19 on board to secure the production platform, before they to were evacuated a day later.
The leak occurred from within a well that was in the process of being plugged and abandoned by the Rowan Viking jackup drilling rig.
An investigation after the incident put the likely cause down to a rupture in the well casing caused by both, ongoing work, and corrosion and fatigue of the casing.
The investigation cited that the rupture was above the then newly installed cement plug and allowed gas, from an untapped gas source above the main reservoir, to flow into the well bore.
This in turn escaped out of the well uncontrollably due to a lack of a sufficient well control plan.
The Gas Leak At The Offshore Elgin Platform
On Thursday (17th Dec), Total pleaded guilty at the Aberdeen Sherif Court, admitting that the gas leak had occurred due the company ‘miscalculating a plan designed to kill an unstable gas well on the platform.’
The leak led to tonnes of gas being spewed into the air and gas condensate into the sea, at a rate of 2 tonnes per hour.
The court head that at one point the Elgin was leaking by as much as 7 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Due to the size of the flammable gas plume, production on the nearby Shell operated Shearwater platform was shut down, with an air exclusion zone extending to three miles around the offshore platform and a maritime exclusion zone of two nautical miles.
51 Days Later
The gas leak was only stopped, 51 days later, after a specialist team and their equipment had been flown in from Houston, Texas.
The team from ‘Wild Well Control’, set about killing the well, using a two methods known as ‘Top Kill’ and ‘Bottom Kill’.
The ‘Top Kill’ involved pumping heavy drilling fluids (mud) down the well bore to counterbalance the force of the gas pushing up. The work was carried out by the semisubmersible drilling rig West Phoenix.
The ‘Bottom Kill’ was carried out by the Sedco 714 drilling rig, and involved drilling a relief well into the side of the gas source to extract some of gas in a controlled manner.
The gas leak eventually stopped on the 16th May 2012, 51 days after the initial blowout, with production restarting almost a year later on the 9th March 2013.
According to Total’s financial results, the gas leak cost them over £83 million (123m) in lost production revenue.The political system is rigged for the richest insiders in America.
When we talk about the insider, who are we talking about? It's the comfortable politician only looking out for his own interest. It is the lobbyist who knows how to put that perfect loophole in every single bill to get richer and richer and richer at your expense.
The richest Americans are paying nothing, and it is ridiculous. These guys shift paper around, and they get lucky. These hedge-fund guys are getting away with murder, when you have one who is making $200 million a year and paying |
dominance will be significantly helped by Davis’s entry into Canton. Davis had three truly great years, and one very good year, and that was it. What Gosselin said is true. The wording might feel insulting, but Davis’s enshrinement propels a lot of candidates who were marginal for Canton because of short periods of dominance into a new world of hope for the Hall.
JACOBY VS. BOSELLI
Saying Tony Boselli is more worthy than Joe Jacoby of Hall of Fame induction equals Terrell Davis being more worthy than Jim Brown; in other words, not at all. Jacoby redefined the position. There is no Boselli without Jacoby, like no Davis without Brown. Would both of you please turn down your obvious anti-Washington bias? I expect not.
—Daniel P.
Joe Jacoby “redefined” the tackle position. How?
MICHAEL VICK DESERVES A SECOND CHANCE
I am a regular reader of your column. I just wanted to thank you for your statements regarding the Kansas City Star editorial on Michael Vick. As someone with a family member who was convicted of a crime, served his time and now some 10 years later we just want to live life … people can't let go. What is most interesting to me is that the most vehement and vocal people against felons getting second chances are those who are so proud of the “American Way,” wave the flag, support our troops and the Constitution. They don’t seem to understand what this country they so love stands for. Anyway, thanks. I look forward to a new season of football and MMQB.
—Lori M.
I have always found it fascinating why people still give Vick a hard time. This editorial was in the KC Star, the paper that covers the Chiefs, who employ Tyreek Hill, who pleaded guilty to domestic assault and battery by strangulation. Did Vick and Hill commit a crime and were they punished for it? Yes. Evidently in the eyes of the editorialist, what Vick did to dogs is more heinous than what Tyreek Hill did to the mother of his baby.
—James T.
Two good emails. Thanks a lot for writing them. My feeling on Vick and his life is that he should be able to have one, freely.
BOSTON SPORTS JOURNAL MODEL
Just a quick note about your blurb on Greg Bedard and what he has started up in Boston. He actually bought his platform from Dejan Kovacevic of the site DK Pittsburgh Sports, which has been in existence for the past three years and is doing quite well. Kovacevic has broken that old-guard view that only newspapers can cover a city’s sports franchises. I just want to make sure you give credit where it’s due.
—Rajiv
Thanks for pointing that out. Dejan deserves praise for starting something that could end up being a standard for passionate sports markets. I surely hope it is.
NO DENVER BEER?
If you were in Denver last week but didn’t post some beernerdness in your Monday column, were you really in Denver? On a side note, the Mexican craft beer scene, especially in Mexico City, has exploded in last couple of years. Another reason to go down there to see the Pats and Raiders. Final note: I started watching the NFL 10 years ago in college in Mexico. Until then I had never been interested in the game, but my friends are huge fans of the game and they gathered to see them on Sundays, so I started watching the games with them. But I only started loving the sport after a couple of years of reading your columns. Thank you for being the best part of my Mondays. Saludos!
—Roberto P.
Wow! Thanks a lot, Roberto. So good of you, and I truly appreciate your kind words. Regarding the lack of beernerdness and other personal stuff in my column the other day: I’m sorry about it. I just got jammed up traveling and writing, and something had to be sacrificed. I wasn’t in Denver long enough to sample the local brew fare. But I’ve written in the past about Avery White Rascal and other local beers from Coors Field. Colorado’s beer scene is tremendous.
WE GET IT: YOU’RE A BABY BOOMER
I enjoy your column, but this week’s edition was full of more interminable baby boomer references than usual. Winston Churchill’s leadership abilities and how they apply to football. A beyond left-field reference to U2. Dak Prescott, a 24-year-old QB, expressing admiration for Bruce Springsteen, your own personal man-crush and an artist who last released a relevant album exactly 30 years ago. Either that is magical coincidence or the Cowboys and Broncos PR folks knew exactly how to get your attention.
—Steve, Alameda, Calif.
So … I take it you didn’t like the column. Thanks for the feedback.
STADIUM DOWNSIZING
Dean Spanos’s comment, “You may start to see the downsizing of stadiums in sports anyway,” is super interesting. I think he’s right. Levi’s Stadium is a great example. They went so overboard with the luxury boxes there that it has affected the composition of the crowd. The people who are there because they got comped seats with food and drink are now a meaningful percentage of the audience at home games. You can feel the disaffection in the atmosphere, and that’s a bad omen going forward. I think we’ll see a contraction of stadiums going forward, focusing the crowd on people who actually want to be there. All we need is another economic downtown to devastate luxury box rentals to kick it off.
—Mark
Great point. But I wonder—if the Niners were winning since the stadium, would things be different? I think they would be.
SPANOS’S FIGHT FOR L.A.
Spanos can look himself in the mirror because he refuses to see what is there. He did virtually nothing to build the coalitions necessary to garner public funding for a stadium project [in San Diego]. He failed and refused to collaborate with city and business leaders to draft an initiative that they could support. Worst of all, he completely and utterly disrespected and ignored the many fans who followed, cheered for and financially supported his team for decades. He spent more time in the L.A. media in the first week than he did in the San Diego media in the past two decades. Ultimately, he is a Punch and Judy owner; a guy who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. The NFL should be ashamed for allowing him to move this team. The Chargers and the NFL better pray Philip Rivers stays healthy. If the team is bad, the “fight for L.A.” will be over quickly, and the folly of this move will be fully exposed.
—Jeff B., San Diego
Thanks for writing, Jeff. We got a few of these letters, and yours represents the majority. I think in cases like this, the solution for an owner, always, is communication. I’m always in favor of talking to your locals (both press and citizenry) often in cases like this very controversial one. I don’t think Spanos and the local politicians and voters were going to come very close to a modern stadium solution, regardless of whatever coalition was built. The vote last fall tells me that.
CTE
Good to have you back. I do believe CTE will eventually be the downfall of football or at least lessen the player pool to those trying to escape poverty, much like what’s become of boxing. The one thing I haven’t seen and would like to is a comparison between former players and regular people, from doctors and lawyers to store clerks to warehouse workers to waiters, etc. While common sense says repeated blows to the head are bad for you, isn’t this comparison needed to estimate just how bad? Your thoughts, please.
—Dave K., Albuquerque, N.M.
Excellent point. I’d love to know that too. The problem: Not a lot of insurance salesman and software developers and firefighters have pledged (or, honestly, will pledge) their brains to be studied upon their deaths. The issue is being able to get a pool of representative people from all walks of life to have their brains examined.
• Question or comment? Email us at talkback@themmqb.com.Amy has a long and successful track record as a leader and collaborator in the cultural and creative industries. She is co-founder of the Olivier Award-winning arts company and club night Duckie, and co-founded RVT Future, a voluntary LGBT+ community group campaigning to preserve the iconic Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
She served as Mayoress of Camden in 2010/11 and spent her year highlighting the history and culture of live music and nightlife in the borough. Amy is a familiar presence on TV, in print and on radio. She broadcasted for a decade on BBC Radio London, and now hosts Sunday afternoons on BBC6 Music.
Her debut book, From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBT+ Movement – the first LGBT+ history book for children – was published by Hachette in June 2017.
In 2018, Amy was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of East London (UEL) and appointed Honorary Professor at University College London (UCL). Originally from New Jersey, Amy has been a proud Londoner for more than 25 years. She has served as London’s first Night Czar since 2016.You need a relevant PhD to understand IPCC summaries, find researchers, arguing for clearer writing
By Megan Darby
The UN climate science body’s reports are “unreadable”, holding back evidence-based action on global warming.
That is the uncompromising verdict of a study from Kedge Business School published in Nature Climate Change on Monday.
Based on linguistic analysis, it found readers needed a relevant postgraduate qualification to understand the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summaries for policymakers.
“Global action on climate change might be seriously hampered,” said study lead author Ralf Barkemeyer.
“If governments are not able to understand the scientific facts presented to them, how can they hope to reach consensus or joint decision?”
Given the complexity of IPCC output, the public relies on media interpretations, which researchers found tended to take a more pessimistic tone than the source material.
Tabloids newspapers in particular were more likely to use negative terms like “disaster”, “storm” and “crisis”, in contrast to the neutral phrasing of IPCC content.
Barkemeyer added: “If these summaries were simpler and more accessible, the public could turn directly benefit to these documents and discover the true nature of the challenges.”
Report: New UN climate science chief touts role for business
Coming a week after governments elected a new IPCC chair, the study outlines a major challenge for the institution.
Some observers have suggested the IPCC employ science writers and graphic designers to make the reports more accessible.
Incoming chief Hoesung Lee, an economist from South Korea, has downplayed that idea.
“I think the problem may not be particularly with the readability of the SPMs,” he told London-based blog Carbon Brief.
“My hypothesis is, it’s not the way the SPM was presented, but the content of the SPM presented to the decision makers…
“If this is the case then a science writer or a graphic designers, their contributions won’t work.”
18 Tweets: IPCC report distilled by climate scientist Piers Forster
Lee has proposed getting more inputs from the private sector and shifting the IPCC’s focus towards solutions to make it more relevant to policymakers.
Frank Figge, director at Kedge, told Climate Home the IPCC reports could and should be made more readable without losing precision.
That means using shorter sentences, an active – not passive – voice and more verbs.
Even papers in scientific journals, aimed at an expert audience, are easier to read than IPCC summaries, he said.
“If you have people in a classroom and they don’t understand, they fall asleep. Do we need the IPCC to be understood? Yes.”
The IPCC will discuss ways to improve communications at an expert meeting next February, including the possibility of involving specialist writers.
A spokesperson said: “There is no doubt that more needs to be done to make IPCC reports more readable and accessible. The newly elected Chair of the IPCC, Hoesung Lee, has made this point and we are determined to tackle it.
“The challenge is to do it in a way that does not damage the scientific rigour and robustness of the reports, or allow important nuances in them to be lost.”Check out the most popular Online Casino Games No Download
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more BestSlotsOfCanada.comFalse Reports of Trans Bathroom Harassment Circulate
Fox News has reported that a transgender student at Florence High School in Colorado was harassing other students in the bathroom. But there is no such case.
The news network's reporting was based on a Daily Mail article, which was based on a Christian Broadcasting Network report, according to Media Matters. The Daily Mail article was eventually taken down once it was revealed that the school's transgender student has had no complaints against her from other students now that she is using the girls' bathroom.
Instead, Transadvocate interviewed school superintendent Rhonda Vendetti, who said a parent was worried that the transgender student might start harassing others while in the facilities.
"This is one parent basically bringing their viewpoint about this situation to the media because they weren't getting the responses that they hoped they would get from the district, from parents of students at the high school, or from the board and myself," Vendetti told Transadvocate. "So I think it's just an attempt to elevate the situation to a point where maybe some more attention can be drawn to that in the hope of having a different outcome."Pet rescue centre helps dogs, drug addicts and disabled overcome adversity
Updated
A pet rescue group in Northam is aiming to improve the lives of local students, disabled workers and recovering drug addicts all while improving the lives of abandoned canines at the same time.
Founder of A1 Wheatbelt Dog Rescue, Matt Sharpe, reached out to Northam community groups to involve them in the welfare of the dogs in his care.
Veterinary Nurse students studying at the nearby Muresk Institute have completed the first course run by Central Regional TAFE which involved treating puppies and emaciated animals — bringing them back to health before they are re-homed.
"It's a two-way street. For us we get the vet work done by the students here, the vaccinations the microchipping and the health check," Mr Sharpe said.
"The girls and the guys get hands on experience with dogs and pups right through to helping heal really emaciated welfare cases.
"They get to see aggressive dogs and it's preparing them for the future when they are actually at a veterinary practice because they would have seen lots of different things before they start work."
Dr Suellen Kelly runs the 12-month Vet Nursing qualification course and said the experience was invaluable for the students.
"We are doing full health checks, so the students are carrying out those examinations. We are then giving them their first vaccine, worming them, flea treatment. We've also done skin scrapings and doing other minor works for dogs that have had an issue.
"It's vital to give the vet nurse students the hands on experiences in a controlled environment before they go out into clinic and finish off their course."
Help from all sides
Mr Sharpe has also involved disabled people at the rescue shelter as well as drug addicts from a residential rehabilitation centre near Northam who can build their work skills.
"We have two groups that help us and that helps them as well," he said.
"We have a not-for-profit organisation called Fresh Start and they have men's rehabilitation programs, for drug and alcohol issues.
"The blokes come out to the pound once a week. They take the dogs for a walk, they help clean, they do some gardening, we have anywhere up to 10 at a time."
Christian and his carer, Jake Clark from Essential Personnel Lifestyles based in Northam, have been coming to the pound every week to help teach Christian how to care for the dogs.
Mr Clark works with people with disabilities, bringing them to the dog yard to get them involved in the community, as a way of getting work placements for them.
"Christian comes down every Tuesday for about an hour, " Mr Clark said.
"He will work with the dogs, wash, groom the dogs, help clean out the pens, he seems to enjoy that.
"Christian has been wanting to do this for a long time because when he started up his own dog washing business he just wanted to learn new skills how to wash dogs properly and how to groom them."
Therapy works both ways
Justin McGlinn is a recovering ice addict staying at The Hill and said the rescue centre was helping animals as well as people.
"I walk the dogs about once a week. We spend maybe 15, 20 minutes each, take them for a walk, get a bit of exercise and get them out of the pound," he said.
"It's very therapeutic because they really appreciate getting a walk, it's their only chance to get out and it's probably the same for me as well."
Dr Kelly said Northam was lucky to have Mr Sharpe who she said was helping the local community as a way of saying thank you for the Northam Shire allowing him to use the old Northam pound as a pet rescue centre.
"More WA communities that have dog pounds in their town or suburb could help themselves from working in a voluntary capacity with the animal shelters," Dr Kelly said.
"Matt understands the connection between animals and people and how that can bring a community together, and there are a lot of communities across WA where a program like this would benefit a lot of people and a lot of agencies in the community."
Topics: animal-welfare, drug-education, addictive, disabilities, veterinary-medicine, charities-and-community-organisations, northam-6401
First postedA campaign to legalise possession of up to eight ounces of cannabis and tax its sales has backing from a US senator and leading figures, but opponents warn its promises are overblown and dangers real
This time, say the backers of the latest vote to legalise marijuana in Oregon, things are different.
Two years ago, as neighbouring Washington state and Colorado became the first to authorise the sale of recreational cannabis to adults, Oregonians shot down a similar measure at the ballot box. Now they are being asked once again to approve the legalisation of marijuana but after a very different campaign.
The 2012 initiative was widely criticised as too open to abuse, and was clearly written by true believers – the proposed legislation made reference to George Washington growing cannabis and referred to “federal and corporate misinformation campaigns” that “suppresses” the truth about marijuana. The latest proposal, Measure 91, is written to have broader appeal, and it would provide for tighter regulation of the production and sale of marijuana.
Unlike its predecessor, Measure 91 has heavyweight political backing. Oregon senator Jeff Merkley is the first US senator to come out publicly in support of legalisation. US representative Earl Blumenauer, whose district includes part of Portland, said he is backing the measure because “our marijuana laws don’t work and exact a terrible cost in tax dollars, law enforcement priorities and people’s lives”. They have been joined by a former Oregon state supreme court judge, ex-prosecutors, prominent newspapers and groups such as the Oregon Alliance for Retired Americans.
Perhaps most significantly, there is big money behind the “Yes on 91” initiative – big money that stayed away from the 2012 campaign. Supporters of legalisation have thrown millions of dollars into promoting it, with major funding from a group backed by the billionaire George Soros, while opponents have raised less than $200,000. As a result, the pro-legalisation advertising campaign drowns out the rival view.
Yet for all that, opinion polls have the outcome as too close to call. A survey for The Oregonian this week found 46% of voters opposed, 44% in favour, and 7% unsure.
Measure 91 would legalise marijuana use for anyone over 21, permit individuals to grow their own and possess up to eight ounces of cannabis, and bring in tax revenues to be distributed to schools, law enforcement and drug treatment programmes.
Anthony Johnson, the chief sponsor of Measure 91, said that the drafters of the proposed law learned from the mistakes of the past.
“This time, it’s the rules and regulations put in place that have satisfied people looking to donate to the campaign as well as mainstream endorsers. Previous marijuana measures would have legalised an unlimited amount of marijuana for people to grow and possess at home, for instance, whereas Measure 91 very much regulates marijuana like beer and wine. Those rules and regulations make moderate voters and mainstream endorsers more comfortable with this measure than other measures in the past,” he said.
The “Yes on 91” campaign is drawing heavily on the experience in Washington and Colorado to back its case.
Proponents of legal marijuana argue retail dispensaries such as those in Colorado have been a success for the state. Photograph: Chris Hondros/Getty Images
“People have seen that the sky hasn’t fallen in either state,” said Johnson. “The barometers that most people would look at as to whether marijuana legalisation has been a success or a failure – safety on the highways, usage by minors and the crime rate, as well as new revenue coming into the state – they can see regulating, legalising and taxing marijuana can be a successful policy.”
But Measure 91’s opponents are finding grist for their cause in Washington state and Colorado too. They accuse supporters of legalisation of glossing over important differences between the proposed Oregon law and those already in force. Measure 91 would allow residents to grow their own cannabis and supply it to friends, provided they do not charge, while Washington permits only licensed production. Colorado and Washington both limit possession to one ounce. Measure 91 would allow eight times that amount. Critics say that will cost the state a good portion of the promised tax revenues and encourage smuggling to other states.
And opponents say that the promise of tax revenues is already overblown. Oregon’s Legislative Revenue Office estimates that legalised sales of marijuana would bring in about $16m in 2017 and rise after that. Oregon’s revenues from the lottery were more than $1bn last year.
Mandi Puckett, director of the group leading opposition, “No on 91”, says the money poured into the “Yes” campaign – which includes tens of thousands of dollars in donations from firms in Washington, Colorado and California making money from marijuana – is evidence that the push for legalisation is being driven by profit.
“This is about commercialisation and big industry, just like alcohol and tobacco, coming into our state to market addictive products and be able to make money off of Oregonians. Taxpayers here are going to pay huge social costs for treatment and for traffic fatalities and overheads to regulate this,” she said.
Puckett quoted from a federal government report on legalisation in Colorado released in August which shows that since the legalisation of medical marijuana in Colorado in 2006 fatal in car accidents involving the drug have doubled, and that there has been a 400% increase in the smuggling of marijuana from Colorado over the past five years. The state also has a significantly higher proportion of underaged use of marijuana compared to the national average.
A marijuana-infused gummy bear alongside a normal one. Photograph: Rick Wilking/Reuters
For Puckett perhaps the most worrisome issue to have emerged from Colorado is what she describes as the “normalising of marijuana” and its impact on young people. The widespread sale of marijuana-infused products in Colorado, such as sweets, sodas and cakes, has drawn attention in Oregon.
“What it means is mass commercialisation; stores being able to open to communities selling products like marijuana gummy bears and soda pop and ice cream and cookies and candy, and those products overwhelmingly appeal to kids. Those are huge huge concerns,” said Puckett.
“It’s about acceptance, social norms and advertising and promoting a product. That is going to send a message to our youth that it’s not harmful, it’s not addictive and when you increase access to a drug through legalisation we’re going to see its use go up. The normalisation of this drug is really disturbing when it comes to our youth.”
Opponents of Measure 91 received some unexpected backing for their concerns from the chief consultant to Washington state on its marijuana laws, UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, who warned about the relatively low tax in the proposed Oregon law.
“Unless the legislature decided to raise it, the $35-per-ounce tax in Measure 91 would lead, within a couple of years, to prices way below current illicit prices and way below legal prices in Washington state,” Kleiman warned in a blog post.
“That in turn would mean big increases in use by minors and in the number of Oregonians with diagnosable cannabis problems. It would also mean substantial diversion of cannabis products legally sold under Oregon’s low taxes to Washington, where taxes are much higher”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A sheriffs association argues that already lax laws undermine the claims of legal marijuana advocates. Photograph: Alamy
Kleiman also said the idea that barring minors from buying cannabis in stores will keep them from having access to it “doesn’t pass the giggle test”.
“Cheap cannabis for grown-ups inevitably means cheap cannabis for kids,” he said.
The “Yes on 91” campaign is aware that fears about young people being drawn to the drug is one of the most significant concerns it has to overcome. Part of the strengthening of the latest ballot proposal over the 2012 initiative involved stronger measures to prevent people under 21 buying cannabis.
Johnson said that legalising marijuana also removes some of the dangers for young users.
“By lumping marijuana in with heroin and cocaine and meth, that breeds a lot of distrust with kids,” he said. “If kids are going to seek out marijuana, where are they going to seek it out today? It’s people who are breaking the law and could also be selling heroin and meth and more harmful drugs.”
Ultimately, Johnson paints Measure 91 as a social justice issue.
“We are arresting and citing over 10,000 people every year. If you are African American you are 100% more likely to be arrested for marijuana even though usage amongst races isn’t any different,” he said.
“And if you are poor, the consequences of the marijuana offence are much greater than if you’re not. It feeds into racial justice as well as income inequality. If you’re rich a $650 fine doesn’t mean anything to you, but if you’re on a fixed income of $800 a month, it means a lot to you.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ingestible products have become a point of contention among opponents to Measure 91. Photograph: Erich Schlegel/Corbis
Some leading Oregonians who previously opposed legalisation now see it as inevitable. A former state supreme court justice, William Riggs, voted against the measure two years ago but is publicly backing it this time.
“Marijuana legalization is inevitable. I believe we need to do it with the most responsible approach possible,” he said in a statement of support.
Riggs said that “treating marijuana use as a crime has failed”, that it has strengthened violent drug cartels in Mexico which sell marijuana in Oregon and that enforcing marijuana prohibition “has bogged down our justice system”.
“Last year, 13,408 people were arrested or cited for marijuana crimes in Oregon. That’s one person every 39 minutes, all of whom go through the justice system,” he said.
That view has been challenged by the Oregon Sheriffs’ Association, which opposes legalisation. Law enforcement officials say almost no one is arrested over small amounts of marijuana these days because in 1973 Oregon became the first state to decriminalise possession of less than one ounce. The vast majority of people receive tickets with fines and are not arrested. Only about 130 people are in Oregon prisons for marijuana-related crimes.
“It’s not clogging our jails,” said Clatsop County sheriff Tom Bergin. “It’s not stopping us from solving other crimes because it’s not a crime if they have an ounce or their medical marijuana card. It’s completely bogus.”
Johnson said that his campaign has heard from district attorneys and police officers across Oregon who favour the change but feel unable to speak publicly on the issue. But for all the arguments, he said the outcome of the ballot on Measure 91 may ultimately hinge on turnout.
“Opinion polls show a significant divide between generations over the legalisation of marijuana, so the more younger voters the campaign can turn out the better its chances,” he said.CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Panthers coach Ron Rivera said wide receiver Steve Smith and linebacker Jon Beason are expected to play in the team's Sept. 9 regular season opener against Tampa Bay after both returned to practice Sunday.
However, Rivera isn't sure about running back Jonathan Stewart, who remains out with a sprained ankle.
With Smith and Beason back, Stewart is the biggest concern as the Panthers enter the season opener. Although the Panthers have plenty of depth at running back, Stewart gives the team a big bruising back and someone to spell starter DeAngelo Williams.
"We'll see," Rivera said when asked if Stewart will be ready for the Bucs. "We don't know until he gets out here and starts running around."
Stewart spent Sunday running on the treadmill inside the stadium, Rivera said.
Smith missed the last two preseason games with what the team described as a left foot infection. However, Rivera said Smith looked just fine in his first practice and didn't miss a beat in his first work in two weeks.
"Right away he went back into his normal practice mode, which is 100 percent," Rivera said. "It was good to see him back on the football field for sure."
Smith said he doesn't know what caused the infection.
Smith, the team's all-time leader in yards receiving and touchdowns, said the foot got infected underneath the skin. It began to swell and things snowballed from there.
"It's one of those things that happened and I'm not really sure why," Smith said. "So I had to get meds and IVs. It was scary not being able to walk and having to get medicine every day. There was a little bit of nervousness."
Smith said he didn't need surgery.
Beason didn't participate in any of the preseason games after injuring his hamstring early in training camp. He split reps in practice Sunday with Jason Phillips, who has been filling in at middle linebacker in his absence.
Beason said the biggest thing now is not pushing the hamstring too fast.
"Coaches are limiting me in practice, but all in all it was a great day," Beason said. "As of today I feel good."
Beason also missed the entire preseason last summer with tendinitis in the lower left leg and then went out and tore the Achilles in that same leg in the season opener against Arizona, thus ending his season.
He said he's not worried about something similar happening this year.
"It's a different injury," Beason said. "When you deal with tendinitis you can only treat it and it goes away on its own. But as far as hamstrings are concerned it's more a strength thing. If there's too much fatigue that's where you begin to get into trouble."
Smith and Beason were captains last year and are considered key cogs for the Panthers.
Smith has played in five Pro Bowls and Beason three.UPDATED: I'd known Ian Murdock, founder of Debian Linux and most recently a senior Docker staffer, since 1996. He died this week much too young, 42, in unclear circumstances.
No details regarding the cause of his death have been disclosed. In a blog posting, Docker merely stated that:
"It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world; we all mourn his passing."
The San Francisco Police Department said they had nothing to say about Murdock's death at this time. A copy of what is reputed to be his arrest record is all but blank.
Sources close to the police department said that officers were called in to responded to reports of a man, Ian Murdock, trying to break into a home at the corner of Steiner and Union St at 11.30pm on Saturday, December 26.
Murdock was reportedly drunk and resisted arrest. He was given a ticket for two counts of assault and one for obstruction of an officer. An EMT treated an abrasion on his forehead at the site, and he was taken to a hospital.
At 2:40 AM early Sunday morning, December 27, he was arrested after banging on the door of a neighbor in the same block. It is not clear if he was knocking on the same door he had attempted to enter earlier. A medic treated him there for un-described injuries. Murdock was then arrested and taken to the San Francisco county jail.
On Sunday afternoon, Murdock was bailed out with a $25,000 bond.
On Monday afternoon, December 28, the next day, Murdock started sending increasingly erratic tweets from his Twitter account. The most worrying of all read:
"i'm committing suicide tonight.. do not intervene as i have many stories to tell and do not want them to die with me"
At first people assumed that his Twitter account had been hacked. Having known Murdock and his subsequent death, I believe that he was the author of these tweets.
His Twitter account has since been deleted, but copies of the tweets remain. He wrote that:
"the police here beat me up for knowing [probably an auto-correct for "knocking"] on my neighbor's door.. they sent me to the hospital."
I have been unable to find any San Francisco area hospital with a record of his admission.
Murdock wrote that he had been assaulted by the police, had his clothes ripped off, and was told, "We're the police, we can do whatever the fuck we want." He also wrote:
"they beat the shit out of me twice, then charged me $25,000 to get out of jail for battery against THEM."
Murdock also vented his anger at the police.
"(1/2) The rest of my life will be devoted to fighting against police abuse.. I'm white, I made $1.4 million last year, (2/2) They are uneducated, bitter, and and only interested in power for its own sake. Contact me imurdock@imurdock.com if you can help. -ian"
After leaving the courtroom, presumably a magistrate court, Murdock tweeted that he had been followed home by the police and assaulted again.
He continued:
"I'm not committing suicide today. I'll write this all up first, so the police brutality ENDEMIC in this so call free country will be known." He added, "Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a N****R, will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue."
His last tweet stated:
"I am a white male, make a lot money, pay a lot of money in taxes, and yet their abuse is equally doned out. DO NOT CROSS THEM!?"
He appears to have died that night, Monday, December 28. At the time of this writing, the cause of death still remains unknown.
His death is a great loss to the open-source world. He created Debian, one of the first Linux distributions and still a major distro; he also served as an open-source leader at Sun; as CTO for the Linux Foundation, and as a Docker executive. He will be missed.
This story has been updated with details about Murdock's arrest.
Related Stories:BERLIN/CANBERRA (Own report) - To reinforce its position in the Pacific region, Berlin is initiating a regular dialogue with Australia at foreign and defense ministerial levels. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier are participating in the first "German-Australian 2+2 Dialogue" held today in Berlin. The meeting, which will be repeated at regular intervals, is one of the measures initiated in early 2013 to enhance cooperation between Berlin and Canberra, in light of the shift of global policy priority from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In view of its growing economic and political importance, Washington considers China to be its main rival of the future. Therefore US President George W. Bush (2002) and US Foreign Minister Hillary Clinton (2011) explicitly declared this to be "America's Pacific Century," and Washington has begun redeploying its military forces closer to the People's Republic of China. Explicitly claiming to "help shape the global order," Berlin also feels obliged to reinforce its position in that region.
America's Pacific Century
Germany is intensifying its relations with Australia, in light of the current shift of global policy priority from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In view of the People's Republic of China's |
mented search for a native identity to uphold against the West.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
July 1, 2016, 9:15 PM GMT / Updated July 1, 2016, 9:15 PM GMT By Maggie Fox
Federal health officials on Friday widened an already big recall of flour after four more people got sick from food poisoning linked to the flour.
No one has died or developed the most dangerous symptoms from the E. coli infections, but 42 people have become ill from the General Mills flour, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration said.
The FDA notes it’s an unusual recall and has reminded people that any raw food can carry bacteria. Many of the people who got sick reported having eaten raw flour, in cookie dough for instance. Cooking kills most bacteria, including E. coli.
"Consumers should not eat raw dough or batter, whether made from recalled flour or any other flour. Flour or other ingredients used to make raw dough or batter might be contaminated," the CDC said.
The CDC says health officials have found harmful E. coli 0121 strains in General Mills flour collected from the homes of ill people in Arizona, Colorado, and Oklahoma.
“Consumers should not use any of the recalled flour and should throw it out."
The General Mills recall covers types of Gold Medal Flour, Gold Medal Wondra Flour, and Signature Kitchens Flour. On Friday the company expanded the recall to cover additional lots of flour.
"Four additional people have been sickened, bringing the total number to 42. Indiana has been added to the list of states with ill people," the CDC added.
Eleven people in total have been hospitalized, the CDC said. "No one has developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure, and no deaths have been reported.”
The CDC and General Mills both have websites to show people how to identify the affected products.
"Consumers should not use any of the recalled flour and should throw it out,” the CDC cautioned.
"If you stored your flour in another container without the packaging and don’t remember the brand or better by date is, throw it out to be safe. Consumers should thoroughly wash the containers before using them again."
Kitchen hygiene is important. "Do not taste raw dough or batter. Even tasting a small amount could make you sick," the CDC advised. "Wash any bowls, utensils, and other surfaces that were used when baking with hot water and soap."
The CDC estimates that about one in six Americans are made sick by foodborne illnesses every year — that's about 48 million people. About 3,000 die of these infections.Twenty-two years ago today, earlier than he would have liked, Larry Bird announced his retirement from the NBA.
Naturally, we should use the anniversary as an excuse to honor the Boston Celtics legend. A few of the best quotes about Bird follow:
1. "Larry, you only told me one lie. You said there will be another Larry Bird. Larry, there will never, ever be another Larry Bird." -- Magic Johnson at Bird's retirement party on Feb. 4, 1993
2. "Larry Bird just throws the ball in the air and God moves the basket underneath it." -- Cleveland Cavaliers public address announcer Howie Chizek during one of Bird's three consecutive MVP seasons
3. "He said, 'I'm going to get it right here and I'm going to shoot it right in your face.' And he came out right about that exact spot, and shot a shot right in my face. And he was like, 'I didn't mean to leave two seconds on the clock.' He wanted to shoot it at zero seconds on the clock. I walked back to the sideline like, damn." -- Xavier McDaniel while describing one of Bird's game-winning jumpers
Because no Bird anniversary would be complete without it, you should all watch Larry Bird: A Basketball Legend one more time. Don't be upset it's an hour long. Be angry it's not longer.
(Note: If for some reason you refuse to carve out an hour of your time to watch an old documentary, here are seven minutes of Bird passes and three minutes of highlights from the game he decided to be a lefty just for fun. If you can't make that much time to watch old Bird clips, you probably aren't a friend of mine.)“Thank you for helping me come alive.”
The characters of Togetherness are flawed in many ways, but that is exactly why it’s so compelling to watch them navigate their lives. Over the course of the season, we’ve seen them struggle and fight and plod along with no sense of direction, but at the end of the day, that’s life; life is going to include those moments, and we’re defined by how we live through them, how we form relationships and chase what we’re passionate about. This season wasn’t perfect, but it did a fantastic job showing us not only the imperfections of each character, but also how those imperfections make them who they are.
“Not So Together” refers to the fact that our central characters–Michelle, Brett, Tina, and Alex–are all “not so together” at the end of the episode. At the same time, the point the show is trying to make is that “together” can come in many different forms, through many different people. Human beings grow and change and meet new people and have new experiences, and “together” can mean one thing at one point and another thing at another point. Right now, for example, “together” means “with Larry” for Tina, and while it doesn’t seem like a very fulfilling lifestyle for her, it’s also in line with where she’s at. She’s living a hollow existence, but she’s simply too tired to move on, too tired to move beyond the dog-walking, swimming pool life she’s in. “It’s better this way, don’t you see that?” she says. One day, she’ll hopefully be filled with the kind of youthful excitement that our other three main characters feel right now.
The most melancholy aspect of the episode is that Tina storyline, of course, and it’s hard not to feel bad for her (especially with Peet’s heartbreaking scene at the pool). Elsewhere, though, there might be a more positive spin on “togetherness”, and that’s exactly what we see with Michelle and David. Yes, they’re crossing a line that can’t be uncrossed, but at the same time, we see just how good they are for each other when they’re passing notes under the hotel door. Contrast that with the detachment early on in the season between Brett and Michelle, and it’s easy to see why Michelle is finding a new form of togetherness, why she needs this charter school and David and the new team.
But yes, it’s cheating, and it’s unfortunate that it comes at the same time that Brett is starting to feel a sense of excitement; the beach hasn’t been a good place for him until now, and upon seeing a changed Brett, Alex tells him to “direct that positivity toward Michelle”. It’s key to note, though, that Brett gains this positivity when Michelle’s off with David; he’s instead spending time with his kids, and we start to get the feeling that their youthful energies develop in part because they’re away from each other. And so, at the end, our characters are beginning anew. Things aren’t perfect and they never will be, but there’s some hope and excitement to be found. It remains to be seen how Alex’s movie will turn out or how David and Michelle will navigate their relationship or how the charter school will develop, but hey, that’s why we can get excited about life. That’s why we can get excited about togetherness.
GRADE: A-
SEASON GRADE: B+
OTHER THOUGHTS:
-Great use of James Blake’s “The Wilhelm Scream” at the end. It creates the perfect atmosphere, and I like the silence over the credits.
-Tina with the “That’s What She Said” joke! You can never pass up an opportunity for one of those.
-Common theme of getting things out in the open throughout this one: David and Michelle, Alex and Tina, Brett and Alex.
-This entire cast is great. Can’t wait to see them back next year.
-I thank you, show, for getting Amanda Peet back on television. She is awesome.
Photo credit: Togetherness, HBOScientists Discovered ‘Second Brain’ in the Human Body
We have one mind, one brain and one collective center of thought, right? Wrong! Guess what?
Human beings not only have a brain to make decisions for them, they also have another organ that helps govern what they do. No guys, it’s not the penis, so stop laughing.
You know, when you get that gut-wrenching feeling in the pit of your stomach, yeah that one? Well, apparently your tummy is trying to tell you something. No, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Indian food is causing indigestion, it means that your second mind is talking now. Yes, your stomach is your second brain! Maybe you should listen to what it is saying.
Why?
One reason for this phenomenon is that your stomach and your brain originate from the same material. The other reason is that your stomach and your brain still retain some of the same characteristics and nerves, it’s true!
Starting from the same tissues, the brain and the stomach originate and basically decide to take two separate roads of development, or the great creator programs this move.
Either way, two paths originate and split to govern two separate areas of the body. This is where the material changes to form our brain, the central nervous system and stomach, the enteric nervous system.
The interesting aspect of this split revolves around the Vagus Nerve. The Vagus nerve connects the two nervous systems for life. Because of this connection, both the brain and the gut share neurotransmitters and hormones.
How does this all come together?
The ENS (Enteric nervous system) is the reason why you can sense danger. It is a “Spidey sense” governed by your stomach, gut instincts and the like-we all recognize this intuitive feeling. The stomach naturally sends these signals to the brain.
Dr. Michael Gershon, the author of “The Second Brain” and Chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Columbia, says that this intuition has no consciousness, it just is.
Proven
So, it seems that a test was the very thing to prove these theories about the mind/stomach connection, and so a test was indeed conducted. A study was completed using 36 women between the ages of 18 and 55. Dividing these women into three groups, scientists set forth to test the connection. The results were very interesting, to say the least.
The first group was given yogurt, containing probiotics, the second group was given yogurt without probiotics and the third group remained the control group, and consumed nothing at all. In four weeks, the women were studied, and researchers found that the group which ingested probiotics had a more stable mentality. During stressful situations, this group was able to assess the situation and calmly develop a solution to the problem, hence the obvious connection to the brain.
Kirsten Tillisch, head of the research team stated, “By controlling the environment of the stomach, we can control what happens in the brain.”
With all this being said, one thing is very obvious. If eating nutritiously was not that important to you before, it sure is now. Apparently, the gut not only benefits from healthy foods by absorbing nutrients, it also seems to have a preference toward what it eats. It has a mind that prefers vitamins and minerals and a mood that depends on its human to eat the right things.
The connection between the brain, the first mind, and the stomach, the secondary mind, is real, and now we have a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the human being.
If you were ruled by the misconception that the brain controls everything, then you are wrong. This recent discovery may even change the way we see other organs of the body. Hell, we may even find a third brain, nestled within the intricate structures of the kidney or heart. It’s possible!
SharesA travel guide publisher has listed Detroit as one of the top cities to visit in the world in 2018.
Lonely Planet says Detroit made No. 2 on the list.
Alexander Howard with Lonely Planet says Detroit has been nominated several times before, but this is the first time they’ve made the list.
Howard says the Qline, and the new arena were some new things in Detroit including the momentum the city has right now.
In first place was Seville, Spain.
Lonely Planets top things to do in Detroit are the Eastern Market, Fisher building, Motown Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Campus Martius.
“What a transformative change the whole city has had, its amazing, I'm so happy to be a part of it working on the Beacon park building as the architect and also working in Detroit currently its exciting,” says architect Theadore Toulokian.
Top 10 CitiesWASHINGTON -- The U.S. is planning to train veterans to become solar panel installers in the next six years, the White House said Thursday.
The jobs training program is among a host of initiatives the White House says will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300 million tons through 2030, plus save billions of dollars on energy bills for homeowners and businesses. It will launch this fall at one or more military bases and train a total of at least 50,000 workers, including veterans.
The Agriculture Department will also spend nearly $70 million to fund 540 solar and renewable energy projects, focused on rural and farming areas. And the Energy Department will propose stricter efficiency standards for commercial air conditioners, a move the department said could cut emissions more than any other efficiency standard it has issued to date.
The proposals are modest compared with what President Barack Obama has asked Congress to do through legislation to promote clean energy, invest in infrastructure projects and force reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. But with lawmakers unwilling to consider any major climate legislation, Obama has sought to maximize what presidential authority he does hold.
Next week, Mr. Obama will attend a one-day United Nations summit on climate change in which heads of state are expected to show up with commitments to curbing emissions at home.By Mark Tokola
The story of Kim Jong-nam’s assassination took a bizarre turn with the announcement by Malaysian authorities that the cause of death was a banned chemical weapon, the nerve agent VX. It is only supposed to be held in limited quantities by the United States and Russia. However, it has been reported that North Korea has been developing stockpiles of VX, among other substances banned by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, of which North Korea is not a party. The Malaysian announcement seems to have removed almost any remaining doubt that North Korea was responsible for the assassination, but why would North Korea choose to use such an exotic method when other, more prosaic, means of assassination were available? And why choose a weapon that would be so obviously traced back to North Korea?
Kim Jong-nam’s assassination has now become reminiscent of the 2006 assassination of Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko in London. Litvinenko was also killed by exotic means, exposure to a rare radioactive substance, Polonium, which was placed in a teapot used by Litvinenko in a hotel restaurant. Once the cause of death was established, it immediately placed suspicion on the Russian government. Litvinenko was a critic of Vladimir Putin’s and had exposed mafia-like behavior on behalf of Russian officials. Litvinenko, like Kim Jong-nam, had predicted that he might become the victim of a state assassination. Russia denied any responsibility for Litvinenko’s death, but an inquiry conducted by the British government concluded in 2016 that Litvinenko had been killed by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), and probably by the direct order of Vladimir Putin.
The parallels between the two assassinations are strong. Both Kim Jong-nam and Litvinenko were exiles from authoritarian regimes, both were killed by spy-novel type means that would clearly seem to indicate state-sponsored murder, and both of the authoritarian regimes that they hoped to have escaped denied any public responsibility for their deaths. Nevertheless, an exhaustive UK official inquiry established high confidence in Russian culpability in Litvinenko’s death, and it is now close to straining credulity to conclude that anyone other than North Korea could have murdered Kim Jong-nam.
Why would Russia and North Korea have carried out assassinations in ways that would point back to them? Because it serves their interests to appear responsible while at the same time formally denying responsibility. Both Russia and North Korea claim to adhere to international law. In an official statement, North Korea, brazenly, accuses the government of Malaysia of violating international law by conducting an autopsy and not releasing Kim Jong-nam’s body to them – without acknowledging that the body is in fact Kim Jong-nam’s. If Russia and North Korea announced that they had carried out the assassinations, they would be guilty of breaches of international law, possibly leading to sanctions and certainly becoming subject to international opprobrium. The countries in which Russia and North Korea had murdered their countrymen, the United Kingdom and Malaysia, would have grounds to take diplomatic countermeasures, perhaps expelling their diplomats, minimizing relations, or taking economic steps. Denying responsibility allows Russia and North Korea to claim to be in compliance with international law, to defend themselves against diplomatic countermeasures, and to allow themselves to continue to draw support from those at home and abroad who prefer to ignore the evidence.
Leaving their fingerprints on the assassinations also has its purposes for Russia and North Korea. It makes clear to current and potential defectors and dissidents that they can find no safety from retribution by living abroad. It also signals to the world that Russia and North Korea have the means to project power, albeit in a heinous manner. They can have it both ways. Call it implausible deniability.
Mark Tokola is the Vice President of the Korea Economic Institute of America. The views expressed here are his own.
Photo from David Stanley’s photostream on flickr Creative Commons.Dermontti Dawson is the only Hall of Fame center to play in the NFL in the last 20 years. Go back 30 years, and the only other HOF centers are Mike Webster and Dwight Stephenson. Go back a few more years, and you only get to add Jim Langer. In fact, since 1975, the only teams to have Hall of Fame centers were the Steelers and Dolphins.
Go all the way back to 1960, and the only other Hall of Fame centers to play in the NFL were Jim Ringo and Jim Otto. In other words, the Pro Football Hall of Fame has a center problem. And the nomination of Mick Tingelhoff for induction into the HOF is one small step towards fixing that problem.
This year, the Pro Football Hall of Fame has named Tingelhoff the 2015 Senior Committee Nominee. Tingelhoff still needs to have 80% of the voters give him the thumbs up, but unlike other players, he won’t be “competing” against the rest of the field for the right to earn a bust. Tingelhoff’s candidacy will be handled via a simple yes or no vote.
Hall of Fame fans may wonder why I’m talking about the Senior nominee, because there are generally two nominees from the Senior Committee. But things have changed for this year:
A bylaws modification to the selection process was approved earlier this month by which a Contributor – defined as an individual who has “made outstanding contributions to professional football in capacities other than playing or coaching” – will automatically be included among the annual list of finalists for election. The Contributor finalist will also be voted on for election independent of all other finalists. The Hall of Fame’s Board of Trustees, in an effort to address the backlog of deserving Contributor candidates, also approved a temporary measure allowing for two Contributor finalists in years one (starting with the Class of 2015), three and five, of the next five years. In years two and four of that same period, there will be just one Contributor finalist. To keep the maximum number of nominees elected at no more than eight per year, the Senior finalists will be reduced from two to one per year in years one, three and five of the same five-year period. In years two and four and each year thereafter, there will be two Senior finalists.
That’s good news for Steve Sabol, Paul Tagliabue, Art Modell, Edward Debartolo, Jr., George Young, and other owners/contributors, and not so great news for other NFL players who retired prior to 1990. As for Tingelhoff, he’s a worthy choice. Here is what I wrote about him when I analyzed the best undrafted players of all time.
Tingelhoff is perhaps the most decorated player not in the Hall of Fame. He’s tied with Chuck Howley and Jimmy Patton for the most NFL first-team AP All-Pro nominations by an eligible non-HOFer with five, but he made more Pro Bowls than both of them. He played for 17 seasons, started 240 games, and made four Super Bowls. Amazingly, Tingelhoff started his first game as an UDFA, and then never missed a singe game. Before that, Tingelhoff had a predictable career path. He grew up in Lexington, Nebraska and ended up playing football at the University of Nebraska. He didn’t start until his senior season, but in 1961 he was co-captain of the Cornhuskers. His career was relatively undistinguished — Nebraska wasn’t very good and Tingelhoff did not win All-American or All-Conference honors. Unlike most on the list, Tingelhoff got to play major college football, but did not convince any NFL teams to draft him. Minnesota was a team in desperate need of a center, so Tingelhoff was a good fit. The Vikings entered the NFL in 1961, with newly retired QB Norm Van Brocklin as head coach; Van Brocklin brought over his backup center from Philadelphia, Bill Lapham, to start for the expansion Vikings. The Vikings didn’t bring in any new centers in ’62 until Tingelhoff. Tingelhoff took over as starting center in Minnesota’s second pre-season game, and didn’t relinquish that spot until he retired.
Since 1960, there have been 21 offensive linemen who have been selected by the Associated Press as an first-team All-Pro at least five times. Sixteen are in the Hall of Fame. Steve Hutchinson and Alan Faneca are not yet eligible, but will almost certainly wind up in Canton one day. The other three are Tingelhoff, Jerry Kramer, and Jim Tyrer. Kramer was part of the most HOF-studded team of all time, so you can understand the reluctance of voters to induct yet another Lombardi Packer. Tyrer killed his wife and committed suicide prior to being eligible for induction. Tingelhoff’s biggest crime was struggling to block Curley Culp and Joe Greene in the Super Bowl. I’m not sure ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” applies here, but regardless, Tingelhoff should join Culp and Greene in the Hall of Fame next August.Get the biggest politics 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
Police are being asked to investigate extraordinary claims that the Tories paid an unemployed woman to pose as a party supporter and help their general election campaign.
It is alleged that an activist leafleting voters in Thanet South one month before the May poll was hired as a temp for the day but this was not declared locally as an election expense.
Quizzed about here role, it is claimed that she denied being a Tory and said: "I'm not. I was at the job centre and saw this advert for a job with an unknown employer".
The woman, who is not named, was allegedly then put on a Tory battlebus on April 9, given a Conservative rosette and taken by bus to the Phoenix Youth Club in Sandwich, Kent.
From there, she was allegedly ordered to pound the streets with other genuine party volunteers.
It is not thought she canvassed for the Tories by engaging with voters, which would be a criminal offence, and there is no suggestion Tory MP Craig Mackinlay was aware of the arrangement.
(Image: Reuters)
If true, the cost of her wages should have been declared to Mr Mackinlay and included in his election spending return.
Mr Mackinlay is already facing an investigation into claims that his spending declaration is incomplete. The Mirror revealed three months ago that Mr Mackinlay didn't declare the costs of a string of battlebuses bringing activists to his constituency.
The Conservatives insist the buses were correctly declared as a part of their national election campaign.
The new claims are made by Dover councillor Peter Wallace who has passed his concerns to Kent Police.
Kent Police confirmed that it has received the allegation, which is being reviewed.
We approached both Mr Mackinlay and the Conservative Party for comment but both did not respond.
Councillor Wallace said: “On April 10th the Conservative Party's Battle Bus visited Sandwich, in South Thanet, with a number of activists on board. During the day they distributed leaflets, campaigned in the town centre and held a meeting at the Phoenix Centre youth club.
“After the meeting a member of staff at the Phoenix Centre spoke to one of the activists and asked her why she had travelled from London to campaign in Sandwich for the Conservative Party.
“The activist replied that she wasn't a supporter of the Conservative Party but was actually unemployed and was recruited in her local job centre in London to campaign for the Party.
“She was paid to travel on the bus, hand out leaflets and take part in the campaign while wearing a blue rosette.
Read more: Be part of the Daily Mirror People's Electoral Commission and help us investigate alleged Tory election fraud
“I can't find any reference to this election expense in Craig McKinlay's returns. I believe this is a serious matter that needs investigating.”
Kent Police this week applied for more time to investigate claims, first reported in the Mirror, that Mr Mackinlay broke electoral law by failing to declare the costs of the battlebus.
But the court hearing was adjourned to next week when the Conservative Party hired a legal team to challenge the process.
Tory Chairman Andrew Feldman had previously promised a "full explanation" of the scandal but earlier this month the Electoral Commission took the party to the High Court in a bid to force it to disclose key documents about election expenses.Deserving cabin crew will not be denied promotions and rewards just because they may fall ill from time to time, Singapore Airlines (SIA) said.
In a circular issued yesterday to reassure staff - a copy of which was obtained by the Straits Times - SIA said that doing so was not tenable "as we would inevitably be depriving ourselves of good people moving up to assume leadership positions".
The note came after some crew members complained that the current scheme discourages those who are genuinely ill from taking medical leave.
Employees have incentive points that are docked when they submit a medical certificate - recorded as casual MC - for common ailments such as cold and cough.
Everyone starts with 10 points each year, which are progressively deducted and all lost once 12 casual MCs are accumulated.
Related Story Some SIA cabin crew unhappy over medical leave system
SIA did not provide details of the scheme but said in its circular that the MC component makes up 4 to 6 per cent of the annual appraisal. When decisions are made on promotions, other factors are also taken into account and there is an interview round as well.
"We do, however, track crew who take many days of MC," SIA said.
Employees have incentive points that are docked when they submit a medical certificate - recorded as casual MC - for common ailments such as cold and cough. Everyone starts with 10 points each year, which are progressively deducted and all lost once 12 casual MCs are accumulated. SIA did not provide details of the scheme but said in its circular that the MC component makes up 4 to 6 per cent of the annual appraisal.
This is to ensure that the employee is all right and to render any assistance necessary.
It is also important to make sure that there is no abuse of the medical leave system because when someone takes sick leave "for the wrong reasons", others on standby have to be activated.
Examples of MC abuse are when staff take MCs just before "unpopular" flights or when crew repeatedly report sick when called up for standby duty.
There are also cases of those who visit different clinics to obtain MCs, the airline said.
SIA stressed that turning up for work when crew feel unwell is unacceptable as it poses a risk not just to the staff, but also to colleagues and passengers.
The concerns raised by cabin crew follow the death of leading stewardess Vanessa Yeap, 38, in San Francisco last week.
She was due for a return flight to Singapore, with a stopover in Hong Kong, when she was found dead in her hotel room. She had allegedly told her colleagues that she was not feeling well. The cause of death has yet to be certified.
The Manpower Ministry is in touch with the airline and the union representing cabin crew about the concerns.
Meanwhile, cabin crew who contacted The Straits Times said that they were disappointed with the airline's latest circular. "It is quite clear that management sees nothing wrong with the current practice. There is no mention of a possible review or rethink, which is quite disheartening," said one.
Another steward said: "By all means, track and punish those who abuse the sick leave system. It's justified. But bottom line, the current system penalises everyone, including those who are genuinely ill. It does not matter how much weightage is given to the MC component. The fact that it is taken into account is unfair."What Bryan Cranston taught me at 4:00am
Kent Fenwick Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 13, 2014
Bryan Cranston in Twas the Night (2001) and Breaking Bad (2013).
“Grab that cord will you… it’s time to eat!”
Mark called at me as I looked back with a blank stare. It was 3:00am on a Wednesday in October and snow was falling all around me. Well, it looked like snow but the texture was more like cotton and the flavour something like the coloured clip of a Bic clicky pencil. Plastic and artificial.
I am on a movie set and Mark, (a heavy grip) thinks I belong here.
“Common kid let’s go… I hear it’s prime rib.”
I have been coming here for the past two nights. Disney is filming a made for TV movie called Twas the Night starring Bryan Cranston a few doors down from my house. It’s the year 2000, years before Walter White and Heisenberg. Bryan is still Hal from Malcolm in The Middle and to me, he’s Dr. Tim Whatley from Seinfeld. I love Seinfeld and want to know everything about it.
I pile into one of the trucks and head down to the church to eat with the crew. The more I look around, the more I realize that Mark must know I don’t belong here. I am the youngest person in the truck by 15 years (I am only 15 myself but quite tall for my age). I decide he’s just letting me come along for the ride, letting me feel like I am working on a movie set… I like Mark.
The church basement is full of crew by the time we get there and the food is delicious. I don’t eat though, I am fixated on Bryan sitting a few tables over. I am working up the nerve to sit beside him. Before I can, everyone starts getting up and we pile up back into the trucks to head back over to the Selley’s driveway.
I am struck by the sheer size and complexity of movie making. There are 20 crew members, 6 cast members, 6 stand-ins, fake snow, lights, and a rigged car. All this for a made for TV movie. It takes 3 hours to shoot a 5 minute scene. It’s boring as hell and I love it.
Around 4:00, my chance finally comes. One of the gaffers yells that they are having a washing issue with one of the lights and in come the stand-ins and Bryan retires to the snack tent just off the driveway and grabs a cookie. I seize the opportunity and strike up a conversation.
Bryan is one of the easiest people to talk to. He asks me about school, asks me why I am here so late. Tells me how much he loves my neighbourhood and all the trees. Before I know it, we have been talking for 5 minutes and I haven’t asked him a single question. I figure this lighting problem will get fixed soon and I am running out of time.
I jump in and say, “What was it like working with Seinfeld?”
He laughs and says it was a great. Jerry is exactly like he is on the show and one of the nicest people he has ever met. Julia and Jason are the funniest on set and to everyone’s surprise Michael is quiet and nothing like Kramer.
I tell him that I loved his character and wished he had of made it into the series finale. He tells me that he did tape it, but in the end the finale ran long. There were too many good stories that the converted Jewish dentist didn’t make the cut… we were both disappointed.
I asked him what he was going to do next? Was he trying to get into movies or did he like TV better? I have never forgotten what he told me, and while I wrote it down when I got home, I lost the original. Here is what I remember him telling me.
“I don’t know what I am going to do next and for once that doesn’t worry me. When I was your age, I was worried. I wanted to do this and do that, I had plans. I don’t think like that anymore. I am proud of my career. I like where I am at. I have dreams sure, but I don’t worry about them. I just try and do good work and take things as they come. I love Malcolm in the Middle and am having fun. If we are canceled next year, I will find something else to do and if we go on for ten years, that would be great too. I kinda dodged the question didn’t I? Look, I love my job and try to always do great work. I also get to talk to people like you, visit nice places like Canada and get paid to eat cookies.”
He laughs.
I can’t remember what else we talked about after that. It was time for him to go and they were changing up one of his lines. He had to mention to milk and cookies now.
Fast forward and you can imagine my delight when I started watching Breaking Bad. Bryan has said many times that Walter White is the role of his life and came out of complete surprise. Seems like he kept true to his advice. He kept dreaming and kept doing great work. One day, someone noticed.
So have dreams. But don’t worry about them. Dreams are there to inspire and push you not cause you stress. Do great work everyday and take things as they come. One day, you will find yourself in the role of your life too.High levels of uranium, lithium and a synthetic chemical used to make plastics were present in the urine and hair samples of residents who live near the site of the massive 2015 Aliso Canyon natural gas leak, according to results released Saturday by a local physician.
The long-awaited, independent health study by Dr. Jeffrey Nordella, who practiced in Porter Ranch, showed a pattern of symptoms from patients he followed and tested just after the leak was capped in February 2016 and then months later, up until this year.
More than 300 people packed the Hilton Hotel in Woodland Hills to listen to Nordella’s presentation, and many gasped as he showed them charts with patterns of substances that he found in hair and urine of patients he had tested and followed, including styrene, a derivative of benzene, which is a known carcinogen. Chronic exposure to styrene leads to tiredness and lethargy, memory deficits, headaches and vertigo. Nordella also said:
Of 106 patients whose urine was tested, 31 percent had a presence of styrene at higher than average levels.
Of the first 51 patients Nordella followed just after the gas leak, 34 percent experienced nosebleeds. Of the 72 he followed months after the leak was capped, 31 percent — nearly the same number — still experienced nosebleeds.
In 26 homes, lithium was detected in the LADWP water supply, while in non-LADWP water, there were no detectable levels of lithium.
While urine samples showed elevated levels of styrene and ethylbenzene, hair samples revealed uranium, which can be naturally occurring, but was higher in Porter Ranch residents, and lithium. Nordella said the results of the hair samples “were statistically significant when compared to averages in the rest of California as well as the United States” which he added supported evidence of patients’ long-term exposure.
“You are different,” he told the crowd, explaining he could tell overall exposure levels were high in Porter Ranch by comparing lab tests from people in Porter Ranch to normal levels of people from elsewhere in California and in the United States.
RELATED STORY: LA doctor sounds alarm over effects of Aliso Canyon gas leak
Ashley Hall, of Porter Ranch, talks about her daughter’s health condition at a town hall to discuss findings in the aftermath of the Aliso Canyon methane leak. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Dr. Jeffrey Nordella on Saturday, Oct. 14 presents the findings of a health study he conducted on residents of Porter Ranch exposed to the methane leak there. Nordella spoke at the Hilton Woodland Hills in Woodland Hills. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
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More than 300 people listen as Dr. Jeffrey Nordella presents his findings on the health of around 100 Porter Ranch residents following the methane gas leak there detected Oct. 23, 2015. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Dr. Jeffrey Nordella details numbers of people among those he studied after the Aliso Canyon methane gas leak. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
“You are different,” Dr. Jeffrey Nordella told his audience Saturday, Oct. 14, speaking of the Porter Ranch residents exposed to methane gas from a leak at a Aliso Canyon storage facility. (Photo by Ed Crisostomo, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Marianna Mihovics, from left, of Porter Ranch, Deirdre Bolona of Porter Ranch, Jane Fowler of Granada Hills and others listen as Dr. Jeffrey Nordella presents his findings on the health of Porter Ranch residents he studied |
npersuasive and de facto cannot be implemented. Mouffe claims that democracy is formed fundamentally by two things: replacement of the notion of ‘political enemy’ with the notion of a legitimate political adversary; and secondly, a common symbolic/institutional frame that is shared by political adversaries and that places limits on the conflict between such adversaries.[7] Due to the problem of interpretation of a procedural frame, such an idea is unpersuasive and non-implementable: given the assumption of a true politically adversarial relationship, which entails a disagreement over the ways of interpreting of a common institutional frame, such a frame cannot be unambiguously legitimate or efficient. True democracy rests on a true consensus concerning the issue of interpreting and implementing of procedures, which is then, contra Mouffe, bound to take democratic mechanisms of decision-making in direction of political friendship, or, to put it in a more neutral vocabulary, direction of peaceful and discursive resolution of political conflict.
Before I present the case of ‘bastardization’ of democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I need to remind the reader of some important facts concerning the notion of ‘democratic representative’ or ‘democratic representation.’
Democratic representation and democratic representatives
Democratic representative is not a mere individual. It is an individual, or a group of individuals (for instance, parliament), endowed with one additional aspect that turns it into a legitimate representative. Simply speaking, one larger group of people needs to stand ‘behind’ the individual and consider him or her as something that is of essential importance to the group taken collectively. Such additional aspect, that makes one a representative, can be grasped only in terms of the theory of discourse generally, and in narratological terms more specifically. Thomas Hobbes, the author of Leviathan, is the first political theorist who presented such additional aspect in persuasive and clear terms.[8]
A sovereign representative, the key figure of the Leviathan, is, metaphorically speaking, ‘a seat of power’ in the sense that the representative, apart from being an individual, also figures as a common voice of those who elected him collectively. In other words, sovereign representation is a social relationship involving a group and an individual, in which relationship the group deems the individual sufficiently authorized to speak in the group’s name. Hobbes presented such a relationship in the following terms: one who assumes the position of a sovereign representative thereby becomes ‘persona’ in the literal Latin sense of the word (which is translation of the classical Greek term prosopon): he puts a ‘mask’ on his face and thus gains the status of one who is more than an individual; one to whom the group attributes a special role in accordance with the mask which can be grasped properly as a symbol and demonstration of a special script/screenplay; the sovereign representative is tasked with performance of both such a role and the script.[9] In other words, sovereign representative is an artificial person brought into life by a projection of social will into a single individual who, through such a projection, is endowed with the status of ‘a moral person’ of a collection of individuals taken collectively. This further means that, by putting on the mask, a key condition of transformation of community into a single political-theatrical space, sovereign representative undertakes the commitment to the idea and ideal of ‘common or public good.’ The whole community endows the representative with a sufficient amount of initial trust, an a priori moral capital, to be able to undertake and start implementing such a commitment.
In other words, the sovereign representative needs primarily to stage a drafted script, which means deliberating and adjudicating on the premise of common good and for the purpose of protecting the collective body. This can be illuminated only through a discursive theory of sovereign representation. A ‘representative’ is one who employs and implements political-legal-moral language in such a way that his language forms and safeguards a collective political body in an especially emphatic mode. His discourse is taken as representative of a collective body in political sense, and, once elected, he himself is deemed capable to confirm and protect such collective body primarily by his argument, that is, by the laws and the law enforcement.
This complex discursive process in its entirety is impossible without some foundational discursive virtues: truthfulness, integrity-coherence, reasonable understanding, interpreting, and implementation of the law, i.e. of collective promises with the status of law, and finally the willingness to buttress one’s own decisions with reasonable and generally plausible arguments. This complex discursive process in its entirety is impossible without some foundational discursive virtues: truthfulness, integrity-coherence, reasonable understanding, interpreting, and implementation of the law, i.e. of collective promises with the status of law, and finally the willingness to buttress one’s own decisions with reasonable and generally plausible arguments.
It is important to emphasize immediately that such discourse-based theory does not advocate the view that trust could not be abused. Hobbes claims that a sovereign representative puts on the ‘mask of moral person’ that represents, and embodies, political power of the group taken collectively; however, it is obvious that the way in which the sovereign actually performs his role, as a part of his mandate, may deviate from the promise, or from the ideal of common good. Some sovereigns perform the role more successfully than others. Apart from such deviations, a proper sovereign representative can be recognized without much difficulty: as Aristotle pointed out in the Nicomachean Ethics, such representative is concerned exclusively with the attributes of ‘honor/morality’ and ‘dignity’ (timé kai géras) that will be awarded to him following his successful performance of the role with which he was tasked by putting on ‘the mask of the sovereign.’[10]
This has two major implications: the role of ‘sovereign representative’ is processual; it evolves over time and proves itself gradually. The ‘mask’ involves some standards/values that can be achieved and confirmed only in the course of a longer period. In other words, one is not a sovereign; one becomes a sovereign through successful acting of the role of ‘the servant to common good.’ Secondly, the right of the group to control and supervise the way in which a sovereign representative embodies the ‘persona’ of common good never ceases to apply. The group’s voice is one that endows an individual, or a group, with the mask of collective body/good, which means that the mask is removed when such a voice is redirected or when the group realized that the voice was attracted originally by fraud or a kind of manipulation.
Now, what is the most important fact concerning the sovereign representative? It is his inherently peace-making or peace-promoting function. In addition to his concern with the rule of law, which is indeed a key factor of peace and stability, the sovereign representative also embodies a free and uncoerced voice of the people; he is a figure with which the popular will agrees and about which a fundamental consensus, brought about by a peaceful discursive procedure, reigns. In other words, he is a living proof of the ability and readiness of the people to agree on a single issue – who ought to represent the popular will in the sense of collective good? This function of peace-making and peace-promoting can be easily explained through some counterexamples. The key problem with representatives such as Sejdo Bajramović, Željko Komšić, or all the quislings of the World War Two, is in the fact that they were imposed: those who impose such representatives thereby offend a whole group of people, and thus generate resentment throughout the group and the need to oppose and protest the fact of violation of a fundamental human value – a free and reasoned human choice. Additionally, as here we deal with individuals who really belong to the group that is a subject to humiliation, non-sovereign representative, i.e. a quisling, also generates a symbolic disintegration and uncertainty within the group. He demonstrates that ‘some of us’ are indeed willing to accept the condition of humiliation in which submission is disguised as democracy and independence due to personal benefit that such a condition brings to them. As to Sejdo Bajramović, one can plausibly argue that his appointment was one of the causes of deterioration in relations between Kosovo-Albanian community and SFRY, or primarily Serbia. Quisling-making is a practice that marked World War II; hence it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that the election of Željko Komšić contributed to the worsening of the relations between some communities.
Before presenting more detail concerning the problem ‘Komšić’ in BiH Presidency, I need as well to emphasize the following: the aforementioned function and meaning of ‘sovereign representative’ has been recognized and emphasized many times in history; in addition to Hobbes, we also find it in Aristotle, in American founding fathers’ theories,[11] and in contemporary political theory, for instance in Philip Pettit.[12] In a rudimentary form we find it too in Searle’s discourse-based theory of institutional facts; for instance, in his influential book Searle put it as follows: “The secret of understanding the continued existence of institutional facts is simply that the individuals directly involved and a sufficient number of members of the relevant community must continue to recognize and accept the existence of such facts. Because the status is constituted by its collective acceptance, and because the function, in order to be performed, requires the status, it is essential to the functioning that there be continued acceptance of the status. The moment, for example, that all or most of the members of a society refuse to acknowledge property rights, as in a revolution or other upheaval, property rights cease to exist in that society…One of the great illusions of the era is that ‘Power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’ In fact power grows out of organizations, i.e., systematic arrangement of status-functions. And in such organizations the unfortunate person with a gun is likely to be among the least powerful and the most exposed to danger. The real power resides with the person who sits at a desk and makes noises through his or her mouth and marks on paper.”[13] In other words, the status of a sovereign representative holds as long as the relevant community recognizes and supports his or her status. In such a sense, how should we view the status of Željko Komšić as a BiH Presidency member, and through what mechanisms has his own status been discursively produced?
Dražen Pehar has a PhD in politics and international relations from Keele University (SPIRE 2006), holds an assistant professorship (BiH) in the philosophy of law and in politics with sociology. Dražen is a DiploFoundation Associate, and previously served as Chief of Staff to the BiH Federation President (1996) and as a media analyst to the OHR (1999/2000).
Footnotes
1) The very first clear example is found in Eumenides, the third part of trilogy Oresteia, by Aeschylus: the Council of Areopagus votes to declare Orestes not guilty of a murder of his mother Clytemnestra, and thereby establishes itself as a supreme judicial council of Athens; for a general introduction into classical Greek democracy, see Woodruff P. (2005), First Democracy, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
2) A pertinent theoretical frame is proposed in Galtung J. (1965), ‘Institutionalized conflict resolution: a theoretical paradigm,’ Journal of Peace Research 2:4, pp. 348-397; Galtung’s ideas are further elaborated in Luhmann N. (1992), Legitimacija kroz proceduru (Legitimation durch Verfahren), Zagreb: Naprijed, a Croatian translation by I. Glaser; see also Lefort C. (2003), Izumevanje demokratije (L’invention democratique), Beograd: ‘Filip Višnjić’, p. 20, a Serbian translation by R. Kordić.
3) Von Gierke O. (1996), ‘O povijesti načela većine’ (‘Über die Geschichte des Majoritätsprinzips’), in: Legitimnost demokratske vlasti (ed. M. Kasapović, N. Zakošek), Zagreb: Naprijed, pp. 13-33; a Croatian translation by T. Martinović; Čedomir Čupić points out that, “democratic political culture is unthinkable without another device – consensus. The best solutions in social life are achieved by a consensus of all participants, because, when there is a consensus in political decision-making, there is no outvoting and there is no sense of negligence, of unfairness or a defeat.” (Afterword to Harrison R. (2004), Demokratija (Democracy), Beograd: Clio, a Serbian translation by Đ. Krivokapić, p. 318)
4) This entails the need to propose a solution to so-called ‘Wollheim’s paradox of democracy’, on which see Harrison R. (2004, pp. 283-293).
5) See, for example, Pettit P. (2001), ‘Minority claims under two conceptions of democracy’, in: Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (eds. D. Ivison, P. Patton, W. Sanders), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 199-215.
6) I advocate the view that discourse-ethics is the only thing that can really help us in this regard; the tradition of discourse-ethics dates back to the time of Greek orator and theorist of rhetoric Isocrates, and includes a number of influential contemporary theorists such as Donald Davidson, Jürgen Habermas, Matthias Kettner, Bernard Williams, and Philip Pettit; for more detail, see Pehar D. (2011), Diplomatic Ambiguity: Language, Power, Law, Saarbrücken: Akademiker Verlag, which can be accessed at http://www.academia.edu/846865/Diplomatic_ambiguity_Language_power_law, pp. 158-233.
7) Mouffe Ch. (2005), On the Political, London and New York: Routledge
8) In Hobbes T. (1994/1651), Leviathan, E. Curley (ed.), Indianapolis, Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., pp. 101-105 (Chapter xvi)
9) See Skinner Q. (2007), ‘Hobbes on Persons, Authors and Representatives,’ in: P. Springborg (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes’s Leviathan, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 157–180; and Skinner Q. (2002), ‘Hobbes and the purely artificial person of the state’, in Skinner, Visions of Politics Vol. III (Hobbes and Civil Science), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 177-208.
10) Aristotle (1996), The Nicomachean Ethics, Hertfordshire: Wordsforth Classics, translated by Harris Rackham, Book V, 1134b1-8
11) See Harrison (2004, pp. 111-113)
12) Pettit P. (1999), Republicanism, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13) Searle J. R. (1996), The Construction of Social Reality, London: Penguin Books, pp. 117-118Lindsay Lohan says President Donald Trump doesn't have it easy.
The 30-year-old actress recently participated in a Facebook Live Q&A session for the Daily Mail where she defended the new president.
“I think always in the public eye you’re going to get scrutinized,” she said. “He is the president — we have to join him. If you can’t beat him, join him.”
She urged Trump to help Syrian refugees in need.
LINDSAY LOHAN COMMITTED TO HER WORK WITH REFUGEES FOR HOLIDAYS
“I want to try to get the word out to Donald Trump to bring him over here, have him see all the positive things they are doing over there and all American can do to help as well,” said Lohan.
“I think it would be a positive thing for America to show their care and support, and for him to experience what it’s like for these people…experience how giving Turkey has been to the refugees and how many they have welcomed in. [Prime Minister Tayyip] Erdogan has a very big heart, and his country stands by him,” she also stated. “I think we all need to unite like that.”
In late January, Erdogan met with Lohan and Bana Alabed, a seven-year-old Syrian girl who attracted worldwide attention by tweeting about her life in war-torn Aleppo. Previously in October 2016, Lohan visited government-run refugee camps near Turkey’s border with Syria.
DID LINDSAY LOHAN COVERT TO ISLAM?
Lohan also admitted to the outlet that she hasn’t converted to Islam, but didn’t completely rule it out.
“I’ve studied the Quran for quite some time,” she said. “It’s a process to convert to anything. I respect all religions…it’s a beautiful religion and I am a very spiritual person…it’s something I’ve been studying. You can’t just convert overnight to a religion.”
“Anything’s possible; this is more of a personal journey,” added Lohan, who revealed how she was scared to return to the United States due to her personal beliefs. “A lot of different religions and spiritualties appeal to me.”This weekend it’s MLG Spring Championship and it is stocked with lots of goodies! First we have the main tournaments that are StarCraft 2 and League of Legends. But also things like 8-player tournament for Kespa BW players. 200 beta stations for Heart of the Swarm. U.S. Nationals for Blizzard’s WCS. The event will take the stack on 8-10 June in Anaheim, California.
StarCraft 2 tournaments plays out as usual with some players already ready for pool play and an open bracket for players to sign up for. The tournament is packed with 272 players. There are many big names in the open bracket players like JYP, Sase, InControl, Alive, Puma, Demuslim, Oz, MMA, Idra, Thorzain and Ret. The tournament is built like most MLG championships are. Where they play pool play with 16 seeded players and eight players from the open bracket. 256 players trying to get through open bracket which is divided into losers and winners bracket where top 8 players from winner bracket moves on to later stage of pool play and the top 8 from the losers bracket goes to the loser championship brackets first round. Championship bracket where the top 32 players get to all from pool play and top 8 from losers bracket. Winner of each group in pool play will be seeded directly into Semifinals and the higher you got in pool play the fewer games you have to play to get into the Final.
It’s known that it is very difficult to win an MLG match if you’re coming from the open bracket because you have to play an insane amount of games if you are unlucky. We can only wait and see how it will be if any player from the open bracket manages to win MLG this time or if it will be the seeded players again. You will be able to follow the StarCraft 2 tournament on 2 free streams and 2 premium streams. They will compete for a prize pool of 76,000$. The tournament will have some of the best caster in the world Tasteless, Artosis, DjWHEAT, Mr. Bitter, Apollo, Husky, TotalBiscuit and Rob Simpson.
The League of Legends tournament will have 20 teams competing for 40,000$. There will be 12 Pro teams and also 8 up and coming teams. Some of teams who will participate in the tournament are Team Solomid, Counter Logic Gaming, SK Gaming and FnaticRC. The event will be casted by Phreak, Rivington, Joe Miller, Jatt, Studio and Dan Dinh. You can follow the tournament on more than 4 different streams. 2 free streams and 2 premium streams.
U.S. Nationals for WCS will also take place on MLG this weekend. The tournament has 64 of the best USA’s players in it. They have qualified through the qualifiers and become invited from the ladder. The tournament will be played in Bo3 games and top 16 will qualify for the North American Finals later this year. There are many famous players who will compete names Idra, InControl, Illusion, State, Destiny, qxc and Sheth. The tournament has a large prize pool of 30,000$.
MLG has also partnered up with blizzard to have 200 beta stations for Heart of the Swarm over the weekend. People visiting the event have an opportunity to test the game. They will be able to test the latest Multiplayer build of the game. It has also been confirmed that Beta will start soon after.
The Kespa tournament for the 8 Starcraft BW players that is now changing over to Starcraft 2 will take place on Saturday June 9. Kespa have sent some of them biggest players in SC: BW. The players who will participate in the tournament are Soulkey, Calm, Stork, Flash, Leta, Bisu, Fantasy and Jaedong. We can maybe not expecting it to be the best StarCraft 2 play we have ever seen, it is still a funny thing when you can see how BW players develop over time when they are getting ready to enter the StarCraft 2 scene for real. It is also a big step for SC2 scene when you can see Kespa player for the first time outside Korea.
For more info about the event check out the www.Majorleaguegaming.com for more details.A report into cycling safety in Winnipeg comes to the common-sense conclusion that cyclists who wear helmets and travel on routes where bikes don't mingle with motor-vehicle traffic are at the lowest risk of injury.
But the report, which was commissioned with the intent of possibly making helmet use mandatory, makes no recommendations to the city about enacting new city regulations or enforcing existing provincial road-safety rules.
"The two most important interventions available to improve cyclist safety are cycling safety devices (i.e.: helmets, lights and bells) and cycling infrastructure," says the report by Winnipeg active-transportation co-ordinator Stephanie Whitehouse, which will come before council's protection and community services committee on Monday.
Last June, that committee asked the city to study requirements for all cyclists to wear helmets and for all bikes to have bells or other sound devices at night. Whitehouse proceeded to conduct a review of research literature in other cities.
While her report makes no recommendations, it does note that studies conclude bike helmets significantly reduce head injuries in collisions with an impact of less than 20 kilometres per hour, but provide next to no safety benefit in collisions above 28 kilometres per hour.
Keeping cyclists away from cars by building dedicated cycling infrastructure also prevents injuries, she wrote.
"Designing cycling routes separated from vehicles and cycling on low traffic streets is associated with a reduced risk of injury," Whitehouse wrote.
The city is in the midst of expanding its cycling-infrastructure network, against opposition from several city councillors, including Transcona's Russ Wyatt.
Most Canadian cities follow provincial rules regarding helmet use, the report says. In Manitoba, people under 18 must wear helmets while riding bikes.
In jurisdictions where helmet use is mandatory, actual use only increases when that legislation is accompanied by enforcement of the regulation and education about bike helmets, the report says, and there's only "limited evidence" mandatory helmet-use legislation discourages cycling, as Bike Winnipeg representatives have said.
Whitehouse found no literature about the effectiveness of bike bells or other sound devices in improving cyclist safety, though there is evidence that permanently using running lights reduces the probability of collisions.
Protection and community services chairman Mike Pagtakhan (Point Douglas) said the report makes him inclined to pursue construction of more cycling infrastructure.
He said he would consult with cyclists before considering a mandatory helmet bylaw.Alexis and Shkodran Mustafi will be the final fit first-teamers to return to training following their international commitments this summer.
The Chilean and German went head to head in the Confederations Cup final in Russia on July 2 with Mustafi’s team coming out on top. And after a welcome four-week break, both are due back this weekend.
“Alexis and Mustafi, their first training session will be on Sunday, the day we play against Sevilla [in the Emirates Cup],” Arsene Wenger told Arsenal Player. “They are practising on the day.”
Alexis and Mustafi will have 12 days to prepare for our Premier League opener against Leicester City, and seven days to get ready for the Community Shield clash with Chelsea at Wembley. The boss wants to assess both players before he decides when to select them.
“First of all you make a really good check up of where they are, how much they have worked during their break,” he said. “After, once you know where you stand, they need an adjusted programme and to see how quickly you can fit them in again.
“Of course it depends as well on what is the need in the squad, what is their quality. All of these things together make your decision. Do you put them on the bench when they are not ready [to start]? It is easier to put a striker on the bench than a defender, sometimes. Because in a short period they can make an impact. We’ll see.”Director Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman movie isn’t out until June 2, but she already has an idea for a sequel.
“I’m excited for her to come to America and become the Wonder Woman we are all familiar with from having grown up around her as an American superhero,” Jenkins told the Sun in a recent interview. “I’d like to bring her a little farther along into the future and have a fun, exciting storyline that is its own thing. Wonder Woman 1 is so much about her becoming the person she is. I can’t wait to spring forward with who she is and have another great standalone superhero film.”
Jenkins first wanted to make Wonder Woman a decade ago. She grew up admiring Richard Donner’s Superman, and she wanted to see an origin story for Diana, princess of the Amazons.
“I always thought the origin story would be the great way to go,” she says. “I love origin superhero stories and I love the simplicity you can have with that journey. Also, there was the fact that no one had done her story and the fact that I love her. So it was a treasure trove of potential.”
Wonder Woman is the fourth film in DC Comics’ Expanded Cinematic Universe, following 2013’s Man of Steel and last year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad.
Later this year, Gal Gadot will reprise the heroine in Justice League. But Jenkins tells fans there’s plenty to be excited about in DC’s upcoming film slate.
“I think there’s a lot of directors doing cool things,” she says. “I know the storylines for a lot of the films they are working on and they are all vastly different, with very different tones and very different styles of storytelling. … Jason (Momoa) is off to shoot Aquaman right now and that’s such a cool story. It’s got its own separate vibe. I’m excited to see each of these films.”
Jenkins isn’t ruling herself out of directing any of the other planned comic book pics if Wonder Woman 2 doesn’t get going right away.
And the Rock wants a piece of her, too, although she might not know that yet.
“Patty has that really cool edge,” Dwayne Johnson told the Associated Press, revealing that he has her on his shortlist to direct the Disney pic Jungle Cruise. “I felt like she could be a really cool choice for a movie like Jungle Cruise. Plus, you know what? I’m just a big fan.”
Wonder Woman opens June 2.
Twitter: @markhdaniell
MDaniell@postmedia.comTough Guy Frontman Doesn’t Have Any Friends to Shout out on Mic
NEW YORK — “Big” Timmy Langston, 31, paces back and forth on stage, his large biceps — exposed to the stage’s red-hot lighting equipment due to his choice of wearing an over-sized basketball jersey — glisten with sweat. But as the song’s intro builds, Langston, who usually uses this opportunity to shout out some of his “brothers” or “boys,” seems at a loss for words.
“This one is called ‘Life Partner Boyz’ and goes out to... uh...,” Langston says, looking to the audience for help. “It goes out to... the sound guy — BUST IT!”
Langston’s crew, the Down From Day One Boyz, has had its fair share of tiffs over the years, but never one like this, which left Langston with no one to shout out on the mic.
“Yo, real talk, this one goes out to the doctor that delivered me on the day of my birth, mother fucker where you at? I know you’re in here somewhere,” Langston says with what could only be described as confused conviction. “This mother fucker was there for me to support me from day one. I came out the same way I stage dive; FEET FIRST! MOVE IT!”
Members of the audience showed signs of discomfort during the sad display. “At one point he actually said, and I kid you not, ‘This one goes out to my mailman; rain, snow, hail, fucking tornado it doesn’t matter — he always delivers.’ Any time he started talking between songs I just took out my phone and pretended I got a text,” said show patron Mitch True.
Unable to divert from the formulaic stage banter he’s been spouting at shows for the last five years, and running out of acquaintances to dedicate songs to, Langston started replacing his friends with random inanimate objects.
“Yo, before I start this song I just wanna say... respect to the merch table. I know you’re in the back, with your four legs, supporting the scene like you always do, brother. This one’s called... DOWNFROMDAYONEBOYZ! BREAK!”
Langston was later seen weeping outside the show before starting an unprovoked fight.
UPDATE: We have been informed that we should keep Langston’s name out of our fucking mouth, if we know what is good for us. Also, we should get out from behind the fucking keyboard and talk shit to Langston’s face if we have a problem, pussy. We, as a magazine, are to name a time and place to get beat down, and shown what’s what. Yea, that’s right, we should keep walking.A group of Israeli settlers, including three off-duty soldiers, were rescued by the mayor of a Palestinian village in the northern West Bank on Friday after they entered the area for as-yet-unknown reasons and were quickly set upon by local residents, the army said.
The four Israelis entered the village of Qusra, east of Ariel, on Friday morning. Once inside the village, residents of the hamlet surrounded the group and began throwing rocks at them, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
In response, the armed Israelis fired shots into the air.
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The mayor of the village, Abdul Azeem al-Wadi, along with an activist from the Rabbis for Human Rights organization stepped in to rescue and detain the four settlers — who apparently came from the nearby Esh Kodesh outpost — for their own safety, according to Rabbis for Human Rights.
The group was then handed over to Israeli security forces, the army said.
Residents of the village said they suspected the settlers had entered specifically to instigate clashes, according to the Rabbis for Human Rights organization.
It was not clear if the off-duty soldiers used their service weapons during the incident, or if the civilian used a personal handgun.
An IDF spokesperson said the incident is being investigated, specifically to determine why the Israelis ventured into the Palestinian village.
It was not immediately clear if the civilian and off-duty soldiers will face legal action for the incident. Requests for comment from police went unanswered.
The village of Qusra has previously seen clashes between Israeli settlers and local residents.
In 2014, a group of settlers from the Esh Kodesh outpost — led by extremist leader Meir Ettinger — were captured by Palestinians while they were allegedly en route to carry out acts of vandalism and violence in the village, in what’s often referred to as “price tag” attacks.
The group had allegedly attempted to carry out such attacks in protest over the IDF Civil Administration’s uprooting earlier in the day of a settler olive grove near Esh Kodesh.
They reportedly clashed with the Palestinian village’s residents, before being captured. Some of the settlers were apparently beaten by their captors.
After several hours, the settlers were handed over to the IDF.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.Honda boss Yusuke Hasegawa (left, with Fernando Alonso) said he hoped his team would make up ground on champions Mercedes this season
Honda Formula 1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa has said he is "worried" about the company's lack of reliability in the first pre-season test.
Hasegawa said McLaren's engine supplier still did not know what had caused an engine failure during the test.
He added he could not be confident that the problems would not compromise the start of McLaren-Honda's season.
"The mechanical issue, I don't know enough yet to be confident about that. Of course I worry about that," he said.
Hasegawa, who was talking to Spanish television station Movistar, said that because the cause of the failure was not yet known, Honda could not be sure what specification of engine would be used in the final pre-season test.
The plan was to use a new specification aimed at the first race of the season in Australia on 24-26 March.
The engine failure, on the second day of the test, was one of a series of problems that led Honda to use at least five engines over the course of four days in Spain.
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There was an oil tank problem which led to an engine change and restricted Fernando Alonso to just 29 laps on the first day of the test.
A third new engine was fitted overnight before the Spaniard's team-mate, Stoffel Vandoorne, started testing on Tuesday. But it failed after 29 laps and needed to be changed for a fourth engine that day. The Belgian was able to run again later and complete a total of 40 laps.
The Honda ran more reliably on Wednesday and Thursday but the company used at least one further engine during those two days. A spokesman would not confirm the exact number of engines used during the test.
Asked whether the problems had affected Honda's relationship with McLaren, Hasegawa said: "In the tests, of course, this is a stage we need to overcome a lot of trouble. So sometimes we need to argue or we need to have constructive discussion, but I think we are doing a very good job and we have a very good relationship."
Despite the problems, Hasegawa said Honda's ambitions to improve on last year's sixth place in the championship remained.
"We need to gain further steps this year to close on the front-runners," he said.
Honda has fundamentally redesigned its turbo hybrid engine for this season, and is now using a similar architecture to that used by Mercedes so successfully since 2014.
"We have modified the package so the engine is lighter and the centre of gravity lower," he said. "This gives us a big benefit of the behaviour of the car and we change the internal combustion engine to extract more power."
Alonso wears the smile of a man who really doesn't want to smileWarlord Games has now released the teaser trailer for their new aerial dogfighting game set during World War II, Blood Red Skies: Battle Of Britain.
Take a look at the teaser trailer above...
The Basics
After having a quick look into the game Blood Red Skies starts you off exploring the conflict between the British and the Germans during The Battle Of Britain in World War II. Inside the game box, you're going to be getting a set of Six Supermarine Spitfires and Six German Messerschmidts that will do battle in the skies over the Channel.
The basics of the game see you controlling the Advantage System in the game. Planes, thanks to their flying bases, can be in three different states including Advantage, Neutral and Disadvantage. When shooting, you must do so from a state of a higher advantage than the enemy representing you zeroing in on them for the kill.
Of course, this is where the real skill of the game comes in as you try and outmanoeuvre and dodge your enemies, looking for the right time to strike. Combat seems incredibly deadly as combined strikes and working together as a squadron can end up downing planes if the enemy isn't careful.
In true Warlord Games style, the mechanics feel easy to learn and hard to master. You'll have a grip on the game in no time but the key positioning of your planes and choosing your targets is going to be where the growth of the game comes from.
Squadron Building
As with all good dogfighting games, there's plenty of room to customise your force and you have that in Blood Red Skies too with different pilot cards, skill ratings, aircraft and more. Each comes with different tactical options for you to bring into play and we really like the idea of getting some fighter aces into the mix.
Within the basics of the game, combining a pilot's skill with the proficiency of the aircraft leads to your ability to do damage and indeed avoid it. Right now, from a quick look at the game, it seems like learning about these combinations and using them to your advantage seems to be a key feature of the game.
As well as that we've also had a peek ahead and while the main box for the game features a clash between the British and the Germans you should be looking out for planes from the Soviets in Russia, Americans and of course the Japanese looking ahead to conflicts in the Pacific.
Q&A With Warlord Games
We got to ask the guys at Warlord Games some more questions about the game...
Q: What can gamers expect when they pick up Blood Red Skies?
Warlord Games: Blood Red Skies is a fast moving game of mass aerial contact, games last around 45 minutes playing with the contents of the main game. Gaming is simple to pick up, fast paced and uses a core mechanic based around the unique Blood Red Skies Advantage base.
What do you get inside the base set?
Inside the core box for Blood Red Skies you get...
12x plastic fighter coloured aircraft,
12x clear plastic advantage flying bases,
10x combat dice,
12x Pilot Skill level discs,
3x Gaming booklets: Rules, Expanded rules, Scenarios.
45x cards to use in game,
38x markers to use in game |
that exposes sensitive activities just to garner greater readership and personal profit," McRaven wrote in August.
The Shooter isn't profiting: In fact, he's out of a job and unsure about his next career move, which is a major theme of the piece. While there's as much self-promotion in the piece as can be expected of a profile of the guy who killed bin Laden – while not revealing his identity – the article devotes much of its focus to the difficulties he and his colleagues have adjusting to civilian life and a tough economy.
According to the Esquire piece, The Shooter struck up a relationship with reporter Phil Bronstein shortly after returning from a four-month Afghanistan tour not long after returning from the bin Laden raid. A Washington dinner party in March 2012 was the first time they met, following "several phone conversations and much checking on my journalism background, especially in war zones." He's wary of violating operational security, and won't even confirm whether Bissonnette was really on the raid. But a more fulsome journalistic relationship develops between Bronstein and The Shooter after The Shooter leaves the Navy following a tour in Afghanistan, and much of the piece is devoted to relating details of the raid – seemingly nothing classified – from The Shooter's perspective.
For instance: An early alternative to the raid wasn't just firing a small missile from a drone at bin Laden's Abbottabad compound (a "hammer throw," in The Shooter's phrase), but "bomb[ing] the piss out of the compound with two-thousand-pound ordnance." SEALs initially thought they were going to an unrelated war zone like Libya when they were called in to discuss an imminent deployment. McRaven is said to have delayed the raid by a day, citing poor weather to his superiors, to prevent it from happening the day of the White House Correspondents Dinner.
The Shooter is an excitable sort. His favorite word to describe the raid, in retrospect, is "awesome." He pumped himself up for the raid by listening to the Game and Lil Wayne's "Red Nation" on the treadmill. Yet The Shooter spends a lot of time reflecting on how the raid seemed doomed. He took to calling his fast-rope team the Martyrs Brigade, as he guessed the house was rigged to explode. If Pakistani troops showed up at the compound, the SEALs' plan was to surrender, go to jail and wait until Vice President Biden flew to Islamabad to negotiate their release. Not that that reassured The Shooter: "It was either death or a Pakistani prison, where we'd be raped for the rest of our lives."
Instead, he was part of a three-person team who ran up to the third floor of the compound, and he himself took the kill shot – on instinct. His generic mission training, for years, involved shooting a lot of dummies with bin Laden visages, and so when he saw the al-Qaida leader, using his youngest wife as a human shield, "That's him, boom, done." The compound turned up not just bin Laden's hard drives (and porn), but duffel bags full of opium. He watched Obama's announcement of the mission in Afghanistan while eating a sausage, egg, and extra bacon sandwich and thinking: "I wish we could live through this night, because this is amazing. I was still expecting all kinds of funky shit like escape slides or safe rooms."
Life after the SEALs hasn't been as amazing. The Shooter wanted to see his kids grow up, so he retired before the 20 years necessary for his full benefits package to kick in. He's got to buy health insurance on the open market, but he can't find a job, and he's out the $60,000 annual salary he earned as a SEAL. (Former Veterans Affairs official and Iraq/Afghanistan veteran Brandon Friedman tweets that the VA covers five years of health care after separation from the military.) Military transition programs to the civilian job market turn out not to be particularly useful. The Shooter doesn't want to go into private security – "I don't have a need for excitement anymore," he says – and job prospects aren't turning up.
Nye said The Shooter's transition to civilian life is an issue for the Navy, and not Special Operations Command, to address. But he pointed to several command programs designed to ease the adjustment, like its Care Coaliton that aids physically injured elite troops.
If anything, it's amazing that The Shooter has stayed nameless and faceless nearly two years after the bin Laden raid. The social pressures for exposure must be enormous, even if special operators wish to remain "quiet professionals." With his Esquire profile, The Shooter may have figured out a way to balance acclaim and anonymity.SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn must decide if he will sign a measure allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes after the state Senate approved legislation on Friday.
The proposal has been touted as the strictest in the nation among states that have legalized medical marijuana. It authorizes physicians to prescribe marijuana to patients with whom they have an existing relationship and who have at least one of more than 30 medical conditions listed on the measure.
Lawmakers voted 35-21 to send the measure to the Democratic governor. Quinn has declined to say whether he will support the bill, saying he’s “open-minded” on the issue. Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, a former prosecutor, said she is in favor after meeting with patients, including veterans.
The proposed legislation creates a framework for a four-year pilot program that includes requiring patients and caregivers to undergo background checks. It sets a 2.5 ounce limit per patient per purchase and calls for 60 dispensaries regulated by the state where patients could buy the drug.
Supporters of the legislation say it is a compassionate measure that could save patients from the agony caused by illnesses such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and HIV. They argue that marijuana can relieve continual pain without triggering the harmful effects of other prescription drugs, including painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin.
Opponents contend the program could encourage the recreational use marijuana, especially among teenagers.
“We are embarking here on a way to achieve relief, compassionate relief, consistent with the law (with) a system which avoids abuse,” said the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Sen. Bill Haine of Alton. “It’s the tightest, most controlled legislative initiative in the United State related to medical cannabis.”
A report issued last month by the Pew Research Center poll showed that 77 percent of Americans say marijuana has legitimate medical uses. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.
But opponents in the Illinois Senate worry whether the regulations set by the proposed legislation would be enough to prevent abuse of the drug.
“For every touching story that we have heard about the benefits of those in pain I remind you today that there are a thousand times more parents who will never be relieved from the pain of losing a child due to addiction, which in many cases has started with the very illegal, FDA-unapproved, addiction-forming drug you are asking us to make a normal part of our communities,” said Sen. Kyle McCarter a Republican from Lebanon.
Nonetheless, Haine touted his measure as the strictest that the General Assembly has considered on medical marijuana. Haine and other supporters have been trying to legalize it for several years. A measure that had cleared the Senate failed in the House in 2011, when six Republicans and 50 Democrats voted yes.
The current version of the bill received the House’s approval in April.
(TM and © Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)Clinton Fearon is an unsung reggae singer. He spent most of his career with The Gladiators and then went solo. He stripped down reggae to its roots, recording songs of praise and positivity with just his soulful voice and his guitar. Strangely, he never really gained too much popularity. Now in his early sixties, the Kingston Jamaica native divides his time between Seattle and France. His music is very difficult to find. He plays some small venues in Seattle and France and you can buy old albums off his website but the main page doesn't even acknowledge that he has a new album out. Nonetheless, he has updated his Soundcloud page with a few tracks off his new album entitled Heart and Soul. These tracks were originally written by Clinton for The Gladiators. He has recorded these old songs in his minimalist acoustic style – uplifting and raw. I wish Clinton was more accessible but then again maybe that's not important. It's apparent that Clinton plays music for the love of music and the most-high. Consider yourself lucky if you are able to stumble across a song or two from the reggae mystery man Clinton Fearon.A pop group has flown back to South Korea after officials in Los Angeles thought they might be sex workers.
The eight members were travelling to America for an album cover shoot but were detained for 15 hours in customs.
A statement from the group's record company, WM Entertainment, said authorities held them after going through their costumes and props.
"They seem to have mistaken them as sex workers," said a spokesman.
Oh My Girl, who formed in March, are thought to be back in South Korean capital Seoul after being released by officials at Los Angeles International Airport.
WM Entertainment says it is taking legal advice in the US to find out whether the band's detention was legal.
The record company also said there might have been an issue with the type of visa the band members presented.
They had also been booked to perform at a gala event in Los Angeles on Saturday.
It's unclear if they will try to return to America to complete their album cover shoot.
Oh My Girl (or OMG) brought their debut single Cupid out in April with a second mini-album and title track Closer released in October.
The band members are all aged between 16 and 21.
South Korean pop music, known as K-pop, is dominated by girl and boy bands whose members are often in their teens, although most are older.
In 2012, the South Korean government clamped down on over-sexualised performances by threatening to give higher age ratings to films, music videos and TV shows which exaggerated the sexuality of younger singers and bands.
For more stories like this one you can now download the BBC Newsbeat app straight to your device. For iPhone go here. For Android go here.Nickelodeon’s animated series Loud House is making some noise with its pioneering decision to feature a same-sex married couple into the show — a first for the children’s network.
Clyde McBride’s parents, Harold and Howard, are a gay, interracial married couple in the series, EW has confirmed. The characters will be voiced by comedians Wayne Brady and Michael McDonald. Loud House, currently in its first season, follows Lincoln Loud, who struggles being the only boy in a family where he is outnumbered by his 10 sisters. Clyde McBride is one of Lincoln’s friends.
So far the reaction to the same-sex couple has been positive, with Twitter users praising the decision and an excerpt from the cartoon featuring the new characters.
Time to make history indeed! First married gay couple on a Nickelodeon cartoon!https://t.co/CI5NPmd7JU — juno 🐓 (@harryetIouis) July 16, 2016
.@Ieodavinci thanks for sharing this! So excited to see a interracial gay couple in a kids cartoon on @NickelodeonTV #TheLoudHouse — Justin Stewart (@ProducerStewart) July 18, 2016
COME ON REPRESENTATION 👏👏👏 — makayla (@softcheekbones) July 17, 2016
I feel like they handled that really well. Didn't make it too obvious, let it feel natural and unassuming like a regular family. — ScorchMuffins (@ZenkaiPowuh) July 17, 2016
The groundbreaking episode of Loud House will air Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on Nickelodeon. The news was first reported by Variety.The UK government has expressed its conviction that membership or links to the Muslim Brotherhood is not proof of extremism, adding that Brotherhood activists are free to operate in the UK so long as they respect its national laws.
A number of Brotherhood leaders and activists who fled to the UK following the ouster of Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi are politically and publically active against the military-backed government in Egypt.
"The UK allows members of all political groups to operate freely, provided they do not break UK law or immigration rules," the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) told Ahram Online.
"Muslim Brotherhood [members are] subject to the same immigration rules as everyone else," the official added.
London had rejected the Egyptian government’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, insisting the group is legal in the UK.
Furious about Brotherhood activists being allowed to reside in, and operate from, UK soil, Egyptian media figures and politicians have accused the UK government of promoting terrorism and extremism.
The FCO spokesman, however, confirms that "membership or links to the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK are not considered, in themselves, proof of extremism, or links to extremist activity," asserting that his country takes any extremist activity in the UK "very seriously."
"Extremist or illegal behaviour will be challenged and those whose presence here is not welcome will be excluded," the spokesman added.
While confirming it does not support any political party in Egypt, the UK government said it encourages an inclusive political system which represents all groups in society, including the Muslim Brotherhood, as the "best way to serve stability and security, in the long run, in Egypt."
Short link:Elena Sanz
Hasta hace poco el primer documento conocido en el que se hacía referencia a la tortilla de patatas era un escrito datado en 1817 dirigido a las Cortes de Navarra en el que se hablaba de que los habitantes de Pamplona consumían: dos o tres huevos en tortilla para cinco o seis mezclando patatas, pan, etc. Algunos sugieren que fue el general Tomás de Zumalacárregui quien inventó la tortilla de patatas "por necesidad", ya que era un plato sencillo y nutritivo capaz de saciar el apetito del ejército carlista. Otros proponen que la invención se le debería atribuir al cocinero belga Lancelot de Casteau, que publicó la receta en 1604 y que trabajó como cocinero de tres obispos de Lieja.
Sin embargo, en el libro "La patata en España. Historia y Agroecología del Tubérculo Andino", escrito por el científico del CSIC Javier López Linaje, se sitúa el origen de la tortilla española en la localidad extremeña de Villanueva de la Serena en el siglo XVIII. La obra hace referencia a documentos que hablan de la tortilla de patatas en esta localidad en 1798, y atribuye su invención a Joseph de Tena Godoy y al marqués de Robledo.With the campaign to decriminalise Cannabis surpassing 200,000 signatures I felt it was important to take stock of where the various political parties stand on the issue, so let’s start with the most obvious one.
The Conservative Party: at 330 seats the Conservatives are enjoying a majority government and are by far the most outspoken on the side of keeping cannabis illegal. To quote the home office
“There are no plans to legalise or decriminalise cannabis or any other controlled substances.”
Reading their drug policy in the Conservative manifesto reveals a startling level of ignorance on the topic of drug misuse and treatment. They maintain that abstinence should be the main goal of treating drug addiction and still oppose the use of subsidiary drugs such as methadone to treat addictions, particularly with substances such as heroin. Clearly in this debate the Conservatives are going to do everything they can to block this petition from becoming law, and with a majority of 16 seats there seems very little that we can do to fight them on the issue.
There is, however, an interesting statement from David Cameron, years before he became Prime minister, where he criticises politicians for using a hard stance on certain issues such as drug possession as a political tool to gain some kind of advantage. He rapidly changed his tune with his rise to power where he condemned cannabis use in 2011 interview. It could well be a case of what I spoke about in may last article, that politicians are still using this as political leverage for the time being, even if they don’t necessarily agree with it. I don’t expect him to change his mind now, or any time soon, so the British public can expect to continue to be ruled by the whim of what the Conservative party “believes in”.
Take for example their stance on the Gay Marriage bill, 136 Conservatives voted against the bill, compared to 126 in favour. If ever we needed a perfect example of how personal prejudice and opinion dominates politics rather than actual science or logical reasoning, then we need look no further than that particular vote.
The Labour Party: At 232 seats Labour remain the main opposition to the Conservative party, but they are annoyingly vague on the issue at the moment, and what with all of the turmoil surrounding the leadership at the moment we are unlikely to get much of a response out of them on the issue any time soon. They are against decriminalisation for the most part, and certainly Ed Miliband openly condemned the use of cannabis while he was the Labour leader, but they aren’t quite as hardline as the Conservative party.
Jeremy Corbyn has actually spoken out in favour of the decriminalisation of cannabis on several occasions, the earliest being 15 years ago, years before this argument was gaining any traction on a global scale. He hasn’t come out and declared his position on the debate recently, and he could well have changed his mind, but with this new Left wing approach to the typically centre left politics of Labour, there may well be a chance for serious opposition to the Conservative blockade in the future.
SNP: With 56 seats the SNP changed the face of Scottish politics this election and have become a legitimate threat to the Conservative majority. Their hatred for Tory politics runs deep within the party and the supporters, and we may see them fighting the Conservatives on this issue in the future. The problem we have at the moment is that the SNP doesn’t seem to have much of a stance on drug policy at all right now. Their manifesto doesn’t mention a change in the current drug policy and they haven’t really addressed the issue recently. They are, however, coming under increasing pressure to fight on this issue due to their openly aggressive attitude towards the Conservative government, but as it stands right now the SNP have not thrown in their lot with either side yet. Instead they would prefer to have the power to reform law and order themselves, and create a drug policy that is better suited to Scottish society.
The Liberal Democrats: Having plummeted from 56 seats to just 8 the Lib Dems are barely even a mainstream party, but they remain supporters of the idea of liberalising the national drug policy. In 2014 Nick Clegg became quite outspoken on the issue of decriminalising Cannabis use and possession, causing friction within the coalition government. He even joined forces with Sir Richard Branson, an advocate for the decriminalisation of cannabis, and released a joint article on the subject in early March of this year.
Their influence in government may have been greatly reduced after the election, but they are still an old party with considerable support in certain areas, so it is important that we don’t necessarily discount the Lib Dems as a has-been party.
Plaid Cymru: With 3 seats Plaid Cymru are actually the largest party to be actively campaigning for the decriminalisation of cannabis in the UK. Speaking two years ago in 2013 Leanne Wood said that
“Plaid Cymru is for the decriminalisation of cannabis for medicinal use and to free up police time.”
The party remains adamant that decriminalisation would free up police time and that the resources saved from policing cannabis offenders could be diverted into a much more effective programme of rehabilitation. Their “Million Ideas Project” has also warranted some support among their voters for the idea of decriminalising cannabis.
UKIP: With 1 seat UKIP, fortunately I might add, has almost no influence at Westminster. As our most right wing party, it is quite surprising to find that they are actually in favour of some kind of reform to the current drug policy. In 2014 the party leader Nigel Farage spoke out on several occasions, calling for the decriminalisation of cannabis, and stating how the war on drugs had failed. This, however, caused a great deal of tension within the party, and they have since retracted their stance to the highly ambiguous single statement in their manifesto:
“We will not decriminalise illegal drugs, however we will focus on ensuring drug suppliers, not their victims, face the full force of the law.”
This pretty much allows them to jump either way, depending on the direction the wind seems to be blowing. On the one hand they aren’t pushing for decriminalisation, but on the other they want to have some kind of reform, which they could easily turn into full on drug reform if they wanted to, without causing too much embarrassment for them.
The Green Party: Staunch supporters for decriminalising cannabis. They gained a considerable number of votes this election, but they only managed to hold onto their 1 seat. A lot of the pro decriminalisation camps are giving the Green Party considerable support, so their 1 seat is slightly misrepresentative of the truth of their actual influence. Hopefully we’ll see the Green Party make their mark on politics with a renewed sense of vitality during this government.
Bibliography
Owen Jones, ‘David Cameron, you were right about drugs. Don’t err and stray now’, (2015) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/david-cameron-drugs-legal-highs-poppers-madness Zachary Siegel, ‘ What does a Conservative Majority mean for the IK’s Drug Policy?’, (2015) http://www.thefix.com/content/what-does-conservative-party-majority-mean-uks-drug-policy Nick Clegg and Richard Branson, ‘We have been losing the war on drugs for four decades – end it now’ (2015) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/03/war-on-drugs-british-politicians-nick-clegg-richard-branson Georgia Grahams, ‘Nigel Farage: I have never taken drugs but they should be legal’ (2014) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10744924/Nigel-Farage-I-have-never-taken-drugs-but-they-should-be-legal.html ‘Legalise cannabis and ecstasy as medicines, expert tells Scots’ (2015) http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13209578.Legalise_cannabis_and_ecstasy_as_medicines__expert_tells_Scots/
Further ReadingPolice arrested a man who allegedly admitted to intimidating and irritating his neighbor by sitting outdoors in the nude and warning that he possessed an AK-47 rifle.
After getting a complaint from John Ault, the distressed neighbor on Saturday, police in Mooresville, North Carolina, found Brian Tracy Carroll to be unashamed and unrepentant.
Ault told officers hat Carroll was without any clothing on a chair about 30 feet from where Ault's teenage daughter was riding horses, WIS TV reports.
Carroll refused to cover himself even though the only thing he wore was a towel around his neck, officer said. When Rowan County deputies told Carroll that children and other neighbors could see him, he replied that he didn't care, The Salisbury Post reported.
He freely admitted to trying to get under his neighbor's skin and laughed when he confirmed that he'd threatened Ault by saying he had an AK-47 and "knew how to use it," according to UpRoxx. The neighbors have been locked in an ongoing dispute, Carroll said.
Carroll was charged with indecent exposure and communicating threats. He was released from the Rowan County Detention Center after posting a $2,000 security bond, according to the Salisbury Post.By Claire Bernish at theantimedia.org
Porter Ranch, CA — Methane gas continues spewing, unchecked, into the air over southern California from a fractured well to an underground storage site — at such an alarming rate that low-flying planes have necessarily been diverted by the FAA, lest internal combustion engines meet highly volatile gas and, well, blow the entire area to hell.
This is, indeed, the biggest environmental catastrophe since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010; and for now, there is no way to stop it.
This methane disaster is worse than can be sufficiently described in words, because while it’s estimated well over 100,000 pounds of methane spew into the atmosphere every hour, the leak can’t be halted, at least until spring. Even then, that stoppage depends entirely on the efficacy of a proposed fix — which remains a dubiously open question.
According to the California Air Resources Board, methane — a greenhouse gas 72 times more impactful in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — has been escaping from the Aliso Canyon site with force equivalent “to a volcanic eruption” for about two months now. So far, the total leaked gas measures somewhere around 100,000 tons — adding “approximately one-quarter to the regular statewide methane emissions” during that same time frame.
“The relative magnitude of emissions from the leak compared to other sources of methane in the State underscores the urgency of stopping the gas leak. This comes on top of any problems caused by odor and any potential impacts from exposure,” states the initial report on the Aliso leak by air quality officials.
“The enormity of the Aliso Canyon gas leak cannot be overstated. Gas is escaping through a ruptured pipe more than 8,000 feet underground, and it shows no signs of stopping. As the pressure from the weight on top of the pipe causes the gas to diffuse, it only continues to dissipate across a wider and wider area,” explained Erin Brockovich, who spent time in nearby Porter Ranch investigating the leak.
Officials and experts are concerned, and they can’t recall another leak of this magnitude in decades — if ever. “I asked this question of our staff of 30 years,” said Steve Bohlen, who recently left his position as state supervisor of oil and gas. “This is unique in the last three or four decades. This is an unusual event, period.”
Though methane, itself, has no odor, the addition of odorants methyl mercaptan and tetrahydrothiophene — a safety measure to alert people by smell to the presence of natural gas — has made the enormous methane seepage impossible to ignore. Thousands of households have evacuated the area, despite little help, much less information, from the gas company about when they might be able to return. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, SoCalGas spokesperson Michael Mizrahi claimed the company had paid to relocate and house 2,092 households — but that effort is severely lacking, says Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer.
Yesterday, the city attorney’s office sought a restraining order to mandate SoCalGas relocate residents in the affected area within 48 hours of their request; and it is also seeking a “special master” to oversee the entire relocation operation, which is currently being handled by the gas company. Not only does the present relocation lack speed and coordination, but a housing crunch has resulted in surrounding areas — in some cases landlords, who prefer year-long leases to shorter terms, have driven rent as high as $8,500 per month. Hotels are operating at capacity, and in “some of those hotel rooms there are not enough beds for the people who are being moved,” explained chief deputy to the city attorney, James P. Clark.
“It’s time Porter Ranch residents had direct and complete answers about all facets of this leak,” Clark continued, “including what caused it, how to stop it, and what will be done to assure it never happens again. They should receive better, quicker, and completely adequate relocation assistance.”
On Thursday, Los Angeles Unified School District board members voted unanimously to close two Porter Ranch schools and relocate their 1,900 students and staff to different locations for the foreseeable future. A local emergency has been declared by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Multiple lawsuits have now been initiated against SoCalGas and/or its parent company, Sempra Energy. A Los Angeles firm representing three of the families, who filed their suit Friday, described in a statement that the well has been “leaking noxious odors, hazardous gases, chemicals, pollutants, and contaminants due to a massive well failure and blowout. However, SoCalGas failed to inform residents of neighboring communities of the disastrous gas leak in a timely manner, putting the health and well-being of thousands of families in jeopardy.” Those suits allege “negligence, strict liability of ultra-hazardous activity, private nuisance, inverse condemnation, and trespass.”
A class-action lawsuit has also been filed on behalf of the Save Porter Ranch group; and City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a civil suit earlier this month due to the leak’s continued threat to residents’ health and damage to the environment, alleging failure by SoCalGas to prevent the leak and further exacerbation of “the effects of that failure by allowing the acute odor and health problems faced by the community to persist for more than one month, to say nothing about the indefinite time it will persist into the future,” state the court documents. “No community should have to endure what the residents of Porter Ranch have suffered from the gas company’s continued failure to stop that leak,” Feuer stated.
SoCalGas insists there will be no long-term health effects resulting from the persistent leak; but as Brockovich pointed out, “no one really knows the potential long-term side effects of benzene and radon, the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas.” In an email to the Los Angeles Daily News, SoCalGas stated they were “providing air filters for people’s homes” and “have established a claims process for those who feel they may have suffered harm or injury. And our top priority remains stopping this leak as quickly and safely as possible.
“While the odor added to the leaking gas can cause symptoms for some, the gas is not toxic and county health officials have said the leak does not pose a long-term health risk.”
But what’s making this massive leak so difficult to stop pertains to the storage ‘container,’ itself. “We have the largest natural gas storage system in the world,” boasts Chris McGill, vice president of the American Gas Association. In the United States, old underground oil fields are often put to use as storage vessels for natural gas — because, hey, that geology worked just fine to hold oil for millions of years, so why not natural gas?
In fact, there are some 300 such depleted subterranean oil fields being employed this way around the United States. Aliso Canyon, a natural gas storage site since the 1970s, has one of the largest capacities: 86 billion cubic feet. During the summer, gas earmarked for winter heating is pumped into these underground cavities by SoCalGas — and the process is reversed with the turn of the seasons. However, this year, workers encountered what quickly became evident was anything but a typical hiccup. As Wired reported:
“On October 23, workers noticed the leak at a 40-year-old well in Aliso Canyon. Small leaks are routine, says Bohlen, and SoCalGas did what it routinely does: put fluid down the well to stop the leak and tinker with the well head. It didn’t work. The company tried it five more times, and the gas kept leaking. At this point, it was clear the leak was far from routine, and the problem was deeper underground.”
Beginning December 4th, SoCalGas crews began drilling a relief well to intercept the fissured pipe. Cement will then be poured into both to seal the wells permanently. Of course, for this to work, crews must locate that original pipe, which is a mere seven inches in diameter, thousands of feet underground — without accidentally creating any sparks, whatsoever. Work near the leak site, therefore, has been prohibited after nightfall, when lighting equipment could potentially cause such a spark; though drilling for the relief well is situated far enough away to continue nonstop.
Flaring, or setting a deliberate fire to burn off excess gas, simply isn’t an option. The mammoth scope of this leak means a flare would ultimately complicate matters even further.
“There is no stone being left unturned to get this well closed,” Bohlen stated. “It’s our top priority.”
In the meantime, it will be months without any possibility of halting this disaster-in-motion. Sickened, uprooted, and furious residents can rest assured, though, because even as methane spews nonstop into the air, SoCalGas did have this consolation:
“We are deeply sorry for the frustration.”
This article (Unstoppable California Gas Leak Being Called Worst Catastrophe Since BP Spill) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Tim Evanson. If you spot a typo, email [email protected]Sabah, a prolific and provocative Lebanese singer and actress whose fame in the Arab world endured for six decades, died on Wednesday in Beirut. She was 87.
Her death was announced by the National News Agency of Lebanon.
She was known by a single name — Sabah means “morning” in Arabic — but little about her was understated. She recorded 50 albums, appeared in nearly 100 films, married at least seven times and underwent an undetermined number of cosmetic surgeries.
Her hair had its own narrative — morphing from brown and basic when she emerged in the 1940s to blond and big, impervious to the elements, fashion or the conservative mores of the Middle East.
Her real name was Jeanette Gergis Al-Feghali, but she took her stage name as a teenager in 1940s, when she began appearing in films by the Egyptian director Henry Barakat. She went on to become a draw for decades. Among her better-known works are “How Can I Forget You?” (1956), “The Street of Love” (1959) and “Laila Baka Feha al Qamar” (1980)."A spectacular phantasmagoria of stainless steel plates, translucent glass, steel mesh and strobe lights, it encapsulates all you need to know about a motorcycle's modern meaning. Gehry uses his machine materials to fracture, reflect and diffuse light, creating sexy, highly organic, frankly theatrical forms, from billowing clouds and monumental floral blossoms to great curtain swags. Glamour and erotic thrill summarize the motorcycle aesthetic." Christopher Knight Art Critic, Los Angeles Times
I had been defrosting my refrigerator, it's old. A sponge made its way to my scanner, which needed a good cleaning before I started listing more comic books. Laundry was also on the agenda, and a brief glance told me my current attire couldn't last another day. A discarded tee shirt landed on the scanner. True. While exploring potential flowers to grow this summer, I had stumbled upon an article about 2D and 3D scanning. For some reason this collage of events triggered memories of an exhibit I saw long ago at the SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM. How the dried statice made its way to the scanner bed is a story for another day. The results aren't great art, but encouraging enough to add high resolution scanning to the summer project list, along with a search for my old SilverFast tutorials.
Here's an article that can help get you started scanning. It also includes links to many inspirational examples: Use a flatbed scanner as a camera. Enjoy!
Also, you may enjoy reading: I can only hope to some day master a technique that "mirrors the truth".
I am by no means ready to die! So, with that fact established, let's begin at the beginning: See links for all the Genesis posts to date: Genesis Through My Eyes
In my not too distant past, if I were to see a street person, a bum, sleeping in a door front or on a park bench, I would have kept my distance and perhaps shrugged my shoulders.: He had the "smarts" to ask someone where to go, I didn't
Waldo County, situated in mid-coast Maine along scenic Penobscot Bay, has genuine New England character evidenced by working port towns and quaint rural villages. Visitors are awed by the area's unspoiled beauty. From striking coastal views to sweeping mountain vistas, dramatic natural settings abound. In addition great care has been taken to preserve and refurbish numerous historic landmarks, homes and buildings. Consequently, the Maine of yesteryear is still found here.
Stumble It!
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web blog: Timeless SnippetsNew Westminster is set to be home to the largest heritage conservation area in Western Canada.
After listening to more than 70 delegations at a public hearing, city council voted unanimously in favour of an amendment to the official community plan that paves the way for the creation of a heritage conservation area. At the June 13 public hearing, 47 residents supported the HCA, while 26 were opposed.
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“There is definitely something really unique and special about the large number of heritage homes in Queen’s Park,” said Mayor Jonathan Cote. “It is not any one individual home that makes that neighbourhood what it is. It is the collection of homes that have been able to last as long as they have and to receive the love and attention from the neighbourhood.”
While there’s no doubt many residents have significant concerns or opposition to the HCA, Cote believes the policy is generally supported in the community, something he said was reaffirmed at public hearing. He also believes the heritage conservation area is the appropriate tool for retaining the character that distinguishes the Queen’s Park neighbourhood.
“I don’t believe this is the end of the discussion on the heritage conservation area,” he said. “I think there are some other very important discussions to be had. The first one will be regarding the incentives. We are not able to, at this time, provide that clarity, but staff have laid out a work plan that, over the next eight months,we are going to be able to engage and continue that discussion.”
Concerns about property values have been another major issue, Cote said, with some saying there will be no impact and others saying their property values will drop.
“The reality is we are not going to be able to do that full analysis and really understand the impacts on property values until after the policy been implemented and we can start doing the metrics,” he said.
As the city |
get before launch day? I'll say 7.However, if this is at least partially true. Capcom wins my fan service award for the 2nd time. Dante, Gene, Leon, Wesker, and Masamune? f*** yeah!Marvel has Spidey, Venom and to a much lesser extent; Ghost Rider going for it. Rest is cool too, but not my thing.
User Info: The Utility Man The Utility Man 2 years ago #6 1st Year OMG Link Always Wins. 2nd Year OMG FF7 Always Wins.
3rd Year OMG Link Always Wins. 2101st Year OMG CATS Always Wins. I really hope that list isn't right, but if it is, it seems like I'm going to be playing Capcom characters a good 90% of the time. I really don't like that Marvel roster, but I didn't expect to get many Marvel characters I wanted in.
User Info: quickposter quickposter 2 years ago #7 I don't buy it. Negotiations with Marvel were going well into 2010 for 3. No way does he/she have access to the full roster.
User Info: supershadonic supershadonic 2 years ago #8
It's epic.
For Marvel side, its also really good. Except the X-Men. I hope they put in Psylocke, Gambit, Cyclops etc instead.
Especially Psylocke.
Also was hoping for Spider Woman. Too bad. Play not to win but to push yourself beyond your own limits and you'll eventually learn to rise above. Loving the Capcom side of Roster. (Except Roll and an extra Lawyer -_____-) Also I think Zangief and Gill could have had better SFs than those two.It's epic.For Marvel side, its also really good. Except the X-Men. I hope they put in Psylocke, Gambit, Cyclops etc instead.Especially Psylocke.Also was hoping for Spider Woman. Too bad.
User Info: supershadonic supershadonic 2 years ago #9 Play not to win but to push yourself beyond your own limits and you'll eventually learn to rise above. One thing debunks this though.... I don't think Sigma and Ultron will be two seperate characters.What happens when three singers from three different bands get together to put their love of autotuned news on wax? All kinds of awesome.
Hayley Williams of Paramore, Jordan Pundik of New Found Glory, and Ethan Luck of Relient K got together yesterday (August 25) to give internet superstar Antoine Dodson‘s Billboard chart-busting “Bed Intruder” song a punk rock twist.
The song, which is cleverly crafted by The Gregory Brothers from a news report on an attempted raping, loses its urban-pop feel and gets the guitars blaring and drums banging for the new version. “Well, obviously, we have a rapist in Lincoln Park,” Hayley recites with a southern twang.
Sadly, the trio only take on the short version of the song, but the one minute and seventeen seconds are still worth a listen. It is so cool. It is really cool. Fo’ real.Peru hosted the opening ceremony of the 2013 Dakar Rally, but has been absent from the programme ever since.
The country's government announced it wanted Peru to return to the route soon after the finish of the 2017 rally.
The 2018 route will kick off in the city's capital Lima, and will run through the Andes towards Bolivia.
The rally will run on multiple sides of the famous Lake Titicaca, which is on the border of the two countries, and then approach La Paz, the Bolivian capital.
The rally will eventually conclude in Cordoba, Argentina.
"The 40th edition of the rally will unleash its creativity with the wide range of landscapes on the menu next January," said Dakar director Etienne Lavigne.
"After skimming the waters of the Pacific and a sand-packed start to the race, competitors will tackle an Andean trilogy with a different flavour.
"The Bolivian section of the rally will tackle multiple sides of Lake Titicaca, followed by a rest day in La Paz and a rather different trek through the Altiplano.
"The in-line course will let the 2018 Dakar come into its own in the third part of the rally, where the vast and varied terrain of Argentina will set the scene for the race.
"Many competitors already see Cordoba as the daunting peak they need to crown. The Dakar podium is another one which fits in perfectly."
The 2018 Dakar Rally will consist of 14 stages and will be held on 6-20 January.Britain’s economy is expected to grow faster than France, Germany, and Italy in the long term despite Brexit causing some “drag” over the next few years, according to one of the world’s largest professional services firms PwC.
The report, entitled “The long view: how will the global economic order change by 2050?,” ranked 32 countries by their projected global GDP by purchasing power parity (PPP).
PPP is used by macroeconomists to determine the economic productivity and standards of living between countries across a certain time period.
The 32 countries currently account for around 85% of global GDP.
The findings show that by 2050, the UK will only drop from 9th to 10th place in the ranking. Looking at data from 2016 until 2050, it shows that despite “some medium-term drag from Brexit,” Britain will grow faster than some of Europe’s largest economies.
“After a year of major political shocks with the Brexit vote and the election of President Trump, it might seem brave to opine on economic prospects for 2017, let alone 2050,” said John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC in a statement.
Lees ook op Business Insider Franchisers van Albert Heijn zijn teleurgesteld over de ‘Appie Days’: de prijsactie zorgt niet voor een omzetpiek
“But a long-term view is crucial for considering areas like pensions, healthcare, energy and climate change, housing, transport and other infrastructure investment. By looking beyond unpredictable short-term economic and political cycles and focusing on fundamentals, long-term growth projections can actually be more reliable than short-term forecasts.
“Our relatively positive long-term growth projection for the UK is due to favourable demographic factors and a relatively flexible economy by European standards. However, developing successful trade and investment links with faster-growing emerging economies will be critical to achieving this, offsetting probable weaker trade links with the EU after Brexit.”
Foto: source PwC
However, PwC warned that its forecasts about Britain could change, depending on how “open” the UK remains to “talented people from around the world after Brexit.”
The biggest issues surrounding Brexit negotiations concern immigration and financial passporting. Britain is heading towards a “hard Brexit,” which means the UK would leave the European Union without access to the Single Market, in exchange for full control over immigration.
Britain is predominantly a services economy and a bulk of non-UK staff in this industry come from the EU. Furthermore, the loss of passporting rights following Brexit is one of the biggest fears in the City of London.
If the passport is taken away, London could cease to be the most important financial centre in Europe, costing the UK thousands of jobs and billions in revenues. Around 5,500 firms registered in the UK rely on the European Union’s passporting rights for the financial services sector, and they turn over about £9 billion in revenue.
On Monday, senior lobbyists and politicians from Paris, France said they expect Britain to lose jobs from Brexit. They believe that 10,000 jobs in the financial sector could migrate to the city from London as a result of Brexit, with as many as 30,000 moving if jobs indirectly related to financial services are included in any count.In his most personal interview ever, Thom Yorke talks about how Radiohead nearly split, their carbon footprint, the death of David Kelly - and his first solo album.
It was the night of Monday 1 May in the cavernous indie club that is Koko in Camden Town, and Disco Dave Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, was in the house. The occasion was The Big Ask Live, a benefit concert in aid of Friends of the Earth's campaign to persuade the government to enact a new law on climate change.
Thom Yorke had been doing his bit. The Radiohead frontman and his guitarist bandmate Jonny Greenwood had agreed to break two years of gig-silence to headline the show. Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals was on the bill, as was folk singer Kate Rusby, while curly-headed TV pop presenter Simon Amstell was the compere. Not that it mattered. The 1,000 people who had snapped up tickets for the charity event - some gladly hornswoggled to the tune of £150 by eBay scalpers - were only there to see the guys from Radiohead.
Yorke, an 'ambassador' for FoE, had written to the leaders of the three major political parties, inviting them to the gig. 'Well, obviously I didn't write to Tony,' the 37-year-old singer said. 'I wrote to Gordon Brown instead.'
'Obviously' because Thom Yorke hates Tony Blair; because he thinks the PM has 'no environmental credentials'; because Yorke is viscerally opposed to the Iraq war and to current global trade practices. And because the rock star had already declined an invitation to meet the Prime Minister last September.
Why miss the opportunity to lobby the chap on the political throne? Given his passionate espousal of these causes, isn't it Yorke's duty to at least engage in a conversation?
'Not when there were all sorts of conditions being put up.'
Such as?
'[Blair's advisers] wanted pre-meetings. They wanted to know that I was onside. Also, I was being manoeuvred into a position where if I said the wrong thing post-the meeting, Friends of the Earth would lose their access. Which normally would be called blackmail.' Yorke flashed a humour-free smile.
So Yorke wrote to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown instead, and Brown (says Yorke) said he would send Environment Secretary David Miliband. The singer's letter to David Cameron, meanwhile, elicited an eager response. The Tory leader wrote back, Jim'll Fix It-style, raving about Radiohead's 'Fake Plastic Trees'.
'I sent this rather sad letter saying I'd love to come to the concert, thank you for asking,' Cameron told Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs four weeks after The Big Ask Live. 'PS: please play this, my favourite song, and he did.'
Sadly for the rather starstruck Tory leader, Yorke's PR subsequently issued a statement denying this causal link. The choice of songs on the setlist had 'nothing to do with any special guests'.
After the Koko show, the VIP mingling. Yorke met the politicos. He found that both Miliband's and Cameron's wives were 'big Radiohead freaks, so that was quite interesting'.
What did he make of Cameron?'
'He looked very nervous. As you would.'
A politician Yorke could do business with?
'Nnnooo,' said Yorke with pained emphasis. 'But then it's not my job to do that bit. I wouldn't do that with any of them.'
Blackpool, 12 May 2006
Radiohead had just completed the first of six indoor UK dates, in Blackpool's Empress Ballroom. It was a sunny Friday night by the seaside, and the atmosphere was spicy with sweat, lager and marijuana smoke. The set had roared into life with the furious funk of 'The National Anthem'. Back playing in a more intimate environment, it was a trenchant reminder of how great Radiohead are as a jump-around rock band.
Afterwards they, their management, the CEO of EMI, road crew and friends stood drinking beer in the ballroom's basement. The following morning an announcement was being sent out via Waste, the fans' information service on the band's website. It was a message from Yorke. It was mostly in lower case, and the punctuation was skewy.
'this is just a note to say that something has been kicking around in the background that i have not told you about. its called The Eraser... i wrote and played it... it was fun and quick to do. inevitably it is more beats & electronics... no its not a radiohead record. as you know the band are now touring and writing new stuff and getting to a good space so i want no crap about me being a traitor or whatever splitting up blah blah... this was all done with their blessing. and i don't wanna hear that word solo. doesnt sound right. ok then thats that.'
The Eraser - indeed it's a solo album - began sputtering into life when Radiohead'stopped' two years ago, Yorke told me, after the completion of the year-long Hail to the Thief tour. They had flown the 'wrong way round the world', east to west. 'You're not built to do that. It just spun our heads out, man. I don't think anybody really slept for, like, three, four weeks. So that level of sleep deprivation and doing these big shows under lot of pressure... It was just messed up.'
In 2004 being Radiohead 'was getting boring and it just got a bit weird and self-perpetuating... It felt like everyone was under obligation to do it rather than because we wanted to do it. And one of the things I had wanted to do for ages was get stuck into a bunch of things that I had been mucking around with that didn't fit into the Radiohead zone.'
He explained that The Eraser was 'an accumulation of really sketchy ideas that were going around since I learnt how to use the laptop properly.' It's an insidious collection of skittery beats and pattery rhythms and minimal post-rockisms recorded with regular Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich in the band's studio in Oxfordshire, in Yorke's second home 'by the sea', and in Godrich's studio in London's Covent Garden.
Radiohead endured convulsive - OK, argumentative - times trying to make Kid A and Amnesiac and escape the long shadow cast by 1997's hugely successful and influential OK Computer. Crudely speaking, it was out with the prog rock of 'Paranoid Android', in with the tech-jazz of 'Everything in its Right Place'. Making that transition was a long, bumpy, tortuous journey.
So it's not too much of a stretch to imagine it's a relief to the other members of the band - Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O'Brien (guitar), Phil Selway (drums) - that Yorke has found a new outlet for his twitchy creativity. As he told me at one point: 'I was excited about the idea of just using beats and stuff and some of these sounds that I had. And writing to that rather than writing to good old-fashioned acoustic instruments [and the idea that] it's not a song unless it's got a fucking guitar in it or whatever nonsense.'
The Eraser is Yorke doing things his way. The title is, in part, a reference to him rubbing out the weight of his own musical past. Instead of a single, the album is being trailed by the inclusion of the song 'Black Swan' over the closing credits of Richard Linklater's mind-bending animated sci-fi film A Scanner Darkly. Yorke may get his 'arm twisted' to do some solo shows but he doesn't seem convinced it's a good idea.
And the record is being released by big-booted indie label XL (home of the White Stripes). How does that bode for Radiohead's future, given that they have completed their contractual obligations to EMI and are currently without a record deal?
'It didn't feel right to do it with EMI. It was done with the doors shut. As Nigel said, without anybody watching. And it was done in a different context so it felt like it should be put out in a different context. Which is not saying that we won't put things out through EMI or whatever. I just don't personally feel that we owe anybody anything. I think that's a mistake.
'Will we re-sign to EMI?' he mused. 'I don't know. I don't think we'd sign sign to anybody. Give someone a record when it's done if we feel that they can do it justice. That's it.'
Oxford #1
In Thom Yorke's words, I've really 'freaked [him] out' with our 'heavy' conversation. He has gradually shrunk towards the table in the quiet dining room, all furrowed brows and rubbed temples. Now, belting his black raincoat, he bows his head and rushes off out the door of the drowsy Oxford hotel, into the pelting rain.
What has messed with his brain is not the discussion of the sound of The Eraser ('it was very, very deliberately just me and Nigel using computers a lot, just for their speed and a different sort of aesthetic'). It's the talk of its political content. That, and the swirl of obligation and vilification that invariably converges around any entertainer who speaks up.
I had asked him why Radiohead weren't involved with Live8.
'Because that was the point where we couldn't work out whether we should be carrying on or not. Or... well... we couldn't really get it together.
'Also, I didn't agree with the idea.'
Why not?
He weighs his words carefully. 'Because it was a form of distraction. A convenient political sideshow to what was probably the most important G8 meeting... Holding a big rock concert and reducing the issues to bare essential levels, I think, ultimately, was to the detriment of the [Make Poverty History] campaign.'
Did you share Damon Albarn of Blur's opinion that it was inappropriate that it was a nearly all-white bill?
'Absolutely. Damon was spot on. He's braver than I am.'
I read him the quote Albarn reportedly gave to the Sun last month. 'Radiohead - I'm not gonna get into anyone, but bands who care about certain things and then go on one-and-a-half year stadium tours are just total hypocrites... In one sense you've got this developing humanist thing... Then you're creating these massive impersonal events where you're set up as the subject of thousands of people's adoration. Where is the humanity in that? That's just idolatry.'
Yorke considers this.
'That's a bit confused, isn't it? OK, yeah, you're probably right, Damon, I should stop,' he says sarcastically.
Do you feel hypocritical playing big gigs?
'Yup!'
He's never been one for ego or idolatory, so I ask him if it's because of an arena gig's environmental impact, its carbon footprint.
'Yep!'
Seriously?
'Yep. Absolutely.'
So how do you fix that?
'Fuck knows.'
The more we talk about pop and politics, the tenser he gets. To be fair, it's a terrible day: the mother of Radiohead drummer Phil Selway died two weeks previously, and today is the funeral. Yorke could be forgiven for having a lot on his mind.
Nonetheless, he seems not to have thought through how this most polemical of albums will be viewed and discussed. The Eraser is suffused with Yorke's concerns about environmental meltdown - the title is also a reference to the inexorable force of rising tides. The sleeve image is of a King Canute figure trying to hold back a giant wave.
But there seems to be a song with even more sobering content than 'And it Rained All Night', which expresses the fear of catastrophic flooding. Is the song 'Harrowdown Hill' really about the suicide of weapons inspector and government scientist Dr David Kelly?
'It is,' says Yorke with some reluctance. 'But I've got this thing where I don't want to make a big deal out of that because I'm very sensitive to the idea of digging up anything that the Kelly family...'
As he often does, Yorke lets a sentence fizzle out just as another barges in. His speech, like his actions and his responses to issues that he cares about, is impulsive and scattershot. Or, as per the title of the song on 2003's Hail to the Thief, 'Scatterbrain'.
'I don't really think it's appropriate for me to say, "Yes, it's about that",' he continues, 'because I'm sure they're still grieving over his death.'
But Harrowdown Hill is the name of the Oxfordshire woods where Kelly's body was found in July 2003. I remind Yorke of the lyrics: 'You will be dispensed with when you've become inconvenient... up on Harrowdown Hill... that's where I'm lying down... did I fall or was I pushed...'. That's quite direct stuff.
'It's the most angry song I've ever written in my life,' he nods grimly. 'I'm not gonna get into the background to it, the way I see it... And it's not for me or for any of us to dig any of this up. So it's a bit of an uncomfortable thing.'
This is what Thom Yorke, conscious rocker, is like. He's more confused student than celebrity spokesman. More pub ranter than soundbite-spewing talking head. He's more like most of us, in fact. No wonder Radiohead's 23 million album sales and staggering worldwide success come underpinned by hero-worship of Yorke. Fans can relate to him in a way that they never can to superhero Bono and Hollywood-affiliated Chris Martin.
Offstage, Yorke's is a quiet life, and he works hard to keep it that way. He lives in Oxfordshire, where he grew up, with his partner Rachel. They met while both were students at Exeter University. She's a lecturer (for her PhD she studied Dante). They have two children: Noah (five) and Agnes Mair (18 months; The Eraser is dedicated to her). In terms of 'personal detail', you won't get much more out of him that.
Nor will you find him out and about at gigs or parties or openings or any of the usual stuff that's rockbiz catnip. But he will turn up at RAF Fairford to protest the beginning of the Iraq war; or at Westminster for a Trade Justice Movement rally; or at a CND anti-Star Wars demo in Yorkshire. Or he'll perform at an all-night vigil in Westminster Abbey in support of the world's poorest workers.
When Yorke feels things, he really feels them. He's vigorous and passionate, and far from the dour grump he's often portrayed as. It's just that he gets ultra-stressed by things that many of us choose to ignore, and melodrama can ensue. As he said to the NME earlier this year, the preamble to his abortive meeting with Tony Blair made him 'the illest I'd ever got... I got so freaked out about it'. He also told the magazine that the music business is'such a bunch of fucking retards as far as I'm concerned', which is patently cobblers. When the NME splashed this quote on its cover, Yorke was not impressed and at present isn't talking to the magazine.
I try another, less personal tack with regards to 'Harrowdown Hill'. Did the Kelly affair crystallise everything that was wrong and venal about the whole Iraq adventure for Yorke?
A pause. 'Um, I guess I didn't see it in terms of Iraq, but obviously, yes. What disturbed me the most about it was the way that the Ministry of Defence in this country is able to operate. I think it's a profound cancer at the centre of this society.'
Thom Yorke exhales heavily.
He notices the time. He's got to go. Phil's mum's funeral. He promises he'll come back afterwards and talk some more. If his head's heavy now, what's it going to be like later this afternoon?
Wolverhampton, 15 May 2006
At the Civic Hall, Radiohead continued to showcase more new songs. 'House Of Cards', which recalled Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross'. The broken hip hop beats of '15 Step'. 'Nude', a fabled song among Radiohead fans that the band have never managed to record. Yorke thought they'd finally nailed it, but then added that 'that's under debate as well...'
The purpose of these shows, he said, was partly to 'road test' the new material, as Radiohead had done on a pre-Hail to the Thief tour of Portugal and Spain in summer 2002.
Then he admitted that the tour was also about Radiohead getting back the confidence they'd lost during the Hail to the Thief 'zone', 'because what we were doing was becoming routine. It felt like we were doing it 'cause we didn't really know what else to do.' Undertaking the brief, between-album 2006 tour gave them'something to focus on before we went back to recording'. Over the past year the band had'spent too long in the studio with things not happening and it was getting frustrating.'
The Eraser song 'Atoms For Peace' is about Yorke grappling with his worrywart, paranoid-android tendencies. 'No more going to the dark side with your flying saucer eyes,' it begins. 'No more talk about the old days, it's time for something great.'
'Quite a personal song, really,' Yorke sniffed. 'Trying to correlate my life with choosing to do this, and choosing to get over the fear which is a constant thing I have. Being a rock star, you're supposed to have super-über-confidence all the time. And I don't.' A pause. 'And it was my missus telling me to get it together basically.'
Oxford #2
The woodcut-style sleeve of The Eraser is the work of longstanding Radiohead collaborator and friend Stanley Donwood. Yorke and the artist first met at Exeter University, where Yorke studied English and Art. Donwood's first impressions of Yorke: 'Mouthy. Pissed off. Someone I could work with.' They're frequent partners in graphic crime (Yorke using the alias Tchock or Dr Tchocky), and in the run-up to the making of The Eraser had been looking at 'old German Expressionism stuff, as you do'. The layman might think they'd been looking at Captain Pugwash or Noggin The Nog cartoons.
The Eraser, Donwood tells me via email, 'can be seen as the environment we live in, a Gaia-like force that doesn't care about us, that can sweep away our accomplishments in the space of half an hour.'
Donwood says he had one of his books of German Expressionism stuff - The Nuremberg Chronicle, published in 1493 - with him 'during the flood at Boscastle, Cornwall in 2004. The terrifying sight of buildings torn apart, trees ripped from the earth and the endless thundering roar of the flood remained fixed in my mind. The next day I began to draw, half-copying the woodcuts from the Chronicle, half exorcising my memory. That summer I carried on drawing imaginary medieval disasters, most of which were spattered by the persistent rain.'
Donwood's mention of Boscastle chimed with something Yorke had said: 'One of the initial experiences as we started making the record was [Stanley] and I ended up being involved in this mad natural instant which had a big effect on us.' It seems that Yorke and Donwood happened to be in the West Country on the day of the Boscastle flood.
There can be little doubting Yorke's commitment to the environmental cause. Certainly it's helped him make a solo album that is quietly yet vividly powerful. No dilettante side-project of the idle millionaire rock star, this. But, ever fretful, he knows he could do more. Nine switched-on songs do not an angst-free singer make.
'When I did the launch thing for [Friends Of The Earth's Big Ask campaign], after being up from seven in the morning doing interviews, I ended up in front of Jon Snow and he was like, "So what are you doing?" I'm like, "Not enough". And it was a painful silence in the [TV] studio! You're not supposed to say that. You're supposed to say, "I'm doing this and this and this. I'm planting trees, somewhere, probably." I'm not! I'm not doing enough! None of us are.'
Do you have sympathy for Chris Martin: very hand-on-his heart active in the Make Trade Fair campaign but necessarily lives a bit of a Hollywood lifestyle, and drives a big car?
'I don't drive a big car, I'll give you that. Um.' A pause. 'No one's going to come out of this dirt-free; I don't come out of it dirt-free. It's basically [about] having to make a decision whether to do nothing or try to engage with it in some way, knowing that it's flawed. It's convenient to project that back on to someone personally and say they're a hypocrite. It's a lot easier to do that than actually do anything else. And yeah, that stresses me out, because I am a hypocrite. As we all are.'
Do you have solar panels or a mini-wind turbine at home?
'I don't have a mini-wind turbine because as far as I can work out, they're trying to get the bill through the Commons to have or have not [sic] permission to put them up. They're trying to define them in the same zone as Sky dishes. And things like that. And no, I don't have solar panels yet because I've just moved house and I'm working out how best to do it.'
London, 19 May 2006
Thom Yorke had a few drinks tonight. He'd kept himself straight for the UK tour. But this second Hammersmith Apollo engagement was the last show. It had gone well. He could afford to let his hair down. Now he bopped chirpily through the throngs of folk at the big end-of-tour piss-up. Gnarls Barkley, Siouxsie Sioux, the Mighty Boosh and Jamie Oliver, among other guests, shared his enthusiasm. Radiohead, one of the biggest British bands of the Nineties and Noughties, were back. Well, sort of. Yorke admitted he was frustrated at the length of time Radiohead were taking to record their seventh album. They haven't even settled on a producer yet. They'd started producing themselves, had done some sessions with Mark 'Spike' Stent, and had been speaking to Nigel Godrich and'some other people'. They had played 11 new songs on the tour, plus their contribution to the latest War Child album 'I Want None of It'.
'It seems crazy to have this all [new material] sitting around... It's to varying degrees finished, [and] to just have to wait for another six months, eight months, seems nuts.'
But when you can, as Yorke can, happily 'noodle for England' it's easier to take your time. And if you're frightened of your carbon-spewing rock star shadow, a recording studio's a good place to be.
Oxford #3
I worry that Thom Yorke might not return after the funeral. But he does. He's fairly upbeat, considering. He apologises for 'his brain not engaging' this morning. 'In some ways I feel I didn't answer properly,' he says, eating an asparagus risotto in the hotel dining room. 'That whole Damon thing,' he begins, then pops on his conspiracy theorist's hat - the Sun printing that quote is another example of 'the Murdoch papers" disdain for him and his lefty, anti-globalisation ways. (There was a savage piece in the Murdoch-owned New York Post once.)
Then he says: 'I'm not really bothered about what Damon thinks, but the whole thing about doing big shows does bother me. Do you just do the small shows and keep selling them out so everyone gets really, really cross [because they can't get tickets]? But at the same time the whole apparatus of big festivals is not cool. If we could go to them and say, you can only use paper cups, you can't use generators, you have to use solar panels... The trouble is you can't do a show at the moment with solar panels. You technically can't make it happen.'
Funny old Thom Yorke. He hasn't learnt to stop worrying and love global warming. He still frets and agonises and spirals into confusion. Good for him. It makes for great, boundary-pushing music. And for heated conversation.
Then again: 'You can spend too long dwelling on stuff that there's no point in dwelling on. The whole thing for me now is just hanging out with Radiohead again. Having done my record there's a point to carrying on working. That's all I need.'
I tell him it's almost 14 years to the day since Radiohead's first single, the 'Drill EP', came out.
'God almighty, is it? Wow!'
Has it taken him 14 years to learn these lessons?
'No, no! We all felt we'd just painted ourselves into a corner. And it all went a bit wrong. That's bound to happen. That's what should happen. What would be more worrying is just carrying on without even realising. It's the same with any art form, hopefully. You just have to stop for a bit out and work out what the hell you're doing.'
What Thom Yorke's doing, he concludes with a strange mixture of a grin and a frown, is'satisfying a great big need that I have. To hang out with these people, to share ideas, and to make a fucking racket in Radiohead.'
And if he saves the world along the way, so much the better.
· The Eraser is released on XL on 10 July
Yorke notes: Thom's life and loves
Born in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, on 7 October 1968, Thom Yorke had five operations in the first five years of his life to repair a paralysed left eye - the last leaving him with his distinctive lazy eye. At the age of seven, inspired by Queen's Brian May, he got his mitts on his first guitar, and at 13, he dyed his hair for the first time, flirting with peroxide blonde, black and ginger.
Whisked from school to school by his dad's nomadic job as a salesman of chemical engineering instruments, he finally settled at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire, where along with friends, he formed On A Friday, a band named after that sole day when they were allowed to practise.
The group continued even after its members were divided by cross-country university migration, and despite dabbling with another band, Headless Chickens, during his art and literature degree at Exeter, Yorke stuck with On A Friday. Upon signing, they were steered to a new name by EMI, and Radiohead gasped their first breath.
Yorke has a long-term partner, printmaker Rachel Owen, with whom he lives in Oxford along with their two children, Noah and Agnes.INDYCAR medical director Dr. Michael Olinger has confirmed that Dario Franchitti has been admitted to the Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center here in Houston for multiple injuries including a concussion, a spinal fracture that will not require surgery, and a fractured right ankle. He will be kept overnight for observation.
Franchitti was involved in a multi-car crash on the final lap of today’s Race 2 of the Shell/Pennzoil Grand Prix of Houston, in which he was sent airborne and into the catch fence after contact with Takuma Sato.
The incident also collected E.J. Viso, but Sato and Viso were able to come away unscathed. Franchitti’s car owner, Chip Ganassi, told NBCSN shortly after the crash that his driver was awake and alert.
Franchitti’s impact against the catch fence sprayed debris not only across the track but toward the nearby Turn 5 grandstands. After an initial report from local TV station KTRK-TV said that 13 spectators were injured, with two of them being sent to a local hospital for further treatment, a joint statement from race organizer Mi-Jack Promotions, Reliant Park and INDYCAR confirmed two fans were indeed taken to hospitals and 11 fans were treated on-site.
“Officials are investigating the incident and currently do not have further information at this time. Fan and driver safety are always a primary concern and we will provide further details as they are available,” the statement said additionally.
Follow @estradawritingWhile its catchy name may conjure up visions of cigars, grunts and a "men only" sign on the door, the founder of ManTalks says that's far from what he's trying to accomplish.
"What we're really out to do is create a space of positive masculinity and help men become better fathers, better husbands and better business leaders," said Vancouver's Connor Beaton.
As it turns out, a lot of guys are interested in becoming better men.
Hundreds of men, and some women, paid nearly $100 each to attend Saturday's ManTalks half-day event, The Power of Greatness, in downtown Vancouver.
The series has been described as TED talks meets Oprah but targeted towards men.
"Be the king of hearts" <a href="https://twitter.com/LewisHowes">@LewisHowes</a> fantastic talk & lesson <a href="https://twitter.com/mantalks">@mantalks</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/mantalks?src=hash">#mantalks</a> —@steviethorp
Good to be hanging at <a href="https://twitter.com/mantalks">@mantalks</a> School of Greatness edition gettin inspired <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GreatnessIs?src=hash">#GreatnessIs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ManTalks?src=hash">#ManTalks</a> <a href="https://t.co/VfrJRQExD3">pic.twitter.com/VfrJRQExD3</a> —@BrentSeal
Beaton, a 32-year-old Vancouver resident, founded ManTalks after overcoming depression and addiction when he was in his twenties.
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eligible for cycling amenities, based on road conditions and traffic patterns. The city will include approximately $1 million in the CIP for thermoplastic paint to re-stripe these streets. This means that by the end of 2018, the city could have 200 miles of bikeway network. These roads will be prioritized based on making key connections to the Bikeway Implementation Plan.
“The fact that we are making the inclusion of bicycle infrastructure more systematic means that we will be able to create a functional bikeway network within a few years and people will be able to see progress happening,” said McGowan.
The final Bikeway Network Plan for the City of Cleveland will be introduced to the public this Sunday, January 19, at the annual “Bike Cleveland” members meeting.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.At the height of the manufactured "Climategate" controversy, distortions of an email from a top climate scientist made it all the way to one of the leading Sunday shows. But a recent study re-confirms what that scientist was actually saying -- that much of recent heat has been trapped deep in the ocean.
In 2009, a batch of emails was stolen from the University of East Anglia. In one of the emails, which skeptics quickly took out of context, Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, lamented the "travesty" that "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment." Trenberth was actually referring to gaps in our "observing system" that make it difficult to say where short-term energy -- or heat -- is going, not copping to a lack of long-term climate change, as some claimed. In the email, Trenberth alluded to research suggesting that the "missing" heat might be sequestered deep in the ocean.
For some media, none of this mattered. In a November 2009 appearance on ABC's This Week, conservative columnist George Will suggested Trenberth's email showed that "global warming has stopped," and that since climate science is "a complicated business," we "shouldn't wager these trillions" on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
But a recent study published in the journal Nature Climate Change found that the ocean has in fact played a "key role" in absorbing recent heat, which "strengthens our confidence in the robustness of our climate models." The findings echo the conclusions of a paper co-authored by Trenberth himself as well as findings published in the journal Physics Letters A in late 2012, all indicating that climate change continues apace.
Recent analyses by Media Matters show that the "Climategate" episode was typical of the way the influential Sunday shows favor political spin over scientific fact. On the rare occasion Sunday shows covered climate change between 2009 and 2012, not a single scientist or climate expert was part of the discussion. In addition, every politician who discussed climate change on the Sunday shows in 2012 was a Republican:
Examining trends more broadly, the Sunday shows have hosted more Republicans and conservatives than Democrats and progressives. In this environment, honest appraisals of science are rare, and commentators like George Will fit right in.*swag*When a parasprite tries to get at you...Pop it like it like it's hot (x 3) [lol]I felt like drawing something ridiculous again so it's Rainbow Dash doing that dance Snoop Dog does from "Drop It Like It's Hot" - you can see some crazy mashed up version here: [link] - this turned out difficult somewhat because uh ponies don't have hands so you it was tough to get all of the little minor movements SD does. Not to mention I couldn't find any show references for like something between 3/4ths profile and forward facing so the change is a bit sudden. Eh, oh well. (maybe I'll do one for Discord? ;D)Brony plug: [link] (I love the vocal mix on this song)GIF + song (thanks ) -> [link]This morning, I received a message on redditgifts from BurtonL that he'd checked the tracking code and UPS should be delivering my gift today--yay! After (impatiently) waiting and compulsively checking the door every ten minutes from when I got the message, I had to leave the house around 1230 to go pick up my niece from school. Sure enough, when I stopped at home between picking my niece up and taking her to the bakery for a treat (because I forgot my Santee's gift at home and I had to ship it), I saw the UPS truck down the street. I approached my front door and THERE IT WAS!! My Secret Santa gift. :) I picked up the package I had to mail and my gift and got back into the car and tore into it with a quickness.
What a great gift! BurtonL sent me a handmade TARDIS ornament (which is so many different kinds of awesome. I was shouting about it in the car, much to my niece's chagrin.) on which he left the lid loose in case I want to use it as a box! It's hanging on my Christmas tree now but believe me when I say it'll be finding a year-round place in my home. I am extra super excited as this is my first piece of Doctor Who swag. Even better, the note enclosed said it was wrapped in a dishcloth that BurtonL's 101 year old grandmother made as she wanted to include something, too. HOW COOL IS THAT?!
Next, I received the always-awesome TWILIGHT TURTLE!!! Can't wait til the sun goes down so I can check out the stars on my ceiling. :)
THANK YOU, BurtonL! And thank you to your grandmother. You put a smile on my face today.M A I N N E W S Purewal flays changes in Nanakshahi calendar
Says it is due to vote-bank politics
Perneet Singh/TNS Amritsar, February 17
Challenging those who are objecting to the original Nanakshahi calendar to show their credentials, Pal Singh Purewal, the calendars architect, today flayed the amendments made to it, saying the changes made as mere amendments will be a misnomer as the entire base of the calendar has been changed. Showing copies of a letter that he has written to Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh in this regard here today, Purewal said, We had fixed the dates of all 12 sangrands and all major gurpurbs except for three in our calendar. But now they have reverted to Bikrami calendar for observing all sangrands and four gurpurbs Gurta Gaddi Diwas of Guru Granth Sahib, the Martyrdom Day of Guru Arjun Dev and birth and death anniversaries of Guru Gobind Singh. As a result of this, the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh will be celebrated twice in 2011, 2014, 2017, 2022 and 2025 while it will not fall in 2012, 2015, 2018 and 2023. In 2014 and 2025, the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh, falling in December for the second time in these years, will coincide with the martyrdom day of his younger sahibzadas as per the amended calendar, he added. Purewal said, I have written this letter to the Jathedar based on technical facts and not opinions. I challenge the people objecting to the original calendar to show their credentials. They have no right to criticise the calendar. He said he had decades of experience in the field and had to his credit 500-year calendar based on solar charts and 1,500-year Hijri Calendar. He said the Sikh Panth never witnessed as much unanimity and unity as it did during the implementation of the original calendar in 2003. If the amended calendar has no shortcomings, why the Akal Takht Jathedar, during his foreign tours, needs to appeal every gurdwara to follow it, he wondered. According to Purewal, 80 per cent of the gurdwaras abroad are following the original calendar. He said the problems, which were sorted out in the original calendar, were back now and todays version was a mixture of both the Nanakshahi and Bikrami Calendars. He blamed vote-bank politics for the changes made in the calendar. It is all politics and no science in the move, he added. He said all, except for some fringe groups, accepted the 2003 version of the calendar and the Panth should revert to it. Former SGPC secretary Manjeet Singh Calcutta and Dal Khalsa secretary-general Kanwarpal Singh Bittu, who were also present, alleged that the RSS was behind these amendments.Get the biggest Manchester United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A prank at a petrol station sparked a full scale emergency response when a hooligan sprayed a cashier with a fire extinguisher.
Police, paramedics and fire crews were scrambled to the Texaco garage in Old Trafford in the early hours of Sunday after the terrified member of staff was blasted with dry powder through a night pay window.
It is understood a man picked up the extinguisher from the forecourt before aiming the nozzle through the window and hosing the lone worker at around 6.50am.
The employee dialled 999, initially unaware what the substance was, fearing he could have been sprayed with a dangerous chemical.
The North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) sent a rapid response vehicle, an ambulance and members of the specially-trained Hazardous Area Response Team (HART).
Police and fire crews were also spotted by passers-by at the scene.
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An ambulance spokeswoman said the cashier, in his late 20s, had been sprayed and had to be cleaned and ‘decontaminated’.
A number of other people at the petrol station when the drama unfolded also had to be checked over by paramedics. No-one was hurt.
It is thought the incident was a prank.
When contacted by the M.E.N, a worker at the petrol station said it ‘wasn’t an emergency’ but declined to comment further.
Ambulance crews remained at the scene until 10am on Sunday morning, having spent three hours ensuring patients were unhurt and cleaned up.
A North West Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: “We received a call from somebody who had been sprayed with an unknown substance and there was considerable cause for concern.
“Due to the unknown nature of the substance initially, a large scale response was required.
“Fortunately, it was discovered the man had been sprayed with a powder extinguisher and he was cleaned up by paramedics - as well as others at the scene at the time. We have alerted local walk-in centres in case people go in concerned about being sprayed by the substance.”Archaeologists have found what they have described as a "breathtaking engineering project" in Lincolnshire.
Almost 60 miles of medieval canals, possibly built by monks to ferry stone, have been identified in the Fens.
Although the canals were up to 40ft wide they have filled up with silt and are now only visible from the air.
Experts said the network of waterways represented an achievement not matched until the Industrial Revolution 300 years later.
Viking raiders
Martin Redding, of the Witham Valley Archaeology Research Committee, discovered the canals using aerial photographs.
"They have been completely infilled by later deposits that have been brought in by flooding eight hundred years.
He added: "These canals are important because they represent a breathtaking engineering project.
"Just think of the skilled engineers, surveyors and huge workforce this scheme would have needed."
Mr Redding said more study was needed but speculated that the canals could have been started as a way of transporting stone to rebuild monastic sites devastated in Viking raids.A Galway United side missing 10 first team players through injury and suspension secured a hard-earned point against Drogheda United at Eamonn Deacy Park on Friday night.
Under 19 players Aran McConnell, Antaine O’Laoi and Conor Melody were drafted into the starting XI and all three held their own in a very tight encounter by the banks of the Corrib.
The hosts made a bright start to the game. Antaine O’Laoi swung a corner into the six-yard box but Samuel Oji couldn’t poke the ball home from close range.
Drogheda marksman Lee Duffy almost caught the home side on the hop when he turned and shot inside the box, but Ger Hanley was equal to his effort.
Michael Schlingermann then thwarted David O’Leary, when the Mayoman got a strong hand to his free-kick, which was destined for the top corner.
Drogheda stretched the hosts when their captain Mick Daly, switched the play to the opposite flank, Jason Marks hooked the ball back across goal but Hanley anticipated the danger and he palmed the ball away from goal.
Hanley had to be at his best again moments later to deny Tiarnan Mulvenna after the former Dundalk man was played through on goal.
Galway United grabbed an opener just one minute before half time, Jake Keegan’s tireless work paid off when he followed in Conor Melody’s flick on, Michael Schlingermann raced out of his goal but the American got to the ball first and he deflected the ball off the Drogheda keeper’ before tapping the ball into the net.
Confusion early in the second half between Alex Byrne and Ger Hanley almost gifted Drogheda United a leveller but Lee Duffy cracked his shot into the side netting.
Drogheda defender Robert O’Reilly stayed forward after a corner was cleared, a second ball was delivered into the box, O’Reilly nipped in to apply the finishing touch but Hanley denied him from close range.
Lee Duffy shaved the outside of the post with a measured shot on the outside of his boot, after he was afforded far too much time to pick his spot.
An early ball out of Galway United’s defence set Jake Keegan away, the American got the better of Alan Byrne but Michael Schlingermann saved his low effort easily.
Drogheda United grabbed a leveller in the 70th minute, captain Mick Daly’s towering header beat Ger Hanley after Sean Thornton delivered a probing free-kick.
Conor Melody then went on a mazy run, beating two Drogheda players before shooting low but his shot was straight at Michael Schlingermann.
Sean Thornton could’ve won it for Johnny McDonnell’s side late on but thankfully for the hosts, he headed wide after Jason Marks hung a corner deep into United’s box.
Galway United: Hanley; Raftery, Oji, Byrne, Sinnott; Shanahan, McConnell, O’Leary, O’Laoi; Melody; Keegan
Goalscorer: Keegan 44
Booked: O’Leary 36, Oji 54
Drogheda United: Schlingermann; Daly, Byrne, O’Reilly, Gorman; Mulvenna, Thornton, Maher, Hughes, Marks; Duffy (McKenna 87)
Goalscorer: Daly 70
Booked: Gorman 26, Mulvenna 85, Byrne 90
Referee: Graham Kelly
Attendance: 651Like "jumbo shrimp" and "civil war," "pedestrian-friendly Los Angeles" is an eyebrow-raising contradiction. Nobody's friendly to pedestrians (or joggers, bicyclists or rickshaw drivers) in L.A. At least that's the perception. But all that's changing thanks to improved bike lanes, an expanding Metro light rail system, sidewalks, neighborhood pride and an organization called CicLAvia (pronounced sic-lah-VEE-ya). As that nonprofit prepares for another car-free takeover of L.A. streets this weekend, I checked in with the group's executive director and co-founder, Aaron Paley.
Taking it to the streets. Photo by Gary Leonard
What's CicLAvia?
Since 2010, we've been organizing car-free public events in Los Angeles as a way to promoting public health, active transportation, public space, economic development, and community building. Three times a year, we work with the city to close major streets to cars, and hundreds of thousands of people turn out to walk and bike these routes. On our last CicLAvia from downtown to Venice Beach, we estimate we had 250,000 people participate.
You did say "walk and bike" in LA, right?
Absolutely. As a native Angeleno, I've always been mindful of how empty the sidewalks here can be. I have very distinct memories of navigating this city without a car or bicycle, since I didn't own either -- intentionally -- from 1982 to 1986. Back then, the sidewalks were a wasteland. I remember writing in my journal one day that there were three of us on the sidewalk at once. That seemed significant. But now we're seeing an explosion of bikers and walkers.
What's making L.A. more ped-friendly?
There's a long answer that has to do with changing racial configurations, neighborhood demographics, economics and actual infrastructure changes. But the quick explanation is there's been a confluence of events: A huge rise in bicycle culture here, including improved bike lanes, over the past ten years; the completion of the new rail line in conjunction with a more robust bus system. That made the Metro a viable alternative transportation. On top of that, the densification of the city led to a rejuvenation of pride in neighborhoods. If you love living in Valley Village or Atwater or Venice or Boyle Heights, you're more likely to walk around in those neighborhoods. That means you don't need to be afraid to walk places the way you did during the gang wars of the 1980s.
Tell me about the unintended side effects of CicLAvia. How is it changing minds about L.A.?
When you get out onto the streets in Los Angeles, it creates a major shift on every level. Businesses are reporting a huge uptick in business during CicLAvia events. The scale of the city shifts from one that feels massive to one that's manageable. You discover the connection between east and west, which usually feel like separate entities. To stop on the Fourth Street Bridge downtown and gaze at the Los Angeles River is to appreciate the different sides of the city, and marvel at the historic and geographic wonders of L.A. People used to think that as soon as you left your house in Los Angeles, you had to get into a car or else you'd drown. We're showing people how enjoyable it is to swim in that in-between space.
What's this Sunday's event about?
The seventh CicLAvia is the first to travel Wilshire Boulevard. The entire route will open at 9:00 a.m. and begins with a kick-off ceremony at the intersection of Wilshire and Ogden Street, in front of LACMA’s Urban Lights installation, west of 5900 Wilshire, and extends for six miles to the Miracle Mile. Participants can enter at any point along the route. It ends at 4:00 p.m. We'll have music, food trucks, activities and free podcasts that tell stories about Wilshire Boulevard's architectural history. It's the first time we're taking back the axis, the spine, of Los Angeles, and I can't wait to give people a chance to look closely at this street.
Follow me on your bike or at Twitter on @letterfromla and @davidhochmanBut five justices also discussed their discomfort with the government’s use of or access to various modern technologies, including video surveillance in public places, automatic toll collection systems on highways, devices that allow motorists to signal for roadside assistance, location data from cellphone towers and records kept by online merchants.
The case concerned Antoine Jones, who was the owner of a Washington nightclub when the police came to suspect him of being part of a cocaine-selling operation. They placed a tracking device on his Jeep Grand Cherokee without a valid warrant, tracked his movements for a month and used the evidence they gathered to convict him of conspiring to sell cocaine. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned his conviction, saying the sheer amount of information that had been collected violated the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches. “Repeated visits to a church, a gym, a bar or a bookie tell a story not told by any single visit, as does one’s not visiting any of those places in the course of a month,” Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg wrote for the appeals court panel.
The Supreme Court affirmed that decision, but on a different ground. “We hold that the government’s installation of a GPS device on a target’s vehicle, and its use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a ‘search,’ ” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.
“It is important to be clear about what occurred in this case,” Justice Scalia went on. “The government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information. We have no doubt that such a physical intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted.”
When the case was argued in November, a lawyer for the federal government said the number of times the federal authorities used GPS devices to track suspects was “in the low thousands annually.”
Vernon Herron, a former Maryland state trooper now on the staff of the University of Maryland ’s Center for Health and Homeland Security, said state and local law enforcement officials used GPS and similar devices “all the time,” adding that “this type of technology is very useful for narcotics and terrorism investigations.”
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Monday’s decision thus places a significant burden on widely used law enforcement surveillance techniques, though the authorities remain free to seek warrants from judges authorizing the surveillance.
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In a concurrence for four justices, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. faulted the majority for trying to apply 18th-century legal concepts to 21st-century technologies. What should matter, he said, is the contemporary reasonable expectation of privacy.
“The use of longer-term GPS monitoring in investigations of most offenses,” Justice Alito wrote, “impinges on expectations of privacy.” Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the concurrence.
“We need not identify with precision the point at which the tracking of this vehicle became a search, for the line was surely crossed before the four-week mark,” Justice Alito wrote. “Other cases may present more difficult questions.”
Justice Scalia said the majority did not mean to suggest that its property-rights theory of the Fourth Amendment displaced the one focused on expectations of privacy.
“It may be that achieving the same result through electronic means, without an accompanying trespass, is an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, but the present case does not require us to answer that question,” he wrote.
Justice Sotomayor joined the majority opinion, agreeing that many questions could be left for another day “because the government’s physical intrusion on Jones’s Jeep supplies a narrower basis for decision.”
But she left little doubt that she would have joined Justice Alito’s analysis had the issue he addressed been the exclusive one presented in the case.
“Physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of surveillance,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.
She added that “it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties.”
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“People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries and medications they purchase to online retailers,” she wrote. “I, for one, doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year.”
Justice Alito listed other “new devices that permit the monitoring of a person’s movements” that fit uneasily with traditional Fourth Amendment privacy analysis.
“In some locales,” he wrote, “closed-circuit television video monitoring is becoming ubiquitous. On toll roads, automatic toll collection systems create a precise record of the movements of motorists who choose to make use of that convenience. Many motorists purchase cars that are equipped with devices that permit a central station to ascertain the car’s location at any time so that roadside assistance may be provided if needed and the car may be found if it is stolen.”Robert Jason Owens pled guilty to three counts of 2nd-degree-murder and 2 counts of dismemberment for the 2015 murders of JT and Cristie Codd and their unborn child, Skylar.
Jason Owens agreed to a plea deal that will keep him in jail for decades, but he will not face trial nor the death penalty.
After he agreed to the plea, Owens sat emotionless as the Assistant District Attorney read the gruesome details of the murders, then still sat stone-faced as half a dozen family members read tear-filled statements about J.T. and Cristie Codd.
The DA's office says Owens admitted to killing the Codds but that he said he accidentally ran over them when his truck got stuck in the mud near their house.
The Assistant District Attorney said he then took the bodies inside, cut them up, and then burned them, disposing of the remains in trash bags in a dumpster.
Owens defense team says he was heavily impaired on medications that day and that he didn't want to report the accident once he has run over them, that's why he disposed of the bodies.
Thursday morning, a representative for the Cristie Codd family reached out to News 13 with this statement:
This is a statement directly from the family of Cristie Schoen that live in New Orleans Louisiana. Cristie's grandmother Ophelia Schoen, her aunt Priscilla Schoen, Cristies cousins Amy Cano, Melissa Smith and Liz Prechter (and many many more) all wish more than anything they could have been here today in support of Cristie and baby Skylar. So many may know Cris from her different TV shows on Food Network or other acting bits, But she was much much more than some Hollywood type. She was an amazing person, friend and cousin. She truly lived to make others happy. Not long after moving to Asheville she immediately rented out a room in town, cooked and fed the entire area Thanksgiving dinner for free. Nothing made her happier than cooking and making people happy. She was also a very successful and amazing owner of a catering business. Cris and JT were just beginning their life and in just a few months they would have had a beautiful baby girl to share it with. This was all abruptly and traumatically ripped away from them in March of 2015. What has happened has left a gaping wound in the heart of our family. Although we all go on with life on a daily basis, it is very hard to go even one day without thinking of her or thinking about what happened. The last two years have been a nightmare. So many unanswered questions. So many things we want to know and so many people we still feel are responsible yet walk free. We all go through periods of sadness and anger and guilt and it feels like we are on a roller coaster. It is been a long road but that road has led us to this day when the vicious murderer who did this to two of the best people on this earth received his punishment. Frankly we don't believe there is any punishment that exist that would be justification for what he did. We can only hope that he suffers for the remainder of his life on earth and again as he rots in hell. And although we know deep down that others in his family hold responsibility for these heinous murders there is not much we can do in terms of justice for them. But we do hope that guilt and the memories of what they are responsible for eat away at them slowly for the rest of their life. We will all continue to do our best to honor their memories and continue to live life the way Cris would have wanted. We will attempt to heal and let go of some of the anger that we still have. We also have to say that we are so lucky to have met some of the most wonderful people through this tragedy. Those people are the family of Zebb Quinn. This family deserve just as much healing, peace and closure as we do. And we can only hope they get a little bit of that. Although we are all connected because of one horrible horrible person, We do feel lucky to have met some wonderful people and We do believe this tragedy has brought our family even closer and made us cherish every second of every day even more. We love you Cris and we love you baby Skylar and we miss you forever and always.
Perry Sachs, who lives in Los Angeles, has never gotten over the killing of his good friend J.T. Codd. Sachs has written a statement he will be submitting to the judge to express the deep loss he has felt for years over the killing of his dear friend, J.T.
“He was the most amazing person anyone could ever meet,” Sachs said. “The most honest, the most genuine, the most giving and also the toughest. He was bigger than life, and he meant the world to me. Anyone who met him was better off for meeting him. I mean he was a life-changer.”He was mostly right about Hillary and the wall, though!
Pool / Getty Images
Trump said there’s “no quote” showing him advocating for nuclear competition in Asia. But here’s a quote from him advocating for nuclear competition in Asia: Trump's pretty clear on nukes and Japan in this interview https://t.co/EbUzRMdtcI
Trump repeated false assertion about an ICE endorsement. Donald Trump falsely claimed during Wednesday’s debate that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) endorsed him for president, but it was the union and not the federal agency who endorsed him. Trump has made the false statement many times since September when the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council endorsed him. The union represents 7,600 ICE officers, agents, and employees working for the federal agency.
Trump was mostly right that Clinton wanted a type of border barrier. During Wednesday’s debate, Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton also wants to erect a huge wall along the US-Mexico border as Trump has famously been calling for since the early days of his campaign. “Hillary Clinton wanted the wall. Hillary Clinton fought for the wall. In 2006 or thereabouts,” Trump said. “Now she never gets anything done so naturally the wall wasn’t built, but Hillary Clinton wanted the wall.” The statement was partly true because Clinton did vote for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which approved the construction of about 700 miles of fence along the border. But that fence is was much cheaper than the wall Trump is calling for.
Trump repeated the claim that ISIS is in 32 countries. Donald Trump repeated his claim that ISIS is in 32 countries around the world. That number comes from an analysis from the Long War Journal, run by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which determined that the group has supporters in 32 countries. That is a broad definition of ISIS’ presence in countries — the group is actively fighting in a much smaller number. The Congressional Research Service in June found that ISIS is operating main in Iraq and Syria, with affiliates and allies in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Trump referenced looks of female accusers. Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump responded to accusations of sexual assault by saying he “could not possibly have done those things to those women because they were not attractive enough.” Trump repeatedly insisted that he did not say that. However, on two occasions, Trump seemed to clearly invoke his accuser’s appearance as a defense against the allegations, though his campaign denied it later. About one accuser he said: “Believe me, she would not be my first choice.” About another, he said to supporters at a rally: “Take a look at her, look at her words, you tell me what you think. I don’t think so.”
Trump said he didn't mock a disabled reporter. Here is the video. video-cdn.buzzfeed.com
Trump said he didn't know Putin. Trump: I don't know Putin. But...In This 2014 Video, Trump Says He Did. https://t.co/G5O71w2eih
Trump said he didn't use charity money to settle lawsuits. Wasn't some of the money from your charity used to settle your lawsuits? Trump: No Truth: Yes https://t.co/LslVuw6DDo
Trump repeated his claim that the election was rigged and that "millions of people" are registered to vote who should not be. Rigged? Voter fraud is rare... very, very rare https://t.co/PzxmZggltP https://t.co/LeXFAfa7BE #debatenight
Here are some actual numbers on voter registration errors from https://t.co/IEsCMQHyzN
Just how hard is it to rig a US election? @sheeraf has answers: https://t.co/M3fmZWjVQHMore Kids Roll In Style In Tricked-Out, Giant Wagons
Enlarge this image toggle caption Molly Callister for NPR Molly Callister for NPR
Outside the giant river otter exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo, 5-year-old Emily checks out the sights while her baby sister lounges in a canopy-covered wagon.
The girls' aunt, Maggie Hathaway, is among a growing number of parents and caregivers who are rolling their kids around in wagons instead of strollers. "Sea World, or the fair — anywhere where... the little one wants to lay down," she says.
The girls couldn't be happier with their bright blue wagon stocked with pillows and toys. Hathaway's only complaint is the oversized wagon can be hard to navigate through crowds or tight spaces.
These are not your traditional little Radio Flyers, and nothing like a typical stroller. These wagons are big, strong and often tricked out with coolers, canopies and other creature comforts.
At the Los Angeles County Fair, Brenda Lemus is pulling a 7-by-4-foot wagon she bought at a booth here six years ago, when her daughter was a newborn. It has wooden railings, the front is emblazoned with an LA Dodgers logo, the back holds a cargo rack with an ice chest and there's a chrome storage locker under the wagon's belly.
"We put our undercarriage on the bottom, just so we won't have to be carrying bags and bags and bags," Lemus says. "We can just put everything there and it's very convenient."
Convenient? Yes. Affordable? Maybe not. The wagons average anywhere "from about $395 to the 'oh my God' range," says Tiffany Nelson, owner of LA-based West Coast Wagons.
Those high-ticket wagons, loaded up with DVD players and other accessories, can cost up to $2,000 and usually go to her celebrity clientele.
Many kids hate being confined in strollers — but they don't necessarily want to walk, either. So these parents say wagons are a good compromise. The kids have more space for playing and parents have room to load up their stuff, too. Heavy duty wheels and handles make them easier to pull along.
These souped-up wagons weren't Nelson's original intent. She customized her first wagon when her daughter was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and couldn't sit up in a stroller. Now, West Coast Wagons has a line dedicated to kids with disabilities.
"It's nice to be able to help those kids out as well," Nelson says. "Get them out of those wheelchairs, get them out of those predicaments."
Back at the LA County Fair, the Lemus family and their Dodgers wagon are headed for the booth where they bought it six years ago. They check back on every visit, Lemus says, to see if there's anything fun and new to purchase or add.This year’s U.S. presidential campaign is unlike any others in recent memory – and a poll this week offered a hint that the electoral map in November may break with tradition as well.
The Washington Post poll, which covered over 74,000 registered voters, concluded that several once solidly red or blue states were a too-close-to-call purple.
On the red state side, Arizona, North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and, extraordinarily, Texas could go either way:
Except for 1996, Arizona last voted for a Democrat for president in 1948.
last voted for a Democrat for president in 1948. Except for 1976 (when Southerner Jimmy Carter was running) Mississippi last voted for a Democrat in 1956. Since 1948, Mississippi’s electoral college votes have gone to white supremacist third party candidates three times – in 1948, 1960 and 1968.
last voted for a Democrat in 1956. Since 1948, Mississippi’s electoral college votes have gone to white supremacist third party candidates three times – in 1948, 1960 and 1968. Except for Carter in 1976 and U.S. President Barack Obama in his first election in 2008, North Carolina has been consistently Republican in presidential votes since 1964.
has been consistently Republican in presidential votes since 1964. Georgia is a bit of a special case, since voters there helped elect former governor Carter in 1976 and loyally stuck with him during the Reagan landslide of 1980. Georgians also helped elect Southerner Bill Clinton in 1992. But that’s three presidential elections out of the last 13 – nine went to Republicans, and one, in 1968 to white supremacist George Wallace.
is a bit of a special case, since voters there helped elect former governor Carter in 1976 and loyally stuck with him during the Reagan landslide of 1980. Georgians also helped elect Southerner Bill Clinton in 1992. But that’s three presidential elections out of the last 13 – nine went to Republicans, and one, in 1968 to white supremacist George Wallace. Texas, with its 38 Electoral College votes, is a major state to be in play. Except for Carter in 1976, Texans last voted for a Democrat |
world – and I’m sure its true in other parts of the community too – suddenly felt so – so unimportant, irrelevant. Try telling those boys that what this or that rabbi did or did not say, is what really matters, is the most important Jewish issue of the day.
In this week’s parasha we meet Yaakov Avinu, on the run, alone and fleeing for his life. He has taken his brother’s blessings and his brother wants to kill him – and Yaakov is for the first time in his life, alone, afraid, away from home. He is literally running for his life. The sun sets, and he has to sleep in an open field. The Torah says ‘vayifga bamakom’ - and he encountered the place. Rav Soloveitchik explains he is so disorientated, so unsure of his direction he only accidentally comes to this place – he doesn’t even know where he is. Every security, every assumption about his life has changed in the course of a day. Afraid of animals he tries to protect himself with stones around his head and he falls asleep. In that sleep he dreams: an incredible dream – of a ladder, and of angels. He hears Hashem promise him children, destiny, the land of Israel and divine protection. It’s a dream of incredible significance, a moment of the most profound prophecy. Yaakov wakes and the Torah says:
וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב, מִשְּׁנָתוֹ, וַיֹּאמֶר, אָכֵן יֵשׁ ה’ בַּמָּקוֹם הַזֶּה; וְאָנֹכִי, לֹא יָדָעְתִּי
God is in this place and I didn’t know!
A powerful sense of awe, of awareness of the presence of the divine.
But what exactly did Yaakov mean? He didn’t know that Hashem was in that place? How could he not know? Did he think Hashem was this specific place? That can’t be, because Hashem said he will be wherever Yaakov goes? So what is the cause of Yaakov’s awe and astonishment?
I believe an answer is as follows:
Yaakov until that very morning had been, as the Torah describes it – an ‘ish tam, yoshev ohalim’ – he lived in tents. Esav was the hunter – the ish sadeh, Yaakov was the person who stayed in tents. Not just a home boy - these were the tents of Torah and Tefillah. His experience of the world, of the Divine was predicated on being cloistered, enclosed, in a bubble - cut off. Tents of Torah and Tefillah – yeshivas, batei medrash, shuls – these are vital institutions of Jewish life,. Yaakov's commitment to them and spending as much time as possible in them was exemplary. But there was just one problem; that Yaakov didn’t understand. You can’t live your whole life in a tent, in a bubble, in an echo chamber, in isolation. If you do, you will never fully encounter the divine.
At the heart of this narrative is an incredible paradox – Yaakov until that moment had lived for his whole life – decades – in holy tents. This was the first time in his life he had ever left those tents, literal and metaphoric, and slept in the big outside world. And only then does he have the most profound spiritual experience of his life - a moment of clear, imminent prophecy. ‘Yesh Hashem bamakom hazeh’ Hashem is in this place, and I did not know. I thought Hashem was in the tents, I thought he was only to be found in this cloistered world, with its own values and priorities, now for the first time I am bamakom hazeh – in the big wider world – and now I realize – yesh Hashem bamakom hazeh – Hashem is here too – vanochi lo yadati…and I did not know.
Yaakov never rejected, chas veshalom, his tents - his greatest priority was always spiritual values – but he learnt something important that day – that his vision, his experience had been so limited.
Yitzchak himself hinted at that when he said to him:
רְאֵה רֵיחַ בְּנִי, כְּרֵיחַ שָׂדֶה, אֲשֶׁר בֵּרְכוֹ ה’
The fragrance of my son is like the fragrance of the field which the Lord has blessed. Its not just the tent that Hashem has blessed, but the field as well.
And I want to suggest that perhaps this is what Rivka, Rebecca, had in mind all along, in getting Yaakov to dress up as Esav and trick his father. She wanted Yaakov to be forced to flee, because to be the next Patriarch, the founder of the Jewish people, it’s necessary, but not sufficient, to be a yoshev ohalim – you have to see the wider world, you have to see the bigger picture. If your whole world is the tent, the bubble, then you will never know the importance of the tent; you will never have a clear set of priorities.
And that my friends is what we see in today’s Jewish world. Exactly 75 years after Kristalnacht, Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear bomb. Young Israeli boys, kids, are risking their lives on the border, at a time when our own American Jewish community is evaporating, as the Pew Report shows. But all of the energy, all the passion of the Jewish world, at least far, far too much of it, what seems to be the best and brightest of Judaism, is engaged in polemics, divisions, hatreds, arguments and sectarianism. Are these important issues? Yes. But are they the most important – should they be what all our energy is focused on? Absolutely not.
Yaakov Avinu himself realized that just because in the tent it seems there is nothing more important, Hashems priorities for us cannot be discovered by confining oneself to the tent – ‘yesh Hashem bamakom hzeh, vianochi lo yadati’.
And so, at the end of that Shabbat meal, which incidentally was absolutely delicious, as the parents around the table listened to their children discussing mortars and guns, a friend that had been injured, the latest incidents, one mother turned to another and said – “do you remember when they were little – all we needed to worry about was they shouldn’t fall over and cut their knee.?”
And then one of the fathers turned to me, and said, “so tell me- what do people in New York discuss at their Shabbat table?”
And at that moment, I had nothing to say, and I wished that the ground would swallow me up.
Shabbat Shalom
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to share comments on Facebook.Luis Robles is the most successful goalkeeper in the history of the New York Red Bulls (and MetroStars) and the holder of the MLS "Ironman" record.
The two achievements are not unrelated: Robles' incredible consistency has made him an ever-present in the RBNY squad through the most successful period of the club's history (two Supporters' Shields, two Eastern Conference playoff finals, and a run to the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinals...so far) and that consistency coupled with an extraordinary durability has seen him shatter the MLS record for consecutive full-games played.
Another reason he has the MLS Ironman record: he has not made much of an impact on Jurgen Klinsmann's thinking with regard to the US Men's National Team goalkeepers. Robles has won two USMNT caps in his career: one in 2009 - before Klinsi took over coaching the USA - and one in 2016, after he won the 2015 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year award.
Prior to the USMNT's friendly against New Zealand, Klinsmann mused on Bill Hamid's return to the roster and revealed his current thinking about the USA's goalkeeping depth:
When asked, Klinsmann named (in order for what it's worth): Howard, Guzan, Horvath, Yarbrough, Bingham, Rimando, Hamid, Johnson #USMNT — Seth Vertelney (@svertelney) October 10, 2016
That's eight 'keepers, and Klinsi placed Hamid at about "six or seven" on his list, per his comments to reporters at a pre-match press conference.
While some choose to debate the precise order in which the named 'keepers might be ranked, RBNY fans might prefer simply to note who isn't on Klinsi's list: Luis Robles.
The omission can be taken as a snub: Robles is unquestionably among the top tier of 'keepers in MLS, and that is a tier that Klinsmann does like to draw players from. It is also a benefit to RBNY: Robles has been able to focus almost exclusively on his club because he hasn't had his country calling on him for international duty.
At 32, Robles' career is some distance from ending - and Klinsi can always change his mind if he starts seeing something he likes about the RBNY 'keeper. But for now, it would appear the Red Bulls need not fret about any competition for Robles' services from his national team.Five Muslim artists from different countries asked to have their work removed over the weekend from the 3rd Mediterranean Biennale, which is scheduled to open in the Sakhnin Valley this week, following pressure from the BDS movement. The artists said they decided to cancel their participation in the Israeli exhibition as a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people.
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The Mediterranean Biennale will be held in the Jewish-majority community of Misgav and the Arab-majority cities of Sakhnin, Arraba and Deir Hanna. It will feature the work of 60 artists from 25 countries, including many artists from Arab-majority countries that have no diplomatic relations with the State of Israel, such as Kuwait, Morocco and Algeria.
The work of Yto Barrada (France/Morocco)
Ahead of the opening, several artists of Muslim descent submitted a request Saturday to cancel their participation in the exhibition in light of the solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and to reflect their unwillingness to cooperate with an Israeli institution. The artists include Zineb Sedira (France/Algeria/England), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France), Walid Raad (Lebanon/United States), Akram Zaatari (Lebanon) and Yto Barrada (France/Morocco).
About a year and a half ago, the Mediterranean Biennale contacted the FRAC museum in Marseilles and asked to borrow pieces created by several video artists from Arab countries, including Morocco and Lebanon. The request was submitted to the museum’s artistic committee, which decided to lend the work from the museum’s collection (a national collection) for the duration of the biennale. The exhibition was required to pay a certain sum for borrowing the work, as is customary in such cases.
The work of Akram Zaatari (Lebanon), showing houses bombed in Lebanon. Will not be part of exhibit
In an unusual move, the French museum’s director then asked the Mediterranean Biennale to remove the Arab artists’ work, saying they did not want their work to be displayed in Israel. The artists have declared on social media that they support the Palestinian struggle against Israel and won’t cooperate with Israel by displaying their work in the biennale.
The screens for the removed video pieces, which have already been put up in different places ahead of the event, will remain shut. The works include a map of refugees’ route from Africa to Europe, videos from a trip through Algeria, images of bombed houses in the first Lebanon War and a car bomb explosion in Beirut.
The work of Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France)
The Mediterranean Biennale’s curator, Belu-Simion Fainaru, said in response: “This is a political decision supported by the BDS movement, aimed at creating a boycott against Israel in every possible field, including the field of art, as a reflection of the new anti-Semitism that has been created in France and Europe in recent years. They are trying to spread anti-Semitism in the world while harming, slandering and isolating Israel in the global arena and creating an international boycott against the state.
The work of Zineb Sedira (France/Algeria/England)
“There have been BDS-tagged calls on social media to boycott the event and to refuse to take part in it. Art has a power of rising above disputes and political conflicts between communities and serving as a tool for free expression, bridging between people and communities in conflict and dispute. The goal of art is to unite rather than to separate, increase hatred and animosity and violence, through boycotts that have created situations of war, refugees seeking shelter in Europe, acts of terror around the world, etc.”Fallout 4 is probably being revealed tomorrow. But before then, we only have our imaginations to work with. What will a new generation of Fallout look and feel like? Will there still be Deathclaws? As we wait to learn more, these are our speculations and hopes for the next return to the wasteland.
Livelier roads, cities, and towns. There's a reason these things pop up time and time again on the Fallout mod sites. It's a basic incompatibility at the heart of Bethesda's game: most games are a bit more fun with a livelier world, but the world of Fallout follows on from the razing of the human race. Bethesda tend to err on the side of caution with this, though tech issues are probably to blame for the rather empty casinos of New Vegas, but creating a world means populating it, and the mods that add new travelers and people still do that without impacting the overall feeling of loneliness. As it is,the roads of the Wasteland are a bit too quiet for the game they're part of.
Make it about survival. In Bethesda's hands, the Wasteland is fun. By the middle of a run through you're clobbering Deathclaws with concrete capped rebars and sipping irradiated water without a care in the world. Possibly with a pinkie out. The point being is that the notion of survival becomes obsolete in a world dripped in caps to find, traders to sell to, and junk to collect. New Vegas has hardcore mode, forcing you to think about food, water, and rest, as well as altering the way meds and stimpaks work, but it's still a world that can easily and comfortably be lived in. It needn't be the main difficulty level, but the option to make the world a harsh place to live, to make the players think about every move, not just their weapon and perk choices, would give the ashy flavour of survival.
Bethesda's Design, Obsidian's Characters. There I was, wandering beneath a line-up of broken satellite dishes, looking for things to do when I spied a door. What could be behind it? A gang of gangers? A terrified NPC? A few steps towards it, a glance around to make sure there was nothing sneaking up. I popped the door. Behind it was a wall with “Fuck You” written on it. Bethesda's worlds tend to be packed with detail, big and small. They're places to live in and enjoy, and just brilliant places to explore. Their characters, however, are a lot less engaging. Obsidian's take on New Vegas was packed with morally dubious Wastelanders with dark stories. Acquiring Boone as a follower, for example, meant leading a person out into a field for the deranged sniper to shoot. That's dark enough, but as a player you could happily lead an innocent into Boone's sights. Somewhere in the middle of Fallout 3 and New Vegas is the sweet spot they should be aiming for: dark, compelling characters in a curated world.
Treat us like PC gamers. I've never loaded up a Bethesda game and felt the studio really understood what PC gamers want from them. We have screen space and we have a pointing device that just seems to baffle them. I understand there's a fictional reason for the Pipboy's clunkiness, but all too often Bethesda will choose that over usability. Fallout 3 and New Vegas are remarkable examples of how to not lead a player through a game's menus. I *have* to install a UI mod to deal with the endless scrolling of the inventories. When it comes to pure usability, divorce the theme from the menus
The same is true for FOV: the first thing I have to do in any Bethesda game is to hunt for an FOV hack. That I can do it is evidence that the engine is capable, and I'm still baffled that it's not a native selection. Give me a damn slider.
Meaningful Character Creation. There are a fair number of perks, abilities and skills to begin with in Fallout. But there's nothing to set allegiances or race. Bethesda's Fallouts give you plenty of opportunity to interact with factions, and alliances will be built from your actions, but what if you don't want to put the work in, or want to roleplay from the opening bell? It needn't allow you to select playing as a Ghoul, but predisposing you towards the NPR would make an interesting challenge to overcome.
Think about the Karma system. I nuked Megaton. I actually destroyed a town full of people. I can't imagine any game allowing me to claw my way back from that, but Fallout 3 let me. Through good deeds I managed to reclaim my karma and end-up with a reasonably decent character sheet. I wouldn't mind my deeds being somewhat recognised, but I blew up a town. There are no meaningful consequences that you can't undo. Make it harder to turn myself around, and make some choices indelible. By the same token, if I'm stealing things from bad people, don't make that a hit on my karma. By all means make the faction hate me, but the world should recognise the good I just did.
More than one city. Bethesda's games just don't have the scope of the original series, because building all that content and the space in between in the sort of game that they make would take a decade. But the DLC that they've added to the game has shown a willingness to allow the player to simply hop to another area without worrying about the space in between. Or just choose a reasonably close cluster of cities that the fiction hasn't totaled.
Make it it hurt. My violent streak has never been well-served by Fallout 3 or NV (I like Skyrim's bows, though). VATs is nice touch, and certainly enhances the basic combat, but whether it's swinging a concrete caked rebar, or zapping with the Wasteland's most advanced lasergundeath tech, there's weediness to it. There's little heft to the melee weapons, and the report of the guns doesn't match what they do to enemies. Please, Bethesda, play Dark Messiah and Red Orchestra, two games where the combat feels utterly perfect. That's the level of combat excellence that an action Fallout needs.
A use for everything. Speaking of that, Fallout New Vegas allowed you to mod your guns a little, augmenting them with scopes and such. That's a good start. This is a world where invention is a necessary part of survival, and where scavenging should be part of a crafting system that allows you build everything and anything, and to mod things on top of that. I'd even lobby for individual components to be brought in from the Steam Workshop. Oh yeah...
Use The Steam Workshop. This is kind of a lock: the Skyrim Workshop is the third busiest of the modder's distribution platforms. But what I would urge is for Bethesda to make the tools available on launch day. It will help with content, and if none of the above in the list makes it, it'll give the modders a jump on fiddling with and fixing everything on the list above.Posted by Danger on May 22, 2014
Heel hooks are an important tool in your climbing arsenal. As our lower bodies are well suited to supporting our weight, using our legs as much as possible can save a lot of energy and help us climb more efficiently. Heel hooks allow us to use our powerful hamstrings to manipulate our bodyweight.
However, tons of beginners and even experienced climbers try to heel hook a few times but never quite get the hang of it, and give up. They put their heels on the hold just like they see the good climbers doing, but when they try to use the heel, it just doesn’t feel solid, so they end up using more basic techniques which do the job, but are inefficient.
What are they missing that the better climbers are getting? What is the secret to an effective heel hook?
It’s not enough to put your heel on a hold and wish for the best. The Three Components of a solid heel hook are:
1. Place the heel precisely
2. Point your toes AWAY from you like a ballerina going en pointe.
Aim for a straight line from your shin to your big toe. By doing this you engage the calves to push the heel down into the hold, putting more weight on it which locks the heel in place. Tightening the calves also stiffens the lower leg, allowing weight to be transferred more effectively.
3. CRANK. Put your weight on that foot and pull hard with the hamstring and glutes.
Try it and feel the difference.
This isn’t the end-all be-all of heel hooking – there’s a lot more that can be said on the topic, but if you have had trouble with heel hooks before and wondered what the fuss is all about, give this a shot.The Warriors won the NBA title in 2015. The Cavs won in 2016. Who’ll bake the cookies in 2017? Jason Miller/Getty Images and Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Take a moment to think about the worst failure of your career, something that still ties your stomach into knots. Now imagine that months after this painful event, your chief rival threw a party in which he openly celebrated your demise.
And there were cookies. Decorated cookies. In which the icing spelled out your humiliation.
This enraging thought experiment may be the only way to appreciate the Golden State Warriors’ outlook coming into the 2017 NBA Finals. It wasn’t enough that they blew a 3–1 lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers last year. They were also mocked via the medium of pastries.
Back in October, LeBron James threw a Halloween soirée for friends and teammates, and the decorations were rather pointed. Consider this drum kit emblazoned with a reference to the Warriors’ historic collapse:
Or the now-infamous cookies, which took aim at the Warriors’ Splash Brothers:
LeBron James went full savage at his Halloween party. pic.twitter.com/9NZFHxchD3 — Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) October 31, 2016
Those are some pretty mean baked goods. They are also confusing, as the dates on the tombstones imply that the Warriors’ backcourt consists of a pair of 1-year-olds. Is LeBron calling Steph Curry and Klay Thompson babies? It’s hard to say. The man’s pettiness runs so deep it contains poetic devices that are open to interpretation.
The Warriors stayed pretty tight-lipped when reporters asked them about LeBron’s Halloween party last year. “I’m just going to keep it quiet,” was all Curry would say. Draymond Green, never one to hold back, was surprisingly diplomatic. “More power to them,” he said. “I already got enough fuel. I don’t need more.” Thompson, though, was less steely. According to ESPN, the Golden State shooting guard looked “visibly irritated by the subject.” He was also, understandably, confused about the tombstone cookies. “Yeah, I don’t get it,” he told USA Today’s Sam Amick, “ ‘cause I’m not dead.”
Pro athletes tend to be a proud sort, eager to take perceived slights and inflate them into parade balloon–sized signs of disrespect. So what happens when they are confronted with something that is actually disrespectful? There is no way the Warriors haven’t been stewing about that Halloween party since October. Hell, I’ve thought about those cookies every single day, and I definitely didn’t blow a 3–1 lead in the 2016 NBA Finals.
The Cavs, for their part, haven’t curtailed the catty barbs. Until last June they were, like all other Cleveland sports teams, perennial losers. They have since become emboldened. Bullies, even—the kind of people who bake discourteous cookies.
When Cleveland and Golden State played on Christmas Day, members of the Cavaliers organization made sure a giant photo of LeBron’s famous series-clinching block of Andre Iguodala was in direct view of the Warriors’ locker room. In it, a championship ring was photoshopped on James’ finger. The design of those Cavaliers’ rings, it is worth mentioning, contains a reference to the Warriors’ blown 3–1 lead coded out in jewels.
When the Warriors finally beat the Cavs in January, it was a relief. “It felt good to redeem ourselves,” Thompson told reporters after the game. LeBron, on the other hand, brushed it off, going so far as to deny that the two teams have anything resembling an ongoing feud. “I don’t think it’s a rivalry,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had a rivalry in the NBA.” This is a good time to remind ourselves that, a few months prior to proclaiming that he was rival-less, LeBron literally hosted a rivalry-themed Halloween party complete with cookies that depicted his rivals’ tombstones, the implication being that he had killed them.
Thanks to that Halloween party, the stakes of the 2017 NBA Finals have been raised. The Warriors beat the Cavs in 2015. The Cavs beat the Warriors in 2016. This year’s championship series will break the tie. More important, the winner will have license to be as disrespectful as any team in the history of any sport.
If we’re lucky, all this pettiness and resentment will be unleashed during the greatest finals we will ever see. As fans, we deserve nothing but the best after having to slog through a long regular season and a dull, inconsequential playoffs. We need seven months of anger to erupt in magnificent fashion over the course of seven games.
In other words, we need a series worth baking cookies about.I am not sure if you remember hearing about HTC’s cool new Bluetooth Music Adapter that was announced at this years Mobile World Congress. If not, it’s this great little dongle that allows you to wirelessly stream music to an auxiliary input on any stereo that has a 3.5mm headphone jack and is finally available for purchase. What’s great about this little guy is that although it is made by HTC, it is not limited to HTC devices only. Since it uses Bluetooth it should work with any device that has Bluetooth connectivity and will eliminate the need for that annoying audio cable while driving or playing music at home. Simply plug the dongle into your car or home stereo’s auxiliary input and stream away! It will even auto-pair with select HTC smartphones and tablets.
The dongle supports A2DP as well as CSR aptX so music will sound much better than Bluetooth audio has sounded in the past. Sporting a microUSB port for charging, the dongle’s 85 mAh battery is rated at 5 hours of play time and will last 120 hours on standby. It also has a handy power-off feature that will activate after the device remains idle for a set period of time. Retailing for $59.99, you can order one right now from Sprint and have it delivered to your house in only a couple of days. I called my local Sprint store and ordered one so be on the lookout for a review in the near future. In the meantime, if you want to get one for yourself click through the source link below to place an order. This is going to be one handy accessory for those of you who use your Android device as a music player.
Thanks Kevin!
source: SprintAmid the divisive loot box trend, PC players have been finding their own way to deal, foremost in Middle-earth: Shadow of War. By using Cheat Engine scripts to give themselves unlimited Mirian, some players have found it's possible to buy a infinite supply of loot and war chests, drowning themselves in uruks and gear. In the NeoGAF thread that tipped us off, members are going back and forth on the ethics of the exploit, and sharing methods for pulling it off.
How Shadow of War's loot boxes work Find out how much they cost, what they give you, and whether or not they're necessary in our Shadow of War loot box breakdown.
To be clear, Miriam is not the premium currency that requires real money to purchase, and the silver tier of chests do not reward legendary uruks or gear—those are saved for crates you need to buy with Gold, the premium currency. But you can still accrue a formidable army and enough powerful gear to take on Shadow of War's greatest challenges with ease.
[Update: We've been told that silver war and loot chests can reward legendary items and uruks. They're just not guaranteed like the higher tiers, which means with enough persistence, the silver tier exploit can entirely supplant any need for the higher tier, premium boxes.]
The cheat is made possible using third-party tools like Cheat Engine to manipulate the game files, a common practice until the advent of online-everythings and microtransations. It's an especially strange cheat since the ability to give yourself infinite uruk friends and gear makes the presence of premium loot boxes in a single-player game stand out as totally unnecessary. They're there to make money. That's no surprise, but the exploit diminishes the value proposition of the premium crates, which are already a questionable addition.
But is changing the value of a free in-game currency using cheats to earn unlimited digital items wrong if it shares the same market and item pool with the premium currency and loot? Is it theft, or is it up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A?
With microtransactions effectively tripling the value of the game industry in recent years, I wouldn't be surprised to see publishers take action against such exploits, even if cheat codes and digging through game files are an ages old hobbyist tradition.
We don't condone altering game files without first considering the effects it could have on your save files and any possible legal repercussions. To get clarification on the latter point, we've reached out to WB and will update if we get a response.Abraham "Abe" Waddington, sometimes known as Abram Waddington (4 February 1893 – 28 October 1959), was a professional cricketer for Yorkshire, who played in two Test matches for England, both against Australia in 1920–21. Between 1919 and 1927 Waddington made 255 appearances for Yorkshire, and in all first-class cricket played 266 matches. In these games, he took a total of 852 wickets with his left arm fast-medium bowling. Capable of making the ball swing, Waddington was admired for the aesthetic quality of his bowling action. He was a hostile bowler who sometimes sledged opposing batsmen and questioned umpires' decisions, behaviour which was unusual during his playing days.
Waddington first played for Yorkshire after the First World War, when the team had been weakened by injuries and retirements. He made an immediate impression in 1919, his first season; he took 100 wickets and was largely responsible for Yorkshire's victory in the County Championship that year. After a similarly successful season in 1920, he was selected for the 1920–21 Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) tour of Australia, during which he appeared in two of the five Tests. However, the England team were outclassed; used in an unfamiliar tactical role, Waddington took just one wicket and never played for England again. He continued to be effective for Yorkshire, particularly against the weaker counties, but was often inconsistent. His reputation as an uncompromising opponent was cemented when he was found guilty of dissent and inciting the crowd in a game against Middlesex. A succession of injuries reduced his effectiveness and he retired from first-class cricket in 1927. He continued to play league cricket and worked for the family business, a fat-refining firm, but maintained his connection with Yorkshire cricket.
In the early 1920s, Waddington played several football matches for Halifax Town as a goalkeeper, and after his retirement from cricket enjoyed some success as an amateur golfer. He was in trouble with the police on more than one occasion and after the Second World War was charged with defrauding his wartime employers, the Ministry of Food; he was found not guilty. He died in 1959 at the age of 66.
Early life [ edit ]
Abraham Waddington[notes 1] was born in Clayton, Bradford, on 4 February 1893, the eldest of three brothers.[2] His family owned a fat-refining business managed by his father, Sam.[2][3] When he left school, Waddington joined the family firm as a lorry driver, occasionally working in the refinery. He began playing cricket for Crossley Hall in the West Bradford League at the age of 11; as a teenager he played in the Bradford League for Lidget Green and then Laisterdyke, gaining a local reputation as a fast-medium bowler. He helped Laisterdyke win the League championship in 1913,[2] before moving to Wakefield for the 1914 season, where he took 98 wickets at an average of 12.00.[4] He played for Yorkshire Second XI in August 1914, alongside future First XI teammates Herbert Sutcliffe and Cec Tyson, but the outbreak of the First World War prevented him making any further appearances for the county.[2][5]
When war was declared, Waddington volunteered for Lord Kitchener's New Army, joining the Bradford Pals battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment.[4][6] On 1 July 1916, during the first day of the Battle of the Somme, Waddington was wounded by shrapnel at Serre, and took shelter in a crater in no man's land with other wounded soldiers.[4][6] One of these was the Yorkshire cricketer Major Booth, who was mortally wounded. Waddington comforted Booth while the cricketer died in his arms, an experience which haunted Waddington for the rest of his life.[6] After recovering, Waddington transferred to the Royal Flying Corps.[4][7]
First-class cricketer [ edit ]
County debut [ edit ]
Yorkshire's bowling attack was severely depleted when cricket resumed in 1919 owing to a combination of retirements and deaths in the war. Additionally, George Hirst was past his best, meaning that Yorkshire needed to recruit new fast bowlers.[6][8] In May and June, the team struggled to dismiss opposing sides on hard pitches; their results were poor and when two important matches were lost in June, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack suggested that "things looked very black".[9]
At this point in the season the Yorkshire cricketers Roy Kilner and Arthur Dolphin, who like Waddington had also been wounded at the Somme, recommended him to the Yorkshire committee, probably after seeing him take part in cricket matches in the army.[6] Having returned to play for Laisterdyke in the Bradford League,[4] Waddington was called into the Yorkshire side at the beginning of July for the County Championship match against Derbyshire. On his first-class debut, he took four for 26 (four wickets for 26 runs) in 26 overs, and after missing the next match, he followed up with nine wickets against Essex in his second game, taking his first five wicket haul in the second innings of that match.[4][5] From Waddington's debut, Yorkshire's results improved and the team won the Championship. Wisden judged that Waddington's contribution was crucial: "Without him Yorkshire would certainly not have won the Championship".[9] He and Wilfred Rhodes formed an effective bowling partnership and, according to Wisden, "Rhodes and Waddington, with E. R. Wilson, for a few weeks, and [Emmott] Robinson to help them, carried the eleven from success to success".[9] It described Waddington as bowling "left-hand, medium pace inclining to fast", with a "delivery that seems part of himself—free from any suggestion of labour or undue effort"; it noted that he always bowled a good length and made the ball bounce sharply after pitching. The writer judged Waddington's first season had been one of "exceptional promise" and predicted that Waddington would go on to "great things".[9] In the official history of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, Derek Hodgson suggests that Waddington's versatility brought him success, as did the line which he bowled to the batsmen.[10] He finished with 100 wickets at an average of 18.74, with eight five-wicket returns.[11] Waddington was only the sixth bowler in first-class cricket history to reach 100 wickets in his debut year.[12]
Yorkshire fell to fourth in the Championship in 1920;[13] most of the bowling responsibility fell once more on Waddington and Rhodes, and the other bowlers provided little support.[14] Despite a good start to the season, the team faded in the latter part of the year.[15] Wisden suggested that "in the circumstances [Rhodes and Waddington] did wonders, Waddington having some irresistible days against the weaker counties."[14] He took 141 wickets in the season at an average of 16.79.[11] His best figures came in the two matches against Northamptonshire: in the first game he took 11 wickets, and in the second took 13 wickets for 48 runs, including seven for 18 in the first innings, and a hat-trick.[notes 2][5][16] Waddington |
the SIEV 358 could be described as refugee patter.
Mal Larsen: The reality is that many calls from these vessels are giving us information which are designed to facilitate a rescue by an Australian vessel. We understand that, that's what they are trying to do, they're trying to get picked up by an Australian authority. Our job as a search and rescue agency is to try to ensure that people who are in distress get rescued.
Jess Hill: One person who's had first-hand experience responding to asylum boats in distress is retired navy Lieutenant Commander Barry Learoyd. He spent two years commanding naval patrol boats tasked with intercepting asylum vessels on Australia's northern borders.
Barry Learoyd: In my experience, any vessel that puts a radio call out that says that vessel's in distress, a mayday, and you are in a position to respond to that, then you are bound by maritime law and indeed by just your own values to do so.
You've got to react to what you hear, and then make a decision once you're on the scene. You can't say, oh, that might just be a hoax call and disregard it. Someone on the water—a fellow mariner, whether that person is an asylum seeker or not—is in distress, and you are duty bound, if you're able to, to go and provide support to that vessel.
Jess Hill: The first call for help from SIEV 358 was made to AMSA on the night of June 19. Eleven hours later, at seven o'clock the next morning, Indonesia accepted coordination of the incident.
Marco Tedeschi said the hours wasted that night were critical. He spoke to Background Briefing via studio link from Perth.
Marco Tedeschi: They did a terrific job in the first 3.5 hours in locating the position of the SIEV 358, they did that really well. But they spent the next 7.5 hours trying to transfer the responsibility to Indonesia, instead of just issuing an emergency broadcast to merchant vessels. And the evidence of Mr Lloyd was that within one and eight hours, that merchant vessels would have been able to respond. So they would have been able to get to SIEV 358 well before it sank.
Under the search and rescue agreement between Australia and Indonesia, one of the things that's meant to be considered is who has the greater capability to undertake the search and rescue. So when the transfer of the responsibility took place, they considered the fact that the boat was closer to Indonesia at that stage. Fair enough, but they didn't consider who had the greater capability to respond. And that's one of the factors that should have been considered.
The BASARNAS office in West Java is located on the coastline most commonly used by people smugglers. Background Briefing's Asia reporter, Rebecca Henschke, spoke to Rochmali, the head of operations.
Rochmali: [translated] We have to use traditional fishing boats. If the waves are big and the rescue is close to the sea we use rubber boats.
Rebecca Henschke: [translated] Is your BASARNAS office capable of conducting rescue operations in the open sea?
Rochmali: [translated] These are traditional fishing boats, so they have small machines and we use paddles. We can't rescue people too far out to sea. We can only go one to five nautical miles from shore. After that we can't do anything.
Jess Hill: People on the boat continued to call AMSA, begging to be rescued.
Ahmed: [Translated] Every time a call was being made to the Australian authorities, everyone would think and would hope that the Australian authorities would say okay, we are now coming to rescue you. But the moment we would hear that we are still in Indonesian waters and they can't come, we would go back to feeling hopeless and scared.
Jess Hill: The fate of the SIEV 358 was now in Indonesia's hands. Marco Tedeschi:
Marco Tedeschi: It was very hard to work out what they did, but it was some kind of radio broadcast that they gave from different places in Indonesia. That was all they did. They didn't deploy a search and rescue vessel. And by the time SIEV 358 was 40 nautical miles or somewhere of that order off the coast of Indonesia, they weren't able to do it anyway.
Jess Hill: At 3.15 that afternoon, an Australian Customs plane conducting routine surveillance spotted the SIEV 358. It told the RCC the vessel was low in the water, but there were no visual sign of distress. Footage taken by the plane was shown to the court. Marco Tedeschi:
Marco Tedeschi: The boat did seem to be travelling under its own power, slowly, but in large seas. And that surveillance was taken from a distance of some kilometres away, covertly by a Dash-8. So the people on the boat wouldn't have known that an Australian aircraft had done some surveillance of them.
Jess Hill: As the Customs plane covertly observed the SIEV 358 that afternoon, the People Smuggling Intelligence Analysis Group met in Canberra. The director of AMSA, Alan Lloyd, and representatives from Customs, Defence and other federal government agencies collectively assessed that the boat was not in distress.
According to official transcripts, what you're about to hear is the last call the SIEV 358 made to the Rescue Coordination Centre.
Caller: Sir, we want rescue fast. Can you please [unclear]…
Mike: Yes, I heard that, sir. I heard you want rescue, but I need to talk to you about what is occurring, what is wrong on board.
Caller: Are we in Australian water now?
Mike: No, no, negative, not in Australia, no, not in Australian waters. You are still in Indonesian waters. You need to come further south. You have some way to go, sir. [beeps] He's gone.
Jess Hill: At around 5 o'clock the next morning, a young Indonesian crewmember operating the bilge pump fell asleep. The engine flooded with water. One of the passengers cried out, 'Wake up!' Within seconds, the boat capsized.
Ahmed: [translated] The moment when I fell off the boat into the water, my mind stopped thinking. All I could see around me was chaos. People were trying to get on to the debris of the boat, and there were people trying to grab hold of each other, trying to save themselves at the cost of others' deaths.
Jess Hill: When the boat flipped over, dozens of people sitting below deck were trapped. As the people struggling in the water fought to grab hold of the upturned hull, an Indonesian crewmember tied one end of a rope to the boat's propeller shaft and the other around his waist, and jumped into the water to pull people back to the boat. But Ahmed moved away from the boat, hoping his lifejacket would keep him afloat.
Ahmed: [translated] After a few minutes when I became more conscious of what was happening, I thought why am I going away from the boat, I should be nearby the boat if I want to save my life. But when I looked around, there was no boat. The boat was no longer there.
Jess Hill: Powerful currents swept some survivors more than three nautical miles away from the boat.
Ahmed: [translated] In the early morning, I could see the bodies floating on the water. I had to hang on to the bodies, because I was exhausted. After four or five hours, my lifejacket had torn apart. Some other people helped me to get another lifejacket from a dead body that was floating on the water. I approached the dead body and I took the lifejacket off the body.
Jess Hill: A Customs plane flying over the area sighted them at one o'clock that afternoon. Half-an-hour later, RCC Australia issued an emergency broadcast to ships in the area and dispatched two Australian naval boats to the scene.
The container ship the MV Dragon arrived on the scene 90 minutes later. Heavy swell slammed the upturned hull violently against the ship, but its crew still managed to rescue eight people who were clinging to it. Hours later, two more merchant ships would arrive and rescue 31 others.
When the Australian navy boats HMAS Wollongong and HMAS Larakia arrived at 5.30 pm, they found people in orange lifejackets screaming for help, and blowing whistles to attract attention. As the sun set that evening, Australian navy personnel rescued Ahmed from of the water.
Ahmed: [translated] They treated us very well, I would say more than well. When we first saw them coming, some of our friends could see the Australian flag. We had heard good things about the Australian navy, and it was proved to be true when they took us onto their boat. They were very good with us.
Jess Hill: By the time 110 people were rescued, they had been struggling for 13 hours in rough seas. In all, 102 people went down with the boat.
Customs commissioned an internal report, known as the Buckpitt Report, to investigate the circumstances that led to the sinking. It found that AMSA could have been more proactive in helping the boat, especially as the vessel moved further away from Indonesia, and would probably have been beyond the reach of Indonesian assistance.
Detective Chief Inspector Dave Bryson, from West Australian Police's Major Crimes Unit, was assigned to investigate the sinking for the coronial inquest. He asked the Commonwealth to provide him with all the relevant documents they had.
Marco Tedeschi: When the West Australian Police asked for this information they meant everything—you know, secret, not secret, all of it—and for some reason which is not entirely clear, the Australian Federal Police indicated that they didn't want the information to be passed on to the West Australian Police.
Jess Hill: Half-an-hour before he was due to deliver his findings at the inquest, Detective Bryson discovered the Buckpitt Report had been concealed from him. Weeks of painstaking work, much of it duplicating material already in the Buckpitt Report, had been wasted. Angrily, he told the court he could no longer stand by his findings.
Last month, the West Australian Coroner Alastair Hope ruled the deaths to be an accident, but added that the asylum seekers had been justified in their fears, and that clearly if a search and rescue response had been initiated significantly earlier than it was, all of the deaths could have been avoided.
However, he also found that until the distress phase had been reached, it was not appropriate for commercial shipping, nor realistic for naval vessels, to go and check on the safety of the boat.
He was critical of the communications between Indonesia and Australia, labelling them 'inadequate'. Tony Kevin attended the inquest and was there when the coroner delivered his findings.
Tony Kevin: The Coroner was quite scathing of AMSA's lack of due diligence in checking that BASARNAS would respond adequately to the request to take on the responsibility for the rescue of SIEV 358. He pointed to the failure of AMSA to check properly as to what BASARNAS was doing to implement its rescue obligation, what equipment it had, what it did. He was quite scathing.
Jess Hill: The Coroner recommended that Australia work with Indonesia to improve their combined search and rescue responses.
AMSA corporate relations director Mal Larsen says changes have already been made.
Mal Larsen: Circumstances have changed in the sense that there's a lot closer communication. We have communication officers embedded in each other's organisation, and in fact we have been training BASARNAS officers to issue their own broadcast to shipping. Now the situation is that AMSA will routinely work with passing ships if a vessel is seeking assistance, or, if there are Australian assets available, we will send them to the scene.
Jess Hill: Counsel assisting the Coroner, Marco Tedeschi, says it will take a lot more than improving communications for Indonesia to be capable of properly responding to asylum boats in distress.
Marco Tedeschi: I think the lesson for Australia is that basically we have the greater capability to respond. Once these refugee boats are more than about 30 nautical miles off the coast of Indonesia, or even less than that, really my view is that we have to take the responsibility for it because we have the greater capabilities.
Jess Hill: The question that many people are asking is; if hundreds of Australian lives were at risk in a similar situation, would Australia rely on Indonesia to rescue them?
Background Briefing's coordinating producer is Linda McGinness, research by Anna Whitfeld, technical production by Mark Don, the executive producer is Chris Bullock, and I'm Jess Hill.The story of Dust-to-Digital has been told many times over by media far larger than The Bitter Southerner, including a fantastic 2008 piece in The New Yorker by Burkhard Bilger.
But it’s worth spending a little time re-examining how the little basement label first came to the world’s attention 10 years ago — and the effect that had on the lives of Lance and April Ledbetter.
After high school in the small northwest Georgia town of Lafayette, Lance headed to a little northeast Georgia college called Young Harris, which was then a two-year institution. His interest in old-time Appalachian music blossomed there after several visits to the John C. Campbell Folk School, just a half-hour up the road in Brasstown, N.C.
After he transferred to Georgia State University, the giant state school in the middle of downtown Atlanta, he met April Gambill, a Hendersonville, N.C., native who was studying film at GSU. The year was 1999.
“Lance was in my film classes, which was weird because he wasn’t studying film,” April says, sitting across the coffee table from her husband in the living room of their home, upstairs from Dust-to-Digital’s basement HQ. If you walk in their front door expecting to see the accumulated detritus of the obsessive collector, you will be shocked. Downstairs, the tiny warehouse/office is stacked with records and CDs, but those are either inventory or source material. Up here, there is only one neat wall of built-in shelves containing records — the cream of the crop of a collection that is now almost 20 years in the making.
By the time Lance met April, he was already deep into the obsession that would give birth to Dust-to-Digital. Two years earlier, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings had released — for the first time ever on CDs — Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music.” The set had originally been released in 1952 in a set of six vinyl records. Perhaps the best short description of the set I’ve seen came from Bilger's 2008 story:
The anthology was divided into three double albums, each illustrated with mystical drawings, and color-coded blue, red, or green, to represent air, fire, and water. The real mysteries, though, lay in the music. Using crackly transfers from his own collection, Smith pulled together every kind of ballad, work song, parlor tune, and Cajun chanson. There were moaning blues by Blind Lemon Jefferson, hair-raising gospel by the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers, and anarchic banjo numbers by Dock Boggs — the sound and spirit of a forgotten world.
The set had a huge influence on a certain cohort of young Americans in the 1950s. By the early 1960s, it was the rosetta stone for every would-be beatnik poet and folk singer in Greenwich Village. It was not by coincidence that Bob Dylan’s first album, in 1962, included his version of “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” the 1928 original of which, by the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, appeared on Smith’s anthology.
But by the time Smithsonian Folkways finally released “Anthology” on CD in 1997, 45 years after the original release on vinyl, its scratchy old tunes represented completely unknown territory to a young student like Lance, who was coming up in the era of DIY punk bands and the heyday of college radio. Ledbetter had recently agreed to take over the GSU student radio station’s weekly show of music from the 1920s and ’30s when “Anthology” was reissued on CD.
“One of my friends had worked at WREK (the Georgia Tech student station),” Ledbetter says. “He got the hookup to get discount sets from Smithsonian Folkways. I met him at night in the WREK parking lot. They were in his trunk. It was like we were doing a drug deal or something. We got them for 40 bucks apiece.
“I was living in Decatur so I brought it back to Decatur,” he says. “I was by myself. I cracked it open. I couldn’t believe it. That was like the Big Bang for me. What happened that night was all the old-time music I grew up with as a kid in LaFayette, all the stuff I was exposed to at the John C. Campbell Folk School, all that stuff was just connected for me. I was like, ‘Well this is a whole new world of music.’ That’s when I realized that those six albums were just barely scratching the surface. There were so many rare great records. Even Harry Smith said in interviews that those weren’t the best records. They were just the ones he wanted to put in there because they needed to be documented, but there were a lot of great ones that weren’t on there. And he was right about that.”
Lance started searching for music from the old, weird America anywhere he could find it. At the time, it was mostly from cassette tapes in record-store bargain bins.
“I was just in mass consumption mode,” he says. “At that point in time, as the radio show kept getting better, I kept getting people calling in. I was connecting with people that way and learning about music. The show came on Sunday mornings from 9 to 11. In the South on Sunday morning, a lot of people are either going to church or coming back from church. I was constantly getting requests for gospel. But that was the one genre that I could not find.”
Thus began the obsession that would a few years later produce “Goodbye, Babylon,” Dust-to-Digital’s first product. The obsession could have ended his relationship with April.
“Really soon after we started dating was when Lance started talking about working on ‘Goodbye, Babylon,’” April says. “He was like, ‘I’m going to be really busy and doing all this stuff. I might not have a lot of time to hang out.’ I was like, ‘Is he trying to break up with me? What’s going on?’ I told him, ‘Why don’t you let me help you with that stuff?’”
Thus did Lance Ledbetter and April Gambill become the Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee of the quest to unearth the roots of Southern gospel music — and that quest ruled their lives for the first four years of their relationship. Not long after their adventure began, they found their very own Gandalf the Grey in the form of a Baltimore record collector named Joe Bussard.========= Multi-Author AdSense ========= Skipped due to [standard ad slot 1] being empty for [user ID 3]. ========================================
Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill into law that says police must get a warrant to use a stingray during investigations. The stingray is a device that can intercept calls and text messages from cellphones. California police departments, until now, have used them regularly and claim that getting a warrant to snoop on someone’s phone calls “undermines” police.
The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act proposes to enhance digital privacy, and imposes a requirement for police to get a warrant before accessing digital data created by or stored within a device.
The American Civil Liberties Union of California sponsored the bill, in addition to Google, Airbnb, Apple, and Facebook.
“Governor Brown just signed a law that says ‘no’ to warrantless government snooping in our digital information. This is a landmark win for digital privacy and all Californians,” Nicole Ozer of the ACLU of California, said in a statement. “We hope this is a model for the rest of the nation in protecting our digital privacy rights.”
The law specifically states that police are forbidden from “accessing electronic device information by means of physical interaction or electronic communication with the device,”
Similar laws have been passed in Utah, Minnesota, Virginia, and Washington.
California police would typically use a stingray under the legal authority of a “pen register and trap and trace order,” a pre-cellphone-era law that allows police to obtain someone’s calling metadata. Now that same data can be gathered directly by the cops with a stingray, as well as listen to your calls and read your text messages.
Pen registers are granted with a much lower standard than a search warrant or a wiretap order. Police simply have to show that information obtained from the pen register is “relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
Many judges will sign a pen register not fully understanding that the cops are asking permission to use a stingray.
California doesn’t even have a pen register statute, applications simply cite the federal statute.
“For too long, California’s digital privacy laws have been stuck in the Dark Ages, leaving our personal emails, text messages, photos and smartphones increasingly vulnerable to warrantless searches,” Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco, a state legislator, said in a statement.
“Senator Leno and I helped bridge the gap between progressives and conservatives to make the privacy of Californians a top priority this year,” Sen. Joel Anderson said. “This bipartisan bill protects Californians’ basic civil liberties as the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution intended.”Mobile needs another brewery like we need another parking space, so many of you will be excited to hear Haint Blue Brewing Co. is coming to the former Crystal Ice House building at 800 Monroe St.
Hopes are that the new suds house will be open by Mardi Gras, which would be perfect for those who like to catch the parade on Canal and south of Government Street. This 7,000-square-foot, monster space will include a taproom.
Owner Keith Sherrill, originally from the Montgomery suburb of Millbrook, chose the name from the light blue color that many paint the ceilings of Southern porches to ward off evil spirits, or haints. Good thing, too, as he sees this becoming Mobile’s porch-drinking beer. Their logo features a rocking chair.
To aid in the brewing, Sherrill has enlisted the help of his brother-in-law, Matt Wheeler, as head brewer. With family in Mobile, the two decided this was the only place in Alabama they wanted to live and brew beer.
No word on whether there will be a kitchen or menu, but for the time being Sherrill plans to work with local food trucks to feed the hungry. There could be worse plans. We will keep you up to date as this story develops.
Herb Day 2017 is on its way
It’s the annual Herb Day of the Gulf Coast Herb Society this Saturday, Sept. 17, at the Mobile Botanical Gardens. For those who wish to learn from herb artisans about growing and using your favorite herbs, the program begins at 9 a.m. and ends at noon.
Featured presenters will be members of Mobile Botanical Gardens, Mobile Master Gardeners and the Gulf Coast Herb Society. Seating is limited and pre-registration is required. The $30 ticket includes a light lunch. For more information visit www.gulfcoastherbsociety.org, but for registering this late you must call Annette Daughtery at 251-604-6866.
Last reminder for The Wharf’s Uncorked Food and Wine Festival
You always brag on social media how much you love wine. You even print it on your T-shirts for girls’ weekend at the beach. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is and head down to The Wharf at Orange Beach for its Uncorked Food and Wine Festival this Thursday, Sept. 15, through Saturday, Sept. 17.
You can expect Main Street to be alive with more than 100 labels of wine, top chef demonstrations and a luxury yacht walk as well as live and silent auctions benefiting Make-A-Wish Alabama.
The champion of the Chef’s Challenge will be an automatic Elite Qualifier for the World Food Championships held at The Wharf in November. Tickets are available at The Wharf box office or online through Ticketmaster.com.
Recycle!For every successful industry you can name there’s usually a seedy, black market underbelly looking to make money through illegal or just downright shady means.
In the case of video games, you’ve got that, and you’ve also got absolute pariahs creating homebrew versions of their favorite games, presumably to fulfill sick, strange fantasies. Through the wonders of legally-ambiguous ROMs and lots and lots of spare time, we have some of these baffling, bizarre, and sometimes downright impressive bootlegs.
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 – SNES
Kudos to whoever’s executive decision it was to take the existing Sonic 3 cover art and modify absolutely nothing except the number in the logo.
The Sonic the Hedgehog series is a personal favorite of mine. I have fond memories of getting home from elementary school and traversing the lush environments of Green Hill Zone at light-speed, snowboarding down cavernous mountain trails, and sticking it to Dr. Robotnik and his grandiose scheme to trap the world’s cuddly wildlife inside hideous robots.
Leave it to somebody else to turn my warm childhood memory into a soulless, unhinged nightmare.
Sonic 4 proper actually came out in October 2010, following a sixteen year hiatus after 1994′s Sonic 3. Apparently the man who patchworked together this amalgamated Frankenstein of a video game simply couldn’t wait that long. Sonic 4 — well, this strange, alternate version of it anyway — is basically the game Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Banditos with Sonic sprites haphazardly pasted all over it. And instead of rescuing fellow rodent compatriots, as Speedy does in the actual game, Sonic for some reason rescues Mario from human-sized bird cages.
“Your copyright infringement supeona is in another castle.”
Remember the enchanting tale of A Christmas Carol? This game is like a trip with the Ghost of Christmas Past to a world where Sega didn’t get out of the console business when they did, lost millions, and began hacking together piecemealed versions of their own games in a delusional rage, telling themselves aloud that everything is fine, and this is just “business as usual”.
Super Mario World 64 – Sega Genesis
Ever wish you could play Super Mario 64, but without any of the pesky deterrents, like the lush 3D environments, the freedom, the engaging story and fluid controls? Well, thanks to whatever sadist cobbled together this mess of a hack, you can! Super Mario World 64 despite being modeled after an SNES game and named after a Nintendo 64 game, puzzlingly calls the Sega Genesis its home. You can tell that much by the soundtrack comprised entirely of songs inexplicably jacked from the Genesis games Tale Spin and Jeopardy! I’ll take “Miserable Heaps of Garbage” for $200, Alex.
The game has six levels, the first four being directly ported from the actual, sane game Super Mario World, and the final two being the anonymous developers’ nightmarish brainchildren. It does have one new feature: the game will keep track of how many enemies you jumped on at the end of each level…which is utterly pointless, as the hack removes the ability for the game to keep score at all for some reason.
It also sports a control scheme that can best be described as “stiff”, with Mario taking more than twice the time he normally takes to ramp up to full speed, making some levels almost impossibly difficult by proxy. Remember how playing Sonic 2 with the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge locked in felt like cheating, because Knuckles was just some hang-gliding demigod, quite literally breezing through almost every level with nary a scratch? Playing Super Mario World 64 is like playing Super Mario World if Mario was just waking up from a weekend-long bender. And he has some sort of mental deficiency. And he’s lost the will to live entirely.
Pray….for….Mario….
Puckman Pockimon – Arcade
Pikachu the world-famous Pockimon shown here with his trusty steed, Puckman.
Puckman Pockimon is a Pacman clone. Its title comes from horrendously butchered versions of “Pac-Man” and “Pokemon” (although if Scott Pilgrim vs. the World taught me one thing, it’s that Pac-Man’s original name was Puckman. That and Aubrey Plaza is really, really hot). The selling point, and apparently the trump card developer Genie 2000 is hoping will entice you to play Puckman Pockimon instead of a fully functioning, non-pirated game is that in addition to a genericized Pac-Man, you can also play as an unnerving, floating, disembodied Pikachu head.
Oh yeah, and once you complete a level, you are treated to one of a few different random, digitized photographs of Asian women. Asian women just…looking at you. Fully clothed.
Japanese people are seemingly easily gratified.
Street Figiter II Pro – Famicom (NES)
Rounding up the “Best Examples of Engrish” category for these pirated games comes the venerated “Street Figiter II Pro”, presumably an alternate universe in which the Street Fighter guys are overactive, ADD-addled figiters, fighting over the last bottle of Ritalin. Here you can play as “Zangiff”, and represent the stars and stripes of the good ole’ “USSA”.
Watch in delight as the fighters eerily fade in and out of existence with every mere movement. And what is that soldier to the right doing in the background? Is he not-so-covertly playing some pocket pool while enjoying this nice spar? I suppose anything to pass the time while being a spectator for this horrible game is worth it.
Final Fantasy VII – Famicom (NES)
When researching this article (“researching” is what I like to call watching YouTube videos about video games all day — it makes it sound far less depressing), I came cross a Final Fantasy VII remake for the NES (well, the Famicom technically, but here in ‘MERICA it’s the NES, thankyouverymuch) and immediately thought “great, this should be absolutely horrible”. Man, was I wrong. Developed and published in 2005 by the vaunted team ShenZhen Nanjing Technology, this game is actually supposed to be, well, pretty f-----g awesome.
Let’s take a look at what some reviewers have said about it: Our friends at Kotaku described it as “…an achievement I have no hesitation in labeling Herculean”, even going so far as to label the game “a triumph of the human spirit”. Holy s--t!
Surely Kotaku editor Luke Plunkett has some strange fetishists’ hard-on for Chinese bootlegs. There’s no way this third-rate knockoff can be that good, can it? Let’s get a second opinion. The late GamePro team had the following to say: “[Final Fantasy VII for NES is] the video game equivalent of the Human Genome Project.” …Umm, WHAT?!
Apparently, I have GOT to learn me some Chinese.
Even the original Final Fantasy VII, while lauded heavily of course, didn’t receive that kind of unabashed praise. A great game? Sure. A masterpiece? I think we can go there. A Herculean achievement and triumph of the human spirit on par with the complexities of the Human Genome Project?! For f--k’s sake, I’ve seen major scientific breakthroughs receive less praise than this game. When we finally cure cancer, the congratulations will seem like a mere pat on the back and a “get back in there” compared to the extollment this game has received.
No word yet on if we’ll see ShenZhen Nanjing Technology bang out a sassy, female-empowering direct sequel starring a plucky Tifa Lockhart and the ghost of Aerith Gainsborough. But here’s hoping.
Sonic 3D Blast 5 – Game Boy
For some reason poor Sonic is often the victim of strange game hacks, so he makes the list again. The title of this game is particularly baffling, both because the game itself is not 3D in the slightest (not even that bullshit, isometric garbage Sega gave us in the first (and only actual) Sonic 3D Blast), but also because…what happened to Sonic 3D Blast 2, 3, and 4? Sonic 3D Blast, the original, was released in late 1996. Sonic 3D Blast 5 was “released” in early 1998. That means in a little over the span of a year, there are THREE entries in the Sonic 3D Blast chronology that are just lost to the annals of time? Unknown and unheard of by modern man, like some retarded analog of the Lost City of Atlantis?
The game hastily combines levels and enemies from Sonic 1 and Sonic 3 (note not one mere second of this game has absolutely anything to do with Sonic 3D Blast despite the title), and has some uhh…”design choices” we’ll call them…that differ from Sega’s series. For instance, the music has degenerated into nothing more than ancient, cryptic “beeps” and “boops” with no real melody to speak of.
Then there are gameplay elements that are just inexplicably missing. For example, the invincibility power-up still exists, but does not harm the enemies when you encounter them while invincible. You can just kinda…run through them. Oh, and the music and graphics don’t change at all while you’re invincible, rendering it completely impossible to know when it’s going to kick in or wear off. Oh and spin dashing does absolutely nothing besides modify your appearance for a moment. If you hit an enemy while spin dashing, you’ll take damage as if you just casually walked into them.
Oh and it’s also known as Sonic Adventure 8. I’m not joking.
Toy Story – Famicom (NES)
Toy Story for the NES is a completely gutted version of the licensed SNES counterpart. Look at even the title screen above; the left is the SNES version, and the right is the crude NES recreation. I do like how the only thing in that scene that they felt was necessary to include besides Woody was Hamm the pig, who is shown inexplicably floating in black nothingness.
Amazingly the game is all downhill from there, as it is absolutely riddled with continuity, spelling, and basic logic errors. Let’s take a look:
The Help menu advises you how to collect bonus stars, extra lives, extra HP and the mysterious “checkpoi”, despite none of these actually being features of the game at all. The “Etch a Shotch” mysteriously has the capability to type words onto its own screen, instead of drawing them, and is apparently surprised that’s it’s Andy’s birthday, despite declaring it Andy’s birthday in almost the same breath.
The startup screen is emblazoned with the initials “WCW” for no reason (maybe big Eric Bischoff fans?). There’s a gas station level, where the pumps are labeled with the cryptic scribblings “TOY SOTRY”, “NONLEAD” and “HBUSHIDOB LADE”. And when you do beat a level (the entire game takes about 10 minutes to beat, by the way), you are rewarded with the level complete music from Contra, because, why the f--k not?
Jurassic Boy 2 – Famicom (NES)
Jurassic Boy 2 is a game about Chen, a dinosaur who is sometimes pink, sometimes red-orange, who lives in a world that looks suspiciously exactly like Sonic the Hedgehog’s world. Since nothing I could say would do this game justice, I think the best way to explain its lunacy is to go right to the source. Directly quoting the game’s manual (Intersperse your own [SIC] whenever you see fit):
In the year 2193, ‘”Dinosaur” becomes a popular subject again. Scientists all work for making dinosaur revive. ‘Nevertheless, they still lack of a special gene. This causes the dinosaurs they cultivate are all incomplete. ‘Many countries then intend to buy dinosaurian fossil at high prices in order to get the gene. ‘But it seems that it’s not so easy. ‘No one can do anything to this problem until Dr. Crachi invents a “Time Space” machine in the year 2197. 2180 advanced a new theory about time-back but was criticized. 2184, due to his excessive studying, he was mental diseased and was under treatment in hospital. 2188 missing after he was out of the hospital. They say he had ever appeared in Danba. 2198 completed the machine that can make time go back. In the dinosaur family, Chen is the most intelligent one. Now his parents and brothers all fall into Crachi’s clutches. So the urgent matter for Chen to do is to save his family from the bad guy’s clutches.
There ya have it folks! If that doesn’t make you want to play this game, you must be “mental diseased”!
Contra Spirits – Famicom (NES)
The creators of Contra Spirits for the NES are nothing if not masters of efficiency. The fifth level is exactly the same as the second level, except the sky is pink for some reason instead of blue. Your congratulations for defeating the game is your player grasping a helicopter with the contraction “Thend”, an efficient, time-saving portmanteau of “The” and “End”! The creators took the approach used by the Internet at large here: Why spell things out correctly when you know what I mean?
Then there are just bizarre oddities, like your player appearing to do an instant 180 and face backwards every time he jumps for completely unknown reasons. It’s little easter eggs like these that keep pirated games fun!
Pizza Pop Mario – Famicom (NES)
Pizza Pop Mario is a shockingly stereotyping game in which Mario has hung up his plumber’s toolbelt and has dove headfirst into the hotshot world of pizza delivery.
The game is really just the old Jaleco game Pizza Pop! (who would have guessed?) with a sprite from Super Mario Bros. 3 inserted as the game’s protagonist and the word “Mario” pasted over “Jaleco” on the title screen, that much I can explain. What I can’t explain is why after being given the pizza to deliver (no box mind you, just an exposed, fresh pizza pie), he enters some strange room displaying on the wall an image of a diminutive version of himself running in place in what looks like a crude representation of Manhattan, |
this move from Tony Stark’s playbook.
Per the Minions trailer, which dropped on Despicable Me universe. Her grand entrance at Villain-Con is a little too reminiscent of the one Robert Downey Jr. made in the beginning of
Otherwise, the new Minions trailer makes the film seem like an adorable journey we want to take. That being said, something like this makes me think of Minions. These animated Twinkies provide some of the funniest moments of the entire Despicable Me franchise, but are they funny enough to headline their own spin-off? Or do they need someone else to draw the brunt of the focus while they misbehave in the background?
Fortunately, Sanda Bullock’s Overkill seems like a good fit for this kind of film. Aside from her doting supervillain husband (Mad Men’s Despicable Me formula except with Overkill in place of Steve Carell’s Gru. If you think of Despicable Me as Destiny’s Child, then Minions is Beyonce, leaving her group behind to pursue her own career. All said and done, we wouldn’t be surprised if Minions proved itself successful and became the new model of continuing the franchise for many years to come. We already got a look at Scarlet Overkill, voiced by Sandra Bullock, in the Despicable Me prequel earlier today, but now you can see her in action in the newtrailer. This supervillain knows how to make an entrance, but let’s be honest, she totally stole this move from Tony Stark’s playbook.Per thetrailer, which dropped on iTunes, those "adorable little freaks" are heading to something called Villain-Con, where all of the world’s nastiest criminals come to mingle and show off their skills. Why the government doesn’t just ambush and arrest them all at once is beyond me, but that’s neither here nor there at this point. The minions are in search of a new supervillain to serve, and three members of the group — Kevin, Stuart and Bob — set out to find him or her. That’s when they stumble upon Scarlet Overkill, who seems to be the villain equivalent of Iron Man of theuniverse. Her grand entrance at Villain-Con is a little too reminiscent of the one Robert Downey Jr. made in the beginning of Iron Man 2 Otherwise, the newtrailer makes the film seem like an adorable journey we want to take. That being said, something like this makes me think of Arrested Development's continuation on Netflix. Each episode centered around a single character, giving maximum exposure to everyone's favorites. It seemed like a good idea, but infortunately, this format was unentertaining and proved that it was the ensemble nature of the show that was part of its inherent genius. This brings me back to. These animated Twinkies provide some of the funniest moments of the entirefranchise, but are they funny enough to headline their own spin-off? Or do they need someone else to draw the brunt of the focus while they misbehave in the background?Fortunately, Sanda Bullock’s Overkill seems like a good fit for this kind of film. Aside from her doting supervillain husband (’s Jon Hamm ), she also has an array of gadgets to play with, from the hypnotizing helmet to the lava gun. It’s also intriguing to finally get the origin story of these hilarious creatures, but at the same time, it seems like the film will only briefly touch upon that. Based on the previews we’ve seen already, a film like this could easily revert back to theformula except with Overkill in place of Steve Carell’s Gru. If you think ofas Destiny’s Child, thenis Beyonce, leaving her group behind to pursue her own career. All said and done, we wouldn’t be surprised ifproved itself successful and became the new model of continuing the franchise for many years to come. Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topI hope that during the progress of this text I would make the title more clear. The basic concept came to me in conversation after today’s session.
Some background – I am a junior instructor in the only HEMA school in the country. We are in the capital, but as this is the poorest and one of the smallest states in the EU, there is not much interest in our art. While we have a solid group, new students usually come every few months. We are open the whole year and we do not have beginner classes – our belief is that both the advanced practicioners and the beginners learn better together.
Today, we had two new guys – well, one of them has had one session. Our instructor and the other assistant instructor were working on a hanger for our swords, as we recently moved to a great new training hall. Because of that, I led the training session.
When we have a mixture of beginners and more advanced people, we usually start with simple floryshes – all of us, than I give the advanced people some exercise and leave them be. They are generally good enough to know what to do on their own and they do not need too much attention. Actually, a lot of times it is better to leave them on their own, and discuss their work afterwards.
So, after the initial exercises – wide play basic cuts, I send the advanced guys to do some binden and elastic drills (elastic drills are like sparring in molasses – you go slow, and you explore different situations and options, usually without anything more than gloves. It is a good complementary exercise to regular sparring, and a good transition from drills to free play).
So I was left with two complete beginners. Unusually, I decided to cover the basic guards – something which I usually leave to our instructor to do for the first time.
Of course, they have already done most of the guards in the last 30 minutes – they are all included in our floryshes. So I just defined them and taught them how to build a guard.
How to build a guard, what is that? Well, in the last couple of years, I noticed that postureq guards and cuts are best learned through learning how to “build” one. What does that mean for a guard? Lets take the basic Pflug – it is a guard you have in every european swordsmanship system, in one way or another. There is the Porta di Ferro guards in the Bolognese, the sixth guard in I.33, the Posta Breve in Fiore, the Eber in Leckuchner, the Offensiva perfetta of Viggiani, the terza in Italian rapier, hell, the Seigan no Kamae in Kendo and kenjutsu.
You first set the intention – what do you want to achieve from this guard? What is it purpose? Pflug is thrusting guard, meant both as a good starting position for a thrust, and a threat. So the point of the sword has to point at the opponent – seems pretty simple, but beginners can ignore it, if you do not specifically explain why that is and what can you achieve from it.
All of the basic Haengens – the two Pflugs and the two Ochs – are meant to protect one of the Four Openings. So the sword has to be positioned in such a way as to protect one of the lower openings – of which there are two, so we have two Pflugs – one on the left and one on the right. The flat is weak, so the sword must not be parallel to the ground, but at an angle – and I demonstrate how a flat position cannot take a strike, while an angled one can.
There is also the idea of power generation in the thrust. As the thrust is weak, compared to the cut (remember Silver – the force of a child is enough to drive it aside), the body needs to be behind it, sometimes in ways different than a cut. So you position the pommel in front of your pushing back leg.
And with these three basic fundaments you have “build” the Pflug.
I am explaining this, so I can show what I actually taught. But the point of this post is the method.
After the guards we took a rest, during which they asked me what a perfect balance for a sword would be, and I explained to them why there is no such thing, and why balance depends on the purpose of the sword, comparing a longsword, a classic arming sword – Albion I.33, and a side sword – the Albion Marozzo.
After that, we went through the floryshes again, and this time they didi much better.
With that, I ran two beginners through 1:30 h of training, with a warm up of about 15 minutes, maybe 5 minute rest, and three sets of exercises with 5 minutes rest inbetween. Thus they spend 1:15 h training with just a little rest. And I did not need to force them, nor did I ran a very tiring session, either. They were sweaty at the end, though. But not exhausted.
What I realized at the end, and what I conversed about with some of our advanced guys and some beers after training, was that my choice of exercises was not the key of what turned out to be a good training session. It was my method, which is partially my instructor’s, partially my own. And they looked quite good after just 3 hours for one guy and an hour and a half for the other.
See, teaching fencing is like fencing. You have to use Fuehlen and define when the student is soft and malleable and you can show him and explain more, and when he is hard and there is a wall in his mind, and it is best to leave him alone for a bit. And as beginners are especially fidgetty sometimes – even though that was not an extreme case of it – you have to choose “Indes” to go hard or soft, because there is a small window of opportunity, a small bloss in a half-tempo. Before that, you have to judge how far they are from understanding and feeling the technique, as all things have length and measure. And of course, it is best to keep the initiative – take the Vor – or regain it if you lost it – win the Nach.
I also realized (with some encouragement from the advanced students, as I am not as confident in this subject as I am to, say, my fencing skills) that I may have a chance to become a good teacher. And I was quite happy about it.
I wish all of you, students, assistants, and teachers, a good training session as this one!
AdvertisementsImage copyright Reuters Image caption Leaders of the anti-euro AfD bristle if they are described as Eurosceptic
To some, it is a party that speaks up for the people, challenging Germany's pro-European political establishment, and tackling tough issues which other parties are afraid to mention.
To others, Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD) - or Alternative for Germany - is a dangerous populist force, whipping up anti-foreigner feeling, and giving right-wing extremist ideology a respectable face.
Either way, few are indifferent to Germany's new anti-euro party.
It was founded last year as a protest against German-backed EU bailouts for poorer Southern Europe. The AfD originally catered to some German taxpayers fed up with paying for what they saw as the irresponsible behaviour of southern Europeans living beyond their means.
But it has now become the first anti-euro party to win seats in a German regional parliament, receiving almost 10% of the vote in the eastern German state of Saxony, taking even the party's bosses by surprise.
"Astonishing results," Frauke Petry, one of the party's leaders, told journalists in Berlin on Monday.
The 39-year-old mother-of-four is a former chemist.
As the face of the party, she is meant to shake off its grumpy-old-man image, campaigning heavily on education and family issues. That agenda counters allegations that the AfD is simply a more respectable, lighter version of the far-right NPD, which is no longer represented in Saxony's parliament.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Chancellor Angela Merkel has had to compromise with the centre-left SPD of Sigmar Gabriel (C)
But Ms Petry has big ambitions, giving a clear warning to Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing Christian Democrats (CDU), who have ruled out entering into government with the AfD - both in Saxony now, and nationally in the future.
"The CDU will lose out if they refuse to talk to us," she said.
The danger for Angela Merkel is not that the AfD poses a threat as a rival for national or even regional government.
Rather it is that Germany's right will be splintered - much as, over the past decade, the far-left Linke party has chipped away at support for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
By focusing on traditional conservative ideas, such as law and order, tougher border controls, and the importance of the traditional family model, the AfD is managing now to attract voters who feel that Mrs Merkel's government is betraying those values.
Mrs Merkel's pragmatic approach, to appeal to as many voters as possible, has pulled her CDU party closer to the centre. And governing with the SPD means compromise.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption As Emily Thomas reports, the AfD party has only been in existence for two years
So the AfD aims to scoop up voters who want a tougher approach to the EU and immigration - much as the Eurosceptic party UKIP does in Britain.
But there the similarity ends.
In Britain, UKIP can make statements about Europe which in pro-EU Germany would lead to pariah status.
However, in Germany, comments by some AfD candidates on abortion or homosexuality would be deemed unacceptable in mainstream British society.
And AfD leaders bristle if they are described as Eurosceptic, keen to underline they are anti-euro, not anti-EU.
Image copyright AFP Image caption AfD leader Bernd Lucke (R) declared the party's arrival on Germany's political scene
So, in the European Parliament, the AfD is actually in the same grouping as the UK Conservatives, not with UKIP.
Commentators often see more parallels between the AfD and the socially conservative American Tea Party, than with UKIP.
"We have arrived on the political scene," announced AfD leader and co-founder Bernd Lucke, an economist who has taken time off from his career as university professor to campaign for Germany to leave the euro.
The party narrowly missed getting into the national parliament last September, but did get into the European Parliament in May.
So the result in Saxony is being seen as proof that the AfD can play a role in German domestic politics, and not just campaign on EU issues.
But there may be a limit to how far the AfD can go. Smaller parties in Germany, such as the Pirate Party and the free-market FDP, can rapidly become irrelevant.
So Mr Lucke's confidence may be premature.
This remains a small party well to the right of Germany's political mainstream.
And the anti-euro message is controversial in Germany, traditionally a pro-European country.
In addition, the AfD's more populist rhetoric is potentially toxic for mainstream parties, making future governing coalitions with the AfD unlikely.
And other parties are aware that some former supporters of the far-right NPD in Saxony appear to have defected to the AfD.
On 14 September the AfD will face its next test, in regional elections in the eastern German states of Brandenburg and Thuringia. Across eastern Germany as a whole, support for the AfD is running at about 8%.
The results of these state elections will indicate if the AfD really is on the march.Given the opportunity to articulate what they'd want in a head coach, most players would say similar things. They'd covet honesty, fairness and intelligence above all else. Dictatorial is a quality they'd do without. Players basically desire a coach they can trust -- with their careers and with their dreams -- and they'd relish the chance to find such a man. That probably explains why Seattle's Pete Carroll is held in such high regard. No coach in the NFL can make players feel so good about coming to work.
A survey recently conducted by ESPN.com of 320 players revealed that Carroll is far and away the most appealing coach to play for these days. Carroll received 72 votes, or 23 percent of the final tally. Those numbers are more revealing considering that the second-ranked coach on that list, Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin, received only 44 votes, and the third, Denver's John Fox, garnered 25. Rex Ryan of the New York Jets ranked fourth with 23 votes. New England's Bill Belichick, a man with three Super Bowl victories, wound up fifth with 22 votes, tied with Kansas City's Andy Reid.
What these results tell us is that the bottom line isn't the most important factor in determining player happiness. If all they cared about was winning a championship, they wouldn't have picked five head coaches in the top seven who haven't hoisted a Lombardi trophy. Many players want to enjoy the journey as much as the final destination. This is where Carroll's true genius resides.
Carroll has gone out of his way to separate himself from nearly every other head coach who has worked in this profession. One visit to the Seahawks' offseason practices should tell an outsider that much. Carroll will blast music from players' iPods during full-team drills, interact with guests who come by to watch and carry himself as if he's the host of a house party instead of the multimillion-dollar face of an NFL franchise. He seems capable of having more fun in one afternoon than most coaches have in an entire season.
That unbridled pleasure is something players notice and share with their peers around the league. It leads to inspiration and interaction while creating a bond that is the foundation of Carroll's success in Seattle. He hasn't built the NFC's best team this season solely by knowing what kind of talent he needs to win. He also has done it by understanding the optimal way to use that talent once it arrives.
Carroll has introduced his team to such outside-the-box ideas as brain-performance testing. He has worked with a team psychologist who keeps "status profiles" on players -- charts that track how much sleep they're getting, how they're coping with stress and whether they're reaching their goals. Yoga and therapy are sold as reliable ways of maximizing potential. It's almost as if Carroll should be strolling the sideline in a tie-dyed T-shirt and Birkenstock sandals.
The beauty of his approach is that he isn't just experimenting with new methods. Carroll fully believes that compassion is a vital factor in winning football games. His mantra is Always Compete, and he applies that mindset to everybody who works in the building. In the end, Carroll comes off as a man who ultimately wants to see the best come out of everybody, mainly because of how much joy he would take in seeing somebody else attain that level of success.
The players who have watched him from afar see the results. Carroll led the Seahawks to the NFC West title in 2010, his first year with the team. The skeptics who belittled that success -- Seattle won the division with a 7-9 record -- were more impressed last season, when the Seahawks became one of the league's most improved teams before losing to Atlanta in the NFC divisional playoff round. This season, there's been little question about how dangerous the Seahawks have become. They've been the best team in their conference all season and a clear-cut favorite to reach this year's Super Bowl.On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale and marketing of a prosthetic arm called the DEKA Arm System, which uses electronic signals from the wearer's muscles to induce up to 10 different movements in the prosthetic.
Electrodes attached to the arm above the prosthesis detect muscle contractions and send those signals to a processor, which translates the contractions into movements that the arm should execute. The prosthetic weighs the same as an adult arm, and its design is modular so that it can be fitted to accommodate many different needs. Specifically, the FDA notes that the prosthetic can be used for “limb loss occurring at the shoulder joint, mid-upper arm, or mid-lower arm. It cannot be configured for limb loss at the elbow or wrist joint.”
The movements that the arm can execute use a “combination of mechanisms including switches, movement sensors, and force sensors that cause the prosthesis to move,” the FDA wrote. Bloomberg further reports that six grip patterns “allow wearers to drink a cup of water, hold a cordless drill, or pick up a credit card or a grape.” The FDA says that in clinical studies, “90 percent of study participants were able to perform activities with the DEKA Arm System that they were not able to perform with their current prosthesis, such as using keys and locks, preparing food, feeding oneself, using zippers, and brushing and combing hair.”
The FDA continued, “Data reviewed by the FDA also included testing of software and electrical and battery systems, mitigations to prevent or stop unintended movements of the arm and hand mechanisms, durability testing (such as ability to withstand exposure to common environmental factors such as dust and light rain), and impact testing.”
The arm was created by DEKA Research and Development, a Boston, MA company founded by Dean Kamen, who is most famous for creating the Segway. Bloomberg notes that the company received $40 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) since 2006 to develop the arm, which the agency hopes will solve the needs of US veterans who have suffered the loss of a limb. The arm's code name while under development was "Luke," after Luke Skywalker.
The DEKA Arm System will not go on sale immediately, nor is a price for the system available yet; Bloomberg reports that DEKA is still searching for a commercial partner to mass-manufacture the prosthetic arm.Buy Photo Cameron White gets ball handling lessons from Eric Gordon, during the Eric Gordon Basketball Camp, Monday June 8th, 2015. The camp was held at the JCC Indianapolis. (Photo: Michelle Pemberton / The Star)Buy Photo
Former North Central star and current NBA player for the New Orleans Pelicans Eric Gordon came back to Indianapolis to host a basketball camp at the JCC.
The IndyStar caught up with him and chatted about staying healthy this year, watching Anthony Davis break out and his brother Eron's upcoming year at Cathedral High School.
Q: What advice have you been giving Eron (Eric's brother and Cathedral High School player in contention for 2016 IndyStar Mr. Basketball)?
Gordon: He's been through a lot. I think this senior season he's got to put it all together. He went through a lot of adversity last year only playing half the season. He finally got his game back. He's just got to mature his game a little more this year and be dominant instead of a just a good scorer.
Q: How will this year be different for him?
Gordon: Now he sees the expectations. When you're a senior the expectations are different. You've got to prepare yourself for college and you've got to have a good senior year because you're more experienced. When you have a chance to be Mr. Basketball you have to put all of your effort towards that. That's a very honorable achievement to have. With Indiana basketball you've got to have the full package as a player. Everybody who comes out of here has a little bit of everything. That's what he has to have.
He watched all of us play and had a hunger of playing. And now it's just all about him evolving and not getting into distractions of Instagram and all that media. Just go out and play. A lot of these kids today just want to promote themselves and be on Instagram and Twitter letting everyone know what they're doing instead of just keeping it simple. There are too many things to do.
Q: Is there pressure for Eron to attend IU?
Gordon: Yeah, there's pressure. Everyone expects him to be just like me. That shouldn't be the case. He has his own type of game. He's his own person. But he knows the expectation and he should expect that. His situation is a little different than mine. I committed early, he might commit late. He's got to make a decision for him. I made the decision for me.
IU is definitely a great place to be, especially for a basketball player, but I'm not leaning him towards IU or anything like that. That's for sure.
Q: How well do you keep in touch with other Indy NBAers?
Gordon: I still keep in touch with Greg (Oden), Mike Conley and always run into Courtney Lee. We see each other all the time during the season and we definitely see each other in the off-season at some point.
Eric Gordon had a bounce back year for the Pelicans due primarily to improved health. (Photo: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
Q: Is your career where it should be after finishing a season healthy and making the playoffs?
Gordon: Everybody's career is always an obstacle. For me, right now, I made a big leap as far as staying healthy this season and making it to the playoffs for the first time. I had a good taste of that. It was a good year and now it's time to progress. I'm back lifting now. July is when I really start getting into shape and doing things almost like I do during the season. The past three years I've been injured and rehab just takes up your whole time during the summer. I'm just getting back to a normal schedule before I had all of these injuries.
Q: What was it like watching Anthony Davis break out this year?
Gordon: I knew he was going to have a good year after playing on the USA team because that gave him more experience and a different style of play. All he had to do was work hard and do something different. He did a really good job this year. Next year it's all about making things easier for him. It's going to be a different style of play next year.
We gave him the ball in so many different ways last year, and sometimes it came kind of tough for him because he's not really a one-on-one, post-up type of player. Last year, and this coming year, with us playing fast he's going to get more easy shots and more easy looks.
Q: You have an opt-out clause in your contract, are you close to a decision?
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Gordon: Not yet. I still have two weeks to do it. I'm going to take the full two weeks. As long as I get it done in time.
Follow Star reporter Blake Schuster on Twitter: @Schustee.There are those who think we should only get our news from “official” sources. You know, like the blonde telling you what to believe in between hocking a hockey game.
If there’s anything the 2016 election showed us, it’s that the American people are increasingly distrustful of and not listening to the commands laid out by the once mainstream media. They’re increasingly reticent to commit national and demographic suicide under the guise of “diversity” and other nebulous ideals. They’re desperate not only to “drain the swamp” but to restore some sense of national pride and stability to the declining USA.
In response, the controllers of the presstitutes (the people who really run the world) are already hard at work trying to find some way to create a false narrative about “fake news” sites in order to lay the ground work for censorship and control. The Internet has all but destroyed the corporate-government narrative, and there is a shit fit happening at the highest levels of the propaganda ministry (i.e. CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, et. al.) because they have learned the American people know how full of shit they really are.
Sites like Return Of Kings are on the front lines of this war in support of free speech and it is vitally important we stay on top of our game to avoid a reversion to the managed propaganda the centralized control of mass media gave us over the last 50 years.
Make no mistake, one of the reasons leakers of misdeeds done by politicians and the elite they work for have been allowed to continue leaking dirty laundry is because it plays into the hands of those with designs on censorship and re-gaining control of the information the sheeple get to listen to. Having Julian Assange and Edward Snowden doing leaks of information and giving them extensive press coverage plays right into the hands of the censorship brigade because they can also play the protecting national security game when the time to silence dissent comes.
Fake news is only the first assault in what is sure to become a full scale war on free speech on the Internet. We can be thankful Trump won the election rather than The Bitch since his election will slow the process of censorship, but the aggressiveness of the “fake news” narrative shows us how determined some people are to shut us up and shut us down.
The New York Times is already on the front lines of this assault on free speech on the Internet. Only days after The Bitch lost the election, publisher Arthur Sulzberger published a Mea Culpa and promised to rededicate the newspaper to “honest” reporting.
We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our subscribers… [The New York Times promises to] give the news impartially, without fear or favor… We also approach the incoming Trump administration without bias.
Don’t buy into it. This is what’s known in Public Relations as a diversion tactic. While we focus on our seeming victory, they’re already moving on to their next false narrative – so-called fake news. No sooner than the ink dried on the promise to give Trump a chance, The New York Times was moving to shut up the very people who made possible his rise to power – the alt-right and alternative news web sites.
While some fake news is produced purposefully by teenagers in the Balkans or entrepreneurs in the United States seeking to make money from advertising, false information can also arise from misinformed social media posts by regular people that are seized on and spread through a hyperpartisan blogosphere.
They did a spurious case study on how a “rumor” got started about protesters being bussed in to protest at Trump rallies. Never mind the mainstream media is a business that runs lock, stock and barrel on fake news. Almost every narrative they create is a false one. One need do no more than a Google search to discredit many, if not most of the mainstream media’s stories. The hypocrisy is astounding.
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Pulling The Plug
Whether or not the “fake news” narrative gains traction, the next step will be for the elite to create a problem that affects millions of people online, then follow through with the Hegelian Dialectic with a pre-ordained “solution” to “make everyone safer online” and to “stop the spread of false information” while “protecting free speech” online by destroying it.
Look for no less than a figurative “Internet 9/11” if the elite become desperate enough.
They’ll pull the plug on the backbone of the Internet, shutting down e-commerce and communication online for a few days, blame it on a “fake news” story (just like Benghazi was blamed on a YouTube video) then spring in to save us from ourselves by passing all sorts of creative laws and restrictions aimed at nothing more than eliminating competition to the corporate-government narrative and gutting yet another of our Bill of Rights protections.
Make no mistake, Freedom of Speech is the most important of Amendments to the Constitution. Once that is taken away, it’s Game Over.
Obama has already been floating the idea of official news web sites. This is nothing more than proposing the creation of the American equivalent of Pravda in the Soviet Union, in which only the state-approved newspaper was considered the truth and everything else was considered lies. Obviously, the New World Order socialist narrative would be the only truth under a system such as this, and traditional and conservative views would be relentlessly silenced
Check out what The Messiah said in Berlin recently.
In an age where there’s so much active misinformation, and it’s packaged very well, and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television, where some overzealousness on the part of a US official is equated with constant and severe repression elsewhere, if everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect. If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems.
The fact he is saying these things should frighten you. It should also make you angry. This statement is a PC way of saying the goal of the power structure is to shut us the fuck up. They want us to listen to clueless “journalists” who encourage the idea of microchipping your children and later, yourselves so every aspect of your life can be controlled by the government.
We must fight back by discrediting the “fake news” narrative at every turn and informing those who will listen of the possibility of a fake “Internet 9/11” designed to give the government a reason to curb free expression on the very Libertarian Internet of today.
Read More: How Men Have Made The Internet A Great EqualizerDiath stood in front of the mirror uneasily. The silver surface was slightly smeared where someone had half-heartedly polished it, the coarse brown of tarnish had started to settle in at the corners and across the middle so that he looked as though he had flecks of dirt across his skin. It was a simple looking glass with an ornately carved frame that had been knocked into so many things that notches were bitten out of the varnish and into the wood. Like most of the furniture in his tavern room, it was certainly showing its wear and tear but it was still useable.
He'd been stood in front of the mirror for over ten minutes, looking down at the floor, up at the ceiling, at a stain on the wall. Anywhere and at anything that wasn’t his reflection. A heavy weight was sitting in his stomach, making him feel nauseous and uncomfortable. But now that he was looking, all he saw was exactly what he’d dreaded.
So much had changed since Barovia. He was no longer the high spirited young man he had been, in fact there was no trace of what he once was. It was like looking at a creature, hollow eyed and marred. No part of him had been left untouched. His pallor was paled and washed out, as though all the life had left him. Brown locks tumbled to his neck, a knotted, tangled mess with frayed and split ends, only serving to make him appear sicklier.
His body was a map of pain and suffering, documenting stories told and untold. Regrets and foolishness embedded permanently upon his person. The oldest scars were pale slips of silver but most were newer or poorly healed, angry red marks that never seemed to be mending right and some still bled slightly under the skin whenever he pushed himself too far. Dull aches pulsed deep in the joints of his left arm where some of the worst damage had been done.
The burn from Ironslag would never properly heal, he knew, both mentally and physically. His flesh about the shoulder and down to his elbow was warped and ruined, the nerves either dead or sensitive to touch where the flames had tasted him. It pained him to look at it, this stark reminder of stupidity, of rash decisions made with caution blown to the wind. How much it had cost him.
What had happened to that brighter boy from Waterdeep?
His dull green eyes gazed forlornly at the wound, echoing memories of what it was like to stare into scorching hot flames and acrid smoke. He still wakes some nights to searing pain dancing over the damaged skin, consuming him down to his bones. Though it is nothing compared to the screams of dying dwarves. But he supressed all that, smothered it and forced it as deep down as he could bear until it sat like a lead weight in his stomach, dragging down and down and down so far that he felt he may collapse in on himself all together. Because if he didn’t, then how could he possibly ever stand to look at himself again?
He didn’t recognise the face staring back at him, gaunt and coarse with stubble. Whatever this thing was, it had no love of itself. It was a monster that fears what it is. What a bitter irony.
His hand came up tentatively, as though in a trance, and grazed perhaps the worst scar of all. It was one thing to be responsible for the deaths of those he did not know, but to be responsible for those of his friends made him want to tear himself from that body, that creature, because it is not him. That thing can’t possibly be him. He longed to pull away his skin, claw all the mistakes that cloy at him, and find what once was underneath.
But what he had once been was lost forever, drowned under a torrent of painful mistakes and overwhelming sadness. Crushed under the weight of it all and broken, never to be whole again. He was certain now that even if he found that happier once-upon-a-time it would not be as he remembered it. His wounds ran deep, so much so they would have tainted whatever good was left. Diath knew he was not redeemable.
Dead eyes looked back at him and he cannot help but search deeply into them. Surely there must be some glimmer of that other self still there. He looked intensely but found nothing to reassure him, only guilt and agony that screamed through shades of green. The creature staring at him through the glass was a piteous wreck and Diath could not help but feel repulsed by it. Though it copied his every move, his every expression, there was a harrowed, haunted look in its eyes that spoke of something long dead. And that was not him. It could not be him. It was surely some imposter, some pathetic attempt at mimicry, because he could not bear to think what it meant to admit that he could no longer recognise himself.
A tumultuous writhing mass of anger and fear seized him then and he grabbed the top of the mirror’s frame, slamming it down onto the table it stood on. Shards of shattered glass exploded outwards and crumbled over the table’s edge, scattering on the floor around his feet as he breathed heavily.
How could he not recognise the creature that looked back at him?
When had he truly become so alien to himself?
He stared at the glass on the ground, the small reflective surfaces showing green eyes staring back. All of them hollow. All of them sorrowful. All of them |
Akash, was her 19-year-old son, an IT engineering student at Don Bosco Institute of Technology who along with seven others was charred to death when a fire broke out post a cylinder blast at Kurla's City Kinara restaurant in October 2015. "I saw the bodies," says Thapar's brother-in-law Pawan, "They were charred in the position they were eating or holding their phones. They didn't so much as have a chance to escape."
Subsequent investigation has led to a series of slip-ups by various government agencies. The restaurant itself, with an illegal mezzanine floor where seven of the teenagers were trapped, was operating without a licence. It was not even fire compliant, and as far as the gas connections go, they were illegal too. "All this information we collected on our own over six months through various RTIs that we filed," says Nicholas Almeida of The Watchdog Foundation, which took the Kinara fire case to the Lokayukta Court, winning the parents a compensation of R1 lakh each. While awarding the compensation in the case, the court held four officers from the BMC's medical health department, L-ward, accountable. They have been suspended and the owner of the restaurant who was arrested is being tried in the case at the Kurla Metropolitan Magistrate Court.
But the response has brought the families no closure. "All we had to identify him by was the buckle of his belt," says Pradeep, 55, Akash's father.
Meanwhile, The Watchdog Foundation is planning to move the Bombay High Court to get both a higher compensation and also bring to book the cops who allowed the restaurant a police licence, the fire brigade that gave it a fire licence and the HPCL distributor who provided the gas cylinders despite lack of proper registration.
Rekha tries to hold her tears back, "I don't know what killed my son. Surely I have the right to know."
Suraj Ojha and Laxman SinghIt is not every day the august members of the US Supreme Court don their black robes to contemplate a fish tale. But that’s what happened on Wednesday.
The tale starts like this: Seven years ago, a marine fisheries officer boarded a commercial fishing boat 100 miles west of Tampa in the Gulf of Mexico.
Upon inspection, he discovered that the crew of the Miss Katie had landed 72 red grouper that failed to measure up to the 20-inch minimum size requirement. The officer wrote boat captain John Yates a citation, packed the undersized grouper into a box, and instructed Yates to deliver the box to officials when he returned to port.
Here’s where the story gets interesting. On the way back to shore, Mr. Yates told a crew member to throw the undersized grouper into the sea and replace them in the box with larger fish.
It might have worked, but upon opening the box federal officials smelled something … fishy. They questioned a crew member, who admitted replacing the fish.
What happened next is the reason this fish story found its way to the nation’s highest court.
Rather than simply citing Yates for violating federal size limits, federal prosecutors used a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal, to charge him with obstructing justice by destroying potential evidence.
Instead of a fine and short jail sentence, suddenly Yates was looking at spending up to 20 years in federal prison.
The question before the court is whether the Sarbanes-Oxley law applies only to instances of the destruction of business records in the face of a federal investigation or whether it can also be broadly interpreted to apply to a commercial fisherman’s decision to toss undersized fish into the sea.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002 to prevent a repeat of what happened shortly before the collapse of Enron. In that case, the corporation’s accounting firm engaged in a massive effort to shred incriminating documents and destroy databases before any federal investigation could begin.
To prevent similar conduct in the future, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act makes it a crime to destroy “any record, document, or tangible object” to impede any matter within the jurisdiction of the US government.
The key question in the Yates case is whether any “tangible object” can include fish.
Yates’s lawyer, Assistant Federal Defender John Badalamenti, told the justices that “tangible object” refers to things like computers, servers, or flash drives on which records could be stored.
The Obama administration disagrees. Assistant Solicitor General Roman Martinez argued that “tangible object” applies more broadly to cover the destruction of any potential evidence that might be useful in proving a violation of federal law.
For example, federal prosecutors in Boston used the same section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to charge a friend of the accused Boston Marathon bomber with helping conceal a backpack and thumb drive that agents were seeking in the investigation of the bombing.
Several justices expressed skepticism about the government’s broad application of the law.
Justice Antonin Scalia asked if there was anything Yates could have been charged with calling for a penalty of lower than 20 years.
He noted that the judge in the case ultimately sentenced the captain to 30 days in jail, but he questioned the decision to charge him under the harsh statute.
“What kind of a mad prosecutor would try to send him up for 20 years?” Justice Scalia asked.
Does the Justice Department offer any guidance to prosecutors before they file charges, Mr. Martinez was asked.
“The general guidance is that the prosecutor should charge the offense that is the most severe under the law,” he said.
He said Yates destroyed evidence, engaged in a cover up, and enlisted members of his crew in the plot.
How big were these fish, Chief Justice John Roberts wanted to know.
“You make him sound like a mob boss or something,” he said. The comment drew laughter in the courtroom.
It was not about the size of the fish, Martinez replied, but the underlying conduct obstructing justice. Prosecutors eventually asked the judge to sentence Yates to a two-year prison sentence.
Martinez agreed with several justices that a 20-year sentence “would be too much.”
Chief Justice Roberts said the potential 20-year sentence offered prosecutors “extraordinary leverage” to insist that a defendant plead guilty.
From there the government’s case started down a very slippery slope.
Justice Stephen Breyer wanted to know if he might be subject to a potential 20-year prison term if he refused to reply to a post office survey and instead threw it in the trash.
He noted that the statute applies to destruction of any document in relation to any matter within the discretion of the government.
Martinez told Justice Breyer that the statute requires proof of bad intent.
Breyer provided it. “I hate postmen,” he said.
The justice said the statute as used by federal prosecutors provided a real risk of arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.
“You are really asking the court to swallow something that is pretty hard to swallow,” Justice Samuel Alito told Martinez.
Justice Alito wanted to know whether a recreational fisherman in a national park who sees a game warden approaching and throws his undersized trout back into the lake would potentially face a 20-year prison term for obstruction of justice.
Breyer returned with still more examples. What if a camper kicks an ember away after building a fire in a no-campfire-zone? Or what if a park visitor picks a flower and then discards it to avoid being detected by park rangers?
The government wasn’t without its supporters. Justice Elena Kagan seemed sympathetic to a broad reading of the statute. And Justice Anthony Kennedy said he was troubled that a narrow reading of the statute might prove problematic.
At one point he commented: “Perhaps Congress should have called this the Sarbanes-Oxley-Grouper Act.”
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A decision is expected by next June.
The case is Yates v. US (13-7451).(CNN) "60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon, who covered both the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, died Wednesday in a car accident in New York, CBS News reported. He was 73.
"It's a terrible loss for all of us at CBS News," said Jeff Fager, the executive producer of "60 Minutes."
"It's such a tragedy, made worse because we lost him in a car accident -- a man who's escaped more difficult situations than almost any one journalist in modern times... we will miss him very much."
Simon's career in news spanned some 50 years and earned him countless awards.
Simon at an Americas Business Council forum at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in May 2010.
Simon at an Americas Business Council forum at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in May 2010.
In a March 2010 photo released by CBS, Simon confers with a news producer at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. Simon's many awards included four Peabodys, 27 Emmys and the Overseas Press Club's highest honor for a body of work.
In a March 2010 photo released by CBS, Simon confers with a news producer at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York. Simon's many awards included four Peabodys, 27 Emmys and the Overseas Press Club's highest honor for a body of work.
"60 Minutes" correspondents Mike Wallace, left, Simon and Steve Kroft during a behind-the-scenes photo shoot for Vanity Fair in 2003.
"60 Minutes" correspondents Mike Wallace, left, Simon and Steve Kroft during a behind-the-scenes photo shoot for Vanity Fair in 2003.
Simon, far left, with other correspondents of "60 Minutes," and Don Hewitt, the executive producer, lower left, at the annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards in 2003. Next to Simon are Lesley Stahl, Ed Bradley, Morley Safer and Andy Rooney. In the back are, Christiane Amanpour, Diane Sawyer, Steve Kroft, Meredith Vieira and executive editor Philip Scheffler.
Simon, far left, with other correspondents of "60 Minutes," and Don Hewitt, the executive producer, lower left, at the annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards in 2003. Next to Simon are Lesley Stahl, Ed Bradley, Morley Safer and Andy Rooney. In the back are, Christiane Amanpour, Diane Sawyer, Steve Kroft, Meredith Vieira and executive editor Philip Scheffler.
Simon with his wife, Françoise, and daughter Tanya at the press conference after he was freed.
Simon with his wife, Françoise, and daughter Tanya at the press conference after he was freed.
Bob Simon with his CBS crew during a press conference after the Iraqis freed them following 40 days of imprisonment in 1991. From left: sound man Juan Caldera, producer Peter Bluff, Simon and cameraman Roberto Alvarez.
Bob Simon with his CBS crew during a press conference after the Iraqis freed them following 40 days of imprisonment in 1991. From left: sound man Juan Caldera, producer Peter Bluff, Simon and cameraman Roberto Alvarez.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon died Wednesday, February 11, in a car accident in New York, CBS News reported. He was 73. Simon's career in news spanned some 50 years and earned him countless awards.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Bob Simon died Wednesday, February 11, in a car accident in New York, CBS News reported. He was 73. Simon's career in news spanned some 50 years and earned him countless awards.
"Bob was, and I'll tell you it's very hard to talk about him in the past tense, but Bob was for the last five decades, simply one of the best, in my opinion... at getting a story, telling a story, writing a story and making it simply unforgettable," said CNN's Anderson Cooper, who worked with Simon at "60 Minutes."
The accident
By the time officers arrived at the scene of the accident, Simon -- seated in the rear of a Lincoln Town Car -- was unconscious and unresponsive, with injuries to his head and torso, according to the NYPD.
Simon was not wearing a seat belt. A preliminary report said Simon appeared to have died from head and neck trauma caused by the violent impact, according to a senior law enforcement source. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The vehicle's 44-year-old driver, who suffered two broken legs and two broken arms, was listed in stable condition. The Lincoln Town Car collided with a Mercedes at a red light, police said, and then struck a stanchion dividing traffic. His driving record indicates prior traffic summonses, the senior law enforcement source said. The drivers of both cars passed sobriety tests.
Crash investigators are looking at whether the Town Car was speeding when it crashed Wednesday evening, according to the senior law enforcement source. Speed is being investigated based on the trajectory of the Town Car following the impact with the Mercedes, which was going the same direction.
Investigators are also trying to get information on whether either of the drivers were texting or were on their phones before the crash, the senior law enforcement said.
A spokesman for New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission identified the driver of the town car as Abdul Reshad Fedahi. His license has been suspended pending the police investigation.
His career
Simon joined CBS in 1967 as a reporter and editor based in New York. He went on to report from all over the world.
Simon covered the war in Vietnam and was on one of the last helicopters out of Saigon, according to his CBS News biography.
In 1991, he was captured by Iraqi forces at the start of the Gulf War. Simon and three colleagues spent 40 days in prison, an experience he later wrote about in his book "Forty Days."
Among his many awards are four Peabodys, 27 Emmys and the Overseas Press Club's highest honor for a body of work, the biography read.
Simon and his wife, Françoise, have one daughter, who is a producer for "60 Minutes."
Tributes
Tributes to the news veteran quickly poured in.
"Condolences to the family of my friend and long-time colleague," said former CBS anchor and "60 Minutes" alum Dan Rather.
Condolences to the family of my friend and long-time colleague, CBS News Correspondent Bob Simon. — Dan Rather (@TheDanRather) February 12, 2015
"So sorry to learn of the passing of Bob Simon," said former CNN host Larry King. "He was a great reporter & wonderful man. A frequent guest of mine."
So sorry to learn of the passing of Bob Simon. He was a great reporter & wonderful man. A frequent guest of mine. So sorry to hear this. RIP — Larry King (@kingsthings) February 12, 2015
"I never met him, but it feels like I knew him after all these years of watching @60Minutes," said comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried.
I never met him, but it feels like I knew him after all these years of watching @60Minutes. RIP Bob Simon — Gilbert Gottfried (@RealGilbert) February 12, 2015
"He was a warrior-poet who loved life and loved people," said Cooper.
He added: "I gotta say just on a personal basis, I grew up admiring Bob Simon, and whenever I gave talks at schools I'd always say Bob Simon is the greatest writer and the person I most look up at (in) this business. And when I started working at '60 Minutes,' to even be in the same halls, the same offices as Bob Simon, was such an honor, and it's just a huge loss for CBS and for everybody."GRAND RAPIDS, MI - This winter storm has caused Grand Rapids to shatter its previous daily record.
As of the 5 o'clock hour, the National Weather Service officials has Grand Rapids at 6.2 inches for today, March 1. That far exceeds the 2.4 inches of snow Grand Rapids received in 2014, the previous daily record for March 1.
Joggers cross Monroe Ave. NW, at Fulton St., in Grand Rapids Tuesday, March 1, 2016.
And, if you look out your window, you will notice that the snow is still falling.
Despite its record-setting snowfall, Grand Rapids wasn't the hardest hit so far. As of 5 p.m., the National Weather Service had received reports of 11 and 12 inches of snowfall from the Hastings area.
Some other snowfall totals, according to the National Weather Service, so far today include 8 inches for Grand Ledge, 7 inches for Lansing and 6 inches for Mount Pleasant.
Some of West Michigan, including Kent County, is still part of a winter storm warning, which is scheduled to extend until 1 a.m. Wednesday. As of this morning, the forecast called for 5-8 inches of snowfall for Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.
Based on the snowfall, cold temperatures and blowing snow, treacherous road conditions were expected for the evening commute. The National Weather Service and Kent County Road Commission cautioned drivers to be prepared for icy and changing road conditions.
A winter storm warning is in effect until 1 a.m. Wednesday for Kent, Ottawa, Barry, Clinton, Eaton, Gratiot, Ingham, Montcalm and Van Buren counties, as well as counties to the northeast to the other side of Michigan.
Beware 'treacherous' commute: Heavy snow, high winds expected A winter storm warning is in effect for counties across Michigan.
Eric Gaertner is a journalist with MLive.com. Contact him at egaertne@mlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @EricGaertner1.Story highlights Two former neighbors of Justin Bieber file lawsuit against the pop star
Suit alleges he vandalized their house with eggs and threatened them
Bieber, 21, pleaded guilty last year to a related vandalism charge
(CNN) Two former neighbors of Justin Bieber have filed a lawsuit against the pop star, claiming he and his bodyguards repeatedly harassed them and their family, vandalized their house with eggs and threatened them with anti-Semitic remarks.
In the lawsuit Jeffrey and Suzanne Schwartz say Bieber hosted frequent loud parties and spat in Jeffrey Schwartz' face after he complained about the pop star driving his Ferrari at dangerous speeds down the street of their gated community in Calabasas, California.
The suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, also alleges Bieber's bodyguards dismissed Jeffrey Schwartz's complaints by taunting him repeatedly with "what are you going to do about it, Jew boy?"
The suit seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial.
JUST WATCHED Watch Justin Bieber get pelted with eggs Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Watch Justin Bieber get pelted with eggs 00:26
Representatives for Bieber did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday afternoon.As soon as the Edward Snowden story broke, retail psychoanalysts in the media began to psychologize the whistle-blower, identifying in his actions a tangled pathology of motives. Luckily, there’s been a welcome push-back from other journalists and bloggers.
The rush to psychologize people whose politics you dislike, particularly when those people commit acts of violence, has long been a concern of mine. I wrote about it just after 9/11, when the media put Mohamed Atta on the couch.
I also wrote about it in this review of the New Yorker writer Jane Kramer’s Lone Patriot, her profile of the militia movement.
In October 1953, literary critic Leslie Fiedler delivered an exceptionally nasty eulogy for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the pages of the London-based magazine Encounter. Though the Rosenbergs had been executed for conspiring to commit espionage, their real betrayal, claimed Fiedler, was of themselves. Committed Communists, the Rosenbergs did more than mouth the party line; they walked, talked, ate, drank, breathed and slept it. Nothing they said or did was peculiarly their own. “Their relationship to everything,” Fiedler wrote, “including themselves, was false.” Their execution was regrettable, but not particularly notable. Once they turned into marionettes, “what was there left to die?”
Fiedler’s performance stands out in the annals of literary cruelty, not for its heartlessness but for its pitch-perfect rendition of the liberal mind at bay. For whenever liberal intellectuals are confronted with political extremism, the knotty social intelligence that normally informs their work unravels. The radical is reduced to a true believer, his beliefs a litany of crazy proverbs, his personality an inscrutable paranoia. Whether the cause is communism or the Black Panthers, feminism or the abolitionists, the liberal resorts to a familiar ghost story—of the self, evacuated for the sake of an incoming ideology—where, as is true of all such tales, the main character is never the ghost but always the teller.
…
Kramer hunts for clues to these touchy forest warriors in the dank wood of individual psychology. She writes that John Pitner, the militia’s not so fearless leader, “hated to have to answer to other people.” His father was an off-balance disciplinarian. One of Pitner’s devotees never “had friends, or even a date, in high school.” Right-wing politics provide a stage for the insufficiently evolved to act out their personal, often adolescent afflictions. As Kramer writes of Pitner, “I sometimes wondered if the Washington State Militia wasn’t, at least in part, a way for him to rewrite the history of the Pitner family.” Reminiscent of Fiedler, she concludes that Pitner “didn’t have a life in any sense I recognized.”
…
She seems to find quaint and absurd Pitner’s belief that in the early days of the United States “the townspeople got together [and] if they wanted a new road, they all contributed money and they built a new road, if they wanted a new library, they all contributed money and built a new library,” unaware, apparently, that intellectuals from Tocqueville to Robert Putnam have believed much the same thing. That’s not to say that such statements are true (they’re not), but they scarcely denote some strange woodland mishegas.
…
Tromping through this political wilderness, Kramer falls prey to a New York strain of Tourette’s syndrome, ceaselessly remarking on the strangeness and ignorance of the Northwest, the provincialism and prejudice of the forest. Her sole field guide on such expeditions, which she frequently consults, contains familiar entries on the paranoid style of American politics and the authoritarian personality. The problem with such psychological arguments, of course, is that millions of men and women fit the profile but never join the militia. There are probably more than a few leaders of the Democratic Party who never had a date in high school. And need we even launch an inventory of the editorial staff at The New Yorker?
Lastly, I wrote about it at much greater length in “On Language and Violence: From Pathology to Politics,” a piece I did for Raritan in 2006. There, I wrote more generally about how intellectuals deal with violence committed by the radical right and left. But the same strictures apply to the journalistic response to Snowden.
Why is it that when confronted with extremist violence and its defenders, whether on the right or the left, analysts resort to the categories of psychology as opposed to politics, economics, or ideology? [Journalist William] Pfaff is certainly not alone in his approach: merely consider the recent round of psychoanalysis to which Al Qaeda has been subjected or Robert Lindner’s Cold War classic, The Fifty-Minute Hour, which featured an extended chapter on “Mac” the Communist. Psychological factors, of course, may influence anyone’s decision to take up arms or to speak on behalf of those who do. But those who invoke these factors tend to ignore the central tenet of their most subtle and acute analyst: that the normal person is merely a hysteric in disguise, that the rational is often irrationality congealed. If we are to go down the road of psychoanalyzing violence, why not put Henry Kissinger or the RAND Corporation on the couch too?
There is more than a question of consistency at stake here, for the choice of psychology as the preferred mode of explanation often reflects little more than our own political prejudices. Violence we favor is deemed strategic and realistic, a response to genuine political exigencies. Violence we reject is dismissed as fanatic and lunatic, the outward manifestation of some inner drama. What gets overlooked in such designations is that violence is a deeply human activity, reflecting a full range of concerns and considerations, requiring an empathic, though critical, attention to mind and world.
…
Every culture has its martyred heroes—from the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach, whose only goal was to wash ashore, dead but with their guns intact so that the next wave could use them, to Samson declaring that he would die with the Philistines—and its demonized enemies, its rational use of force and its psychopathic cult of violence. And in every culture it has been the job of intellectuals to keep people clear about the difference between the two. Mill did it for imperial Europe. Why should imperial America expect anything less (or more) from William Pfaff, let alone David Denby?
But perhaps we should expect our writers to do more than simply mirror the larger culture. After all, few intellectuals today divide the sexual world into regions of the normal and abnormal. Why can’t they throw away that map for violence too? Why not accept that people take up arms for a variety of reasons—some just, others unjust—and that while the choice of violence, as well as the means, may be immoral or illegitimate, it hardly takes a psychopath to make it?
In the same way that journalists call high-level leakers in the executive branch “White House officials” and low-level guys like Snowden “narcissists” or “losers,” so do they dole out accolades like “Secretary of State” to mass murderers like Henry Kissinger while holding the Snowden-like epithets in reserve for Al Qaeda, Communists, the Militia Movement, and the Weather Underground.Horror Classic D Coming to Steam Today
For the older members of our audience, this must a throwback to their earliest days of playing horror games.
Created by the late Kenji Eno (who pioneered both horror games, as well as gaming designed for the blind), D is a nightmare that 1995 3DO, PlayStation and Saturn gamers simply weren’t ready for. Showcasing extreme graphic violence and dealing with seriously dark subject matter (like cannibalism), D is the crown-jewel in early messed up gaming, and could be argued to be a precursor to Silent Hill and Corpse Party thematically in the same way that Alone in the Dark is to Resident Evil (although D is a very different kind of game, it’s essentially an interactive movie).
Whether you remember this from the early days of 3D gaming, or have never heard of it before, D is suddenly available on Steam (on not just PC, but Mac, and Linux!), and while it may seem a little dated now, I urge you to at least take a look at it. It’s a disturbing and difficult gem from before practically any of our favorite horror games were even a thing, and this might lead to its sequel and pseudo-sequel D2 and Enemy Zero getting released on Steam as well.By By Elizabeth Batt Jul 23, 2013 in Environment Vinnytsya - Animal welfare organisation Four Paws is charging popular French manufacturer of dog and cat food, Royal Canin, with sponsoring brutal and illegal bear-baiting in the Ukraine. The video shows a chained brown bear unable to escape as two to three dogs are set upon it at approximately 10-minute intervals. 'During the competition, the bear's movements are controlled by three men yanking on its chain to restrict the animal's response. The panicked bear, unable to mount a defense, frantically begins to foam at the mouth. Off to the side, a referee awards points to each dog's owner. Dr. Amir Khalil, vet and project leader at Four Paws, says this can go on for hours, until the bear is left unable to fight. As men sit and watch the spectacle unfold before them, Royal Canin tape separates them Dogs are awarded points by a referee for how aggressive its attack is, said FOUR PAWS. FOUR PAWS Ukraine According to Four Paws, these contests are hosted at least four to six times per year and take place in special training camps for hunting dogs in the Ukraine. The organization added that it has, "evidence that Royal Canin has sponsored several of these gruesome spectacles over recent months." Despite repeated requests for a meeting, Four Paws alleges, Royal Canin has refused to discuss the matter, but did issue this statement via their Global Corporate Affairs Director, Hervé MARC: It appears that these photos were taken during a dog show in Dubovy Gay in the Ukraine, on April 27th-28th 2013. Our colleagues in the Ukraine confirmed that we sponsored brand placements with 1 banner, 2 cups and free products for a dog show and nothing else. Royal Canin responded that it only sponsored two trophies, yet clearly more are available in the photo captured by FOUR PAWS. FOUR PAWS Ukraine Our Animal Welfare Policy states that we do not undertake, support or sponsor research that harms animals. This policy extends to sponsored marketing activities. Activities that could endanger the animal's health, its life expectancy, its well-being or way of life would be prohibited under this policy. I would like to sincerely thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. But Khalil fired back: The company promotes itself with the principle, 'Respecting the animal nature of dogs and cats' and places companion animals' well-being at the center of their company philosophy. By sponsoring appalling bear baiting Royal Canin is reducing wild animals like the brown bear to the rank of second-class animals. Khalil added that bear-baiting is illegal in the Ukraine, "the brown bear is protected by law," he said, "and any activity which causes pain and suffering to a bear in captivity is banned." This chained bear is jerked and controlled by three men. They pull on the chain to prevent the bear from injuring the dogs. FOUR PAWS Ukraine Last year, FOUR PAWS estimates there are between 15 and 20 baiting-bears in Ukraine with most of them heralding from zoos, circuses or the wild. Taken from their mothers, they are FOUR PAWS rescued Nastia after she was wrestled away from her mother. Four Paws Dr. Khalil believes the pet food manufacturer's response was insufficient, and that the company should do more to make amends. "It is not enough for Royal Canin to distance themselves verbally from such activities," he said. Now that the Ukrainian government has asked FOUR PAWS to assist them in formulating a project to give the bears a species-appropriate home Kahlil explained, Royal Canin, "must take responsibility and support the government for all the bears concerned." For further information on bear-baiting and Four Paws, visit More: Four Paws provides The organization explained that it obtained video of one bear-baiting contest that took place in April 2013 near Vinnytsia, Ukraine.The video shows a chained brown bear unable to escape as two to three dogs are set upon it at approximately 10-minute intervals. 'During the competition, the bear's movements are controlled by three men yanking on its chain to restrict the animal's response. The panicked bear, unable to mount a defense, frantically begins to foam at the mouth. Off to the side, a referee awards points to each dog's owner.Dr. Amir Khalil, vet and project leader at Four Paws, says this can go on for hours, until the bear is left unable to fight.As men sit and watch the spectacle unfold before them, Royal Canin tape separates themfrom the arena area. Banners also bearing the Royal Canin name and logo are displayed over a table hosting the manufacturer's sponsored trophies. These trophies or "cups," are awarded to "the owners of the most aggressive dogs," said FOUR PAWS in a press release to Digital Journal.According to Four Paws, these contests are hosted at least four to six times per year and take place in special training camps for hunting dogs in the Ukraine. The organization added that it has, "evidence that Royal Canin has sponsored several of these gruesome spectacles over recent months."Despite repeated requests for a meeting, Four Paws alleges, Royal Canin has refused to discuss the matter, but did issue this statement via their Global Corporate Affairs Director, Hervé MARC:But Khalil fired back:Khalil added that bear-baiting is illegal in the Ukraine, "the brown bear is protected by law," he said, "and any activity which causes pain and suffering to a bear in captivity is banned."Bears are often targeted in the Ukraine. Used in bear-baiting activities, young bears are also often taken away from their mothers at an early age to be used as props in photo shoots with tourists.Last year, FOUR PAWS uncovered and eventually rescued a bear named Nastia after two keepers at Lutsk Zoo in the Ukraine were captured on video ripping the four-month-old bear cub from its mother and forcing her into a tiny box to be sold to traders.FOUR PAWS estimates there are between 15 and 20 baiting-bears in Ukraine with most of them heralding from zoos, circuses or the wild. Taken from their mothers, they aredeclawed and, "live cruel lives in tiny cages with nothing but a concrete floor," the organization said. Four Paws explained that these bears are often withheld from sustenance to weaken them for the hunting dogs, and only released from their cages, "for training or to be attacked by hunting dogs."Dr. Khalil believes the pet food manufacturer's response was insufficient, and that the company should do more to make amends."It is not enough for Royal Canin to distance themselves verbally from such activities," he said. Now that the Ukrainian government has asked FOUR PAWS to assist them in formulating a project to give the bears a species-appropriate home Kahlil explained, Royal Canin, "must take responsibility and support the government for all the bears concerned."For further information on bear-baiting and Four Paws, visit Four Paws Ukraine. The organization is asking the public to send letters of protest to Royal Canin.More: Four Paws provides further evidence of another Royal Canin sponsored bear-bait. More about royal canin sponsors bear baiting, royal canin, bear baiting, four paws, Ukraine More news from royal canin sponsors... royal canin bear baiting four paws Ukraine nastia the bear cubGameworlds have become ever-more lavish, but has there been a dark price paid for this? Craig Lager believes so. Production values are up but these worlds don’t seem to react to players’ actions as fulsomely as they once did, he worries – are we allowing games’ strange logic to take us for granted? But there is yet hope. Frowned at: Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Dragon Age II, Skyrim. Smiled at: The Witcher 2, Dwarf Fortress, Outcast. Please note these are Craig’s views, not necessarily those of RPS.
In my version of Human Revolution, the police station should be surrounded. There should be SWAT teams, negotiators, probably even an evacuation zone. Adam Jensen’s face should be being projected from every single screen that litters Detroit’s streets as Eliza explains him as being a more-than-prime-suspect in a new, horiffic incident. An hour ago, she would explain, Jensen asked for access to the police morgue and was declined. Now the back door has been broken into, and a path of corpses and hacked computers lead to the morgue in which a body has been clearly tampered with. Instead, Jensen walks into the main lobby and is greeted with “Hello”.
In my version of Dragon Age II, Hawke should have been executed a hundred times over. Ignoring The Circle he wanders around Ferelden raining down fireballs on common thieves, all the while accompanied by (and probably going to be sleeping with) a Blood Mage – the most illegal type of already illegal gone-rogue mage there is. He flaunts his magical prowess and barely an eyebrow is raised as he walks into the city barracks, embers still practically tumbling from his hands.
In my version of Oblivion, the hero should be exiled from Cyrodill. He’s been locked up more times than anyone can count. He saunters up to random people in the middle of city streets and beats them half to death with a club. Then he stands still and waits to get arrested. Over and over, the same cycle – beating, arrest, jail, breaking out of jail. Then, when the time comes, he’s warmly accepted into The Blades and handed weapons so he can ‘save the world’, without so much of a discussion about the psycopathic idiot that’s frequented the Black Horse Courier’s pages so often.
It goes on. It’s game logic, or rather, a lack of. There is a clear disparity between what a player does or wants to do and what game environments or characters know how to handle. The above examples are extreme cases, of course, but it happens all the time – how often have you set off an explosion, killed a man, or even half flattened a city with barely any repercussion or consequence? How many times have you been forced to game a conversation tree to fit closest to what your character wants to happen; or been pushed down one path even though another makes much more sense?
Frustratingly, the gap is getting bigger. More and more our choices are restricted to fewer possible outcomes or ways in which an environment can handle what we’re doing, and to boil it right down, it’s because of the level of technology we’ve come to expect and the costs that come with it.
To pluck a couple of old titles out of the air – Planescape, Outcast, even the original Deus Ex – they were incredibly reactive to what a player could do and gave a multitude of options in what a player could say. They could do this because to code in options was cheap (or at least cheaper). Now, though, because of the level of detailing we expect from a title, a large amount of money has to be pushed at each new option that’s presented to a player. A new dialogue branch (never mind complete separate path for a story to take), for example, isn’t just someone typing in some text or getting some more recorded and bolted in – it’s a wealth of motion captured facial animation and figuring out details down to where a characters eyes should be looking. A new enemy type isn’t a simple model and textures – each limb is intricately detailed and animated, and the same goes for a new NPC and each new quest line.
With new ideas of elements to put in games there is a simple rule: as they get more detailed, they get more expensive, and there is only so |
. It was in these unfavourable conditions that the intellectually debilitating but well-funded postmodern theories of French post-structuralists subsequently gained an unwelcome foothold within both academia and to some extent the mainstream media. As the Marxist literary theorist Terry Eagleton argues in his book Literary Theory: an Introduction (1983):
“Post-structuralism was a product of that blend of euphoria and disillusionment, liberation and dissipation, carnival and catastrophe, which was 1968. Unable to break the structures of state power, post-structuralism found it possible instead to subvert the structures of language. Nobody, at least, was likely to beat you over the head for doing so. The student movement was flushed off the streets and driven underground into discourse. Its enemies… became coherent belief-systems of any kind – in particular all forms of political theory and organization which sought to analyse, and act upon, the structures of society as a whole.” (p.142)
Of course these dead-end and intellectually incoherent currents of ‘leftist’ retreat did not remain confined to France — as exemplified by the Ford Foundation’s support of a two-year program of seminars in the mid-1960s which gave a boost to French structuralism on American shores. Yet in spite of such academic set-backs for those on the Left, the possibility of emancipatory working-class struggles developing are once again visible on capitalism’s inhumane horizon. Early signs of this revival can be seen by the resurgent popularity garnered for socialist political candidates like Bernie Sanders (in America), Jean-Luc Mélenchon (in France), and Jeremy Corbyn (in Britain).
No doubt, the ruling-class and their intelligence agencies will, at this very moment, be frantically drafting up new “research reports” so that they may orientate their political activities in a vain attempt to neutralise this growing mood of resistance. So this time around we have to ensure that we have learned the appropriate lessons from history. First and foremost we must refuse to allow any new socialist leaders to mislead us in our bid for freedom. And so we must be clear that if our leaders are not up to the task of helping us build a democratic and socialist alternative to the bankrupt status quo then we must be ready to replace them, and ultimately be willing to seize power for ourselves.If you're the sort of PlayStation owner who likes to pay for the privilege of playing online—and get free games every month to boot—today is a good day to spend some money. That's because, after today, the price of an annual PlayStation Plus subscription is increasing from $50 to $60 (yes, we mentioned this back in August, but some of you may not have marked your calendars).
It's not that much of an increase, when it comes down to it. Thanks to inflation, the $50 that Sony originally charged for PlayStation Plus when it launched in 2010 is equivalent to just over $55 in 2016 dollars. And the new $60 price matches what Microsoft has been charging for the highly similar Xbox Live Gold since 2010.
Still, there's no reason you should pay for the increase before you have to. If you purchase an additional year's subscription today (which stacks on top of any current subscription time), you can lock in the current $50 price until the next time you have to renew. That's $10 you can put toward one of the many interesting indie games on the PS4. Or, um, toward a couple of cups of coffee, I guess? Look, you use your fungible savings however you want, OK?We’ve seen Legos used for all sorts of things, from proposals to adding an extra level of epic to the year’s biggest trailers. But we’ve never seen anything quite like this.
Thanks to the creativity of Milan Sekiz, a 29-year-old graphic designer based in Serbia, we now have an idea of what a suit made of Lego would look like, and it is awesome. So far he only has an arm put together, but the amount of detail he put into it is incredible.
And did we mention it’s a moving, working arm?
Sekiz picked up photography in order to expand his graphic designing skills, and he most often photographs animals and food. But with Legos, he’s able to practice still photography without having to worry about other variables like moving subjects.
“Since I don’t possess infinite amount of Lego parts, when I build something I must destroy it, so I can build something else,” he said via email. “Sometimes that is quite a sad thing to do but that is Lego philosophy in the end, right? So instead of shelves with a bunch of my own creations I have a bunch photos on my hard drive.”
When it came to building his own suit of armor, he had inspiration from one of his favorite heroes and his new suit.
Although he started by modeling his Lego arm off Iron Man’s suit, he had to change his course in the middle of building it.
“First version was more like a simple model and looking more like Iron Man’s hand, but a lack of parts and a desire to make the arm move [made me] change design completely,” he said. “So now it’s looking more like ExoSuit from the Edge of Tomorrow movie or something like that.”
He shot some of the photos, and for the outside photos he had assistance from Moky Alletun. He plans to start making a Lego leg next, but that won’t be for some time; he’ll need more Lego parts, and he’s got plenty of ideas for photoshoots planned.
While Sekiz’s photos of the arm were originally posted to Flickr, they eventually made their way to Reddit thanks to his friend Igor, who posted the robotic arm in r/geek, r/lego, and r/GeekPorn. Reddit, naturally, loved it.
“[The reaction’s] mainly positive along with jokes like ‘one fast motion and Legos everywhere,’ ‘now you are equally strong but less mobile,’ ‘you are building a suit of virginity’ and stuff like that :),” he wrote. “But jokes are always welcome.”
All photos courtesy of Milan Sekiz and used with permissionThis page is about the first Halo game. For the 2011 remake, see Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.
Halo: Combat Evolved, also known as Halo 1 or Halo: CE, is a First-person shooter science-fiction video game, created by Bungie Studios, which was a subsidiary of Microsoft Game Studios at that time. It was released for the original Xbox game console on November 15, 2001, and is backward compatible with the Xbox 360 by downloading a free code patch on Xbox Live. It was also released as Halo PC for PC and Mac in 2005. Additionally, it is one of the most popular video games of all time for the original Xbox with five million copies sold, a figure rivaled only by its sequel Halo 2, which achieved eight million sales.[1]
Halo: Combat Evolved has been made available as an Xbox Original game title for the Xbox 360 since December 4, 2007 for download on Xbox Live Marketplace for 1200 Microsoft Points. In June 2012, the game's price was lowered to 800 Microsoft Points.[2] A 10th year edition of the game was released for the Xbox 360 called Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary on November 15, 2011, precisely 10 years after the original game, and the original Xbox, were released.
Contents show]
Campaign Edit
Halo's storyline is linear. There is only one ending. It is presented to the player through an instruction manual, scripted events, in-game conversations, and a number of cut-scenes rendered using the game's graphics engine. This method of storyline delivery is common among modern video games. The Xbox version of Halo: Combat Evolved allows one player to play the campaign alone, as well as allow two players to play through the campaign in split screen. The PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved allows only one player to play through the campaign.
The Halo: Combat Evolved Campaign consists of 10 levels:
Summary Edit
UNSC Pillar of Autumn emerges from Slipspace to find a huge ring — a "Halo" floating in space. The main character, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, is aboard the Pillar of Autumn when the ship comes under attack by the Covenant, an alliance of aliens and the mortal enemies of humanity. John-117 evacuates the doomed ship for the surface of Halo to protect the Autumn's artificial intelligence, Cortana. She carries highly sensitive military information, which would prove disastrous if she were captured by the Covenant. With the UNSC Marines by his side, Cortana providing direction, and his assault rifle ready and loaded, John-117 sets to finding out the mysteries of Halo and defeating the Covenant.
Plot Edit
The first few levels of the game deal with an attempt to reach Halo's Control Room to uncover its purpose. It is soon discovered that during an attempt to take control of a research facility, both human and Covenant forces have accidentally released something: the Flood, as a result of the battle. The Flood is a parasitic race which received their name because of the way they swarm over all resistance. Free for the first time in thousands of years, the Flood sweeps across Halo, devastating Human and Covenant forces alike. The release of the Flood prompts 343 Guilty Spark, the eccentric Forerunner artificial intelligence, to activate Halo's defense systems. Most obvious among these are the Sentinels, flying robots equipped with beam projectors, but Halo's actual weapon is much more subtle and far more dangerous. Halo can fire a pulse that will wipe out all sentient life in a 25,000 light year radius. As sentient life is the Flood's food, the Flood will not be able to survive, and will therefore perish. Though the Installation only has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light years, the pulse will trigger other installations as well. This system is designed to stop the Flood from spreading through the universe if they escape confinement from Halo, by starving the Flood of any life source large enough to sustain them. This is the only possible solution to the destructive parasite.
Naturally, this would wipe out Humanity as well as the Covenant, and so the final levels of the game revolve around John's attempt to destroy Halo before it fires.
The game leaves the story open to further developments, with the revelation that there are several Halo ring worlds in the galaxy, due to Halo being numbered Installation 04 by 343 Guilty Spark, the Monitor of the Installation. It is revealed later in Halo 2 that there were seven Halos before Installation 04's destruction.
Backstory Edit
The events which transpire in Halo's gameplay must be understood in the context of its backstory, created by Bungie and elaborated in several novels written after the release of the game. Noteworthy is its use of the oft-used battle between monoculture radicalism and free culturalism. Also present, although less pronounced, is the likewise popular theme of blind religion (Covenant) versus free-thought secularism (UNSC). A summary of this back story is presented below.
Early conflicts Edit
Main article: History of the United Nations Space Command
2160-2200: This is a period of brutal unrest in Human history in which National governments and break-off factions fight for control of Earth and its colonies.
As overpopulation and unrest mounted on Earth, a number of new political movements were formed including the neo-communist Koslovics, led by Vladimir Koslov, and the neo-fascist Frieden based on the Jovian Moons, which attacked the UN Colonial Advisers on one of the moons. UN-sponsored military forces began a pattern of massive build-ups which culminated in the Jovian Moons campaign, the Rain Forest Wars and the first Interplanetary War. After the successful Marine attack on Mars, recruitment drives and propaganda tactics strongly bolstered UNSC forces. They defeated the Koslovics and the Frieden on Earth and crushed their remnants throughout the Solar System. Both factions were defeated in the face of massive, unified UN military.
Human colonization of the Orion Arm Edit
In the year 2291, the UNSC successfully developed humanity's first Slipspace drive, the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. For the first time in history, the rapid colonization of other worlds was made possible. By 2390, 210 worlds had been occupied by humans, and were being actively terraformed to suit man's needs. These worlds were to become known as the Inner colonies. By 2490, the UNSC's fledgling interstellar empire had expanded to over 800 planets throughout the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. During this period, the planet Reach became the headquarters of the UNSC military, and was destined to become the most heavily fortified world under human control.
The SPARTAN-II Project Edit
In 2517, several years before contact with the Covenant, the UNSC military embarked on a secret project to create a group of super soldiers that would deal with occasional unrest in the Colonies. Codenamed SPARTANs, these genetically enhanced troops were trained from the age of 6 into a life of battle, and became a great asset against the Covenant. While humans suffered defeat after defeat in space, they could almost always prevail with the help of the SPARTANs in ground engagements. The main character of Halo's gameplay, John-117, is a veteran SPARTAN of the SPARTAN-II project after an unfortunate failure of the first SPARTAN program (code name Orion). All SPARTAN-IIs were given special armor designated Mjolnir, which can increase their strength and speed. They were the only ones who could wear it as those without physical augmentation would not be able to withstand the reaction times of the armor and die.
Fall of the Outer Colonies Edit
After first contact with the Covenant was made on the colony of Harvest in 2525, a series of brutal engagements followed. Admiral Preston Cole's fleet managed a victory at Harvest, but at a high cost - two thirds of his ships were destroyed. Despite significant tactical brilliance on the part of Human commanders, Covenant technology guaranteed a four to one kill/loss ratio in most space battles. One by one, the Outer Colonies fell below the onslaught, and by 2535, virtually all had been destroyed.
Fall of Reach Edit
Main article: Fall of Reach
By 2552, the Covenant had destroyed many of Humanity's Inner colonies. In a move of desperation, UNSC orders a secret plan to capture a Covenant ship using a SPARTAN task force and find the coordinates of their home planet. All of the Spartans except three are chosen for this mission, and, led by John-117, board a specially outfitted ship known as the Pillar of Autumn (under the command of Captain Jacob Keyes). This plan, however, is interrupted when the Covenant launch a surprise attack on the fortress world of Reach.
During this battle, Reach is overrun and the human fleet is obliterated. Worse still, John-117 thinks that all of the SPARTANs but himself are killed on the surface of the planet. The (supposedly) last remaining Spartan, John-117, escapes with the Pillar of Autumn. In accordance with the Cole Protocol, the Autumn makes a blind Slipspace jump, and emerges in the vicinity of an unexplored and remarkable world.
Arrival at Halo Edit
Main article: Installation 04
The Pillar of Autumn exits Slipspace to find a mysterious ring shaped space station orbiting a gas giant. The ring, quickly named "Halo," is obviously artificial. A Covenant fleet, however, is also present, and a subsequent battle heavily damages the Autumn. Captain Keyes initiates the Cole protocol 2 - all records of Earth's location are erased, the shipboard AI Cortana is given to John-117 to protect from the Covenant, and the Autumn is crash landed onto Halo. Cortana leaves the Autumn with John-117 in a Bumblebee escape pod which also crash lands on Halo.
Game play begins in earnest with John-117's escape from the Autumn, and continues upon landing. The player will soon discover the origins and purpose of this world - and uncover a threat that forces even the Covenant into retreat.
As a literary side note, the ring, "Halo," borrows heavily from the Ringworld of Larry Niven and the Culture Orbitals of Iain M. Banks.
Features Edit
Summary Edit
Halo's gameplay was characterized by several features which set it apart from less acclaimed first-person shooter games of its time.
Storyline Execution: Halo's gameplay and storyline are tightly interwoven, delivering in a convincing manner being consistent with the flow of the game.
s gameplay and storyline are tightly interwoven, delivering in a convincing manner being consistent with the flow of the game. Vehicular Incorporation: Halo includes the option for players to control multiple land and air based vehicles in third-person view. This Third-Person vantage brings a welcomed sense of immersion and enhances the specific points of gameplay, again setting Halo apart from contemporary first person shooters.
includes the option for players to control multiple land and air based vehicles in third-person view. This Third-Person vantage brings a welcomed sense of immersion and enhances the specific points of gameplay, again setting Halo apart from contemporary first person shooters. Weapons System: Halo's new weapons system is unique in two major respects. The first is allowing players to carry only two weapons at a time, thus forcing the player to make trade-offs as they progress throughout the game. The second change is a separate button for throwing Grenades.
s new weapons system is unique in two major respects. The first is allowing players to carry only two weapons at a time, thus forcing the player to make trade-offs as they progress throughout the game. The second change is a separate button for throwing Grenades. Artificial Intelligence: Halo's AI is quite sophisticated for its era. With a brand new advanced AI system, actions performed by the AI such as panicking after the death of a superior, diving out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, or taking cover from explosives and suppressive fire, helped Halo stand out from the rest of the first-person shooters being released at the time.
Movement in Halo is similar to other first-person shooters, allowing the player to move forwards, backwards, and strafe left and right independently of their aim. On the Xbox, moving and aiming are normally separated between the two analogue sticks; and on the PC, between the mouse and the keyboard. Halo also allows the player to crouch and jump, although jumping from a high ledge will often result in death, or at least major fall damage. Damage from falling can be reduced or negated entirely with a well-timed crouch right as one lands. Additionally, if the player crouches at the peak of his jump he will be able to land on something slightly taller than if he were to jump without crouching. Also, if the player is jumping from a cliff he can make sure he is touching the wall periodically while he is falling. This will count as if he is touching floor, and every time the player touches the wall, the damage counter goes to zero. However, there is no visible damage counter during gameplay.
Levels of difficulty Edit
There are short summaries that describe the difficulties in Halo: Combat Evolved.
Easy: Your foes cower and fall before your unstoppable onslaught, yet final victory will leave you wanting more.
Your foes cower and fall before your unstoppable onslaught, yet final victory will leave you wanting more. Normal: Hordes of aliens vie to destroy you, but nerves of steel and a quick trigger finger give you a solid chance to prevail.
Hordes of aliens vie to destroy you, but nerves of steel and a quick trigger finger give you a solid chance to prevail. Heroic: Your enemies are as numerous as they are ferocious; their attacks are devastating. Survival is not guaranteed.
Your enemies are as numerous as they are ferocious; their attacks are devastating. Survival is not guaranteed. Legendary: You face opponents who have never known defeat, who laugh in alien tongues at your efforts to survive. This is suicide.
Enemies Edit
The A.I. in Halo was superior to many other games at the time because the A.I. was sophisticated enough to attack other enemies in the vicinity, not just John-117. If there is another faction in the area, the A.I. will engage it in the same way as they would fight John-117.
Three factions of enemies are encountered on Halo:
The Covenant : The Covenant, whose Fleet of Particular Justice was led by the Supreme Commander, Thel 'Vadamee, is an alliance of different species. This includes the cowardly Unggoy, the Kig-Yar with their portable Energy Shields, the Sangheili, master tacticians with their body-covering Energy Shields, and the huge, metal Hunters with remarkably strong armor composed of some unknown alloy. The Covenant troops mostly carry plasma weapons of various power. They also make extensive use of vehicles such as Ghosts, Wraiths, Shades, and Banshees.
: The Covenant, whose Fleet of Particular Justice was led by the Supreme Commander, Thel 'Vadamee, is an alliance of different species. This includes the cowardly Unggoy, the Kig-Yar with their portable Energy Shields, the Sangheili, master tacticians with their body-covering Energy Shields, and the huge, metal Hunters with remarkably strong armor composed of some unknown alloy. The Covenant troops mostly carry plasma weapons of various power. They also make extensive use of vehicles such as Ghosts, Wraiths, Shades, and Banshees. The Flood : The parasitic Flood are encountered in three forms. The Infection Forms themselves, which usually die from a single shot or John-117's energy shield. Exploding Carrier Forms, which cause major splash damage and release Infection Forms. Not forgetting the Combat Forms of former Humans or Sangheili whose nervous systems have been taken over by the parasite. Combat forms are the main and toughest of the three types. They often carry a Human or Covenant weapon.
: The parasitic Flood are encountered in three forms. The Infection Forms themselves, which usually die from a single shot or John-117's energy shield. Exploding Carrier Forms, which cause major splash damage and release Infection Forms. Not forgetting the Combat Forms of former Humans or Sangheili whose nervous systems have been taken over by the parasite. Combat forms are the main and toughest of the three types. They often carry a Human or Covenant weapon. Sentinels: These ancient robotic constructs are controlled by the Forerunner AI Monitor of Installation 04, 343 Guilty Spark. He is tasked with the defense of the ring against possible threats and to control the Flood infestations. Sentinels fire an orange colored beam that can strip hostiles of their Energy Shields. This weapon is designed to burn the Flood and has proven effective against many other enemies.
Allies Edit
UNSC Marines : The Pillar of Autumn's complement of Marines assists the player often in the game. They are helpful, but on higher difficulties they are easily killed by enemies. They wield a variety of weapons. These include the Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Needler, and Plasma Rifle. Marines armed with Assault Rifles will occasionally throw Fragmentation Grenades. The Marines will willingly ride in Scorpions and Warthogs with the player and use the Chaingun on the Warthog while the player is driving. Unfortunately they are incapable of actually driving either vehicle. The only vehicle that Marines can drive is the Ghost, which they pilot only briefly. They appear in every level until the Library. When Marines are near death they will go into a berserk state, attacking every visible enemy.
: The complement of Marines assists the player often in the game. They are helpful, but on higher difficulties they are easily killed by enemies. They wield a variety of weapons. These include the Assault Rifle, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Needler, and Plasma Rifle. Marines armed with Assault Rifles will occasionally throw Fragmentation Grenades. The Marines will willingly ride in Scorpions and Warthogs with the player and use the Chaingun on the Warthog while the player is driving. Unfortunately they are incapable of actually driving either vehicle. The only vehicle that Marines can drive is the Ghost, which they pilot only briefly. They appear in every level until the Library. When Marines are near death they will go into a berserk state, attacking every visible enemy. UNSC Crewmen : The crewmen of the Pillar of Autumn appear briefly as allies in the game. They are armed with Pistols, but occasionally appear in combat unarmed. They have lower health than Marines and are prone to retreating and cowering in battle. They only appear in the levels Pillar of Autumn and Halo. One melee is often enough to kill them and their habit of cowering tend to make them an obstacle to their comrades.
: The crewmen of the appear briefly as allies in the game. They are armed with Pistols, but occasionally appear in combat unarmed. They have lower health than Marines and are prone to retreating and cowering in battle. They only appear in the levels and. One melee is often enough to kill them and their habit of cowering tend to make them an obstacle to their comrades. Sentinels: Part of Halo's defense system, the Forerunner Sentinels, led by the Monitor 343 Guilty Spark, are hovering robotic drones. They attack the Flood, Covenant, and eventually John-117. Although possessing a powerful Beam Weapon, they are not particularly resistant to damage (Their shields are especially vulnerable to Covenant weaponry, especially overcharged Plasma Pistols and explosives). They are seen as Normal and Shielded variants although both can be destroyed relatively easily. They help the player in the levels 343 Guilty Spark and The Library, but are enemies from the level Two Betrayals until the end of the game, acting as a Fourth Faction that attacks the Flood, Covenant, and the player when encountered.
Weapons Edit
All usable weapons in Halo: Combat Evolved belong to either the Covenant or the UNSC. The player can carry two weapons and up to 8 grenades (Four Fragmentation Grenades and Four Plasma Grenades).
Covenant weapons are better suited for reducing shields and typically fire slower than human weapons. With the exception of the Needler, they do not require ammunition or reloading. Instead, each weapon comes with its own battery. Once the battery is depleted the weapon must be discarded. Covenant weapons can also overheat (except the Needler) if fired for too long, after which they must be given time to cool down before they can be used again. There are a total of five Covenant weapons in the Campaign, three of which are usable by the player: the Plasma Pistol, Plasma Rifle, and the Needler. The two weapons the player can't use are the Energy Sword, which destabilizes after you kill the Sangheili using it, and the Fuel Rod Gun, which explodes after you kill the enemy using it. There are two additional weapons in the multiplayer mode of the PC version only, the Fuel Rod Gun and Flamethrower. A plasma based weapon of the same type but with greater charge than the player's current one will appear as a swappable weapon. If the weapon has lesser charge, it is not swappable until the player's current charge falls low enough. Needlers automatically collect any ammunition from other needlers the player moves over. Needlers can also use some very rare individual packs of projectiles.
Human weapons, on the other hand, require ammunition and constant reloading. They are better suited for reducing health and do not overheat. However, on the Easy and Normal difficulty settings the difference is often negligible. There are five human weapons (not counting Fragmentation Grenades) usable in the Campaign and six in the Multiplayer of the Halo PC.
UNSC weapons Edit
Pistol - The M6D is a powerful, accurate weapon that can be used up to 124 meters. It has good magazine capacity (12 rounds), a 2X zoom scope for semi-sniping, and its bullets create a very small explosion on impact. The M6D Pistol is semi-automatic and recoil operated. If used correctly it can be the best back up weapon in the game, especially when you are sniping and don't have a Sniper Rifle. It can kill another player with three shots to the head and can dispatch a Hunter with one shot to the back if you accurately hit their exposed flesh. It has been said to be one of the most effective weapons in the game, as it is fast, accurate, and deadly in the hands of a professional. In fact, the only level it does not appear in, "Truth and Reconciliation," is made difficult without this weapon, so the Sniper Rifle with more ammo capacity is used instead.
Assault Rifle - The MA5B Assault Rifle is an automatic gas operated rifle that fires 7.62x51mm armor-piercing rounds. It has low damage per hit, and low accuracy at medium to long ranges. This weapon is good for close and medium ranges. The player will start off with one in most levels. It is a decent all around weapon, with a fast melee and good maneuverability. It is one of the best weapons against infection forms, Unggoy, invisible Sangheili, and sometimes Hunters. An interesting note is that no matter what weapons you're wielding, all of the cutscenes in Halo: Combat Evolved have John-117 holding an Assault Rifle - even in Two Betrayals, where your starting weapons are the M90 Shotgun and the Plasma Pistol.
have John-117 holding an Assault Rifle - even in, where your starting weapons are the M90 Shotgun and the Plasma Pistol. Shotgun - the M90 Shotgun is practically the best weapon for picking off Flood Combat Forms and Carrier Forms, killing them with one hit if you are close enough. It is highly effective against Sangheili also. The shotgun fires a burst of 15 pellets, causing enemies in close range to be completely decimated in less than a second. Medium range is not so effective, and long range is useless altogether. Its close range capabilities are unmatched and are what makes it so effective against the Flood.
Sniper Rifle - The S2 variant of the Sniper Rifle features a night vision enhancement to the scope, which plays an essential part at the start of Truth and Reconciliation. Its devastating power and range make it a formidable part of your arsenal. It carries four bullets per magazine and can pick off most enemies instantly, depending on their rank and the difficulty the player is playing. The Flood are barely affected by this weapon, sometimes taking 12 sniper shots to kill one. Thus, it is not worth the ammunition, which is often hard to come by on levels featuring the Flood.
Rocket Launcher - The Rocket Launcher is a devastating piece of equipment when used correctly. The Rocket Launcher will kill anything with one direct hit except Hunters and higher-ranking Sangheili on Legendary difficulty. It is the player's best choice against vehicles and groups of infantry.
Fragmentation Grenade - The technically named M9 HE-DP grenade, more commonly known as a Frag Grenade, will easily kill anything without a shield. Its bounciness gives it the edge in distance over the Plasma Grenade and it also packs a lot of force and splash damage. This means it is useful for Grenade Jumps.
Warthog LAAG - The LRV Light Anti Aircraft Turret is always equipped on the back of a Warthog, serving its purpose of eliminating enemies and vehicles quickly and effectively. Prolonged fire degrades accuracy.
Flamethrower - Usable only in multiplayer in Halo PC. It launches a stream of burning fuel over a relatively short distance, causing damage to enemies in front of the weapon and hurting them after they have been hit. It also has a very limited ability to set a surface on fire for a very short period of time. It fires from a unit mounted fuel tank that counts down from 100 to 0 units of fuel.
Covenant weapons Edit
Energy Sword - A deadly weapon used by Zealot Sangheili and Field Master Sangheili. It can kill the player in one hit (although not on Easy difficulty where it takes three). It is advisable to dispatch the wielder quickly. The player cannot use the Energy Sword due to a built in fail safe.
Plasma Rifle - It is a common light weapon in the Covenant army, only wielded by Sangheili. The Plasma Rifle has a high rate of fire and deals out a moderate amount of damage. A Plasma Rifle with a shotgun makes a good combo, Plasma Rifle for medium range and shotgun for close range. On Legendary, the Plasma Rifle is the most effective mid to close range weapon, best paired with an M90 Shotgun. It is also very useful for depleting Sangheili shields.
Plasma Pistol - The Plasma Pistol, like the Plasma Rifle, is a directed energy weapon that fires bolts of superheated ionized gas otherwise known as plasma. Continuous application of the firing mechanism will allow a buildup of plasma, called overcharging that, when fired, will instantly and completely deplete shields regardless of strength. This overcharging makes it a valuable weapon in Multiplayer and against Sangheili, Kig-Yar, and Sentinels in Campaign, usually when paired with an M6D Pistol. An overcharged Plasma Pistol also has a limited tracking ability, which can be useful to take down fast moving Sentinels and unsuspecting Sangheili.
Needler - The Needler fires semi-homing crystal shards that explode approximately ten seconds after being launched and ignore most forms of personal energy shielding. While one explosion produces fairly light damage, several crystals exploding in succession can multiply the damage to fatal levels, and even more crystals in the same enemy will produce a large explosion. It is strange that independent ammunition that isn't already in another Needler is only available in 343 Guilty Spark.
. Fuel Rod Gun - The Fuel Rod Gun is used by the strongest and weakest of the Covenant species. It is carried on the shoulders of many Special Operations Unggoy, and a modified version is directly attached on the right arm of Hunters. In Campaign mode the gun explodes when its Covenant wielder is killed. It is wieldable in the PC version on most multiplayer maps. It has a limited battery when used by a player.
Plasma Grenade - The Covenant Plasma Grenade is one of the most ingenious weapons in the game. Once activated, its outer layer converts to plasma, enabling it to fuse/stick to whatever it impacts (except for most walls and Hunter armor). It generates an electro-magnetic pulse that drains instantly any kind of shielding, no matter how strong it is, making it deadly even to enemies who survive the initial explosion. It is also handy for sticking enemies themselves, especially Unggoy, who tend to run toward their comrades when panicking, as well as Sangheili Zealots.
Shade - A stationary gun turret manned in third-person like a vehicle. It consists of a stand and a floating 360 degree rotating turret-like seat with control systems to its gun. It has a strong anti-tank ability, but the Covenant use it mainly against infantry. It can be manned by Sangheili, Unggoy and the player and is similar to the turret mounted on Spirit-class drop ships.
Vehicles Edit
The vehicles available to the player in this game are listed below:
Warthog - A UNSC Light Reconnaissance Vehicle. The Warthog sports a 12.7mm Gatling style M41 Light Anti Air Gun turret that can tear through armor and shields alike.
Warthog LAAV - A UNSC Light Anti-Armor Vehicle. The M12A1 is another variant of the Warthog with a triple barreled 102mm Rocket Launcher. It only shoots three rockets before reloading. Available only in Multiplayer on the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved.
Scorpion - A UNSC Main Battle Tank. It has a powerful 90 mm cannon mounted on a turret, affixed to the rear of the chassis. It also features a 7.62mm machine gun aside the main cannon. It should be noted that both the main cannon and machine gun are inaccurate at medium to long range distances.
Ghost - A Covenant Reconnaissance and Rapid Attack Vehicle. Its twin Plasma Cannons complement its high speed and agility, Allowing the user to blast enemies with the guns and run them into the ground. It is destructible in Campaign. It also has a feature that increases anti-gravity power in the front, causing the Ghost to nose up. This can be used to stabilize the Ghost after gliding over a cliff or hill, or to splatter opposition. Unlike Halo 2 and 3, this model has no boost but fires faster than its later models.
Banshee - A Covenant Aerial Assault Aircraft. Very maneuverable. Armed with two plasma cannons and a fuel rod cannon. The Banshee's armor is strongest in front and very weak on the sides and back. It is destructible in Campaign but is, like all vehicles, impervious to permanent destruction in Halo PC's multiplayer. Unlike Halo 2 and 3, this model has no boost, and fires slower, making it an earlier, less effective model. The Banshee is unavailable in Multiplayer in the Xbox version. It is probably the lightest vehicle as it can take less than a M6D magazine before it blows.
Several vehicles are not controllable by the player, like the UNSC Pelican Dropship, the Covenant Spirit dropship, and the Covenant Wraith Mortar Tank. The Wraith requires ballistic aiming, firing large Plasma Bombs in arcs towards its enemies, similar to artillery. These bombs, if they score a direct hit, will often destroy vehicles or kill a Spartan if he/she is not equipped with an Overshield. Wraiths can be destroyed with explosive weapons such as the Scorpion's Main Cannon and the Rocket Launcher.
Also, it is very easy to splatter enemies in Halo: Combat Evolved because the game's physics engine cannot discern between a fast and slow-moving vehicle, thus making it so that a slight touch, even by accident, will kill it. This is especially frustrating on the level "The Silent Cartographer"'s LZ, as Marines tend to dive underneath the level's many Warthogs, and in multiplayer, since the player can easily be killed by unoccupied vehicles.
Environments Edit
Halo features a wide variety of environments including human and Covenant star ships, ancient buildings on Halo itself, and expansive outdoor climates. The first level, Pillar of Autumn, is fought entirely on the human star ship of the same name. The next level, Halo, takes place in a temperate highland climate with open-air Forerunner structures scattered about. This level also contains the famous "Blue Beam Towers." Truth and Reconciliation begins in a rocky desert, but the setting changes to the titular Covenant cruiser about one-third of the way through. The Silent Cartographer occurs on a tropical island, with substantial combat both outdoors and inside futuristic Forerunner installations. Assault on the Control Room takes place in a snowy, icy area of towering cliffs and underground tunnels as well as high-tech suspension bridges and oft-repeated Forerunner structures built into and through cliff walls.
343 Guilty Spark is a significant departure from these majestic environments, with combat in gloomy, exotic swamps and equally gloomy underground complexes that host the player's introduction |
Florida that culminates with a 7:15 p.m. arrival in Jacksonville.
Train stations
Some of the cities - including Biloxi, Gulfport and Bay St. Louis - will be prepared to showcase renovated train stations. Over the years, since Amtrak ceased operations, some stations have been repurposed for offices and tourism, while others have been redesigned for retail.
Biloxi plans to illustrate its renovated station that serves as a "multi-modal" operation from which buses depart for Greyhound trips and public transit.
Biloxi city officials are touting its facility as the "only stop that has a multi-modal transit center right on the tracks" and in close proximity to nearby casinos and MGM Park, where the Double A-affiliated Shuckers play minor league baseball.
"It was built there because we wanted Amtrak to come back some day," said Vincent Creel, the city's spokesman. "We just think this will be a huge economic development tool for all four states. Hopefully, the four states can come to an arrangement where they will see viability to this."
In Mobile, the station that once served Amtrak's Sunset Limited line is long gone, a casualty following Katrina's devastation.
And there are questions about where a new train station could be built. Mayor Sandy Stimpson has said that the station's former site, at the foot of Government Street, could be better suited for other uses. Right now, it's a parking lot for nearby Cooper Riverside Park.
Mobile's focus
But the Stimpson administration is placing an emphasis on reducing the amount of traffic on Water Street, a busy six-lane thoroughfare that separates the city's waterfront - which features a convention center, a new maritime museum and the Alabama Cruise Terminal - from the rest of downtown.
An Amtrak train stop would presumably be located east of Water Street.
The Mobile City Council is expected, on Tuesday, to approve a $238,459 engineering contract with Thompson Engineering Inc. for a redesign of Water Street from Beauregard south to Government Street. The idea is to shrink the number of lanes, through striping and landscaping, from six to four.
The city anticipates the overall project to cost around $2 million.
Colby Cooper, chief of staff to Stimpson, said that an Amtrak train station could be a component of the overall project.
"What we're facing is all opportunities whether it's Amtrak coming back or accessibility or biking to the waterfront," said Cooper, who will be on the inspection train trip. "The last thing we want to do is, if a station comes back, should Amtrak (return), to not have it reap the effect we want it to."
Mobile could be poised to be a rail hub with its position along the east-west Gulf Coast corridor as well as a north-south route that is being analyzed by the city of Montgomery's planning department. The former Gulf Breeze route, active from 1989-1995, ran from Mobile through Bay Minette and Atmore on the way to Montgomery before connecting into Birmingham.
Talks of Mobile as an Amtrak 'hub' surface ahead of rail meeting Several routes could be explored for the restoration of passenger rail through Mobile during a Southern Rail Commission meeting Friday morning at the Battlehouse Hotel.
Wily Blankenship, CEO of the Coastal Alabama Partnership, said he's not interested in looking back - when Amtrak ran through Mobile and was underutilized because of poor performance. Blankenship said the key purpose of Thursday's trip is to look "at what could be."
"I think the world is a lot different place than it was 10 years ago when the passenger rail came through Mobile," he said. "Everything is about timing. It's time the Alabama Gulf Coast has alternatives for transportation."
Momentum builds for Amtrak's Gulf Coast return A Dec. 4 Southern Rail Commission meeting in Mobile is expected to focus on the revival of a Gulf Coast rail service headed up by Amtrak. A report is expected to be released.
But even if the train trips were still only a few times a week, some cities are ready to pounce. "Passenger rail is really important to Pascagoula. We have the state's largest employer in Ingalls Shipbuilding and the Chevron refinery. Having a rail service, even if it doesn't run daily and people can catch a commuter train a couple times a week, it would really improve people's quality of life," said Anne Pitre, a spokeswoman with the city of Pascagoula.
And making a good impression Thursday is part of the plan for coastal cities.
"We are not telling the communities what they can and should do other than to have a podium and a microphone," said Magliari. If they are going beyond that, it will be impressive, but it's not something we've created. It's the community's own enthusiasm."“End of Nations is a tactical MOBA.” Er, hang on. It wasn’t always. Petroglyph’s free-to-play work-in-progress spent at least a year as an massively-multiplayer RTS before publishers Trion Worlds (them behind Rift) took it under their own developmental wing. For the past six months, it seems they’ve been refashioning EoN’s real-time tactical premise to bring it in line with the LoLs, Dotas and Infinite Crises of this world.
A new beta sign-up site has risen to the surface of the internet overnight. On it are the visogs of five common-or-garden RTS units – a neon whirlybird, a tracked tank, an orange Transformer, a winged APV, and some metal plates glued to an ambulance.
But what’s this? They’ve all been given fierce Marvel-style monikers: Sidewinder. Sluicegater. Decibel. Hippocrates. Colonel Boze. The Judge. I’ve made only one of those up, and it’s probably not the one you think.
All, incidentally, look like they might potentially chug-chug-chug their way between vehicular and humanoid forms – though that’s wholly speculatory on my part. Let’s have Trion do some of the explaining:
“End of Nations is a tactical MOBA where your success on the battlefield depends on the heroes and units you command and quick decision making in the heat of combat,” they write. “Dominate during team-based matches and catapult your commander to the top of the ranks.”
That certainly sounds like a MOBA. Which is a bit odd, because when Trion brought End of Nations in-house in December, they were all for building on Petroglyph’s existing work with a few extra licks of polish, some learning curve tweaks and a revamped UI. This appears to be an utterly different prospect, sharing only a free-to-play model with its namesake.
Are Trion wise to follow the widely-practiced way of the MOBA? Or is this yet another Zerg (nail) in the base (coffin) of the traditional RTS?It's been a rocky ride for Uber in the Australian state of Queensland.
The ride-sharing service has been set back by a raft of new regulations by the state's government, and now it's hitting back with a slow, old piece of transportation and some printed sheets of paper.
Horse and cart was the method of delivery for 15,000 printed emails from Uber's customers to Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday. Yes, a horse and cart.
The emails were from really mad Queenslanders who just want to be able to Uber around town, but the state government is trying to stop them.
"Recently, more than 15,000 people emailed members of parliament to voice their support for ridesharing," Uber Queensland's General Manager Sam Bool said in a statement emailed to Mashable Australia.
"Unfortunately, thousands of these emails were deliberately blocked by the parliament and were not received. To ensure the voices of those that want ridesharing in Queensland will still be heard, today we hand delivered these emails to the premier's office."
A bill cracking down on ride-sharing services was passed on Apr. 20, with fines of A$2,356 for Uber drivers who are caught, with administrators of illegal taxi services penalised up to A$23,560, according to the ABC.
Uber created a form ahead of the vote on the bill for Queensland customers to voice their concerns via email to members of parliament. In the days after, emails from the form began to bounce back. The parliament's speaker, Peter Wellington, confirmed to the Brisbane Times that it was as deliberate decision to automatically block these emails.
"Whether these emails were, in fact, being generated by individuals or individuals utilising some sort of feeder system, or simply being auto generated and were a type of email bomb or blast, one result of these emails was to compromise the Parliamentary Service's email system and members' ability to communicate," Wellington said.
"In these circumstances the Clerk took the decision to auto block these emails to prevent the overload of our members' email accounts," Wellington added.
@Uber delivers letters to @AnnastaciaMP office via horse and cart demanding change in a modern world. @tennewsqld pic.twitter.com/iJKn312ukc — Lauren Day (@Lauren_Day_Ten) May 3, 2016
Bool said in the statement that the blocking of emails is hypocritical, citing the government's recent conference on innovation.
"It's curious that a government, who only last week held a conference on innovation, would block the technology that allowed them to hear from their constituents. We'll be interested to see whether the people who wrote to their premier will receive a response in the mail or through updated, modern regulations that recognise their right to choose how they get around," Bool said.
We'll bet that the blocking of 15,000 physical letters is no easy feat, however.
UPDATE: May 3, 2016, 4:05 p.m. AEST The email form sent by Uber had been sent prior to the vote on the bill, not after as originally stated.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.Image caption Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, died in March
Toxicology tests have shown that two teenagers whose deaths were linked to mephedrone had not taken the drug.
The deaths of Louis Wainwright, 18, and Nicholas Smith, 19, in March 2010 sparked concern about the synthetic stimulant, which was then legal.
The Labour government banned the "legal high" in April, making it a Class B drug.
Former chief drugs adviser Prof David Nutt said the test results undermined the reasons behind the ban.
But Professor Les Iverson, the current chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), said the decision to recommend a ban on mephedrone was based on "thorough research".
Categorisation row
It is thought further tests are being conducted to try to establish what, if any, substances the pair had taken.
Mephedrone - also known as Meow, Bubbles and M-CAT - is derived from cathinone, a compound found in a plant called Khat.
Humberside Police, which carried out the initial investigation into the teenagers' deaths, said in March it had "information to suggest these deaths are linked to M-CAT".
At the time, police believed the pair, both from Scunthorpe, had been drinking and had also taken methadone - a similar-sounding but completely different drug to mephedrone.
On Friday, a spokeswoman said the force could not confirm or deny the results of the toxicology tests.
She said: "The pathology report, which includes toxicology findings, is prepared on behalf of the coroner and is not yet complete.
"The findings of the report, once completed, will be forwarded to the coroner and may be discussed at any inquest and will not be disclosed without the authority of HM Coroner."
North East Lincolnshire Coroners Court has refused to comment ahead of the inquest.
Political aspects
At the time, the ban on mephedrone - which catagorised it alongside amphetamines and cannabis - caused a row amongst some politicians and scientists.
The Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) had recommended a ban, saying the substance was "likely to be harmful" despite incomplete research.
Analysis Until Louis Wainwright and Nicholas Smith died most people hadn't heard of mephedrone. But the teenagers' deaths, moving interviews with their parents and police warnings about the drug changed all that. Suddenly there was an urgency to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs' review into mephedrone, which it had embarked on several months earlier. A fortnight after the teenagers died, the ACMD's review was completed: its recommendation that mephedrone should be banned was immediately accepted by the then Home Secretary, Alan Johnson. It all happened before the election, prompting claims that the ban was a political move and ministers should have waited for further evidence. These latest developments will fuel those accusations: but the evidence gathered by the ACMD about the dangers of mephedrone pointed towards a ban - regardless of the tragic events in Scunthorpe.
But the leading medical journal The Lancet questioned the ban, saying it had been rushed and politics had been allowed to "contaminate" science.
Two members of the committee quit in quick succession during the row.
One of them, Eric Carlin, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme the decision to ban the drug should be "revisited" in light of the findings, and the "public health consequences" of the ban needed to be considered.
"The fact these two people died and it's not actually connected with mephedrone just emphasises the fact that we were under a lot of pressure to ban this drug and these cases were actually cited as being examples of why that was necessary," he said.
Prof Nutt, who was sacked by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson in October 2009, said the findings were "embarrassing" for the government, media and police.
"If these reports are true, the previous government's rush to ban mephedrone never had any serious scientific credibility - it looks much more like a decision based on a short-term electoral calculation.
"This news demonstrates why it's so important to base drug classification on the evidence, not fear, and why the police, media and politicians should only make public prouncements once the facts are clear."
Campaign group the UK Drug Policy Commission said it hoped there would be a "fresh look at different ways of formulating drug policy".
Chief executive Roger Howard said: "We believe the new government has an opportunity to both better protect the public and save money by reshaping the architecture for decision-making.
"Getting the governance right will lead to better outcomes for every community in Britain, and rebuild trust between experts and politicians."
However, ACMD chief Prof Iverson said: "The ACMD gathered evidence from a number of experts and thoroughly researched the cathinones including mephedrone before making its recommendation.
"On the basis of this evidence, and in comparison with similar substances, it concluded that the harms associated with cathinones equate to other dangerous substances in Class B, particularly amphetamines which are structurally similar and act on the central nervous system in the same way."
Mephedrone has been implicated in the deaths of 34 people in the UK - 26 in England and eight in Scotland.
But so far, the drug has been established as a cause of death in only one case in England, that of John Stirling Smith.
On Thursday, a coroner in Brighton said Mr Stirling Smith, who was 46 and had underlying health problems, died after after "injecting mephedrone repeatedly".
The European Union has also ordered a report into the health and social risks of mephedrone from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.Nominations for the 75th Annual Golden Globes Awards were announced this morning, and wouldn’t you know it – Game of Thrones is on the list! It has been nominated for Best Television Series – Drama for the fourth time, although it has yet to bring home a win in this category. Award season is looking good for our favorite fantasy show so far, with Game of Thrones already having secured Best Drama nominations from the Writers Guild of America and The Critic’s Choice Awards.
Game of Thrones faces some tough competition, as it goes up against The Handmaid’s Tale, Stranger Things, This Is Us, and The Crown. The Handmaid’s Tale is a particularly strong competitor, as the show garnered an Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series earlier this year. The Crown is another likely threat, as it looks to repeat its 2017 Golden Globe win over Game of Thrones. Check out the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s press release for the full list of nominees.
Although we reported last month that HBO submitted Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington for consideration in the lead acting categories, neither made the cut. Game of Thrones has only ever received two Globes nominations for acting, and both were in the Supporting category: Peter Dinklage in 2012 (the eventual winner) and Lena Headey in 2017 (who lost to Olivia Colman for The Night Manager). Dinklage’s win was the first and only Golden Globe Award for the series, but perhaps they’ll have better luck this time around!
The Game of Thrones nod also helped push HBO to the top of the Golden Globes nominations list according to The Wrap – giving it 12 in total. This isn’t much of a surprise given HBO’s domination of the Emmys earlier this year. Perhaps we’ll see the network repeat its success and snag the most trophies here as well.
The 75th Annual Golden Globes Awards ceremony will air on January 7, 2018 on NBC.A mighty wail of "Nooooo! Mel and Sue!" reverberated throughout social media feeds this week. If you're not a fan of the The Great British Bake Off, you might have wondered why so many otherwise reasonable people were mourning a casting change as if it were the death of a family member. Comedians Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins are the hosts of a reality show for British amateur bakers, and are not somehow related to all your friends simultaneously. But for Bake Off devotees, they do feel like kin.
On Monday, Bake Off's producers revealed that the show would be moving from the UK's BBC One, the public television station where it currently airs, to the commercial station Channel 4. And on Tuesday, Mel and Sue announced that, when the show moved on, they would not be joining it. For American viewers, many of whom consume Bake Off on a multi-year delay under the name The Great British Baking Show, the nuances of the move to Channel 4 were largely lost. (Think of it as sort of the opposite of when Project Runway moved to Lifetime: Channel 4 has a younger audience and offered the production company more money, but the likely format changes could have potentially the same chilling effect on viewership.)
But the implications of Mel and Sue's departure were impossible to misunderstand. As hosts, they embodied the loving, light-hearted tone that drew so many to the show. And, except for the few truly heartless among us, their loss is impossible not to mourn.
A family does not require daffy aunts, but the Bake Off clan is a family with daffy aunts at its heart.
There's something inescapably domestic about a baking show, even one that mysteriously films in a tent outdoors. Bake Off nods to this domesticity with its opening credits, which show a woman putting the finishing touches on a cake while her toddler eats and plays with a loaf of bread. The contestants are amateur bakers, referred to often as explicitly "home bakers," and they call on skills that they honed cooking for and with their families. But it's not just this fictional mom from the credits, or the heirloom recipes, or the copious B-roll shots of the contestants baking for their actual children, that makes Bake Off feel particularly homey. It's the way that the chemistry of the show makes everyone involved feel like a family. The bakers' competition is a kind of sibling rivalry, driven primarily by approval—a genuine conflict, but never a vicious one. The judges, Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, fill the role of demanding but supportive parents: loving disciplinarians who aren't mad, just disappointed.
And then we have Mel and Sue. If Paul and Mary are the mom and dad of Bake Off, then Mel and Sue are its daffy aunts. They carom around the tent sticking their literal fingers in everyone's literal pie. Their slightly raunchy puns—like dad jokes just a little dirtier than ones your dad would actually make—are shameless and wholehearted, a veritable palace of corn. It's hard to make an off-color joke stand out in a competition where "soggy bottom" is a legitimate critique of a baked good, but Mel and Sue's efforts—"get those lady's fingers soggy," "it's time to grease your muffin tray and grab your jugs"—succeed.
Mel and Sue aren't just hosts who occasionally appear to announce something official; they're loving chaos demons, accidentally sticking an elbow in an English muffin here, knocking over a tower of biscuits there, yelling "get a ruddy grip!" at a contestant (but only, it should be noted, at her request). Even their more irritating tendencies are the product of enthusiasm, familial inside jokes gone too far. The "On your mark, get set, bake!" line that they use to kick off a challenge has evolved over the seasons into a sort of whoop-growl, like a yodeling werewolf, and it's awful, but what will we ever do without it?
This, in a nutshell, is how Bake Off fans are reacting to the departure of Mel and Sue: What will we do without them? A family does not require daffy aunts, but the Bake Off clan is a family with daffy aunts at its heart; it can no more stand to lose them than the Addamses could lose Uncle Fester. (I do want to note that the aunt metaphor has one exception: You may remember the time that Sue and season 4 contestant Ruby flirted awkwardly about wedding cakes. Maybe, like me, you screamed, rewound, watched again, and screamed again. Sue is not Ruby's aunt.)
If Bake Off stands out for creating drama on the basis of skill instead of interpersonal agita, it is Mel and Sue who make it that way.
Bake Off can exist as a show without Mel and Sue, in the sense that a show can still exist in which British bakers cook in a tent and Mary says their cake has a lovely crumb. But the fact that the show feels like a family has always been an inextricable part of its charm, the core of the warmth and humanity that sets it above other reality shows. There are whispers now that Mary and Paul may leave the show as well, at which point Bake Off would essentially be a smoking crater with the tattered remains of a tent and a bunch of ovens inside. Losing Mom and Dad (and maybe replacing them with Jamie Oliver, gag me) would certainly signal the end of the original Bake Off dynasty. Even Paul and Mary believe the show can't work without Mel and Sue.
Here's something you might not know about Mel and Sue: they nearly quit once before. Last year, while promoting her memoir, Sue revealed that she and Mel walked off the set during Bake Off's first season because the producers were trying to coax human-interest drama—and the inevitable tears—out of contestants. "We felt uncomfortable with it, and we said 'We don't think you've got the right presenters,'" Sue told the Telegraph. "I'm proud that we did that, because what we were saying was 'Let's try and do this a different way'—and no one ever cried again. Maybe they cry because their soufflé collapsed, but nobody's crying because someone's going 'Does this mean a lot about your grandmother?'" Bringing up dead relatives at stressful times is a time-honored technique for introducing tension into a television show, but it's no way to treat your family.
Here's another thing you might not know: When contestants do cry—out of frustration or disappointment, generally—Mel and Sue stand near them and use un-airable language so the embarrassing footage is tainted, and won't make it into the final edit. "If we see them crying or something," Sue told the Guardian, "Mel and I will go over there and put our coats over them, or swear a lot because we know then that the film won't be able to be used."
If Bake Off stands out among reality shows for its gentleness, for creating genuine tension and drama purely on the basis of skill instead of interpersonal agita, it is Mel and Sue who make it that way. Paul and Mary may set the standards and choose who stays and who goes home, but Mel and Sue are the ones who look out for the contestants as human beings. They have spread mother-hen wings over their brood of bakers, and in the process, helped create a model for reality TV that protects, not exploits, people's mental health and emotional integrity.
And this is the heart of Bake Off's appeal: for a while, it lets you enter that protected space. Most people's families are disappointing sometimes, and even the happiest don't offer reliable and uncomplicated resolution. TV families have always existed to make up for this deficiency. They allow you to exist for half an hour or so as a Brady, or a Keaton, or a Banks, or a Belcher, a member of a tightly-knit clan that will always have your back. With scripted shows, the fantasy carries a formulaic and artificial tang, which suits some viewers. But I prefer the messier (but still idealized) family of Bake Off, with all its challenges, weird werewolf barks, and corny, corny jokes. A family that protects you from being exploited or manipulated, even when the water you swim in is competition and strife? That speaks to me.
And Mel and Sue, with their naughty puns, with their sisterly partnership born all the way back in college, are a cornerstone of that. They are inviting viewers into their very real, almost familial relationship. No wonder they explained their decision to leave the show as "we're not going with the dough"—this is just a job, to be sure, but it's one with emotional weight.
In her memoir, Sue tried to put into words the fundamentally inexpressible affinity she and Mel share: "Sometimes when we're drunk we'll try and articulate all that stuff—the awkward stuff that sits at the margins of love and friendship," she writes. "But mainly we leave it alone, leave it all unsaid and carry on regardless in a thoroughly British fashion. What I do know is that this kinship will always remain. It is constant. It is a love that cannot be weathered, not by time, not by circumstance."
It's also a love we, the Bake Off audience, temporarily got to feel part of, a kinship that expanded to cover twelve flustered amateurs and a patrician but motherly cookery writer and an exacting paternal baker and a viewing audience of millions. A love that anchored one of television's warmest families. A family that will never be the same again.
Jess Zimmerman is a writer and editor who lives with a dog and a human in Brooklyn. She has written for Hazlitt, the New Republic, the Guardian, the Hairpin, Catapult, and others, and identifies as Chaotic Good.
More Great British Bake OffA shock wave blasted through the floorball world when Johan Samuelsson’s missed penalty meant the end of 6 years Swedish dominance. But this story is not about Sweden. It’s about the remarkable journey starring a group of young hawks and tough veterans who delivered from their underdog position after 4 years of preparation.
The journey started long before this WFC. After Finland’s miserable final performance in 2012, losing to Sweden with 5-11, a reboot was needed and the country said goodbye to many of its older players. The new generation was eager and wanted to take back what Sweden had taken from them. The task was immense. Sweden’s coach Jan-Erik Vaara had a big pool of extremely talented players to choose from, Kim Nilsson, Rasmus Sundstedt and Rasmus Enström, just to name a few. The location made it even tougher for the team. It was in Gothenburg, Sweden’s beating floorball heart. Yet, Finland played well and the finals was amazingly tight. To Finland’s grief, Sweden’s 3-2 that fell early in the third period was successfully defended. A continuation of Swedish rule took place and the temporary end to Finnish aspirations.
A new hope
Two years later, safely outside the realms of Sweden, the tournament was now held in Latvia. Despite being the oldest team of the WFC, it was packed with talents such as the infamous Petri Kotilainen, technical mastermind Krister Savonen and game reading talent Sami Johansson. Granted, the teams veterans were a bit older but did that really matter? Mika Kohonen did not play much but peaked in the moments it mattered – the penalty series in the finals where he made a fool of Johan Rehn – and played a crucial role in supporting the team with his leadership qualities. Juha Kivilehto and Tommi Aro supported their forward lines and gave them the necessary backup. Tatu Väänänen took his role as team captain with flying colors and played an excellent tournament. But above all, the veterans excelled in giving the foundation for the young players to thrive.
The early rounds
Finland’s first performance was against Germany. To say the two teams weren’t equal was a gross understatement. Finland won with amazing numbers and it was the first match where Kotilainen showed his class with a goal outplaying the complete German first line. Finland easily won the game with 12-1 but the opponent was simply to weak to make a proper analysis of the squad’s strength. For that a better opponent was needed.
That opponent presented itself on the next day. Thanks to the organization’s improved group phase group A and B both had one meeting between Top 4 teams. For Finland it meant meeting Switzerland to claim the 1st place in the group. Finland started off strong and scored already after 48 seconds and after 10 minutes the score was already 4-1. However, the rest of the match wouldn’t be that easy. Switzerland fought and ploughed and half way the final period the Swiss had equalized to 4-4. But here Finland learned a lesson in resilience that turned out to be crucial in the finals against Sweden. Under the pressure the players managed to keep their heads cool. Finland’s first line scored the 5-4 and the 6-4 followed seconds before the end. Finland had beaten one of the strongest teams in the world.
Estonia brought a big audience to the arena but the Finns didn’t seem impressed. Estonia was a tougher opponent than Germany but the Finns outclassed them in every way. However, in the end, it was a match that one would soon forget.
Skipping the eighth finals and having 3 days of rest, Finland’s next enemy was Denmark. Denmark’s place in the quarter finals was perhaps the biggest surprise of the WFC having beaten home team Latvia in the previous round. For Finland it was a welcome surprise as the team had prepared for meeting a tough team in front of thousands of hostile supporters. Denmark did not manage to score once while their defense was carefully dissected by the Finnish forwards. The match ended in 7-0 and Finland was one step closer to the finals.
Meeting the Czechs
The semifinals went into the books as one of the most marvelous matches of the tournament. Czech Republic had received much criticism prior to the championship, for good reasons. But none of that mattered when the players walked up the rink on December 10th. Finland dominated their opponent completely in the first period but the Czechs struck back. Two of the goals were identical and made Finland’s defenders look like average junior players. The trick was the same, after losing the ball behind the goal, closing in on the defender before he gained overview. After taking the ball move it to the slot for the forward to score. However, Finland’s performance was just enough. After excruciatingly nerve breaking moments it looked like the game would go into overtime. However, with Eemeli Salin’s winning goal 7 seconds before time the team was awarded with a ticket to the finals and one day to analyze and repair the problem that gave away 2 goals to Czech Republic.
Nemesis
In the match versus Sweden Finland’s defense looked amazingly strong. It was only the Swedish ‘powerline’ (Gustaffson, Larsson and Kanebjörk) the defense struggled with. The game was a soap opera by itself. Underdog Finland had a horrible start and suffered 2 goals. But then Finland’s forwards presented themselves, hungry as they were. First, Petri Kotilainen dragged the ball in the net after a free ball. The second goal was even more beautiful when Sammi Johansson trumped Swedish defense with an immaculate pass in a messy situation in front of Sweden’s goal. During the second period the game slowly went into a stalemate after Sweden scored the 3-2. Strangely, Finland seemed content with the score and confidently moved the game towards the final period. The equalizer came sudden when two things happened at the same time. Left to Swedish goalkeeper, Tommi Aro fought for the ball while Petri Kotilainen’s game sense made him turn away from Martin Östholm, his direct opponent. Before Östholm recovered from his mistake, and just when Aro had the ball, the Finnish defender gave the volley assist to Kotilainen who netted the equalizer. Sweden was nailed to the ground and Finland had done the exact thing they didn’t do 2 years ago: making the last period equalizer. Sweden recovered and played for the win but Finland did not retreat. They wanted it more. It was a miracle no more goals fell but this was due to excellent goalkeeping on both sides.
People all over the world had to endure 10 minutes of thrilling overtime. They saw many big chances but no player had the steel nerves to finish with a goal. Ultimately, the game was decided in penalties – for the first time in WFC history. Players from both countries seemed to have calm nerves. The first 5 penalties all found the net but then young veteran Henrik Stenberg missed. A shock went through Sweden but Finland cheered. The gold medal was within arms reach. Miko Kailiaila was next and scored with a simple finish. Finland led with 4-2 and Sweden’s chances had diminished. Everything had to be decided in Sweden’s next penalty but Johan Samuelsson’s excecution was poor and an easy save for Finland. Johan Samuelsson walked back to his squad mates with the tail between the legs but Finland could finally celebrate. The team cheered for more than 5 minutes before they received the cup. Tatu Väänanen received it but was not the first to raise the prestigious object above his head. Instead, in a beautiful moment, he gave it to Miko Kohonen, the legend that meant so much for Finnish floorball. With Mika Kohonen raising the cup, Finland had again made history by defeating their nemesis Sweden.
Floorball Worldwide Facebook Group - 1.920 members! Become a member For lovers of floorball worldwide! Here you find the latest news about floorball!
Join the Floorball Worldwide Facebook GroupSpokane’s lawsuit against Monsanto regarding pollution in the Spokane River can go forward, a federal judge ruled.
The city sued international agrochemical giant Monsanto Co. in 2015, alleging the company knew for decades that chemicals it made and sold were harmful to humans, animals and the environment. Spokane, and a handful of other cities, want Monsanto to help pay to clean up contamination caused by the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) it manufactured.
Monsanto asked a judge to dismiss that lawsuit based on eight claims, including that too much time had passed for the city to file the lawsuit.
In a ruling filed in Spokane on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Salvador Mendoza denied all but one of those claims, clearing the way for the lawsuit to move ahead.
Rick Eichstaedt, executive director of the Center for Justice and its Spokane Riverkeeper program, praised Mendoza’s decision. He pointed to the city’s extensive investment in stormwater tanks and other measures to restrict runoff into the Spokane River and said the lawsuit fit with those efforts.
“We’re spending millions of dollars to try to get clean-up on this river,” Eichstaedt said. “Meanwhile, Monsanto made millions of dollars off selling this stuff, when they knew there was an impact.”
Monsanto said Mendoza’s ruling ignores the dismissal of cases similar to Spokane’s filed by other cities.
“We disagree with the majority of the court’s opinion, which is in conflict with prior decisions in Washington state and California on these very issues. We intend to vigorously defend the case,” said Scott Partridge, vice president of global strategy at Monsanto.
Cases brought by the California cities of San Diego, Oakland and Berkeley were tossed by a federal judge in September. The city of Seattle has also sued Monsanto alleging the company’s products were responsible for pollution in the Duwamish River. That case is scheduled to go to trial in April 2018.
Monsanto was the sole producer of PCBs between 1935 and 1979, when the U.S. banned the manufacture of the compounds because of their link to cancer and other health problems. The chemical was used in a wide variety of industrial, commercial and household products.
The city alleges those PCBs leached from their original uses into wastewater and stormwater systems and ended up contaminating water and fish in the Spokane River. Elevated levels of PCBs violate both state and tribal water quality standards.
“Publications and internal communications in the 1960s and 1970s demonstrate Monsanto’s awareness that PCBs were widely contaminating the environment around the world,” Mendoza’s order said.The wait is over: The Cheesecake Factory now opened
The first Cheesecake Factory in the state will open in Haywood Mall Tuesday. After years of rumors that the restaurant would open in the Upstate, the company confirmed about six months ago that it was moving into the mall. The restaurant is taking over the space vacated by Panera Bread next to Macy’s.Click here for a look inside the restaurant“The new restaurant is an approximately 8,560-square-foot space, which will seat approximately 215 guests,” the company said.The new restaurant will serve more than 30 varieties of its world-famous cheesecakes.The Cheesecake Factory will be open seven days a week.
The first Cheesecake Factory in the state will open in Haywood Mall Tuesday.
After years of rumors that the restaurant would open in the Upstate, the company confirmed about six months ago that it was moving into the mall.
The restaurant is taking over the space vacated by Panera Bread next |
1.2 per cent over the past three months, after a revised 0.2 per cent decline in July and a 0.8 per cent fall in June.
Perth experienced the biggest falls, with home prices sliding 4.8 per cent during the three months to August, while Brisbane values were also down 2.3 per cent and Melbourne property values dropped 1.5 per cent.
The best results over winter were in Canberra (up 1.2 per cent) and Sydney (up 0.2 per cent).
House prices outside the capitals were steady last month, and down a more modest 0.2 per cent over the three months to August.
However, non-city house prices only rose 3.7 per cent over the past year compared to an 8 per cent gain for urban dwellings.
RP Data's research director Tim Lawless says the upswing in house prices over the past few years has well and truly ended.
"We have moved out of a very strong growth cycle and are now seeing ongoing consolidation in Australian house prices," he told ABC News Online.
He says the rise in interest rates and end to increased government first home buyer stimulus are contributing to the declines.
"We will see further interest rate rises coming through the Australian economy - for the Australian property market it's not a great thing," he said.
"Further rate rises will dampen the market further, but we do have a counter-balance in the sense that we do have unemployment at 5.1 per cent and trending downwards and very strong levels of consumer confidence and they're likely to play at odds with each other, which certainly suggests that we will see ongoing demand for Australian property, but certainly not at the same levels we have seen during 2009."
He says the property market is likely to be subdued overall for at least the next year.
"I would be very surprised if we saw any growth in Australian property markets for the remainder of the year," he said.
"We have seen a very strong marketplace that has outperformed incomes quite considerably, so we probably are in for a period now where incomes will catch up to property values, and hopefully address some of those affordability issues."
However, the news is better for landlords and worse for tenants as vacancy rates have continued to remain low.
"I wouldn't be surprised if by this time next year we've seen rents up by between eight and 10 per cent," Mr Lawless added.
"That's on the back of a very soft rental market in 2009, when rents actually fell by about 4 per cent."
Topics: housing-industry, australia
First postedChip Somodevilla via Getty Images Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) backed marriage equality years before Hillary Clinton did, but he wasn't exactly leading the charge on the issue.
WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has a case of sour grapes over the decision by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT rights group, to endorse his opponent, Hillary Clinton. He says he doesn't need their stinking support, and he's got a strong record on gay rights anyway. He does.
But his spokesman Michael Briggs made the case Tuesday that Sanders has been way ahead of Clinton -- and pretty much everyone -- in advocating same-sex marriage. He pointed to the senator's support for civil unions in his home state of Vermont back in 2000. Those gave couples some of the same legal protections as marriage, but they didn't provide federal benefits and weren't recognized by other states.
Sanders was "a pioneer on this early version of gay marriage and has by far the most exemplary record on gay rights of any candidate ever in American history," Briggs said in an interview with The Washington Blade.
That's not quite right.
Sanders did support civil unions as far back as 15 years ago, but it was for the same reason he opposed the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996: his strong belief in state's rights. He wasn't advocating for legal marriage for same-sex couples. He actually avoided the subject.
As one Vermont columnist put it in 2000, getting a straight answer from Sanders on gay marriage "was like pulling teeth... from a rhinoceros." In 2006, Sanders said he supported civil unions but not same-sex marriage, again deferring to states.
To be sure, if this is a contest between who came around on marriage equality first, Sanders wins. He backed it four years before Clinton did in 2013. And she's hit bumps along the way, between struggling to call DOMA a mistake (her husband signed it into law, so that's awkward) and her uncomfortable interview in 2014 with NPR's Terry Gross, where she dodged questions about her evolution on the issue. She did, however, do a number of things to help LGBT people during her time as secretary of state.President Obama’s newly decorated Oval Office
After the White House released photos of the newly renovated Oval Office late last month, the Explainer noticed something a little bizarre: There was no computer on President Obama’s desk, or any paperwork, either. Does Obama actually work in the Oval Office?
Not most of the time. The president conducts briefings and holds staff meetings in the Oval Office, but it’s used primarily as a ceremonial space. Obama does much of his day-to-day work—such as editing speeches and reviewing papers—in the President’s Study, located off the Oval Office, and in the Treaty Room, on the second floor of the White House. Many recent former presidents—including both Bushes, Carter, Ford, and Johnson—chiefly worked out of the study as well. The last president to use the Oval Office regularly for desk work may have been John F. Kennedy, who would go there after hours to record the day’s events for what would, presumably, have become his memoirs.
The desk in Obama’s Treaty Room, unlike the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, is piled high with paperwork. The room also contains a computer, a printer, and a television. Despite these office amenities, it’s unlikely that Obama uses a computer regularly in the White House. As the Explainer noted last year, previous presidents, including Bush and Clinton, went without computers and e-mail in order to avoid the Presidential Records Acts of 1978, which requires commanders-in-chief to archive their correspondence and make it public. (The PRA does not include a section on e-mail, but the act’s broad definition of a presidential record has been interpreted to include electronic communication.)
Bonus Explainer: Why is the Oval Office oval? It’s supposed to recall the elliptical salon in George Washington’s temporary presidential house. Washington thought the oval design encouraged guests to stand around him in a circle. He could then bow to greet each guest in order and from about the same distance.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks David Coleman of the Presidential Recording Program at the University of Virginia and Gleaves Whitney of the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies.
Like Slate and the Explainer on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.Predictably, many regard the Kashawn Campbell story as proof of low school standards. But I would argue that the underlying problem is grade fraud, which is a different issue.
I’ve been writing about grade fraud for college admission for a while now. Wait, you say, that’s a link to a KIPP piece. Well, yeah. Charters are among the worst offenders in grade fraud, which is the tacit admissions directive enabled by Top Ten % or eligibility in the local context plans: the kids with the best grades in their schools are guaranteed entrance to the public universities.
The policy rewards compliance more than ability, as I’ve also written; I routinely see bright kids with low GPAs in every type of school. If we are going to lower standards to bring in underrepresented minorities, far better to find the brightest ones—which aren’t necessary the ones with the best grades. And when I complain about this, some folks say some version of “Well, what’s wrong with rewarding hard work?”
Well, what’s wrong with it, eventually, is Kashawn Campbell. The people who value grades like to believe that the difference between an A and a B is nothing more than effort, when in fact, teachers can give whatever grades they like, with only a few restrictions that limit how low we can drop a grade. None limit our ability to give an A.
So the people blame crappy schools, because of course the only thing that prevents Kashawn from learning is a school that wanted the easy way out. And if we’d have Common Core, then we would have known Kashawn didn’t know anything. This line of thinking ignores the fact that California state tests almost certainly showed that Kashawn didn’t know anything—assuming, that is, he took the standard tests (more on that later). And then you have the affirmative action complainers—this group, I generally agree with but I am coming to the point of finding college admissions so revoltingly corrupt that affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics seems almost benign compared to the contortions universities go through to bring them in under alternative means.
But that’s not what interested me.
No, I’m wondering why the reporter, Kurt Streeter, who is African American, hinted at so much. Some details are so instructive that I can’t figure out why he didn’t go further or, more typically, leave them out.
What details? Well, the big one I wonder about: is Kashawn brain damaged? (Or, as a National Review commenter said in summarizing this essay, perhaps he is not neurotypical?)
“When I delivered him, I thought he was dead,” said his mother, Lillie, recalling the umbilical cord tight around his neck. “He was still as stone but eventually he came to. Proved he was a survivor. Ever since, I’ve called him my miracle child.”
Umbilical cord around the neck is pretty common and doesn’t usually lead to brain damage. The “still as stone” bit makes me wonder, though, if he was oxygen starved during birth.
He filled his dorm room with Cal posters, and wore clothes emblazoned with the school’s name. Each morning the gawky, bone-thin teen energetically reminded his dorm mates to “have a Caltastic day!” “It was clear that Kashawn was someone who didn’t know about, or maybe care about, social norms,” said one of his friends. “A lot of people would laugh at first. They didn’t understand how someone could be that enthusiastic.”
and
They sat together in the front row. One teacher noticed that Kashawn subconsciously seemed to mime his roommate: casually cocking his head and leaning back slightly as he pondered questions, just like Spencer. Kashawn reveled in the class in a way he hadn’t since high school. He would often be the first one to speak up in discussions, even though his points weren’t always the most sophisticated, said Gabrielle Williams, a doctoral student who helped teach the class.
and
Many of them jaywalked. Not Kashawn. Just as he’d been taught, he only used crosswalks, only stepped onto the street when the coast was clear or a light flashed green.
and
Sometimes in the dorm room, Spencer would look over at Kashawn and see him sitting in front of his computer, body frozen and face expressionless, JVC headphones wrapped over his ears, but no music playing.
He’s weird, in other words, and completely unconscious of it. Nothing wrong with that. Except he was prom king, and most likely to succeed.
His teachers and his classmates at Jefferson High all rooted for the slight and hopeful African American teenager. He was named the prom king, the most likely to succeed, the senior class salutatorian.
That strike you as a tad odd? Since when do high school kids name socially awkward kids prom king? Huh. Something comes to mind. But take a look at this first:
Part of the pressure came from race. ….When Kashawn arrived, 3% of Berkeley undergraduates were African American.
Kashawn’s high school is 91% Hispanic. So Kashawn went from being a 9% minority to a 3% minority. Not entirely sure he’d notice that difference.
A black kid with a goofy affect, limited social skills, geeky, awkward, and attending an all Hispanic school is declared prom king and most likely to succeed?
You know when a slight, geeky, weird guy with awkward social skills is voted most likely to succeed and prom king? When it’s an act of charity, an act that makes a group of tough kids feel good about themselves—that is, when the kid in question is “special”. You see it in all those feel-good articles about a special day student who becomes kind of a mascot for the school, the one everyone loves, who brings all the feuding elements together. Naturally, there might be another explanation. But anyone familiar with high school dynamics has to wonder about the specifics of Kashawn’s popularity.
Which is what I’m wondering, because even within the context of a low income, low ability school, Kashawn’s writing problems and his failure to improve seem significant.
And then, of course, there’s the friend, Spencer:
Spencer was raised in a tough L.A. neighborhood by a single mom who had sometimes worked two jobs to pay the rent. Spencer had gone to struggling public schools, receiving straight A’s at Inglewood High. Spencer didn’t curse, didn’t party, didn’t try to act tough and was shy around girls.
…
To Spencer, Berkeley was the first place he could feel fully comfortable being intellectual and black, the first place he could openly admit he liked folk music and punk rock. He was cruising through Cal, finishing the first semester with a 3.8 GPA despite a raft of hard classes. “I can easily see him being a professor one day,” said his political theory instructor, noting that Spencer was one of the sharpest students in a lecture packed with nearly 200 undergraduates.
Why not write an article about Spencer? Wouldn’t it be nice to see a story about an inner city kid who was prepared for college? You could even include his SAT scores–hey, speaking of metrics that are totally absent.
Notice that Spencer and Kashawn take African American studies together. Notice that Kashawn got an A on the essay and a B on the midterm–and an overall A in the class, and that he “copied” Spencer’s every move. And notice that his writing professor basically accused him of cheating:
After reviewing his writing, though, it was clear to her that he had received far too much help from someone else.
It’s never mentioned again, this little cheating episode.
Questions remain:
How did Kashawn pass the Introductory Science class with a D? No information about that class or the teacher is included. Why did the writing instructor give him an Incomplete twice instead of an F? What did Kashawn’s African American studies essay look like? Was it a deserved A, or a pity A? If the former, why could Kashawn only write well in this class? Why didn’t Streeter ask to see the A essay? Why doesn’t Streeter mention what classes Kashawn took in high school? Kashawn was a junior in 2011, which would be the last year he took the California end of state tests. Only 22 juniors at Jefferson High were black that year. Nine of them took geometry, nine took algebra II, two of them took Summative Math (for precalc and beyond). Which of these was Kashawn? Streeter clearly reviewed the school’s test scores. What were Kashawn’s scores? Did Streeter know that Kashawn’s school was 91% Hispanic? If so, why imply that Kashawn felt isolated in a non-black environment?
See, Kashawn’s story isn’t unusual—well, if he’s suffering from brain damage or is actually mentally retarded, then it’s a bit unusual. Otherwise, thousands of African American and Hispanic kids enter college every year, woefully unprepared to even begin to succeed. And, as the story clearly illustrates, the ones that work terribly hard or show the slightest bit of effort are often given passing grades out of some combination of pity and paternalism.
I am puzzled, however, that Streeter has left clues. Why mention Kashawn’s unusual affect, his nomination as prom king, his faithful copying of Spencer, to make it fairly clear to a closer reader that there’s something really off about the kid? Why be so uncompromising on the point of Kashawn’s incoherent writing and his failure to improve in any way, unless it’s for the same reason he includes only one quote from his mother which suggests his birth was unusual?
If Streeter wanted to indict the University of California admissions system, he has the stuff: an illiterate, possibly retarded, student is accepted via a standard specifically created to bypass the affirmative action ban. But he could have been more explicit: included SAT scores, state test scores, courses taken, specific examples of Kashawn’s writing.
If he wanted to indict Kashawn’s high school, which is how most readers seem to interpret the story, he could have gone even further and shown exactly how deep the fraud went. What math had Kashawn advanced to? What were his state scores? What books had he read in English class? How badly had his school fooled him? But all of that data is missing in action.
Of course, he might not have included this data because it would have given far too much away.
Or perhaps Streeter just wanted to illustrate the tremendous internal pressures experienced by a clearly wonderful young man who has no ability to complete college level work. Leave aside blame. Leave aside larger policy considerations. Just tell his story. Okay. Then why just hint at the special ed and the cheating?
Reporters often tell me they simply seek to tell the story, that they don’t think of policy issues, which strikes me as just a tad disingenuous. I have no idea what Streeter’s response would be but surely not that. How can any reporter tell a story about an unprepared African American student at the top public university in the country without thinking of the larger social issues he represents? He can’t. And if he can avoid the larger issues, surely his editor wouldn’t?
Then I read the article comments, and interspersed between the jeremiads about public education and complaints about affirmative action, I see:
Keep up the hard work Kashawn, college is not easy and your story is not an isolated one. There are thousands of college students that struggle like you, remember to stay motivated and keep working hard. If college was easy everyone would go (and graduate).
…..
Keep it going Kashawn! Nothing that is worth it comes easy! Everyone is looking for “that chance.” I don’t think it’s wrong to give him one.
…
Keshawn – do not let anyone take away your stellar record and GPA from Jefferson or your heartbreaking first semester at CAL. You have heart and you will continue to make it. Good luck.
…
You can do it, Keshawn! I am a Cal grad who had the advantage of tough private school training. Your story makes me realize how lucky I was. You’ve got my full admiration for your integrity and determination. Don’t ever quit!
…and I realize that for some people, Kashawn’s story represents a beautiful struggle and success. And maybe Streeter is just writing for them.
The rest of us should avoid drawing any policy implications, and just pick up on the hints.
*************************
Updated to add: A few commenters have suggested that Kashawn has Asperger’s or autism. I thought of including this originally, but I’m not an expert, even though I sound like I think I’m one in the comments.
Kashawn doesn’t seem anything like the Asperger’s students I’ve worked with, but then, none of them have been low IQ. I’ve only worked with one diagnosed autistic student, and I do see some similarities.
But if Kashawn was autistic, wouldn’t Streeter mention this? UC Berkeley has a huge organization dedicated to helping students with disabilities, including autism, and extensive support for learning disabilities. Yet there’s no mention of that in the story.
I’m not any sort of expert on autism spectrum disorders. It could be that autism, rather than hypoxia at birth, is at the root of Kashawn’s oddness. However, I still don’t see any reason for withholding information about Kashawn’s high school academic record unless it would reveal that Kashawn’s cognitive abilities were profoundly limited.Liverpool transfer target Christian Pulisic made his first appearance of the season in Borussia Dortmund’s 6-0 win over Legia Warsaw on Wednesday night.
Reds manager Jurgen Klopp has identified Pulisic as a long-term option in the transfer market, with an £11 million summer bid rejected in August.
Klopp is intending to return with another bid for the 17-year-old, likely next summer, though his fortunes with Dortmund may sway this.
In his first outing for Dortmund in 2016/17, Pulisic started on the right flank in their Champions League group stage victory over Legia at the Polish Army Stadium.
This marked Legia’s return to the group stage following a 21-year absence, though Dortmund didn’t play up to the occasion.
Thomas Tuchel deployed Pulisic in a strong forward line, alongside summer signings Ousmane Dembele, Mario Gotze and Raphael Guerreiro, behind Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front.
In an emphatic attacking display, Dortmund dominated throughout, with Pulisic growing in confidence from kickoff.
The teenager made three key passes, the second-most of any player, and contributed heavily to Dortmund’s pressing game, looking to defend from the front throughout.
With Dortmund 4-0 up with 15 minutes to play, Pulisic laid on his side’s fifth of the night, setting up Gonzalo Castro with a perfectly weighted, left-footed cross from the edge of the six-yard area.
That this was Pulisic’s first appearance of the season for Dortmund could have indicated a peripheral role under Tuchel in 2016/17.
This, in turn, could boost Liverpool’s hopes of convincing him to leave the Westfalenstadion in the near future, with his current contract set to expire in 2018.
However, this is largely due to his involvement with the United States, becoming their youngest player to score in a World Cup qualifier, with Tuchel explaining last week that this had made selecting him “harder.”
“He started preseason late as a 17-year-old. This makes being selected for the match day squad harder,” he told reporters.
“We are delighted that Christian is that successful for the United States.”
Nevertheless, Tuchel emphasised that the gap in quality turning out for the USMNT and Dortmund is vast, saying “if you play against Trinidad, it’s not like you have the right to play Bayern in the Super Cup.”
“We’d like to think that he stays sensible. We’ve already trusted him last season,” he continued.
“Because he deserved it and not so we can pat ourselves on the back. The trust is there.”Gov. Bobby Jindal fired a state worker, Melody Teague, one day after she publicly condemned his plans to privatize state services. The worker's attorney claimed Teague was told that she was terminated for poor performance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, years ago.
Louisiana Democratic Party Chairman Chris Whittington has launched an investigation into the incident.
Melody Teague criticized Jindal during a forum held by the Commission for Streamlining Government. Soon after, the contract grants reviewer was told she was fired for her handling of the state's disaster food stamps program four years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
According to The Advocate, Commission member Leonal Hardman believes that Teague was "unfairly targeted because she spoke out publicly at the streamlining forum."
In a statement, Chairman Whittington said, "For all of his talk about ethics reform, how ethical is it to fire a state employee for expressing her opinion publicly at a forum?"
Jindal has a history of firing or attempting to fire critics.
In July, the Associated Press reported that Jindal attempted to force out Board of Elementary and Secondary Education appointment Tammie McDaniel after she questioned a state official's budget decisions.
In March 2008, Jindal fired James Champagne, the executive director of the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission, after the two disagreed on the state's motorcycle helmet law. Champagne had worked for the Louisiana State Government for twelve years.hidden
Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it had received at least a thousand surveillance requests from the US government that sought user content for foreign intelligence purposes during the first half of 2016.
The amount, shared in Microsoft's biannual transparency report, was more than double what the company said it received under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the preceding six-month interval, and was the highest the company has listed since 2011, when it began tracking such government surveillance orders.
The scope of spying authority granted to US intelligence agencies under FISA has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks, sparked in part by evolving, unsubstantiated assertions from President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the Obama White House improperly spied on Trump and his associates.
Microsoft said it received between 1,000 and 1,499 FISA orders for user content between January and June of 2016, compared to between 0 and 499 during both January-June 2015 as well as the second half of 2015.
The number of user accounts impacted by FISA orders fell during the same period, however, from between 17,500 and 17,999 to between 12,000 and 12,499, according to the report.
The US government only allows companies to report the volume of FISA requests in wide bands rather than specific numbers.
FISA orders, which are approved by judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, are tightly guarded national security secrets. Even the existence of a specific FISA order is rarely disclosed publicly.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the FBI obtained a FISA order to monitor the communications of former Trump advisor Carter Page as part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and Trump's presidential campaign.
Parts of FISA will expire at the end of the year, unless US lawmakers vote to reauthorise it. Privacy advocates in Congress have been working to attach new transparency and oversight reforms to any FISA legislation, and to limit government searches of American data that is incidentally collected during foreign surveillance operations.
Microsoft also for the first time published a national security letter, a type of warrantless surveillance order used by the FBI.
Other technology companies, including Twitter Inc and Yahoo Inc, have also disclosed national security letters in recent months under a transparency measure of the USA Freedom Act that was enacted into law by the US Congress in 2015.
Reuters
Tech2 is now on WhatsApp. For all the buzz on the latest tech and science, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Tech2.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) predicts that a bill aimed at reducing illegal immigration endorsed by President Trump will not gain enough votes to pass the Senate.
“That bill’s not going to pass. … I think the White House knows that you don’t have 60 votes for that in the Senate,” Rubio told CBS Miami.
Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), and Trump introduced the bill last week called the RAISE Act, which would overhaul our current legal immigration system into a “merit-based” points system, not unlike systems already in place in countries such as Canada and Australia.
The system prioritizes prospective legal immigrants with sought-after skills, education, or English language proficiency and would curb the number of green cards issued each year.
Despite Trump’s promise to reform immigration and polls that show public support for a merit-based immigration system, the measure needs 60 votes to pass the Senate without a filibuster.
Rubio, who led the fight for amnesty for DREAMers, or children of illegal aliens allowed to come to the U.S. under the DREAM Act, said he opposes the cap on the number of people who can come to the U.S. with a green card.
“Where I probably have a big difference of opinion with this bill is that it sets an arbitrary cap on the number of people that are able to come through with a green card. I don’t think that should be an arbitrary cap, that number should be driven by demand,” Rubio said.
Rubio was part of the “Gang of Eight,” a group of eight senators who pushed for legislation that would provide amnesty for illegal aliens in 2013 without a clear timeline of when immigration laws would start to be enforced.
Rubio said the 2013 proposal for legal immigration also had a merit-based points system but did not go as far as the RAISE Act.
“In 2013, the very controversial “Gang of Eight,” four Democrats and four Republicans, proposed moving legal immigration to a merit-based system,” Rubio said. “It wouldn’t be entirely merit-based, but it would be more merit-based and it has to be in the 21st century.”In continuing his research, he found that rising incomes tend to improve calorie intake for the poorest families, but the effect diminishes at higher income levels. Aggregate statistics, as a result, obscured the benefits of income gains for very poor families.
“What he’s shown is that you do learn a great deal more by looking at the behavior that underlies the aggregates,” said Duncan Thomas, an economist at Duke University and another former student.
Professor Thomas said he also admired Professor Deaton’s clarity. “He will bring evidence to the table in a way that makes you say, ‘Well, of course that has to be right,’ ” Professor Thomas said.
Professor Deaton said he hoped “carefulness in measurement” would be his legacy. He said his mentor, Richard Stone, a Cambridge professor who won the Nobel in economics in 1984, had ingrained in him the importance of good data. “I’ve always wanted to be like him,” Professor Deaton said. “I think putting numbers together into a coherent framework always seemed to me to be what really matters.”
His work also is marked by an insistence that theories must explain these more complicated sets of facts. “A good theoretical account must explain all of the evidence that we see,” Professor Deaton wrote in a 2011 essay on his life in economics. “If it doesn’t work everywhere, we have no idea what we are talking about, and all is chaos.”
He has perhaps contributed more to the disruption of old understandings than the creation of new ones.
“There’s a fair amount of policy agnosticism that comes from this — it emphasizes more the heterogeneity of outcomes,” Professor Rodrik said of Professor Deaton. “He’s somebody with quite a sharp tongue, and he’s often had as his target people who make very strong statements about this policy or that policy.”Liquor authorities across Canada are recalling a brand of gin that may contain almost twice as much alcohol as claimed on the bottle.
The Liquor Control Board Of Ontario was the first to issue a recall after its internal quality assurance team discovered that some bottles of Bombay Sapphire London Dry Gin had not been properly diluted, resulting in an alcohol content of 77 per cent, not 40 per cent as listed on the bottle.
Bermuda-based alcohol conglomerate Bacardi owns Bombay Sapphire (and other brands including Grey Goose vodka and Dewar's whisky) and the company told CBC News in a statement that, at most, 1,000 cases worth of 1.14-litre Bombay Sapphire bottles were impacted.
The mistake happened when some bottles "inadvertently entered the bottling line during a short period of time (max 45 minutes) when they were switching from one bottling tank to another bottling tank," Bacardi said.
All the bottles were bound for the Canadian market, and they were only sold in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Alberta, Quebec and Saskatchewan.
It's the second time in recent weeks such an error has been discovered. The province's liquor board recalled Georgian Bay brand vodka in March because several hundred bottles had not been properly diluted.
Only 1.14-litre bottles of the product are affected, and they all have a product code of L16304 on the bottle. All affected bottles have been pulled off store shelves, but some may have already been purchased.
All affected bottles have a product code of L16304W printed on the bottom. (CFIA)
Anyone who has done so is urged to return it to the place of purchase for a refund. "We do not recommend consumption of this product," Bacardi said.
Four other provincial alcohol regulators followed the LCBO's lead and recalled the Bombay Sapphire gin, with the Newfoundland and Labrador Liquor Corporation pulling the product from shelves, as has Saskatchewan's Liquor and Gaming Authority.
Quebec's Société des alcools du Québec as well as the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation have also recalled the product.
On Wednesday evening, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced the recall had been expanded countrywide.
"There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product," the CFIA said.Hundreds of Bernie Sanders donors have launched a massive class action lawsuit against the DNC alleging fraud and collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign, in a move designed to fundamentally change the way the DNC exists and conducts business, and thousands more people have requested paperwork to sign on as plaintiffs in the past 48 hours.
Beck & Lee Trial Lawyers, a civil litigation firm based in Miami, Florida, is announcing the filing of a class action lawsuit against the DNC early next week, and anyone who donated to the DNC after Bernie Sanders entered the race for the Democratic nomination, either directly or through third-party payment platforms, along with anybody who donated to Bernie Sanders’ campaign at any stage of the primaries and caucuses, is eligible to join the lawsuit.
Considering around two million people donated a combined seven million contributions averaging $27 a piece – and they are all eligible to join the lawsuit – this has the potential to turn into one of the largest class actions in American history.
‘Signed agreements are coming in steadily and we continue to get new requests by the minute,’ Beck & Lee partner Jared Beck said.
“We think that the DNC has been running absolutely out of control and completely disregarding their responsibilities, rights, and duties to the public,” attorney Elizabeth Beck said.
usuncut.com reports:
Jared Beck said whether or not a “class” in the lawsuit is deemed valid by the court will depend on a number of factors, but the number of class representatives in the lawsuit could be as high as the number of individual donors to Sanders’ campaign.
“The way a class action works in civil litigation is that not everybody who is represented or is a member of the class needs to be a class plaintiff,” Beck said in a phone interview. “We’ll be seeking relief for everybody who falls into the class around the country.”
“Given the average donation of $27, that could be a lot of people, to say the least,” he added.
The basis for the lawsuit stems from DNC internal communications published by hacker Guccifer 2.0, who took ownership of the compromising of DNC servers and allegedly leaked their contents. Among other items, the leaks revealed emails showing the DNC had been actively working behind the scenes to boost Hillary Clinton’s profile in the media as early as May 26, 2015, nearly a month after Sanders had entered the race for the Democratic nomination.
New leaks published this week showed the DNC spent time and resources assessing Clinton’s vulnerabilities as a candidate in the early summer of 2015, and the DNC even drafted talking points for campaign operatives to suggest as narratives to members of the media, attempting to inject their own phrasing into third-party stories.
Beck said he believes the lawsuit will be successful, as Article 5, Section 4 of the charter and bylaws of the Democratic Party explicitly requires the chair of the DNC to remain impartial during the primary process:
“In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process.”
Beck also said a fraud lawsuit is justified due to multiple actions taken by DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who served as co-chair of Clinton’s 2008 campaign. Wasserman Schultz repeatedly claimed neutrality throughout the primary season despite numerous allegations from the Sanders campaign and national media that she tipped the scales in Clinton’s favor throughout the Democratic primary, most notably by scheduling the debates during low-viewership timeslots and by shutting down the Sanders campaign’s access to its voter file database for 24 hours.
“The DNC needs to do what it says in its charter, which is to be even-handed and unbiased in response to the slate of candidates running for the nomination,” Beck told US Uncut.
Elizabeth Lee Beck, a senior partner at the firm who is helping to coordinate the lawsuit, said thousands of messages have poured in from Sanders supporters across the country.
“People use words like, ‘angry,’ ‘I feel cheated,’ ‘Thank you for giving us a voice,’” Elizabeth Beck said. “I’ve read comments like, ‘I would have gotten the same results as if I had flushed my money down the commode.’”
“The common thread among all these emails is they feel deeply aggrieved and cheated, which is a natural response to being defrauded,” she added.
Elizabeth Beck described the shock she felt at an email from a Sanders supporter that spoke to the depth of sacrifice that the Vermont senator’s donors made to support his campaign.
“I remember someone said, ‘I donated $35, but if I had known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have done it. That was a trip to the grocery store,’” she recalled.
According to Jared Beck, no venue has yet been picked to file the lawsuit, which he expects to be officially filed early next week to allow for a hearing before the Democratic National Convention on July 25. Under federal law, the DNC, as a defendant in a class action lawsuit, has 20 days to respond upon being served. He said there are several options the DNC can choose from in how it responds.
“They can issue a motion to dismiss or move to stay the case, which means they try to delay it. I don’t know what kind of strategy we’ll see from them,” Beck said. “There’s not a lot of precedent for this type of lawsuit, so it’s really hard to say what we’d expect from the defendant at this point.”
Jared Beck described this lawsuit as unique in that the goal is to not just secure financial compensation, but to fundamentally change the way the DNC exists and conducts business.
“You have people who say they’re homeless or unemployed, and they gave whatever was in their pockets to Bernie, and you have doctors and lawyers who have given thousands of dollars… We’re civil litigators, and usually our cases can be reduced to dollars and cents, but I don’t know if any amount of money could compensate for American democracy, which is priceless to me. I think anything short of a fundamental change in the way the DNC conducts itself is not acceptable |
gamy.[7] Founders of mutually rival Mormon fundamentalist denominations include Lorin C. Woolley, John Y. Barlow, Joseph W. Musser, Leroy S. Johnson, Rulon C. Allred, Elden Kingston, and Joel LeBaron. The largest Mormon fundamentalist groups are the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) and the Apostolic United Brethren (AUB).
History [ edit ]
The LDS Church began prohibiting the contracting of plural marriages within the United States in 1890 after a decree by the president of the church, Wilford Woodruff. However, the practice continued underground in the U.S. and openly in Mormon colonies in northern Mexico and southern Alberta. According to some sources, many polygamous men in the United States continued to live with their plural wives with the approval of church presidents Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Joseph F. Smith.[6][8]
Lorin C. Woolley (1882)
Known as the father of Mormon fundamentalism amongst most fundamentalists sects
Some fundamentalists have argued that the 1890 Manifesto was not a real revelation of the kind given by God to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, and others, but that it was rather a politically expedient document intended by Woodruff to be a temporary measure until Utah Territory gained statehood. They make their argument based upon textual evidence and the fact that the "Manifesto" is not worded in accordance with similar revelations in the LDS scriptures. This argument further holds that after joining the Union, Utah would have had the authority to enact its own laws with respect to marriage, rather than being bound by U.S. territorial laws that prohibited polygamy. Before statehood could be granted in 1896, however, the federal government required Utah to include a provision in its state constitution stating that "polygamous or plural marriages are forever prohibited."[9] Fundamentalists (and many scholars of Mormon history) also believe that a primary impetus for the 1890 Manifesto was the Edmunds–Tucker Act of 1887, a stringent federal law that legally dissolved the LDS Church, disenfranchised women (who had been given the vote in Utah in 1870), and required voters to take an anti-polygamy oath before being permitted to vote in an election.
With the selection of Latter-day Saint Reed Smoot to be one of Utah's representatives to the U.S. Senate in 1903, national attention was again focused on the continuation of plural marriage in Utah, which culminated in the Reed Smoot hearings. In 1904, LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith issued a "Second Manifesto", after which time it became LDS Church policy to excommunicate those church members who entered into or solemnized new polygamous marriages.[10] The seriousness with which this new measure was taken is evinced in the fact that apostle John W. Taylor, son of the third president of the church, was excommunicated in 1911 for his continued opposition to the Manifesto.
Today, the LDS Church continues to excommunicate members who advocate early Mormon doctrines such as plural marriage, enter into or solemnize plural marriages (whether in the United States or elsewhere), or actively support Mormon fundamentalist or dissident groups. Although some LDS Church members continue to believe in the doctrine of plural marriage without practicing it,[11] Joseph Smith's teachings on plural marriage remain part of the scriptural canon of the LDS Church.[12] The LDS Church prevents any of its members who sympathize with Mormon fundamentalist teachings from entering its temples.[13]
During the 1920s, a church dissenter named Lorin C. Woolley claimed a separate line of priesthood authority from the LDS Church's hierarchy, effectively setting in motion the development of Mormon fundamentalism.[14] Most of the Mormon polygamous groups can trace their roots to Woolley's legacy.[15]
For the most part, the Utah state government has left the Mormon fundamentalists to themselves unless their practices violate laws other than those prohibiting bigamy. For example, there have been recent prosecutions of men who belong to fundamentalist groups for marrying underage girls. In one highly publicized case, a man and one of his polygamist wives lost custody of all but one of their children until the wife separated herself from her husband.[16] The largest government effort to crack down on the practices of fundamentalist Mormons was carried out in 1953 in what is today Colorado City, Arizona, which became known as the Short Creek Raid.
Other fundamental doctrines of the Latter Day Saint movement besides polygamy, notably the United Order (communalism), while equally important in the practices of some fundamentalist sects, have not come under the same scrutiny or approbation as has plural marriage, and the mainline LDS Church has mostly ignored this aspect of fundamentalism; in any case, no revelation or statement condemning it has ever been issued.
Distinctive doctrines and practices [ edit ]
Most Mormon fundamentalists embrace the term Fundamentalist (usually capitalized).[6] Mormon fundamentalists share certain commonalities with other fundamentalist movements, but also possess some clear distinctions of their own.
Fundamentalists within the Mormon tradition do see religious authority as inerrant and unchanging, but tend to locate this authority within their view of "Priesthood", which is conceived of as more of a charismatic authority and often physical lineage than an external organization. In this view, ordination lineage becomes all-important and an external organization such as a church may "lose" its theological authority while the "priesthood" (conceived in this abstract and individualistic sense) may continue via an alternative lineage. Mormon fundamentalists frequently assert that priesthood is prior to the Church.[17]
Unlike more prevalent Biblical (non-Mormon) fundamentalist groups, who generally base their authority upon an unchanging and closed canon of scripture, Mormon fundamentalists generally hold to a concept of "continuing revelation" or "progressive revelation," in which the canon of scripture may be continually augmented.
Another of the most basic beliefs of Mormon fundamentalist groups is that of plural marriage, which many of them view as essential for obtaining the highest degree of exaltation in the celestial kingdom. Mormon fundamentalists dislike the term "polygamy" and view "polygyny" as a term used only by outsiders.[6] They also refer to plural marriage generically as "the Principle", "celestial marriage",[18] "the New and Everlasting Covenant", or "the Priesthood Work."[6]
The practice of plural marriage usually differs little from the manner in which it was practiced in the nineteenth century. However, in some fundamentalist sects it is considered acceptable for an older man to marry underage girls as soon as they attain puberty. This practice, which is illegal in most states, apart from polygamy itself, has generated public controversy. Examples include the Tom Green case, and the case in which a man from the Kingston clan married his 15-year-old cousin, who was also his aunt.[19] Other sects, however, do not practice and may in fact vehemently denounce underage or forced marriages and incest (for example, the Apostolic United Brethren.)
In addition to plural marriage, Mormon fundamentalist beliefs often include the following principles:
Mormon fundamentalists believe both that these principles were accepted by the LDS Church at one time, and that the LDS Church wrongly abandoned or changed them, in large part due to the desire of its leadership and members to assimilate into mainstream American society and avoid the persecutions and conflict that had characterized the church throughout its early years.
Terminology and relationship with the LDS Church [ edit ]
The term "Mormon fundamentalist" appears to have been coined in the 1940s by LDS Church apostle Mark E. Petersen[21] to refer to groups who had left the LDS Church. However, Mormon fundamentalists do not universally embrace this usage and many simply consider themselves to be "Mormon".[22][23] Today, the LDS Church considers the designation "Mormon" to apply only to its own members and not to members of other sects of the Latter Day Saint movement. One LDS leader went as far as claiming that there is no such thing as a "Mormon fundamentalist", and that using the two terms together is a "contradiction."[24] The LDS Church suggests that the correct term to describe Mormon fundamentalist groups is "polygamist communities".[25]
In rebuttal to this nomenclature argument, certain Mormon fundamentalists have argued that they themselves are in fact more correctly designated as Mormons in so far as they follow what they consider to be the true and original Mormon teachings as handed down from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Within this context, the LDS Church is often regarded by such fundamentalists as having abandoned several foundational aspects of Mormonism as noted above.[23][26]
Mormon fundamentalist sects [ edit ]
The majority of Mormon fundamentalists belong to sects that have separated themselves from the LDS Church. As such, most are considered to be "Brighamite" sects within the Latter Day Saint movement.
Apostolic United Brethren [ edit ]
The Apostolic United Brethren (AUB) is estimated to have about 5000 to 9000 members throughout Utah, Montana, Arizona, Wyoming, Missouri, and Mexico. Several of its towns are organized into United Orders; the church has established a temple in Mexico, an Endowment House in Utah, and operates several schools.
The AUB emerged when their leader, Joseph W. Musser, ordained Rulon C. Allred as an apostle and counselor, which led to a split between Mormon fundamentalists in Salt Lake City and those in Short Creek, Arizona. The AUB is currently headed by Lynn A. Thompson and a priesthood council.
The AUB is one of the more liberal of the Mormon groups practicing plural marriage. The leaders of the AUB do not arrange marriages nor do they authorize plural marriages for people under 18 or for those who are closely related.
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints [ edit ]
A view of the former FLDS compound in Eldorado, Texas
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) is estimated to consist of 6000 to 8000 members. A succession crisis has been brewing in the church since 2002, when Warren Jeffs, recently convicted of accessory to rape and sentenced to life in prison, became president of the church. There has been extensive litigation regarding the church for some time, as property rights of disaffected members are weighed against the decisions of church leaders who hold trust to the land their homes are built upon. A large concentration of members lives in the twin cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, as well as in Bountiful, British Columbia. The church has built a temple near Eldorado, Texas. The members of the FLDS Church tend to be very conservative in dress and lifestyle.
Beginning April 4, 2008, over a four-day period, troopers and child welfare officials searched the church's YFZ Ranch and removed 416 children into the temporary custody of the State of Texas.[27] Originally officials from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services took 18 girls into temporary custody of the state, after responding to a phone call from the YFZ ranch alleging physical and sexual abuse of a 16-year-old girl, who also claimed to have been married at age 15 to a 49-year-old man.[28] On the following day, Judge Barbara Walther of the 51st District Court issued an order authorizing officials to remove all children, including boys, 17 years old and under out of the compound.[29] The children were being held by the Child Protective Services 45 miles away, north of the ranch. 133 women also voluntarily left the ranch with the children.[30] On May 29, 2008 the Texas Supreme Court ruled that CPS must return all of the children. The court stated, "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."[31] The call that provoked the raid was a hoax.[32] Despite this, investigations resulting from this raid resulted in charges against twelve men associated with the FLDS Church, six of which have resulted in convictions ranging from 5 to 75 years in prison.[33]
Bountiful, British Columbia Community [ edit ]
The first member of the group that bought property near Lister was Harold (aka) Micheal Blackmore, who moved there with his family in 1946.[34] Other members of the church who believed in the principles of plural marriages soon followed. After Winston Blackmore became the bishop in the 1980s, the group took the name of Bountiful.[34]
In 1998 the estimated population was 600 and has since grown to about 1,000. Most of the residents are descended from only half a dozen men.[35] The current FLDS bishop is James Oler.
In 2002 the Mormon fundamentalists in Bountiful divided into two groups: about half are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church), and the other half are members of the Church of Jesus Christ (Original Doctrine) Inc.[36]
Church of Jesus Christ (Original Doctrine) Inc. [ edit ]
The Church of Jesus Christ (Original Doctrine) Inc.,[36] is an FLDS-offshoot based on the teachings of Winston Blackmore, who split with the FLDS Church after concluding the president of the church, Warren Jeffs, had exceeded his authority and become too dictatorial. This group was formed in September 2002, when FLDS Church president Warren Jeffs excommunicated Winston Blackmore, who for two decades was Bishop of the Bountiful, British Columbia group of the FLDS Church. About 700 people continue to follow Blackmore, while about 500 follow Jeffs.[37]
Latter Day Church of Christ (Kingston clan) [ edit ]
The Kingston clan, officially known as the Latter Day Church of Christ, includes approximately 1200 members. This co-operative runs several businesses including pawnshops and restaurant supply stores.
Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [ edit ]
The Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a group of about 100 to 200 people; most live near Modena, Utah, or Tonopah, Nevada. The Righteous Branch was organized in 1978 by Gerald Peterson, Sr., who claimed that he was ordained a High Priest Apostle by AUB leader Rulon C. Allred. Later, after he was murdered, Rulon C. Allred appeared to him as an angel to instruct him to preside over the keys of the priesthood. This church has built a pyramid-shaped temple and Gerald Peterson, Jr. is their current leader. Like the AUB they are modern in their dress and do not allow girls under 18 to be married.
True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days [ edit ]
The True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days (TLC) is headquartered in Manti, Utah. Membership is estimated at 300 to 500. Organized in 1994, the TLC was a new "restoration" for the "very last days" before the Second Coming of Jesus. While the church initially grew rapidly, it has since stagnated and declined in numbers and converts since it ceased missionary efforts in 2000.
Centennial Park group [ edit ]
A community event in Centennial Park
About 1500 people are members of a group located in Centennial Park, Arizona, called The Work of Jesus Christ. In the early 1980s there was a conflict of leadership in the FLDS Church. Some of the members were very unhappy with the changes being made by various influential men in the community. When the FLDS Church abandoned leadership by council and instituted a "one-man rule" doctrine, those who wanted to maintain leadership by a priesthood council founded Centennial Park in 1986, approximately 3 miles (5 km) south of the twin communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. (Location of Centennial Park).
The name "Centennial Park" is a reference to the 1886 events surrounding Lorin C. Woolley, which serve as the basis for fundamentalist claims of priesthood authority. Members of this group (referred to by members as "The Work") denounce all violence and abuse, do not permit marriage of young girls, and disavow the extreme practices of the FLDS Church. However, like the FLDS Church, they practice a form of arranged marriage. They dress in modern, modest attire.
The Centennial Park group has built a meetinghouse for weekly services and a private high school. A charter school was built in 2003 for the town's growing elementary-age population. About 300 members of this group live in the Salt Lake Valley, where they hold meetings monthly. Members living in Salt Lake City often travel to Centennial Park every month to help in building the community. This group is led by a Priesthood council.
The group was profiled on the ABC television program Primetime in a story entitled, The Outsiders, and also on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God [ edit ]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God[38] is based in the Salt Lake Valley, and has around 200 members. The sect was founded by Frank Naylor and Ivan Nielson, who split from the Centennial Park group, another fundamentalist church. This group trace their authority through Alma Adelbert Timpson and Frank Naylor. The church is estimated to have 200-300 members, most of whom reside in the Salt Lake Valley. Most—if not all—of the members of this group were previously associated with the Centennial Park or FLDS Church. The group is also known as the Third Ward or the Naylor group, after Frank Naylor.
School of the Prophets [ edit ]
The School of the Prophets has its headquarters in the Salem, Utah area. In 1968 Robert C. Crossfield published revelations he had received in the Book of Onias, which (among other things) chastised certain LDS Church leaders; he was excommunicated in 1972.[39] In 1982 Crossfield established a School of the Prophets, overseen by a president and six counselors.[39] Ron and Dan Lafferty (convicted of the July 1984 murder of their brother's wife and infant daughter) served for a month as counselors in the Provo, Utah School of the Prophets in March 1984.[40] Four months after being removed [41] from the school, they committed their crimes. The continuing revelations were later named the Second Book of Commandments;[42] it has 262 sections, dating from 1961 to the present. (2BC Website)
Independent Mormon fundamentalists [ edit ]
There is a large movement of independent Mormon fundamentalists. Independents do not belong to organized fundamentalist groups and do not generally recognize any man as their prophet or leader. Because Independents are not one cohesive group, they are very diverse in their beliefs and interpretations of Mormonism; therefore, their practices vary. Many Independents come from a background in the LDS Church, while others come from other Christian or Mormon fundamentalist backgrounds.
Independents rely upon personal inspiration and revelation to guide them; there is no ecclesiastical structure among the Independents, although Independents often socialize with each other and may meet together for religious services.
Statistically, it is difficult to estimate how many Independents there are, but a recent estimate indicates that there may be more independent fundamentalists than there are in any one of the formally organized polygamous groups and may number as many as 15,000.[43] According to this informal survey, about half of Mormon fundamentalists, both those in groups and those outside of groups, currently practice polygamy. There are many Independents in Utah, Arizona, Missouri[44] and Brazil.
Table [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]'Shadow' And 'D-12' Sing An Infectious Song About Ebola
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist
Ebola has been responsible for many hundreds of deaths, for fear, for panic, for disbelief and anger.
And for a catchy dance song: "Ebola in Town."
The producers behind this unlikely music are Samuel "Shadow" Morgan and Edwin "D-12" Tweh, who grew up in the shadow of war. They both spent time as kids in refugee camps in Ghana after fleeing the civil war back home in Liberia.
They made music together in the camp. Eventually they were able to move back to Monrovia, their country's capital, where they regularly meet up with other musicians in each other's home studios to make music together.
Back in May, Shadow, D-12 and their friend Kuzzy were hanging out at Shadow's studio, thinking about what to do next. Someone threw out the idea of a song about Ebola. They'd heard about the disease but not many of their friends were taking it seriously. Most people, they say, thought it was a trick made up by the government as a way to make money.
Shadow and his collaborators have made music about social issues before – deadbeat dads, sanitation. And even though they weren't sure exactly how bad Ebola was at the time, they did think that people should pay more attention to the disease.
So they laid down a beat and a melody and improvised the vocals. They finished the song in a day. That night, Shadow uploaded the song to the Internet and started sharing it with friends and DJs. The very next day he heard the song playing all around the streets of Monrovia and on people's cell phones. Within three days it was all over the country and had inspired an original dance where dancers mimic kissing and hugging from a distance — a way to keep safe from infection in a country where people love to embrace when they meet.
Shadow and D-12 came to the U.S. in June to attend the Liberia Music Awards, held in Atlanta this year to get more press. They had five nominations and four wins.
Both men say that it was not until they arrived in the U.S. and started watching the news that they fully realized the extent of the Ebola outbreak. Back home, they say, there hadn't been much coverage. Both the health ministry and the government were slow to get the word out.
They're now visiting Shadow's brother in Minneapolis and hoping to do some benefit concerts while they're in the U.S. And they're worrying about the situation back home. D-12 recently heard that a friend in Liberia who works as a nurse had contracted the virus and is currently in treatment.
With Ebola raging in their country, they're not sure they want to go home anytime soon. But they hope their music can help raise money and awareness to combat the Ebola epidemic.
Ebola In Town - Soundcloud
Here are the lyrics for Liberia's first Ebola song:
Something happen
Something in town
Oh yeah the news
I said something in town
Ebola
Ebola in town
Don't touch your friend!
No touching
No eating something
It's dangerous!
Ebola
Ebola in town
Don't touch your friend!
No kissing!
No eating something
It's dangerous!
I woke up in the morning
I started hearing people dem yelling
"Da what thing happen? What thing happen? Ma peekin' what thing?"
They sit down grab me
They say something in town
Frisky!
That thing that in town it quick to kill
That me scary-o
E-B-O-L-A
Ebola. Ebola in town.
I started yelling.
I started running.
What place I will go?
I go to Guinea.
I went everywhere.
Ebola. Ebola there.
I'm not going anywhere.
I'm right here.
I'm not going nowhere-o.
I'm right here.
I know the medicine.
That distant hugging
I said distant shaking
Distant kissing
Don't touch me!
Something in town-oh
Something in town-eh
Ebola.
Ebola in town.
It's dangerous-o.
Ebola is very wicked.
It can kill you quick quick.
Be careful how you shaking hands-o.
Be careful who you touch.
Ebola is more than HIV/AIDS.
It can kill you quick quick.
It can kill you fast fast.
Don't touch your friend.
Don't touch your friend.
I say it will kill you-o.
My pa Jehovah
Please save us from Ebola
Nowhere to go
Nowhere to hide
And I ain't come in town
My people, ya'll please take time
Take time before you get that disease
Don't overlook it
That thing it quick to kill
Na na na na. Ebola - o.
It's dangerous.
Don't take it for joke
My people, I saw it before
It coming too fast
Be on the safe side, you hear me?
Ebola.
If you like the monkey
Don't eat the meat
If you like the baboon
I said don't eat the meat
If you like the bat-o
Don't eat the meat
Ebola in town.After a series of pretty nice deals by Canucks management, including the Chris Tanev extension and trades for Adam Clendening and Sven Baertschi, most of us at Canucks Army were more than a little surprised to see the Canucks extend Luca Sbisa and Derek Dorsett. Drance, Rhys, and Petbugs all chimed in on their angles on the deal over the last couple of days. All definitely worth a read, but I think it’s safe to say it’s been a long time since there have been deal(s) which provoked such a consensus negative reaction.
Beyond what our other writers touched on, these extensions raise a lot of questions about what management’s plans are in terms of navigating the salary cap and building a team for next year. We’ll explore this after the jump.
Vancouver’s Cap Situation
I took the following breakdown from NHL numbers:
2015-16 Forwards Cap Hit Sedin, Daniel $7.00 Sedin, Henrik $7.00 Vrbata, Radim $5.00 Burrows, Alexandre $4.50 Higgins, Chris $2.50 Hansen, Jannik $2.50 Bonino, Nick $1.90 Kassian, Zack $1.75 Dorsett, Derek $2.65 Horvat, Bo $1.74 Defense Edler, Alexander $5.00 Bieksa, Kevin $4.60 Hamhuis, Dan $4.50 Sbisa, Luca $3.60 Tanev, Christopher $4.45 Goalies Miller, Ryan $6.00 Lack, Eddie $1.15 Luongo, Roberto $0.80 Total $66.64
That leaves us with 17 players under contract for 2015-16, using up $66.64M of cap room.
We’re unlikely to know with certainty what the 2015-16 cap will be until the last part of June, but recent media reports have estimated it to come in anywhere from $71M to $73M, which really isn’t a lot of room for the six open positions Vancouver will need to fill. Let’s take a look a the cap room per open roster slot using a $73M, $72M, & $71M cap:
2015-16 estimated cap $73.00 $72.00 $71.00 Estimated cap room $6.36 $5.36 $4.36 Remaining Roster Spots 6 6 6 Cap Room per Open Spot $1.06 $0.89 $0.73
Yuck. The best case scenario of $73M isn’t pretty, and a worst case scenario of $71M is downright ugly. As it stands, Vancouver won’t be able to afford to fill their roster with players making much more than the league minimum salary.
Weber & Matthias on the Way Out?
All signs currently point to Shawn Matthias, a pending UFA, receiving a decent raise from his current $1.75M AAV deal. Unless one of Vancouver’s 17 contract players is moved, it seems next to impossible for him to be re-signed by the Canucks. I have to wonder if the Canucks received some indication that the two sides were too far apart to get a deal done, or whether Matthias just didn’t factor into the Canucks long-term plans. In any case, it looks like Matthias’ days as a Canuck will be all but over at the end of this playoff run.
The same could be said for Yannick Weber, who’ll be an RFA at the end of the season. Because of his RFA status, there is a chance he’ll be in for a smaller bump from his current $0.85 AAV deal, but its pretty hard to envision the Canucks being able to hold on to him given the room they have left. He’s improved as the year has gone on and has shown some chemistry with Dan Hamhuis of late, while putting in top 4 minutes in the wake of injuries and scoring 11 goals on the season.
I can understand walking away from Matthias if he wants to test the UFA waters, as a Clarkson-esque overpay for a big “center” who can score could be on the horizon for Matthias – why wouldn’t he take advantage of that? However, putting yourself in a position where you can’t sign Yannick Weber because you paid $3.6M per year for Luca Sbisa is simply poor planning. This year, Weber’s play has been consistent with a fringe top-4 defensemen. That’s not something you should let go of easily, especially since Kevin Bieksa’s play likely leaves a hole on the right side.
The Last 6 Spots
On the bright side, it does look like there will be lots of open spots for young players on ELCs. I would expect Vey, Kenins, Baertschi, and Clendening to be re-signed for around the $1M/year range. Jake Virtanen would be a new face I’d expect to be a lock, but it could be tricky as his cap hit with bonuses is $1.775M. Similarly, Hunter Shinkaruk has made great strides of late, but you could argue he’s not yet ready to make the jump and given the cap constraints, his $1.1M cap hit might be a bit too much to squeeze in as well.
But now that we’re off to the post-season, what if a Kenins or a Baertschi has that Cinderella post-season run that seems to happen to one or two young guys every year? What if an unsigned talented young RFA like Kenins does the unthinkable and scores that series winning goal, but they don’t have enough room to match a predatory offer sheet because of the $11M tied up in Sbisa, Dorsett, and Miller’s contracts?
Trades?
If we learned anything from Jim Benning last summer, its that he’s not afraid to make shuffle the deck, and not afraid to ask a player to waive their no trade clause (see Garrison, Jason), so it’s fair to say the roster as constructed above will be pretty different from the one that hits the ice in October. Perennially injured and/or dog house fan favorite Zack Kassian would be an obvious choice to change area codes, but that wouldn’t exactly solve their cap problems given his AAV is only $1.75.
Many Canuck fans, including myself, would like to see Kevin Bieksa hit the road. He’s a perfect candidate for a cash-strapped cap floor team, given his AAV of $4.6M is significantly higher than his actual cash owed next year, which is $2.5M. He does have a NTC in his contract, but we know Benning isn’t too shy to ask a player waive this clause, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see him play out the last year of a contract in a warm weather market in a mentorship role like Willie Mitchell working with Aaron Ekblad this year in Florida. He has lots of old team mates who have played out the sunset years of their careers in small market cities too, and I doubt he’s heard a lot of complaints from Sami Salo, Roberto Luongo, Willie Mitchell, Mattias Ohlund, and so on.
Conclusion
To me, the most curious part of these signings isn’t the contracts themselves, but rather the questions they raise around how the rest of the roster is going to be brought under contract and constructed for next season. As it sits now, they’re very much handcuffed, so It’s hard for me not to expect additional roster moves when the playoffs are over and the draft comes around.
Any way you slice it, something has got to give. There’s too little cap space to go around, and too many players to sign.Like all reality shows, Dance Moms follows a formula: there's drama, mean girls, the HBIC, and the inevitable breakout. That breakout was Maddie Ziegler, whose star began to rise in earnest in 2014, when she appeared in the video for "Chandelier," her first of three video collaborations with Sia, and later performed on Ellen and at the Grammys. Last month, she left Dance Moms after six seasons with the Abby Lee Dance Company in Pittsburgh. (Her younger sister, Mackenzie, and their mom, Melissa Gisoni, also left the show.) Now she's a judge on the new season of So You Think You Can Dance with a role in the upcoming movie The Book of Henry and other acting projects in the works. And yet, she's only 13 — which means Mom is still calling the shots. Here, Melissa shares what it's been like to watch her daughter make it big, and how she plans to keep her kid humble in Hollywood.
I never thought about Maddie being famous. I never wanted to be on TV and I never want to be on TV again.
Our friend John Corella [a Dance Moms producer] is the one who pitched the show. He went around the country and casted for moms of dancers. We had to talk on tapes, kind of embellish a little and say, "Oh, my daughter is the best," which is not something I'd normally say. Then we had to send in a bunch of dance videos. It was supposed to be a documentary for six weeks, of them just following the dancers and their moms. I didn't think it was a reality show. I didn't even know what a reality show was then. I never watched any. We were kind of pushed into the contract — like if you don't sign today, you can't be on the show. I was like, "Oh, OK. I'll sign it. What's the big deal?" So we signed a contract when it was called Just Dance. But then it morphed into Dance Moms and then [came] Abby Miller and all the craziness.
Maddie thought it was so cool to have cameras following her, but she's always been a very humble kid. The girls would get up early, at 7:30. They'd get to school at 8. Then they'd stay at school for 3.5 hours. They'd come to the set. The moms would meet them there, we'd eat lunch, and then they'd film until, like, 5 o'clock. Then after that, they went to dance class and didn't get home until 10. But they were used to it. And they were with their best friends. All the girls are like sisters.
Our home life didn't change because we never watched the show. The only thing that was ever an issue was social media. The girls would be like, "Mom, people hate me." And I'm like, "It's not really people. It's people without a face." Kids like 12-year-olds who say mean things to you because they're bored bullies — that was the hardest part of the fame. There's so many fake accounts of my kids and people pretending to be them. I hired a social media manager almost immediately when my kids started to get popular.
I hired a social media manager almost immediately when my kids started to get popular.
Starring in Sia's "Chandelier" video was absolutely a turning point. Sia tweeted Maddie and said, "I want you in my music video." So our publicist found it... two weeks later, Maddie did "Chandelier." At that point, all she wanted to do was dance. Then when she did "Chandelier," she loved the acting portion of it. She was like, "Mom, I really want to take acting classes." I said, "Sure, no problem." Now her fans aren't just Dance Moms fans. They're Sia fans and older people, people that are really artistic. A few weeks ago, Maddie performed with Sia in New York and I was out in the audience. It was really intimate, about 3,000 people. Sia came out as a surprise and she started singing. Then Maddie came out on stage. I bawled like a baby. The audience went nuts. And people were like, "Oh my god, you're Maddie's mom." I'm crying because people were cheering for her. Sia and Maddie are literally best friends. They're going to a wedding together in two weeks. They're family now.
Dance Moms was really a great platform for my kids, but they were pretty much done with it. It's the same thing over and over, week after week. My kids told me they didn't want to do it anymore. When my kids aren't happy anymore, I don't care about anything else. It was also holding the kids back. Maddie couldn't do jobs because of her contract with Dance Moms. It was time to move on. She just did two movies — she did an animated movie and The Book of Henry. My kids are very happy. They miss the girls but they don't miss the drama.
Maddie, Melissa, and Mackenzie. Getty
For Maddie's gigs, everything comes through me and then we decide as a team whether or not Maddie's going to do the job or go audition. Maddie has an attorney, manager, and an agent. Her manager and agent call me and say, "Maddie was offered this." And I'll go to Maddie and say, "Hey, you were offered this. Are you interested?" Normally she'll say, "Oh, yeah. That's so cool." She asks a lot of questions, which is great. Typically when she has meetings I go with her. But she holds herself pretty good. I really don't say much. She's a little adult in a 13-year-old body.
I think she's kind of like my mom. She's always been an old soul. For instance, we were at the Grammys, and we were backstage with Madonna and Tony Bennett. And I was freaking out. She's like, "Mom, calm down. They're just |
quite a few by trading on Cryptsy. Unfortunately Cointellect stopped to process payouts three days ago. They show you the “success-site” when you try to withdraw, but they don’t transfer your coins anymore.”
This sentiment has been shared by other Cointellect customers as well, all of whom have reported similar exploitation by the company.
In an interview given to cryptocurrency news website CoinTelegraph last week, Cointellect COO Helder Rodrigues rubbished such reports. He simply blamed the entire thing on the volume of requests which turned out be more than what they originally anticipated during the holiday season. However, there has been no update on the halt in payment withdrawals up until this time of writing. The company’s Twitter page, as we see, is busy promoting their services every 15 minutes.
At press time, we are not sure whether Cointellect has disappeared with users’ money or not. But the entire episode indeed smells like a rotten fish. Stay tuned for more updates on this story.
Image Credits: Cointellect and FlickrShaun Tait broke the 160kph barrier on Friday © Getty Images
Shaun Tait believes he has made the right decision to abandon first-class cricket and focus on the shorter formats after delivering the fastest ball ever recorded in Australia on Friday night. Tait's third delivery in Australia's Twenty20 win over Pakistan hit 160.7kph, a speed that has only been bettered by Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee since measurements became common.
Tait had clocked 160kph before but this was his quickest ball and he maintained a consistent pace - he didn't drop below 150kph in his opening two-over spell. The record on Australian soil was a fullish ball that Imran Farhat missed, and Tait expended such energy that he stumbled and nearly fell over in his follow-through.
He picked up Farhat with a 152kph ball that was edged to slip and for the rest of his overs hovered in the low to mid 150s. He said he would love to break Akthar's mark of 161.3kph, set during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, but Tait believes the effort required means that his speed peak can only last for a couple of balls per match.
"It's not something that I think about all the time but there's only certain moments when you're bowling, maybe even in your career, when you've probably got a chance to do it," Tait said after the win. "Today it was my third ball and I had a crack the next ball after that just to have a go and I think after that it's hard to get back up to that pace.
"I think when everything's feeling really good and your timing is right, I think you've only got two deliveries in a game to try and break a record like that. It's a pretty hard task. That's an amazing record. But anyway, I'll see how I go, keep pushing. Shoaib bowled whatever he bowled and that's amazing. I almost killed myself out there tonight."
Most importantly, Tait's pace didn't bring with it an erratic line. He was accurate, hard to get away and was named Man of the Match for his 3 for 13 from four overs. At his best, Tait can be one of the most dangerous Twenty20 bowlers in the world and he could be a valuable weapon for Australia at the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies in May.
Tait has had his problems over the years, including a series of injuries and a self-inflicted break from the game due to physical and mental exhaustion in 2008. But by giving away four-day cricket - he hasn't played a first-class match since December 2008 - and playing only Twenty20 and 50-overs games, he has allowed his body to deliver super-fast balls in short, sharp spells of severe impact.
"I think it's freshness, to be honest," Tait said. "Looking back on it now, the decision that I've made at this stage to play the shorter form of the game has been a pretty solid one. I've been fresh for the majority of the games this season, apart from a couple maybe. I'm really enjoying the shorter form, the Twenty20s."
If Tait does head to the World Twenty20, he could form a fearsome and very fast attack along with Dirk Nannes, who hovered in the low 150s on Friday, and the proven danger-man Mitchell Johnson. Until then, Australia will hope for four more Twenty20 assaults from Tait to warm-up for the global tournament.
Brydon Coverdale is a staff writer at Cricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.Doctor Jaspreet Singh Batra came forward on Monday as the victim of an alleged Sikh hate crime that took place in New York City less than two weeks after another Sikh man was reportedly dragged from a pickup truck in Queens. Despite the trauma of the incident, Batra offered a message of forgiveness, rooted in the very faith for which he says he was targeted.
"One thing that our culture and religion teaches us is that we have to look at the bigger picture," Batra told HuffPost. "We ask for wellbeing of all, and if we truly believe that as Sikhs then we also believe in forgiveness and wellbeing of everyone."
Batra was walking home in Roosevelt Island on August 7 when a group of teenagers approached him, called him “Osama bin Laden" and began attacking him. Batra described the incident in a statement:
"I am a physician scientist living and working in New York City. My mom and I were walking to dinner last night on Roosevelt Island. Both of us wear turbans and maintain uncut hair in accordance with our Sikh religious beliefs. As we passed a playground around 8:15pm, we were confronted by approximately 10 teenagers. They called us “Osama bin Laden” and told us to “go back to your country.” They called my mother a “bitch with facial hair.” I told them to stop, but they surrounded me. One of them punched me in the face. Another one punched me in the back of the neck. Another one tried to throw a filled soda bottle at me. As they ran away, I tried pursuing them but was dizzy and felt a lot of pain. I called the police and was treated at a hospital."
In his eight years in the United States thus far, Batra said, he has read of several Sikh-targeted attacks, the most devastating of which was the 2012 shooting at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin that left six dead.
"Oak Creek shook our community to the core," Batra said.
He also read about the incident in Queens in late July that left Sandeep Singh, a Sikh father of two, hospitalized after another reported hate crime. But Batra never expected to become the target of such an attack, himself, especially coming from a faith that he said forbids any kind of discrimination whatsoever.
"You can never expect that happening in a country like the United States because you expect everyone to be educated and to have some humanity in them," Batra told HuffPost. "It invokes a sense of anger."
Anger seems appropriate in the face of such intolerance, but Batra said that the Sikh faith teaches adherents to swiftly move beyond resentment and pursue forgiveness.
"People who are truly attached to Sikhism tend to overcome this feeling," Batra said, "and they want to take these incidents as a reason to do more social work so that people can become better human beings."
Rajdeep Singh, Director of Law and Policy at the Sikh Coalition, has taken a more legal approach to the situation, however, calling on New York city officials to be proactive in arresting and penalizing perpetrators of hate crimes.
“We’re tired of being targeted again and again by bigots, but Sikh Americans aren’t afraid and aren’t going to let a small group of narrow-minded individuals get us down,” Singh said in a press statement. “We look forward to working with the New York City government, including the NYPD and Mayor de Blasio, to arrest the attackers, stop hate crimes in New York City, and make all of our communities safe.”
Sapreet Kaur, Executive Director of the Sikh Coalition, sent a letter to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on August 8 requesting a meeting with the city's leader to discuss discrimination against Sikhs, as highlighted by the recent attacks. A particular concern of Kaur's was the NYPD's seeming lack of urgency in responding to the attack on Sandeep Singh, the victim of the Queens attack. Kaur wrote:
"There is a perception among local Sikhs that the NYPD could have deployed the Hate Crime Task Force immediately after the attack on Sandeep Singh and that, in the absence of community pressure, the investigation would not have been given the priority it deserves."
While advocacy groups petition for lasting systemic change, victims like Batra have the immediate task of integrating and healing from what happened to them. Even Batra, who is a physician and says he has been on the other side treating victims of such crimes, has had difficulty recovering emotionally from what happened. One of the hardest things, he said, was witnessing how the attack affected his mother.
"We have heard similar stories [of attacks] in the past and things have gone too far for the victims," Batra told HuffPost. "She had a thousand thoughts going in her mind because of all the anxiety. She was so shaken, not even able to move."
As he continues to process what happened, Batra said he hopes for justice -- but not for vengeance.
"I know that these kids live in my neighborhood," Batra said. "I know they're teenagers, and they're still in the process of making sense of the world. For me to have closure, I would prefer that these young people come forward and accept their fault, and that we take a positive approach to involve them in the community."
As part of a long lasting path to justice, Batra said he would like to see a mandatory diversity education program in schools and colleges that teaches young people about the value of all faiths and ethnicities.Miami Dolphins receiver Chad Johnson has been arrested on domestic violence charges in Davie, Florida.
Davie police Capt. Dale Engle says Johnson and his wife were at dinner Saturday and she confronted him about a receipt she had found for a box of condoms. His wife, Evelyn Lozada, is on the reality show, Basketball Wives, and the couple married July 4.
Engle says when they arrived at their driveway, Lozada says Johnson head-butted her. She was treated at a hospital for a forehead cut. (Jarrett Bell column)
Engle told the NFL Network that Johnson claimed they accidentally bumped heads during the argument.
Engle says Johnson is in the Broward County Jail where he will remain until he can appear before a judge, which Engle says might not be until Monday.
Johnson's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, declined to comment.
Johnson has been in the news a lot recently. The veteran receiver recently changed his name back from Ochocinco to Johnson, signed with the Dolphins after being released by the New England Patriots and immediately became the star in the debut of this season's Hard Knocks series on HBO.
Here's Johnson looking into the future when he promises to get arrested during his time off. It starts at the 40:25 mark.
While Johnson's football future isn't the foremost concern, the team and the league have a bad situation at hand, considering New York Giants QB Eli Manning represents the NFL in the White House's 1 is 2 Many campaign to end violence against women.
So what do you think, should the Dolphins immediately part company with Johnson or let the legal process play out?
Contributing: Wire reports; (H/T: Trey Wingo)Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi made the remarks after visiting a nuclear hospital in Vienna, Austria, on Thursday.
“We have [reached] several agreements with the Europeans, including the one on nuclear safety with Switzerland and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed [in that regard],” said Salehi, adding that a bright future awaits Tehran-Europe cooperation.
The MoU was signed on Wednesday by top Iranian and Swiss nuclear safety officials at the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Vienna.
Salehi further said Tehran is engaged in serious cooperation with the Czech Republic and is collaborating with relevant EU institutions, namely the European Atomic Energy Community, Jet Company and ITER, an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject.
Touching on his visit to the Vienna nuclear hospital, Salehi said that there is no such medical facility in Western Asia and Iran will open a similar site in the capital, Tehran, within the next 4-5 years if funding is provided.
Tehran and the Group 5+1, namely Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany hammered out a nuclear accord, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015.
It went into effect in January and resolved a long-running dispute over Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. The deal, which took effect in January, ended decades of economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.I have a soft spot for music made with unusual means or from unusual raw materials, and have long been fascinated by unusual notation. Naturally, I’m head-over-heels with Daniel Starr-Tambor’s Mandala — a remarkably dimensional musical composition created by assigning each planet in the Solar System a particular note along the natural harmonic series, starting with Mercury’s B and going all the way up by two octaves and a ninth to Pluto’s C#. The composition is a palindrome, which means it can be played the same way in either direction, and, with more than 62 vigintillion individual notes, it’s the longest palindrome in existence — by far. At the accelerated tempos of the Solar System, it would continue without repetition for over 532.25 septendecillion years — a sort of soundtrack for near-infinity.
An homage to Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of the Fugue, embedded in the piece is the iconic composer’s “musical signature” — the arrangement of the stereo imaging reflects the precise position of the Solar System at the moment of Bach’s birth, viewed from the perspective of the Sun as it faces the constellation Libra, “so that each note chronicles his birthday on every planet.”
If Bach is calling to us from the outer planets, I hope he would accept this music as a fitting response.” ~ Daniel Starr-Tambor
It hardly gets more faceted and cross-disciplinarily creative than this — bravo.
via It’s Okay To Be SmartGetting Started with Ember Data
Soon after you start creating an application in Ember.js, you’ll run into the need for data persistence. Most web applications accomplish data persistence by storing data on the server. Your application is probably no exception. That’s where Ember Data comes in. Note: if you aren’t familiar with Ember.js yet, it might help you to read my introduction to Ember.js first, then come back to this post.
Ember Data’s purpose
The Ember guides describe Ember Data’s purpose here:
Ember Data is a library that integrates tightly with Ember.js to make it easy to retrieve records from a server, cache them for performance, save updates back to the server, and create new records on the client.
Here’s how it’s described on the GitHub project page:
Ember Data is a library for robustly managing model data in your Ember.js applications.
The core team also described it in a blog post like this:
We think of Ember Data as a framework for managing your models and relationships.
In a nutshell, Ember Data allows you to define models inside your application, define relationships between those models, and load records from the server that are instances of those models. It also saves your changes back to the server when the records are updated.
You don’t have to use Ember Data with Ember – many people have written custom libraries for this purpose. It’s possible to “roll your own” using jQuery.ajax and Ember.Objects (or something similar), but that can quickly turn into the kind of spaghetti code we’re trying to avoid by using a framework in the first place. Let’s go over some of the benefits and drawbacks to using Ember Data.
Benefits
The benefits to using Ember Data are very similar to the benefits of using Ember.js itself. It has a clear syntax, is well-maintained, and is backed by a solid core team that thinks hard about architecture and how their choices affect developers. The syntax for creating models and relationships could not be any clearer, and the fact that it is so well integrated with Ember is a big benefit.
Ember Data is the default data library for Ember, so it’s hard to argue that there’s a better choice.
Drawbacks
One drawback to using Ember Data (at least right now) is that it has not officially hit version 1.0 yet. This means the API is subject to change, and the core team recently said that a couple API changes will happen before Ember Data hits 1.0, so some of the code you write will have to be changed if you want to update to a post-1.0 version.
How does it work?
There are several concepts that make up Ember Data’s core functionality: models/records, relationships, the store, and adapters/serializers.
Models/Records
I’m using the word models to define the representation of an object in your application, and the word records to define instances of those models.
Ember Data is where you define your application’s models, and so it is also in charge of storing all the instances (records) of those models.
Relationships
Relationships are the connections between models. These are declared when you define the models, so it’s not a separate definition per se, but it’s such an important way of how Ember Data works that it warrants a mention.
Ember Data has two types of relationships: DS.hasMany and DS.belongsTo.
Store
The store is where all of your records are kept. It’s the local data store that keeps records in memory while you’re using your application. When you include Ember Data, the store is injected into every route and controller in your application, making it easily accessible from routes and controllers by typing this.store.
Adapters/Serializers
Adapters and serializers are what Ember Data uses to talk to your server. Adapters specify the endpoints that Ember Data should hit to create/retrieve/change records, and serializers specify what data is sent (and the format of that data). They translate between “Ember-speak” and “server-speak”.
Ember Data comes with three built-in adapters:
RESTAdapter – The default adapter. It expects data to be returned from the certain endpoints on the server in a pretty specific JSON format (we’ll go into that in a bit). ActiveModelAdapter – This adapter expects data in the format returned by the ActiveModel::Serializers gem for Rails. FixtureAdapter – This adapter expects data in the same format as the RESTAdapter, but not from the server. This is just for creating local, non-server fixture data, which can be very useful for prototyping and testing.
All adapters and serializers can be customized simply by creating a subclass of them and changing properties and methods to your liking. You can also use different adapters and serializers for different models. Yes, things are getting pretty crazy up in here. When Ember Data is trying to determine how it should sync the App.Post model, it will look first for an adapter named App.PostAdapter. If that doesn’t exist, it will look for App.ApplicationAdapter, and lastly will default to the RESTAdapter. The same pattern for extending applies to serializers.
An Ember Data example
For me, these were the two hardest things about getting started with Ember Data:
Figuring out what code was needed to set up models and retrieve records. Understanding how the response from the server should be formatted.
There’s much more documentation out now (such as this page on the official guides), but I still think it’s helpful to see an example. We’ll go with the time-tested blog example, with models for Post and Author.
To set up our models, all we need are a couple model declarations using DS.Model.extend. Here they are:
App. Post = DS. Model. extend ({ title : DS. attr ('string' ), body : DS. attr ('string' ), author : DS. belongsTo ( 'author' ) }); App. Author = DS. Model. extend ({ firstName : DS. attr ('string' ), lastName : DS. attr ('string' ), posts : DS. hasMany ( 'post' ) });
Retrieving records
We now have our models. So how do we retrieve records, and what does the server need to return so that Ember Data recognizes them? On our blog, we probably just want the index page to list our posts. So our IndexRoute would look like this:
App. IndexRoute = Ember. Route. extend ({ model : function () { return this. store. find ( 'post' ); } });
Remember how I said before that the store was accessible in every route and controller? There it is! The store has many more methods that are helpful, but for now a simple call to find will call our server to retrieve the posts. By default, it will call the endpoint /posts, unless you’ve specified a different host or namespace when setting up your adapter.
An aside: specifying a different host and namespace
Many applications won’t have server calls accessible at [host]/posts. Often your endpoints will be on subdomains or a different path (such as one including an API version number). Maybe you even need to send custom headers along, such as an API key or user id. Ember Data’s RESTAdapter deals with this very well. When creating the adapter, you can specify properties to deal with all of these problems:
App. ApplicationAdapter = DS. RESTAdapter. extend ({ host : 'http://api.example.com', namespace : 'v2', headers : { 'COOL_HEADER' : '1234', 'COOLEST_HEADER' : '5678' } });
This would send requests for posts to the endpoint http://api.example.com/v2/posts, and would send along the two specified headers with every request. Have different endpoint paths for different models, you say? No problem. As I mentioned before, adapters can be declared on a per-model basis. For example, if you need your authors to be retrieved from a different API version, you can simply do this:
App. AuthorsAdapter = App. ApplicationAdapter. extend ({ namespace : 'v1' });
Notice that I extended App.ApplicationAdapter there, instead of DS.RESTAdapter. You could extend DS.RESTAdapter instead, but I wanted to make sure any change in the other properties of App.ApplicationAdapter would also be present in App.AuthorsAdapter.
Formatting the server response
Now that we’re making the correct calls to the server, we should know how to format the response so that Ember Data understands it and loads it in as records.
If you’re using the RESTAdapter, here’s an example of what Ember Data expects as a response to a GET /posts call:
{ "posts" : [ { "id" : 1, "title" : "An Awesome Blog Post", "body" : "This is the best blog post ever.", "author" : 1 } ] }
Since author points to an author id, if Ember Data has already loaded the authors into the store, it’ll just load the correct author from the data store (if it’s required in the template). If the author with id=1 has not yet been loaded, Ember Data will make a call to GET /authors/1 to retrieve the author information if needed. As an alternative, you can include authors as a sibling to posts in your original response (with the related author record), and Ember Data will know what to do with that, which will avoid making another server call. Here’s what that would look like:
{ "posts" : [ { "id" : 1, "title" : "An Awesome Blog Post", "body" : "This is the best blog post ever.", "author" : 1 } ], "authors" : [ { "id" : 1, "firstName" : "Andy", "lastName" : "Crum", "posts" : [ 1 ] } ] }
You can also include a links hash inside a post object, which has the path that should be called to retrieve the correct associated author object (or objects, if needed). This is helpful if, for example, you had multiple authors per post and wanted to avoid making a call for each author. Let’s say you have multiple authors and want to use that method. Here’s an example of how the response from GET /posts would look:
{ "posts" : [ { "id" : 1, "title" : "An Awesome Blog Post", "body" : "This is the best blog post ever.", "links" : { "authors" : "/authors?post_id=1" } } ] }
Ember Data Model Maker
When trying to figure out Ember Data, I could never really find any one thing that made it clear what the server response should be. Hopefully my explanation here was clear, but I also made a tiny app called Ember Data Model Maker that might be useful to you. Feel free to experiment with it – hopefully it will give you some extra insight into Ember Data. The code is also hosted on GitHub, so check it out – it’s built with Ember.js and Ember Data (so meta).
Wrapping up
If you want to learn more about Ember Data, check out the section on models on the official guides, as well as the official API documentation.
Ember Data can be a bit tough to get started with, but hopefully this post has been able to clear up some confusion. While technically it’s still in beta, it’s remarkably mature for being at that stage. If you still have doubts, you owe it to yourself to watch the official Ember blog and Ember Data repository for updates, and give it a shot when it hits 1.0. If you think you’re ready, grab the newest beta build and try it out!Murray is challenging Golovkin for the WBA middleweight title
So much so, that Mikhail has placed bets on Murray and could win £57,500
His manager Andrew Mikhail, however, has confidence in his client
Martin Murray is the underdog for his fight with Gennady Golovkin
Martin Murray has been written off by bookmakers and pundits alike ahead of his fight against Gennady Golovkin, but his manager has backed the St Helens middleweight to the tune of £5,000.
Murray takes on the unbeaten knockout sensation in Monte Carlo on Saturday in his third world title fight.
And his adviser Andrew Mikhail stands to win £57,500 if he prevails.
Martin Murray will take on Gennaddy Golovkin on Saturday and has been labeled the underdog
Andrew Mikhail reveals three bets backing Murray to overcome Golovkin on his official Twitter account
Mikhail stands to win £57,500 if Murray can cause an upset in Monte Carlo on Saturday
Alongside a picture of three bets of £300, £500 and £2,200 placed with three separate bookmakers at odds of 8/1 and 9/1, Mikhail tweeted: 'For the tweeters that have said put my money where my mouth is, here you go...'
He also placed a fourth bet of £2,000 with an online exchange at odds of 13/1.
'I've seen what he has put himself through,' Mikhail told Sportsmail. 'He's been away from his family and sacrificed so much. He's stronger and calmer then he's ever been.'
Murray arrived in the principality on Monday after spending five weeks at altitude in Johannesburg.
He will be joined by 700 loyal fans who will all but fill the salubrious Salle de Etoiles which has a capacity of 1,000.
Ahead of coming face to face with Golovkin at Friday's weigh-in, Murray told Sportsmail: 'I just see the fight as a big job and if I want me and my family to have the lifestyle I want us to have, I have to beat him.
'I'm going to work on the tactics we've come up with. People change when they get hit so I've not just got one game plan, I've got 10, 11, 12...
'I just want to fight, it doesn't bother me who it is. I was in the lift with my manager and I said I wished he was Golovkin!
It might be daunting for some people, but I can't wait.'
Murray and Gennady Golovkin pose for a photo during the press conference for their upcoming fightImage caption Queen's University, Belfast, has fallen from 170th best ranked university in the world during the last academic year to 182nd place this year
Queen's University, Belfast (QUB) has fallen 12 places in the latest global university rankings.
It fell from 170th best ranked university in the world in 2014/15 to 182nd in the QS World University Rankings for 2015/16.
Ulster University, meanwhile, was ranked in a band from 551-600 in 2015/16, similar to last year.
The QS rankings are one of the most authoritative rankings of universities across the globe.
The ratings are based on a number of factors, including evaluating each university's strengths in research, teaching, academic reputation, staff to student ratio and the number of international staff and students.
However, QS said it has changed its methodology slightly this year to counteract a bias in favour of universities specialising in life sciences and to better reflect the qualities of institutions focusing on other areas.
The other main global ranking table for universities is the Times Higher Education system, which is due next month.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA was rated the world's top university in 2015/16, followed by Harvard in second place, with Stanford and the University of Cambridge in joint third place.
The UK had 30 universities, including Queen's University, in the world's top 200.
In the UK alone, QUB was ranked 29th, while Ulster University was ranked 56th.MIAMI (CBSMiami) – “The idea of giving back has always been a part of my thinking.” Those are the words from Dr. George Simpson, who along with his wife Dr. Dazelle Simpson, have dedicated themselves to caring for South Florida African-American residents.
“I was four when I said I wanted to be a doctor,” explained Dazelle to CBS4’s Rick Folbaum. “My grandmother was ill at the time and I said I wanted to become a doctor so I could treat her and make her better.”
These two doctors broke down barriers in the early 1950s.
PHOTO GALLERY: FAMOUS LOCAL FACES FROM SOUTH FLORIDA
George was the first board certified African-American surgeon in the state of Florida.
Dazelle was the first African-American pediatrician in Miami. They met at medical school in Nashville, continued their training in South Florida and chose to settle in Miami, which was Dazelle’s hometown.
“I decided we might as well come here although I hadn’t quite decided that until my wife built a house in Miami in 1955. And once you build a house, it’s hard to get away,” said George.
The Civil Rights Movement here was not yet in full force.
“I remember when I got here; Fort Lauderdale was just as bad as any part of Alabama or Mississippi. But Miami was kind of an oasis and we didn’t find the stiff, unrelenting opposition to integration there that we did in other parts,” he explained.
“I was very lucky in coming to Miami,” said Dazelle.
And Miami was very lucky to have the Simpsons. They quickly realized a need in South Florida’s black communities.
“The poor side of a community always got the worst in health because economic, psychological, and religious attitudes can all cause a lot of illnesses,” said George.
And they did something about it.
“We petitioned the University of Miami and the city and to have this built on the west side where there was a greater underserved population.
George was the first medical director of Miami’s first community health center.
PHOTO GALLERY: FAMOUS FACES FROM BLACK HISTORY
Dazelle would see patients in health clinics for 3 dollars an hour. She always remembered, as a young girl, watching African-Americans wait for hours and hours to see a white doctor. She wrote about it.
“This is what my 5th grade paper said, ‘They would come to doctors of color so they could be treated properly and they wouldn’t have to wait outside until everyone else was seen.’”
The Simpsons have been married over 65 years. They are doctors, activists, and trailblazers.
The very best South Florida has to offer. While he was practicing medicine, Dr. George Simpson was also active in the civil rights movement and the local NAACP. He fought for desegregation in all public facilities, from hospitals to schools and restaurants.
The Simpsons still live in Coconut Grove.If you peeked inside the window of Signs, a restaurant and bar in Toronto, Canada, you might not notice anything that separates it from other restaurants. But grab a menu, take a seat, and you'll soon find out what makes this place so special. Signs is the first of its kind in Canada and time will tell if the trend catches on in other cities. Founder Anjan Manikumar's goal was to "deliver a whole new dining experience."
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What makes Signs so special? The Ontario-based eating establishment is staffed with deaf waiters. As is implied by the name, customers will order their food and drinks using sign language. Each item on the menu is juxtaposed with symbols that show the customer how to sign for that particular food or drink.
Thus, not only do patrons get a nice meal, they also learn a thing or two.Joe.My.God. published a fund-raising email from Brian Brown, co-founder of the homophobic group National Organization for Marriage (NOM). In the email, Brown tries to condemn the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, but fails spectacularly.
It should go without saying, but I will say it to be clear: racism cannot be tolerated in America. Those who profess hateful racial views, whether they be white supremacists, skinheads, neo-Nazis or some other disgusting cult of hate, should be condemned. And I do condemn them. God did not make any race to be superior to another. He made us all in His image, all equal, all with inherent human dignity.
Well, great! No matter what else NOM does, it’s good that they’re not going down the “violence on many sides” path that so many on the right have…
We’ve never seen outrage from the left to the violence that radicals, including LGBT extremists, inflict and encourage.
I spoke too soon.
If there’s anything that can compare to the centuries of violence against African Americans that included slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK, it’s some queer kids with their blogs making fun of NOM rallies that no one wants to go to.
We don’t see it when NOM is attacked, we didn’t see it when an LGBT activist attempted to commit mass murder on those working at the Family Research Council in Washington, and we didn’t see it when a leftist supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Center attempted to murder Republican members of Congress, and shot our good friend Rep. Steve Scalise.
Except, er, LGBTQ organizations did condemn that shooting. And the left has been trying to make shootings like either of those mentioned a lot harder to carry out. These shootings happened because the right has fought tooth and nail to make sure that anyone with a grudge can buy as many guns as they want.
More to the point, this is an example of white people making everything about them, even racist violence. There’s no comparison between a random person getting a gun and deciding to shoot people – as terrible as that is – and centuries of brutal violence against an entire group of people, violence that includes mass shootings.
But there’s a reason Brown goes there:
Your financial support of NOM will be used to fight the intolerance of the left and push for important legal protections for Americans who believe in marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
In other words, if you’re bothered by the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, then send money to NOM. They won’t do anything about racism, but they’re hoping that their sponsors don’t actually care about that.
This Story Filed UnderThis idea popped into my head while playing with the peer.js demos, and as a partial response to all the GCSB / PRISM bullshit. You could build a pretty sweet little social network just using webRTC, without a central server.
I’m thinking of a facebook-wall style network, where each user has a wall, and you can befriend anyone else. You would first start by letting clients use a twitter-style handle as their node id, and adding authentication to the peer server, so that you can prove you own a particular handle. Note that nothing would be stored by the central server except a username and password (and whatever data webRTC needs you to hold to broker sessions), everything else would be stored in localStorage on a client.
Making a friend
To make a friend, you would add them by their handle, and the broker server would tell you the IP address and port number (via STUN) of the client you want to connect to. That client then accepts you, and sends you any updates to their wall, and your client can post any updates to that persons wall.
JSON
Peer.js supports data channels, so you can send json over the webRTC connection. So you do all your user interface in Backbone.js, and serialize it to JSON to store in localStorage, or to send over webRTC>
Only while online
The biggest problem with this setup of course, is that it only works when everyone is online at once. So, for example, it’ll work when everyone is at work during the day, or if you and a friend are both online in the evening. You can even post to your own wall when friends are offline, and if you wanted to, when a friend connects to your webRTC instance, they could poll you to say ‘send through all the updates to your wall since timestamp x. It’s a bit like instant messenger, you have to leave the app open in a browser window somewhere.
No encryption required
It’s kind of cool, because it doesn’t require any easy-to-fuck-up cryptography to provide a relatively private social network, since all the content is stored on peoples PCs and not in a cloud server. It also means you can scale the network to zillions of people relatively easily, all your server has to provide is STUN and authentication, all the content (including images and any other media you want to share) is stored in the browser and sent directly from peer-to-peer. The biggest problem I had with knocking up a distributed social network like Diaspora-X or working on Buddycloud, was that you had to build this fuck-off big federation component that was hard for people |
the Beautiful, Weeds and Private Practice.
She is the twin sister of actress Rachel Pace.
Haley Peel
Haley Peel is a former child actress who provided the voice of Peppermint Patty in You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown.
She also appeared in the 1993 film Addams Family Values.
Andy Pessoa
Andy Pessoa is an actor who provided the voice of Shermy in Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown.
Andy Pforsich
Andy Pforsich (born August 31, 1959 in Sonoma County, California) is a former child actor who provided the voice of Schroeder in the 1969 film, A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
Robin Reed
Robin Reed is a former child actor who provided the voice of Franklin in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
Cindi Reilly
Cindi Reilly is a former child actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in three Peanuts television specials: It's Magic, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Celebration and It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown.
Tiffany Reinbolt
Tiffany Reinbolt is a former child actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Reinbolt guest-starred on the television shows Mr. Belvedere and Small Wonder. She appeared in the 1990 film, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael starring Winona Ryder.
Tiffany Reinbolt is the sister of Jeremy Reinbolt.
Brittan Reese
Brittan Reese is a former child actor who provided the voice of Peppermint Patty in the video games Get Ready for School, Charlie Brown! and Snoopy's Campfire Stories.
Ashley Rose
Ashley Rose (born November 11, 1990) is an American former child actress. She voiced Lucy van Pelt in I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown.
Brad Schacter
Brad Schacter (born Bradley I. Schachter on March 16, 1970 in Los Angeles, California) is a former child actor who provided the voice of Schroeder in It's an Adventure, Charlie Brown.
Schacter also appeared in the 1982 film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch and appeared in the ABC weekend special, All the Money in the World. His last film role was in the 1990 film Fear.
Venus Schultheis
Venus Schultheis (born Venus Omega Schultheis) is an actress who provided the voice of Peppermint Patty in The Peanuts Movie.
Spencer Robert Scott
Spencer Robert Scott is a former child actor who provided the voice of Charlie Brown in He's a Bully, Charlie Brown.
Milly Shapiro
Amelia "Milly" Shapiro (born July 16, 2002) is an American musical theater actress who played Sally Brown in the 2016 Off-Broadway Revival of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." She also played Matilda Wormwood in Matilda: The Musical (2013-2014).
02 You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version 11 The Book Report 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version 14 My New Philosophy 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version 15 T-E-A-M (The Baseball Game) 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version 16 Glee Club Rehearsal 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version 19 Happiness 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version 20 Bows 2016 Off-Broadway Cast Version
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Christopher Shea
Christopher Dylan Shea (February 5, 1958 – August 19, 2010) was an actor who provided the voice of Linus van Pelt in five Peanuts television specials: A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown's All-Stars, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, You're in Love, Charlie Brown, and He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown.
Shea appeared on various television series throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He was the older brother of Stephen Shea, who provided the voice of Linus in Peanuts television specials during the 1970s, and Eric Shea, who was also an actor.
On August 10, 2010, in Honeydew, Humboldt County, California, Shea died of natural causes at the age of 52. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Mariel Sheets
Mariel Sheets (born in July 2005 in Spokane, Washington) is an actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in The Peanuts Movie.
She has appeared in national commercials and has done voice-over work for television, radio and the Internet.
Arrin Skelley
Arrin Skelley was the actor who provided the voice of Charlie Brown in the 1980 movie, Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!!), in three Peanuts television specials: It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown, You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown and She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown, and on various record releases produced by Disneyland/Buena Vista Records.
Matthew Slowik
Matthew Slowik is a former child actor who provided the voice of Harold Angel in It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. He also starred as Lionel on the TV series, Drexell's Class and appeared in the movie, Big Bully starring Rick Moranis and Tom Arnold.
Kathy Steinberg
Kathy Steinberg is a former child actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in four Peanuts television specials: A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown's All-Stars, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and You're in Love, Charlie Brown.
During production of A Charlie Brown Christmas, Steinberg had not learnt how to read, so her lines were fed to her, a word or syllable at a time.
During production of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Steinberg had almost finished recording all her lines when the producers got a phone call from her mother letting them know that one of Kathy Steinberg's teeth was loose. Fearing that a sudden lisp would ruin continuity, the producers rushed Steinberg into the studio to finish up recording her lines. As Steinberg was speaking her last line, her tooth came flying out of her mouth.
Since 1990, Steinberg has owned her own business called Via Motif which designs and manufactures interior design accessories for luxury hotels. She resides in Miami Beach, Florida and Paris.
Carl Steven
Carlo Steven Krakoff (better known as Carl Steven) (November 7, 1974 – July 31, 2011) was an American retired former child actor. In 1985, he voiced Franklin in the episode "Sally's Sweet Babboo" of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show and voiced Franklin and "Pig-Pen" in Snoopy's Getting Married, Charlie Brown.
In 1996, Steven retired from acting and got so addicted to a medication for a condition which affected his mouth that he stole to support his addiction.
In 2010, Steven was arrested for armed robbery in in Tucson, Arizona, and was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. However, in 2011, he had an overdose of drugs in prison where he died. He is survived by his widow and child.
Steven is the Peanuts actor to have had the shortest life span, not including any surviving actors under 36, current or former.
Brandon Stewart
Brandon Stewart is an American former child actor. He voiced Linus van Pelt in Why, Charlie Brown, Why? and This is America, Charlie Brown. He also played John Metcalf in Hill Street Blues, Jeff in Tales from the Darkside, and Bolan's Son in CBS Summer Playhouse.
Adrienne Stiefel
Adrienne Stiefel is a former child actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in Why, Charlie Brown, Why?.
Bella Stine
Bella Stine is an actress who provides the voice of Lucy van Pelt in the TV series Peanuts.
Erin Sullivan
Erin Sullivan is a former child actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in the 1969 film A Boy Named Charlie Brown.
Brandon Taylor
Brandon Taylor is a former child actor who provided the voice "Pig-Pen" in It Was My Best Birthday Ever, Charlie Brown.
A. J. Teece
A. J. Tecce is an actor who provided the voice of "Pig-Pen" in The Peanuts Movie.
Brittany Thornton
Brittany Thornton is an American former child actress. She voiced Sally Brown in This is America, Charlie Brown, Janice's little sister in Why, Charlie Brown, Why? and provided some additional voices in It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown. She also played Laurie Escobar in Knight and Daye and Ivy in The Wish That Changed Christmas. She is the producer of While in Mexico.
Stacy Heather Tolkin
Stacy Heather Tolkin is a former child actress known for her role as the voice of Sally Brown and Truffles on The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show during the 1983 season and in two Peanuts television specials: Is This Goodbye, Charlie Brown? and What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?
She appeared in the 1979 movie, The Concorde...Airport '79 as Irina and guest-starred in two episode of the television series, WKRP in Cincinatti as Bunny Tarlek.
Mary Tunnell
Mary Tunnell is a former child actress who provided the voice of Frieda for the 1983 season of The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show.
Lynn Vanderlip
Lyn Vanderlip is a former child actress who provided the voice of Patty in Charlie Brown's All-Stars. Her performance is uncredited.
Kaitlyn Walker
Kaitlyn Walker (born February 12, 1981 in Lexington, Kentucky) is a former child actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in Snoopy's Reunion.
Her other credits include working as an ADR artist on films such as Rocky V, Rookie of the Year, Andre, The Baby-Sitters Club, Sleeping with the Enemy, The Prince of Tides, Bye Bye Love and House Arrest.
Jordan Warren
Jordan Warren is an American former child actor. He voiced one of the camp bullies in the movie Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown.
Grant Wehr
Grant Wehr is a former child actor who provided the voice of Charlie Brown in Someday You'll Find Her, Charlie Brown.
Frank Welker
Frank Welker is an American voice actor who has provided the voice of many adult characters in Peanuts animated cartoons, most notably the United States presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosavelt in "The Smithsonian and the Presidency", Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison in "The Great Inventors", Wilbur Wright in "The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk" and the Mayor in It's the Pied Piper, Charlie Brown.
His most famous roles outside the Peanuts universe include providing the voice of Fred Jones and the title character from the Scooby-Doo franchise, Megatron in the Transformers franchise, Brian and Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, Baby Kermit from Muppet Babies, Gogo Dodo from Tiny Toon Adventures, and many others.
William Wunsch
William Wunsch is an actor who provided the voice of Shermy in The Peanuts Movie.
Emma Yarovinsky
Emma Yarovinsky is an actress who provided the voice of Sally Brown in two episodes of the TV series Peanuts.
Lily Zager
Lily Zager is an actress who provides the voice of Peppermint Patty in the TV series Peanuts.
See alsoLOS ANGELES -- Count Dan Henderson among those who have tuned in to Bellator's legends fights over the past couple years.
Whether it's been Tito Ortiz, Stephan Bonnar, Kimbo Slice, Ken Shamrock, Royce Gracie, or any of the above, Henderson, the only simultaneous two-weight-class major champ the sport has even known, can't help but tune in.
But he's not sure whether Bellator's tentpole attractions should still be fighting.
"I watched, you know, and wondered why I stayed watching it after I saw it," said Henderson, who meets Lyoto Machida next week at UFC on FOX 19. "But I did just like anybody else. But I'd like to see some of those guys not fight anymore."
Henderson's been around the game long enough to know exactly why Bellator has put on these fights. He knows Bellator is the No. 2 promotion in the sport and the legends fights are a way to attract eyeballs and grow the product.
"Bellator is using them to kind of create a little more buzz around them, people to talk about them," Henderson said. "Ultimately they've been trying to grow their stable of fighters with the top guys out there that aren't signed with the UFC. But they've occasionally used some of these older names who have been big names in the sport to help grow their brand. I don't think anybody had the inclination that those fights were going to be good fights."
Henderson, the former PRIDE 183- and 205-pound champ, says there are other ways for fighters to stay involved in the sport when their fighting days are done.
"I think if they want to be involved there's other ways to make money, which, Royce Gracie does that," Henderson said. "He teaches seminars all over the world. He does that and probably didn't need to fight, he probably got paid pretty well for that. But he's not as old as some of the other ones."
Of course, the elephant in the room in this conversation is that Henderson, himself, is no spring chicken -- he's 45 years old and the Machida fight is on the last on his UFC contract. But while he hasn't made up his mind on his future, Henderson has hinted that unlike his Bellator counterparts, this could be his last dance.
"It's going to be one fight at a time," Henderson said. "This is the last one on my contract. I'm going to fight this one and it's one fight at a time. I know that, if things go right and I get offered certain things, maybe I won't fight again."President Trump has been treated better by Fox News since Rupert Murdoch took over for Roger Ailes -- and he knows it.
The president has been heard on multiple occasions talking about how Fox's coverage of him has become more positive since Murdoch took the reins at the network, sources at both the White House and Fox News told CNNMoney.
The president "talks about how the coverage under Murdoch is better than under Ailes," a White House source said.
According to New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman, Trump was also heard on a hot mic this week telling Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, "Rupert's been a lot better to me than Roger ever was."
The president's sentiments about Murdoch may explain why he repeatedly gives interviews to Fox outlets while ignoring other networks. Six of the eight sit-down television interviews Trump has given as president have gone to Fox News or Fox Business. (The other two went to ABC News and the Christian Broadcasting Network.)
Trump's relationship with Fox was more fraught during the 2016 campaign, especially during the Republican primary, when there was still competition to be the GOP's standard-bearer. Adding to the tension, former primetime host Megyn Kelly challenged Trump's statements on her show and sparred with him during primary debates. Trump even skipped one of those debates, citing what he saw as unfair treatment by Kelly.
Since Kelly's departure in January, Fox's primetime lineup has become notably pro-Trump, from Bill O'Reilly to Tucker Carlson to Sean Hannity. The network's morning show, "Fox & Friends," is also overwhelmingly supportive of the president, who used to be a regular guest on the program.
Related: Latest sign of warming relationship between Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump: a tweet
Trump and Murdoch's relationship was not always so friendly. Murdoch was a vocal critic of Trump early in his campaign. In early 2016, however, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner brought Trump and Murdoch together for several meetings and conversations, according to sources close to both men, and Murdoch came around to Trump.
Shortly before his inauguration, Trump tweeted, "Rupert Murdoch is a great guy who likes me much better as a very successful candidate than he ever did as a very successful developer!"According to Rich Cimini, the Jets have contacted a few teams about a potential Sheldon Richardson trade including the Buccaneers, Colts, and Seahawks. However, Cimini says that New York hasn’t found any takers for him.
A few weeks ago, Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reported that the Jets are still open to trading Richardson, even after they were unable to finalize a deal during this year’s draft.
According to Rapoport, one of the issues that prevented Richardson from being moved was his $8 million salary. Had Richardson been willing to take a pay cut, it’s possible a trade could be completed, but he’s resisted doing so up to this point.
The Redskins and Cowboys have also come up as potential landing spots for Richardson, but it’s hard to say either is all that likely at this point in time.
If the Jets don’t trade Richardson, they could hold on to him for one more year and possibly recoup a 2019 third-round compensatory pick, depending on the contract he signs as a free agent next year.
Richardson, 26, is a former first-round pick of the Jets back in 2013. He played out his the final year of his four-year, $10.054 million rookie contract but the Jets elected to pick up his fifth-year option last year, which means he’s under team control through the 2017 season and will make a bases salary of $8.069 million.
According to OverTheCap.com, trading Richardson would free up $8,069,000 of available cap space while creating no dead money.
In 2016, In 2016, Richardson appeared in 15 games for the Jets and recorded 62 tackles, 1.5 sacks, a forced fumble, two recoveries and two pass defenses. Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 31 edge defender out of 109 qualifying players.My hilt (without light blade ): ) I made of craft clay.
Makeup & Bodypainting: Me & Yoru Kamiko (fb: Makeup & Bodypainting: Me & Yoru Kamiko (fb: www.facebook.com/yorukamiko )- Painting took 4/5 hours!
Lekku: Twi'lek Paradise (web: Lekku: Twi'lek Paradise (web: www.twilekparadise.com/ - This team is awesome! Thanks! )
Model: Me Model: Me
Costume: Me, hammer, chisel, coffee, thread, needle, scissors, nerves and company! Costume: Me, hammer, chisel, coffee, thread, needle, scissors, nerves and company!
EDIT:
Oh my God...
So many comments and faves, and other... I...I completely don't know what i should say.
Thank You!
I really didn't expect that my costume can be so praised- I'm surprised and very happy!
XIV Festival of Fantasy FALKON 2013This version is better, and full details than my cosplay on MFKiG.The armor is made of stainless steel. Top, gloves, belt and boots is made of leather.Last month, a Philadelphia-based biotech company kicked off a clinical trial that pushes the envelope of what it means to be dead.
Armed with ethical approval from the IRB at the Anupam Hospital in India, Bioquark is recruiting 20 patients who have been clinically deemed brain dead from severe traumatic brain injury.
With an arsenal of cutting-edge, if mysterious, treatment techniques — stem cells, bioactive molecules, brain and spinal cord stimulation — the team hopes to revive parts of the patients’ basic brain functions, with the eventual “holy grail” goal of returning the ability to breathe on their own.
The anticipated deadline for measurable results? A short 15 days.
Let that sink in.
If your first reaction is incredulity, you’re not alone. What is this, The Lazarus Effect, Frankenstein, The Walking Dead? Some sort of viral campaign for an upcoming horror flick?
Not quite. A horde of zombies may not be in our future, but Bioquark’s goals are to cheat death. Here’s what the stunningly ambitious ReAnima project plans to do.
The Tricky Business of Defining Death
We often think of death as flipping a switch: one minute you’re there, the next minute it’s all lights go out.
But this is a simple caricature of the dying process: even after heartbeat and breathing ceases, sparks of brain activity often linger. In some cases, even deeply comatose patients — unable to breathe on their own — can maintain simple reflexive responses. Their brain waves, however slight or erratic, are still measurable by EEG.
Brain death, in contrast, is final. The diagnosis signals a complete and irreversible destruction of the brain, including the brain stem. Brain dead individuals aren’t comatose or in a vegetative state. They have no hope for spontaneous recovery. They’re dead.
In many countries around the world these subjects are classified as “living cadavers,” explained Ira Pastor, the CEO of Bioquark to Singularity Hub. But there’s a problem with the definition.
In theory, brain death is a highly objective, rigorously defined medical state with tremendous legal implications. After all, we view brain dead patients as beyond rescue — time to pull the plug, to consider organ donation, to say our final goodbyes.
But in practice, brain death is not so cut and dried.
There’s a lot of “grey zone” between deep coma and brain death, says Pastor.
A major reason is that “irreversible death” is very much technology dependent. For many centuries, a lack of breathing and heartbeat were hallmarks of death, but the invention of life support machines and resuscitation methods blurred that line.
Given historical precedent, who can say that brain death is truly irreversible?
Although brain death may seem like a medically advanced definition of death, its criteria were first coined in the late 1960s, long before neuroscience dove into serious research about consciousness and personhood.
As such, brain death doesn’t take into account recent technologies and findings of modern neuroscience, such as measuring neurotransmitter release.
The process of diagnosing brain death is similarly archaic. A doctor may prick the patient’s nailbed to check for pain, see if carbon dioxide triggers spontaneous breathing, use electroencephalography (EEG) to detect signs of electrical activity in the brain.
Yet none of these measures can definitively tell us if there’s no coming back.
Although irreversibility lies at the core of brain death, it isn’t measurable, says Pastor. In rare cases, doctors are wrong. Over the past few decades, there have been a few dozen cases of spontaneous revival in brain dead patients, mostly children and young adults. In one particularly mind-boggling case, a young woman successfully gave birth after being diagnosed as brain dead.
“Although controversial and resulting in poor prognoses, we believe [these] cases highlight that things are not always black or white in this area of severe disorders of consciousness,” says Pastor.
That’s our main impetus for embarking on this niche program, he says.
The Lazarus Toolkit
How do you jumpstart a dead brain?
The subjects in our study suffer from severe and widespread neuronal death, explained Pastor. The integrity of axons — long projections that neurons use to communicate with one another — disintegrates, and normal signal processing breaks down.
One fix is to try and salvage what’s left, like fixing a broken headset by reconfiguring existing wires. But any attempt at rebuilding a dead brain will likely require working replacement parts — newly grown brain cells to replace those lost to injury. What’s more, the cells will need a favorable environment to help them grow and integrate into existing brain circuits.
Bioquark is focusing on both.
The team’s “secret sauce” is a combination of bioactive molecules and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs exist in almost all tissues, and have been used in cell replacement therapies for nearly 10 years. Although not yet fully tested in humans, preliminary studies in rodents with traumatic brain injury showed that transplanted MSCs integrate into the brain and help to enhance motor and cognitive recovery.
By studying the extreme end of brain damage, Pastor believes that the team will gain unique insights into the workings of a dying brain.
Stem cell transplantation is nothing new, but Bioquark wants to take it one step further: with a variety of bioactive molecules, the team hopes to establish a microenvironment in the brain that allows “epimorphic regeneration,” the process of regrowing a missing body part.
When adults suffer a physical injury, such as losing a finger, our bodies respond by forming scar tissue. The default response is repair, not regeneration.
During early human fetal development, however, tissue injury kicks off a massive and highly coordinated response that steers the body away from inflammation and scarring. Rather than getting a nasty scar, the human fetus can rebuild lost tissue, much like planarian flatworms regenerate severed heads (and potentially retain memories from the last head!).
Much of this process involves attracting massive amounts of local cells to help rebuild the tissue. And they’re not just stem cells either. In many cases, mature cells are “de-differentiated,” in that they lose their identity and convert back into a stem cell-like state. In this way, the body “recycles” these cells to support tissue regeneration.
It’s a process that happens naturally in the human fetus, says Pastor. So, we asked — what if we could mimic this process and force the adult brain’s default response to change from repair to regeneration?
Previous research at Bioquark found that this rebuilding process relies on bioactive molecules that can be extracted from amphibian egg cells.
The extracted bioactive components, mostly microRNAs and proteins, can reprogram damaged cells into a stem cell-like state, wrote the team in a 2014 patent.
In fact, stem cells are somewhat secondary players — there’s plenty of concern they may be overhyped. Our core focus is on these morphogenic extracts, explained Pastor.
That said, relatively little has been published on the lead chemical extract, a mix of bioactive molecules with the esoteric name BQ-A, in animal models of brain death.
The problem is that such models are few and far between, and some of them are quite exotic, like poisoning pigs with carbon monoxide, explained Pastor. We steered away from these models and instead focused on traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury models in our preliminary studies, he said.
The current trial will be the first that directly tests the power of these extracts to help reboot the human brain.
Pastor stresses that the study is designed to look at very basic brain stem function after treatment — an electrical whisper here, a puff of neurotransmitter there.
In addition to cell-based therapies, Bioquark also plans on using brain stimulation techniques to supplement BQ-A. These treatments, including median nerve stimulation and transcranial laser stimulation, are often used to treat cases of coma and other severe disorders of consciousness with varying degrees of success.
Why use such a big combination of different techniques? Wouldn’t Bioquark want to know, right off the bat, what’s working and what’s not?
The current big pharma model of disease intervention has two severe flaws as I see it, explains Pastor. One is the heavy focus on treating late-stage symptoms rather than the initial cause. Another is the reductionist approach to reduce any disease to a single cause, and therefore, a single drug solution.
“Epimorphic regeneration in nature is multi-faceted and involves many mechanisms operating in synergy,” says Pastor. “To undertake such a complex initiative, there is obviously no ‘magic silver bullet’ (and most likely will never be), hence the combination protocol concept.”
ReAnimation
Pastor stresses that the study is designed to look at very basic brain stem function after treatment — an electrical whisper here, a puff of neurotransmitter there.
“While full recovery…is indeed a long-term vision of ours…it is not the core focus or primary end point of this first study,” says Pastor. A near future “holy grail” is the resumption of independent respiration, he added.
In other words, we won’t be seeing the brain dead awake and alert anytime soon.
But looking ahead, if the treatment works, we may run into the thorny philosophical question of personal identity. As bioethicist Dr. Anders Sandberg mulls at The Conversation, “it is not hard to imagine that the treatment would not restore the brain completely: memories, personality and functions might be scrambled, lost, or replaced with newly-grown tissue.”
In that case, the original person wouldn’t benefit from the treatment — they would be replaced with someone similar, but other.
But that’s a scenario far in the future, one that may not ever happen. After all, the proposed therapies are highly experimental, and the brain’s regenerative powers — though remarkable — may be prohibitively finite.
Yet Pastor sees value in the venture even if the trial fails.
“Needless to say it is a very untouched area of discovery and development. Even if you scan outward to the wider class of the ‘disorders of consciousness’ it is an area that has very few therapeutic interventional studies of any type occurring,” says Pastor.
This is especially obvious when compared to more “traditional” neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, he says.
By studying the extreme end of brain damage, Pastor believes that the team will gain unique insights into the workings of a dying brain — insights that may ultimately help a range of degenerating central nervous system conditions.
“We feel the ‘trickle down’ learnings will be invaluable to all of these diseases,” he says.
Image credit: ShutterstockFeatured PokeArt - Lovely Snake KunYKA 118 ArtTrade - Team Electric KunYKA 138 ArtTrade - Moonlight Blossoms KunYKA 141 PokeArt - Why Time Slows Down Sometimes... KunYKA 342 ArtTrade - Dusk during the Midnight KunYKA 153 ArtTrade - Flame Champion KunYKA 160 ArtTrade Dual Pack - 2 Beasts KunYKA 141 REUPLOAD ArtTrade - Red Scarf KunYKA 133 ArtTrade - Flame Foxy Gal KunYKA 140 ArtTrade - Flare Admin Houndoom KunYKA 131 FanArt - Not a snowflake, but it is cold KunYKA 145 PokeArt - Gods need to sleep too! KunYKA 167 PokeArt - An Accidental Clash RE-UPLOAD KunYKA 178 PokeArt - Now you have grown up! KunYKA 134 PokeArt - Steps of Time KunYKA 183 Randomized Adopts [ ONLY 10 SLOTS OPEN!!!] schoolme1 39 ArtTrade - It is a CHEESE!!! KunYKA 115 ArtTrade - New Brawler KunYKA 129 ArtTrade - Shoryuken! KunYKA 227 ArtTrade - Two Playful Friends KunYKA 138 Comission - Cotton Candy Bunny KunYKA 125 ArtTrade - Cunning Fox (RE-Upload) KunYKA 124 ArtTrade - Brawling Gecko KunYKA 166 ArtTrade - Guildship Lovers KunYKA 146I can’t imagine that I will ever publish a post as unpopular as this one is bound to be–particularly with anyone from my own city, and, I’d bet, most everyone else. However, I still think it still needs to be said.
When I was growing up, being a nerd was still an anomaly; hipster chic had yet to rear its ugly head, and if you weren’t into sports, you were nothing. Guess which camp I was in? That’s right; I was the one who always wanted to build a fort out of the mats in gym class, rather than join into the team sport. Times have changed a bit, and it’s become more socially acceptable for a man to show no interest in sports, but not as much as some of us might have hoped.
Hockey is ubiquitous in Canada, but it’s football that’s really grown in my city over the last decade. We’ve had our own team for over a century now (though not under the current franchise name—that’s only been around for about 65 years), but it’s only in the last decade or so that their popularity has increased to a fervor—to the point where people speak of the “Rider Nation” (our team being the Roughriders) and “bleeding green” (green being our team’s primary color).
I’ve tried to integrate myself into the mass of fans at times, in part because of family history (my grandfather played for the team in the 40s), and in much larger part because of how rabid a fan my sister tends to be. While I do fine in the moment—I know most of the rules, understand the game, and even generally enjoy watching it while I’m watching it—the experience has never resonated with me. I don’t feel the need to watch football, and I don’t understand how it makes any sense for people with no actual connection to the game (or playing experience, in most cases) to connect with it so viscerally that a loss can ruin their entire weekend, or a win can make their day. It baffles me. Even more confusing and annoying is the prevalence of team colors everywhere in my city, and the constant pressure from others to take part, either conversationally, or more directly, by demanding to know where my colors (and by extension, team spirit) are. I’ve even had people act openly hostile if I happen to be wearing (quite by accident, as I generally have no clue who is playing) the opposing team’s colours. Even if I manage to explain that I’m not interested in football, the next statement is inevitably something like: “Oh, you must be a hockey guy, then.”
The trouble is that I feel the same about pretty much all other sports. I can watch and understand hockey, rugby (both league and union, for the Aussies out there—though I’ve never taken the time to learn Aussie Rules), cricket, baseball, basketball, and any number of others, to greater or lesser degrees. I’ve even enjoyed sitting on the couch with the guys, knocking back a couple of wobbly pops and watching a good scrum (that’s in rugby, for the unfamiliar) or a great punt return…but it’s not something I crave (well, I may crave the beer and bullshitting—just not the sport).
Maybe that’s the draw, right there: belonging, feeling like a part of something bigger, theoretically more important, than oneself. I know a lot of guys, or girls, also have some fond memories of enjoying the sport with their mom/dad/grandparent/sibling/best friend. I can understand that. Maybe there’s even a little bit of narrative draw in there—sometimes there’s a decent underdog story at play, or something similar—though I would argue it’s a pretty damned shabby story compared to any good book or TV show. Maybe it’s just the primitive rush of shared, unbridled emotion that led Romans to their coliseums. Hell, maybe it’s something so foreign to me that I can’t even begin to understand it.
I’m not sure I ever want to understand. More and more, I’m disgusted by the kind of behavior that stalks organized sports. Riots on the streets of Vancouver, with people taking any opportunity or excuse to break things and act like hooligans; cat-calling and fights outside of sports bars over someone’s colors; even the less obvious things like the internalization of the sports culture, leaving people grouchy and angry over a loss and forcing everyone else to deal with their foul temper. It’s crap, and I think it’s a mistake to indulge it—like it would be to indulge any 2-year-old’s poor behavior.
Here’s the reality: it’s just a game, a bunch of guys being paid way too much money (in most cases; I realize not everyone makes huge money) to play with some balls.
Here’s the harsher reality: most of those watching and talking about “our boys” have never played, or will never play again at any sort of competitive level; you’re talking out of your asses and living vicariously. That’s fine in your own house, but don’t expect me to care about it or support your time wasting, any more than I would expect you to indulge my hobbies.
Maybe my opinion makes me a humbug. Maybe it makes me an ass—it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Or maybe, just maybe, people should enjoy what they want to enjoy without having it become everyone else’s problem or obsession. If I didn’t fly off the handle publically when Dumbledore died and try to pressure everyone into Hogwarts-themed grieving clothes, maybe others can offer me the same courtesy and STFU about my lack of team colors when I’m grocery shopping, on the bus, or even at work.nicolestop:
I friend of mine were having a chat and she brought up that the US Government was found guilty of the murder of Martin Luther King in 1999 and this year this info started to re-surface and multiple people were taking extensive efforts to make sure the information stayed hidden. I did some research and here’s what I found.
In 1999 (a year after the person convicted of the assassination, James Earl Ray, died) the United States government was taken to court by King’s family. With a very short trial, due to the overwhelming evidence against the government, they were found guilty. King’s family was awarded $100 and his widow was quoted saying this.
There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court’s unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame. I want to make it clear that my family has no interest in retribution. Instead, our sole concern has been that the full truth of the assassination has been revealed and adjudicated in a court of law. As we pursued this case, some wondered why we would spend the time and energy addressing such a painful part of the past. For both our family and the nation, the short answer is that we had to get involved because the system did not work |
by many to go deep into the postseason. The fact of the matter is that the Lightning play in what is frequently referred to as a "non-traditional market" and until ponds freezing over throughout the state of Florida is a common occurrence for 100 years or so, that designation is going to stick. Might as well not only accept it, but go ahead and openly embrace it.
There are those throughout the world of hockey who use that term as a derisive slur, with the intention of demeaning and belittling. The fact that the Lightning, based in Tampa, part of the Tampa Bay region, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the state of Florida will play for the Stanley Cup for the second time in their relatively brief history, laying waste to half of The Original Six in the process (so far), rankles those people to no end. To them, the Lightning are not "just a team" but "just a non-traditional market team" (pronounced most effectively while sneering).
I've never been able to understand that thought process. If you love something as much as these people say they love hockey, why wouldn't you want to promote and share that love with as many people in as many places as possible? Seems to have worked with soccer and basketball. Still, there are people out there who believe the game is "theirs" and should only be shared with those they deem worthy. That's even more reason to go ahead and own the non-traditional title. This is not something that should make you feel embarrassed or insulted or put-upon in any way; this is something that should fill you with a warm satisfied glow. This Tampa Bay Lightning team is giving you the golden opportunity to thumb your nose in the general direction of all those established, provincial thinkers who are under the mistaken belief that the team you root for doesn't even deserve to skate on hallowed NHL ice, let alone hoist its most cherished reward.
Let's recap the opponents the Lightning have faced so far this postseason...
ROUND 1: The Detroit Red Wings (est. 1926 as the Detroit Cougars)
Detroit is called "Hockeytown" because they started calling themselves that. Shut up Warroad, Minnesota, Binghamton, New York, Sarpsborg, Norway and others who would lay claim to that moniker. The winged wheel logo combined with the word "Hockeytown" is a legally registered trademark of the Detroit Red Wings. The Lightning won that series in seven games.
ROUND 2: The Montreal Canadiens (est. 1909 with the NHA, with the NHL since 1917)
Les Habs have won 24 championships, 22 Stanley Cups since 1927 when the Stanley Cup started being awarded exclusively to NHL franchises, which is at a rate of over 25% of the time. As a result, their fans and media have come to believe they're entitled to win it at least once every four years. Any time they don't, it's seen almost entirely as a failure on the part of the Canadiens. The Lightning brought about this year's failure in six games.
ROUND 3: The New York Rangers (est. 1926)
From the outset of the Eastern Conference Final, we all heard the stories about goalie Henrik Lundqvist's record in elimination games and how the Rangers had never lost a Game 7 on home ice and so on. All very impressive accomplishments to be sure (and now all answers to trivia questions) but because they were presented with all the bombast and hyperbole that often accompanies anything to do with New York sports, where "fast" becomes "fastest" and "pretty good" becomes "greatest", it was as if simply speaking those stats aloud meant not having to actually play the games themselves. Well, they did play the games and the Lightning won four of them, including Game 7 at Madison Square Garden.
Meanwhile, we're just down here packing a virtually abandoned shopping mall to standing-room only so we can watch away games together and eating the vegetables we grow in our on-site hydroponic garden while firing off actual lightning bolts inside our arena at home games. Not just a team? That's fine. My point is, you're damn right we're non-traditional. That's not likely to change any time soon, so don't worry about it. On the contrary, embrace it, own it, wear it as a badge of honor! And enjoy the fact that your team is making life miserable for those who have a problem with it.
And now the Lightning will face the Chicago Blackhawks for the Stanley Cup, marking the first time in NHL history a team has faced four Original Six teams in the postseason. Of all the Original Six teams, Chicago is probably the team that has the least history with Tampa Bay, outside of them being the opponent in the Lightning's first game (a 7-3 Bolts win on October 7, 1992 with Chris Kontos scoring a non-traditional four goals in front of a sellout crowd of 10,425 at the extremely non-traditional Expo Hall at the State Fairgrounds). That's about to change in a big way. Right now though, they're just a team standing in the Lightning's non-traditional way.Entitlement America, Fiscally and Morally Bankrupt
10 December 2011
If one were to make the claim that America is fiscally insolvent, as I’ve made numerous times, one would then have to ask themselves why. While there is no one answer to this question, there is one ideology that underlies today’s reality. The “Entitlement Generation,” a term thrown around characterizing today’s western youth, has more to say about America’s fiscal bankruptcy than any politician or campaign slogan could possibly utter. Yet, the entitlement disease in not confined to western youth. Rather, our youth are only the latest victims of an ideology begun nearly 80 years ago amidst the wake of the Great Depression. Four generations later, we are seeing its effects. Charles Hugh Smith comments:
“The entitlement mindset atrophies self-reliance, adaptability and flexibility, all key survival traits. If the government will “fix” our health, we no longer feel responsible in the way one does if there is limited government/employer-provided healthcare. If we expect our Social Security retirement regardless of what other conditions may be affecting the global economy or our nation, then we stop being responsible for managing our financial affairs in the same way as one does when there is no “guaranteed” retirement entitlement.”
Yet, few American’s recognize our current situation as an effect of the entitlement ideology, seeing it instead through the lens of the mainstream media and our policy hounds throughout Washington as a debate over the “social good.”
Ask any politician interested in maintaining his or her Congressional seat what surrounds debates in Washington. They will quickly answer that they seek only what is best for America. Best according to who? The Washington ideology underlying much of its policies such as stimulus spending – both from the fiscal side (government) and the monetary side (the Federal Reserve) – never ending tax cuts, or a perpetually climbing debt ceiling is grounded on the false notion of an endless line of credit. We all saw that assumption severely weakened this year with the S&P downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt. Despite a jobless recovery, lack of lending from banks to businesses and consumers, and a still-floundering housing market, their ideology has not changed.
The “social good” still sits atop the pedestal of Washingtonian rhetoric as not only something obtainable, but something that is real and quantifiable. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one were to place this false notion within the context of an already developed area of political economy, they would look to Bentham’s utilitarianism and its “greatest happiness principle,” which simply states that government should pursue such that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people. However, there is an inherent conflict embedded within this utilitarian philosophy. Bentham also recognized the futility of measuring the “social good” without the individual. Yet, his greatest happiness principle places the individual as a sacrificial lamb to the needs of society.
Utilitarianism is much the same as the entitlement ideology, except for one small development. The latter is the next step in utilitarianism’s development. Charles Smith stated, “The poisonous problem with the entitlement mindset is intrinsic to human nature: once we deserve something, then our minds fill with resentment and greed, and we focus obsessively on creating multiple rationalizations for why we deserve our fair share.” Fulfilling the expectation and demand for one’s bread at the expense of another for no other reason than one’s entitlement is the basis of Washington politics today. This is their philosophy and, contrary to rational expectations concerning the fiscal solvency of America, encapsulates their policies, campaign slogans, and empty promises for a better future.
The entitlement state effectively supplants the market as the arbiter of social relations. An entitlement state creates bread lines, while a market creates factories that produce bread. An entitlement state creates zombies that stand in those lines, breathlessly awaiting their next handout, while a market creates laborers who work in the bread factory and who upon payment for their labor purchase the bread they produced. An entitlement state creates animosity among the people, lest the government deem their neighbors needier than they, while a market distributes goods and services according the natural laws of any harmonious society. An entitlement state is the result of an ideology based on self-neglect, weakness, and irrational expectation, while the market is the result of an ideology based on self-sufficiency, strength, and rational thought. The entitlement state is crucial in establishing a statist government, while the market ensures a small decentralized federal government. Essentially, the market is the result of a multitude of individual desires (choices made by free individuals) and thus has an inherent aptitude at coordinating society in such a way that benefits the most people in the most ways. But underlying all this is the key component of any market system, liberty.
Life is freely given, but its preservation must be earned everyday. Our politicians live in a world where their hubris is matched only by their want of control. The entitlement ideology is taking hold, effectively bankrupting America both fiscally and morally. Government would have you believe otherwise, yet the ideology underpinning their policies and programs will not change the nature of reality. In fact, it is the market, and the market only, that preserves the natural rights (rights granted to all by virtue of one being human) of the individual.
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AdvertisementsMONTREAL—Bombardier is expected to double down on its efforts to snag a CSeries order from China after the U.S. announced hefty duties that threaten to shut it out of the large American market. “The CSeries business is probably not viable longer term without access to the U.S. market, but Bombardier may be able to find enough international customers to still ramp up production in the next few years,” says analyst Cameron Doerksen of National Bank Financial.
On Sept. 26, the U.S. has proposed a 219 per cent duty on Bombardier jets, after the Montreal company was targeted by U.S.-based rival Boeing. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reacted to the news on his way into a caucus meeting Wednesday. (The Canadian Press)
He said uncertainty over the overbudget aircraft remains the biggest investor concern, but anxiety can be alleviated by a new order from a large airline outside the U.S. Bombardier’s shares lost more than 8 per cent to $2.08 in Wednesday afternoon trading as investors weighed the prospect of a 220 per cent duty on U.S. sales of its flagship CSeries passenger jets and the European merger of two railway rivals. Analysts say the U.S. Department of Commerce’s preliminary duty decision, which was much harsher than expected, raises questions about the future of a key order for up to 125 CS100 jets by Delta Air Lines.
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The department ruled in favour of Boeing, which alleged that Bombardier used unfair government subsidies to sell aircraft at artificially low prices. U.S.-based Delta Air Lines has argued that Boeing doesn’t even make the 100-seat planes it needs. Bombardier’s last CSeries order for two aircraft came in December but the company has suggested it was confident of signing new deals by year-end. The Montreal-based company has been targeting buyers in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. A published report suggested talks with Chinese airlines could lead to a deal that could be announced when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on a state visit to the country. Read more: U.S. import tax draws ire of Bombardier, Quebec government
Bombardier was hit with a 219-per-cent tariff by the Trump administration over its proposed deal with Delta Air Lines, escalating the Boeing dispute and trade tensions between Canada and the U.S. ( Graham Hughes / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo )
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Bombardier didn’t respond to requests for comment about the viability of the CSeries but late Tuesday called the size of the proposed duty “absurd.” Doerksen doesn’t expect any U.S. airline will order the CSeries until the Boeing challenge is resolved. A final ruling is expected in December, but appeals could keep the CSeries out of the American market for years. That would put pressure on Bombardier since the U.S. accounts for about 26 per cent of global sales for this size of plane. That still leaves three quarters of the world open to the CSeries, said Addison Schonland of aviation consultant AirInsight. “I think the CSeries goes on,” he said in an interview. “Is the U.S. important? Absolutely, but is it critical and a must have? Maybe not.” While the ruling may not be good news for Bombardier, it’s no apocryphal, Schonland said. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said Bombardier, in which the province has invested $1 billion (U.S.), will continue to sell the aircraft around the world. “Boeing may have won a battle but let me tell you, the war is far from over and that we shall win,” he said in Quebec City. Aerospace rival Embraer said a WTO dispute panel will be established on Friday to review the Brazilian government’s complaint against the CSeries across the world. Analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said Bombardier has no choice but to stay the course and hope things get better. He said Boeing may have won a hollow victory since it may have unleashed a political battle that could lead to lost military contracts in Canada and Britain and the ire of Delta, which could turn to Airbus or Embraer. “The only way Boeing could help the CSeries in some markets is by doing this,” he said. “It sends the message that they take the CSeries extremely seriously and that frankly elevates the jetliner’s status.”
Bombardier workers in Toronto rallied on Sept. 20 in support of the company’s battle with Boeing. The U.S. aerospace company filed a trade complaint claiming Bombardier was selling its CSeries plane to Delta at an unfairly low price. (The Canadian Press)
Read more about:Pundits will hash and rehash the impact of today's jobs report on the president's chances in November. But it's the Labor Department's regional employment figures for June that should unsettle both candidates.
If there's one talking point Obama and Romeny can agree on, it's that innovation creates jobs. By one metric, the regional jobs report supports that seemingly no-duh assertion. The metro region that includes Silicon Valley led the country in job growth, posting a 3.8 percent increase compared to the same time last year. San Francisco followed close behind with the second-highest growth rate at 3.6 percent.
Unsurprisingly, tech jobs led the way. Facebook is hiring. Twitter is hiring. Google is hiring. Startups are hiring. Rents in San Francisco have soared as young tech workers compete for scarce real estate. Tech industry boom times create a weird parallel universe effect. Headlines about the nation's economic stagnation drone on, but in the Bay Area new restaurants selling $9 grilled cheese sandwiches and $10 cocktails seem to open daily.
But the other key measure of the region's economic well-being undermines the uncritical optimism politicians tend to lavish on tech. In Silicon Valley, this nation-leading hub of economic vitality and job creation, the unemployment rate in June was 8.8 percent, an increase of nearly half a percent from May, and well above the national average. To be sure, the current rate is a big improvement compared to June of last year, when 10.2 percent of the region's labor force was out of work. But shouldn't a place as exceptional as Silicon Valley be able to do better than that? Shouldn't such an engine of economic vitality stand out more in its prosperity compared to the rest of the United States?
In the definitive annual report on the state of Silicon Valley's economy, the Silicon Valley Index, researchers earlier this year found that jobs for highly educated workers abound. Average incomes are on the rise, fueled by hot competition for talent among mobile, internet, social media and cloud-computing companies. Yet the Index also found that median incomes have fallen, and more students are receiving free or reduced-price lunches — a standard measure of economic hardship. In other words, as some workers make notably more money, more workers are making less. Today, many of them are still not finding work at all. As I've written about before, tech's trickle-down effect looks weak on the local level. The industry creates jobs for some, but not for all.
Academics have nicknamed this phenomenon the "hollowing out" of the U.S. economy. Highly skilled, highly educated workers do increasingly well in an increasingly specialized economy driven by knowledge work. Their prosperity feeds demand for low-paying service work. But when tech companies grow, they no longer create the kind of medium-skilled, middle-class jobs they did in the past. Facebook doesn't need factory workers.
"You can have companies doing well and you can have all this startup activity, but it no longer means lots of jobs," said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, which publishes the Silicon Valley Index. "That's the reality, and it's going to be that way from here on out. You don't need all the people you used to need."
Hancock tells Wired he believes the hollowing out of Silicon Valley reflects not a temporary condition but a basic structural change. The shakeout has just started, he says, as newer tech companies seek to stay lean and nimble and old-school Valley companies try to look more like the new ones. Companies don't seek the talent that's closest to home — they seek the best people in the world, wherever they may live. We all need to view ourselves as startups in this new economy, which means a willingness to reinvent ourselves, Hancock says.
But as anyone in Silicon Valley knows, startups fail fast and often. It's the winners who make headlines. The losers simply fade into the dustbin of history.
"We used to have an economy that had absorption capacity. It could provide opportunities for the whole," Hancock says. "Now we have an economy that's brutal, an economy that only rewards people at the high end. The rest I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen."To blog Previous post | Next post
Slow death – the cause and the remedy
Another day in the office. Except that you have just realized that the application at your guard seems to take forever to respond to requests. Operations which usually take just few hundred milliseconds to complete are now slower than snails on Xanax. This weird situation gradually worsens throughout the next hours.
You manage to discover that the CPU usage is unusually high. Before you have time to dig further you have to surrender to the boss breathing down your neck. You restart the application on his demand. Only to discover the Xanax guys to return within half an hour. This time you decide to stand your ground and find out the cause.
Monitoring tools show high CPU usage and quick growth in memory consumption. In conjunction with quickly decreasing throughput. You plot the data on a graph and see the following trend taking shape:
It’s quite apparent that your application has not achieved much after the first 20 minutes of it’s lifetime. For the last 2 hours and 10 minutes it has only served ~2,000 requests as opposed to the 40,000 it managed to crunch during the first 20 minutes. 130x loss in throughput. Something must have gone horribly wrong.
You also see that at the very same time when the throughput falls the application heap usage has reached close to the maximum heap size allowed by the -Xmx512m option given at the startup script. And from the same moment the variance in heap usage starts to diminish.
Third symptom is not visible from the graph, but checking from your CPU monitoring scripts you also see that all cores become completely utilized right about the same time when the throughput falls and memory usage first reaches close to the maximum available memory. The process utilizing the cores is your Java application. But for some reason it seems to spend the time in system or kernel space.
Those symptoms altogether give us a pretty clear picture about what happened with our Xanax patient:
First, your application is started and the users start to drive traffic. For the first 20 minutes application throughput is just fine.
Then something happens – memory available for your Java process runs out.
This triggers something that is not completely clear – somehow it the CPU usage is also affected and all your available cores become completely utilised.
After this, memory usage still seems to grow, but the superlinear growth in used memory has been replaced by sublinear.
And the throughput is 130x worse. Great.
Now, if you just could figure out what your expensive multi-core processors are doing when the available memory is close to exhaustion you might just have found cure for the disease slowly killing your application.
Here now comes the first truly useful hint in this blog post: if you face a situation with aforementioned symptoms, most likely your application is busy in the garbage collection cycle. To verify this assumption, you need to switch on garbage collection logs. You add
-XX:-PrintGCDetails -XX:-PrintGCTimeStamps -Xloggc:gc.log
to the startup scripts. After enabling it, you can see output similar to the following in the gc.log file:
194.145: [GC 83769K(96192K), 0.0086283 secs] 194.217: [GC 86494K(96192K), 0.0071360 secs] 194.790: [Full GC 96152K->79469K(96192K), 0.1673717 secs]
Now you can see the log file growing as the users continue bombarding the application. You let them continue until you see frequency of the Full GC increasing. Now its time to dig into the log files to verify whether we have been too busy in collecting garbage. To do this we use a tool called GC Viewer to visualize and summarize the data in the logs. Following screenshot illustrates the results from the log (the test was ran on a different environment than the first, thus the difference in heap size and timings):
There is definitely something interesting going on. The red area represents the available heap size. Blue chart stands for used memory. Green and black areas stand for time spent on minor GCs and full GCs respectively. From this we can conclude that the application exhausted most of the available memory approximately in three and a half minutes after the launch and then started spending time in GC cycles.
Another interesting data is hidden in the pause times. Accumulated pauses are 77.24 seconds in total, out of which full GC pauses took 97.6%. Considering the GC kicked in from the third minute your application spent more than 50% time trying to get rid of garbage after that. It should raise a red flag – if your application is spending so much time in GC it is definitely a hint that either you have not allocated enough memory to your application, or you have a memory leak in your application.
Did you know that GC stops 20% of Java applications regularly for more than 5 seconds? Don’t spoil the user experience – increase GC efficiency with Plumbr instead.
In fact, the slow death resulting in poor throughput of the applications has been large enough problem that JVM vendors have even built in checks for failing faster – for example parallel / concurrent collector will throw an OutOfMemoryError with explanation “GC Overhead limit exceeded” if too much time is being spent in garbage collection: if more than 98% of the total time is spent in garbage collection and less than 2% of the heap is recovered. This feature is designed to prevent applications from running for an extended period of time while making little or no progress because the heap is too small. If necessary, this feature can be disabled by adding the option -XX:-UseGCOverheadLimit to the command line.
To summarize the story – if you see your application throughput suddenly declining and discover that the CPU usage peaks and memory is exhausted, then the most likely you are spending too much time in garbage collection. To verify this we have given you the hints to follow in your troubleshooting quests.
After this you can start finding the root cause of why all your precious multicores are spending their time in collecting garbage. Whether its just that you truly need to add more heap or you have a memory leak to solve. With the tool of your choice – either you are preferring an APM solution, memory profiler or you are one of the happy users of Plumbr.
Enjoyed the post? We have a lot more under our belt. Subscribe to either our RSS feed or Twitter stream and enjoy.AFP Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government, a German newspaper reported Sunday.
Citing unnamed German security sources, Bild am Sonntag said the CIA and FBI agents were helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure.
It said the agents were not directly involved in fighting with pro-Russian militants. "Their activity is limited to the capital Kiev," the paper said.
The FBI agents are also helping the Kiev government fight organised crime, it added.
A group specialised in financial matters is to help trace the wealth of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, according to the report.
The interim Kiev government took charge in late February after months of street protests forced the ouster of Kremlin-friendly Yanukovych.
Fierce battles between Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian separatists in the country's east have left more than 50 people dead in recent days.
Last month the White House confirmed that CIA director John Brennan had visited Kiev as part of a routine trip to Europe, in a move condemned by Moscow.Last will and testament
I, Ephrat Livni, being of sound mind and memory, do hereby declare this to be my last will and testament. Following in the footsteps of Franz Kafka and Edward Albee, I direct the executor of this Will to destroy my writing.
Specific requests
Burn the words. Disappear drafts. Leave no trace of my mistakes.
First declaration
The intellectual property of a writer is theirs to dispose of as they see fit in life and death. The law recognizes this, even if the culture doesn’t always. As such, writers much greater than I have felt free to deprive the world of their work.
Take Albee, for example, whose will states:
If at the time of my death I shall leave any incomplete manuscripts I hereby direct my executors to destroy such incomplete manuscripts.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright—perhaps best known for the 1962 work Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—died in 2016. A perfectionist not inclined to share anything less than his best, most polished writing, Albee presumably wanted to ensure the quality of his full body of literary work. The question is about the one play he left unfinished, the one that never made it to the stage because he was still tinkering with it.
The Albee estate hasn’t yet said what it has done, if anything, with the work. But it has disposed of his art collection, auctioning it off just as instructed in the will, and has otherwise complied with his directives. It would seem the one about his writing was likely at least as important to him as the one with instructions about art he acquired.
Second declaration
Fans are clamoring for more Albee, claiming the writer’s process and problems are precisely what they want to see. Writing professor David Crespy of the University of Missouri, president of the Edward Albee Society, told the New York Times:
Am I disappointed? Yes, because every tiny bit of everything that a writer has written provides insight into that writer’s creative process. But am I surprised? No. He maintained very strict control over the materials that were available to the public.
Arguably, the writer’s request is against the public interest, but that is not a legal argument, just cultural and with no weight in court. Should Albee’s directive be honored? If it isn’t, it wouldn’t be the first time an estate ignored a writer’s wishes for the sake of literature.
Precedent
Franz Kafka destroyed most of his writing before his death in then-Czechoslovakia in 1924, and he ordered anything left burned afterward. If it wasn’t for his disobedient friend and literary executor, fellow writer Max Brod, we would not have The Metamorphosis or The Trial, or the word “kafkaesque” to describe bureaucratic oppression and dreary nightmares.
Kafka directed Brod to destroy whatever was left in a letter, writing:
My last request: Everything I leave behind me…in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others’), sketches and so on, to be burned unread.
Brod promptly ignored Kafka and went about securing him a place in history. He ensured Kafka’s novels and letters were published, and is responsible for the writer’s fame.
Cultural claim
Ironically, Brod’s defiance spawned a kafkaesque lawsuit in Israel—a country that did not exist at the time of Kafka’s death. Kafka was Czech and Jewish. He left no descendants and expected to leave no writing. But some of his papers became the subject of a dispute between the Library of Israel and Brod’s estate after Brod died in Israel in 1968.
The state essentially claimed Kafka for the Jewish culture, arguing that his papers—documents in one of Brod’s suitcases—belonged in the Library of Israel, based on things Brod had written in early statements and documents, and Brod’s expressed zionism. But Brod’s estate argued otherwise, based on his will.
The state and the estate battled for more than half a century. The nine-year lawsuit finally concluded late last year, with the Israeli Supreme Court ruling in favor of the library. Kafka’s documents now belong to the state and not Brod’s heiress.
Final declaration
Kafka would not have approved any of this, surely. Still, Brod did the world a service. It was perhaps fitting for such a grim writer to think his work didn’t matter, but Kafka’s friend gave the world a gift, and a rare one. There are many writers but few have such a unique and culturally indispensable worldview that their work spawns a word of their own, still in use a century after their death.
As for Albee, he, like Kafka, has made himself clear. But with all due respect to last wills and testaments, the estate might contemplate the story of Kafka and Brod and reconsider. The people want to read the play. And anyway, who’s afraid of dead writers?technical standard
High-definition television (HDTV) is a television system providing an image resolution that is of substantially higher resolution than that of standard-definition television. This can be either analog or digital. HDTV is the current standard video format used in most broadcasts: terrestrial broadcast television, cable television, satellite television, Blu-rays, and streaming video.
HDTV may be transmitted in various formats:
720p (HD ready): 1280×720p: 923,600 pixels (~0.92 MP) per frame
1080i (full HD) : 1920×1080i: 1,036,800 pixels (~1.04 MP) per field or 2,073,600 pixels (~2.07 MP) per frame
1080p (full HD): 1920×1080p: 2,073,600 pixels (~2.07 megapixels) per frame Some countries also use a non-standard CEA resolution, such as 1440×1080i: 777,600 pixels (~0.78 MP) per field or 1,555,200 pixels (~1.56 MP) per frame
The letter "p" here stands for progressive scan, while "i" indicates interlaced.
When transmitted at two megapixels per frame, HDTV provides about five times as many pixels as SD (standard-definition television). The increased resolution provides for a clearer, more detailed picture. In addition, progressive scan and higher frame rates result in a picture with less flicker and better rendering of fast motion.[1] HDTV as is known today first started official broadcasting in 1989 in Japan, under the MUSE/Hi-Vision analog system.[2] HDTV was widely adopted worldwide in the late 2000s.[3]
History [ edit ]
The term high definition once described a series of television systems originating from August 1936; however, these systems were only high definition when compared to earlier systems that were based on mechanical systems with as few as 30 lines of resolution. The ongoing competition between companies and nations to create true "HDTV" spanned the entire 20th century, as each new system became more HD than the last. In the 2010s, this race has continued with 4K, 5K and 8K systems.
The British high-definition TV service started trials in August 1936 and a regular service on 2 November 1936 using both the (mechanical) Baird 240 line sequential scan (later to be inaccurately rechristened 'progressive') and the (electronic) Marconi-EMI 405 line interlaced systems. The Baird system was discontinued in February 1937.[4] In 1938 France followed with their own 441-line system, variants of which were also used by a number of other countries. The US NTSC 555-line system joined in 1941. In 1949 France introduced an even higher-resolution standard at 819 lines, a system that should have been high definition even by today's standards, but was monochrome only and the technical limitations of the time prevented it from achieving the definition of which it should have been capable. All of these systems used interlacing and a 4:3 aspect ratio except the 240-line system which was progressive (actually described at the time by the technically correct term "sequential") and the 405-line system which started as 5:4 and later changed to 4:3. The 405-line system adopted the (at that time) revolutionary idea of interlaced scanning to overcome the flicker problem of the 240-line with its 25 Hz frame rate. The 240-line system could have doubled its frame rate but this would have meant that the transmitted signal would have doubled in bandwidth, an unacceptable option as the video baseband bandwidth was required to be not more than 3 MHz.
Color broadcasts started at similarly higher resolutions, first with the US NTSC color system in 1953, which was compatible with the earlier monochrome systems and therefore had the same 525 lines of resolution. European standards did not follow until the 1960s, when the PAL and SECAM color systems were added to the monochrome 625 line broadcasts.
The Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) began conducting research to "unlock the fundamental mechanism of video and sound interactions with the five human senses" in 1964, after the Tokyo Olympics. NHK set out to create an HDTV system that ended up scoring much higher in subjective tests than NTSC's previously dubbed "HDTV". This new system, NHK Color, created in 1972, included 1125 lines, a 5:3 aspect ratio and 60 Hz refresh rate. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), headed by Charles Ginsburg, became the testing and study authority for HDTV technology in the international theater. SMPTE would test HDTV systems from different companies from every conceivable perspective, but the problem of combining the different formats plagued the technology for many years.
There were four major HDTV systems tested by SMPTE in the late 1970s, and in 1979 an SMPTE study group released A Study of High Definition Television Systems:
EIA monochrome: 4:3 aspect ratio, 1023 lines, 60 Hz
NHK color: 5:3 aspect ratio, 1125 lines, 60 Hz
NHK monochrome: 4:3 aspect ratio, 2125 lines, 50 Hz
BBC colour: 8:3 aspect ratio, 1501 lines, 60 Hz[5]
Since the formal adoption of digital video broadcasting's (DVB) widescreen HDTV transmission modes in the mid to late 2000s; the 525-line NTSC (and PAL-M) systems, as well as the European 625-line PAL and SECAM systems, are now regarded as standard definition television systems.
Analog systems [ edit ]
Early HDTV broadcasting used analog technology, but today it is transmitted digitally and uses video compression.
In 1949, France started its transmissions with an 819 lines system (with 737 active lines). The system was monochrome only, and was used only on VHF for the first French TV channel. It was discontinued in 1983.
In 1958, the Soviet Union developed Тransformator (Russian: Трансформатор, meaning Transformer), the first high-resolution (definition) television system capable of producing an image composed of 1,125 lines of resolution aimed at providing teleconferencing for military command. It was a research project and the system was never deployed by either the military or consumer broadcasting.[6]
In 1986, the European Community proposed HD-MAC, an analog HDTV system with 1,152 lines. A public demonstration took place for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. However HD-MAC was scrapped in 1993 and the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) project was formed, which would foresee development of a digital HDTV standard.[7]
Japan [ edit ]
In 1979, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK first developed consumer high-definition television with a 5:3 display aspect ratio.[8] The system, known as Hi-Vision or MUSE after its multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding (MUSE) for encoding the signal, required about twice the bandwidth of the existing NTSC system but provided about four times the resolution (1035i/1125 lines). In 1981, the MUSE system was demonstrated for the first time in the United States, using the same 5:3 aspect ratio |
's downgraded the United States's credit rating for the first time in the country's history. Why? Because the 112th Congress convinced them that they could no longer trust the American government to refrain from crashing the global economy for no good reason. Or, as they put it, “the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges."
6. They're terrible even when they're "super."
The supposed upside of the deal to lift the debt ceiling led to the creation of the Special Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — better known as "the supercommittee." The supercommittee, which was comprised of an equal number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers from both the House and the Senate could, with a simple majority vote, send its recommendations to the rest of the Congress, where they couldn't be filibustered, amended or otherwise blocked. So that was the carrot: Figure this out, and, in a stunning break from business-as-usual in the sclerotic 112th, the members of the supercommittee could get some big done.
There was also a stick: Failure would trigger the so-called "spending sequester," which would cut more than a trillion dollars in dumb, blunt ways that neither party liked and that would badly damage a slowly recovering economy.
So how did the supercommittee do? They failed. Now the sequester is armed and members of Congress are frantically trying – and, as of yet, failing – to find a way around it. That’s life in the 112th: Having proven incapable of solving one of the country’s problems, they voluntarily created another problem that they also don't know how to solve.
7. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal.
So much repeal. So little replace. (J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)
We’ve already covered this one, but it bears repeating: House Republicans have now voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act 33 times. Every time they take this vote, it's time they could be spending on other issues. Other issues like, for instance, what they would do instead of the Affordable Care Act. But though they've found the time to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act on 33 separate occasions, they have voted to replace the Affordable Care Act exactly... never.
8. The budget shenanigans of Senate Democrats
In 2009, Senate Democrats passed a budget. In 2010, they marked one up in the Budget Committee, but didn't bring it to the floor. Beginning in 2011 — so, in this Congress — they just stopped bothering with the whole budget thing altogether.
Publicly, they argue that budget resolutions aren't binding, and that the 2011 Budget Control Act — the legislation that resolved the debt ceiling standoff — has done the real work of the budget by setting discretionary spending levels for the coming years. Privately, they say they see no reason to vote on a budget that House Republicans will never adopt. That's also the reason they haven't taken up President Obama's budgets. (This has led to the odd sight of Republicans bringing Obama's budgets to the floor so they can say Democrats voted against them.)
Republicans argue, correctly, that budgets, even when they don't pass, are where you lay out your vision for the country. Senate Democrats, in refusing to propose or vote for any budgets, are refusing to give voters that information.
9. They can't get appropriations done on time.
Arguably the most basic job of Congress is to fund the federal government — to simply keep the lights on. That's done through the annual appropriations process, which requires Congress to pass 13 appropriations bills by October 1st. That hasn't been happening lately.
Now, to be fair to the112th Congress, they're not the first Congress to fail to pass the required appropriations bills by the deadline. But as you can see on the graph below, most congresses manage to approve at least a few of them. In fact, the average is three. So how many appropriations bills did the 112th Congress pass by October 1, 2011? Zero.
Data: Congressional Research Service, Graph: Ezra Klein
10. The transportation-infrastructure fiasco.
Surface transportation bills are where Congress deals with another of the most fundamental jobs of federal governance: Setting aside money for roads, runways, bridges, and subways systems, and other mainstays of our transportation infrastructure. Sen. Dick Durbin called them "the easiest bill[s] to do on Capitol Hill.' At least, they used to be.
In 2005, Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act. That bill expired in September 2009. But Congress couldn't agree on a replacement. What followed were 10 short-term extensions of the transportation funding. "Stopgaps," in congressional parlance.
Finally, on June 29 of this year, Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. But rather than setting transportation policy for four or five years, as was the previous norm, it only set it for two years. And it left most of the major problems — like how to handle the the increasing inadequacy of the gas tax — for later.
11. The FAA shutdown
When it came time to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, House Republicans wanted to cut $16.5 million in subsidies to rural airports and to rewrite the rules around unionizing airports such that workers who didn't vote would be counted as "no" votes. Senate Democrats disagreed. On July 23, 2011, Congress ran out of time. That meant, in the midst of a severely depressed economy, 4,000 FAA workers and 70,000 airport construction workers were furloughed. The shutdown ended a few weeks earlier. The cost to the government from uncollected airline ticket taxes alone was $350 million.
12. Failing the Fed.
Perhaps no single institution in Washington matters as much during an economic crisis as the Federal Reserve. And for most of the last six years, the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors has been missing a few members. There's plenty of blame to go around here — including for the Obama administration, which was slow to name nominees and didn't prioritize their confirmation when Democrats controlled Congress — but the most ridiculous chapter of the story began in 2011, when Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, blocked the appointment of MIT economist Peter Diamond.
As Peter Diamond found out, even a Nobel prize in economics doesn't get you confirmed these days. (MIT)
Diamond, who would win the Nobel prize in economics while Shelby was holding up his nomination, couldn't have had a better background: As an expert on labor market and pension issues, he was ideally situated to advise the Federal Reserve on the nation's short and long-term problems. But Shelby wanted payback for Democrats blocking one of George W. Bush's nominees in 2007. The problem was he couldn't come out and say that. Instead, he had to say this: "I do not believe he’s ready to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board. I do not believe that the current environment of uncertainty would benefit from monetary policy decisions made by board members who are learning on the job.”
Shelby's objection was transparently ridiculous. Previous nominees he had permitted to go through included Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation; Kevin Warsh, who had worked for George W. Bush; and Elizabeth Duke, who had been an executive at various banks. None of them had experience making decisions about monetary policy. Nor did any of them have a Nobel prize in economics or a world-class understanding of labor-market frictions. But Shelby was unrelenting, and the nomination was eventually withdrawn. Eventually, Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economist, and Jerome Powell, an official in George H.W. Bush's Treasury Department, got named to the Fed, filling the board. Neither of them have a Nobel prize in economics, either.
13. The experts agree.
Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein are probably the most respected scholars of Congress in Washington. For more than 40 years, they've been the staunchest advocates, and most respected interpreters, of the institution, tutoring legislators from both parties and serving on an almost endless number of commissions and projects dedicated to understanding and improving what they call "the First Branch." Here's what they say about the 112th Congress:
We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional.
Their new book, by the way, is called "It's Even Worse Than It Looks." And yes, it's mainly abut the 112th Congress.
14. There actually are problems they need to solve.
If this was an age of peace, prosperity and rapid growth — say, 1997 — perhaps the 112th Congress's failures would be an amusing sideshow. But this is not 1997. When the 112th Congress was sworn in, unemployment was at 9.1 percent. Since then, it's fallen to 8.2 percent — and that's been in spite of Congress's disastrous handling of the debt ceiling, and its inaction on jobs.
The 112th Congress has been an embarrassment — and its members know it. As Rep. Jim Cooper, a moderate Democrat from Tennessee who has served on and off in Congress since 1983, says, "America's problems have rarely looked so large, and Congress has rarely looked so small."Studio Wildcard had some news to share Friday night for ARK: Survival Evolved and the planned addition of the Redwood biome to The Island map. Lead Level Designer Damien Bull joined Primitive+ creator Ced in a Twitch livestream to discuss upcoming changes to the open world survivor game’s original map plus a change to the release date, E3 plans, and new additions to The Center map.
The original planned May 30 release date for ARK: Survival Evolved for PC patch 242 has been pushed back to Wednesday, June 1 while the Redwood biome will not be released until after E3 in June. This article incorrectly stated the patch was delayed longer due to a misreading of a Twitch comment from Studio Wildcard Co-founder Jesse Rapczack. We apologize for the error.
The studio will be at E3 in June to showcase both ARK: Survival Evolved and ARK: Survival of the Fittest. Expect to see a new trailer for Survival Evolved featuring many of the changes coming in the next patch, such as the new Redwood biome, Dragon boss arena, Ruins, breeding phase 2, and more. Lead Developer Jeremy Stieglitz also announced dedicated PVP servers can enable “offline raiding prevention” to make dinosaurs and structures invincible when the owner is not logged-in with the 242 patch.
The areas affected by the planned ARK: Survival Evolved biome changes in patch 242. [Image via Studio Wildcard] As previously covered by Inquisitr, the most significant biome update changes will affect the Deep Island area of the map, which holds Grand Peak. This is the inland island just to the south of the Volcano. The entire area (highlighted in orange in the map above) is going to be converted to the new Redwood biome, and this will result in “substantial terrain changes,” according to the developer.
The actual geography of the central island is not changing much, but the addition of the Redwood Trees might destroy bases. Holographic style walls are being added around the island to warn players that anything built within the walls will likely be destroyed in the coming update.
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The central island was chosen for the biome change because it is in the center of The Island map and hasn’t received much love since ARK: Survival Evolved first hit Early Access release last July.
Bull confirmed Redwood trees cannot be harvested because they are too big to cut down. However, there will be some new features added for Survivors. Lead Developer Jeremy Stieglitz previously hinted at tree houses on Twitter, for example.
The Jungles on The Island may get some rework in the future because they were done as just a quick one to get them in. Bull considers them kind of messy and “hates” the way the jungle is currently set up. The developer may go back and reduce the size of the Swamp in certain places.
The Island map itself will not get bigger as it is maxed out in terms of size. Studio Wildcard does plan to add more surface area to the map in the form of new smaller islands, and new caves and caverns as well.
The Redwood biomes is the last planned update for The Island. Additionally, there are no plans to add more players to The Island. The current cap of 70 will likely remain while official servers hosting The Center will be 100.
If your structures and dinosaurs are on the green side of the holo-wall, they are safe. [Image via Studio Wildcard] As for the new The Center map (guide), creator Ben Burkart does plan to add the Redwood biome to the larger map eventually. He stated via Twitter this will be “an entirely new section” versus repurposing an existing area. There’s no timeframe on release, but expect The Center to be updated with the new biome at least a month after the PC version receives patch 242.
Burkart does have other additions planned for The Center. He has mentioned new Crystal caverns along with a massive ruins system, ARK: Survival Evolved‘s first jumping puzzle, and new underwater tunnels. These updates will not affect current player progress or bases, per the developer.
Here are the current 242 patch notes for ARK: Survival Evolved.
New Creature: Diplodocus!
New Creature: Leech!
New Mechanic: Permanent Diseases & Cures (Player-Contagious Swamp Fever!!!!)
Biome Update: Snow Extension & New Redwood Forests (this is a major environmental overhaul!)
Tribe Groups Phase 2: Support for Limited Non-Admin Invites & Promotions per Group!
Dragon Arena
Ruins & Explorer Notes
Added server option to override per-Item Crafting costs
Added option for PvE Servers to disable building around critical resource node regions
Added server option to override the loot tables for each kind of supply crate
Added server option to limit number of members in Tribes. Default: no limit.
Added ‘Follow Range’ (Low/Medium/Far) Setting Per Tamed Dino
Multi-Seat Saddles (Galli, Diplodocus, etc) Dinos now have an option to Enable Public Seating. Dino Taxi service, ahoy!!!
Servers can now optionally enable an “offline raiding prevention” mode which will make Dinos/Structures invincible if no owner is logged-in (indicated via the head whether the owner player/tribe is logged-in or not). Recommend that server owners utilize this with care, as it may have undesired side effects in a competitive environment.
Breeding Mechanics Phase 2 (Random Mutations, Family Trees, & Interactive Baby Raising)
[Image via Studio Wildcard]Carome further points to the case of Essure, a device implanted in women's fallopian tubes as an alternative to permanent surgical sterilization. Currently marketed by Bayer, Essure was given expedited approval by the FDA in 2002 based on "two nonrandomized, nonblinded, prospective studies that lacked a [control] group and enrolled a total of 926 women," according to a report last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. Experience since then has pointed to serious potential side effects and a lack of firm evidence that the device is safer than tubal ligations, amid signs it also may be less effective at preventing pregnancy. The FDA hasn't taken Essure off the market, but it has convened a new study panel and requires a stringent warning of health risks on the label.SALEM -- House lawmakers passed legislation Wednesday that would make Oregon award its Electoral College votes only to presidential candidates who win the national popular vote.
Wednesday's vote marks the first time that such legislation, already passed by 11 other states, may have a shot at becoming law in Oregon.
The Oregon House has passed similar bills before, but they've all been killed in the Senate. Not this time, though: Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, an obstacle to national popular vote bills in the past, said last week that he's open to letting the bill pass his chamber.
If passed in the Senate and signed by Gov. Kate Brown, House Bill 2927 would add Oregon to the 11 states and Washington D.C. -- including Washington and California -- that have already joined the national popular vote compact. The compact won't take effect until states with a collective 270 Electoral College votes sign on; it stands at 165 electoral votes now.
Oregon's bill passed the Democrat-controlled House along partisan lines this year, 34-23.
The legislation comes on the heels of President Donald Trump's victory in November, where he won the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote contest to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes. Two of the last five presidents won the presidency despite losing the popular vote: Trump and George W. Bush -- both Republicans.
Bill carrier Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer, D-Portland, said Wednesday that the Electoral College is "flawed and outdated" because a candidate can become president without winning support from a majority of Americans.
"The Electoral College does not fit the 'We the people' and 'One person, one vote' style of government," Keny-Guyer said in a speech from the House floor.
Because it's assumed deep-blue Oregon will always vote Democratic, the state is "relegated to being a spectator state" during presidential campaigns, she said.
Keny-Guyer and other House Democrats said that could have an effect on policy. If it were possible for Oregon to be a swing state, it might get more attention -- and beneficial handouts – from the federal government, they said.
House Republicans spoke against the bill, saying it is unwise to change how the nation selects the president. If Democrats want to make Oregon more competitive nationally, officials should hold the presidential primary election earlier in campaign season, Republicans said.
In opposing the bill, Rep. Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, argued against "pure democracy" where the "tyranny of the majority" would rule. Few Americans understand the Electoral College, he said, and what he sees as the danger in nixing it.
The bill now heads to the Senate, where it isn't dead on arrival, but may face amendments. Courtney, the Senate president, said that although he opposes national popular vote legislation, he is open to amending the bill and sending the question directly to voters.
"If you believe in the popular vote," he said, "then let the popular vote decide the issue."
-- Gordon R. Friedman
503-221-8209; @GordonRFriedmanSome years ago I worked in Nigeria, helping to find peaceful solutions to conflicts. Its capital city, Lagos — one of the world’s megacities, with a population estimated at 14 million to 21 million — will most likely experience a sea-level rise of around 35 inches in the next few decades if current warming trends continue.
Even in this best-case scenario, which depends on the global community’s sticking to the Paris climate change agreement, many of the shops I visited and homes I passed during my years in the country will be flooded. The rising waters are already changing ways of life and pressuring people to leave their homes. In the coming years, experts predict that millions of people in Lagos will be forced to move.
Providing a welcoming home for these migrants will challenge all of us. Unfortunately, Nigeria is just one example of a highly populated, highly exposed coastal area facing rising sea levels and storm surges. Bangladesh, the Philippines and other South Asian countries join them. New York City, Rio de Janeiro and London are at risk as well.
As people of faith, we don’t just state our beliefs — we live them out. One belief is that we find purpose and joy in loving our neighbors. Another is that we are charged by our creator with taking good care of his creation.
The moral crisis of climate change is an opportunity to find purpose and joy, and to respond to our creator’s charge. Reducing the causes of climate change is essential to the life of faith. It is a way to love our neighbor and to steward the gift of creation.HAMILTON — The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have signed national offensive lineman Brandon Revenberg to a contract extension through the 2020 season, the team announced Monday.
Revenberg, 25, started all 18 of Hamilton’s regular season games at left guard and also saw action at centre in 2018. During his first-two CFL seasons (2016-17), he has appeared in all 36 regular season games for the Tiger-Cats, making 24 starts at left guard.
The versatile offensive lineman also started the 2016 Eastern Semi-Final against Edmonton at right tackle.
“Rev has proven to be one of the best young Canadian offensive linemen in the CFL,” said June Jones, head coach of the Tiger-Cats. “It’s extremely important to build with your nationals, especially when they’re as talented and versatile as Brandon. We’re very happy to have him signed long-term.”
The 6-foot-4, 301-pound native of Essex, Ont. was selected by the Tiger-Cats in the first round, third overall, in the 2016 CFL Draft. Prior to turning pro, Revenberg played 32 games at Grand Valley State University from 2012 to 2014, earning three varsity letters.
He played every position on the offensive line during his time at Grand Valley State, and was named to the Academic All-GLIAC team in 2014.When it comes to drinking beer at home, you mainly have three ways to enjoy it: from a can, from a bottle, or from a growler. Some people take the time to build kegerators, but for the average craft beer enthusiast, those three things fill our shelves and fridges at home. Bottles and growlers don’t seal well enough to keep beer fresh for long, big-beer releases don’t always make it to bottles or cans, and kegerators are huge, and a pain to clean. SYNEK ™ is the perfect solution.
What is SYNEK ™? It is the first ever crowdsourced beer dispenser that dispenses beer from one-time use cartridges, specially designed for beer. Unlike cans/bottles, our cartridges can be filled using a simple adapter—giving access to unlimited variety. Plus, our dispenser is pressurized and self-refrigerated, extending shelf-life well past growlers. SYNEK ™ has the convenience of a Keurig™ coffee machine and the variety of an iPod™. Check out the video for their KickStarter below!
The greatest thing in my mind is the idea that you can get the best beers possible at the peak of freshness right at your fingertips. SYNEK ™ founder, Steve Young, understands that there has to be a way to preserve the art that the brewer made so that the consumer gets their product in perfect condition.
We see craft breweries as they really are: an industry of small business owners who have put everything at risk to chase their dreams of independence and to better serve their communities. Every day they wake up, they strive to achieve the ‘unobtainable’ perfect beer so they can share their discovery with one another. They believe that beer is not only an art and a science, but most importantly a lifestyle… It is all about serving brewers and getting their creation into the hands of the people who matter to them.
SYNEK ™ is composed of two main parts: A cartridge, and a dispenser.
Specs (more details will be provided the day of launch):
Cartridge
Holds 128 oz or about 11 (12 fl oz) beers
Ships flat, oxygen-deprived, and sanitary – ready to be filled
7 layer bag is ultra insulated to lock in freshness
Holds intense pressure – well in excess of boxed wine bags
Outer metallic film rejects UV rays to prevent oxidation
Includes a pressure release valve to reduce leaks
Barrier qualities comparable to bottles
Recyclable but not reusable
Costs will be comparable to bottles for homebrewers
Dispenser
Chills beer with cooling system
Includes thermostat to fine tune freshness
Pressurizes chamber using CO2
Includes pressure valve to manage foam/carbonation
Front window allows you to see the beer being dispensed inside
Drip tray included for messy pours
Dimensions are yet to be defined but will take up as much countertop space as a standard toaster oven
The dispenser will cost less than a kegerator (specific pricing released on Kickstarter launch)
While the Kickstarter date is still unreleased, they have a $250,000 goal they are trying to reach. They have set an embargo date of June 16, 2014, and anyone who orders a unit should expect to see their SYNEK™ in early 2015. This looks like an awesome device, one I’m sure I’ll have in my home!
-Cheers!
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery gallery_type=”thumbnails” theme_id=”1″ gallery_id=”1″ sort_by=”order” order_by=”asc” show_search_box=”0″ search_box_width=”180″ image_column_number=”5″ images_per_page=”30″ image_title=”none” image_enable_page=”1″ thumb_width=”180″ thumb_height=”90″ thumb_click_action=”undefined” thumb_link_target=”undefined” popup_fullscreen=”0″ popup_autoplay=”0″ popup_width=”800″ popup_height=”500″ popup_effect=”fade” popup_interval=”5″ popup_enable_filmstrip=”1″ popup_filmstrip_height=”70″ popup_enable_ctrl_btn=”1″ popup_enable_fullscreen=”1″ popup_enable_info=”1″ popup_info_always_show=”0″ popup_enable_rate=”0″ popup_enable_comment=”1″ popup_hit_counter=”0″ popup_enable_facebook=”1″ popup_enable_twitter=”1″ popup_enable_google=”1″ popup_enable_pinterest=”0″ popup_enable_tumblr=”0″ watermark_type=”none” watermark_link=”http://web-dorado.com”]Calculating 52 Factorial By Hand - 2016/01/04 Some time ago I gave a talk in which I showed that something unexpected happened with a deck of playing cards. I had some volunteers try it, and while they did so I talked about just how many orderings there are for 52 cards. I computed (an approximation to) $52!$ (52 factorial) by hand. It's not so hard - you just calculate $54!$ and then divide by 3000. I know that sounds like a joke, but it's not. Here's why. Firstly, I'm going to be really rough and ready here, and we can come back later to refine our calculations. So I'll start with Stirling's approximation to the factorial: $n!~{\approx}~(n/e)^n\sqrt{2{\pi}n}$ We can use that to compute $52!,$ but suddenly we notice that $e$ is roughly $2.7.$ That means that if we compute $54!$ we get: $54!~\approx~(54/e)^{54}\sqrt{2{\pi}54}$ And $54/e$ is roughly $20,$ so this simplifies enormously. Taking just the first part: $(54/e)^{54}~{\approx}~20^{54}$ We can break that down further: $20^{54}=2^{54}10^{54}$ And $2^{54}=2^4(2^{10})^5~{\approx}~16\cdot(10^3)^5=16\cdot10^{15}.$ Trace that back, re-insert it all, and we have: $(54/e)^{54}~{\approx}~(16\cdot10^{15})(10^{54})=16\cdot10^{69}$ Now we return to $\sqrt{2{\pi}54}.$ Using $pi\approx3$ this simplifies to $\sqrt{324}$ which is 18. Pulling it all together, we get: $54!~{\approx}~16\cdot10^{69}\cdot18=288\cdot10^{69}$ But now we want to divide by $(53\times54),$ which is close enough to $2880,$ so we get: $52!~{\approx}~(2880\cdot10^{68})/2880=10^{68}$ And there we are - we've computed (an approximation to) $52!$ by computing $54!$ and dividing by $3000.$ Obvious, really. <<<< Prev <<<< Small Things Might Not Be So Small : >>>> Next >>>> How Not To Do Twitter... You should follow me on twitter Comments I've decided no longer to include comments directly via the Disqus (or any other) system. Instead, I'd be more than delighted to get emails from people who wish to make comments or engage in discussion. Comments will then be integrated into the page as and when they are appropriate. If the number of emails/comments gets too large to handle then I might return to a semi-automated system. That's looking increasingly unlikely.My new word for the day (okay, actually this week) is syntonization. I’d heard of synchronization, of course, but hadn’t heard of syntonization (setting two clocks or oscillators to the same frequency) until reading a usage guide for the Efratom LPro-101 Rubidium frequency standard units I’ve been working with.
Rubidium frequency standards work by tracking the natural frequency of an energy-level transition of Rubidium with a quartz PLL oscillator. This produces a very precise, accurate reference frequency — but one that can nonetheless be affected slightly by variations in the ambient magnetic field. For this reason, Rubidium standards typically are adjustable to some extent, and can be syntonized to other, similarly precise frequency standards.
Normally, syntonization of a Rubidium frequency standard is done in comparison with either a primary Cesium standard (too expensive for me, unfortunately) or with a precision GPS receiver (which appears a bit more affordable but which I don’t yet own.) Since the LPro units allow temporary adjustment via an input pin, though, it’s possible to syntonize one of them to another without having a primary standard available. This doesn’t guarantee absolute frequency accuracy, of course — but rather just taking Unit 1 at its word as to what the “real” value of 10MHz is, and tweaking Unit 3 to match that. For many experiments, it doesn’t really matter. Both are within a couple of parts per billion of the absolute frequency anyway, whether corrected or not.
The frequency adjustment pin on the LPro operates via a voltage-divider scheme: the pin can nominally be driven to any value between 0V and 5V, with higher voltage increasing the frequency by about 1PPB or so. This results in a rather coarse adjustment (relatively speaking), though. Instead of driving the pin directly, I decided to drive it via a 100k series resistor, effectively diluting the adjustment voltage. (The pin is internally held at 2.5V via a voltage divider with a nominal impedance of perhaps 100k ohms.)
By watching the oscilloscope and phase measurement meter, I initially guessed that a drive voltage of about 2.084V seemed to cancel out the observed phase drift (the magenta line in the graph). I then let the oscillators run overnight. It nearly worked: whereas the units would drift in and out of phase every ten to eleven minutes with no correction, they now took about nine hours to do so. (This is the blue line in the graph below.)
After a bit more experimenting, I increased the drive voltage slightly to 2.090V. This, so far, has almost exactly cancelled out the phase drift. Although a few degrees of short-term phase jitter is present, along with perhaps 70 to 90 degrees of longer-term phase noise, the overall phase drift seems to be on the order of 1.8 degrees per hour. At this rate, it would take over a week for the two units to drift in and out of phase by one cycle. Running at 10MHz, it would take over two hundred thousand years for them to disagree by one second.
0.005 degrees phase per second is 2000 seconds per degree.
Multiplying this by 360 degrees (I never really did like radians) gives 720,000 seconds per phase.
Multiplying this by 10,000,000 (since the units run at 10MHz) gives 7,200,000,000,000 seconds per one second of difference. This is one part in 7.2 trillion, or about 138 parts per quadrillion (PPQ). This is relative accuracy, of course, since I don’t have an absolute 10MHz reference standard that’s anywhere near this accurate.
…and to think, I used to consider 100PPM TTL oscillators to be precise…!How to build a DIY sous vide water bath for £25 in 25 minutes Cooking sous vide can revolutionise the way you think about food but commercial water baths are expensive. For mere pocket money, you can throw together a DIY sous vide that does the job better than some off-the-shelf units. It’s time to start cooking like the professionals.
This is what we’re building today. It’s really just a temperature-regulated power socket with a hotplate plugged into it but the result is a water bath accurate to ~0.5°C that’s going to change food forever.
Cooking sous vide means being able to keep things at their optimum temperatures for the optimum time. You vacuum-pack your food, stick it in the water bath and some time later your food is perfectly cooked. And results are completely reproducible. You also get to open the door to the majesty of “secondary cuts” that can benefit from much slower cooking than consumer kitchen appliances allow for. It unlocks a world of possibilities, flavours and textures previously only available at good restaurants.
It also makes kitchen workflow much easier. For perfect food in a frying pan you have ±60 seconds leeway. In a water bath, you can let your food sit around for another 60 minutes if you need to do something else. It makes entertaining for groups much, much easier.
There are more and more consumer sous vides every month. You may have already seen the polished Sous Vide Supreme (starting at around £250). There are also newer similar fixed bath units one from Andrew James currently £99.99 and the other from VonShef for £91.99. These fixed bath units have one thing in common: they take up significant amounts of space and you’re limited to the size of the bath.
This is why mine is better. It’s easy to throw in a draw and the bath size is limited only by the size of the pot you want to use. It can be anything from a small saucepan through to a 40l+ commercial stock pot.
Kickstarter has hosted more than a couple of submersible heating circulators like the Nomiku, Anova and Sansaire and while they’re cheaper than the top-end baths, they’re still around $250 and with no indication on UK availability or pricing.
Still too expensive? What about £23.37 (plus tools)?
Here are the ingredients for my 15-month battle-tested sous vide. The links are to the the exact items as I ordered them. There may be cheaper available. Most of these items are available with Prime delivery but at twice the price (typical).
The components linked below are for a UK build using 220-240V AC. Other count. Other EU residents will be able to mostly copy this (you’ll just want a different extension and hotplate). US residents will need to change to a 110V AC STC-1000 and 110V hotplate too.
This is the most important bit. The one I’m linking to is the one I used which was completely different from the pictures on Amazon. Nevertheless, its reviews are all still positive and it’s a steal at £8.77.
What complicates things is that there are a number of clones that all look exactly the same at the front but have different configurations of relays and wiring at the back. I have included a wiring diagram later on so if yours comes and it’s different, do not follow my wiring instructions. Reconfigure or ask for help.
The hackers out there might be wondering why we’re taking the easy route here. Why are we relying on a silly aquarium controller when we could use a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino or even a full Ubuntu desktop? Well you can, but between the relay and the thermometer, you’ve probably already spent more than £8.77…
You could skip one altogether and hardwire your hotplate into the controller but I think for just £5.70, you’ll appreciate the flexibility this gives you. Don’t cheap out and get anything less than than one rated for 13A though.
I would also avoid multi-gang extensions as you’ll only be tempted to plug something else in there and that could overload the 10A relays in the STC-1000.
Don’t go overboard here. The relays are rated for 10A@220VAC. That’s the bottleneck so don’t get a massive induction hotplate. This one for £8.90 is more than enough.
As you’ll find out eventually, if you only ever cook in 10 litres of water or less, you could probably get by with something much wussier. My hotplate rarely goes above its #2 setting (that’s 2 of 6). More on this later.
Tools (that you probably already own)
For this you’ll need screwdrivers in size 0 phillips and size 3 flat, and a crimp and some crimping pliers and some wire-strippers. My crimping pliers are also strippers.
The pictured screwdrivers are just my favourites. I bought a crimping kit which came with a couple of screwdrivers. It’s currently £16.50 so you can probably get much cheaper alternatives at your local DIY shop.
How to wire up the STC -1000
ELECTRICITY WARNING! A basic minimum understanding and respect for electricity is required to safely proceed. If you’re not fit or |
input, their camera work, their HUD, their interaction with UI elements, and so on. We wanted you to be able to see exactly how a highly skilled player is playing the game, so you can see ways of improving your own play, and that’s what this camera mode lets you do.
When you’re watching a tournament match, you’re usually watching it at the same time as a large number of other spectators. We wanted to improve the experience of watching live games, and the first problem we identified is that individual spectators don’t have a shared view of the game. This makes it harder to have a conversation with other spectators around what’s happening onscreen, because everyone will be watching from a different position. This problem led us to creating the Directed camera mode, where we were able to leverage our experience with Source TV to build a smart camera that knows what’s about to happen, and tries to make sure it’s in a good position to let you see that action unfold. So in addition to being able to kick back and relax knowing that the camera will always be where the action is, you’re also able to talk about anything happening onscreen because you know that everyone else watching the Directed camera is seeing the same thing you are.
Another goal we had for spectating matches was to have better support for commentators. If you’ve watched any of the matches from The International, you’ve probably already seen that a good commentator can make a match much more exciting to watch, and help beginners understand what’s going on. But previous implementations of commentating systems have had the commentator’s voice stream sit outside the game. This means that it isn’t captured along with the game – and that means that if you weren’t there to watch the live game, you won’t hear the commentary when you watch the replay at a later date. We felt that should be fixed, so we built commentator support fully into the game itself, and bake it into the replay itself. So if you download one of The International matches, you can watch it as if it was a live game, with all the commentator’s camerawork and commentary intact. For matches commentated in multiple languages, you’ll find all the different languages there in the replay too.
If you don’t have Dota 2 yet, and haven’t had a chance at seeing these features for yourself, you’re in luck: there are a ton of players out there streaming the game, so take a look and let us know what you think. A handy site we’ve been using ourselves is StreamDota2.com, which provides a nice set of streams to choose from.But the Red Wings have no intention of straying from their development model when it comes to their approach to the draft.
The Detroit Red Wings missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 27 years, and they have the ninth pick in the first round of the 2017 NHL Draft presented by adidas, the first time they have a top-10 pick since they selected Martin Lapointe No. 10 in 1991.
"Unless you're picking a superstar that can transition right to the NHL that can help teams can win games … you're not going to be able to rush things," assistant general manager Ryan Martin said. "Just because you didn't have a very good year doesn't mean you can accelerate the development. That's important. I don't know that we're going to stray from our development philosophy. Are we optimistic that perhaps we'll have the opportunity to pick a higher-caliber player than normal because we're picking at nine? Sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean that'll happen."
[RELATED: Complete NHL Draft coverage]
The Red Wings interviewed 75 players at the NHL Scouting Combine, far more than usual. That's because they have the ninth pick in the first round and 11 in all, tied with the New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia Flyers for the most in the League, but also because of the depth of talent available in this year's draft.
"For the most part, when you're picking in the latter half of the first round you can rule out a big chunk of players," Martin said. "… But picking at nine everyone's in the mix.
"I do think there's a lot of good players. I heard [Philadelphia Flyers GM] Ron Hextall quoted that he thinks it's a deeper draft than people are giving it credit for from the standpoint of a lot of teams have different needs, and you start to look at mock drafts or where certain pundits think that people are going to be picking particular players, and that speaks to team needs but also the versatility and the skill these players have. You get outside the top couple of names that seem to be the de facto 1-2-3, those names that keep popping up, there's a lot of good names there. It just depends what you're looking for."
Video: Mike Morreale on the top prospects in the Draft
It's likely the Red Wings are looking for a center with their first pick. Among the options that could be available are Portland's Cody Glass, Michael Rasmussen of Tri-City, Nick Suzuki of Owen Sound and Elias Pettersson of Timra in Sweden's second division.
Martin wouldn't divulge the Red Wings' plans but did admit that this year's draft is stocked with talented forwards.
"I think it's a forward … leaning heavy toward the forward class," he said.
Martin also said the Red Wings have the ammunition if they want to be active as far as trading for another first-round selection or moving down and accumulating more picks. In addition to their first-round selection, they have one pick in the second round and four in the third.
"It has been discussed [and] it'll continue to be discussed," Martin said. "That'll be a draft day type of scenario. Certainly there's certain guys that we really like more than others. … We'll make that decision on the fly. Somebody's [fifth-ranked prospect] could be 15 [for another team] and vice versa. To me that doesn't speak to the lack of depth of the draft, that speaks to the versatility of the players. There's a lot of good players available."http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreTheExpendableGender
Negan, The Walking Dead "I don't enjoy killing women. Men — I can waste them all the live long."
A Double Standard in media whereby women automatically have the audience's sympathy and men don't. Comes in large part for the need for hordes of non-faceless Mooks whose suffering and death we won't lose much sleep over in all sorts of media.
A female character can lose some or even all of the audience's sympathy if they are manipulative, somehow "immoral", ugly, violent or just plain evil. Male characters on the other hand have to earn the audience's sympathy by entertaining or interesting us with their actions. If they don't, we either don't care what happens to them or want them to suffer for failing to entertain/interest us. A Lovable Coward male character is not an exception since we find them entertaining.
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Strangely, women find it difficult to lose audience sympathy by being useless, worse than useless, or selfish cowards—as long as they don't get other people with the audience's sympathy killed, that is. Stranger still, all this can still hold true if the woman in question has already been established as a badass. See Chickification.
Perhaps strangest of all, this trope also bleeds over into villain roles: the suffering and death of female villains is generally not dwelt upon, if only because they are generally less evil than their male counterparts. But the suffering and death of male villains, on the other hand, is much more acceptable if only because they are often so much, well, eviler.
About the only place where this is usually averted is in the horror genre, but even then, there's usually a clear disparity in male vs. female deaths - male deaths are much more likely to be either comically portrayed or quickly forgotten about.
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The consequences in fiction of this are complicated, but in summary:
See the Analysis for more.
There are a lot of related tropes:
A show where Anyone Can Die may or may not be an aversion, depending on how the deaths are depicted.
To all men and boys reading this: you are not expendable, and certainly not because of your sex or gender. Your life has value, and if you need help in any way, we here at TV Tropes sincerely urge you to seek it.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Another manages rather oddly to both subvert and play this straight. It's subverted in that, in a class with roughly equivalent male and female ratios, only a handful of onscreen deaths are male, and by the end of the series (the novel as well; the manga subverts this slightly) only one of the main female characters is still alive (in fairness, she's functionally the only female character in the novel, so this isn't hard). It's subverted in that, when male deaths do occur, their repercussions are generally downplayed or flat-out not brought up: the first major onscreen death is a girl, which leads to one of the main conflicts in the final episode; a male student's death midway through is implied to have caused a Sanity Slippage for a female student, but this is never outright stated, while her own death is the main thing that sets the two main groups at odds. In a series which features two rather gruesome and bloody throat injuries and dismemberment by boat motor, the only Gory Discretion Shot is also reserved for one girl, who bloodlessly (but still painfully) is strangled to death.
Baccano!: The only female character to even get noticeably injured in the bloody events aboard the Flying Pussyfoot is Rachel — and we never actually see her injury, only the gunshot and her subsequently bandaged leg.
Bleach: Earlier on, there's a limited example of the lack of anonymous women in the Soul Society arc. At the beginning Soul Reapers are generally being used as Mooks, and all such are male, as opposed to the leading cadre which includes a handful of females. Once the named characters have been shown enough that we can start sympathetically viewing Soul Reapers as a group, we start seeing Academy flashbacks in which a reasonable proportion of the anonymous Soul Reapers are female, and proceed from there, making it clear this trope is the Raison d'être. This is especially apparent in the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo Arcs, in which only two female arrancars in the manga die, one of whom is revived. In contrast over 20 named male arrancars are permanently killed in the manga.
Elfen Lied: Plays this completely straight. On one hand, many women die horribly. On the other hand, the characters very directly responsible for most of the death are girls, whom we are still expected to feel sympathetic for even after they slaughter dozens of people, innocent or not. And when a scientist shoots a rampaging disclonius, we are expected to see him as a heartless bastard. Also, most of the women killed off get a slow-motion sequence to go with it, while the guys get their heads torn off with brutal swiftness.
Naruto mixes this with Men Are Generic, Women Are Special. You would be hard-pressed to find a random ninja that was female. Pretty much any female in the series is important in some way, and outside of flashbacks (where women tend to die much more often, and even then they are still rarely generic), important [good] characters very rarely die, and if someone does die, they are likely male. This becomes really noticeable when the ninja world unites to take on Madara and a shot of the united army is shown. If there are random female ninja there, they are buried under the males. So when the ninja casualties start happening, only men tend to die.
. So when the ninja casualties start happening, only men tend to die. A similar thing also happens in Fullmetal Alchemist, just replace ninja with soldiers. Thankfully it is a bit more justified and lenient about it, It's set in a 20s setting so female soldiers would be uncommon (they still are, for reasons of this trope), and even then, many characters that are male get lingering shots and it's shown with Mustang that to him, his men are not expendable, his friends are not mooks merely sent to die. I.E a example of a lingering shot on a dead male character Colonel Maes Hughes.
. Noir: The two main characters are female assassins who mow down the male mooks.
In Ooku, the trope is completely inverted. A plague reduces the male population to one fifth of the total. Men thus become very valuable, especially for their seed, and are kept out of harm's way and carefully bartered.
Saint Seiya: Despite the high death count, all the female Saints, Marin, Shaina and June, manage to survive while all but the five main bronze boys die.
Sky Girls: Mentioned but never expanded upon. It was stated that nearly 90% of the male population aged 20-30 was wiped out in the first war with the WORMS. Among the surviving humans actually seen, however, there appear to be just as many young adult men as women.
Strike Witches: Men are pretty much Cannon Fodder for the Neuroi on the other hand the show treats all deaths as equally tragic, even Minna's boyfriend was given a well-rounded backstory which is more than can be said for a lot of male deaths in such stories. Witches are the only ones who can seriously harm Neuroi, conventional weapons are fairly effective but not nearly as much. Obviously the military brass are not too happy that the women are getting all the military glory while the men are sent back in body bags or soup cans on other hand it's not expanded upon exactly how much male combatants are actually involved in direct combat and as such it seems that most men are limited mostly to support roles while the Witches do all the heavy lifting. Most instances where men actually do fight seem more accidental than intentional. The fact that there are no non-Witch women serving on the front-lines is on the other hand justified by simple reality and explained in universe. The brass originally didn't want girls on the battlefield just like in real life which is why they were almost all male but had to conscript teenage magical girls because nothing else was effective. Despite this there do appear to be non-Witch women serving on battleships but even their roles are no elaborated upon. If there's any reason women aren't being hired as cannon fodder it's because the brass doesn't want women killed unless absolutely necessary.
One Piece tends to follow its Shonen brethren in this issue, in that women are often seen in combat roles, but only in positions of authority (the show has been accused of The Smurfette Principle, but women are numerous enough generally to dodge that) and never in the faceless pirate/marine hordes that serve as cannon fodder. The closest comes in with Amazon Lily, where, by the island's nature, women had to serve as mooks. Civilians, meanwhile, tend to be a realistically even mix.
Done in Black Lagoon. Would you expect anything less of what is essentially an action movie parody?
Gintama tends to zigzag this trope and mixes it with Females Are More Innocent: on one hand, you have the Night King arc where the presence of an Amazon Brigade warranted a high female death toll; on the other hand, this was the only time this would occur and, after that arc, you would be hard-pressed to see a woman die brutally. In addition, there aren't many villainesses in the series and neither one was ever killed for what she did... unlike male villains who are almost always dealt with permanently.
Attack on Titan averts this pretty much across the board. The military sees men and women serving together in all capacities, and being slaughtered in roughly equal numbers. Whether their death is played as tragic or not depends less on gender, and more on that particular character or the senselessness of their death. Among the Trainees killed at Trost, Marco's death is the only one played as tragedy while the girls killed are mere Red Shirts never mentioned again. Civilians can be of either gender, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of "Women and Children first" standard in play. The Titans play with this in a strange way, as while they are Mooks and appear to be male, in reality Titans lack any sort of external sexual organs and may or may not even have a distinct gender.
death is the only one played as tragedy while the girls killed are mere Red Shirts never mentioned again. Civilians can be of either gender, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of "Women and Children first" standard in play. The Titans play with this in a strange way, as while they are Mooks and appear to be male, in reality Titans lack any sort of external sexual organs and may or may not even have a distinct gender. Averted in Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE! thanks to all the non-lethal combat.
Sailor Moon averts this. Men and women die over the course of the story and whether or not their deaths are noteworthy depends heavily on their role in the narrative. However, Naoko Takeuchi has said in interviews that she feels she kills her male characters off too easily. In particular, she regretted killing Jadeite off so early once she heard his voice for the anime.
Comic Books
Y: The Last Man: Two male astronauts who survived the Gendercide by being in orbit when it happened die ensuring the survival of their female crewmate after a fiery re-entry, because she was pregnant with a baby that could have belonged to either of them. Also, male corpses are pictured in an advanced state of decomposition as well as piled on each other and loaded into a garbage truck. Female corpses, on the other hand, are handled with a lot more discretion. This is probably because there are just so many bodies that they can't deal with them all like they should, and the woman who Yorrick sees loading men in a dump truck does go out of her way to see every man gets a proper funeral at the end of her one-shot and states how disgraceful it was to the men.
When the Justice League of America moved to Detroit they introduced a group of new superheroes that had an equal number of males and females. However after the new additions proved to be unpopular DC decided to get rid of them by killing off the men (Vibe and Steel) and having the women (Vixen and Gypsy) leave the team. The only reason for having only the men killed appears to be this trope.
In a letter column for Brian Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's Powers, in response to the first several story arcs, a female reader wrote in to ask why Bendis felt the need to kill so many women in his Powers stories. Bendis's reply was that, looking back over the stories the reader mentioned, three women had been brutally killed, but so had something like forty men.
One may wonder how much of the importance attached to the "Women in Refrigerators" phenomenon is a matter of perception, since for the most part the victims in question happen to be attractive young women. For instance, the death of Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy in Amazing Spider-Man #121 caused a huge outcry among fans (so big in fact, that Marvel brought Gwen back as a clone less than two years later to assuage them), her death is still seen as a deep injustice by a number of diehard fans, and many people want to portray it as the Ur-Example of Stuffed into the Fridge. Before her death, four supporting characters had been killed off in-story really without causing a ripple among readers, all men of various ages: Uncle Ben, Bennett Brant (Betty's brother, caught in the crossfire to provide a reason for her to hate Spider-Man), Frederick Foswell (Daily Bugle reporter) and George Stacy (Gwen's father, died trying to save people's lives to provide an obstacle to her romance with Peter Parker). In later years The Death of Jean DeWolff, the second female supporting character to be killed off, caused another major stir. The deaths of various male supporting characters — Professor Miles Warren, Nathan Lubensky (Aunt May's fiancé), Ned Leeds (one of Peter's oldest Bugle colleagues), and even Harry Osborn (Peter Parker's oldest and best friend of the male persuasion) — not so much. Harry Osborn who, as it turned out, could not well be replaced in his role in the cast, but that was fourteen years after his death. Even Aunt May (whose apparent death in Amazing Spider-Man #400 was widely seen as a satisfying ending to a fulfilled life) was brought back to the living more quickly. And while only Uncle Ben is referenced in-story nearly as often as Gwen Stacy, quite a few of the dead male characters are all but forgotten both by the writers and the fans.
A Conan the Barbarian comic has Conan finding out just how many of the men he is presently dealing with (most of whom need killing) have had carnal knowledge of his current concubine. She responds with a quiet dignity, "it's not easy being a woman in a man's world." Conan then bluntly subverts the trope by countering, "You should try being a man in it."
Between the quarantine, the concentration camp, and the military operation there are a lot of soldier injuries and deaths on-panel in Revival. Every one of them is male except for Big Tina, who is established as a villain. Civilian deaths include females.
Film
Jokes
A little girl is looking at her dad's sword, hung over the fireplace. She asks her mum what it's for, and Mum replies "That's what makes men strong and powerful, so they fight wars." The daughter says "They believe that?" Mum says "Yes. That's why they're expendable."
Literature
Live-Action TV
Music
This trope is the subject of the song "Men" by Loudon Wainwright III: Have pity on the general, the king and the captain
They know they're expendable; after all, they're men
New Media
In the essay Survival Horror and the Female Protagonist, it is theorized that this trope is why female protagonists are so common in the genre. Female protagonists of modern horror in general push the boundaries in terms of defining the feminine and add a certain emotional touch to the genre that a male protagonist often fails to provide...
, it is theorized that this trope is why female protagonists are so common in the genre. Surprisingly present in Team Four Star's Dragon Ball Z Abridged: Cell's absorption of the male Android 17 is shown in its entirety and played for laughs, with 17 complaining about how "not cool" a death it is the entire time, while Cell's absorption of the female Android 18 is played as tragic, using dialogue that equates it with rape, and happens off-screen. Of course, being Team Four Star, they immediately subvert it with an alternate scene where Krillin accidentally blows 18's head clean off her shoulders with a bomb.
Radio
In the 1930s Flash Gordon radio serial, Flash is forced to chose one of the people he loves to be sacrificed. The men draw lots to decide which of them will be sacrificed, but Flash immediately exempts Dale Arden from the choice because "as a woman she must live".
Role-Playing Games
In Dino Attack RPG, the overwhelming majority of anonymous Red Shirts are male, and the only known female Red Shirt was merely wounded, not explicitly killed like her male peers. The only women who are killed, such as Amanda Claw, are major characters whose deaths bring great emotional impact and serve to motivate the survivors to fight even harder to defeat the enemy.
Stand-Up Comedy
Lampshaded by Jason Manford in his 2011 stand-up show. He references the trope by name without quite decrying it. Jason Manford: In the house, when there's a noise downstairs, who's checking that noise out? That's dad, isn't it? A hundred percent of the time, that's dad. You could be married to a ninja, you're still the first one down the stairs. Why is this, is it because you're stronger or braver or better at fighting than your wife? No. It's because out the two of you, you're more expendable. It's not nice to hear, dads, I understand. The family will be upset but they'll crack on.
Tabletop Games
In the Clue VCR Mystery Game, the characters are shocked and horrified to learn that Prof. Plum had killed his wife, but they barely even blink at the fact that Mrs. Peacock had murdered several husbands. It was also implied that Col. Mustard had shot his brother, Reggie, and Mrs. White had poisoned Mr. Boddy, and again, neither of these provoked anything close to the revulsion shown toward Prof. Plum.
Tabletop RPG sourcebook: GURPS Lensman includes an interesting analysis of the phenomenon in the section "Women and Lenses", pp. 9-10.
Warhammer 40,000: While the background material hints that there are just as many females as there are males in the Imperial Guard Army, most of the Imperial Guard Models are all male, with few to no female variants throughout the years. Other races tend to have one set of "female" traits for every 3 "male" traits (breastplates mostly). One whole regiment of Imperial Guard is made up solely of males as well, the aptly named Vostroyan Firstborne (made of firstborn sons). Space Marines may be this at a glance, due to genetics basically making female space marines in fluff impossible, but are largely balanced because each new initiate marine is still infinitely more valuable than 10k imperial guard women and that their Distaff Counterpart, the Sisters of Battle, are all female. Also averted with the Eldar and the Dark Eldar. Where females are quite common, just wearing battle armor so it's less noticeable.
Video Games
Web Comics
Complete aversion on all points in Dead Winter— a sympathetic male character is seen sniping a female extra, whose death gets just one panel, and you see blood spatter from the exit wound. Another aversion on all counts is Digger. The hyena Digger comes to name Ed is an exile who killed his wife, because it was the only way to protect his child. Having been driven half-mad by the death of her first child at birth (which, while common to hyenas, she thought she was exempt from, since Ed was a surviving firstborn and therefore a living good luck charm), she began to beat first Ed, and then their daughter, at which point Ed realized his wife was never going to get better; so he killed her, in her sleep, to keep her from doing their daughter lasting harm, and then peaceably accepted exile because he knew that what he had done was technically unforgiveable (technically because most of the tribe knew the circumstances and felt he should be forgiven, but his in-laws, lead by his wife's sister, insisted upon exile if not the death sentence). It's worth noting that Digger's hyenas are an aversion in a more general sense as well, because, being based on real hyenas, the gender roles as we know them are reversed (males are smaller and physically weaker than females, and tend to be the noncoms while women are hunters and warriors).
In xkcd, one of the characters is playing a game where he gets the life history of the people he's shooting in an FPS. The caption indicates he starts feeling guilty when one of them turns out to be a woman. Then he starts feeling guilty that he didn't feel guilty for the dozens of other guys he just shot.
In The Order of the Stick, when Haley, Belkar, and Celia are under attack by the Greysky City Thieves's Guild, this is played straight in the nameless mooks. There are a few women, and elves, but men dominate by a ratio of more than 5:1 and they are killed without sympathy (although Haley does mention most of the guild are jerks). Most notable when Belkar and the Cleric of Loki fight their way through a massive crowd of thieves, and all of the men are slaughtered while the lone woman gets kissed. It's inverted later after the mooks are dead, because the lone female named character, Crystal, is treated without any sympathy or redeeming features, while the level-headed and male Hank comes up with a plan to end all of the bloodshed.
Inverted in "Xenospora". The matriarchal society of Praxis Prime measures losses by male deaths.
Web Original
Western Animation
Superjail! on Adult Swim makes a habit of killing male prisoners in the most graphically disturbing ways possible. One episode it depicted a woman getting shot and slumping over to suggest the chaos had gone too far. Considering this was interspersed between images of men being decapitated and graphically disemboweled, it was a particularly jarring and perhaps intentional invocation of this trope.
Some mild but significant examples in Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the episode "Zuko Alone", we learn that the soldiers lord their power "mostly over women and kids", this small dialogue serving both to damn the soldiers in the audience's eyes as well as gain more sympathy for Zuko and forgive him nearly killing the guy with firebending towards the end. Also, in the Grand Finale, Zuko agrees to an Agni Kai with Azula so "no one else has to get hurt", implying Katara being hurt is worse than him losing and possibly dying (this despite knowing firsthand how competent she is). Both these examples are particularly interesting as he comes from a surprisingly liberal country.
. Both these examples are particularly interesting as he comes from a surprisingly liberal country. Spoofed in an episode of The Simpsons. Homer and Marge find that Lisa went with Marge's reporter friend to a feminism convention and go to find her, only to learn that she and the reporter went to an erupting volcano instead. Homer says "I'll go save Lisa; you stay here!" and the feminists boo at the perceived Stay in the Kitchen. So Homer says "Okay, you go; I'll stay here", and gets more boos for putting her in danger. Exasperated, he asks "What do women want?!"
In The Venture Bros., OSI strictly forbids the killing of women among its agents as a way to maintain a moral high ground. Brock really doesn't understand this and asks his mentor Hunter if any loopholes exist. The only one we hear is that a vampire is undead and thus not technically alive in the first place, so he could totally kill a female vampire if he wanted. Years later, Brock is sent to kill a rogue Hunter only to find that he's undergone sexual reassignment surgery and as such is off-limits.
. In the original Under the Hood comic, Black Mask's assistant Mr. Li is killed by Jason Todd. In the film adaptation, Batman: Under the Red Hood, Mr. Li becomes Ms. Li, who ends up Bound and Gagged by The Joker, but is otherwise unharmed.
A particularly peculiar example occurs in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic among the Equestrian Guard. Despite the series' subliminal progressive and egalitarian themes, outside of Fanon the nation's armies seem to be exclusively comprised of stallions to the point where even the two participating characters among the guard, Shining Armor and... Flash Sentry... have been male. That being said, the show has come under fire from Moral Guardians on multiple occasions, so it's possible the producers simply don't want to risk another incident, especially considering the fact that every mare and stallion in Appleloosa leapt to its defense during the altercation with the neighboring tribe of buffalo. With pies, that is.
Numerical Aversions
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
In The Walking Dead comic, no one is safe from dying. Men die, women die, kids die, everyone dies. In fact, the only characters from the start of the comic still alive are Andrea, Rick (whose missing an arm), and his son Carl (and the left side of Carl's face is disfigured and left eye missing cause he got shot in the face).
. Thoroughly averted in Saga, where women are shown serving in the militaries of both Wreath and Landfall without problem. Being a woman doesn't make you any safer than the rest of the cast, and many female characters have been killed off over its run, some of them quite gruesomely.
The comics of Buffy the Vampire Slayer show the "Slayer Organization", which consists almost exclusively of women, because only girls can become slayers, and boys not. During the plot of the comics, many of them are killed in combat. However, the demons they fight against are still more likely male.
Film
Literature
In Carnosaur a woman and her two children, a son Simon and daughter Fiona, get attacked by a dinosaur. Both Fiona and her mother are killed and Simon lives. The villain's henchmen later debate killing the boy because he saw the dinosaur and decide not to, with Simon's gender never entering their decision making process. Males and females still die in essentially equal numbers but this incident of the brother surviving and the sister dying in a sibling pair is noteworthy as usually writers will seemingly choose the girl to spare and not the boy.
David Weber's Honor Harrington series completely subverts this. There is an abundance of female villains, including mooks. There are women serving in the navies, marines, and armies of Haven, Manticore, and every state except Grayson, plus there are female pirates, merchant crewmembers, thugs, and Havenite State Sec personnel. The women die as often as the men-which is very frequently, considering that it is a military sci-fi series. In universe, the conservative Graysons are the only ones who play this straight, but they are gradually moving away from it. For a long time in their history Graysons had to adopt this strategy as they were teetering on the brink of planetary extinction. They needed babies to survive which required lots of women having lots of babies. Due to a massively unequal sex ration between males and females, they practiced polygamy for the same purpose.
In Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus, male and female demigods are killed roughly equally. Likewise, the monsters killed by the heroes are about equally male and female. The third book of the prequel series shows five demigods going to fight the titans. There are two boys and three girls, and two of the girls are killed, but none of the boys. The Olympian goddess Artemis only takes girls as her hunters. And many of them are killed during the Sequel series.
Inheritance Cycle Despite a fairly large body count and some intense torture on three of the prominent female characters, only glorified extras seem to be vulnerable to death during the series. The village of Carvahall loses a number of male villagers during the resistance, but only three old women die from cold in the mountains, off screen and with passing mention of their names. The sole exception to this trope is the elven queen, killed during the final confrontation with the king's forces in the final book.
Live-Action TV
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is far more willing to kill off its major female characters than its male ones; Jenny, Kendra, Joyce, Tara, Buffy and Anya all die before the end of the final episode, whereas the only significant male good guy to die (and stay dead) is Jonathan. That said, the vast majority of the mostly-all-killed-off villains were male.
On the other hand, it's hinted quite often, particularly by Spike in Seasons 2 and 3, that vampire feeding habits are very connected with sexuality. In other words, they kill whatever sort of person they used to be attracted to as humans (male heterosexual vampires would kill women, and so on). As a result, we could expect a relatively mixed vampire population. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the hordes of vampires Buffy kills are male. The female-male mook ratio is generally around 2:5.
all die before the end of the final episode, whereas the only significant male good guy to die (and stay dead) is. That said, the vast majority of the mostly-all-killed-off villains were male. On the other hand, it's hinted quite often, particularly by Spike in Seasons 2 and 3, that vampire feeding habits are very connected with sexuality. In other words, they kill whatever sort of person they used to be attracted to as humans (male heterosexual vampires would kill women, and so on). As a result, we could expect a relatively mixed vampire population. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the hordes of vampires Buffy kills are male. The female-male mook ratio is generally around 2:5. Angel, the spin-off series to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, differs in this respect from the main series. Even though the week's opponents are still almost always male, most human victims, especially in the first season, are female. In the fourth season, a demon named "The Beast" appears, killing all employees of Wolfram & Hardt. This demon makes no difference whether it is men or women he kills. The series kills more female vampires than the main series. However, there are still generally more male vampires being killed. Four main characters are killed in the course of the plot. Two of them are men and the other two are women. In addition, these women were the only two female members among the protagonists.
Heroes. Sylar has no problem killing people of all genders.
Lost is often criticized by female fans for constantly killing off female characters. 7 of the 9 main female characters have died or are unaccounted for.
NCIS: According to the Wikipedia entry, ALL the regular/recurring good guys who have been killed off were female. Except for Pacci, but he was in about three episodes and was promptly disemboweled... in season 1. That was in 2004. He was the only one. Changed as of Season Eight as in "Swan Song" recurring character Mike Franks is Killed Off for Real, but that still does not go a long way towards evening the scales.
Supernatural, anyone? Season 11 leaves only about four recurring female characters still alive ( Lisa Braeden, Jody Mills, Linda Tran and Amelia Richardson, for those curious).
, for those curious). Boardwalk Empire, all of the gangsters who are killed off are necessarily male, but several prominent female characters have also been killed off. One minor recurring character got used as a Human Shield.
Charmed featured its fair share of female villains and yes female Mooks, a few of which are killed off with no fanfare. The sisters themselves may count since they have each died many times, Phoebe taking the honours with nine deaths. Female innocents tended to get killed off a lot as well. Sometimes their deaths would come with emotional impact but so would deaths of some male innocents |
by default if most do not participate actively in managing the affairs of society, can be accused of no such dereliction, since they are acting as equal members of a popular democratic body.
To say the least, an extensive process of self-education in democratic group processes would be necessary before large numbers of people would be able to work together cooperatively in large meetings. And even if some of the serious problems mentioned are mitigated, it is difficult to imagine how they could be reduced to insignificance in assemblies with thousands of participants, as are sometimes proposed, at least until wider processes of personal and social transformation has radically changed the members’ characters and sensibilities. Indeed, the term “face-to-face democracy” that Bookchin often uses in reference to these assemblies seems rather bizarre when applied to these thousands of faces (assuming that most of them face up to their civic responsibilities and attend).
An authentically democratic movement will recognize the considerable potential for elitism and power-seeking within assemblies. It will deal with this threat not only through procedures within assemblies, but above all by creating a communitarian, democratic culture that will express itself in decision-making bodies and in all other institutions. For the assembly and other organs of direct democracy to contribute effectively to an ecological community, they must be purged of the competitive, agonistic, masculinist aspects that has often corrupted them. They can only fulfill their democratic promise if they are an integral expression of a cooperative community that embodies in its institutions the love of humanity and nature. Barber makes exactly this point when he states that strong democracy “attempts to balance adversary politics by nourishing the mutualistic art of listening,” and going beyond mere toleration, seeks “common rhetoric evocative of a common democratic discourse should “encompass the affective as well as the cognitive mode.” Such concerns echo recent contributions in feminist ethics, which have pointed out that the dominant moral and political discourse have exhibited a one-sided emphasis on ideas and principles, and neglected the realm of feeling and sensibility. In this spirit, we must explore the ways in which the transition from formal to substantive democracy depends not only on the establishment of more radically democratic forms, but on the establishment of cultural practices that foster a democratic ethos.
Municipal Economics
One of the most compelling aspects of Bookchin’s political thought is the centrality of his ethical critique of the dominant economistic society, and his call for the creation of a “moral economy” as a precondition for a just ecological society. He asserts that such a “moral economy” implies the emergence of “a productive community” to replace the amoral “mere marketplace,” that currently prevails. It requires further that producers “explicitly agree to exchange their products and services on terms that are not merely ‘equitable’ or ‘fair’ but supportive of each other.” He believes that if the prevailing system of economic exploitation and the dominant economistic culture based on it are to be eliminated, a sphere must be created in which people find new forms of exchange to replace the capitalist market, and this sphere must be capable of continued growth. Bookchin sees this realm as that of the municipalized economy. He states that “under libertarian municipalism, property becomes “part of a larger whole that is controlled by the citizen body in assembly as citizens.” Elsewhere, he explains that “land, factories, and workshops would be controlled by popular assemblies of free communities, not by a nation-state or by worker-producers who might very well develop a proprietary interest in them.”
However, for the present at least, it is not clear why the municipalized economic sector should be looked upon as the primary realm, rather than as one area among many in which significant economic transformation might begin. It is possible to imagine a broad spectrum of self-managed enterprises, individual producers and small partnerships that would enter into a growing cooperative economic sector that would incorporate social ecological values. The extent to which the communitarian principle of distribution according to need could be achieved would be proportional to the degree to which cooperative and communitarian values had evolved — a condition that would depend on complex historical factors that cannot be predicted beforehand. Bookchin is certainly right in his view that participation in a moral economy would be “an ongoing education in forms of association, virtue, and decency” through which the self would develop. And it is possible that ideally “price, resources, personal interests, and costs” might “play no role in a moral economy” and that there would be “no ‘accounting’ of what is given and taken.” However, we always begin with a historically determined selfhood in a historically determined cultural context. It is quite likely that communities (and self-managed enterprises) might find that in the task of creating liberatory institutions within the constraints of real history and culture, the common good is attained best by preserving some form of “accounting” of contributions from citizens and distribution of goods. To whatever degree Bookchin’s anarcho-communist system of distribution are desirable as a long-term goal, the attempt to put them into practice in the short run, without developing their psychological and institutional preconditions, would be a certain recipe for disillusionment and economic failure.
Bookchin attributes to municipalization an almost miraculous power to abolish egoistic and particularistic interests. He and Biehl attack proposals of the Left Greens for worker self-management on the grounds that such a system does not, as in the case of municipalization, “eliminate the possibility that particularistic interests of any kind will develop in economic life.” While the italics reflect an admirable hope, it is not clear how municipalization, or any other political program, no matter how laudable it may be, can assure that such interests are entirely eliminated. Bookchin and Biehl contend that in “a democratized polity” workers would develop “a general public interest,” rather than a particularistic one of any sort. But it is quite possible for a municipality to put its own interest above that of other communities, or that of the larger community of nature. The concept of “citizen of a municipality” does not in itself imply identification with “a general public interest.” To the extent that concepts can perform such a function, “citizen of the human community” would do so much more explicitly, and “citizen of the earth community” would do so much more ecologically.
Under Bookchin’s libertarian municipalism, there is a possible (and perhaps inevitable) conflict between the particularistic perspective of the worker in a productive enterprise and the particularistic perspective of the citizen of the municipality. Bookchin and Biehl propose that “workers in their area of the economy” be placed on advisory boards that are “merely technical agencies, with no power to make policy decisions.” This would do little if anything to solve the problem of conflict of interest. Bookchin calls the “municipally managed enterprise” at one point “a worker-citizen controlled enterprise,” but the control is effectively limited to members of the community acting as citizens, not as workers. Shared policy-making seems on the face of it more of a real-world possibility, however complex it might turn out to be. In either case (pure community democracy, or a mixed system of community and workplace democracy), it seems obvious that there would be a continual potential for conflict between workers who are focused on their needs and responsibilities as producers and assemblies that are in theory focused on the needs and responsibilities of the local community.
Putting aside the ultimate goals of libertarian municipalism, Bookchin suggests that in a transitional phase, its policies would “not infringe on the proprietary rights of small retail outlets, service establishments, artisan shops, small farms, local manufacturing enterprises, and the like.” The question arises, though, of why this sector should not to cA new vulnerability in the Uconnect system gives attackers frightening remote powers over Chrysler vehicles, revealed in a Wired exclusive report. In a live demo, attackers used the vulnerability to cut out a Jeep Cherokee's transmission and brakes and, when the car is in reverse, commandeer the steering wheel — all without physical access to the vehicle. "This might be the kind of software bug most likely to kill someone," said Charlie Miller, one of the researchers behind the exploit. The full vulnerability will be presented next month at Defcon, although the researchers plan to withhold crucial details so that the bug cannot be exploited at scale.
Chrysler's UConnect system uses Sprint's cellular network for connectivity, so researchers were able to remotely locate cars by scanning for devices using that particular spectrum band. Chrysler has been including UConnect in cars since late 2013, and any cars that use the system are likely to be vulnerable to the attack. There's no apparent firewall, so once attackers have located the device's IP, they can deploy previously developed exploits to rewrite Uconnect's firmware and control the car as if they had physical access. The result is that once an attacker has a car's IP address, she can target it from anywhere in the country.
The good news for Chrysler drivers is, there's already a patch — but it probably hasn't reached your car yet. Chrysler released a patch on the 16th, but it has to be installed manually, either by a dealership mechanic or manually via USB. It can be downloaded here. The vulnerability has also inspired government action, as a new automotive security bill is being introduced in the Senate alongside the report.
7/21 11:48am ET: This article previously referred to the test vehicle as a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The correct name is simply Jeep Cherokee.
Verge Video: Mercedes' driverless car of the futureBEIRUT, Lebanon — The timing of Canada’s crash program to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of the year keeps sliding, according to two officials familiar with aspects of the planning.
The original goal had been to begin the airlift by Thursday of this week, but as no charter aircraft have been booked yet, it would now be at least one more week before flights got underway, one of the officials said. When the flights reach their peak next month, about 1,000 refugees will be arriving in Canada every day.
The officials did not want to be identified because diplomats and immigration officers have been told by Ottawa not to speak about the matter, with all requests referred to the government.
“Unfortunately I have nothing to say to you at the moment,” Immigration Canada spokesman Jean-Bruno Villeneuve said in an email from Ottawa, adding that he was unable to confirm any details about the resettlement program.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded Monday to questions about security concerns that have arisen since like week’s savage terrorist attacks by ISIL in Lebanon and France and their alleged Syrian connections, by insisting that his government would stick to its pledge to bring all the Syrian refugees to Canada within six weeks and that measures would be taken to ensure the safety of Canadians.
But the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which registers asylum seekers and is supposed to be working with Canada on its resettlement program, said Tuesday that it remained largely in the dark about Ottawa’s plans.
While the UNHCR welcomed the Canadian announcement to settle Syrians, “I am afraid I cannot talk about Canada’s program,” spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said in an email from Geneva “until we know more about the modalities.”
One of the reasons things were going so slowly was that Canada has not yet provided the UN with the numbers of refugees it wants the agency to identify for resettlement from each country, a UN spokesperson in Beirut said.
One government official said Immigration Canada had begun interviewing refugees several days ago at an undisclosed location in Beirut, but had not yet done so in Jordan or Turkey. For this reason, the quota of refugees from Lebanon would be larger than those for the other two countries.
The UNHCR refused to comment officially about the Canadian-imposed deadline to get the refugees across the Atlantic because “it is a very tricky situation,” one of several UNHCR officials spoken with in Beirut said.
Another UN official gave a bewildered look when asked about the Canadian timeline.
Representatives from Canada and the UN and diplomats from other embassies posted in the region privately expressed grave doubts about whether such a large resettlement project could be completed in a safe and responsible way in such a short time frame.
Independent of each other, several of them said they were surprised and disappointed that the prime minister had not used the terror attacks in Paris and Beirut as justification for slowing the Canadian resettlement program down to a more manageable pace.
None of these officials could remember any country trying to resettle 25,000 refugees in such a short time period, particularly across almost half the world to a country where they will experience a serious winter for the first time in their lives.
Comparisons were drawn with Australia and Britain, where more modest schemes to resettle Syrian refugees were being spread out over between six months and several years largely because of security concerns and logistical hurdles.
The chief concern was whether Canada had given itself enough time for its security teams to conduct the rigorous vetting required to ensure that refugees bound for Canada were not connected to ISIL or other banned terrorist organizations that control parts of Syria. This was particularly important in light of claims in recent days by Syrian-based ISIL that it intends to continue carrying out murderous attacks overseas.
The UNHCR does some initial vetting to check if anyone was a combatant in the Syrian civil war during the registration interviews it conducts with all refugees — if they were this would usually exclude them from consideration, Rummery said. The UN agency also tracks biometrics, including retinal screening, of those it registers.
However, it is primarily the responsibility of host resettlement nations such as Canada to conduct “in-depth screening” for security reasons for those who were “identified for resettlement,” Rummery said.
There were also criticisms in Beirut of Ottawa’s plan to conduct some of the security checks once the refugees landed in Canada because if refugees were identified as possible terrorists the accused could spend years fighting deportation in the courts.
Canada’s resettlement project will likely involve the chartering of at least 80 jumbo jet flights to make the more than 9,000 kilometre flight from the Middle East to eastern Canada. The fuel costs alone will be about $240,000 for each return journey and as many as six wide-body aircraft may be leased for four or five weeks.
National PostThe jury in the trial of Graham Dwyer for the murder of Elaine O'Hara has gone home for the night after it was earlier sent out to consider its verdict.
Earlier, Mr Justice Tony Hunt summarised evidence given by members of Ms O'Hara's family.
He said their credibility had been raised as an issue by lawyers for Mr Dwyer.
He said this was an issue for the jury.
Mr Dwyer, 42, of Kerrymount Close in Foxrock in Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms O'Hara, 36, on Kilakee Mountain in Rathfarnham in August 2012.
Mr Justice Hunt told the jury to approach their deliberations in a "logically way".
"The one thing that you can say with certainty is that two people met that day one person came home the other didn't".
He asked them to bring themselves to the shore side at 6pm on 22 August 2012 and see what they can infer or deduce.
"Where did they go, how did they go, what did they do when they got there. How did the stuff end up in the reservoir?"
He said suicide must be considered and they cannot convict if there is any reasonable doubt.
Mr Justice Hunt also read the evidence of Deputy State Pathologist Michael Curtis to the jury.
He said his evidence had been raised by Mr Dwyer's defence counsel, Remy Farrell.
He said Mr Farrell had said the absence of any impact marks on Ms O'Hara's remains should cause the jury to have reasonable doubt.
He said Mr Farrell was also concerned that the evidence of Mr Curtis would not be at the forefront of the jurors' minds by virtue of what they had heard since.
He said he wanted to place it back at the forefront of their minds.
In his evidence, Dr Curtis said the cause of Ms O'Hara's death could not be determined.
Only 60-65% of Ms O'Hara's remains were discovered, he said.
Dr Curtis agreed that if death had occurred by stabbing that this could have occurred without injury to the bones.
He agreed with lawyers for the defence that in many cases where death is caused by self harm, there is no evidence of bony injury.
He said where someone is killed by stabbing, the knife could go between the ribs.
He said this was less common but by no means rare.
He said that if someone was stabbed in the abdomen, it would almost certainly cause no bony injury.
Yesterday, Mr Justice Hunt told the jurors the facts in the case were entirely a matter for them but they must apply the law that he told them about in a clinical manner.
He said they had seen and heard "horrific" material but they must put aside any feelings they had about Mr Dwyer.
He said the prosecution was asking them to make a very large decision based on indirect evidence.
A person could be convicted based on circumstantial evidence he said, but they had to take care with such evidence.
He said to convict they had to be satisfied that there was no other reasonable conclusion, consistent with innocence.
He told them they had to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Dwyer murdered Ms O'Hara by stabbing her for his gratification.
Mr Justice Hunt also re-read the evidence of Mr Dwyer's wife, Gemma Dwyer.
He referred to her evidence that a spade found near the location of Ms O'Hara's remains was a spade missing from the Dwyers' Foxrock home.
He said the evidence about it being connected with Mr Dwyer depended on the evidence of Mrs Dwyer.
He said she had identified it as being their spade based on the label on it and the spatters of paint on it.
He said the evidence about the spade was perhaps more important.
He said they had to apply the presumption of innocence to the spade. He said every spade had a label - it was a mass produced item.
He said he did not think the label would not be enough in itself to lead them to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that the spade was a "guilty" item.
He said in light of the forensic evidence about the paint spatters they had to be very careful with this item.
He said they had to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt before they could conclude that the spade had something to do with Mr Dwyer and placed him up the mountains.
He said a forensic scientist had given evidence that the paint on the Dwyers' fence and the paint on the spade was similar but not the same. He asked where that left them.
He said it may be that the spade was out of the case, that it doesn't have any significance. He said it may be that it had no relevance and no dramatic effect in the case at all.
He urged them to be very, very careful.
The judge said he will now deal with the issue of suicidality and the issue of the garda investigation and Mr Dwyer's garda interviews.
He said he hoped to be finished by 3pm and hoped the jury would be able to get the ball rolling with their deliberations at that stage.
He said there is no doubt that Ms O'Hara was troubled by thoughts of suicide.
He said the prosecution said that this issue ticked a box for Mr Dwyer in choosing her as a potential victim.
He said the defence case was that Ms O Hara had died by suicide. He said this was the case Mr Dwyer had made to his wife and his adult son in his own writings.
He said defence lawyers had said this was the working assumption in 2012 and it should not be readily dismissed in 2015 because of other things that had happened in 2013.
The defence said this was a reasonable possibility to explain the death and disappearance of Ms O'Hara.
He said this was something the jury had to face up to and he said even if they rejected the possibility of suicide they had to be satisfied the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
Mr Justice Hunt said MS O'Hara was in hospital in July and August 2012 because she had had suicidal thoughts.
He said there was a clear evidential basis for the jury to consider whether or not suicide was a factor in Ms O'Hara's death.
He said the defence suggestion that suicide was a reasonable possibility depended on the jury's view of the facts.
If there is a reasonable possibility of suicide on the facts of the case, he told the jurors they should acquit, it was as simple as that.
He said when Ms O'Hara had talked about suicide the night before her disappearance with a fellow patient, she talked about a rope.
The judge referred to evidence of Mr Dwyer's interviews with gardaí after his arrest.
The judge said there was a considerable level of untruth in what was said in the interviews.
He said Mr Dwyer's defence counsel did not stand over these documents as being documents of perfect truth.
He pointed out that when the statement of Mr Dwyer’s former girlfriend Emer McShea was put to him in garda interviews, he suggested that she was making it up and that she was saying things out of spite and that gardaí had pushed her buttons.
He said that suggestion was not persisted with in cross examination.
Mr Justice Hunt said lies told were not in themselves evidence of guilt.
He said the jury should only treat them as supporting the prosecution case if they were satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there was no innocent reason for the lies and that the lies were told for the purpose of covering up guilt.
He said they should not leap from a finding that Mr Dwyer had told lies to an automatic finding of guilt.
He said the jurors should ask why Mr Dwyer had told lies.
He said even when Mr Dwyer admitted a sexual relationship with Ms O'Hara, he still did not do so in a full and candid way.
He said that if the jurors accepted that Mr Dwyer was the author of the texts in the case, then his shock and horror when gardaí read the texts to him was to do with these matters coming out from deep underwater after 13 months.
He urged the jurors to look at the texts overall. He told the jurors to look at both people and who keeps harping on about certain things and who does not.
Mr Justice Hunt said the Buck Special knife found in Mr Dwyer's workplace in February last year was "odd", even if you take the most innocent view possible.
He said the knife was researched on Ms O'Hara's computer, Mr Dwyer went off and ordered the knife - it was sent, marked private and confidential, to his workplace.
He said it was an oddity. Even on the most innocent view that the knife remained in the offices for 18 months it was odd.
He said the jurors would have to draw their own conclusions.
He said they would have to consider the bag found in the reservoir and decide its significance.
He said the jury had information relating to around five years of both of these people - their desires, tastes, behaviour.
He said they were being asked to use all of that to come to a conclusion about what happened after 6pm on 22 August 2012.
He said if they brought the two people together at 6pm on the shore on that date, they had to deduce what happened next, where did they go, how did they get there, how did stuff end up in the reservoir, how does it all play out between 6pm and 9pm on 22 August 2012.
He said the jurors had to look at the evidence logically.
He said one thing that could be said for certain is that two people met that night. One came home. The other did not.
He asked them why the other person did not come home, and if the person who came home is responsible for stabbing her.
He referred to evidence that Mr Dwyer's work phone had been using cell sites which cover Kilakee Mountain on the evening before Ms O'Hara's disappearance.
He said if they were satisfied the scenario put forward by the prosecution could be established then they were obliged to convict.
If they thought it did not add up or there was a reasonable doubt, then they were obliged to acquit.
He asked them to come to a unanimous decision.
And he told the seven men and five women they could take as long or as short as they needed to reach a conscientious and properly considered verdict.
The jury foreman asked if they could have access to the videos of Mr Dwyer's garda interviews.
Mr Justice Hunt said they could not as these interviews were a "pain" to watch and they would have access to agreed memos of the interviews.
The jury foreman also asked what did they have to find Mr Dwyer guilty of.
Mr Justice Hunt said they did not have to find him guilty of anything - their options were to find him guilty or not guilty of murder.The debate surrounding the connection between gun crime and gun ownership is certainly not a new issue for Americans. However, the recent spike in high-profile mass shootings has reignited a national debate surrounding gun policy in the U.S. With all the rhetoric being bantered back and forth about gun violence, it has become increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction. Our goal is not to push an agenda, but to arm Americans with the information they need to decide where they stand on this complex issue for themselves. The dispute on how gun ownership affects violent crime rates is not going away anytime soon.
Here’s what you need to know about it
The facts themselves may be clear, but their implications certainly aren’t. It’s true that the United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world—by far. And compared to its economic counterparts, the U.S. also has the highest homicide rate, but the U.S. is not number one in the world for gun violence. At the same time, gun violence has steadily dropped in the U.S. over the past several years, and firearm murders are declining, even as gun ownership increases. What does all this mean? We leave that for you to decide.
DISCLAIMER: It is PROHIBITED by law to use our service or the information it provides to make decisions about consumer credit, employment, insurance, tenant screening, or for any other purpose subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681 et seq. Instant Checkmate does not provide consumer reports and is not a consumer reporting agency. The information available on our website may not be 100% accurate, complete, or up to date, so do not use this information as a substitute for your own due diligence, especially if you have concerns about a person’s criminal history. Instant Checkmate does not make any representation or warranty about the accuracy of the information available through our website or about the character or integrity of the person about whom you inquire. For more information, please review Instant Checkmate Terms of Use.Abstract
Importance The first dose of live attenuated measles-containing vaccines is associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures 7 to 10 days following immunization among 12- to 23-month-old children. The combination measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine is associated with a 2-fold increased risk of febrile seizures 7 to 10 days following immunization compared with the separately administered measles, mumps, and rubella and varicella vaccines. It is unknown whether the magnitude of these increased risks depends on age at immunization.
Objective To examine the potential modifying effect of age on the risk of fever and seizures following immunization with measles-containing vaccines.
Design, Setting, and Participants Retrospective cohort study at 8 Vaccine Safety Datalink sites of a total of 840 348 children 12 to 23 months of age who had received a measles-containing vaccine from 2001 through 2011.
Exposures Any measles-containing vaccines and measles-containing vaccines by type.
Main Outcomes and Measures Fever and seizure events occurring during a 42-day postimmunization observation period.
Results In the analysis of any measles-containing vaccines, the increased risk of seizures during the 7- to 10-day risk interval, using the remainder of the observation period as the control interval, was significantly greater among older children (relative risk, 6.5; 95% CI, 5.3-8.1; attributable risk, 9.5 excess cases per 10 000 doses; 95% CI, 7.6-11.5) than among younger children (relative risk, 3.4; 95% CI, 3.0-3.9; attributable risk = 4.0 excess cases per 10 000 doses; 95% CI, 3.4-4.6). The relative risk of postimmunization fever was significantly greater among older children than among younger children; however, its attributable risk was not. In the analysis of vaccine type, measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine was associated with a 1.4-fold increase in the risk of fever and 2-fold increase in the risk of seizures compared with measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine administered with or without varicella vaccine in both younger and older children.
Conclusions and Relevance Measles-containing vaccines are associated with a lower increased risk of seizures when administered at 12 to 15 months of age. Findings of this study that focused on safety outcomes highlight the importance of timely immunization of children with the first dose of measles-containing vaccines.
Measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) are the 2 live attenuated measles-containing vaccines currently licensed in the United States. These vaccines are effective, immunogenic, and generally well tolerated.1 Measles-containing vaccines are recommended as a 2-dose series in the United States, with the first dose administered at 12 to 15 months and the second dose at 4 to 6 years of age. Most children in the United States receive their first dose of a measles-containing vaccine between the ages of 12 and 23 months; approximately 85% of them receive this dose by 19 months of age.2,3
Monitoring the safety of measles-containing vaccines remains an important public health issue. Previous studies have shown that these vaccines administered to children 12 to 23 months of age are associated with an increased risk of fever and febrile seizures 1 to 2 weeks following immunization4-9; however, the exact nature of the relationship between fever and febrile seizures is not entirely understood. It is thought that, during this period, the vaccine virus replication is at its peak and can cause fever, which may in turn induce a seizure event by exceeding a certain threshold.10 Postlicensure studies have found that the safety profile of MMRV differs somewhat from that of the separately administered MMR and varicella (MMR+V) vaccines.4,7 Among children 12 to 23 months of age, MMRV is associated with a 2-fold increase in the risk of febrile seizures 1 to 2 weeks following immunization compared with MMR+V.
The background risk of febrile seizures is not constant during the second year of life, reaching its highest level at approximately 16 to 18 months of age.11-15 It is important to examine the safety of measles-containing vaccines administered at different ages during the second year of life. Currently, it is not known whether the magnitude of increased risk of fever and seizures following immunization with measles-containing vaccines depends on age. The separate examination of fever and seizures could potentially shed light on the underlying immunologic and/or neurologic mechanisms leading to the occurrence of these events following immunization. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–sponsored Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), we sought to examine the effect of age at immunization on the increased risk of fever and seizures after measles-containing vaccines among children 12 to 23 months of age. We evaluated the potential modifying effect of age on the risk of fever and seizures following immunization with (1) any measles-containing vaccines and (2) MMRV compared with MMR administered with or without varicella vaccine (MMR±V). Our hypothesis was that the increased risk of postimmunization fever and seizures following a delayed administration of measles-containing vaccines is greater than that following their timely administration.
Methods
Study Population
The study was approved by the institutional review boards of all the participating sites. Vaccine Safety Datalink is a collaborative effort between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and 10 managed care organizations comprising data on more than 9 million members annually.16-19 As the backbone of active surveillance for vaccine safety in the United States, VSD monitors prespecified potential adverse events following immunization using several methods, including a near–real-time system known as rapid cycle analysis. Detailed information on analytic strategies used in rapid cycle analysis can be found elsewhere.20 For this study, we used data collected through the VSD-conducted MMRV rapid cycle analysis among children 12 to 23 months of age who were members of 1 of the 8 participating VSD sites and had received their measles-containing vaccine between January 2001 and December 2011. For one of the sites, only data from July 2007 through December 2011 were included since the other portion of data had already been used in another related publication.
Outcomes
The 2 prespecified adverse events following immunization examined in this study were fever and seizures. These 2 outcomes were each investigated separately; hereafter throughout this article, fever and seizures refer to these separate adverse events and not a composite or combined outcome. We identified postimmunization medically attended fever events in the outpatient setting by using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) code 780.6* as previously described.4,21 We identified postimmunization medically attended seizure events in the emergency department or hospital setting by using ICD-9 code 780.3* (convulsion) or 345* (epilepsy) as previously described.4,21 All electronically identified seizure events were included in the analyses; we did not distinguish between febrile and afebrile seizures. Data from 2001 to 2008 had been previously used for our earlier study that evaluated the risk of febrile seizures following immunization with MMRV4; additional data from 2009 to 2011 were collected for the current study. For both outcomes, we collected data on events during the 42-day postimmunization period to be consistent with earlier studies.4,21,22 Children who had received the corresponding ICD-9 code at any setting during the 42 days prior to their fever or seizure event were excluded to minimize the likelihood of including follow-up visits in the analyses.
Statistical Analysis
The age distribution of measles-containing vaccine recipients was described using prespecified categories of 12 to 13, 14 to 15, 16 to 18, and 19 to 23 months according to the study protocol. We conducted 2 main analyses to examine the effect of age on the risk of fever and seizures following immunization with measles-containing vaccines. In these analyses, 2 age groups of 12 to 15 and 16 to 23 months defined a priori in the protocol were used. The rationale for using these 2 age groups was to reflect the current policy recommendation on immunization with measles-containing vaccines and to enhance power to explore effect modification.
Analysis of Fever and Seizures Following Immunization With Any Measles-Containing Vaccines
Using a risk interval analysis, each child’s follow-up time was partitioned into risk and control intervals during an observation period of 42 days following immunization with a measles-containing vaccine. The risk interval for fever and seizures was defined as days 7 to 10 following immunization as previously identified.4,23,24 The remainder of the 42-day observation period (ie, days 0-6 and 11-42) was considered as the control interval. The follow-up time for each child ended with the occurrence of the event or completion of the 42-day period, whichever came first. The incidence of outcome events during the risk interval was calculated and compared with that during the control interval, consistent with the risk-interval analysis.25
To examine the effect of age at immunization, we compared the relative risk of postimmunization fever and seizures between the age groups of 12 to 15 and 16 to 23 months by adding an age group × exposure status (ie, risk or control interval) interaction term to a Poisson regression model. We additionally compared the attributable risk of fever and seizures between the age groups of 12 to 15 and 16 to 23 months by adding an age group × exposure status interaction term to a binomial regression model with an identity link (to provide estimates of increased risk on an additive scale) and reported the results as number of excess cases of fever and seizures per 10 000 doses. We conducted sensitivity analyses by excluding days 0 and 1, 5 and 6, and 11 and 12 following immunization from the control interval. Days 0 and 1 were excluded from the control interval to minimize any potential confounding effect of concomitantly administered inactivated vaccines in causing fever or seizures on those days15,26; days 5 and 6 and 11 and 12 were excluded from the control interval to minimize the inclusion of days during which some risk of fever or seizures associated with measles-containing vaccine might still be present.
Analysis of Fever and Seizures by Type of the Measles-Containing Vaccine
Using a cohort analysis, we compared the incidence of fever and seizures during the 7 to 10 days following immunization with MMRV with that following immunization with MMR±V. To examine the effect of age at immunization, we compared the relative risk of fever and seizures between the age groups of 12 to 15 and 16 to 23 months by adding an age group × vaccine type (ie, MMRV or MMR±V) interaction term to a Poisson regression model. We additionally compared the attributable risk of fever and seizures between the age groups of 12 to 15 and 16 to 23 months by adding an age group × vaccine type interaction term to a binomial regression model with an identity link as previously described.
All regression models included variables for sex, respiratory virus season (November-April and May-October), calendar year, and VSD site as potential confounders. Analyses were conducted using SAS version 9.2 (SAS Institute) and Stata (StataCorp).
Results
The study population included 840 348 children 12 to 23 months of age who had received a measles-containing vaccine between January 2001 and December 2011. A total of 428 890 vaccine recipients (51%) were male. Regardless of the age group, most administered vaccines were MMR+V. Regardless of the vaccine type, most vaccines were administered at 12 to 13 months of age. There were 18 403 fever events during the 42 days following immunization with any measles-containing vaccines; of those, 5919 events (32.2%) occurred during the 7 to 10 days following immunization. There were 181 |
, featuring a period-inspired kitchen
Tour tickets are now available to be purchased online in advance for $16 at www.east-row.org. On tour days, tickets are $18 per person and will be available for sale during tour hours at The Carnegie Event Center, 403 Monmouth Street. Children aged 12 and under are free when accompanied by an adult.
A portion of the proceeds from the tour will benefit three northern Kentucky charities: St. John's Food Pantry, Holy Spirit Outreach, and the Newport Parks Renaissance Commission.
For more information, visit http://eastrow.org/victorian-christmas-tour-and-tea.
- Staff report/Photos providedAid for DACA illegal-aliens is a middling-priority issue for Democrats and an “extremely important priority” for only 20 percent of swing-voting independents.
The new poll by POLITICO and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reveals the priorities for partisans and swing-voters, and also the percentage of Americans who support or oppose giving “temporary legal status” to illegal aliens covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The poll was skewed in favor of the Democrats and the illegals because it asked Americans about “renewing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, which grants temporary legal status to people brought to the US illegally as children.” But Democrats are not pushing that option — they are demanding a no-strings amnesty for 3 million illegals.
For Democrats, a DACA extension shared an eighth-place ranking in a priority list of 15 named issues, just ahead of “renegotiating NAFTA, a trade agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, to provide more protection for US-based jobs,” but far behind “Taking action to lower prescription drug prices.”
For the GOP, the issue took thirteenth place, just ahead of “investigating Russia’s involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
For independents, the issue shared an eleventh-place priority, ahead of “increasing spending on national defense” but well behind “reducing federal taxes on individuals and businesses.”
Even among Democrats, the most sympathetic group of Americans towards illegal aliens, only 20 percent say DACA amnesty should be an “extremely important priority” for President Donald Trump’s administration and Congress. More Democrats, about 26 percent, actually say that giving an amnesty to DACA illegal aliens should not be a priority.
Republicans split sharply against a DACA extension, with, only 5 percent saying it should be an extremely important priority, while 55 percent say it should not be a priority. Among independent voters, 18 percent said “extremely important,” while 37 percent said it is “not a priority.”
When people were asked about “limiting unauthorized immigration into the U.S.,” 65 percent of Democrats said it “should not be a priority’ while 38 percent of Republicans said it should be an “extremely important priority.”
The latest polling on the DACA issue shows a decline in among Americans’ support for amnesty for illegal aliens. For example, last week Breitbart News reported that only 34 percent of Democrats say it was “definitely worth” shutting down the government in order to give amnesty to DACA illegal aliens.
A month ago, 29 percent of Americans believed DACA amnesty was a priority. The latest poll by POLITICO and Morning Consult show that only 25 percent — or one in four Americans — of all Americans surveyed said they believe the government should be shut down in order to dole out a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens.
Democrats' amnesty-or-gov't-shutdown threat gets just 27% support in a Rasmussen poll. Oops. That's a big problem for Schumer/Pelosi cos' many progressives believe their skewed polls which show apparent public support for amnesty. https://t.co/ekOudPkWWK — Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) December 4, 2017Eight United Nations workers have been killed, and as many as 13 other people are feared dead after a violent rampage in northern Afghanistan by demonstrators protesting over the burning of a Koran at a church in Florida in the US.
Eight United Nations workers have been killed, and as many as 13 other people are feared dead after a violent rampage in northern Afghanistan by demonstrators protesting over the burning of a Koran at a church in Florida in the US.
The victims of the worst-ever attack on UN personnel in Afghanistan -- two of whom were beheaded -- included four guards from Nepal, and civilian staff from Norway, Sweden and Romania. It was also confirmed that five residents were killed.
UN officials said the final death toll from the incident in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif could rise as high as 20 and there were unconfirmed reports that the head of the UN Military Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) in Mazar-e-Sharif had been seriously injured.
Residents said about 2,000 demonstrators attacked UN guards stationed outside the Unama compound, seized their weapons and began firing at police.
Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, a police spokesman, said the protesters beheaded two of the guards and shot others before scaling an anti-blast wall to topple a guard tower and set fire to buildings.
He said: "Two of the killed UN staff were beheaded."
Few details were available about the lead-up to the attack, but residents said crowds formed after a cleric at the city's central mosque urged worshippers at Friday prayers to press the UN to take action against Reverend Wayne Sapp, an evangelical preacher who burned a Koran at a service in Gainesville, Florida, on March 20.
Outrage
His church is headed by Reverend Terry Jones, a pastor who last year threatened to burn a Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Even though Mr Jones called off his planned action in the face of global outrage, five people were killed in related protests targeting NATO facilities in Afghanistan.
Following the Koran burning by Mr Sapp, Afghan clerics called on American authorities to prosecute him as a war criminal.
Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, had described the Koran burning as a "crime against religion", and called on America and the UN to take action. (© Daily Telegraph, London)
Irish IndependentKey Features: 20.7 MP rear camera
4K video recording
Waterproof design
152g; 7.3mm thick
146 x 72 x 7.3mm
RAM: 3GB
Price as Reviewed: £500
Sony Xperia Z3
The Xperia Z3, Sony's latest phone, made its debut a couple of weeks ago at the IFA trade show in Berlin. The timeliness of the launch, not to mention the quality of the product, places the Z3 as Apple's chief competitor for their eagerly-awaited iPhone 6.
But wait, the Z2 only came out earlier this year, and the Z1 only a year ago - what improvements could have been made?
Little ones, mostly. The Xperia selection is top-tier, with each new phone incrementally improving upon the last.
Xperia Z3: Design
Now with rounded edges, Sony's signature OmniBalance design is more comfortable to hold than previous models.
This Xperia is lighter and thinner than the Z2 that debuted earlier this year, and also has nifty transparent plastic sides that apparently absorb shock with the best of them.
It's a pretty durable phone; resistant to dust and water, and also has nylon caps on the corners to protect it from the inevitable drops and fumbles.
The closure of Phones4u, however, has me wondering what will happen to the white model that was supposed to be exclusive to their stores.
Xperia Z3: Screen
The latest Xperia screen is largely unchanged from Z2, which was widely agreed to be one of the best screens out there. The Z3 screen has the same 424 pixels per inch (ppi) pixel density, the same screen resolution, and even the same protective Gorila Glass 3.
It is, however, about 20% brighter which makes it more effective against glare, so there's that.
Xperia Z3: Software
The Z3 has the latest Android 4.4 KitKat software, but there's not much else fancier than that.
As you'd expect, what with smartphone manufacturers enamoured with fitness, there's a plethora of health related apps, such as borderline invasive, super-tracking LifeLog.
It stands to reason that Sony is banking on users buying a smart band, watch, or whatever wearable tech is next.
I desperately wanted to try the PS4 application, but it appears you have to own one to appreciate that particular function.
Xperia Z3: Hardware
The 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 on which the Z3 runs is pretty similar to the Snapdragon 800 from the phone from before, but it does improve on the device's power-saving capabilities.
The 801 does, however, provide a better image signal processor for the camera.
Xperia Z3: Camera
With up to 20.7MP, the Xperia Z2 was already blessed with one of the best cameras on the market - and now it's gotten better.
There's a new 25mm G lens for wide angle shots, improved SteadyShot for video, and, best of all, high quality low-light photography.
The Z3 camera's light sensitivity reaches IS0 12800, a full 12000 notches higher than your usual smartphone.
And if the numbers don't impress you, I can attest that the camera-in-the-dark is pretty incredible.
It's a pretty manual camera, and users should take their time getting to know it because once you do, yours will be the best pictures and videos on Instagram.
Xperia Z3: Battery
The Xperias have always lasted long, but the Z3 can now officially stay charged for two whole days under normal usage. I didn't need to charge it any of the three days that I had it.
Xperia Z3: Price and conclusion
It's been just over six months since the Z2 was launched, so Sony's latest Xperia doesn't represent a major upgrade.
The phone is enhanced by the tweaks made to its predecessor, especially the battery and the camera.
It's a fantastic phone, one of the best on the market, even if its only slight improvement on that which came before.
It costs just under £500, which is £100 more than its compact little brother. Perhaps that would be better value for money, as the only difference is size.
But, if like Tim Cook you're a new convert to the Samsung line of 'bigger is better' then opt for the Z3. It's very good.
Scores:
Screen: 8/10 - Pretty good ppi but could've done with upgrade in this dept
- Pretty good ppi but could've done with upgrade in this dept Design: 10/10 - Slick and durable design
- Slick and durable design Software: 8/10 - I may have all-the-rage fitness functions, but lacking customisable Android apps
- I may have all-the-rage fitness functions, but lacking customisable Android apps Camera: 10/10 - The best smartphone camera is even better
- The best smartphone camera is even better Value: 9/10 - Affordable, but not a bargain lie compact edition
- Affordable, but not a bargain lie compact edition Overall: 9/10 - The phablet done right
The Good
Sharp design
Top-tier camera
Long lasting battery
Hard to break
The BadISTANBUL (Reuters) - Five people were injured when a pipe bomb exploded on an overpass near an Istanbul metro station on Tuesday, the district mayor said, halting some train operations and heightening security fears in Europe’s biggest city.
Forensic officers work on the blast scene in Istanbul, Turkey, December 1, 2015. Five people were injured when a pipe bomb exploded on an overpass near an Istanbul metro station on Tuesday, the district mayor said, halting some train operations and heightening security fears in Europe's biggest city. REUTERS/Osman Orsal
Turkey has been on high alert since more than 100 people were killed by two suicide bombers in the capital Ankara in October, three months after a similar attack at a town near the Syrian border in July left 33 dead.
Tuesday’s blast near the Bayrampasa metro station came at the height of the evening rush hour, district Mayor Atilla Aydiner told A Haber television. Bayrampasa is a residential and industrial area on the European side of Istanbul.
Another broadcaster earlier reported that one person had been killed but Aydiner confirmed only five injuries.
Grainy CCTV footage showed a large flash of light on the overpass followed by what appeared to be burning embers showering to the ground as cars drove below.
Photographs on social media showed what appeared to be dozens of people walking alongside overground train tracks after trains had been halted. Although Istanbul’s metro is largely underground, it runs above ground in some places, including around Bayrampasa.
Tuesday’s blast was much smaller than the ones in Ankara and the town of Suruc near the Syrian border, which are believed to have been carried out by Islamic State militants.
Turkey, a NATO member, has carried out air strikes against the Islamist insurgents in neighboring Syria as part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the jihadist movement.
It also faces security threats from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose militants often attack police and security in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, and the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C).
The DHKP-C, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Ankara, said that one of its members was involved in an attack on the U.S. consulate in August.Tasmanian tiger'sightings' spark scientific study on Queensland's Cape York Peninsula
Updated
Far North Queensland researchers will launch a scientific study into the existence of Tasmanian tigers on Cape York following a series of historical sightings being reported.
James Cook University scientists Professor Bill Laurance and Dr Sandra Abell will use more than 50 camera traps to survey sites where thylacines are believed to have been spotted.
Dr Abell, who will lead the study, said her interest was piqued after hearing Brian Hobbs' account on ABC Far North, and has since been in contact with him personally.
"What really stood out to me was that it wasn't just a brief sighting in the [car] headlights, he actually said that he saw the animals multiple times in one night," she said.
Professor Laurance said Mr Hobbs account stood out as being "fair dinkum" and was clearly not fictitious.
"He was quite detailed in terms of his descriptions of eye shines and aspects of the body pattern and movements," he said.
"All stuff that we were able to go back and cross-reference against other accounts."
Proceeding with caution, quickly
Both Dr Abell and Professor Laurance were wary of releasing too much information about the planned locations of their study, for fear of other people trying to get involved.
"We're not worried too much about legitimate scientists doing that, but we're a little worried about what you might call the 'yobbo effect' — where somebody hears about it and then wants to go and shoot one of these things," Professor Laurance said.
But at this stage expediency was Dr Abell's primary concern.
"It's really important to get all the facts together and there are a lot of different things we need to be sure of before we spend the resources to actually go out look for something," she said.
"We have had declines in our mammals all through Cape York and through Australia, so my concern is that if we leave it too much longer to just go and have a look then we could actually miss out on seeing something."
Species-rich Cape York
This would not be the first time camera traps would be used to survey the existence of a species no longer thought to be inhabiting Cape York.
"We've just rediscovered a population of northern bettong where there had been no records since 2003," Dr Abell said.
She said this camera-trapping survey could repeat history and capture the activities of some of Cape York's less legendary creatures.
"The benefit of this is that we really will get an idea of some of the other mammals that are in the locations, and we'll also be able to assess feral animal presence," Dr Abell said.
"There's actually so little baseline information on large expanses of the Cape York Peninsula, so it'll be really valuable data to collect," Professor Laurance said.
"There's not much of a downside to this [study] — it provides a very interesting scientific angle and impetus on work that we would really like to be doing anyway."
Topics: research, animals, animal-science, offbeat, cairns-4870, tas
First postedGregory Finkelson: They don’t want to go back. By the way, I know them well
Screenshot: Igor Please / Facebook
Workers closed the Consulate General of Russia in San Francisco do not want to return to Russia and is ready to seek political asylum in the United States. This was stated by the President of the American law company American Corporate Services Gregory Finkelson living in America Russian artist and blogger Igor Hit.
A conversation with a lawyer Please published in Facebook.
“I have good news for the former workers of the Consulate in San Francisco, they can become political refugees… we have ran a few people… (who do not want to return to Russia. – “GORDON”)”, – said Finkelson.
The lawyer said that the opportunity to obtain asylum is not at all of the Consulate employees.
“You have to be qualified for political asylum. We will help you properly execute your story… recently we had General received,” he said.
Finkelson noted that some Russians consider it normal that with “the point of view of the civilized world” is a violation of human rights. For example, one of the applicants for political asylum do not know that the beating in the police station and the persecution in Russia can become such a base.
“Each case should specifically analyze. But we have already received several calls from employees of the Consulate, and we have them start to work. God forbid, they don’t want to go back. By the way, I know them well”, – he concluded.
Обсуждаем с Григорием чОрный дым из трубы российского консульства. Что там происходит? Жгут георгиевские ленточки, тайные микропленки или друг друга? Или посылают сигналы в Вестеррос?Я склоняюсь к георгиевским ленточкам. Posted by Игорь Поночевный on Saturday, September 2, 2017
August 31, the US state Department said that up to September 2, Russia should close its Consulate General in San Francisco, as well as consular offices in new York and Washington. The representative of the Russian foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said that on 2 September, American intelligence agencies are planning searches in the Consulate in San Francisco.
After the decision on the expulsion of Russian diplomats to actively burned on-site dipuchrezhdeniya. Fire services, despite the presence of clouds of black smoke, not allowed on the territory of the Consulate General.This NOAA satellite image taken Friday, Aug. 21, 2015 at 9:45 a.m. EDT, shows category 3 Hurricane Danny to the east of the Lesser Antilles Islands. (Photo11: AP)
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A weakening Hurricane Danny approached Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Saturday, but was expected to bring little relief to residents of the drought-stricken northern Caribbean.
The Category 1 hurricane was located 600 miles (1,060 kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands late Saturday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph). It was traveling west-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph). The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it expected Danny would become a tropical storm sometime Sunday.
Danny was expected to pass over Antigua and Barbuda early Monday and reach the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico early Tuesday.
Meteorologists said it was too early to predict how much rainfall Danny would generate over Puerto Rico, which has implemented extreme water-rationing measures since May as it struggles with one of the worst droughts in its history.
“This storm has created a lot of expectations,” said Carlos Anselmi with the National Weather Service in San Juan. “But we cannot talk about how much rainfall is expected because the storm is quite small. There’s a lot of uncertainty still.”
Danny had been expected to hit Puerto Rico’s southeast coast, but forecasters said the storm instead was likely to glance the island’s northeast region and drop the heaviest rains over open waters north of the U.S. territory.
The news was disheartening for Puerto Rico residents such as 88-year-old Gloria Rodriguez, who has struggled with water-rationing measures in which hundreds of thousands of people receive water only twice a week.
“We’re asking God to bring us water and not destruction,” she said. “This is what we’re all hoping for.”
Nearly 25 percent of Puerto Rico is considered to be in an extreme drought, and another 45 percent is under a severe one, according to The National Drought Mitigation Center. A total of 2.9 million people in Puerto Rico have been affected, and U.S. officials have declared at least 20 of the island’s 78 municipalities as disaster zones.
Anselmi said Danny was expected to dump more rain over the U.S. Virgin Islands than Puerto Rico, especially on the islands of St. Thomas and St. John.
The approaching storm forced Antigua-based airline LIAT to cancel nearly 40 flights from Sunday to Tuesday, and officials with regional carrier Seaborne Airlines also warned of delays and cancelations.
A tropical storm watch was in effect for Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, Montserrat, Anguilla, St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Ebc9tjCLOSE Jus exactly what does 2 ounces of pot look like? D.C. residents can now posses up to 2 ounces of pot legally, but what does that mean? Trevor Hughes/USA TODAY
Marijuana plants known as "clones" grow inside a dispensary in Fort Collins, Colo., on Feb. 26, 2015. A national survey for the first time in its history found that the majority of Americans now support marijuana legalization. (Photo: Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY)
DENVER — A new national study says that for the first time it has found the majority of Americans support marijuana legalization, adding new weight to efforts to legalize pot across the country.
Voters in four states, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana possession and use, and legalization advocates have their sights set on Vermont and Rhode Island this year.
Californians next year are widely expected to decide whether to legalize recreational pot, expanding the state's large medical marijuana marketplace.
The new General Social Survey says its poll taken last year revealed that 51.7% of Americans thought marijuana should be legalized, with 41.7% opposed and 6.6% undecided. In 2012, the last time the same question was asked, just 43.3% of Americans supported legalization, according to GSS authors at the National Opinion Research Center, who have been conducting surveys since 1941.
"It's a classic tipping point, where we have the majority of Americans supporting it," said Tom W. Smith, the director of the GSS, and a senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. "While there's people still opposed to it, there have not been horror stories about Colorado falling apart. Even those who don't want to take a toke themselves don't see it as a gateway drug and reefer madness. There are fewer people buying into that."
In a statement, the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project said the survey reflects Americans' acknowledgement that marijuana has been safely used for decades despite being illegal. Legalization advocates say states and the federal government should stop prosecuting marijuana users and instead focus their attention on more harmful substances.
"Marijuana has been a relatively prominent part of American culture for decades, and that's never going to change," said Morgan Fox, spokesman for Marijuana Policy Project. "Either we continue to force it into the underground market or we start regulating it and treating it like other products that are legal for adults. Federal and state officials who are clinging to marijuana prohibition need to get over it and allow society to move forward."
Legalization skeptics say the national support for marijuana obscures the reality that many local voters oppose having pot shops in their neighborhoods.
Kevin Sabet, executive director of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which was co-founded by former congressman Patrick Kennedy, said there's a difference between perception and reality when it comes to marijuana. In Colorado, for instance, even though there are more than 300 licensed marijuana stores, some of the state's biggest cities, including Colorado Springs and Golden, have barred retail pot sales.
"It's tough for teachers, social workers, and scientists to get their message out in the face of Big Pot's PR machine — which is able to promise tax revenue and an end to cartel violence," Sabet said via e-mail. "There continues to be a wide gap between what science knows and what the public perceives about marijuana. And the last time I checked, scientists were pretty bad at publicizing their findings.
"Though advocates won in three states last November, they lost in 26 out of 31 localities that were voting on whether or not to allow pot shops in their neighborhood. That tells me that legalization in theory gets more support than legalization in practice. And the irony is that the more Big Marijuana tries to lean in on communities, I think the more likely it is we will see a backlash. That may take some time, but we are in it for the long haul."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1FYXJs6More than 100 travel journalists from around the world have landed in Winnipeg as part of a travel media show aimed at selling the city to tourists.
London-based journalist Gareth Davis is in Winnipeg for the travel journalism conference working on a story about the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. (Alana Cole/CBC) Travel Manitoba and Tourism Winnipeg are hosting the 11th annual Carrefour GoMedia Canada Marketplace conference from Aug. 17 to 21 to create a buzz about Canada's tourism industry.
“To come to Manitoba and experience what Manitoba has to offer, then go back and write it in their magazines, post it in their blogs, tweet out the messages – these kinds of things create incredible awareness for the province,” said Travel Manitoba’s Colin Ferguson.
And many of them are getting sneak peeks at what Manitoba will have to offer in the fall.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights doesn’t officially open until September, but travel writers got a glimpse inside this week. They also took in Assiniboine Park Zoo’s new Journey to Churchill exhibit as well as a slew of restaurants and venues.
Travel Writer Jim Byers said he was blown away by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights tour.
"I got inside and I thought it was utterly sensational,” said Byers. “I mean there's this beautiful alabaster imported from Spain, and they've taken LED lights and they've put them inside the alabaster and so as you walk up these ramps you're surrounded by this glowing, other worldly kind of light.”
In fact, he said, the building sets Winnipeg apart from other Canadian destinations.
"There's not a building that looks like this in Toronto or Montreal that I've seen, so I think that's going to be a real bonus for you,” added Byers.
For Karishma Sen, who works with Travel Trends in India, it’s all about Hudson.
“I would tell them to come for the polar bears. I was just mesmerized by the four of them. They were so cute!” said Sen.
Ferguson said the positive reviews are buoyed by Winnipeg’s friendly, laid-back attitude.
“What we have is a friendly, warm and caring personality. People gravitate toward it. We just need to tell more people about it. This opportunity provides that,” said Ferguson.A resident looks out from a window of his apartment at people running during the Virada Esportiva program in Sao Paulo, July 1, 2012. Photo by Paulo Whitaker/Reuters
Exercise confers huge health benefits, so why does it often feel like such a chore? Evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman of Harvard explains the paradox. He specializes in research on human movement and endurance running and is a keen long-distance runner.
Anil Ananthaswamy: Why did you start to study the evolution of running and exercise?
Daniel Lieberman: I got interested in how we hold our heads still when we run. It began when my colleagues and I were doing some experiments with pigs as models. It is very uncomfortable to watch a pig run: Its head bobs all over the place. But animals that are good at running, like us, are extremely good at keeping the head still, because it is important for gaze stabilization. We started thinking about humans and chimps, and came up with hypotheses about how we evolved head stabilization to run.
AA: Why do you think head stabilization evolved for running, and not another form of movement?
DL: If you watch someone with a ponytail running, the ponytail bobs up and down. That’s because of the pitching forces acting on the head. The head itself stays very stable. There are special mechanisms—the semicircular canals in human heads are greatly enlarged relative to apes, for instance—that give us a much greater ability to perceive and react to rapid accelerations of the head.
Walking does not create such accelerations. And I don’t think our ancestors were jumping on trampolines or hitting each other on the head so much. The only explanation we can come up with is running.
AA: Being able to run is one thing—how did we then go on to become endurance athletes?
DL: We evolved from very non-active creatures. A typical chimp will walk 2 to 3 kilometers a day, run about 100 meters and climb a tree or two. Your average hunter-gatherer walks or runs 9 to 15 kilometers per day, and we have all these features in our bodies, literally from our heads down to our toes, that make us really good at long-distance walking and running.
I and my colleagues at the University of Utah, Dennis Bramble and David Carrier, think the key advantage for humans was persistence hunting, whereby you run very long distances to chase animals in the heat and run them into heat stroke. We can run for very long distances, marathons in fact, at speeds at which other animals have to gallop. That’s not an endurance gait for quadrupeds, because they cool by panting—short shallow breaths. You can’t pant and gallop at the same time. If you make an animal gallop in the heat for 15 minutes or so, on a hot day, you’ll kill it.
AA: But we have adaptations for this kind of endurance running?
DL: Yes. Our bodies are loaded with all kinds of features: short toes that require less energy to stabilize and generate less shock when running; the Achilles tendon that stores and releases energy appropriately as we run; the large gluteus maximus muscles that steady the trunk; and stabilization of the head. I’m a middle-aged professor, I’m not a great specimen of an athlete, but I can easily run a marathon at a speed that would cause a dog my size to gallop.
AA: What’s your best marathon time?
DL: [Laughs] 3 hours and 34 minutes. There are guys who can run almost twice as fast as me.
AA: Still, if you made an animal run that far at your speed, you would …
DL: I’d have dinner.
AA: Why, in spite of our adaptations, have we gone from endurance athletes to couch potatoes?
DL: It was incredibly recently in history that a large number of humans have been freed from having to do physical activity. My argument, from an evolutionary perspective, would be that not having regular physical activity every day is pathological and abnormal. In a lot of medical studies, we compare people who are sick with controls. But who are those controls? They are relatively sedentary Westerners. I’d argue that we are comparing people who are sick to people who are abnormal and semi-pathological.
AA: If being inactive is pathological and abnormal, then how come we hate exercise so much?
DL: There was never any evolutionary selection pressure to make us like exercise. If you are a Neanderthal or Homo erectus or an early modern human, you didn’t think, “Gee, I’m going to go for a run so that I’m not going to get depressed.” They had to go long distances every day in order to survive. Not exercising was never an option, so there was never any selection pressure to make people like exercise. On the contrary, there was probably selection to help people avoid needless exercise when they could. Some hunter-gatherers had diets of about 2,200 calories a day. When your energy intake is that low, you can’t afford to go for a jog just for fun.
AA: So evolution selected for traits that made us relax or be lazy?
DL: Of course. Just like anytime you crave sugary, fatty foods—that would have been advantageous for early humans. It’s only now that they have become maladaptive.
When you walk into a train station and there is a staircase and an escalator, your brain always tells you to take the escalator. Given a choice between a piece of cake and a carrot, we always go for the cake. It’s not in your best interest, but it’s probably a very deeply rooted evolutionary instinct.
AA: What are the consequences of the modern sedentary lifestyle?
DL: It’s hard to think of one disease that is not affected by physical activity. Take the two major killers: heart disease and cancer. The heart requires exercise to grow properly. Exercise increases the peripheral arteries and decreases your cholesterol levels; it decreases your risk of heart disease by at least half.
Breast cancers and many other reproductive tissue cancers also respond strongly to exercise. Other factors being constant, women who have engaged in regular vigorous exercise have significantly lower cancer rates than women who have not. Colon cancer has been shown to be reduced by up to 30 percent by exercise. There are also benefits for mental health—depression, anxiety, the list is incredibly long.
AA: What can we do about our maladaptive traits?
DL: If we want to practice preventive medicine, that means we have to eat foods that we might not prefer, and exercise when we don’t want to. The only way to do that is through some form of socially acceptable coercion. There is a reason why we require good food and exercise in school—otherwise the kids won’t get enough of it. Right now we are dropping those requirements around the world.
If we are going to solve these health problems, we have to push ourselves to act in our own self-interest. As a society, as a culture, we have to somehow agree that it’s necessary or face the consequence—which is billions of unfit, overweight people.
AA: Has evolution given us any instincts that promote exercise?
DL: Yes. It’s important to recognize that the body isn’t adapted only in one way or another. There are multiple competing adaptations. While it’s true that many of our instincts are to not like exercise, we also have other adaptations that make us enjoy exercise. The most obvious example is the runner’s high.
AA: What’s the evolutionary advantage of the runner’s high?
DL: Imagine you are chasing an animal, and you have to keep going. When you are chasing, you are usually also tracking, which is all about observation. You are looking for clues in the environment. What does a runner’s high do? It makes everything more intense. It stimulates your perception and your sensory awareness.
I can give you an example: I ran the London marathon a few years ago, and as I was nearing the finish I remember running by Big Ben and thinking, “Wow, Big Ben is really big.” And then I remember thinking to myself, “Oh, I must be high.”
This article originally appeared in New Scientist.While most militia organizers in the United States focus their energies on combating what they see as domestic enemies — particularly the federal government and other alleged participants in a nefarious “New World Order” scheme to enslave Americans — in recent weeks there have been a handful of so-called “Patriots” who have decided it’s more worthwhile to focus their attention overseas. They say they are organizing to fight Islamic State (ISIS) radicals in the Middle East.
The men behind of these efforts — one based in Arkansas, one in Florida — claim to be forming armed squads of militiamen to fly into ISIS hotspots in Iraq and Syria and combat the enemy on the ground. Neither, however, appear to be anything more than a fundraising operation built around pure fantasies.
Their grandiose claims verge on the utterly ridiculous. One promoter, a man who will only identify himself by the alias Swandog, says he’s building a multi-billion dollar operation, will soon have a force of 7,000 specialized military and intelligence operators, and will pay each of them more than $100,000. There is not a shred of known evidence to suggest there’s anything real behind the swaggering talk.
Swandog, a "commander" so brave he refuses to identify himself by name, described for a credulous local Arkansas TV news report his plans for assembling a multi-billion-dollar effort to combat ISIS with volunteers to his “private militia.” With a straight face, the TV station asserted that Swandog “reportedly already has men on the ground in the Middle East” and has raised “tens of millions of dollars.” It even presented a local “expert” who said the effort “seems to be genuine” and could work. In the report, the designated expert, a local criminology professor and former Green Beret, offers no evidence at all for his belief.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1CIMSB8yuU[/youtube]
“Team Swandog currently numbers just under 500. We are recruiting actively," Swandog told KTHV-TV reporters from nearby Little Rock. "Right now we do have six advance teams in the theater of operation; they're in non-combat roles just doing prep work for our arrival."
He told the reporter that he is recruiting former Special Operations and intelligence personnel, as well as snipers, medics and support staff. He also claimed that he was offering them a base annual salary of $120,000.
Swandog, aka David Paul Brennan of Searcy, Ark.
Swandog makes some big claims about money: "Most of our funding comes from businesses and churches, we don't do very much individual fundraising at all. Depending on how fast we want to do this operation |
just under an hour, this traditional Greek potato stew (πατάτες γιαχνί) is rustic potato perfection. Red ripe tomatoes, fresh parsley, sweet red onions, minced garlic and yellow potatoes simmered in olive oil combine to create one of the simplest, most authentic and amazingly delicious Greek dishes you will ever enjoy!
I’ve found that yellow potatoes work very well in this recipe and much better than, say, red potatoes which just seem to fall apart here. You need a heartier potato that’s able to soak up all the amazing flavors of the sauce while still remaining intact. And I recommend peeling your potatoes with this recipe. Leaving the peels on takes away from the finished dish for me but you’re welcome to keep them on if you prefer. Thick slices of potato are my favorite and really give you a meal as opposed to just a side dish, though you can certainly serve it either way- I love a side of patates yiahni with Chickpea fritters (revithokeftedes)!
It’s important to remember that because there are just a few ordinary ingredients in this recipe, you need to make sure they’re the best quality. Ripe, juicy tomatoes and Greek olive oil are must haves in addition to fresh (not dried) parsley which brings such a brightness to this hearty potato dish. I use chopped fresh tomatoes because they make for a sweet and light tomato sauce but in a pinch you can use canned whole peeled tomatoes. If you do go with canned, drain off as much of the liquid as possible before chopping. Do not go with crushed or pureed tomatoes as your sauce will be much heavier and not nearly as light as it should be.
After sautéing the red onions and garlic, add the salt and pepper, tomato paste dissolved in water and chopped tomatoes. Allow the tomatoes to cook down for about 10 minutes before adding the potatoes and remaining water. Add the chopped parsley about 2 minutes before adding the potatoes to help flavor the sauce; then once you add the potatoes, they’ll just soak up every drop of the yummy goodness!
Add your thick sliced potatoes and remaining water, bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and cook uncovered for 40 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender. Make sure not to over cook as the potatoes will begin to fall apart. They’ll still be super delicious but just not as pretty so I recommend you test them at the 35 minute mark.
Ingredients
3 lbs yellow potatoes (approx 6 cups thick slices)
3 cups sliced red onions (about 3/4 of large onion)
2 tbsp minced garlic (approx 4 large cloves)
3/4 cup Greek olive oil
3 chopped large tomatoes (approx 2 1/2 pounds or 3 1/2 cups)
1 tbsp tomato paste dissolved in 1 cup water (in addition to the 5 cups below)
5 cups water
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp Greek sea salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
In a larger pot (at least 6 quart size), sauté red onions in olive oil over low heat until almost soft. Add garlic and sauté another 3-4 minutes until garlic is soft, careful not to burn.
Add salt, pepper, tomato paste dissolved in water and chopped tomatoes. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes, adding parsley when you get to 8 minutes or so. Tomatoes should have begun to cook down and be pretty soft at this point.
Add thick slices of potato and remaining water. Bring to a boil and lower to a simmer. Cook uncovered for 40 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender. Check potatoes at 35 minutes for doneness.
Allow potato stew to sit, covered, off the heat for about 15-30 minutes before serving. Enjoy from the stove or at room temperature.
Make ahead and serve as a fantastic hot summer night’s dinner when you don’t want to cook or reheat something! Patates yiahni is a winner any time of year – kali orexi! Kiki 🙂
56 full-color pages, 25 detailed recipes with gorgeous photos, 4 feature articles and perfect binding
Dedicated to celebrating the simplicity and beauty of authentic, traditional Greek vegan food.Two teams are battling it out for the Stanley Cup on catfish-laden ice. Unfortunately, the Tampa Bay Lightning are not one of those two teams. In order to fill the void for Lightning fans, Raw Charge is breaking down the past season team by team to see who helped and who hurt the season.
Opponent:
The Calgary Flames
Games:
December 14th, 2016 - Tampa 6, Calgary 3
February 23rd, 2017 - Tampa 2, Calgary 3
Box Score:
Goals: Brian Boyle (2), Alex Killorn (2), Braydon Coburn, Andrej Sustr, Vlad Namestnikov, Nikita Kucherov
Assists: Victor Hedman (4), Valtteri Filppula (4), Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, Vlad Namestnikov, Braydon Coburn, Brayden Point
Save Percentage:
Ben Bishop.864 SV% (allowed 3 goals on 22 shots)
Andrei Vasilevskiy.880 SV% (allowed 3 goals on 25 shots)
Notes from the Previews:
December 14th - Ari Yanover from Flames Nation answering a question from Acha
“Simply put: the Flames weren’t winning when [Brian] Elliott was in net, and they were with [Chad] Johnson. That’s not entirely fair to Elliott - the team was having a difficult time adjusting to [Head Coach Glen] Gulutzan’s systems in the beginning, and Elliott was hurt by it, too - but they’ve just been plain winning with Johnson in the net for the most part. At least to start, the Flames were playing lower event hockey with him in net, too.”
February 23rd - @JustinG.
“As for the Lightning, they are in a precarious position where any loss is a big blow to their chances of making the postseason. If they lose when all the teams ahead of them lose, they fail to take advantage. If they lose when all the teams win, then they lose ground. So they just have to win, and win, and win.”
Notes from the Recap:
December 15, 2016 - @loserpoints:
“In the span of four minutes, the game went from looking like another Bolts loss against an inferior opponent to looking like the team we’ve been waiting to see all season.
New rule for Raw Charge recaps: if the Russian Bieber drops his mitts, it must lead the recap.
February 24th, 2017 - @iActium
“Suddenly waking up in the last two minutes of the game isn’t going to win this team many games, especially with how important points are now.”
Did Calgary help or hurt the Lightning:
The win in December was impressive in that the team scored 6 goals in the game which was equal to the amount of goals they had scored in the previous four games combined. There was hope that the win would stop the skid that they were on (7 losses in the previous 8 games). It didn’t. They lost the next two games.
It was about this time that the injuries were piling up. Steven Stamkos was out. Nikita Kucherov missed the game with a lower body injury, part of a two-week stretch where the Lightning were without their top sniper. Just for fun, Ondrej Palat decided to join them in the training room as he left the game in the second period.
The rematch in February was crucial for the Lightning. With just over a month left in the season they were chasing every point they could get. Following the game with Calgary they were set to enter a grueling stretch against opponents they were chasing in the standings.
A flat performance doomed them from the start and the loss proved costly as Toronto picked up a point in an overtime loss (time for your daily reminder that the Lightning missed the playoffs by one point) and the Islanders beat Montreal. Boston also won their game out on the west coast to leaving Tampa 6 points behind all three of those teams.
The loss also closed the book on the Ben Bishop era in Tampa. A few days after the loss (in which Bishop did not get the start) the big netminder was traded to Los Angeles.
In the end, the loss in February was much more damaging than the win in December. The win was a momentary ray of sunshine in a bleak, miserable December. So yes, the Flames hurt the Lightning.
Trades:
Speaking of the Ben Bishop trade. While there was no official deal between the two organizations, there was almost a trade - more than once. First, at the draft, Mr. Yzerman had a deal worked out with Calgary (no idea of what the return would be) to deal the goaltender, but the Flames weren’t comfortable with the details of the extension that Bishop wanted to sign as a condition of the deal.
Then, at the trade deadline, there was a rumor that the two teams worked out another deal, most likely for less of a return then what was originally agreed to at the draft, but the Flames didn’t agree to the deal in time for Mr. Yzerman and he flipped the goaltender to Los Angeles for a middling defensive prospect and a mythical, conditional 7th round pick. Just for fun they reportedly tried one more time before the Kings dealt his rights to Dallas, but by that time Calgary had allegedly made their way onto Bishop’s no-trade list.
Had the Lightning and Flames pulled off the original deal at the draft, the team’s season would have been altered drastically. Vasilevskiy would have started the season as the number one, the Lightning would have had a bit more cap room to play with and another young player to add to their roster of prospects (rumors had Calgary’s 6th overall pick as part of the return). Would that have made them a better team? Possibly.
View from the other bench:
Sam over at Matchsticks and Gasoline was kind enough to give us his view of the Lightning this season.
“[They showed] glimpses of the scary team they usually are, but weren’t clicking on their usual level. Kucherov is absolutely lethal and one of the best players in the league. Drouin is a beauty when unchained. Dotchin is gross.”
I would think Lightning fans would agree with about 90% of that assessment. While maybe not on the “gross” level yet, some of Dotchin’s recent antics have definitely dulled the shine of his strong rookie campaign.The National Hockey League announced last week that it has chosen, as expected, Las Vegas over Quebec City to house an expansion franchise next year.
“Build it and they will come,” as the Field of Dreams line goes, was the philosophical underpinning behind a government-funded arena that remains underused; a reminder that sometimes, in politics, consensus can be dangerous.
Quebec City’s Centre Vidéotron, managed by Quebecor, was paid for entirely by the municipal and provincial governments at a cost of $370-million. The story of how it came to be is complicated; why it came to be may be less so.
While Montreal voters have been fairly consistent and predictable over the decades, those in Quebec City have been more volatile. Before the past few elections, campaigners in all three main parties worked on the assumption the capital region was winnable.
With a popular, straight-talking mayor musing back in 2007 and onward about the possibility of an NHL return, it was tempting for then-premier Jean Charest to pledge his support, to avoid breaking the hearts of local hockey fans — and voters. By 2009, Mayor Régis Labeaume was in discussion with league officials and ground was broken by 2012.
At no point has any NHL official indicated that Quebec City would eventually be granted a franchise.
That didn’t discourage Labeaume, Charest and Quebecor owner Pierre Karl Péladeau (prior to his stint in politics), whose plans were boosted by predictably favourable polling results in the area. Virtually all of Quebec’s political class viewed the haphazard plan through rose-coloured glasses and there were few dissenters because … who is going to come out against hockey?
“My own feeling,” Labeaume said in October 2013, “is that I’m confident we’ll have a club in September 2015.”
In 2013, Quebec City granted Quebecor exclusive rights to manage Centre Vidéotron, which it would later name after one of its subsidiaries. Péladeau’s company would pay $33 million to use the arena, along with $3 million in annual rent and 15 per cent of profits.
That contract, which was not awarded through an open tender call, was so problematic that members of the National Assembly had to pass Bill 204 in 2011 legitimizing it, sparing burdensome court challenges from do-gooding democrats.
Without an NHL franchise, and the arena being used only sparsely for concerts and minor league hockey games, the operation has been running a deficit. Ever the committed partner, the municipal government pledged in the agreement to split losses with Quebecor. Adding insult to injury, just before the NHL awarded the franchise to Las Vegas last week, the municipal opposition revealed the city will have to cut a cheque for nearly $730,000 to Péladeau’s company.
Faced with expected outrage, Labeaume implied critics were engaged in some kind of “media war” against Quebecor, as if there shouldn’t be genuine concern over a sweetheart deal that sees arena profits subsidized and losses partially absorbed by government.
Also worth noting: Labeaume officiated Péladeau’s wedding last year. While the mayor isn’t necessarily guilty of favouritism in the arena deal (it’s entirely possible no other suitors would have presented themselves), it’s difficult to conceive of a more inappropriate use of his time given their shared publicly subsidized failure.
While most Quebecers would applaud the return of the Nordiques, there is no justification for using public funds to achieve that goal, even with an NHL guarantee. These pro sports megaprojects are risky; the Molson family initially lost money after using their own funds to build what is today Montreal’s Bell Centre, home of the rather profitable Canadiens.
Economists have warned for decades that subsidizing pro sports stadiums will not generate economic growth, but this was of little concern to the former premier, the mayor and the mogul who had a vision — and tacit support from the ever-generous Quebec taxpayer.
Dan Delmar is a managing partner with Provocateur Communications and host of The Exchange, Mondays and Wednesdays 8-10 p.m. on CJAD 800 Montreal.
twitter.com/DanDelmar.@GovernorVA vetoes 3 bills that weaken gun safety measures. "We must work to reduce gun and domestic violence." pic.twitter.com/ojqGDyBXl4 — Terry McAuliffe (@GovernorVA) April 7, 2016
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) gave thumbs down Thursday to three pieces of legislation he said would threaten public safety by weakening Virginia’s gun laws.
Among the proposals scuttled, two, SB 626 and HB 766, would have enabled domestic violence victims with a protective order against another individual to carry a concealed handgun for up to 90 days without a permit, while the third, HB 560, would have eased the Commonwealth’s law on the accidental display of a weapon.
In a veto message to lawmakers, McAuliffe held up a compromise deal he made with state Republicans in February which included taking guns away from domestic abusers as reason to veto the new legislation seeking to speed up the process to allow victims to carry a legal firearm.
“Domestic violence situations can be extremely volatile, and all too often result in serious injury or death,” said McAuliffe. “Senate Bill 626 (and House Bill 766) encourages victims of domestic violence to introduce deadly weapons into an already dangerous situation, an approach that I believe could have significant negative public safety consequences.”
Backers of the proposal felt allowing the option for a protective order to be used temporarily in lieu of a concealed carry permit felt just the opposite.
“It’s at that moment of crisis where you’ve had this protective order issued where the danger really lies, so at that moment somebody really shouldn’t have to wait in line at the courthouse to protect themselves,” said the House bill’s sponsor, Republican Del. Todd Gilbert, a former prosecutor.
The third vetoed bill, HB 560, would require that a person displaying a firearm must have intent to induce fear in order to be convicted of brandishing. Current state law does not include intent as an element to show that a crime has occurred. Sponsors of the measure argued it would decrease incidents of those accidentally uncovering a weapon being prosecuted.
McAuliffe disagreed.
“Pointing, holding, or brandishing a firearm in a manner that induces fear in the mind of another person is irresponsible and dangerous behavior and should be appropriately addressed within our criminal justice system,” contended the Governor. “Because current law provides clear guidelines for our law enforcement personnel without creating unintended consequences that could lead to unsuccessful prosecutions, House Bill 560 is unnecessary.”
HB 560 was sponsored by Republican Del. Scott Lingamfelter, who noted on social media that, “Sadly the Governor caved into the anti-gun lobby to throw them a political bone.”
Lingamfelter was also the author of a bill vetoed by the Governor earlier this week that would have allowed retired law enforcement officers employed as private security guards carry firearms on school campuses they were hired to protect. The lawmaker had strong words over McAuliffe’s action on that proposal.
“This is the sort of veto that’s done in indelible ink because one day — sadly after a tragedy — people will look back and remember this veto and say, ‘We should have put that bill in law,’” said Lingamfelter. “This was a bill that had all the right prudent persuasions and it died a political death. Let’s hope no more deaths will be tied to this veto, but I fear more will.”Hi everyone, Bryan here….
Again, how old am I? It’s the 25th anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The Movie) and is getting a Blu-ray release and for the first time ever – a digital HD release #DigitalVampires. Joss Whedon sure struck gold with this horror-comedy vampire genre that took place in high school, which spawned one of the best tv shows ever made. With an-all star cast that includes Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Luke Perry, Ben Affleck, and Rutger Hauer, it’s all vampires, blood, guts, cheerleading, and prom.
I’m finally glad to have a good HD version of this film, but it looks like there are no new extras here. That’s unfortunate. It would be nice to see new interviews with the cast and crew talk about the film and its impact 25 years later. Criterion…. I’m counting on you to step in and release this soon. So mark your calendars for October 2nd for the Digital release and October 3rd for the Blu-ray. Below is all the information about the release.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER – 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens and Luke Perry star in this funny, action-packed fright-fest. For pampered cheerleader Buffy (Swanson), the only thing worse than discovering that her town is infested with vampires is being told it’s up to her to defeat them all – including their creepy leader (Rutger Hauer)! But, with help from a mysterious stranger (Sutherland) and a handsome mechanic (Perry), Buffy’s soon kicking serious vampire butt in this cult classic!
Digital HD, Blu-ray and DVD Bonus Features Include:
Featurette
Theatrical Trailer
TV SpotsAt G-Star 2014 Actoz Soft unveiled its new fighting game DragonNest Labyrinth, an adaptation of MMORPG Dragon Nest, which at present is in test phase. And Shanda Games China has been are granted the agency. Though no demo version was available for visitors at G-Star 2014, Actoz Soft director Yongjun Bae revealed some information about DragonNest Labyrinth.
As a mobile RPG, DragonNest Labyrinth carries the typical features of Dragon Nest that developed by EYEDENTITY GAMES. According to the feedbacks of closed beta, the game will be launched in Korea during April to May 2015.
As to the content, DragonNest Labyrinth shares the same world as Dragon Nest and has an interesting story either. Lots of familiar NPCs and many environments in client Dragon Nest will make appearances on mobile version, an overwhelming sense of familiarity will undoubtedly give experienced player and beginner a wonderful time.
More news about Dragon Nest is coming, please stay tuned! Enjoy more screenshots below:Plastic waste has been until now regarded as relatively inert Plastics decompose with surprising speed in the oceans, releasing contaminants into the water, according to new research. The huge amount of plastic waste in our seas has previously been regarded as a long-lasting pollutant that does not break down easily. Researchers who presented their work at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) suggest otherwise. Thousands of tonnes of plastic debris end up in the oceans every year. Much of it washes up on coasts, but vast areas of waste - composed mainly of plastic - float in the oceans. The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch between California and Hawaii is one such expanse, which is thought to be about twice the size of Texas. Most attention has focused on dangers that visible items of plastic waste pose to seabirds and other wildlife. "Plastics in daily use are generally assumed to be quite stable," said Katsuhiko Saido, lead author of the new study. "We found that plastic in the ocean actually decomposes as it is exposed to the rain and sun and other environmental conditions, giving rise to yet another source of global contamination that will continue into the future." Dr Saido, a chemist at Nihon University in Chiba, Japan, said his team found that when some plastics decompose they release the chemicals bisphenol A (BPA) and PS oligomers into the water. Previous studies in animals suggest that, at particular doses, exposure to BPA can disrupt hormone systems. Plastics do not usually break down in an animal's body after being eaten. However, the substances released from decomposing plastic could be absorbed, say the researchers. But it is unclear whether marine animals are being exposed at sufficient concentrations to cause concern about the effects of these compounds. The work was presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington DC.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionDeportation orders have surged since Attorney General Jeff Sessions took office, rising almost 28 percent from February through July compared with the same period last year, according to statistics released this week.
Immigration judges, who work for the Justice Department, issued 49,983 removal orders, up 27.8 percent from the same six-month period in 2016. Including voluntary departures, in which illegal immigrants agree to leave the country at their own expense, the total number was 57,069 — a 30.9 percent increase.
Immigration courts overall have also been more productive, with judges issuing 73,127 final decisions. That represents a 14.5 percent increase over the 63,850 dispositions last year at this time.
{snip}
Andrew “Art” Arthur, who was associate general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1999 to 2001 and served eight years as an immigration judge, said the increases in removal orders appear to be the result of a combination of increased manpower and policy changes.
Arthur, now resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, noted that the Justice Department has hired an additional 54 immigration judges since Trump took office.
{snip}
Data from Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse show that the Trump administration used prosecutorial discretion to drop fewer than 100 cases a month during the first five months, compared with an average of about 2,400 cases a month during the comparable period last year.
{snip}
The Justice Department data also suggest that immigration judges have become stingier in granting relief to immigrants facing deportation. That relief can range from granting asylum claims to determining that an immigrant is not removable.
{snip}
In the six-month period in 2016, judges granted relief to 20,255 immigrants, which represented 31.7 percent of orders. The number this year is 16,058, or 22 percent.
{snip}
Original Article
Share ThisApple will not be updating its old ass Thunderbolt display anytime soon, despite rumors that suggested the company was planning to unveil a new 5K Thunderbolt display with a built-in GPU at this year’s WWDC.
Apple’s WWDC 2016 keynote will focus mostly on software, according to a new report from 9to5Mac. The site reported yesterday that Apple is working on a new 5K Thunderbolt display with an integrated external GPU, but it appears that the June 13th keynote will not be the site of the grand unveiling.
“We’ve now confirmed that no new desktop display, integrated GPU or not, is planned for the [WWDC keynote],” the site claims. “Sources say that WWDC this year will be a ‘software year’, indicating the show will be light on new hardware announcements in general.”
Another report from iMore confirms that the 5K monitor will be a no-show.
Sounds like we shouldn’t get our hopes up that Apple will unveil its new MacBook Pro with an OLED touch bar either.
Apple is expected to reveal its latest batch of big software updates for iOS, OS X, Apple Watch and Apple TV during the week-long developers conference. The event kicks off with a keynote on June 13th at 10AM PT and Cult of Mac will be here providing a full breakdown on all the amazing new stuff even if there’s no new display or MacBooks.“It was clearly a foot that we could all see on the big screen, we all saw it.” The words of Argentina’s Gonzalo Peillat in the wake of yesterday’s game against Australia when his side were inexplicably denied a penalty corner in the closing stages.
It would have offered a chance of an unlikely win against the tournament favourites having reeled in a 2-0 half-time deficit, a result that would have reignited a faltering campaign.
Juan Manuel Vivaldi went further, saying, “They have all the technology there to resolve those things and the replays on the screen in the stadium, we could all see.
“All the public could see it. On the screen you could see the foot, despite having all the technology it didn’t help.”
Except the ball never went near the Australian defender’s foot despite the two replays that appeared to show as much on the big screen in the Riverbank Arena.
Except the technology was there and very much the right decision was reached. This much was proven in a hastily arranged press conference by the technical officials in order to clarify how the video referral system works and how that tallies with what appears on the screen.
After a spate of complaints, queries and downright confusion in the stadium – and from the volume of twitter debate, on the small screen too – it was a necessary exercise in delineating the process. The unedifying part, though, was that – for hockey – from a sports presentation point of view, no easy solution was reached to help solve these problems.
In the video booth, there is access to eight camera angles, all of which are available to the broadcasters. When the incident above was referred, video umpire Hamish Jamson checked the two main angles, both of which looked certainly to have hit a foot.
To triple-check, though, he decided to have a look at a low-level angle from the sideline that showed the Australian defender’s stick touched the ball with clear daylight between his feet.
For the broadcaster, this third angle was never checked. It left the crowd mystified, a situation that has become more prevalent as the tournament has progressed. As a presentation – primarily conducted by Ray O’Connor – it was fascinating but within the subsequent question and answers session lay the rub.
Why is there a disconnect between the video review booth and the broadcasters? In the EHL, the in-booth camera allows the viewer to see what concerns are being addressed and how the decision is arrived at.
Here, that link is broken. As such, should the broadcaster be allowed to show the replay or – like many other sporting events – switch to an advert or video segment on the big screen to entertain the crowd.
Furthermore, the stadium announcers have – on two occasions – added to the confusion by feeding incorrect information on what question is being asked by the team or umpire reviewing. Ultimately, the manner of the in-stadium replays has served to unfairly undermine the umpires and raise the frustrations of the players.
Sure, there have been protocol issues on the official side. Pakistan initially called for a review yesterday against Great Britain but failed to ask a question in the 20-second time limit. While they appeared to think better of the idea, having called for the review, Marcelo Servetto should have sent the query upstairs to ask if anything was there to review.
“He started play again as Sohail Abbas called off the review. Later, Pakistan were adamant they should be able to refer a penalty corner call but the umpires said the review was gone.
This was an inconsequential one in terms of the destination of the match, Britain were 4-0 up at the time, but Australia coach Ric Charlesworth says these moments are having major impacts, citing what he felt was an injustice in the early moments of the Argentina game.
It always seems to be a problem. How can they get it wrong again? It’s frustrating. That changes the dynamics a bit because the other bits of play you can’t appeal. We’ve got to get that right.”
Players have not been immune from not knowing the rules. Moritz Furste had a running argument with the technical bench when Belgium took a second video review in a matter of minutes against Germany, saying they had used up their one review for the half.
Such a rule exists in the EHL but the Olympic system means a correct review means you keep this avenue open if the referral is upheld. All of which confusion, delay and mixed information from review to television screen has not presented the sport in the best light on the biggest stage.
Watching the basketball a few days before, the glitz that fills even the smallest of break in play makes for a cracking experience, especially for the lay spectator. One of my colleagues suggested the handball was similar and another was at the velodrome and suggested hockey’s presentation looked mid-90s by comparison, yet to properly evolve.
Slow hand-clapping has now greeted some of the waits for the reviews to be sorted, taking a bit of sheen off a tournament that has already shown the potential to capture the imagination. With a heavy heart, Korea have been my pick as the side most likely to entertain on the men’s side.
Not always effective, their aggressive outlook always makes a game of it, their ties with Germany and Belgium thus far among the best memories. The above-mentioned Australia match with Argentina slowed their seemingly serene progress through the tournament.
On the women’s side, the Dutch are storming ahead despite not hitting their truest heights. As an aside, they are the “least experienced” panel in the competition with lowest amount of caps and, I’m informed, the second youngest panel after Belgium.
Pool B, though, is the one to watch with – at time of writing – five sides vying for the two semi-finals spots. We found out a little more about Toni Cronk and her view through the goalkeeping helmet. When asked if she was mad to play in goal, she replied: “No, not at all, I think we’re actually the smartest, we wear all this padding and these girls run around with no clothes on, or no padding.”
Plenty of high profile guests have been in the house with Kate Middleton the most notable. Sonia O’Sullivan also dropped in and spoke briefly about her hockey connections:
“I wouldn’t know much about hockey – my sister used to play a lot, she still does, she’s a big fan. I think she’ll be impressed that I’ve come along to watch a hockey game. It was great. The crowd and the atmosphere was absolutely fantastic.”
“Things are going pretty well. We’ve had a fairly positive start. The boxers have all progressed through the rounds – we were unfortunate to lose Darren O’Neill today, he got knocked out in his second-round fight. Everyone’s really positive and enjoying the Games, and performing pretty well.”
Away from the hockey, the Olympic Park just got jam-packed as the athletics got underway, meaning the hordes stopping on the bridge for one of the many photo spots has virtually doubled. Among the throngs yesterday, South African swimmer Chad Le Clos casually strolled into one the bars in his pristine white tracksuit with his gold medal around his neck.
My route to get a gurning picture with him was quickly blocked but these random encounters are becoming more frequent as the events begin to finish up, bringing out the latent fandom, which the journalistic life tries to suppress.
** Pics courtesy of Frank Uijlenbroek/Stanislas Brochier/Grant Treeby/FIHShare. Vampires, crossbows and semi-aquatic dragons in this first major content expansion to The Elder Scrolls V. Vampires, crossbows and semi-aquatic dragons in this first major content expansion to The Elder Scrolls V.
Bethesda’s first major expansion to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is apparently all about vampires. Our first real details about Dawnguard come from the reveal trailer, which shows quite a bit more than the piercing, glowing eyes of the Dovakiin character model Bethesda has been using for marketing. Let’s go through the major points.
Exit Theatre Mode
Fight With or Against Vampires
The trailer shows a vampire castle containing eldritch devices and a pinch-faced, ember-eyed NPC who is very serious about discovering your intentions.
“Is it to be one of us?” he says, at which point the trailer shows a transformation scene where you morph into a vampiric monster. This seems to indicate that you’ll have to choice to either quest for this vampire faction (which could very well be the Volkihar Clan), or against it.
The opposition force is the Dawnguard, based in a new castle, who hunt vampires and try to prevent the undead blood hoarders from blotting out the sun with their villainy.
It’s not yet clear what kind of effects your decisions will have on the game world, but this is The Elder Scrolls, so it makes sense if you had some choice in the matter. Perhaps if you choose to aid the vampires and wipe out the Dawnguard, vampires will no longer suffer in the sunlight?
Superpowered Vampires
Because regular vampires just aren’t exciting anymore, Bethesda will allow you to transform into a grotesque winged demon creature in Dawnguard. Movement will be a little floatier than normal if the footage is indicative of actual gameplay, and you’ll be able to move at high speeds across the landscape. Perhaps you can switch between the monster form and your standard body at will, or perhaps you can only exist as a monster during specific moments during the quest line.
It also appears you’ll gain the ability to walk right up to fully awake NPCs and gnaw on their veins, as shown in the trailer’s vampire bite cinematic kill. Also, bats.
Crossbows
As with many of Bethesda’s downloadable content releases, new weapons and armor are added in. The most notable addition here is the crossbow, which comes can be used on foot and while riding horses. Speaking of riding horses…
There’s At Least One New Horse
The most impressive (non-modded) mount to date in Skyrim will be available in Dawnguard, a ghostly horse with a mane of blue flame, likely associated with the main story. Suddenly Shadowmere doesn’t feel so special anymore.
Bethesda also chose to highlight mounted combat in Dawnguard, though this isn’t strictly an add-on feature – the ability to use weapons on horseback is actually part of the 1.6 patch update, currently in beta testing through Steam.
Swimming Dragons
After Dawnguard, dragons will no longer be confined to land and air – they can dive directly through the ice in combat. What exactly they do down there – regenerate health, surface again directly underneath your feet, or simply hang out with Argonians – remains to be seen, but it’s especially interesting as it indicates dragon behavior after Dawnguard may be much more varied.
More new enemy types will be included as well, including what appears to be a fanged ice giant.
An Elder Scroll
As called out in the trailer’s voice over, an Elder Scroll will play a prominent role in Dawnguard’s story. In fact, at the trailer’s beginning you can see a character actually carrying a scroll on their back.
Later the scroll is opened, and a flash of a modified map of Skyrim is shown. What exactly this means isn’t yet clear, but the terrain appears to show off the northwestern section of Skyrim, highlighting the cities of Markath and Solitude with reddish (bloody?) symbols.
That’s what we’ve got to go on for now. Dawnguard is supposed to launch sometime this summer for Xbox 360 for 1600 Microsoft Points, with PlayStation 3 and PC versions to follow sometime afterward. Expect more details to surface at E3 2012, which takes place from June 5 – 7.NASA’s New Horizons space probe launched on Jan. 19, 2006, and has been snapping pictures as it approached Pluto.
It flew within 6,000 miles of Pluto on Tuesday morning, resulting in the closest and best images of Pluto humankind has ever seen. Over the course of its travel in the past year, as the gif shows, some of the snaps of Pluto have been far less than crisp.
For more information on how Pluto is photographed, check out Photographing Pluto: This Is How New Horizons Works.
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Contact us at editors@time.com.The Pannini Projection
The Pannini projection is a mathematical |
the plane of absolute law. Most of the creatures that reside in mechanus are at least part-mechanical, and have a great understanding of the infusion of life-energy into such objects. Combined with the ability to travel to almost any plane they choose, means that their happening upon the first soul gem within the astral plane was an inevitability. The combination of machine and soul brought Gearforged into existence. theinto existence. Imbued with free will and the ability to comprehend and process the chaos that surrounds the plane of mechanus, the gearforged make sense of abstract concepts that a simple modron can not, and are a true expression of life and Newfound Existence The soul gems that are not recovered by modrons and other such creatures continue to drift through the astral sea, until they eventually find their way to the material plane through various strange phenomenon. Once a soul-gem appears on the natural plane, it goes through an ‘awakening’, taking a form in accordance with the creatures which formed the life energy contained within its soul gem. These creatures are known as Gemborn. the These creatures roam the material realm without requiring any sense of purpose or meaning, content to simply explore and do good wherever they can. function working in harmony. Variant Rule: Reincarnation Having a soul-gem adventurer in the party presents your players with a unique opportunity. Should you allow it, if a gearforged PC's body is entirely destroyed, they can manifest a new body in the form a gemborn. And indeed, should a gemborn die, the use of ressurection magic and a gearforged body could have them return as a gearforged. Remind your players that this is not a 'get out of jail free" card for death, but instead, a storytelling opportunity.
Gemborn Stories of the benevolence of the gemborn has been recorded in song and folktale alike, and for good reason. These wandering humanitarians are the amalgamation of creatures who stood in judgement before the gods of the dead, and were deemed worthy of another life in a new form. Reborn Souls The gemborn are humanoid creatures which have bodies comprised almost entirely of light energy. This energy is a manifestation of their will to live, projected into the world. This form can take many shapes, often mimicing the form of one or multiple creatures that comprise it's soul energy. In all cases, gemborn are humanoid in form, but sometimes retain characteristics from other creatures, such as horns or other minor vestigial body parts. Their soul gem can be any variety of precious stone, cut in any way imaginable, and their body usually reflects the color of their stone. Regardless of the gemstone's type, each one is near-indestructable by conventional means, making a gemborn exceptionally hard to kill. When a gemborn's physical form is destroyed, only it's soul gem remains until it is able to reconstitute its body. A Cut Above Often falsely regarded as invincible, the gemborn are hardy individuals who dedicate their lives to the service of all living creatures. They know nothing of the past lives they might've lead, but they live with an understanding that contained within their soul gem is the life energy of only the most worthy beings that came before them. Gemborn represent the very best qualities of living creatures, and their actions usually reflect this quality. A gemborn that turns away from the path of good often finds themselves in conflict with their altruistic nature, making the rare occurance of a gemborn that turns to evil, a highly volatile individual. At the time of their awakening, a gemborn is usually naive to the darkness that hides in the word around them, and often learn the natural order of the material plane the hard way.
Nomadic Individuals Gemborn awaken with an intrinsic curiosity about the world around them, and this drives them to a life of natural exploration. Without any need to eat or sleep, they are able to survive in the wilderness with relative ease. The paths they walk may cross with many other individuals, but they are not compelled to seek out companionship. The gemborn see themselves as observers to the natural order and samaritans to the downtrodden, their journey dictated by the needs of the world at large. It is a rarity to find a gemborn that makes their home in any one place. Imposed Divinity Driven by a instinct to do good, it is expected behaviour from a gemborn to involve themselves in matters of dispute and conflict, compelled to intervene for the betterment of all involved. Some find this attitude bothersome, but for the disadvantaged, the presence of a gemborn is widely considered a blessing. Some mortal races consider the gemborn to be creatures of divine manifestation, going as far as to dedicate themselves in service of a gemborn. There are even small religious sects which attempt to exemplify their altruism. By worshiping the gemborn, these sects often make enemies of other organised religions, condemning their reverence for the gemborn as blasphemous. For this reason, the gemborn often have tenuous relationships with religious fanatics and acolytes through no fault of their own. Gemborn Names The gemborn are literal in their name, the type of gem that contains their life energy resembling their namesake. It is irregular for a gemborn to replace this name, but will often solidify their identity as an individual by adopting a last name, usually given to them as an honorary family name by those grossly indebted to them. Gemborn Names: Beryl, Bloodstone, Carnelian, Iolite, Jade, Malachite, Onyx, Rhyolite, Ruby, Topaz, Zircon. Gemborn Traits Gemborn choose their form at the time of their awakening, and this form stays with them throughout their entire lifespan. Their gem is located somewhere visible on their body, and their skin tone tends to match that of their gem color. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score
increases by 1 and two other ability scores of your choice increase by 1. Age. Gemborn are fully mature at the time of their awakening and can live indefinitely as long as no harm comes to their soul gem. Alignment. Gemborn are almost always of good alignment. Size. Gemborn are between. 5 - 7 feet tall and weigh between 180-220 pounds. Your size is Medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet. Living Construct. Even though your body is constructed from light, you are a living creature. You are immune to disease. You do not need to eat or breathe, but you can ingest food and drink if you wish. When you die, your body vanishes, leaving only your soul gem and equipment behind. Your soul gem counts as your body for the purposes of ressurection. Trance. You don’t need to sleep. Instead, you meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After Resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep. Soulbound Weapon. As a bonus action, you can summon your soulbound weapon which appears in your hand. You choose a type of melee weapon and its appearance at the time of your awakening. You are proficient with this weapon, and as long as you are holding it, it is considered magical for the purpose of overcoming resistances. You can dismiss this weapon at any time. Multi-faceted. You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice. Languages. You can speak, read and write Common and one language of your choice.
Gearforged Forged amongst the gears of
Regulus, the Gearforged are
automatons made of intricate
gears and mechanisms which
form a humanoid body. They march with pride and
purpose, ready to undertake any
mission or task imaginable. Automatons from Mechanus To understand the Gearforged, one must first
understand their origins. Gearforged are created in Mechanus, the plane of absolute law. Specifically, they are forged by the artisans
of the giant gear-city Regulus. The inhabitants of Regulus are creatures of both flesh and machine called modrons which adhere to strict hierarchies and procedures. At the very top of the hierarchy is a deity-like being of incredible power, Primus. The gearforged do not adhere to this heirarchy as such, but still follow the rules and laws of Mechanus. The soul gem contained within a gearforged's body grants them freedom of will to make decisions of their own. Their understanding of this freedom expands with each passing year of life. Many gearforged worship Primus as a deity, but those who have develop a heightened awareness acknowledge that other gods are just as (if not more) powerful than their beloved leader. Voicing such an outlandish opinion within Mechanus is unheard of - in fact, voicing any kind of opinion is a rarity in itself. The gearforged are unique in that they have a degree of free agency which modrons do not, enabling them to develop opinions at all. Achieving Self-Awareness Gearforged are not created with an intrinsic sense of self, and many of them do not develop emotions or opinions, nor feel a desire to leave the structured ranks of Mechanus.
It remains a mystery why some achieve true self-awareness, but regardless of the reasons, each one finds themself in a unique position - one that does not usually fit within the grand machine of Mechanus. At the centre of Regulus is a building known as the modron cathedral. Amongst it's incredible array of capabilities, this vastly complex structure is capable of teleportation to other planes of existence. Gearforged who resolve to leave Regulus make the journey to the cathedral to start their lives anew, leaving the structured order of Mechanus behind in favour of freedom. The journey often marks the ending of their old life, and the memory of those times are archived and isolated deep within their memory gears. Made For Purpose Despite having a will of their own, gearforged require a purpose, no matter how great or small. The gearforged apply the one of three skillsets that were granted to them at their creation to the problems they encounter.
The 'guardian' gearforged are purpose built for combat and protection, and often find themselves marching under the banner of organised military outfits or mercenary guilds. 'Calculator' gearforged make for phenomenal sources of information after long sessions in the libraries, and tend to spend their time in the service of mages and scholars, often developing magical skills of their own. Finally, the 'engineer' gearforged have advanced understanding of modron repair. Due to the nature of modrons, being made from both flesh and metal, they are able to apply their understanding to fully organic organisms with varying degrees of success. Integration Into The Mortal Realm Over time, gearforged have begun to find a new home amongst the inhabitants of the material plane. Their presence is usually met with apprehension, but their machine-like logic and neutral stance on most matters means that their actions are neither met with strong feelings one way or another. Most people prefer not to address them altogether, finding their lack of understanding social norms to be unnerving. Some artisans and tinkerers have dedicated years of study into understanding the construction of gearforged. Rudimentary understanding of these constructs and how to repair them is commonplace amongst artisans and smiths, but the intricacies of their more complicated parts still represent decades of further study to fully understand. Gearforged Names Many gearforged name themselves based on their favourite item, task, process or concept - others adopt names given to them by people they meet in their travels. A gearforged will often take great pride in their name, as in their early life, it is one of the very few decisions they get to make for themselves. Gearforged Names: Apex, Apothem, Euclid, Helix, Hyperbola, Omicron, Parabola, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Vector. Adopted Names: Azimov, Klang, Metalbeard, Oritor, Rusty, Steelback, Sterling, Tungsten. Gearforged Traits Your gearforged character will have similar traits to many other gearforged, but each one will have differences depending on their purpose. Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 2. Age. The maximum age of a gearforged has yet to be determined. A gearforged can theoretically live forever, assuming proper maintenance of their gears and technical systems. Alignment. Gearforged who have not yet broken their programming are always lawful neutral, however, those who have broken free of their subroutines are free to write new programming for themselves at will. For this reason, most gearforged are neutral. Gearforged that have decided to live amongst a community may have chosen to program themselves to adhere to the basic rules and tenets of a prevalent institution, and this might impact their alignment. Size. Gearforged are slightly taller and broader than an average human. Your size is medium. Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet. Living Construct. Even though you were constructed, you are a living creature. You are immune to disease. You do not need to eat or breathe, but you can ingest food and drink if you wish. Instead of sleeping, you must perform maintenance on yourself for 4 hours each day. You have disadvantage on perception checks whilst performing this maintenance. Pre-loaded Memory Gears. Your installed memory gears at construction included additional information. You gain proficiency with a skill or language of your choice. Augmentations. Your construction includes minor conveniences. Choose two augments. (These can be found at the end of the end of the race description.) Languages. You can speak, read and write Common and Binary. Binary is a language shared between automatons and other beings of Mechanus. Gearforged would argue that binary is the purest form of language. When spoken, it manifests as a sequence of buzzes and clicks. The written form adheres to no common script and consists of a sequence of either zeros and ones, or any applicable substitute.
Artificial Resurrection Should a gearforged's body become destroyed beyond repair, recovery of it's soul gem grants hope for a gearforged to continue their life. If the soul gem is placed into a new gearforged body and a resurrection spell is used upon it, the gearforged may resume living in the new body. If the gearforged's memory gears were not recovered, it loses it's memory and will only have vague recollections of its experiences. The source of the resurrecting magic can come from any source; however, only a gearforged engineer or master modron artisan is able to complete the delicate physical procedure required for this kind of resurrection. A new gearforged body is valued at 10,000gp.
Subraces. Gearforged are usually built for a purpose, usually either to protect, calculate or repair. These subraces represent the different kinds of gearforged Gearforged Guardian A guardian’s purpose is exactly that. They guard. Usually free agents of law, these gearforged are made with the purpose of handling most situations outside of expected variables. They are equipped to handle any combat situation imaginable (within the constraints of several imagination guidelines.) The wardens of the gate-town, Automata, were amongst the first gearforged to be made. They were born out of the requirement to handle the unpredictability of 'visitor' races. Ability Score Increase. Your Strength score increases by 1 Hydraulic Strength. Your unnatural strength is born of gears and steel, and not limited by the constraints of flesh. You have advantage on strength checks. Powerful Build. You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift Gearforged Calculator Calculators are nothing short of intellectual excellence. Their complex machinery allows them to make snap decisions in extreme pressure situations. Their memory gears are vast and seemingly endless. Their duties in Regulus include completing the most complex calculations that fry the synthetic brains of their lesser modron kin. Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1 Accelerated Memory Gears. You have advantage on Intelligence (History) checks to recall information. Additionally, gaining proficiency in a new skill, tool or language takes half as long as normal. Shielded Processor. You gain a +1 bonus to Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma saving throws. Gearforged Engineer The engineers of mechanus are entrusted with the task of repairing the most important modrons as well as other gearforged. Where most modrons spend their time on simple maintenance of the gears of regulus, engineer are able to handle much more complicated procedures. have They have an advanced understanding of both machinery and flesh, viewing both as one in the same. Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1 Medical Engineer. You gain proficiency in tinker's tools, medicine. Versatile. You can choose one additional minor gearforged augment.
Greater than the sum of their parts. All gearforged are comprised of many unique parts, but they each have some parts in common Infinisprings. Infinisprings provide energy over long periods, effectively acting as the power sources for most of the gearforged’s limbs and fingers. A broken infinispring results in the loss of function in that digit or limb. This is an incredibly rare occurrence as infinisprings are made to last indefinitely, but should one become damaged beyond repair, only a modron artisan or gearforged engineer proficient with smith's tools can create a new infinispring from raw metals. Soul Gems. The mind of a gearforged creature is as sharp as that of any flesh-and-blood soul, but it is far less fragile. Soul Gems are practically indestructible by conventional means. The total destruction of this gem is effectively the true death of a gearforged. Very little information is actually stored within a soul gem. Instead, only what is core to a gearforged's identity and personality is held within its soul gem, and is what makes each one truely unique. Memory Gears. Separate from the soul gems are a gearforged’s memory gears. These are delicate constructions: scroll-like ribbons pierced with thousands of pin-sized holes, and others wound about with tiny enchantments of great complexity. The memory of a gearforged for all the days after its creation lives in the memory gears. Memory gears can be taken from a dead gearforged and read by others. This is a lengthy process and viewed with some alarm by most gearforged, since it is akin to peering into the most private details of a creature’s life. Installing an existing, used memory gear in a new gearforged requires at least one week for the recipient to remember and understand the results. The process is dangerous and delicate, and requires an expert artisan or gearforged engineer to install.
Gearforged Augments Each gearforged is built with customised parts depending on their purpose, these parts are unique to your construction. Digit Igniter You have a small device in a fingertip which allows you to produce a tiny flame. This emits a light in a 5ft radius around you, and dim light for a further 5ft. You can use this flame to set a flammable item or liquid that is not being held or worn by a creature on fire. Illuminated Vision You can make your eyes shine brightly, allowing you and your allies to see in dark places. This augment creates a cone of bright light wherever you are looking for up to 30ft, and dim light for a further 30ft. You have tinker's tools integrated into your wrists. If you are searched, it is a DC18 investigation check to find these tools. It is impossible to remove them without breaking them as they are part of your body. You can use these tinker's tools to perform medicine checks on yourself or other constructs to repair, safely dismantle, or perform other specilist tasks. Liquid Filtration Tanks You have a two visible storage tanks on your body. You can fill a liquid tank with 1 gallon of any liquid, corrosive or not. If you fill a tank with water, the tank is able to filter the water from foreign contaminants over the course of 1 hour and becomes safe to drink. A full tank weighs 10 lbs each. These tanks do not detach from your body, but you can decant them into other containers. Phonograph Cylinder You have an in-built recording mechanism which records the last 30 seconds of sound you have heard. The cylinder records everything and you are not able to isolate one sound from another. You can choose any section of sound your hear and archive it to your memory gears. At any time, you can choose to replicate any archived sound you have heard. Pneumatic Legs You are able to charge your legs with compressed air for controlled bursts of kinetic energy. You do not suffer the penalties imposed when making any jump without a running start and you are able to use your kicks as improvised weapons. Specialist Data Bank Your memory gears include a repository of data about a specific subject, this data was relevant to your purpose in Mechanus. Work with your DM and choose a specialist subject. (Examples of a specialist subject could be a creature type, a specific race, a time in history, or another plane of existence) You gain advantage on ability checks to recall information regarding your specialist subject.EXPEDIT Shoe Display
Materials: Dioder LEDs, Expedit bookcase, Kallax wheels, Variera shelfs
I decided to display my sneakers using all IKEA products. I manage to rack up a few pairs and was running out of room to store. Using an Expedit bookcase already on hand, purchased in the “As Is” section, and a few other IKEA items managed to pull off a great display. Not only does it serve as shoe bookshelf but it’s also serves as a room divider in my small apartment. Adding the rolling wheels was important to easily move around the room. The LED wires are all tucked in along the corners of each shelf and ran to the back on the bookcase. The power supply box for each LED is screw on to a 2x4and mounted at the bottom of the case.
What took a while to figure out was the shelf insert. I had the IKEA $20 shoe inserts, now discontinued and were very expensive anyway. I would visit the site for ideas. Managed to find custom built ones and others fabricated using IKEA parts. I did not want to drill into the case or have hinges and bolts exposed. I found the Variera shelf used in IKEA catalog and after a few measurements for confirmation I rushed to the store. It worked great and the display case came together. I’m out of space already, will need to upgrade to a larger 5×5 Expedit shelf soon.This piece is adapted from “Men Explain Things to Me,” a collection of essays that will be published on May 6th by Haymarket Books.
“The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think,” Virginia Woolf wrote in her journal on January 18, 1915, when she was almost thirty-three years old and the First World War was beginning to turn into catastrophic slaughter on an unprecedented scale that would continue for years. Belgium was occupied, the continent was at war, many of the European nations were also invading other places around the world, the Panama Canal had just opened, the U.S. economy was in terrible shape, twenty-nine thousand people had just died in an Italian earthquake, Zeppelins were about to attack Great Yarmouth, launching the age of aerial bombing against civilians, and the Germans were just weeks away from using poison gas for the first time on the Western Front. Woolf, however, might have been writing about her own future rather than the world’s.
She was less than six months past a bout of madness or depression that had led to a suicide attempt, and was still being tended or guarded by nurses. Until then, in fact, her madness and the war had followed a similar calendar, but Woolf recovered and the war continued its downward plunge for nearly four more bloody years. The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think. It’s an extraordinary declaration, asserting that the unknown need not be turned into the known through false divination, or the projection of grim political or ideological narratives; it’s a celebration of darkness, willing—as that “I think” indicates—to be uncertain even about its own assertion.
Most people are afraid of the dark. Literally when it comes to children, while many adults fear, above all, the darkness that is the unknown, the unseeable, the obscure. And yet the night in which distinctions and definitions cannot be readily made is the same night in which love is made, in which things merge, change, become enchanted, aroused, impregnated, possessed, released, renewed.
As I began writing this essay, I picked up a book on wilderness survival by Laurence Gonzalez and found in it this telling sentence: “The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.” His point is that when the two seem incompatible we often hang onto the plan, ignore the warnings reality offers us, and so plunge into trouble. Afraid of the darkness of the unknown, the spaces in which we see only dimly, we often choose the darkness of closed eyes, of obliviousness. Gonzalez adds, “Researchers point out that people tend to take any information as confirmation of their mental models. We are by nature optimists, if optimism means that we believe we see the world as it is. And under the influence of a plan, it’s easy to see what we want to see.” It’s the job of writers and explorers to see more, to travel light when it comes to preconception, to go into the dark with their eyes open.
Not all of them aspire to do so or succeed. Nonfiction has crept closer to fiction in our time in ways that are not flattering to fiction, in part because too many writers cannot come to terms with the ways in which the past, like the future, is dark. There is so much we don’t know, and to write truthfully about a life, your own or your mother’s or a celebrated figure’s, an event, a crisis, another culture is to engage repeatedly with those patches of darkness, those nights of history, those places of unknowing. They tell us that there are limits to knowledge, that there are essential mysteries, starting with the notion that we know just what someone thought or felt in the absence of exact information.
Often enough, we don’t know such things even when it comes to ourselves, let alone someone who perished in an epoch whose very textures and reflexes were unlike ours. Filling in the blanks replaces the truth that we don’t entirely know with the false sense that we do. We know less when we erroneously think we know than when we recognize that we don’t. Sometimes I think these pretenses at authoritative knowledge are failures of language: the language of bold assertion is simpler, less taxing, than the language of nuance and ambiguity and speculation. Woolf was unparalleled at that latter language.
Even her name has a little wildness to it. The French call dusk the time “entre le chien et le loup,” between the dog and the wolf, and certainly in marrying a Jew in the England of her era Virginia Stephen was choosing to go a little feral, to step a little beyond the proprieties of her class and time. While there are many Woolfs, mine has been a Virgil guiding me through the uses of wandering, getting lost, anonymity, immersion, uncertainty, and the unknown. I made that sentence of hers about darkness the epigram that drove Hope in the Dark, my 2004 book about politics and hope written to counter despair in the aftermath of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.
Two Winter Walks
To me, the grounds for hope are simply that we don’t know what will happen next, and that the unlikely and the unimaginable transpire quite regularly. And that the unofficial history of the world shows that dedicated individuals and popular movements can shape history and have, though how and when we might win and how long it takes is not predictable.
Despair is a form of certainty, certainty that the future will be a lot like the present or will decline from it; despair is a confident memory of the future, in Gonzalez’s resonant phrase. Optimism is similarly confident about what will happen. Both are grounds for not acting. Hope can be the knowledge that we don’t have that memory and that reality doesn’t necessarily match our plans; hope like creative ability can come from what the Romantic poet John Keats called Negative Capability.
On a midwinter’s night in 1817, a little over a century before Woolf’s journal entry on darkness, the poet John Keats walked home talking with some friends and as he wrote in a celebrated letter describing that walk, “several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature.… I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
Keats walking and talking and having several things dovetail in his mind suggests the way wandering on foot can lead to the wandering of imagination and to an understanding that is creation itself, the activity that makes introspection an outdoor pursuit. In her memoir “A Sketch of the Past,” Woolf wrote, “Then one day walking round Tavistock Square, I made as I sometimes make up my books, To the Lighthouse, in a great, apparently involuntary, rush. One thing burst into another. Blowing bubbles out of a pipe gives the feeling of the rapid crowd of ideas and scenes which blew out of my mind, so that my lips seemed syllabling of their own accord as I walked. What blew the bubbles? Why then? I have no notion.”
Some portion of Woolf’s genius, it seems to me, is that having no notion, that negative capability. I once heard about a botanist in Hawaii with a knack for finding new species by getting lost in the jungle, by going beyond what he knew and how he knew, by letting experience be larger than his knowledge, by choosing reality rather than the plan. Woolf not only utilized but celebrated the unpredictable meander, on mind and foot. Her great essay “Street Haunting: A London Adventure,” from 1930, has the light breezy tone of many of her early essays, and yet voyages deep into the dark.
It takes a fictionalized or invented excursion to buy a pencil in the winter dusk of London as an excuse to explore darkness, wandering, invention, the annihilation of identity, the enormous adventure that transpires in the mind while the body travels a quotidian course. “The evening hour, too, gives us the irresponsibility which darkness and lamplight bestow,” she writes. “We are no longer quite ourselves. As we step out of the house on a fine evening between four and six, we shed the self our friends know us by and become part of that vast republican army of anonymous trampers, whose society is so agreeable after the solitude of one’s own room.” Here she describes a form of society that doesn’t enforce identity but liberates it, the society of strangers, the republic of the streets, the experience of being anonymous and free that big cities invented.
Introspection is often portrayed as an indoor, solitary thing, the monk in his cell, the writer at her desk. Woolf disagrees, saying of the home, “For there we sit surrounded by objects which enforce the memories of our own experience.” She describes the objects and then states, “But when the door shuts on us, all that vanishes. The shell-like covering which our souls have excreted to house themselves, to make for themselves a shape distinct from others, is broken, and there is left of all these wrinkles and roughnesses a central pearl of perceptiveness, an enormous eye. How beautiful a street is in winter!”
The shell of home is a prison of sorts, as much as a protection, a casing of familiarity and continuity that can vanish outside. Walking the streets can be a form of social engagement, even of political action when we walk in concert, as we do in uprisings, demonstrations, and revolutions, but it can also be a means of inducing reverie, subjectivity, and imagination, a sort of duet between the prompts and interrupts of the outer world and the flow of images and desires (and fears) within. At times, thinking is an outdoor activity, and a physical one.
In these circumstances, it is often mild distraction that moves the imagination forward, not uninterrupted concentration. Thinking then works by indirection, sauntering in a roundabout way to places it cannot reach directly. In “Street Haunting,” the voyages of imagination may be purely recreational, but such meandering allowed Woolf to conceive the form of To the Lighthouse, had furthered her creative work in a way that sitting at a desk might not. The ways creative work gets done are always unpredictable, demanding room to roam, refusing schedules and systems. They cannot be reduced to replicable formulas.
Public space, urban space, which serves at other times the purposes of the citizen, the member of society establishing contact with other members, is here the space in which to disappear from the bonds and binds of individual identity. Woolf is celebrating getting lost, not literally lost as in not knowing how to find your way, but lost as in open to the unknown, and the way that physical space can provide psychic space. She writes about daydreaming, or perhaps evening dreaming in this case, the business of imagining yourself in another place, as another person.
In “Street Haunting,” she wonders about identity itself:
Or is the true self neither this nor that, neither here nor there, but something so varied and wandering that it is only when we give the rein to its wishes and let it take its way unimpeded that we are indeed ourselves? Circumstances compel unity; for convenience’ sake a man must be a whole. The good citizen when he opens his door in the evening must be banker, golfer, husband, father; not a nomad wandering the desert, a mystic staring at the sky, a debauchee in the slums of San Francisco, a soldier heading a revolution, a pariah howling with scepticism and solitude.
But he is all these others, she says, and the strictures limiting what he can be are not her strictures.
Principles of Uncertainty
Woolf is calling for a more introspective version of the poet Walt Whitman’s “I contain multitudes,” a more diaphanous version of the poet Arthur Rimbaud’s “I is another.” She is calling for circumstances that do not compel the unity of identity that is a limitation or even repression. It’s often noted that she does this for her characters in her novels, less often that, in her essays, she exemplifies it in the investigative, critical voice that celebrates and expands, and demands it in her insistence on multiplicity, on irreducibility, and maybe on mystery, if mystery is the capacity of something to keep becoming, to go beyond, to be uncircumscribable, to contain more.
Woolf’s essays are often both manifestoes about and examples or investigations of this unconfined consciousness, this uncertainty principle. They are also models of a counter-criticism, for we often think the purpose of criticism is to nail things down. During my years as an art critic I used to joke that museums love artists the way that taxidermists love deer, and something of that desire to secure, to stabilize, to render certain and definite the open-ended, nebulous, and adventurous work of artists is present in many who work in that confinement sometimes called the art world.
A similar kind of aggression against the slipperiness of the work and the ambiguities of the artist’s intent and meaning often exists in literary criticism and academic scholarship, a desire to make certain what is uncertain, to know what is unknowable, to turn the flight across the sky into the roast upon the plate, to classify and contain. What escapes categorization can escape detection altogether.
There is a kind of counter-criticism that seeks to expand the work of art, by connecting it, opening up its meanings, inviting in the possibilities. A great work of criticism can liberate a work of art, to be seen fully, to remain alive, to engage in a conversation that will not ever end but will instead keep feeding the imagination. Not against interpretation, but against confinement, against the killing of the spirit. Such criticism is itself great art.
This is a kind of criticism that does not pit the critic against the text, does not seek authority. It seeks instead to travel with the work and its ideas, invite it to blossom and invite others into a conversation that might have previously seemed impenetrable, to draw out relationships that might have been unseen and open doors that might have been locked. This is a kind of criticism that respects the essential mystery of a work of art, which is in part its beauty and its pleasure, both of which are irreducible and subjective.
Liberations
Woolf liberates the text, the imagination, the fictional character, and then demands that liberty for ourselves, most particularly for women. This gets to the crux of the Woolf that has been most exemplary for me: she is always celebrating a liberation that is not official, institutional, rational, but a matter of going beyond the familiar, the safe, the known into the broader world. Her demands for liberation for women were not merely so that they could do some of the institutional things men did (and women now do, too), but to have full freedom to roam, geographically and imaginatively.
She recognizes that this requires various practical forms of freedom and power—recognizes it in A Room of One’s Own, too often remembered as an argument for rooms and incomes, though it demands also universities and a whole world via the wonderful, miserable tale of Judith Shakespeare, the playwright’s doomed sister: “She could get no training in her craft. Could she even get her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets at midnight?” Dinner in taverns, streets at midnight, the freedom of the city are crucial elements of freedom, not to define an identity but to lose it. Perhaps the protagonist of her novel Orlando, who lives for centuries, slipping from one gender to another, embodies her ideal of absolute freedom to roam, in consciousness, romance, identity, and place.
The question of liberation appears another way in her talk “Professions for Women,” which describes with delightful ferocity the business of killing the Angel in the House, the ideal woman who meets all others’ needs and expectations and not her own.
I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense …. Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer. |
for CounterPunch, The Nation and other publications. Reprinted from counterpunch.orgDisclaimer: This isn't to hate on or be aggressive towards SU or Lauren Zuke!
I decided to do some screenshot redraw / tweaks because Lapis Lazuli had been one of my favorite Steven Universe characters but lately she has become very off-model and seems like she's a completely different character. The strange inconsistency with Lapis is much more noticeable than say, Amethyst. Amethyst's hair is naturally fluffy but when Lapis' hair suddenly gets crazy and messy depending on the episode, it's strange and jarring. I have a lot of complaints about how the show handles Peridot and Lapis in general, but I wanted to try my hand at adjusting some wonky screenshots to make them look more on-model and Lapis-y.
Left ones are from the show, obviously, and right ones are my redraws. I don't claim to be perfect or that I am a better artist than the crew but I do think these on-model Lapises look a lot more consistent and less jarringly different.Denny's is launching a Hobbit-themed menu as a tie-in with Peter Jackson's upcoming movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Because nothing says Middle-Earth more than Radagast's Red Velvet Pancake Puppies or Gandalf's Gobble Melt. (Both of those are real dishes on the menu.) According to AdAge, the new menu launches November 6.
Other dishes on the menu include Lonely Mountain Treasure (which is some sort of dippable French toast), Frodo's Pot Roast Skillet, Bilbo's Berry Smoothie, Lone-Lands Campfire Cookie Milkshake, Build Your Own Hobbit Slam and Hobbit Harvest Pies. Those last two seem like normal menu items with the word "hobbit" slapped on them? Oh well. There are 11 hobbit menu items in total, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Below, an ad for the new Denny's campaign and the Hobbity breakfast menu.
Denny's isn't the first outlet to jump on the Shire sausage gravy train (Shire sausage is also a real dish on the menu). Austin's Alamo Drafthouse throws a Lord of the Rings marathon every year in which they show all three movies back to back and serve all seven of the traditional Hobbit meals.
Video: Denny's Hobbit Inspiration
· Denny's to Launch Middle-Earth Inspired Menu [AdAge]
· All Denny's Coverage on Eater [-E-]The Fox TV station in Houston has repeatedly mischaracterized the city's recently passed non-discrimination law in its reporting about a legal challenge against the measure, falsely stating that it would allow men to enter women's restrooms.
In May, the city of Houston approved the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of a number of characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity. Opponents of the ordinance, including the extreme Houston Area Pastor Council, collected signatures to put the measure up for a repeal vote, falsely claiming that HERO would let sexual predators sneak into women's restrooms while pretending to be transgender.
The city determined that opponents had submitted too many invalid signatures to qualify for a repeal vote, prompting a lawsuit from HERO's opponents that has turned into an ongoing legal battle.
In its coverage of the legal proceedings, Fox's Houston affiliate has uncritically echoed the myth that HERO allows men to enter women's restrooms.
In a January 26 report, for example, reporter Damali Keith wrote:
Chances are you've heard of the fairly new Houston ordinance that allows transgender men to use women's restrooms among other things. Now a judge and jury will hear about the ordinance. Today is day one of a trial that names Mayor Annise Parker as a defendant.
The next day, Keith published another report suggesting that "transgendered men" would be allowed to enter women's restrooms:I need to get this out of the way at the start: SUPERHOT is beautiful.
I’m partial to constructivist and suprematist art so maybe I’m influenced by that — the explosions of red polygons, the solid black weapons and white ground make screenshots look like artworks by Rodchenko, Lissitzky or Malevich — but this game really is aesthetically stunning. There’ve been times when I’ve died because I was so distracted by the beauty of the scene before me that I failed to notice the bullet about to enter my face.
SUPERHOT is a first person shooter with the central conceit that time only moves when you do (which isn’t quite true, time moves very very slowly when you’re stationary) allowing the player to pull off some crazy John Woo-esque moves that wouldn’t be possible in a normal shooter. Punch a man in the face, grab his gun from the air as he drops it, shoot him with his own gun, turn 180°, throw the gun in the air and punch the man who was behind you in the face after side-stepping the bullet he just fired, turn to your left and catch the gun you threw, shoot the man to your left and so on.
The FPS is transformed into something between turn based combat and a puzzle game without losing the raw excitement of second-to-second first person combat.
It’s a simple mechanic but it’s artfully executed; animations are fluid, physical and weighty — it feels good as you perform superhuman feats — and the intent of your AI opponents is evident from their posture and movement. The sparse aesthetic, aside from just looking gorgeous, keeps the game readable — visual confusion would’ve spoiled the flow. Combat sounds have a pleasantly chunky feel to them and attenuate wonderfully as you speed up and slow down time.
SUPERHOT has something like a story; it’s more of a meta-narrative with shades of Stanley Parable (though far less extreme) and The Matrix to it. I wouldn’t quite call it a narrative — nothing is really expounded, developed or resolved, it’s more like flavour text and I like it all the more for that. This meta-narrative is mainly delivered through the glitchy faux text-based OS that constitutes the game’s menu system and comprises IMs, IRC-like chats and mini-games (most of which are optional). I’m not usually a fan of superfluous narrative in action games but I enjoyed the meta-narrative of SUPERHOT; it’s not deep, but it’s intriguing, sometimes amusing and, a couple of times, pleasantly disturbing. It augments the action, adding a slight emotional layer, without distracting from it.
The main story/campaign of SUPERHOT will only take you a couple of hours to complete. It took me about three and a half and I’m slow. I’ve seen complaints about this but I think they miss the point — completing the main campaign unlocks the rest of the game and that is where the real meat is — the main campaign is really just an extended tutorial. I’ll happily play the same level for hours, trying to beat my score or complete a challenge or challenging myself to play in a particular way (fists and thrown-things only, for example). If you don’t enjoy that sort of gameplay then I’d look elsewhere since that’s the game this is — you’re intended to replay and refine, it’s very much a toy to be played with as well as being a game to play through.
Having said that, I do hope the developers add more content. There’s enough here to keep me busy honing my superhuman ninja combat skills for quite a while, but there will definitely come a time when I want more. More maps and possibly more weapons to play with too. It feels like the sort of game that could be expanded upon for a long time and grow into something even more special than it already is, I hope the devs take that route.
This is going to be my go-to relaxation game for a while, I think. I recommend it!
SUPER. HOT.
(Also, it’s beautiful.)
SUPERHOT is available for Linux on Steam and GOG.
Here’s a video I made of a few minutes of Endless Mode gameplay:PVV leader Geert Wilders is imagining life as Prime Minister after Maurice de Hond's latest poll showed that his party is at 39 virtual seats, 9 seats more than the coalition of VVD and PvdA has combined.
"Wilders I will bring the Dutch sovereignty back", the PVV leader said in an interview with Metro Nieuws about his first cabinet. "We want to be the boss again of our own money, or own laws and our own borders. And yes, that means stepping out of the EU", Wilders said, adding that they have been researching this since last year and it seems like a viable option.
"I want the Netherlands to once again be a proud and sovereign country and I believe that for a true democracy you need a nation state with a common culture, identity and flag. People need to know who they are; Europe costs us much money, while we hardly determine anything." Wilders said.
Wilders added that his cabinet will focus on immigration, Justice, Foreign Affairs and Health and that he wants immigration and integration to be handled by one minister, instead of immigration being with Security and Justice and integration being with Social Affairs as is currently the case. He also already has a list of people in mind to fill each ministerial post. "Before we decided to tolerate Rutte I, we already looked at whether we could govern", he said to Metro. "And of course I have a list of people."
The PVV leader also thinks that it is high time that the Netherlands gets a channel like Fox News network that tells the whole story. "Eighteen months ago we held a demonstration on Koekamp in The Hague by the Central Station. Alexander Pechtold called in parliament that a number of people are instigating the right wing. That was true, but in the front were immigrants and young families with children among the crowd, the atmosphere was really good. But that you will not see", he said, adding that the same thing happened when he spoke at Pediga in Dresden. "You will always be framed. It is time for a channel like FOX in the Netherlands."Republican voters’ path to backing Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s rise to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee followed a lengthy primary campaign. Over the course of 2015 and early 2016, most GOP voters switched their preferences for the nomination at least once – and many switched several times. Below you can explore how candidates gained (and lost) supporters among the same nationally representative group of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters in Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel. Walk through Donald Trump’s path to the nomination or explore each of the GOP candidates’ paths on your own. And for more on the patterns of support through the primary, and into the general election, see For GOP Voters, a Winding Path to a Trump Nomination.
Republican voters’ path to backing Donald Trump | Pew Research Center
Follow Trump's path to the nomination Explore all the Republican candidates Democrats and Clinton → Show where supporters came from went March 2015 Aug. 2015 Dec. 2015 April 2016 General Election/
June 2016
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campaign Early stages In March 2015, 37% of Republican voters did not have a first choice for the GOP nomination. Just 1% named Donald Trump, who had not yet announced his candidacy. Next > Trump’s entry By August 2015, Trump was the preferred choice of 27% of Republican voters. About a third of his August supporters had not backed anyone in March. He also pulled support from most of the other candidates in the race: 15% of his backers had previously supported Scott Walker, 9% previously supported Jeb Bush and 8% previously supported Ted Cruz. < PreviousNext > Trump gains support, but also loses some Trump‘s support grew in December 2015 to 34% of GOP voters. Roughly half of his supporters at that time had backed him in August. At the same time, not all of Trump‘s August supporters had stayed with him; 30% of those who had backed him in August did not in December. < PreviousNext > Field narrows, but voters’ preferences still shifting As the field narrowed to Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, Trump led all candidates with the support of 44% of GOP voters. About six-in-ten of his backers supported him in December, but some voters switched their allegiances during this period. For example: 6% of Trump‘s backers in April 2016 had supported Cruz in December 2015, and 14% of Cruz‘s April supporters had previously supported Trump. < PreviousNext > ‘Never Trump?’ After Cruz and Kasich ended their campaigns in early May, Trump became the presumptive nominee and most supporters of other candidates got on board. As of June 2016, Trump became the choice of 88% of Republican voters in a general election matchup against Hillary Clinton. Explore all the Republican candidates 1% of Republican voters named Trump their first choice in March 2015. 27% of Republican voters named Trump their first choice in August 2015. 34% of Republican voters named Trump their first choice in December 2015. 44% of Republican voters named Trump their first choice in April 2016. 88% of Republican voters named Trump their first choice in the general election. Source: Pew Research Center American Trends Panel surveys, conducted March 2015 through June 2016. Based on Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters (March & August 2015, N=1,345; December 2015, April and June 2016 N=2,079). See methodology for more detail. Photo credits: Michael Vadon/Wikimedia Commons (Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Bush, Christie); Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons (Rubio); Darren McCollester/Getty Images (Huckabee); Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images (Carson); Christopher Furlong/Getty Images (Paul); Scott Olson/Getty Images (Walker); Robyn BeckAFP/Getty Images (Fiorina)Don’t want to wait until tomorrow to find out the details on the new TAG Heuer Connected watch? Can’t say I blame you! If the new Connected is anything like the original, it should be a heck of a smartwatch. Let’s dive into what TAG Heuer plans to unveil tomorrow.
UPDATE: You can buy it at TAG Heuer’s site.
The new smartwatch from TAG is called the TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45, according to TAG’s own website that has outed the device early. That’s a mouthful, I know! The watch runs Android Wear 2.0 and features all of the specs you could want in a 2017 smartwatch, but it has an extra trick or two up its sleeve that allows the watch to become more than just a smartwatch. Yep, we’re talking about the “modular” part in the name, along with its Swiss background.
The Connected Modular 45 sports a 45mm case that allows an owner to swap out the Connected (smartwatch) module for a mechanical module (specifically a 3-hands mechanical module or a tourbillon), which is where the watch will gain its “Swiss Made” certification, a certification that was absent on the original Connected, since it was only a smartwatch. TAG Heuer will expand that modular idea further by offering watch owners a range of materials, colors and combinations. They’ll also invite swapping of lugs, straps, and buckles.
Some of the options include rubber straps (black, blue, red, white, yellow, green, orange, and electric blue), calfskin and rubber combo straps (black, grey, and light brown), ceramic straps, and titanium bracelets. The lugs will come in titanium, titanium with diamonds, titanium with 18K rose gold, and titanium with a matte black ceramic finish. Buckles will be available in PVD or titanium.
To recap that idea, you’ll be able to take your Connected Modular 45 smartwatch and turn it into a mechanical watch with the click or two of a button, along with the lugs, strap, and buckle. Kind of cool, right?
Unfortunately, we don’t have any good pictures to share at the moment, but here is this small shot:
On the smartwatch or Connected side of things, the Connected Modular 45 sports an Intel chipset, water resistance to 50 meters (50ATM), WiFi, GPS, NFC (for Android Pay), AMOLED display, 4GB storage, Android Wear 2.0 (with Google Assistant), ambient light sensor, and battery life that should last beyond 24 hours.
For those who own the original TAG Heuer Connected, understand that your deal that allows you to swap out your smartwatch (plus another $1,500) for a special edition mechanical version two years after purchase still stands. You can’t, however, swap out your original for the new Connected Modular 45.
The new TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 will cost $1,650 in the US.
We’ll update this post as we have more.
UPDATE 2: Everything is now official! See more images and details at this post.Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Jane Sanders was constantly at her husband's side during his surprisingly popular campaign
Ex-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has lashed out at claims his wife committed bank fraud.
The FBI is reportedly investigating whether Jane Sanders lied to financiers while securing a loan for a college which she led.
Mr Sanders told CNN: "It's a sad state of affairs in America when not only we have politicians being destroyed, but when you go after people's wives.
The couple are understood to have hired high-profile Washington lawyers.
Mr Sanders, a senator for Vermont, has previously called the inquiry politically motivated.
The FBI investigation stems from a January 2016 complaint by Brady Toensing, who was chairman of the Trump campaign in Vermont.
Mr Toensing suggested that Jane Sanders had lied about having enough donor support to repay a $10m (£7.7m) loan to buy land to expand Burlington College, where she served as president.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Jane Sanders watches her husband speak during a press conference in South Carolina
The Republican lawyer also claimed Mr Sanders' office convinced the bank to lend the funds.
Mrs Sanders' seven-year tenure at the liberal arts school ended in 2011. It closed in 2016 after struggling to make the repayments.
Mr Sanders told CNN presenter Erin Burnett on Tuesday: "When she came to that college, it was failing financially and academically.
"When she left it, it was in better shape.
"Five years later, just at the moment - coincidentally, no doubt - when I am a candidate for president of the United States, Donald Trump's campaign manager, vice-chairman of the Republican Party in Vermont, launched this investigation," he added.
Mr Sanders refused to even confirm there is an investigation, concluding the interview: "I think it's pathetic that when people are involved in public life, it's not only they get attacked, but it is their wives and their families that get attacked.
"That's what this is about."
He insisted his "wife is about the most honest person I know".
The self-proclaimed socialist electrified young progressives in the 2016 presidential election, but Hillary Clinton beat him to the Democratic White House nomination.Halloween may be more than a month away, but it’s never too early to go zombie hunting.
A new, 57-acre attraction in South Surrey is billing itself as an immersive, zombie-fighting experience. Dressed up in tactical gear and armed with paint guns, you and your platoon must fend off wave after wave of the undead under the cover of thick forest.
And, judging from the photos, these aren’t your garden-variety, dress-up zombies. The production is the work of local special effects master Ron McCall, who has worked in big-time horror and thriller flicks, according to a recent article in the Vancouver Sun.
Ghouls with bloodied and battered faces stalk you from every direction, while a soundtrack of gunfire, air raids and blood-curdling screams blares. Smoke, pyrotechnics and splattered blood add to the chaos.
The highly scripted, 45-minute experience is more live theatre than paintball. Combatants are part of a critical military mission to rescue a group of trapped scientists who are frantically trying to find a cure for the zombie plague. After a briefing by a soldier, you and your troops are sent into battle, with limited ammunition and only the faintest idea of the zombie-filled mayhem that awaits in the Surrey forest.
Zombie Combat Zone starts this Friday, Sept. 14, and runs Thursdays through Sundays until Nov. 15 at Panther Paintball, located in Surrey at 19022 16th Ave. Because of the vivid nature of the experience, participants must be 16 or older, unless accompanied by a parent. Advance reservations are required at zombiecombatzone.com. A one-person tour is $95; but if you get a group together the price is as low as $50 per person for a group of 12.
If you’re looking for something a little less intense, you can also check out the Gauntlet of the Dead ($20 per person), which opens closer to Halloween. It’s a tour through a zombie infested forest where “the only thing to do is survive till the end!” Fun for the whole family!
Anyone been zombie hunting yet? What did you think of it? Let us know.AUGUSTA, Maine — On Wednesday, Attorney General Janet Mills demanded in a letter that Gov. Paul LePage release a publically funded report crafted by the controversial Alexander Group to anyone who requested it.
When asked in an interview how he responded, LePage said simply: “Tell her to sue me.”
The letter from Mills — a Democrat who was elected to office when her party regained majorities in the House and Senate in 2012 — was addressed to LePage and Mary Mayhew, whose Department of Health and Human Services signed a $925,000 contract for the Rhode Island-based Alexander Group to study Maine’s welfare system, including the possibility of expanding Medicaid as allowed by the federal Affordable Care Act.
The group is led by Gary Alexander, former public welfare chief in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, who in 2010 turned down the position of DHHS commissioner in Maine because it didn’t pay enough. He is now tasked with analyzing Maine’s welfare system and studying what effects would follow a potential Medicaid expansion.
Democrats have criticized Alexander for his track record in Pennsylvania, where thousands were cut from welfare rolls under his tenure. They also accused LePage of “cronyism” in hiring the group.
LePage has said the Alexander Group is the best welfare consulting firm in the country, and points to Alexander’s time in Rhode Island, where he won a global Medicaid waiver from the federal government, giving the state unparalleled flexibility in administering its publicly funded health coverage.
The contract includes a timeline for the delivery of several reports, the first of which was a Medicaid expansion feasibility study due Dec. 1. The LePage administration received that report on Dec. 16 — the governor himself received it on Jan. 3, according to spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett — but has resisted calls from reporters and others to release it, saying the governor would take the time to read and analyze the draft before making it public.
Maine’s Freedom of Access Act includes no provision to shield public documents pending executive review. The Bangor Daily News and Sun Journal have both filed multiple requests for the document, which have gone unfulfilled.
“Such a rationale for delay does not exist in statute,” Mills wrote. “Reliance on such troublesome criteria could result in a court finding that you have acted in bad faith in resisting disclosure, with the attendant legal consequences of such a finding.”
DHHS officials and communications staff in LePage’s office had originally said the report would be made available on Jan. 6. With that deadline come and gone, reporters’ requests for the report have remained unfulfilled.
“As chief law enforcement officer for the State of Maine and chief advisor on Freedom of Access issues, I must insist you release this report to all who request it immediately,” Mills wrote to LePage.
In an interview with a group of State House reporters Wednesday, LePage was defiant despite Mills’ letter. He told reporters they would see the report when he was ready.
“It’s right here,” he said, picking up a stack of papers from his desk. “I’m reading it. And when I’m done, you’ll get it. I have not completed reading it, but I am reading it and will be done shortly.”
LePage also said the report shows that Medicaid expansion would be too heavy a cost for Maine to bear. Expansion — a key provision of President Barack Obama’s landmark health care reform law would provide taxpayer-funded health care to 70,000 additional Mainers, paid for in large part by the federal government — is a top priority for Democrats this year. The effort was defeated by gubernatorial veto in 2013.
“Everything in there is going to vindicate my position on not expanding,” LePage said Wednesday. “It clearly tells us that it’s going to cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars over the next decade.”
LePage also waved off Democrats’ claim that Alexander was chosen for ideological reasons, to deliver a report that would bolster the governor’s position.
“The Democrats are going to say it’s a hand-picked consultant. Well, I’ll tell you this: Whenever you hire a consultant, you have your choice of who to pick,” he said. “When you have the best in the country, who has done the program in Rhode Island, in Pennsylvania, who has consulted in many states, you may want to listen to him.”
Senate President Justin Alfond, D-Portland, said Mainers deserve to see the report that their tax dollars paid for.
“We’ve got a real problem here,” he said Wednesday. “Taxpayer money has been used. $1 million. … We’re just digesting what the top lawyer, the attorney general, said in the letter. We’ll definitely gather our troops and come up with whatever tactics and strategies we can to get this report released.”
Sen. Tom Saviello, R-Wilton, said he understands the position that if the document is still in draft form that the governor may want to review it first. But Saviello also acknowledged that state law does not allow LePage to withhold the document for that reason.
“He should just follow the law and release the report,” Saviello said. “Just release the report. I asked yesterday in our own caucus when we were going to have the report and we were told only it was coming.”
Scott Thistle, state politics editor at the Sun Journal, contributed to this report. Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.JREF Swift Blog
The Opposite of Debunking
As a skeptic, I am faced with what I will call the “Debunker’s Dilemma.” Because there is such an incredible amount of misinformation, pseudoscience, and straight-up bunk out there, it appears that a skeptic’s stance on many beliefs is constantly “negative.” Not negative in the way of cynicism, but negative in the way that we are consistently reciting the phrase “You know that’s just a myth…” or something similar. Surf any skeptical forum like the skeptic subreddit and you will find many threads lamenting over ignorance with “myth this” and “nonsense that.” Again, this is the dirty work that must be done. However, when this bleeds over into the public sphere we get the (undeserved) “cynic” moniker. This is the dilemma we face
In this view, to me it is not a coincidence that people have this conception of us. Because there is orders of magnitude more pseudoscience than science out there, we are always too busy shooting down the junk to do much else. It is imperative that we continue to do this, but if we want people to understand the full range of skepticism we have to also stress the affirmatives. We need to live up to the charge of promoting science and critical thinking. In my observations, this is accomplished primarily within the skeptical community, and any outside exposure that we choose to endorse or create is mainly “debunking.” Don’t misunderstand me, debunking is a worthy cause and someone has to do it, but I want this movement to be positive. We need to be actually thought of as positive by the public, no matter what we may tell ourselves.
This is my call to the skeptical community: we need to get into the habit of promoting good science, critical thinking skills, and good causes in equal amounts with debunking (or at least more than we do now). I am not saying that the skeptical community has never done this, campaigns like “Hug Me I’m Vaccinated” are wonderful promotions of good science and a good cause with a skeptical bent, but I think we can do more. As hard as we try now, we are still faced with the dilemma: to the public a skeptic equals a cynic.
With the same zeal that we handle ESP, homeopathy, and creationists, we can more actively promote a positive skepticism. This aspect of the skeptical movement would probably resemble a general science education program, which many skeptics are trying to branch out into (like Michael Shermer’s new Skepticism 101 program and the JREF’s educational modules), but it is critically lacking in my view. We bemoan the poor state of education in critical thinking, so why not devote at least a few more resources into addressing that problem? My fellow JREF colleague Dr. Steve Novella has just produced a new lecture series aiming to deal with this very issue, but he is in the minority. We have the brainpower and the technical skills to equate in people’s mind science and reason with skepticism. I want a skeptic to be seen as anyone who uses reason to move accurately through the world, and not just someone who doesn’t believe in certain things like Bigfoot or angels.
The skeptical community routinely supports educational organizations like the National Center for Science Education, but perhaps we farm out too much of the responsibility they bear. I am happy to see many skeptic conferences now offering things like museum tours and the like, as it is the love of and interest in science that presumably lead most of us to skepticism. I for one was a science geek all my life and the skeptical movement just happened to fit that upbringing. But I do not see many avenues in the modern skeptical movement that could provide this kind of ground-up education. Compounding the deficiency, the largest skeptical organizations are stretched pretty thin as it is, so it is hard for them to branch out into advocacy.
I know that we are a positive bunch. We love science, we love rationality, and we love the community we are in. I want the public to see us that way. So bring attention to worthy causes, support pro-science organizations (not just the ones we are familiar with) and movements, tweet, blog, or talk about the things we can do to advance skepticism in a positive way. Specifically this could be getting involved with your local school board to give your two cents about the science curriculum. It could be going to a college’s biology colloquium and writing or talking about it with friends. It could be starting a local effort to get your neighborhood vaccinated. Or it could be as simple as taking your kids to a museum instead of the movie theater. Again, these sound less like skeptical goals and more like general science education goals, but to me it is clear that a strong scientific background flows much more easily into skepticism than the other way around (even more obvious if you look at the backgrounds of our best advocates like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Bill Nye, or Phil Plait).
A well-rounded skeptic knows how to sort the science from the pseudoscience, but also does the opposite of debunking by engendering positive skeptical values that inoculate against nonsense. We do not have to be a reactionary movement that has to scramble when the newest irrationality comes out. We can’t be effective as the pseudoscience TSA. By more vigorously promoting scientific inquiry and critical thinking skills, separate from any notions of debunking, we can go on the offensive.
Kyle Hill is the JREF research fellow specializing in communication research and human information processing. He writes daily at the Science-Based Life blog and you can follow him on Twitter here.One thought it would come crashing like a comet through the window. Instead, the challenge to Kashmir’s constitutional "otherness" is creeping in like ivy over the backyard wall.
And who would have thought a little-known Article 35A, and not the famous Article 370, could be the centrepiece of this challenge. Who would have thought things would start moving while Narendra Modi’s BJP is in bed with PDP, the party which comes closest to accommodating the separatist voice in the Valley.
As Mail Today reported first on Thursday, the Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre, an RSS-affiliated think tank operating from a stark office on Delhi’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, is ready to move the Supreme Court challenging Article 35A. It was not part of the Constitution but added by a presidential order on May 14, 1954.
The petitioners contend that then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru got the Constitution illegally amended by first President Rajendra Prasad, bypassing Parliament. Article 370 does not anywhere confer on the President legislative or executive powers so vast that he can amend the Constitution or perform the function of Parliament, the petitioners argue.
Many in the RSS have maintained that the real devil is in Article 35A, not Article 370, because it creates special categories with special rights, and denies even basic rights (including owning land and getting educational seats) to those who are not "permanent residents".
And the creative legal attack on Kashmir’s special powers does not come in isolation. Mail Today principal correspondent Siddhartha Rai’s story in the July 12 edition shows how manual scavengers who had been brought to Kashmir from Punjab by the J&K government in 1957 are set to approach the SC/ST commission and the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis. After nearly six decades of service in the state, they have been denied the right to quit scavenging and choose any other profession.
The other challenge to Article 35A will come from "non-permanent" women residents of the Valley who say they have been denied property and inheritance rights. Some of them will shortly move the National Commission for Women and the National Human Rights Commission.
Even those who fled West Pakistan during Partition and settled in Kashmir are still refugees in the eyes of the state’s laws. One such West Pakistan refugee — a certain Manmohan Singh — whose family migrated to Amritsar, went on to become the prime minister. He would not have come even close to that office if his family were to settle in J&K.
The Sangh Parivar, through its affiliates, is bringing all such strands together to make its case in the Supreme Court stronger.
Its view that Kashmir ought to be brought into mainstream India is old and well-known. It has started its action quietly, insidiously, taking an unpredictable and creative legal route.
The RSS is also looking forward to the stormy debates which would ensue. “We are eagerly waiting for intellectuals like AG Noorani, who support Kashmir’s extraordinary status, to discuss this in public. We would love him to be on a TV debate,” says an RSS senior, smiling.
After the first report in Mail Today, small protests have already started breaking out in the Valley. One such reportedly happened on Saturday in Srinagar.
The first metaphorical stone has been cast. The worry is that in Kashmir, the real ones usually follow swiftly.
The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister's reaction to the article:A government minister has signalled that a French-style ban on women wearing burqas is unlikely to be replicated in the UK, because, he said, the idea was "unBritish" and "undesirable".
The immigration minister, Damian Green, said banning Muslim women from covering their faces in public would be at odds with the UK's "tolerant and mutually respectful society".
The move to ban the burqa was backed by France's lower house last week. With public support, it is expected to pass through the upper house in September. The law will fine women who continue wearing the face covering €150 (£117). Men who make women wear the cover will be given a one-year prison sentence or £25,000 fine.
Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, has tabled a private member's bill calling for parliament to act similarly, saying he personally will not meet women wearing either the burqa or niqab but instead will ask them to "communicate with him differently" by sending a letter.
But Green told the Sunday Telegraph: "I stand personally on the feeling that telling people what they can and can't wear, if they're just walking down the street, is a rather un-British thing to do. We're a tolerant and mutually respectful society.
"There are times, clearly, when you've got to be able to identify yourself, and people have got to be able to see your face, but I think it's very unlikely and it would be undesirable for the British parliament to try and pass a law dictating what people wore."
He said he thought the numbers of women in France wearing the burqa were limited. He added: "They [the French parliament] are doing it for demonstration effects. The French political culture is very different. They are an aggressively secular state. They can ban the burqa, they ban crucifixes in schools and things like that. We have schools run explicitly by religions. I think there's absolutely no read-across to immigration policy from what the French are doing about the burqa."According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple Music now has 13 million paying subscribers, up from 11 million users just two months ago. In a February interview, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi said Apple Music had 11 million subscribers, suggesting impressive growth over the past 10 weeks.Apple Music launched in more than 100 countries on June 30, 2015 and will see its first anniversary in two months. At its current growth rate, Apple Music is on track to have somewhere around 15 million subscribers, gaining significant ground on Spotify, which reported more than 20 million paying subscribers and 75 million active users in the weeks ahead of Apple Music's debut.Since its launch, Apple has heavily promoted Apple Music with exclusive releases and videos from artists like Taylor Swift and Drake and dynamic content on its free Beats 1 radio service. Apple plans to continue on with its Apple Music advertising and in the future, will debut a television show starring Dr. Dre.Apple Music is priced at $9.99 per month for individual users and $14.99 per month for a family of up to six users, which can be paid for using an iTunes account. Apple has seen success with Apple Music in part due to the large number of credit cards already attached to iTunes accounts, making it easy for customers to subscribe to Apple services and purchase Apple content.This is a pretty cool Geekscape exclusive |
But she is a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, well there’s a reaction that’s in our experiences that won’t go away and can sometimes come out in the wrong way. And that’s just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it.” (At least they’re not stupid, the way police are in Obama’s world.)
When it comes to antisemitism, you can’t beat Cynthia McKinney, Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, all of whom get mention in Larry Elder’s powerful piece about the tragedy that is black antisemitism.
Mean-spiritedness
In one of the nastiest put-downs I’ve seen, a condescending Obama tells Hillary she’s “likable enough.” This is the same man who later cracked a joke that quite obviously called his female political opponent a pig. Generally, Obama doesn’t seem comfortable around women. In the White House, he’s subservient to them; on the road, condescending.
Maxine Waters states her devout wish that the Tea Party go “straight to Hell.”
Barack Obama thinks highly of ordinary Americans and the way they respond to economic hard times: “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Despite their secularism, Democrats aren’t above citing God when it suits them. Jennifer Granholm, for example, looking at the weather system heading towards Florida, tweets “R convention delay due to Isaac: I guess God has ways to shut that whole thing down.”
When it comes to mean (and profoundly racist), no one beats the Democrats’ own Rep. Pete Stark:
Corruption and crime
Maxine Waters’ family makes a fortune off the political perks she sends their way.
Ted Kennedy leaves Mary Jo Kopechne to die slowly in a submerged car while he wanders off, showers, calls political fixers, and does whatever else is necessary to hide adultery and manslaughter.
Barney Frank’s boyfriend ran a bisexual brothel in Frank’s home. Frank claimed not to have noticed.
Gerry Studds, while serving in Congress, had a gay sexual relationship with an under-aged page.
Anthony Weiner (married) tweeted nude pictures to a variety of women.
William Jefferson used his political power to extort so much money, he eventually resorted to hiding it in his freezer. I guess he liked cold, hard cash.
Joe Biden plagiarizes a speech by British politician Neil Kinnock. Although it scuttled his 1988 presidential bid, no one is really surprised, because Biden already had the same habit in law school.
Five of Obama’s cabinet nominees (some of whom nevertheless get the go-ahead from a Democrat dominated Congress) have legal problems.
Obama’s safe school’s czar boasts about having protected a pedophile.
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TwitterWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Remember way back in 2006, when everyone was in a frenzy to buy a house, any house, with whatever mortgage they could grab? In many cases, it meant signing up for adjustable-rate mortgages that would reset in half a decade.
A for sale sign sits outside of a house in Miami Beach October 22, 2009. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Move forward those five years and here we are. For the next 13 months, some $20 billion in adjustable-rate loans are scheduled to reset every month, according to figures from Credit Suisse.
That means the interest rates and monthly payments will adjust — in most cases, downward, because of interest rate declines. Homeowners will have to decide whether to keep their loans or replace them with a refinance.
In a few cases, the adjustment of interest-only loans will make the monthly payments go up, even if their interest rates go down. And some homeowners may not be able to refinance, because their homes have dropped in value and they don’t have enough equity to qualify for a new loan.
Anyone sitting on one of these loans now must weigh the options with the idea that today’s low rates are unlikely to last for the life of the loans, which will now begin to reset annually. Here are some considerations.
-- Thank Ben Bernanke. The Federal Reserve chairman's accommodative monetary policy has held the short-term rates upon which adjustable loans are based very, very low. That means that someone who originally took out an average 6.35 percent mortgage five years ago will see their rate adjust to the neighborhood of 3 percent, reports Keith Gumbinger of HSH Associates (www.hsh.com), a research firm.
On a $300,000 loan, their principal and interest payment would drop from the $1,867 they had been paying to $1,329, says Gumbinger. And who couldn’t use an extra $500 or so a month?
— That doesn’t mean you should sit on it. Having that lower payment for a year is dandy, but 25 years (the time remaining on these loans) is a very long time, and rates are likely to rise from their current low levels. Should they blow through the roof, you could end up paying 5 percent next year, 7 percent the year after that, and so on. The maximum level for most variable rate loans made at 6.35 percent is 11.35 percent. Think that can’t happen? They were there in 1985, on the way down from 12.2 percent.
— You have choices. If you think you’re going to be in your home for five years or less, keeping your loan might be the best bet. If you want to stay there a long time, this might be the time to lock in a 30-year rate. At around 4.6 percent, “rates are about the best they’ve been all year,” says mortgage industry consultant Rob Chrisman. Furthermore, this might be your last chance to grab a 30-year, fixed-rate loan, suggests Gumbinger. He’s speculating that they could go away altogether or become much more expensive once Washington reforms mortgage-buying giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
One other option is to refinance your current variable rate loan with a new variable rate loan. That may seem strange, but if you could lock in five years at 3.44 percent (the current going rate on 5/1 ARMs, according to HSH), that might be worth the refi costs. Finally, note that 15-year loans are now running 3.8 percent, says Bankrate. You could take those monthly savings and put them toward the bigger payments that would come with a shorter maturity loan.
-- You'll have to do the math. Compare your options with an online calculator, like the one on Bankrate.com (here).
— Call your bank, if you don’t qualify for any of those new deals. You may not be able to refinance because you’re underwater on the loan, meaning you owe more on the home than it is worth. Or you may have suffered a financial setback and stopped making mortgage payments. Roughly one-third of the resetting mortgages are delinquent, says Credit Suisse. It’s possible the downward reset could make your payment more affordable, and you could catch up. Or that the new low rates will make your lender a little more willing to modify your loan. At the new 3 percent rate, they’ll be giving up a lot less interest than they would have if your rate was still 6 percent.
(The Personal Finance column appears weekly. Linda Stern can be reached at linda.stern(at)thomsonreuters.com)David Paterson being sworn in as Governor; New York Times
One of the very first acts performed by David Paterson as Governor of New York was to sign a law enacting the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement among all of the States and Canadian Provinces around the Great Lakes to protect the lakes from pollution, invasive species and covetous neighbors. To make a bad pun, it is a watershed agreement, an international coalition to protect one of the world's great resources.
Except it has to be approved unanimously and Republican politicians in Wisconsin are playing games, sacrificing one of their greatest assets on the altar of cheesy politics. They don't like co-operating with neighbors- one state senator wrote "To relinquish our sovereignty to a regional body of governors that can make changes after the compact is adopted is unacceptable. Where else do we have a dictatorial or totalitarian form of government where we give up our decision-making authority? I do not support a document that relinquishes our sovereignty to another state"
Detroit News
The Heartland Institute nutbars, noted for their recent success at running the Denial-a-palooza in New York, are also against the deal, writing about Michigan: "Michigan may be the most water-rich of our 50 states. Ninety-nine percent of the state lies within the Great Lakes Basin. Yet its elected officials are moving to support a new "Annex" to the Great Lakes Compact that, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would eliminate the state's sovereignty over its own water resources."
As the editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel note, "The compact does not provide ironclad protection for the Great Lakes; Congress can always supersede it. And it is not without its flaws. But passage would provide much clearer guidance for providing water to communities outside the natural basin of the Great Lakes, as well as political support for keeping that water within the basin." They are demanding a special session of the Legislature to approve it.
As one writer to the Sheboygan Press wrote about the Republican controlled assembly: [they] "push simple-minded hot buttons, spout hollow slogans, and protect the wealthy."
The other 32 million Americans and Canadians downstream from Wisconsin and sharing Great Lakes water should be worried about what is happening up there and considering their options in dealing with a state that considers sharing authority with them "totalitarian and dictatorial".July 26, 2013 Snowden Case Reveals Obama's Personal Arrogance What does it say about a country when it has to assure another country that it will not torture a fugitive should he be returned? What does it say about a country when it has to assure another country that it will not torture a fugitive should he be returned? U.S. Says Snowden Wouldn't Face Death Penalty - Holder Also Rules Out Torture in Bid to Reassure Russia U.S. authorities say National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden wouldn't face the death penalty—and also promise he wouldn't be tortured—in a new letter hoping to persuade Russia not to grant him asylum or refugee status. The Obama administration is handling the Snowden case the most stupid way it could. Wasn't there once some bureau for public diplomacy and strategic communication in the State Department? The Obama administration is handling the Snowden case the most stupid way it could. Wasn't there once some bureau for public diplomacy and strategic communication in the State Department? The administration should have shut up as soon as Snowden went public. Instead it is creating a hero in the eyes of many U.S. people and in the eyes of everyone in the rest of the world. Trying to justify its spying on the whole world, threatening other states over Snowden's asylum and pushing "allies" to bring down foreign presidential planes will endear the U.S. to no one. Besides that - who will believe anything Holder promises? Wasn't it the U.S. which redefined torture into "enhanced interrogation"? Is that the plan for Snowden? Wasn't it the Obama administration and Holden who refused to prosecute anyone but the victims over torture? Isn't the Obama administration accused by the UN special rapporteur on torture of cruel, inhuman and degrading treating of a prisoner in a case similar to Snowden's? By writing that Holden letter the U.S. has publicly humiliated itself. It is a total embarrassment. Putin has made it clear from the very beginning that any extradition of Snowden is not going to happen. Fullstop. Russian officials have repeated that again and even today: Asked by a reporter whether the government's position had changed, Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that "Russia has never extradited anyone and never will." Is that so difficult to understand? Why then is the U.S. even trying? Is that so difficult to understand? Why then is the U.S. even trying? It seems that this an Obama personality issue. He personally asked Putin to extradite Snowden even after Putin had publicly (thereby leaving zero chance to later change that decision) said he would not. Now Obama is miffed. How can HE get rebuked by country like Russia? Two weeks ago, Obama phoned Putin and asked him to send Snowden back to the U.S., but Putin refused, according to one official who was briefed on the call. Following that perceived rebuke, the Obama team doubled down on its new policy to show the Russian government the cold shoulder. “The Snowden affair is definitely affecting U.S.-Russia relations, no question. When you make it clear that something is very important to the U.S. and we are asking for cooperation and that request is rejected, that rejection is going to have an impact on the broader relationship,” said Samuel Charap, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “There’s only so many times you can thumb your nose at a U.S. president and not expect consequences. When the president himself has gotten involved personally and been rebuffed, the rule book kind of goes out the window.” Ahh - the rule book is out of the window. Screw public diplomacy. Just don't care how the world sees the U.S.. It is all about Obama miffed that Putin is "thumbing his nose" at him. Who is this President of the Russian Federation that dares to do so to King Obama of the United States? Ahh - the rule book is out of the window. Screw public diplomacy. Just don't care how the world sees the U.S.. It is all about Obama miffed that Putin is "thumbing his nose" at him. Who is this President of the Russian Federation that dares to do so to King Obama of the United States? Obama's open personal arrogance will cost the U.S. dearly. Posted by b on July 26, 2013 at 01:36 PM | Permalink CommentsWatch:
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While touring Australia, I had the opportunity to sit down with Sebastian Job, Ph.D. Him and I originally met in 2014 through Rak Razam while we are all in Peru to study and work with the plant traditions down there.
He joins us to talk about his path from studying the psychology of racist Russian nationalists to the sociopolitical significance of entheogens. We discuss his personal journey with plant dietas, entheogens and the potential they hold as allies in advancing our local and global sociopolitical context, and his advancement of Terrence’s McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory, which he calls Stoned Cyborg Theory (yes it is as awesome as it sounds, however not nearly as far out as you’d think).
It was a gift to have some a well read and articulate guest to the show and I’m sure you will enjoy this one.Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce acknowledge the audience at Milan Fashion Week on Feb. 24, 2013.
Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
Crime is Slate’s crime blog. Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @slatecrime.
On Wednesday an Italian court found fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana guilty of failing to pay almost $540 million worth of taxes on $1.3 billion in income, and sentenced them each to 20 months in jail. The two men were charged with selling their company to a shell corporation they’d created in Luxembourg to avoid paying Italian taxes, all the while continuing to run their business out of Italy. Even by Italian standards, this is pretty corrupt. But, by fashion industry standards, Dolce and Gabbana’s scheme isn’t anything out of the ordinary.
As Robin Givhan wrote for the Daily Beast last year, “It has become almost redundant to say that an Italian luxury-fashion company is accused of tax evasion. In fact, it would be faster to list the brands that, over the years, have not tangled with the tax authorities.” The son of the founder of Gucci spent a year in prison for tax evasion in 1986. Roberto Cavalli was accused of using company cash to pay for his home renovations. In the mid-1990s, writes Givhan, “Giorgio Armani, Santo Versace, Gianfranco Ferre, Gerolamo Etro, and Krizia’s Mariuccia Mandelli were all accused of paying off tax inspectors in exchange for more favorable audits.”
Italian designers don’t have a monopoly on white-collar crime. In 2002 American footwear mogul Steve Madden was sentenced to 41 months in prison on stock fraud charges. He served less than three years and remains the creative chief of the eponymous shoe brand. Earlier this year, the Ralph Lauren Corp. agreed to pay a $1.6 million fine after being charged with bribing Argentine officials in order to avoid customs inspections.
What’s the common thread (get it??) through all of these incidents? A big one is that none of these brands seems to have suffered as a result of their alleged malfeasance. Sure, a couple of designers went to jail, but not for very long, and when they got out they were still absurdly rich fashion designers who could continue to work in the industry they didn’t really disgrace.
Expect the same for Dolce and Gabbana. The prison sentence will be suspended pending an appeal; NBC News is even reporting that the two men won’t ever have to serve time, as long as they maintain clean records for the next five years. Though information on this next point is scarce, and I expect they’ll have to repay some of the money they withheld, I’m sure they’ll retain enough to live fabulous jet-setting lives. And it’s a given that the fashion industry won’t be bothered by Dolce and Gabbana’s conviction: Earlier today, before the verdict came down, Vogue UK ran a gushing item under the headline “Dolce And Gabbana To Make Latin Lovers Out Of English Men,” pegged to the opening of a new Dolce & Gabbana flagship store in London. Tax fraud is old hat. Looking good is forever.by
Biffy Clyro have become accustomed to be in the same word-group as “aggressive”, “big-sound”, “festival-headliners” and “sold-out-arena-shows-in-front-of-1000s-of-people.” Tonight however the tables were turned as they played an acoustic set in Leeds city centre’s Headrow House to one-hundred very lucky fans, one of their first shows since headlining the famous Edinburgh Hogmanay at New Years Eve. Either sat on lunch benches or leaning upon the café’s walls, the crowd witnessed one of Britain’s most fierce bands strip back and show off their delicate side. A treat for all involved.
Drummer Ben Johnston spoke to Punktastic before the gig, admitting their enjoyment of these types of shows. “It gets us to show the songs in their skeletal form. It’s a really different vibe to the big live rock shows. Fucking nerve racking though, it’s a lot scarier when you can see everyone’s eyes.”
“Hello we are The 1975,” frontman Simon Neil joked as he walked onto the tiny, barrier-less stage. “You’re all so polite,” bassist James Johnston added. Opening with ‘Only Revolutions’’s ‘The Captain’ the trio turned the arena rock crowd-pleaser into a stripped back joy. A trend that followed throughout the near hour long set which included their most famous tracks alongside new songs and rare B-sides.
“Strange all of this early evening stuff. The sun is still up, it all feels very grown up,” Neil said before moving into the first of the new tracks, ‘Medicine.’ Although the full versions of the track remained hidden away, hearing the acoustic version gave the audience a taste of what is to come. ‘Medicine’ was a tender break-up song speaking of a failed relationship. It had a very Machines-esque (a track from 2007’s ‘Puzzle’) feel to it as Simon Neil’s vocals majestically sang the chorus- “tell me why this can’t be love.”
Whistling into ‘Puzzle’ bonus track ‘Drop It’, the Scottish threesome offered a cut rarely played live. Arena favourite and lead track from 2009’s ‘Only Revolutions’, ‘Mountains’, was stripped way back to suit the incredibly intimate setting finishing with Neil joking “Go big or fuck off” as he tried to hit an electronic pedal board that wasn’t there. “Hopefully you won’t be this polite at Leeds Fest,” he laughed.
Usually shirtless during their energetic live shows the trio sat on stools looking very laid back with long hair and tattoos the only indicator of heavier trends. The talent of Ben Johnston shone through as he made a box drum, small kick bass and an egg sound comparably huge. Brother, James, was sat in front with a bass turned way down from its usual eleven alongside Simon Neil; his hair draped over an acoustic guitar.
Playing fan favourite ‘Black Chandelier’ and encouraging tender singalongs to ‘Opposite’ and ‘Machines’, the initial tense and modest crowd had come out of their silent shell with the band noting the “lovely” atmosphere. A testament to their talent in having the ability to be so aggressive and energetic on a big stage yet delicate and near beautiful during this acoustic set.
‘Rearrange’, the evening’s other new track, was delivered with more heartbreaking melancholy about youth and lost love. Neil’s husky voice yet again did the chorus justice – “I would never break your heart, only rearrange the working parts.” Eager ears will have to wait until the 8th July, when the new album drops, until they can hear the full band version.
“It has been an honour to be in the room with so many lucky people,” Neil addressed the competition winners. “Maybe it will rub off on us.” Biffy moved into their final track, ‘Different People’, epitomising what they are best at – big choruses, big melodies and big hearts.
Strong smiles from both the band and the audience gleamed as Biffy exited to a rapturous standing ovation and graciously thanking everyone along the way. Tonight was a once in a lifetime show and displayed how invigorating Biffy Clyro are, both as a band turned plugged in and unplugged.
Alongside the two new tracks on display, the recently released ‘Wolves Of Winter’ and ‘Animal Style’ indicate a new turn in Biffy Clyro’s sound. More experimental then prior albums, Johnston admits “it feels like we’re writing our first album again, it’s a real slap you round the face record.”
Biffy Clyro headline Reading and Leeds festival on August Bank Holiday and tickets are still available.
WORDS: Will Whitby
PHOTOS: Danny PayneFile picture: Supplied by ER24
Johannesburg – A man was killed and four others were injured in an apparent hijacking on the N4 at Woestalleen, Middelburg, ER24 paramedics said in a statement. ER24 spokesperson Ineke van Huyssteen said the incident happened on Tuesday evening.
"It is believed that five suspects attempted to hijack a delivery vehicle when the driver shot at the men killing one and injuring four." Van Huyssteen said when paramedics arrived on the scene, the one suspect had already succumbed to his injuries.
"He was declared dead on scene, the driver and his passengers sustained no injuries."
The four suspects were still at large and SAPS along with the dog unit and other local authorities were on the scene for further investigations.
African News AgencySometimes in life, you hear about someone whose path you wish had crossed your own.
You get a strong sense - even from afar - as to the remarkable nature of a person's life and can't help but feel a little bit robbed that you never met them.
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Kyle Miller seems just that kind of remarkable person.
Lacrosse legend, tooth and nail cancer fighter. Motivator. Burgeoning author. At the age of just 31, taken from his family and community. Not just from Miller's native community of Orangeville, Ontario, but from a much, much larger one filled with fans, friends and acquaintances who were touched by his journey.
Part of that family, the Orangevillle Northmen junior "A" team, began paying tribute to Miller on Sunday night, wearing his initials and number on their helmets. Those same initials and number were added to a memorial banner in their home arena. Others paid tribute to Miller through social media. More will add their thoughts at a memorial service on Thursday.
Miller passed away early Saturday morning, succumbing to the ravages of a second battle with cancer, one he'd fought for nearly two years.
Beyond his decorated lacrosse career - he won four Ivy league titles playing goal for Cornell and a world championship for Canada in 2006, Miller's "can do" spirit and seemingly bottomless well of benefaction are being remembered as well.
"He was literally one of the best people I've ever met in my life. He was funny and thoughtful and loved his family and friends more than anything," wrote Andrew McKay, in an email.
McKay, a Yahoo! Canada editor and columnist with a long and dedicated affiliation to the sport of lacrosse, wrote about Miller on many occasions including this fine piece on his friend's relationship with another legendary lacrosse netminder, the late Chris Sanderson.
Story continues
Miller's lacrosse championships were notable in many ways. Canada had not won the world title in 28 years when he and Sanderson were between the pipes for them in 2006. (You can see Miller make the final save in that victory and the ensuing celebration in the video below. He'd taken over from Sanderson late in the gold medal game with Canada up 15 - 10)
Most notably, that victory, as well as the four titles he was part of at Cornell, came in the wake of Miller having a shin bone replaced as he began to beat back osteosarcoma cancer (the same pernicious disease that the immortal Terry Fox fought) eleven years ago.
It was an incredible recovery and comeback, worthy of astonishment and praise of the highest order but one which Miller apparently saw as just another foe to be defeated.
"He didn't like being sick, but he saw it as just another thing to beat, the same way he had to win the job as Cornell's starting goalie," said McKay.
Beyond the glories of lacrosse, Miller became a dedicated and effective speaker, illustrating the power of triumph over adversity by expressing his own thoughts and emotions around his experiences and had - along with McKay - begun the process of mapping out the structure of a book he'd wanted to write. It's a project that will, hopefully, go on in Miller's memory.
A star as an athlete, it seems Miller equalled or even surpassed that billing as a motivational speaker and it was a role he relished.
"The greatest thing that ever happened to him was getting a grant so he could spend all his time going to schools to talk to students," McKay remembers. "He loved meeting kids and inspiring them."
"It really saddens me to lose a friend, but it also saddens me that there are hundreds of schools and thousands of kids he didn't get a chance to talk to."
Miller kept up his good spirits, when around friends. He'd started a campaign to search for the perfect hat, realizing that chemotherapy was about to rob him of his hair.
As well, in the early stages of his renewed battle, he'd gathered with family and close friends in order to have a decent party with them, knowing that following that, he'd need to revert to a more solitary life, steeling himself for another fight with cancer.
This time, the disease was found in one of his lungs and led to his much too early passing on the weekend.
In a very sad and well-known coincidence, Miller's national team goal mate, Sanderson, was taken by cancer just about a year ago. In the summer of 2011, Miller helped spearhead a benefit drive for Sanderson that accrued some $20,000.00.
He continued to scheme to raise money for cancer research. His search for a perfect hat became something else, an ongoing merchandising fundraiser centred around the theme of 'beat it.'
That is merely one legacy that will no doubt live on, in memory of the astonishing Kyle Miller.
Condolences can be offered through the Dods and McNair Funeral Home, Chapel and Reception Centre.The UN has called on Ireland to amend equality legislation so children can enrol in local schools regardless of their religion or lack of.
In its latest report on Ireland, the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) also called for effective and accessible alternatives to be provided for children who wish to opt out of religion classes in schools.
The UNCRC said it is concerned schools continue to practice discriminatory policies on the basis of a child's religion, and also on the basis of whether the child's parents were former students of a school.
In its strongest recommendations yet on the issue of schooling and the lack of diversity of provision here, the committee said Ireland should take concrete measures to significantly increase the availability of non and multi-denominational education here.
It said this should be done "expeditiously".
It has also called on Ireland to establish an effective complaints mechanism for students in schools, criticising what it called "an incomplete complaints handling structure" in the sector.
98% of primary schools here and many second-level schools are controlled by religious organisations, the vast majority by the Catholic Church.
The UN's recommendations have been welcomed by a variety of groups campaigning for the end of religious dominance in education.
Children's rights organisation EQUATE called on political parties to seriously reflect on the committee's findings and to commit to making equality in classrooms a reality.
A group representing parents campaigning for change, Education Equality, has said urgent action is needed from the incoming government to end religious discrimination in relation to access to schools.
It said the findings show that the current situation is unsustainable.
Advocacy group Atheist Ireland said it's particularly pleased that the committee has specifically called for changes to the Equal Status Act.
Minister for Children and Youth Affairs James Reilly appeared before the committee in Geneva earlier this month.
Overall, the UN report contains 81 recommendations for change.
They include recommendations to combat what the committee calls the discrimination and stigmatisation of Traveller and Roma children and their families.
The committee expressed "deep concern" about the number of Traveller children with no access to adequate water and sanitation, and about families affected by homelessness living in inappropriate temporary or emergency accommodation on a long-term basis.
It recommended the views of children should be heard in matters that concern them.
It calls for the views of the child to be heard in court and for the cost of an expert to support the child in such circumstances to be covered by the State.
The committee said abortion should be decriminalised in all circumstances.
It said sexual and reproductive health education should be made mandatory in schools.
The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has said the UN's observations will be referred to government departments and agencies for their attention.
Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Emily Logan said Ireland has come a long way on “the protection and promotion of children's rights. However, a great deal of work remains to be done".
"These concluding observations form a clear 'to do' list for the State to bring its law, policy and practice in line with international standards on the human rights of children," Ms Logan added.On Monday, Trenton Oldfield won his appeal against Theresa May's decision to deport him to Australia after he carried out a direct action protest against elitism at the Oxford Cambridge boat race in 2012. The home secretary had deemed Oldfield's presence in the UK to be "undesirable" and "not conducive to the public good" after he was convicted of causing a public nuisance when he swam into the Thames and disrupted the boat race last year. Oldfield's win is not only a victory for the right to protest, but a serious defeat for May's deportation policy.
May had delivered a tub-thumping speech to Tory party members at their September conference in which she promised to "deport foreign criminals first, then hear their appeals". In spite of this, at yesterday's tribunal the Home Office's legal representative did not seem to be trying very hard to win the case. He asked few questions of Oldfield and his wife, Deepa Naik, and chose not to quiz the witnesses at all. He presented little evidence, basing his entire case on the fact that Oldfield had carried out a direct action protest. It seemed the Home Office expected to lose. Was this a U-turn in disguise?
May should never have taken the decision to deport Oldfield. In cases of foreigners who serve sentences of less than 12 months, the home secretary has the discretion to order deportation if she considers it to be "in the public interest". Oldfield's crime was to carry out a peaceful direct action protest in the name of equality. At his tribunal hearing, he spoke of how he had not expected to have been dealt with so harshly by the state. Britain, he believed, was a "mature democracy", which this year commemorated 100 years since Emily Davison staged her final protest calling for women's suffrage at the Epsom Derby, where she was trampled by King George V's horse. But the historical tradition that May seems to be following is a quite different one: Britain's shameful history of deporting political activists to Australia – the Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1834, the Chartists in 1842 and the Fenians in 1868, to name but a few.
The state's reaction to Oldfield's protest is one of a long list of the coalition government's repressive responses to dissent. Recall the police brutality and criminalisation with which students were met when they resisted the tripling of student fees three years ago; scenes which were replayed on campuses last week when students staged "cops off campus" protests following the violent eviction of a student occupation calling for an end to the marketisation of education.
Oldfield and his wife have lived through months of anxiety, facing the possibility that their family, including their five-month-old daughter, could be separated from each other. This anguish is felt by thousands of migrants forcibly removed from Britain every year. Addressing the press following his victory, Oldfield called for attention to be focused on all the other migrants "going through the same process". Most deportees do not have the cultural capital and support network from which he, as a white middle class man, has benefitted.
Consider the case of Luqman Onikosi, an anti-racist activist who suffers from hepatitis B and is under threat of deportation to Nigeria, where he will be unable to access treatment. Or Isa Muaza, for whom May ordered an "end of life" plan be drawn up after he went on hunger strike for 100 days in protest at his deportation to Nigeria. Despite being so ill that he had to be carried out of Harmondsworth immigration removal centre in order to be deported, May refused to back down. As a result of his protest, Muaza's case has attracted the support of MPs, the public and celebrities. The home secretary no doubt fears that other migrants in seemingly powerless positions will be similarly inspired to resist deportation through protest.
In carrying out his protest against elitism, Oldfield focused on a symbolic site: the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. In winning his appeal, he succeeded in disrupting something weightier and more sinister: the attempt by May – herself an Oxford alumnus – to use his case to send a message of deterrence to migrants who might consider engaging in political protest.Supreme Court to Consider Whether the Constitution Requires 'One Person, One Vote' or 'One Voter, One Vote'
Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to resolve a redistricting question that has been simmering for over fifty years: does the equal protection clause require that state voter districts be apportioned according to the number of residents or the number of eligible voters? States have, generally, been allowed to decide for themselves whether to use the total state population or some more restrictive populationsay, one that excludes temporary residents and alienswhen drawing districts.
But this question has profound implications for states with large populations of residents who are ineligible to vote like, for example, the state of Texas, where this case originates. Counting residents ineligible to vote for the purposes of apportioning districts tends to give more weight to votes in districts with large numbers of such residents. The argument in this case is that this inequality of voting power violates the equal protection clause. It would be an unusual constitutional standard that allowed votes in some states to be diluted at the whim of the state legislature or (perhaps worse) independent redistricting commissions.
This quickly becomes a political question. Residents not eligible to votelike aliens and felons in many statesjust happen to be concentrated in urban districts, which also tend to be Democratic districts. Shifting voting power from such urban minority districts to rural, generally older white districts will launch a hundred screechy tirades on the internet, but this lawsuit finds support in decades of progressive jurisprudence. The case law implementing the Voting Rights Act has required using population of eligible voters, not population of residents, as the baseline when drawing minority districts. The petitioners in this case want the Supreme Court to find the same principle is required by the equal protection clause.
One thing that the Supreme Court justices will no doubt want to know: how accurate is the states' count of eligible voters? The census gives a pretty good idea of how many residents live in a particular area, but it was not designed to give a precise count of eligible voters. If the high court decides that the equal protection clause requires 'one voter, one vote' districting, how accurate must the count of eligible voters be? Also, this is a state redistricting case, but it is not hard to see how the principle could be extended to congressional redistricting, which would cause some big changes in the House for states like Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, and (gulp) California.WASHINGTON — The United States and allies launched airstrikes against Sunni militants in Syria early Tuesday, unleashing a torrent of cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs from the air and sea on the militants’ de facto capital of Raqqa and along the porous Iraq border.
American fighter jets and armed Predator and Reaper drones, flying alongside warplanes from several Arab allies, struck a broad array of targets in territory controlled by the militants, known as the Islamic State. American defense officials said the targets included weapons supplies, depots, barracks and buildings the militants use for command and control. Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from United States Navy ships in the region.
The strikes are a major turning point in President Obama’s war against the Islamic State and open up a risky new stage of the American military campaign. Until now, the administration had bombed |
in the Fourier decomposition ##\delta \phi = \int \frac{{\rm d}^3k}{(2\pi)^{3/2}}\left(\delta \phi_k(t)\hat{a}_{\bf k}e^{i{\bf k}\cdot{\bf r}}+\delta \phi_k^*(t)\hat{a}^\dagger_{\bf k}e^{-i{\bf k}\cdot{\bf r}}\right)##. back
4Note that these expressions differ from the case of a homogeneous scalar field. Because the field perturbations are functions of space, ##\delta \phi ({\bf x},t)##, so too is the full field value, ##\phi({\bf x},t) = \phi_0(t) + \delta \phi({\bf x},t)##. back
5Yes, the field fluctuation itself is being treated as a free quantum field here. back
6This divergence is actually a gauge artifact, but it does signal that we’re trying to do something nonphysical. It turns out that there actually aren’t any density perturbations in de Sitter inflation, for the simple fact that inflation never ends, anywhere. (Recall the critical role of ##\delta t##—the time lag between reheating events across the universe—in the formation of density perturbations.) back
7The missing ingredient is the fact that the inflaton fluctuations influence the background spacetime, creating curvature perturbations that in turn influence the evolution of the inflaton. A complete treatment must include both curvature and inflaton fluctuations in the equations of motion. backFresh data on worldwide crude production shows the global glut of oil is growing with Saudi Arabia's production near record highs, according to the International Energy Agency.
And there are signs the oversupply is moving into the market for refined products such as gasoline, meaning the recent rally in oil prices could lose steam, the IEA said in a report released today.
OPEC crude supply rose by 160,000 barrels a day to 31.21 million barrels a day in April, the highest since September 2012. Iraq and Iran boosted their output and top exporter Saudi Arabia was increasing its rig count.
There has been a slowdown in U.S. production, but global oil supply is still exceeding demand by two million barrels a day.
Many in the North American oilpatch have accused the Saudis of keeping output high to drive down U.S. production.
On the up side, there has been recovery in demand for crude as the U.S. and European economies gain steam. Demand for crude this year is projected to grow to as high as 1.1 million barrels a day, with the big surge expected later in the year.
U.S. data released today shows commercial crude inventories fell by 2.19 million barrels in the week ended May 8, the second week that inventories have fallen after rising for months.
WTI slips to $60
The new data on the worldwide oil glut hit oil prices in afternoon trading. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 62 cents to $60.13 US a barrel at the close, while Brent oil, the international crude contract, was off 34 cents at $66.52.
Meanwhile, Western Canada Select, the main Canadian contract continued to close the gap with WTI, moving close to its high for the year of $52.50.
Refiners have been buying more crude to take advantage of the low prices and are refining oil for summer driving earlier than usual. The signs of an uptick in oil prices helped accelerate their purchase of crude.
There are plenty of players who predict a fresh downturn in WTI prices as U.S. producers see the higher prices and turn the taps on again.There are spades for digging, blocks for building and a drill for tunnelling or demolition work. Ace of Spades a bit like Minecraft, you might think. Well, there are also rifles for shooting, grenades for exploding and sniper rifles for long range headpopping. It’s a team deathmatch game on large, destructible maps! But when I played it last week, Ace of Spades put me in mind of something else entirely.
Playing on a server full of games journalists*, I was surprised to see how quickly people fell into roles. Teams spawn at what I’ll loosely term a base. On one map it’s an actual building that is on the moon, on another it’s a tree. My personal favourite of the three team deathmatch maps we played has a tower at each end and bridges between them. Whichever map we playing, I’d always hear the tink tink tink of a pickaxe on stone. Somebody was digging.
I never found out who it was, but he was persistent. By the ten minute mark of a game, every time some blew my bonce off from afar I’d reappear at the base and find fresh tunnels and shafts carved into it. And still, tink tink tink. The sound was the only proof of his existence. He was never seen, no matter how deep into his twisted passages we wandered. He had become erosion.
The thing is, nobody asked that man to dig and I don’t even know if he knew why he was doing it. He seemed happy though and occasionally the fractured scenery formed a decent vantage point or secret exit route, so perhaps there was purpose to the tinkering. Maybe he’s still digging.
It was as a bridge fell to pieces, pelted by bazooka fire from our gloating enemies, that I finally banished all comparisons to Minecraft/Infiniminer from my mind. Ace of Spades is much more like a realtime, 3d Worms game. And it’s the best Worms games for ages. It doesn’t have the crazy weapons and the physics are more like those in Scorched Earth than either Minecraft or Team 17’s perpetual product line, but it allows players to build a home, a castle or a warren and then allows everyone else to burn it to the ground.
The Darkside, it used to be called, that side of Worms play. The people who dug deep and planted mines, as if it were ever possible to hide when all the world was war. In Ace of Spades, where there are no turns to take and fortifications can be much more grand, having a few Darksiders about is great. Each class has four prefabricated constructions they can build immediately and if you’re a sniper, like me, you might find that one of your teammates just drops perfect little bunker-towers all over the place. Go teamwork!
For those who aren’t aware of the background, Ace of Spades has been available for a while. Publishers Jagex refer to the original version as a prototype and it was a prototype that I spent a great deal of time with, enjoying the tension of its WWI-esque trench warfare. The announcement of the commercial release concerned me a little because screenshots showed dragons and massive explosions. It’s not that I don’t like those things but the limited toolset available to the tiny, cuboid soldiers were part of the game’s charm.
The dragon doesn’t fly around, smashing levels to bits; it’s part of the scenery, a sculpture looming over a bridge. The explosions are never particularly huge either and guns are still the most important weapon. Dynamite provides the biggest bang and even that will only take chunks out of the larger buildings, while guns will only chip away, damaging blocks before they destroy them completely.
In the original, a spade, a gun and some rudimentary block-stacking transformed the voxel landscapes into nerve-wracking battlefields, but even though there are now four classes, and a selection of modes and maps, the core of the game hasn’t been lost. It’s more frantic than I remember and it doesn’t take long for the world to be pockmarked with craters, but it’s still possible to play patiently, either as an engineer or a sniping scout.
Of the maps we played, my favourites had valleys and/or hills, allowing players to hide rather than just run toward the action with their fingers on the triggers. There’s a moonbase and that didn’t seem to work as well, although low gravity means it’s possible to infiltrate the enemy’s structures in surprising ways. It all felt a bit too empty though, like a large expanse of snow with the occasional mast sticking out of it.
Far better is the zombie mode. I’m going to assume that you already knew there was a zombie mode because this is a computer game. We only saw one map that supports zombies, although there may well be more, and it was a SPOOKY mansion in the middle of a CREEPY graveyard. One player spawns as a zombie, selected randomly, and instead of having a crude, cuboid gun obscuring part of his screen, that lucky specimen has two brilliantly corny grasping corpse-hands to punch the world with. Zombies are very good at smashing things and they run extremely fast, so the defending players are likely to see the bastard thing boring through their fortress like a bullet through butter.
The zombie’s victims respawn as zombies and if everyone gets chomped before time runs out, the dead win. In my experience, zombies will not try to eat people though, they will simply barrel through the ground floor of their home, trying to destroy every support so the whole thing tumbles to the ground. Damage is persistent across rounds too, so when the game is up and the next random zombie is chosen, the once mighty mansion might be a pile of rubble.
Despite all the possibilities that construction, minefields and the like offer, Ace of Spades is a team game that doesn’t require a great deal of communication. It’d be easy to jump into a map with a group of strangers and immediately fit in because playing in the world is a pleasure in itself. Watching a platform fall off a cliff when a sniper takes out the last block holding it in place is entertaining and there’s skill in performing the perfect headshot across the generously sized maps.
It’s not quite as bracing as the original version was and I miss what that game used to be, but it’s another clever use of destructible/constructible worlds that really doesn’t rely on comparisons to Minecraft. It’s not a particularly attractive game, with no clear artistic direction beyond BLOCKS, but I’m definitely looking forward to playing more.
Like I said – it brings back fond memories of the original Worms. Teams blowing the crap out of each other and the environment, building bunkers and trenches that might as well be sand, and probably won’t survive the next wave of carnage. If you’re going to bring that concept into 3d, I reckon this is a damn good way to do it. I’m not sure how many maps will be included, and nor are Jagex yet, but the game will be on Steam and will, so we are told, make full use of the Steam Workshop for map sharing and, hopefully, mods.
*or if not journalists, whatever term you reckon fits
Ace of Spades is out in early December.[Warning: Image contains partial nudity.]
Madonna took to Instagram late Thursday to promote an upcoming anti-Donald Trump protest march – by sharing a photo of a woman with shoe company Nike’s “Just Do It” logo apparently shaved into her public hair.
“Yasssssssss! Just Do it! @nakid_magazine,” Madonna wrote, adding, “1 Million Women’s March!! Be There!! Washington D.C. Jan. 21.”
As Breitbart News previously reported, thousands of women are expected to travel to the nation’s capital for the Women’s March on Washington to protest President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The organization said it wants the event to “send a bold message to our new administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights.”
Earlier this week, singers Katy Perry and Cher and actresses Scarlett Johansson, Zendaya, Debra Messing, and Julianne Moore were announced as being expected to participate in the January 21 event.
Ugly Betty actress America Ferrera, chair of the organization’s “artist table,” said the march is about standing up to the incoming administration.
“Since the election, so many fear that their voices will go unheard,” Ferrera said in a statement. “As artists, women, and most importantly dedicated Americans, it is critical that we stand together in solidarity for the protection, dignity, and rights of our communities. Immigrant rights, worker rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA rights, racial justice and environmental rights are not special interests, they affect us all and should be every American’s concern.”
The Material Girl is just the latest star to come out in support of the event.
The 58-year-old Rebel Heart singer spent months slamming Trump’s campaign, while drumming up support for Hillary Clinton. In October, Madonna famously offered oral sex to anyone who voted for the former Democratic nominee.
Last month, Madonna admitted that Trump’s election left her “devastated.”
“It felt like a combination of the heartbreak and betrayal you feel when someone you love more than anything leaves you, and also a death,” the singer told Billboard. “I feel that way every morning; I wake up and say, ‘Oh, wait, Donald Trump is still the president,’ and it wasn’t a bad dream that I had.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudsonWhen people from rival nations meet in the Pacific Northwest, do their national grudges hold true?
Ever since India and Pakistan were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have been at each other’s throats.
Land disputes over Kashmir led to a series of wars between the two countries, and currently have the two nuclear-armed neighbors into a bitter Cold War.
Right before Indian student Sumit Karn left his home in New Dehli to study journalism at Everett Community College, he found out that one of his roommates would be a Pakistani. Like many Indians, Karn hadn’t ever met a Pakistani before.
Karn’s friends and family warned him about his soon-to-be Pakistani roommate. “They told me to stay away from him, because he is Pakistani and he cannot be a good person,” Karn said.
The India/Pakistan rivalry on full display at the only open border crossing between the two countries.
Adnan Syed, who hails from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, had similarly never met an Indian before Karn.
Syed said there’s a strong sense in some of the more uneducated and rural communities in Pakistan that all Indians are their enemies.
“It was a very strange feeling for me, meeting Sumit for the first time,” he said.
Once the roommates met, they sat down and talked it out. “It’s all about discussion,” said Karn.
Before long, the two were studying, watching cricket matches and learning to cook together. Neither Syed nor Karn said they were good cooks back in their countries, but in Everett they took it upon themselves to learn how to make spicy Indian and Pakistani-style dishes to share.
At Everett Community College in May, Karn and Syed presented a “travelouge” where they invited the community to learn about the controversies between their two nations.
“I met a person from India, so I have a chance now to see how an Indian person is, from very close,” Syed said, “And I have found he is just like me.”
Karn and Syed aren’t the only people to find common ground after bunking together in college.
Eritrea and its southern neighbor, Ethiopia, share a tumultuous history littered with power-grabs, civil wars and border disputes.
In the 1970s, Semone Andu’s father fought against the Russian-backed Ethiopian forces as a guerilla fighter for Eritrean Independence. His dad later fled into Yemen and raised his family there before moving them to the United States in 2001.
Now, Andu is 25 and recent graduate from Washington State University where he majored in Global Politics.
In 2007 Andu discovered that his new roommate at WSU, Dawit Ayana, was from Ethiopia.
It wasn’t long before, Andu’s green, red and blue Eritrean flag hung side by side with Ayana’s Ethiopian flag.
Ayana and Andu had set out to lead by example and represent the ideals of African Unity for the other African students at WSU, said Andu.
“If not us who is going to take the leap,” said Andu, “You cannot be stuck in the past, but you cannot ignore it.”
And while Karn and Syed bonded with cooking and cricket, Anaya and Andu liked to smoke hookah and engage in intellectual conversations with the African community at WSU.
These days, Ayana operates a hookah lounge called Da Spot in Seattle, where many of Andu and Anyan’s friends come to hang out. Andu is writing a book about his father’s time as a guerilla fighter and the sacrifices of the Eritrean people during that period.
With the academic year drawing to an end this week, Karn and Syed are both preparing to head home. But they plan on staying in touch.
“[Karn] has told me, when you get married, you are supposed to invite me and I will dance at your wedding,” Syed said. He adds, “If you really want to see your friend happy, you have to dance at his wedding.”
Syed doesn’t have any marriages lined up quite yet, but he hopes when the time comes, Karn will be allowed to enter the country. He notes that travel between India and Pakistan is scrutinized by the government and sometimes difficult.
Both men intend to use media to educate and connect people back home. Syed will report on the positive influences cricket has on Indian-Pakistani relations. Karn plans on opening up a newspaper in the village where he grew up, and use it as a platform to promote peace.
Karn and Syed weren’t expecting to make peace with a person from a rivaling country when they set off to the United States.
But they’ve been lucky enough to discover that friendship can be the most powerful diplomacy.
0 email[Michel Bauwens has kindly invited me to serialize excerpts from my forthcoming book The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto. Over the next several weeks, I will post two excerpts from each chapter (one excerpt a week).]
State capitalism, with industry organized along mass-production lines, has a chronic tendency to overaccumulation: in other words, its overbuilt plant and equipment are unable to dispose of their full output when running at capacity, and the system tends to generate a surplus that only worsens the crisis over time.
Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, founders of the neo-Marxist Monthly Review, described the Great Depression as “the normal outcome of the workings of the American economic system.” It was the culmination of the “stagnationist tendencies inherent in monopoly capitalism,” and far from being a deviation from economic normality was “the realization in practice of the theoretical norm toward which the system is always tending.” [Monopoly Capital]
Fortunately for corporate capitalism, World War Two postponed the crises for a generation or so, by blowing up most of the plant and equipment in the world outside the United States….
Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy of the Monthly Review group described it… as a virtual rebirth of American capitalism.
…Much capital was destroyed; the diversion of production to wartime needs left a huge backlog of unfilled consumer demand; both producers and consumers were able to pay off debts and build up unprecedented reserves of cash and borrowing power; important new industries (e.g., jet planes) grew from military technologies; drastically changed power relations between and among victorious and defeated nations gave rise to new patterns of trade and capital flows. In a real sense, world capitalism was reborn on new foundations and entered a period in important respects similar to that of its early childhood. [“Capitalism and the Distribution of Income and Wealth,” in The Irreversible Crisis]
Even so, the normal tendency was toward stagnation even during the early postwar “Golden Age.” In the period after WWII, “actual GNP has equaled or exceeded potential” in only ten years. And eight of those were during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. The only two peacetime years in which the economy reached its potential, 1956 and 1973, had notably worse levels of employment than 1929. [John F. Walker and Harold G. Vattner, “Stagnation—Performance and Policy,” in Magdoff and Sweezy, eds., The Irreversible Crisis]
The tendency postwar, as before it, was for the productive capacity of the economy to far outstrip the ability of normal consumption to absorb. The difference:
Whereas in the earlier period this tendency worked itself out in a catastrophic collapse of production… in the postwar period economic energies, instead of lying dormant, have increasingly been channelled into a variety of wasteful, parasitic, and generally unproductive uses…. [T]he point to be emphasized here is that far from having eliminated the stagnationist tendencies inherent in today’s mature monopoly capitalist economy, this process has forced these tendencies to take on new forms and disguises.
The destruction of capital in World War II postponed the crisis of overaccumulation until around 1970, when the industrial capacity of Europe and Japan had been rebuilt. By that time, according to Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, American domestic markets for industrial goods had become saturated. [Second Industrial Divide]
This saturation was simply a resumption of the normal process described by Marx in the third volume of Capital, which World War II had only temporarily set back.
Leaving aside more recent issues of technological development tunneling through the cost floor and reducing the capital outlays needed for manufacturing by one or more orders of magnitude (about which more below), it is still natural for investment opportunities to decline in mature capitalism. According to Magdoff and Sweezy, domestic opportunities for the extensive expansion of capitalist investment were increasingly scarce as the domestic noncapitalist environment shrunk in relative size and the service sectors were increasingly industrialized. And quantitative needs for investment in producer goods decline steadily as industrialization proceeds:
…[T]he demand for investment capital to build up Department I, a factor that bulked large in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is of relatively minor importance today in the advanced capitalist countries. They all have highly developed capital-goods industries which, even in prosperous times, normally operate with a comfortable margin of excess capacity. The upkeep and modernization of these industries—and also of course of existing industries in Department II (consumer goods)—is provided for by depreciation reserves and generates no new net demand for investment capital. * * * …[T]he need for new investment, relative to the size of the system as a whole, had steadily declined and has now reached an historic low. The reproduction of the system is largely self-financing (through depreciation reserves), and existing industries are for the most part operating at low levels of capacity utilization. New industries, on the other hand, are not of the heavy capital-using type and generate a relatively minor demand for additional capital investment.
“Upkeep and modernization” of existing industry is funded almost entirely by retained earnings, and those retained earnings are in fact often far in excess of investment needs….
If anything, Magdoff’s and Sweezy’s remarks on the reduced capital outlays required by new industries were radically understated, given developments of the subsequent twenty years. Newly emerging forms of manufacturing, as we shall see in Chapter Five, require far less capital to undertake production. The desktop revolution has reduced the capital outlays required for music, publishing and software by two orders of magnitude; and the newest open-source designs for computerized machine tools are being produced by hardware hackers for a few hundred dollars.
The result, according to Magdoff and Sweezy, is that “a developed capitalist system such as that of the United States today has the capacity to meet the needs of reproduction and consumption with little or no net investment.” From the early days of the industrial revolution, when “the demand for investment capital seemed virtually unlimited, [and] the supply was narrowly restricted,” mature capitalism has evolved to the point where the opposite is true: the overabundant supply of investment capital is confronted by a dearth of investment opportunities.
Marx, in the third volume of Capital, outlined a series of tendencies that might absorb surplus investment capital and thereby offset the general trend toward a falling direct rate of profit in mature capitalism. And these offsetting tendencies theorized by Marx coincide to a large extent with the expedients actually adopted under developed capitalism. According to Walden Bello the capitalist state, after the resumed crisis of the 1970s, attempted to address the resumed crisis of overproduction with a long series of expedients—including a combination of neoliberal restructuring, globalization, the creation of the tech sector, the housing bubble and intensified suburbanization, and the expansion of the FIRE economy (finance, insurance and real estate)—as successive attempts to soak up surplus capital.
Unfortunately for the state capitalists, the neoliberal model based on offshoring capital has reached its limit; China itself has become saturated with industrial capital. The export-oriented industrialization model in Asia is hitting the walls of both Peak Oil and capital saturation….
Today…, as “goods pile up in wharves from Bangkok to Shanghai, and workers are laid off in record numbers, people in East Asia are beginning to realize they aren’t only experiencing an economic downturn but living through the end of an era.”…
Suburbanization, thanks to Peak Oil and the collapse of the housing bubble, has also ceased to be a viable outlet for surplus capital.
The stagnation of the economy from the 1970s on—every decade since the postwar peak of economic growth in the 1960s has seen lower average rates of annual growth in real GDP compared to the previous decade, right up to the flat growth of the present decade—was associated with a long-term trend in which demand was stimulated mainly by asset bubbles….
But it was only after the collapse of the tech bubble that financialization—the use of derivatives and securitization of debt as surplus capital sponges to soak up investment capital for which no outlet existed in productive industry—really came into its own. As Joshua Holland noted, in most recessions the financial sector contracted along with the rest of the economy; but after the 2000 tech bust it just kept growing, ballooning up to ten percent of the economy. We’re seeing now how that worked out.
Financialization was a way of dealing with a surplus of productive capacity, whose output the population lacked sufficient purchasing power to absorb—a problem exacerbated by the fact that almost all increases in productivity had gone to increasing the wealth of the upper class. Financialization enabled the upper class to lend its increased wealth to the rest of the population, at interest, so they could buy the surplus output.
Conventional analysts and editorialists frequently suggest, to the point of cliche, that the shift from productive investment to speculation in the finance sector is the main cause of our economic ills. But as Magdoff and Sweezy point out, it’s the other way around. The expansion of investment capital against the backdrop of a sluggish economy led to a shift in investment to financial assets, given the lack of demand for further investment in productive capital assets.
It should be obvious that capitalists will not invest in additional capacity when their factories and mines are already able to produce more than the market can absorb. Excess capacity emerged in one industry after another long before the extraordinary surge of speculation and finance in the 1970s, and this was true not only in the United States but throughout the advanced capitalist world. The shift in emphasis from industrial to pecuniary pursuits is equally international in scope.
In any case the housing bubble collapsed, government is unable to reinflate housing and other asset values even with trillion-dollar taxpayer bailouts, and an alarming portion of the population is no longer able to service the debts accumulated in “good times.” Not only are there no inflated asset values to borrow against to fuel demand, but many former participants in the Ditech spending spree are now becoming unemployed or homeless in the Great Deleveraging.
Besides, the problem with debt-inflated consumer demand was that there was barely enough demand to keep the wheels running and absorb the full product of overbuilt industry even when everyone maxed out their credit cards and tapped into their home equity to replace everything they owned every five years. And we’ll never see that kind of demand again. So there’s no getting around the fact that a major portion of existing plant and equipment will be rust in a few years.
State capitalism seems to be running out of safety valves. Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O’Rourke suggest that, given the scale of the decline in industrial output and global trade, the term “Great Recession” may well be over-optimistic. Graphing the rate of collapse in global industrial output and trade from spring 2008 to spring 2009, they found the current rate of decline has actually been steeper than that of 1929-1930. From appearances in early 2009, it was “a Depression-sized event,” with the world “currently undergoing an economic shock every bit as big as the Great Depression shock of 1929-30.”
Left-Keynesian Paul Krugman speculated that the economy narrowly escaped another Great Depression in early 2009.
A few months ago the possibility of falling into the abyss seemed all too real. The financial panic of late 2008 was as severe, in some ways, as the banking panic of the early 1930s, and for a while key economic indicators — world trade, world industrial production, even stock prices — were falling as fast as or faster than they did in 1929-30.
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But in the 1930s the trend lines just kept heading down. This time, the plunge appears to be ending after just one terrible year.
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So what saved us from a full replay of the Great Depression? The answer, almost surely, lies in the very different role played by government….
And we should bear in mind that it’s far from clear the worst has, in fact, been averted. Karl Denninger argues that the main reason GDP fell only 1% in the second quarter of 2009, as opposed to 6% in the first, was increased government spending. As he points out, the fall of investment slowed in the second quarter; but given that it was already cut almost in half, there wasn’t much further it could fall. Exports fell “only” 7% and imports 15.1%; but considering they had already fallen 29.9% and 36.4%, respectively, in the first quarter, this simply means that exports and imports have “collapsed.” Consumer spending fell in the second quarter more than in the first, with a second quarter increase in the rate of “savings” (or rather, of paying down debt). If the rate of collapse is slowing, it’s because there’s so much less distance to fall….
The reduction in global trade is especially severe, considering that the very modest uptick in summer 2009 still left the shortfall from baseline levels far lower in the Great Recession than it was at a comparable point in the Great Depression. As of late summer 2009, world trade was some 20% below the pre-recession baseline, compared to only 8% the same number of months into the Depression…
In any case, if Keynesianism is necessary for the survival of state capitalism, we’re reaching a point at which it is no longer sufficient. If pessimists like Denninger are wrong, and Keynesian policies have indeed turned the free fall into a slow motion collapse, the fact remains that they are insufficient to restore “normalcy”—because normalcy is no longer an option. Keynesianism was sufficient during the postwar “Consensus Capitalism” period only because of the worldwide destruction of plant and equipment in WWII, which postponed the crisis of overaccumulation for a generation or so.
Bello makes the very good point that Keynesianism is not a long-term solution to the present economic difficulties because it ceased to be a solution the first time around.
The Keynesian-inspired activist capitalist state that emerged in the post-World War II period seemed, for a time, to surmount the crisis of overproduction with its regime of relatively high wages and technocratic management of capital-labor relations. However, with the addition of massive new capacity from Japan, Germany, and the newly industrializing countries in the 1960s and 1970s, its ability to do this began to falter. The resulting stagflation — the coincidence of stagnation and inflation — swept throughout the industrialized world in the late 1970s.
Conventional left-Keynesian economists are at a loss to imagine some basis on which a post-bubble economy can ever be reestablished with anything like current levels of output and employment….
The problem is that pre-collapse levels of output can only be absorbed by debt-financed and bubble-inflated purchasing power, and that another bubble on the scale of the tech and real estate booms just ain’t happening.
Keynesianism might be viable as a long-term strategy if deficit stimulus spending were merely a way of bridging the demand shortfall until consumer spending could be restored to normal levels, after which it would use tax revenues in good times to pay down the public debt. But if normal levels of consumer spending won’t come back, it amounts to the U.S. government borrowing $2 trillion this year to shore up consumer spending for this year—with consumer spending falling back to Depression levels next year if another $2 trillion isn’t spent….
So capitalism might be sustainable, in terms of the demand shortfall taken in isolation—if the state is prepared to run a deficit of $1 or $2 trillion a year, every single year, indefinitely. But there will never again be a tax base capable of paying for these outlays, because the implosion of production costs from digital production and small-scale manufacturing technology is destroying the tax base. What we call “normal” levels of demand are a thing of the past. As Paul Krugman points out, as of late fall 2009 stimulus spending is starting to run its course, with no sign of sufficient self-sustaining demand to support increased industrial production; the increasingly likely result is a double dip recession with Part Two in late 2010 or 2011.
So the crisis of overaccumulation exacerbates the fiscal crisis of the state….
Those who combine some degree of “green” sympathy with their Keynesianism have a hard time reconciling the fundamental contradiction involved in the two sides of modern “Progressivism.” You can’t have all the good Michael Moore stuff about full employment and lifetime job security, without the bad stuff about planned obsolescence and vulgar consumerism. Krugman is a good case in point:
I’m fairly optimistic about 2010.
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But what comes after that? Right now everyone is talking about, say, two years of economic stimulus — which makes sense as a planning horizon. Too much of the economic commentary I’ve been reading seems to assume, however, that that’s really all we’ll need — that once a burst of deficit spending turns the economy around we can quickly go back to business as usual.
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In fact, however, things can’t just go back to the way they were before the current crisis….
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The prosperity of a few years ago, such as it was… depended on a huge bubble in housing, which replaced an earlier huge bubble in stocks. And since the housing bubble isn’t coming back, the spending that sustained the economy in the pre-crisis years isn’t coming back either….
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So what will support the economy if cautious consumers and humbled homebuilders aren’t up to the job?…
Krugman first compares the longer duration and greater severity of depressions without countercyclical government policy to those with, and then cites Keynes as an authority in estimating the length of the current Great Recession without countercyclical stimulus spending: “a recession would have to go on until ‘the shortage of capital through use, decay and obsolescence causes a sufficiently obvious scarcity to increase the marginal efficiency.’”
But as he himself suggested in his earlier column, the post-stimulus economy may have much lower “normal” levels of demand than the pre-recession economy, in which case the only effect of the stimulus will be to pump up artificial levels of demand so long as the money is still being spent. In that case, as John Robb argues, the economy will eventually have to settle into a new equilibrium with levels of demand set at much lower levels….
The truth of the matter is, the present economic crisis is not cyclical, but structural. There is excess industrial capacity that will be rust in a few years because we are entering a period of permanently low consumer demand and frugality….
It’s a fairly safe bet we’re in for a period of prolonged economic stagnation and decline, measured in conventional terms. The imploding capital outlays required for manufacturing, thanks to current technological developments, mean that the need for investment capital falls short of available investment funds by at least an order of magnitude. The increasing unenforcability of “intellectual property” means that attempts to put a floor under either mandated capital outlays, overhead, or commodity price, as solutions to the crisis, will fail. Established industry will essentially cut off all net new investment in capital equipment and begin a prolonged process of decay, with employment levels suffering accordingly.
Those who see this as leading to a sudden, catastrophic increase in technological unemployment are probably exaggerating the rate of progression of the crisis. What we’re more likely to see is what Alan Greenspan called a Great Malaise, gradually intensifying over the next couple of decades. Given the toolkit of anti-deflationary measures available to the central bankers, he argued in 1980, the collapse of asset bubbles would never again be allowed to follow its natural course—a “cascading set of bankruptcies” leading to a chain reaction of debt deflation. The central banks, he continued, would “flood the world’s economies with paper claims at the first sign of a problem,” so that a “full-fledged credit deflation” on the pattern of the early 1930s could not happen. And indeed, Sweezy and Magdoff argue, had the government not intervened following the stock market crash of 1987, it’s quite likely the aftermath would have been a deflationary collapse like that of the Depression….
The upshot of this is that the crisis of overaccumulation and underconsumption is likely to be reflected, not in a sudden deflationary catastrophe, but—in Greenspan’s words—a Great Malaise.
Thus in today’s political and institutional environment, a replay of the Great Depression is the Great Malaise. It would not be a period of falling prices and double-digit unemployment, but rather an economy racked with inflation, excessive unemployment (8 to 9 percent), falling productivity, and little hope for a more benevolent future…. [Quoted by Magdoff and Sweezy in “The Great Malaise,” The Irreversible Crisis]
That kind of stagnation is essentially what happened in the late ’30s, after FDR succeeded in pulling the economy back from the cliff of full-scale Depression, but failed to restore anywhere near normal levels of output. From 1936 or so until the beginning of WWII, the economy seemed destined for long-term stagnation with unemployment fluctuating around 15%. In |
-way intercom; play a pre-recorded message; and detect humans in places they’re not supposed to be.
With sensors and lasers, they build a three-dimensional map of their environment that lets them navigate without bumping into anything. Every couple of hours, they find their charging pad and top off their energy during a “coffee break,” Li said.
The robots have not yet led to any arrests, though their presence has sparked some unusual human behavior (Li said some have come back from patrols with lipstick marks). The company drew headlines after a K5 knocked down a toddler and ran over his foot at the Stanford Shopping Center in July. Li declined to comment on the collision, pointing to a company news release that apologized and called the incident “the freakish accident.”
Despite the bumpy start, Knightscope robots have become something of a poster child for a burgeoning sector of service robotics — a fast-growing industry that seeks to break robots free from the factories where they have been confined for decades and release them into the broader world to assist their human creators.
The lure of robots has tantalized Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors. Funding for robotics start-ups hit $587 million last year, up 115% from $273 million in 2014, according to CB Insights.
“We are seeing a record growth of business start-ups that are developing robots,” said Andra Keay, managing director of Silicon Valley Robotics, a nonprofit group that supports these start-ups. “There was a separation between areas that can be automated and areas that can’t — that is changing.”
Many start-ups are seeking to give robots routine tasks requiring the kind of repetition that often leads to human error. Simbe Robotics, based in San Francisco, has Tally, which can audit store inventory aisle by aisle. Savioke, a Silicon Valley firm, has the butler robot Relay, which delivers towels, toothpaste and Starbucks drinks to hotel guests.
It is the world of security, though, where the potential and pitfalls of robotics are perhaps most apparent. Already, Knightscope customers are using robots to patrol parking lots — keeping an eye on cars and acting as a deterrent against speeding drivers. Others are serving as roving security cameras that can roll to possible trouble spots in sprawling corporate campuses. By renting the robots by the hour, many companies, especially those that need around-the-clock security, could save money over time.
Corporate clients are Knightscope’s primary business, but Li and co-founder Stacy Dean Stephens — a bespectacled former cop from Texas who left law enforcement more than a decade ago to dive into the start-up world — see a bigger market for their 3-year-old firm.
They say they have already had meetings with public agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security and several airports, including LAX. But they also believe robots could pave the way for the public itself to get involved in detecting and catching wrongdoers — before, during and after a crime.
When neighborhoods start investing in security robots, locals would be notified on their mobile devices when something suspicious is afoot, Li said. Many homeowner associations have already inquired about renting one.
“If there is a machine-detected anomaly — like someone breaking into a car — we’re going to push a yellow or red alert to everyone nearby in the community,” he said. “Instead of see something, say something, what about see something, do something?”
Eventually, residents will be able to submit tips via an app, Stephens said. The identities of terrorists, such as the brothers behind the Boston Marathon bombing, could be uncovered more quickly, he said.
“There were thousands and thousands of people who were tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming, putting all this stuff out on social media,” said Stephens, who serves as vice president of marketing. “If you could find a way to aggregate that data through an app, and have a way to intelligently comb through it, can you imagine how much faster we could have caught those guys?”
But privacy advocates question whether Americans really want robots patrolling their streets and neighbors leading investigations.
“It opens the door to pervasive surveillance in public spaces,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Robots will capture all of the activity around them — not only the guy who is acting suspiciously, but also the young couple holding hands or a guy just walking down the street.”
The questions multiply as robots gain additional skills, such as facial recognition (on which Knightscope is actively working). Customers could, in theory, ask the robots to flag people who don’t live in their neighborhood — potentially leading to racial profiling.
That kind of behavior has already been a problem for other tech companies dabbling in public safety. Nextdoor, a social network for neighbors, has been trying to rein in what critics describe as racial profiling after many postings warned of suspicious characters who just happened to be African American or Latino. On Reddit, a sprawling online message board community, the collective hive mind wrongly accused individuals of being involved in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Li, a former Ford Motors executive with a head of slicked-back hair, shoots down such doubts with a mix of Silicon Valley zeal and well-practiced salesman’s patter. He calls fear about misuse of robots “false logic,” saying that the authorities would rely on more than tips alone to nab criminals.
At a recent demo event in Irvine, several Southern California companies — including hospital chain St. Joseph Health and real estate services firm CBRE — clustered around the K5 and the more petite K3. As the sun beat down, the crowd watched fixated as Jack Schenk, vice president of business development at Knightscope, ran through some of the robots’ less obvious abilities.
“Now, this is controversial,” Schenk said. “Who has their Wi-Fi on right now?”
Almost everyone raised their hands.
“The robot will access your phone and take its unique ID,” he continued. That enables companies, he said, to “white-list and blacklist” mobile devices. If someone appeared on the blacklist — say a fired employee still toting their company phone — the robot would send an alert. A bag containing a phone not on the preapproved list could indicate corporate espionage, Schenk theorized, or even a bomb.
For Li, these kinds of capabilities will complement human security staff, not replace them, by adding to their ability to see, hear and sniff out danger. Robots could even, in his view, up the appeal of mall cop and security guard jobs by giving the profession a high-tech edge.
“It’s going to turn the security guard and security industry into super humans,” he said.
This is not the first time Li and Stephens have made their pitch to the security world.
The pair were co-founders in Carbon Motors Corp., which set out to build high-tech cars for police use. In 2013, the auto company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, four years after it moved with much fanfare from Atlanta to Connersville, Ind., with the promise of bringing 1,300 jobs. Instead, Carbon Motors burned through about $7 million in public grants; at the time of its bankruptcy filing, the company owed investors and vendors $21.7 million.
Despite that history, security firms appear eager to work with Li and Stephens’ firm. Industry giants Allied Universal and Securitas plan to supply Knightscope robots to their customers.
Knightscope won’t say how robots are working now, but it hopes to deploy 50 to 100 robots by the end of the year.
Allied Universal executives acknowledge that robots could be a big cost savings to their clients — and may replace many human guards.
Steve Claton, president of Allied’s southwest security services, said pay starts at around $12 an hour for its guards, but more seasoned workers can pull in $25 and $30 an hour. Off-duty and retired cops earn upwards of $35 an hour. The nation’s 1.1 million security guards earn an average of $13.68 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That compares with the $10 an hour Allied will charge to rent robots.
“The cost of labor is going up, with the pay raises and healthcare,” Claton said. “We’re at that intersection where it is a viable option to look at replacing a manned position — or augmenting it — with a robot.”
The first jobs to be replaced will be non-sensitive positions, such as the graveyard shift, said Mark McCourt, Allied Universal’s vice president of enterprise services. Eventually, robots could fill positions that he calls “the three Ds” — dull, dangerous and dirty.
“It makes sense to put a robot there,” he said, although some customers still require persuasion, like with any kind of technological advance. “I’m sure people were like, ‘What do we need cars for, we have horses,’” he said with a chuckle.
Rank-and-file security guards are watching the robots with a wary eye.
At the Irvine event, a security guard for the building nodded toward the robots outside: “Here’s my replacement right there.”
“It can’t open doors or pick up packages yet,” the guard said. “Once it gets arms though, it’ll replace all of us.”Sylvia Bataille (born Sylvia Maklès; 1 November 1908 – 23 December 1993) was a French actress of Romanian-Jewish descent.[1] When she was twenty, she married the writer Georges Bataille with whom she had a daughter, the psychoanalyst Laurence Bataille (1930–1986).[2] Georges Bataille and Sylvia separated in 1934 but did not divorce until 1946. Starting in 1938, she was a companion of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan with whom, in 1941, she had a daughter, Judith, today Judith Miller. Sylvia Bataille married Jacques Lacan in 1953.
A pupil of Charles Dullin, Bataille's theatrical debut was with the agit-prop troupe Groupe Octobre, directed by Jacques Prévert. Her film debut came in 1933, and in 1936 she played her most memorable role in Partie de campagne (A Day in the Country) directed by Jean Renoir. Her final appearance was in 1950.
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By: Sharon Aron Baron
Noel Reis lives on a quiet cul de sac in the estates section of the Woodlands Country Club where homes back up to one of the two 18-hole golf courses in the community.
On Thursday, she never expected that when her husband Cary let their Yorkie “Bitty” out, it could have been the last time she saw her precious dog.
Bitty usually doesn’t get up early, but on Thursday around 4:30 a.m., she suddenly had to go, so Cary took her out. Noel believes that Bitty probably heard something outside and wanted to investigate since, despite her small stature, she’s the dominant dog out of their three.
Once outside, Noel said she heard Bitty growl and then heard her high pitched cry which made her leap from her bed. Cary, who was on the patio, ran towards the dog and saw that a coyote had pinned her to the ground. He quickly scared the coyote off the dog, sending it running away.
“Thankfully, he scared it off and it didn’t run off with our five-pound Yorkie” she said.
Fortunately, Bitty had no puncture wounds on her, however she did have blood on her back. Noel shaved the area and cleaned it thoroughly, but could not find a wound, leading her to believe the coyote already had blood on it. She also called her vet in the morning making sure that Bitty was up-to-date on immunizations.
Noel believes that the gate to their pool area was accidentally left open by one of the children which allowed the coyote to get into the patio area.
“We are very thankful that it turned out the way it did,” said Noel who wants others to to be cautious about letting their pets outside. “Many of our neighbors have little little dogs, and if this happened on our patio it can happen on theirs.”
Sharon Aron Baron is the Editor of Talk Media and writer for Tamarac Talk, Coral Springs Talk and Parkland Talk. Tamarac Talk was created in 2010 to provide News, Views and Entertainment for the residents of Tamarac.If you're not afraid of or allergic to them, you could soon spend some time with bees as part of a new program sponsored by the District's Department of Parks and Recreation.
On Monday, DPR announced its urban beekeeping program in partnership with the nonprofit D.C. Beekeepers Alliance. Provided that you are a District resident who's completed a 12-hour course on beekeeping (which, if you didn't know, is legal in this city), you can "apply to keep [your] personally-owned honeybee hive on one of seven DPR-designated" sites.
"Space is very limited," the department advises. "Qualifying applicants will be placed on a waiting list, and offers to participate in the [program] will be extended on a first come, first serve basis."
According to DPR spokesperson Gwen Crump, the seven beekeeping sites for the program are:
Columbia Heights Community Center, 1480 Girard St. NW (Ward 1)
Bruce Monroe Community Garden, 3000 Georgia Ave. NW (Ward 1)
Friendship Community Garden, 45th and Van Ness St. NW (Ward 3)
Twin Oaks Community Garden, 14th and Taylor St. NW (Ward 4)
Upshur Community Garden, 14th and Upshur St. NW (Ward 4)
Trinidad Recreation Center, 1310 Childress St. NE (Ward 5)
Lederer Youth Garden, 4801 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave. NE (Ward 7)
Those interested in the program can apply here. (Mentors are required for it, although they'll be provided if you don't have one, DPR says.) Crump explains that the D.C. Beekeepers Alliance "certifies approximately 75 individuals annually," adding that other beekeeping organizations in the D.C. region also offer courses.
And remember: If you don't get in, it's probably best not to take your anger out on the Beyhive a beehive.
Photo by Darrow MontgomeryAfter months of looking, struggling through Git-SVN glitches and letting things roll around in my head, I’ve finally arrived at a web-focused Git workflow that’s simple, flexible and easy to use.
Some key advantages:
Pushing remote changes automatically updates the live site
Server-based site edits won’t break history
Simple, no special commit rules or requirements
Works with existing sites, no need to redeploy or move files
Overview
The key idea in this system is that the web site exists on the server as a pair of repositories; a bare repository alongside a conventional repository containing the live site. Two simple Git hooks link the pair, automatically pushing and pulling changes between them.
The two repositories:
Hub is a bare repository. All other repositories will be cloned from this.
is a bare repository. All other repositories will be cloned from this. Prime is a standard repository, the live web site is served from its working directory.
Using the pair of repositories is simple and flexible. Remote clones with ssh-access can update the live site with a simple git push to Hub. Any files edited directly on the server are instantly mirrored into Hub upon commit. The whole thing pretty much just works — whichever way it’s used.
Getting ready
Obviously Git is required on the server and any local machines. My shared web host doesn’t offer Git, but it’s easy enough to install Git yourself.
If this is the first time running Git on your webserver, remember to setup your global configuration info. I set a different Git user.name to help distinguish server-based changes in project history.
$ git config --global user.name "Joe, working on the server"
Getting started
The first step is to initialize a new Git repository in the live web site directory on the server, then to add and commit all the site’s files. This is the Prime repository and working copy. Even if history exists in other places, the contents of the live site will be the baseline onto which all other work is merged.
$ cd ~/www $ git init $ git add. $ git commit -m"initial import of pre-existing web files"
Initializing in place also means there is no downtime or need to re-deploy the site, Git just builds a repository around everything that’s already there.
With the live site now safely in Git, create a bare repository outside the web directory, this is Hub.
$ cd; mkdir site_hub.git; cd site_hub.git $ git --bare init Initialized empty Git repository in /home/joe/site_hub.git
Then, from inside Prime’s working directory, add Hub as a remote and push Prime’s master branch:
$ cd ~/www $ git remote add hub ~/site_hub.git $ git remote show hub * remote hub URL: /home/joe/site_hub.git $ git push hub master
Hooks
Two simple Git hooks scripts keep Hub and Prime linked together.
An oft-repeated rule of Git is to never push into a repository that has a work tree attached to it. I tried it, and things do get weird fast. The hub repository exists for this reason. Instead of pushing changes to Prime from Hub, which wouldn’t affect the working copy anyway, Hub uses a hook script which tells Prime to pull changes from Hub.
post-update – Hub repository
This hook is called when Hub receives an update. The script changes directories to the Prime repository working copy then runs a pull from Prime. Pushing changes doesn’t update a repository’s working copy, so it’s necessary to execute this from inside the working copy itself.
#!/bin/sh echo echo "**** Pulling changes into Prime [Hub's post-update hook]" echo cd $HOME/www || exit unset GIT_DIR git pull hub master exec git-update-server-info
post-commit – Prime repository
This hook is called after every commit to send the newly commited changes back up to Hub. Ideally, it’s not common to make changes live on the server, but automating this makes sure site history won’t diverge and create conflicts.
#!/bin/sh echo echo "**** pushing changes to Hub [Prime's post-commit hook]" echo git push hub
With this hook in place, all changes made to Prime’s master branch are immediately available from Hub. Other branches will also be cloned, but won’t affect the site. Because all remote repository access is via SSH urls, only users with shell access to the web server will be able to push and trigger a site update.
Conflicts
This repository-hook arrangement makes it very difficult to accidentally break the live site. Since every commit to Prime is automatically pushed to Hub, all conflicts will be immediately visible to the clones when pushing an update.
However there are a few situations where Prime can diverge from Hub which will require additional steps to fix. If an uncommitted edit leaves Prime in a dirty state, Hub’s post-update pull will fail with an “Entry ‘foo’ not uptodate. Cannot merge.” warning. Committing changes will clean up Prime’s working directory, and the post-update hook will then merge the un-pulled changes.
If a conflict occurs where changes to Prime can’t be merged with Hub, I’ve found the best solution is to push the current state of Prime to a new branch on Hub. The following command, issued from inside Prime, will create a remote “fixme” branch based on the current contents of Prime:
$ git push hub master:refs/heads/fixme
Once that’s in Hub, any remote clone can pull down the new branch and resolve the merge. Trying to resolve a conflict on the server would almost certainly break the site due to Git’s conflict markers.
Housekeeping
Prime’s.git folder is at the root level of the web site, and is probably publicly accessible. To protect the folder and prevent unwanted clones of the repository, add the following to your top-level.htaccess file to forbid web access:
# deny access to the top-level git repository: RewriteEngine On RewriteRule \.git - [F,L]
Troubleshooting
If you’re seeing this error when trying to push to a server repository:
git-receive-pack: command not found fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
Add export PATH=${PATH}:~/bin to your.bashrc file on the server. Thanks to Robert for finding and posting the fix.
Links
These didn’t fit in anywhere else:Marine recruits stand in line before getting lunch in the chow hall during boot camp on February 26, 2013 at MCRD Parris Island, South Carolina. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
A quick little data nugget from the new Harvard Institute of Politics survey of people aged 18 to 29. (We looked at the economics earlier.)
The poll was conducted between Oct. 30 and Nov. 9, with a few questions asked again in the wake of the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris. One of those questions dealt with the willingness of young people to support the use of ground troops in the fight against the Islamic State. Before the attacks in Paris, 47 percent of the people surveyed supported the use of ground troops. After the attacks, that jumped up 13 percentage points, to 6 in 10 adults under 30 years old.
But the very next question added more context. "If the United States needed additional troops to combat the Islamic State," the pollsters asked, "how likely would you be to serve?"
To that question, 85 percent of respondents said they'd probably or definitely not join the military.
In other words, at least 45 percent of people under the age of 30 would like to send troops to fight the Islamic State but wouldn't themselves be willing to go.
This is not a new phenomenon in the post-draft world, to be sure, but it is one that will apparently survive into another generation.When to Study
1. Find out how you use and misuse your time before making any changes. 2. Plan two hours of study time for every hour spent in class.
There are exceptions, but this is a good general rule. Students making the transition from high school or community college are often unaware of the increased workload expected of them. The benefits of following the rule will be apparent at exam time. 3. Study difficult (or boring) subjects first.
If your chemistry problems put you to sleep, get to them first, while you are fresh. Most of us tend to do what we like first, yet the courses we find most difficult require the most creative energy. Save the subjects you enjoy for later. 4. Avoid scheduling marathon study sessions.
When possible, study in shorter sessions. Three three-hour sessions are far more productive for most students than one nine-hour session. When you do study in long sessions, take a planned break every hour. Work on several subjects and avoid studying similar subjects back to back. 5. Be aware of your best time of day.
Many students learn best in daylight hours. Observe yourself and, if this is true of you, schedule study time for your most difficult subjects when the sun is up. The key point is to determine your best learning time. If early morning doesn't work for you, find out what time is better. 6. Use waiting time.
Five minutes waiting time for the bus, 20 minutes waiting for the dentist, 10 minutes between classes -- waiting time adds up fast. Have short study tasks ready to do during these times. For example, carry 3X5 cards with equations, formulas, or definitions and pull them out anywhere. Also, use time between classes or breaks during work to review class notes or notes on reading. A solid review of a lecture can be completed in 15 minutes, and even five minutes can be valuable if you are prepared. 7. Keep a calendar for the semester.
Keep track of all your assignments, tests, and papers. 8. Make a weekly to-do list of important tasks and assignments that you need to complete.
Be sure to prioritize the list and to do the most important tasks first.
Where to Study
1. Use a regular study area.
Your body knows where you are. When you use the same place to study, day after day, your body becomes trained. When you arrive at that particluar place, it will automatically sense that it's time to study. You will focus your concentration more quickly. 2. Don't get too comfortable.
Put yourself into a situation where your mind is alert. 3. Use the library.
Libraries are designed for learning. Entering a library is a signal to your body to quiet the mind and get to work. Most students can get more done in a shorter time at the library. 4. Set up study groups.
A study group doesn't take the place of individual study, but it forces you to articulate concepts and makes a review more fun and productive. Also, it helps keep your review on schedule and helps you to avoid procrastination.
How to Handle the Rest of the World
1. Pay attention to your attention.
Breaks in concentration are often caused by internal interruptions; your own thoughts jump in to tell you another story about the world. If this happens too often, perhaps you need to find a different study time or place. 2. Agree with living mates about study time.
This includes roommates, wives, husbands, parents, and/or kids. Make the rules clear and be sure to follow them yourself. Make explicit agreements -- even written contracts. Hang a "do not disturb" sign on your door. One student always wears a colorful hat when he wants to study. When his roommates see the hat, they respect his wish to be left alone. 3. Avoid noise distractions.
Don't study in front of the TV. Turn off the stereo. Many students insist that they study better with music, and that may be true. Some students have reported good results with carefully selected and controlled music. The overwhelming majority of research indicates that silence is the best form of music for study. 4. Notice how others misuse your time.
Be aware of repeat offenders. Ask yourself if there are certain friends or relatives who consistently interrupt your study time. If avoiding them is impractical, send a clear (but gentle) message. Sometimes others don't realize they are breaking your concentration. 5. Get off the phone/Un-plug from Social Media and Other Distractions
You don't have to be a telephone victim. Try saying, "I can't talk right now, I'm studying" or let the call go to voicemail. Or avoid the whole problem by studying at the library. 6. Learn to say no.
This is a valuable time saver for students, and a valuable life skill. Many people feel it is rude to refuse a request. Saying "no" can be done effectively and courteously. Others want you to succeed as a student. When you tell them that you can't comply with a request because you are busy educating yourself, 99% will understand.
Things to Ask Yourself When You Get StuckLast year, John Blackwell, head of Britain's vets, called for a ban on ritual slaughter. Blackwell worried about the pain that ritual butchering – which does not stun the animals first – might inflict on animals. I argued that if Britain went down the Blackwell route, it would prove that this country valued its cows more than its Jews. I was branded "inhumane" and "Muslim apologist" as a result.
Despite the vet’s proposal, ritual slaughter continues. 2.4 million sheep and goats were killed in halal and kosher abattoirs last year – that marks a 60 per cent increase over the last recorded year.
The obvious reason for this marked increase lies in Muslim immigration – and Muslim birth rates. Of these Muslims in Britain, and British Muslims, a majority will only eat Halal meat: animals that have been killed by slitting their throats and letting them bleed to death.
This ritual is practised by kosher butchers too. And most of the world’s observant Jews, will only eat kosher. Thus, when the gunmen in Paris were looking for Jewish victims, they targeted a kosher deli: "kosher" is synonymous with Jewish, just as Halal is with Muslim.
Herein lies the danger: for those who want to persecute Muslims and Jews, but are afraid to be branded racist or anti-semitic, having a go at their rituals provides a perfect cover up.
They can couch their prejudices in animal-loving claptrap and wear an RSPCA badge as a fig leaf. But their victims are not fooled: when the Danes and the Germans tried to ban ritual slaughter, both Muslim and Jewish communities protested vehemently. In Denmark, to no avail; but the authorities in Germany, more sensitive to accusations of anti-semitism, backed down. They realised that an assault on a religious minority can have horrific consequences.
I would hope that, in the wake of the horrific carnage in Paris, the authorities in this country will do the same.During the past forty years Sea Sonic has never stopped setting new industry standards. Its continuous focus on innovation and perfecting power supply design has made Sea Sonic the leader in power supply design and manufacturing. Like many times before, Seasonic has again arrived at a major breakthrough and it is proud to announce its latest innovation: The Prime Series.Initially, our engineers have set out to create the quietest active cooling power supplies. The creation of the PRIME Series is a renewed testimony of Sea Sonic's determination to push the limits of power supply design in every aspect. This elegant-looking, exclusive lineup of new products will include 80 PLUS Titanium - in the range of 650 W to 1000 W and Platinum-rated units in the range of 550 W to 1200 W, with excellent electrical characteristics, top-level components and fully modular cabling.The culmination of the PRIME Series is the result of Sea Sonic's close collaboration with graphics card manufacturers during the development phase. Undoubtedly, the electrical performance of the series is unsurpassed by any analog power supply on the market today. Seasonic PRIME Series power supplies are made with industrial grade components, employ an innovative circuit design with Zero PCB Cabling, and go through rigorous testing to ensure each unit's amazing load regulation, performance and efficiency. Clean power and prolonged hold-up time (that doubles the current industry standard) are the main characteristics for the ultimate stable performance of the PRIME series power supplies. Sea Sonic strives for the utmost customer satisfaction by demonstrating its commitment to reliable quality with a ten-year manufacturer's warranty.
29 Comments on Sea Sonic Announces its Flagship PRIME Titanium Line of Power Supplies
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#1 R-T-B
Although I presently own a SuperFlower LeadEx based unit (The EVGA Supernova P2 850W), I can't deny I would very much like to see Seasonic do a one up routine on them. I won't need it, this is already good enough for me, but competition never hurts!
And to do such efficiency with double the hold up time certainly SOUNDS impressive... Posted on Jan 10th 2016, 22:32 Reply
#2 [502]
I still have Seasonic-made PSU bought in 2007 powering an old PC. Who would have thought that it'd past its 5-year warranty and still going strong. Been hammering it down since the first day too. When it comes to PSU, I only trust Seasonic and Corsair (doesn't matter who the OEM is, the design and component choice itself are well-thought). Posted on Jan 10th 2016, 22:53 Reply
#3 darkangel0504
I really love Seasonic, Especially my PSU :lol: Posted on Jan 10th 2016, 23:11 Reply
#4 Hood
darkangel0504 said: I really love Seasonic, Especially my PSU :lol: I also use the Cooler Master V1000 (Seasonic KM3 platform). Great PSU! But I would sell it to buy one of these... I also use the Cooler Master V1000 (Seasonic KM3 platform). Great PSU! But I would sell it to buy one of these... Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 0:44 Reply
#5 AsRock
TPU addict Looking forward to seeing the reviews on these. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 0:52 Reply
#6 Assimilator
That's a very clean and simple layout, and a ten-year warranty is class-leading... but I bet they'll cost a ton. I'd like to know the reasoning behind the extended hold-up time, since many PSUs today can't even hit the 16ms ATX standard. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 2:43 Reply
#7 RejZoR
Heh, why do they ALWAYS have to release good stuff after I buy something like that. I like my BeQuiet Dark Power 11 Pro unit, but this one is neat. Just look at the components! It's all nice and "not crammed". It means it'll cool better and run longer. Which tells by a 10 years warranty. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 4:12 Reply
#8 nem
"Extended Hold-up Time (above 30 ms) "
holy shit!!! im very sure only seasonic could make it this ting,
btw this year too arrive raidmax with titanium psus made by Andyson oem... 2016 good year to buy new psu.. :D
Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 4:16 Reply
#9 Jetster
Nice Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 4:16 Reply
#10 rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast I only wish i needed one...these look extremely good. I bet even the 650w unit goes for no less than $180. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 6:38 Reply
#11 Gott
Cool!
Perfect timing for my new build, but when?
I suppose that the smallest will come last? 650W? Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 7:40 Reply
#12 RazrLeaf
I really hope that the PSUs are physically smaller, so they fit in to more compact cases while leaving cable management room. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 8:17 Reply
#13 AsRock
TPU addict Gott said: Cool!
Perfect timing for my new build, but when?
I suppose that the smallest will come last? 650W? I believe it's due April. I believe it's due April. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 8:48 Reply
#14 Parn
Been buying SeaSonic units exclusively for the last 5 years. I guess when the Antec in my home Win2008 server quits working, one of these PRIME units will be my next purchase. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 9:06 Reply
#15 Chaitanya
Finally a worth upgrade to my ancient Coolermaster Real Power M520 which is still powering my main PC. That 650W Titanium rated supply is looking really good. Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 10:53 Reply
#16 hat
Enthusiast Loving the improving efficiency... Posted on Jan 11th 2016, 10:59 Reply
#17 Vlada011
Now Gold standard will be minimum.
I don't know why all companies made same PSU cables...
I would make all cables rounded, rubberized, same as power cord and on end nice plastic finish to cover wires and connector same as end of power cord or USB cable or similar things.
Only ends of connectors will be compatible with all hardware, everything else would be completely different.
That would be accept from market, special in hard core RIGs for people who are want fast and nice solutions and excellent cable management. Posted on Jan 12th 2016, 8:22 Reply
#18 Aquinus
Resident Wat-man btarunr said: Ten-Year Warranty Just when I thought that the 7 year warranty on my 1000-watt Platinum was a lot. :p
I can't say I have any complaints about my Seasonic unit or ones I've bought for other people. Simply a quality brand. Just when I thought that the 7 year warranty on my 1000-watt Platinum was a lot. :pI can't say I have any complaints about my Seasonic unit or ones I've bought for other people. Simply a quality brand. Posted on Jan 12th 2016, 8:32 Reply
#19 shilka
Really looking forward to see how good these are.
But please no coil whine this time around Seasonic. Posted on Jan 12th 2016, 9:36 Reply
#20 rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast shilka said: this time???? 5 different Seasonic PSU's and no coil whine yet. What coil whine are you referring to????? 5 different Seasonic PSU's and no coil whine yet. What coil whine are you referring to? Posted on Jan 12th 2016, 9:39 Reply
#21 shilka
Coil whine on the Platinum series has been a common problem ever since it came out.
Its not a problem on all of the Platinum PSU´s but a good chunck of them have noticeable coil whine on them.
This is common knowledge so its nothing new. Posted on Jan 12th 2016, 10:08 Reply
#22 Parn
shilka said: Coil whine on the Platinum series has been a common problem ever since it came out.
Its not a problem on all of the Platinum PSU´s but a good chunck of them have noticeable coil whine on them.
This is common knowledge so its nothing new. This is more of an QA issue than a poor design by SeaSonic. I currently own a Platinum 660, X-750 KM3, X-400 Fanless, M12D 650 and S12-2 520. None of them produces audible coil whine.
BTW almost all PSUs have some sort of coil whine. It's just the intensity is so low and masked by the noises produced by other components inside the case that users won't notice it.
Now if you're building a fanless silent PC, then yes the coil whine could get really annoying. In thise case RMA the unit. This is more of an QA issue than a poor design by SeaSonic. I currently own a Platinum 660, X-750 KM3, X-400 Fanless, M12D 650 and S12-2 520. None of them produces audible coil whine.BTW almost all PSUs have some sort of coil whine. It's just the intensity is so low and masked by the noises produced by other components inside the case that users won't notice it.Now if you're building a fanless silent PC, then yes the coil whine could get really annoying. In thise case RMA |
scale, two are rated "partially free," and the last one is... India.
What is a vibrant democracy like India doing in the company of countries like Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan? The short answer is that India has been hedging its bets, pursuing closer strategic ties with the United States and Japan while maintaining its long-term security links with Russia.
The start of SCO
The SCO was founded in 2001 by Russia and China to keep the former Soviet republics of Central Asia from falling under American influence. The seemingly quick and easy U.S. victory in Afghanistan put the pressure on Russia and China to consummate the marriage quickly. Russia's Vladimir Putin was a young and energetic leader determined to restore his country's place in the world, and a weak and isolated China was looking for all the friends it could get.
Fast forward 15 years and Putin is now the beleaguered junior partner of China's Xi Jinping. Chronically low oil prices, tightening economic sanctions, and the rapid rise of China have dramatically worsened Russia's strategic position. Russia is desperate to find a way to balance China lest its central Asian client states be tempted to switch over to the Chinese camp.
Read more on Forbes: Why China's New Silk Road Is A Real Game Changer
Enter India. India may be a rapidly modernizing, English-speaking, democratic country, but its army still drives Russian T90 tanks, its air force still flies Russian Sukhoi jets, and its navy's lone aircraft carrier is the Soviet surplus INS Vikramaditya, née Admiral Gorshkov, née Baku (the Russians had to change the name when Baku became the capital of independent Azerbaijan).
India's business elite has close ties with the U.S., but India's security analysts worry about only two things: Pakistan and China. India has fought six wars since independence in 1947: four with Pakistan and two with China. And that doesn't include minor skirmishes like this summer's Doklam Plateau standoff.
Related reading on Forbes: Narendra Modi Stands Firm As China Stands Down Over Doklam
To make matters worse, Pakistan and China have a longstanding All Weather Friendship that far outstrips Pakistan's reluctant and half-hearted collaboration with the U.S. in the war on terror.
India as a counterweight
India is understandably nervous about encirclement, and looking for all the powerful friends it can get. So Russia took the opportunity to pull India into the SCO as a counterweight to China. China responded by insisting that its ally Pakistan be included too. As a result, both countries were admitted to the organization this June at the SCO heads of state meeting in Astana. Balance achieved.
Or perhaps not. Pakistan doesn't change much in the balance at the SCO, which already has four other Muslim-majority police states as members.
India is different. As a vibrant democracy with an independent civil society and an unruly free press, India may not play by the SCO's authoritarian rules. It is unlikely to cause trouble, but it is also unlikely to fall into line on the security issues that are the mainstay of the SCO's program.
With the SCO already riven by ethnic conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, water disputes between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and a running political battle between the presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it is hard to see how the organization will be able to accommodate a new member that has traded punches with China and live fire with Pakistan in the short period between being admitted and attending its first summit.
Russia wanted India in the SCO to prevent the organization sliding under China's control. Instead it is likely to complete the organization's slide into irrelevance. As of last week, the agenda for the meetings to take place November 30 and December 1 had reportedly not yet been finalized. The eight heads of government meeting in Sochi will certainly talk about something, but it's difficult to imagine them agreeing on much.By SM Gibson
Don’t you hate trying to purchase a last–minute gift on Amazon for your 2nd cousin’s kid? You don’t have a clue what to buy in the first place and when you finally settle on some toy you’ve never heard of, you inevitably can’t locate your credit card. Ugh! The last place you remember having it was definitely in your wallet—no, wait, you got it out to order that pizza. It’s not on the table either.
Your mind starts racing and you start throwing couch cushions. Minutes seem like hours. Finally, as the screams between you and your spouse echo through your home, your eye finally spies the elusive piece of plastic. Whew! It was under the chair. What did you need it for again? You can’t remember, but you don’t care. Relief washes over your body. You go back to watching Netflix and forget all about buying the toy. Family members eventually grow offended and you are hassled for your insensitivity. It’s a nightmare.
But worry not! MasterCard just unveiled new technology to prevent this horrendous scenario from ever happening to you again. The only cost will be your privacy.
Forget the creepy notion of having your fingerprints stored in a database to make purchases in the future. In the fall, MasterCard is rolling out a new system that will allow you to make online purchases using your only your face. Look into your webcam or smartphone, blink your eyes, and boom! You just bought the 3rd season of How I Met Your Mother on DVD. And you did it, literally, in the blink of an eye.
“The new generation, which is into selfies … I think they’ll find it cool. They’ll embrace it,” said Ajay Bhalla, MasterCard’s President of Enterprise Safety and Security.
The credit card company believes that this new technology will assist in cutting down on fraud.
Initially, only 500 customers will take part in the pilot program, but once all of the wrinkles are ironed out, MasterCard plans to launch the program publicly.
Major corporations like Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft and BlackBerry are reportedly already on board, as are two major banks.
Along with the pay-by-face option, customers will be able to make purchases with their fingerprint if they choose to do so.
Cyber security experts—or anyone who values their privacy—are more than apprehensive about this new technology.
“I understand why they’d want that data, but no, I do not like it,” said Robert M. Lee, co-founder of consulting firm Dragos Security. “From a privacy aspect it’s awful — but from a business perspective, I don’t understand why they’d accept that risk.”
It is unlikely that even George Orwell could have envisioned such an insane proposition. We, as a human race, should start clinging to the shred of privacy we have left—it could literally be gone in the blink of an eye.Some “Supergirl” fans are convinced that Lena Luthor (Katie McGrath) is hiding something from Kara (Melissa Benoist), and that suspicion leads them to think that Kara should neither trust Lena nor make friends with her. But in an interview previewing the remaining episodes of Season 2, Benoist said that Kara has currently no reason to question Lena’s truthfulness.
“Not at this point, no,” Benoist told Entertainment Weekly when asked if Kara starts doubting Lena’s friendliness to her. “I think they have a really special bond. The allure of the Luthor-Super relationship is so fascinating in the comics. I love where they’re taking it now. She has no caution to being friends with Lena. She just sees a good heart right now.”
And because Kara and Lena’s friendship has really gotten stronger since the latter was introduced to the series, Benoist said that “it would be devastating” if Kara ends up facing off against Lena in the future.
READ: Is there a James-centric “Supergirl” episode coming up?
“Are we who others think we are? Or are we who we want to be? That’s Lena’s journey for the series,” executive producer Andrew Kreisberg told Entertainment Weekly in a separate interview in February. “She’s not adopted, she’s actually truly a Luthor by blood, and is it nature vs. nurture? The audience’s perception of a character named Luthor mirrors the characters’ perception. ‘If your name is Luthor, you must be bad. That name is synonymous with evil.’”
Kreisberg added that Lena’s storyline on the series will further highlight one main difference between Supergirl and her cousin, Superman (Tyler Hoechlin).
“Watching every character have their moment with [Lena] where they doubt and do they believe, it’s so interesting,” Kreisberg said. “Even Clark, when we had Superman on, didn’t trust her because of that name. It’s the difference between Kara and Clark, in our interpretation of these characters, is that Superman is a little jaded after doing this for so long, and Kara is still wide-eyed and fresh-faced and still believes in the goodness in people. Whether or not Kara and Supergirl’s belief in Lena is going to be enough to overcome the corrupting influence of Lillian (Brenda Strong) is the plot of the series.”
It was revealed last month that McGrath was promoted to series regular for Season 3, so this means that the show has more time to develop Kara and Lena’s relationship moving forward.
“Supergirl” returns from its month-long hiatus with Season 2, episode 18 on Monday, April 24 at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.Washington’s unwillingness to use diplomacy to resolve international conflicts has proven remarkably consistent over the past 13 years. Even chalking it up to ineptitude would let the Bush and Obama administrations off the hook for what are apparently more systemic failures. I am referring to an inability to think outside the box, coupled with a kind of policymaking cronyism that automatically limits any ability to craft a careful and proportionate response to developing situations. Ukraine is the latest example of American failure to see what is plainly visible, but one can go through an entire catalog of misconceived policies starting with Bosnia and continuing through Georgia and the interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, all of which have turned out poorly. If the current pattern is repeated, catastrophe awaits as involvement in Ukraine deepens and the drive to somehow confront Iran gains momentum in Congress and the media.
Part of the problem is psychological. The United States has not experienced war on its own soil in any serious way since 1865, nor have many congressmen or journalists actually served in the military. For them war is an abstraction, something that is inflicted on other people but not on the United States. Unfortunately, that assessment of American invulnerability is increasingly fragile. Russia is one of the few world powers that can actually hit back at the U.S. with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, a threat that should not be considered outside the realm of possibility should Moscow be pushed into a corner.
Meanwhile the likely failure to reach an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program will only encourage Tehran to build a weapon, which will in turn likely lead to a profusion of nuclear states in response, including unstable regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. As the number of nuclear weapons in the hands of governments with internal security problems increases, so too does the risk that a stray weapon or weapons will wind up in the hands of genuine terrorists, whose own numbers are also increasing as U.S. policy creates blowback in a number of countries through its poorly thought-out interventions. It is not unthinkable that the devil’s brew of more weapons and more enemies could eventually lead to Condoleezza Rice’s fantasy vision of a mushroom cloud over Washington.
President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been characterized by stops and starts, perhaps not surprising coming from an intelligent man who nevertheless lacked any real understanding of what goes on in the world outside of academia and the Chicago wards. He has been forced to rely on reliably Democratic cronies and frequently self-styled experts to guide him, an understandable if not particularly successful approach that creates little in the way of healthy internal debate. A recent New York Times op-ed by Michael A. McFaul, until recently Obama’s Ambassador to the Russian Federation, very clearly illustrates the problem.
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It is undeniable that McFaul knows a lot about Russia. He is a former professor of political science at Stanford and a fellow at the Hoover Institute. He was a Rhodes Scholar and holds degrees from both Stanford and Oxford in Russian and Slavic studies. He speaks the language and has lived there. After serving on the National Security Council as Special Adviser to the President, he was named Ambassador to the Russian Federation, serving in that post from January 2012 until February of this year.
Appointment to Moscow generally goes to a career diplomat given the complexities of the relationship and the possibility that the wrong choice could have serious consequences. Obama opted to go with someone he was comfortable with instead of State Department professional John Beyrle, who was generally regarded at Foggy Bottom as the best choice for the post, having already served as both Deputy Chief of Mission, the number two position in the embassy, and as acting ambassador. McFaul, unlike Beyrle, is an unrepentant democracy activist. He even wrote a book called Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should and How We Can. When he was appointed ambassador he noted that “the United States can speak out on democracy and Georgia while still seeking cooperation with Moscow in other areas,” setting the stage for confrontation with the Russian government.
McFaul believes that the Cold War never ended satisfactorily because Russia did not become an institutional clone of the United States, a thesis elaborated in his book Russia’s Unfinished Revolution. In his writing McFaul is particularly hard on Vladimir Putin, whom he describes as a reactionary figure seeking to recreate the Soviet Empire, ignoring the fact that the Russian president is very popular among his countrymen if not among some American academics. McFaul describes other scholars who see the Russian leader more favorably than he as “Putin apologists,” while indicting Putin’s government as “Russia’s new autocratic regime.” McFaul’s writings make clear that he believes that U.S.-style democracy, capitalism, and press freedom are universal rights, and that the United States should impose those standards on Russia as a condition of it joining what McFaul refers to as the “international order.”
From the start of his tenure in Moscow, McFaul was sending the Russian government a message. During his first week he met with opposition politicians and groups, even before presenting his credentials at the Foreign Ministry. He was ambassador in October 2012 when the Russian government began to clamp down on foreign government agencies and nongovernment organizations that were active in “democracy promotion” in Russia, noting that many of the groups were little more than pressure groups directed against the freely elected regime in power. In his op-ed McFaul protests against Russian attempts “To continue to spook Russians about American encirclement and internal meddling…” when that is what precisely has been taking place since 1991.
McFaul is a kindred spirit with Obama’s other favorite foreign policy advisers, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. All of them believe that the United States has some civilizing mission to bestow on the rest of the world, and it is all tied up with convincing countries to become democratic. In reality it is little more than a lazy formulation asserting a unique right for America to remake the world in an image of itself, while blatantly ignoring international law and the world opinion.
McFaul’s op-ed is illuminating in that it rests on a number of assumptions derived from the democracy promotion imperative that are at a minimum questionable. He accepts that the United States has license to involve itself in the internal politics of other countries even when their governments object. He also assumes that spreading democracy by whatever means necessary must be a major priority for any American government.
McFaul does not even argue that democracies are less inclined to go to war, which has sometimes been falsely asserted, but instead appears to believe that democracy is a good thing intrinsically. His assumption is, of course, very much dependent on what he means by democracy. Since he is promoting the American brand, it is quite easy to note how U.S.’s democracy is essentially dysfunctional on many major issues like providing accessible health care and balancing the budget. It is also riven by corruption of various kinds from top to bottom. It is hardly a model for the rest of the world and McFaul even admits that its current incarnation does not “inspire,” but he nevertheless argues that it must be imposed on the willing and unwilling alike.
Being an ideologue like McFaul, Rice, Power, and, presumably, Obama makes one choose not to see or recognize certain realities. McFaul writes that “We did not seek this confrontation [with Russia over Ukraine].” He then elaborates, “A revisionist autocratic leader instigated this new confrontation. We did not.” Really? Then the actions undertaken by successive U.S. presidents to deliberately advance NATO into Eastern Europe in spite of pledges not to do so did not occur? Or the $5 billion worth of “investing” or meddling by Ms. Nuland and company in Ukraine, most recently to remove an elected government and replace it with something more to Washington’s taste did not take place? Or the introduction of new missile systems into Eastern Europe was not a provocation? Or the encouragement of the rape of the Russian economy by American and European “entrepreneurs” aided by domestic oligarchs after the fall of the Soviet Union in a rush to create a capitalist economy is a fantasy? I could go on, but it think the point is made that Russia had and has very good reasons to fear an aggressive and frequently out of control United States.
McFaul writes about “Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008…,” undoubtedly a bit of a stretch unless one has been spending too much time with John McCain, and he decries Moscow’s propaganda deriding “American imperialism, immoral practices and alleged plans to overthrow the Putin government.” Surely the suggestion of overthrow is too strong as Washington has no such capability, but the United States has made clear its intention to reform Russia by maneuvering “around the Kremlin.” Most governments would demur at being subverted by paid minions of a foreign state, and is attributing imperialism and immorality to Washington really inaccurate?
McFaul indicts Putin because he wishes “…confrontation with the West, no longer feels constrained by international laws and norms, and is unafraid to wield Russian power to revise the international order.” But surely if one plays with the context a bit, those charges are much better applied to Washington than to Moscow. After calling for considerable international pressure on Russia to punish it, McFaul concludes that democracy will triumph in Russia because “democracies have consolidated at a remarkable pace, while autocracies continue to fall.”
If that is true, and there is inevitability to the transition, it is likely something we all can welcome. And if it will happen anyway, it is certainly not worth restarting the Cold War to hasten the process.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.UPDATE 9/26/16: It looks like the judge is siding with Lil Wayne on this one. A new report from TMZ claims the judge in Wayne and Birdman's lawsuit has ordered Birdman to detail how exactly the $100 million advance was spent. Birdman will have 30 days to get the receipts together for the missing $70 million of the $100 million advance that was to be split between the two, and he'll then have to turn the information over to the judge and Lil Wayne's legal team. According to the report, Birdman's record keeping of the money has been extremely shady thus far, and the 20,000 pages of documents he's turned over have been mostly useless. We'll have to see if this new order forces him to get things together and reveal the truth about where all the money went.
See below for original story published on 9/18/16.
The feud between Lil Wayne and his longtime mentor and Cash Money boss Birdman continues to fester. Lil Wayne has added another accusation of Birdman's greed to his long list of reasons why he wants to leave Cash Money—or at the very least clarifies why his business dealings with Birdman have him supposedly wanting to retire from rap altogether.
POST CONTINUES BELOW
According to legal documents obtained by TMZ, the Young Money honcho claims that Birdman took a reported $70 million of the label's $100 million advance handed to the pair by Universal Music Group's distribution deal, which they had agreed to share. Weezy stated that Birdman had admitted to taking the lump sum for "royalties, marketing, and recording expenses."
Wayne claims that Birdman had not fairly allocated the funds, and now he wants to open up the books in court to determine where that $70 million was spent, per his pending $51 million-lawsuit that he filed against Cash Money Records in January 2015.
Last week, Weezy gained an ally in Rap-A-Lot Records CEO J. Prince to back up his claims against Birdman. J. Prince claims that he will help and knows how to get back the money owed to Wayne by Birdman. Just days prior to J. Prince jumping onboard in Wayne's defense, Wayne declared that he will not allow Birdman to release his long-awaited The Carter V album on Cash Money.
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The legal drama between Birdman and Lil Wayne seemed to briefly quell when both were reunited after it was reported that they had attempted to mend their ways and appeared together at Drake's New Year's Eve party in Miami back in December. Wayne has since publicly sent verbal jabs at Birdman, such as in May when he yelled "F*** the Birdman" at a show in Arizona. In June, Birdman denied any personal strife with Wayne in an interview on Los Angeles hip hop station 92.3 The Beat by Big Boy, saying, "It's not like we're enemies." And just last month, Lil Wayne dissed Cash Money onstage again at his Weezyana Festival in New Orleans.
POST CONTINUES BELOW
For a timeline of this beef between Lil Wayne and Birdman, you can read about the events that led to their acrimonious relationship here.Image caption The mural was thought to have been painted on the wall near Shoreham Street after a previous piece of Rolf Harris' artwork in Sheffield was destroyed in the 1970s.
A mural of Rolf Harris, which has been on a building in Sheffield for more than 20 years, has been painted over.
The entertainer was jailed for five years and nine months after he was found guilty of indecently assaulting girls aged seven to 19.
Harris is believed to have painted the self-portrait in the early 1990s on the wall of the Sheffield Archives.
Labour councillor Isobel Bowler said to keep the mural on show was inappropriate.
"To have a mural depicting a convicted child abuser, it's not appropriate at all," Ms Bowler said.
Image caption Sheffield Council contractors were sent to examine the wall on Friday morning
She added that it would be replaced with street art.
Harris is thought to have painted the mural on the wall near Shoreham Street in the city centre after a previous piece of his artwork in Sheffield had been destroyed.
The previous work was painted at Sheaf Valley Swimming Baths in 1972, but the pool was demolished in 1991.
Meanwhile, following Harris's conviction, Liverpool Hope University said it had withdrawn an honorary degree he had been awarded in 2010.
A spokesperson said: "[The] University Council decided at its meeting held on 3 July 2014 to withdraw the University's honorary award given to Rolf Harris in January 2010.
"This has been communicated to Mr Harris's legal representatives."You can cast webpages from your computer to your Chromecast, but it requires installing a dedicated extension. As it turns out, Chrome's developers are working on cutting out this requirement. In the future, you may be able to cast content without going through any additional setup on your end.
The functionality hasn't made its way to the stable build of Chrome (edit: as a reader has pointed out, yes it has), but you can try the feature out in the beta channel. To do so, enable "Media Router" at chrome://flags/#enable-media-router. After doing so, your browser disables the Chromecast extension, and a "Cast..." option appears in the right-click context menu.
To return things back to normal, simply toggle the flag again. If all goes well, we may see these features make their way to general users in a matter of months.Mark R Robertson -
In May 2013, we wrote about the fact that 100 hours worth of video was being uploaded to YouTube every minute. 18 months is a lifetime on the Internet, so we suspected that this metric was well out-of-date. Although YouTube hasn’t updated its own statistics page, we now know that a staggering 300+ hours worth of video content is being uploaded to the site every minute. That’s the equivalent of 12.5 days worth of uploads every 60 seconds.
Update November 2015: Google has confirmed that 400 hours of video are being uploaded but we forecast the figure is nearer to 500 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the new statistic at the company’s ‘Brand Lab’ partner program session in New York last week, but there hasn’t been an official announcement from the search engine giant as yet. Which is a little odd, considering the amount of headlines Facebook’s share of the video consumption market has generated.
300 Hours Uploaded Every Minute = Even More Opportunity
There may be a three-fold increase in video uploads, but really inspiring, engaging, and relevant content still has every opportunity of being discovered on the site. I’ve never really understood the argument that the more video content gets uploaded to YouTube, the more ‘crowded’ it becomes, and the less chance that creators have to be heard. You don’t really hear the same discussions about the Internet itself. Not once have I heard of a brand declining to go live with a site because the web is already saturated with them.
Yes, there are millions of videos on YouTube, just as there are millions of websites, and social media accounts. You don’t have to aim to go viral every time you upload a branded video, you just need to create the kind of content that YOUR followers can engage with. Use the platform to build that crucial relationship with a target audience who will watch your videos, engage with them, and share them with their social networks. By following the best practices outlined in the YouTube Creator Playbook for Brands, every brand has an opportunity to use YouTube to build visibility, and connect with viewers.
Earned Media: More Video Uploads Could Benefit Your Brand
We’ve written a lot about earned media and the kind of boost that fan-created video content can give a brand. In the case of Minecraft, over 99% of the views generated around its content is for user-generated videos, not for any of the Minecraft branded videos. That’s 31 Billion extra views that the company has been able to take advantage of. In fact, fan-made video game content, like walk-throughs, are crushing brands on YouTube by 19-to-1. We’re seeing the same kind of stats in the beauty and cosmetics vertical, where the major brands have only generated 3% of the 14.9 billion beauty-related video views on the site. So, brands still have an amazing opportunity to reach out to these fan influencers, and collaborate with them on new video content.
Want to know more about the world’s biggest video site? Here are 33 more amazing statistics and facts about YouTube.
BTW – In the 53 minutes that it took me to write this article, there have already been 15,900 Hours worth of video uploaded. If you take into account an estimated average of 5 minutes for each video, that means that there have likely been 190,800 videos uploaded to YouTube. WOW!You used to be able to hit backspace to go back to a previous webpage in Chrome but a month ago, Google indicated that it will be removing this feature in a future update for the web browser. The backspace hotkey was omitted from the Canary release of Chrome and now it has been taken out of the Beta version of the latest update. The end is nigh for users (like myself) who do take advantage of the backspace to return to previous page function. The good news is there is a way to keep it with a Chrome extension, aptly named Back To Backspace. Here are the details.
Using Backspace to go back to a previous webpage is a legacy left behind by older internet browsers like Internet Explorer. It's one of those things you either love or hate; some users may find it frustrating when they're filling out an online form and lose all the information when they accidentally hit the backspace button at the wrong time. Others, namely programmers and individuals who are familiar with keyboard shortcuts would miss this feature terribly.
The removal of this feature in the Beta release of Chrome means that it won't be long before it hits the newest stable version of the browser. If you are a fan of the Backspace to go back shortcut, you can install a Chrome extension called Back To Backspace. Here's the brief description for the extension:
Miss being able to use backspace to go back a page? This extension restores that ability. Just press the backspace key on any page and you'll go back to the previous page you were looking at. Note that this will not happen if you are currently filling out a form or typing into a text area or input box.
So at least you have an option now to keep that precious backspace hotkey. Alternatively, you can use the new shortcut for going back a page that Chrome has introduced: Alt + Back Arrow.
You can get the Back To Backspace extension at the Google Chrome Store.Be honest: Did you see this coming? No, you didn't. Forget Villa, Larin or Giovinco - Nikolic is on fire at the moment.
We are part of The Trust Project What is it?
A few months ago I spoke to Peter Wilt, one of the founding executives of the Chicago Fire and a longtime presence in American professional soccer, for a piece on his current work in and around the NASL. Despite his departure from the club in in 2005, he remains a keen Fire fan and during our conversation took care to note, with approval, the forward Chicago had just signed as a Designated Player a week or two prior.
“[Nemanja] Nikolic is going to be a stud, as long as you can get him the ball,” predicted Wilt. “He's a classic finisher and I think he's going to do really well in MLS.”
Some five months later, Nikolic sits atop the MLS Golden Boot table with 10 goals in his first 11 MLS games, four of them bagged in the past week as the Fire definitively thumped Seattle, then Colorado by three-goal margins at Toyota Park. A side mired in woe for most of the past decade now sits firmly in the Eastern Conference’s playoff positions with a winning record, 18 points from those 11 games, an undefeated home mark and legitimate entertainment value for fans and neutrals alike.
GRAHAM PARKER How statement games become catalysts for changing cultures
The statement sounds a great deal less controversial now than it might’ve a week ago, but it has to be said nonetheless: Nikolic is quite clearly the best striker in MLS at present.
The sample size for Nikolic is relatively small with a shade under 1,000 minutes played, but there’s little obvious inflation or distortion in those numbers. At 0.96 goals per 90 minutes, the Serbian-born Hungary international is averaging effectively a goal per game played, with a shot completion rate of 30.3 percent and only one goal scored from the penalty spot. His roaring start to life in MLS ranks among the best in league history, putting him in the company of some pretty illustrious strikers of the past and present.
The league’s video compilation of Nikolic’s 10 strikes to date hints at the variety of his work, and the diversity of weapons the Fire have arrayed around him.
He has played the No. 9 part, like the firm downward header he applied to a Brandon Vincent cross from deep after drifting in behind Rapids center back Jared Watts on Wednesday. He’s gotten out on the run, finishing clinical counterattack combinations with the jet-heeled David Accam. He’s cleaned up scrap. He will no doubt latch onto a range of midfield service from Bastian Schweinsteiger, Dax McCarty and Juninho in the months and years ahead.
Anyone who says they expected to see Nikolic's name ahead of the likes of David Villa, Sebastian Giovinco and Cyle Larin on the MLS scoring charts at this point is probably fibbing. But with Chicago’s rebuilding plans finally bearing fruit, it’s actually a pretty logical, linear progression from Wilt’s remarks in December to the current state of affairs.
Nikolic’s success is simultaneously a reminder of the league’s increased spending muscle in the global transfer market and its tried-and-true recipes of the past. Remember, this is a player with UEFA Champions League pedigree, one who scored 55 goals in 84 appearances at this last stop, Polish top-flight heavyweights Legia Warsaw, including eight in 21 matches of European (UCL and Europa) competition.
The Fire reportedly plunked down a $3 million transfer fee just for the right to pay him in the vicinity of $1.9 million per season, according to MLS Players Union documents. That salary ranks 16th in the league overall, and in Chicago is second only to Schweinsteiger’s $5.4 million (or thereabouts) package.
Nikolic also sits in the “baller-on-a-budget” sweet spot that smart, pragmatic MLS execs love. Now 29, he’s proved himself at a high level, albeit just far enough out of the brightest limelights to sidestep too high of a salary demand.
Just as Wilt once scoured Eastern Europe to gird the Fire’s first-ever roster with Peter Nowak, Jerzy Podrozny, Roman Kosecki and Lubos Kubik, Nikolic was well-suited for blue-collar Chicagoland, said to be the largest Polish metropolis on earth outside of Warsaw. The missteps of more recent Fire front offices have inevitably inspired a default skepticism – including yours truly – towards the club’s moves. But they got this one right, even if Nikolic’s finishing rates regress towards the mean in the games to come.
Fire supporters may take the most encouragement from the unfussy optimism of the player himself. In Wednesday’s postgame locker room, Nikolic was asked if he’d been surprised by his fast start in MLS.
“No,” answered Nikolic. “Are you?”
Liked this feature? Click here for more from FourFourTwo every dayBuy Photo Richard Larson, owner of Last Chance Auction Company, talks on the phone at his booth in the Sioux Falls Regional Airport on Friday, Oct. 20, 2017. Larson setup the booth including a gun display to encourage out-of-state pheasant hunters to attend his company's auction on Thursday. (Photo: Sam Caravana / Argus Leader)Buy Photo
Rich Larson figured the eve of the pheasant opener in South Dakota would be a great time to promote his firearms auction business.
He rented space at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport with the hope of attracting out-of-town hunters to an upcoming auction. His table included pistols and long guns, and it was right next to a Sioux Falls Police Department table.
CLOSE In the past 20 years, more states have allowed people to carry guns on their person in public. Some doctors say that could be a public health problem. Video provided by Newsy Newslook
To the hundreds of hunters streaming into the airport, it was no big deal. But to others, Larson said, there were looks of astonishment and disgust – a sign of the cultural divide that exists in the United States when it comes to firearms and hunting.
“I’ll tell you, it’s incredible,” Larson said.
More: Birds down but hopes high for pheasant opener
His display provoked a commotion on Twitter when Samuel Sinyangwe Tweeted to more than 96,000 followers that he had just landed at the Sioux Falls airport and discovered guns were being sold there.
“Just landed in Sioux Falls,” he Tweeted. “THEY ARE SELLING GUNS IN THE AIRPORT.”
Just landed in Sioux Falls. THEY ARE SELLING GUNS IN THE AIRPORT. pic.twitter.com/l5REcfs2iy — Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) October 20, 2017
As of 4 p.m. Friday, the tweet has 3,000 retweets and 650 comments
Sinyangwe is a co-founder of Campaign Zero, a group that aims to eliminate police violence. He describes himself on Twitter as a New York based “Black Activist. Data Scientist & Policy Analyst.” He was in town to speak at a couple of Sioux Falls-area businesses.
His Tweet prompted a flurry of responses – many of them of the disgust and astonishment variety and some of them denigrating South Dakotans, white people and “flyover country.” Which then prompted responses and, as often happens on Twitter, the political Tweet war was on.
What many of them didn’t know was that this weekend marks the opening of the pheasant season, a huge event for the state’s economy.
And Twitter being Twitter, they were also responding to a false report. The firearms were only on display – just a few of the items that would be at the next auction.
“These are for an auction,” Larson said. “We’re not selling them here.”
Read or Share this story: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2017/10/20/no-firearms-werent-sale-sioux-falls-regional-airport-friday/785724001/When he hired him in December of 2011, Kansas University athletic director Sheahon Zenger called newly named Kansas University football coach Charlie Weis “the right coach at the right time to help Kansas raise the bar and compete in the Big 12.”
Sunday morning, Zenger admitted he was wrong.
The Journal-World has learned that Weis has been dismissed as KU’s head coach just 28 games into his tenure. KU confirmed the news that was first reported by the Journal-World in a news release shortly after 9 a.m.
Weis becomes the second Kansas coach in the past four years to be let go before reaching the end of his original contract, which he signed in 2011 for five seasons at $2.5 million per year.
“I normally do not favor changing coaches mid-season,” Zenger said in the release. “But I believe we have talented coaches and players in this program, and I think this decision gives our players the best chance to begin making progress right away.”
Zenger continued: “I appreciate what Coach Weis did with several facets of our football program, but we have not made |
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2nd place – 2000 AMPs
3rd place – 1000 AMPs
4th – 20th place: 120 AMPs each.
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This week’s winners:
Bart_Visser StoneWalker UltraRik
_ Angie Obbly alexpfeiffer stlfilmwire music Mike SirDieALot Hamish jeffone ichigo13 MYJO Andreas alexmorenoec ahinga d3693 boytester hERoIC15397
Congratulations to the winners!Democratic candidate for Virginia governor Ralph Northam is not distancing himself from the controversial ad suggesting supporters of Republican candidate Ed Gillespie are seen as Confederates who attack minority children.
The new opposition ad titled “American Nightmare” was released Monday by Democratic group Latino Victory Fund (LVF) and is scheduled to run through Election Day. The opposition ad shows minority children seemingly being chased by a driver in a pickup truck, decked out with a Confederate flag, a “Gillespie for governor” bumper sticker and a “Don’t tread on me” license plate.
The driver makes his way toward the scared children who shout, “Run! Run! Run!” when they see the truck. The ad concludes with a scene of a Charlottesville-like rally, with a narrator asking: “Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the ‘American Dream?’”
Northam’s campaign told Fox News Tuesday that the ad was “not shocking” based on Gillespie’s campaign.
“Independent groups are denouncing Ed Gillespie because he has run the most divisive, fear-mongering campaign in modern history,” Northam campaign spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel said in a statement to Fox News. “It is not shocking that communities of color are scared of what his Trump-like policy positions mean for them.”
But Gillespie said the ad was “an attack on” his “supporters,” whom
he calls “good decent hardworking Virginians who love their neighbors.”
VIRGINIA GOVERNOR RACE: WHO ARE ED GILLESPIE AND RALPH NORTHAM?
“The fact is, whether you disagree with people or not, in Virginia, we respect civil discourse and this is a new low in politics here. It’s a sad day,” Gillespie said on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday. “I was glad when a couple of the Democratic members of our House Delegates yesterday condemned the ad, but outrageously my opponent has embraced it, and it reveals a disdain not just for more supporters but for all Virginians, frankly, who want to have a discussion about issues and policies in this election that I’ve been focused on.”
Gillespie added: “They [Northam campaign] don’t want to debate the issues, and instead of debating the issues, they just demonize, they vilify, they marginalize anyone who disagrees with them.”
In a statement to Fox News, Gillespie’s campaign manager Chris Leavitt called the latest ad part of “a desperate smear campaign” against Gillespie.
“This is no an attack on Ed Gillespie anymore. This is an all-out attack on the people of Virginia,” Leavitt told Fox News. “This latest ad gives us a clear indication of just what Ralph Northam and his national Democratic allies think of all of us, and it’s sickening.”
The LVF ad is not the only one drawing significant criticism in this gubernatorial race.
Northam’s campaign came under fire after a Democratic mailer showing Gillespie and Trump, along with a photo of white nationalists carrying torches in another Charlottesville-like scene. The mailer encourages voters to “stand up to hate.”
Northam has stood by the mailer and slammed Gillespie for not denouncing the president “for not calling these white supremacists out for who they are.”
“Because the message is that we live in a very diverse society. That means that we need to be inclusive,” Northam said, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“The Lieutenant Governor [Northam] was roundly rebuked for exploiting imagery from the tragedy of Charlottesville for political points,” Leavitt said. “Now his allies have reached a new low with a disgusting, vile television ad seeking to instill fear in our children with that same imagery.”
Gillespie has also been criticized for ads that attempt to tie Northam to the MS-13 gang. One ad accuses Northam of being “weak” on combating the gang.
Northam, who is currently the lieutenant governor of Virginia, has had a star-studded roster of Democratic guests on the campaign trail, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, and a fundraiser in New York earlier this month headlined by Hillary Clinton.
Gillespie, on the other hand, has had Vice President Pence with him on the campaign trail, and a fundraiser hosted by President George W. Bush. Gillespie has been endorsed by President Trump, who repeatedly expresses his support for the Republican candidate on Twitter.
Fox News' Kaitlyn Schallhorn contributed to this report.Mitt Romney has too long a record of pandering to plutocrats to have a chance at successfully lying to deny it. A while back, his claim to be unemployed just like them to a group of Floridians drew chortles of disbelief. So he no longer tries. Now he lies trying to justify it. If his infamous claim that “corporations are people too” was not enough, he has added more. One is the implication that we aren’t rich, because we’re too stupid.
In a New York Times op-ed today, billionaire investor Warrenn Buffett renewed his oft-made call for tax increases on the ultra-wealthy. “While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks,” he wrote. “My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.” Today, 2012 GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney — who has a personal net worth between $190 million and $250 million — rejected that argument. Reprising a version of his “corporations are people” argument from last week, Romney claims that Buffett’s taxes are higher than he says they are because he, as a business owner, bears the burden of the corporate income tax [Murdoch delinked]. (This argument comes from a piece by the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore, who explicitly believes that the poor need to pay higher taxes to finance tax cuts for the rich.) Romney went on to claim that raising taxes on the wealthy would actually be a tax increase on small businesses…
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Raising taxes on the poor and middle classes to support welfare for millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals is becoming standard Republican fare. Look what Republicans are doing at the state level, wherever they have complete control.
Ed Shultz has the big whopper.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Dang! I wish I was smart enough to inherit millions and have all those loopholes that Republicans refuse to close!No. In fact, Clinton generally supports nuclear energy. She does not want any nuclear power plants to close prematurely, particularly the New York Indian Point nuclear plant. Clinton says that “rapidly shutting down our nation’s nuclear power fleet puts ideology ahead of science and would make it harder and costlier to build a clean energy future”, agreeing with EPA chief Gina McCarthy, leading climate scientist Dr. James Hansen and almost all nuclear scientists.
Clinton opposes the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository and supports the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission recommendations for our nuclear future.
She is the most reasoned candidate on energy we’ve ever had running for President.
The Clinton campaign laid out a policy goal of achieving 33% of U.S. electricity from non-carbon-emitting sources by 2027, including maintaining our nuclear energy fleet.
Clinton actually cares enough about the environment and global warming to understand we need nuclear, hydro, solar and wind as well as more efficiency, conservation and storage. Clinton has promised to have a half-billion rooftop solar panels installed by 2020.
But Clinton does not support a carbon tax, which many economists believe is the only way to really cut emissions quickly without choosing which low-carbon technologies should be supported by government as is done now with renewable portfolio standards and tax credits.
On the other hand, Donald Trump doesn’t seem to care about energy except as a campaign tool. He has decided it would serve him better to say global warming is a hoax, vow to cancel the Paris agreements, revive the Keystone XL pipeline, and cede his decision-making power on energy to corporate leaders and Wall Street. Even as domestic market forces are moving the energy sector away from coal and towards natural gas, Trump keeps saying he will restore the coal industry and its lost jobs. After supporting exports of LNG, he admitted he didn't know what that stood for.
In general, a Trump Presidency would be a return to the general energy policies of the last century.
President Clinton would also attempt to act fast, which means not involving Congress. John Podesta knows that substantial climate action can only happen without turning to Congress, where climate legislation and discussion of any type of carbon tax would be doomed.
“Secretary Clinton believes that meeting the climate challenge is too important to wait for climate deniers in Congress to pass comprehensive climate legislation,” says John Podesta, chairman of Clinton’s campaign who was also a senior counselor to President Obama.
The all-of-the-above strategy proposed by Clinton and Obama is not really a political position. It has its basis in the realities of technology, geography, the free market, and raw materials. While it is true that we have sufficient fossil fuels, especially in America, to satisfy 100% of our energy needs, that is not the case for most other energy sources.
We could build nuclear power over the next 30 years to become 100% nuclear - we have more than enough uranium fuel for millennia - but the politics make that impossible. The modest global increase in nuclear projected over the next 20 years will maintain nuclear as an important low-carbon source, but will probably not change its relative rank in energy production similar to hydro and behind fossil fuels.
Hydropower is increasing, but again, the modest global increase in hydro projected over the next 20 years will maintain hydro as an important low-carbon source, but will not change its relative rank in energy production behind fossil fuels.
Then there’s the grand hope of renewables, often touted as the savior of the environment. But while many well-intentioned activists, celebrities and leaders insist that wind and solar can provide 80% to 100% of our energy needs, no credible expert agrees. There appear to be insurmountable technological and economic barriers to renewable energy exceeding 15% penetration rates in every major country in the world.
In 2015, China severely curtailed wind and solar production because of intermittency problems, even though they only make up 3% of their electricity mix. England’s largest utility had to issue emergency blackout orders this summer, even though wind and solar make up only 10% of their mix. UK investment in solar is down over 40% from the latest year over year.
Germany is probably the most aggressive country in the world for renewables - wind and solar make up 15% of their electricity mix - but their largest utility posted a seven-billion dollar loss last year and the country’s energy industry appears to be at a standstill.
Even in the United States, with our many renewable portfolio standards, renewable tax credits, and a decade of aggressive building, non-hydro renewables still only make up 5% of our electricity mix. Our largest renewable company filed for bankruptcy protection in April.
But the largest hurdle to renewables is rarely discussed. And that is the limitation of raw materials like steel. Wind requires over five-hundred tons of steel and a thousand tons of concrete, per MW installed, about ten times that of nuclear, coal or gas. And that does not include connecting them all to the grid.
If we will be producing 30 trillion kWhs per year worldwide in 2040, and we want 15 trillion of that to be from wind, then we will need to capture about 8 billion tons of steel to build those turbines and connect them to the grid.
Since we only produce 1.6 billion tons of steel each year worldwide, mostly in China, this is unlikely to occur. Even with projected growth in production and development of new materials, the rest of the world is not going to stop building other things just because we ask them (OurEnergyPolicy.org).
But we might convince them to free up a couple of billion tons to make several million wind turbines as part of a diverse mix that is dominated by wind, solar, nuclear and hydro if, and only if, we make it easy for them to give up fossil fuels.
And that’s why we better focus on an all-of-the-above mix that has as low a fossil fuel component as possible, as high a hydro and nuclear component as possible, and all the renewables that our steel, other metals-production, and logistics can support.
Clinton knows these numbers. Trump doesn’t care for numbers.The federal bankruptcy judge presiding over the Chapter 9 restructuring of Detroit’s finances rejected a $165 million settlement with some of the city’s biggest creditors, suggesting the city could do better, perhaps through a lawsuit.
US Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes ruled late Thursday that the proposed settlement, which would have allowed the city to exit a troubled and complicated pension debt deal, was inconsistent with the goal to get the city on more sound financial footing.
“The court... will not participate or perpetuate hasty and imprudent financial decision-making. It’s just too much money,” Judge Rhodes said in his verbal ruling, adding that the sum was “higher than the highest reasonable number.”
The ruling is significant as it suggests Rhodes will not necessarily rubber stamp whichever deal the state’s emergency financial team presents before him as the result of ongoing settlement talks with the city’s many financial creditors, pension groups, bond insurers, and labor organizations.
“It will be incumbent on parties to prove to him that the settlement is fair and equitable for everyone, including the non-settling parties,” says Michael Sweet, a bankruptcy attorney with Fox Rothschild in San Francisco. “It also shows that he is going to scrutinize settlements, even those brought to him and recommended by his own mediators.”
Rhodes directed both parties back to the negotiating table. As part of his ruling, he allowed the city to borrow $120 million from London-based Barclays to improve city services, specifically emergency services, lighting, utilities, and blight remediation. The process to use the new funds is strict, but could potentially slow services: To access the money, the city must file a court notice, which will allow creditors 14 days to file an objection.
The state emergency financial team, led by emergency financial manager Kevyn Orr, entered mediation on Christmas Eve with UBS AG and Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Capital Services to find a solution to ending a disastrous “swap” deal the city entered in 2005 that is widely credited for helping speed the city to insolvency.
Under that early agreement, the city borrowed $1.44 billion in 2005-06 to help pay down its pension liability. The deal was structured using variable rates, which helped protect the city in case rates increased but not if they fell. So, when interest rates fell in 2008-09, the city took a hit: annual interest payments that grew to approximately $50 million.
Orr’s plan was to have the city exit the agreement with a $165 million payment; both banks were collectively owed $247 million by the end of this year.
Following Rhodes’ decision, Mr. Orr released a statement saying that he was “reviewing” the ruling and pledged to “continue to work toward a resolution of the pension ‘swaps’.”
The decision was applauded by a coalition of creditors at Detroit’s doorstep who fear they will receive smaller payouts from the ongoing restructuring settlements. They include bond insurers Syncora and Financial Guaranty Insurance Co., two pension funds, and several other banks.
Jordan Marks, executive director of the National Public Pension Coalition in Washington, issued a statement Thursday calling the Rhodes ruling “a win for Detroit retirees, who are at risk of being thrown into poverty thanks to unscrupulous practices on Wall Street.”
“At a time when retirees stand to lose 84 cents of every dollar they earned, a payout to Wall Street is unconscionable,” Mr. Marks said.
Rhodes suggested that Detroit would “reasonably likely” win a lawsuit against the banks to recover the $300 million it has already paid. He suggested that the “swaps” deal would likely be ruled invalid in court due to investigations in recent years suggesting they may have been illegal. He added, however, that a lengthy court trial will also be costly, so suggested that more mediation is necessary before reaching that point.
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Mr. Sweet agrees that Orr will first return to the negotiating table before considering a lawsuit: “I would think the next step would still be for them to go another round of mediation or settlement discussions. I don’t think this will result in an immediate firing up of the litigation machine.”
The city faces a March 1 deadline to file a comprehensive debt-cutting plan to Rhodes, which will include the settlement.A sign in front of a foreclosed home
In early October, Bank of America quietly entered into the largest settlement in history to make amends for predatory lending, putting up more than $8 billion to rescue borrowers with faulty loans from Countrywide Financial, a notorious subprime lender recently purchased by the bank. As politicians and regulators haggle over the best approach to modify perilous mortgages and as millions of Americans fall deeper into delinquency, the Bank of America settlement offers a clear path out of the broader problem: Chuck the illegal loans and start over again, making the lawless lenders foot the bill.
Part of the backdrop here is dismayingly familiar. Explosive growth of subprime lending created perverse incentives that led to fraudulently inflated loan terms. What’s less known is that some of these loans were priced higher based on the race of the borrower, with African-Americans and Latinos paying more, in secret, behind-the-scenes deals. Some of this activity will even turn out to have been criminal. There are more than 1,500 open FBI investigations into mortgage fraud, much of it concentrated in the subprime market.
At the same time, many delinquent borrowers don’t know that the terms of their home mortgages may have been the byproduct of fraudulent, discriminatory, or criminal behavior by mortgage brokers and lenders. Before we end up spending billions to rescue subprime borrowers, we should figure out which loans were the products of illegal behavior, rescind them, and rewrite them on terms that are fair and legal. If there is a cost associated with this process, let lenders pick up the tab, which is precisely what Bank of America is doing. This would save taxpayer money by reducing the number of loans that the government would pay to modify. It would also help to stabilize the housing market and lay the blame for much of the subprime crisis at the feet of those most responsible: the lenders who acted like predators.
What’s the evidence that African-Americans and Latinos paid more for loans in a way that’s illegal? A study of lending data from 2006 by the Federal Reserve estimates that roughly 18 percent of the loans made to white borrowers in that year were subprime loans, compared with roughly half the loans made to African-Americans and Latinos during that time. When the study assessed borrowers of similar incomes, 30 percent of African-American borrowers received subprime loans, compared with 18 percent of whites and 26 percent of Latinos. These discrepancies aren’t absolute proof, but they suggest that discriminatory steering took place in which otherwise qualified borrowers of color were directed to subprime, and substandard, loans. Federal law makes it illegal to discriminate based on race in the terms and conditions of a home mortgage loan. It would appear that this is exactly what happened.
This discrimination is at the core of a number of lawsuits advocates have filed across the country over the last year. Several of the cases focus on a particularly devious practice: Without borrower knowledge, many mortgage brokers received a commission from the lender for persuading a borrower to accept a higher loan interest rate than what the bank was otherwise willing to offer. The lawsuits claim that such commissions were paid more often in loans to African-Americans and Latinos than in loans to whites, revealing, again, that lenders often charged borrowers of color more than their white counterparts. As these suits progress, and the groups suing gain access to lenders’ and brokers’ records—e-mails, internal memoranda, training materials, and other documents—we are likely to learn more about the practices of the lenders who are the defendants and about the industry in general.
Discriminating lenders were not the only problem with the housing market that courts should now address. Mortgage brokers rushed into poor communities with exotic subprime loans during the early part of this decade, because these communities were underserved by traditional banks. During the height of the market, nearly half of all subprime loans went through a broker, compared with only 28 percent of prime loans. Brokers also dominated loans made to borrowers of color: 64 percent of African-American borrowers used a broker, compared with only 38 percent of white borrowers.
The problem with this wasn’t the mortgage brokers per se. It was that many prospective borrowers wrongly assumed that the brokers were working in the borrower’s best interest. But in most states, mortgage brokers do not owe any duty to the borrower to find the best possible deal. Many brokers relied on borrowers’ ignorance of the mortgage market to pursue higher commissions and other financial perks for themselves. In much of the country, there’s no legal remedy for this. But a few states require that brokers avoid conflicts of interest and pursue the best deal for the borrower. These states include California, home to about one-quarter of the mortgages in the United States that are in some stage of foreclosure. The Department of Justice, the state attorney general, legal-services attorneys, volunteer lawyers, and law students should all be poring over California loan documents to smoke out the brokers who violated their legally mandated duties to their clients. If a significant number of loans in California alone could be altered, consistent with the borrowers’ abilities to pay, either through litigation or its threat, the federal government wouldn’t have to pay as much for a national bailout.
To date, none of the proposed homeowner-rescue plans acknowledges that a significant number of the homeowners who are in distress were the victims of predatory and illegal practices. Opponents of the plans currently on the table raise three serious objections: First, any massive loan rescue would be costly; second, borrowers in good standing might intentionally default on their mortgages to benefit from a bailout; and third, investors holding securities backed by subprime loans will balk at loan modifications that diminish their already depreciated investments and will sue to stop such efforts.
Going after the lawbreakers helps to address these concerns. It would not only lower the cost of the rescue plan by reducing the number of borrowers needing help, it would also direct assistance only to those people who were victims of illegal conduct and insulate the loan modifications from litigation by investors looking to preserve their investments. Investors won’t challenge loan restructuring when the underlying loans were made on illegal terms. You don’t lend your horse to Jesse James and then sue the stagecoach he robbed to get it back. Investors will have to redirect their fire from the borrowers to the brokers and lenders who did the fancy loan footwork—and perhaps the ratings agencies that blessed it.
Some investors will have to line up in bankruptcy court, since more than 40 subprime lenders have gone belly up in the last two years. But there are some still standing, like Wells Fargo (already facing a discrimination lawsuit brought by elected officials in Baltimore). And where federal and state investigations have already netted criminal indictments in cases of broker and lender fraud, civil liability should follow. Lax enforcement of the laws is clearly one of the many reasons we find ourselves in the current mess. Strict enforcement of those laws would help get us out of it.Labour won’t support airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, says shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn.
This comes after a set of co-ordinated attacks on Friday night in Paris, where at least 127 people were killed. Benn has deemed these attacks an “act of war”. But he told The Independent on Sunday that it was important to bring an end to the Syrian civil war before thinking about British airstrikes against ISIS in the country.
Benn is not an opponent of military intervention, which puts him at odds with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
He said he didn’t think the Government were intending to put forward a proposal to extend airstrikes into Syria, and that he didn’t think they should.
“They have to come up with an overall plan, which they have not done. I think the focus for now is finding a peaceful solution to the civil war.”
“The most useful contribution we can make is to support as a nation the peace talks that have started. That is the single most important thing we can do,” he said.
David Cameron and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon are in favour of extending airstrikes against ISIS from Iraq to Syria. Earlier this month, the Foreign Affairs Committee advised the prime minister to focus on ending Syria’s civil war and not on airstrikes against ISIS.
It is not clear whether Cameron would be able to secure a majority in the House of Commons on this vote as it’s thought up to 30 Conservative MPs might rebel against the Government if this were to come to a vote. The Prime Minister has said he won’t have vote on RAF bombing raids until a “political consensus” has been reached.
Benn told the paper Labour would only thinking about supporting air strikes in Syria if they were supported by the United Nations.
Yesterday, Corbyn stated that the Parisian attacks were against “all of us”, saying “we stand in solidarity with the people of Paris.” He also called against a response which could “feed a cycle of violence and hatred.”
Similarly John Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister, has warned against a response that would escalate violence. In an article in the Daily Mirror, he has said Britain must “stop all military involvement” in the region.
“From Afghanistan, to Iraq and Libya, Britain and the US stoked the unrest that allowed ISIS to emerge and thrive.
So we must stop all military involvement. Sending a drone to kill Mohammed ‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi may appeal to our baser instincts of vengeance. But it will be seen in the Middle East as a state-sponsored execution. Britain and the US as judge, jury and executioner. Just like ISIS.
As the parents of Jim Foley said: “It is a very small solace to learn that Jihadi John may have been killed by the US Government. His death does not bring Jim back.”
So we must stop these drone attacks and take no further active military role in either Iraq or Syria. Let other regional players like Iran take the lead on this,” he writes.
On the Andrew Marr show this morning, Lord Falconer shadow justice secretary reiterated Benn’s thoughts on intervention and said the Labour party expressed solidarity with France and victims of the attack.
Update: Diane Abbott, shadow international development secretary, has echoed Benn’s comments. On Murnaghan this morning she said “a diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war” must be the top of the agenda.“It’s not about dogma, it’s not about gestures, it’s about what works,” she said.
Abbott explained that Labour can only agree to bombing Syria if there’s UN agreement and if there’s a plan to deal with the refugees that would be created by military actions.
She also urged the Government to give more resources to Greece and Italy to vet and “disperse” refugees.Afghan National Army commandos conduct a patrol through a poppy field during a clearing operation in the Khugyani district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, on May 9, 2013.
KABUL — Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan surged by more than a third in 2013, hitting a new record and spreading to two previously poppy-free provinces, the United Nations said in a report on Wednesday.
The increase was driven by high prices for opium poppy last year, as well as possible speculation due to the withdrawal of international troops and next year’s presidential election, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said in its annual Afghanistan Opium Survey.
The level of cultivation – 209,000 hectares (516,000 acres) — broke a previous record of 193,000 hectares set in 2007. The UNDOC estimated that the opium produced from the plant could have increased by 49 percent over the same period in 2012.
The area of cultivation is equal to roughly two-thirds the size of Rhode Island. Opium cultivation accounts for four percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. The country is the largest supplier of opium worldwide.
The vast majority of cultivation in 2013 occurred in nine of Afghanistan’s 34 province. Helmand province — the principal poppy-cultivating region since 2004 — has been a stronghold for the Taliban insurgency throughout the NATO-led 12-year war. Cultivation there increased by 34 percent.
Though it is widely believed that the Taliban’s funding comes from poppy cultivation in these areas, simple economics motivates many growers. The UNDOC said that farmers cited “high income from little land, improving living conditions, and the provision of basic food and shelter for the family.”
Cultivation spread in 2013 to two additional provinces, Faryab and Balkh, in northern Afghanistan, though the level of production there remains low, the report said.
Eradication efforts hardly make a dent in the overall level of cultivation. A total of 7,348 hectares of verified eradication was carried out by Afghanistan’s governors, a decline of 24 percent in relation to 2012.
The “farm-gate value,” or the price of the product sold at the farm level, went up by 13 percent in 2013.
Those farmers who decided to cease growing poppy cited mainly religious beliefs for doing so — that such cultivation is against Islam. The government ban on cultivation was the second-most cited reason, followed by fear of the authorities.
Yury Fedotov, UNODC’s executive director, said that encouraging farmers to switch to legal crops, such as saffron, is an uphill battle.
“It’s hard for or them to sell their products,” Fedotov told Stars and Stripes, “while they don’t have such a problem when they’re growing opium poppy.”
In southern Afghanistan’s Maiwand and Zhari districts, in Kandahar Province, the reduction in U.S. troops near major drug trafficking corridors has allowed Taliban activity to flourish.
Previously, both districts retained a U.S. Army battalion to secure the Highway 1, a major drug-trafficking corridor. There is now just one battalion for both districts, leaving the Afghan army and police to fill the gap.
Fewer checkpoints held by Afghan security forces in Maiwand district have allowed the area to give way to traffickers and insurgents, often putting U.S. troops in danger of hitting IEDs when they do travel the road.
pena.alex@stripes.com
Twitter: @AlexandermpenaUkraine: PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk rules out using force as Russian president Vladimir Putin readies troops
Updated
Ukraine's new prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk says his country is refusing to respond with force to what he calls Russian "provocation" in Crimea.
The increasing instability in Ukraine has seen Western powers including Britain and the United States call for an urgent de-escalation of tensions.
"The inadequate presence of Russian troops on Ukrainian territory is a provocation, and Russian attempts to make Ukraine react with force have failed," Mr Yatsenyuk said at a televised cabinet meeting.
"It is unacceptable when armoured Russian military vehicles are out in the centre of Ukrainian towns.
"We do not give in to provocative actions, we do not use force and we demand that Russia stop its provocative actions and return the troops to base."
The prime minister's comments came as Russian president Vladimir Putin sought approval to move armed forces into Ukrainian territory.
Earlier, Ukraine's defence chief had accused Russia of already sending 6,000 troops and 30 armoured personnel carriers into Crimea, the restive peninsula trying to gain broader independence from new pro-EU leaders in Kiev.
Seven things to know about Crimea The Crimean Peninsula is rich in arable land and occupies a strategically important location on the Black Sea.
Crimea has a population of 2.3 million, 58 per cent of whom speak Russian and identify themselves as ethnic Russians.
The Soviet Union transferred authority over Crimea to Ukraine in 1954.
Ukraine retained control after the collapse of the USSR in a 1994 agreement brokered by the US, UK and France.
Russia's major naval base is located in Sevastopol and is the base for their Black Sea Fleet. Russia's lease on the base expires in 2042.
The lease states that Russian personnel may not remove military equipment or vehicles outside the base without permission from Ukraine.
The region was a stronghold for ousted president Viktor Yanukovych.
Defence minister Igor Tenyukh told the cabinet meeting that Russia began sending these reinforcements on Friday "without warning or Ukraine's permission, in defiance of the principle of non-infringement of state borders."
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, says Ukraine's new government has to be allowed to do its work.
"The United States would condemn any move to undermine Ukraine's sovereignty or territorial integrity which we expect all states to respect," she said.
"The best way for the people of Crimea to achieve their goals is to work peacefully within the established political system.
"To this end the United States calls for an urgent international mediation mission to the Crimea to begin to de-escalate the situation."
British foreign secretary William Hague will visit Kiev on Sunday for talks with the interim Ukrainian government, a British foreign office spokesman said.
The spokesman had no further details about the trip, but Mr Hague tweeted: "Have just spoken to Acting President [Oleksandr] Turchynov. I will travel to Kiev on Sunday for talks with the new government."
Mr Hague also spoke to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and called for a "de-escalation" of tensions.
Putin requests use of armed forces amid pro-Russian rallies
Mr Putin on Saturday submitted a request to the upper house of parliament asking for approval for the use of Russian troops in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.
"In connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine and the threat to the lives of Russian citizens... I submit to the Federation Council a request to use the armed forces of the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory until the normalisation of the political situation in that country," the Kremlin quoted Mr Putin as saying in the document.
Russia's parliament, flying in the face of US president Barack Obama's warning against any Russian intervention, had earlier urged Mr Putin to "to take measures to stabilise the situation in Crimea and use all available means to protect the people of Crimea from tyranny and violence".
More than 10,000 people carrying Russian flags were protesting on Saturday in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the stronghold of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych, an AFP journalist said.
Protesters declared they supported "the aspirations of Crimea to rejoin Russia".
"Russia! Russia!", they shouted, as demonstrators on the sidelines of the rally distributed leaflets calling on people "not to obey authorities in Kiev".
"We're aghast by what is happening in Kiev," Oleksandr, a 40-year-old protester, said.
"We will not let nationalists enter our city."
Any Russian intervention will be costly: Obama
On Friday, Mr Obama issued a warning to Russia that "there will be costs" for any military intervention in neighbouring Ukraine.
"We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine," he said.
"Any violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilising, which is not in the interest of Ukraine, Russia or Europe.
"It would represent a profound interference in matters which must be determined by the Ukrainian people. It would be a clear violation of Russia's commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine, and of international laws.
"The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine."
Also on Friday, Mr Yanukovych made his first public comments since fleeing the country and seeking protection in Russia.
He provoked protests in Ukraine in November by backing out of plans to sign landmark deals with the European Union and instead saying Kiev would seek closer economic and trade ties with its former Soviet master Russia.
ABC/Wires
Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, foreign-affairs, government-and-politics, world-politics, ukraine, russian-federation
First postedLas Vegas in July. The city is in the Las Vegas Valley, surrounded by sepia-toned mountains, in the sprawling and barren Mojave Desert. Average July temperature: 105 degrees Fahrenheit. But inside the gyms on the campus of UNLV, away from the desiccating heat, you can witness the entire life cycle of an NBA career take place before you, sometimes all in one game.
You’ll find lottery picks, undrafted camp invitees, D-Leaguers, busts, and chastened veteran vagabonds hanging on by their fingernails over the chasm of retirement. Watching them are a panoply of team personnel — Sam Hinkie, Jason Kidd, John Hammond, Dan Gilbert on a white victory steed, Tom Thibodeau, Phil Jackson, Steve Mills, Mark Cuban, Mike Budenholzer, Terry Stotts — the full print-Internet-television spectrum of basketball media, as well as a ragtag assortment of wannabe trainers, shooting coaches, and amateur capologists, all hustling for work. It’s NBA Burning Man, a gathering of basketball tribes in the desert.
Vegas summer league kicked off on Friday, just as news of LeBron James’s return to Cleveland broke — one of the very few NBA “I remember where I was moments” in the history of the game, and maybe the first real one since the Malice at the Palace.
I was sitting in an airplane that had just landed at LAX when the LeBron story broke. I turned on my phone and the third tweet from the top in my feed was Lee Jenkins tweeting his as-told-to essay. Throughout the airport, NBA fans were ID’ing each other by team gear — jerseys, snap-backs, shirsies — and either living the vicarious thrill of breaking the news to a stranger or sharing in dazed “can you believe it” conversations. What a power move. The Greek polymath Archimedes once said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Well, LeBron had the leverage, maybe more leverage than any player in history, and he used it to move the whole NBA landscape.
During the regular season, focusing on the big names feels natural. And it happens in summer league too. It’s a way of distilling these truly meaningless games into their authentic essences. It’s not Jazz vs. Bucks; it’s Exum vs. Jabari. You don’t say you’re going to see the Cavaliers; you say you’re going to see Wiggins.
You expect those name players |
up must come down and when supplies ran out towards the end of the war, Hitler endured, among other things, severe serotonin and dopamine withdrawals, paranoia, psychosis, rotting teeth, extreme shaking, kidney failure and delusion, Ohler explains.
His mental and physical deterioration during his last weeks in the Fuhrerbunker, a subterranean shelter for members of the Nazi party, can, Ohler says, be attributed to withdrawal from Eukodol rather than to Parkinson's as was previously believed.
World War II
The irony, of course, is that while the Nazis promoted an ideal of Aryan clean living, they were anything but clean themselves.
During the Weimar Republic, drugs had been readily available in the German capital, Berlin. But, after seizing power in 1933, the Nazis outlawed them.
Then, in 1937, they patented the methamphetamine-based drug Pervitin- a stimulant that could keep people awake and enhance their performance, while making them feel euphoric. They even produced a brand of chocolates, Hildebrand, that contained 13mg of the drug - much more than the normal 3mg pill.
Soldiers were awake for days, marching without stopping, which wouldn't have happened if it weren't for crystal meth Norman Ohler
In July 1940, more than 35 million 3mg doses of Pervitin from the Temmler factory in Berlin were shipped to the German army and Luftwaffe during the invasion of France.
"Soldiers were awake for days, marching without stopping, which wouldn't have happened if it weren't for crystal meth so yes, in this case, drugs did influence history," Ohler says.
He attributes the Nazi victory in the Battle of France to the drug. "Hitler was unprepared for war and his back was against the wall. The Wehrmacht was not as powerful as the Allies, their equipment was poor and they only had three million soldiers compared with the Allies' four million."
But armed with Pervitin, the Germans advanced through difficult terrain, going without sleep for 36 to 50 hours.
Towards the end of the war, when the Germans were losing, pharmacist Gerhard Orzechowski created a cocaine chewing gum that would allow the pilots of one-man U-boats to stay awake for days on end. Many suffered mental breakdowns as a result of taking the drug while being isolated in an enclosed space for long periods of time.
But when the Temmler factory producing Pervitin and Eukodol was bombed by the allies in 1945, it marked the end of the Nazis' - and Hitler's - drug consumption.
Of course, the Nazis weren't the only ones taking drugs. Allied bomber pilots were also given amphetamines to keep them awake and focused during long flights, and the Allies had their own drug of choice - Benzedrine.
The Laurier Military History Archives in Ontario, Canada, contain records suggesting that soldiers should ingest 5mg to 20mg of Benzedrine sulphate every five to six hours, and it is estimated that 72 million amphetamine tablets were consumed by the Allies during World War II. Paratroopers allegedly used it during the D-Day landings, while US marines relied on it for the invasion of Tarawa in 1943.
So why have historians only written about drugs anecdotally until now?
"I think a lot of people don't understand how powerful drugs are," Ohler reflects. "That might change now. I'm not the first person to write about them, but I think the success of the book means... [that] future books and movies like Downfall might pay more heed to Hitler's rampant abuse."
German medical historian Dr Peter Steinkamp, who teaches at the university of Ulm, in Germany, believes it is coming to the fore now because "most of the involved parties are dead".
"When Das Boot, the German U-boat movie from 1981 was released, it depicted scenes of U-boat captains completely hammered drunk. It caused outrage among many war veterans who wanted to be portrayed as squeaky clean," he says. "But now that most of the people who fought in World War II are no longer with us, we may see a lot more stories of substance abuse, not just from World War II, but Iraq and Vietnam too."
READ MORE: Afghanistan: Zombie nation?
Of course, the use of drugs dates far further back than World War II.
In 1200BC, pre-Inca Chavin priests in Peru gave their subjects psychoactive drugs to gain power over them, while the Romans cultivated opium, to which Emperor Marcus Aurelius was famously addicted.
Viking "berserkers", who were named after "bear coats" in Old Norse, famously fought in a trance-like state, possibly as a result of taking agaric "magic" mushrooms and bog myrtle. Icelandic historian and poet Snorri Stuluson (AD1179 to 1241) described them "as mad as dogs or wolves, bit their shields, and were strong as bears or wild oxen".
More recently, the book Dr Feelgood: The story of the doctor who influenced history by treating and drugging prominent figures Including President Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley, by Richard Lertzman and William Birnes, alleges that US President John F Kennedy's drug use almost caused World War III during the two-day summit with Soviet leader Nikita Krushcher in 1961.
The Vietnam War
In his book, Shooting up, Polish author Lukasz Kamienski describes how the US military plied its servicemen with speed, steroids, and painkillers to "help them handle extended combat" during the Vietnam War.
A report by the House Select Committee on Crime in 1971 found that between 1966 and 1969, the armed forces used 225 million stimulant pills.
"The administration of stimulants by the military contributed to the spread of drug habits and sometimes had tragic consequences, because amphetamine, as many veterans claimed, increased aggression as well as alertness. Some remembered that when the effect of the speed faded away, they were so irritated that they felt like shooting 'children in the streets'," Kamienski wrote in The Atlantic in April 2016.
This might explain why so many veterans of that war suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment study published in 1990 shows that 15.2 percent of male soldiers and 8.5 percent of females who experienced combat in Southeast Asia suffered from PTSD.
According to a study by JAMA Psychiatry, an international peer-reviewed journal for clinicians, scholars, and research scientists in psychiatry, mental health, behavioural science, and allied fields, 200,000 people still suffer from PTSD almost 50 years after the Vietnam War.
One of these is John Danielski. He was in the Marine Corp and spent 13 months in Vietnam between 1968 and 1970. In October, he released an autobiographical guidebook for sufferers called Johnny Come Crumbling Home: with PTSD.
"I came home from Vietnam in 1970, but I still have PTSD like a lot of other people - it never goes away. When I was in Vietnam in 1968 in the jungle, most of the guys I met smoked weed and took opiates. We also drank a lot of speed out of brown bottles," he says, speaking by telephone from his home in West Virginia.
"The army guys were getting stimulants and all sorts of pills in Saigon and Hanoi, but where we were, we just drank the speed. It came in a brown bottle. I know it made people tweaky and they would stay up for days."
"Of course, some of the men did some crazy stuff out there. It definitely had something to do with the drugs. The speed was so hardcore that when the guys were coming back from Vietnam they were having heart attacks on the plane and dying. They would be in such withdrawals - the flight would be like 13 hours without the drugs. Imagine fighting in Vietnam and then going home and dying on the way home," Danielski says.
"The amphetamine increases your heart rate and your heart explodes," he explains.
In his Atlantic article, Kamienski wrote: "Vietnam was known as the first pharmacological war, so called because the level of consumption of psychoactive substances by military personnel was unprecedented in American history."
"When we came back there was no support for us," Danielski explains. "Everyone hated us. People accused us of being baby killers. The veteran services were a shambles. There was no addiction counselling. That's why so many people killed themselves when they came back. Over 70,000 veterans have killed themselves since Vietnam, and 58,000 died in the war. There's no memorial wall for them."
"Is there a connection between drugs and PTSD?" he asks. "Sure, but for me the hard part was the isolation I felt when I came back too. Nobody cared. I just became a heroin addict and alcoholic, and only went into recovery in 1998. Services have improved now, but ex-army men who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are still killing themselves - they have an even higher suicide rate."
The war in Syria
More recently, Middle Eastern conflicts have seen an increase in the rise of Captagon, an amphetamine that is allegedly fuelling Syria's civil war. Last November, 11 million pills were seized by Turkish officials at the Syrian-Turkish border, while this April 1.5 million were seized in Kuwait. In a BBC documentary called Syria's War Drug from September 2015, one user is quoted as saying: "There was no fear any more when I took Captagon. You can't sleep or close your eyes, forget about it."
Ramzi Haddad is a Lebanese psychiatrist and cofounder of an addiction centre called Skoun. He explains that Captagon, "which is made in Syria", has been around "for a long time - over 40 years".
"I have seen the effects the drug has on people. Here it is getting more popular in the refugee camps filled with Syrian refugees. People can buy it from drug dealers for a couple of dollars, so it's a lot cheaper than cocaine or ecstasy," Haddad says. "In the short term it makes people feel euphoric and fearless and makes them sleep less - perfect for wartime fighting, but in the long term it brings on psychosis, paranoia and cardiovascular side effects."
Calvin James, an Irishman who worked as a medic in Syria for the Kurdish Red Crescent, says that while he didn't encounter the drug, he has heard that it is popular among fighters with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group fighters, known as ISIL or ISIS.
"You can tell by people's demeanour. On one occasion we came across a member of ISIS who was in a people carrier with five children and he was severely injured. He didn't seem to even notice and asked me for some water, he was extremely psyched up," says James. "Another guy tried to blow himself up, but it didn't work and he was still alive. Again, he didn't seem to notice the pain so much. He was treated in hospital along with everyone else."
Cabinets like to anaesthetise their armies during wartime so that the business of killing people becomes easier Gerry Hickey, psychotherapist
Gerry Hickey, an Ireland-based addiction councillor and psychotherapist, isn't surprised by recent findings.
"Delusion is part of the course and opiates are extremely addictive because they make people feel calm and give them a false sense of security. So, of course, they are perfectly suited to foot soldiers, naval captains and more recently terrorists," he says.
"Cabinets like to anaesthetise their armies during wartime so that the business of killing people becomes easier, while they themselves take drugs in order to keep their grandiose narcissism, megalomania and delusion in check."
"It wouldn't surprise me if suicide bombers are drugged up to the gills," he adds.
"The thing about drugs is, that people not only lose their minds after a while, but also their physical health deteriorates after long-term use, especially as soon as addicts hit their 40s."
If Hitler was in a state of withdrawal during those final weeks of the war, it wouldn't be unusual for him to be shaking and cold, he explains. "People in withdrawal go into a massive shock and often die. They need to have other medication in that time. It takes three weeks of readjustment."
"I always get a little dubious when people ask, 'I wonder where they get the energy,'" he reflects. "Well look no further."OUR LATEST VIDEOS OUR LATEST VIDEOS
When news broke that Silent Hills had been cancelled, I don’t think I was alone in dramatically tearing my shirt open and shrieking into the sky in disbelief and woe.
All the signs were looking rather promising. We had Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro taking the mantle, both visionaries and masters of the arts in their own rights, with Norman Reedus bringing some much needed star power to a series which was looking about as appealing as a ham sandwich without any butter. Recent drab, disingenuous releases in the Silent Hill series had left it clinging on for dear life, which is what made this new trinity of creative endeavour so intriguing and promising.
Of course, with Konami being Konami, they saw a good thing was about to happen and promptly fucked it off, most likely because of production costs and creative differences. Their new CEO, Satoshi Sakamoto, has shown himself to be a money-driven “professional” with little interest in fan service, shown by their recent revelation that they will be embracing the mobile market in lieu of console releases. You can only shudder at the thought of the future of the once great gaming company, which is potentially why Hideo Kojima’s long-term relationship with them came to an end.
With the dust settled from Silent Hills‘ cancellation, a light appeared in the darkness by the name of Allison Road. A cheeky nod to P.T. here and some terrifying scares there, it looks to have very easily transitioned into the gap left by Konami’s terrific mistake.
Early indications suggest that this will be a taut, polished survival horror game which takes place over the course of five nights in a seemingly cursed British townhouse. This isn’t your copy-and-paste generic Steam horror game as the passion of Allison Road’s developers, Lillith Ltd, seeps through every pixel and polygon of its teaser trailer to create a pure sense of dread, no matter how often you watch it.
With the project deep in development, I talked to Project Lead Chris Kesler about what we should expect.
Hi, how are you? What was the last thing you ate and what would you give it out of 10?
I’m good, thank you! Busy as always. How are you?
And the last thing I ate was muesli just now, and I’d give it a 7. I love myself some good muesli… but it’s only muesli after all. So, it can really only be a 7.
Tell us all about Allison Road in the form of a haiku.
Alright, how about this. It’s not exactly a haiku, but my buddy 50 Cent wasn’t available to help out:
the claustrophobia of time.
a deadly embrace
grasp everything of nothing.
the mind adrift
You’ve been labelled as “the spiritual successor” to the now unavailable P.T. In a way, does this make you Jesus Christ?
You know, for some people that actually makes me the antichrist! Disturbance of the peace of the dead and all.
How did the project go from being a one-man band to what it is now?
Well, every band needs a bass, some drums and possibly a second guitar.. and maybe a DJ. You know how it is!
Since I only know how to play the guitar, I figured it’s really time to look for some band members, because I ain’t getting any younger and if ‘Firm Bizkit’ was ever to succeed we needed to get cracking full force.
So here we are, recording, touring, partying… and every now and then we work on a video game.
Konami have recently decided to abandon sense and move to mobile gaming, as well as removing Kojima’s name from the new Metal Gear Solid and cancelling Silent Hills just before that. What do you think is going on over there?
I have no clue what might be going on over there. However, their very awkward (and very public) handling of this situation was pretty unfortunate in my opinion because this event will be burnt into the minds of an entire generation of gamers, sadly.
There’s no way you could ever talk about Hideo Kojima and/or Konami now without thinking of this nasty split.
Sad.
Having said that, for Kojima that might actually be the best thing that happened to him in a long time, because he’ll be free to do whatever he wants. That’s exciting!
What’s been the best feedback you’ve received so far?
People saying: “Where can we throw money at this? Kickstarter?”
Strictly speaking that’s not exactly ‘feedback’ of course, but it’s really amazing that folks want to support something with their hard earned money that came out of nowhere and is made by a bunch of guys no one has ever even heard of before.
When was the last time you were properly terrified? Playtesting Allison Road doesn’t count.
I was watching ‘Identity‘ last week. I was properly terrified when I realized that I will never get these 90 minutes of my life back.
In fact, I still have sweaty palms just thinking about it.
You’ve stated that you will be implementing virtual reality within the game. Is it fun thinking of new ways to make people brown their pants?
It is! 😀 But equally it’s also quite challenging. There are some serious performance concerns to keep in mind and if you look at stuff in VR you can see every single thing that’s even just the tiniest bit off. Say a cup that’s just a tiny bit too big.
You need to pay a lot of attention to detail, that’s for sure.
You hear a knock on your door at night. What do you do?
We got new neighbors about a month ago and their doorbell is broken. So that happens rather frequently actually.
I tend to just ignore it and leave people out in the rain.
Can you see yourself sticking to horror once Allison Road is out, or will Lilith Ltd be moving onto another genre? Hello Kitty, for instance?
That’s a good question! 🙂 Let’s try and get Allison Road done first, haha. Then we can think about that.
Hello Kitty surely sounds intriguing, though.
You have five horror movies to take to a desert island with you (don’t ask why). What do you choose?
1. Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2. John Carpenter’s The Thing
3. Alien
4. Saw 2
and then for when it’s time to end it all…
5. Keeping Up with the Kardashians
And finally, why should we be getting our grubby mitts on Allison Road as soon as it’s available?
Because it’ll be proper ‘back to the roots’ horror. For 90s and pre-90s gamers, it’ll be a return to what they’ve dearly missed over the last few years.
And for post-90s gamers it’ll be something they’ve presumably never seen before: there are actually games that don’t rely on non-stop jump scares!
Dum dum duuuuuuuuuuum.A photo-radar supervisor contracted with the City of Edmonton has been charged in connection with a case that shocked the city last week, when a woman was pulled over and sexually assaulted by a man police had thought was impersonating a peace officer.
Paul David Derksen, 50, was arrested Sunday and charged with kidnapping and sexual assault.
He is in custody and is due to appear in court on Wednesday.
Police said Derksen was contracted by the city's traffic safety section and worked as a photo-radar supervisor.
The Edmonton Police Service released this video of a man suspected of impersonating a peace officer in Edmonton. 0:19
Derksen, who was employed by the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires, was not charged with impersonation.
He was believed to have been wearing his "legitimate" uniform while driving home from work in his personal vehicle, a 2009 Nissan Rogue, early on Sunday, June 4.
"He wasn't impersonating a peace officer because he was a peace officer," deputy chief Kevin Brezinski said Monday at a news conference. "But certainly it's concerning for us and we utilized a lot of resources throughout the week to ensure that we came to a successful conclusion."
Victim saw flashing lights, pulled over
At around 2 a.m. on June 4, police said a man with flashing lights on his SUV pulled over a vehicle in the area of 91st Street and Anthony Henday Drive.
Dressed in a navy-blue uniform, the man got out of a white Nissan Rogue, identified himself as a peace officer and asked the woman to come back to his SUV.
He threatened the woman, police said, implying that he wouldn't charge her if she performed sexual acts on him.
The woman was driven to the area of Borden Park, more than 15 kilometres away, where she was sexually assaulted, police said.
The victim was eventually driven home, but not before she used her cellphone to secretly film her attacker.
"That was a critical piece of information that got us where we are today," Brezinski said.
Numerous tips from public
After news broke about the case, Edmonton police received numerous tips from the public that led to the arrest.
Police conducted a traffic stop on Sunday in the area of 39th Avenue and 97th Street, and said they arrested Derksen without incident.
Police released a photo of Derksen in case there have been similar incidents, Brezinksi said.
Gerry Shimko, executive director of Edmonton's traffic safety office, said Derksen had worked in photo radar operations for about three to four years.
He said Derksen was not on duty at the time of the alleged attack.
Shimko said Derksen is now suspended without pay, pending the outcome of the court proceedings.
Erosion of public trust
The disturbing case had police officers on edge, a former officer told CBC News on Monday, hours before news of the arrest broke.
Someone impersonating an officer can erode public trust in police and raise fears in the community, said Charlie Pester, a retired police officer and longtime traffic court agent in Calgary.
"The Edmonton police spokesperson said [the woman's attacker] is a top priority, but more importantly I think he's the priority of the officers on the street," Pester said in an interview with CBC Radio's Edmonton AM.
"That little video clip that the victim got was pretty good and that was a brave manoeuvre on her part," Pester said.
Pester said there were a number of warning signs in the details of the case.
Officers will rarely ask drivers to leave their vehicles, and would never ask them to sit in the front seat.
"If you're stopped in a run-of-the-mill traffic stop for a speeding ticket or a stop sign violation, normally the officer will just ask for driver licences, insurance, registration and go write the ticket," Pester said.
Drivers unsure of whether they've been stopped by a legitimate officer can take steps to protect themselves.
"If you get into a situation where you don't feel right, dial 911 and, if you're really uncomfortable, have them send a uniform car," Pester said. "And a real policeman, it would take him 10 to 15 seconds to figure this guy out. I don't think it would take very long to figure out a fake.
"This is a disturbing case," Pester said.OTTAWA — A leaked letter shows the prime minister told Defence Minister Peter MacKay last spring that his initial budget proposals did not cut deep enough on the administrative side of National Defence.
The three-page letter — dated June 15, 2012, and obtained by The Canadian Press — was written to provide “guidance” to MacKay and General Walt Natynczyk as the Conservatives embarked on a rewrite of their marquee defence policy.
[np-related /]
The document sheds light on the divide between Stephen Harper’s office, determined to wrestle the deficit to the ground, and a defence establishment resolved to protect the budget gains of the last five years.
Harper’s missive set out what cuts he was prepared to accept, what wouldn’t work, and even suggests National Defence unload some of its surplus property.
A spokesman for MacKay says the government doesn’t comment on leaked documents and remains focused on getting the military the resources and equipment it needs.It’s Wednesday night, just me and my 7 year-old daughter, and I’m having a hard time settling into the play time I promised earlier when I wasn’t thinking about dinner or checking and signing off on homework, which will probably require a Notary by the time she is a parent. The thought of Candyland exhausts even her, so we browse an extensive movie library of mostly crap and stream Charlotte’s Web, which my daughter tells me they’re reading in class.
This is the live-action remake, not the funky 70s cartoon, which I think we can all agree had a jazzier take on Templeton’s fair binge, but it’s very hard to get kids to watch old stuff without being reminded how boring it is to new people. About an hour in, I realize my daughter has no idea how it ends. We’re heading to heartbreak at breakneck speed.
She innocently asks what radiant means and I offer a rushed definition that does not clarify how radiant could possibly apply to a pig because I’m not sure, and then I casually warn her the movie has a sad ending. Then I wind up spoiling the whole thing because I don’t want her to think the pig dies, which I think would be sadder. When the (spoiler alert!) deathbed scene happens and Wilbur pulls away in the back of a truck while Charlotte takes her last spider breaths, I realize I’m wrong.
In real life, a spider is a terrifying thing you might see in your washing machine after you already added water and the costume clothes you bought at Goodwill and left in a bag in the garage to quarantine for several days (because the only insect scarier than spiders are bedbugs) and you scream a scream even you don’t recognize as coming from yourself and slam down the lid, and later you will make your husband switch out the laundry but will not ask about the limp, spindly carcass the size of a small rodent he must have pulled out and had to bury in the backyard. You do not inform the children their hobo costumes are now haunted by a spider. This is all hypothetical, of course.
The movie version of a spider has fur that looks soft and inviting and pretty eyelashes and a voice like Julia Roberts’, and she has just died poignantly, heartbreakingly.
My daughter crumbles and tells me she needs a hug and I hold her while trying to hide my own tears. She says “I don’t want you to die” and breaks into fresh sobs and I tell her I don’t plan to anytime soon and make a weak joke about being compared to a spider but she forces me to stay with her grief. She says “At least we’ll get to see each other again in heaven” and I wonder when she came up with that because we only recently discussed heaven as one possibility. I like that she thought about it more and made it her own.
This makes me think of my own mother, who is presumably up in heaven waiting for her mother to join her and later, if all goes well, my brother and I. The mother I barely know is a collage of outfits and happy poses from photographs I’ve seen and stories my grandmother told over the years, and yet I’ve felt her love my whole life, especially in the last year, which is interesting but not surprising because I wasn’t looking as hard before.
I start to think about how it might work in heaven, like at what age are we preserved and how do family members find us, presumably not all at the same time since who wants tense family dinners in the afterlife. And what about the cats I’d love to see again, plus my aunt’s golden retriever that used to let us lie on her like a pillow. I don’t care how peaceful heaven is, my old cats won’t put up with other cats, much less a dog. Plus there are possibly spiders in heaven.
I say to my daughter that when someone dies, their spirit lives on in our hearts and memories and they never leave us. I think to myself that her and I are making a memory right now because we are both 100% in the moment together and crying on the couch (me silently). It reminds me of how I used to hold her in this same spot and stare at her tiny perfect face in the weeks after she was born in an effort to make maternity leave feel as long as possible. Heartbreak is everywhere, but instead of waiting to possibly see someone in heaven again, we get to love the ones we have right now and create and savor new memories, each more delicious than the last.
AdvertisementsThe murder of Julia Wallace in Liverpool in 1931 was of the rarest sort: a real-life killing that invoked some of the most well-worn tropes of Golden Age mystery fiction. Her husband, William Herbert Wallace, was the chief suspect, but the case confounded the courts—and enthralled the public.
No less a figure than Raymond Chandler listed the Wallace case among his favorites, calling it “the impossible murder because Wallace couldn’t have done it and neither could anyone else.” Drama critic James Agee described it as “having all the maddening, frustrating fascination of a chess problem that ends in perpetual check,” for unlike so many other unsolved crimes that fans love to debate (e.g., Lizzie Borden), there’s no chance the killer was the apocryphal bushy-haired stranger. The killer was undoubtedly the enigmatic figure who identified himself as “R. M. Qualtrough.” The question is, was Qualtrough a prop of a self-consciously clumsy alibi staged by Wallace, or a clever killer who managed to frame Wallace in a web of ambiguous evidence? The debate continues.
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William Wallace hardly looked like a murderer. At the time of the killing, he was 52 years old. He’d been married to Julia for 18 years, the last 16 years spent at a rented home at #29 Wolverton Street in Liverpool’s Anfield District.
Wallace was an insurance agent for Prudential, and from all accounts, he was every bit the nebbish policy pusher. The only thing that really set him apart from his fellow drones were some then-unusual upper-middlebrow tastes. He’d picked up certificates in chemistry and electronics, maintained a small lab in his house, and even did some lecturing at the local technical college. On the art side, he played violin, although poorly, and frequently spent evenings at home dueting with Julia on the piano.
But far more telling, at least in the minds of the local tabloid editors, was his passion for chess. He was a regular at the Liverpool Chess Club where he was noted for being an enthusiastic, albeit mediocre player. One wag in the club later told the papers if Wallace didn’t deserve to hang for killing his wife, he certainly deserved it for his chess.
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Far less is known about Julia, save that she was a meek, mild, old-fashioned kind of woman who seemed to be well-suited to her equally meek and mild husband. From all appearances, their marriage was stable and happy; they never had public scenes, and the walls of the houses on Wolverton Street were thin. And, contrary to the rumors that ran rampant through Liverpool during and after the trial, no “other” man or woman was ever found.
The story began on January 19, 1931. It was a Monday night, the regular meeting night for the Liverpool Chess Club. At 7:20pm, shortly before Wallace arrived at the club, the club captain took a telephone call from a man identifying himself as “R.M. Qualtrough” asking for Wallace to call at his house at 25 Menlove Gardens East tomorrow night at 7:30pm concerning an endowment policy for his daughter.
Wallace arrived shortly after 7:30pm for his scheduled match. After being given the message, he commented that he knew no one named Qualtrough (a common Manx surname) and had never heard of Menlove Gardens East. Nor had anyone else at the club, although all agreed it was most likely off Menlove Avenue somewhere. Wallace was convinced he could find it. “I’ve got a Scotch tongue in my head,” he told his fellow wood-pushers.
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Wallace got home the following night from work around 6pm. Sometime between 6:30 and 6:45pm, the milk boy stopped by and collect his money from Julia. He would be the last innocent person to see Julia alive.
Wallace was next seen at 7:06 two miles away from his house, transferring streetcars in his rush to make his 7:30 appointment with “Qualtrough.” He asked the conductor for directions to Menlove Gardens East, and was instructed to transfer to a 5A car at Penny Lane. During the 10-minute ride, Wallace badgered the conductor to not forget to call out Penny Lane. The innocent action of an eager salesman—or a calculated ploy of an aggressive alibi-setter?
7:15pm found Wallace safely aboard a 5A car, where he immediately began to badger the conductor for directions to you-know-where. He was told to get off at Menlove Avenue, only 650 yards up the line.
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Naturally, Wallace followed directions and laid the groundwork for an enduring mystery. Liverpool, of course, is equipped with a Menlove Avenue—John Lennon would grow up there. It is intersected by Menlove Gardens West and Menlove Gardens North. These in turn are connected by Menlove Gardens South. However, there is no Menlove Gardens East.
Thus began Wallace’s great search for Qualtrough. Real or feigned, he spared no effort. He first unleashed his Scotch tongue on a passerby, who correctly informed him that there was no Menlove Gardens East. But no determined insurance agent would let this discourage him, especially in that depression year of 1931. He rang the people at 25 Menlove Gardens West, who told him they’d never heard of Qualtrough.
He then tried a cop. But, instead of asking directions, he first told the Bobbie the whole story of the phone call and Qualtrough’s insurance needs. And then, suggestively, he asked the cop, “It’s not eight o’ clock yet, is it?” and pulling out his watch. Both men agreed it was in fact 7:45pm.
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Wallace next tried the directory at the newsstand. After flipping through it, he asked the agent, “Do you know what I am looking for?” Naturally she didn’t. “I am looking for Menlove Gardens East,” he said. She only confirmed what everyone else had already said: there was no such street.
At this point, Wallace decided that either his alibi was now firm enough, or that he wasn’t going to be selling any insurance that night. It was time to vacate Menlove Avenue.
The next we hear of Wallace is at 8:45pm, outside his door on Wolverton Street. The neighbors saw him looking worried and confused. He claimed that neither door seemed to work. They offer to try their keys. In front of them, he tried his back door key again, and wonder of wonders, it worked. The neighbors waited a few minutes while Wallace checked to see if everything was OK. He first went upstairs. All was well. But when he went down into the front parlor and lit the gas, he came back out. “Come and see. She has been killed.”
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Julia was lying on the parlor floor in front of the gas fireplace. One side of her head had been completely bashed in, leaving her brain exposed, by what was later determined to be 11 blows with a slender, blunt instrument. Blood had splattered the room; spots were found as high as 7 feet on the walls. Crumpled under her body was a half-burned Mackintosh coat—Wallace’s own, it would turn out. In an apparent state of shock, all Wallace could say was “They’ve finished her, look at her brains.”
Enter the Merseyside police, a then less-than-stellar outfit. Half the force had been canned after a 1919 strike and replaced with many under-qualified individuals. For a forensic expert, there was local medical professor John McFall, who would enrage future generations of crime historians with his beliefs that his instincts were enough; he needn’t take notes or run corroborative tests. He immediately concluded, based on the rigor of Julia’s body, that she had been killed at six, give or take an hour. He never considered measuring cadaver temperature, observing post-mortem lividity, or analyzing stomach contents—all more accurate ways of determining the time of death.
The police discovered little else of value. There was some disorder, as though someone had done some half-hearted searching, and Wallace would claim he was missing a few pounds. Despite an extensive search of the house, the garden, the sewers, and areas adjacent to the tram lines between Wolverton Street and Menlove Avenue, the murder weapon was never found.
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Someone once noted that uxoricide requires no motive; marriage is in itself motive enough. Naturally, Wallace was Suspect #1. And when a few days of investigating uncovered no other likely parties, he was arrested.
Liverpudlians agreed wholeheartedly. But they weren’t satisfied with a simple domestic murder. Baroque rumors about Wallace’s motives races through the city. Some claimed the mild-mannered insurance man was a secret Aleister Crowley disciple with an opium habit who had affairs with dozens of women. Others said Julia was over insured, Wallace was sleeping with her sister, and the police should investigate his brother’s lengthy absence. (He was in fact in Malay on business.) Some more charitable tongue-waggers said Julia was terminally ill and her husband but a misunderstood angel of mercy. There was even a rumor that Wallace was innocent and the real killer was a lover of Julia’s whom she’d been blackmailing.
Needless to say, all these rumors were proved groundless. The closest Wallace came to magick was conventional chemistry, and any knowledge he had of opium undoubtedly came from De Quincey. Julia was only insured for 20 pounds, and no lover of either party was ever identified.
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But two things would damn Wallace. First, if he didn’t do it, then who did? There is a downside to having an apparently blameless life! And then there was the nature of the crime, seemingly so cleverly planned, a characteristic of chess players. In the |
according to the court, “within the context of a highly emotional, fearful, and hyper-vigilant climate existing in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting.”
P.T.’s Facebook posts caused members of the public to contact police, required weekend meetings between the police, Principal Carey, Wilmington school district’s superintendent and the school district’s business manager, led to the school issuing an “all call,” alerting the entire student body to the situation, triggered a police presence at Wilmington High School on the following day of classes, and resulted in several students being absent from school due to their parents’ fear of what might happen.
End result: P.T. is placed on probation, ordered to serve 55 days on an electronic monitoring unit, participate in family counseling, complete community service, and pay costs.
The court glosses over the question of whether P.T.'s statement was a "true threat," and the available evidence indicated that it wasn't. The language used by P.T. was clearly conditional. Neither P.T.'s online acquaintance nor the principal viewed it as such. (Cory and P.T. had a separate exchange of words, but the court does not use this as a basis for affirming.) Sure, it's distasteful and even abhorrent speech, but that does not make it unprotected speech…
In any event, the court's refusal to even tackle the First Amendment question is a bummer. Maybe online threat posts are the new "fire in a crowded theater"? Either way, my sense is that there are a growing number of cases involving online postings where courts do not engage in any First Amendment analysis--and online speech is suffering as a result.
Before we get into the discussion of the validity of these charges (and other concerns], let's take a look at theconversation, as quoted in the court decision If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you'll recognize that last "statement" as being a direct quote of a well-known meme that first appeared a few years back at (where else) 4chan.The inclusion of this epic and familiar bit of trash talk seems to indicate that P.T.'s original post maybe wasn't quite as serious as he claimed it was. His initial statement may have been nothing more than a particularly horrible form of trolling. (To the extent that it got a small rise out of his online acquaintance, it arguably worked.) Not only that, but Cory stated he never felt threatened by P.T.'s posts.The court addresses this final, copy-pasted "statement" briefly in its decision ("") but swiftly moves past that (apparently unaware of its origins) to deal exclusively with P.T.'s initial statement.P.T.'s argument that he made no direct threat and that his post was "untargeted" ultimately made no difference in the court's interpretation of the statutes he was charged under.As to the charge of "menacing," the court declared:The court also added this somewhat dubious rationale for its decision on the "menacing" charge:Allowing emotions, fear and hyper-vigilance to guide legal decisions isn't necessarily a good idea. We've seen the damage done when these are used to guide legislation. Applying this to the criminal justice system tends to encourage prosecutorial and judicial behavior more closely aligned with revenge than the pursuit of justice.P.T. also argued against the charge of "inducing panic," but this was shot down as well:Surprisingly, considering the hefty bail amounts and lengthy prison sentences others in the same set of circumstances have met with, P.T.'s sentence comes off as rather lenient, especially considering the court allowed "emotions" and "fear" to guide its decision-making.One of the first aspects that must be addressed is the sentencing. In this case, P.T. was sentenced by a juvenile court (sentence upheld by this decision) and wascharged under any terrorism statutes. The investigation consisted of some questioning and a rational decision by the PD and prosecutors to not pursue anything ridiculous like "terroristic threat" charges. It's not that Ohio doesn't have "terroristic threat" laws -- it does -- it's just that the reaction here was more muted and more reasonable than others we've seenthe fact that P.T. posted his "threat" onas the Sandy Hook shooting. Others with more time and emotional distance separating the tragedies and the "threats" have met with harsher punishments from courtsadmittedly operating in a climate of "emotion and fear."[If anything, Ohio's law is too broad-- try getting out of that one should a prosecutor decide to bring terroristic threat charges against you.]Balasubramani questions the impact such a decision will have on free speech (which could also be applied to Cam D'Ambrosio and Justin Carter's cases), especially seeing as the court didn't even raise the issue. (Granted, neither did the defendant.)This is problematic. The heightened sensitivity in the wake of tragedies tends to result in overreaction. Unfortunately, it seems as though this "sensitivity" will never go away, thanks to the advent and expansion of anti-terrorist laws in the wake of 9/11, which gives prosecutors a new tool to use to punish ill-advised online statements. The uptick in monitoring of students' off-campus speech further exacerbates this charged situation.By all means, officials can and should investigate perceived threats. But the common response so far has been to detain, charge and lock up teens with faulty brain-to-keyboard filters first and ask questions (or investigate) later. The system isn't working the way it should when these investigations turn up nothing but the prosecutors still feel compelled to pursue felony "terrorist" charges in response to clumsy executions of protected speech.
Filed Under: free speech, menacing, social media, threatsRates of births to teenage mothers are strongly predicted by conservative religious beliefs, even after controlling for differences in income and rates of abortion. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Reproductive Health have found a strong association between teenage birth rates and state-level measures of religiosity in the U.S.
Joseph Strayhorn, an adjunct faculty member with Drexel University and the University of Pittsburgh, and Jillian Strayhorn used data from the Pew Forum's US Religious Landscapes Survey and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to evaluate the state level effects of belief on teen birth rates.
Joseph Strayhorn said: "The magnitude of the correlation between religiosity and teen birth rate astonished us. Teen birth is more highly correlated with some of the religiosity items on the Religious Landscapes Survey than some of those items are correlated with each other."
The religiosity of a state was determined by averaging the percents of respondents who agreed with the eight most conservative opinions possible in the Religious Landscapes Survey, such as 'There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion' or 'Scripture should be taken literally, word for word'.
According to Strayhorn: "Our findings by themselves do not, of course, permit causal inferences. But, if we may speculate on the most probable explanation, we conjecture that religious communities in the US are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."First edition
Germany Must Perish! is a 104-page book written by Theodore Newman Kaufman, which he self-published in 1941 in the United States. The book advocated genocide through the sterilization of all Germans and the territorial dismemberment of Germany, believing that this would achieve world peace. Kaufman founded the Argyle Press in Newark, New Jersey, United States, in order to publish this book. He was the sole proprietor of the Argyle Press and it is not known to have published any other works.
The Nazi Party used the book, written by a Jewish author, to support their argument that Jews were plotting against their country.[1]
American reactions to the book [ edit ]
Though written and self-published by a non-notable author, the book received considerable attention. Time magazine published a review in its 24 March issue that compared the book to Jonathan Swift's 1729 satirical essay A Modest Proposal, which proposed reducing the population pressure in Ireland by the cannibalistic consumption of poor Irish children. However, the Time essay recognized that Kaufman's work was not satirical; it described the book as the "enshrinement of a single sensational idea". "Since Germans are the perennial disturbers of the world's peace, says the book, they must be dealt with like any homicidal criminals. But it is unnecessary to put the whole German nation to the sword. It is more humane to sterilize them."[2][3]
According to one study, reviews in the United States "reflected an odd combination of straight reporting and skepticism".[4] Kaufman's second and more moderate pamphlet, "No More German Wars" published in 1942, was ignored both in the U.S. and in Germany.[4]
An advertisement in The New York Times stated that the book was released to the public on March 1, 1941. Kaufman also promoted the book by mailing a miniature black cardboard coffin with a hinged lid to reviewers.[5] Inside the coffin was a card proclaiming, "Read GERMANY MUST PERISH! Tomorrow you will receive your copy."[2][6]
The book's dust jacket contained excerpts from reviews of the book. One blurb read: "A Plan For Permanent Peace Among Civilized Nations! -- New York Times."[7]
In 1945, a Jewish journalist wrote an article claiming that the book was "little more than self-indulgence in dire vituperation by a man who sees Germany as the sole cause of the world's woes".[8]
Contents [ edit ]
Kaufman advocated the mass extermination through forced sterilization of the German people and the territorial dismemberment of Germany after an Allied victory in World War II.[6]
Kaufman summarized Germany Must Perish! in advertisements in the New York Times and New York Post as: "A dynamic volume outlining a plan for the extinction of Germany and containing a map showing possible dissection and apportionment of its territory."[9] In an interview carried in the September 26, 1941, issue of The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, Kaufman defended his plan for the "sterilization of all Germans":[10]
Map showing Kaufman's proposed dismemberment of Germany (and Austria)
I believe that the Jews have a mission in life. They must see to it that the nations of the world get together in one vast federation. "Union Now" is the beginning of this. Slowly but surely the world will develop into a paradise. We will have perpetual peace. And the Jews will do the most to bring about this confederation, because they have the most to gain. But how can you get peace if Germany exists? The only way to win an eternal peace is to make the punishment of waging war more horrible than war itself. Human beings are penalized for murder, aren't they? Well, Germany starts all the wars of magnitude. Let us sterilize all Germans and wars of world domination will come to an end!
The German reaction [ edit ]
Kaufman was a Manhattan-born Jew and his advocacy of genocide attracted great attention in Germany.[2] The book was denounced as an "orgy of Jewish hatred" and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's polemical anti-German agitation was seen as having inspired it.[11] American journalist Howard K. Smith was in Germany when Germany Must Perish! became known. He wrote:[12]
No man has ever done so irresponsible a disservice to the cause his nation is fighting and suffering for than Nathan Kaufman. His half-baked brochure provided the Nazis with one of the best light artillery pieces they have, for, used as the Nazis used it, it served to bolster up that terror which forces Germans who dislike the Nazis to support, fight and die to keep Nazism alive...
In September 1941, Julius Streicher published an essay in Der Sturmer that called Kaufman's book "the crazy thinking of [an] insane Jewish brain". He quoted Kaufman at length and then commented: "By destroying the German people, the Jew wants to stop up the spring from which, since the beginning, the world has always found its creative blood, the source of all that is beautiful, good and noble."[13] Joseph Goebbels also gave a radio address from Berlin warning Germans of "plans 'for sterilization of our entire population under 60 years' of age".[6] These concerns were echoed by Adolf Hitler himself after the US entered World War II; he claimed mass sterilization of German male youth was a "primary" American goal.[6]
When the Jews of Hanover were evicted on September 8, 1941, the local authorities cited Kaufman's book as one of the reasons.[1] Kaufman responded:[14][15]
This is just a flimsy pretext for another of the innate cruelties of the German people... I don't think it was my book that prompted this barbarity. They employed every possible German cruelty against the Jews long before my book was published.
The book appeared in many pieces of National Socialist propaganda. The Parole der Woche's weekly wall newspaper included it as evidence that the Allies' war aims included the destruction of Germany.[16] The pamphlet "The War Goal of World Plutocracy" detailed the contents of the book, although with some omissions from the text that it quoted.[17] It was used in 1944 in a pamphlet, "Never!", which described Kaufman's importance:[18]
The Jewish president of the American Federation of Peace is no anonymous individual, no fanatic rejected by world Jewry, no mentally ill crackpot, but rather a leading and widely known Jewish personality in the United States. He belongs to the so-called Roosevelt Brain Trust, which provides intellectual and political education and advice to the American President. "It is therefore beyond question that his book and its demand that 'Germany must perish' corresponds to the official opinion of the leading circles of world plutocracy."
At his Nuremberg trial Julius Streicher cited Kaufman's book in his defense, claiming his anger at Jews was prompted by Germany Must Perish!.[6] The German philosopher and historian Ernst Nolte argues that the German reaction to Germany Must Perish! supports his contention that World War II was a genuine response to German fears of a worldwide Jewish plot.[19]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Randall Bytwerk, "The Argument for Genocide in Nazi Propaganda," Quarterly Journal of Speech, 91 (2005), pp. 37–62
, 91 (2005), pp. 37–62 Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust, Harvard University Press, 2006, pp. 110–115
Text
Germany must perish! Newark, N.J., Argyle Press 1941 (probable first edition)
Newark, N.J., Argyle Press 1941 (probable first edition) Germany must perish! Newark, N.J. : Argyle Press c1941 (apparently the second or later ed. published by Kaufman)
PropagandaIt is now more than three weeks since the October 3 massacre by US military forces of medical personnel and patients at the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical center in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Aided by the media, the US military and the Obama administration are continuing their efforts to cover up and whitewash a war crime.On Monday,According to the AP, "A day before an American AC-130 gunship attacked the hospital,, presumably in Kabul, according to two people who have seen the document."" according to the AP, citing two sources who have seen the report.According to the AP, the Army believed that the hospital was being used by the Taliban, which had recently taken control of the city. This has been repeatedly denied by MSF, both before and after the attack.The report also cites MSF spokesman Tim Shenk, who notes that in the days before the attack, "an official in Washington" asked the group "whether our hospital had a large group of Taliban fighters in it." Shenk continues: "We replied that this was not the case. We also stated that we were very clear with both sides to the conflict about the need to respect medical centers."The involvement of "an official in Washington" raises questions as to whether personnel in the Obama administration played a direct role in selecting and targeting the hospital.The report follows a previous article citing a former intelligence official who said special operations analysts had mapped the entire areaAccording to the latter, those found guilty of committing such a crime can be subject to life imprisonment or death.Among the possible motivations for the attack is the fact thatIn a statement released on October 23, which reported an increase in the death toll from 22 to 30, MSF noted that the destruction of the hospital "will have a huge impact on access to surgical care for hundreds of thousands of people in the region... Last year, more than 22,000 patients received care at the hospital and more than 5,900 surgeries were performed."It added, "All that now remains of the three operating theaters, the ER and outpatient departments, and the intensive care unit are collapsed roofs, blackened walls, floors thick with dust, and twisted pieces of metal that were once beds and trolleys."The attack may also have been intended to send a message to Pakistan. According to the earlier AP report, theOnly days after the attack, the Obama administration announced that it would maintain up to 10,000 troops in the country at least through the end of 2016.The White House and the military continue their efforts to whitewash the war crime.On October 15, a US military patrol entered the bombed out hospital facility without informing MSF, a violation of previous agreements. An MSF official said that the entry "damaged property" and "destroyed potential evidence."Over the weekend, the military announced that General John F. Campbell, the overall commander of operations in Afghanistan, has appointed Major General William B. Hickman to lead a supposedly "independent" investigation into the incident. The character of this investigation was indicated by Campbell, who said in a statement, "We will be forthright and transparent and we will hold ourselves accountable for any mistakes made."The purpose of Hickman's inquiry will be to cover up for those responsible.WATERVILLE – Riding for a cause and stricken by a tragedy, those who had pedaled alongside the man killed by a tractor-trailer Friday morning said their mission, which is playing out on blacktopped roads across the state, had been transformed.
“It really changed what we were riding for, I think,” Adam Weinstein, a rider from Belmont, Mass., said at the Colby College campus on a cool, quiet Sunday morning.
Additional Photos Cyclists ride on the China Road in China on Sunday, the third and final day of the annual Trek Across Maine, a fundraiser for the American Lung Association. David Leaming/Morning Sentinel Related Headlines Maine police: Cyclist probably fell into truck
Trek Across Maine ride takes somber turn after cyclist killed
Weinstein was one of more than 2,000 riders packing up tents, doing stretching exercises and making other preparations to depart from the college about 7 a.m. on the final day of Trek Across Maine, a three-day fundraiser that has netted $1.35 million for the American Lung Association.
Riders and volunteers join the trek because they care about the association’s mission, summed up in the three-word slogan “Fighting for Air,” to improve lung health and prevent lung disease through education, advocacy and research.
The atmosphere on the trek, typically a powerful and positive feeling of shared community activism among cyclists, took on a tragic undertone when one of their own was killed on the ride.
Weinstein was there Friday, when David LeClair, a fellow teammate in a 140-member group representing a company called athenahealth, was killed as a tractor-trailer carrying a load of corn passed them on U.S. Route 2 in Hanover, just miles from the trek’s starting point in Bethel.
Weinstein said he and LeClair were riding as part of a group of six or seven athenahealth riders when the truck, owned by a Canadian transport company, came up behind them.
Weinstein said his observations agreed with statements from other volunteers and cyclists, who speculated that LeClair had been caught up in a powerful draft of air that accompanies any large, fast-moving vehicle, sometimes called “truck suck.”
“I was riding right behind him, so I saw what happened,” he said.
“I saw him just kind of like, start to swerve to his left, wobble a little bit,” Weinstein said. After LeClair swerved to the left, which was toward the truck, Weinstein said he “just fell at the wrong spot.”
Rescue workers and other riders on the scene said LeClair was run over by the rear wheels of the truck and died instantly.
Police investigators believe the truck was driven by Michel Masse-Defresne, 24, of Quebec, who did not stop at the time and seemed to be unaware of the accident, according to Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Masse-Defresne, who was pulled over in nearby Rumford shortly after the accident, has cooperated with investigators and has not been charged with any crime. A report from Maine State Police investigators eventually will be made to the Oxford County District Attorney’s Office.
Under Maine law, motorized vehicles are required to give cyclists a 3-foot berth as they pass them on any roadway.
Weinstein, one of several riders interviewed by police, said the truck was “not illegally close, but you know, close and pretty fast.”
Weinstein said the tragedy has colored the remainder of the ride for the athenahealth team.
After the accident, police interviewed Weinstein and other witnesses for about two hours, and then offered to drive them to the next rest stop, which would have allowed them to rejoin the rest of the riders.
But Weinstein said the cyclists who had witnessed the disturbing scene were driven to work out the experience in a different way. They wanted to put miles between themselves and the accident site, not in a police cruiser, but under their own power.
“We all said we just want to keep riding,” he said. “You just gotta, we gotta get back on the bike.”
The race’s lead organizer accompanied the lagging cyclists in his van and phoned ahead to delay the closing of the next rest stop, where Weinstein and his fellows were greeted with cheers and support from many volunteers and athenahealth team members who had waited for them.
Weinstein said many team members were “shell-shocked” on the first day and didn’t know how to process the death.
The prevailing sentiment was “let’s just get to the end and then we’ll kind of figure it out,” he said.
Some riders considered leaving the trek altogether.
At the University of Maine at Farmington, where cyclists ended the day for an overnight stay Friday, he said the mood among athenahealth members was quiet. Event organizers ensured that counselors were on hand for any trek participants who might need them.
Weinstein said he knew LeClair as a warm, friendly person in athenahealth’s Watertown, Mass., offices, where they both worked.
Joe Holtschlag, another athenahealth rider, said the team held a private, impromptu memorial Saturday morning, which included a moment of silence, before leaving the campus. Executives from the company, who had been in contact with LeClair’s family, flew up to talk to team members.
“People said a few words,” he said. “It was a good blend of somber, but also, uh …”
“Celebratory,” Weinstein said.
Weinstein said spirits were more upbeat Saturday after the meeting than they had been on Friday.
“It had changed it from riding just to, like, ‘we need to get through the day,’ ” he said. The attitude had shifted to ” ‘we’re riding this for David’s memory. … We’re going to finish it for him.’ “
Preparing for the last day of an 180-mile journey that had turned out to be more emotionally charged than they had anticipated, Weinstein and Holtschlag said they were looking forward to the sweat, motion and sunshine that would get them to an ending they anticipated would be more bittersweet than usual.
“I think we’re just looking forward to a really nice day of good riding,” Weinstein said. “I will be glad to see (the finish line) and get a burger, but I will be disappointed that I won’t get to ride the next day.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be contacted at 861-9287 or at:
[email protected]
ShareRobin Speronis, a Florida woman who lives off the grid, is being threatened with losing her home due to her “alternative lifestyle”.
Last month, Robin’s story was featured on Fox 4 news in Florida. She does not have a refrigerator, oven, running water, or electricity.
Robin explains her decision to live off the grid:
“It was an interest in empowering myself, like we did when we got off the health care system. I wanted to look at every other part of my lifestyle and say, do I need this? Is this of value to me? If it went away tomorrow, what would I do? The more I got into it, the more exciting, the more of an adventure it became. My message was to create, so I created a happy place… a place where I get up, and I’m like this is beautiful.”
Most of what Robin owns was free, donated, or bought for next to nothing.
She cooks on a propane camping stove, and her electronics run on solar-charged batteries.
Robin gets her water from rain barrels. She uses a colloidal-silver generator to disinfect the rain water:
“I plug this into my inverter and my battery pack. This light will get brighter and brighter as silver micro particles are suspended in the water. It’s natures antibiotic,” she explains.
Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), after Robin was featured on the local news, authorities took notice: the day after the feature, Robin was slapped with a notice to vacate her property.
“A code enforcement officer came, knocked on the door then posts a placard that says uninhabitable property, do not enter.”
The notice cites international property maintenance code and states the property is unsafe to be lived in. Robin said code enforcement has never been inside her home and would have no idea if her property is safe.
The city code compliance manager told Fox 4 that he tagged the home because it doesn’t have running water or electricity – but neither is mentioned as a requirement in the code cited by the city on the notice.
Robin said she owns her home free and clear and her taxes are up to date.
“Putting a woman who lives by herself, who is a widow, out on the street without any due process of law is unfathomable. Where is the justice? Why did they choose me…because I was exercising my First Amendment rights of free speech in discussing living off the grid.”
Fox 4 reports that there has been an overwhelming show of support for Robin from people who have heard her story.
A local attorney has agreed to take Robin’s case for free. The City of Cape Coral says that if she can prove she can sustain herself and her home without electricity or water, both parties may be able to come to a solution. But isn’t the burden of proof on the accuser? It seems that the city should have to prove Robin’s lifestyle isn’t sustainable, not the other way around. Humans lived for thousands of years without modern conveniences like running water and electricity, and Amish families continue to thrive without either.
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Contributed by Lily Dane of The Daily Sheeple.
Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple. Her goal is to help people to “Wake the Flock Up!”The Georgetown University Master's in Cybersecurity Risk Management prepares you to navigate todays complex cyber threats. Take classes online, on campus, or through a combination of both -- so you dont have to interrupt your career. Learn more.
Sometimes it's the little things that can cause you to step back and rethink how you look at a company. For much of this decade Microsoft has been the "evil empire" with Apple, Linux and Google on the side of the Force (sorry for the "Star Wars" metaphor).
With Microsoft actually doing some positive creative things for once, Apple's decision to raise iPhone prices in the face of declining consumer income, Google's attack on single parents, and Richard Stallman's attack on Bill Gates' philanthropy (which follows an earlier anti-U.S. positions), it appears these entities' images may be changing.
Let's chat about these things this week and close with my product of the week, Microsoft Equipt, which is the first desktop bundle since the original Microsoft Office that potentially could change the entire market and the broad perception of Microsoft.
The Fall of Google
My general sense when I looked at both the age of Google's leaders and the way Google was structured was that Google's biggest short-term exposure was not competition but entitlements. Like many dot-coms, they seemed to go a bit overboard and without the experience as to how to manage these entitlements were likely going to get in a lot of trouble when economic conditions forced them to cut back.
Well, that may have just happened. Apparently, one of the first cutbacks was on day care, increasing prices to employee parents using this program from US$1,425 to a whopping $2,500 per child per month. Parents with two kids saw their annual expense jump from $33,000 to nearly $60,000. With reported comments from Google's executive staff that reminded me of the "let them eat cake" comment that supposedly helped start the French Revolution (the woman this comment was attributed to, Marie Antionette, was guillotined to death) you have to wonder what the folks at Google were thinking.
If you search on Google on the words "Day Care and Google" you'll see this thing has hit a global nerve with words like "Mutiny" and "Discontent" common. At a time when the executive staff seems to be flitting around in the company 767 "party plane" and prices for everyone are growing out of control thanks to gas increases; hitting parents, many of them single parents, with something like this really caused a lot of people to look at the company differently. I don't know what your definition of "evil" is, but to me, going after parents and kids during hard times while vacationing in a company-paid flying palace would be more evil than anything I can recall Microsoft ever doing to its employees. I'd suggest they get rid of the plane if they really need to save costs before they attack their employees' kids.
I think this forms the basis of a Google decline and the first big step down that path.
The Changing Face of Apple and Linux
In many ways, both of these entities have benefited by being anti-Microsoft. I can't argue that this has mostly been Microsoft's own fault but it becomes risky for anyone to depend on the other guy screwing up as they typically don't forever.
For Apple, I think the strategy of colluding with AT&T to increase prices for the new iPhone, bring out an incomplete product, while reducing the cost of the phone to Apple during a time when consumers are in financial distress is a bad one. While I'd often agree with Steve Jobs that most consumers, including me, don't do as much homework as they should when making a purchase, taking advantage of them during hard times isn't wise. It could cause many who aren't dyed-in-the-wool Apple fans to look at the firm differently. I mentioned this last week when I said it was "OK to Say No to the New iPhone." Add this to the reports that Apple charges customers 200 percent more than Dell for similar upgrades to Macs, and recall that taking advantage of customers who were locked in was a large part of what caused IBM to fall in the '80s. People under financial pressure just don't respond kindly to any vendor taking advantage of them.
For Linux, Microsoft's strategy of embracing and interoperating with the platform has created an interesting conundrum. IT managers really like this strategy and generally operate mixed environments. They really have no problem with any vendor who isn't misbehaving and is providing good value. In short, peace has broken out -- but for a product that was marketed as a weapon in the war against Microsoft, peace is a poison.
However, to fuel a war, Microsoft has to play, and generally Microsoft doesn't want to. To fix this, Richard Stallman just went after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, challenging its work and taking shots at Apple and Adobe in the process. Going after a founder might upset Microsoft, but this has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever seen anyone who wants to help their cause actually do -- well, maybe number two.
Recall he had previously shown up in Cuba apparently positioning Linux as a weapon against the West, which was equally unwise. What's next? Helping Iran? Oh wait, he did that too. Have to admit the guy is on a roll.
Apple and Linux, at least Richard Stallman's Linux (fortunately he speaks for the minority), seem to be drifting from White Hat players to Black, and this bears watching.
Product of the Week: Microsoft Equipt
One of the big problems any company that reaches a high level of dominance has is growing profit. Unfortunately, both the most foolish and the easiest path to do this is to allow their products to become more expensive than the value of that product to the buyer.
This, I believe, goes to the core of the problem with both Windows Vista and Microsoft Office. It is a suicidal, at least long term, misuse of power, and I've seen a number of companies do this -- the first being IBM, and the most recent being Apple. The only company I've seen put in place a formal process to prevent this mistake is EMC, and I think every firm should do this.
Microsoft Equipt actually provides more value than it costs and may be the perfect accessory that makes Vista, for most of us, work. I'm a big believer in subscription pricing because it gets vendors off the path of having to break aging products to get you to buy new ones while placing emphasis on assuring reliability and ease of use (customers don't renew subscriptions for things they no longer value).
A subscription model also focuses companies more on services than core technology creating a better balance between features that only developers love and experiences that consumers' need. Finally, a subscription ties the vendor and the consumer into a long-term relationship, which tends to both improve information going to the vendor and makes them more responsive to the consumer.
The product itself bundles Microsoft Office Home and Student (all most people really need), Windows Live OneCare (security, performance, help), Office Live Workspace (collaboration), and Windows Live Services (communications) under a $70 annual fee for up to 3 machines. That's under $6 a month for 3 machines or under $2 per machine per month. Hard to argue that isn't a good value.
I think Equipt will help change how people perceive Microsoft and it is a huge step in the right direction for the company. As such, it floats to the top as my product of the week and has a good shot at being my product for the year.
Rob Enderle is a TechNewsWorld columnist and the principal analyst for the Enderle Group, a consultancy that focuses on personal technology products and trends.The large number of condos being built in Toronto is now curbing the rise in both prices and rents.
Resale prices for high-rise units in the country's most populous city are flattening out after years of appreciation, and the degree to which monthly rents have been rising has begun to slow.
The latest figures suggest that the record amount of supply that is coming on stream, as well as the impact of recent mortgage insurance rule changes, is now shifting the balance between sellers and buyers as well as owners and tenants.
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For the first time in this latest quarter the median price of a resale condo in the Greater Toronto Area showed no significant year-over-year appreciation. Prices of pre-construction condos in the city have already been dropping, but this is the first time that prices of resale condos over the MLS system have not increased meaningfully since the recession.
The average resale price was $334,204 in the third quarter, flat compared with the average price of $332,969 in the same quarter a year ago.
Resale condo prices slipped into negative territory around the height of the financial crisis in early 2009, but had been rising on a year-over-year basis since then. Price growth stretched up toward nearly 20 per cent in early 2010, and had been bouncing around in a range between about two per cent and 10 per cent since.
The softening comes as the market adjusts to a new abundance of available units. There were 488 condo sales over the MLS system between Oct. 1 and Oct. 14, the Toronto Real Estate Board said Tuesday. That's down 18 per cent from the same period last year. The average price for the condos that sold this month was $356,312, down four per cent from a year ago.
Meanwhile, the number of condos that were rented by way of the MLS system rose three per cent in the third quarter to 5,241. But the number of condos listed for rent in the same period rose 18 per cent to 8,845.
Average rents rose by 3.4 per cent for one-bedroom units, to $1,605, and 2.2 per cent for two-bedroom units, to $2,097. But those price increases were generally not as strong as the ones the market had seen in the past four quarters.
"Prospective renters had more units to choose from, which led to less upward pressure on rents," said Jason Mercer, senior manager of market analysis at the Toronto Real Estate Board.
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One- and two-bedroom condos accounted for 95 per cent of the rental transactions the board saw in the third quarter. The less-abundant three-bedroom units saw their average rent rise 12.7 per cent to $2,660.
Industry experts say that the demand for three-bedroom condos is outpacing the supply. Data from TheRedPin.com suggests that just 3.2 per cent of all of the pre-construction units under development in buildings that are still marketing are three-bedrooms, while more than 90 per cent are one- and two-bedroom.
When developers talk about the reasons that they believe Toronto's condo market can handle the current construction, they often cite restrictions on further expansion of the suburbs due to the Greenbelt. But it's not clear that condos are a viable alternative to suburban living for most families, due to the lack of larger units.
Developers tend to favour smaller units because they traditionally have sold faster, are easier |
, it is still effective. It (Armstrong's body) would have to retain some of that."
Armstrong has won two 70.3 (half ironman distance) triathlons and it is understood he sees the sport as the best way to make money given his sponsors have deserted him.
The Texan won in Hawaii, Florida and finished second to highly regarded Kiwi Bevan Docherty in Panama.
Armstrong's time in his Florida win, 3:45:38, is genuinely world class and his 3:50:55 in Hawaii broke champion McCormack's record by several minutes.
media_camera Lance Armstrong waits for the start of the Ironman Panama 70.3 triathlon in Panama City, Panama.
Jacobs spoke out after the second part of Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which the American confirmed he wanted to return to elite competition.
"Hell yes, I'm a competitor," Armstrong said when asked if he wanted to compete in sport again. "It's what I've done my whole life. I love to train. I love to race.
"Not the Tour de France, but there are a lot of other things I could do."
Armstrong was planning to take part in last October's Hawaii ironman in Kona before the scandal broke. Jacobs said he would not welcome a return by Armstrong to ironman triathon if the disgraced rider should get his suspension lifted or reduced by turning whistleblower.
"No, not really, I think it would cause too much of a stir," said Jacobs, who won the 2012 Hawaii ironman just days after the full extent of Armstrong's doping was revealed by USADA.
"This is a a sport driven by age groupers. People would not be happy to see him back."
Alexander yesterday called for his sport, which abides by the World Anti-Doping Agency code, to take a tougher stance against drug cheats.
"We need to draw a line in the sand and say 'no'," he said. "This is a great time to take stock and put new rules in place for zero tolerance."
media_camera Lance Armstrong competes the run leg of a triathlon.
Triathlon Australia chief executive Anne Gripper has derided Armstrong as far worse than a drug cheat.
Her opinions are particularly significant because she set up the anti-doping unit at cycling's world governing body in the wake of the 2006 Operation Puerto scandal.
"If he was just a drug cheat, I always believe you should do a sanction and have the right to come back to the sport," Gripper said.
"He's not a drug cheat - he's a bully, he's a manipulator, he's been incredibly unfair to a whole lot of people and he's a dead-set liar.
"(He's) not a single, one-off liar, he's a pathological liar.
"I don't want those people in our sport."
Originally published as Keep away from our sport, LanceBack in January, the Tulsa 9:12 group posted video on YouTube — which they have since removed — of a celebratory event with Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) where a woman in the audience demanded that President Obama be killed.
“Obama, he’s not president, as far as I’m concerned, he should be executed as an enemy combatant,” she said as part of a larger rant about how Obama is supposedly “shipping” Muslims into the country.
As we reported at the time, the congressman responded to her call to violence against the President not being condemning her remarks but by going into a rant about Obama’s supposed “lawlessness.”
The Oklahoma Democratic Party responded with this statement:
Republican Congressman Jim Bridenstine (OK-1) recently held an event at which a supporter called the President a traitor who should be executed. Bridenstine’s supporter can be heard calling the President derogatory names and several references to the Muslim community as well. “Just three days ago, someone was arrested for threatening to kill President George Bush. It is absolutely astonishing that a sitting United States Congressman would encourage and support that type of behavior. As an Oklahoman I am appalled that someone would threaten the Commander-in-Chief–Republican or Democrat. Congressman Bridenstine owes the President an apology, the country an apology and the people of Oklahoma an apology,” said ODP Chairman Wallace Collins.
Now several weeks later and only after he has been criticized for his response — or lack thereof — to the incident, Bridenstine finally responded to the activist’s deranged comments:Spotlight on Sprinting
Car - Mk 6 Jedi - Mk 6 Jedi
Owner - Stephen Chaplin
Class entered - D14 Racing Cars upto 1100cc
Year - 2006
Engine - Suzuki GSXR 1000 K5
Gear Box -Sequential 6 speed as supplied by Suzuki, upgraded clutch
Suspension - Adjustable AVO shocks
Brakes - AP 2 Pot all round, groved discs
Future - Club Sprinting, plus double driving with my son in his Mini Cooper
Owner - Stephen Laing - Stephen Laing
How long sprinting : 15 years + ( campaign history:- Westfield 2litre Punto, Caterham 1700 Crossflow, Exige Mk1, Caterham R500)
Car – Caterham R500
Year - 2009
Purchased: 2011
Engine – Ford Duratec 1998cc Caterham spec.
Gear Box -Sequential 6 speed
Suspension and brakes – Caterham R500 standard issue
Class entered – A8 Road going Kit Type and Replica Cars (Appendix 1 ) of 1701 cc and over including motorcycled engine cars of any capacity. ( Appendix 1 = Caterham, Westfield, Sylva, Fisher and Lotus 7, Elise, Exige, and 340R, Vauxhall 220, X – Bow and similar types/derivatives of these cars)
Future – Continue to enjoy Sprinting,
Car: Rellard /Reliant-Allard : Rellard /Reliant-Allard
Year: 1968
Engine: Ford V6 Essex
Gearbox: Getrag 5 Speed
Suspension/brakes: Reliant Scimitar standard
Future: carry on with all forms of motorsport, inc Trials/hillclimbs/sprints
The poor relation of motorsport? Not real racing! That’s how sprinting has been described to me by people who know very little about motor racing apart from their fortnightly diet of F1, with the added bonus of Suzy Perry. Sprinting has been around for many years, offers a variety of clubs and circuits all over the country. Thousands compete from the local level right up to the MSA run National Championship in a massive variety of machines from Ex formula 3 single-seaters to a standard Mini from the 1980s and everything in between. Over this season I will be on the lookout for the machines that we enjoy at classiccarmag.net their details and owners out there competing with car and driver against the track and the clock. Where better place than my local circuit the historic and fast track of Goodwood to seek out these machines, trailered or driven by their owners, no 40 ton artics or extendable motorhomes in this paddock. Owner/driver/mechanic is the norm but if you are lucky like I was you had some help from a trusty mate who didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. The paddock is always a friendly place with help if you need it from all areas especially your competition, every effort made to get every car out for their runs. With a multitude of classes, variety of cars and various amounts of driver skill and experience there is a place for anyone looking to enter the world of motorsport.- Austin 7 Ulster 750cc- Mark Groves- 1930- 7 years- Modified production- Standard block all else modified- Standard- Sort of standard/everything uprated- Race/sprint and enjoy- Ford Anglia 105e- Graham Kendall owned for 12 years- 1960- 3 years- Sports Libre- 1.6 Toyota Twin cam ex MR2/twin 45 del auto carbs- Ford 2000e 4 speed/ Toyota bell housing and cover/ Ford centre courtesy 105 speed- Front Mk 2 Cortina, Quaffe Diff- 12 years /Bad crash 2008 forced change to front end and space frame design- Volvo Amazon 1998cc/owner Kevin Diamond- 18 months- 1967- 18 months- Production saloon up to 2.0L- High lift cams. Balanced and lightened- Standard 4 speed- standard braked, competition pads, stiffened front Bilsteins, poly bushes- More sprints/hillclimbs, suspension overhaul, fit twin Webber carbs- MG MGA Coupe- Martin Phillis- 1958- 17 years- Road going modified- Peter Burgess built 1950cc MGB- Mgb with overdrive- Lowered stiffened front end with MGB V8 brakes- Just to keep on racing for as many years as possibleChris GallacherReliant Sabre Six- 1964- 2553cc straight six Ford- Ford standard- Road rallies, sprints and hill climbs - Rob Farley- SSC Stylus Classic (self built)- 1997- 2.0 Zetec- Quaife type 9- Heavierly modified fr and rear adjustable/coil overs- No plans to retire driver or car Rob King- Ford XR2- 1989 owned from new- Standard apart from Twin 40 Webbers and up rated exhaust- standard- Spax units- Up rated pads and discscarry on the same, life long partnersTim Cole (father) Sarah Munns (daughter) Mini1978Full race 1380ccStraight cut with LSDFully adjustable4 pot calipers and ventilated discThe car is completed, the family carrying on in sprinting Richard Carter (father) / James Carter (son)- Scimitar GTE SE5- 1972 (car built from several 2007-2008)- Essex 3.0 fuel injected- four speedmodified Avo coilovers- Front and rear modifiedWin More Championships: James SmithIf you want to add your own car to this article them email us at info@classiccarmag.net.Tags: Spotlight on SprintingFootball Soccer - Atletico Madrid v Rayo Vallecano - Spain King's Cup- Vicente Calderon stadium, Madrid, Spain - 14/1/16 Atletico Madrid's Angel Correa celebrates scoring with teammates Matias Kranevitter and Jesus Gamez. REUTERS/Susana Vera
MADRID (Reuters) - Europa League champions Sevilla hope to complete the loan signing of Atletico Madrid midfielder Matias Kranevitter this week, the Andalusian club’s sporting director said.
The 23-year-old Argentina international has made just eight appearances for Atletico since joining the Madrid outfit from River Plate in December 2015.
“We are negotiating (with Atletico) and we are very close to signing Kranevitter on loan,” Sevilla sporting director Monchi told Spanish radio station Cadena Cope. “We expect to have developments this week.”
Monchi is looking to replace Polish midfielder Grzegorz Krychowiak, who joined coach Unai Emery in making the move from Sevilla to Paris Saint-Germain this month.
Krychowiak joined Sevilla in 2014 on a 4.5-million-euro (3.83 million pounds) deal from Stade Reims.
“It was a very important offer that we received for Krychowiak,” Monchi said. “It was a very good price that we got for him, seven times what we paid for him two years ago. We will reinvest that money.”
Sevilla, under new coach Jorge Sampaoli, take on Champions League winners Real Madrid in the UEFA Super Cup on Aug. 9 in Trondheim, Norway.EarthGang, the kaleidoscopic Atlanta rap duo comprised of Johnny Venus and Doc Doctur, released an excellent album called Stray With Rabies last year. Today, they share live renditions of two of that album's songs — "Punchanella," produced by DrewsThatDude, and "A W O L," produced by J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League — as part of YouTube Music Foundry, an artist development program that helps emerging artists grow their fanbase. "We linked up with some of our old brethren from SW Atlanta and some new brethren from the local spots to put a fresh spin some of our favorite pieces from the album," the group said of the live session videos, which were filmed at a YouTube Pop-Up Space in Nashville this September.
"'Punchanella' is named after a classic children's game played in a circle, where they take turns entering the circle busting moves for everyone else to try and mock. We made the song with the same free, rebellious vibe," EarthGang said. "'A W O L' gave us a chance to be more integral in the production process. We got in the studio with J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, and crafted the song together."Despite a “reinforced” wave of repression, many people try to get to Europe, leaving from Morocco hidden in cars, trying to climb the fences around Ceuta or Melilla, or by boat (in 2015, 71 boats with 1260 migrants have arrived in Andalucia)
These crossing attempts result sometimes in human dramas, severe injuries or “disappearances” which are often not reported by mainstream media or by the authorities. Thus it’s not uncommon that someone alerts us about the disappearing of a migrant while trying to cross. But any further inquieries often remain in vain!
The repression organised by Morocco in cooperation with Spain and financed by the EU extends to the borders by an increasing militarisation, by real raids in the forests where the migrants seek shelter, in the markets (Soukh) and in the cities where migrants live.
The crossings
In the past months the crossings in the Strait of Gibraltar have become harder for the people trying their luck to get to Europe:
4 out of 5 boats are “recovered” by the Moroccan navy towards Morocco. It seems that the navy is increasingly active in locating boats leaving from Morocco, as they can resort to their own elaborate systems of surveillance and to critical information provided by the Spanish authorities about the presence of such boats in the Mediterranean.
For example, the commander Vicente Corral, member of the operational command of the staff of the Guardia Civil has underlined “the cooperation between all actors operating in the sea” as a key to the fight against drug and human smuggling networks. He has even enlisted the “shipping companies” as collaborators with the security forces because of their continious presence in the sea.
It makes us wonder if this is still a “rescue operation” or rather a “push-back”.
For example, the commander Vicente Corral, member of the operational command of the staff of the Guardia Civil has underlined “the cooperation between all actors operating in the sea” as a key to the fight against drug and human smuggling networks. He has even enlisted the “shipping companies” as collaborators with the security forces because of their continious presence in the sea. It makes us wonder if this is still a “rescue operation” or rather a “push-back”. The crossing conditions become ever more difficult for migrants. They need to find routes which are less surveilled by the Moroccan navy but more dangerous, the technical possibilities are limited by the lack of material, and they can only alert NGO’s or official organisations about their journey when they are already in real danger, out of fear that the Moroccan navy will come and arrest them. Following this new configuration of the repressive Moroccan forces and the Spaniards, some people throw themselves into the water as soon as they are close to the Salvamento Maritimo, in order to force them to rescue and not let them be pushed-back by the Moroccans.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUlacakkZVU&feature=youtu.be
Further info: http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/157 and http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/160
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUlacakkZVU&feature=youtu.be Further info: http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/157 and http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/160 A reported boat at sea with 22 people on it “disappeared”
Two Senegalese people drowned on the 27th of June in a boat intercepted by the Moroccan navy in Tangier.
The raids
The makeshift camps where the migrants live near the border were again rounded up by the Moroccan police: the personal belongings of the migrants are destroyed and some of the migrants are arrested and deported to cities in the south of Morocco, far away from the borders.
21/06, a raid took place in the forest of Zoutya (Nador/Melilla): the personal belongings were destroyed and 15 migrants were deported to Casablanca
25/06, raid in the forest of Bolingo (Nador/Melilla): 38 people were arrested and deported to Fes and Meknes
26/06, raid in the market of Selouane (Nador): 11 migrants were arrested, some even with residence permit. Some managed to escape.
27/06, in Nador: a boat with 25 people (4 women, one of them pregnant, and 2 babies) was intercepted by the Moroccan navy. They were arrested along with 12 other migrants, all of them got deported to Fes and Meknes.
Cassiago (Ceuta):
The migrants at Cassiago tell us that the police comes to Cassiago at least once a week, sometimes arresting people and destroying their belongings.
Because of these arrests and deportations the camps are disorganised, which prevents new crossing attempts. Furthermore, the deported people have to trace back their way up North in order to join others in the forest and re-try the journey. There is in fact no alternative for them, neither going back to their country of origin, nor a regularisation in Morocco.
Bouhkalef
Since the beginning of Ramadan, some groups of Moroccans harass subsaharan migrants. There were several demos by some Moroccan inhabitants, against the presence of migrants.
Video shot by a migrant
The violence resumed on the 28th of June after a sit-in, and it intensifies due to the intervention of the state. Before, the police hasn’t been doing anything when they were called to prevent the violent evictions of migrants’ houses. Now it seems that the authorities pursue their policy of intimidating the migrants at the borders: Without proposing any alternative, the wilaya of Tangier is optimist to give back the squatted flats to their “landlords”, effectively kicking out migrants leaving them on the streets.
At the same time, the trial of Charles, a young Senegalese who was killed last year during similar clashes was postponed yet again. Until now, there is no justice for him and other victimes of racist murders in Boukhalef.
AdvertisementsSouthampton Football Club is delighted to announce that midfielder Harrison Reed has signed a new four-year contract.
The 19 year-old today agreed to extend his deal until 2018, having become a regular part of the first-team set-up over the past year.
The England Under-19 international has played in all three of Saints’ pre-season friendlies so far this summer, and looks set to play a big role under new coach Ronald Koeman in the coming campaign.
“I’m over the moon to sign for this club for the next four years,” said Reed.
“I want to be at this football club because it’s only going forward and is going to keep pushing on, so I’m already looking forward to the future.
“I’ve really enjoyed the three weeks that I’ve been with the new manager and his coaching staff, so I’m looking to continue working on my game now.
“The quality of the training that the manager has put on and the ambition that he’s showing played a big part in my decision.
“The manager wants us to perform just as well and even better than last year, so I can’t wait to play a part in that.”
First Team Manager Koeman added: “This is very good news. I think it is a positive signal to everybody that we have secured Harrison for another four years.
“We would like to keep all our good young players at Southampton, so I am very happy to be able to keep him here.
“Harrison has had some chances in the friendly matches this summer and has impressed me in those, along with the training sessions where he has shown his quality.
“He has good qualities and is a big talent. We know that he will develop himself even more as we progress, and will become a great player.”
Harrison Reed and Ronald Koeman shake hands on the youngster's new contractIt’s not easy being Jimmy.
When Carter brags about how his “role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents,” Pat Buchanan mocks him on MSNBC for making a “very gauche and very offensive” comment. When he bites old rivals, accusing Teddy Kennedy of squashing his health care plan and crediting Mikhail Gorbachev ’s “enlightened administration” rather than Ronald Reagan for toppling the Berlin Wall, former Carter aides shrug, calling such bluntness “pure Jimmy.”
One of his military commanders admiringly called Carter “tough as woodpecker lips.” His former strategists still cringe when they recall the flash of contemptuous blue steel the president would level at them when they would go into the Oval Office to suggest a politically expedient move. Famously and infamously candid, Carter is just as hard on himself, writing in an afterword that he could have been “somewhat less rigid” and “autocratic,” that he was not “a natural politician” and that he’s sorry he alienated Jews and the press.
In the last 30 years, Carter has accomplished many grand and important things in the world. Yet it must hurt, I say, that his name is synonymous with presidential ineptitude. Before he got elected, Barack Obama praised Reagan as a “transformative” president. Now in a slump, Obama morphs into Carter, an eat-your-peas president for an ice-cream-sundae nation.
Carter agrees that unfavorable comparisons are odious, before protesting: “But I don’t think I failed.”
Photo
In an era of Protean populist pols who can go from fresh face to sorceress to scofflaw in a matter of days, Jimmy Carter is who he is. In 1976, the former peanut farmer from Georgia exploded out of his shell, buoyed by the same sort of antiestablishment frenzy — or “ malaise,” as he puts it, recycling the word that caused him so many problems — that we see now.
Carter does not consider the Tea Party to be racist, noting “strangely enough, my approach to politics is very similar to what the Tea Party is doing.” But he does worry about anti-intellectualism becoming “a political advantage,” and about kowtowing to extremism.
“I think the Newt Gingrich of five years ago would be embarrassed by the Newt Gingrich of today,” he says of his fellow Georgian.
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He thinks Gingrich’s wacko Kenyan rant and Carl Paladino’s e-mail to friends showing an African tribal dance with the caption, “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal,” are “slightly concealed racism.”
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Carter says Obama has it worse than he did because of the psycho-polarization and because for most of his presidency there was no cable news. “Fox News deliberately lies about Obama’s religion and about his beliefs and about what he has in mind for the country and about his racial background,” Pure Jimmy says, adding that Fox has kept up an anti-Islamic drumbeat as well. (Continuing his nonsensical insinuations against Obama, Newt said the U.S. should pass a bill that outlaws Shariah, or Islamic law.)
I asked about the strange evangelist feel of the Beck-Palin rally on the Mall. “I worship the Prince of Peace,” Carter said, emphasizing the peace part. “But I think nowadays faith is being used by Glenn Beck and Ms. Palin and others as a political ploy.”
Bill Clinton calls Sarah Palin “somebody to be reckoned with.” But when I ask Carter if he thinks she will run for president, he responds crisply: “I don’t think she should. I don’t think she will.”
He said he believes that “the strange series of mishaps” that upended his attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran upended his presidency, but he is still disappointed that we have not been communicating with Iran.
“I think it’s always best to have diplomatic relations with countries with whom we have differences of opinion,” he says. “America, more than any other country, doesn’t do that. If we have a falling out with a particular faction that’s in authority, we sever all relations with them. I think to constantly threaten Iran with atomic attack is one of the incentives that might lead them to move toward a nuclear arsenal, even if they weren’t otherwise inclined to do so.”Schadenfreude, Anyone? In Wake of Facebook Bullying Claims, Google+ Chief Vic Gundotra Woos Developers.
When our enemies stumble publicly, some take the high road and steer clear of mentioning our adversary’s folly. But for others, some things are just too good to pass up.
In an almost comically timed display of opportunism, Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra did just that. After Facebook took public knocks from developer Dalton Caldwell, who in a blog post on Wednesday accused the company of shady, bullying practices surrounding its platform, Gundotra took to Google+ to post a note of reassurance to his developer base, saying in so many words: Google don’t play that.
“When we open an API, we want developers to feel confident that the innovations they build are going to be long lasting,” Gundotra wrote in his Google+ post. “Releasing an API, and then later changing the rules of the game isn’t fun for anyone, especially developers who’ve spent their life’s energies building on the platform.”
“I’m not interested in screwing over developers,” he wrote, linking directly to Caldwell’s post.
While his words don’t exactly scream “classy,” the timing is perfect for Gundotra and his team. Google+ has taken much heat from its developer base over the past months, as the social network does not have an open API for all developers. That essentially means that developers looking to build apps into Google+ can’t do so. Pointing toward Facebook’s alleged platform fumbling, or even misdeeds, takes some of the heat off of the lack of Google+ API availability.
“I’m sorry that we haven’t released a wide open write API for those of you who want one,” Gundotra wrote. “We’re being careful because we want to be different.”
What’s more, Twitter is also in the midst of a developer upheaval. Major changes are coming to the platform guidelines, ones that could leave untold third-party Twitter developers in the lurch. As I have reported previously, the company plans to clamp down on the way Twitter developers display tweets in their applications, a significant change from the company’s relatively open stance on third-party apps that utilize Twitter’s rich data stream.
In short, this couldn’t be better for Google+. While Twitter developers contemplate whether it’s worth sticking it out on the Twitter platform, a prominent Valley developer lobs damning accusations at Facebook — a company that is pushing hard to add new apps every day. Google could step in and be the white knight of the platform wars, offering to treat its developers right where its competitors have wavered.
Yet however strategic the move may be, it’s hard not to see Gundotra’s post as kicking his competitors while they’re down. With lines like these, his sense of delight is almost palpable:
“You know, [I’m] actually respectful of developers who build on our platform. It’s novel. I know.”Using a method called reconstructive speckle imaging, a team of astronomers at the Gemini Observatory has captured the sharpest ground-based image ever obtained of Pluto and Charon in visible light.
“The Pluto-Charon result is of timely interest to those of us wanting to understand the orbital dynamics of this pair for the 2015 encounter by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft,” said Dr Steve Howell of the NASA Ames Research Center, lead author of a paper to be published next month in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
“NASA’s Kepler mission, which has already proven a powerful exoplanet discovery tool, will benefit greatly from this technique,” Dr Howell noted.
The astronomers said the speckle imaging with the Gemini North 8-meter telescope will provide Kepler’s follow-up program with a doubling in its ability to resolve objects and validate Earth-like planets. It also offers a 3- to 4-magnitude sensitivity increase for the sources observed by the team. That’s about a 50-fold increase in sensitivity in the observations Dr Howell’s team made at Gemini. “This is an enormous gain in the effort underway to confirm small Earth-size planets,” Dr Howell said.
The team temporarily installed a camera, called the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI), among the suite of instruments mounted on the Gemini telescope.
“This was a fantastic opportunity to bring DSSI to Gemini North this past July,” said co-author Dr Elliott Horch of the Southern Connecticut State University. “In just a little over half an hour of Pluto observations, collecting light with the large Gemini mirror, we obtained the best resolution ever with the DSSI instrument – it was stunning!”
The resolution obtained in the observations, about 20 milliarcseconds, easily corresponds to separating a pair of automobile headlights in Providence, Rhode Island, from San Francisco, California. To achieve this level of definition, Gemini obtained a large number of very quick snapshots of Pluto and Charon.
The researchers then reconstructed them into a single image after subtracting the blurring effects and ever-changing speckled artifacts caused by turbulence in the atmosphere and other optical aberrations. With enough snapshots only the light from the actual objects remains constant, and the artifacts reveal their transient nature, eventually canceling each other out.
_______
Bibliographic information: Howell S. et al. 2012. To appear in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the PacificAnother dual-use product from Never-Thought-of-It LLC: A key ring flashlight to illuminate or to blind and disorient an attacker….
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from the that-would-be-big dept
Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate the financial system.
Matt Blaze has been pointing out that when you read the new White House intelligence task force report and its recommendations on how to reform the NSA and the wider intelligence community, that there may be hints to other excesses not yet revealed by the Snowden documents. Trevor Timm may have spotted a big one. In the recommendation concerning increasing security in online communications, the second sub-point sticks out like a sore thumb:If you can't read that, it says:While there have been plenty of reports about the US running hundreds of offensive cyberattacks on others, outside of things like Stuxnet, not many have been directly identified. And I'm unaware of any claims suggesting attempts to "manipulate the financial system" of any particular country and/or to "change the amounts held in financial accounts." It seems a bit odd to come out of the blue like that, and certainly suggests that this particular bullet point likely came as a result of a rather specific thing that came up during the task force's review.So, now we wait for the inevitable news of what sort of financial shenanigans the NSA was up to.
Filed Under: cyberattacks, financial manipulation, nsaNow that my son has turned twelve, I am beginning to see among his friends a bifurcation: some “love” mathematics and some “hate” mathematics. This is frustrating to me since I know that if the kids see operations research then they will all love it. What is not to like? Coloring maps, finding paths, scheduling sports leagues…. who could ask for more? But if they hate mathematics now, it will be very hard to get them into operations research in the future.
My son has generally had good mathematics teachers, and his curriculum is full of interesting aspects of mathematics. Sometimes the variety drives me crazy (seriously: shouldn’t a twelve year old know what 9×7 is without hemming and hawing?) but most of the time I like what he is learning. Rather than rote memorization, the teachers are trying to imbue him with an understanding of concepts such as measurement, algebraic thinking, counting, geometry and so on. I do think such an approach to mathematics will lead to a greater appreciation for things like operations research when the time comes. And I wish that time was no later than high school (see HSOR for some older but still very useful modules for that level).
I have a colleague in New Zealand who is trying to provide rich mathematical-oriented resources for a variety of levels. Nicola Petty (“Dr. Nic”) runs the Statistics Learning Center which has, among many other things, a number of very useful videos on many statistical concepts. I often send my students there when it appears my own explanations of those concepts is not meshing with them.
Dr. Nic has a Kickstarter going on for a set of mathematics cards aimed at the 5-8 year old set. Each “Cat” card describes a cat along with her possessions, age, characteristics and so on. Kids can use these cards to explore issues in counting, graphing, statistics, and many other areas. I haven’t found a way to naturally embed a shortest path problem in the set, but perhaps the more creative of you can create a game that illustrates the concept of NP-completeness (and, coincidentally, keeping the kids quiet for a very long time).
I would hope that items like this (along with all the other things Dr. Nic offers) would spark interest in “our” type of mathematics. If you have a kids of the appropriate age (or are a kid of that age who happens to read Operations Research blogs) or know someone or a school that could use this resource, I hope you can support her Kickstarter or her other offerings. And look for a card named “Trafalgar” (I hope) in the final edition of the Cat cards!Tahune Airwalk closed for maintenance as well as logging, minister says
Updated
Tasmania's popular tourist drawcard, the Tahune Airwalk, is being closed for essential maintenance as well as to allow nearby logging, the Government says.
Conservationists have accused the Government of putting logging ahead of tourism in its plan to close the attraction until September.
The Airwalk, near Geeveston, is an elevated walkway through a stand of some of the highest flowering trees in the world.
It is on several Top 10 Tasmanian tourist attraction lists but will be closed to visitors for six weeks.
Minister for Resources Paul Harriss said the closure had been specifically timed in the quiet tourism season.
Mr Harriss said the closure provided the opportunity to harvest working forests near Arve Road.
"Forestry Tasmania has advised that they are taking advantage of that closure to safely undertake harvesting in working forests adjacent to the road," he said.
Instead of foolishly logging a region of globally unique, towering giant trees, let's protect them and prove that we can have an opportunity for a giant tree bushwalk in intact forest, rather than another outrageous case of logging the scenery. Environmentalist Jenny Webber
"Is the Green movement seriously suggesting that this essential maintenance work shouldn't be done?
"Or that the harvesting should take place while the road is open, potentially putting people's safety at risk?"
Environmentalist Jenny Weber said she was concerned about the disruption to the tourism hot spot.
"We have tens of thousands of people visiting there every year," she said.
"Instead of foolishly logging a region of globally unique, towering giant trees, let's protect them and prove that we can have an opportunity for a giant tree bushwalk in intact forest, rather than another outrageous case of logging the scenery."
Access to the Hartz Mountains National Park will also be cut.
Labor's Lara Giddings was unimpressed by the closure, saying it was unacceptable and would hurt the local economy.
"The Tahune Airwalk is the biggest tourism attraction for the Huon Valley, it's going to hurt tourism in the Huon Valley right at the time, the winter period, when tourism is at its weakest point," she said.
A spokeswoman for Forestry Tasmania said the closure was necessary and the maintenance was being done at a the quietest time of the year and it made sense to undertake the logging at the same time.
"Forestry Tasmania has deliberately timed the harvesting... to coincide with the Tahune and Arve Road closures so that all of this work can be undertaken simultaneously to minimise any disruption to tourists and other road users," she said in a statement.
Topics: forestry, tourism, activism-and-lobbying, geeveston-7116
First postedA gala |
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From the guy to The Guy Inside Paul Brown Stadium, there's no doubt
Andy Dalton lifted his right arm and gave a firm thumbs up. He began throwing in March, but won’t say if he could’ve played in late January, or February, had the Bengals gotten that far. There is no point in wondering. It was over when it was over, and after getting through the initial disappointment of it, he moved on. His family says the injury, how the season eventually ended, didn’t tear him apart.
No game, no result, ever has. Not in Little League, the 2005 state title or 2010 Fiesta Bowl losses, or the playoff disappointments from 2011 to 2014. He doesn’t forget, though. And those results were not good enough.
Since 2015 wasn’t finished, that isn’t, either.
“He’s not satisfied,” Zampese said. “Just going to the playoffs, whatever, that’s not where he’s going as a player. What we saw was a hunger to go make a jump. What happens to those guys is if they hang around the middle to the bottom half of the middle, they don’t last. So very few of them are able to make the jump. And if you can and can stay there, now you’re a real guy.”
Andy Dalton kneels down in a joint prayer circle after the preseason game between the Bengals and the Indianapolis Colts on Sept. 3, 2015. (Photo: Kareem Elgazzar)
Inside Paul Brown Stadium, there is little doubt Dalton has become that. It will take playoff victories to cement that belief elsewhere. But if that does happen, don’t expect to hear how something changed. He had his best season on the field, set a new standard, which happened by just being Andy off it.
It’s why he, and the team, believe another jump can be taken.
“I want to build on top of that keep improving and just try to be the best I can be,” he said.
It’s what he’s always tried to do. It’s why he seeks to be strongly defined as a Christian, father, husband, son and brother. He just also happens to be the face of an NFL franchise. Everyone has begun to see and appreciate the former, allowing more comfort in acknowledging the latter.Mark Twain, pictured in 1907. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-ds-05448)
When it came to speaking his mind, Mark Twain was rarely one to pull punches. Twain was often critical of others, whether it was calling President Theodore Roosevelt a “bully” or pillorying the writings of Jane Austen (“Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone,” said Twain in a 1908 letter.) However, Twain’s most heated rivalry was not with another author or president but rather an entire branch of government: the postal service of the United States.
Twain’s opposition to the post office spanned several decades, with the acclaimed author making many of his gripes public. He published newspaper articles with harsh criticisms of new regulations, publicly feuded with members of the service, and even scored a meeting with Britain’s Postmaster General in an effort to makes overseas shipments more affordable.
The creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn put nearly as much effort into his battles with the postal service as he did into his storied works. So what was it about the post office that made this man of letters clash with a service that conveyed letters?
A crowd waits in a Post Office, c. 1890. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-USZ62-89496)
If prompted, most people could come up with valid complaints about the post office, but few have harbored a resentment toward it quite like Twain. During a short-lived position in the office of Nevada senator William Stewart in 1867, he even tried to prevent new ones from being built. When the senator received a request for a post office in a Nevada mining camp, Twain took the liberty of responding, stating that there was no need for a post office, and offered a new jail instead.
Twain often shared his frustrations about the post office in editorials for local newspapers, with particular ire reserved for Postmaster General David M. Key, a senator who served in the role from 1877 until 1880. Key’s new, stricter regulations on mailing letters and packages infuriated Twain to no end. In an 1879 letter to the Hartford Courant, Twain expressed discontent at Key’s most recent addition to the postal regulations, which required envelope addresses to be more specific (addresses before were not required to list streets or states, often times a name and city would suffice).
Twain complained that these new regulations were a waste of ink, time, and money for all citizens. “Isn’t it odd that we should take a spasm, every now and then,” Twain remarks, “and go spinning back into the dark ages once more, after having put in a world of time and money and work toiling up into the high lights of modern progress?”
David Key, the Postmaster General, c. 1860s. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-cwpbh-04495)
Twain’s editorial prompted a response from Thomas Kirby, the private secretary to the Postmaster General, who tried to explain that the new regulations were created with good reason. Twain had Kirby’s letter published in the Hartford Courant with his response attached, which accosted Kirby for “meddling” in affairs that did not concern him.
“You seem to think you have been called to account,” Twain opens. “This is a grave error. It is the Post Office Department of the United States of America which has been called to account.” Twain lambasts Kirby for several paragraphs, going on to refer to the Post Office as “the dog” and Kirby as “the tail” and states that Kirby “endeavored to wag the dog” when he should instead be waiting for “the dog to wag you.”
However, Twain was not piqued by all post office workers and rules. When a letter announcing Twain’s election to the New York Press Club was mailed without the proper postage, a postmaster named James paid the postage himself and forwarded the letter, which included a party invitation, to Twain. Unfortunately, Twain was unable to make the reception, but sent a response explaining the mishap, and complimenting James.
A post box in 1911. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-hec-00561)
Twain wrote, to the New York Press Club: “Had your unpaid letter passed through the average Post Office of the land I should have received my invitation about three months from now through the Dead-letter Department, after much correspondence [&] ruinous outlay of postage. I [wish] that there were more Postmaster Jameses in the land.”
Of course, Twain also took offense to the use of a Dead Letter Office, where some 30,000 daily letter and parcels that could not be delivered for failures of handwriting, postage, or other reasons ended up, in Washington D.C. In an 1876 letter to the Saturday Evening Post, he gripes about how a letter sent to him was one penny short on payment, forcing it to be sent to the Dead Letter Office.
The post office mailed a request for the missing penny, and when Twain sent the payment (through a mailed envelope, tacking on another three cents) and received the letter, he was saddened to discover it was only a doctor’s bill. The sardonic author sent his letter to the Post covered in stamps “amounting to thirty-nine cents, when three cents would doubtless have answered every purpose,” states an editor’s note.
Mark Twain writing in his study, c. 1870s. (Photo: Internet Archive/Public Domain)
He didn’t just criticize it; Twain actively tried to improve the mail service himself. The author once pitched his invention of a “postal check” to the service, a sort of pre-paid, mailable money order that could be cashed at a post office and used to purchase items. Twain prepared a lengthy pitch, which included a scripted dialogue of a “Wisdom Seeker” explaining the check to a “Statesman.” A bill regarding a postal check reached Congress but was never adopted.
Twain even considered taking the position of postmaster in San Francisco, he revealed in an 1868 letter to Elisha Bliss, then the president of the American Publishing Company. The author had received the support of a number of high-ranking officials in the city, where he was then living, but bowed out when he realized it was too strenuous a job to be able to work and write simultaneously.
One has to wonder if the acceptance of the position would have remedied Twain’s discontent for the postal service or exaggerated it. Maybe a shifted point of view would have changed Twain’s opinion on the department entirely.
The Mark Twain commemorative stamp being unveiled in 2011. (Photo: Dannel Malloy/CC BY 2.0)
In 1907, Twain complained of the high cost to send a letter to England, stating that the established price of one dollar per pound of letters was “downright robbery.” Twain even organized a meeting with the British Postmaster General on the subject, which he labeled “petty larceny,” where he proposed that mailing letters between England and America should only be a penny each way, stating that the lower price would increase the number of letters sent, and would result in higher revenue for the postal service. Needless to say, his proposal was not adopted.
Twain had strong feelings about the requirement of stamps on letters, too. “When England in 1848 invented stamps,” Twain remarked before his meeting with the British Postmaster General, “my feelings were decidedly anti-English.” Twain saw stamps as an inconvenience and stated that his letters “arrived all the same” without them.
Ironically, the USPS released a commemorative stamp depicting Twain in 2011, meant to honor his legacy as a hero of American literature. Twain would surely be furious at the idea of a “forever” stamp that only worked domestically. If he wanted to send a complaint to England, he’d have to add two more.By Max BlumenthalThis piece originally ran on AlterNet.
Update: Read Max Blumenthal’s overview of the neocon network’s mobilization against the facts contained in this article. His response to the National Review’s allegations of a “lie” are included.
While promoting her new book, Heretic, on a March 23 episode of “The Daily Show,” Somali-born author and anti-Islam activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a staggering claim: “If you look at 70 percent of the violence in the world today, Muslims are responsible,” she told host Jon Stewart.
Stewart did not demand any evidence and Hirsi Ali provided no citation. However, she made a strikingly similar statement in a March 20 essay previewing her new book for the Wall Street Journal: “According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies,” Hirsi Ali wrote in WSJ’s Saturday Essay, “at least 70% of all the fatalities in armed conflicts around the world last year were in wars involving Muslims.”
I contacted the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading British foreign policy think tank, to inquire about the source of Hirsi Ali’s statistic. According to IISS Media Relations and Communications Officer Kat Slowe, IISS did not explicitly state such a figure in its research.
“I have spoken to a number of our experts and they cannot identify where this statistic may have come from,” Slowe told me.
“Their best guess is that the journalist in question [Hirsi Ali] may have access/a subscription to the [IISS] Armed Conflict Database and may have calculated this statistic independently. There are some concerns that it could be misleading as, without Syria (near 200,000 total deaths, and almost half of last year’s global conflict deaths) the figure would look massively different (and of course, this conflict did not have its root in religion),” Slowe added.
Hirsi Ali’s AHA Foundation did not respond to my request for a citation on the statistic, nor did the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute that employs Hirsi Ali as a resident scholar. My email query to Hirsi Ali’s personal account at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she serves as a fellow, also went unanswered.
Around 24 hours after my initial query, Hirsi Ali publicly backed off her claim that Muslims are “responsible” for most of the violence in the world. “Depressing that 70% of fatalities in armed conflicts around the world last year were in wars involving Muslims,” she declared on her personal Twitter account.
Hirsi Ali linked to a survey of casualties in global conflicts by IISS’ Hanna Ucko Neill and Jens Wardenaer which made no reference to Muslims or religiously inspired violence. Apparently Hirsi Ali calculated the statistic on her own by using an IISS report that documented fatalities in conflicts in territories from eastern Ukraine to sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East to Mexico, where drug gangs fueled widespread killing. The IISS’s Slowe noted that year’s surge in conflict-related deaths occured thanks to the fighting in Syria, explaining that Hirsi Ali’s claim “could be misleading” because “this conflict did not have its root in religion.”
Instead of responding to my question about her statistic, Hirsi Ali’s AHA Foundation forwarded my email query to the Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing publication with its own history of Islamophobic tall tales and hoaxes. In a currently un-bylined article about the query, the Free Beacon accused me of anti-Semitism.
History of fraud
Hirsi Ali’s highly suspect statistic is only the latest deception by one of the world’s most prominent opponents of Islam. While other anti-Muslim activists like Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller have marginalized themselves on the fringes of the far-right, Hirsi Ali remains a darling of the American mainstream media. In Heretic, a polemic recycling many of her past arguments against Islam, she calls for the emergence of a Muslim Martin Luther — the authoritarian 16th-century zealot who called for burning down the synagogues of Jews, whom he compared to a gangrenous disease. With the book’s release, Hirsi Ali has been welcomed with open arms by the BBC, CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and a relatively accommodating Jon Stewart. ABC News has even run an excerpt from Heretic, while the New York Times Book Review hosted her for an interview filled with hardball questions about her favorite children’s books.
Hirsi Ali’s power to persuade lies in her dramatic personal story and the public persona she has constructed. She has marketed herself as a expert native informant who has emerged out of the dark heart of radical Islam and into the light of Western civilization. Her tale is an uplifting, comforting one that tells many Westerners what they want to hear about themselves and their perceived enemies. With anti-Muslim attitudes at their peak across Europe and the US, her sweeping critique of Islam as an endemically violent faith has enormous cachet. The only problem is that like her writings on Islam, much of what she has told the public about herself is questionable.
In May 2006, the Dutch television program Zembla thoroughly debunked the dramatic story Hirsi Ali had told to advance her career, concluding that Hirsi Ali had sold the Dutch public “a story full of obscurities.”
Born Ayaan Hirsi Magam, she migrated to the Netherlands in 1992, changed her name to Hirsi Ali, and lied to Dutch authorities about her past. Contrary to the story she told the government, she arrived in the Netherlands not from war-torn Somalia, but from Kenya, where she lived in a secure environment and under the protection of the United Nations, which funded her education at a well-regarded Muslim girls’ school. Though she told immigration authorities and the Dutch public she had fled from civil war in Somalia, she left that country before its war broke out. Indeed, she did not live through a war there or anywhere else. Thanks to her fabrications, Hirsi Ali received political asylum in just five weeks.
Hirsi Ali told astonished audiences on Dutch talk shows that her supposedly devout family had forced her to marry a draconian Muslim man, that she had not been present at her own wedding, and that her family had threatened to kill her for offending their religious honor. However, Zembla told a drastically different story. Hirsi Ali’s brother, aunt and former husband each testified that she had indeed been present at her wedding. It turned out that Hirsi Ali’s mother had sent her brother to a Christian school, not exactly an indication of Islamic fanaticism.
“Yeah, I made up the whole thing,” Hirsi Ali admitted on camera to a Zembla reporter who confronted her with her lies. “I said my name was Ayaan Hirsi Ali instead of Ayaan Hirsi Magan. I also said I was born in 1967 while I was actually born in 1969.”
Hirsi Ali’s claim of honor killing threats also appears to be empty; she remained in touch with her father and aunt after she left her husband. In fact, her husband even came to visit her in the Dutch refugee center where she lived after leaving him. Even though he had paid her way to Europe on the grounds that she would join him in Canada, Hirsi Ali’s husband consented to the divorce she sought. (Watch the full Zembla program on Hirsi Ali.)
Fabrications that toppled a government
In 2003, just a decade after gaining political asylum in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali was elected to the Dutch parliament on the ticket of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. VVD leadership knew that the story Hirsi Ali told on her immigration forms was a gigantic lie — she had told them as much — but covered up the fraud and even advanced it to propel her career.
“She’s witnessed five civil wars in her youth, and has fled with her family many times. She’s made of iron and steel,” the VVD’s Neelie-Smit Kroes said of Hirsi Ali at the time, reciting claims her party knew were false.
A year after joining the Dutch parliament, where she said she attempted to ban Islamic schools in the Netherlands, Hirsi Ali teamed up with Dutch director Theo van Gogh to produce a documentary called Submission. The film portrayed violence against women in Muslim communities as a logical result of Islamic belief, relying on actresses to portray abused women and featuring semi-nude, niqab clad women with Quranic verses scrawled across their torsos. Van Gogh, a filmmaker and columnist who had taken to calling Muslims “goat fuckers,” was gunned down and stabbed to death soon after the film’s release by a Dutch Islamist radical. Before fleeing the scene, the killer pinned a note to van Gogh’s body threatening Hirsi Ali with death. Hirsi Ali’s persistence in the face of the episode helped earn her hero status across the West, particularly in post-9/11 America, where Time magazine named her one of its 100 Most Influential People in 2005.
Zembla’s revelations of Hirsi Ali’s lies in May 2006 interrupted her ascent and threw the Dutch government into chaos. No one was more damaged than her friend and close party ally, Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk. Nicknamed “Iron Rita” for her ruthless anti-migrant crackdowns and her demagogic appeals to xenophobia, Verdonk was shamed by the revelations of Hirsi Ali’s deceptions. When she announced her intention to strip Hirsi Ali of her citizenship, however, she was skewered in parliament and forced to relent.
Days after Zembla aired its exposé, Hirsi Ali announced her plans to leave parliament and take up a position with the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington-based think tank that housed many of the neoconservatives who helped orchestrate the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of the furor she caused, Verdonk introduced the so-called “Law on Integration,” one of Europe’s harshest anti-immigrant bills. Only one member of the Dutch House of Representatives opposed it. However, the governing coalition soon collapsed because of the scandal Hirsi Ali’s deceptions inspired. With a new coalition seated in February 2007, and without Verdonk and Hirsi Ali in power, the government was able to adopt a more tolerant approach to immigrants.
Winning a Harvard fellowship, defending Breivik
Upon her relocation to the US, Hirsi Ali was embraced by a coalition of liberal interventionists, neoconservatives and “New Atheists” like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Bill Maher. With extended appearances on the Christian Broadcasting Network of Pat Robertson, who blamed homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, self-proclaimed feminist Hirsi Ali won droves of fans among the Christian right. Despite her views on Islam, which she called a “destructive, nihilistic cult of death,” or perhaps because of them, she received a fellowship from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
As she rose in prominence among America’s intellectual elite, Hirsi Ali’s history of lying tumbled conveniently down the Orwellian memory hole. In promotional material for her best-selling 2007 memoir, Infidel, Hirsi Ali’s publishers at Simon & Schuster have pushed the discredited claim that “Hirsi Ali survived civil war.” More recently, conservative pundit Peggy Noonan glossed over the reasons behind Hirsi Ali’s flight from the Netherlands, writing, “Ayaan Hirsi Ali got death threats and eventually fled to America.” Few, if any, American outlets have noted that Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands as her public credibility collapsed and her anti-immigrant party fell into crisis.
With support from across the American ideological spectrum, Hirsi Ali sharpened her rhetoric against Muslims. In a candid 2007 exchange with Reason Magazine, she declared that the religion of Islam had to be “defeated.” “Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful,” Hirsi Ali stated. “It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now….There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.”
Junketed to Berlin in 2012 to receive the Axel Springer Honorary Award from the right-wing German publisher, Hirsi Ali appeared to blame liberal defenders of multiculturalism for the killing spree committed by the Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik, claiming they left Breivik with “no other choice but to use violence. (Breivik cited Hirsi Ali’s work in his 1,500 page manifesto explaining his plans to commit a series of terrorist attacks across Norway.)
“[T]hat one man who killed 77 people in Norway, because he fears that Europe will be overrun by Islam, may have cited the work of those who speak and write against political Islam in Europe and America – myself among them – but he does not say in his 1500 page manifesto that it was these people who inspired him to kill. He says very clearly that it was the advocates of silence. Because all outlets to express his views were censored, he says, he had no other choice but to use violence.” (Her words were met with an extended standing ovation.)
When Brandeis University canceled plans to award Hirsi Ali an honorary degree in April 2014, it appeared that her increasingly vitriolic tirades against Islam and its adherents had caught up with her. But then came the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris, a seemingly clarifying moment that Hirsi Ali and fellow anti-Islam activists seized on as confirmation of their darkest prophecies. Two months later, she released Heretic.
Having rebranded herself a brave “reformer” following in the footsteps of the Selma marchers, Hirsi Ali has found her way back into the mainstream limelight. While American media demonstrates an endless appetite for her polemics about Islam, holding her to account remains taboo.
Editor’s Note: Cat Slowe’s official title with IISS has been clarified — her official title is Media Relations and Communications Officer.
Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. Find him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented as the US supreme court ruled that evidence of a crime could be used even if police illegally stopped the defendant
Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a blistering dissent on Monday as the US supreme court ruled that evidence of a crime could be used even though police illegally stopped the defendant when obtaining it.
The court’s opinion came in a case in which a detective illegally stopped Edward Strieff as he walked out of a house in South Salt Lake, Utah. Police had received an anonymous tip that the house he walked out of contained “drug activity”, but did not have a particular reason to suspect Strieff. A name check revealed an outstanding “small traffic warrant” for Strieff, and police arrested and searched him on that basis. He was found to be carrying methamphetamine.
Justice Clarence Thomas said the officer’s actions did not represent “flagrant police misconduct”. The court voted 5-3 to reinstate Strieff’s drug-related convictions.
But in an extraordinarily forceful dissent, Sotomayor contended that evidence obtained from an illegal stop is tainted and undermines the fourth amendment, which protects people from “unreasonable searches and seizures”.
She wrote: “The court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your fourth amendment rights. Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: this case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants – even if you are doing nothing wrong.
Sonia Sotomayor lambasts justices for backing officer who shot fleeing suspect Read more
“If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant.”
Sotomayor, a former criminal prosecutor, warned that people of colour are the subject of particular scrutiny. “This court has given officers an array of instruments to probe and examine you,” she added. “When we condone officers’ use of these devices without adequate cause, we give them reason to target pedestrians in an arbitrary manner. We also risk treating members of our communities as second-class citizens.
“Although many Americans have been stopped for speeding or jaywalking, few may realise how degrading a stop can be when the officer is looking for more. This court has allowed an officer to stop you for whatever reason he wants – so long as he can point to a pretextual justification after the fact.”
Sotomayor was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Elena Kagan filed a separate dissent, noting that outstanding arrest warrants are not distributed evenly across the population but concentrated in cities, towns and neighborhoods where stops are most likely to occur. Some 16,000 of the 21,000 people living in the town of Ferguson, Missouri, have outstanding warrants.
Kagan described the initial detention of Strieff as a “calculated decision, taken with so little justification that the state has never tried to defend its legality” and said it put fourth amendment protections at risk.
But Justice Stephen Breyer, generally seen as a liberal, joined the four conservatives to form a majority on the court that is still understaffed following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February.
Thomas wrote in the opinion: “Evidence is admissible when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is remote or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance.”
The Utah supreme court had ruled that the initial stop was illegal and the discovery of the arrest warrant insufficient to justify the search and arrest, prompting Utah to appeal.It seems like Gambit is always in theatrical flux. The movie has been in development for quite some time, and but progress on the X-Men standalone has been slow going. 20th Century Fox is currently focusing on projects like New Mutants and Dark Phoenix, but Gambit isn’t far off its mind. After all, Channing Tatum just admitted he is working on the film already.
UP NEXT: Simon Kinberg on the Gambit Movie
ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis was able to snag Tatum for a brief question after the actor appeared at San Diego Comic-Con. It was there we asked if the actor was still playing Gambit, and here’s what the actor had to say: “Yeah, of course. We're working on it right now."
For fans, it is reassuring to hear that Gambit is still alive and well. Tatum has long been attached to the role of Remy LeBeau, but other members of the film’s crew have not been so lucky. Earlier this year, reports surfaced director Doug Liman had exited the film. Producer Hutch Parker recently confirmed the project was still moving along as expected, but Liman detailed the problems Gambit will face with fans shortly after he dropped out.
“You know, it’s a crowded field of superhero films so the challenge for Gambit or any of those other movies is finding its unique space and its unique take," Liman told IGN. "But, yeah, I think Simon Kinberg, who is producing it, is a great producer and he’ll create something great out of it."
Fox has yet to announced a new director for Gambit, but fans are hoping to hear about a replacement soon. Limas left the project since he was unable to form a “personal connection” with the feature, so here’s to hoping the studio lands a new director who is all about the raging Cajun mutant next time around. MORE GAMBIT NEWS: Doug Liman Comments On Leaving The Gambit Movie
What Do The 2018 X-Men Movies Mean For Gambit?
Fan Trailer Friday: The Gambit Movie Gets A Trailer
Are you looking to see Remy LeBeau get his own solo flick? Rate Gambit in the ComicBook Anticipation Rankings below!
Photo Credit: Getty / Jerod HarrisSpartak Moscow fans displayed a banner deriding the BBC during their Russian Football Premier League derby match with Lokomotiv Moscow on Saturday.
During the first half of the match at Lokomotiv Stadium, Spartak fans unfurled a banner featuring a mock picture containing two masked fans, with one holding a scarf bearing stripes in Spartak colors, and the other, displayed on a TV screen with the BBC logo, brandishing a machete.
Spartak Moscow fans at Lokomotiv today with a banner "BBC - Blah Blah Channel" in reference to the BBC documentary "Russia's Hooligan Army" pic.twitter.com/hPf0z0k5q9 — Danny Armstrong (@DannyWArmstrong) March 18, 2017
The bottom of the banner reads: “Blah Blah Channel” – a reference to the BBC documentary “Russia’s Hooligan Army” that aired last month.
The documentary has angered many Russian football fans, as it paints the country’s football supporters in an extremely negative light, depicting them as thugs intent on violence.
READ MORE: ‘Barefaced lies’: Russian football fan on BBC documentary British press reports
Another banner emerged moments later with the message “#WelcomeToRussia2018 – Supporters of a big country” written in Russian, an open invite to fans to visit the World Cup.
The 2018 FIFA World Cup will be played at 12 stadiums across 11 Russian cities from June 14 to July 15. Prior to that Russia will host 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup from June 17 to July 2. It will be the first time either tournament has been held in Russia.She has already paid a high price — her career as a federal minister — but Sussan Ley today insists an investigation of her taxpayer-funded travel has cleared her.
Almost completely, in fact, she told Parliament.
“Regardless of these facts, the public impression was cast,” she said. “In politics, I understand the facts can get lost in the search for a good story.”
The former Health Minister told Parliament a Finance Department review found just one outstanding item in records covering three years of expenses.
“This was for a five minute car trip,” said Ms Ley.
“Even so, to avoid any doubt, I had already repaid the entire amount in January this year.”
The car commute was on the Gold Coast when she bought a $700,000 apartment on a “impulse”.
“As I stated at the time, my unplanned purchase of a property changed the character of that trip from business to personal — and I repaid the total cost,” she said today.
Ms Ley said: “I know that the notion of buying a property on impulse may seem quite strange to some and while the purchase of this particular property was on impulse, the decision to purchase a property was not.”
And as for her trips to the resort centre, including two visits for New Year’s Eve parties with a prominent Liberal Party donor, Ms Ley wants to put her travel into perspective.
“During the 703 days I was a Cabinet Minister I spent 15 nights in the Gold Coast,” she said.
Of those 15 nights: six were related to me being the keynote speaker at a conference; six were for major hospital openings and/or sporting events in my capacity as Minister for Health and Sport; two trips involved no more than landing at Coolangatta Airport, using it as a hub, before travelling into Northern NSW on Parliamentary business.
One other visit, apparently, was linked to planning for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
Ms Ley resigned on January 14 amid accusations of rorting travel expenses, claiming all the time she had not breached rules.
However, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said at the time: “Australians are entitled to expect that politicians spend taxpayers’ money carefully, ensuring at all times that their work expenditure represents an efficient, effective and ethical use of public resources.
“We should be, as politicians, backbenchers and ministers, we should be as careful and as accountable with taxpayers’ money as we possibly can be.”
Ms Ley today said that as a rural-based minister she had to travel extensively.
“To put this in perspective, as both a minister and cabinet minister for some 1100 days, I spent over half of that time — 684 days to be precise — away from my home electorate,” she said.
“This might seem an enormous amount of travel, but it is explained by two factors. The first is that I had two very busy portfolios, namely Health and Sport. Both of these portfolios have a very substantial number of constituent and interest groups with whom a minister needs to be visible.
“This is a massive workload. I am not complaining; I loved it. I simply raise it as a matter of fact.
“The second factor is that unlike most ministers, I represent a rural electorate.”
Ms Ley said she understood the pressure for her to resign.
“Regardless of these facts, the public impression was cast,” she said. “In politics, I understand the facts can get lost in the search for a good story.”
She said: “I was within the rules in claiming reimbursement for such expenses. However I have always believed in listening to the electorate and one thing became clear to me — the parliamentary expenses guidelines did not align with the community standard.
“And when I reflected on both the community standard as well as the standard I set myself, I decided that standard had not been met.”For about two decades, Mumbai’s famous dance bars played many roles: entertainment for the middle class, employment for countless migrant women, a meeting point for the city’s mafia and a smokescreen for alleged prostitution rings.
In 2005, there were some 600 dance bars in India’s financial capital, before the Maharashtra state government passed a law that banned them, as they had “a bad influence on society.”
Some of them continued to operate under police patronage, but most gradually shut down.
In 2013, following appeals by dancers, India’s supreme court quashed the ban. But the Maharashtra government passed another law in 2014 to ban dance bars. That was later challenged by restaurant owners.
On Oct.15, India’s supreme court stayed the ban by the state government, which could potentially allow dance bars to operate once again in the state.
“We are happy with the decision of the court,” Bharat Singh Thakur, president of the Dance Bar Association, told NDTV. “We always respected the dignity of women. We have been running dance bars since 1997, and there was no complaint against us on obscenity.”
“I am glad that the ban is being lifted. I will certainly visit the bars that I used to go to earlier as soon as they come into business again,” Mumbai-based independent filmmaker Tanmay Singh, who frequented dance bars in Mumbai’s Grant Road area before the 2005 ban for a script, told Quartz.
“After dance bars closed down, many bar girls that I knew had to take to prostitution to run their homes. Many others were forced to leave Mumbai and go back to their villages and live in poverty,” Singh said.
The supreme court, while staying the law, also asked the state government to ”bring about measures which should ensure the safety and improve the working conditions of the persons working as bar girls.” Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, meanwhile, has said that his government will appeal against the court’s decision.
Here are a few pictures from 2005 when dance bars were still thriving.
Reuters/Punit Paranjpe A dancer performs at a bar in Mumbai.
Reuters/Punit Paranjpe Bar girls perform at a dance bar in Mumbai.
Reuters/Punit Paranjpe A customer showers money on a dancer at a bar in Mumbai.
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi A bar girl practices a dance step inside a changing room at Elora Bar in Mumbai.
Reuters/Punit Paranjpe Men walk past a display at the entrance of a dance bar in Mumbai.
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi A dance bar girl, far left, joins other staff members for a prayer at Elora Bar, Mumbai.
Reuters/Punit Paranjpe Indian bar girls perform at a dance bar in Mumbai.
AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi Dance bar owners shout anti-government slogans outside a dance bar during a protest in Mumbai.
AP Photo/Rajesh Nirgude A dance bar worker holds her child as she listens to a speech along with other workers at a protest rally in Mumbai.
Reuters/Punit Paranjpe Indian bar girls shout slogans as they participate in a protest in Mumbai.An Uber driver faces a rape charge after investigators say he attacked an intoxicated 16-year-old passenger, CBS Atlanta affiliate WGCL-TV reports. Police identified the Uber driver as Abdoulie Jagne, 58. He has been jailed and charged with rape.
Gwinnett County police say the incident happened in the early morning hours of Monday, Dec. 11. The girl told officers she had been drinking with friends at a local bar when one of her friends arranged for an Uber driver to pick her up and take her home.
The Uber driver arrived and later dropped the girl off at her apartment complex. After she exited the vehicle, according to police, the girl began beating on doors asking for help. One of the residents called 911.
When officers met the |
four years ago, Congress promised to conduct oversight, and it certainly has received classified reports with limited information. But to date, no one has received an estimate of how many Americans have been picked up in FAA surveillance or concrete information about how that information is protected once it lands in government hands. There is no need to release information on sources or methods to have this basic conversation.
In addition, Congress simply must dislodge the secret FISA Court opinions that interpret the scope of this law and our Fourth Amendment rights in intelligence investigations. Senators have publicly confirmed that FISC opinions do, in fact, exist and discuss the FAA and include interpretations of the Constitution. That they remain secret, and Congress is asked to reauthorize the law without the benefit of their holdings, is unbelievable. The administration started reviewing FISC opinions several years ago to determine whether any could be released in whole or part. It’s time that Congress leaned on them to get these incredibly important documents released to the extent possible.
Beyond transparency, the FAA needs common-sense amendments to better protect American information that is caught up in these international surveillance programs. FAA supporters promise that the program is about foreigners abroad yet balk at rules to protect information on Americans here.
None of these suggestions actually interfere with the massive collection allowed by the FAA and are really aimed at after-the-fact safeguards and good government oversight. They are so moderate that then-senators Obama and Biden cosponsored and voted for similar amendments in 2007 as they ran for president. They are, however, excellent first steps towards accountability and privacy.
Undoubtedly some will contend ‘there is no time’ to deal with these major transparency and privacy issues in one of the most expansive surveillance laws of the post-9/11 era. But senators Wyden, Leahy, Merkley and Tester have been working on simple amendments to address some of these problems and only need the floor time to offer them. Don’t be fooled – if they are not given the opportunity to offer and debate these now, it’ll be another four or five years until Congress at large hears a peep about this massive surveillance program.
Richardson is legislative counsel at ACLU.(CNN) Here is one thing we know: Donald Trump, against all odds, will be the next President of the United States.
That's a fact. How exactly it came to be is an open question. There will be dozens of books written about the real estate magnate's path to the White House. From his trampling of the Republican primary field to a convincing electoral victory over Hillary Clinton after a shockingly nasty general election campaign, some could arrive in volumes.
For now, though, we are left to sketch the first draft of history. And, like so many rough outlines, this one is a little messy.
Here are 24 different explanations -- some way more realistic than others -- for Trump's win:
1. He won because of Facebook and its inability or unwillingness to crack down on fake news
Via New York Magazine : The social network and others like it became a clearinghouse for fake news. Not simple partisan spin, but outright lies peddled as objective truth by shady actors both inside the US and abroad.
2. Because of social media, generally
Via right-wing commentator Stefan Molyneux : The medium made the man -- much as radio won the presidency for Franklin Roosevelt and television boosted John Kennedy, social media allowed Trump and his allies to drive the narrative.
3. Because of low voter turnout
Via multiple sources on social media : For a variety of reasons, from an enthusiasm gap to voter suppression, turnout in 2016 was lower across the board, but especially among Democrats. And it cost Clinton the election.
4. Because celebrity outlasts substance
Via Quartz : Trump's name ID, celebrity and media-savvy overmatched Clinton's policy acumen and data-driven turnout operation.
5. Because of white women
Via Slate : They were just as "racist" as their white male counterparts, with whom they identify more than women from minority groups.
6. Because of white male resentment
Via The Nation : Forget economic anxiety -- exit polls show people making the least money voted for Clinton -- and focus on identity. The best evidence lies in Trump and his supporters' calls to "take our country back."
7. Because of Russia after all?
Via The Washington Post : The Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said in an interview with state media that, contrary to Trump's denials, "quite a few" people from his "entourage" have "been staying in touch with Russian representatives."
8. Because the left and coastal elites shamed Trump supporters
Via The New York Times : The left has pressed on with an "ideology of shame" directed at the right, most notably now Trump supporters.
In short: "The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans."
9. Because rural Midwesterners don't get out of the house enough
Via Patrick Thornton of Roll Call: It's not just that elites are abandoning or ignoring Middle America -- the "rural midwest" is doing the same, becoming more isolated and resistant to the diversity (of identity and thought) on the coasts.
10. Because the Democratic Party establishment didn't push Bernie Sanders
Via The Huffington Post : By raising up Clinton over Sanders, the Democratic Party establishment (and its voters?) showed they favored the company and support of comfortable professionals over those beset by economic injustice.
11. Because Reagan Democrats surged in Michigan and Midwest
Via former U.N. ambassador John Bolton : The so-called "Reagan Democrats" -- white, working class voters who tend to lean Democrat but bend right for special candidates like Ronald Reagan and, now, Trump -- are the story of this election.
12. Not because of millennials
Via the Boston Globe : But do blame the media for focusing too much on them and not enough on the older white males who were the great, underreported story of 2016.
13. Because of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein
Via Vanity Fair : Clinton lost for lots of reasons, most notably the millions of voters who turned out for Johnson and Stein, thus denying the Democratic support she might have received in narrowly lost states like Pennsylvania.
14. Because political correctness set off a nasty backlash
Via Reason : Trump's promise to "destroy" political correctness, which has run rampant on college campuses and other more liberal enclaves, won him the culture war and, thus, the presidency.
15. Because he simply listened to the American people
Via right radio host John Cardillo : The political class (on the coasts) did not listen to or care enough for Middle America. Trump did. So he won.
16. Because college educated Americans are out of touch
Via the Alaska Dispatch News : Trump spoke to working-class voters, here mostly defined as those without college degrees, about the things they cared about: religion, liberty, marriage, sexuality, abortion and gun rights. And because "professorial sorts" who have spent time at universities drift into an "insular political culture," their candidate was doomed to lose.
17. Because Americans are biased -- but not against any race, ethnicity or gender
Via The Resurgent : The election was, simply, a referendum on the ruling class in Washington, D.C. None of the other issues, be they cultural or racial, came close to mattering as much.
18. Because voters believed the system was corrupt
Via The (UK) Daily Telegraph : Voters believed their political apparatus was corrupt and Trump was the only one who reliably affirmed that belief and promised to fix it.
19. Because he remembered 'forgotten men, women' of America
Via FirstPost : While Hillary Clinton held campaign rallies with Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Trump was out talking about the "forgotten" working class, which in turn exacted a "revenge" on the political elite by voting for him.
20. Because Democrats focused more on turning out supporters than growing the base
Via In These Times : The party and the left "have given up/abandoned/lost touch with the working class" -- as evidenced by their lame effort to persuade people outside their base. By focusing on them, Democrats ceded all else.
21. Because the Democratic National Committee selected the less competitive candidate
Via WikiLeaks on Twitter: The party tipped the scales for Clinton, thus "defeating the purpose of running a primary" and in turn denying Sanders, a better candidate, the chance to win.
22. Not because of racism
Via Bloomberg View : Never mind the backlash to the country's first African-American president, this wasn't about race in the slightest. If race were an issue, then Obama wouldn't have won two terms and many of the states Trump himself prevailed in on Tuesday.
23. Because of Comey
Via USA Today : The FBI director's decision to revive the Clinton email circus with a letter to Congress two weeks before Election Day killed the Democrat's momentum and derailed her plans to finish the campaign with a more uplifting message. It also distracted from things like Trump's comments in the "Access Hollywood" tape.
24. Not because of ComeyNews Inkwazi jet panic costs R300K ‘for no reason’
There was very little wrong with presidential jet Inkwazi when it was announced that President Jacob Zuma was “stranded” in Burundi.
There was, in fact, a South African shadow plane standing ready in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, in case something happened with Inkwazi, but the crew did not have the necessary safety clearances to bring Zuma home.
This plane was allegedly hired by the department of state security at an estimated cost of R650 000.
City Press sister newspaper Rapport has learnt from at least two sources in the air force what happened before its management decided to send another jet to fetch Zuma – despite the flight and technical crews’ assurances that nothing was wrong with Inkwazi.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who had to stand in for Zuma at the ANC Women’s League gala dinner last Friday, had said Zuma was “stranded” in central Africa and his plane could not be moved.
Siphiwe Dlamini, spokesperson for the defence ministry, said that problems with Inkwazi were unacceptable and pressure would be put on its arms procurement agency, Armscor, for a new jet.
City Press reported in November that Armscor was seeking a jet with a range of at least 13 800km. The cheapest new aircraft meeting Armscor’s requirements would be an Airbus A330, costing about R3 billion.
“In view of Inkwazi’s constant problems, we are going to negotiate with Armscor urgently to resolve the issue,” said Dlamini.
He added yesterday that the defence department was sticking to its statement that the plane had been out of order and Zuma was stranded. He rejected Rapport’s version “with contempt” and described it as a “deliberate attempt to embarrass the military’s supreme commander and the defence minister. The department of defence will fulfil its responsibility [for Zuma’s safe transport] without fear or compromise.”
However, Armscor’s marketing head, Lulu Mzili, said last week they were waiting for input from the air force before they could buy a new jet.
Rapport was told by senior air force officers and those at Bujumbura airport that, last Thursday, en route to the capital – where Zuma was part of the peace talks – Inkwazi developed a “minor” fuel leak.
It was repaired by technicians and the plane was ready for the next day’s 11am return flight. The leak was allegedly well within Boeing’s safety regulations.
Inkwazi’s departure was repeatedly postponed by the presidency on Friday while peace talks dragged on and eventually collapsed. At about 3pm, the presidency’s staff in Bujumbura announced that Zuma would fly back the next day at 8.30am.
According to sources, it was decided late that night that the air force’s number two aircraft, a Falcon 900, should fetch Zuma.
Dlamini said it was done for security reasons, but the president’s life was never in danger.
The Falcon 900 was rushed over during the night, despite crew assurances that Inkwazi was fine.
The seven-hour round trip cost the taxpayer an estimated R300 000. International rates put fuel costs at about R38 000 an hour for such a plane. This excludes air clearances and landing fees.
Some presidency staff flew back on Inkwazi, landing at Waterkloof without incident. A “faulty” aircraft may not transport passengers under any circumstances, according to international aviation regulations.
It also emerged that two air force Hercules C-130s, and two rented heavy-cargo planes carrying South African soldiers and special forces and equipment, arrived in Bujumbura before the talks to help secure the city. A bulletproof car was sent for Zuma.
It appears state security hired a Challenger 600 jet early last week as a shadow plane for Zuma.
It is alleged that this jet could not fly the president home because of a dispute in Bujumbura about its lacking the approved air force pilots with safety clearances. State security personnel and Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula also flew in the jet.
Last year, at least R10 million was spent on two chartered aircraft to bring Zuma back from Russia. The plane’s condition was also within prescribed safety rules and flew without incident. Inkwazi maintains an average serviceability level of 98%.
– RapportReport from LF Economics also says asset-rich, income-poor parents are taking on serious financial liabilities by helping children buy a home
In their attempts to enter the housing market, first-home buyers are exposing themselves to a higher risk of defaulting on mortgage repayments than ever before, while parents are increasingly taking on serious financial liabilities by assisting their children to buy a home, a report from economic consultancy LF Economics says.
First-home buyers allocate a hefty proportion of their income to accumulating a large deposit for a home, only to spend between two and three decades “paying down jumbo-sized mortgages”, the report says.
While taking on long-term mortgages and saving hard may not be new, LF Economics says both deposits and loan sizes are bigger today than at any other time in history.
“First-home buyers will have to commit an increasingly large proportion of their incomes to mortgage costs, regardless of dwelling price trends,” the report says.
“But increasingly, first-home buyers are dependent on their parents to varying degrees to first provide financial assistance for a deposit and then use their homes as collateral to secure mortgages. This results in fast-tracking home ownership for their children, regardless of their ability to make mortgage repayments over the long term.”
The death of the great Australian dream Read more
This leaves many parents in a dangerous predicament should their children experience difficulties making loan payments, the report says.
“In reality, many parents (the baby-boomer cohort) are asset-rich but income-poor,” the report says. “The blunt fact is few parents have enough savings and other liquid assets on hand to meet their legal obligations without selling their home if their children default.
“Government and regulators have neglected the welfare of first-home buyers by providing the first-home owners grant, which inflates prices, and allowing parental guarantees, both of which provide the illusion of easy access to home ownership.
“While dwelling prices inflate, risks appear quite manageable, but meeting mortgage costs for decades thereafter is the most difficult task of all.”
It is more difficult for first-home buyers today to meet mortgage repayments over numerous decades because unemployment and underemployment are rising, the report says. As well as facing job insecurity, first-home buyers find it difficult to save given Australia consistently ranks high by global standards in terms of cost of living expenditures.
First-home buyers frequently enter the market with small deposits, as low as 10% of the purchase price of a property, which means they also risk negative equity if dwelling prices fall even slightly. On top of this, Australia is in the midst of the largest housing bubble on record, the report says.
“Between 1996 and 2015, real housing prices have risen by 141%,” the report says. “This surge in prices is why the housing market is so unaffordable. The government, central bank (RBA), prudential regulator (Apra), Fire sector (finance, insurance and real estate industries) and their economists predictably deny the existence of a housing bubble, believing a severe downturn in the residential property market simply cannot occur.
“Yet, in reality, these various stakeholders have been adding significant fuel to the fire in a ‘no margin for error’ environment.”
The report comes as Housing Industry Association data released on Thursday shows that new home sales fell 5.3% in February, following two months of gains. Detached house sales slipped 3.9%, while multi-units sales plummeted 10.6%.
HIA chief economist Harley Dale warned that key leading housing indicators, like new home sales and building approvals, would cool this year and next.
“Stage one of a down cycle in new home building will be moderate, but signs of a sharper contraction in subsequent stages may emerge as the year progresses,” he said.
An associate professor of property with the University of Melbourne, Dr Piyush Tiwari, agreed with LF Economics that asset-rich but cash-poor parents were exposing themselves to risk by helping their children enter the housing market.
“We have a lot of households who have retired and are living in highly valued suburbs, and they have been living in that home for a very long time, seeing its value increase. The homes are relatively old. The problem is that while their house value is high, they are not able to extract the value from that property. So there is a problem of people living asset-rich but income-poor.”
He said there were not enough retirement home developments being built so that people could sell their assets, downsize, but remain in their community.
“I do agree with the report that there is a lot of stress on parents of homeowners for these reasons, however I don’t believe there is enough evidence that we are in a housing bubble,” Tiwari said.
“A housing bubble is not simply a function of house price to income. There are many other factors to consider [which are] contributing to house prices, and one is the desirability of housing as an asset, which is quite strong in Australia still. Negative gearing is another factor.”Water rescuers with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday pulled the body of an adult woman from the Mississippi River near the 10th Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis.
Although the Hennepin County medical examiner's office has not yet officially identified the body, Jennifer Houle's father said he's sure it's his daughter.
"We want to thank law enforcement, all the Hennepin County sheriff's [deputies], the Minneapolis police... and all the compassion they've shown to us," John Houle said in an interview Wednesday night.
"They've done such an amazing job keeping us informed about the investigation. We sincerely appreciate their tireless efforts to figure out what happened to Jennifer and to bring her home to us."
Authorities began searching the river for missing University of Minnesota student Jennifer Houle on Saturday after surveillance footage showed her entering the water from the 10th Avenue Bridge on March 27.
Officials had not determined if Houle had fallen or jumped from the bridge, but the footage showed she was alone at the time of the incident, said police spokesman John Elder. Officials are not seeking any suspects in the case.
Jennifer Houle
Houle, 22, a Carlson School of Management student, was last seen early Friday morning at the Blarney Pub at 412 14th Av. SE in Minneapolis. On Saturday, police said Houle’s purse had been found at 3 a.m. Friday about three blocks west of the bar, where Houle had been out with friends.
Minneapolis police have been working with the Sheriff’s Office to recover Houle’s body from the river. The bridge stands 110 feet above the water, about 10 stories.
John Houle said his family has been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from family, friends and the community.
"The vigil last night was all so special," he said about an event that drew more than 1,000 friends and sympathizers to the University of Minnesota. "Jennifer would have been pleased to see the outpouring for her. As a family, we certainly feel that love from the community."
Houle said the family will have a ceremony to celebrate his daughter's life April 12 at the university's Northrop Auditorium. "We'll talk about Jennifer there. It will give us time to compose ourselves and talk about her brilliant life."
Houle said his family has no clue as to what happened the night his daughter died and he appreciated the media's ability to get the word out "when we thought she was missing."A man is being treated in hospital after his car plunged around 30 metres off a cliff in Sydney's east.
Earlier this morning, police found the vehicle upside down on rocks in Clovelly.
It had fallen 30 metres, flipped over and come to rest on a rock platform.
Witnesses say they heard cries for help and found the car at the bottom of the cliff near Burrows Park at Ocean Street in Clovelly.
Paramedics took the 27-year-old man to Royal North Shore hospital via helicopter this morning.
The man is in a stable condition, a hospital spokesperson said.
@NSWAmbulance @nswpolice @FRNSW working together to rescue and treat a patient at Clovelly this morning pic.twitter.com/XzWmXqqx9F — NSW Ambulance (@NSWAmbulance) December 28, 2014
Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467.A serious security flaw has been discovered on some Samsung Android smartphones which allows hackers to remotely wipe them just by sending an SMS or getting a user to visit a URL.
The security flaw was exposed at the Ekoparty security conference in Argentina overnight by Ravi Borgaonkar (click here for Youtube video of the demonstration), a researcher with the telecommunications department at the Technical University of Berlin, and Fairfax Media has confirmed it affects some Australian Samsung Android smartphones.
Samsung Electronics Australia said in a statement on Wednesday evening that its Australian arm was aware of the security issues on "some" of its devices and was working to provide a software update "as soon as possible" for local customers. Concerned customers could contact Samsung's customer service number, 1300 362 603, the statement said.
Telstra said it was aware of the issue and working closely with its handset partners to understand if any of its devices were affected. "If we think that our customers will be impacted in any way, we will contact them directly," the telco said.
An Australian security expert, Paul Ducklin, from the security firm Sophos, said the flaw served as a "wake up call" to users who didn't back up their smartphones.
"This just emphasises the importance of regular and current back-ups doesn't it?" he said. "Whether you do them into the cloud... or to a USB drive."
Dylan Reeve, who works as a TV editor in New Zealand and has worked in IT in the past, said millions of Samsung devices would be affected by the flaw and recommended users running Android on Samsung devices check whether they were affected by using a test website he has developed.
The website (available here) does not run the code to reset a Samsung device to its factory default settings but instead runs code to see whether the phone will automatically display its International Mobile Equipment Identity number, Reeve said.
This allowed a user to find out if a factory reset code could be run too on their Samsung smartphone without user intervention. If a user was vulnerable, Reeve recommended they download a new dialler to their phone that was not vulnerable to the attack.
A dialler Reeve recommended on the Google Play store was "Dialler One".
An app called TelStop has also been created specifically to catch the wipe code.
Important to note is the fact not all handsets allow for a factory reset code to be sent to them.
At present, only Samsung devices have been found to be vulnerable to the remote wipe. There may, however, be other codes that aren't reset ones that can be run on other Android devices.
How the hack works
Manufacturers like Samsung use special USSD codes that can be typed into the dial pad by end-users to make it easy for handset makers and telcos to do support over the phone with their customers. One such code - *#06# - is used to display a phone's IMEI number on the screen. Another code resets the phone.
What Borgaonkar discovered was that a person could craft a website with the reset code embedded - in Samsung's case *2767*3855# (do not type this into your phone!) - and get the code to automatically run when a user visited it.
A hacker could also exploit an affected phone by getting a user to scan a malicious QR code or by sending them a malicious SMS or NFC transmission.
Devices identified as being able to be wiped using special reset code without user intervention
Samsung Galaxy S3 (3G) running Android 4.0.4 (tested by Fairfax)
Samsung Galaxy S2 (3G) running Android 4.0.3 (tested by Fairfax)
Devices identified as not being able to be wiped automatically using special reset code:
Samsung Galaxy S3 (4G) running Android 4.1.1 (tested by Fairfax)
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (tested by iTnews.com.au)
Devices vulnerable to running special codes automatically but not tested if they can run a reset code:
HTC Velocity (tested by iTnews.com.au)
HTC One S running Sense 4.0 on Android 4.0.3 (tested by Buzz Moody of Ausdroid)
HTC One X running HTC Sense 4.0 on Android 4.0.3 (tested by Dylan Reeve)
HTC Desire S running Sense 4.1 on Android 4.0.4 (tested by Jodie M of Melbourne)
HTC Sensation XL running Android 4.0.1 (tested by Fairfax reader who provided screenshot)
HTC Sensation running HTC Sense 3.6 on Android 4.0.3 (tested by Fairfax reader Stuart Littler)
HTC Desire HD running HTC Sense version 3.0 on Android 2.3.5 (tested by Fairfax reader Richard Palmer)
HTC HD2 on Android 2.3.5 (tested by Fairfax reader Janette Fairleigh)
Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S running 4.0.2 (tested by a Fairfax reader )
Devices vulnerable to running special codes automatically but not factory reset codes:
HTC One S running Sense 4.0 on Android 4.0.3 (tested by Buzz Moody of Ausdroid)
Motorola Defy running Cyanogen Mod 7 on Android 2.3.5 (tested by Dylan Reeve)
Motorola RAZR running Android 4.0.4 (tested by Fairfax reader Luke Walker)
(In response to the above two Motorola devices being listed, Motorola said in a statement: "Motorola does not support a USSD code on any of its smartphones to factory reset the handset hence it is not possible to reset the device via a website or URL unless the device has been modified or rooted.")
To add to the above list email bgrubb@smh.com.au with screenshots listing Android version, build and phone model.
-Fairfax AustraliaUlm / CHRISTINE LIEBHARDT
Genug ist genug, und 161,53 Meter sind nicht nur genug, sondern: ganz sicher zu viel. Finden Markus Barth und Sylvia Berger von der Regionalgruppe des Vegetarierbundes (Vebu) Laupheim/Schwendi.
Und meinen nicht den Münsterturm, sondern den weltlängsten Leberkäs', den die Ulmer Fleischerinnung backen will. Auf dem Saumarktfest soll der Rekordversuch starten - und der Vebu kontert mit einer großen Gegenveranstaltung.
"So eine Ressourcenverschwendung geht gar nicht", findet Sylvia Berger. 60 bis 70 Schweine müssen für den Rekordversuch ihr Leben lassen, hat der Vebu ausgerechnet. Schnell sprach sich herum, was am 12. Juni an der Stadtmauer stattfinden soll. Und fast noch schneller organisierte die aktive vegane Szene der Region ihr Fest am selben Tag. "Unser Ziel ist es, die Leute abzuholen", erklärt Berger, "und sie davon zu überzeugen, dass es schmackhafte Alternativen gibt. Es soll eine friedliche Info-Veranstaltung werden."
Von 11 Uhr an gibt es auf der Neuen Mitte deshalb veganen Döner und Steak, Pizza-Leberkäse ohne Tier, Kartoffelsalat, Kaffee und vegane Kuchen. Peta ist vor Ort, sogar die Albert-Schweizer-Stiftung kommt mit ihrem "Grunzmobil" aus Berlin angefahren. In dem Anhänger, durch ein fünf Meter langes Schwein auf dem Dach nicht zu übersehen, will die Stiftung mit Filmen über moderne Tierhaltung aufklären. Dazu singt Musikerin PhoeNic Tierschutzlieder, und natürlich gibt's Stände mit Infomaterial.
Es ist bei Weitem die größte Veranstaltung, die die Veganer bisher in Ulm auf die Beine stellen. Auch, weil Spediteur Markus Barth, der die Vebu-Regionalgruppe leitet, die Aktion mitsponsort. Dabei ist es gar nicht so sehr der Fleischkäse selbst, der erregt - es ist vor allem die schiere Masse. "Wir gehen davon aus, dass es Reste gibt", ist sich Berger sicher. Deshalb startet der Vebu auch keinen alternativen Rekordversuch - weder mit Salat im Swimmingpool noch mit einem münsterturmlangen Kastenkuchen. "Als Veganer schaut man ja, dass nichts weggeworfen wird."
Überhaupt, das Münster: Seiner Erhaltung und Sanierung sollen die Einnahmen vom Verkauf der Wurst-Scheiben zukommen. Das findet der Vebu ziemlich fadenscheinig. Karikaturist Stefan Roth glaubt nicht, dass die ganze Sache dem Münster gefällt: In seiner Zeichnung speit es beim Gedanken an den Rekordversuch.NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—After decades of coddling young children, Johnson & Johnson unveiled its new "Nothing But Tears" shampoo this week, an aggressive bath-time product the company says will help to prepare meek and fragile newborns for the real world.
A radical departure for the health goods manufacturer, the new shampoo features an all-alcohol-based formula, has never once been approved by leading dermatologists, and is as gentle on a baby's skin as "having to grow up and fend for your goddamn self."
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"We at Johnson & Johnson have been making bath time a safe and soothing experience for far too long," company CEO William C. Weldon said. "Years of pampering have left our newborns helpless, feeble, and ill-equipped for the arduous road ahead."
"It's time our children got the wake-up call that's been coming to them," Weldon continued. "It's time they cried their precious little eyes out."
The result of five years of intensive research and market testing, the company's "Nothing But Tears" shampoo contains only the most abrasive of natural ingredients and is nearly impossible to rinse from a baby's screaming face. According to directions printed on the label, the bath-time product is best used with scalding hot water for optimal toughening-up of newborns.
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Available in an easy-to-find-and-open bottle, the new shampoo is also guaranteed to give children a "healthy dose of reality."
"You'll notice a difference after just one use," said Michelle Baker, head of new product development. "Whether it's your newborn's more hardened appearance, the way he now approaches people with guarded skepticism, or just that look on his face that says, 'Oh wait, maybe life isn't all hugs and kisses and rainbows. Maybe I need to get my fucking act together.'"
Added Baker, "Johnson & Johnson will kick your baby's ass into gear."
A publicity campaign for the tear-inducing shampoo has already begun, with Johnson & Johnson debuting a series of television ads to push the baby-care product. In one of the minute-long spots, scheduled to air later this week, a mother cradles her crying newborn in her arms. As time passes, the weeping infant grows increasingly older, until the now elderly woman struggles to hold up her 48-year-old, 230-pound son. A voiceover announcer asks viewers, "Worried your child will never toughen up? At Johnson & Johnson, we can help."
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After rigorous product testing at the company's research headquarters in New Jersey, the new "Nothing But Tears" shampoo was found to give newborns up to three times greater resilience than the leading competitor, as well as a stronger grasp on the crushing disappointment that is life. In addition, when combined with Johnson & Johnson's new line of bleach-based conditioners, the shampoo resulted in noticeably thicker skin after only six uses.
In recent years, a growing number of parents have begun looking for ways to raise more adequately jaded toddlers, and Johnson & Johnson is not the first company to respond to the rising demand. In 2003, Fisher-Price unveiled a new adventure play set containing 85 easy-to-choke-on pieces, and in 2006, the Walt Disney Company introduced an interactive DVD entitled Baby's First Brush With A Cruel And Unforgiving World.
Whether or not Johnson & Johnson's new move will ultimately pay off remains to be seen. However, reaction to the tantrum-provoking shampoo has thus far been positive.
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"My 13-month-old used to be a total pushover," said new mother Catherine Smith. "But ever since I started washing her hair with 'Nothing But Tears' shampoo, not only does my little Debra kick and scream and wail, but yesterday she said her first words: 'No, Mommy, don't.'"
Despite testimonials from satisfied customers, some concerned parents have come out against the new shampoo.
"To knowingly upset your baby like that is downright cruel," said Hershey, PA homemaker Barbara Sterling. "My child is going to lose his blissful sense of innocence the old-fashioned way—by coming home from school one day only to learn that his parents are getting a divorce."Getty Images
With the NFL playing Thursday night games throughout the season, every team draws the assignment once per year of playing on a Sunday and then playing on a Thursday. And while the NFL likes to point out that the injury rate for short-week games is no worse than the injury rate for Sunday or Monday games, the league constantly glosses over the fact that players who emerge from Sunday’s game with an injury or simply general bumps and bruises have a very limited opportunity to turn it around before the next game.
“It’s very difficult,” Texans defensive end J.J. Watt told reporters on Tuesday. “No doubt about it. For every player. Thursday nights are very tough for us because it is a short turnaround. It’s a very violent game and bodies take a beating, so you want to make sure you do everything you can to get your body back. It’s just something you have to do. Every teams got to do one a year. We’re doing ours early. Hopefully that helps us.”
Watt is impressed with his teammates’ efforts to prepare for a big game on a short week.
“Our guys are doing a great job,” Watt said. “I think everybody’s taking some of the advice that we’ve been given on how to handle it. I think everybody’s doing a good job of taking care of their bodies, getting extra sleep, getting extra treatments, cold tubs, everything. I think our guys are doing a great job in taking it very seriously because we know that we have a great challenge ahead and we look forward to it and everybody wants to be at our best. I think our guys honestly have handled it really well.”
For Watt, playing on Thursday after playing on Sunday presents an extra challenge, given his late-offseason back surgery.
“I’m doing everything that I can to make sure that I’m ready for Thursday night,” Watt said. “Last game definitely knocked some of that extra rust off from the first week and felt a lot better on Sunday. So hopefully on Thursday I knock some more off and feel better. It’s just a continuous process of making sure that I’m very, very smart with my body because of everything it’s been through. Obviously I hope to be at 100 percent at some point. I mean I can’t say for sure. I want to go out there and play the best that I can play.”
He played well on Sunday against the Chiefs, with 1.5 sacks and a fumble recovery. The Texans will need all players to play well if they hope to show that they can get past a Patriots team that has won six of seven games against the Texans since Houston entered the league in 2002.Learning on the fly is the norm for Verizon IndyCar Series rookie drivers. Adapting to a race car likely more powerful and reactive than they’ve ever driven before, on unique and widely different tracks, against perhaps the deepest talent pool in racing, it would be easy to excuse newcomers who struggle during their first season in North America’s premier open-wheel series.
None of that has slowed Dale Coyne Racing’s Ed Jones, who is well on his way to securing Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors midway through the 2017 season. The reigning Indy Lights presented by Cooper Tires champion has amassed five top-10 finishes in his first 10 Verizon IndyCar Series starts and sits 10th in points heading to this weekend’s Iowa Corn 300.
Jones has turned more than a few heads along the way. The fact that he sits higher in the standings than veterans and race winners such as James Hinchcliffe, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Marco Andretti is evidence of the promise that the 22-year-old has displayed.
“It’s gone a lot smoother than we might have expected,” Jones said after a seventh-place finish in the most recent race, the KOHLER Grand Prix at Road America on June 25. “It’s always tough, the races are much longer than I’m used to, there are pit stops, it’s a different way of racing. In a way, it’s a bit more strategic, and I really enjoy that part.”
Along with the typical rookie learning curve, Jones was delivered a midseason curveball. The driver of the No. 19 Boy Scouts of America Honda suddenly became the team’s most experienced driver when teammate and four-time Indy car champion Sebastien Bourdais was injured in a crash during Indianapolis 500 qualifications. Unf |
broadcast on state television.
The U.S. Navy said in February that Iran had built up its naval forces in the Gulf and prepared boats that could be used in suicide attacks.
“They have increased the number of submarines... they increased the number of fast attack craft,” said Vice Admiral Mark Fox, commander of U.S. naval forces in the region.
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“Some of the small boats have been outfitted with a large warhead that could be used as a suicide explosive device. The Iranians have a large mine inventory.”
Amid Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military on Tuesday announced anti-mine exercises in September involving more than 20 countries. But the exercises would not take place in the Strait and the Pentagon denied they were aimed at sending a message to Iran.
“This is not an exercise that’s aimed to deliver a message to Iran. This is an exercise that’s designed to, within this multinational forum, increase our capabilities and cooperation,” Little said.It Gets Better
wants
UPDATE:
"Two days after slashing support to homeless youth programs in New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has the gall to release a video telling LGBT youth that 'It Gets Better.' Mayor Bloomberg, your cruel and reckless cuts to the meager support system for homeless LGBT youth in New York City just made things for them much worse! On January 1st, Bloomberg cut support for outreach to homeless youth in half, cut most drop-in centers for homeless youth by a third, and cut support for the two LGBT homeless youth drop-in programs in half. In New York City there are over 1,000 LGBT youth suffering on the streets every night without access to safe shelter. The drop-in centers and outreach are their only support. Homeless LGBT youth are at incredible risk of suicide with 62% reporting that they have considered or attempted suicide.
The LGBT community needs to recognize these cuts as an attack against our most vulnerable youth, and against us as a whole. We pay just as much taxes as anyone, and there are far too few City-funded programs that support our most vulnerable youth. If we can be treated like this in a city with as strong an community as NYC, how will our youth ever get their fair share of the resources they need and deserve? I cannot speak strongly enough about what a horror it is to have LGBT youth who have been discarded by homophobic parents flock to us for help, and to have to counsel them to sleep in the subways because there are not nearly enough beds for them."BERLIN, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Germany’s cabinet will on Wednesday agree plans to cut CO2 emissions by up to 78 million tonnes by 2020, pushing operators to shut some coal-fired plants, to help Europe’s biggest economy meet ambitious targets to fight climate change.
The package, which also includes an energy efficiency programme, is essential if Chancellor Angel Merkel is to avoid the embarrassment of missing her government’s goal of a 40 percent reduction in emissions by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.
“The government is sticking to its national goal,” the economy and energy ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “It is clear that further measures are necessary to achieve the climate coal of 40 percent by 2020. All relevant sectors must achieve reductions.”
The conservative Merkel has made Germany’s shift towards renewable energy and away from nuclear and fossil fuels a top domestic priority, a move accelerated by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 although launched under her Social Democratic predecessor Gerhard Schroeder in 2000.
The closely watched experiment has hit traditional energy firms, as shown by utility E.ON’s radical decision this week to spin off its power plants, both nuclear and coal-fired, to focus on renewables and electricity grids.
About 190 governments began meetings in Lima, Peru on Monday to lay the groundwork for a U.N. deal to slow climate change.
Germany’s goals are bolder than the overall European Union plan for a 40 percent emissions reduction by 2030. But after initially making big strides in cuts thanks to the modernisation of East German industry after reunification in 1990, CO2 emissions are now on the rise again.
The most contested step in the package will be compelling operators of coal plants to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 22 million tonnes, equivalent to shutting about eight coal plants.
Coal accounts for about a third of Germany’s CO2 emissions.
The BDI industry association has said Merkel’s plans, first reported by Reuters last month, will hurt Germany’s export-oriented industry and cost jobs. The output gap would be offset by imports from mostly coal-fired plants in neighbouring states, it said. But green activists say the plans don’t go far enough.
Although about 25 percent of power generated in Germany comes from renewables, around 45 percent still comes from coal.
The package, which will require several different laws to go through parliament, envisages savings of 25-30 million tonnes of CO2 emissions through a national energy efficiency plan to modernise buildings and improve insulation. (Additional reporting by Markus Wacket; Editing by Mark Heinrich)Creating ringtones on Windows Phone isn't technically a difficult task, but it's not incredibly straight forward either. Nokia has taken steps to address this for its Lumia Windows Phone owners with a new app that's available in the Nokia Collection. Ringtone Maker is a simple app that does exactly what it says on the tin - it enables users to take tracks saved locally on the device and turn them into ringtones.
This eliminates the requirement to upload, edit and save files which is what's necessary to create ringtones in Windows Phone. The only problem with Nokia's ringtone app is that it doesn't appear to support tracks downloaded through Xbox Music (songs downloaded for offline usage, as well as purchased tracks) which is a shame. We attempted to purchase a track from the Store but it still didn't show up when using Ringtone Maker.
The reviews for the app have been negative thus far, so we can only assume problems we've experienced are hitting other users. This is a bummer as we'd expect Nokia to completely test apps before releasing them to the Windows Phone Store. So Ringtone Maker is a superb solution, should you be able to get it to work. There are other Ringtone Maker apps available too.
You can download Ringtone Maker from the Nokia Collection (WIndows Phone 8 only, folks). via: PlaffoThe plan to turn toy rocket technology into new weapon for the U.S. Army is racing ahead. Last year, we looked at a proposal from toymakers Lund & Company Invention to use their know how to build a Variable Velocity Weapon System (VVWS). The idea was that by varying the muzzle velocity, the same gun could fire crowd-control impact rounds or lethal high-velocity bullets. Now, the program has been refined into what might be the ultimate non-lethal paintball gun.
The company has received a$723,109 contract to mature their technology and build a weapon that's supposed to be a significant improvement over one of the main non-lethal weapons used by the U.S. military and law enforcement today. The FN303 "paintball gun on steroids" (pictured) can fire pepper spray, paint, and non-lethal impact rounds – making it awfully useful for keeping crowds in check. Soldiers and cops rate it very highly. But it's got some problems at longer ranges. And in America, it still suffers from image problems after the death of Victoria Snelgrove, who died after being hit in the eye by an FN303 round in a disturbance after the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
The version of the VVWS currently being developed would be a purely non-lethal replacement for the FN303. The key advantage is the ability to vary the muzzle velocity; no details have been released, but this may be controlled automatically by a laser rangefinder. At short ranges, it will have a low muzzle velocity, ensuring the impact is safe; but the speed can also be increased to extend the maximum range beyond what can currently be achieved.
The VVWS will have a maximum range of 150 meters, compared to a range of 50 meters for the FN303 for point targets. Longer ranges are sometimes quoted for the FN303 but these seem to refer to using it to deliver volleys of "pepperball" rounds to saturate an area with a cloud of PAVA pepper powder. The military do not use this type of ammunition, being confined to impact rounds which, unlike paintballs, are hard and shatter on impact. (Paintball-type rounds are also available for marking with washable or indelible dye).
The VVWS will be able to fire five hundred shots on a single fuel canister, compared to a hundred and ten for the FN303. Note that this is fuel rather than compressed air; Lund's rockets use an ingenious method of electrolyzing water to produce hydrogen gas. The exact propulsion method for the VVWS has not been disclosed.
"Tremendous progress is being made," CEO Bruce Lund told Danger Room, although he was not at liberty to give many details. "We have reduced the unit to a portable hand carried second-generation Beta model and are ready for preliminary field tests."
The VVWS will also be lighter than the five-pound FN303. The motive for this is likely to be the need for an under-barrel version that can be attached to an M4 carbine. An under-barrel version of the FN303 has already been fielded - taking us back to the original set-up of having both lethal and nonlethal options easily to hand.
However, the VVWS will still suffer the same limitation of any kinetic weapon; during riots in detention centers, Iraqi prisoners have been known to use mattresses as shields which is going to block most non-lethal rounds. (The beam from the Active Denial System might go through though).
Lund also says that the VVWS should be lower in cost than the older weapon. Lund & Company are toymakers after all, and used to building products to a tighter price specification than military suppliers. The VVWS is certainly not a toy. But if its cheap enough, the technology may well be featured in recreational products, like paintball guns, in the years to come.
[Photo: Wikipedia]
ALSO:While Canadian health officials have extensive plans to ensure people survive a future influenza pandemic, they’ve also made macabre recommendations for the nation’s funeral homes for those who don’t.
“In a pandemic, each individual funeral home could expect to handle about six months work within a six- to eight-week period,” the Public Health Agency of Canada warns on a web page about the management of mass fatalities during a pandemic flu.
“That may not be a problem in some communities, but funeral homes in larger cities may not be able to cope with the increased demand.”
One of its recommendations is that funeral homes make advance plans for what to do if their own staff get sick, including making arrangements with volunteers from service clubs or churches to dig graves.
WATCH: Fentanyl’s new frontier are funeral homes
Storage space for corpses could also be a problem, the agency notes, and it says refrigerated trucks or ice rinks could be pressed into service if needed.
“Funeral service providers, I can assure you, throughout their history, have responded to these sorts of tragedies and would do so again to the very best of their ability,” says Allan Cole, a board member with the Funeral Services Association of Canada and president of MacKinnon and Bowes, a company that provides services for the funeral industry.
But finding a funeral home that’s willing to talk about their own pandemic planning is difficult. The Canadian Press reached out to numerous funeral homes in several Canadian cities and asked whether they were prepared for a pandemic, but not one returned the calls.
READ MORE: Large study suggests flu drugs saved lives in 2009 H1N1 pandemic
Cole has been serving on committees for about a decade that deal with infectious diseases and how they affect the funeral profession.
He says there is a lot of interest in planning when diseases such as SARS or Ebola are in the news, but it wanes when pandemics fade from the headlines.
Cole says it’s also difficult for funeral homes to stock many of the extra supplies they would need if business unexpectedly picked up.
“Anything that you buy and save for some horrible eventuality, these are items that have a shelf life. You couldn’t buy, for instance, latex gloves, put them on the shelf and expect 15 years later that they’re in good condition. They simply aren’t,” Cole says.
“Subsequently, for a private enterprise to go and undertake that sort of an investment for a potential community requirement would be hugely onerous and, as a result, I don’t think many really embarked on any sort of a program to upgrade their inventories for some sort of potential requirement.”
The public health agency’s 2015 guide for the health sector on planning for a pandemic notes that historically, pandemics have occurred three to four times per century. However, it says there is no predictable interval.
It says the last four pandemics demonstrated that population impact can vary from low to high.
The agency says that during a pandemic, some families could experience multiple deaths at the same time, straining their financial resources for high-end funerals. It recommends funeral homes stock an extra supply of inexpensive caskets.
Diseases like Ebola can be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of victims or corpses. During the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, traditional funerals, in which mourners touch the body, were a source of virus transmission.
The Canadian agency says special infection control measures are not required for the handling of people who die from influenza, as the body is not contagious after death. But mourners who attend funeral homes could be contagious, and it says it would be up to provincial health officials to decide if restrictions are needed on the type and size of gatherings.
The agency notes the average attendance at a visitation in Prince Edward Island is 1,000 to 1,400 people.
READ MORE: Canadian scientists pioneer new formula in airport disease screening
No special vehicle or driver licence is needed for transportation of the deceased, the agency states.
“Therefore, there are no restrictions on families transporting bodies of family members if they have a death certificate.”[UPDATED 2016-11-04 @ 1358 UTC] ARRL President Emeritus Jim Haynie, W5JBP, of Dallas, Texas, died on November 1. He was 73. His death followed a period of ill health. Haynie was elected as the 13th President of ARRL on January 21, 2000, succeeding Rod Stafford, W6ROD (ex-KB6ZV).
“Jim was a remarkable individual who made a huge personal commitment to Amateur Radio and the ARRL,” said ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR. “He had a great sense of humor that was often quite helpful as we addressed some serious matters when Jim was President. His vision guided us to try new things that are still helping Amateur Radio and the League to this day.”
A radio amateur for more than 40 years, Haynie was twice re-elected by the ARRL Board to the ARRL’s top volunteer office, serving until January 2006, when Joel Harrison, W5ZN, succeeded him. Prior to assuming the ARRL presidency, Haynie was ARRL West Gulf Division Director during two different periods — from 1987 until 1990 and from 1997 until 2000, and an ARRL Vice President from 1990 until 1992.
During his 6 years as president, Haynie focused on promoting Amateur Radio in the classroom, and his ARRL Amateur Radio Education Project — which he dubbed the “Big Project” — was an initiative to offer a turnkey Amateur Radio curriculum as well as radio equipment to schools. His project eventually grew into the ARRL Education & Technology Program (ETP).
A gregarious and accessible individual, Haynie was also skilled at promoting Amateur Radio as often as he could, frequently on the road to attend as many ham radio gatherings as he could squeeze into his schedule, including Dayton Hamvention each spring. Once, he was also a guest of Art Bell, W6OBB, on his Coast to Coast AM overnight radio talk show.
On several occasions, Haynie traveled to Washington, DC, to meet with FCC and other government officials and with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to promote Amateur Radio issues and to communicate concerns. Those included the League’s position on deed restrictions or CC&Rs. During his tenure, the Amateur Radio Spectrum Protection Act and the Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Consistency Act — an early bill to address the CC&R issue — were introduced in Congress. In 2003, Haynie testified on Capitol Hill on behalf of the Spectrum Protection Act.
Not long after he became president, Haynie arranged for the gravely injured 13-year-old Willem van Tuijl — shot by pirates while cruising in the South Pacific with his parents Jacco, KH2TD, Jannie, KH2TE, van Tuijl — get medical treatment in the US.
After the 9/11 terror attacks, Haynie rallied radio amateurs to assist, and he praised the actions of Amateur Radio volunteers who turned out in New York City and Washington, DC. “Radio amateurs in New York City and elsewhere around the country are doing everything they can to support the authorities in locating and assisting victims,” he said in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
A few years later, Haynie provided written testimony on Amateur Radio’s response in the Hurricane Katrina disaster to the US House Government Reform Committee.
In 2007, after he had left the presidency, Dayton Hamvention® named Haynie as its Amateur of the Year. Hamvention said Haynie’s League leadership “helped define Amateur Radio’s role in emergency communication.”
Among other highlights of Haynie’s tenure as the League’s president was the signing of a Statement of Affiliation between the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, which made ARRL a Citizen Corps affiliate.
The following year, he headed an ARRL delegation to the White House to discuss concerns about broadband over power line technology, meeting with an official of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
In 2013, the ARRL West Gulf Division honored Haynie with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Services will be held Friday, November 4, at 3 PM at the Abbey Chapel at Restland Funeral Home, 13005 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, with visitation at 2 PM.ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself.
ID3 is also specified by Apple as a timed metadata in HTTP Live Streaming, carried as a PID in the main transport stream or in separate audio TS.
There are two unrelated versions of ID3: ID3v1 and ID3v2. ID3v1 takes the form of a 128-byte segment at the end of an MP3 file containing a fixed set of data fields. ID3v1.1 is a slight modification which adds a "track number" field at the expense of a slight shortening of the "comment" field. ID3v2 is structurally very different from ID3v1, consisting of an extensible set of "frames" located at the start of the file, each with a frame identifier (a three- or four-byte string) and one piece of data. 83 types of frames are declared in the ID3v2.4 specification, and applications can also define their own types. There are standard frames for containing cover art, BPM, copyright and license, lyrics, and arbitrary text and URL data, as well as other things. Three versions of ID3v2 have been documented, each of which has extended the frame definitions.
ID3 is a de facto standard for metadata in MP3 files; no standardization body was involved in its creation nor has such an organization given it a formal approval status.[1] It competes with the APE tag in this arena.
Lyrics3v1[2] and Lyrics3v2[3] were tag standards implemented before ID3v2, for adding lyrics to mp3 files. The difference with ID3v2 is that Lyrics3 is always on the end of a MP3 file, after the ID3v1 tag.
ID3v1 [ edit ]
The MP3 standard did not include a method for storing file metadata. In 1996 Eric Kemp had the idea to add a small chunk of data to the audio file, thus solving the problem. The method, now known as ID3v1, quickly became the de facto standard for storing metadata in MP3s.[4]
The ID3v1 tag occupies 128 bytes, beginning with the string TAG 128 bytes from the end of the file. The tag was placed at the end of the file to maintain compatibility with older media players. Some players would play a small burst of static when they read the tag, but most ignored it, and almost all modern players will correctly skip it. This tag allows 30 bytes each for the title, artist, album, and a "comment", four bytes for the year, and a byte to identify the genre of the song from a predefined list of 80 values (Winamp later extended this list to 148 values).[citation needed]
One improvement to ID3v1 was made by Michael Mutschler in 1997. Since the comment field was too small to write anything useful, he decided to trim it by two bytes and use those two bytes to store the track number. Such tags are referred to as ID3v1.1.[4]
[5] ID3v1 and ID3v1.1 [ edit ]
Strings are either space- or zero-padded. Unset string entries are filled using an empty string. ID3v1 is 128 bytes long.[6]
Field Length Description header 3 "TAG" title 30 30 characters of the title artist 30 30 characters of the artist name album 30 30 characters of the album name year 4 A four-digit year comment 28[7] or 30 The comment. zero-byte[7] 1 If a track number is stored, this byte contains a binary 0. track[7] 1 The number of the track on the album, or 0. Invalid, if previous byte is not a binary 0. genre 1 Index in a list of genres, or 255
ID3v1 pre-defines a set of genres denoted by numerical codes. Winamp extended the list by adding more genres in its own music player, which were later adopted by others (though some are of dubious value: e.g. "Primus" is one specific band, not a genre, and "Negerpunk" appears to be a racist joke in Swedish). However, support for the extended Winamp list is not universal. In some cases, only the genres up to 125 are supported.[8][9]
[10] Enhanced TAG [ edit ]
The Enhanced tag is an extra data block before an ID3v1 tag, which extends the title, artist and album fields to 60 bytes each, offers a freetext genre, a one-byte (values 0–5) speed and the start and stop time of the music in the MP3 file, e.g., for fading in. If none of the fields are used, it will be automatically omitted.
Some programs supporting ID3v1 tags can read the extended tag, but writing may leave stale values in the extended block. The extended block is not an official standard and is only supported by few programs, not including XMMS or Winamp. The Enhanced tag is sometimes referred to as the "extended" tag.
The Enhanced tag is 227 bytes long, and placed before the ID3v1 tag.
Field Length Description header 4 "TAG+" title 60 60 characters of the title artist 60 60 characters of the artist name album 60 60 characters of the album name speed 1 0=unset, 1=slow, 2= medium, 3=fast, 4=hardcore genre 30 A free-text field for the genre start-time 6 the start of the music as mmm:ss end-time 6 the end of the music as mmm:ss
ID3v1.2 purpose is to add small improvements to ID3v1.1 informal standard without breaking the ID3v1 informal standard The ID3v1.2 tag will not cause any issues in legacy decoders/players (old ones)[11]
[12] Genre list in ID3v1 [ edit ]
standard [ edit ]
Winamp Extended List [ edit ]
Genres 142–147 were added in the 1 June 1998 release of Winamp 1.91; genres 148–191 were added in Winamp 5.6 (30 November 2010).
ID3v2 [ edit ]
In 1998, a new specification called ID3v2 was created by multiple contributors.[13] Although it bears the name ID3, its structure is very different from ID3v1.
ID3v2 tags are of variable size, and usually occur at the start of the file, which aids streaming media as the metadata is essentially available as soon as the file starts streaming instead of requiring the entire file to be read first as is the case with ID3v1. ID3v2 tags consist of a number of frames, each of which contains a piece of metadata. For example, the TIT2 frame contains the title, and the WOAR frame contains the URL of the artist's website. Frames can be up to 16MB in length, while total tag size is limited to 256MB. The internationalization problem was solved by allowing the encoding of strings not only in ISO-8859-1, but also in Unicode.
Textual frames are marked with an encoding byte.[14]
$00 – ISO-8859-1 (LATIN-1, Identical to ASCII for values smaller than 0x80). $01 – UCS-2 encoded Unicode with BOM, in ID3v2.2 and ID3v2.3. $02 – UTF-16BE encoded Unicode without BOM, in ID3v2.4. $03 – UTF-8 encoded Unicode, in ID3v2.4.
However, mojibake is still common when using local encodings instead of Unicode. In particular, some Japanese editors are known to use Shift JIS encoding, which usually has disastrous effects: it will not work with any standard-compliant software regardless of local settings (since it is not supported by the standard), will not work outside Japan (since Shift JIS has very little support outside Japan), and will not even work on all Japanese computers even with a specifically non-compliant reader (as it is software-dependent and settings-dependent).
There are 83 types of frames declared in the ID3v2.4 specification,[15] and applications can also define their own types. There are standard frames for containing cover art, BPM, copyright and license, lyrics, and arbitrary text and URL data, as well as other things. There are three versions of ID3v2:
ID3v2.2 v2.2 was the first public version of ID3v2. It used three character frame identifiers rather than four (TT2 for the title instead of TIT2). Most of the common v2.3 and v2.4 frames have direct analogues in v2.2. Now this standard is considered obsolete.[16] ID3v2.3 v2.3 expanded the frame identifier to four characters, and added a number of frames. A frame can contain multiple values, separated with a null byte. This is the most widely used version of ID3v2 tags.[17] ID3v2.4 v2.4 was published on November 1, 2000, and remains the latest version. It allows textual data to be encoded in UTF-8, which was a common practice in earlier tags (despite the standard, since it was not supported yet) because it has several noticeable advantages over UTF-16. Another new feature allows the addition of a tag to the end of the file before other tags (like ID3v1).[18] No version of Windows Explorer or Windows Media Player—up to and including Windows 10 (initial release) and WMP 12, respectively—interprets ID3v2.4 tags correctly. These programs can interpret ID3v2.3 and earlier, however.[19][20] Windows Explorer finally supports reading ID3v2.4 tags with the Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703).
ID3v2 rating tag issue [ edit ]
There is a loose de facto standard for implementation of song ratings. Most apps will display 0 to 5 stars for any given song, and how the stars are expressed can vary. For instance, when rating a song in iTunes, the rating is not embedded in the tag in the music file, but is instead stored in a separate database that contains all of the iTunes metadata. Other media players can embed rating tags in music files, but not necessarily the same way, so as a result a song which is rated on one media player sometimes won't display the rating the same way, or at all, when played on other software or mobile device.[citation needed]
However, there is a "Popularimeter" frame in the ID3v2 specification meant for this purpose. The frame is called POPM and Windows Explorer, Windows Media Player, Winamp, foobar2000, MediaMonkey, and other software all map roughly the same ranges of 0–255 to a 0–5 stars value for display.
The following list details how Windows Explorer reads and writes the POPM frame:
224-255 = 5 stars when READ with Windows Explorer, writes 255
160-223 = 4 stars when READ with Windows Explorer, writes 196
096-159 = 3 stars when READ with Windows Explorer, writes 128
032-095 = 2 stars when READ with Windows Explorer, writes 64
001-031 = 1 star when READ with Windows Explorer, writes 1
Windows Explorer uses the following syntax:
Windows Media Player 9 Series | 255 | 0
The 0 is the play counter portion of POPM as per the ID3v2 POPM specification, which is not to be confused or conflated with the PCNT frame, which is a separate frame meant entirely for playcounts. If an app supports granularity however, it should write 1 for one full star, and then 2–31 would be granular points under one full star. Notably, the ID string Windows uses is not an email address, as called for in the specifications. Further, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player up to and including Windows 7 and WMP 12 (possibly beyond)[clarification needed] contain a bug such that, if one were to use them to rate files, any Replay Gain tags one would have will be corrupted.[citation needed] WMP also writes the same values as described above, and reads the same way as well, EXCEPT for the cutoff between 4 and 5 stars, which is slightly different and basically of no consequence. WMP uses 221/222 instead, for reasons that are not clear.
ID3v2 chapters [ edit ]
The ID3v2 Chapter Addendum was published in December 2005 but is not widely supported as yet. It allows users to jump easily to specific locations or chapters within an audio file and can provide a synchronized slide show of images and titles during playback. Typical applications include Enhanced podcasts and it can be used in ID3v2.3 or ID3v2.4 tags.[21]
ID3v2 embedded image extension [ edit ]
The metadata can contain an "Attached Picture" ID3 frame ('PIC' or 'APIC') containing an image. A field in this frame can indicate the picture type. The following types are defined:[22]
$00 Other $01 32x32 pixels 'file icon' (PNG only) $02 Other file icon $03 Cover (front) $04 Cover (back) $05 Leaflet page $06 Media (e.g. label side of CD) $07 Lead artist/lead performer/soloist $08 Artist/performer $09 Conductor $0A Band/Orchestra $0B Composer $0C Lyricist/text writer $0D Recording Location $0E During recording $0F During performance $10 Movie/video screen capture $11 A bright coloured fish $12 Illustration $13 Band/artist logotype $14 Publisher/Studio logotype
ID3v2 frame specification [ edit ]
Description Frame v2.3 v2.4 Audio encryption AENC Audio seek point index N/A ASPI Attached picture APIC Comments COMM Commercial frame COMR Encryption method registration ENCR Equalization EQUA EQU2 Event timing codes ETCO General encapsulated object GEOB Group identification registration GRID Involved people list IPLS TIPL Linked information LINK Music CD identifier MCDI MPEG location lookup table MLLT Ownership frame OWNE Private frame PRIV Play counter PCNT Popularimeter POPM Position synchronisation frame POSS Recommended buffer size RBUF Relative volume adjustment RVAD RVA2 Reverb RVRB Seek frame N/A SEEK Signature frame N/A SIGN Synchronized lyric/text SYLT Synchronized tempo codes SYTC Album/Movie/Show title TALB Beats per minute (BPM) TBPM Composer TCOM Content type TCON Copyright message TCOP Date TDAT TDRC Encoding time N/A TDEN Playlist delay TDLY Recording time N/A TDRC Release time N/A TDRL Tagging time N/A TDTG Encoded by TENC Lyricist/Text writer TEXT File type TFLT Time TIME TDRC Content group description TIT1 Title/songname/content description TIT2 Subtitle/Description refinement TIT3 Initial key TKEY Language(s) TLAN Length TLEN Musician credits list N/A TMCL Media type TMED Mood N/A TMOO Original album/movie/show title TOAL Original filename TOFN Original lyricist(s)/text writer(s) TOLY Original artist(s)/performer(s) TOPE Original release year TORY TDOR File owner/licensee TOWN Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s) TPE1 Band/orchestra/accompaniment TPE2 Conductor/performer refinement TPE3 Interpreted, remixed, or otherwise modified by TPE4 Part of a set TPOS Produced notice N/A TPRO Publisher TPUB Track number/Position in set TRCK Recording dates TRDA TDRC Internet radio station name TRSN Internet radio station owner TRSO Size TSIZ Dropped Album sort order N/A TSOA Performer sort order N/A TSOP Title sort order N/A TSOT International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) TSRC Software/Hardware and settings used for encoding TSSE Set subtitle N/A TSST Year TYER TDRC User defined text information frame TXXX Unique file identifier UFID Terms of use USER Unsynchronized lyric/text transcription USLT Commercial information WCOM Copyright/Legal information WCOP Official audio file webpage WOAF Official artist/performer webpage WOAR Official audio source webpage WOAS Official internet radio station homepage WORS Payment WPAY Publishers official webpage WPUB User defined URL link frame WXXX
Notes:
IPLS of ID3v2.3 maps both to TIPL (the "involved people list") and to TMCL (the "musician credits list"). TDRC (recording time) consolidates TDAT (date), TIME (time), TRDA (recording dates), and TYER (year). TCOM, TEXT, TOLY, TOPE, and TPE1 can contain multiple values separated by a foreslash ("/").[23]
Version 2.4 of the specification prescribes that all text fields (the fields that start with a T, except for TXXX) can contain multiple values separated by a null character. The null character varies by character encoding.
ID3 tags may be edited in a variety of ways. On some platforms the file's properties may be edited by viewing extended information in the file manager. Additionally most audio players allow editing single or groups of files. Editing groups of files is often referred to as "batch tagging". There are also specialized applications, called taggers, which concentrate specifically on editing the tags and related tasks. Some, such as puddletag offer advanced features such as advanced batch tagging or editing based on regular expressions.
Non-MP3-implementation and alternatives [ edit ]
ID3 tags were designed with MP3 in mind, so they would work without problems with MP3 and MP3Pro files. However, the tagsets are an independent part of the MP3 file and should be usable elsewhere. In practice, the only other formats which widely uses ID3v2 tags are AIFF and WAV. In AIFF the tag is stored inside an IFF chunk named "ID3". Windows media ASF files (WMA, WMV) have their own tagging formats but also support ID3 Tags embedded as attributes.[24]
MP4 also allows the embedding of an ID3 tag,[25] and this is widely supported, especially in Apple's iTunes, which uses MP4 standards in its audio and video file formats. Apple also uses ID3 tags to provide a Parental Advisory or Clean Version (radio edit) rating for audio tracks or music videos bought on the iTunes Store.[citation needed] Other container-based formats use their own tagging formats. Example are Ogg and FLAC, which use Vorbis comments. Adding ID3 tags to these would break the container structure. Earlier versions of Winamp such as 2.xx have been proven able to add ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags to MP1 and MP2 files.[citation needed]
See also [ edit ]ATK Response to Inquiries Regarding Once-Fired Brass Cases
This was in response to MSSA's questioning whether ATK was involved in an end-run around the rescinding order by the DOD to stop destroying once fired brass at US military bases. – AmmoLand.com
MINNEAPOLIS, MN –-(AmmoLand.com)- ATK is a strong supporter of our armed forces, the shooting sports industry, second amendment rights and all of our customers who choose to reload ammunition.
In fact, ATK is a leader in the reloading market. The dated brochure and presentation have caused confusion in the marketplace and do not reflect the views of our company and will be immediately withdrawn.
As a service to our military customers, we routinely handle demil operations for various munitions and respond to requests from military installations for reclamation and recycling of military items.
Each contract is awarded through the military installation’s procurement process. The installations received fair value for the brass.
ATK fully supports the provision passed by Congress last year to ensure that demilitarized spent brass casings remain available for civilian use.
Amanda Covington
ATK Armament SystemsPeople who want Britain to stay in the European Union will be able to campaign for a “yes” vote in the in-out referendum promised by David Cameron.
Downing Street has disclosed that Britons will be asked in the referendum if they wish to “remain a member of the European Union”.
It came as Mr Cameron suggested that he wants EU Referendum Bill |
) apart.
(5) Replace soil into the trench and firm it in place; don’t damage the cuttings as you do this. Keep the cuttings watered throughout summer. By November they should have rooted well and be ready for transplanting.
Want to know how to prune roses – click here to find out
Roses in spuds
My allotment neighbour has a row of roses, which he took as rose cuttings. I asked how he took them. He simply plunges the cuttings into the ground. But his secret of success is the humble potato! Before planting cuttings, he pushes the bottom end into a small potato, which he believes keeps the cuttings moist as they develop roots. It sounds crazy, but his row of allotment roses is proof it works. Try it, and let us know how you get on.PlaceInvaders is a one-of-a-kind traveling pop-up dining experience, held in other people's quirky, interesting, and remarkable residences — while no one's home. An intimate dinner with a dash of voyeurism, guests are welcome to explore, inspect, admire, ogle, and snark.
Launched in New York in 2014 by two food and travel enthusiasts, PlaceInvaders creates ephemeral dining experiences in interesting residences across the country. Co-founders Hagan and Katie create seasonal, ingredient-driven, five-course menus served with unlimited cocktails and wine.
Exact locations are never revealed in advance. Prior Invasions have popped up in an abandoned 1950s-era New York penthouse, a minuscule graffiti-covered studio, a Shanghai opium den-inspired condo that once hosted a Notorious B.I.G video shoot, a 15,000 square foot Berkshires mansion, a Phoenix fire house turned bachelor pad, and many more weird, luxurious, and incredible spaces.
To book us for a private event, click here.
To get on our mailing list for our pop-up events, click here.
To offer your space for Invading, click here.DETROIT - Four people were injured in a drive-by shooting Wednesday in the 9000 block of Memorial Street on Detroit's west side.
Assistant Chief James White said that four people were on the porch of a vacant home playing a dice game at around 8 p.m. when a small grey car drove by and shots were fired.
Police say two black men were inside the car. The shooter was wearing a blue ball cap.
According to police, the victims also include a 25-year-old man, a 24-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman. They're all reported in stable condition. Police say the boy and the 25-year-old were grazed, the 24-year-old was shot three times and the woman was shot once.
Copyright 2015 by ClickOnDetroit.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Ever since 1975, the world has come to know and love the sleek and downright elegant CZ75 combat pistol. This Czech designed and produced firearm has been cloned probably more than any other modern gun with the exception of the M1911 so chances are you are familiar. One variant you probably haven’t gotten your grubby little hands on though is the full auto one, and that’s a shame.
Why a machine pistol?
The Czech firearms super factory of Česká zbrojovka Uherský Brod (best known simply as CZ) had long been a maker of top shelf firearms that earned the old Communist State of Czechoslovakia hard foreign currency. By 1991, with the end of the cold war and the coming of capitalist freedom to the region, the Czech Republic divested itself of the CZ munitions works and the company began life on its own two feet, as a private entity.
Looking to help push new products out into the world, that could include Western countries without import restrictions, the company looked at two of its bestselling products, the CZ75 pistol and the Skorpion vz61 submachine gun and came up with a novel way to have the first become a new and improved version of the latter. In the early 1990s there was a certain niche market out there for high speed 9mm machine pistols such as the Glock 18 and Beretta 93R, but the CZ’s dated Skorpion design was chambered from the ground up for.32ACP.
Hence: a CZ75 that could sting like a Skorpion.
Design
The CZ75 pistol, designed by the brothers Koucky in the 1970s, was then and still is one of the most popular combat handguns of modern times. It was an 8.1-inch long double stack double action 9mm that weighed in at a hefty 39-ounces. Its 4.7-inch titling barrel, coupled with a low bore axis and short-recoil operation gave it respectable accuracy. It was the basis for a number of clones including Colonel Jeff Cooper’s Bren 10, IMI Jericho, and the Springfield Armory P9.
Modifications to the basic CZ75 were accomplished quickly. A simple internal sear, controlled by a select-fire switch on the left hand side of the frame could transition the weapon from semi-auto (DA/SA) to 1000-rpm full auto. To keep the weapon fed, the standard 16 shot magazine was swapped out for a 25 or 30. To provide a modicum of “controllability” to this portable flamethrower, a special 5.77-inch barrel extended out an inch past the slide, and ported to keep the gun on target using muzzle blast. The frame was provided with a dimple just forward of the trigger guard to hook a modified spare magazine into to serve as a makeshift fore grip.
The resulting profile favored the old school Skorpion, but allowed up to sixty rounds of 9mm ready to go when needed.
Use
Listed as the CZ75 Full Auto in the company’s literature, it is known the weapon has seen some international sales to undisclosed military and police customers. The weapon, compact enough for concealed carry under a coat or jacket, made sense for executive protection types and surveillance units. Later versions deleted the extended compensated barrel for the standard 4.7-inch one, which trades some controllability for increased concealment. While definitive numbers are not available, the gun was still in CZ’s catalog up until 2010 and it was unlikely that they would have kept them around for twenty years, if no one was buying them. The only place it has been seen for sure is popping up in a few action films and video games like Call of Duty.
Interestingly, CZ still sells the Skorpion, which leads to wonder if the CZ75 Automatic was ever really needed.
Getting your own
These guns were not even on the drawing board when the Hughes Amendment cut off private sales of new machine guns after 1986. Even with that, a few have appeared in the US through various sources (often these are LE dealer samples). These guns are near impossible for the mere mortal to touch except in rental shops and Class III shoots. If you live abroad and travel in certain circles, you can however still readily acquire one.
Even with that being said, word is that carefully screened visitors to the CZUB plant in the Czech Republic can get a chance to burn some nine milly through one in their onsite range. Now that’s a tour.Look out, Bill de Blasio—here we come!
While no one can predict the outcome of the 2015 city elections this far in advance, it seems clear something unusual is brewing in Chicago politics.
For the first time in a long time, the political power structure in Chicago appears to be gaining some serious opposition. And that opposition isn't coming from an established political party like the Republicans.
Instead, it’s coming from what’s essentially a loose coalition of candidates, community groups, activists and citizens searching for a viable alternative to the direction the city has been going in for more than a few decades.
Even more important, it’s being powered by a political philosophy that runs counter to national trends and the wishes of those who’ve held office on the 5th Floor of City Hall for more than 25 years. A political philosophy that runs to the left of what’s supposed to be a big-city, liberal Democratic base.
And while it goes too far to say this movement represents an actual political party, all of the pieces are falling into place for what looks like the most serious challenge to politics as usual in this town since Harold Washington won in 1983.
nd Ward Alderman For example, it looks like two different progressive candidates—Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and 2Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti —are getting ready to throw their hats into the ring.
As well, the groundwork is being laid for a potential sea change in the makeup of City Council, with the majority of challengers calling themselves progressives or open to progressive ideals.
For the right candidate, there’s a 30,000-strong army of foot soldiers lurking in the weeds, battle-tested and ready to work for someone able to take on Rahm Emanuel and the policies he represents.
And speaking of Rahm, as polls show there’s little doubt a significant chunk of Chicago voters are ready for a change. And are willing to consider more progressive approaches to solving the city’s problems.
All in all, it adds up to what political scientists and others like to call a “Progressive Moment”: a time when voters, faced with failing, middle-of-the-road policies and politicians, are ready to embrace more populist and progressive candidates, programs and solutions.
Undoubtedly, there are a whole host of reasons why the potential for progressive political movement in Chicago could pass by, unrealized. Or that progressives could take on the existing power structure and lose.
Take the millions of dollars in Rahm’s campaign war chest, for starters.
But what’s clear is that as far as progressives go in Chicago, the opportunity for a historic moment is upon them.
And, whether progressives win or lose, Chicago looks like it’s not ready to let the moment pass.Updates
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We just wrapped up HackSI 2018 and it was amazing! We will post pictures and videos as soon as we finish processing them all.
Arduino Workshops
We held our first Basic Arduino Workshop in August and it was a massive success.
Based on the last event's success, we are hosting another HackSI Basic Arduino Workshop on September 22nd. Get more information on the event page.
HackSI Shop
Want to show off your love for HackSI? Check out all the cool swag in our new shop!
Important change from previous years! Children under the age of 13 must have a parent/guardian present throughout the entire event! We do not have enough volunteers to handle unattended children at the event.
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In the meantime check out the press from previous events hacksi.org/press or you can check out our FAQ.
SIU acceptable use policy must be followed at HackSI. This information can be found here
HackSI Wallpaper
Looking for the awesome HackSI wallpaper we launched at our last event? Click on an image below!Massachusetts voters are interested in lowering the 6.25 percent state sales tax, a new poll from WBUR/MassINC Polling Group shows.
Asked whether they support or oppose lowering the tax rate to 4.5 percent, 62 percent said they back lowering it.
Among those who said they backed a decrease, 38 percent said they "strongly" support it while 24 percent said they "somewhat" support it.
The opposition totaled 28 percent in the poll. Seventeen percent they "somewhat" oppose such a proposal while 11 percent said they "strongly" oppose it.
Nine percent said they don't know or refused.
The proposal could end up on the November 2018 ballot, possibly next to a proposal to increase the state income tax on any income over $1 million. (Voters told WBUR/MassINC they largely support that proposal, which would amend the state constitution, too.)
The survey, which took place June 19 to June 22, included 504 registered Massachusetts voters. The margin of error is 4.4 percentage points.
Beacon Hill lawmakers in 2009 increased the state sales tax to 6.25 percent from 5 percent.
The Retailers Association of Massachusetts, a business trade group, said earlier this year the lower sales tax ballot question is one they're considering.
Massachusetts retailers consider proposing sales tax reduction
In a June 22 message to members, the association's president, Jon Hurst, said the board of directors has authorized his staff ot conduct legal and voter research on such a measure.
"Perhaps you are a restaurant, food store, or service station, and don't compete to the same degree with the price advantages and convenience of the internet, or with those sellers north of the border," he wrote. "But we must focus on the fact that for all of our members, the government incented shifting of tens of billions of consumer dollars out of Massachusetts means investment, overall spending and economic growth are dramatically slashed, and jobs are killed as dark store fronts proliferate in our communities."
No Massachusetts sales tax holiday in 2016It is with great pleasure to announce that on Saturday, September 20th, 2014 starting at 3:00pm barVolo will be one of the 56 locations across the world chosen by Brasserie Cantillon to host Zwanze Day 2014.
If things were not already sounding good enough, we have also decided to merge this day with our 4th annual “FUNK NIGHT” - a night of funky brews and funky tunes which will showcase 32 funky beers and ciders on tap from Quebec and Ontario. For The Love Of Bugs, Barrel & Bacteria. This Will Be Epic And The Music Will Be Loud!
FUNK NIGHT (7PM - 2AM) SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2014
A. House Ales X Shacklands (Raspberry Saison du Pigeon w/ Brett)
B. House Ales 25th Anniversary Blend (Bourbon Barrel Aged Barley Wine)
C. House Ales X Shacklands Flipside (Brett IPA w/Galaxy)
D. Bellwoods No Rest For The Wicked (Sour Stout)
E. Bellwoods Warp & Weft (Tequila Barrel Aged Berliner Weiss)
F. Amsterdam Divination #3 (Barrel Fermented 100% Golden Ale Aged 3 Years)
G. Amsterdam X Bim X House Ales Distraction (Sour w/ Ontario Peaches)
H. Amsterdam Sour Cherry Imp.Stout (Aged 1yr In Moldovian Cigar Barels)
I. Amsterdam Reserve Saison (Blend Of 8 Barrel Aged Saison & Brett Beers)
J. Indie Ale House Ned’s Stash Flanders (Flanders Red Aged In Wine Barrels)
K. Indie Ale House Sun Kicked XO (Imperial Wit Aged In Cognac Barrels)
L. Nickelbrook Brown SixTwo (Sour Brown Ale With Brett.)
M. Nickelbrook Kentucky Sour (Amber Ale Aged In Bourbon Barrels w/ Lacto.)
N. Great Lakes X Bar Hop Gilligan Is Still Dead (Guava Saison On Brett B)
O. Les Trois Mousquetaires Gose (Sour Salty Wheat Beer)
P. Les Trois Mousquetaires Saison Brett (Belgian Saison With Brett.)
Q. Dunham Saison Reserve (Rustic Saison / Leo’s IPA Blend In Red Wine Barrels w/ Brett.)
R. Dunham Assemblage No.1 (Pale Ale & Propolis In Zinfandel Barrel w/ Brett.)
S. Hopfenstark Saison Station No.7 (Saison With 7 Herbs Aged One Year)
T. Hopfenstark Alexanderplatz Epilogue (Berliner Weisse w/ Raspberries)
U. West Ave. Bohemian Raspberry (Barrel Fermented Cider w/ Brett.)
V. West Ave. Schoolyard Crab (Barrel Aged Crabapple Cider w/ Brett.)
W. Spirit Tree DBL Pagan (Crabapple Cider w/ Toasted Oak Chips & Sumac)
X. Muskoka “Buh-dunk-uh-dunk” (Sour Wheat Ale)
Y. Le Trou Du Diable Oude Blanche (Sour Wheat With Passion Fruit)
Z. Dieu Du Ciel! Solstice D'Ete (Sour Wheat With Cherry)
+ Cantillon beers that are still available from ZWANZE DAY. Last year there was beer left
ZWANZE DAY (3PM-7PM) - SOLD OUT
Cantillon Zwanze 2014 Cuvée Florian Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Fou’ Foune Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Bruocsella Grand Cru Lambic (On Tap)
Cantillon Lou Pepe Gueuze Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Saint Lamvinus Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Vigneronne Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Cuvee Saint-Gilloise Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Kriek 100% Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Gueuze 100% Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Rose De Gambrinus Lambic (Bottles)
Cantillon Bruocsella Grand Cru Lambic (Bottles)
Announcement: The ticketed 3-7pm session for ZWANZE DAY has sold out. We will be opening the doors to the general public as of 7pm for FUNK NIGHT. If any of the Cantillon beers listed below for ZWANZE DAY are left, they will be served during FUNK NIGHTApostrophe catastrophe! The rogue apostrophe is spreading like measles. It's time to fight back...
This all started with a drink. But it very nearly didn't because when I looked at the cocktail list in the otherwise swanky Charlotte Street Hotel in London and discovered that martini's (sic) were £10.50 and classic's (sic) £10.50 I momentarily lost my thirst.
The price was bad enough. But did you have to pay extra if you wanted to have your drink correctly punctuated? And would a martini - mine's made with Plymouth gin, please, very dry, shaken with a twist - taste as good if it also contained a stray apostrophe?
Caught up in a spasm of punctuation-rage I, perhaps slightly aggressively, asked the poor waitress what those two utterly extraneous apostrophes were doing there. She backed away hurriedly and sent over the assistant bar manager.
Mariusz Szymecki may have been Polish but his English was fluent. Or almost fluent.
'Both spellings - martini's and martinis - are correct,' he said firmly. 'I know this is right because, when I heard what you wanted to know, I checked it on Google.'
On Google? Who in the name of a thousand question marks would rely on Google to be an authority on anything, least of all a grammatical matter?
The internet is awash with misspellings and punctuation solecisms. Nor is it much better out there in the real world. And the poor apostrophe is the subject of more abuse than any other dot, dash or squiggle.
For decades the nation's pedants have sighed and tutted over the so-called greengrocer's apostrophe - the one you find on piles of fruit and vegetables advertising the fact that apple's and banana's are for sale by the pound or kilo when no apostrophe is required to complete the plural.
If only apostrophe errors were confined to market stalls! Instead they have spread like a contagion, infecting public signs and notices, literature from reputable institutions, menus and shop signs - not to mention press releases, letters and emails.
According to a new study, the apostrophe causes more problems than any other punctuation mark. Almost half of 2,000 adults who sat a simple test were unable to use it properly.
But is anyone really bothered? On Newsnight last week even the great interrogator Jeremy Paxman seemed prepared to shrug off the apostrophe problem, saying: 'Maybe it's redundant now.' Or if Paxo had his way,'maybe its redundant now'.
Nonsense! It may be under threat, but we should stand up for the simple apostrophe.
We should defend its honour - as the Daily Mail's own Keith Waterhouse has done for some time, with his organisation the AAAA ( Association for the Annihilation of the Aberrant Apostrophe).
I decided to spend a day policing apostrophes. Surely if people realised the error of their ways they would be moved to do something about it, wouldn't they?
I am barely awake when I stumble on my first howler, on the sandwich board outside the Shiraz Cafe, a greasy spoon on Hammersmith Road, West London, between my flat and the office, advertising 'pasta's, jacket potato's and panini's'.
Inside, Roshi, the Iranian proprietor, smiles beatifically when I inform her of the problem.
'I don't care,' she says mildly. But I do, I say. I don't add that the sight of an airborne curl of black where there should only be the white of the page stirs in me feelings of biliousness. I had worried that this might be a bit of an overreaction, until I read popular grammarian Lynne Truss on the subject.
Strict: If you still persist in writing: 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning according to author Lynne Truss
'No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice,' writes Truss in her bestselling Eats, Shoots And Leaves. 'If you still persist in writing: 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.'
Goodness. Fortunately, wandering around Hammersmith, Kensington and Notting Hill I don't find a single aberrant it's. I do, however, find wheelbarrows full of greengrocer's apostrophes. There is one at an odds-and-ends shop advertising 'Pashmina scarf's' for £3 each.
'Yeah,' says a shop assistant when I take him to task on it. 'I know it's wrong. But someone else did that sign. He left about a month ago. We might get round to changing it.'
There are several more offenders on the menus of nearby cafes and bars. There is even one, threatening to 'copy plan's', plastered on the window of Copywell, a printing and copying centre.
Surely it should be incumbent on a printer to put his apostrophes in the right place. I drag a charming young graphic designer called Anam Islam out on to the pavement to show him the problem.
'Yeah, that is wrong,' he admits. 'And I did that one. It's funny because I was watching a documentary on apostrophes the other week and thought that I always got them right.'
Perhaps one of the reasons we remain so confused about the apostrophe is that it is relatively new to our language. The last punctuation mark to be standardised, it has been around in its present form for about 150 years.
The Oxford English Dictionary says the first record of the actual word 'apostrophe' in English is in Shakespeare's late 16th century play Love's Labour's Lost and that it is rooted in the Greek for'turning away, or elision'.
This makes perfect sense: originally an apostrophe's job was merely to indicate the omission of letters, and this remains one of its most basic - and easily understood - tasks.
You need only think of contractions such as can't and daren't, dates such as the '80s or poems such as A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns - 'Till a' the seas gang dry my dear/ And the rocks melt wi' the sun' - to see how it works.
And yet for some reason many people seem to find it tempting beyond belief to apply apostrophes to a word as if they were visual garnish.
It's not just fruitsellers who do this: a barrister friend shows me a letter to a judge positively strewn with extra apostrophes.
Plurals of abbreviations or acronyms are particularly prone to this treatment. How many times have you seen a sign offering CD's? And another friend, a policeman, tells me he often comes across ASBO's.
Serial offender: Greengrocers are regular offenders when it comes to putting apostrophes in the wrong place (file picture)
But worse than that, after popping into Nationwide Building Society to pick up a leaflet on savings, I find it blithely expounding on the subject of ISAs (fine) but also ISA's (not fine).
I phone the press office to remonstrate. 'The apostrophe shouldn't be there, no,' admits a jolly man on the end of the line.
'It would appear to be human error, though rogue apostrophes do seem to be increasingly prevalent. We'll try to remember to take it out on the next print run.'
By now I have been staring so hard all day at apostrophes that I am beginning to lose it. I can see them when I close my eyes, crawling like dark, specky insects across my retina.
And I haven't even tackled their possessive use yet.
According to the latest study, this is where people really struggle. Most of us are fine with the fact that, as well as missing letters, apostrophes are used to indicate possession.
So, the bike belonging to the boy could be written as 'the boy's bike'.
But what if the boy's name is James? Do we refer to James' bike? Or to James's bike?
It started with a drink: Victoria Moore's rage about misplaced apostrophes began when she saw martini's (sic) were £10.50 on a hotel menu
And what if there are several boys, all with bikes? When brain is engaged, most people are happy that the correct answer is 'the boys' bikes'.
But for some reason we are not entirely comfortable with this end-of-word apostrophe, particularly when it falls at the end of a sentence.
It's an aesthetic objection and we deal with it by... just missing off the apostrophe. Because we feel like it. Here are two examples: Visitors Toilet (seen in a hospital); Parents Association (countless schools).
As I am musing on this, an email arrives from a PR contact inviting me to a Ladies Social Evening.
Just as I finish emailing prissily back, 'Dear Ellie, Shouldn't it be Ladies' Social Evening?' my friend Tanya phones. 'Oh God, who cares about apostrophes?' she says, 'I think people who are uptight about them probably make terrible lovers.' Is there a chance I am taking this too far?
John Richards does not think so. Based near Boston in Lincolnshire, he is a retired journalist with bushy eyebrows and an absolute intolerance of misplaced apostrophes.
'It makes me feel despair more than rage,' he confides. 'I set up the Apostrophe Protection Society four years ago. I have tackled people in person. Usually offenders just get letters. I've sent out thousands. You can only plug away.'
Mr Richards blames ignorance and laziness for our troubles. He is engaged in a minor squabble with the proprietor of a local teashop who insists on offering customers tea's.
'When I asked him about it he said he wouldn't change it because he thought it looked better with one in. What can you do? Needless to say, I haven't been in there for a tea or coffee.'
But what's this? Mr Richards has also written a letter of complaint to the sainted Lynne Truss. He claims she has got something wrong. Before I tell you what it is, perhaps you could try to answer the following question. Which is correct?
(a) Dos and don'ts (b) Do's and don'ts (c) Do's and don't's The answer, according to Ms Truss, is (c). She says that for plurals of letters and certain words then an apostrophe is required.
For example, if you were asking how many s's there are in Mississippi or talking about the noise a crowd made on bonfire night - 'There were lots of oooh's and ahhh's.'
The answer according to Mr Richards is (a). He says: 'Lynne Truss can write what she likes but she's got to justify why you might use one when there are no missing letters and no possessive sense.
'There is no role for the apostrophe in plurals at all.'
Who will arbitrate? Well, David Crystal, professor of linguistics at Bangor University, isn't one for taking sides but he does believe that apostrophes in plurals are sometimes necessary.
'What if I ask you to dot your i's and cross your t's? How will you spell that? If you didn't use an apostrophe you'd have the word 'is' instead of i's.'
As he puts it in his book The Fight For English: 'Inserting an apostrophe is as good a way as any of showing there is an unusual plural.'
But Crystal goes further, and makes a good case for there to be a little more leniency in tricky circumstances.
'Punctuation has always been a matter of trends,' he says. 'Commas, hyphens, semicolons, apostrophes - all have been subject to changes in fashion.
Thinking about these issues as a two-part solution (correct vs incorrect) doesn't help.
'As with many linguistic issues, there are three solutions - correct, incorrect and optional (i.e. can't decide!). Pedants forget about context, which is what removes ambiguity in most cases.
For example, in the case of the Parents' Association, there could be no such thing as an association for one parent, so the apostrophe is simply unnecessary, which is why most people leave it out.
'The other thing people forget is that when the rules were drawn up 150 years ago, it was by printers who forgot about exceptions - such as some plurals - that had been in the language a long time.'
This is the point at which I decide I have had enough of apostrophes. Yes, it will still distress me to be offered a list of martini's or cocktail's. But I think in future I may require a more niche challenge. It's time to protest against the split infinitive.[important] Check out our Best Halloween Parties & Events Guide in San Diego for October 2013.[/important]
What: Monsterbash Block Party Downtown, ages 21+
When: Saturday October 26th, 6pm to Midnight
Where: Downtown San Diego
Description: Come celebrate the year’s most frightful holiday at San Diego’s premiere Halloween block party. Prepare for streets packed with the liveliest costumes! There is plenty to see and do including a $5000 costume contest, lots of live music and entertainment, 4 stages, and more. Do not forget to get tickets in advance! General Admission tickets get you no cover charges and drink specials at over 30 Gaslamp and East Village hotspots and a free ride home using the Designated Driver Program.
Cost: $35+
What: Boo Ball 2013 – Rock 105.3’s Halloween Spooktacular
When: Friday, October 25th – 7pm -1am
Where: San Diego Hall of Champions
Description: Time for Rock 105.3’s annual Halloween Party, Boo Ball! Complete with DJs, hot dancers, costume contest, Walking Dead room, Breaking Bad Lab room, and more!
Please note: By purchasing tickets, you grant Clear Channel / Rock 1053 the right to use photographs, video or other descriptions of all part for media and website use.
Note: No weapons (plastic or otherwise) of any kind will be permitted. Facepaint must be minimal so security can ID you. Professional body painter will be on site, working for tips. Masks will need to be removed for ID purposes.
Note: 21+ with ID – No one under 21 will be admitted.
-Parking is FREE
What: Chula Vista Fall Art Show
When: Friday October 25, 2013
Where: South Chula Vista Library, San Diego
Description: The Chula Vista Art Guild is sponsoring the 13th Annual Community Juried Fall Show at the South Chula Vista Library. The Fall Show will run from the 21st of September to October 26th. This juried competition is open to all San Diego County Artists 18 years of age and older.
Participation cost: $20 for first painting; $10 for second painting.
What: Brothels, Bites, and Booze Tour
When: Friday October 25, 2013
Where: Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego
Description: So Diego Tours prides itself on showing the true essence of the city and its residences. The idea behind the tour is to introduce guests to sights and flavors that they wouldn’t have otherwise experienced without their guide, and to introduce them to the wonderful restaurant owners and chefs of San Diego. With tastes ranging from Indian and Italian Cuisine, to margaritas, tacos, and freshly brewed beer, this taste is sure to please any one and everyone!
Alcoholic beverage samples are served to guests 21 years or older. Please come prepared with your state or federal identification to verify age. Groups are limited to 15 people. Private tours may be accommodated with advance notice.
Cost: $45
What: Halloween Party – Bring Your Dog!
When: Friday October 25, 2013, 5pm – 7pm
Where: Whole Dog Sports Center, San Diego
Description: Get festive with your favorite pup this season at Whole Dog Sports Center’s first annual Halloween party. The party will feature treats for dogs and their parents, a costume and trick contest for dogs, games, prizes, fun activities and much more! Plus, spend time with owner and trainer Lyssa Dennis for some great obedience and agility tips.
What: HauntFest on Main
When: Friday October 25, 2013
Where: Main and Magnolia, Downtown El Cajon, San Diego
Description: The second annual HauntFest on Main features live music on multiple stages; costume contests; carnival rides; car show; Buried Alive, a haunted walk-through terror truck; Trick or Treat Kidz Zone; Rubio’s Performing Arts Cake Walk; craft stations; gallery walk; and a juried art show. For only $20 you can taste local beer, wine and food in the Beer & Wine Garden. Proceeds to benefit St. Madeleine Sophie’s Center. All the fun will be located on East Main Street and Rea Avenue between Magnolia and Claydelle Avenues with street closures.
Cost: Free
What: The Brokers Concert
When: Friday October 25, 2013
Where: Belly Up Tavern, San Diego
Description: This gritty band from the mean streets of Coastal North County San Diego has spent years paying their dues within the music industry to earn much deserved respect and street credibility. Just kidding, we’re a group of guys who work together that all enjoy playing music for fun. By random chance we were able to put the band together to play some fun cover music and get friends to come out to get together at local venues for a good time.
Cost: $5
What: Audra McDonald – La Jolla Music Society
When: Friday October 25, 2013
Where: Balboa Theatre, San Diego
Description: Broadway legend Audra McDonald returns to the concert stage after four seasons on the hit ABC television series “Private Practice,” and after winning a record-tying fifth Tony® Award for her unforgettable performance in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.Featuring favorite show tunes, classic songs from movies and original pieces written especially for the artist.
Cost: $27-$87
What: BEERology: Craft, Culture, and Civilization
When: Friday October 25, 2013
Where: San Diego Museum Of Man
Description: Modern civilization is beer civilization! Cultures around the world perfected brewing in interesting ways. Beer-loving headhunters from the Amazon, for example, chewed poisonous cassava root so it could become a drinkable beer.
Learn stories and see artifacts that reveal the links between beer and culture, such as the solid gold beer cup of an
Incan king. Also, join us for tastings all year long in San Diego’s most iconic building.
Cost: $5-$12.50
What: Classical Melodies in Balboa Park – San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory Rehearsals
When: Saturday October 26, 2013
Where: San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory, El Prado, San Diego
Description: Every weekend the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory’s ensembles fill Casa del Prado with classical music.
Visitors are invited to observe these rehearsals share the musical journey of our student musicians (ages 8-25). This is a wonderful treat to enhance any visit to Balboa Park.
-Rooms 207 and 205 in Casa del Prado
-Saturdays: from 8:45a.m. to 7:15p.m.
-Sundays: from 1:15p.m. to 5:00p.m.
Cost: Free
What: Annual Halloween Carnival
When: Saturday October 26, 2013
Where: Bay Park Elementary, San Diego
Description: Come one, come all for a ghoulishly good time at the annual Bay Park Elementary Halloween Carnival. Join the community for games, food, prizes, DJ, choir performance, creepy crawly house and so much more!
Cost: Free
What: Festival of Lights
When: Saturday October 26, 2013
Where: Balboa Park, San Diego
Description: The Festival of Lights is a cultural extravaganza that showcases India’s diversity and traditions. Stroll along El Prado and visit the booths put up by people from each state to observe how different our clothes, food and traditions are, and to see brides and grooms from almost every state in India.
Walk a little further and witness the lighting of 1008 lamps representing India’s different states, religions and traditions. Taste a smorgasbord of delicious Indian food served behind the Organ Pavilion all through the evening by local Indian restaurants. Your admission fee of $5 also includes free entry to two museums the same day – the San Diego Museum of Art and the Mingei International Museum.
Come and join us as we celebrate in Balboa Park.
Cost: $5
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